#the year of our inferno

[ashtrayfloors]

Jessie Lynn McMains // summer 2021

#jessie lynn mcmains #art journal #sketchbook project #michael chabon #typography #typewritten #quotations #the mysteries of pittsburgh #my art #mixed media #collage #the year of our inferno #heart attack 2004

[serdtse]

//

#we once discussed our lit classes in school with my former colleagues and I remember one person was so surprised that we had an assignment #to take notes on all the circles of Dante’s inferno with descriptions and who that circle was for #but then another person beat me in a second by saying that they had to draw all the circles? #it’s been a couple of years and I still think abt that conversation #I mean I laughed at first but now thinking abt it.. isn’t it traumatising? #but our schools can be a lot of things and unhinged is one of them

[reasonsforhope]

Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds

Article | Paywall free

When lightning ignited fires around California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park north of Santa Cruz in August 2020, the blaze spread quickly. Redwoods naturally resist burning, but this time flames shot through the canopies of 100-meter-tall trees, incinerating the needles. “It was shocking,” says Drew Peltier, a tree ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University. “It really seemed like most of the trees were going to die.”

Yet many of them lived. In a paper published yesterday in Nature Plants, Peltier and his colleagues help explain why: The charred survivors, despite being defoliated [aka losing all their needles], mobilized long-held energy reserves—sugars that had been made from sunlight decades earlier—and poured them into buds that had been lying dormant under the bark for centuries.

“This is one of those papers that challenges our previous knowledge on tree growth,” says Adrian Rocha, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It is amazing to learn that carbon taken up decades ago can be used to sustain its growth into the future.” The findings suggest redwoods have the tools to cope with catastrophic fires driven by climate change, Rocha says. Still, it’s unclear whether the trees could withstand the regular infernos that might occur under a warmer climate regime.

Mild fires strike coastal redwood forests about every decade. The giant trees resist burning thanks to the bark, up to about 30 centimeters thick at the base, which contains tannic acids that retard flames. Their branches and needles are normally beyond the reach of flames that consume vegetation on the ground. But the fire in 2020 was so intense that even the uppermost branches of many trees burned and their ability to photosynthesize went up in smoke along with their pine needles.

Trees photosynthesize to create sugars and other carbohydrates, which provide the energy they need to grow and repair tissue. Trees do store some of this energy, which they can call on during a drought or after a fire. Still, scientists weren’t sure these reserves would prove enough for the burned trees of Big Basin.

Visiting the forest a few months after the fire, Peltier and his colleagues found fresh growth emerging from blackened trunks. They knew that shorter lived trees can store sugars for several years. Because redwoods can live for more than 2000 years, the researchers wondered whether the trees were drawing on much older energy reserves to grow the sprouts.

Average age is only part of the story. The mix of carbohydrates also contained some carbon that was much older. The way trees store their sugar is like refueling a car, Peltier says. Most of the gasoline was added recently, but the tank never runs completely dry and so a few molecules from the very first fill-up remain. Based on the age and mass of the trees and their normal rate of photosynthesis, Peltier calculated that the redwoods were calling on carbohydrates photosynthesized nearly 6 decades ago—several hundred kilograms’ worth—to help the sprouts grow. “They allow these trees to be really fire-resilient because they have this big pool of old reserves to draw on,” Peltier says.

It's not just the energy reserves that are old. The sprouts were emerging from buds that began forming centuries ago. Redwoods and other tree species create budlike tissue that remains under the bark. Scientists can trace the paths of these buds, like a worm burrowing outward. In samples taken from a large redwood that had fallen after the fire, Peltier and colleagues found that many of the buds, some of which had sprouted, extended back as much as 1000 years. “That was really surprising for me,” Peltier says. “As far as I know, these are the oldest ones that have been documented.”

... “The fact that the reserves used are so old indicates that they took a long time to build up,” says Susan Trumbore, a radiocarbon expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. “Redwoods are majestic organisms. One cannot help rooting for those resprouts to keep them alive in decades to come.”

-via Science, December 1, 2023

#redwoods #california #wildfire #climate change #extreme heat #natural disasters #botany #plant biology #photosynthesis #santa cruz #hopepunk #sustainability #climate hope #united states #good news #hope

[absolutelydedinside]

I LOVE YOU DOTTORE I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU SO MUCB IT HURTYS I LOVE UUUUUUUUU

YIPE!!!!! M i loev yiu !!! :D my husban

You are my everythinf i lobe u !!! when it is dark out u are my light and u make me so happy!!!!!! everday i am happy bevausw of u!!!

yay!!!! WHEN I DO NOT HAVE U I AM SAD AND LONELY AND I AM SAD..... I AM VERY SAD WITHOUT YOU. I am upset. but it is ok BECAUSE u are always with me!!!!!! Yay!!!!!! :D everywhere I go I see u.... 💕💕💕💕💕😊😊😭😊💕💕 ai love u dotore u are my life and u live you

(sorry accienrly did the bullet point too lazy to fix it lol)

I LOVE U SO MUCH DOTTORE YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING IN LIFE WHENEVER IM FEELING DOWN I LOOK AT YOU AND MY FROEN TURNS UPSIDE DOWN!!! :D

I Love you so much you.makr me so happy Dottore i love you

*kisses dottore and blushies* :3 I LOVE YOU!!!!

dottore: *kisses me back* Affectionate today are we?

me: ya!!! YIPPE!!!!!

i lovr him. thatb was just a peak jnto our bewutiful marriage because we are so happy together i even have a ring that he made me <3 it shoot laser its pretty cool

i look uo at dottor with big eyes and i ask for kiss!!! and he give me kiss !!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i literlay lovr dottoreso much im ill i love him so much I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM

I wish he eas real!!!!!! IF GOD EXISTS I DEMAND HE BESTOW ME MY SILLY. RIGHT NOW!!! I dont think he would want to see mr when im mad. Lets just say... i can be pretty scary when i reveal my true form😈

I will find a way to make him real. I will.

I WILL TEAR THROUGH THE CLOUDS IN THE SKY AND BEND THOSE PEARLY GATES OPEN LIKE IM A PITBULL. I WILL MAKE MY WAY THROUGH THAT GOLDEN AND HOLY CITY TO DESTROY THAT THROWN AND GET MY BLORBO. I WILL FIND A WAY. AND IF IT IS NOT GOD WHO FORSAKES ME. I WILL FIND THAT TWINKASS DEVIL AND FORCE HIM TO RELEASE MY MAN FROM WHATEVER CIRCLE HE IS LOCKED IN. I WILL CRAWL THROUGH EACH LAYER UNTIL I REACH HIS. I WILL GO THROUGH A MILLION INFERNOS FOR DOTTORE. A MILLION YEARS IS NOTHING IN THE PURSUIT OF MY ONE TRUE LOVE.

nothing can hold me back my love is stronger than that of the heavens and the hells

i love you dottroe !!! i love every single you!!!! you are my beautiful husband and I love you!! you are so smart and amazing and you are so aweaome!!! even thiugh other throw rocks at you I will shield u 💕😊😊😊😊💕💕🥰I will bear the pain of the stones for you my loev 😍😍😍😍🥰😍🥰😍😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍 bcuz I lov3 u!!!! You are my everything!!!!!! i love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to grab that waist of yours and swing you around... I'll show everone ehy nobody messes with my kitten. I dont play around. I protect those I love. Dottore i love you!!!!!

i love you so mych u love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love yoi i l9g3 uou i love yeoue eioe eloeve uoeie ie leoev eyoi ieleieke ekoev eui e leove you I lobe you SO MUCH I LORV YOU SO MUCH IT WILL NEVRR FIT A WORD LIMIT NO MATTER HOW BIG!!!! MY LOVE ONLY GROWS EVERY DAY. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH DOTTORE. YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING IN LIFE.

yippe!!!!!!!!! chicke abbudibcjodoonsoninxubbucjiwijind I love dotore we are so halpy and i like chicke!!!! we have 363 chickens and we are so happy tohether!!!! i live u dottore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dottore: I love you too Absol

me: *blushes and then we make out*

Yippe!!!!!!!!! :D I love dottore so much!!!!! Yippe!!!

I look at him like this with so much love and happiness in my eyes... I love u dottoreee....I will never stop loving you!!!!!!!!!! i will repeat it to the skies however many times I need to get my wish to come true. I love you dottore!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH DOTTORE!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

#absolposting #love letters 2 dottore <3

[stormsthatrage]

It bugs me that so many people's default example of published fanfic is 50 Shades of Grey.

What about West Side Story, a famous modern AU of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

What about Dante's Inferno, a self-insert RPF if I've ever seen one?

What about Wicked, a pre-canon AU of The Wizard of Oz?

Hell, what about Percy Jackson? There's definitely an argument to be made that that's a modern AU of various Greek myths.

Humans have been writing fanfic as long as they have been telling stories. In about the year 20 BC, our dear Roman poet Ovid wrote the Heroides, a series of aggrieved "letters" from the female characters of famous myths to their respective male heroes. Are you telling me that Ovid, writing a letter from the perspective of Queen Dido to Aeneas -- Aeneas, whose fantastical adventures were put into poem by Virgil -- wasn't writing an outsider-POV fic? A fic that is, in fact, translated in Latin classes world-wide today!

There is so much famous fanfic out there, but people tend to forget that it is fanfic once it becomes mainstream enough. And as a consequence of that, people who aren't into fandom don't see how beautiful fanfic is, and some members of fandom feel shame associated with writing and reading fic. But fanfic is beautiful, and it is something humans have always done, and it is nothing to be ashamed about.

So if you ever find yourself in a situation to give an example of published fic, think outside the box. Remember that published fanfics hide in plain sight; once they're famous enough, we no longer think of them as fanfic. And never forget that fanfic is a very, very old human tradition, and your ancestors who partook in it would not have wanted you to feel ashamed of it.

#my soapbox

[brandyschillace]

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Transgender Clinic

I finished the first round of edits on my nonfiction history of trans rights today. It will publish with Norton in 2025, but I decided, because I feel so much of my community is here, to provide a bit of the introduction.

[begin sample]

The Institute for Sexual Sciences had offered safe haven to homosexuals and those we today consider transgender for nearly two decades. It had been built on scientific and humanitarian principles established at the end of the 19th century and which blossomed into the sexology of the early 20th. Founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish homosexual, the Institute supported tolerance, feminism, diversity, and science. As a result, it became a chief target for Nazi destruction: “It is our pride,” they declared, to strike a blow against the Institute. As for Magnus Hirschfeld, Hitler would label him the “most dangerous Jew in Germany.”6 It was his face Hitler put on his antisemitic propaganda; his likeness that became a target; his bust committed to the flames on the Opernplatz. You have seen the images. You have watched the towering inferno that roared into the night. The burning of Hirschfeld’s library has been immortalized on film reels and in photographs, representative of the Nazi imperative, symbolic of all they would destroy. Yet few remember what they were burning—or why.

Magnus Hirschfeld had built his Institute on powerful ideas, yet in their infancy: that sex and gender characteristics existed upon a vast spectrum, that people could be born this way, and that, as with any other diversity of nature, these identities should be accepted. He would call them Intermediaries.

Intermediaries carried no stigma and no shame; these sexual and Gender nonconformists had a right to live, a right to thrive. They also had a right to joy. Science would lead the way, but this history unfolds as an interwar thriller—patients and physicians risking their lives to be seen and heard even as Hitler began his rise to power. Many weren’t famous; their lives haven’t been celebrated in fiction or film. Born into a late-nineteenth-century world steeped in the “deep anxieties of men about the shifting work, social roles, and power of men over women,” they came into her own just as sexual science entered the crosshairs of prejudice and hate. The Institute’s own community faced abuse, blackmail, and political machinations; they responded with secret publishing campaigns, leaflet drops, pro-homosexual propaganda, and alignments with rebel factions of Berlin’s literati. They also developed groundbreaking gender affirmation surgeries and the first hormone cocktail for supportive gender therapy.

Nothing like the Institute for Sexual Sciences had ever existed before it opened its doors—and despite a hundred years of progress, there has been nothing like it since. Retrieving this tale has been an exercise in pursuing history at its edges and fringes, in ephemera and letters, in medal texts, in translations. Understanding why it became such a target for hatred tells us everything about our present moment, about a world that has not made peace with difference, that still refuses the light of scientific evidence most especially as it concerns sexual and reproductive rights.

[end sample]

I wanted to add a note here: so many people have come together to make this possible. Like Ralf Dose of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft (Magnus Hirschfeld Archive), Berlin, and Erin Reed, American journalist and transgender rights activist—Katie Sutton, Heike Bauer. I am also deeply indebted to historian, filmmaker and formative theorist Susan Stryker for her feedback, scholarship, and encouragement all along the way. And Laura Helmuth, editor of Scientific American, whose enthusiasm for a short article helped bring the book into being. So many LGBTQ+ historians, archivists, librarians, and activists made the work possible, that its publication testifies to the power of the queer community and its dedication to preserving and celebrating history. But I ALSO want to mention you, folks here on tumblr who have watched and encouraged and supported over the 18 months it took to write it (among other books and projects). @neil-gaiman has been especially wonderful, and @always-coffee too: thank you.

The support of this community has been important as I’ve faced backlash in other quarters. Thank you, all.

NOTE: they are attempting to rebuild the lost library, and you can help: https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/archivzentrum/archive-center/

#support trans rights #trans history #trans #transgender #trans woman #trans rights #trans representation #interwar period #weimar #equality #autistic author #nonbinary #lgbtq representation #lgbtqia #book news #book #books #new books #thank you #neil gaiman #for your support

[just-ornstein]

[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.

[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".

[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!

Now for some of the development and lore related questions:

[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 

Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.

On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:

Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 

It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 

The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:

I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.

Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)

Pleasantview:

Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.

Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.

Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.

Strangetown:

Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.

The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).

Veronaville:

But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.

[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.

[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.

We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.

In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.

[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.

[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.

[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.

--

I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.

#BURNING LORE QUESTIONS FINALLY ANSWERED!! :D #the sims 2 #ts2 #sims 2 #ea games #ea #electronic arts #sims #the sims #strangetown #veronaville #pleasantview #jonathan knight interview #the sims 2 development #sims 2 development #sims 2 beta #I'm so glad I got this opportunity man.

[gingersnap-17]

Unexpected (Sukuna x Female Reader)

Hello everyone! Okay, I know that Sukuna literally reigned terror over practically everyone when he was a human in his human form. BUT, I feel like he is just a softie towards his lover and child. So that is pretty much what I wrote today! I also tried to find the artist to give them credit for the cover art, but I couldn't' find anything. Full credit goes to the artist of course! I hope you enjoy!

Synopsis: After being Sukuna's preffered concubine for almost a year now, Y/N starts to notice some changes going on with her body. She knew what this meant, and knew she had to tell Sukuna about what is going on.

Word Count: 2052

In the dark and twisted world where sorcerers and curses roamed, Y/N found herself in a peculiar and perilous situation. She was a concubine, living a life of luxury within the grand, ominous palace of Ryomen Sukuna, the king of curses. Sukuna was feared and loathed by all who knew of him. With his two faces, four arms, and a mouth on his stomach, he was a symbol of terror on Earth, known for his merciless cruelty.

Yet, Y/N was different. She was his favorite, though no one could ever understand why. Sukuna would often call her to his chamber, spending hours in her company. It was as if a glimmer of humanity remained buried beneath the layers of his demonic exterior. Y/N knew better than to resist her role as his favored concubine, for disobedience often meant death. But as the weeks passed, Y/N felt a strange and sudden unease.

The first sign of change came when she realized her body was not quite as predictable as it had been. The morning sickness, the fatigue, and the subtle changes to her body all pointed to one conclusion – she was with child, and the father was none other than Sukuna himself.

As she ventured into his chambers one evening, her heart pounded with anxiety. He sat on a lavish throne, crowned in arrogance. His red eyes met hers, and he noticed the worry etched across her face.

"What troubles you, my dear?" Sukuna inquired, his voice as cool and dangerous as ever.

"I... I have news, Lord Sukuna," Y/N stuttered, attempting to maintain her composure. "I am with child." Sukuna's eyes widened, a flicker of surprise crossing his monstrous features. The room seemed to grow colder as an eerie silence settled over them. Y/N couldn't help but feel a shiver run down her spine.

For a moment, she feared the worst, that his anger would flare up like an inferno, that he would blame her for this unexpected turn of events. But then, something unexpected happened. His lips, both the one on his face and the other on his stomach, twisted into an unsettling smile.

"You're carrying my child?" Sukuna's voice held an inexplicable mix of amusement and curiosity.

Y/N nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. "Yes, my Lord. It is your child, a gift from our time together."

Sukuna's laughter echoed through the chamber, a haunting sound that sent shivers down her spine. "Well, well," he mused, "this is most intriguing. It seems fate has woven a different path for us, my dear concubine."

She couldn't fathom his reaction. What did he mean by "a different path"? Did he intend to harm her or the child? The rumors about his cruelty raced through her mind, but his next words caught her off guard.

"From this day forward," Sukuna declared, "you shall no longer be just my favored concubine. You shall be the mother of my heir, and my wife. I will get rid of the other concubines as soon as I can."

Y/N was stunned, her mind struggling to grasp the magnitude of what Sukuna had just said. Becoming his wife and the mother of his heir was a fate she could never have imagined. She had heard of the power and ruthlessness of the Cursed King, but this turn of events was beyond her wildest dreams, or nightmares.

"Lord Sukuna, I... I am honored by your decree." Y/N managed to say, her voice quivering. Her thoughts raced, and she couldn't help but wonder what had brought about this dramatic change in the notorious sorcerer.

Sukuna's demeanor shifted as he looked at her, a hint of vulnerability flickering in his eyes. "You are different from the others, Y/N. You possess a unique strength that intrigues me. You've not only survived but managed to capture my heart in your own way. I am curious to see how this new chapter in our lives unfolds."

As Y/N tried to wrap her mind around the astonishing twist of fate, she couldn't help but feel a mixture of emotions. Fear still lingered in her heart, for Sukuna's reputation was not one that could be easily forgotten. His sudden declaration to make her his wife and the mother of his heir was both a blessing and a curse. She knew she had gained a measure of protection, but she also recognized that her life had become infinitely more complicated.

Over the following months, as her pregnancy progressed, Y/N's relationship with Sukuna underwent a gradual transformation. He showed a surprising tenderness and protectiveness toward her, which left her both relieved and confused. The other concubines, who had once been her rivals, were swiftly removed from the palace, their fates unknown. Sukuna's sole focus was on Y/N and their unborn child.

Not only did she recognize his change, but she noticed a change in herself towards him. She had fallen for the strange man. Obviously before she became pregnant she had some sort of feelings for him, but this was different. She felt that this could have been love. Was it even possible to love the king of curses?

_

_

_

As the months passed and her belly grew round with the child of Sukuna, Y/N's feelings for the Cursed King deepened. She found herself captivated not only by his power and enigmatic nature but by the glimpses of vulnerability he occasionally revealed. Despite his terrifying reputation, she saw in him a complex soul, and she couldn't help but empathize with his struggle to balance his monstrous identity with the spark of humanity that still flickered within him.

Their relationship became more than a mere arrangement of convenience. They spent hours talking, sharing their hopes and fears, and gradually, the walls that had separated them began to crumble. Y/N saw moments of gentleness in Sukuna, moments when he would softly caress her growing belly, whispering endearing words to their unborn child. She realized that, like anyone else, he longed for connection and love, something that had been denied to him for so long due to his horrifying appearance and terrifying powers.

Y/N's once-terrifying life as a concubine had turned into something unexpected and complicated. She was no longer just a plaything of the Cursed King; she had become his confidant, his companion, and now, the mother of his child. As she considered the strange turn of events, she wondered if her love for him was mutual. Did Sukuna truly care for her beyond their unborn child, or was this newfound affection merely a consequence of her pregnancy?

One fateful night, as they sat together in his chamber, Y/N decided to broach the subject that had been weighing heavily on her mind. She watched him, her heart racing, as she gathered the courage to speak. "Sukuna, I can't help but wonder about your feelings for me. This change in our relationship, it's... unexpected. Do you love me, or is this solely because of our child?"

Sukuna, the Cursed King, regarded her with his distinctive dual gaze. His red eyes bore into hers as if searching for something deep within her soul. The room was bathed in an eerie silence, broken only by the distant howling of the wind outside.

Finally, he spoke, his voice carrying a weight of sincerity that she had never heard from him before. "Y/N, what we have is complicated. I am not like other men, and you know that. But since the moment you told me you were carrying my child, something has awakened within me. I can't deny that I feel a connection, a bond, that goes beyond mere duty or convenience."

Y/N's heart leaped at his words, her eyes glistening with a mix of hope and uncertainty. She had never expected to hear such vulnerability from the feared sorcerer.

Sukuna continued, his voice softening even further. "I may not fully understand what love means, for it is a concept foreign to my nature. But I do know that I care for you deeply, Y/N, and I want to protect both you and our child. That much, I am certain of."

Tears welled up in Y/N's eyes as she heard his heartfelt confession. In that moment, she realized that the man known as the Cursed King, feared by all, had a heart that could feel, even if he struggled to comprehend it fully. She leaned in, her hand gently reaching for his, and their fingers intertwined.

"Thank you, Sukuna." she whispered, her voice filled with emotion. "I care for you too, and I want to be with you, not just as the mother of your child but as your partner, your confidant, and your love."

Sukuna's dual-faced smile returned, a rare and genuine one. He brought her hand to his lips and placed a tender kiss on it. "Then, my dear Y/N, let us navigate this strange and perilous world together, as partners, as parents, and perhaps one day, as lovers. If that is what we become at some point." Those words gave Y/N hope for the future with him.

_

_

_

As the last few months of Y/N's pregnancy approached, the bond between Y/N and Sukuna only deepened. Their love was a complex, extraordinary force that defied the dark and twisted world they inhabited. Their child was a symbol of hope, a testament to the possibility of light even in the darkest of places.

On a stormy night, Y/N went into labor, and the estate was in chaos. Sukuna, who had never witnessed such an event, stood by her side, both anxious and determined. The sound of her painful cries filled the room, which worried Sukuna as her labor progressed. He was used to the sight of death, but the sight of life happening before his eyes, made him awestruck at the beauty of labor. 

After what felt like an eternity, Y/N sighed in relief as the cries of a newborn filled the air, echoing through the chamber. Y/N held their child, a tiny being that was so fragile and new in the world.

She looked up at Sukuna who had stayed almost silent during the whole thing, hoping he would say something.

Sukuna, the Cursed King, gazed down at the child in Y/N's arms with a mixture of awe and tenderness. His four eyes, were fixed on the newborn, and for a moment, it seemed as though the world had disappeared, leaving only the small family in that chamber.

For all his terrifying power and monstrous appearance, Sukuna was utterly captivated by the sight of his child. He carefully reached out to hold the child, and Y/N gently handed their son to him. The baby grasped one of his father's finger with a tiny, delicate hand, and the Cursed King's lips curled into a rare and gentle smile.

"He has my extra pair of arms." Sukuna said, releasing a soft chuckle, his voice filled with wonder. “He does seem to have my hair, but he does have your face.”

Y/N watched the father and son with tears of joy in her eyes. It was a moment of profound beauty in the midst of their dark and twisted world. She had never imagined that she would be sharing such an intimate and heartwarming moment with Sukuna, the most feared sorcerer of their time.

As the hours passed, Sukuna and Y/N took turns cradling and caring for their newborn. Their love for each other and their child grew stronger with each passing moment. They named their son Kaito, signifying a new beginning, a departure from the cursed legacy of the past.

As the two raised their child overtime, Sukuna was technically a changed man… for them at least. He still killed and reigned terror as he pleased, but the second he would return home to his wife and son, he showed his deep care and genuine love (as much as he hates to admit it) to them. Sukuna might be the king of curses, but he has a special place in his heart saved for who he calls his family.

#female reader #fluff #jjk #jjk fluff #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #x reader #anime #anime and manga #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna ryomen #jjk sukuna #sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna x y/n #ryomen x reader #Ryomen Sukuna #jjk manga #jujustu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen sukuna #x y/n #x you #x you fluff

[failbettergames]

any games you'd recommend? could be for any reason! (similarity to fallen london, you know the people who made it, you just think it's neat, etc.) besides your own, of course, I already own all of those :)

Yes, here's a list of all of the games we talked about in our newsletter last year:

Birth: an adventure puzzle game about constructing a creature from spare bones & organs.

Scarlet Hollow: an immersive, episodic horror-mystery.

Egypt: Old Kingdom: a strategy simulator of the Great Pyramids period.

The Past Within is a fun, eerie way to spend an hour with a friend.

The Pale Beyond: high stakes on the frozen wastes, Sunless Sea feelings. 

King of the Castle: medieval monarch party game.

Stray Gods: an urban fantasy, musical visual novel featuring the gods of Greek myth.

Vampire Survivors: so moreish.

Knotwords: extremely satisfying crossword-anagram-puzzle game.

The Banished Vault: so gorgeous it actually makes us a bit cross.

Astronaut the Best: an anarchic comedy about assembling a team of hapless astronauts. 

El Paso, Elsewhere: supernatural neo-noir shooter, in which you must destroy the villain you loved - even if it means dying yourself.

Thank Goodness You're Here: may be the only game that’s more British than the ones we make.

The Fabulous Fear Machine: pulpy horror narrative strategy.

WORLD OF HORROR: Junji Ito-adjacent roguelike.

Lies of P: tickles your Fromsoft fancy. 

The Lamplighters League: essentially 1930s supernatural XCOM 

Tails Noir (formerly known as Backbone): gorgeous, bleak, compelling and unsatisfying in equal measure. 

Mediterrea Inferno: a spicy story about finding yourself after isolation.

DotAGE: manage a village where the Village Elder has helpfully precise visions of the future.

Slay the Princess: the princess is very bad and you have to kill her. 

VR remake of The 7th Guest: very fun, silly and far less punishing than the original. 

Astrea: Six-sided Oracles: interesting dice-and-deckbuilding system. 

Return of the Obra Dinn: truly a modern classic.

#fallen london #sunless sea #sunless skies #games #indie games #wait i have more things to say

[estell-allary]

Inferno of love

Relationship:romantic💚

Pairing:Clarisse La Rue x fem!hades!reader

Warnings:swearing,kissing,established relationship,name calling,kinda a make out sesh?!NO SMUT!

A/N-this is after capture the flag wear clarisses spear breaks from Percy and Clarisse is raging and upset so she sends all her siblings out of her cabin And you come in and comfort her and it turns into a little more if you get what I mean😉No but they literally just make out and Clarisse calls you angel as a nickname bc I think it’s cute(this is also inspired by the song lay all your love on me by abba)

The blue team won.Again,you were glaring at a annabeth for snatching the flag from right out from under your noses but nothing could be done now,what’s done is done,your glaring was rudely interrupted by matty,clarisses half-brother,oh yea where was Clarisse?you were about to ask the boy who was huffing and coughing his lungs out from running to you before he started talking,

“H-uhh-hey!um Clarisse is throwing a tantrum ‘huff’ in ou-our cabin we need you to calm her down..”he said still huffing and taking breaks from talking every few seconds.

“Damn is she taking this years loss that bad..kinda thought she would be used to it by now,I mean it is the third year in a row”you said in a puzzled voice before matty spoke again, “what?no-well kinda-but no she’s fuming about her spear.”he said looking at you like it was obvious

“What about her spear?”you spoke up again in a more serious voice furrowing your brows.

Matty looked at you for a few seconds even tho it felt like centuries “wait you don’t know”he said his eyes widening,even tho it wasn’t a question, he stayed still like he was waiting for a answer, “Matty.”you said louder drawing a few looks from people around you “What.Happened.To.Clarisses.Spear.”you repeated.

“T-the new kid”he said and grabbed your arm and started leading you back to cabin 5..“oh gods”

“Oh gods”you repeated at the sound of Clarisse yelling at her siblings to get the fuck out..you weren’t even there yet!at the sound of her voice you subconsciously picked up your speed,you now dragging matty,forcing him to speed up to.

By the time you arrived at the ares kids cabin the last of them walking or more like sprinting out to avoid clarisses wrath most of them looking annoyed and muttering stuff about her not owning the cabin but to scared to say anything to her face,you knew that she’s been trying to get the blond twelve year old to admit his faults in lying about the Minotaur but Jesus getting this mad..I mean you get where shes coming from,the kids kids like a stick but then again..fear can make you strong.Like really strong.

Before you walked into the cabin you told matty to go with his siblings so he doesn’t get yelled at by Clarisse and he obeyed in pure fear from the last time Clarisse yelled at him for spilling juice on you(she also soaked his socks in juice to get back at him dispite your pleas)

You walked into the cabin with one goal in mind help Clarisse even if that means help her in different ways then intended..

You saw her siting on her bed on the second floor directly next to the window.

“Clarisse..you alright my love..”you said startling the girl making her head shot up and grab her now Broken spear.Once she realised it was you she relaxed a bit placing her wreaked spear down.

She huffed out a sigh before responding,not answering your question “hey angel..”she said motioning you towards her and you obliged walking towards her till you were standing between her legs,her spreading them wider so you could be closer to her.

She layed her head down on your chest wrapping her hands around your waist and pulling you against her further.

You kissed her forehead stroking her tight curls that were now tangled up in a hairband that she put it in for capture the flag.Your hands started to untangled her curls 1 by 1 lightly tugging her hair,while Clarisses hands went to your shoulders as she began lighting kissing your neck, her hands playing with the straps of your amour to loosen them.

You slowly removed the hair band out of her hair as to not hurt her as she took off your chest amour,she placed it next to her and moved her hands from your shoulders to your waist,pulling you to her as she leaned back on the bed,making you straddle her thighs and lean down towards her face.

‘Don’t go wasting your emotion,lay all your love on me’

Your hands went from her hair to her shoulders tugging at the straps of her armour but she spoke “uh uh,not today the snotty brats will be coming back soon angel”she said moving your hands back up to her hands“please..”you whined at her trying to convince her that you two could be quick and won’t be caught but she cut you off by kissing you on your lips sloppily.

You moaned as she slipped her tongue into your mouth and gave her roots little tugs making her groan out your name and pulling you Flush against her.

‘Don’t go sharing your devotion,lay all your love on me’

You broke apart for air and before you we’re about to kiss her again someone came running up the stairs and pushing the door open before you and Clarisse could push away from each other,being caught in a very awkward position,you straddling Clarisse with your hands in her hair and her hands placed on the plush of your hips.

And worse it was one of her younger half-siblings,the poor boy looked traumatised,running out the room when Clarisse threw a pillow at him yelling at him to get out and fuck off.

Safe to say you and Clarisse got into a lot of trouble,and got stuck on cleaning the stables for four months.

But it was worth it to be with your girl.

‘Cause everything is new and everything is you’

A/N:I actually had a lot of fun making this because I could imagine Clarisse yelling at her siblings like she owns the cabin and there just renting it😭anyways but my request are open btw so just request what you want and I’ll try to do it💚

#Spotify #Clarisse La rue #clarisse x reader #pjo series #percy jackon and the olympians #fem!reader #hades!reader #cabin 5

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You were promised a jetpack by liars

TONIGHT (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

As a science fiction writer, I find it weird that some sf tropes – like space colonization – have become culture-war touchstones. You know, that whole "we were promised jetpacks" thing.

I confess, I never looked too hard at the practicalities of jetpacks, because they are so obviously either used as a visual shorthand (as in the Jetsons) or as a metaphor. Even a brief moment's serious consideration should make it clear why we wouldn't want the distracted, stoned, drunk, suicidal, homicidal maniacs who pilot their two-ton killbots through our residential streets at 75mph to be flying over our heads with a reservoir of high explosives strapped to their backs.

Jetpacks can make for interesting sf eyeball kicks or literary symbols, but I don't actually want to live in a world of jetpacks. I just want to read about them, and, of course, write about them:

https://reactormag.com/chicken-little/

I had blithely assumed that this was the principle reason we never got the jetpacks we were "promised." I mean, there kind of was a promise, right? I grew up seeing videos of rocketeers flying their jetpacks high above the heads of amazed crowds, at World's Fairs and Disneyland and big public spectacles. There was that scene in Thunderball where James Bond (the canonical Connery Bond, no less) makes an escape by jetpack. There was even a Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways find a jetpack and scheme to fly it all the way back to Hawai'i:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0588084/

Clearly, jetpacks were possible, but they didn't make any sense, so we decided not to use them, right?

Well, I was wrong. In a terrific new 99 Percent Invisible episode, Chris Berube tracks the history of all those jetpacks we saw on TV for decades, and reveals that they were all the same jetpack, flown by just one guy, who risked his life every time he went up in it:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/

The jetpack in question – technically a "rocket belt" – was built in the 1960s by Wendell Moore at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, with funding from the DoD. The Bell rocket belt used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as fuel, which burned at temperatures in excess of 1,000'. The rocket belt had a maximum flight time of just 21 seconds.

It was these limitations that disqualified the rocket belt from being used by anyone except stunt pilots with extremely high tolerances for danger. Any tactical advantage conferred on infantrymen by the power to soar over a battlefield for a whopping 21 seconds was totally obliterated by the fact that this infantryman would be encumbered by an extremely heavy, unwieldy and extremely explosive backpack, to say nothing of the high likelihood that rocketeers would plummet out of the sky after failing to track the split-second capacity of a jetpack.

And of course, the rocket belt wasn't going to be a civilian commuting option. If your commute can be accomplished in just 21 seconds of flight time, you should probably just walk, rather than strapping an inferno to your back and risking a lethal fall if you exceed a margin of error measured in just seconds.

Once you know about the jetpack's technical limitations, it's obvious why we never got jetpacks. So why did we expect them? Because we were promised them, and the promise was a lie.

Moore was a consummate showman, which is to say, a bullshitter. He was forever telling the press that his jetpacks would be on everyone's back in one to two years, and he got an impressionable young man, Bill Suitor, to stage showy public demonstrations of the rocket belt. If you ever saw a video of a brave rocketeer piloting a jetpack, it was almost certainly Suitor. Suitor was Connery's stunt-double in Thunderball, and it was he who flew the rocket belt around Sleeping Beauty castle.

Suitor's interview with Berube for the podcast is delightful. Suitor is a hilarious, profane old airman who led an extraordinary life and tells stories with expert timing, busting out great phrases like "a surprise is a fart with a lump in it."

But what's most striking about the tale of the Bell rocket belt is the shape of the deception that Moore and Bell pulled off. By conspicuously failing to mention the rocket belt's limitations, and by callously risking Suitor's life over and over again, they were able to create the impression that jetpacks were everywhere, and that they were trembling on the verge of widespread, popular adoption.

What's more, they played a double game: all the public enthusiasm they manufactured with their carefully stage-managed, canned demos was designed to help them win more defense contracts to keep their dream alive. Ultimately, Uncle Sucker declined to continue funding their boondoggle, and the demos petered out, and the "promise" of a jetpack was broken.

As I listened to the 99 Percent Invisible episode, I was struck by the familiarity of this shuck: this is exactly what the self-driving car bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical, right down to the shameless huckster insisting that "full self-driving is one to two years away" every year for a decade:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23837598/tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-false-promises-land-of-the-giants

The Potemkin rocket belt was a calculated misdirection, as are the "full self-driving" demos that turn out to be routine, pre-programmed runs on carefully manicured closed tracks:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer-says-company-faked-full-autopilot/

Practical rocketeering wasn't ever "just around the corner," because a flying, 21 second blast-furnace couldn't be refined into a practical transport. Making the tank bigger would not make this thing safer or easier to transport.

The jetpack showman hoped to cash out by tricking Uncle Sucker into handing him a fat military contract. Robo-car scammers used their conjurer's tricks to cash out to the public markets, taking Uber public on the promise of robo-taxis, even as Uber's self-driving program burned through $2.5b and produced a car with a half-mile mean time between fatal collisions, which the company had to pay someone else $400m to take the business off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

It's not just self-driving cars. Time and again, the incredibly impressive AI demos that the press credulously promotes turn out to be scams. The dancing robot on stage at the splashy event is literally a guy in a robot-suit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ai-day-tesla-bot-is-just-a-guy-in-a-bodysuit-2021-8

The Hollywood-killing, AI-produced video prompting system is so cumbersome to use, and so severely limited, that it's arguably worse than useless:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

The centuries' worth of progress the AI made in discovering new materials actually "discovered" a bunch of trivial variations on existing materials, as well as a huge swathe of materials that only exist at absolute zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

The AI grocery store where you just pick things up and put them in your shopping basket without using the checkout turns out to be a call-center full of low-waged Indian workers desperately squinting at videos of you, trying to figure out what you put in your bag:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

The discovery of these frauds somehow never precipitates disillusionment. Rather than getting angry with marketers for tricking them, reporters are ventriloquized into repeating the marketing claim that these aren't lies, they're premature truths. Sure, today these are faked, but once the product is refined, the fakery will no longer be required.

This must be the kinds of Magic Underpants Gnomery the credulous press engaged in during the jetpack days: "Sure, a 21-second rocket belt is totally useless for anything except wowing county fair yokels – but once they figure out how to fit an order of magnitude more high-explosive onto that guy's back, this thing will really take off!"

The AI version of this is that if we just keep throwing orders of magnitude more training data and compute at the stochastic parrot, it will eventually come to life and become our superintelligent, omnipotent techno-genie. In other words, if we just keep breeding these horses to run faster and faster, eventually one of our prize mares will give birth to a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As a society, we have vested an alarming amount of power in the hands of tech billionaires who profess to be embittered science fiction fans who merely want to realize the "promises" of our Golden Age stfnal dreams. These bros insist that they can overcome both the technical hurdles and the absolutely insurmountable privation involved in space colonization:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

They have somehow mistaken Neal Stephenson's dystopian satirical "metaverse" for a roadmap:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

As Charlie Stross writes, it's not just that these weirdos can't tell the difference between imaginative parables about the future and predictions about the future – it's also that they keep mistaking dystopias for business plans:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/

Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Please, I beg you, stop building the fucking torment nexus:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

These techno-billionaires profess to be fulfilling a broken promise, but surely they know that the promises were made by liars – showmen using parlor tricks to sell the impossible. You were "promised a jetpack" in the same sense that table-rapping "spiritualists" promised you a conduit to talk with the dead, or that carny barkers promised you a girl that could turn into a gorilla:

https://milwaukeerecord.com/film/ape-girl-shes-alive-documentary-november-11-sugar-maple/

That's quite a supervillain origin story: "I was promised a jetpack, but then I grew up discovered that it was just a special effect. In revenge, I am promising you superintelligent AIs and self-driving cars, and these, too, are SFX."

In other words: "Die a disillusioned jetpack fan or live long enough to become the fraudster who cooked up the jetpack lie you despise."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/#twenty-one-seconds

#pluralistic #99pi #99 percent invisible #rocketeers #jetpacks #ai #full self-driving #fsd #absent indians #hoaxes #fake it until you dont make it #Bell Aircraft Corporation #Wendell Moore #podcasts

[katakaluptastrophy]

"I’ve already pretty much revealed that Alecto begins with the descent of Christ into Hades." - Tamsyn Muir

That's right...it's time for more Bible study for fans of weird queer necromancers!

It's currently Holy Week, the week where Western liturgical Christians reenact the events of Jesus' death and resurrection in real time. And today, it's Holy Saturday. So Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday. He rises from the dead on Easter Sunday. But what happened in between? His body lay in the tomb...but his spirit was otherwise preoccupied. Because on Holy Saturday, Jesus went to Hell.

But why would Jesus go to Hell? Because the resurrection was not just about saving the people who came after it - it was a bit more...wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

To be a bit more specific, he didn't visit Hell Hell. The place Jesus visited isn't Hell in the sense of eternal punishment of the damned, but Hades or Sheol or the Underworld or Limbo - a place for those who were mostly good but lived before Jesus' resurrection had made salvation possible. So before his resurrection, Jesus went to make that salvation retroactive. Particularly, according to tradition, to major figures from the Old Testament, including Adam and Eve.

So Nona the Ninth ended with Harrow walking off into the River in search of theological truth. And Alecto the Ninth apparently begins with Harrow in Hell:

Alecto the Ninth, ACT ONE HARROW IN HELL CHAPTER 1 At a point in the slit she was carving through life, Harrowhark Nonagesimus woke to find herself lost in a dark wound. She had been walking when it had all gone black– any path ahead or behind was blotted out; now she was here.  - Tamsyn Muir reading at TorCon

This is riffing heavily on the beginning of Dante's Inferno:

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost." - Dante Alighieri, Inferno

But lots of people go to Hell. What's so special about Harrow going there? Because the traditional name in English for Jesus' chthonic salvation adventures on Holy Saturday is "the Harrowing of Hell." "Harrow" comes from an Old English word meaning to attack or despoil - a very martial way of expressing the idea of Jesus as the victor over sin and death.

Harrow ended NTN realising that she cannot trust John's account of metaphysics. That she needs to discover the reality for herself. The faith of the Nine Houses and John's own styling as god rests on the foundation of the Resurrection - John is the "ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death", his power is understood to be absolute: "Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine."

And yet even that prayer - "let those across the river..." - introduces doubt. Magnus jumps in to silence Abigail when she expresses her heretical belief in the River beyond, and Harrow herself scoffs that "it has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River beyond." Abigail believes that John knows nothing about what exists beyond the River. And what about Hell? In HTN, Ulysses the First is described as "languishing in Hell" after his run-in with a Resurrection Beast. John himself describes the stoma as "the mouth to Hell", "a portal to a place I cannot touch - somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless."

In the Book of Revelation - the Bible's account of the end of the world - Jesus holds "the keys of death and Hell". John may have resurrected the dead, but he does not comprehend what is beyond it. Both the destination of the good, the River beyond to which the souls of little Isaac and Jean should have traveled lightly after their short and brutal lives, and the Hell that lies beneath the stoma are outside of his power. He is a few keys short of the full divine bunch. He can manipulate death, but he is not really its master.

And so Harrow walks off into the River to look for something or someone she can call god. Harrow, who shares a name with the defeat of death across time and space. Harrow, who is of the unbroken line of Anastasia. Anastasia was kind to Alecto, who like Eve is the mother of all and like Adam walked on the empty earth with god.

In Orthodox icons, the Harrowing of Hell is depicted with Jesus triumphant, leading Adam and Eve by the hand from their tombs. The traditional term for this image is an anastasis, the Greek term for resurrection. Adam and Eve, whose sin broke the intended shape of reality, are restored to wholeness with god.

How will Harrow answer her questions about god? What really is beyond the stoma and what would it mean to conquer it? What does it look like, metaphysically, to restore the world of The Locked Tomb to wholeness, and what will it cost?

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #harrowhark nonagesimus #john gaius #alecto the first #anastasia the first

[hcuyk]

OUR INFERNO | CHAPTER ONE

SYNOPSIS ✧ despite being your greatest archnemesis/rival/enemy/frenemy/whateverthefuck he was, hyunjae had always been by your side. that changed when your boyfriend was brought up, creating a newfound rift in your whateverthefuck relationship with hyunjae

PAIRING ✧ rival!hyunjae x fem!reader

GENRE ✧ high school au, enemies to fwb, angst, smut, fluff(?), humor(?) (these mfs bicker a lot), pining

WARNINGS ✧ 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT — cheating, profanity, mentions of physical fight/bruises, underaged drinking, obsessive/possessive hyunjae : NSFW TAGS :  outdoor/semipublic sex, dubcon recording, spit/drool/tears, oral and fingering (fem receiving), penetration, scratching/ripping, humping, minimal praise, degradation, sub!hyunjae for 0.002 seconds, petnames (princess, good girl, babe/baby, slut)

WORD COUNT ✧ 19k

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THE BOYZ MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION

AUTHOR'S NOTE : in honor of my three years of officially stanning the boyz on this very day, let's celebrate with my smut debut and writing comeback 😋 enjoy my loves

PART ONE: CHASING THE SPARK (THE FIRE TETRAHEDRON) — fuel, oxygen, and heat | CHAPTER ONE

“Genuine question.”

“Shoot.”

“Who the fuck does Hyunjae actually think he is?”

Unphased by your up-and-coming rage rant, Kevin resumed snacking on the protein bar he had brought with him. He tossed his free arm over the camera equipment and backpacks sitting next to him on the bench, watching you stride back and forth within one of the many hallways in the recreational center. 

“Well, he is your boss.”

“No, he’s the student executive producer,” you corrected, your legs unwavering as you kept a consistent pace to release your frustrations. Kevin shrugged and tossed one leg over the other, staying relaxed despite the hot fumes emanating from your upright and angered figure. You paused momentarily to look him in the eye. 

“Emphasis on the student,” you clarified.

“Emphasis on the executive, Y/N.”

Baffled at how he was defending your greatest archnemesis (well, more like your greatest frenemy), you ignored his rebuttal and started pacing again. Your steps slowed as you envisioned the sensations you experienced just minutes before, back when you, Kevin, and Hyunjae were at the indoor pool to report for your school’s broadcasting channel. Technically, you were the one reporting and filming while Hyunjae was the subject of interest, and Kevin was there for physical support. 

Chills latched onto your skin as you remembered what it felt like to have Hyunjae’s bare torso looming over you, his eyes peering over your shoulder to glance at your footage. While staring at the camera, his gentle, irregular breaths would continuously hit your skin. Water from the pool would trickle down his hair and into your shirt, reaching your backside. When it happened, you could barely comprehend Hyunjae’s ‘advice’ and instead focused on feeling every cold droplet travel through the crevasses created by your spine. You winced at the thought of that happening again, yet somehow you could still hear his irritating voice near your ear, telling you all the reasons why your B-roll of his lap swimming was ‘trash’ and ‘unusable.’

For a moment, you stood there in the hallway frozen, unsure of how to move, before realizing you were just reliving a moment from earlier and that Hyunjae was still in the locker room changing.

“I’m going to make a complaint,” you declared, turning back towards Kevin for his encouragement. Alternatively, you were met with the sight of your best friend completely failing to conceal his judgment and disapproval towards your suggestion.

“Against Hyunjae? You gotta be kidding, right?”

“Yes,” you answered confidently. “Wait, I mean no, I’m not kidding, but yes, against Hyunjae.”

Kevin eyed you skeptically, trying to decipher why you felt threatened enough to report someone like Hyunjae. You may not have spent all your previous years in high school with an affinity for Hyunjae, but it wasn’t like you hated him either—not in the way you truly loathed others. If that were the case, you wouldn’t spend nearly every day with him, bickering until the sun chose to set.

“Sure, maybe my B-roll was trash, I can attest to that, but that does not give his bitchass the right to not only shit on how ‘awful’ I was doing, but also yank the camera out of my hands and delete all the footage I got because they weren’t ‘perfect enough.’ What kind of psycho is that?” You glanced over at Kevin, trying once again to get him to back you up, but the most he gave was a slight nod. Everything you were spurting was half-mindedly being decoded because he had ended up placing more significance on inhaling protein. Regardless, you continued.

“And you would think, hey! As the student executive producer of a high school broadcasting team, he would understand that no! I indeed do not record half-naked people swimming in a pool, whether it be for a career or a hobby. He should also at least have the decency to not swim seven hundred miles per minute while I’m recording. Of course I’m not going to catch up, especially when he barely told me how he wanted things to be recorded? Isn’t he fucking insane for that? Not to mention all the goddamn splashing because of how fucking long his limbs are—”

“You’re explaining this like I didn’t witness the whole exchange,” Kevin grumbled.

“And you would think he knows, right? That Mr. Executive-slash-Captain-of-the-Swim-Team should either be more considerate when, A, he’s kicking water in my direction when he’s swimming or, B, station me away from the edge of the pool? Just a thought, but fuck me, I guess.”

“Well yeah, but the—”

“Also! Not to mention the camera has the fucking ability to zoom in, so why was there even a need for me to stand by the pool anyway?” You scoffed at the absurdity, almost tempted to cackle like a villain because of it. “The least he could do was tell me how to record it or find a way to adjust and compromise without occasionally soaking me with water on purpose, which I know damn well he was—”

“That’s just how-”

“We have a tripod, for god’s sake!” you exclaimed. By now, Kevin had given up on providing you with his input. He opted to rest against the wall, finishing up whatever he had left of the protein bar, and occasionally would roll his eyes.

“But even then, who the fuck wants to see him swim anyway? We’ll probably only need like…what? A minute of the footage for the B-roll? So why the hell is he treating it like it’s about to be nominated by the goddamn Oscars for Best Picture? He just loves to nitpick and control me like a fucking puppet—”

“Keep talking and you’ll potentially strain your throat,” a new voice interrupted.

You jerked around to find Hyunjae, the culprit of your rant, exiting the locker room with a small duffle bag that contained both his swim gear and his school clothes from earlier in the day. His brown hair was only halfway dry, some strands still stuck to his forehead as he approached where you were pacing.

You halted in your path and stared him down. Hyunjae immediately caught onto the mood you were in, and instead of being shocked or hurt, he grinned.

“You.” 

Your attempt at threatening him with one word made Hyunjae laugh.

“Hey, I’m just looking out for you.”

“Oh here we go again,” Kevin mumbled, tossing the wrapper of the protein bar to the side. He pulled out his phone and went on TikTok, deciding it was more worthy of his attention than listening to you two banter—something he had been experiencing for well over five years.

As a mutual friend of yours and Hyunjae’s since middle school, Kevin understood the frenemy dynamic better than either of you. Eventually, over the long years he had known you both, he learned to leave you two be. 

“What about me, though? Are you going to try and tattletale on me?” Hyunjae feigned sympathy as he gave you an exaggerated pout, tilting his head like a puppy’s. “C’mon. I’m just doing my job.”

“Sorry, but I don’t remember ‘being a dick’ being listed under the requirements for your oh-so-important position of power.” You huffed at him and crossed your arms, choosing to face elsewhere as you rooted the soles of your feet to the ground.

Hyunjae furrowed his brows, his eyes never leaving you, as he addressed the third party within the shared space.

“Kevin, was I being a dick, or is Y/N exaggerating?”

Kevin glanced up at his phone and scrunched his nose at Hyunjae in annoyance.

“Don’t even try to bring me into whatever…this mess is.”

“No, tell him,” you demanded, now looking at him. Your glare was enough to burn Kevin into ashes, but it was nothing compared to Hyunjae’s gaze piercing into your back. Knowing that he never looked away made you shiver, hating how fixated he seemed to be—and seemingly without reason too.

“Listen, I wasn’t being a dick. I was treating you the same way I treat everyone else. I’d honestly argue that you’re just narcissistic and think everything is about you when—”

“Oh wow, thank you for admitting that you’re a dick to everyone else!” You tossed your hands up for dramatic appeal as you spun back around to look at him. He scoffed, but his demeanor was quickly shadowed by a smirk that appeared on his lips, testing you with the arch of his brow.

“Oh really? Do you see anyone else complaining?”

“I’m complaining,” Kevin muttered.

“People don’t complain because they’re scared of you, Sherlock,” you retorted. At this point, Hyunjae had already caught onto your bullshit of making evidence up, and it was why this exchange ended up lasting for as long as it did. Nevertheless, his ego continued to build the more you spoke.

“You’re not scared of me?”

And you keep falling for the bait.

“Why should I? You’re nothing.” You approached him and pressed a finger into his chest, taunting him as you stared straight into his eyes.

Suddenly a competition seemed to have materialized because now you both were locking eyes, too stubborn to look away. 

“One day you’ll wake up and realize your position doesn’t mean shit. You take it too seriously and make everyone’s job your job when this should be a learning experience for the rest of us.”

“And who exactly is ‘us,’ babe?”

You narrowed your eyes at him.

“Don’t call me that–”

“And it’s also starting to sound like jealousy to me.” Hyunjae’s eyes finally shifted, but instead of looking away from you like you initially wanted him to, you trailed his line of sight down to your lips. He eyed them shamelessly—technically making you win the unspoken eye contact competition, but at what cost? “I won’t believe you until I receive firm evidence and testimonies from the other students in the club, then maybe I’ll consider your concerns. Deal?”

What you despised most was how well Hyunjae knew and provoked you to get under your skin. He was a raging flame, making your blood boil from both irritation and excitement. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but after nearly six years of banter with Hyunjae, you knew damn well you enjoyed every second of it. It was like a nonstop competition, and you were always on the edge of winning.

Maybe it was also because you were so used to him constantly being above you. He was the president of the student council, the swim team’s captain, and specifically the one who snatched the executive position away from you in the broadcasting team, yet somehow you were still able to compete at his level of arrogance and egotism. 

Even though you may never be able to top him in the foreseeable future, you at least knew how to match his fury—his fire, with your own.

“You’re pathetic.” You took a few steps back to gain some distance while his eyes flickered back up to yours. He bit his lip playfully, his smile only growing even wider.

“Woah, Y/N. Exposing my degradation kink so soon?”

“I-...you- w-what?!” you sputtered, your jaw falling slack as Kevin’s head snapped up, staring at the two of you in disgust.

“Get a room—!”

“I’m going to make sure you get degraded from your position, you freak!”

“Not exactly how that word works, princess, but I’m glad you’re at least passionate.” His cooing made you want to slap the living shit out of him, your eyes protruding from their sockets are you glared. 

“Are you fucking bricked up or something right now—?”

“Hey guys,” a woman’s voice called out. Your heads turned to look at the end of the hallway, catching one of the recreational center’s workers waving in your general direction. She pressed her lips together and smiled, attempting to be as professional and understanding as possible. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but is it okay if you guys turn it down a notch?”

You and Hyunjae both nodded and whispered apologies, feeling like kids who just got scolded for shoving paintbrushes down the drain. Fortunately, the worker’s smile radiated genuine warmth and consideration, providing you some sort of reassurance that you guys weren’t too much of a disturbance (even though you guys totally were).

“You two are the most childish fuckers I know,” Kevin deadpanned, finally shoving his phone away as he switched between looking at you and the man by your side. His eyebrows bunched up.

“And apparently horny too.”

“I would move across the country if it meant I never had to see him again,” you grumbled, striding back to the pile of equipment to pick up your backpack and the bag with all your reporting necessities (boring script, stationary, and a couple of notebooks shared with all the broadcasting students to collect notes and inspiration in). 

“Hello? I’m still here.”

“Look at that. He already misses me.”

“I’m going to hurl,” Kevin unnecessarily announced, and Hyunjae’s face soured.

“Ew.”

“Exactly. That’s how you two make me feel whenever you guys are together.” Kevin got up on his feet and grabbed the wrapper to shove into one of his pockets (no littering, kids) before outstretching his limbs dramatically. 

“I swear I developed back pain from always listening to you guys bicker.”

“Or, hot take,” Hyunjae interjected, “maybe it’s because you’re always sitting with your back arching forward like it belongs in the Arches National Park–”

“Yeah yeah, shut the fuck up.” Kevin waved him off with his hand and rolled his eyes. “I came here to help carry stuff, not listen to your bullshit.”

He picked up the bag that contained the camera and passed it to Hyunjae. He offered to hold one more thing, but with only his backpack and the tripod left, Kevin didn’t see much need for his friend’s assistance. 

Kevin then faced you, his face stern and rid of emotion.

“You too, Y/N,” he stated seriously. “None of this ‘he said this,’ ‘he said that,’ ‘please fuck me’ bullshit from you either.”

You gaped at him, arms wrapped tightly around the crew’s bag.

“Now why the hell do you think—”

“Zip it.”

Without giving you much of an opportunity to continue, Kevin sped off in front of you, ready to leave the building. You couldn’t even look at Hyunjae as heat rushed to your cheeks, struggling to trail after Kevin’s speedy steps.

Despite carrying heavier items, Hyunjae caught up to you with ease. You wanted nothing more than for Hyunjae’s feet to either slow down or speed up tremendously, but of course he purposely chose to walk by your side, attached to you by the hip.

“He sees it,” Hyunjae sing-songed. “Everyone sees it.”

“Sees what?” you snorted, oblivious to what he was indicating.

“That you want me,” he replied nonchalantly.

The moment you two stepped outside the doors of the center, you stopped to face him, trying to confirm what exactly he was implying.

“You can’t be serious.”

Hyunjae, who also stopped with your steps, shrugged.

“You’re the one in denial.”

Realizing that he was serious, you felt every muscle in your body tense up.

“Hyunjae,” you stated firmly. “I have a boyfriend, remember?”

Instead of receiving something witty from Hyunjae like normal, his relaxed facial features suddenly scrambled into one that expressed remote shock. His lips were slightly parted, eyes searching yours for any hint that indicated you were lying or messing around with him, but you were serious.

The aggressive playfulness from earlier had evaporated faster than boiling water, and you watched as he became stilled. Your heart started pounding, anxiety creeping up within you due to not being able to read Hyunjae like you normally do.

“Since when?” he asked. His voice was quiet, his tone firmer, and by now, Kevin was already by his car, too far from the two of you to understand what was going on. Hell, even you could barely understand what was happening.

“Earth to Hyunjae?” you joked, nervously laughing in an attempt to eliminate the newfound tension looming in the atmosphere. “It’s always been Jiwoong, remember?”

For a moment, Hyunjae could feel his mouth drying up. All his thoughts were held captive in his throat, and his lips remained parted as if they weren’t meant to collide at all. He stared at you like you had just teleported in front of him.

“Y/N,” he stated calmly, “he cheated on you.”

Your initial response was to get defensive, claiming that you already knew that because hell, it was your relationship, but then your brain acknowledged the true elephant in the conversation.

“How-...how the hell do you know about that?”

“I- You know word just-…That doesn’t matter. What matters is why in the world—”

“It was a mistake, okay?”

“A mistake?” As Hyunjae’s brows raised, so did his tone. “You know, people—decent people, don’t make mistakes like that.” 

Seeing how Hyunjae was gritting his teeth, how his eyes were locked on yours, built up a foreign frustration within you. Something about the way Hyunjae was behaving felt like he was trying to control you. 

All the rage from before had now returned, yet this time, there was no more leniency from you—not when Hyunjae was being more condescending than he had ever been.

“You know nothing, Hyunjae, so frankly, I really don’t care about what you think about my relationship with my boy-”

“You’re still with him??”

“Look,” you snapped. “Just because you have the luxury of crushing my hopes and dreams on a daily basis, it does not give you the right to dictate what’s wrong or right about my love life and my decisions. Understood?”

And just like how you always are, Hyunjae refused to shut up.

“How is it dictating when it’s common sense to dump a shitty person?” He dropped the bags onto the ground, and not once did he look away from you. “He’s never treated you well either, and you know that—”

“It’s not your decision to make,” you repeated. You could feel the three key elements of creating a fire stir up within you. You had the fuel, the oxygen, and the heat, and Hyunjae was the chemical chain reaction that would set it off. “How dense can you fucking be to not back down?”

“He cheated on you,” he reasserted, and there was a rage in his eyes that you had never once encountered. “He’s done so many shitty things, and he hasn’t changed–”

“Again, none of your fucking business–”

“And I’m pretty sure I saw—”

“I am not going to repeat myself-”

“Can’t you just listen to what I-”

“Drop it.” You were seconds away from yelling at him, ready to unleash all your anger because never once has someone threatened your love life—Jiwoong, the man you considered your soulmate. Your flame had officially engulfed his, and all Hyunjae could do was stare at you in disbelief and disappointment.

Turning to look away, you gazed up into the sky and scoffed, not understanding why tears had begun to pool up in your eyes. At the end of the day, Hyunjae meant nothing to you—you didn’t even consider him a friend.

After moments of experiencing what it was like to be suffocated by a tension so unbearable, you eventually found a way to ground yourself. 

“I can’t blame him, you know,” you whispered, using the back of your hand to wipe away your tears. “We were angry. He just–...he needed an outlet, and at that time, that outlet happened to not be me, okay?”

Hyunjae stared at you, his mouth desperate to say something, anything, to make you see what he sees—a relationship that isn’t meant to be. That you didn’t deserve to be treated this way. Maybe you were no more than an acquaintance to him, but he knew you have always deserved better. 

“He isn’t someone worth fighting for.”

“And that’s none of your business,” you scowled.

“It isn’t right—”

“Stay in your fucking lane, Jae.”

Hyunjae clamped his mouth shut, and the sight of you completely breaking down tore him apart. Possibly it was all the years you spent together growing up, constantly arguing, yet he knew he was always one to look out for you.

You sucked in a cheek, gnawing at it as your chest urged for you to forgive him, to apologize for lashing out without much notice, but in the end, you prioritized your pride over him.

Not only was Hyunjae’s persistence a stab to your heart, but you suspected that Kevin was the one who told him. By spilling your secrets, it was as if Kevin saw the knife that impaled you and yanked it out of your chest, causing you to bleed to your death.

“I’m done with this conversation,” you muttered, dropping the bag in your arms to the ground by his feet. Your plans had changed to you walking home alone, wanting nothing to do with the other two boys for the next hour or so.

When you turned around to walk away, you knew Hyunjae was going to try and say something. You knew him best whenever he was at his worst, so you spun around to face him for the last time that day to cut him off.

“Never fucking cross that line with me again, got it?”

And with that, you left. 

//

Kevin apologized to you the morning after.

He normally drove you to school, and you debated getting into his car when he showed up. Thankfully you chose to do otherwise because the second you stepped inside, Kevin was apologizing profusely. He talked about how anxious he was all night when Hyunjae told him what happened, and he wouldn’t have known what to do if you didn’t forgive him. Obviously you did, and the rest of the car ride was spent with him explaining his side of the story.

According to Kevin, he only told Hyunjae about how you got cheated on because it seemed like Hyunjae already knew. As Kevin recalled the whole scene, you two assessed the signs, such as how Hyunjae didn’t provide any sort of reaction when Kevin dropped the news. In fact, it had seemed like Hyunjae had brought it up to Kevin instead.

Regardless, it became the last of your worries because all that mattered was that you were back to being on good terms with your best friend.

But avoiding Hyunjae felt like lighting a match in the rain. 

It was your agonizing reality for the next two months, and although you could argue that you had gotten closer to your boyfriend during the supposed ‘Hyunjae Drought,’ you were still plagued with him being everywhere around you.

He was in all your classes, and you never truly processed the extent of how involved Hyunjae had always been throughout high school with you. You weren’t on the swim team, but you were stuck with him during meetings for both the broadcasting team and student council. 

Yet it all felt so different.

Unless he was called on, Hyunjae would talk much less unprovoked and would never look at you during meetings. When he would address the entire team, he would glance at you for a split second before looking elsewhere, no longer watching you like a hawk.

You had also gotten quieter because without Hyunjae to banter with, you recognized that you barely had friends in any of those classes either. 

There was no longer a fight between your flames, and you two kept as much distance as possible. You were thankful that there hadn’t been an instance that interrupted that, such as being forced to record more B-roll with him, and you could only hope that the rest of your senior year would remain the same. 

Then you would never have to see him in college.

Now you were back to being the mediocre student that faded into the background. People knew your name at best, but none have ever tried to become your friend aside from Kevin. No matter how involved you tried to get, the closest you were to anyone was a classmate. 

Hyunjae had always overshadowed you too, and for the first time in years, you were detached from his fumes—yet somehow, some way, the smoke from his fire would remain in your lungs, continuing to suffocate you even more than it had before. It didn’t give you that breath of fresh air of new friends or a better life; instead, it helped you realize that you didn’t matter. It was a miracle that you even scored Jiwoong as your boyfriend.

But then that begged the question: why did Hyunjae bother spending his time ridiculing you?

From the very beginning, you had always meant something to him, and you couldn’t pinpoint how or why. When there was no competition in academics, he treated it as if there was. Every time you ranted, he would listen, whether it be about him or something else. Even when you talked about how your chicken from the cafeteria was burnt, he would give you his own before calling you stupid for not noticing until you sat down.

He never shrugged you off like you were nothing or shut you down because your emotions were invalid. He entertained you each time with ease, and most importantly, he knew when to respect your boundaries. Hyunjae was probably the most mindful person you knew and could often tell when you were distressed or needed another form of reaction from him.

He knew when to stop.

Yet when it came to the one instance involving Jiwoong, he crossed the line multiple times. Why?

“Hyunjae isn’t here today.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t show up for a single class.”

Kevin watched you play with your food with a fork, rolling the cold, barely spherical peas around and into the stale rice.

“That’s not like him,” he replied.

“Yeah.”

“I wonder why.”

“I wonder too.” 

After the driest possible conversation in existence, you sighed and dropped your fork into your tray.

“I need to stop forgetting to pack myself lunch. This shit makes me lose my appetite, I swear. We should call the police and tell them the food they’re serving is illegal and a disgrace to this country.” 

“Keep it away before I lose my appetite too.” 

You didn’t react nor respond to what Kevin said, letting the conversation rot as you pouted at your food. The cafeteria was unusually louder today, making it easier to space out into thought.

Kevin took out his sandwich with a wide grin and started eating, grateful he never had to deal with what the school was feeding thanks to his mom, but eventually his eyes shifted over to you. You were unmoving with your gaze locked onto an empty spot on the table, so after moments of debating between asking you what’s wrong and ignoring you to devour his lunch, he opted to set his sandwich aside and stared straight at you.

“Why are you thinking about him?”

That was enough to garner your attention, your head snapping up to stare at your best friend like he was the craziest person you knew for mentioning Hyunjae, much less suggesting that your mind was wrapped around him.

“What?”

“Hyunjae. With his perfect attendance, a day without him should be a blessing, yet you brought up how he didn’t show up today and then moped harder than anyone I’ve ever seen mope. You should be over the moon, dancing on the tables and stealing people’s food, not-...” Kevin waved a finger at you, “whatever this is. You seem out of it.”

“Well it’s not because of Hyunjae, I’ll tell you that,” you snorted. Your eyes fell back down to your tray, and the more you looked at it, the more nauseous you got. You scrunched your nose. “If anything, it’s probably because of this shit food.”

Kevin rolled his eyes before tearing his sandwich into halves. You perked at the sight and ogled the half Kevin taunted you with. You were about to thank him and take it into your possession before Kevin jerked back his arm, making you whine.

“Throw away your food, then I’ll give you it.”

“Fine,” you grumbled. As Kevin returned to his delicious, most scrumptious, packed lunch you had ever seen, you picked up your tray and walked it to the nearest trash can. As you dropped the whole thing inside, you heard your name being called.

“Y/N!”

You whipped around to check to see who it was and smiled at the sight of Eunseo waving at you. You wouldn’t consider her a good friend, but you knew her well enough since she was the vice president of the student council.

She ran over to you with a stack of paper in her arms, relieved to have caught you. 

“Y/N, hi! I’m so glad I found you. I was scared I wouldn’t because of how packed it is.”

She flashed you her usual glowing smile, and you noticed that she was a bit more giddy than usual, making you question why she was choosing to talk to you in the first place. All your conversations normally took place before, during, and after student council meetings, so this was slightly out of character.

“What’s up?” you asked. As you looked at her, you noticed how her outfit was slightly more put together than it normally was. She had on a cute top that suited her chest perfectly and a skirt that you had never seen her wear. 

“Your outfit’s really cute today.”

“Really?!” Her bright demeanor then faded into concern. “Wait, is it too noticeable or out of the blue? Is it bad?”

“No, no. Not at all!” you reassured. “It’s just the right amount of perfect.”

“Great! God, that means the world coming from you. It’s because!...” She stopped to glance around, making sure that no one was eavesdropping, before taking a step closer to whisper. “It’s because I was finally asked out on a date by my crush!”

She could barely contain her excitement, holding back a squeal with her bottom lip latched between her teeth. Her sunshine-like energy made you grin.

“That’s great! I’m glad you’re making progress.” Your eyebrows pinched as you tried to recall the last time Eunseo had updated you about her crush. “You’ve been pining after him for so long—whoever ‘him’ is, anyway.”

The question of who Eunseo liked had always gone unanswered. She never told anyone, not even the ones who knew her best, but she loved gushing about her mystery crush to everyone she knew. All people really knew, you included, was how down bad she was.

A part of you wondered if it was someone you knew—someone pretty like Juyeon or well-known like…Hyunjae.

“Oh, I wish I could tell you, and maybe I will if things go really well and we become official!” She squealed and hopped in her spot, unable to resist giving you a half-hug with her free arm. “This is so exciting, Y/N!”

“I’m really happy for you.” Your smile was genuine until you thought about why she was looking for you, starting to doubt that she called you over just so she could tell you about her date. 

“I’ll let you know how it goes, swear. But! That aside, I also have something for you.”

You knew it.

Your brows raised, and when you didn’t catch on, she gestured to the papers in her arms with guilt.

“I know this is kind of a dick move, and I’m really really sorry, but I promised to put up fliers for prom today. My date is right after my last class.” Her frown had deepened, and for a split second, you found yourself sympathizing with her because who wanted to let down such a cheerful personality, especially when this was life-changing for her?

“So you want me to do it?”

“Exactly! Please, that would be great. It shouldn’t take too long, too.”

You thought about how you would have to give up an evening of playing on your switch or extra time to study for an upcoming exam, but you knew it was your duty as secretary to help out whenever needed.

Not to mention that it would also make you a decent friend not to hold Eunseo back from her soon-to-be love life despite her poor date planning. If you were in her shoes, you would have wanted her to do the same for you too.

“Sure,” you accepted. “Why not?”

“You’re the best, seriously!” She handed you the fliers as she began to fill you in on the extra details.

“I already told Mr. Barajas that I wasn’t feeling well and that you were going to do it, so he said it all worked out and to not worry about it,” she rambled, happy to give the extra weight (both literally and metaphorically) to you. “I just printed these out, so everything should be perfect to go. Oh, and don’t worry about any extras! Just set them on Barajas’s desk when you’re finished. Hyunjae will also be in 142 with tape ready for you.”

The mention of the forbidden name nearly made every cell in your body halt. 

“What?”

Eunseo tilted her head at you, confused, before finally realizing.

“Oh crap, I forgot! I’m so sorry, I really did forget you guys weren’t on good terms. I hope it’s okay that he’s helping you out. I mean, he’s supposed to, but it was meant for him and me to do it together, not you two, so…God, I’m really sorry Y/N.”

Before you could even react to the newfound information, she continued.

“I really have to go now. Thank you again! I promise I’ll make it up to you!” And with her rosy pink cheeks and a stunning shade of red on her lips, she basically skipped away and waved goodbye to you with a smile, so you reciprocated it with an awkward one of your own. 

When she turned her back, your smile immediately dropped and you sighed heavily.

“Have fun on your date,” you mumbled, your eyes falling to fliers in your arms. As you skimmed the one on top, you noticed it was to promote going to prom while also including a big QR code to vote for who should be your school’s prom king and queen. You expected it since it was the last meeting’s topic of discussion, but what you weren’t aware of was who were listed as nominees.

There were eight names listed under ‘Prom Court,’ and while you expected Hyunjae’s, Eunseo’s, and your boyfriend’s names on it, your jaw nearly hit the ground at the sight of your own. 

//

With every passing class period, your anxiety would kick up a notch.

The dread of talking to the face you had been avoiding for two months engulfed you, and it caused you to develop the urge to ditch your current class to go hunt for Jacob, the student council’s historian. You wanted nothing more than to dump the stack of fliers into his arms, and knowing Jacob, he wouldn’t ask any questions. Hell, you were certain that if you asked him nicely, he would do it for you because of how naturally sweet and endearing he was.

But the guilt of ditching your secretary duties kept picking at your skin, and besides, all you had to do was treat Hyunjae like a colleague. That should be easy, right?

As you suffered through the last few minutes of class and your teacher’s incessant ramblings about the upcoming exam, your thoughts drifted over to what would happen the moment you stepped into room 142.

Hyunjae hadn’t shown up to a single class all day, yet he was expected to set up fliers after school. As your thoughts snowballed, you arrived at the baseless conclusion that maybe Eunseo wasn’t aware that Hyunjae was absent today, therefore someone else (like Jacob) would take over. 

Suddenly, your back had straightened with feigned interest in your teacher’s last few words. Something about Jacob being there instead of Hyunjae had excited you; it felt like you were free and that the universe was listening to your prayers. The gamble of seeing whether it would be Hyunjae or Jacob (or literally anyone else) had your right leg bouncing, eyes on the clock, and when the bell rang, you shot up from your seat, backpack over your shoulders and fliers in your arms, before dashing out of the classroom.

You sped down the hallway to 142, Mrs. Zhang’s room for Chemistry, bug-eyed, before having your delusions crushed at the sight of Hyunjae’s stupidly large height leaning against one of the counters. Your feet stood glued to the ground by the doorway, your eyes locked onto him. 

Covered from head to toe in sweats, Hyunjae was immersed in whatever was on his phone, scrolling through something as his brown curls peeked out from inside his hood. Without any hint of him acknowledging your presence, your shattered hopes slowly began to rebuild.

Maybe if you were quiet enough, you could sneak out with the tape and do everything on your own, avoiding him at all. Actually, scratch that. You didn’t even need the tape. All you had to do was go to another teacher’s room, steal their tape for half an hour, and then return it with ease.

The plan was effortless, and you mentally smacked your forehead for not thinking of it earlier. Right as you were about to execute it, your backpack slammed against the doorframe as you turned on your heels. 

“Nice try.”

You groaned out of embarrassment (and slight pain) and forced yourself to turn around. Hyunjae’s phone was now face down on the counter, and his arms were crossed over his abdomen. His face remained stoic as his eyes met yours, wielding a tension you didn’t recognize.

Now that you could properly look at him, you noticed a few details that you hadn’t before, such as the small tear on his lower lip and the bandaid on his cheekbone. If you looked long enough, you could catch light patches of purple across his skin, and the sight hindered all your thoughts, your brain too occupied with piecing together how he ended up like this. 

“What happened?” you blurted, your gaze shooting up from his lips to his eyes.

Hyunjae staggered at your suddenty, but he managed to keep himself stilled, his brows pinching. 

“What do you mean?”

Even if Hyunjae didn’t mean to, his question became an invitation for your unfiltered thoughts to spill out of your mouth.

“You didn’t show up for any of our classes today,” you began, “but now you’re here? For some stupid fliers? You’re barely dressed properly like you normally are, your hair isn’t straightened, you look pale, Jae, and what’s up with the bruises or the bandaid on your cheek–”

“Are you seriously psychoanalyzing me?” he asked with a scoff. There was no humor in his tone. Instead, it looked as if he was irritated, perhaps even more than you were. 

Hyunjae barely met your eyes, and his arms closed himself off from you. 

“What–?”

“You’re evaluating me like I’m some sort of lab project, Y/N.”

“No, no I’m not,” you rejected. “I’m just saying things are a little off.” You kept your eyes firm on his, even as he pushed himself off the counter with his phone and made his way over to you. “And you know, you really can’t blame me for being somewhat worried when one, you don’t show up, and two, you look like a whole mess—”

“Just hand over the fliers—” he interrupted, gritting his teeth as he outstretched his arm in your direction. You dodged him by turning your body 180 degrees and stood your ground.

“What happened?” you repeated, this time more firmly.

Hyunjae looked at you, a blank expression on his face, before turning back around to grab the roll of tape left on the teacher’s desk. When he returned, he shoved it into your arms while simultaneously stealing half the stack. You protested with an exclaimed ‘Hey!’ yet he didn’t bat an eye and skimmed over the contents of the flier on top.

Bothered by his lack of response, you frowned and made sure to block the doorway, refusing to let him leave until you received answers.

“Why are you acting like this? Pretending that I’m not even—”

“I’ll do upstairs, you do downstairs,” he muttered.

“Did you get into a fight? Why weren’t you here today? Why are you here now—”

“You’d think you’d know,” he finally answered, pushing past you like you weighed none less than a feather.

Your brain had fully malfunctioned at that point, unable to decipher what he meant as Hyunjae walked off to the nearest staircase. As his footsteps echoed down the hall, you thought about what he was implying yet came to no resolution. Did he assume that you were caught up in your school’s latest gossip? Or that you were the main admin for his biggest fan page on Instagram?

The idea made you snort, and you scowled bitterly at his childish attitude. It wasn’t like you were a complete stranger intruding on his personal life—hell, you felt like you deserved an explanation because of how you were forced to do this with him. 

As you stormed off past the remaining lingering students to the nearest bulletin board, you questioned how you were going to do this on your own. 

You had put up fliers countless times in the past few years yet never alone. Luckily, you had a general idea of where the fliers should go when it came to the school’s hallways, but as you approached your first destination, you struggled with ripping off pieces of tape while holding the stack at the same time. It would’ve been easier with a partner by your side, one who either did the tape ripping or placing of the fliers, but you weren’t desperate enough to fall into the role of a helpless princess in need of her pretty (useless) prince. 

After some trial and error, you found a method that consisted of setting the stack on the ground occasionally so you could rip off pieces of tape. Then you would slap said pieces of tape onto your wrist, having them readily available as you put up a few fliers at a time.

Although slightly time-consuming, it was working well and kept you at a steady pace until you heard crashing footsteps behind you from afar. Without paying any mind to it, you bit back your curiosity in order to focus on the wall in front of you, but then you made the mistake of taking a step back, bumping into the person who was sprinting. 

You lost your balance and fell forward before catching yourself shortly after. However, the fliers had already flown out of your arms, scattering across and down the long hallway.

Ready to curse out the offender for running down the hallway, you were surprised when you saw that it was Eunseo behind you, pouring out apologies while a loopy grin was smacked onto her face.

You steadied your anger and told her it was okay, getting down onto your knees to collect all the fliers. Her ‘sorry’s could only go so far with her smeared lipstick, a dazed gaze, and her hair holding the mold to someone else’s (presumably her crush’s) hands in them, but you still excused her, knowing that she was over the moon right now.

“It’s okay, Eunseo, I promise.” You forced out a chuckle as you crawled to scavenge for the ones that flew a few feet away.

“I really didn’t mean to,” she pouted, but it was shortly followed up with bubbly giggles. “God, Y/N, can you believe this? Oh, it’s going so well! I think I love him, I do.”

“Good for you,” you grumbled, hoping that she didn’t hear it as you continued to move down the hallway, hating how far the fliers had escaped from you. You also hated how she just stood there without intent on helping you at all. 

“I have to really go now. Got volleyball practice soon, but I think I’m seeing him tomorrow too!” She waved you goodbye.

And just like that, she continued running off. 

You stared at how you were only able to collect half the mess, hating how Eunseo had somehow managed to delay you even further from being in the comfort of your bed. You were also salty at how her date was taking place at the school, wishing she could’ve dragged him around while she taped stuff up before getting dick-downed of some sort.

Deciding that she and her business weren’t worth your time, you continued to pick everything up as quickly as you could, wanting nothing more than to go home.

When you finally finished collecting every last flier, you were prepared to get back into the groove of things before feeling your phone vibrate in the side pocket of your backpack. Wondering if it was something important, you took it out and beamed at the idea of it being a new message from Jiwoong.

Dating him felt like falling in love with him all over again whenever he texted. Your heart would pound in your chest when you thought about him and explode whenever he gave you his attention and time. You were addicted to him, especially knowing that he was yours after liking him since middle school.

So to say you were disappointed was far worse than an understatement. It was from a number you hadn’t saved yet always recognized and undoubtedly remembered by heart.

Of course it was Hyunjae.

You had Hyunjae’s phone number due to previous class projects and group chats, but you had never once saved it because you thought he was undeserving of being a contact in your phone. Nonetheless, with how the years have passed and how much his number infiltrates every group chat you were in, it was only fair that your brain had unintentionally memorized all ten digits.

The message he sent consisted of him saying that he was done with the fliers, and you rolled your eyes. Even after the way he treated you earlier, he still chose to let you know and brag about how fast he was. 

You shoved your phone away vigorously, ready to return to your slapping-fliers-on-walls duty, before perking at the sound of footsteps behind you once more.

Automatically assuming it was Eunseo or another student staying after for a club or sport, you were stunned when you heard his voice. 

“You’re not even halfway yet?”

In no fucking universe are you turning around; not for him.

“Go gloat somewhere else,” you snapped. The next flier you taped up was nearly slammed onto the wall, but Hyunjae was left unphased by your sudden outburst. He stood next to you and remained quiet, even when you left to place the next flier a few feet away on the opposite wall.

When he didn’t follow, you sighed out of relief, yet somehow you couldn’t help but peek at him, eyeing his hands that were tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants. He was staring straight at the lopsided flier you had put up, and when you decided you had enough of peering at him, he was back by your side.

 “What are you doing?” you grumbled. He was the one who pushed you away, yet now here he was, glued to your side like how he was two months ago. 

“You’re taking too long.”

“I had a mishap,” you explained, “but that’s none of your concern.” The lines on your forehead bunched up, and you waved him off, bending down to place the stack on the ground. Figuring it wasn’t weird at all, you continued your method of ripping off pieces of tape and slapping it onto your wrist.

And Hyunjae was totally judging.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Just go home.”

Despite being on the ground and sitting on your heels, you could physically feel the heat on the back of your head due to his eyes burning a hole into your skull, and for a split second, you knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I can do it myself,” you explained. 

“What are you even doing?” 

“Can you just go?” You picked up the stack once again as you rose to your feet, doing your best to avoid whatever look was on Hyunjae’s face. He was probably stifling a laugh or keeping his expression smug, but when you did cave and peek, his face was still solemn, his eyes on your wrist with concern.

“You’re struggling.”

“Thank you for your observation, Mr. Obvious,” you retorted.

“Let me do it.”

Taken aback, you whipped your head over to his direction.

“You’re kidding.”

“You don’t even want to be here,” he reasoned through gritted teeth. “Just go, and you can thank me later.”

“Thank you?!” Appalled at his audacity, you couldn’t help but laugh out of disbelief. “Seriously, Hyunjae? You want me to thank you for stealing my job? Again? You can’t be fucking serious.”

“Because you can’t take any criticism ever, or in this case, any form of help, so just let me do it.”

Hyunjae was eerily calm about the whole ordeal, his energy far from matching yours.

“I do take help,” you refuted. “I just don’t take yours, and neither do I need it, too.”

“You’re so goddamn stubborn.” And within a blink of an eye, he had managed to snatch the stack of fliers from you. 

“Hey!” you yelled, feeling as if it was deja vu from earlier (you really needed to step up your defense), and reached out to take them back, but he was quick to turn his body, shielding them from you.

“Give me the tape and go,” he urged, emotionless. The Hyunjae in front of you now was someone you truly didn’t recognize because the Hyunjae you knew would have made fun of you and held the fliers above your head, teasing you for being so weak.

Yet he stood still, creating a barrier between you and the duty that was forced upon you. You didn’t want to be here anyway, yet you were so insistent on making sure Hyunjae wasn’t stealing your work again. You weren’t incapable, and you hated how he always managed to be faster.

Even now, he was miles away from being playful with you, and yet he still had a way to shove it in your face.

“Hyunjae, I swear—”

“Give me the tape, and you can run off to your little boyfriend waiting for you by the entrance.” 

Your lips parted at his words, eyes wide as you worked to comprehend his words. You questioned how he knew about Jiwoong’s whereabouts, how he knew that Jiwoong was waiting and that you didn’t, but knowing that he was serious, you reluctantly gave up and dropped the roll of tape on the ground, forcing him to pick it up. 

You were sick of constantly arguing with him, and even if he was lying about Jiwoong, at least you would be away from Hyunjae. There was no point in fighting for your dignity anymore, not when Hyunjae’s narcissism was insufferable.

By walking away with heavy and quick strides, you hoped he felt humiliated by how poorly he was treating you—how he had always treated you like this.

As much as you wanted it to be true, you hoped Hyunjae was lying just so you had more evidence against his self-absorbed and shitty personality, but alas, you found Jiwoong standing precisely where Hyunjae said he was.

Regardless, all stress and frustrations had lifted from your being, and you called out to your boyfriend with a smile that would make your cheeks ache in minutes. 

“Woong!” You waved your hands with a small bounce in your steps as you rushed over to him.

Your boyfriend’s head shot up, surprised to see you. His utter shock quickly switches to one of sheer happiness, tucking his device away before opening his arms for you.

“Hey, baby!”

You tossed yourself into his embrace, hugging him tight after pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

“What are you doing here?” With your face in his neck, your voice came out muffled, and it made Jiwoong laugh.

“Had to stay after to discuss my grades with a teacher, then I decided to stay back a bit for you.” He cooed and kissed the top of your head, holding you incredibly close. When you pulled back, his hands had moved from behind your backpack to your hips instead, holding them as you stared up at him.

“You were waiting for me?” you asked, eyes wide with stars in them.

“Of course I was, baby.” 

You were radiating, feeling happier than ever. The last time you saw Jiwoong was a week ago, and with your clashing schedules, you two very rarely get the opportunity to make plans. Your hands rested atop his shoulders, and when he pulled you in for a kiss, you smiled.

But then it fell.

Something felt off.

//

If someone were to inquire Hyunjae about who his heart belonged to, your name would be his answer—whether he intended to say it or not. 

Hyunjae had always been considered the school’s favorite. His intelligence may not be up to par with others, but his authority was what made him a prominent member of your high school. Some blame it on his looks, but most were aware enough to know that wasn’t the case.

Hyunjae knew how to think on his feet, and his problem-solving skills outwitted everyone within his grade level. Reaching tranquillity had never been an issue for him, allowing him to be levelheaded while making decisions. He emitted an aura that made classmates truly listen to him and the ideas he shared, and overall, it made him a great contender to lead every group and organization he was in. 

Additionally, Hyunjae’s heart was what won over most people. His lack of vulnerability seemed to be his only flaw, but it was an obstacle he could overlook when it came to empathizing with others. By actively being involved in the community through volunteering and holding fundraisers, everyone could recognize Hyunjae’s devotion to hope for humanity. 

All these traits were what led Hyunjae up onto the pedestal and the public eye, a household name for all families in the district. Titles and awards naturally gravitated towards him throughout the years, resulting in him winning the vote as president of your school’s student council and enough scholarships to provide him a full ride at most universities.

It was safe to say that competition against Lee Hyunjae was sparse, and you were no different. 

Your grades would teeter around his standard, hence how you two collectively ended up in the same classes, but aside from that, you had nothing else that could compare to what he was capable of.

Except for one thing; your fury.

There was an inferno inside you at all times, and instead of your body shielding off your heart with steel, people around you would come to find out that your heart was the reason for that large blaze of fire, possessing a passion unlike any other. 

Hyunjae had never once seen a peer with as much fight as you. It was a trait only you encapsulated, one that you weren’t afraid to express. You stood up for yourself and your beliefs, and it was easy to pick fights with him when he had been troubling you from the very moment you two were assigned to sit next to each other in seventh-grade algebra. 

Hyunjae yearned for you ever since, his only want being your attention. You gave him the drive to succeed in high school and thrive in his senior year, and he was positive that he wouldn’t be doing this well without a reason to show off in front of you. He wanted your praise, your acknowledgment, but he loved the chase the most. 

Unfortunately, that was the exact reason he ended up here.

The chase was what made him fall for every part of you, wanting nothing more than your lips on his and the ability to have you by his side at all times, but it was also what landed you with your current boyfriend.

It was like his life was a video game with God giving him the hardest difficulty setting by making sure you were obsessed with someone undeserving of all that he wanted. There wasn’t even a chance of you two possibly being friends in your eyes. Meanwhile, Hyunjae would argue that you two had more chemistry than any other couple in your class, but that hope was crushed, shredded, and stomped on when he found out you still devoted your love to Jiwoong.

Regardless, it didn’t change who you were as a person. Your heart was still just as large and beautiful, and your drive to succeed hadn’t lessened. The bickering never faltered, and it wasn’t like Hyunjae was opposed whenever you expressed disgust at the thought of him being turned on because of you (and that was because he found the idea of you thinking about him hot—yes, his expectations were that low). 

So it was why after two months of almost zero to no contact, you treating him as if those months didn’t exist created the largest dilemma he had ever faced. He spent the next week thinking about your intentions and why you seemed to care so much, specifically right after when Hyunjae had willed himself to believe that he meant jackshit to you. You effortlessly toyed with his heart, leaving him in everlasting misery, while you seemed to do completely fine.

What was a typical and ideal lifestyle for you was a nightmare and tormenting hellhole for Hyunjae. He didn’t just crave the warmth and comfort from your undying flames.

He wanted to burn.

Insanity engulfed him on the days spent without you, leaving him to wonder why you had to make things extensively worse by pointing out his absence or how he had put less effort into his hair. Why did it seem like the concern you expressed was genuine? Why pretend that you cared for him as much as he cared for you?

He was going insane—so insane that he drove to a college party with three other friends in his sedan on a Wednesday night. 

It was being held by a fraternity he and his friends were far more than familiar with thanks to Jongin, an upperclassman he met in his sophomore year and remained friends with since then. The beginning of the senior year marked the origin of parties and hook-ups in weak sporadic attempts to get over you. 

At this rate, Hyunjae could argue that he was more experienced than half of the current college freshmen class. Getting girls in bed was the easiest part; the hardest part was forgetting about you. From what was a method created to move on from you became one that prepared him for when you wanted sex with him. 

But with your constant longing for Jiwoong, Hyunjae made sure that this party would be different.

Although accustomed to having sex with various women, Hyunjae had never been one to drink. This was a fact about him that raised brows, specifically Jongin’s when he first tried urging Hyunjae with a drink, but tonight he vowed to change that. He was normally their designated driver, but when Hyunjae informed Sangyeon of his plan, the elder was more than delighted to remain sober so Hyunjae could get a taste of alcohol.

“Hey, man! It’s about time!” Jongin exclaimed the instant he found out about Hyunjae’s willingness to drink, pulling a fresh bottle out of the cooler specifically for his friend.

“That’s what I told him!” Sangyeon projected his voice over the music, giving Hyunjae a supportive pat on the back.

Hyunjae rolled his eyes at his friends’ remarks and thanked Jongin for the beer, hanging around by the counter as the three conversed and caught up. The two laughed at the way Hyunjae’s face scrunched up at the taste, Sangyeon shoving him lightly with the claim that Hyunjae was being overdramatic. 

With his earlier mindless decision of tossing on a mesh long-sleeve shirt over his black tank top, Hyunjae had attracted another partygoer by his side momentarily after his first sip. She wrapped her arms around one of his and inserted herself into the conversation with hopes of getting Hyunjae in bed by the end of the night, and crazily enough, he considered it for a moment before feeling his phone vibrate in his back pocket.

Normally it would be something he’d ignore, but it remained persistent, signifying that he was receiving a call. He didn’t know who would be calling at this hour—well, aside from Minghao and his usual complaints about Hyunjae partying as a high schooler on a school night. 

After setting the glass down on the counter to grab his phone, any urgency to intoxicate himself as quickly as possible vanished the very second he saw your name glowing on his screen. With an awkward retraction of his arm and a forced cough, Hyunjae excused himself and answered the call.

“Hello?”

With music pounding inside his ear canals, it was expected that he couldn’t hear anything you were saying. He navigated through various crowds to reach the entrance of the house, his heart replicating the booming vibrations from the loudspeakers as he prayed that you wouldn’t hang up on him.

“Okay, I…I should be free now,” he stammered after stepping outside. The sudden stillness of Mother Nature was a drastic change from the party scene, coercing him to focus on his racing heartbeat and the anxiety accumulating in his tightening chest. He was breathing heavily, both from pushing through people in a rush and also because of you. 

You never failed to render him weak and helpless, leaving him like a puppy longing for their owner’s guidance.

There was a silence, but he could hear your gentle breaths hitting your phone.

“I need a ride.”

Hyunjae blinked, his body tensing up, as the many thoughts in his brain scrambled to make meaning of what you meant. However, it didn’t matter because you hung up shortly after, leaving him alone to revel in your words.

Your bluntness and suddenty made Hyunjae malfunction, his thoughts leading him to question if he had even heard you correctly. Rarely did you ever reach out to him, and what could you need him for? Especially after lashing out at him and ignoring him for two months? Of course, there was that one day a week ago when you two were forced to talk together, the day he was given a one-day suspension, but you two returned to treating each other like strangers like it was natural.

He stared at his phone in hopes of receiving more information, that you’d perhaps call again to reconfirm or say you had the wrong number. He felt like he was dreaming—that the person he had wanted for so long needed him for once, but he couldn’t help but also believe that this may be the beginning of another nightmare. 

But it was you, and Hyunjae was willing to risk it.

After checking his call logs to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, he rushed back into the fraternity house, thankful he didn’t proceed with drinking any more than he did. 

He found everyone exactly where he had left them (the girl included) and announced his departure. The girl made sure Hyunjae knew how disappointed she was, but that was his last concern as he grabbed the beer bottle and handed it to Sangyeon, giving him a pat on the back.

“Drink up and find an Uber.”

“No fucking way you’re leaving us this soon, man.” Jongin shook his head in disapproval, his forearms resting against the countertop.

“Another time, I promise, yeah?” Hyunjae started walking away, waving to them as his heart continued to thrum in his chest.

“He’s lying,” Sangyeon snorted, taking a swig before bidding Hyunjae a bitter goodbye. “You owe me!"

Hyunjae ran out of the house, his legs making quick and long strides as he ran to his parked car down the block. His newfound adrenaline made him think about what he was sacrificing to be with you. Was leaving the party and betraying his friends worth spending even a second with you? What if you were asking him to drive you and your boyfriend somewhere? Could his heart even deal with being used like that?

But as much as Hyunjae hated it, he knew he was making the right choice. The self-respect he had for himself was buried six feet deep beneath the surface of the earth when it came to you. 

God, he really hoped he wasn’t hallucinating.

For a split second, Hyunjae truly debated what he was doing after getting into his car. He was already driving, but he didn’t know where to go. Luckily, it didn’t take you long to send him a text with your location, and it was a place he was familiar with. 

It was a park that he often frequented as a kid since it resided by his old neighborhood, and he was thankful he knew exactly where to go because he knew he would’ve definitely crashed the car while pulling up your location on his GPS. Hyunjae was doubtful it was the alcohol in his system making his fingers shake and his mind uneasy. He blamed you for his hysteria, one that had developed over years of endless longing. 

Luckily the drive wasn’t long thanks to the roads being mainly void of other vehicles (and maybe he did speed a few times, but he considered it justified). Before pulling into the parking lot, he spotted a lone figure curled up on a nearby bench. A small weight had been lifted off of him, relieved it was just you, and he parked aimlessly while his eyes rested on you.

You seemed unphased by his added presence, your arms unmoving as they stayed wrapped around your legs. The bench you were sitting in was facing away from the parking lot, but with his headlights illuminating the view in front of you, you certainly had to know he was there. 

In an ideal world, Hyunjae would leave his car, join you by your side, and, if he was lucky, he’d pull you into his arms and hold you close against his chest. He wanted to be there for you in whatever way he could, but he ended up being a deer in headlights, too afraid to make the wrong move and lose you again.

He sat there for a minute, watching you, and as soon as he received the confidence to reach for the handle of his door, you were up on your feet. His fingers paused midair as he traced your movements, his arm eventually falling to his side as you approach his car. 

Despite how slow his mind was working, Hyunjae knew to unlock the car right as you opened it (he would’ve died out of embarrassment if he had forgotten), and neither of you greeted the other.

Without any explanation from you, Hyunjae refrained from staring at you like he normally would, but your outfit made it incredibly difficult. It wasn’t much, just an oversized long-sleeved shirt that reached your thighs, but it was far from the usual clothes he’d seen you wear, like jeans and a nice-fitting blouse. For a moment, he believed you had no pants on, but then he knocked some sense into himself, realizing that you were probably wearing shorts that were hidden.

While Hyunjae attempted to keep his composure and respect your boundaries, you were eyeing him shamelessly, once again analyzing every detail about him. Beads of sweat pooled up on the back of his neck, and his hair was straightened yet fuzzy. As your eyes trailed downwards, you noticed how the mesh hugged his biceps, catching every crease that defined his muscles. He was quiet, his index finger resting against his lips. 

Where did he even come from?

And why was he so quick to listen?

You held back your tongue from dumping out your thoughts, knowing your questions would end up unanswered like before. Your body instinctively rested against the divot between the car door and your seat, keeping your distance from Hyunjae. He was meant to be a stranger, perhaps someone you loathed, yet there was an odd comfort that encased you from him just sharing the same air as you.

You cleared your throat, turning your head to look away when he flinched and snapped his gaze towards you.

“Drive.”

Your demand was no louder than a whisper, but Hyunjae picked it up effortlessly and was already backing out.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere.” Hyunjae raised a brow at your answer, and you buried yourself further into his seat, directing your gaze out the door. “Just-...anywhere, Jae.”

The nickname had his throat tightening and his chest leaping, nodding in your direction as he drove on autopilot. With no destination in mind, he strolled through familiar roads, his fingers tapping against the wheel. 

You stayed silent, creating a tension that was unbearably thick, yet none of you felt the need to leave; neither of you wanted to leave the other, even if it meant having to deal with the looming elephant in the room (or in this case, Hyunjae’s car).

After spotting the recreational center from afar and its empty parking lot, he instinctively pulled in. There wasn’t a proper explanation for why he decided it’d make a great destination, especially when it was the place that created a rift in your relationship with him, but it felt right.

It was empty, open, and serene—a perfect place to stay as the moon shined.

Hyunjae stepped out of the car after parking in the middle of it, and when you didn’t follow, he moved to your side and opened the door. He was hesitant but took the risk of offering his hand to you, a warm, nervous smile on his face. He wanted you to know he was there to listen, to be there for you, because, Lord, he would hand you the world if he could.

“I’m not in the mood for walking,” you mumbled, but Hyunjae shook his head.

“We’re not going to walk, I promise.”

Your eyes flickered up to his briefly, skeptical of what he had planned, but ultimately caved. You ignored his hand, and he pulled it back with regret. When you stood there, your eyes on the sky, he closed the door behind you and guided you to the hood of his car.

Without a second thought, he sat on top of it and gestured for you to do the same.

“I sit here all the time. Helps me think.” He leaned back against his windshield, his hands holding the back of his head as he kept his eyes on the sky. When you didn’t move, he started to feel stupid, wondering if you two were better off in the car, but then you joined him. 

You copied his position, staring upwards as your hands rested over your abdomen. 

Hyunjae opted to keep to himself, deciding that he didn’t want to make this worse for the two of you. Instead, he fixated his thoughts on the stars in the sky.

There were only a few, but it was a rare sight due to the constant air pollution in your city, so he considered it a miracle. You, on the other hand, were spacing out in thought, and Hyunjae could tell through his occasional peeks. Without much control, his eyes started tracing down your arms. They then landed on where the hem of your shirt rested, now looking at your bare thighs.

Feeling as if he just reverted back to being the shyest virgin in the country, he gulped and immediately looked elsewhere, trying to get you off his mind despite you being right next to him. His racing heart was all that he could hear, and now he wondered if you could hear it too—if you knew how much you affected him.

And your voice broke the silence.

“How long have you known?”

Okay, maybe his brain did fall out of his skull because Hyunjae had no idea what you were talking about. He turned his head and caught how you stared up at the sky. Your eyes were glossy, holding the reflections of the whole galaxy within them. They sparkled, and for a beat, Hyunjae had forgotten your question, too infatuated with your beauty. 

His silence resulted in you turning your head, gaze meeting his, and that was when he noticed the tears.

“About Jiwoong and Eunseo.”

Your light, your flames, his burning desire; all were gone in a flash.

Your voice was delicate, and Hyunjae knew that with one move, he could break you.

Directing his gaze heavenward, Hyunjae sighed and brought his arms down to rest over his chest. Somehow he was able to feel all the pain you were experiencing, his heart twisting while his stomach churned and sloshed around in his body. He thought about how to respond as he chewed on the inside of his lip, questioning if he should answer at all to avoid hurting you.

But you asked, and as always, Hyunjae delivered.

“I don’t think I ever really knew until last week,” he explained, “but I could always tell.” Suddenly, the fight from a week ago had resurrected, and Hyunjae was forced to relive it all.

The hallways were empty when Hyunjae left the broadcasting room, a backpack strap slung over his shoulder while the other dangled behind him. He was in the middle of scrolling through his emails when he picked up on the sound of Jiwoong’s voice around the corner. 

His footsteps halted, and Hyunjae caught Jiwoong’s fatal words.

“How does tomorrow sound?”

Eunseo’s squeals followed after, and Hyunjae stood motionless.

At first, Hyunjae had no thoughts circulating in his brain, but after hearing their lips collide, he started coming up with solutions, such as interrupting or taking a video to send to you. Unfortunately, before he could act on either of them, he heard footsteps dashing off, practically skipping, as the two bidded one another goodbye. 

Hyunjae couldn’t pinpoint the reasoning behind his upcoming actions, but he knew how to describe how he felt. 

Anger was the first and only emotion to surge up within him, his fingers instinctively balling up into fists. His muscles had tightened while a forest fire ran rampant through his veins, causing his blood to boil. 

Then with quick strides, Hyunjae shoved his phone away and made a sharp turn around the corner, tossing his backpack on the ground after spotting Jiwoong against the lockers. The latter had a dazed look on his face, his lips curled into a smirk as he typed away on his phone, but that was changed once he looked up at the sound of Hyunjae’s backpack crashing against the ground in front of him.

There wasn’t a second in between Jiwoong’s face of surprise and Hyunjae’s arm being raised, and before Jiwoong could react, Hyunjae’s fist had slammed into his jaw. 

It was a blur from there, but Hyunjae knew he had won even after authorities dragged him off Jiwoong’s body. He had received a few jabs in return, but it was nothing compared to the black eye Hyunjae gave him.

The fact that Jiwoong managed to cover it up with makeup the day after was a miracle, and no one in the school knew about the fight since it happened after school. Hyunjae wanted it to stay that way, but a selfish, cruel part of him wished that everyone knew how sick your boyfriend was.

Well, now he was unsure if he was still your boyfriend. 

Hyunjae turned his head back towards you, his cheek meeting the cold metal of his car.

You pursed your lips at his response and nodded slowly. If it were any other day, you wouldn’t have believed him. There was no universe where you’d choose to listen to Hyunjae over Jiwoong, but after a week of investigating and getting your head out of your ass, you found out on your own terms, and all the pieces made sense.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Hyunjae’s voice jerked you out of your thoughts, and as you adjusted to look back at him, you were surprised to still find him staring at you.

“I’m not a violent person, Y/N,” he whispered, an enduring hope lingering in his eyes. He wanted you to believe him, and for once, you did; you truly understood the man you hated most.

“I know, Jae.”

Hyunjae eased at your words, and the two of you fell back into a more comfortable yet aching silence. His fingers drummed against his abdomen, and after a while, he got sick of looking at the same four stars, so he closed his eyes, focusing on enjoying the light breeze instead. His heart was still racing, but it was less alarming. Regardless, he hated knowing that he potentially contributed to how much you were hurting right now.

Maybe if he had done something to prevent it earlier, whether it be telling you as soon as he found out or keeping completely out of your business so you could live in bliss, or, if he wasn’t so scared, he could’ve asked you to be his far before Jiwoong had. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed much, but Hyunjae would never know since he never tried, and now he was going to beat himself over it because now you’re devastated over losing your boyfriend and it was potentially his faul—

You laughed.

Hyunjae snapped his head towards you, his brows raised at your sudden change in mood—but it wasn’t the type of laugh he expected. Your laugh was one filled with pain, and he watched you shake your head, trying to refuse the tears that were rapidly welling up in your eyes once more. You sniffed and wiped the tears away with the back of your hand, choosing to look in the opposite direction because the last thing you wanted was for Hyunjae to see you vulnerable.

“It’s stupid,” you murmured. “This entire thing is stupid. I’m so fucking dumb.”

His lips parted to interject, to tell you that you were, in fact, ‘not dumb,’ but he clamped his mouth shut, knowing that his words probably wouldn’t help. From what he’d learned in the past, you liked it least when he tried telling you otherwise, no matter the situation. 

“I should’ve known. I did know. The whole world knew. Even you knew, but it makes me think, was Eunseo just flocking around, flaunting to everyone that she had a crush on my boyfriend and managed to win him over? I just—I…I don’t know-...” You paused to catch your breath, beginning to choke on your tears as your chest shook, “I don’t know what I did wrong, you know?”

You shut your eyes, allowing the pain to engulf you. You knew fully well that your punishment was to deal with the pain, but you felt like you didn’t deserve it—that you deserved none of this. Why was this a penalty for being in love?

It was humiliating having everyone witness the reality you shielded from yourself, choosing hope and love over the truth. 

“I just never felt more stupid in my life, and I feel even more stupid knowing that I still love him.”

Hyunjae sucked in his lips, gnawing on them as he bit back all his feelings, from his brain shredding to his heart weeping.

“I love him so much that I would let him do it to me all over again because I keep thinking he’d be better. I know he can be better, so why-...It’s just- Why do I do this to myself?”

Tears cascaded down your cheeks, each one leaving behind a trail for others to fall. They started pouring out of you rapidly, soon sobbing at the heart-wrenching pain of being betrayed by everyone in your life, Hyunjae included, because why, out of everyone, was he here for you when he should be the last person who cared?

You always wanted Hyunjae to be the antagonist of your life story, to have him as your biggest enemy and threat, so why was everyone else but him hurting you? Why was the villain of your fantasy taking the role of your knight in shining armor?

And yet, as much as it pained Hyunjae to process all your emotions, his mind wasn’t running correctly; he had you alone for the first time in months. He wanted nothing more than to pull you in his arms and whisper words of comfort in your ears, knowing you deserved it more than anyone, but he also wanted to shake you awake and slap you out of your misery, praying that you’d forget about Jiwoong; that right now, you being vulnerable was his chance to swoop in, to set whatever you wanted him to into flames, as long as if it meant you’d end up okay. 

You sat up because if you lied down any longer, you would’ve started drowning in your own tears. Your sleeves were soaked, and he sat up alongside you, figuring that he should do something about it.

Hyunjae got back onto his feet and stood in front of you. He barely knew what he was doing, but that didn’t stop him from replacing your sleeves with his cold, clammy hands over your cheeks. There wasn’t a time that Hyunjae could recall where he had been this gentle with someone, and when you didn’t push him away, he tilted your head up to look at him.

Even with tears running down your cheeks, you looked angelic as ever. 

Each droplet mirrored a star from the sky, and your eyes sparkled as they stayed locked on his.

“Take me,” you whispered, and Hyunjae’s whole world stopped. 

“...What?” Hyunjae had only intended to wipe your tears away with the pads of his hands, perhaps whisper something along the lines of him being here for you for the night (and the rest of his life, let’s be honest), yet your first words were—no, he had to have been hallucinating.

Your hands trembled as they reached for his wrist, and although you were severely broken, the grip your fingers created was firm.

“Please.”

Like a moth to a flame, Hyunjae admired how pretty you looked, your lips plump and eyes wide, and he wanted nothing more than to take you into his backseat and treat you the way he’d always wanted to, especially after hearing your pleas, but he knew better. You both knew better. 

“What exactly are you implying?” he asked, feeling like you had just inhaled all his oxygen and left him breathless. 

You released his wrist and opted to hold onto his sleeve, tugging on it as you tried to get him to understand you.

“I want it to hurt, Jaehyun.”

Your tears were gone, and there was a hint of dominance in your tone that would’ve had him dropped to his knees in front of you. You were also one of the very few who resorted to calling him Jae, and now his actual name. He favored Hyunjae, but after hearing ‘Jaehyun’ from your lips, his preference had completely made a turnaround. 

But Hyunjae worked to collect his thoughts, fully aware that this was wrong and he’d have to be the bigger person here. As much as he hated himself for giving up the perfect opportunity to have the girl of his dreams, he couldn’t ignore the large concern over your current mental state.

“You’re not thinking straight, Y/N,” he reasoned softly, his fingers reaching up to brush your hair out of your face, and for a second, Hyunjae swore he felt the alcohol kicking in—or perhaps it was you instead. The thought of being able to have you right now, to touch you and press his hands over your skin, to have you as his for just this night, was so intoxicating that he was seconds away from foaming at the mouth.

“I don’t need to think straight. I don’t want to think at all.”

Everything felt hotter and tighter, but he kept his composure, though with his eyes dropping to your begging lips and then your delicate fingers, he knew he was beginning to lose whatever was left of his sanity. 

But he also knew you were using him; you had to be. There was no other explanation. It was only minutes ago when you professed how you continued to feel about Jiwoong—that your heart still belonged to him, and Hyunjae was allowed nowhere near it. He was your backup, your second option, yet that happened to be better than nothing, right?

Especially when he could have you right here, right now. 

“You’re using me.”

Your expression didn’t falter.

“Then say no. Make us go back into your car and drive me home.” Your hand dropped from holding onto his sleeve but that was so you could wrap your arms around his neck, slowly bringing yourself closer to him. His cheeks were flushed as his mind flooded with possibilities of what could happen. Never had you ever wanted him, and he’d been dreaming of a moment like this for years. Your tear-stained cheeks, your pouty red lips—he wanted all of you.

“But you won’t,” you whispered, your breath hitting his skin. Your eyes landed on his lips, now craving him as much as he craved you. You needed a release, an outlet, to justify Jiwoong being better than Hyunjae. Hyunjae was worse in every way possible, and you wanted him to prove that to you. “You’d do anything I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” Little did you know Hyunjae was crumbling inside, completely melting as his fingers grew weak at the idea of your lips on his. His hands, although wary, traveled to your waist, feeling your curves before trailing his hands down to your hips to grip them.

“You love me, don’t you?”

His heart stuttered, all words caught up in his throat, but he knew there was no defending himself—not when he was practically drooling at every move you made; he was hyperaware of the hand playing with the hair on his nape, the way your lips nearly hovered over his, and how your tears glistened under the moonlight.

His entire existence was confirmation of your words, and you knew it.

“You’d do anything for me, Jae. What’s stopping you now?”

There was a stillness as you two stared at one another. He swallowed and pulled slightly back.

He knew better.

“You don’t want me.” He was brokenhearted, a part of him understanding that you’d never be his, yet he wanted you in so many ways, wishing to have your mewls fill his ears and the smell of sex staining his clothes. The bulge in his pants was forming and pressing up against the tight confinement, making him groan. 

He dropped his head downwards, his forehead leaning to rest against yours, as he closed his eyes and did his best to regulate his breathing—repeating in his head and out loud, again.

He knew better.

“You’re using me.”

You both knew better.

Yet with your lips ghosting his and your eyes half-hooded, you were prepared to give into the dark side.

“And I say take advantage of it.”

Hyunjae dived and pressed his lips onto yours, hunger driving his every movement. There was no stopping when he felt your lips curling up into a grin, his hands shifting to wrap around your torso to drag you closer. His heart burst at how perfectly his lips molded with yours, and it seemed as if there was fire shooting up into the sky and exploding—they weren’t fireworks, and the explosion was far bigger and more dangerous. It lit the entirety of the sky, the moon and stars included, into flames, a desire unlike any other.

Your left hand pressed firm against the back of his neck while the other traveled through his hair. Meanwhile, his hands had snuck beneath your shirt and felt for your lower back. Heavy breaths left the two of you as desperation crept through your veins, dictating your every movement. 

The cold touch from his hands ignited your nervous system, every sense activated and overstimulated by Hyunjae as you released a breathy moan into his mouth.

You didn’t want him, but fuck, you needed him.

When you would pull back, his lips would chase yours, and you two fell into an endless cycle. He couldn’t even fathom how you were pulling away for air when you were his oxygen. Maybe you weren’t oxygen itself, but the fumes you emitted had already replaced his need for air, deluding him into believing that you were what he needed to stay alive.

You were suffocating, toxic, and destructive, and he wanted more. 

After retracting from the kiss for the nth time, you turned your head to hold Hyunjae back from continuing. You both were panting, your cunt soaking, and he stared into your eyes like a puppy awaiting their next direction.

“Good boy,” you praised, and he laughed lowly and sheepishly, dropping his head as he processed what happened and the idea of it being potentially over. 

“You’re lethal,” he breathed out.

“And you’re pitiful,” you spat. There was a playful grin on your lips, but those words ignited something within Hyunjae. He raised his head and cocked a brow at you, questioning your genuinity. 

Just minutes ago you were crying over a guy that treated you terribly, and yet here you thought you had the authority to call him weak.

Perhaps he was; he was falling deeper into your pitless trap, enticed with every movement of yours, but he knew for a fact you weren’t any better than him.

You both were sick in the head for falling for people that treated the other like shit, yet your drive, your fuel, to win over the hearts of the people you loved was so strong, and it made you two unstoppable. 

Hyunjae would punch Jiwoong all over again if he could. 

Without a second thought, Hyunjae ducked his head down and ruthlessly attached his lips to your neck, eliciting a gasp from you. He kissed your skin fervently, his fingers teasing the rim of your shorts, and your hands shifted to hold onto his shoulders for support. You found yourself tossing your head back, providing him more room to do as he pleased, that if Jiwoong were to see you with marks on your neck, then maybe he’d want you back. 

“Bold of you to call me pitiful,” he grumbled, sucking onto your neck until a blot of purple began to form.

“But it’s true, no?”

“You’re just as bad, Y/N.” He licked a stripe up your neck and over the mark, and the sensation made you cringe, disgust itching at your skin due to being covered in his saliva, but you wanted more of it. You wanted Hyunjae to treat you like you were nothing, to treat you worse than Jiwoong ever had, so you could direct your blame over to Hyunjae instead of your unknowing boyfriend.

You turned your head and slotted your lips with his again, already addicted to how perfect they were for you. Hyunjae knew the exact way to kiss you, to keep you on your toes, as your slick pooled up in your underwear at the mere thought of Hyunjae touching you.

The kiss was eager, a fight for control, and when Hyunjae didn’t surrender, you raised your knee, forcing your thigh to brush up against his crotch.

He gasped at the sensation and pulled away, bangs hanging over his eyes as he looked down at the sight. You teased him by keeping your touches gentle, but you made sure to keep your leg moving. Nothing intrigued you more than seeing Hyunjae beg or rut against your thigh, further proof of how pathetic he was for you. You gained a sense of ego knowing that he could have any girl in the world, that he has had every girl, and yet he would always come back to you. Now that you had him, it would be harder for him to return to a life without you under him, moaning his name.

You wanted to be his downfall. 

Your nails latched onto the mesh, taking note of how easy it would be to rip the material, before pressing your thigh firmly up against his dick, making him jerk.

“You’re-...oh my god, Y/N,” he gasped, breathless. His eyes meet your devious ones, how you were basically Satan himself, and somehow, someway, he wouldn’t ask for anything different. “You’re playing a losing…a losing- game.”

“What more do I have left to lose?” There was some truth in your words as vulnerability struck you. Your leg then lowered as you regained a slight sense of reality, realizing that you were forcing Hyunjae into being your selfish source of relief. You hated Hyunjae, sure, but you knew this was the last thing he deserved—to use him when he’d been nothing but accommodating to you.

And your sick and twisted plan was that after this encounter, you’d leave him to rot.

Hyunjae didn’t deserve that at all. 

But Hyunjae was already too far gone, too intoxicated, to even consider the repercussions of how he’d end up after this. The loss of contact with his crotch was what had him picking you up from his car, the tips of his fingers digging into your thighs, as he led you to the backseat. 

Your eyes widened, your senses fully back, but you made him like this, and you were going to pay for it. Although scared for about what’s to come, the anticipation had you drooling, your lips pressing fierce kisses onto his skin while he opened the door with you in his arms.

He laid you down gently and crawled over you, keeping you trapped between his arms.

“This is what you wanted, right? For me to tear you apart until you can run back to Jiwoong and justify how poorly he treats you?” 

Your brows bunched up at his words, your legs getting antsy being under him. There was no answering him, not when Hyunjae already knew how you were going to respond.

He brought one of his hands into your shorts and made the aggravating decision to slide his fingers over your underwear, depriving you of contact with his fingers.

Yet even with your underwear being a divider, he found your clit with ease and immediately started rubbing circles into the bud, making you buck your hips with a whine. The friction of the cloth was something you were unfamiliar with, and lord did it mess with you. 

“You want me to treat you how he sees you? Worthless and undeserving of respect?” He flicked your clit and kissed your jaw. “If that’s what you want, that’s exactly what my princess is going to get.”

“Fuck,” you moaned, using your hands to push onto his shoulders and force him down. The drive to ride his tongue was strong, and if he kept teasing you, you would have lost it.

“I know you inside and out, Y/N. I know you better than him, and this is how you treat me.” He sucked in a cheek but ultimately decided to comply with what you wanted. He pulled off your shorts yet left your underwear on, and his brows raised. He wasn’t sure how his fingers had missed the texture of lace, but what you were wearing was certainly lingerie.

You looked down to see why he stopped, and when you realized why he froze, heat rose to your cheeks.

“I wanted to feel pretty,” you whispered, shutting your eyes after turning your head. It was embarrassing, now that you thought about it, but Hyunjae’s heart soared, and he wanted nothing more than for you to know how ethereal you looked.

But he shoved the feeling away, allowing his frustrations to get the better half of him. 

When he pulled off your underwear, he cooed at how your essence oozed onto the material and raised the undergarment into the air, waiting for you to look.

“Did I do this?”

His mocking tone kept you from looking, but your curiosity got the best of you. You were met with the sight of a large wet, dark patch on your underwear, biting down on your lip as you looked at him with wide eyes. If you thought about it, you couldn’t remember the last time you felt like this, or if there ever had been a time when you craved someone this badly. 

He tossed it to the side and his hands massaged your thighs, keeping them spread open so he got a proper view of your core on display for him. The sight truly stunned him, reminding him that this was you he fantasized about and replicated with other girls—no one else.

“Do you normally take this long?” you rasped, tossing your head back against the seat, and Hyunjae rolled his eyes.

“I do you a favor, and this is how you treat me.”

“A favor is a stretch—”

Hyunjae plunged two fingers into your mouth, having them press firmly down against your tongue. He latched onto your jaw and pulled your head forward and up towards him, having your eyes meet his.

“Remind me, Y/N, who was begging for this?”

He dropped your head back down against the seat before you could even respond and used whatever saliva accumulated in your mouth as temporary lube, figuring that your slick would help him with stretching you out. You grunted at the impact, feeling helpless, as Hyunjae finally inserted his fingers inside of you. 

Hyunjae’s fingers were enough to have your eyes rolling, but it was the ring that he wore that stimulated you the most. You weren’t aware that he was even wearing one, yet the cold band against your raging wet heat made you whimper and desperately grasp for his hair.

“Jaehyun, please,” you begged. 

He chuckled and kept his movements slow, forcing you to fuck yourself onto his fingers weakly. When you did, he was in awe at how stunning you looked, how you seemed to be in your own world, and how you were enjoying him. By curling his fingers, a moan was pulled from your throat, making your eyes open as you looked at him. You continued to pool around his fingers, your voice weakly begging for so much more than his fingers and the cold air that brushed against your skin. 

Never had you felt more vulnerable, but Hyunjae never once made you feel like you were doing something wrong, making you cling desperately to him. You forced his face down into your crotch and jerked at the feeling of his nose brushing up against your clit.

“Shameless, aren’t you?” he commented, laughing lowly, but you were too out of it to care. 

“Shut the-...F-fuck, oh my god.”

Your whines had gotten more incessant the more useless he became, his fingers now completely stilled inside of you as he watched you roll your hips with a cheeky grin. He wanted to drag this out for as long as possible, knowing fully well that he could last all night. 

When he took out his fingers, you were yanked out of your bliss and nearly begged for him to put them back in, but before you could get a word out, he had replaced his digits with his tongue. Your slick was dripping onto his lips, and as he dragged his wet muscle up and down your folds, he made sure to collect a small puddle of you onto his tongue to eventually swallow, wanting to savor you. 

“Oh-...Oh my god, Jae—” Your orgasm was approaching, unsure of how it was here so soon, but you recognized the signs from the coil in your chest tightening to losing every sensation to the man beneath you. You rocked your hips continuously onto his tongue, and his thumb attached to your clit, making you see stars with how rapid his movements were. 

He pulled his face back and forced his fingers back into you, and the final curl was what made you reach your peak, your hips in the air as you cried out his name. 

As you came down from your high, you caught a glance of the way Hyunjae was looking at you; to him, you were otherworldly, and it was a sight he’d never forget. He wondered if Jiwoong ever saw you like this, if he ever made you feel this way, and suddenly his admiration had soured and contoured to something of darkness, rid of any empathy as he now looked at you with some form of disgust. 

“All this for me, and you still have the fucking audacity to choose him.” 

The mention of Jiwoong had your eyes wide open, tears reappearing at the mention and while being in your most vulnerable state. Your legs shook from the aftermath, feeling too weak to continue, yet Hyunjae seemed to have other plans.

Instead of shoving his fingers back into either of your mouths, he hovered over you and made sure you saw the way he dragged his fingers around your abdomen, drawing aimlessly over your skin with your essence before dragging a hand up to your breasts, massaging one of them as his other hand rested by your waist.

“Tell me, Y/N, did you buy this for him and never got to use it? That’s why you’re wearing it now with me? Am I your sloppy seconds?”

There was a slight growl under his tone, and while you shook your head subconsciously, he worked to remove your shirt, wanting a better look at your bra, before being met with a necklace you had been hiding; one with Jiwoong’s name.

And Hyunjae took no time breaking it from your neck.

Your jaw dropped, and you snapped out of your daze by sitting straight up, yet as you were about to yell at him for breaking your necklace, he shoved three fingers back into your pussy, shutting you up by having you moan at the intrusion. 

“It looked cheap, anyway,” he muttered, forcing his mouth against yours momentarily to nip on your lower lip, tugging on it so your focus remained on him. 

“That was—he’s mine,” you forced out, gasping at every thrust he made with his fingers, your sweet spot being abused as your hands latched onto his shoulders. You made sure your nails dug into his skin, wanting it to hurt, before pulling onto the mesh, wishing for it to tear. 

“He’s not yours, princess. Tell me, how can you say that when his dick has been up other girls?” With his free hand, he grabbed your face and made sure you were staring straight at him before shoving it to the side. 

“You need to fucking wake up and realize that you can dream all you want about how he’d react if he saw you hopping on my dick, but guess what? He wouldn’t care.” Hyunjae pulled out his fingers and left you alone in the backseat. 

You sat there, a wreck and vulnerable, as you tried to catch your breath. You lay back on your forearms, curious eyes following his every movement.

“There’s a reason he hasn’t left you yet,” Hyunjae explained, opening the front door to his car to grab a condom and his phone. He tucked both into his back pocket before returning to you, bringing your lips to his before continuing to talk within the kiss.

“He’s stringing you along so you can boost his ego. He knows you will always be there for him, and you allow him to use you like that?” 

You wrapped your fingers around Hyunjae’s neck, squeezing it before pushing it away to keep your distance, your frustration starting to grow.

“I’m beginning to think you’re all bark and no bite, Jaehyun,” you muttered, and with whatever strength you had left, you pushed him against the seat and got into his lap. Without hesitation, you started rocking your hips over his clothed dick, hoping your slick would seep in so he could feel you.

He hissed but allowed you to do as you pleased, his grip tight on your hips.

“I-...I think…if you asked me, you’re the one who’s projecting. I’m the one in a relationship, and you’re just a side piece.”

The speed of your hips increased, and Hyunjae felt ecstasy on the tip of his tongue, the confinements of his pants physically paining him the more you continued.

“You’re jealous, Jae. Just admit it.”

You pulled at his hair, loving the absolute control you had over him at that moment, but in one languid motion, Hyunjae managed to push you back down, this time with your stomach against the seats. You could feel your bodily fluids sticking to the nylon, and with how hard Hyunjae was pressing down into you, you were barely given a chance to move. 

With one hand on your lower back, he kept you still as he took out both his phone and condom, making sure to place both on top of your bare skin.

“What’s there to be jealous of when you’re here under me? You want to be fucked stupid? Fine. Don’t fucking complain when you want me to be the villain.” You lurched at his words, refusing to let him win, but you were completely unable to do much damage as Hyunjae kicked off his pants and boxers while still keeping his weight on you.

He then picked up his phone and pulled up the camera, making sure to take a photo of you in his car before clicking record and tossing the phone onto the ground, hoping it was close enough to pick up on your sweet noises. 

“Make sure to be loud for me, yeah? I’m sure Jiwoong would love it if I sent that video to him.”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” you bit back, your hand reaching out in an attempt to grab the device, but Hyunjae was quicker to grab your wrist, pinning it behind your back. 

“I wouldn’t because I know how to appreciate what’s mine.” Hyunjae released his hold on you to roll on the condom, giving you the opportunity to move and take his phone as you pleased. To your dismay, there was no more effort left within you, only an ache to feel Hyunjae inside you. 

“He appreciates me,” you mumbled, trying to convince yourself otherwise as you waited.

“Does he record you? Jerk off to your moans every night? Because I would, Y/N, just for you.” His voice was now by your ear, and when you turned your head to look at him, he pulled you into another hungry kiss, his dick now grazing against your hole. 

“You’re fucking insane,” you bit back into the kiss, and he grinned against your lips, guiding his dick into you as he spoke.

“Psychotic, just for my princess.”

Venom laced his voice, dripping menacingly, and the insertion of his tip had you grasping for something in front of you, anything, and it was only then that you were able to process how thick his cock was.

“Can you take it?” he asked, his voice slightly softer than before. When you gave him a curt nod, he continued pushing in further. Maybe lube should’ve been an option, but you were so wet for him that it didn’t matter, knowing that the stretch probably would have hurt regardless. 

“Fuck, fuck—he really doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Hyunjae gasped, his head resting against the back of yours. It was better than anything he’d dreamed of, better than any girl he imagined, because it was you, and your body was made for him.

“When was the last time he fucked you?” He was fully inside of you now, and when you didn’t answer, he decided to take it as a sign to move. With a firm grip on your waist, he pulled out just to slam back in, making you yell as you clawed at the seat, wishing there was something to bite on as you endured the pain that was quick to morph into pleasure. 

Every glide pushed you further into the car, your forearms occasionally hitting the door, as his hips moved vigorously, working up to a pace that had you moaning without pause. Tears were flowing down your cheeks at the overwhelming pleasure of being manhandled—of being Hyunjae’s rag doll when he was meant to be yours, and your body seized up, being worked up to your orgasm once more with how precise each thrust seemed to be. 

He adjusted to raise one of your legs to his hip, giving him a new angle to pound into you as he worships you with his dick, and you shook out of pleasure, whining as you saw white and reached your second orgasm for the night. You pulsated around his cock, strangled moans ripping from your throat as tears mixed with your drool by your chin.

And Hyunjae showed no signs of stopping.

He made sure to press your face down against the seats, wanting every liquid to fall and stain his car, giving him something to remember you by.

Oh, and there was the recording too.

While kneeling inside of the cramped car, he slowed his movements and inclined his torso towards you. In one swift motion, he wrapped his arm around your neck and pulled you up, locking you inside his elbow as he forced you to look into your reflection in the car window.

“Look at you, the school’s favorite slut. What happens if the recording drops? The whole school would know you’re mine, wouldn’t they?” He pressed his chest against your back, the mesh rubbing against your skin as his lips remained near your ear, forcing you to listen to every word.

You limped against him, your flames completely burnt out, and your fingers tugged onto the mesh around his arm, successfully ripping it after some time, but Hyunjae seemed unphased. In fact, it turned him on even more knowing that he had you locked in, that you were his.

“Look at your pretty cunt taking me in so well. It was so wet for me, wasn’t it? It still is. And guess what? You’re in my car. You belong to me, and my good girl is only now just finding out about it, isn’t she?” 

“I-I’m…I’m not-...not yours,” you retaliated, creating red angry marks into his skin with your nails as you endured being used, stifling your moans as you looked at how wrecked you were, how bare you seemed to be compared to Hyunjae. You were much more of a mess, from your hair to the bruises on your neck. Your pussy kept tightening up around his dick, convulsing occasionally with every hit toward your g-spot, and you held onto Hyunjae each time. 

Your head drooped down, thinking about how your heart ached for Jiwoong, yet the rest of your body was meant for Hyunjae.

“Whose fucking dick is inside of you right now?” He scoffed and pulled on your hair, forcing your head back up so he could directly speak into your ear. “Wake up, Y/N,” he demanded. “You’re mine.”

He dropped you back onto the seat like you were nothing, leaving you completely helpless, your throat void of any words as your eyes closed and met the back of your skull, too fucked out to communicate. You tried reaching for the door handle, just something to hold onto, yet you couldn’t.

“You tell me I’m pitiful, that I’m basically delusional when you’re going to be the reason my car will smell like sex for weeks.”

Your face was forced back into the puddle of liquid you created earlier, being shifted back and forth against the seat as if you were made for his dick and not vice versa.

“It’s crazy how pathetic you are, how willing you are to break yourself down in front of everyone just to have him. That-...fuck…that you’re so convinced he wants you and you two are soulmates.” He dragged his fingers through your hair and grabbed your roots. “You called me, you wanted me, and I have you right now, moaning my name, and you have nothing.”

Something about his words kept bringing out your orgasms, each thrust adding to the pleasure immensely. You didn’t know how much you could handle—afraid you may pass out from how much he was using you, from his tight grip around you to his dick hitting inside of you mercilessly.

Hyunjae whispering ‘I won, Y/N’ was what had you losing it, your high this time ending up stronger than the rest. You were fully crying now, and yet he continued as if you were nothing.

He peppered your shoulder with kisses and had the slight decency to slow his pace, but he also took note of your sobs.

“Don’t tell me you still want him,” he began rambling, his lips still on your shoulder. “Don’t tell me after this that your heart still belongs to him, because if that were the case, I’d make you call him right now. Say you wish it was him instead of me, and that he’s the love of your life while you’re stuffed with my dick. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You could no longer think, and what you hated most was how reactive your body was—how you were just able to come for the third time, but Hyunjae’s dick solely being inside you snapped some other straw you weren’t aware you had, finding that your last high was incoming. 

Hyunjae had picked up the pace by then, and by knowing your body incredibly well, he reached down to your sensitive clit to relieve you. You both knew your fourth was arriving, and you held on tight to his arm.

“J-Jaehy- hyun, I’m—”

“Mine.”

You cried out, your entire body shaking, and Hyunjae pulled out, immediately releasing onto your back with a guttural moan after yanking off the condom. He was forced to catch his breath, watching you float in and out of consciousness.

Your eyes were closed, struggling to breathe through your sobs, and Hyunjae consoled you with a kiss on the back of your shoulder. 

“You’re mine, Y/N, whether you like it or not.”

He then pressed a kiss to your cheek before leaving to grab paper towels from his trunk. You were heaving, still shaking, and left alone as a mess in his backseat, yet with him gone, you felt even more useless, wanting him back by your side instantly. You weakly cried out for him, your nails dragging against the seat in hopes of being in his arms soon, and maybe he was right.

Maybe you were his.

OUR INFERNO [ M.LIST | TWO ]

NAVIGATION — THE BOYZ

© https://hcuyk.tumblr.com/

#OUR INFERNO | lee hyunjae #deoboyznet #hyunjae #the boyz #tbz series #hyunjae smut #hyunjae fluff #hyunjae angst #hyunjae x reader #the boyz imagine #the boyz fanfiction #the boyz scenario #lee sangyeon #jacob bae #kim younghoon #lee hyunjae #lee juyeon #kevin moon #choi chanhee #ji changmin #ju haknyeon #kim sunwoo #eric sohn #the boyz smut #tbz hard hours #tbz smut

[hannie-dul-set]

HOME FOR THE BITCHLESS [1].

SYNOPSIS. wherein your friend offers a room for you to crash in while your dorm is being renovated, but fails to mention that your new housemates don’t know how to talk to women (oh, and they also have an ongoing bet about you, too).

PAIRINGS. choi soobin, choi beomgyu, lee heeseung, park jongseong, sim jaeyun, park sunghoon x female! reader. GENRE. housemates! au, rom-com, sitcom, reverse harem time baby. WARNINGS. swearing, a house fire, mentions of sex, like the chapter title says there is too much underwear in this, an awful amount of embarrassing men WORD COUNT. 2.2k.

TAGLIST. @cerealdreamwriter @tyongff-ff @dinonuguaegi

NOTE. i have nothing to say except i hope you enjoy this shitshow as much as i enjoyed writing it. please check the link in the masterlist if you're curious about the layout of the house. feedback much appreciated i love u.

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

CHAPTER 1 — this is too much underwear for a first meeting.

YOU WISH YOU CAN TAKE BACK ALL YOUR COMPLAINTS ABOUT DORM LIFE. Sure, the disgusting, communal bathrooms scrape a year off of your lifespan every time you have to take a piss, and the abhorrently thin walls make you want to rip your ears out every time your neighbors have mind blowing sex, but hey— all of that is better than not having a roof above your head. Even if that roof is two years behind maintenance. 

But it’s all too late. You should’ve appreciated having a bed to sleep in before life pried it out from you in the form of a swirling inferno.

When the semester came to a close, your dormmates thought it would be a fantastic idea to throw an end-of-year party. The problem is, that party ended up in flames. Literally. The last person you saw entering the kitchen was Choi Yeonjun until something exploded and before you know it, there’s a stampede, and you’re choking on black fumes, and there’s suddenly a lightshow happening right before your very eyes with the dorm building you’ve been living in for the past year serving as the sparkler.

Holy shit, your dorm is burning down.

It’s a good thing that the fire was stopped before it could reach your room. You don’t know what you’d do if all your notes and textbooks burnt down along with half of the building into debris. Even prior to the fire, a lot of the facilities were janky and needed to be renovated, so you had to pack your bags and find somewhere else to stay for the next two months while the place went through repairs.

“Great,” you huff, filling your two carriers with the bare minimum you have collected in your unit. “This is just fucking great.” 

However, just when you’re falling into the brink of homelessness, a friend from your book club graciously offers you a room in his house as a saving grace from your misfortune.

“It’s a small bedroom compared to the rest, but you only have to share a bathroom with one other person! There’s also a laundry room and a living area on the same floor. It’s a big place, so it doesn’t feel stuffy at all even with six, seven people.”

You have no reason to decline Jake’s offer, especially when it’ll be just a temporary arrangement anyway. “Are you sure? You said you have housemates, right? Are they fine with living with another person on such short notice?”

“Yeah, they said it’s cool,” he assures, helping you load your luggage into the taxi. “I’ve been wanting to fill up the last bedroom anyway. The house is just too big even with our current living setup. The more the merrier.”

You’ve always known that Jake Shim was fucking rich. Not because he bragged or flaunted his wealth or anything— but because he’d drop the most privileged, tone-deaf shit at the most inappropriate times and no one can get pissed because he looks oh so innocent while saying them. You had once complained about stuffing yourself with too much meat during a club dinner and that one more bite will have you nauseous. He replied with, “oh yeah, I once ate wagyu steak for a good week in Japan and I got sick of it, too!” and you physically felt your economic status erode at that very moment.

He and you will never be the same. And that fact is made suffocatingly evident right now, as the vehicle slowly pulls into a fancy neighborhood and stops right before the fence of an unreasonably gigantic yard with an unreasonably gigantic house. You do feel a little poor when he shows off the pool and the two garages, but at the same time, beggars can’t be choosers.

Also, it’s a really nice fucking house.

It’s three stories tall, with a covered deck and a substantial amount of outdoor lounging areas. Floor to ceiling windows give you a glimpse of the modern interior of the foyer and spacious living room. You’re a little afraid of getting used to such luxury that you might never want to come back to your old, dingy dorm room— but with every blessing comes a curse.

Jake did mention that you will be living with six other people including him. What he did not mention is that those ‘other people’ would all be men.

Imagine your shock when you’re greeted by a whole ass man in nothing but neon green boxers and shades the moment you slip through the sliding doors of testosterone hell.

Very. You’re very shocked. 

“Hey, man,” Jake greets the almost naked individual who is also holding a bowl of cereal in the middle of the afternoon, presumably having just walked out of the kitchen. “What’s with the glasses?” That’s not the biggest issue here. You can see the outline of his fucking penis.

“Oh,” he reacts. “It was just so bright when I got out of the room.”

Jake nods. “That makes sense.” No it does not.

“I think it just got even brighter.”

You can’t tell, but you assume he’s squinting at you underneath his shades. You believe you might also need a pair because there’s definitely a contender in being the brightest thing in the room, so you try your best to not be distracted by the neon of his undies as Jake introduces you to him. “And this is Park Jongseong— or Jay, as he prefers to be called.”

“Call me whatever you like,” Jay smiles at you and reaches out his non-cereal hand for a handshake. He seems chill enough. Maybe he’s just a very laid back person who doesn’t care about general appearances. You can work with that.

“Nice to meet you.” You shake on it. “Aren’t you cold, by the way?”

When he retrieves his hand, he combs his fingers through his hair, ruffling the strands. “My friends often say that I am pretty cool.”

“No, I mean cold,” you clarify. “That does look like a statement, but I’m worried you might get sick.”

You’re starting to get an inkling that you have misjudged Jay. It takes him a few seconds to understand what you were referring to, until a breeze passes by from the open entrance and suddenly, he looks down. “Oh,” he flatly says. “Of fuck.” And the innocent bowls cereal crashes and spills into the ground as Jay disappears into the hallway to your right.

You and Jake stare at the milk minutely seeping into the wooden floor. “I was gonna ask him to help you with your luggage but—” Where Jay disappears, a new person emerges (fully clothed this time, thankfully). “Oh! Hyung, come help.”

He has his neck turned back as he walks up to the both of you. You can hear the sound of footsteps scrambling from where the newcomer is looking at. “What happened to Jay?”

“I don’t know, but let me introduce you to our new housemate!”

“Hi there.” You give him a smile.

Jake tells you his name is Choi Beomgyu, and Choi Beomgyu doesn’t exactly look like he’s keen on accepting your handshake. Instead, all he does is stare you down with his arms crossed, eyes scaling your entire height like he’s doing a motherfucking evaluation. You’re trying your damn best to maintain a pleasant expression. You almost break when he quits his rude staring and turns over to Jake. “So, you need me to help carry her things?” The bastard isn’t even talking directly to you. Your pride can’t take this hit.

“No, it’s alright. I can take care of these myself. Thanks!” Jake flinches when you snatch your second carrier from his hands. “Third floor, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Got it.” 

Yes, you might have shoved past Beomgyu on purpose, but that’s not the point. You leave the two behind to take care of Jay’s fallen cereal as you struggle to lug your luggage up the staircase. You manage to bring them all the way to the second floor landing before your arms give in and you let the two cases settle on the floor with a huff. When you pause to take a breather, you catch a familiar face walking down the stairs from above. You recognize him from Jake’s instagram stories. You’re sure his name is Lee Heeseung. “Oh! Let me help!” he quickly exclaims after noticing the situation, hurrying down the steps. “You’re the new addition to our residence, right?”

“Yes, I am, and it’s totally fine! You don’t have to—”

Big mistake. You should’ve just let him help, but you’re a little prideful so you reach out for the carrier he took, and when your fingers brush against the back of his hand, the man suddenly drops the fucking case and retracts his entire arm. You stare, wide-eyed, as Heeseung stumbles back to the ground next to your carrier that happened to crack open in the fray and is now spilling out all your clothes like guts and blood. Behind Heeseung, the door creaks open. “Is everything oka— oh my god, is that a b-bra—”

Well. It is, in fact, a bra, and its color seems to match the flushed face of the poor, unsuspecting individual that just opened the door out of concern for his friend. You make eye contact with him once before he retreats into his room with a loud slam! Heeseung is still on the floor and he’s now profusely apologetic.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, please let me help—” The issue dawns on him belatedly, right when it’s already too late and he has your undergarment in his hands in the midst of trying to undo his mistake. “I don’t think I should help.”

“Good call.” You kneel down, politely prying your blood red bra from Heeseung as you proceed to gather the rest of your clothes back into the carrier.

“I should cut my hands off.”

Oh no. “Hey, it was an accident. It’s fine—” When you try to reach a hand out to give him a completely innocent, completely harmless pat on the shoulder for assurance, he flinches back again. Now your arm is awkwardly hanging mid-air and you’re both looking at each other with shared looks of alarm. The exchange (or lack thereof) reminds you of a forgotten memory— a memory from your childhood. Snacktime all throughout elementary school, to be specific, when all the boys would fucking run away from you and your girl friends for having cooties.

This moment is oddly reminiscent of that and you don’t want to acknowledge it.

“What happened? I heard a crash, is everything alright?”

By the time Jake arrives, you have already managed to clear up the crime scene. With a grunt, you get back up and prepare yourself for another round of heavy lugging. “Can you tell me where my room is? I think you should stay here and make sure your friend is okay.”

“It’s...the first door through the hallway, next to Sunghoon’s. Hyung, are you good?”

You have no idea who the fuck Sunghoon is, but you nod in acknowledgement anyway. “Who’s the person living in that room?” 

“Soobin hyung,” Jake answers, helping a dazed Heeseung back to his feet. “Why?”

“You should go check on him, too.”

With that, you leave another mess in your wake as you climb up the flight of stairs to the third floor. You can’t wait to rest. You really want to lie down. But when you walk past the hallway, entering into the floor’s unreasonably cozy living area, you’re met with a fucking fork in the road.

There’s one door right across the hallway, but when you open it, it’s not a bedroom, but a laundry room. So you make a sharp right to the archway opening up to three doors on each of the walls. Jake should have been more specific with what he meant by the first door. You don’t want to take a risk and walk into something you’d fucking regret.

Fortunately, someone emerges from the door on your right and reveals what looks to be a bathroom. You assume he’s Sunghoon, and Sunghoon nearly doubles over when he turns around and meets eyes with you. His expression stiffens, and you’re both just standing there for a good moment and looking at each other without saying anything.

You press your lips into a smile. Holy shit, he’s intimidating. Why the fuck isn’t he saying anyting?

“Hi. I’m—”

“S—shit—”

Suddenly, he’s gone. He’s disappeared into the room in the center after struggling to open the door for a bit. You’re left dumbfounded, but at least now you know where your room is.

You slot the key Jake gave you and twist open the doorknob. The empty room greets you with a body slam of fatigue, and before you know it, you’re sinking face down into the bed and you have no energy left in your fingertips. Admittedly, you have questioned yourself multiple times upon first entering the house whether you made the right decision, whether it’d be better to find an apartment, or maybe you should just crash at your parent’s place for the time being.

But this bed is more comfy than any hotel suite you’ve ever been to, and your bank account isn’t suffering from an enormous dent. Six disastrous men is nothing when you’re able to call a place your home. You can already envision where you’ll be placing your new bookshelf. They’d have to pry your new house key from your cold, dead hands if they want you out of here.

HOME FOR THE BITCHLESS. © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

#tomorrow x together x reader #enhypen x reader #txt x reader #enha x reader #choi soobin x reader #choi beomgyu x reader #lee heeseung x reader #park jongseong x reader #sim jaeyun x reader #park sunghoon x reader #tomorrow x together scenarios #enhypen scenarios #txt scenarios #enha scenarios #home for the bitchless

[taahko]

I just found your blog today can you please explain or point out a post that explains the MASH timeloop thing? I love the show but I've never heard anyone talk abt it that way before

oh yay hurray ive been waiting for an excuse to talk about this lmao sorry this is long

ok so basically maeve (my gf) and i started watching mash for the first time about a month ago and we started joking about it being like the characters were stuck in a time loop mostly because the same basic episode format is repeated over and over, because it's a sitcom from the 70s and the episodes arent meant to be watched en masse where you can start noticing all the little repetitions and plot holes and inconsistencies that naturally occur in longform tv

but then i started to pay attention to the dates being mentioned in the show - famously the korean war never technically ended, but american troops were involved in active on the ground fighting between 1950 and 1953, so the entire 11 seasons of mash have to be squeezed into that three year period. with 251 episodes occurring within 1,129 days, that gives every episode about 4.5 days of real time. so it works right? no time loop right? well wait a sec

for the first 5 seasons or so of mash they give very consistent dates about when things are happening. for example, bj arrives in korea in september of 1952, at the start of season 4. colonel potter arrives about a week after him, and talks about how he has 18 months left before his retirement. that gives us about 7 months for the shows final 7 seasons to take place in, meaning that by the episode 'point of view' in season 7 we should be around december of 1952. in that episode the pov character starts writing a letter home and in the corner he writes the date:

september of 1951. ok, could be that this episode isn't meant to take place in the regular timeline of the season - maybe for some reason its just like, a random flashback episode. but bj, charles, and potter are all present, even though none of them got to korea until 1952. now i KNOW that this is not like, the True Hidden Secret Lore of MASH, this is the writers realizing they were running out of road and turning back the clock a bit to accommodate for how long the show was running on. but play in my time loop space with me please

more talking points:

consistent jokes about time zones and how difficult it is to call the states because "our today is their yesterday but if you call them now it might not reach them until our tomorrow and by that point our yesterday will be their today"

hawkeye's increasing mania over the seasons and his conviction that the war will never end, comparing the camp to dante's inferno multiple times. maeve once pointed out that the closer hawkeye comes to realizing that he's trapped in a time loop the closer he gets to being institutionalized - and what does the series finale cold open onto ? hawkeye in a mental institution. the only way out is to lose yourself etc. sidenote frank also escaped the time loop by going insane and getting institutionalized

in a war for all seasons bj potter and charles are all present at the 1951 new years party as well as the 1952 new years party

there are three christmas episodes, two of which bj is present for even though he should only have spent one christmas in korea

details of people's families and lives shift around - sometimes potter's got multiple grandchildren, sometimes he only has one, sometimes its a girl, sometimes its a boy, sometimes she's 5, sometimes he's 2

we're not the first people to talk about this either, here's a good video compilation posted a couple yrs ago of time loop moments

overall ive been using the time loop thesis to add another layer to my mash viewing experience. it increases the already present sense of constant dread, anger, frustration, and disgust with their situation that the characters feel, plus it feels like a very poignant take on the united states' constant warmongering and violent existence. it really never ends, it just goes on an on. the future's been canceled by the war department- we're just gonna replay the past.

#shut up aggie #mash #might add more to this later

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.”

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

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