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#and i got basil when he was well over a year
upsidedownwithsteve · 6 months
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dad!Eddie Munson x fem!reader
kidfic from the simmer verse 🍳 inspired by this ask/tiktok
When your daughter turned six, you and Eddie moved out of your apartment and into a home fit for a family. One with a big bay window and a huge garden, an oak tree out the back for Eddie to hang a swing from.
It came with a wrap around porch and the kitchen of Eddie’s dreams and Maeve got to pick the colour for her new bedroom, a mustard yellow that made her room feeling like an eternal summer. She was her daddy’s girl, a princess.
And then she turned twelve.
Eddie was in the kitchen when Maeve appeared, already so much taller than Eddie liked, her hair the same colour as yours but as curly as her fathers. She was just as pouty now, preteen hormones making her perpetually moody, sulking in corners and stealing away to her bedroom with Basil.
Now? Now she seemed to be on a mission.
“Dad?”
Eddie looked up from the cook book he was reading, tired eyed after an early morning meeting at the restaurant. They were making a new menu and Eddie had been worn thin, working too late and coming home to make you taste test all his new ideas. You never complained.
“Yeah, squish?”
“I’m hungry,” Maeve announced, sliding herself onto one of the barstools at the large island. Copper pots hung on a rack from the ceiling, casting bronze coloured reflections off of the girls cheeks. She still had freckles from the summer, a scratch on her chin from where uncle Argyle had tried to teach her how to skateboard. “Can you make me something?”
“Yeah, babe, sure,” Eddie wandered over to the fridge and he pulled out some containers. He wiggled one enticingly. “I made some mac ‘n’ cheese last night, you want me to hear some up?”
Maeve wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like mac ‘n’ cheese.”
Eddie’s face fell and his frown matched his daughters perfectly. If you’d been home from work, you would’ve laughed and called her his comeuppance.
“Well, you liked it fine last week.”
The twelve year old just shrugged, her legs swinging from her stool. “Well, I don’t anymore,” she replied with just as much indignation as her dad. “Can I get some pizza pockets?”
Now Eddie really did huff. The only reason the box of pastry abominations were in his freezer to begin with is because you’d done the last grocery shop. He narrowed his eyes at Maeve but moved to the freezer door when she giggled.
“We need to teach you some taste, kid,” Eddie tried to act stern. “How many you want? You starvin’?”
Maeve leaned onto her elbows and let her hands squish her cheeks. Her nails were black and glittery, painted carefully by you a few nights before and she’d proudly shown her dad her colour choice when he came home from work. “I don’t know, just two.”
“You don’t know?” Eddie questioned and he peered over his shoulder, the over door open. “You said you were hungry, babe. This is a meal for a hamster.”
Basil appeared at the mention of rodents, the black cat slinking into the kitchen to wind around Eddie’s ankles.
“I’ll have some chips too.” Maeve announced. “And some sliced apple, but only like, four slices, okay?”
Eddie blinked. “Four?”
“Yes, please.”
Well, at least she had manners. Eddie grumbled under his breath but did as told, shoving in the pizza horror before washing off an apple under the tap. He cut it as his girl watched, chomping every other slice until only four remained.
The timer on the oven had five minutes left. “Anything else, princess?”
Maeve seemed to ponder this question before she nodded, her little face as serious as could be. “Some grapes too, but just ten. And if there’s some baby bells left, I’ll have one. Oh, and seven gummy worms.”
Eddie’s lips were parted, his brows raised as he stared across the counter at his daughter. He didn’t know whether to laugh or call you and ask if this was some kind of prank he didn’t know about.
“What?”
Maeve blinked. “What?”
So Eddie huffed again and got out a plate, murmuring nonsense to himself as he gathered Maeve’s order, glaring playfully at her as he counted out exactly ten grapes. She grinned as she leaned over, laughing mischievously as she plucked one from the plate.
And when Eddie gasped, all theatrical, Maeve pointed to her plate and told him quite plainly around a mouthful of fruit, “dad, I said ten.”
Eventually, the timer beeped and two pizza pockets with oozing fake cheese were added to the plate. Eddie slid it over with a flourish, cackling when Maeve took offence to one gummy worm touching the pizza sauce that had leaked out. So he snatched it and shoved it into his mouth biting off the side with the sauce before dropping it back onto her plate.
“Dad! Ew!” Maeve gasped, throughly insulted but she slunk off her stool and Eddie flicked her on the as she passed, grinning when she scurried back to her room with Basil at her feet.
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muertawrites · 2 years
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Of Incense and Intimacy (Eddie Munson x Reader) [18+]
Summary: Your roommate's recreational habits tend to wreak havoc on your anxious sensitivities, so you burn a little incense with him to help you both relax. Maybe choosing a scent called "love spell" wasn't the best idea....
Warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, the devil's lettuce, explicit descriptions of secks (minors i fucking see you stay behind the beaded curtain), raw dogging (wear a fuckin' raincoat y'all don't be dumb), mentions of the dirty touch, perv!eddie my beloved, my daddy kink continuing to control every aspect of my life
Word Count: 3.5k (she long and thick this time babes)
Author's Note: i just like incense a lot. ever since i got a backflow burner it's become my entire personality. my room smells amazing.
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You hate doing this, ruining his fun. Especially because you know it's how he relaxes; how he deals with his own problems. Still, the tightening of your chest, the shallowness of your breathing, the fear starting to creep its way out of the corners of your mind sends you across the hall, tapping on his door.
Eddie answers in a puff of cannabis smoke, and you instinctively cover your mouth and nose with your shirt. Even in his hazy, glazed-over frame of mind, he knows exactly why you're here, and he immediately apologizes.
"Oh, shit, pumpkin, I'm sorry."
He dashes back into his room, stubbing out the joint in his hand and opening his window a crack, despite the winter chill. You stand in the doorway and sigh.
"No, I'm sorry," you say. "I'm a shit roommate."
"You have clinical anxiety." He annunciates the words as he returns to you, leaning against the door frame and giving your hair a quick, gentle pet. "It's okay."
You grimace as you flinch away, choked by the skunky smell emanating from him.
"That shit reeks," you huff. "You don't have anything better?"
Eddie chuckles, shoving the sleeve of his sweatshirt under your nose to tease you. He laughs as you smack him away.
"The high quality stuff brings in too much money," he explains. "Unless you want me to stop pitching in for takeout."
You roll your eyes and hold a finger up, telling him to wait.
"I'm not living with that stench all night."
You disappear into your bedroom, returning with a couple ceramic dishes and a stack of different sized boxes. Eddie raises an eyebrow as you set them up on his dresser, handing him a few of the boxes and directing him to choose some of the contents. He opens the topmost one, labeled "fairy dust", and removes one of the clay-coated sticks inside.
"Incense?" he realizes. He holds the stick up to his face, the scent so sweet it burns his nostrils. "Is this why your room always smells so good?"
You nod, shuffling through a few of the smaller boxes.
"It covers up the smell of weed," you explain. "I started using it like a week after we moved in together."
Eddie smirks, looking through the other scents you've brought over. Some of them are simple and self-explanatory, like basil and lily, but others are more vague, like "mystique" and "decadence". He pauses when he comes across a box marked with the words "love spell", grinning at you in that impish, borderline perverse way you know too well.
"You trying to seduce me?" he jests, waggling his eyebrows.
"I'd have to do way less than this to seduce you," you laugh. You shriek when his pillow smacks you in the back of the head.
"I'm not desperate," he defends himself. "I've been dry for over a year, y'know."
"We share a wall," you remind him. "I can hear you masturbate. Twice a day. It's like you don't even try to keep quiet."
He scoffs, attempting to play off the fierce blush that burns across his cheeks. You giggle at him; he's way too cute.
"What's weirder is that I never hear you masturbate," he deflects. "I'm starting to worry."
"I masturbate," you state matter-of-factly. "I'm just considerate enough to shut the fuck up about it."
Eddie tries to ignore the way the image of you pleasuring yourself, just feet away from him, makes his cock twitch. He clears his throat as he hands you one of the boxes, choosing at random.
"Here."
You examine it, grinning up at him.
"You picked the one called 'wizard'?" you tease. "Not surprised."
He chuckles, settling himself on the end of his mattress as he watches you place an incense stick upright in your burner and set it alight with the Zippo he keeps next to his stash. The flame flares, searing a thick, smoky path down the tip of the stick before you blow it out, leaving nothing but glowing embers and heavy, fragrant smoke curling into the air. He fixates on the purse of your lips, barely staving off the lewd thoughts that float through his mind.
As the smell of sugar and sandalwood perfumes the confined space, you pop open one of the smaller boxes and remove an incense cone from it, setting it strategically at the top of the second dish. This one is shaped like a pond, beveled with stones, complete with sculpted lily pads and painted koi. When you light the tip of the cone, sweet sage drifts upward on the wisps of smoke, waves of it cascading down the ceramic stones and into the waiting pool below.
Eddie's eyes grow wide, watching the display as if you're performing magic. You smile, curling up on his mattress so you can comfortably enjoy the view.
"That's so fucking cool," he gasps. He lays back beside you, his body fitting nicely next to yours. There isn't much room on his full bed, so you're pressed together, your head falling onto his stomach to compensate for the lack of space.
"Yeah, I knew you'd like it," you muse. "I was gonna get you one for your birthday."
You lay like that for a while, until the incense stick burns out, the silence and shared warmth far too easy between you. Eddie's arm migrates around your shoulders, hugging you close, your leg somehow finding its way between his as you fold yourself more and more into him. The scent of weed still lingers after the incense is gone, so you stand and light another, Eddie whining at the loss of your touch.
Rose petals and musk fill the air as you return to the bed, this time straddling your roommate's lap as he sits leaned against his pillows and the wall. He quirks a brow at you but doesn't protest, his hands falling without hesitation around your waist, keeping you there.
"... Maybe I am trying to seduce you. A little bit," you admit.
He smirks, eyes still glassy from his high.
"You're joking," he replies. There's no way that you - beautiful, intelligent, fiery you - want to have sex with him.
But you shake your head, arms draping over his shoulders as your chest presses to his.
"I think you're hotter than sin, Eddie Munson. And you're my best friend. I can't think of anyone I'd rather be in bed with."
Maybe it's the pot. Maybe it's how pretty you look with your hair up, greasy and messy, a day past needing a wash. Maybe it's the feel of your unconfined breasts pushed against him under your sweater. Maybe it's simply how he loves you, but can't find the words to admit it. Whatever the reason, Eddie closes the space between you with a tender, tentative kiss, his thumb grazing the naked skin just under your shirt. You smile softly against his lips, opening your mouth so they can slot together with yours, tongues finding each other with the gentlest little push.
"You taste good," he murmurs. You peck his lips as he pulls away to speak, gazing dreamily into his honey brown eyes.
"You taste like smoke," you tell him. He chuckles, returning your tiny smooch.
You take your time, savoring each other's kisses and touches in a heated round of sucking face. Eddie's movements are slow and deliberate, his tongue and his lips moving in sync with yours while his large, calloused palms rub loving circles into the skin under your sweater. When you pull away to breathe, he licks teasingly at your lips, grinning as you giggle softly. He presses lazy kisses along your jaw, your eyes falling blissfully closed as he works his way down your neck, nipping and sucking at your flesh. He's hard under his sweatpants, but he's in no rush - he loves having you close, loves having the time to worship your body the way you deserve. You knot your fingers in his hair and he lets out a breathy little moan, the sound so melodic you could listen to it on repeat for hours.
"What do you think about when you masturbate?" he wonders aloud. He thoughtfully licks his lips as he levels his face once again, brushing his nose against yours. His eyes are heavily lidded.
"It used to be Jeff Goldblum, before he gets all gross in The Fly," you divulge. "But since living with you, it's just you. The sounds you make... it's like having my own private porno."
You smirk as Eddie blushes, his hand squeezing gently at your love handle. You've masturbated... to him masturbating? All while he was none the wiser? That can't be right. He must be hearing things, mustering his own fantasies into being.
"You're so pretty..." he whispers, losing track of his thoughts.
You giggle, playfully licking at his lips the way he did yours.
"What do you think about?" you ask in return.
"You," he answers without a beat. "How you look when you walk around in just a big t-shirt. I like to imagine you riding me like that. Or when you're in the shower, I... I sometimes masturbate thinking of you in there."
Your tongue grazes over your bottom lip, teeth sinking into it as the muscle disappears into your mouth and you smile. He's shocked that you're not totally disgusted.
"I want you to bend me over," you confess.
He blinks. This can't be for real.
"What, no missionary first?" he asks.
You laugh, pressing an affectionate kiss against his lips. He returns it reflexively, grinning into you, adoring the sound of your laugh.
"Just fuck me," you whisper. "It's about time we got naked together."
Eddie obliges without further convincing. He lifts your sweater over your head, drinking in the sight of your bare tits without shame. You kiss him again as your hands run under his sweatshirt, groping at his bare skin as he guides the offending fabric up and away, tossing it somewhere to be forgotten. He takes your face in his hands and presses his chest against yours, sighing into your mouth at the feel of your bodies so close, without anything between them. He's warm, his chest broad and firm, his arms forming a protective brace around you. Something so salacious as preparing for sex with your roommate has no right feeling as loving as this does.
"Stand up," Eddie instructs.
You climb off the mattress, giggling as he takes you by the hips and positions you between his legs. He kisses the space between your breasts, his breath fanning delicately over your skin as he eases your sweatpants down your legs, fingers teasing your exposed thighs. Your first instinct is to be embarrassed - you haven't shaved in well over two weeks, and you're afraid he'll be put off by it. But he's unfazed, too enamored with you to really care. His eyes graze over your body with lovelorn grace, still very much under the influence of the drugs, but clear enough to remain totally tuned in to you.
"Undress me."
He stands so he's towering over you, snaring you in another kiss before you make your way downward, trailing your lips languidly over his torso until you're kneeling before him; you pause on your way to kitten lick his nipple, and the sharp intake of his breath at the tease thrills you.
You don't bother taking your time with his sweats, unraveling the drawstring with expert precision and letting them fall, immediately grasping at the base of his cock. It's a pretty thing, long and perfectly thick, the tip poking out handsomely from the hood of his uncut foreskin. You stroke at him gently, grinning up at him with your lip between your teeth.
"You're as perverted as I am, aren't you, sweet little thing?" Eddie chuckles. You don't miss the way he twitches in your palm.
"I learned from the best," you reply with a wink.
His grin doesn't disappear as you run your tongue up the underside of his head, tasting the salt of precum as you gently suckle at the tip. He breathes an airy moan, his hand falling to the nape of your neck.
"Just let me fuck you, baby," he pleads. "I'll use your mouth another time."
You raise yourself up, unable to stop yourself from taking him in for another kiss. He's addicting, the feel of his lips twined with yours almost, if not as good as the sex you've been aching to have with him.
Eddie's hands don't leave your waist as you crawl back on to his mattress, bending down on your elbows and knees and arching your back in a display of catlike sensuality. He's quick to fall behind you, smoothing his palm down the curve of your back before bringing it with a sharp smack down on your ass cheek. You yelp, already dripping through the petals of your pussy in anticipation of his cock.
He runs two fingers through your slick, feeling you out; in the floor length mirror beside his window, you watch him raise those fingers to his lips and suck them clean.
"So sweet," he drawls. "I can't wait to make you cum with my tongue."
"I've never been eaten out before," you mention, catching his eyes in the mirror. They've got a mischievous gleam, not leaving yours as he runs the head of his cock up and down the length of your opening.
"You'll never want anyone else between your thighs once I'm done with you," he promises.
He dips himself inside you, causing you to gasp at the sudden rush of pain that always comes with the first breach of your walls. Your face scrunches, fingers gripping at his sheets as he takes hold of your hips, gently and carefully easing you onto him.
"It hurt?" he questions. The concern in his voice is obvious, and it makes you want for him even more.
"Only for a moment," you assure him. He gives a little nod, pulling out slightly before slipping back in, his cock stroking against you and relaxing your muscles. You breathe out a sigh, the pain fading into delicious fullness.
"Fuck, Eddie," you gasp. "Why didn't you mention you have the dick of a porn star?"
He chuckles, giving you another playful spank as he bottoms out, his head just kissing your cervix.
"Same reason you never mentioned your pussy was so perfectly deep and tight, I guess."
He grips you by the waist and starts to fuck, moaning as he sets a steady pace so you can both savor the feeling of each other. You stretch your torso out on his mattress, curling your body so he's hitting you right at your deepest point, an angle that has him groaning and mewling the way you're all too familiar with.
"Fuck, sweetheart, you look so good for me," he praises. "Taking my cock into that sweet little pussy..."
He brings his hand down once again, causing you to moan with the pleasurable sting of his palm against your skin. He continues to spank, thrusting in time with each hit until your cheeks are rosy and tender with the imprint of his palm. Your tongue rolls out of your mouth as he picks up his pace, eyes closing as you smile with bliss.
"Oh, that's my good girl," he growls. "Loving the way daddy uses her as his little fuck toy."
One of his hands raises to curl around the back of your neck, holding you in place as he starts to pound ruthlessly into you, your legs shaking as the sensation of him filling you reaches high into your stomach.
"You're so good baby... so good... mmmm, fuck, shit, heck, you feel incredible on my cock... Fuuuuuuuck, baby... Fuck...!"
You giggle at his intonations, mewling sweetly as his hips snap against yours, the sound of your thighs slapping together echoing off the walls. You can hear your sticky wetness clinging to his shaft, a harmony to back the loud groans he releases every time he thrusts.
"Right there, Eddie..." you coax. "Fuck, babe, right there... Make me cum..."
He guides your body forward, laying you flush against the blankets as he positions his body prone above yours, his arm wrapping around your neck to steady you. He doesn't stop railing into you, panting heavily in your ear, the thin plastic of the ever-present guitar pick around his neck bobbing against your back. You roll your hips into his, meeting his thrusts, and he lets out sound so sweet you think he might actually be crying.
"Oh, god, sugar, yes..." he snarls. "Keep fucking yourself on my cock... fuck, fuck, yeah, just like that... oh, love, you feel so fucking good..."
His relentless pace has built up a knot in your abdomen, one that releases with an explosion throughout your entire body. You cry out in ecstasy, your limbs fizzling with the shock of your orgasm, your toes curling as you ride the wave of indescribable pleasure out for its impossible length. As soon as Eddie feels you tighten around him, he clenches the base of his cock, staving away his own release as he fucks you through to the end. Once you relax, he gingerly unsheathes himself; you roll so you're facing him, repositioning yourself with bended knees so you can curl your fingers around the handsome appendage and stroke him, savoring his enamored cries as he cums onto your stomach and breasts. His breathing is ragged as the thick, pearly strings of semen cease to erupt from his slit. He collapses onto the mattress beside you with a satisfied huff.
For a few minutes, all you do is lay beside each other, filling each other's space while your breathing regains its normal rhythm and your bodies come back to themselves. Eventually, Eddie gets up and disappears, returning with the pack of baby wipes you keep in your room. He cleans you off, removing every trace of the depravity you've shared and kissing your stomach once you're pure again. He wipes himself off as well, pitching both the used cloths and the ash left in your burner into the little trash can beside his nightstand. The incense has long since burnt out.
Eddie crawls back into bed with you, lifting the blankets over you both and slipping between them, placing a kiss on your shoulder as he presses his chest to your back. You're laying with your heads on the foot of his bed, but that hardly matters; he's actually holding you, close and tight and with his face buried in your hair. It's such a small thing, but you've never been treated with this much tenderness before.
"What's wrong?" he asks. He can read you like a book and it makes you want to cry.
"... You're just being really good to me," you whisper. "You're not... You're not done with me."
"Of course not," he murmurs. He brushes a few stray wisps away from your face, clearing a space for his lips to press a light kiss into your temple. "If I just wanted you for sex I'd have made a move a long time ago. I... I kind of feel things for you. Like... a lot of things."
You turn to face him, hugging him close and hiding your face in his chest. He kisses the top of your head, his fingers making a delicate trail down the length of your spine.
"Thank you for putting up with me," you say. "And for driving me to the hospital that time my contact high gave me a panic attack."
Eddie chuckles, giving your love handle an affectionate squeeze.
"Any time, pumpkin. That's still the best date I've ever had."
You smile, letting out a breathy laugh into his skin.
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Over the next couple weeks, Eddie slowly migrates his things into your room, making a habit of sharing a bed even when you're not having sex. His old room becomes a studio, and the other members of Corroded Coffin are excited when he tells them they finally have their own recording space. They're sprawled out on the floor, sharing a joint in celebration when the new setup finally dawns on Jeff.
"Did your roommate move out?" he inquires.
"Not really," Eddie responds with a shrug. "More like I moved in."
Jeff and Gareth share a skeptical look. As if on cue, you appear in the doorway, wearing a pair of Eddie's boxers and tossing him a pack of basil-scented incense, which he catches without so much as a flinch.
"Put it out, please," you request. "I'm starting to get jitters."
"Yes, dear. Our apologies."
He flashes you a giddy, awestruck smile as he reaches for the ashtray. He then blows you an exaggerated kiss, to which you just roll your eyes and grin.
"You're a fucking dork," you tell him.
"Love you too, angel babe."
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💀🌹 masterlist 🌹💀
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prodigal-explorer · 3 months
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why i hate sunflower (sunny x basil) - a rather unprofessional essay
spoilers for omori below
and also i'm not gonna tag this as hate because it's literally just the truth. cry about it.
respectfully, it's a horrible ship. i might just be saying that because i hate basil, but i just cannot see it ever being healthy. basil destroyed everybody's lives with what he did, and even if they decide to forgive him, what happened to them won't just be reversed. not to mention the codepedent/abusive aspect of the whole situation.
basil expects sunny to dedicate his entire life to him and his emotional well-being. you shouldn't be responsible for anyone's emotional well-being when you're fifteen years old except for your own.
even in the game, there is evidence of something codependent. basil can't function like a decent human being when sunny explains that he's going away. basil literally HURTS SUNNY to the point where he needs to be hospitalized in an attempt to make him stay. and you think that would work romantically? heck no.
yeah, they smile at each other at the end, but does that really mean anything? forgiveness is great, but it doesn't take back what happened and the effects it had. sunny will always remember when he tried to leave and got his eye taken out.
and the fact that sunny is so heavily traumatized because of what basil decided to do to his dead sister is just insane to me. he's always going to see that image. i get that basil had good intentions or whatever but intention doesn't equal effect. if i ran you over with my car, it doesn't matter that i was twelve or that it was an accident. you would still have to go to the hospital.
and when people say "but he was just a kid he didn't know any better!". if basil had the cognitive ability to think of doing that, he had to cognitive ability to stop, or AT LEAST to admit what he did. if he did, then hero wouldn't blame himself for years and years, aubrey wouldn't have been abandoned, and mari would have been respected after she died. what basil did was extreme disrespect to the dead and it gives me chills just thinking about it.
and he did it to sunny's SISTER.
i just don't see why you guys don't care more about that? that's a bit more than a little red flag that is like a red ocean.
end of story, sunflower is a horrible ship and i don't get why the fandom is so obsessed with it. it makes me sick just seeing it.
especially when this is such a beautiful story when you look at it from a friendship pov! why does everything have to be about romance and uwu little gay boys? i know damn well if basil was a girl nobody would be shipping him with sunny, you guys just want a gay male relationship to fixate on and infantilize because that's what toxic fandom people DO. but that's a digression.
anyway if you like sunflower you're a threat to society. womp womp go cry. or better yet stop shipping it that would be lovely.
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wavesmp3 · 5 months
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8000 layers of inyun
jeonghan x reader, joshua x reader - inspired by the movie past lives - wc: 6k - warnings: mentions of alcohol, like one curse i think - a/n: reader should be completely inclusive, i.e. not adhering to the background of the main character in the movie.
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[first hello]
when you met joshua for the first time, it was in the grassy backyard of a house in long island one mile away from the beach. at a rickety, white table with spots of black showing up beneath the layers of paint. it was three glasses of red wine in, two hours after you had laid eyes on him, and one hour after everyone else had headed inside for sleep. 
when you met joshua for the first time, you had told him about inyun. how even brushing by someone’s shoulder on the street or locking eyes with a stranger on the metro meant there was something there between the two of you in a past life. he looked amazed at the notion. you thought he looked quite pretty. “that would mean we had something together in a past life, wouldn’t it?” he had asked. and even then, you could tell–he’s such a writer. there was a story already rising from the dark corners of his mind. you had just nodded. and told him about all the layers between two lovers, and about the 8000 it takes to take one’s hand and whole-heartedly decide you want to marry them. 
you don’t really remember joshua’s cheeks turning pink at the line. what you do remember is the sky changing colors. you remember how golden he looked under the string lights. you remember leaning into his face, almost falling forward, bracing yourself with a hand on his knee. 
you remember kissing him for the first time. 
*****
[jeonghans coming] 
joshua is already cooking dinner by the time you come home. you stop in front of the gray door, noticing for the first time in a while the scratch in the top corner from the massive yellow armchair you stuffed through the door even when it refused to fit through. you smile at the scratch, stretch your arm out to finger over the light brown mark. how long ago was that now? was that before or after you got married? you inhale. the air smells like wet concrete and basil. joshua forgot to turn on the exhaust fan, didn’t he? 
you don’t remind him to do so once you finally find your keys. instead you slip off your old, faded sneakers, drop your keys on the counter in the lime green dish you made in a pottery class two years ago, and greet him in the kitchen, kissing the side of his chin and reaching over his head to turn the exhaust fan on. he kisses your forehead as an apology, or at least he tries but you’ve already moved and his lips end up catching on the corner of your left eye. you wash the day and the grime off you, washing away the train and the throbbing in your feet. you meet him again for dinner, at the table you call your dining table and your home office. he brings over two plates of the pasta. you bring the wine. 
“you know jeonghan.” it doesn’t hit you then that that’s the first thing you’ve said to him since you left that morning.
joshua squints. his eyes, his eyes, his eyes. they were the first thing you noticed about him. the first thing you fell in love with. “yeah. your childhood sweetheart.” this he says with a teasing smile. you smile back. his smile was the second thing you fell in love with. 
“he, uh, emailed me earlier today.” you shift in your stool. “he moved out of his parents’ house, i think, and is between jobs. he said he’s going to be visiting new york soon.” 
there’s a stillness in the air, then. a shock beneath the table that’s curling around your calves and inching up your arms.
joshua, though, despite how well you know him, despite your knack to see through every emotion he feigns, still tries to nod it off. “oh. when is he coming?”
“in two weeks. “
“that’s soon.”
“i know.”
“are you going to see him?” there’s no mask of emotion here. everything in joshua’s mind and heart you can read in his eyes, except that reading doesn’t mean understanding and five years of marriage doesn’t mean you know someone’s every thought. you don’t know what to say. you don’t know what he wants. you don’t even know what you want. all you know is jeonghan’s email. you spent two hours staring at it this afternoon. jeonghan, as you knew him, was a straightforward guy. he explicitly said in the email what he wants: to spend a day or two with you while he’s here, as much time as you can spare, show him the city you moved to when you turned 21. show him the country you moved to when you were 13. but beneath the straightforward request feels like a million subliminal ones. like he wants you to prove to him that you’ve made a life worth living here. like he wants to gallivant around new york telling you about a country that used to be home and asking you what would have happened if you didn’t go all those years ago. 
but jeonghan isn’t like you and joshua, he doesn’t make reading into subtext and writing a 100 pages about it his job. so you tell joshua what you decided on the train ride back. 
“yeah, i think i will.” and with the way your stomach twists, it feels like a confession.
*****
[first goodbye]
your first goodbye with jeonghan is when you’re young. it happens on the last day of school for you before your family’s big move to the states. even though you only found out a couple weeks ago, you knew this move was a long time coming. maybe that’s why you didn’t say anything when your parents told you it was happening. maybe that’s why you just went to your room and started packing. 
jeonghan’s been in the same class as you your whole life. his whole life too. and for your entire lives you’ve been making the same walk back home from school together. today is no different. and yet, isn’t it? it’s the same roads, yes, the same stairs and the same shops on the way. but the air is different, it smells like home. it smells like you already miss it. and you haven’t even left yet. 
the walk is almost entirely silent. 
the roads diverge towards the end, into a smaller path that leads to your home and the main road that jeonghan takes to get to his. you take one step into the path and stop. jeonghan stops too. he stares. you stare back. 
(you don’t realize it then, but it’s the last time you’ll see him in person for almost 20 years. one of the last times you’ll even speak to him in around 7. it’s the last time you’ll ever stand on this street, and one of the last times you’ll breathe this air. most importantly, it’s the last time you’ll ever be this young.)
your first goodbye with jeonghan isn’t much of a goodbye. it’s him asking when you leave. it’s you saying sometime tomorrow. it’s him frowning, patting your shoulder, and saying, “be well, and don’t cry over maths anymore.”
*****
[second hello]
you round the corner by the candy shop and walk inwards to the park. you used to live around here. but god, where haven’t you lived? you used to come into this park and watch people. the man towards the south entrance that always sat on the middle bench. the tourists walking up and down and around looking amazed and bored and helpless. tompkins square park used to be your favorite park in new york, but walking into it now, you can’t really remember why you liked it so much. you wonder why he chose this park specifically to meet in. did you mention it once on a skype call? does he think you still like it? or has he figured that you’ve already fallen out of love?
you see the back of his head before you see him. and for a moment you get an instantaneous rush of every feeling there is to feel from seeing him again, here, in a park you thought you loved. but it’s not the park and it’s not the city that makes your entire body go numb. it’s seeing him. jeonghan. jeonghan. jeonghan. it’s seeing him for the first time in–you don’t even want to admit to yourself how long. 
but the instantaneous rush ends, and your body and blood come back to earth and back to this park you hate, when he turns around and faces you facing him. 
and there are no words to be said. 
there used to be oceans and countries and cultures and decades standing between you and him, but somehow now, all of that has compressed into four squares of broken concrete. you were never very good at maths. jeonghan, the one who comforted you whenever you cried over it, knows that best. but even you know that there is no way 20 years can turn into 20 feet. so much has changed. more than could possibly be encompassed in any greeting. it’s indescribable and overwhelming. it’s you and him and the whole world. there are no words to be said. 
so you hug him instead. 
*****
[ferry]
it takes almost a full hour for the pure shock of seeing each other again to wear off. there’s so much joy and excitement between the two of you that for a couple minutes all you do is say ‘wow’, throwing the word back and forth like two kids playing catch. 
the first thing on your itinerary was already decided by jeonghan over email: seeing the statue of liberty. so, you and him board the ferry together, asking how his family’s doing and telling him about yours. 
“your husband,” jeonghan starts, turning slightly towards you in his seat on the ferry.
“joshua.” 
he nods, mouthing his name silently. “how did you guys meet?”
“we met at this writer's retreat thing. we were kind of… i don’t know–together–i guess, while we were there, and funnily enough, it was only on our second to last day there that we realized we both live in new york. and then, it was only when we got back that we started dating.”
jeonghan’s lips make a small ‘o’. “he’s a writer too?”
you nod. then smile.
“is he good?” this he asks with a hint of mischief. 
you scoff. “you think i’d marry someone who isn’t any good?” 
he just shrugs and smirks. an action you’ve seen him do a million times before. when you were a kid, it pissed you off. when you were 21, it made your heart flutter. now, it makes you feel like a stranger. it reminds you that all he is is somebody you used to know. 
“what?” he laughs, covering his mouth embarrassedly. you didn’t even realize you were staring. 
“you’ve just been a kid in my head for so long.” you shake your head, a smile haunting your lips. “it’s so weird seeing you all grown up.” 
he hums. “i feel that too.”
“are you and-” you leave the space blank there. social media had told you a lot, but you don’t remember it ever telling you a name, “still together.”
he grimaces. you wish you didn’t ask. “no. we broke up some time ago.”
jeonghan doesn’t say anything more about it, but honestly, it’d be more shocking if he did. even as a kid, he took things at face value, not going any deeper into contexts and double meanings. he isn’t too shy to ask what you mean, nor is he too shy to say it. that’s just who he is. 
“do you have pictures from your wedding?” jeonghan asks, pulling you out of your thoughts. you fetch your phone out of your pocket and show him your favorite picture from the event. you and joshua didn’t really have much money at the time of your wedding. it was a small, courthouse wedding with a dinner afterwards with just your families. the picture comes from when you were walking out of the courthouse together. with the small bouquet, joshua had purchased that morning, and the simple white dress you had thrifted a couple weeks prior. you were so happy, walking out of that building hand in hand. you were so hopeful. 
“you look very nice.” jeonghan tells you quietly, staring at the photo. you mutter a ‘thanks’. he then surprises you, bringing a hand up to the picture and wordlessly zooming in on your face. his gaze bounces between you and your picture. finally, looking up, he says, “you look so young.”
*****
the ferry stops for a bit near the statue, everyone rushes towards the corner nearest to the monument to take a photo. you offer to take his. he accepts, awkwardly smiling at first, fidgeting with the strap of his backpack, but then eventually, lightening up, posing cutely and requesting different angles. 
while the ferry heads back to manhattan, he carefully examines all the photos you took. it reminds you of when he told you about his photographer friend in college who took photos of him for fun. 
“why didn’t you want to keep talking then?” you ask abruptly. 
somehow, he knows exactly what you’re talking about. your second goodbye with him. the four minute skype call. 
he looks taken aback. he doesn’t look at you. “it didn’t really feel like you were giving me much of a choice.”
it’s not what you wanted to hear, but you don’t really think there’s anything he could’ve said to mend a ten year old wound born from a petty 21 year old desperate to love and be loved. 
“i held that over you for a long time. i was a bit mad.”
he responds immediately. “you said goodbye so quickly. i was a bit mad too.”
you frown. “should i be sorry?”
he half laughs at that, shrugging and finally looking at you. “we were kids.” 
and of course, that was all that really needed to be said. 
*****
[second goodbye]
your second goodbye with jeonghan happened when you just moved to new york. it was a short period of time marked by running between 10th and 14th to catch your train and eating too many meals at the ukrainian place in the basement of 7th. 
the two of you had found each other again online. a friend request turned to messaging turned to skype calls every evening and sometimes even in the morning. and somehow, someway, despite the years between your last words with him, the two of you were able to pick up right where you left off. he told you about home and about all the classmates you hadn’t thought about since you left. you told him about america, about your new life, and about new york. but mainly you talked about how weird it was to see and talk to him again and about how alone you felt here.
the goodbye comes when your laptop crashes and it takes a week before you’re able to talk to him again. it comes after you spend the week devastated, crying in the middle of the street over a dropped bacon egg and cheese. it comes when your laptop is finally fixed, when you call him again, and when he doesn’t even seem worried. 
“do you plan on coming to new york?” it's the first thing you say when he answers the call, two days after your laptop was fixed. 
he looks like he just woke up, hair crumpled and bent in places it shouldn’t be. between a yawn he says, “what?” 
“i can’t leave new york right now. so if you don’t plan on coming here, there’s no point of this anymore.” 
he doesn’t say anything for a moment, looking off to the side of his camera. you stare into it. you had been practicing this conversation all day. you knew what you were going to say. and in your heart, you knew what he was going to say too. 
all he ends up doing is smiling awkwardly and patting down the back of his head. “do you want me to visit?” 
no, you think with a sigh, you just want more. 
“i think we should end this. i need to focus on becoming a writer, and you-“ 
you falter here. he what? 
he nods. you nod too, just as an excuse. 
“okay.” 
“okay.” 
and the call ends in 4 minutes. 
*****
[first confession] 
the bar you’ve chosen to take him to tonight, is a small, irish pub on the corner of a street you spent half your 20s in. you feel so much older than you are, when you get off the subway, point to an old red brick building, and tell jeonghan that you used to go to school here. 
his gaze lingers at that building. you try not to notice, but you do. 
“remember inyun?” he says after you get your drinks. his martini, your beer. 
you laugh at him. “it’s actually how i got joshua.” a memory flashes in front of you: the golden glow of the string lights and joshua’s lips on yours for the first time. you can’t tell if it's the beer or the memory that makes your entire body flush with warmth. 
“that game we used to play as kids,” jeonghan says, excited, “we should do that here.” 
you smile. how many days did you and jeonghan spend sitting next to each other on the train and making up a past life for every two passengers?
“okay.” you point to the two girls sitting at the bar, one of them on their phone, the other resting her head atop the counter. “what about them?” 
jeonghan turns to face them. “classmates.”
you make a noise of disapprovement. “sisters.”
he mimics the noise. “no way.”
“look.” you say, gesturing to the way the girl that was on her phone places her free hand on top of the other’s head. “it’s just so…” here you lose the words for it. the girl on her phone bends down and places the smallest kiss on her friend’s head. 
“familiar.” jeonghan finishes. and when your gaze falls back to him, you find that he’s already looking at you. the game somehow feels different than it did when you were kids. 
jeonghan inhales sharply and nods his head towards a boy and a girl playing billiards in the corner. “what about them?”
you take a moment to observe them. these two seem less familiar with each other. there’s a lot of extra laughing, a lot of awkward pauses between turns. “coworkers.” you finally say.
“strangers.” jeonghan counters. “like she took his order at a food place that he left a bad review for.”
you give him a look. he shrugs. 
the game continues. you do the two bartenders which you both agree must have been lovers. you do the group of boys, in business casual sitting two tables over. jeonghan says they were all dogs in the same shelter. you say they were in a band together. 
the game continues until the only two people in the pub who you haven’t made up a past life for are you and jeonghan.
jeonghan gives you a half smile. “what do you think we were in a past life?”
this was always how you and him ended the game. you wonder how many past lives the two of you have created for each other by now.
you think for a moment, eyes flicking between the bartenders who were lovers and the friends who were once family. “two people squished next to each other on the train.”
jeonghan laughs at that one, knocking his head back and accidentally kicking your leg under the table. he shakes his head. “a bird and the branch it sits on.”
“a keychain and the ring it’s attached to.”
“a celebrity and their bodyguard.”
“enemies.”
“friends.” 
something snags on your throat at that. 
you laugh, not meaning for it to sound as forced as it does. “but we’re that now.” 
a silent question hangs in the air: are we?
“why’d you come to new york?” you ask him. you already said your goodbye to him. years ago, on a skype call that felt akin to a breakup. seeing him and facing him again was not something you had expected to ever have to do. and the thing is, it’s not just facing him. it’s facing your past, and it’s facing all the different ways he’s known you. 
jeonghan doesn’t seem surprised that you asked, but his eyes do this…thing as he looks up from the glass. this fearless, shameless thing that makes you feel things you wish you didn’t feel. “i came to see you.” 
you don’t take your eyes off his. what is it they say about eyes again? windows to the soul?
“but you and joshua.”
you flinch. 
“you guys have those layers of inyun.”
“all 8000,” you whisper back to him, like the world might burst if you spoke any louder.
he nods solemnly, hopefully. “maybe you guys have even more.”
he looks at the bar. the warm light paints him in colors you’ve never seen him in before. he’s so much older than you remember. he’s so much more real than your last skype call. 
(your memory of this moment fails you. you can’t remember which one of you it was that asked)
“how many layers do we have?”
a number hangs off the tip of your tongue. but the world will burst if you say it outloud. so you don’t. for the world, for yourself, for joshua. 
*****
[you were right]
“you were right,” you tell joshua when you come home that night.
“about what?” he meets you in the kitchen, exhaust fan whirring in the background. 
“he came to see me.” 
and even just the admission of it, of the entire day you spent with jeonghan, has you exhausted. 
you hug joshua. he sets the book that was in his hand down on the counter and lets you. he feels so warm next to your heart. he feels so at home. and you, in your apartment, in his arms, feel split in two. 
carefully, you ask him: “are you mad at me?”
“of course not.”
“do you want me to cancel tomorrow?”
“you haven’t seen him in forever. you should go.”
you exhale into his shoulder. 
“i mean, it’s not like you’re going to run away with him or anything, right?” he jokes. 
“please,” you scoff, “you know me.” 
“i know you.” he laughs, and you feel it throughout your entire body.
“i know you.” he repeats. 
you hug him tighter. 
“you’re it for me.” joshua tells you quietly. “you make my life so much bigger.”
you can’t tell if it’s the confession or the exhaustion or both that brings you close to tears. “what if something happens?”
he doesn’t ask what you mean; he just repeats himself. “it’s only you.”
*****
[not touching but almost]
you meet jeonghan the next morning at the hoyt-schermorhorn street station. he asks how you slept. you say well. 
you stand in front of the sliding doors, holding onto the pole. he follows suit, his hand right under yours. staring at his face, you search for which features of his have stayed the same and which have changed. 
“your eyes.” you say at the same moment the train screeches. he leans forward, mostly to hear you better but also to stay upright as the train sways. his fingers inch towards yours. “your eyes are still the same.” 
he looks embarrassed for a moment. then smiles. you do too. 
the train stops. the signs outside read: ‘fulton st’. 
you look back at him. “i can’t stop smiling.” fuck the train, you’ll repeat it until he hears what you have to say. 
he doesn’t ask you to repeat yourself this time. he just laughs. “why?”
you shrug, smiling again, and feeling entirely, wholly like a kid. “just ‘cause.”
his fingers inch towards yours again. you don’t even think he means for it to. you look down at your hands. close but not touching. not touching but almost. 
the train stops again. ‘chambers st,’ it reads this time. you both get off.
*****
[a whole part of you i’ll never know]
there’s this memory that bounces around your head from time to time. it was before you and joshua had gotten married, in your old apartment, the one in hell’s kitchen above the thai place with the light up dragon that played pop music late into the night. 
so with an old miley cyrus song floating up through the air and in through the open window, joshua tells you that there’s a whole part of you he’ll never know. 
you don’t deny it at first. you turn in bed to face him, cup his cheek in your hand and flinch at the stubble growing in. you kiss him and tell him, “you know me better than anyone.” 
“but i-” he hesitates here, mouth opening and closing like he can’t decide what kind of conversation he wants this to be. “it’s like there’s this whole portion of your brain that will always be out of reach. like i can see it there in the distance, but i can’t get to it.” 
“just ask. i’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“it’s not that.”
“what is it then?”
“he knows that part.”
the song goes quiet. you can hear a drunk person vomiting. you can hear your heart beating. breathlessly, you say, “jeonghan?” 
and joshua, joshua, joshua. he looks like he regrets it. “you, just, you always talk about how you reinvented yourself when you moved to new york and how different you used to be. but what if that wasn’t the first time?”
you shake your head. “i’m not a kid anymore.” 
“i know.” and against all odds, joshua smiles. “sometimes, i just wish i knew you when you were.”
*****
[second confession] 
the day, in all honesty, is some of the most fun you’ve had in a long while. you and jeonghan get dumplings and rice noodles in chinatown and eat them in columbus park while watching people play ping pong. he wants to go shopping in soho and so you take him to your favorite spots. you wait with him in line at the famous bakery on lafayette only for him to hate the pastry he got. and in the evening, you and jeonghan meet up with joshua to get dinner near your apartment. 
“so how do you like new york,” joshua asks while walking to the restaurant. 
jeonghan nods slowly. “not bad.”
your husband’s eyes widen. he was born and raised in new york. it’s the only place he’s ever known. “not bad?”
jeonghan shrugs. “it’s a little smelly.”
joshua just chuckles at that. “you get used to it. what have you seen so far?”
“yesterday i saw the rockefeller center, times square, and central park. and then,” jeonghan looks at you, “we met in tompkins square park, and we took the ferry to see the statue of liberty.”
“you know i’ve never actually been to the statue of liberty.” joshua confesses, lightheartedly. 
“really?” jeonghan asks dumbfounded.
“really?” you mutter to the ground. 
joshua shoves his hands in his pockets and nods. 
jeonghan looks at you, disappointed, and jokingly says, “what are you doing? you should take your husband to see it.” 
jeonghan doesn’t really wait for a response, but you still give him a half-hearted laugh before putting a hand on joshua’s elbow, and quietly, almost shamefully asking, “have we really not gone?”
the conversation has moved on without you it seems. while laughing at something else jeonghan’s said, joshua shakes his head ‘no’.
the rest of the dinner goes well. the food is good, and the conversation flows. joshua heads back home once it’s over to get work done, and you and jeonghan go to your favorite bar in the area, a posh sort of place with dim lighting and fancy cocktails. the two of you grab seats at the bar.
“what’d you think of joshua?” 
jeonghan looks happy, a smile gracing his face for a moment. he tilts his head, and you almost miss the way his smile turns down. “i didn’t think liking your husband would hurt this much.” (almost). “i can tell he really loves you.”
“i love him too.” you say, just to fill the space. but what you really want is to beg him to take it back. beg him to say something else. anything else. say he hated him instead. 
“yesterday, you asked me why i didn’t try to keep talking back then.” jeonghan continues. “the truth i learned here is that it wouldn’t have mattered how hard i tried even if i did. you were always going to leave because you’re you. and i liked you because you’re you. and who you are is someone who leaves.”
you start to refute, but stop yourself because… he’s right. the last two times you parted ways with him, it was because of you. you started the goodbye. you were the one who left. 
“but for joshua,” jeonghan says, eyes scanning across the bar, staring at every bartender and every customer before finally, finally, landing on you, “you’re someone who stays.”
and it turns you inside out. 
“i’m sorry if i hurt you in the past, jeonghan.”
jeonghan doesn’t falter. he never has. “i’m not.”
*****
[last confession, last goodbye, last hello]
you walk jeonghan to the uber from your apartment. the address has always been a little finicky; the uber will only stop two blocks down. the long ones. not that that matters much. nonetheless, you and jeonghan walk it slowly, pausing for a couple seconds each time the wheels of his suitcase get caught on a cellar door. 
“thank you for emailing me.” you tell him, lifting your chin up slightly. “i’m really glad that you did and we got to do this.
he nods. “i’m glad i did too, but i was actually a little unsure about it.” 
this surprises you. the sentiment yes, but also the way he says it. tucking his hair behind his ear, and squinting his eyes at a stop light, refusing to meet yours. jeonghan is the surest person you’ve ever known. 
something catches in the back of your throat. something foul and hopeful. something that makes you feel young. “why?’ 
he shrugs, looks up at the second deli you’ve passed and mouths the name of it. like he’s practicing it, memorizing the name, the location, the guy sitting out front, and the cat that always lingers in the back. why does he care so much about the little things? 
“i didn’t know if you’d want to see me again.” he finally says. “the last time we spoke was so long ago. i wasn’t sure if you had left me in the past for good.” 
you hit the end of the second block where the uber will be picking him up soon, right under the ice pop shop that you always walk a little slower by on the hottest summer afternoons. across the block the walking signal is red–a memory comes back to you: your first summer in this new apartment, your first month being married too. you standing on this side of the block and joshua standing at the other. waiting for the cars to pass, waiting to greet each other in the middle of the road. you can feel that day in the bottom of your stomach. you remember exactly what joshua's hand felt like in yours. 
“i think i did.” you tell him. “but i don’t regret doing this with you. it was like meeting you again, and meeting the version of myself that last saw you too.” 
you turn away from the signal and look at him. he looks sad almost. “sometimes i still think of you as that kid i used to walk home from school with.” 
you remember what you used to tell joshua: how you reinvented yourself when you moved to new york. you remember what he used to say back: what if that wasn’t the first time. and so, you reach into your past and try to remember who you used to be before you moved to america. 
“i haven’t been that kid for a long time now,” you frown, watching jeonghan’s pupils dart back and forth between yours, “but they still existed. they were still real.”
the uber pulls up. jeonghan puts his suitcase in the trunk and opens the door to step inside. and with one foot in the car to the airport and one foot planted on the street you call home, he says, “what if this is just another past life and we’re already something else in another?”
the only thing you can manage to give him in response is a nod. you don’t like to think about what if.
he smiles. and you feel something break apart in your heart.
“i’ll see you then.”
in another life, jeonghan is more than just a series of goodbyes. but in this one, he gets in the uber, and you don’t imagine seeing him again. you don’t think you will. because for the first time in this life, you're not the one that left–he was.  
you make it halfway back down the two blocks back to your apartment when you see joshua. it just so happens to be in front of the deli jeonghan had committed to memory silently beside you. you inhale deeply; it feels like the first breath you’ve taken since jeonghan landed in new york. joshua is 8 stoops away from you. 
at 5 you think about when you met, the writers retreat in long island, the most beautiful serene place you swear you’ve ever been and the stupid pick up line you said about inyun.
at 4, you think about his eyes, his eyes, his eyes, and the line he wrote about them in an essay that was published 3 years ago saying that they're the only part of the nervous system that's exposed, a direct line to someone's head and heart. was he right? did you look into jeonghan’s mind tonight? have you been staring at joshua's heart? 
at 3, you think about all this talk about past lives. and you think what if it’s not about your past lives with jeonghan or with joshua? what if it’s about all the past lives within you? 
at 2, you think about the kid you left in a country that doesn’t feel like yours anymore. 
and at 1, you think about jeonghan. 
he stops right in front of you. staring at you staring at him. your whole world feels bigger than it ever has before, and your heart, in response, splits in half to fit him inside. you feel that something in your throat rise and boil. 
“i’m sorry,” you finally say, before falling into his arms. the sob that’s been waiting in the bottom of your soul for the past 20 years comes bursting out of your throat. you cry into your husband's shoulder. you feel the weight of all your past lives and all your future ones like they aren't in the past or in the future, like they're now beside you begging you to imagine what could’ve been and what was. 
joshua holds the back of your head. he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t need to. it’s all been said before. instead he kisses the corner of your eye and takes you home.  ****************************
a/n: absolutely adored this film and it simply has not left my mind since i watched it over a month ago. and so, i did what i do best and wrote a fic based on it lol. i hope i scraped even half of the complexity the movie has. if you've seen the movie, i'd love to hear your thoughts about it or your thoughts on this piece. as well as if you haven't seen the movie! but if you haven't seen the movie, i highly recommend you give it a watch. it's such a quiet, gentle film that will crawl into your heart and claim it as home.
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thisapplepielife · 3 months
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Written for the @steddiemicrofic December challenge.
Cooking for Eddie
December Prompt: Pine | Word Count: 508 | Rating: T | CW: Language | Tags: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Fluff, Cooking, Eddie POV
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Eddie is sitting at the counter when Steve slides open the patio door, coming inside with his bowl full of fresh basil and cherry tomatoes he's just harvested from his garden. 
"Look at this!" he shouts, and Eddie looks up to see what Steve's so excited about. 
Steve's holding up a fistful of basil leaves.
"Holy shit, that's a lot of basil," Eddie answers, smiling at him. 
"You want pasta for lunch? I could make pesto if we've got some pine nuts," Steve asks.
That sounds great, so Eddie nods, reaching out to grab one of the small, ripe tomatoes, shining it on his shirt, and popping it directly into his mouth.
"Damn, those are good," Eddie says. There's nothing like homegrown tomatoes, and Steve's gotten damn good at it over the past few years.
Steve decided to try his hand at food blogging a few years ago, just as a way to share his new cooking hobby with their friends, and that somehow spiraled into a mid-life career change. Cooking for Eddie started as a joke, but Eddie supports it fully, because that means he gets to eat really fucking good food, several times a week.
Jonathan taught Steve how to use a fancy camera, and how to set up a little tabletop light box studio to get good pictures. Dustin and Robin helped set up social media accounts and Steve's own website.
It's gone really well.
Steve digs around in the pantry and finally comes up with a sack of pine nuts, shaking them.
Eddie gives him a thumbs up, and gets to work washing the produce, doing what little he can to help.
When it's finished, Eddie watches as Steve puts on his reading glasses, and carefully puts together the plate for pictures. The homemade ravioli, sauced to perfection with the homemade pesto. Steve carefully wipes the edges of the white pasta bowl, making sure there's no imperfections to be seen. Adding a handful of the homegrown tomatoes, a sprinkle of pine nuts, and a garnish of fresh basil. He puts it on a fancy wooden cutting board and sets it in his light box, decorates around the plate with some loose tomatoes and basil, and checks his lighting. 
That's the only drawback to this hobby, they have to wait to eat until Steve is sure he's gotten his perfect photographs.
Eddie watches as he takes several shots, camera shutter clicking with each movement.
"Got it," Steve says, and then he goes back to the stove and fixes them both a plate that's still warm, and hands it over. 
"Thanks, sweetheart," Eddie says, pulling out the chair next to him for Steve to sit down beside him.
Steve does, and they dig in.
"It's so good," Eddie tells him, and Steve waves him off. But Eddie knows that Steve knows he's telling the truth. It's amazing, and fresh, and the perfect lunch made with a crazy amount of love.
Cooking for Eddie is pure love, and Eddie's still in awe that it's all for him.
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If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddiemicrofic and follow along with the fun! ❤️
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winniethewife · 5 months
Text
I'll be summer sun for you forever (Basil Stitt x Reader)
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Warnings: Suicidal ideation
Words:786
A/N: Fluffy Basil? Definity not what anyone was expecting....
Basil is pretty sure this is a dumb idea, so far he’s called his now ex-girlfriend, and his parents, neither have responded, he plugs the phone back into the wall of his ruined apartment to make one last desperate call. His childhood Friend, the girl next door who moved across the country after high school, he’s dials the number, and it only rings once before she picks up.
“Hello?”
“Hey! Uh I don’t know if this is a goo-”
“Basil! Oh my god I haven’t heard your voice in forever! How are you?”
“Uh, well not great, there’s some… really weird stuff going on with me.”
“Weird like the time you got your head stuck in the railing or weird like the time that guy on the history channel had you actually convinced Aliens existed?” She asks with a slight laugh.  He kinda laughed back.
“Uh…weirder than both of those.”
“Well Shit Baz…Didn’t think that was possible.” He hears her set something down, It was clear he had her undivided attention now.
“Well yeah. Um…well you remember my girlfriend? I told you about her right”
“Mhm, we actually met briefly the last time I was in town. She didn’t seem to like me much.”
“Well apparently she’s been cheating on me for like a year and some change…” he was deflecting the real problem here, the lightning, the scar, the mental breakdown. Probably good to start on the easy part right?
“That bitch! I’m so sorry Basil, that’s just not right, you’re the best guy I know, you worshiped the ground she walked on. Why the fuck would she do that?”
“I don’t know, but that’s just the beginning of my bad luck…” something about his tone of voice triggered the “Mom friend” in her
“Okay let me sit down and you’re gonna tell me everything…” he could hear her footsteps on the floor in over the phone and it’s all he can do to not start crying again.
“You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.” He says
“I don’t care, you’re going to tell me anyway.” She was always good at getting him to do what she wanted. From playing the board game she wanted to as kids to asking out the girl he liked to prom, she had a way of convincing him that he just couldn’t resist. So he gave up fighting her years ago. So he breaks down and tells her… Everything.
“All this time I didn't know you were breakin' down…” She whispers into the phone reviver. “I-I don’t know, I’m thinking of just…Ending it all. It’s really bad…I look like a monster, and I feel like I’m going more insane every day…”
“Basil…I'd fall to pieces on the floor if you weren't around…” He can hear the tears in her voice. “I’m coming to see you, I’ll help you get it all figured out.”
“No. Please don’t I don’t want to be seen like this, I just want it to be over okay?”
“I don’t care how bad it is or what you look like Basil. I’m getting on the next plane to New York. I refuse to lose my best friend.” That tone of voice the one he knows he can’t argue.
“Okay…” He’s kinda glad she’s coming. But doesn’t know how to face it.
~
By the next day she’s standing in his apartment helping him clean stuff up. She had arrived on the red eye, early in the morning. She hadn’t shied away from the Scarring on his face or the how his eye had gone white. She didn’t care. She had just held him in her lap as he had cried. She had run her fingers through his hair and hummed sweet melodies.
“Why are you helping me?” He asked
“You’re my best friend Baz.”
“I haven’t been a good friend, I haven’t called in a year why on earth…”
“It doesn’t matter Basil, You’re still my friend. And I love you even at your darkest.” She tried to smile at him but he can’t look at her
“I don’t believe that.” He grumbles. She puts aside the broom she was using and carefully took his face in her hands looking him directly in the face, before softly kissing him, he’s shocked but he kisses her back, his hands, shaking, end up on her waist. Every move she makes done with determination but with a gentle quality that Basil hadn’t felt from anyone in a very long time. As they break the kiss more tears falling from his face. She wipes the tears away and softly tells him the one thing he needed to hear more than anything.
“Believe in one thing, I won't go away”'
__
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vavandeveresfan · 7 months
Text
Vincent Price about being Ratigan.
Via Cartoon Research:
Vincent Price: “It was the first time in 45 years I had to audition. I was furious with them. I had done more than a hundred pictures and if they didn’t know what my voice sounded like then the hell with them.
“After a while I realized I was being very silly and egotistical. They knew my voice but they weren’t sure whether I could adapt to the style of acting required by the role. So, like a kid, I tried out.
“The voice is crucial in the animated film. I guess mine evokes a certain mystery….or horror or melodrama and that’s what they wanted for this character.
If I have added anything to the history of villainy, it’s a sense of fun.
“The trouble with actors now is they mumble and grumble their arts. Everything is understated to the point of absurdity. You expect something larger-than-life, not smaller.
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“The director would urge me on, telling me to make it bigger and bigger. To get that big sound out, I naturally gestured and made faces. I’d come back four months later and see more of the film and find that my gestures and expressions had crept in. The eyebrows especially.
“They told me that they based the part on my performance in Champagne for Caesar (1950). My character was took himself absolutely seriously and yet could see how ridiculous he was. He was Howard Hughes’ favorite character. He gets shot in the arm and says, ‘Oh my god, it’s real blood!’
“Rattigan is the same. For instance every once in a while one of his frightened henchmen call him a rat. He’s furious, because he thinks of himself as merely a large mouse. So he feeds the poor henchmen to his pet cat.
“Rattigan finds himself hystertically funny. He’s in the marvelous tradition of Disney villains. He’s mad, mad, mad! I do adore Rattigan.
“I did it because one should never stop. That’s the first rule. Keep going. Do everything, even cartoons. If you don’t, you stop. And stopping stinks.”
youtube
BTW, because too many people don't know it, this movie is based on the children's book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus.
"The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" is one of the best things Henry Mancini composed.
I saw this when it first opened in theaters. Disney movies had been shit for years, and this was seen as the first animated movie of their new beginning. But some adults freaked out.
It's main character, Basil (Sherlock Holmes) didn't like kids.
Characters drank alcohol, and one got falling-down drunk.
A character who wasn't the villain was murdered (they only showed it in silhouette, but even that was too much for some critics).
There was a strip-tease, and Watson loved it.
Ratigan's Mad Scene was too mad.
Some wanted the movie banned. It wasn't. It didn't do that well -- it wasn't what Disney fans were nostalgic for -- but several critics praised it. Over time, it became a classic, mostly, I believe, because of Vincent Price.
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sunbunzie · 8 months
Text
Hot Take: Hero would not forgive Sunny and Basil. (MAJOR SPOILERS!)
Last warning for spoilers :3 Also longevity warning. This thing is 1118 words total. lmao. Also if you’re expierencing thoughts about suicide, please reach out. (TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, A POV of depression, Omori stuff man this game makes me want to sob) The truth about Mari is that Mari didn’t take her own life- Sunny pushed her down the stairs accidentally. Witnessing this, a panicked Basil decides to “help” Sunny by framing Mari’s death as suicide, hanging our dearest Mari on a tree bu a jumprope, making everyone believe she committed suicide. 
Little, innocent Aubrey thought she committed suicide. Our rau of sunshine Kel thought she committed suicide. And Mari’s dear lover, our Hero, thought she committed suicide. 
Lets talk about Hero’s grief for a bit.
-HEROS GRIEF-
As stated by KEL in the game, Hero refused to get out of bed, go to school, eat, and other important things because of Mari’s death. This lasted for about a year.
Kel then continues on to say that he tried to get Hero out of bed one day, saying how everyone misses him and such. Hero responds negatively to this, still stuck in a abyss of depression. The more Kel tried to encourage him, the more and more upset Hero gets, until the point where he snaps at his on brother. 
“He suddenly got up and started screaming and yelling at me about a bunch of stuff. Some of it eas pretty hurtful too..” 
-KEL
We all know, under any other circumstance, Hero would never say anything mean or hurtful to Kel. Even sibling-to-sibling “bullying” doesn’t apply to these two. They care for each other enough to never say anything mean.
But under this circumstance, Mari is gone. Hero loved Mari. And now she was gone. But Hero was still alive. (/ref lmao.) He became so overcome with grief and sadness that he just unpiled it onto young Kel, who was only trying to help. Luckily, after their parents be literal bitches and ignore Kel crying and comfort Hero, Hero comes to his senses and apologizes to Kel over and over. Hero seems to get better after this.
“Eventually, mom and mom ran to our room and rushed over to hug him to calm him down. 
-(cut part because this isnt a kel analysis post. sorry buddy you gotta wait your turn)
“I think that’s when HERO got his senses back, because he ran to me and hugged me right away. 
“Just kept apologizing over and over..
”But.. at least HERO got a lot better after that. He started taking care of himself again..”
BUT OF COURSE we know he really didn’t get better. When Hero joins your party, at first he doesn’t want to go to Mari’s grave. Whenever Sunny tried to go there, Hero stops him by saying he isn’t ready yet.
When we do get there however, its then revealed that Hero never realky visited Mari’s grave. Probably because it hurt to think about her. Every day, every waking moment he was reminded of her, and he couldn’t stop her from leaving him. Four yeare, four years he blamed himself for Mari’s suicide, thinking and forcing himself to believe that it was all his fault because he didn’t see the signs to stop her from leaving…
Except there were no signs.
Mari never chose to leave them.
She never chose to take her life.
She didnt take her own life.
Instead, the one who took her life..
Was her brother, Sunny.
-THE TRUTH-
While we have absolutely no idea what happens after the good ending/any of the endings (well we know Sunny moved and left Basil to pick up the scraps 💀 we’ll save that for another post), since this fandom is so goddamn immersed we do have enough to make a theory about each friend. 
A lot of people say they would all forgive Sunny and Basil eventually, but I think the case is different with Hero. Which is probably what you’re here for actually, so let’s just set the claim:
Hero will NOT be able to forgive Sunny and Basil, and he might never be able to forgive them.
This is because of Hero’s Grief.
Imagine that you loved someone dearly (could be platonic for all you aromantic besties) and they committed suicide. 
Imagine you spent four years blaming yourself, grieving, asking yourself “why” every single day, because there was nothinf you could do to stop them, you didnt see the signs, you thought everything was fine with them, but you were wrong, and you failed them. You’d call yourself the worst lover/best friend to ever exist, beating yourself into a mindset that they never loved you, or if they did, they didnt love you enough to stick around, and that impacted your life so badly that you almost starved yourself and starting saying mean things to your family/those who are trying to help.
Now imagine that..
And then crumple it up and throw it away.
Everything was a lie. You thought they killed themselves, but in the end someone else was responsible for their death. Someone else took their life. Someone else made you believe that they hung themselves and that you failed and that you’re a failure and that you don’t deserve to live while they’re gone.
Sure, the whole thing was an acccident, but either way that grief was all for NOTHING. Ever bad thought, every remark, every meal skipped, every day spent in bed was a waste. You never had anything to blame yourself for. It was never your fault. And the two people reponsible had hidden it for four years.
Hell, screw what I said before about it beibg an accident. The pushing was accidental, but the hanging wasnt. Of course, Basil was a scared kid, but why wasnt the ambulance the first thing in mind? Why did they frame her? Why did Sunny let him do it?
Some people argue that Hero forgave Aubrey for pushing Basil in the lake, but that was different. Yes, they were both impulses of anger, but Basil had time to survive. People were there. You can get water out of people’s lungs. You can’t fix a broken neck. 
And also, Aubrey had more witnesses. She wouldn’t have been able to frame it as anything, because the whole town would probably know about it within a few days (Gossiptown fr💀). If Basil died in the lake, there wouldn’t have been a hidden truth. There wouldnt have been lies. No four years of thinking Basil drowned himself. Because they already knew.
Now I’d suspect if Basil did actually die, the forgiveness wouldnt be so quick. (Someone better make a fanfic of that scenario /nf)
AND SO THE TL;DR IS: Hero would not forgive Sunny and Basil, because what it did to him was too mentally draining, and the lies were too much. No matter how much he would think about how it affected them, he would only ever be able to think about his grief and the consequences.
Again, this is my personal theory, but feel free to peacefully argue with me! Or give more details :0
Thanks for reading all of this, if you did! If y’all want to suggest things for me to analyze just use the asks thingy :3 or get me to talk about headcannons. I love headcannons.
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sasusakucoded · 5 months
Text
It's Halloween season. Everyone, especially the girls, in the campus are preparing for the ball. It has been a tradition for them to guess what heartthrob Uchiha Sasuke would wear so they can match it. Anyone who wears the correct costume would get a chance to dance with him.
This year, the special faculties (medicine, dentistry, and veterinary) are joining the general faculties. Even the students from the special faculties know the tradition and are also preparing for the event.
Ino: What are you wearing, Haruno?
Sakura: I'm still thinking about it. What did he wear in the past 3 years?
Tenten: When he was a freshman, he became the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I think there were 5 girls who got it correctly. They were all Alice.
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Ino: Yeah, a very hot White Rabbit.
Sakura: Oh, so multiple girls can win?
Ino: Yeah. The year after that, he wore a cactus costume.
Sakura: A what??
Ino: A cactus! The winner was a bowl. Don't ask me how, because I didn't see it. But people said that the bowl looked like a pot.
Sakura: That's.. An odd costume.
Tenten: Yeah. Apparently, Sasuke was not aware that girls were trying to match his outfit. He thought he danced in the 1st year just because.
Sakura: He's a funny guy.
Ino: Funny and hot, I agree.
Tenten: Last year, he wore a cheese costume. There were 2 winners, Minnie Mouse and Jerry.
Sakura: Hmmm. That didn't help at all. His costumes were so random. He could wear a spoon costume and the winner could be a fork or a donburi.
Ino: Right. I'll wear a Velma costume. Who knows, maybe he'll be Fred Jones this year.
Tenten: I'm guessing he'll wear something out-of-the-box this year. So, I'm thinking of something that can be paired with multiple things. Maybe I'll be a box.
Ino: All of that explanation for a box. Yeah right, Tenten.
Tenten: It's a safe costume!!
Sakura: *sighs* I still don't know what to wear.. He likes tomatoes right? What if I wear a knife costume? Or maybe basil?
Ino: Or maybe a pot. Or a plastic bag from the grocery. *laughs*
Sakura: Why is it so hard?
Tenten: No, the real question is.. Why are we even making efforts?
Ino: Because he's THE Uchiha Sasuke, duh! Heir to the Uchicha Holdings, Incorporated.
Sakura: Well.. I started to like him when we taught their class about first aid. He was the volunteer. His eyes, his smile—
Ino: Hey, hey, stop daydreaming! You haven't won yet, Haruno! *chuckles*
Sakura: *laughs* I bet he doesn't even remember me.
Tenten: Fine. The box costume is worth risking for.
Sakura: I'll probably wear a bottle of ketchup costume. It's matching with a tomato.. And if he decides to wear a bucket of fries or a hotdog sandwich, then that should still win.
Ino: You two are making it complicated!
---
Ino: Waaah! Sakura! Tenten! I saw Sasuke in the hallway when I went to the registrar's office!
Tenten: Calm down, girl!
Ino: He's so fragrant. I should've asked him what he's gonna wear. *laughs*
Tenten: *laughs*
Ino: Why so serious, Haruno?
Sakura: I'm so stressed out.. The costume.. The lab reports..
Ino: Prioritize the costume! It's once a year anyway.
Sakura: I really want to but I don't think I can..
Tenten: We'll help you!
Ino: Yeah. Finish the postlabs then let's go to your house.
Sakura: Are you sure?
Ino: Yes, ketchup girl.
---
The three tries to finish the ketchup bottle costume as fast as they cand. Sakura tries it on and they all share a laugh.
Ino: Imagine dancing with Sasuke in that costume!
Tenten: You look like a mascot, Sakura! How can you even go to the stage?
Sakura: You guys are annoying! At this point I just want this event to be over.
Ino: So, you don't want to win anymore?
Sakura: I didn't say that.
Tenten: Ah, we shouldn't have helped you. We forgot you're our competitor. *laughs*
---
The Halloween Night comes. The hall is decorated mainly with black and orange. Everyone is mingling with each other regardless of their faculty.
Ino: *laughs* See that girl wearing a fork costume? I remember our convo last time.
Tenten: *laughs* Yeah. It's very cute though!
Ino: Hmm. Have you seen the ketchup girl? Where is she?
---
Tsunade: Sorry for making you work longer today, Sakura.
Sakura: N-No.. It's fine, Tsunade-sensei.
Tsunade: You're supposed to go to the Halloween Night, right?
Sakura: Yes.. If I still have time.. But if not, I'll just skip this year.
Tsunade: It's a compulsary event though. You have to go there and sign the attendance.
Sakura: Is it mandatory?
Tsunade: Yes!
Sakura: Oh, I didn't know..
Tsunade: What's your costume by the way?
Sakura: Um. A Ketchup bottle. I heard Sasuke— Do you happen to know him? He's like the star of the night..
Tsunade: I heard about the matchy-matchy costume thing.. Um, Sakura, could you help me transfer that? *points to a container*
Sakura: Sure, Tsunade-sensei!
They carry the glass jar together. As much as they try to do it carefully, they still drop the container.
Sakura: /thinks/ I'm doomed. Now I have to clean this up.
Tsunade: I'm sorry, Sakura! The jar slipped from my hands.. Oh no, it spilled on your lab coat and uniform.
Sakura: It's okay.. Don't worry about it. I— I'll clean it up now.. *gets the mop; phone starts ringing* Hello?
Ino: Where are you?? Don't tell me you're still in the lab.
Sakura: I am..
Ino: Come on now, Haruno. No one's supposed to work at this hour.
Sakura: I just need to clean this up and finalize some papers then I'll go.
Ino: Where's your costume?
Sakura: It's home.. I'll go home quickly—
Ino: Gosh! Fine! I won't hold you any longer. Just finish that and come here! No signs of Sasuke yet so you're still good.
Sakura: Okay.. Thanks for updating me. Bye.
Tsunade: Sakura, don't mind the mess. Just do the paperwork then you're good to go.
Sakura: Really? Thanks, Tsunade-sensei.
Sakura quickly reviews and writes the lab reports. It still takes her another hour to finish though.
Tsunade: I really feel bad.. Now you'll be late.
Sakura: It's okay, Tsunade-sensei. My house is near.. Just need to go and get my costume—
Tsunade: I'm afraid you don't have enough time.
Sakura: *checks her watch* Yeah.. But I really need to get the costume. Bye, Tsunade-sensei!
Tsunade: Thanks again, Sakura!
---
Ino: S-Sakura?
Sakura: Hey.
Tenten: Girl..
Sakura: I know.. I'm just here for the attendance.
Tenten: What attendance—
Host: *lights were focused to the stage* Are you excited to see our Halloween King? I bet everyone wants to see his costume already. What could he be this year? Ladies and gents, let's all welcome.. Uchiha Sasuke.
Sasuke: *spotlight on him; walks to the center*
Everyone: *gasps*
Ino: H-He's a..
Sasuke: Hello everyone! Please allow me to take my Halloween Queen. *starts going down from the stage*
Everyone: *cheers for him*
Ino: Oh my..
Tenten: Gosh, he's near..
Sasuke: My queen.. Please come with me. *takes Sakura's hand and kisses it*
Sakura: /thinks/ Is this even real?? *walks with him*
Host: Everyone, please cheer for our Halloween King and Queen! Our bloody doctors!!
The romantic music starts playing and the two start to dance on the stage. Everyone watches them at first then follows suit.
Sasuke: Are you okay?
Sakura: Yes.. I— I'm just nervous.. Sorry, I look messy and sweaty..
Sasuke: You look perfect. The blood on your costume looks real.
Sakura: /thinks/ Because it is. Ah, yes.. Actually, I was from the lab before going here—
Sasuke: Ah, enough of the schoolwork. Let's enjoy the night, Sakura.
Sakura: Yeah.. *giggles; realizes he knows her* Y-You know my name?
Sasuke: We've met before, right?
Sakura: *remembers the first aid session* Oh yes.. Um, Sasuke.. Sorry, but do you know where's the attendance sheet it? I haven't signed it yet.
Sasuke: *laughs* There's no such thing, Sakura. It's not a mandatory event. *pulls her closer*
Sakura: Oh.. *rests her face on his chest*
---
Sasuke: Don't you think you overdid it?
Tsunade: If I didn't say that attendance is a must, she won't go there!
Sasuke: And the blood?
Tsunade: It's just food coloring. I won't ever use real blood for that, that's hazardous.
Sasuke: Everything went well, so thank you, Aunt Tsunade.
Tsunade: Does my sister know about this?
Sasuke: *laughs* No, of course. She'll find it silly—
Sakura: Tsunade-sensei, I'm here! *sees Sasuke* S-Sasuke?
Sasuke: *waves at her*
Sakura: You're here?
Tsunade: My nephew just came here to give his payment for a job well done.
Sakura: Nephew?
Sasuke: Yeah. She's my aunt, Sakura.
Sakura: *sees the gifts on the table* The job must be hard for you to get gifts that many.
Tsunade: Well, he asked me to make sure he gets his Halloween Queen.
Sakura: ...What?
Sasuke: Sorry, Sakura. That's my only way to get close with you. I'm only known for my family and this Halloween thing.. I'm not interesting—
Sakura: What are you saying? You're the coolest student of this university..
Sasuke: I don't think so.. So I thought of asking my aunt to make sure that you'd wear your uniform to the event. Because I planned to wear a bloody doctor outfit.
Tsunade: And to spill some fake blood to make your uniform look like a halloween costume. *laughs*
Sakura: Th-That's fake? I threw my uniform away because it looked disgusting..
Sasuke: Sorry for that.. I'll get you a new one—
Sakura: N-No, it's fine.. Wait, so is that also the reason why you said that attendance is compulsary?
Tsunade: I couldn't think of anything that could make you go even if you didn't want to anymore.
Sasuke: I hope you're not mad, Sakura.. I really just—
Sakura: *laughs* I actually find it cute.. My only regret though is the ketchup bottle costume that my friends and I made.
Sasuke: I'll be your mustard anytime, Sakura.
Sakura: *blushes*
Tsunade: Ah, enough of the flirting. Just tell me you're dating now then leave.
Sasuke: We are. Thanks again, Aunt Tsunade. Bye! *places his arm over Sakura's shoulder*
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pineappleciders · 1 year
Note
omari au sunny and hero designs?
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here are the realworld designs for my omari au!! i will post headspace ones soon (which will include sunny) but for now here's a quick breakdown of their characters!!
MARI
she puts on a facade and manipulates herself into believing everything is fine. she acts like her normal self but a lot more hollow and dead. she gets angry at herself and becomes enraged whenever she makes a mistake, sometimes even throwing or breaking things. she lives in her own head, similar to SUNNY
she's a shell of the girl she used to be. even college and reunion with her friends and loved ones couldn't bring a real smile back
HERO
similar to MARI, he's pushed everything down so far so that nobody can dig it back up. unfortunately for him, everything always comes back when he sees MARI.
he kept his charming and helpful personality, but he's a lot more on-edge and strives to be perfect. often, he finds himself breaking down when he's alone, but most of the time he sucks it up and continues like nothing happened.
his self-esteem is rock bottom, but he acts like it isn't
AUBREY
she's similar to how she is in the game, but she's more in touch with her childish and feminine side. seeing as BASIL (sunny) never destroyed the photos, her and BASIL are on kind of good terms now, but have still separated from the best friends they used to be since SUNNY went missing. she still faces her problems with anger, and is a delinquent, but she's more open-minded.
her relationship with MARI has been complicated. she still loves MARI dearly, but she truly misses the warmth MARI used to provide for her as an older sister. no matter how many times MARI is by her side, her voice and eyes are emptier than ever.
KEL
KEL has tried his best to keep his optimism, but everyone notices how hard it is for him to get out of bed and take care of himself. he starts doubting himself a lot more.
despite the fact that SUNNY went missing 4 years ago and could very well be pronounced dead atp, KEL is determined to see him alive. him and AUBREY still have a rivalry, but not a full-on resentment for each other, but it seems the two grow apart more and more every time AUBREY tries to keep him from his delusions.
BASIL
BASIL seems to be coping well with his best friends disappearance, although nobody is for sure whether or not he's delusional or just got over it.
it's both, really. BASIL always has a nagging voice at the back of his head, wondering if SUNNY killed himself, or something. he hates himself for not being there to save him.
on the outside, though, he still loves his plants and photos and art. he hasn't changed. but, his #1 goal is to honor SUNNY, whether he's dead or not. he carries around a tulip and wears darker clothes. nobody can really tell if his mind is empty or swarming. maybe both?
please note this AU is still in the making,,, my idea for the incident that killed SUNNY being that MARI failed to save him when he fell in the lake and HERO witnessed it,, bla bla it goes from there they buried him yada yada
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brightgnosis · 3 months
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I spoke to my Husband about how badly I'm struggling trying to figure out what on Earth to do with next year's garden. He's pushing me to do all flowers- which is kind of what I've been wiggling back and forth on, personally; he said that's immediately where his brain went, too, when I expressed having issues deciding.
When I brought up the fact that I can't bring them indoors because Araris'd try to eat them, and I can't handle the heat outdoors, so it felt like there was no real point- not since I'd never be able to enjoy them ... He started looking at ways to help cool the garden down for me; ever the eternal "Fixer", that man, I swear. But he did actually manage to find a couple options!
The two main options include (1) A small, battery operated misting fan I can just fill up and plop on one of the tables; and (2) Installing an 8ft Sun Shade on the garage. Something I can just pull over to the fence in order to provide extra shade when the Umbrella actually stops being useful after midday near entirely (which is always around roughly midsummer).
I don't know why I didn't think to find options to cool the garden down for myself. The thought just ... Never even remotely crossed my mind in any capacity. But between those two things, it should hopefully actually allow me to continue using and enjoying the garden through Summer. And so now it's not really all that unreasonable to try and do a flower garden next year after all!
I've kind of already picked out a rough idea of seeds and split the garden into three groups, now, then: The Garage bed, the Fence bed, and the pots.
➽ For the Garage bed, because it's so sunny, I'm going to plant largely natives that can handle the heat well (Coreopsis, Indian Blanket, Echinacea, Cardinal Flower, Yarrow, Queen Anne's Lace, Milkweed, Goldenrod, Sunflower, Passionflower, etc).
I already have half of the seeds for this since I ordered some of them last year and the starts just failed. So I won't have to order many more. Maybe only half of them, likely.
➽ For the Fence bed, since it's largely shaded, I'm going to plant more traditional ornamental garden flowers that probably can't handle our heat and our direct sun so well (Poppy, Lupine, Zinnia, Carnation, Cosmos, Calendula, Foxglove, etc).
I don't have any of these seeds in stock except for Lupine, because I haven't done an Ornamental plot since I started seed collecting. So I'll have to order all of these ones.
➽ And for the Pots, I'm just going to do some various mixed stuff; fill the larger ones in with what I've already planned to hold-over or re-plant from last year- and then save the smaller pots for the random things I find throughout the year at the Herb Festival and Lowe's ... Let everything just kind of fall as it may with the Pots.
I'm definitely still going to keep my normal staple Herbs like Rosemary, Basil, and Sage. Then I'm also going to do the new Plant Allies and other things I've already chosen for next year- like Rue, Absinthe Wormwood, Hyssop, and Mugwort, and then the new Rose I've already pre-ordered (which should be arriving in May, I think? I can't actually remember now). Plus I've got the potted Perennials that're still going strong- like the Comfrey, two Peonies, Blueberry, Lilac, and Perennial Salvia / Woodland Sage. And my Husband and I always grow Tomatoes every year, too, and won't be changing that (we've already picked those out.
I'm not going to re-order my Lily Bulbs this year. There's just too many of them to re-order, and doing so would wind up with far more bulbs than I could ever actually have the space for (I wish I could just order packs of like 5 bulbs or less, but everywhere sells like 10+ 😩); I think I'll just wait to re-order all of my Birthday Lilies I lost until we're actually out at the Farm and I can put them straight in the ground instead of risking loosing them in the pots again.
But not re-ordering them does mean I now have an extra 2 pots I can fiddle with if I can find space for them over by my garden instead of in the Breeze Way.
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sopuu · 6 months
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I would love to hear your thoughts on the symbolism and game design of omori
This is suchh an old ask im sorry it took me so long to get my thoughts tgt let alone write them down hh everything’s under the cut bc there’s a Lot and tysm for enabling me 🙏🏻
just a heads up I’m not gonna talk much about the characters themselves bc there’s already plenty of analysis out there for them- what I am gonna get to tho is the general game itself and a bit of the music. And bc OMORI is a game that covers heavy topics, please be aware of this before you continue reading!
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So ofc I gotta start with the first place omori wakes up in — white space, just a simple rectangle on the floor with the essentials within arm’s reach, no responsibilities and no one to bother you. I LOVE minimalistic stuff like this- something so simple can can make you feel like you’re in both the most peaceful and uncanny place in the world. Also the black bulb being a symbol of repression, opposite of a lit bulb being a symbol of a new idea (thank you fandom wiki for this point) is just 👌🏻. And the fact that omori’s friends are right next door (literally called neighbour’s room) if he ever gets lonely shows how they’ve always been there for him, and in turn how much he depends on them.
I think the game does a wonderful job of depicting what escapism is like- Daydreaming of a world full of your own ocs, adventuring through it with your best friends and being the hero of the story where everything goes right for you. But of course this fantasy can’t hold forever as the real world starts to catch up, with stuff like Something appearing in places reminding omori of what happened, red space entrances throughout the story (the ones before the main red space debut as omori sits on the throne), and ofc the moment basil drops the photograph at the start. Side note, I like how Something always disappearing so quickly shows how desperate omori is to repress it, like quickly shoving problems under a rug. Or maybe im reading too much into it and it’s just to add to the creepy factor lol. Also this is one of the games that does mixed media SO well- combining digital 2d art with real life materials like sketching and scanning the animations, clay models for Somethings, real life photos drawn over and filtered etc, it really suits the theme of having to balance the fictional world and the real world if that makes sense. Also the way some scenes deliberately leave in the crumpled paper texture!! Especially for messages about not friends giving up on each other-- its almost like those were thrown away in the trash and picked back up again. Quite the parallel to how sunny locked himself away for four years due to depression and guilt for what he’s done, thinking his friends would never forgive him, then eventually finally coming out of his house and giving himself a chance with reconnecting with them.
Ok here’s where the heavier themes come in so please please stop reading if you’re not comfortable with them! [tw: suicide (or at least implications of it)]
game design time! i absolutely love it when games use the game mechanics themselves to be a part of storytelling- and this game does it with the stab function. I actually got to know this game through watching playthroughs, and at the first forced transition usually people do whatever they can think of to avoid having to press the button, before very reluctantly realising that they don’t have a choice. As the game goes on, players start getting more and more familiar with it, using it to get back to the real world or bc of forced resets and so on. Before long this basically becomes routine and players get so used to it that they don’t even hesitate to press it anymore. After all, nothing bad actually happens, right..? This mechanic gets used so much more in black space, but this time it’s very prominently presented as an escape route, something to get out of stressful situations, something that helps. you might even be relieved to see that option be available to you. And I think that’s terrifying— considering that this is a representation of how.. unpleasant thoughts can go from being unfathomable to something that feels like a natural/normal occurrence. i don’t think I’ve seen any other game that captures this kind of thought process(? there’s probably a better term for this) to the level that OMORI does and im so so glad that the devs are bringing these mental health topics to light.
I’d also love to talk about black space but I think this post does it better than I ever could haha, also black space 2 I love you sm im a sucker for out-of-bounds-but-not-really type of areas (yknow like Undertale’s fun value rooms and test rooms), it’s like hitting the jackpot for easter eggs and subtle lore aughh <3
And I can’t talk about OMORI without talking about the music!! I think we can all agree that Duet KILLS. the high notes as the happiest scenes show on screen………the way the piano is the one that starts the song off and it ends with only the violin……… my emotions man. what if I started crying!!!!! (i did)
Clean Slate is one of my top songs- there’s so much emotion in this and it’s the epitome of acceptance and letting go of guilt while also giving the feeling that you’re in a hospital (ig that’s kinda the point but for such a short song to pinpoint a feeling AND setting so accurately is so grragjgh….)
Other big favs are It Means Everything, Chaos Assembly, Tee-Hee Time, Puddles, Snow Forest and Dear Little Brother :) and actually a lot of others as well but id be listing half the soundtrack and more if I go on
In conclusion OMORI is such a well designed game, I love it and its messages sm it means a lot to me personally, and writing this made me feel like im back in English class again
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voltfruits · 1 year
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*long sigh* okay, I guess I'm finally doing it. silly little omori AU time because I know how much we all love our silly little AUs in this fandom
short version: delinquent basil :)
long version: well, it's long. and it starts out just like the regular game does. Sunny gets frustrated with the violin, accidentally kills Mari, stages it as a suicide by Basil's suggestion, and so on. everything is the same.... until that fateful day when Aubrey goes to Basil's house.
Aubrey doesn't let Basil hide himself in the bathroom; she confronts him head-on, demanding to know why he's avoiding her. Basil starts to panic, but Aubrey softens, saying she cares about him and just wants to know what's wrong. feeling soothed, Basil brings out his photo album and tells her the truth. no, no, not the truth about Mari's death, but the truth about the album. he let Sunny borrow it so he could enjoy their old memories, but when he got it back, Sunny had blacked out all the photos. Basil explains that he's been so isolated lately because he's still in shock, despondent that his best friend would destroy something so valuable to him (i guess Basil is a little more sane in this AU in that he acknowledges Sunny's role in the tragedy rather than blaming his actions on "something behind him.") Aubrey is enraged by Sunny's behavior, but she offers to help clean the photos and promises to stick with Basil from then on.
so now Aubrey and Basil are besties, or kind of besties. Aubrey still has anger issues and gets very impulsive, sometimes lashing out at anything and everything for no reason, but she's very careful not to hurt Basil. and Basil latches on to Aubrey because she's all he has left, but he doesn't feel fully comfortable around her because he's sitting on the secret of what he did to Mari.
the two of them start getting into mischief together, cutting class and scrawling graffiti and stealing from convenience stores. well, mostly it's Aubrey doing all that, while Basil tags along and whimpers something about not wanting to get in trouble, but enjoying the thrill of rule-breaking all the same. they still make friends with Kim, Vance, and Charlie, but Aubrey and Basil have the strongest bond between them. they dye their hair together, Aubrey choosing pink and Basil pale lavender, to commemorate the promise Aubrey made with Mari.
Aubrey is still holding a grudge against Kel and Hero, but now she really hates Sunny's guts because of what he did to the photo album. Basil has basically blocked Kel and Hero out of his memory, and while he's upset with Sunny, he can't bring himself to hate him and still misses him a lot. he doesn't mention this to Aubrey because it's a really touchy subject.
as the years go by and Aubrey and Basil enter high school, their friendship gets even stronger. Basil finally matches Aubrey's confidence when it comes to breaking the rules. they're always by each other's side, holding hands and sneaking quick hugs in the stairwell between classes, spending the evenings in each other's houses smoking and snuggling and talking about the meaning of life. they're definitely in love but they're too shy to admit it to one another. unfortunately, all the other aspects of their lives fall to pieces: their grades plummet, and they're frequently getting into trouble at school; Basil's grandmother grows sicker, and Aubrey's parents grow more negligent and abusive, her home falling into disrepair. most importantly, Aubrey is still not over Mari's supposed suicide, because she thinks it's her own fault. Mari was a sister to her, practically a caretaker. if she hadn't been so needy and created so much work for Mari, she wouldn't have gotten overwhelmed and killed herself. the guilt eats away at her more and more with every passing year. she starts to see herself as a burden, a waste of space. her parents hate her and it's her fault. her old friends hate her and it's her fault. her life and Basil's life are going down the drain and it's her fault. she feels like she brings pain to everything she touches.
three years after Mari hung from her backyard tree, Aubrey attempts to do the same.
it's Basil who finds her and saves her, and tells her that she matters, and that she should never give up, no matter what.
in the weeks following Aubrey's suicide attempt, Basil realizes how far he's come with her. she means more to him than anyone or anything else. he can't bear to see her suffering and blaming herself for everything bad that's happened. he knows what he has to do.
one sunny afternoon, when it's just the two of them in the garden behind Basil's house, he tells Aubrey everything that happened the day Mari died.
he needs her to know the full truth. he knows it will hurt her, but he needs her to know that Mari's death isn't her fault. none of this is her fault.
Aubrey is shocked. then she's devastated. all she can do is cry. she doesn't know whether she wants to hug Basil or strangle him. he's her best friend. he's stupid, he's selfish, he's crazy, he's a sociopath. what he did was unforgivable, unthinkable. she needs time. she forces herself to stop crying, and she walks out. she doesn't think she'll ever see him again.
as she paces, agitated, through the streets of Faraway Town, she wonders what to do. kill herself. kill Sunny. kill Basil. move across the country. blow up the whole town. she's sixteen and her emotions are huge and real and so, so terrifying.
her body acts independently from her mind, taking her up the street to Mari's house. anything to be close to her again.
and who does she spot on the sidewalk?
... it's Kel, dragging along a half-awake Sunny, out of his house for the first time in years.
what happens next? we'll see :)
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thatsnotbuddies · 1 year
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g’s hrpf recs
okok this blog exists bc one day I clicked on a tknp fic in some random person’s bookmarks just because it seemed interesting and the rest is history
so it’s only right i make a list of my fave fics I’ve read since then
here goes
⭐ = ultimate faves
I’ve got about . 200 hrpf bookmarks on ao3 but these are the ones that I think about a lot/have re-read more than twice. there’s soo much more I could rec, if you want a list for a specific pairing lmk??
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TKNP
colours i can't see (with anyone else) - (E, 7,357 words) ⭐
Travis gets the call about two weeks before he stands before the team, helmet dangling from his fingertips and heart beating against his chest like it wants to crack through his ribs.
“I’m moving to Toronto.”
The silence that washes through the locker room is deafening. No one says anything for a long 30 seconds. The only sound is that of skate guards squeaking against the floor.
Nolan is the one who breaks the silence. “What the fuck? They can’t trade you.”  And Travis winces and Nolan widens his eyes like a deer caught in headlights and someone to his left sighs. “Oh.”
Notes: The conversation in the second to last scene gets me Every Time 😭
vision trick - (E, 21,528 words)
Pat’s new house is haunted.
Notes: I’m an Interstellar (2014), Contact (1997), love-transcending-all-dimensions-including-time girlie so this is. everything. to me.
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JOEL FARABEE/MORGAN FROST
letters from allentown (T, 4,539 words) ⭐
“Hahahah the flyers are shit,” Morgan tweets, sometime in early November of 2013. He's probably not expecting a pissy pre-teen from Cicero, New York to slide into his DMs and start up a four year argument over whether or not the Flyers suck, right up until Morgan turns eighteen and gets drafted by the Flyers himself.
Notes: This is THEE quintessential joel/morgan fic to me
in my defense, spring - (T, 2,764 words, Magical Realism) ⭐
Morgan gets called up a month into the season. He arrives in Philly with three suits, two duffle bags full of gear, and a very large potted basil plant.
Notes: I went on a magical realism bender for a bit and this is one of the faves. Frosty as a spring witch born into a winter witch family :’) Taking care of all his plants :’)
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MCSTROME
The Next Next One (M, 71,275 words) ⭐
No, Dylan has not picked up a copy of the book, nor does he plan to anytime soon. No, he has not talked to Connor about it. He hasn’t talked to Connor about anything in a long time, but the media does not need to know that.
Notes: This is number one all time fave. It turns me inside out every time I read it. So well written down to the fake book snippets!!!! You could take this and make a movie adaptation of it and it would kill at the box office.
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MATTDRAI
how lovely are thy branches (M, 5271 words) (also Tim Stutzle/Brady Tkachuk)
“What is it about my family that makes us so damn irresistible to you Germans?”
Notes: This is just such a laugh, I love it
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JOEL FARABEE/CARTER HART (you know when you’re not that invested in a pairing but some of the writing for it is just so good? this is me with this)
pour some sugar on him and blame it on the rain - (T, 5,719 words, Magical Realism)
Carter is a witch working the convenience store night shift. Joel is a regular customer who just can’t seem to stop getting cursed. Morgan is mostly along for the ride.
Notes: Fun! Shenanigans!
You look so sweet in the heat of the summer (E, 5,319 words)
Carter's fed up with feeling like he’s wasting his summer, out of sync with his friends, watching the days dwindle down with nothing to show for it.
He’s not sure what he expects Joel to be able to do about that feeling, but at least he’s a promised distraction.
Notes: This is so great at capturing a Very Specific summer vibe. End notes changed my whole opinion on ‘Tis The Damn Season, lmao. I cry now.
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wavesmp3 · 1 month
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[tbz] 8000 layers of inyun
younghoon x reader, jacob x reader - inspired by the movie past lives - wc: 6k - warnings: mentions of alcohol, like one curse i think - a/n: reader should be completely inclusive, i.e. not adhering to the background of the main character in the movie.
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****
[first hello]
when you met jacob for the first time, it was in the grassy backyard of a house in long island one mile away from the beach. at a rickety, white table with spots of black showing up beneath the layers of paint. it was three glasses of red wine in, two hours after you had laid eyes on him, and one hour after everyone else had headed inside for sleep. 
when you met jacob for the first time, you had told him about inyun. how even brushing by someone’s shoulder on the street or locking eyes with a stranger on the metro meant there was something there between the two of you in a past life. he looked amazed at the notion. you thought he looked quite pretty. “that would mean we had something together in a past life, wouldn’t it?” he had asked. and even then, you could tell–he’s such a writer. there was a story already rising from the dark corners of his mind. you had just nodded. and told him about all the layers between two lovers, and about the 8000 it takes to take one’s hand and whole-heartedly decide you want to marry them. 
you don’t really remember jacob’s cheeks turning pink at the line. what you do remember is the sky changing colors. you remember how golden he looked under the string lights. you remember leaning into his face, almost falling forward, bracing yourself with a hand on his knee. 
you remember kissing him for the first time. 
*****
[younghoon’s coming] 
jacob is already cooking dinner by the time you come home. you stop in front of the gray door, noticing for the first time in a while the scratch in the top corner from the massive yellow armchair you stuffed through the door even when it refused to fit through. you smile at the scratch, stretch your arm out to finger over the light brown mark. how long ago was that now? was that before or after you got married? you inhale. the air smells like wet concrete and basil. jacob forgot to turn on the exhaust fan, didn’t he? 
you don’t remind him to do so once you finally find your keys. instead you slip off your old, faded sneakers, drop your keys on the counter in the lime green dish you made in a pottery class two years ago, and greet him in the kitchen, kissing the side of his chin and reaching over his head to turn the exhaust fan on. he kisses your forehead as an apology, or at least he tries but you’ve already moved and his lips end up catching on the corner of your left eye. you wash the day and the grime off you, washing away the train and the throbbing in your feet. you meet him again for dinner, at the table you call your dining table and your home office. he brings over two plates of the pasta. you bring the wine. 
“you know younghoon.” it doesn’t hit you then that that’s the first thing you’ve said to him since you left that morning.
jacob squints. his eyes, his eyes, his eyes. they were the first thing you noticed about him. the first thing you fell in love with. “yeah. your childhood sweetheart.” this he says with a teasing smile. you smile back. his smile was the second thing you fell in love with. 
“he, uh, emailed me earlier today.” you shift in your stool. “he moved out of his parents’ house, i think, and is between jobs. he said he’s going to be visiting new york soon.” 
there’s a stillness in the air, then. a shock beneath the table that’s curling around your calves and inching up your arms.
jacob, though, despite how well you know him, despite your knack to see through every emotion he feigns, still tries to nod it off. “oh. when is he coming?”
“in two weeks. “
“that’s soon.”
“i know.”
“are you going to see him?” there’s no mask of emotion here. everything in jacob’s mind and heart you can read in his eyes, except that reading doesn’t mean understanding and five years of marriage doesn’t mean you know someone’s every thought. you don’t know what to say. you don’t know what he wants. you don’t even know what you want. all you know is younghoon’s email. you spent two hours staring at it this afternoon. younghoon, as you knew him, was a straightforward guy. he explicitly said in the email what he wants: to spend a day or two with you while he’s here, as much time as you can spare, show him the city you moved to when you turned 21. show him the country you moved to when you were 13. but beneath the straightforward request feels like a million subliminal ones. like he wants you to prove to him that you’ve made a life worth living here. like he wants to gallivant around new york telling you about a country that used to be home and asking you what would have happened if you didn’t go all those years ago. 
but younghoon isn’t like you and jacob, he doesn’t make reading into subtext and writing a 100 pages about it his job. so you tell jacob what you decided on the train ride back. 
“yeah, i think i will.” and with the way your stomach twists, it feels like a confession.
*****
[first goodbye]
your first goodbye with younghoon is when you’re young. it happens on the last day of school for you before your family’s big move to the states. even though you only found out a couple weeks ago, you knew this move was a long time coming. maybe that’s why you didn’t say anything when your parents told you it was happening. maybe that’s why you just went to your room and started packing. 
younghoon’s been in the same class as you your whole life. his whole life too. and for your entire lives you’ve been making the same walk back home from school together. today is no different. and yet, isn’t it? it’s the same roads, yes, the same stairs and the same shops on the way. but the air is different, it smells like home. it smells like you already miss it. and you haven’t even left yet. 
the walk is almost entirely silent. 
the roads diverge towards the end, into a smaller path that leads to your home and the main road that younghoon takes to get to his. you take one step into the path and stop. younghoon stops too. he stares. you stare back. 
(you don’t realize it then, but it’s the last time you’ll see him in person for almost 20 years. one of the last times you’ll even speak to him in around 7. it’s the last time you’ll ever stand on this street, and one of the last times you’ll breathe this air. most importantly, it’s the last time you’ll ever be this young.)
your first goodbye with younghoon isn’t much of a goodbye. it’s him asking when you leave. it’s you saying sometime tomorrow. it’s him frowning, patting your shoulder, and saying, “be well, and don’t cry over maths anymore.”
*****
[second hello]
you round the corner by the candy shop and walk inwards to the park. you used to live around here. but god, where haven’t you lived? you used to come into this park and watch people. the man towards the south entrance that always sat on the middle bench. the tourists walking up and down and around looking amazed and bored and helpless. tompkins square park used to be your favorite park in new york, but walking into it now, you can’t really remember why you liked it so much. you wonder why he chose this park specifically to meet in. did you mention it once on a skype call? does he think you still like it? or has he figured that you’ve already fallen out of love?
you see the back of his head before you see him. and for a moment you get an instantaneous rush of every feeling there is to feel from seeing him again, here, in a park you thought you loved. but it’s not the park and it’s not the city that makes your entire body go numb. it’s seeing him. younghoon. younghoon. younghoon. it’s seeing him for the first time in–you don’t even want to admit to yourself how long. 
but the instantaneous rush ends, and your body and blood come back to earth and back to this park you hate, when he turns around and faces you facing him. 
and there are no words to be said. 
there used to be oceans and countries and cultures and decades standing between you and him, but somehow now, all of that has compressed into four squares of broken concrete. you were never very good at maths. younghoon, the one who comforted you whenever you cried over it, knows that best. but even you know that there is no way 20 years can turn into 20 feet. so much has changed. more than could possibly be encompassed in any greeting. it’s indescribable and overwhelming. it’s you and him and the whole world. there are no words to be said. 
so you hug him instead. 
*****
[ferry]
it takes almost a full hour for the pure shock of seeing each other again to wear off. there’s so much joy and excitement between the two of you that for a couple minutes all you do is say ‘wow’, throwing the word back and forth like two kids playing catch. 
the first thing on your itinerary was already decided by younghoon over email: seeing the statue of liberty. so, you and him board the ferry together, asking how his family’s doing and telling him about yours. 
“your husband,” younghoon starts, turning slightly towards you in his seat on the ferry.
“jacob.” 
he nods, mouthing his name silently. “how did you guys meet?”
“we met at this writer's retreat thing. we were kind of… i don’t know–together–i guess, while we were there, and funnily enough, it was only on our second to last day there that we realized we both live in new york. and then, it was only when we got back that we started dating.”
younghoon’s lips make a small ‘o’. “he’s a writer too?”
you nod. then smile.
“is he good?” this he asks with a hint of mischief. 
you scoff. “you think i’d marry someone who isn’t any good?” 
he just shrugs and smirks. an action you’ve seen him do a million times before. when you were a kid, it pissed you off. when you were 21, it made your heart flutter. now, it makes you feel like a stranger. it reminds you that all he is is somebody you used to know. 
“what?” he laughs, covering his mouth embarrassedly. you didn’t even realize you were staring. 
“you’ve just been a kid in my head for so long.” you shake your head, a smile haunting your lips. “it’s so weird seeing you all grown up.” 
he hums. “i feel that too.”
“are you and-” you leave the space blank there. social media had told you a lot, but you don’t remember it ever telling you a name, “still together.”
he grimaces. you wish you didn’t ask. “no. we broke up some time ago.”
younghoon doesn’t say anything more about it, but honestly, it’d be more shocking if he did. even as a kid, he took things at face value, not going any deeper into contexts and double meanings. he isn’t too shy to ask what you mean, nor is he too shy to say it. that’s just who he is. 
“do you have pictures from your wedding?” younghoon asks, pulling you out of your thoughts. you fetch your phone out of your pocket and show him your favorite picture from the event. you and jacob didn’t really have much money at the time of your wedding. it was a small, courthouse wedding with a dinner afterwards with just your families. the picture comes from when you were walking out of the courthouse together. with the small bouquet, jacob had purchased that morning, and the simple white dress you had thrifted a couple weeks prior. you were so happy, walking out of that building hand in hand. you were so hopeful. 
“you look very nice.” younghoon tells you quietly, staring at the photo. you mutter a ‘thanks’. he then surprises you, bringing a hand up to the picture and wordlessly zooming in on your face. his gaze bounces between you and your picture. finally, looking up, he says, “you look so young.”
*****
the ferry stops for a bit near the statue, everyone rushes towards the corner nearest to the monument to take a photo. you offer to take his. he accepts, awkwardly smiling at first, fidgeting with the strap of his backpack, but then eventually, lightening up, posing cutely and requesting different angles. 
while the ferry heads back to manhattan, he carefully examines all the photos you took. it reminds you of when he told you about his photographer friend in college who took photos of him for fun. 
“why didn’t you want to keep talking then?” you ask abruptly. 
somehow, he knows exactly what you’re talking about. your second goodbye with him. the four minute skype call. 
he looks taken aback. he doesn’t look at you. “it didn’t really feel like you were giving me much of a choice.”
it’s not what you wanted to hear, but you don’t really think there’s anything he could’ve said to mend a ten year old wound born from a petty 21 year old desperate to love and be loved. 
“i held that over you for a long time. i was a bit mad.”
he responds immediately. “you said goodbye so quickly. i was a bit mad too.”
you frown. “should i be sorry?”
he half laughs at that, shrugging and finally looking at you. “we were kids.” 
and of course, that was all that really needed to be said. 
*****
[second goodbye]
your second goodbye with younghoon happened when you just moved to new york. it was a short period of time marked by running between 10th and 14th to catch your train and eating too many meals at the ukrainian place in the basement of 7th. 
the two of you had found each other again online. a friend request turned to messaging turned to skype calls every evening and sometimes even in the morning. and somehow, someway, despite the years between your last words with him, the two of you were able to pick up right where you left off. he told you about home and about all the classmates you hadn’t thought about since you left. you told him about america, about your new life, and about new york. but mainly you talked about how weird it was to see and talk to him again and about how alone you felt here.
the goodbye comes when your laptop crashes and it takes a week before you’re able to talk to him again. it comes after you spend the week devastated, crying in the middle of the street over a dropped bacon egg and cheese. it comes when your laptop is finally fixed, when you call him again, and when he doesn’t even seem worried. 
“do you plan on coming to new york?” it's the first thing you say when he answers the call, two days after your laptop was fixed. 
he looks like he just woke up, hair crumpled and bent in places it shouldn’t be. between a yawn he says, “what?” 
“i can’t leave new york right now. so if you don’t plan on coming here, there’s no point of this anymore.” 
he doesn’t say anything for a moment, looking off to the side of his camera. you stare into it. you had been practicing this conversation all day. you knew what you were going to say. and in your heart, you knew what he was going to say too. 
all he ends up doing is smiling awkwardly and patting down the back of his head. “do you want me to visit?” 
no, you think with a sigh, you just want more. 
“i think we should end this. i need to focus on becoming a writer, and you-“ 
you falter here. he what? 
he nods. you nod too, just as an excuse. 
“okay.” 
“okay.” 
and the call ends in 4 minutes. 
*****
[first confession] 
the bar you’ve chosen to take him to tonight, is a small, irish pub on the corner of a street you spent half your 20s in. you feel so much older than you are, when you get off the subway, point to an old red brick building, and tell younghoon that you used to go to school here. 
his gaze lingers at that building. you try not to notice, but you do. 
“remember inyun?” he says after you get your drinks. his martini, your beer. 
you laugh at him. “it’s actually how i got jacob.” a memory flashes in front of you: the golden glow of the string lights and jacob’s lips on yours for the first time. you can’t tell if it's the beer or the memory that makes your entire body flush with warmth. 
“that game we used to play as kids,” younghoon says, excited, “we should do that here.” 
you smile. how many days did you and younghoon spend sitting next to each other on the train and making up a past life for every two passengers?
“okay.” you point to the two girls sitting at the bar, one of them on their phone, the other resting her head atop the counter. “what about them?” 
younghoon turns to face them. “classmates.”
you make a noise of disapprovement. “sisters.”
he mimics the noise. “no way.”
“look.” you say, gesturing to the way the girl that was on her phone places her free hand on top of the other’s head. “it’s just so…” here you lose the words for it. the girl on her phone bends down and places the smallest kiss on her friend’s head. 
“familiar.” younghoon finishes. and when your gaze falls back to him, you find that he’s already looking at you. the game somehow feels different than it did when you were kids. 
younghoon inhales sharply and nods his head towards a boy and a girl playing billiards in the corner. “what about them?”
you take a moment to observe them. these two seem less familiar with each other. there’s a lot of extra laughing, a lot of awkward pauses between turns. “coworkers.” you finally say.
“strangers.” younghoon counters. “like she took his order at a food place that he left a bad review for.”
you give him a look. he shrugs. 
the game continues. you do the two bartenders which you both agree must have been lovers. you do the group of boys, in business casual sitting two tables over. younghoon says they were all dogs in the same shelter. you say they were in a band together. 
the game continues until the only two people in the pub who you haven’t made up a past life for are you and younghoon.
younghoon gives you a half smile. “what do you think we were in a past life?”
this was always how you and him ended the game. you wonder how many past lives the two of you have created for each other by now.
you think for a moment, eyes flicking between the bartenders who were lovers and the friends who were once family. “two people squished next to each other on the train.”
younghoon laughs at that one, knocking his head back and accidentally kicking your leg under the table. he shakes his head. “a bird and the branch it sits on.”
“a keychain and the ring it’s attached to.”
“a celebrity and their bodyguard.”
“enemies.”
“friends.” 
something snags on your throat at that. 
you laugh, not meaning for it to sound as forced as it does. “but we’re that now.” 
a silent question hangs in the air: are we?
“why’d you come to new york?” you ask him. you already said your goodbye to him. years ago, on a skype call that felt akin to a breakup. seeing him and facing him again was not something you had expected to ever have to do. and the thing is, it’s not just facing him. it’s facing your past, and it’s facing all the different ways he’s known you. 
younghoon doesn’t seem surprised that you asked, but his eyes do this…thing as he looks up from the glass. this fearless, shameless thing that makes you feel things you wish you didn’t feel. “i came to see you.” 
you don’t take your eyes off his. what is it they say about eyes again? windows to the soul?
“but you and jacob.”
you flinch. 
“you guys have those layers of inyun.”
“all 8000,” you whisper back to him, like the world might burst if you spoke any louder.
he nods solemnly, hopefully. “maybe you guys have even more.”
he looks at the bar. the warm light paints him in colors you’ve never seen him in before. he’s so much older than you remember. he’s so much more real than your last skype call. 
(your memory of this moment fails you. you can’t remember which one of you it was that asked)
“how many layers do we have?”
a number hangs off the tip of your tongue. but the world will burst if you say it outloud. so you don’t. for the world, for yourself, for jacob. 
*****
[you were right]
“you were right,” you tell jacob when you come home that night.
“about what?” he meets you in the kitchen, exhaust fan whirring in the background. 
“he came to see me.” 
and even just the admission of it, of the entire day you spent with younghoon, has you exhausted. 
you hug jacob. he sets the book that was in his hand down on the counter and lets you. he feels so warm next to your heart. he feels so at home. and you, in your apartment, in his arms, feel split in two. 
carefully, you ask him: “are you mad at me?”
“of course not.”
“do you want me to cancel tomorrow?”
“you haven’t seen him in forever. you should go.”
you exhale into his shoulder. 
“i mean, it’s not like you’re going to run away with him or anything, right?” he jokes. 
“please,” you scoff, “you know me.” 
“i know you.” he laughs, and you feel it throughout your entire body.
“i know you.” he repeats. 
you hug him tighter. 
“you’re it for me.” jacob tells you quietly. “you make my life so much bigger.”
you can’t tell if it’s the confession or the exhaustion or both that brings you close to tears. “what if something happens?”
he doesn’t ask what you mean; he just repeats himself. “it’s only you.”
*****
[not touching but almost]
you meet younghoon the next morning at the hoyt-schermorhorn street station. he asks how you slept. you say well. 
you stand in front of the sliding doors, holding onto the pole. he follows suit, his hand right under yours. staring at his face, you search for which features of his have stayed the same and which have changed. 
“your eyes.” you say at the same moment the train screeches. he leans forward, mostly to hear you better but also to stay upright as the train sways. his fingers inch towards yours. “your eyes are still the same.” 
he looks embarrassed for a moment. then smiles. you do too. 
the train stops. the signs outside read: ‘fulton st’. 
you look back at him. “i can’t stop smiling.” fuck the train, you’ll repeat it until he hears what you have to say. 
he doesn’t ask you to repeat yourself this time. he just laughs. “why?”
you shrug, smiling again, and feeling entirely, wholly like a kid. “just ‘cause.”
his fingers inch towards yours again. you don’t even think he means for it to. you look down at your hands. close but not touching. not touching but almost. 
the train stops again. ‘chambers st,’ it reads this time. you both get off.
*****
[a whole part of you i’ll never know]
there’s this memory that bounces around your head from time to time. it was before you and jacob had gotten married, in your old apartment, the one in hell’s kitchen above the thai place with the light up dragon that played pop music late into the night. 
so with an old miley cyrus song floating up through the air and in through the open window, jacob tells you that there’s a whole part of you he’ll never know. 
you don’t deny it at first. you turn in bed to face him, cup his cheek in your hand and flinch at the stubble growing in. you kiss him and tell him, “you know me better than anyone.” 
“but i-” he hesitates here, mouth opening and closing like he can’t decide what kind of conversation he wants this to be. “it’s like there’s this whole portion of your brain that will always be out of reach. like i can see it there in the distance, but i can’t get to it.” 
“just ask. i’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“it’s not that.”
“what is it then?”
“he knows that part.”
the song goes quiet. you can hear a drunk person vomiting. you can hear your heart beating. breathlessly, you say, “younghoon?” 
and jacob, jacob, jacob. he looks like he regrets it. “you, just, you always talk about how you reinvented yourself when you moved to new york and how different you used to be. but what if that wasn’t the first time?”
you shake your head. “i’m not a kid anymore.” 
“i know.” and against all odds, jacob smiles. “sometimes, i just wish i knew you when you were.”
*****
[second confession] 
the day, in all honesty, is some of the most fun you’ve had in a long while. you and younghoon get dumplings and rice noodles in chinatown and eat them in columbus park while watching people play ping pong. he wants to go shopping in soho and so you take him to your favorite spots. you wait with him in line at the famous bakery on lafayette only for him to hate the pastry he got. and in the evening, you and younghoon meet up with jacob to get dinner near your apartment. 
“so how do you like new york,” jacob asks while walking to the restaurant. 
younghoon nods slowly. “not bad.”
your husband’s eyes widen. he was born and raised in new york. it’s the only place he’s ever known. “not bad?”
younghoon shrugs. “it’s a little smelly.”
jacob just chuckles at that. “you get used to it. what have you seen so far?”
“yesterday i saw the rockefeller center, times square, and central park. and then,” younghoon looks at you, “we met in tompkins square park, and we took the ferry to see the statue of liberty.”
“you know i’ve never actually been to the statue of liberty.” jacob confesses, lightheartedly. 
“really?” younghoon asks dumbfounded.
“really?” you mutter to the ground. 
jacob shoves his hands in his pockets and nods. 
younghoon looks at you, disappointed, and jokingly says, “what are you doing? you should take your husband to see it.” 
younghoon doesn’t really wait for a response, but you still give him a half-hearted laugh before putting a hand on jacob’s elbow, and quietly, almost shamefully asking, “have we really not gone?”
the conversation has moved on without you it seems. while laughing at something else younghoon’s said, jacob shakes his head ‘no’.
the rest of the dinner goes well. the food is good, and the conversation flows. jacob heads back home once it’s over to get work done, and you and younghoon go to your favorite bar in the area, a posh sort of place with dim lighting and fancy cocktails. the two of you grab seats at the bar.
“what’d you think of jacob?” 
younghoon looks happy, a smile gracing his face for a moment. he tilts his head, and you almost miss the way his smile turns down. “i didn’t think liking your husband would hurt this much.” (almost). “i can tell he really loves you.”
“i love him too.” you say, just to fill the space. but what you really want is to beg him to take it back. beg him to say something else. anything else. say he hated him instead. 
“yesterday, you asked me why i didn’t try to keep talking back then.” younghoon continues. “the truth i learned here is that it wouldn’t have mattered how hard i tried even if i did. you were always going to leave because you’re you. and i liked you because you’re you. and who you are is someone who leaves.”
you start to refute, but stop yourself because… he’s right. the last two times you parted ways with him, it was because of you. you started the goodbye. you were the one who left. 
“but for jacob,” younghoon says, eyes scanning across the bar, staring at every bartender and every customer before finally, finally, landing on you, “you’re someone who stays.”
and it turns you fucking inside out. 
“i’m sorry if i hurt you in the past, younghoon.”
younghoon doesn’t falter. he never has. “i’m not.”
*****
[last confession, last goodbye, last hello]
you walk younghoon to the uber from your apartment. the address has always been a little finicky; the uber will only stop two blocks down. the long ones. not that that matters much. nonetheless, you and younghoon walk it slowly, pausing for a couple seconds each time the wheels of his suitcase get caught on a cellar door. 
“thank you for emailing me.” you tell him, lifting your chin up slightly. “i’m really glad that you did and we got to do this.
he nods. “i’m glad i did too, but i was actually a little unsure about it.” 
this surprises you. the sentiment yes, but also the way he says it. tucking his hair behind his ear, and squinting his eyes at a stop light, refusing to meet yours. younghoon is the surest person you’ve ever known. 
something catches in the back of your throat. something foul and hopeful. something that makes you feel young. “why?’ 
he shrugs, looks up at the second deli you’ve passed and mouths the name of it. like he’s practicing it, memorizing the name, the location, the guy sitting out front, and the cat that always lingers in the back. why does he care so much about the little things? 
“i didn’t know if you’d want to see me again.” he finally says. “the last time we spoke was so long ago. i wasn’t sure if you had left me in the past for good.” 
you hit the end of the second block where the uber will be picking him up soon, right under the ice pop shop that you always walk a little slower by on the hottest summer afternoons. across the block the walking signal is red–a memory comes back to you: your first summer in this new apartment, your first month being married too. you standing on this side of the block and jacob standing at the other. waiting for the cars to pass, waiting to greet each other in the middle of the road. you can feel that day in the bottom of your stomach. you remember exactly what jacob's hand felt like in yours. 
“i think i did.” you tell him. “but i don’t regret doing this with you. it was like meeting you again, and meeting the version of myself that last saw you too.” 
you turn away from the signal and look at him. he looks sad almost. “sometimes i still think of you as that kid i used to walk home from school with.” 
you remember what you used to tell jacob: how you reinvented yourself when you moved to new york. you remember what he used to say back: what if that wasn’t the first time. and so, you reach into your past and try to remember who you used to be before you moved to america. 
“i haven’t been that kid for a long time now,” you frown, watching younghoon’s pupils dart back and forth between yours, “but they still existed. they were still real.”
the uber pulls up. younghoon puts his suitcase in the trunk and opens the door to step inside. and with one foot in the car to the airport and one foot planted on the street you call home, he says, “what if this is just another past life and we’re already something else in another?”
the only thing you can manage to give him in response is a nod. you don’t like to think about what if.
he smiles. and you feel something break apart in your heart.
“i’ll see you then.”
in another life, younghoon is more than just a series of goodbyes. but in this one, he gets in the uber, and you don’t imagine seeing him again. you don’t think you will. because for the first time in this life, you're not the one that left–he was.  
you make it halfway back down the two blocks back to your apartment when you see jacob. it just so happens to be in front of the deli younghoon had committed to memory silently beside you. you inhale deeply; it feels like the first breath you’ve taken since younghoon landed in new york. jacob is 8 stoops away from you. 
at 5 you think about when you met, the writers retreat in long island, the most beautiful serene place you swear you’ve ever been and the stupid pick up line you said about inyun.
at 4, you think about his eyes, his eyes, his eyes, and the line he wrote about them in an essay that was published 3 years ago saying that they're the only part of the nervous system that's exposed, a direct line to someone's head and heart. was he right? did you look into younghoon’s mind tonight? have you been staring at jacob's heart? 
at 3, you think about all this talk about past lives. and you think what if it’s not about your past lives with younghoon or with jacob? what if it’s about all the past lives within you? 
at 2, you think about the kid you left in a country that doesn’t feel like yours anymore. 
and at 1, you think about younghoon. 
he stops right in front of you. staring at you staring at him. your whole world feels bigger than it ever has before, and your heart, in response, splits in half to fit him inside. you feel that something in your throat rise and boil. 
“i’m sorry,” you finally say, before falling into his arms. the sob that’s been waiting in the bottom of your soul for the past 20 years comes bursting out of your throat. you cry into your husband's shoulder. you feel the weight of all your past lives and all your future ones like they aren't in the past or in the future, like they're now beside you begging you to imagine what could’ve been and what was. 
jacob holds the back of your head. he doesn’t say anything. he doesn’t need to. it’s all been said before. instead he kisses the corner of your eye and takes you home. 
**********************************************************
a/n: originally posted as an svt fic, but i loved this movie and this story too much to not repost. i hope someone sees this and enjoys it. i hope this means something to someone. i hope i've convinced you to watch the movie cause it is truly one of the best pieces of media i've ever ever consumed.
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cookierunauprompts · 2 months
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I am willing to guess that most of the dolls that Golden Butter Cookie makes are named and based after herbs and spices. Like you've got Rosemary, you've got Basil, and you've got Thyme.
GBC probably sketches and plans their designs on a little notebook way back then and used to share their ideas with Shadow Milk Cookie who enjoys listening or commenting on it because this is the most motivated she seemed in years, so he adds a bit of his own ideas to the mix. (Some are rejected for obvious reasons). And it becomes one of the small things they bonded over.
yeah! I'm glad you picked up on that! Rosemary was the first name to come to mind and then i thought; " well what if all the dolls were named after spices?" and boom, there you have it.
As for the other half i entirely agree! I do believe how Shadow Milk first found out was by accidentally sneaking up on her, it's just that she doesn't really use a regular notebook... It's more like a magical character creation screen? I dunno how to explain it really.
The two of them used to bounce ideas off of each other frequently, but as Goldie descended further into her burnout it turned into her listening to Shadow Milk's ideas and giving him feedback. Until eventually, he couldn't find her at all.
After that was the first time he discovered the Toy-Box, at first Goldie had called it a 'storage space'... but he wondered if that was still true now.
He was also surprised when he was able to open it, and was soon met with the world inside. At first, he was amazed... And then he eventually found Goldie.
She had looked, surprised? At least, he thought she looked surprised despite the faint expression on her face. But she clearly didn't expect for him to be here. After realizing how she was, he put effort into trying to help her.
However, like some stars, she eventually crashed and burned. It was inevitable after all. She had changed, and he was in the process of changing himself. Did either of them want to change this way? Did they want to turn out like they had? Who knows, maybe only they themselves would.
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