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bloodys44 · 3 years

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Silence and Cigarette Smoke

Original story and bonus content found here! ↓↓↓↓

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13289933/1/Silence-and-Cigarette-Smoke

I just posted chapter 9 on FF.net so please feel free to read ahead if you enjoy :)

Chapter 6: The Letters To A Ghost

788

(25th day of summer)

Mom,

I helped Natsu dig a grave for Lissana today. He was extremely adamant about it even though we were never able to retrieve her body. Not to mention that we already held a service for her weeks ago. He dug it by hand at her favorite lookout, told me he wanted her soul to rest where she would never miss the sun rise or set. The headstone he made her read "An angel who falls may now pass to the home of their gods. A forever sunrise to lighten the lives of the dark." It was beautiful Mama, Natsu worked really hard on it.

He didn't sleep in my dorm last night for the first time since we came home. I went by his room to check on him but I heard him crying. In all the years I've known Natsu, I've only seen that once, when we lost her initially. He sounded so sad, It broke my heart. I was too scared to go in so I left him for the night. I really miss her too.

Remembering your warm hugs,

Lucy.

(86th day of summer)

Dear Mom,

Today was really hard, I miss you.

It's been two months since I last wrote to you. Natsu went out on his first job since Lissana today. He wouldn't take me with him no matter how much I begged. He's never left me behind before, I know it was only one job, but it still stung. He barely speaks anymore, just follows me around silently. I feel like I'm losing my partner. Gray and Levy say I need to give him time and space, that he likes to grieve alone. I get that Mama, I really do, but he isn't the only one grieving. I feel like he died with her in the mine. I miss him too.

He still gave me some of the reward money even though he did the request alone. I wish he wouldn't, it feels like pitty. I don't want his pity, I just want to talk to him like I used too.

Mira is still having nightmares. I've been sleeping on the terrace by my room. Her crying breaks my heart and I fear it will never heal if I keep listening.

This was a bad letter, sorry Mom,

Lucy.

(43rd day of fall)

Mom,

I almost destroyed grandmother Anna's book today. The sight of it turns my stomach, and I haven't been able to open it yet. Natsu wouldn't let me ruin it though, he told me if it was gone the whole trip would be worth nothing. He's right, I know. I just want the hurt to stop.

Fall is here now, I love how the grounds look with all the autumn colors. Though I miss the pink cherry blossoms, they remind me of Natsu's hair, but I think his shade is fading too. He stresses too much. I think you would still like it.

Love always,

Lucy.

(58th day of winter)

Mama,

Today was good. It was Juvia's birthday. The guild held a small party for her, it was perfect considering the mourning mood that's dulled the air. There were smiles and cake, and everybody was laughing again, just like old times, I loved it. Gray asked her to be his girlfriend, finally. I think that's the part she loved the most. They're leaving on a mission that's supposed to take around four months. Knowing her, Juvia will treat every second like an extended honeymoon. She really was ecstatic mama, I wish you could have seen the joy on her face. I think everyone could feel it, I even saw Mira dancing slowly in the corner with her husband Laxus. She hasn't left her room since we told her what happened. I hope she's starting to feel like herself again. It's almost the new year, so maybe things will start to get better for everyone.

Natsu didn't show, of course. He hasn't been around much lately. He's always working alone or hiding around the castle where I can't find him, not even at our special clearing in the forest, the one he found me in. That's where he always used to hide. I haven't spoken much more than a sentence to him in weeks. I really miss him. Even with the happiness of today, I feel really alone again. He doesn't stay the night with me anymore.

Lucy.

(64th day of winter)

Dear Mom,

Gray and Juvia left on their job this morning. We all went down to the gate to wave them off. Even Natsu showed up, rare but welcomed. Gray is his best friend, and even though they haven't talked much either, I think he's going to miss him.

I asked Natsu if he wanted to take a job with me. It's been a while and I'm running out of money and I refuse to accept any more of his. I keep having to pick up extra shifts with the infirmary to keep up with my guild fees. He said no. I got mad and stormed off like a child.

He came to my room later in the night for the first time in months. I thought he was coming to tell me he changed his mind, that he wanted to take a request with me, though it ended up being the exact opposite. He came in yelling, spouting off that he couldn't take me on a job because I couldn't protect myself and he wasn't capable of doing it either. He rambled on for almost an hour, he's never yelled at me before, and mama he was screaming. But I decided I really didn't mind, its the most I've heard him speak in months. It wasn't near as bad as father used to make it. I was just happy to hear his voice again.

Merry Christmas,

Lucy.

-789-

(74th day of winter)

Mama,

He's gone.

He really did it. He left me alone for real. And god Mama, winter is so cold without him.

He visited me last night, I woke to him sitting at the end of my bed. It startled me since he hadn't been back to my room since he came in yelling. He looked so sad, his lips were pressed together like he was scared to speak the words trapped in his head. He crawled up beside me, just sitting there staring as if he could see right through me. He was so close, I could feel the heat of his breath over my nose. His eyes so dark they blended with the night. Eventually, I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he didn't answer, instead, he leaned in closer. He tried to kiss me, but I moved away. I really couldn't believe it, that he would have the audacity to try something like that after months without so much as a word. This visit was my turn to yell. I said things I would have never imagined saying to him, to my favorite person alive.

I went to his room later, I felt so bad for how I had spoken to him, I wanted to apologize. When I got there his room was empty, mattress stripped clean and drawers pulled open and bare. I think he was trying to kiss me goodbye. I'm so scared he won't come back Mama. I think he really did die that day in the mine.

Lucy.

(76th day of spring)

Hey Mom,

Gray and Juvia came back today, half a month early. They ran into some trouble, a man with metal clawed gloves dipped in some sort of poison. Gray's okay, but Juvia is really sick. He says she hasn't woken for three days. He's really worried about her, I can tell from the way his hands shake. He hasn't left her bedside all day. It's sweet, but it reminded me of Natsu. I miss when he used to spend the night.

I haven't heard from him, not even a letter. I hope he's okay.

Love from your dearest,

Lucy.

(86th day of spring)

Dear Mom,

Spring always reminds me of you, I remember how much it was your favorite, even though I always preferred summer. I miss when we strolled the garden together and the only thing to worry about was not fraying my gown or scuffing my shoes.

Juvia still hasn't woken up yet, and I think Gray is starting to panic. He's going on lots of jobs, says he can't stay on the grounds too long or he starts to worry about her. I offered to be his new 'in-term' partner while he waits for her to get better. I really need to make some more money, and I don't think Natsu is coming back anytime soon.

We leave tomorrow morning and I'm kind of excited, I've never been on a job without Natsu before. I think it'll be a good chance to prove myself. I just hope this doesn't make me miss him any more than I already do.

Love,

Lucy.

(32nd day of summer)

Mama,

Working with Gray has been really nice. He's actually a lot more kind and sweet then his cold persona would suggest. I think I can see why Juvia likes him so much. Gray listens, he's a good holder of information, a place to vent. He's held me while I cried and talked me through my nonsense brain. Sometime's he even shares his cigarettes with me. He's a really good guy, and I can see how much he loves Juvia. I really hope she wakes up soon, Porlyusica started warning of impairments the longer she's unconscious.

I'm glad Gray has been so good to me, it's nice having a friend to talk too again. I know Levy's here too, but she's always busy with guild work. The rest of the members are all amazing and accepting but it's just not the same. I hope he doesn't forget about me, or how close we've gotten when Juvia wakes up.

I'm really worried about Natsu. Mira says he's never been gone this long without at least a letter. I've been reading as many of Fiore's damage and crime reports as I can get my hands on. I pray that all the flame-related incidents are him. It gives me hope that he's alive.

Lucy.

(84th day of summer)

Hi Mom,

It's been a really long time, Summer's almost over now.

Please Mama, don't judge me. I think I made a mistake. Gray and I went too far, we slept together. I gave him all my firsts, and I think he gave me some of his. I regret it all, and I can tell he does too. We had an awful day, our mission was a complete failure. We spent the night at some shabby inn, the bed smelled like rot but we honestly didn't care. We both cried after and pretended we couldn't hear one another. Juvia's been in a coma for almost half a year. I think he's trying to process the thought of actually losing her. I swear I could taste sadness on his lips. I think we're both grieving the loss of someone significant.

I thought about Natsu the entire time, I could picture all his scars over Gray's skin. I pretended his icy breath smelt of cinnamon and ash. It's been so long, but I still think about him every minute. I wish he had been the first to touch me. I love Gray, I really do, but not like that. My body feels dirty even after scrubbing my skin raw.

I can't pick out any damage or crime reports that I could even remotely relate to Natsu, and his mattress doesn't smell like him anymore either. I sleep there every night. If he's with you Mama, please take care of him.

I love you, so much,

Lucy.

(49th day of fall)

Dear Mom,

I asked Gray if he thought I should dig a metaphorical grave for Natsu. He told me I was crazy, said he would know if that 'cocky fire pit went out'. I hope he's right. We don't talk about what happened. Ever. We just pretend it never did.

I've been studying telepathy, and I'm getting pretty good. And yes, I learned it from great grandmother's book. I finally opened it. I feel dirty knowing the thoughts of my teammates sometime's so I don't use it often, however, my new favorite trick is dream diving. I do it to Gray when we're out on missions and he's gone to bed for the night. I hope he doesn't feel violated, his dreams aren't very interesting anyway. The only constant is the cold. Don't ask me how somebody dream's in temperatures, he just does.

Other time's though, I try to reach Natsu. I'm not really sure how far my range is and I have no reason to believe it could ever reach him. I still try though.

Lucy.

(73rd day of fall)

Mama,

Juvia woke up. I'm not sure if this is good or bad news. She's unresponsive, constantly staring at the ceiling. Porlyusica says there's a good chance of more function after a few days. But the sight of her, so sunken and lifeless is nothing less than disturbing. It's shattering Gray's heart, and watching it shatters mine. He won't eat, it's been four days. I don't want to lose another friend. This year has been the worst.

Job requests are coming in fewer and fewer, all of Fiore is under such a heated eye. Royal guards on every corner, in every continent. It's nerve-racking to hire mages while under constant watch, and nearly impossible for said mages to complete missions unsaved. The streets are war zone's, the anti-magic forces haven't been this strong since the initial banning or the day you died. One day, I want to fix it, this awful divide of man and man. I tell myself your death wasn't for nothing. I hope nobody dies for nothing. Too much of valuable human life is wasted. Humanity is cruel I suppose.

Your's truly,

Lucy.

(50th day of Winter)

Mom,

A very merry Christmas to you, and to Natsu. I hope he's with you and not lost in the stars. Things have been getting better. Juvia is up and talking, she can even walk around a bit with a sturdy shoulder from Gray. My heart hasn't felt relief like this in far too long, I feel like it could burst. I couldn't help but cry when I saw Gray smile again. All it took was Juvia's mangled stutter of his name. It was such a pure smile, like he had decided to donate his soul to her. I don't blame him, Juvia is an amazing woman. I feel like I stabbed her in the back and I don't think the guilt for my excursion with Gray will ever go away. I wonder if he plans to tell her. I thought about doing it myself, but it feels unfair to confess how another tried to mend their grieving heart.

It's almost been an entire year since he left. I don't think I really believe that he's dead but sometime's it's easier to lie about it. Natsu showed me a whole new world, took my hand and cherished me with such open arms. I can deny it all I want, but I know I fell in love with him, his every feature is burned against the inside of my skull. If he really is gone, I won't forget him, but I think I'll be okay eventually.

Sending you love filled with holiday warmth,

Lucy.

Original story and bonus content found here! ↓↓↓↓

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13289933/1/Silence-and-Cigarette-Smoke

#natsu #natsu dragneel #lucy #lucy heartfilia #Nalu #nalu fanfic #nalu fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #gray fullbuster #juvia lockser

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teamvnla · 5 years

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Cutscene : Forward Movement

[Cutscene Masterlist]

"Step. Forward swing. Step. Upward strike." Leo commanded in a booming voice as he walked near Jae who acted out the commands with a long steel pipe.

"We have been doing this for hours, isn't it about time we move to a heavier pipe or even just a sword?" Jae questioned swinging the pipe with ease, it was even lighter than his own sword.

"Turn. Swing and hold." Leo ordered as he stopped. "Right now we aren't focusing on the weight difference of your sword and Silverlight, we're focusing more on the difference in length. To use Silverlight effectively you gotta learn everything about her, that was easy for your dad since he designed her and all."

Ever since Leo had accepted to help Jae train to use Silverlight he hadn't allowed Jae to even try out the weapon. Jae knew better than to attempt to actually use a large weapon he was unfamiliar with, but it wouldnt hurt just to give him an idea of what he was working towards.

They continued the training late into the evening, even doing a few mock fights. Leo was adaptive and quick to point out things that Jae could change in the moment. This continued for several days before the weight of the pipe was increased.

"I was expecting you to handle that like a staff, but you use it more like a swordsman." Jae commented as he sat on a bench in the training room it was the end of their session, Leo chuckled as he tossed a water bottle to Jae.

"I had a pretty good teacher, overall a good example too." Leo took a seat next to Jae unscrewing the cap to his own water bottle, looking at the young male only reminded him of his teacher. "Y'know Clearstrike isn't my first weapon, I've probably tried out a hundred different weapons and combinations. You could probably hand me something from the amory and I'd be able to use it."

Jae quirked a brow at the older man, the tension between them had lightened compared to their first meeting. There was still some apprehension and it would be awhile until that went away, but things were improving none the less.

"Why'd you go through so many before deciding on Clearstrike?" He asked taking a sip of his water.

"Well growin' up we didn't have a ton of money, so what I had to work with was what my father had. Which was a war hammer gatling gun, wasn't too bad of a weapon. Learned how to use it well, but when I got to Atlas where the supplies were abundant I couldn't help myself. Then by my fourth year I finally deciding on Clearstike's design and shes what I've stuck with since." Leo explained with a shrug, noticing Jae listening to his story so intently he took a drink of his water, somewhat embarrassed.

"Okay, in exchange for that story give me 15 laps and then you can head home." He cleared his throat as he stood up, he clearly didn't intend to tell Jae that much about anything before he went to the academy so he tried to brush it aside.

Jae let a breath out through his nose before getting up to start his laps, waiting for Leo to call start.

——————————————

The next few weeks consisted of increasing the weight of the pipe and a sudden switch to swords along with training fights with Tarragon and Opal. He still had more to work on but all three of the adults could see he was improving.

Not only did he learn more combat wise he also learned more about each member of his father's old team. Surprisingly it was Opal's suggestion for Jae to spend time with each member of the team, she brought up the importance of knowing who you're working with and the trust among teammates. There was also a passing mention of Leo's Semblance, but before Jae was able to inquire more the topic was quickly changed by Leo.

Up to this point Jae walked into the agency building expecting another typical training session with Leo, he had stopped by Tarragon's office to let her know he had arrived for some reason she always insisted the importance of him telling her when he got to the agency and got home. Yet he found the women's office empty, shrugging it off as an errand he continued down the hall to the elevator down to the training room having grown familiar with the route. Walking down the hall until he reached the training room they typically used he opened the door, unsuspecting of what was behind it.

A burst of shiny pieces of confetti were fired in the direction of the doorway accompanied by the sound of a noisemaker, he stepped back from the initial shock yet pieces of confetti managed to land in his hair. As the confetti settled he saw that the room had been haphazardly decorated, it almost felt like a makeshift birthday....but it wasn't his birthday. He looked around the room confused before his gaze landed on the adult in front of him.

"Come on, give us more of a reaction!" Tarragon let out a groan before booing teasingly.

"Really? No comment about the neon colors burning into your eyes?" Leo questioned at the lack of reaction from Jae, who was mainly in a state of confusion.

"....I'm colorblind." He responded stepping into the room closing the door behind him. "What's all this for? Did something happen?"

"We have a surprise." Opal commented with a soft smile quirked on her lips.

"Uh more like I have a surpri-" Leo began before he was cut off by an excited Tarragon.

"Leo says you're ready to use Silverlight!" She shouted a grin spreading across her face, Jae gaze quickly moved to Leo.

"Way to ruin the big reveal and I meant more in a he's ready to start training with her." Leo corrected glancing away almost seeming embarassed, he turned and gestured for Jae to follow. The black hair boy nearly tripped over his feet quickly following the older man to one of the benches.

"I tried cleaning her up the best I could, we can work out the other kinks as you work with her." He commented tracing the edge of the case, before opening it with a click. Silverlight shone the minute the lights of the training room hit her, Jae felt his breath catch like when he first saw her in the dusty old locker. He felt a hand on his shoulder, Leo spoke low and quiet for only Jae to hear him. "It'll feel weird at first, from here on it's going to be even harder training not just for your body but for here.." Using his other hand he tapped a finger to Jae's temple, "..and here.." he moved his hand tapping Jae's chest. "But I need you to remember that Vincent wanted this for you, he wanted the one to have Silverlight to be his kid." Leo stood straight and gave Jae a firm pat on the back. "Go on, let us get a look at you two together." He chuckled stepping back.

Jae nodded slowly, what Leo said had struck a chord with him that he couldn't shake. He took a deep breath tossing his bag down to the side, he carefully wrapped a hand around the hilt before doing the same with the other. He lifted it out of it's case, it didn't feel as heavy as when he had first taken it out of that storage locker but there was still an unfamiliar weight to it.

"Step. Forward swing. Step. Upward strike." Hearing the commands Jae reacted almost on instinct, the weight affected his swings but that happend previously with each change in weight.

"Hey! Don't start your session already, let me get a picture! This is an important moment!" Tarragon commented before snapping many pictures of Jae from different angles, Leo let out a exasperated sigh while Tarragon's antics earned an audible laugh from Opal.

The two women stuck around for the rest of the session occassionally giving their own input and advice, overall the session went well.

——————————————

"I think the last time I was this sore was when I first started training." Jae stated with a soft chuckle, as he sat across from Dia who he was playing chess with. Mia sat at the table with them quietly sipping tea while watching the two play, familiar moments like these were a bit rare with Jae's shift in mission and Dia's adjustment to her new life.

"Maybe it's just because you're getting old." Dia responded a smile quirked on her lips as she made her next move, it was nice to hear the youngest Aryl joke these past few months had been hard on the young girl.

"Twenty isn't old, you're just a baby." He responded as he moved his own piece having already noticed his sisters plan for her next moves, despite her attempt to hide his dismay that he caught on to her plan Dia pursed her lips. She stared at the board thinking over her next move, her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Jae's scroll as he received a call.

Seeing the name on the screen he quickly grabbed it and answer it, he signaled to Dia that he'd be a minute as he stood up from where he sat walking to his room.

"I know todays your off day and all, but Opal and I were going over the locations of the attack and we think we're on to something. So I'm calling a team meeting." Tarragon explained over the phone clearly not going to accept a response other than yes.

"Okay, it's going to take me a minute with the snow." He responded, reminding her of the fact that he would have to walk.

"I'll have Leo pick you up, I have to call him next anyway."

Jae explained the situation to his mother and apologized to Dia assuring her they'd continued their game another time, he buttoned his pine coat. Not long later Leo arrived and soon enough they were walking into Tarragons office.

"I was expectin' Opal to be here." Leo commented not seeing the other women in the office.

"She's out grabbin' somethin' she should be back soon, Jae close the door."

Jae did as he was told and entered the room, he stood behind Leo who had already made himself comfortable in the desk chair. They both looked to Cherry expectantly.

"So y'know how at first the attacks looked sporadic and out of place." She began gesturing to different points of the holographic map. "Well Opal suggested we expand out search from not only references of Owl masks but also recent White Fang attacks, we had to weed out a lot focusing on attacks that result in missing persons." She explained pulling up a different colored point representing the White Fang attacks. "Tell me, what do you see?"

"Curves?"

"....they're sweeping the area..."

"Exactly, they started here and from the looks of it they already reached the border. So judging by the border they moved to, that would mean they're going to Mistral next."

"Unless they're already in Mistral."

"So either way, we need to go to Mistral."

"That's the plan, with the towers how they are at the moment we can't access any of Mistral's records from here."

"I feel you're overlooking the elephant in the room, how are we going to get to Mistral? Atlas officially closed their borders."

"I believe, I have a solution for that." A familiar voice answered, Jae and Leo turned to look at her.

The blonde stood in the doorway, next to her was a taller male with short white blonde hair and icy blue eyes dressed in a black turtleneck and dark plaid slacks. His left brow was quirked making it hard not the notice the space where a faint scar appeared to be.

"Titus?" Leo questioned surprised to see the specialist in general as well as in civilian attire, he had only ever seen him in uniform.

"You know each other?" Opal looked between the two men before gesturing for Titus to enter the room, she closed the door behind them.

"I've been assigned as his escort on missions." Titus responded gaze combing over the room, in an analytical way that felt oddly familiar to Jae.

"So I assume this is your solution?" Tarragon asked bring the groups attention back to the current topic.

"You could say Titus and I are old friends and friends help out one another when need. Right?"

"....." Titus stayed silent a moment holding Opal's gaze, despite the older women's calm expression their was an intensity in this staring match. "What are you trying to get from Amas?"

"We need passage into Mistral, it's for a job."

"Why don't you send a request through your agency, wouldn't they have more sway than I would?"

"Maybe, but approval could take months."

"If it even got approved that is." Leo pointed out.

Jae watched the exchange, were they doing what he thinks they are? No...they're professional Hunters they wouldn't...

Opal place a hand on Titus's should, giving it a small squeeze.

He sighed running a hand through his hair. "I can get you a passage out you're on your own when it comes to finding an aircraft and a pilot."

"You say that as if it's a problem, look who they got with them." Leo stated refering to himself, he slung a arm over Titus's shoulder.

The rest of the meeting consisted of planning their leave, it went far smoother than Jae expected it seemed that Tarragon,Opal, and Leo all had experience with it.

The next few days to their leave felt like they dragged on and on, when talking to his mother about his departure he kept the derail vague and bended a few things here and there.

Before he knew it he was on an aircraft heading to Mistral.

#cutscene #♥️♥️Nothing Gold Can Stay [Verse 2]♥️♥️#[Muse;Jae Aryl]#[Leo Cornell]#[Cherry Tarragon]#[Opal Amas]#[Titus ‘Razz’ Marigold]

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letmeletmetrashyourlove · 6 years

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Zombie Boy

(gif credit: rosaque) (Literally one of my top five gif makers.) (I adore them)

Author’s Note: Holy shit I’ve been working on this damn thing for so long that now I hate it. It started as a Billy x reader fic and slowly turned into an OC fic so weee!

Summary: Billy helps Byers!Reader through the challenges of protecting her little brother.

I laid on my back in bed, a book resting on my chest, one from the pile of novels in my corner that I told myself I would read over the summer. Well, the summer was creeping to a close, the days became shorter and colder and I hadn’t made a dent. Shuffling from my window made me glance up to identify a familiar mullet-haired boy climbing through, gingerly stepping around the things on my desk. “You know you can just come in the front door, right?” I asked as my focus moved back to my book, turning the page. “More fun this way.” He grinned as his booted feet beat the floor.

Billy grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me to the end of the bed, forcing me to lose my clutch on my book in surprise as a yelp escaped my lips. I let out a wild giggle as he planted his hands on either side of my head and leaned down to kiss me.

“What’s that for?” I smiled up at him, resting my hands on his shoulders. “Missed you after school today.” He hummed, pressing another chaste kiss to my lips. “I had to go to the doctor with Will,” I explained. Every other Monday for the past year had been the scheduled day to go back to Hawkins Lab to meet Doctor Sam Owens. He maintained that he wasn’t one of the men that caused harm to Will and that all of those men were gone, but I remained incredulous. The tests they did were routine, often not revealing anything out of the ordinary or new. But it was evident that they were searching for something, though they wouldn’t tell us what. Billy had been in Hawkins for hardly three weeks. He spent the first week here turning out every girl he could, it was almost like he had a list in his head of girls he wanted to fuck and leave in the dust. But I wasn’t going to bend to that so easily, and he made it his task to get me alone. And it wasn’t so much that I was purposely avoiding him, but that I just had other things going on. He caught onto my schedule and ended up staying behind after school and waiting for me to get out of my study group in the library. At least, that’s what he said, but I’m not entirely convinced that he didn’t just happen to get out of detention at the same time I left. He somehow persuaded me to let him give me a ride home. And then a ride home the next day, and the next day, until he kidnapped me and took me to the diner before going home. We talked about his home life, where he was from. What California was like. The Byers’ family could never afford to travel out of state, let alone to go as far as the coasts of California. He showed me how he could tie a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue, sticking it out of his mouth and proudly displaying it. I tried it myself, ending up nearly choking on the damn thing in the process. I turned away from him, my face red from coughing and from the embarrassment that could be seen in the rising blush on my cheeks. He caught my chin, turning me around to face him and pressing his lips to mine. We both tasted of the artificial sugar from the cherries and the whipped cream from our milkshakes. He pulled away with a smirk, finally winning in this unspoken game he was playing. And, much to my surprise, he didn’t try to get into my pants when he dropped me off at home. He instead gave me one last peck on the lips and went home. The day I decided to tell him about Will was an arduous one. I told him we needed to talk, which I could tell struck fear into his heart. He drove us out to the quarry and parked along the edge. We rolled down the windows to let in some of the tranquil autumn air and to ease the nervous sweat that was beading on my forehead. He listened intently as I poured my heart out, resting a reassuring hand on my knee when I felt the tears burning in the back of my eyes and my throat closing up. I was more emotionally raw than I had in a long time, finally getting some semblance of the truth out to somebody that I knew would listen and I could trust not to say anything. Sure, it wasn’t the whole truth. Only what you could read about in the papers and watch on the nightly news, but getting it off my chest was the most significant thing. That spot on the edge of the quarry became our spot. It was far enough off the beaten path that other couples wouldn’t be able to find us. It wasn’t our intention to hide, but neither of us could deny the peace we found sitting beside each other, fingers intertwined, music playing softly on the radio. As the days went on, both of us became more and more comfortable with each other, he dragged me into the back seat to sit on his lap, eyes full of lust. The night ended with a severe lack of clothes and a plethora of bruises on the inside of my thighs and along my neck. He met me with a smirk the next couple of days of school, noticing I had borrowed a turtleneck from Jonathan to hide the marks on my neck. Then came the task of telling my brother why exactly I had to swipe his shirt. Which ended as many of our discussions did, in a screaming fit. Both of us with red faces and clenched fists as we hurled insults back and forth. There was an unspoken Billy ban in our house, not that Jonathan actually had the balls to enforce it. Besides, his time was consumed by being the pretentious prick that he is and sitting in his room blasting boring music and reading some old ass book. Despite my brother’s contempt for Billy, every Friday night was date night and he’d be picking me up soon. I spent a few moments in front of the mirror trying to tame my overly staticky hair and smearing on a coat of lipstick before I heard a knock at the door. I popped the lid back on my lipstick, setting it down on my vanity tray before answering the door. “You’re early.” I greeted, opening the front door for Billy. He beamed at me, a slight blush on his cheeks from the biting winter air. His arms were behind his back, obviously hiding something from my view. “What you got there?” I asked, “A puppy?” He rolled his eyes, revealing the bouquet of violets he held behind his back. The plastic wrapping crinkled as I took them, admiring the note card that was attached. All it had was Billy’s initials and a heart drawn on it, about as romantic as this boy usually got. “What’s this for? What did you do?” “What, I can’t just bring my girlfriend flowers?” He opposed, settling his hands on my hips and pecking me on the lips as he moved me aside to step in from the cold. “Hmm… Nope.” I hummed, heading into the kitchen to put the flowers in water. The last time he bought me flowers, he beat up some guy that I made an offhand comment about. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of me in chemistry class, and it was starting to make me uncomfortable. And Billy wasn’t going to have that, oh no. He waited until I had a sick day from school to confront the boy in the hall after class and knock out one of his teeth. When he was supposed to bring me more cold medicine after school, he instead spent the evening in detention, arriving three hours late with bloodied knuckles, a milkshake from Benny’s, cough syrup, and a bouquet of violets. It wasn’t until the next day when I returned to school that I knew he had nearly knocked a kid out in the hallway. It seemed to be a routine now before I could hear rumors of his misbehavior through the grapevine, he brought me a bouquet. I rose onto my tiptoes to reach a vase from the cabinet, before I could reach it, I bumped against something on the counter. I let out a sound of surprise as I accidentally knocked Will’s sketchbook off. It hit the ground with a thud, a piece of paper fluttering out. I bent over to pick it up, discovering it was a newspaper clipping with writing in marker that bled through to the other side of the paper. I flipped it over to see it was the story from the day Will was found. Green marker was scrawled across the picture “Zombie Boy”. I felt my face instantly heat up with anger as I crumpled the paper in my hand. “Hey, you okay?” Billy asked, taking notice of my taught muscles and caressing my shoulders from behind. “Who the fuck makes fun of a kid that ended up in an alternat-” I stopped myself, realizing that I was about to accidentally spill the beans to Billy. “What?” “Ugh!” I roared, uncrumpling the paper and showing it to him, “How can kids be so shameless as to make fun of a kid who was kidnapped and brainwashed and probably tortured by some fucking evil corporation with nothing better to do than to try to fuck people over for the sake of-” I rambled before I was cut off by a peck on my lips. I let out a huff, glaring at Billy, “Don’t kiss me when I’m mad!” I objected, reaching up to erase the bit of my lipstick that rubbed off on his lips. “Why are you mad?” A small voice broke from behind me. I spun to see Will standing in the entryway to the kitchen, an empty glass in hand. “Nothin’ kiddo. Need more to eat?” I questioned, “I can fix you a sandwich or something before we go.” Although Will had grown taller over the past year, he hadn’t filled out any. All I could attribute it to was the stress from everything he had been through. It seemed like we could seldom get him to eat anything most of the time, and when he did eat, he just picked at it. “No, I had pizza at Mike’s, thanks.” He smiled, going into the fridge and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Billy still held the scrap of crumpled newspaper in his hand, peering at me with furrowed brows and lips parted as if he were about to say something. I shook my head at him, not wanting him to bring up something that Will was evidently trying to hide. He ignored me though, “Hey, Will. Where’d this come from, bud?” Billy questioned, holding the scrap out to Will. Will's face fell as he looked at the paper, “Nowhere.” He whispered, studying his beat-up sneakers and shuffling them stiffly. “It obviously came from somewhere. Tell me who I need to punch.” Billy insisted, “Billy.” I uttered, resting my hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “What? This isn’t cool!” He bellowed “Will?” “I-I- I don’t know… It was in my locker when I opened it this morning.” He stammered. Billy growled, “Pussy couldn’t even say it to your face.” He grumbled. I delivered a thump to Billy’s shoulder, a warning to watch his language and to quiet himself down. His anger was tough to curtail. It was constant and impending, threatening to burst out and attack whoever the closest victim happened to be, whether or not they were the source of his anger. He told me that I helped make him better about his anger. And I told him he shouldn’t rely on me to do that for him. It wasn’t healthy to put his sanity on me. But I did notice when I was with him that he sat with fists clenched, jaw taught, and teeth grinding rather than unleashing that anger onto anybody else. I took the piece of newspaper from Billy and reached into the front pocket of his denim shirt, pulling out his lighter, “C’mere.” I ordered Will, beckoning him over to the kitchen sink and handing him the lighter, “Light her up.” “What?” “Light it on fire. Burn the bullies… Symbolically, anyway.” I said, shooting a glare over my shoulder at Billy, who I could sense was plotting all the various ways he could make the people who hurt Will suffer. Will struggled to turn the ignitor on the lighter, but after a couple of tries, he lit the paper on fire and watched the edges of it curl up on itself as it burned away. I dropped it into the sink when the flames got too close to my fingers, putting it out with the faucet before we set off the smoke alarms, Will dawned a hint of a devious grin as he glanced up at me, “Feels good, huh?” “Yeah. Kinda.” He smirked as I threw my arm around his shoulder. “You know you can talk to me about this stuff, right? You don’t have to hide it?” I whispered. “Yeah, I know… it’s just… I don’t know… I feel like I’m…. kind of a burden.” He murmured, once again training his eyes on his sneakers. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach at those words. With everything that he had been through, the last thing he needed to be thinking was that he was a burden to me. I felt a sting at the back of my eyes as I grabbed him by the shoulders, “Hey.” I asserted, “You are not a burden. Nothing you could ever do would make you a burden, you understand?” He nodded, taking his glass of orange juice and his sketchbook and retreating into his bedroom once again. When I heard his door click shut, I turned back toward Billy. The sting in my eyes had turned into tears that overflowed out onto my cheeks. “Hey, hey, hey.” He consoled, meeting me halfway across the kitchen and tugging me against his chest. I let out a few silent sobs into his shirt, “I just don’t know how to help him.” I squeaked. Billy let me cry on his shoulder for a little while, brushing his hands up and down my back while he rocked me back and forth. “Sorry.” I sniffled as I backed away, wiping the snot from under my nose. Billy shook his head to tell me not to worry about it, snagging a tissue from the box that sat on the counter and handing it to me. I gladly took it, wiping my eyes. “Don’t be sorry, okay? I can’t even imagine what you guys went through.” I nodded as he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, “Come on. Let’s just go to the movie and try to relax for the night, okay?” He suggested, wiping one last stray tear from my cheek. “Lemme go say bye real quick,” I told him, heading back towards Will’s bedroom. I knocked on his door, peering in, “Hey, kid. Billy and I are headed to the movies. Want me to bring home some popcorn for you?” I asked. “Uh. How about some milk duds?” He asked, a grin playing on his lips. “You got it. Love you, see ya later.” I said, starting to close the door, “Oh, don’t forget to let Chester out to potty before you go to bed.” The dog lifted his head off the mattress at the sound of his name, “Got it.” Will told me, patting Chester on the head. I closed the door behind me as I went into the hallway, knocking on Jonathan’s door. “Hey, asshole!” I hollered over the music that was blasting from his room, “I’m leaving!” “Good, get Hargrove out of my house!” Jonathan retorted. He and I had a strained relationship. Being so close in age, we always struggled to outdo each other when we were younger. What should’ve been playful sibling rivalry ended up driving a wedge between us when Lonnie left. We were down to one income in the house, and that meant that everybody got less and less. Less for birthdays, less for holidays, less for back to school. It made us end up fighting for rewards, getting taken out for ice cream with just mom when we did something well since we couldn’t afford to get all four of us ice cream at one time. You would think that Will’s disappearance would’ve brought us together, but we only ended up blaming each other. Him shouting at me that I should’ve heard something since I was home, me screaming at him for getting a job instead of taking care of Will and driving him back from Wheeler’s house that night since he had taken the car to his job.

We both kept a closer watch over Will. That was for sure, but I could tell that the rift was starting to bother him. He wanted to have family game night but it would usually end up with Jonathan or I screaming at each other over something stupid. And I would like to think that I was always the innocent bystander, just the victim of Jonathan’s irrationality. But I was irrational too, and I knew it. But nothing pushed us further from each other than Billy Hargrove. He was everything that Jonathan despised. A jock with a bad boy attitude, fancy car, loved metal and Playboy magazine. He was somehow below Jonathan, in his eyes anyway. But he did knock Steve down a peg, not that Steve paid any mind to it. Jonathan, on the other hand, saw it as a potential opportunity to go after his middle school crush, Nancy Wheeler. Even though she and Steve were still together, something about the way she talked about Steve told me something was off. It was only a matter of time before the Hawkins ‘it’ couple called it a quits. Billy took my hand, offering me a glance to say ‘you ready?’. When I nodded, he brought me out to his car, opening my door for me. “You know I can open my own door, right?” I quipped. “Can I not do something chivalrous?” He replied. “Nope. Because I know all you really want is to get in my pants.” “That’s not true! I want to talk about your feelings and get in your pants.” He defended, earning a smack on the chest when he got into the driver’s seat. As soon as he started the car, he reached for the radio, groaning in annoyance when the only thing on his favorite station was commercials. “Oh hey! I like that song!” I blurted as Billy flipped through the stations, He raised an eyebrow at me as he switched the station back, “Under pressure, that brings the building down, splits the family in two.” I hummed along with the song, “You and Bowie…” He chuckled to himself. “At least I don’t have a half naked poster of him in my room.” I sassed, propping my feet up on the dash, “Hey, you leave Shauna out of this!” He gasped, shooting me a glare. “Shauna gives me the creeps. Her eyes follow you.” I brought my index and middle finger to my eyes, making a ‘watching you’ motion at Billy. “Gotta have something to look at when you aren’t around, sweetheart. Unless you’ll let me take a picture.” He smirked, licking his lips as he glanced over at me and rested his hand on my thigh. “And having some creepy old perv develop the film for you? No thanks.” I quipped, arranging my hand on top of his and giving it a squeeze. “Could always use a Polaroid.” He suggested, “The only creepy perv looking at it would be me.” “Not gonna happen, Hargrove.” I purred. “Then Shauna stays.” He huffed. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll just get a shirtless Arnie poster to hang over my bed.” “Oh, that’s just cruel.” He replied. “Gotta have something to look at when you aren’t around, sweetheart.” I cooed. By the grace of god, we managed to get a parking spot right out front of the Hawk. Billy was talking to me about something as we waited in line for the tickets. I couldn’t pay attention though, my eyes were focused on a group of kids I had seen picking on Will before. They were all crowded around the concession stand, throwing popcorn at each other and laughing. “Hey.” Billy alerted, snapping his fingers in front of my face as I spaced out. “Hm? What?” I exclaimed, my gaze shifting back to him. “You okay?” He asked, following the direction where my stare was directed a second ago, “Those kids do something?” Billy had been on edge around me ever since I had my first breakdown about Will in front of him. The hostility wasn’t targeted at me, no, not in the slightest. But the first time he saw me cry, he got so irate that he went and beat up the older sibling of one of the kids who was bullying Will. Now every group of kids we saw made him bristle, his muscles going taut and jaw clenching when he saw them. “Baby.” He prompted, giving me a bump with his elbow. I shook my head at him, “No… I mean… I don’t know… maybe.” I sighed, looking at my feet. “Want me to go have a talk with them?” “No! God, no.” I blurted. The last time he went to ‘have a talk’ with somebody, we got banned from Benny’s diner. Something to do with food flying across the restaurant… and then… a person flying across the restaurant. “You sure?” “Yes. I’m sure I don’t want to get barred from the only movie theater in town, Billy.” “Not that kind of ‘talking to them’.” He defended. “Oh, so you’re just gonna yell at them until they break down in tears?” “They deserve it if they’re giving Will shit.” I shook my head again, “Just leave it.” Billy bought the tickets while I got in line for the concessions. I ordered a popcorn and drink for him and I to split as well as the milk duds Will wanted. I tucked them into my purse before meeting Billy at the end of the line. He hooked his arm through mine as he led me into the theater, picking our usual spot in the back row. It was rare that we ever went to a movie and actually watched it, more often than not we ended up making out the whole time. The previews started, allowing me to sink into my seat and relax for a moment. That was until the kids from the lobby sat in the row ahead of us. Billy threw his arm around my shoulder, trying to pull me against him.. I remained stiff though, eyes trained on the kids as they chatted and giggled. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t help but think they were saying something about Will. “Hey.” Billy murmured, resting his hand under my chin and turning me to look at him, “It’s okay.” I nodded, leaning against his shoulder and trying to focus on the movie. I reached into the popcorn bucket we were sharing, shoving a few pieces into my mouth. The group of kids burst out into laughter yet again, every muscle in my body tensed up. I couldn’t seem to relax, despite Billy’s hand running up and down my back. “Hey, shut up, will ya?” Billy shouted at the kids, making them turn to us with bewildered eyes. When they caught sight of me, their laughter dissolved into whispers, and I could hardly make out over the booming music of the movie, “Isn’t that Zombie Boy’s sister?” I sank my teeth into my lip, rough enough to leave a bruise. Billy, however, didn’t hold the same restraint. He threw himself out of his seat, practically leaping over the row in front of us and grabbing the kid by the collar, “What did you just say?” He snarled as he tore the boy to his feet. “Nothing.” The kid burst, grasping onto Billy’s forearms. “Billy.” I breathed, “No. Nuh-uh. He’s not getting away with this.” “By all means, kid. Repeat what you just said!” Billy hollered, making everybody in the nearly full theater turn around to stare. “I-Isn’t t-that z-z-zombie boy’s s-sister?” The kid stammered. “That’s what I thought.” Billy growled, “What the hell's the matter with you, huh? Calling him that? Saying that in front of her?” “I-I-I-I d-don’t… I- don’t k-know.” The kid sputtered. “Kids got a name. It’s Will.” Billy snapped, “Now, you apologize to my girl, got it?” The boy gulped, turning to look at me, “I-I-I-I’m sorry.” He stuttered, eyes wide in shock. “Say that shit again and you’ll be the next kid to disappear.” Billy threatened, releasing the boy with a shove. He stepped back over the row of seats and took my hand. “You okay?” He murmured, his opposite hand resting on my cheek. I nodded, eyes still trained on the stunned kids in the row ahead of us. “Let’s get out of here.” He led me out of the theater and to his car in silence. Not even the radio played. The only sound was tires on asphalt. He knew I would be mad at him for how he acted in the theater. And I was, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything about it. I didn’t have the energy. And my silence was always what scared him the most. Sometimes he liked to annoy me, get under my skin and make me yell at him. He thought it was hot when I got pissed. But silence was another beast entirely. We pulled into my driveway to see Will standing on the porch. He wore his brown and green plaid PJ pants with a white tee shirt. Despite the stinging cold of winter, he had no shoes on and no jacket. He stared off into space, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. “Will?” I called as I stepped out of the car, walking towards him slowly. He didn’t reply. I broke into a sprint and bounded up the porch steps, “Will!?” I gasped, As I got closer, I could determine his eyes were trained on the sky, darting back and forth wildly. “Will!?” I repeated, grabbing him by the shoulders. They rose and fell harshly with each breath he took becoming faster and sharper than the last. “Will! Bud! Snap out of it!” I shouted, waving my hand in front of his vision. “Will!” Billy bellowed from behind me, loud enough to rip Will out of his trance. He let out a gasp, grabbing onto my arms where they rested on his shoulders. His eyes explored all of my features before he threw himself into my arms, head against my chest. “It’s okay, I’m here.” I soothed, placing a hand on the back of his head and another on his back. He balled up my jacket in his fists, “Let's get inside, come on, it’s freezing.” He stayed glued to me as we went inside, only relaxing slightly when I sat down on the couch with him. Mom had gone out to dinner with Bob, leaving Jonathan in charge while I was out with Billy. But music still blasted from his room, blissfully unaware that Will had managed to wander out onto the porch alone. “Stay here, kid,” I whispered to Will, getting up and swinging Jonathan’s bedroom door open. To my surprise, he wasn’t there. I glanced over to the bathroom to see the door open and the lights off. “Jonathan!?” I shouted, peering into mom’s bedroom as well. I came back out into the living room, raising my arms in a shrug when I looked at Billy. I peered out of the curtains and into the driveway to see that his car was gone. I hadn’t even noticed when we pulled in because I was too worried about Will. “You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding me,” I grumbled. He snuck out, leaving Will home alone while knowing damn well that he hadn’t been himself lately. I glanced down at my watch, it was half past midnight. “Go get in bed, bud.” I sighed. “I- uh… I don’t… I don’t want to be by myself.” He murmured, staring up at me with teary eyes. I nodded knowingly, “I’ll go get your blankets and we can sleep on the couch, okay?” He presented a half smile, “Sit down, I got it,” Billy whispered, giving me a gentle push towards the couch. I followed his order, sitting beside Will who threw his legs over my lap and leaned on my shoulder, closing his eyes. Billy returned with Will’s blanket and put it over the boy before sitting down beside me. I let out a sigh as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Sorry about tonight. We can go out again later in the week.” “Don’t worry about it.” He soothed, running a hand through my hair. “You don’t have to stay.” “I know, but I’m going to.” I let out a contented hum as I leaned against his shoulder. Dating Billy came with a couple of things that I had anticipated. One was possessiveness. Which could be seen as a bad thing from those on the outside of our relationship. We were working on it, though. The other was protectiveness. He never let me meet his family. And the second he felt that I was even the slightest bit uncomfortable, he sprang into action. Whether it was telling somebody off or decking them in the face. The number of times he wanted to beat up Jonathan couldn’t be counted on all of my fingers and toes. Luckily, I managed to talk him down. No need to prove to Jonathan that Billy was exactly who he thought he was. Though he was initially only protective over me, it stretched out to Will as well, after I told him the version of events that could be read about in the papers, anyway. The boy who was kidnapped and experimented on for MK Ultra. He didn’t mind the nights we were supposed to spend together being cut short by my having to go home to take care of him. Or the times Will would knock on my door and reluctantly ask if I could go sleep in bed with him when Billy was there. I struggled to stay awake as I leaned against Billy’s shoulder, my eyelids growing heavier as I watched him flip through the TV channels. His hand carding through my hair didn’t help the situation either. Will had passed out with his head on my shoulder, breath falling against my neck, leaving me stuck on the couch.

“Just go to sleep.” Billy murmured as I lifted my head off of him. “No… I gotta stay up fo-” I interrupted myself with a yawn, “Stay up for when Jonathan comes back.” “Why?” “So I can kick his ass.” I exhaled. “You’re not gonna be kicking anybody’s ass unless you get some sleep.” “Mmm gonna kick your ass if you let me fall asleep,” I warned, snuggling tighter against him. “Okay, good luck with that.” He chuckled, his chest vibrating as he did so. I awoke later to the front door opening. The TV had long since turned to static, the weight of Billy’s head on top of mine told me he had finally passed out too. “Sorry.” Mom mouthed as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her as silently as possible. “Is he okay?” She mouthed once again, pointing to Will. I nodded, not wanting to explain to her what had happened yet. Her eyes darted over to Billy and I could tell she wanted to scold me for letting him spend the night, but she didn’t dare wake Will while he was getting some rare and much-needed sleep. I closed my eyes once again, listening as mom got ready for bed before I drifted off once more. *** I awoke later in my own bed, Will tucked in beside me with his back towards me. I figured Billy must’ve carried me to bed before he left. I glanced over at the clock to see that it was seven in the morning. Beside the clock was a note from Billy, See you later, love B I let out a yawn as I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and headed into the kitchen, desperate for a glass of water. I got out a glass and filled it up from the tap, jumping up to sit on the counter as I sipped on it. I glanced down, there was an envelope with my name on it. I raised an eyebrow, clearing the rest of the letters off the stack to pick it up. The return address came into view. Purdue University. My heart started to beat faster. I had been so busy with worrying about Will recently that I forgot that I sent in an essay as an application for a scholarship. I drew my lip between my teeth, shoving my finger under the flap of the envelope and tearing it open. I took a deep breath as I pulled the letter out, keeping my eyes shut, Dear Miss Byers, we are happy to inform you that- That was all I had to read before I threw myself off the counter and started jumping up and down excitedly, letting out a squeal. Will came into the room, flying around the corner, “Are you okay? Is there a spider?” He asked, “No! Will! I got accepted for a scholarship!” I announced. A grin grew across his face as he tugged me into a hug, “Awesome!” I did a victory lap around the house, bouncing up on the couch and holding the letter up over my head, letting out another shriek. I continued to read down the page, I was one of five finalists for the scholarship. A full ride to Purdue. A college that I would never be able to afford without financial help. Not only was I a pick for financial help, no. I was in the running for a full, four-year scholarship. Their phone number was at the bottom of the page with directions to call to set up a time for an in-person interview. I ran over to the phone, yanking it off the receiver and dialing the number with shaking hands. I stuttered through making the appointment. The high from my scholarship was quickly forgotten as the next few days went on. Will got progressively worse. From having a plummeting body temperature to frantically drawing a massive map in crayon to being rushed to the hospital after collapsing into a seizure after Hopper was found in the tunnels. Hopper himself had been attacked by… well… god knows what they were. Vines with a mind of their own, I suppose. He had been taken off to be hosed down and get all the radioactive material off of him while Will was rolled up to his hospital room. He screamed in pain as if his whole body was burning. They immediately prepped him with an oxygen mask before taking him out of sight. I stayed behind with Mike who threw his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side. I placed my hands over my mouth as tears sprang from my eyes, “He’s gonna be okay,” Mike reassured. The boy had grown to be taller than me over the past couple of years, enough so that he could rest his chin on top of my head as I threw my arms around his waist and gripped him with all my strength. “He’s strong.” “I know.” I breathed out shakily. Will’s screams faded as he was taken further into the hallways of the hospital. Mom had been allowed to follow the doctors and Will while we stayed on in the lobby with Bob. Hopper had also been taken to be evaluated and to check radiation levels after he’d been in the upside down for a day or so. I had just about fallen asleep on Mike’s shoulder when Dr. Owens returned to the waiting room. Mike and I both sprang from our seats, scrambling to Will’s room. He was asleep in bed, oxygen mask still on. Mom sat beside the bed with a cup of coffee in her hands and a blanket draped over her shoulders. “Hey.” She breathed, offering me a weak grin. “He’s been sedated to ease the pain, he might be out for a couple more hours. Then we can assess what happened.” Dr. Owens explained, “I’ll give you some privacy, Hopper should be out of containment soon.” “Thank you.” Mom breathed. Will’s face was pale to the extent that I could see the blue veins that peered through his skin. His eyes were sunken in, an eerie gray shadow trailed down his cheeks. His lips held a slight blue tint as well. If it weren’t for the machines beeping and monitoring his heart rate, anybody who saw him would think he was dead. I reached out and grabbed his hand. It was icy cold, stinging my hands that had been warmed by me anxiously wringing them together while waiting for any news about him. I glanced over at mom, “They say he’s stable. That maybe it’s an effect of the radiation he was exposed to.” She murmured. She and I both knew damn well that there was something the lab wasn’t telling us. It couldn’t just be the radiation. Radiation didn’t cause these symptoms. With the threat of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War, the effects of radiation poisoning had been drilled into the brains of everybody with a television set. It didn’t cause seizures or plummeting body temperature or memory loss. This was something else. Something else was wrong with Will. I glanced at my watch to notice that it was nearly three am. I wasn’t sure how anybody else was still awake, I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier. “Go to sleep.” Mom sounded from behind me. “I wanna be up when he wakes up.” I sighed, stretching out and trying to get my muscles to wake up a little. “Doc said it’ll be a couple hours, just go to sleep.” I nodded, resting my head on the pitiful excuse for a mattress that Will was laying on, my hand still clutching his. The beeping of the machines began to lull me to sleep only to be awakened what seemed like only minutes later by the screech of the alarm on my watch. “Shit.” I hissed under my breath, making everybody in the room turn to look at me, “I have a scholarship interview. I’m gonna have to call and reschedule.” I reached for my purse, pulling out my wallet, “There’s a payphone downstairs, right?” I asked, glancing over at Hopper and mom who had been here many more times than I had. “Y-you can go.” Will stuttered, making my heart jump in my chest. I hadn’t expected him to be awake yet, “No, bud. I’m staying here with you.” “It’s a full ride, Y/N. This might be your only chance.” Will croaked, throat dry from the tubes they had shoved down it a few hours earlier. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll find another way.” “Just go, Y/N. I’ll be fine, I promise.” He offered me a weak smile. I stared at him with apprehension, not wanting to leave him here. But he was with Hopper, Mom, and Mike. A few of his favorite people in the world, “Okay, I’ll see you when I get home in a few hours, yeah?” I held out my fist for a fist bump which he returned. I leaned over to press a kiss to the top of his head, doing the same to mom before waving to Mike and Hopper and heading out the door. I stopped in the waiting room to grab a cup of pathetically weak coffee before getting into my car. I let out a sigh as I stared at myself in the rearview mirror. My hair stood up in all directions, it hadn’t been washed in the past couple of days. I ran my fingers through it in an attempt to smooth it down. ****

“Miss Byers?” A woman called my name. I glanced up to see her in a pencil skirt and overly poofy blouse. She pushed her big, red-framed glasses up on her nose as she took in the sight of me. The knees of my jeans were torn and stained with mud from when we found Hopper in the tunnels under Hawkins. I still had dirt under my fingernails and days old makeup smeared across my face. I showed her an apologetic smile as she led me back into an office. Several well-dressed men sat at a conference table, at the head of it was an empty chair which the woman directed me to. One of the men had the most hideous tie I had ever seen. It looked as though a toddler on psychedelic drugs took a box of crayons to it. The other had strikingly white teeth despite the black coffee he was drinking. The last of them had a mustache that looked like a squirrel was perched on his lip. The woman took a seat adjacent from me, crossing her legs and looking at me expectantly. My heart raced, pounding so hard I was sure every man in the room could hear it over the ticks of their watches. “H-hello. I’m uh… Y/N Byers… Sorry, I uh… look…. Like this. I had a family emergency right before I left and didn’t have time to uh… clean up any.” I stammered, feeling tears stinging in the back of my eyes. I sniffled slightly and cleared my throat in an attempt to clear them away before the questions could start. “I’m sorry to hear that.” White Teeth broke the stiff silence, making me let out a sigh of relief. “Would it happen to have anything to do with what you wrote about in your essay?” The woman chimed. “Uh… yeah… My little brother.” My application essay was supposed to be about the most impactful moment of your life. And, of course, mine was about the most horrifying week of my life. The week we thought my little brother was gone. “Well. I must say. That story certainly made you stand out from the other applicants. If it hadn’t been for the constant news coverage, I don’t think we would’ve believed it.” Hideous Tie spoke up. “So, you said that you want to study both journalism and criminology? Tell us about that.” Squirrel-stache said. “Yeah… Uh… Well… To be honest, before what happened to Will, I had no clue what I wanted to do. But… the reporters we talked to were terrible and invasive. I just… want to be somebody that can be supportive in a situation like that.”

“When you say terrible and invasive?” “They each had some different, disgusting theory as to how it happened. Some were trying to paint it like it was somehow the fault of my mother. That because she’s a single mom that she’s negligent and that’s why Will went missing. Other’s tried to blame poor police work. Or the fact that my father was an abusive drunk. I guess it was everybody’s fault other than the people responsible.” Squirrel- stache shuffled his papers, looking over some of his notes for a moment before looking to the other men in the room. “I’m going to be quite honest with you, Miss Byers.” He began, making my chest tighten, “I had my mind made up that you were the best candidate for this scholarship before we even met you.” The knot in my chest loosened as a smile tugged at the corner of my lips, “Your story is so compelling. The way you wrote it was beautiful. And, seeing you here today, looking the way you do. And this is not meant to be taken into offense, but to see that you care so much about your family that you showed up to a scholarship interview with dirt all over you. That shows commitment.” “Oh. Uh. Wow… I… I don’t even… I don’t even know what to say. Uh… Thank you. ” I huffed, a breathy laugh bubbling up in my throat. “I’m going to have to discuss it with our higher-ups, conduct the other interviews. But I can tell you now that your chances are very good.” As quickly as I was ushered in, the woman led me back outside, “Expect a call in a few days.” She smiled as I left. Once I was in my car, I burst out an excited screech, bouncing up and down in my seat as I beat on the steering wheel. I drove down the road for a few hours until the rumble in my stomach grew too loud to ignore. The McDonald's drive-through called my name, so I ordered a coffee and a biscuit before getting back on the highway for the drive home **** I let out a sigh as I turned into the driveway, but my relief quickly faded when I noticed that mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway. And the front door had been left ajar. I threw the car into park and scrambled out, flying up the steps. Before I reached the top stair, I noticed somebody laying on the floor in the entryway. As I got closer, I recognized it as Billy. He was sprawled out on his back on the floor, “Billy!?” I shouted, scrambling to crouch down on the floor beside my boyfriend. He groaned and tried to roll over onto his side but he gave up and flopped onto his back once again. “What the hell happened!?” I screamed, resting my hand on his cheek and taking in the sight of his bloodied nose. “Mmmmm stab me.” He murmured. “What? Stab you? Why would I stab you?” “No…. stabbed me.” “Somebody already stabbed you?” “Mhmm.” “Who? Where’d you get stabbed?” I gasped, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way to see if the red fabric was camouflaging any blood. “Max. Neck.” “Max stabbed you in the neck?” “Mhmm.” “With what?” I glanced up to notice a syringe with a needle sticking out of it sitting on the floor. I reached for it, looking at the printed label that had been stuck on the side. I recognized the name as something that had been given to Will to help his anxiety before but in an exponentially higher dose. “What the hell?” I murmured under my breath, staring down at Billy who awkwardly lolled back and forth in an attempt to get up, “Hey, hey. This is some strong stuff, okay? You’re gonna be down for a little while.” I told him as I rested my hand on his chest to stop him from moving. I got up from my place beside him and grabbed a throw pillow off the couch, placing it under his head. “Mmm hurts.” He hummed, placing his hand on his head and rubbing it. “Yeah, I’m sure it does. I’ll get you some ice.” I offered. I made my way into the kitchen, stepping over the broken plates and glasses that were scattered on the floor. I figured it better to not ask Billy what the hell happened, he wasn’t exactly in the state of mind to be talking. I yanked open the freezer, letting out a scream. The head of some creature spilled out. Billy scrambled into the kitchen, “What happened!?” He slurred, stumbling into me and nearly knocking me over. He rested all of his weight on the counter behind me, barely able to stay on his feet. I pointed to the freezer, “What the hell is that thing?” I grabbed a spatula from the drawer, poking the creature in the face and waiting for a response. Drool dripped from its mouth and dropped onto the floor with a splat. “It’s…. Uh…. I don’t…. I don’t know…. I think it’s dead, though…” I murmured. It looked like a small Demogorgon, it had the same face that looked like a blooming flower. But why the hell was it in my freezer? “Alright, come on, let’s get you on the couch,” I told Billy, hooking my arm under his and all but dragging him back into the living room as his weight grew heavier. I slumped him on to the couch, making him lay down before throwing the blanket over him. My first thought was to call Hawkin’s Lab to see if Will was still there. But the phone rang and rang, nobody answered. The next thought was to call the police station and see if Hopper had checked back in since I last saw him at the hospital. “Hawkins Police Department. If you’re calling with an emergency, please hang up and dial 911.” Flo’s monotone voice came through the phone. “Flo, Flo? Is Hop there?” “Is he ever here?” She retorted. “I’ll take that as a no. Do you know where he went?” “Last radioed in two days ago, sweetheart, haven’t seen him since.” She responded. “Thanks.” I sighed, hanging the phone back up just as headlights flashed in the driveway. I ran into the living room and out onto the porch, staggering down the steps and towards the car which I could now identify as Billy’s Camaro. Both doors slowly opened, revealing the faces of Will’s friends. “Will!? Where’s Will!?” I shouted as the kids approached the house. “He’s on the way home. With Nancy and Jonathan and your mom.” Mike replied I ushered them all inside before I glanced over my shoulder to see Steve’s face. It was beaten bloody and bruised. One eye was nearly swollen shut, “Steve, oh my god!” I gasped, running over to the lanky boy, “Oh my god, your face, what the hell happened!?” “Ask him.” He nodded towards the Billy where he slept on the couch. “Billy did this?” I gasped, “Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t believe he would-” “If you weren’t so far up his ass, you would’ve known he was a piece of shit!” Jonathan blurted from behind Steve, announcing his arrival. “Pot calling the kettle…” I grumbled under my breath. “What?” “Did you just… forget about beating Steve up last year or?” I quipped. “That’s different! Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you’re comparing the two!” He shouted at me, “Your boyfriend is a fucking maniac!” “Don’t you dare fucking start with me, Jonathan!” I screamed back, “You were gone for days! We didn’t know where the hell you were. Turns out you were with Steve’s girlfriend! And Will was having flashbacks again! At least Billy was here for that!” “Then he tried to beat up a child!” Jonathan fired back. “What!?” I shouted, turning to look at Steve. He nodded his head, “Grabbed Lucas by the collar, pinned him up against the bookcase.” Billy let out a groan, sitting up, “What the hell is all the yelling about?” He grumbled. Jonathan barreled over to him, throwing his fist into Billy’s cheek. Lucky for Jonathan, Billy was still sedated. “Hey!” I screamed, grabbing Jonathan by the shoulder to yank him back. He turned around, giving me a shove backward, “What the hell is your problem!?” I snapped. Billy had managed to rise to his feet, “Don’t fucking touch her.” He growled, raising his fist and throwing a weak punch at Jonathan, missing his face and bumping him on the shoulder. “Billy, sit down.” I hissed. Jonathan started to raise his fist once again, but Steve intervened, “Alright, alright, knock it off!” Steve shouted, putting himself between Jonathan and Billy, despite being on the losing end of fights with both of the boys. “Steve, this isn’t your problem.” Jonathan snarled. “It became my problem the second that damn thing in the freezer tried to eat me.” He retorted. “You know, Steve did more to help than you did.” Jonathan spat, “You were fucking useless this whole time!” “Useless!? I came home the night you snuck out to see Will on the porch by himself having another one of his visions! He could’ve frozen to death out there, wandered off into the woods all because you wanted to go behind Steve’s back and fuck Nancy!” “Y/N?” A hushed voice came from behind me. I spun around to see Will, his hair slicked to his forehead with sweat and deep bags under his eyes. I brushed the locks from his face, gripping his cheeks, “Are you okay?” I breathed, examining his face. His eyes were sunken in, dark bags accentuated by the fact that his skin was so pale. He nodded. I rested my forehead against his, letting out a shaking breath as I hugged him, “I... I think he’s gone.” He whispered. “He?” “The shadow monster. I think he’s gone.” “Good… Good.” I exhaled. “How was your interview?” He asked, his throat scratchy and dry. I let out a breathy laugh, happy tears springing up in my eyes. Will’s first concern was never himself, he always worried more about those around him. Despite everything he had been through, he was asking about my college interview. “It went great, bud. They really liked me.” “Good.” Will beamed, wrapping his arms around me. I pressed a kiss to the top of his head, not minding the fact that he was covered in sweat. The only thing that mattered was that he was safe. “I’m gonna take a shower.” He announced, looking up at me with his doey green eyes. I ruffled his hair, sending him off towards the bathroom as I turned my attention back to Steve. “Steve, let me get you cleaned up.” He nodded, sitting at the kitchen table while I grabbed a wet washcloth and the first aid kit. When I returned, I gently wiped away the dried, caked blood. I was hoping that it would reveal clean skin, but instead, it uncovered more bruising. I carefully peeled off the rainbow bandages that the kids had haphazardly slapped on. I furrowed my brow, biting my lip, “What happened?” I whispered, “With Billy.” “He… uh… came over looking for Max.” Steve began, wincing occasionally as I continued to run the cloth over his skin. I hissed out the occasional sorry under my breath in response. “He looked pissed. And I was worried about her… so I lied and said I didn’t know where she was.” “Uh oh.” “Yeah. Uh oh.” He agreed, shaking his head slightly, “He got in the house, saw that Max and Lucas were here. And he grabbed Lucas and slammed him up against the wall.” “Jesus,” I muttered, looking behind Steve to see Billy once again passed out on the couch with a now melted bag of ice on his face. “Lucas kicked him in the balls.” “Go, Lucas.” I smiled to myself. “Billy threatened him again so I punched him… and then.” He pointed to his face, “And Max… she saved my ass, that’s for sure.” “Stabbed him in the neck with a tranq!” Dustin chimed in from the living room, “It was badass!” “Yeah, then she almost hit him in the dick with Steve’s bat!” Lucas added, clearly proud of his new crush. Steve and I both laughed. Though, he winced when his grin tugged at the gash on his lip. Mike had sat down outside the bathroom door while Will was taking a shower and getting rid of all the sweat. El took the spot beside him, head resting on his shoulder as she drifted off to sleep. The strength all of these kids held never failed to astound me. Once his skin was clean, I replaced the bandaids with butterfly closures. I opened the freezer, once again jumping when I remembered the Demogorgon was in there. “Why the hell is there a Demogorgon in the freezer anyway!?” “Demodog!” Dustin hollered, “And it’s an incredible scientific discovery that has to be preserved!” “It’s cold enough outside, can’t you just… I don’t know… bury it in the snow or something?” “And have the coyotes come and eat it? I don’t think so!” I let out a defeated groan, pulling the last of the ice cubes from the tray and dumping them into a plastic baggie before handing them to Steve. “Maybe we just need to bury your face in the snow,” I commented as I watched him struggle to figure out where to put the ice. I got up from the chair and wandered into the living room. The kids were all sat on the floor, mindlessly flipping through the TV channels. “What’re we gonna do about him?” Dustin asked, giving Billy a gentle kick to the thigh. He groaned in response, rolling over so he was facing the back of the couch. “Billy.” I pestered, jostling his shoulder, “Hey.” He groaned again, swatting at my hand, “If you get up we can make out.” I offered, earning a chorus of 'ewws’ from the kids. But he responded to my offer, getting up off the couch. “You can’t drive home tonight. Come on.” I told Billy, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into my bedroom. It didn’t take much for me to shove him down onto the bed. “I don’t want you here in the morning. Got it?” I snapped, “Baby-” “No. If you’re here in the morning, I’ll do much worse damage than the kids did. Understand?” “Yes.” I turned on my heels, slamming the bedroom door shut behind me. When I returned to the living room, mom had brought out all the extra pillows and blankets in the house and set them on the living room floor. The kids got arranged in their respective spots, saving the space on the couch for Will when he was done in the shower. Steve settled himself on the floor to the side of the kids, burying his face in a pillow. I couldn’t even imagine the headache he was going to wake up to in the morning. Despite the excitement of the evening, the kids all fell asleep rather quickly, all of them slumping over into a heap in the middle of the living room. A tangle of limbs and hair as soft snores escaped their lips. The bathroom door opening made everybody perk up, though. Will emerged in clean PJs with damp hair that clung to his forehead. He smiled at the sight of his friends passed out on the living room floor, stepping around them to get onto the couch. The second his head hit the pillow, the boy was asleep. With everybody home and safe, I too drifted off, feeling relief wash over me for the first time in a year.

#billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove/reader #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove fan fic #stranger things fic #stranger things imagines #I'm with queue to the end of the line #yeah it's me don't queue your pants

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daggerzine · 6 years

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Awaking Up Together- Ben Crum discusses the different lives of Great Lakes.

It was the S/T debut in 2000 that was released on Kindercore that initially got me interested. I loved most everything on that label so when a cd by a band called Great Lakes popped into my po box I was excited to check it out. Like a few of the others under the Elephant 6 moniker, (Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, etc.) it exuded a sort-of grandiose 60’s pop charm with bits of psychedelia and some beautiful noise ala Pavement, too. Other records followed (including the brand spankin’ new, and very good, Dreaming Too Close to the Edge) and along the way Crum lended his skills to bands such as Ladybug Transistor and the Essex Green. The more recent Great Lakes records have been a bit darker, more guitar heavy (less sunshine pop) than previous records but still with excellent songwriting and an overflow of hooks. I wanted to know a bit about Crum and what made him tick and when I shot some questions his way he was more than happy to expound and expand on his life from the early days until present day. If you’ve never heard the music of Great Lakes then by all means check out one of their many releases, each one with its own distinct personality. Read on dear fans….

L-R- Kevin Shea, Suzanne Nienaber, Kenny Wachtel, Chris Talsness and Ben Crum

Where did you grow up?

Mt. Airy, Maryland, though I finished high school in suburban Atlanta.

What was the first band that made you take notice?

The Descendents was really the first band that I was in to. I mean, I was discovering classic rock at the same time, but that 80s punk stuff was big for me. I came to them through skateboarding videos. They’re still one of my favorite bands, though I confess I haven’t kept up with their latest music. Fugazi was also an early big one for me. That first EP especially. I also loved, and still love, The Misfits.

When did you first pick up an instrument? Was it a guitar?

I was required by my mother, who played piano, to take piano lessons. She made me practice right after school. While sitting at the piano practicing my scales I could hear the other neighborhood kids playing and having fun. I found it miserable at the time. But my piano teacher let me come early to the lessons. She had a giant leather recliner and a nice stereo system with headphones. She’d let me play whatever records I wanted to listen to. That was my introduction to CCR. The main lick from “Down On the Corner” really grabbed me as a kid. That and the lead guitar part from “Up Around the Bend” had really caught my attention.

By middle school I chose to be in the school band. That lasted about one year. I think I mainly did it because I didn’t like the other options. I “played” saxophone. When I was about 14 I was watching Maryland public TV and I saw the One Night With You movie with Elvis. It’s taken from the 68 Comeback Special. I still love that stuff. I got out my mom’s old nylon string guitar and started teaching myself to play. I begged my parents to let me trade my sax for a steel string Guild acoustic. I took a few lessons, but those didn’t really take. I learned to play “Dust In the Wind” though.

What was your introduction to independent music? Was it hardcore? New wave? Something else?

I used to have a skateboard ramp in my backyard. All kinds of people would hear about it and come to my house to skate. There was an older dude who had a hardcore band and he gave me his 7 inch when I was about 15. That must’ve planted the seed in my mind that independently putting music out was something I could do. Before then, I don’t think it had occurred to me.

What was your first band? And how/when did Great Lakes come about? That was in Athens, GA, right?

It’s all kinda related, to me. The way I got started in doing music was that during breaks from college, around 92-93, I started getting together with high school friend, Dan Donahue, when we were both visiting our parents in Atlanta. We would write songs and record them on 4 track. We liked Galaxie 500/early Luna, The Flaming Lips, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr. And I remember he liked The Chickasaw Mudpuppies a lot and got me in to that stuff. He didn’t really play an instrument, though in the early days neither did I, really, so we both played whatever we could. He liked writing lyrics, though. That was his main thing. It always felt like a chore to me, and I was happy to have him be the lyricist. We called ourselves The Patty Melts. We had a song called “I’m Alive” that was kind of a fictional blues about how bad life was for the narrator, but the idea was that at least he was alive. A choice nugget of the lyrics, referring the guy’s wife, went: “ she’s a briarpatch with an eyepatch”, and later the narrator says: “…gettin’ my ass up is a damn chore.” We made a pretty cool 4 track recording of that song. I had this homemade 4 string fretless instrument that my dad and brother had built. I’ve still got it. It was made out of paneling for the body and a piece of molding for the neck. The tuners were eye screws, screwed right into the wood. I tuned it to an open chord and played slide on it with a screwdriver as the slide. So we made this Chickasaw Mudpuppies-inspired song with that. By about 94 I started visiting Dan in Athens, where he was in college, and we would write songs and try to record them. Jamey Huggins, who was then in high school but came to Athens a lot on breaks and weekends, joined us on drums. We were all really into Teenage Fanclub by that time, and one night we stayed up all night and wrote a song that we thought was so good that we had to start a band one day. Even then, I was focused on the recording. Unless we had a cool recording of a song, it was as if it almost didn’t really exist. I think we all felt that way. I still do.

Meanwhile, I was in a band in college in Birmingham, Alabama with some friends. We were first called a few different names that I’ve forgotten, but when we started playing shows we were calling ourselves Wonderock, like a superhero or something. We had a couple good songs, actually. I remember getting some encouragement from the sound guy when we played our first show at The Nick. He was a pretty grizzled old guy, Johnny Mack, and he came up to us after our set and said begrudgingly, “Well, my toe was tapping and my toe don’t lie to me…” One of the members of that band, Craig Ceravolo, moved to Athens with me in 96 and went on to play in the earliest version of Great Lakes. Another member of that band formed a band called Three Finger Cowboy. They were on Amy Ray’s label and, I think, did a tour or two opening for The Indigo Girls. After that band I had a short-lived band with Craig, Jason Hamric, and Jamey, called Alaska. Craig, Jason, and I all lived together in Southside, and Jamey had come to Birmingham to stay with us for the summer. I think we chose the name because of that line in “Stephanie Says:, “It’s such an icy feeling / It’s so cold in Alaska”. We also called ourselves Cherry Valence for a bit (this was back before there was a band called The Cherry Valence). Anyway, that band had 3 members of what would become Great Lakes in it. I tried to convince Jason Hamric to leave Birmingham and move to Athens with us, but he wasn’t into that idea. He definitely would have been in Great Lakes, though, if he had moved with us. Great player, and great guy. So, anyway, in Athens, Dan joined us as a lyricist, and we merged Alaska/Cherry Valence and Wheelie Ride and The Patty Melts and became Great Lakes. And then Great Lakes evolved over time. But it wasn’t until 2009 or so that the current iteration, the longest running consistent lineup the band has ever had, came together. But Great Lakes is really more than a band to me. It’s what I consider my life’s work as an artist.

Tell me about your tenure in both the Ladybug Transistor and the Essex Green.

Well, when I got to Athens I arrived right as the Elephant 6 thing was coalescing. The first Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control records had just come out and they blew me away. Elf Power, too. All those guys were into 4 track recording, like us, but, of course, they were way more advanced. We became friends with that whole group of people. And then, after years of recording (including really learning how to record), the first Great Lakes album came out on Kindercore/E6. Ladybug Transistor had a connection to E6. Their album The Albemarle Sound had certainly caught nearly everyone’s attention that year. I mean, if you liked Love and The Beach Boys and Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle and stuff like that, then that record was pretty much made for you. We loved it. That and that Lilys record that sounded like The Kinks (Better Can’t Make Your Life Better). Through E6 connections some of the people in Ladybug asked the Kindercore guys to release the first record by their other band, Essex Green. Kindercore happily did. We played a show or two together with Essex Green and Ladybug in Athens, which was fun. We hung out and kinda bonded over shared musical tastes, they way you can only really do when you’re in your 20s, it seems like. A few years later when I moved to Brooklyn they were some of the only people I knew. Jeff Baron, of both bands, immediately asked me to get together with him and Mike Barrett and play some music. We quickly realized that not only did we all love 60s psych and pop, but we also really loved old country music and the whole Flying Burrito Brothers style of country rock. Because we each knew so many country songs, and because we just loved to play, we would get together and play a lot. Mike and Jeff lived together, and had a cool little low volume set up in their apartment, and we’d hand out and play for hours, swapping instruments and trading off singing lead on all kinds of stuff. Eventually we started doing some of Mike’s originals, and Jeff and I would do some tunes. We talked about making a record, possibly of Mike’s original songs, and probably should have. But for some reason we ended up not doing that. But, like I said, we had a bunch of fun. It was also like some kind of music school for me, in a way. Jeff and Mike helped me train my ear to hear the changes, and to improvise. Previously, a live show for me had been about basically just executing what I’d written beforehand; but I came to see music differently through that experience of playing with those guys. I mean, with them, nothing ever sounded the same way twice, and I learned to love that. Then, soon after, Essex Green didn’t have a bass player for a tour they had booked, so they invited me to play. Tim Barnes (Silver Jews, Royal Trux) was on drums for the first tour or two that I did with them, and between Jeff’s great guitar playing and Tim’s incredible drumming and way of listening and responding, it was a great experience. That lineup of that band was definitely one of the best bands I ever played in. We did a tour or two with other drummers, and despite the fact that the Essex Green songs are great and I love playing with them, there came a point when I decided to bow out and focus on a new Great Lakes record, which became Diamond Times. But after that album came out Gary of Ladybug found himself without a guitarist. I guess Jeff didn’t want to do it at that point, so I started playing guitar with him. We did several tours, sometimes with Ladybug Transistor and Great Lakes on the same bill, and then we made what I call the Buckingham Kicks album together (officially titled Can’t Wait Another Day). I wanted to change the band name to Buckingham Kicks and release a self-titled debut, because the album we did was so different from previous LT albums, but Gary decided against that. The great thing about joining Ladybug Transistor, apart from playing with Gary, who is one of the better singers around, was that I got to play with longtime Ladybug drummer San Fadyl. He was another fantastic drummer, and he taught me tons as a musician. After he died tragically, my days in that band were numbered. But Gary soldiered on and made another record, and he’s still doing stuff now. I think he’ll keep making great records for a long time. I’d like to think that I’ll do more stuff together with the Essex Green/Ladybug Transistor folks. We’ve talked about wanting to do something, but logistically it’s a little tough. Maybe one day, though. There’s a new Essex Green coming out soon, though. I’ve been listening to it and it’s great.

When did you move to Brooklyn? What prompted the move?

I moved in 2002. I think I stayed in Athens a little too long for me. I’m not saying people shouldn’t stay in Athens. It’s a great place and I love it. But I was there 6 years, and it’s a small southern town, you know? That has its up and downsides. I think I should have left a little before then, but I didn’t for some reason. The way I actually ended up moving is that my girlfriend at the time was moving and I came along. We promptly broke up, but I stayed in New York because I liked it. Though New York is expensive, it’s a fun place to raise a family. We got to the Catskills, we have a great beach nearby, and we live in a community that is progressive politically. That goes a long way.

Tell us about the new Great Lakes record, Dreaming Too Close to the Edge. Where was it recorded? Who played on it?

Dreaming Too Close to the Edge, the 6th Great Lakes record, ended up being the third in a series of three records that sort of share a lyrical theme. The previous two, Ways of Escape and Wild Vision, are much more country-inflected, however. I think those two are good records, but they’re kinda heavy in terms of the moods and subject matter. This new one feels more fun to me. The subject matter is still pretty heavy, but the songs are back in major keys again. I think it’s a really strong batch of songs. I’m proud of it. I think with Ways of Escape I finally really found myself as a songwriter. I think the stuff I’ve done since that record has been my best work, and this new one feels very strong to me.

The lineup is pretty much the same as played on the previous two records. The drummer is Kevin Shea. He’s been with me for over 10 years now. Suzanne Nienaber sings with me again. Kenny Wachtel plays some guitar. Joe McGinty is back on keys, and Dave Gould on bass. There are a couple other people who played on a song here and there, Luis Leal played mellotron on a aong, and Andrew Rieger did a guest vocal on one song. They’re great musicians, all of them. And just nice, easy-going people. I have no intention to shake up that lineup. As long as those lovely people want to play with me, they’ve got the gig. Of course, it’s different when you’re in your late 30s and early 40s. We’re not trying to tour the world, and I really don’t have ambitions beyond making what I think are good records, and maybe playing the occasional show.

As for the recording of Dreaming, the drums were recorded at Brian Eno’s old space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. I think Martin Bisi has been there for 30 years or more. There’s a documentary film about the place. It’s now called Seizure’s Palace (when Jason LaFarge is behind the desk). It’s a huge room, but Jason’s got a great handle on getting good drum sounds in that space. A Boredoms record or two were done there, as well as several Swans records. It’s a great and really weird space. The keyboards were tracked at Joe McGinty’s vintage keys studio, Carousel, in Greenpoint. I played with him and got to know him through Ladybug Transistor (especially when we were rehearsing with Kevin Ayers, but he was also a good friend of San’s, too). Nearly everything else was done in my home studio. And I went to Don Piper’s Brooklyn studio to track vocals. He’s got a Neve desk there, and gets nice sounds. The record was mixed by Steve Silverstein, who mixed each of the last three records. Steve and I have a long relationship of working together, and he’s great.

Is Loose Trucks your own label? Do you release other music other than your own on it?

Yes. My old friends Andrew and Laura of Elf Power run Orange Twin Records in Athens. They put out a couple Great Lakes records, but for Wild Vision, the 5th record, Andrew suggested to me that there was really no reason anymore to give them a cut of the money. He just hooked me up with their distributor and I started my own label. So far, so good. But I teamed up with Mike Turner (of HHBTM Records, and the guy who released the first ever Great Lakes 7”) to help me with distribution this time. I think that’ll be a positive thing. The truth is, I’d never want to start a label, necessarily, but it just made sense for me to do it.

I haven’t released anything else on the label except the last two Great Lakes records, and I really don’t have any desire to do so.

Who are some of your favorite current bands or musicians?

Steve Gunn. I especially love Way Out Weather. That’s the modern record that I’ve listened to the most in recent years. I love the Fahey meets drone-y raga thing; but it’s the strength of the compositions and the melodies that I find elevates it above other records in that style. I also think David-Ivar from the band Herman Dune is one of the most criminally underrated songwriters around these days. And Bill Callahan has long been a favorite of mine. I think he’s peerless.

What is one musician you’d say who’s had the biggest impact on your music?

My biggest influence as a guitar player is/was Dean Wareham. First, I always thought his sound was really cool. And his solos and lead playing, from Galaxie 500 on, has all been consistently great. I mean, as a beginning guitar player I’d sing along with the guitar solos. It doesn’t happen that often, when the long guitar solo or outro is the highlight of a song, or just as good as the singing part. Wareham was kind of my guitar teacher in a sense, because the way he plays, it’s not super fast. It’s about the melodies and the feeling and the mood. Because his stuff wasn’t very technical, I was able to play along with his solos and lead parts pretty easily and figure out what he does and how he does it. Every now and again I still kind of think to myself, “What would Dean Wareham do on this song?” if I’m stuck trying to figure out a guitar part for a song.

Tell us about your day job as a teacher. How does it fit into your lifestyle? Any of the other teachers know that you’re a musician?

Well, I don’t have a very wild lifestyle, I can tell you that. I’ve got a 7 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. With a full-time job as a third grade teacher, I’ve got my hands full. Lots of responsibility. But I still find the time to play a handful of shows each year, and to release records regularly. I’ve kind of gotten into a pattern of working, that works for me. During the school year I write songs when inspiration hits. But then I have the summers off. That’s when I have more time to work on music. If I can get all the songs for a new record written, revised and ready to record by August, I can track drums for an album. And then the cycle of overdubbing on the recordings, while also writing new songs, can begin again. That’s really my pattern.

People I work with know I write and play music, and put out records. Sometimes they’ll come to the shows. Some of my student’s parent’s have actualy looked me up and bought my records. I leave a guitar in my class and we sing all the time. The parents know me as this gentle teacher who sings Paul Simon and Cat Stevens songs with their kids, but I could tell by the way they some of them talked to me about my music that they were a bit surprised, after hearing my music, at how thematically dark some of my stuff is. It’s not children’s music that I’m making, you know? If they’d asked me I’d have warned them.

As a teacher, I think about Robert Pollard a lot. He’s not only one of my favorite songwriters, but he made a bunch of his best records while he was working full-time as a 3rd grade teacher. It’s really not hard to balance teaching and music. The hours can be tough, though. I have to be on point at 8am when I have to face a class of 8 year olds. One of my regular working times is between 4am and 6am. It’s been less this way since we had our second kid, because I’m really tired from having a baby, a 7 year old, and a demanding job. But I made most of the previous two records, and a lot of Dreaming, between the hours of 4am and 6am. That’s when my brain works best, anyway, I don’t even set an alarm. I just wake up naturally when I’m feeling inspired to work. It’s nice. The house is quiet, and I’ve got a tried-and-true system for recording electric guitars, bass, and keyboards silently. My wife is also very supportive, and often graciously allows me weekend mornings off of childcare duty so I can get some recording work done. I’m one of those people that if I’m not recording and getting work done, I’m kind of irritable and feel unsettled. So it’s probably in her best interest to do that… (haha)

You’re the only remaining original member of the band., then? What’s that like?

Yeah. I've been the only original member of the band for over 10 years now. But it was really only for the first 2 records that the original members were a big part of the band, anyway, to be honest. And even then it was really just the first one that was the product of genuine collaboration. Back then it was me and Dan writing songs together, but by the time the first record came out we'd put together a big band that also featured Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal, Scott Spillane from Neutral Milk Hotel/Olivia Tremor Control, Bryan Poole from Elf Power, and Derek Almstead, Dottie Alexander, Heather McIntosh, and Jamey Huggins as a multi-instrumentalist and our main drummer. Jamey and I really collaborated very closely on the first record, in terms of working out the instrumentation on the songs. That was a really good, positive collaboration. And, truthfully, it hurt me when he chose to pretty much leave the band and focus on Of Montreal. But I understood his decision. They were getting really popular, and I couldn't blame him. Then, in 2002, I moved to Brooklyn and Dan followed not long after, and once we'd both left Athens that was basically the end of the original lineup. Dan and I kept writing songs together, though, with him writing the lyrics and me writing the music. We went back to Athens to record Diamond Times, and a bunch of the old crew pitched in and played on the record, but by that point I'd formed a pretty strong connection with Jeff Baron of Essex Green and Ladybug Transistor, and had convinced him to come down from Brooklyn to Athens with me for the recording sessions. He ended up playing a big role in terms of making that album what it became.

The last released songs that Dan and I co-wrote, apart from one that made it onto Ways of Escape, came out on Diamond Times in 2006. After that album came out, I put together a 3-piece lineup of the band in New York, to tour behind that album. We did a long tour of the US, opening for The Clientele. It was Kevin Shea on drums, and Kyle Forester, who I also roped into The Ladybug Transistor as a keyboardist, on bass. We did a few tours of Europe with that lineup, too. What's strange is that, though it's not the original lineup, we played more shows together as a 3-piece than any previous or later Great Lakes lineup ever played, yet the three of us never made a record. Kyle left right before we began recording the 4th record, Ways of Escape. Around then Dan and I had a disagreement over the musical direction of the band and he abruptly moved back to Athens. Him leaving really turned out to be a great thing for me. Kevin Shea was happy to keep playing drums with me, and I wrangled a bunch of great NYC-based players to help me make that record. Towards the end of that process, Suzanne Nienaber started singing with me. As soon as we started doing stuff together I thought it sounded great. That lineup ended up being the players I've continued to work with for a decade and counting. We made Wild Vision together, which, to me, really felt like a highlight in the band's discography, and then we made the new record, Dreaming Too Close to the Edge, together, too.

Looking back, I think I went out on my own at just the right time. I was feeling weird about singing somebody else's words. And it felt so much better to sing my own. Dan also just wanted more say over the music than I was willing to give him. I think a lot of artists reach a point where they get fed up with making art by committee. At a certain point, you need control to really realize your vision. I've done 6 Great Lakes records now, with the most recent 3 being made without any other original band members. And it's the 3 I've done on my own that I feel most proud of, to be honest. I'll never disavow the early stuff, and if you're a fan of unabashed 60s psych-pop then that's the Great Lakes stuff for you.

The thing about bands continuing on without original members is tricky. A lot of times those bands aren't very good without the original lineup. But I always think about The Byrds when this subject comes up. My favorite Byrds records are the ones Roger McGuinn made without Gene Clark and David Crosby. I mean, I love the Gene Clark solo stuff, and that first David Crosby solo record, too. And of course the early Byrds stuff is great. But those late Byrds records are the ones I like the most. I like to think of Great Lakes like that. Maybe some people prefer the early stuff, and that's fine. But I'm just going to keep on doing my own thing, regardless of what anybody else thinks.

Any closing comment? Final thoughts? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask?

I’m always focused on what I’m doing next. I’m working on the 7th Great Lakes record now. More and more, I find myself drawing on more of my influences from the time when I was starting to play music, lthe stuff I was into in my early 20s. Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Sebadoh, Luna/Galaxie 500, Teenage Fanclub, Guided By Voices, Built to Spill. Not that there’s a cohesive sound there, but that combination of sounds is really where my heart is lately. I’m working on the next record now and I can feel it going in that direction. It’s not at all thematically connected to the other records. I feel like it’s going to be good.

Thanks for your interest in my music, Tim. I appreciate it.

All photos by Jami Craig except the 3rd pic from the top (the outdoor shot with the Puerto Rican flag) which is by Diego Britt.

www.greatlakesbencrum.bandcamp.com

��6թZ|

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your-rose-highness · 7 years

Text

Cherry Blossoms (ch .10)

Pair : Baekhyun x reader.

Chapter 10

“Baekhyun has dated too many girls. Too many for me to even remember.”

“How many?”

“I really don’t know.”, he sighed and continued, “let’s just say, he’s had a different every other week. Or sometimes every other day.”

I gulped in nervousness. Was I just one of those girls.

“He’s hell of a smooth talker,that one. And girls swoon for it.” He laughed. “ I literally asked him to keep his hands off my sister.”

What had I gotten myself into? I was here for a fresh start and I had already complicated things for myself. I’m not going to make the same mistake. I can’t let someone destroy me again. I’ll have to put an end to this.

I walked over to Kyungsoo sunbae impulsively, and asked him if I could leave since I was done with my practice.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We will assign duets.”

“No sunbae, I have some assignments to turn over tomorrow. I can sing with you or Jongdae sunbae.”

After we finished, I stood up and looked at him. He caught my eye and smiled. This time, I didn’t return it and turned to leave the room.

Walking back to the dorm, I felt like I had a huge hole in my chest again. Why did I have to get so attached to him?

Unknowingly, I dialed for Michelle.

“Heyyyyyyyyyy you!!!” She chimed as soon as she picked up the phone.

“Mich.. I miss you.”

“I miss you too dummy. It’s slowly taking over that I loved your koala personality.”

I laughed to mask the tears building in my eyes. But, she knew me too well.

“Are you okay?”, She asked, worry evident in her tone.

“I’m still settling. Feel a little homesick.”

Michelle distracted me with some chatter about unusual things. She did a good job though, by the time I hung up, Baekhyun was out of my mind.

Hye Jin walked in half hour later.

“Y/N?”

“In the kitchen!”

“Why did you leave without me?”

“I was hungry.”

“Kyungsoo oppa said you had work..”

“Yes!”, I lied quickly, to cover up for my initial mistake.

“… Now I’m cooking.”

“Baekhyun sunbae was looking for you.”

“Oh.”,I gave a short reply.

“Oh? That’s it? Are you guys fighting? Already?”

“Hye Jin. What were you trying to tell me that day at the cafeteria? About Baekhyun sunbae.”

Hye Jin stood and stared at me, “ I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“Tell me, I want to know.”

“It’s just that, Baekhyun sunbae is known as quite a playboy around campus.” She stopped, judging my expressions, and carefully proceeded, “I just thought you should know. You don’t seem like someone who’d just play around. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

I didn’t know how to respond to the things she was telling me. My phone rang on the counter that moment. Baekhyun. I didn’t want to pick it up. What would I say?

“You don’t have to answer.”, Hye Jin said softly, grabbing my arm.

He called thrice after that. Soon the phone was silent, and I was left pondering upon the complication of it all. It’s not like I can avoid him. I’d have to see him sometime.

“He’s calling me.”, Hye Jin’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“Don’t tell him anything. I can’t face him right now. Don’t pick up!”

But even before I finished my sentence, she accepted the call.

“Hello? Yes sunbae…” she looked at me as she spoke, “no. She isn’t here. I don’t really know. Maybe some class work. Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll tell her.”, She hung up and continued, “if I didn’t pick up, it’d be too fishy. He’d end up coming here.”

Why would he? He’d have someone else to take out, I thought to myself.

Baekhyun: Coffee. Where are you? Why aren’t you picking up any calls? Are you okay?

Baekhyun: Hey! I called your roommate. Have you told anyone where you are?

I didn’t text him back that night. When he called again, Hye Jin just told him I had gone to bed.

She sat beside me and hugged me. “Are you okay?”

“Hye Jin, I don’t want this. This scary feeling. I think it’d be better if I end this when I can handle it. Instead of….” I trailed off.

“I know. I understand. Go to sleep, you’ll feel better tomorrow and then we’ll talk about it.”

The next day, Hye Jin told me that Yong Hwa would come to pick me up from the dorm.

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Just trust me.”

And Yong Hwa was, waiting downstairs.

“Hi, sorry for the trouble. I don’t know why she called you.”

He smiled at me slightly while adding, “ I know everything. She told me. As much as I hate interfering into your life. She persuaded me that I got to have my friend’s back.”

“So why did she have you escort me?”

“I saw him last night. With ji ah.”

His words tore open the wound I tried to clumsily sew last night. When I didn’t say a word, he continued, “they were at that restaurant we went last time.”

He turned to look at me. I stared ahead so that he wouldn’t have to see my face. “Do you like him a lot?”

“I don’t know Yong. I don’t know. It just felt good when I was with him.. he was … good to me.” I said softly.

We reached class and the rest of the day just flew by. Both Yong Hwa and Hye Jin kept me out of his way. Hye Jin even made me leave my phone back at the dorm.

What had I gotten myself into? Already? It was just two months I’d been here.

Later that evening, Hye Jin took me to a gathering she had with her old friends. It was 10 when we reached home.

There he was. Leaning on the wall beside the gate. I stopped when I looked at him and held onto Hye Jin’s sleeve.

“He’s here.”, I whispered, as Baekhyun still hadn’t noticed us.

“Where?” Hye Jin looked trying to focus, “waah. That guy, is really something.”

“I can’t. Hye Jin. I can’t talk to him right now. I’m not ready. I might cry and stuff. It’s not… I can’t.”, I fumbled.

“Relax! There’s a back door too. We can go around, and get in.”

She was right. There was a back door. Meant for the trash cans, but still, helping us.

We sneaked in quietly. I went to peek through the curtains. He was still there. But now walking up and down the street. After pulling the curtains, I sat on the bed and found my phone. He had called 16 times. I was checking my phone, when it vibrated in my hands. He was calling again. It stopped soon, only to be followed by texts.

Baekhyun: Y/N! Why on earth aren’t you answering my calls? What’s wrong? Is it something I did? Or said?

Baekhyun: Reply! I can see you’re home now. The curtains are drawn. Why aren’t you talking?

“Hye Jin…. He knows we’re home.”

Baekhyun: Coffee. What’s wrong? Tell me. Please. Talk to me once. Then if you ask me, I’ll never bother you again. Just talk to me.

Hye Jin read the messages over my shoulder. “Go and talk.”

I looked at her, shocked.

“You have to sometime. Just prepare yourself mentally and go and talk to him. Just tell him you don’t want to date him. Tell him and it’s over.” She handed me my jacket, “Go. I’ll be here, it’ll be okay.”

I reluctantly took the jacket from her. Meanwhile, she withdrew the curtains and opened the window.

“She’s coming.”, She yelled and closed it again.

It felt like my heart was in my ears, that’s how loudly my heart was beating.

I walked out to find him right in front of the gate. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. He just blankly stared at me.

“Sunbae..”

“What’s wrong? You didn’t tell me anything. And just cut me off.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s not the point. Why did you do it? Is it something I said?”

“No..”

“Did I make you uncomfortable? Was it moving too fast..?”

I shook my head.

“Then what is it?” He asked as he stepped closer to me.

“I don’t think I can do this.” I whispered.

“Do what?”

“This. Us.”

“Why?”

When I didn’t answer. He asked, “ did someone say something to you?”

“I’m not strong enough for this, sunbae.”

“Coffee. Don’t give me bullshit. Out of the blue you just thought this?”

He held my hand, and continued, “is it because you don’t trust me?

“Sunbae, I can’t. I can’t really be with someone and then break up. I get all attached. I’m not someone you’re looking for.” I said all at once and turned to leave.

“Hey!” He stopped me. “What are you talking about? Why would I…”

He looked at me intensely. His face relaxed and said, “Who told this to you?”

“Sunbae, it doesn’t matter who did! The main thing is that I’m not someone who can cope up with your games.”

“Coffee listen to me. I admit I’ve dated a lot of girls. Okay? But I wasn’t playing with you.”

I scoffed at his answer. Such a classic line. “I think every playboy has said this line to every girl.”

“Coffee. I swear I haven’t even spoken to another girl after I met you. The things I told you that night were my sincere feelings.”

“What about Ji Ah?”, I lashed out.

“Ji… okay I hate to admit this, but I brought her that day, only to get on your nerves.”

“Sunbae! You were with her last night!!”

He was taken aback when I said that. “ Coffee I can explain…”

“Sunbae, let’s not make this harder than it already is. I don’t want to accuse you of anything. We weren’t even together long enough for me to complain. Good bye sunbae.”

He didn’t stop me. I went upstairs fought the urge to check if he was still down. I couldn’t, and peeked slowly. He was leaving. Was I too harsh? What if what he said was true. No. I need to snap out of this.

The next day I had guitar lessons with Chanyeol sunbae. He was working on something on his computer, while I practiced the chords he taught me.

“Yah, Chan…” Baekhyun entered the room.

“Yeah Baekhyun. Sit. Y/N and I are almost done.”, Chanyeol replied, putting on his humongous pair of headphones.

“Hello Baekhyun sunbae.” I greeted. He didn’t greet me back.

After a while, he just got up and left. Chanyeol noticed his absence after couple of minutes. “Where did he go?” He asked taking off his headphones.

“I don’t know.”

“Is something wrong between you two?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Y/N. I’m his roommate. I know everything. He said he was with you last night.”

“Yeah. We met up for a bit.”

“Did you guys fight?”

“No…”

“Really? Then he’s being grumpy?” He chuckled, “ It’s nice to see him like this. He hasn’t been this flustered meeting a girl, for a while.”

“Chanyeol!” ,A familiar voice boomed in the room. He was back “Don’t.”

“Did you guys fight?” Chanyeol looked at us, unable to grasp the tension.

“I wish we had just fought.” he stated before he left.

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xxprincessjewelsxx · 7 years

Text

A Dangerous Game (Suho Mafia!au fic) Chapter 4 - Scared Little Kitten

Warnings: None

Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15(M), Ch. 16, Ch. 17(M), Ch. 18, Ch. 19, Ch. 20, Ch. 21, Ch. 22, Bonus Chapter

What is a girl to do when she’s locked up in a penthouse while her husband to be is running around possibly setting up another illegal poker game? All the domestic chores that she learned following around the maids of course.

I may have had the world at my fingertips, but it was just that. At my fingertips...right out of my grasp was all the money I could ever want and need. Instead I got a stark allowance and spent most of my days following the maids around. I knew the reason that they didn’t mind me following them around while they worked was that they felt bad for me. But they taught me things that I would otherwise never had known how to do...like my own laundry, ironing, dishes, vacuuming, mopping, etc.

“You don’t have to do my laundry,” Junmyeon had said, as he saw me filling up the washer.

“It keeps me busy, I sent your dirty suits off to the dry cleaners, they should be back tomorrow,” I replied, continuing what I was doing.

“Okay...well...as long as you have things handled here,” he said, “Just set the clean clothes on my bed I guess.”

Which leads me to where I am now, standing at the end of Junmyeon’s bed, folding the mound of clothes. As I did so, one of the piles fell over knocking what appeared to be some paperwork off of the bed.

Walking over I quickly began picking up the paperwork my movements stopping when I noticed a couple of photos. “My father’s properties?” I mumbled. Not even thinking about what the consequences of my actions might be I looked at some of the other papers; his beach house, the mansion, the city loft, office buildings. If it was property that my father owned, it was there.

“What are you doing?” a stern voice questioned. I looked up and saw Junmyeon standing there, an angry expression on his face. “I think you’d know better than to go snooping.”

He took a couple steps towards me and as he did so I stepped back. “Are you trying to take him down?”

He continued to step towards me until I found myself, back against the floor to ceiling window. “Even if I was, I don’t think that a scared little kitten such as yourself would try and stop me.”

Junmyeon had told me that he had a rule against hurting women. In my head, I kept trying to tell myself that this was just because he was angry. Had I intentionally snooped? No, would be believe that? Possibly not...and knowing that, plus the intimidating air that he was putting off terrified me.

Shaking, I looked up at him. “What...what else do you need?”

He tilted his head slightly. “Excuse me?”

“What else do you need?” I asked again, holding the documents up in between us.

He let out a chuckle, his angry gaze turning to that of a dangerous one. “Are you saying that you think you can help me?”

I nodded. “I may have avoided and been pushed out of everything to do with my father’s business...but between these two houses,” I said holding up the picture of the mansion and beach house, my hands shaking, “I know every nook and cranny.”

He backed away a bit. “Every nook and cranny?”

“I know where every safe is,” I said, “Every security camera as well.”

He finally took a couple steps back, taking the documents with him. “If you’re telling the truth, there will be a big reward in it for you....now, don’t let me catch you snooping again, got it?”

“Yes sir...”

“Good girl...” he said going and grabbing whatever he initially came back for and leaving.

Once he was out of sight my legs gave out and I fell to the floor, the tears I had managed to hold back now dripping down onto the dark hardwood floors.

ONE WEEK LATER

“Stop moving,” Junmyeon said, noticing fidgeting in my seat.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, shifting again as the mansion gates came into view.

“You sure she’ll be able to do this boss?” Chanyeol questioned, looking through the rear view mirror.

“She has no choice, cause we’re here,” Junmyeon replied, as the car came to a stop. He helped me out of the car and led me up the steps to the door where my father was now standing.

“Suho...pleasure,” he said, before looking towards the three others who had come along, “I didn’t realize you would be bringing others.”

“Y/N said she would like to get a few things from her old room, so I brought them to help with anything if needed,” Junmyeon replied, looking at Chanyeol, Jongin, and Jongdae.

“Very well....” my father said, “Why don’t you and I have a drink in the lounge and the others can take care of what they need to.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Junmyeon replied, “After you....”

My father led Junmyeon in the direction of the lounge and when he was out of sight we took off to towards my old room.

“All my stuff is in boxes,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Focus, Y/N,” Jongin said.

“Right...” I said before walking over to one of the USB outlets and plugging in the tablet that Baekhyun gave me.

“Well hey there, Y/N,” Baek said, his face popping up on a little screen.

“Hey Baek...you’re plugged in are you getting anything from the security system?” I questioned.

“Yep and you were right about where all the camera’s were located,” he said, “Where are you going to?”

“The most important thing in this house is in the safe in my father’s study,” I said, “That’s where he keeps the documents for his overseas accounts, businesses, and even stocks.”

“Financial gold,” he said, “But I could’ve-.”

“No Baek...my father is the type of guy who may not update his home security system, but when it comes to his money it always changes. The paperwork is needed.”

“How do you...”

“I got stuck in the air vent trying to escape the mansion when I was nine...I heard everything, now can you help with the security system?”

“Can I help? Just say when and we’re off to the races.”

~Junmyeon~

“Spring next year?” Mr. Lee said, rubbing his chin.

“I want Y/N to be able to have a wedding that she can remember, she said something about liking cherry blossoms...I think April would be a good time,” Junmyeon lied.

“Don’t mind the girl,” he said waving his hand, “Do whatever you wish, if she misbehaves knock her around, she’ll listen.”

Junmyeon’s grip tightened on his glass. “Unlike you Mr. Lee I don’t believe in knocking a woman around if she misbehaves.”

He let out a laugh. “Well you certainly shouldn’t let her get away with shit.”

“She’s actually quite a good girl,” he said, “We’ve only had one little mishap and that’s what it was, a mishap and it seems we got things....straightened out.”

“You’ll see...that girl will make you snap...”

“I’m curious Mr. Lee...what did she do to make you snap?”

~Y/N~

I led Jongin and Jongdae down the hall towards my father’s study. Chanyeol had stayed behind to take a couple of boxes from my room to the car to make it seem like we were there for the reason we claimed.

As we ran Baekhyun switched the security cameras into a still screen in 10 second intervals so we would be able to make it. My father’s study had no cameras...what went on in there was completely private. He didn’t even keep audio; the wrong pass code on his safe however...and there would be issues. Once in the study I ran over to the built ins and opened one of the bottom doors and entered the pass code, hands shaking.

“Relax Y/N, you’re shaking so bad you’re making me seasick,” Baekhyun said.

I momentarily looked down at the tablet in my hand. “Sorry...”

“It’s okay, just open the safe and hand the tablet to Jongdae and start handing him the documents to scan,” he said.

I nodded and finished entering the pass code and the safe popped open no problem. Handing over the tablet Jongdae I began handing him documents to scan, while Jongin kept watch at the door.

Thankfully it didn’t take us long before we got through most of the paperwork especially with as well as Baek’s tablet worked.

“Shit,” Jongin said, looking over his should at us, “Someone’s coming.”

~Junmyeon~

“I started paying the girl off when she came to me and told me she was pregnant...she was a party girl and I had no need for her or a child that I didn’t even know if it was mine,” Mr. Lee said taking a puff off of his cigar, “She was just a piece of ass that I had gotten with a few times, who knows who else she had been sleeping with.”

Junmyeon sat in his chair, the cigar in hand, unlit but making something good to mess with as his annoyance level rose. Someone with half a brain would be able to tell that Y/N was his daughter. She definitely had more features that where that that her mother probably had, but when Y/N stood next to him there was no doubting that she was his daughter.

“Next thing I know she’s tracked me down again, this time with a 2 year old little brat begging me to take the kid cause she’s dying and has no family to take her,” he continued.

“Why didn’t you refuse or take her to an orphanage?” he questioned.

Mr. Lee let out a laugh. “Trust me I tried...the woman had the audacity to just leave her outside my home like this was a church or something, then when I tried to take the brat to an orphanage my right hand man stopped me. He told me she would be good insurance should I not end up getting married.” He stopped and look at Junmyeon with a sly smile. “And he was right...”

Junmyeon felt a slight pang of guilt. Y/N had never once been seen as a daughter to this man, never once been seen as a human being, and he just added to that when he made her sign that contract.

“Anyway that girl has been nothing but a nuisance since before she was born...she needs to be put back in her place every now and again,” Mr. Lee finished.

“We’ll see about that Mr. Lee...we’ll see about that...”

~Y/N~

Jongdae and I were now under my father’s desk, his arm wrapped around me making sure I was completely under the desk, his other hand over my mouth to prevent me from making any sound.

If I was nervous before, I was terrified now. If they were the shoes of a maid, seeing me they would probably let us get out of there no probably. But the over priced leather shoes and suit pants told me that that was definitely one of my father’s men.

After about five minutes of rummaging through some drawers and coming dangerously close to the desk, the man left. Pushing me out from underneath the desk and seeing Jongin emerge from the closet we took off back to my room where Chanyeol was waiting.

“It’s time to go,” Jongin said.

While they headed to the car I walked to the lounge and knocked on the entry way causing the two men to look at me.

“Got everything you wanted?” Junmyeon questioned.

“Yeah,” I replied, “If you would like to chat some more-.”

“I don’t think that we need to take up any more of your father’s time today,” Junmyeon said. He had an odd tone to voice as he turned and said goodbye to him before all but dragging you from the house.

“Did...I do something wrong?” I questioned, feeling his grip was a little tight on my arm.

He stopped and looked at me, loosening his grip. “No...let’s just get back home...”

To be continued....

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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The Actual Experience of Virtual Experiences

You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch?

Most of us are currently missing things like Outside and Proximity to Other Humans. For the lucky ones, at least, monotony and loneliness are our most prominent enemies, as we stare down seemingly endless nights of Netflix and bean soaking, longing for the day we can experience somewhere else. If you run a business that requires anyone travel from one place to another, this means that you’re particularly reeling. Airline capacity is down 73 percent, hotels are empty, and even the potential reopening of restaurants and bars comes with heavy caveats. Because of that, brands like Airbnb, Viator, Google, and various tourism councils have begun offering virtual “experiences,” so that hypothetically you both keep spending money and also don’t die of boredom. But can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? Or are they, you know, both screens?

Broadly, there are two types of experiences happening today. First, there are interactive classes and group activities, where you can learn to make pasta or Irish step dance or listen to a museum docent talk about statuary on a video call — all with other people looking to emerge from this time with a new skill set. In Philadelphia, one restaurant owner is trying to mimic the experience of dining out. He video calls you for your order and then, once it’s delivered, calls back to check in on your wine and see how everything is. Aside from the fact that they take place over a video call, these experiences are pretty close to their in-person counterparts: you sign up for a particular time and date, you follow directions, and supposedly you learn something, or at least pretend you’re in a restaurant.

Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter?

And then there are the experiences that aim to “immerse” you in some locale that is not your apartment, whether that’s Rome’s colosseum or an orchard of cherry blossoms in Japan or the British Museum. Often, the entirety of the experience is just a 360-degree camera or other pre-recorded video footage of a beautiful place, and sometimes it’s free. Maybe for a brief moment it will seem as if you aren’t on the couch with your partner who won’t stop bouncing every time they try to catch a tarantula in Animal Crossing, but instead are surrounded by skulls and a haunting breeze in Paris’s catacombs. Or seeing the Faroe Islands through the eyes of a local with a camera strapped to their shirt and whose movements you can control with a joypad (yes, this is real, and no, it does not seem ethical).

Both of these types of experiences are not new, except for the joypad thing. Virtual cooking classes and workouts are offered by plenty of companies, and Google has long allowed you to tour the world’s museums, or plant yourself in the middle of a national park on Google Earth. Normally, these offerings are an invaluable tool for those who don’t have the ability — whether financially or physically or because there’s only so much time — to visit these spaces in person. Personally, I’ve avoided them all. Aside from the occasional video yoga class, it just didn’t seem worth it — too much potential for technical difficulties, too easy to open Twitter in another tab. Plus, I could just go there if I really wanted.

But now that the pandemic has wiped out any in-person plans for the foreseeable future, boredom is my primary struggle. I finish work and move from my dining table to my couch, queueing up another movie or TV show or video game. The idea of a plan, of something to look forward to, feels increasingly distant — and online experiences increasingly appealing. Can they actually fulfill our collective void of “doing,” or just highlight how far we are from ever “experiencing” in person again? I decided to fill up my calendar again to find out — or at least see if I could forget about the confining walls of my apartment, even for a few minutes.

The instructions for Airbnb’s “GINspiration History & Cocktails at Home” said that points would be given for the best outfit, so I put on earrings and an actual shirt before signing on. The company best known for providing vacation and short-term rentals offered “experiences” — both real-life and virtual — before the spread of COVID-19, but has taken care to promote the latter on its homepage recently. You can learn to cook tacos or pasta or tapas, or watch a man wandering the streets of Prague in a plague doctor costume as you learn about the Black Death. My hour-and-a-half long class promised the bartender would teach me to make some great gin cocktails, as well as tell me a bit about the history of the spirit itself. It took place at 11:30 in the morning EST (the host was in England) but time is meaningless now, right?

I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student.

Signing onto what you assume will be a bustling Zoom chat only to find yourself the only one there is a little like showing up early to a party; it’s deeply embarrassing for no specific reason, and the only way through is to act like being a party of one is your favorite thing. We waited a few minutes for the other student who had signed up, but he never came. He is my enemy now, and I began the class feeling resentful that I had no other participants to hide behind, and that I had to make an extra grocery run to pick up the limes and juices necessary for cocktail prep. These should have been provided for me, I thought. There should have been more people. It shouldn’t be like this.

But as I listened to my instructor’s story about accidentally spilling a bright pink Cosmo all over a bachelorette’s white dress, I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. For an hour and a half the bartender and I chatted, he told jokes, we traded stories and watched each other’s reactions, I drank a French 75 on an empty stomach, and he taught me how to make daiquiris and Cosmos as well, because I came woefully unprepared in the ingredients department. And I know it’s a bartender’s job to make everyone feel like their friend, but I felt like his friend, which meant I felt like my kitchen was a bar. The magic worked, and I’m not sure if my socialization itch would have been scratched had that other guy (still my enemy) showed up.

So I tried another one. I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times in my life. As a New Yorker, I can name my price and visit my personal highlights on any rainy day — the Arms & Armor section, the Asian and “Arab Lands” wings, jewelry, “Inferno” by Franz von Stuck. The Met is currently offering 360 degree video of some of its corridors, but to see any art up close right now, I had to sign up for a tour with Walks. The hour-long tour promised a docent would uncover the “scandals and secrets that lie behind some of the artifacts in America’s greatest art collection,” and an art lecture would mean I’d experience the Met in a way I haven’t since I was a kid on a class trip.

I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger.

Our docent first started by highlighting all the benefits of an at-home video tour, as if we had a choice. On a normal day we’d probably have to wait outside in a line, waddle through security, and check our coats before seeing any art. Now, he joked, we could be “naked with a glass of cabernet” on hand, and because our “tour” took the form of a slideshow of images, we could zip from the Egyptian wing to “Washington Crossing the Delaware” nearly instantly. In the museum it would have been a 15-minute walk. Our docent clicked through works I’d never stopped to notice before, and famous paintings I’d never really considered that deeply. I learned who Madame X was in John Singer Sargent’s portrait, and that Monet’s water lilies were more staged than I’d previously imagined. I regretted that I’d spent so much time at the Met cycling through what I already knew.

But I found myself missing that 15-minute walk. Our tour was an hour long and featured 87 PowerPoint slides. As soon as we were done with one painting we hopped to the next, leaving barely any time for our new knowledge to sink in. I pictured myself in the alternate-universe version of the tour, following a man holding a flag, maybe chatting with a stranger on the tour about what he’d just said as we weaved through galleries, feeling whether the energy of the group was “bored” or “amused” or “laughing politely.” Our video host turned off everyone’s cameras, so I couldn’t even see the nine other participants’ faces as our docent spoke, or allow him to see my genuine laughs at any of his jokes. I joined to stave off the loneliness, but once the call was ended, I felt newly alone.

In an online conference hosted last week by Arival Online, a resource specifically for the tours and attractions companies, members of the tourism industry gathered to discuss the pros and pitfalls of virtual tours, and whether they were worth investing in. The short answer was yes. Andy Lawrence of Vox Group (no relation) noted that this is what business will be like for a while. “From that we know social distancing will become a norm, and the easiest way to deal with this is to give someone the power to take a tour how and when they want,” he said. However, he denied it was a long-term solution, as people can get free videos of monuments and museums on YouTube. Online education may be a need now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last.

But others noted it didn’t seem like interactive tours were really competing with the videos on YouTube. “I don’t see it as a full replacement for travel, but a new initiative that’s complementary for travel when we get back to normal,” said Matthijs Kefi of Withlocals. After all, streaming a video is one-way. “Our hosts also want to connect with other people, everyone likes that interaction.” The point of a guided tour or a lesson is rarely just the accumulation of new information. We had cookbooks and Wikipedia before the pandemic. What we want is people.

Public anonymity is one of the things that keeps me in my hometown of New York. I’ve cried in parks, in museums, and at well-renowned bars. I’ve sat quietly with my thoughts at crowded restaurants, and I’ve had life-changing conversations in front of world-famous monuments. Some of the most important things have happened to me while I’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers.

Now, all of these things happen on my couch. There is no white-noise of humanity to provide cover to my sobs or my half-baked ideas. I am not anonymous, but alone, and the thing I am missing the most is being in public with strangers. What I wouldn’t give right now to attend a book reading, have a drink, or look at a painting with people I’ll never know. What I miss about the world isn’t being told about an artist’s life by a docent. It’s meandering through a museum, talking to my partner about why a newly seen painting is hitting us, quietly experiencing the beauties of life alone in company.

As soon as I named this craving for myself I started feeling it in anything else I tried to do. I clicked around a virtual tour of Machu Picchu where tourists in bucket hats and cargo shorts stand frozen and warped by the circular camera. I tried to recall what the wind felt like on my own trip there over a decade ago, but I could only focus on what it would be like to overhear another person’s conversation. I looked at cherry blossoms blooming in Prospect Park, and thought of the last time I was there, which happened to be the same weekend as the West Indian Day Parade so the Japanese garden was juxtaposed with booming dancehall music from the street. I tried “going” somewhere I’d never been before, the Great Wall of China, only to find myself focusing more on a tourist squatting while drinking a water bottle than any of the sights.

“The same” is too high a bar to set for these experiences. Nobody is advertising that these virtual tours and classes will provide an identical experience to one in person, but rather they’re a way to support docents and guides and bartenders who would otherwise be out of work. But even then, it’s too easy to recall the other version of this experience, the one where your conversation isn’t studded with glitching video, where you can shake the bartender’s hand after he’s taught you how to make a lemon twist, where even after you’ve found a quiet spot at the top of Machu Picchu where it feels like you’re the only person in the whole world, you can walk back down and watch everyone else having their own moments of transcendence without ever having to ask them about it.

Most everything about life right now is both deeply essential and muted. We’re instructed to leave our houses only for necessary work or supplies, and only touch those we live with (which could mean no one at all). Every decision carries the weight of literal life and death. And yet every action feels like a photocopied version of reality, like we’re in a holding pattern until life gets switched back on. The virtual tours and classes are no different. Human interaction, however it happens, feels newly vital. But mostly, these tours and experiences don’t provide that any more than watching Too Hot to Handle on Netflix does. The majority of them are one-way entertainment, good enough if the topic interests you, but the equivalent of an interesting PBS special. And even when they are slightly more interactive, there is no lasting release. You say goodbye, feeling smarter or tipsier or full. The video sputters and freezes and then it ends, and you’re still in your living room, with no one to even ignore you.

Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5 https://ift.tt/3ddgm2g

You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch?

Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter?

I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student.

I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger.

Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5 via Blogger https://ift.tt/3c516V4

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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textsfromninjagoblog · 7 years

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Ninjago Prompt: Elemental Vaccine!

(This story was based off of a prompt from @writing-prompt-s , I’ll reblog it with this story when I find it again!)

It had been a fairly typical night for my insomniac self, laying cozy in bed while sketching on my IPad; listening to K-pop and electro-swing into the wee hours of morning. Well, it was nice, until this cloaked mad man crept through my bedroom window and put a gun to my head!

“Please don’t kill me!” I begged him.

“That’s the last thing I’d wanna do,” his said, his voice somewhat gruff, “now just calm down, all of this’ll make sense in a second.”

“May-ay I ask,” I stuttered, “what the gun is for, if you’re not going to hurt me, that is?”

“Some nut case tried to attack me and steal all of my merchandise.” he replied, “I suppose if you promise to stay still and not pull anything funny, there’d be no need for it.”

“I can do that.” Was all I could muster in response.

“Now we’re in business.” He said, lowering the firearm from my temple and clipping it in his holster.

All at once, the scruffy stranger’s demeanor seemed to change. His muscles relaxed, a smirk creeping across his lips as he pulled a large black briefcase from behind him and sat it on the comforter between us.

“Congratulations doll,” he said in the almost joking fashion of a gameshow host, “you’ve just won the jackpot! You get to choose one of our fabulous prizes!”

With that, he flicked open the case with a flashy gesture and turned it to face me. Inside were all manor of vials, each one ornately decorated. Their contents all glowed in different neon colors, but some also pulsed or glittered!

“Woah,” I gasped at the sight, “what are these?”

“That’s the catch,” he answered, “you won’t know until it’s inside ya! I’ve got the needle all ready whenever you are.”

“Wait, what!?” I snapped, recoiling from the case.

“Easy now,” the stranger said, “I can’t tell you what the serums do, but I can tell you what they aren’t. None of them are poison, none of them are drugs, and none of them will kill you.”

“Does this absolutely have to happen?” I said, still irked by the thought of being injected with a strange fluid by a random person.

“Yes.” He answered, his patience starting to waver, “No rush in choosing, but keep in mind I’ve got other places to be.”

I stared at the shimmering elixirs with a mixture of fascination and terror. Despite what the man had said, I was still assessing the potential lethality of each potion. My eyes were struggling to focus with the sheer variety of oddities available to ponder, around 16 to 20 in all if I ventured a guess!

One vial was ornamented with what appeared to be silver, molded into a design that seemed both cybernetic and serene. It’s solution was a glittering sky blue, and if the condition of it’s glass were any indication, had frozen it’s container from the inside out! While beautiful, I wasn’t in the mood to have my insides frozen solid, so I passed on that one.

Another one had grand carvings of jade adorning its rims. This solution seemed far more volatile, frantically switching from its base state of sparkling amber to any number of other shades and statuses then back again! This looked about as toxic as a mystery fluid could get, so I definitely decided against it!

The next bottle I inspected was quite intriguing. A golden phoenix emblazoned its base. The solution inside initially shun a deep cherry, with flecks of light copper swirling throughout, before gradually fading into a beautiful aquamarine! It rhythmically sloshed from side to side of its own volition, as though it were part of the ocean’s tides. I’ve always felt a connection to the sea and it’s creatures since I was little, so I felt pretty secure in my choice as I began to reach for it.

“Do you have a brother or sister?” The stranger interjected as my fingers made contact with the glass.

“I’m an only child.” I replied, “Why does that matter?”

“It matters because that one has a companion,” he replied, pointing to a bold orange and crimson solution that seemed to lick the inside of its container like a wild flame, “and they’re only allowed to be given to sets of siblings.”

I retracted my arm with a huff. What was the point of being able to choose my potential poison if some were barred from me at the get go!?

But then, I saw it.

Though a bit smaller then the rest, this vial had fully ensnared my attention. It’s solution was a rich lime green, with chunks of gold soothingly bobbing about within. I had no idea what drew me to this solution, but in spite of my mind reeling at how dangerous this situation was, it just felt so right!

“Are you sure?” The man asked.

“Positive.” I replied with a sense of conviction that I’ve never before felt, let alone while in a predicament like this!

With that, the man took the vial from my hands and produced a syringe, swiftly drawing the mystical-seeming fluid for my insane inoculation. As frightening as this ordeal had been; the expert manor that the stranger had about him along with the beauty of the solution swirling in its new vessel had soothed me somewhat.

“We’ve been stuck with each other for a while now,” I said as he prepared my left upper arm with what I think was an antiseptic, “any chance I could get your name?”

“I don’t get why you’d want it,” he replied, “I’m just a samurai without a master.”

“Ah, another riddle.” I snarked under my breath.

“Ok, I’m going to give this to you now,” he said, “it can look really freaky as it disperses, so you might want to look away.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked, now just wanting for this to be over.

“I’m not sure. Guess it depends on your pain tolerance.” He answered, “If you think you could distract yourself while holding still, maybe that could help.”

“Let’s see, a distracting story…” I thought aloud, “Well, for starters, my dad once got bit by a snake when he was a kid. Still has the scar to this day!”

“Hmm,” the stranger said, “it’s interesting you picked this vial then.”

I felt a slight pinch in my skin, followed by a bit of warmth flowing in as I tried to keep my mind off of what was happening.

“You can move now, its all done.” He said, seeming proud of whatever he’s just done to me.

“Um, thank you….?” I said, still not quite sure what to make of the events that I just went through.

“Your welcome,” he replied, “if all goes as it should, I’ll be seeing you again around New Years. Quick tip, get in contact with a priest before then. You’ll really thank me later!”

Before I could even question what he had just told me, the man had disappeared back out the window, silent and swift as the wind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up the next morning with the worst craving for some candy. Chocolate, gummy, a lollipop, heck, I would have even settled for a cough drop; I didn’t care as long as it was sweet!

So I got myself a mini Kit-Kat from the fridge, and it was amazing! I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a single candy bar this much since I was a kid!

“Wonder if this is a side effect of that shot…” I thought, looking at the part of my arm where I thought the injection had happened.

Nothing remained to tell of the previous night. I would have dismissed the whole ordeal as a weird nightmare, if it weren’t for what I found on my kitchen table…

It was a large curled up paper, sitting atop a small mound of black fabric. Upon unraveling it, I saw it was a map that lead to a remote part of Big Bear Mountain!

The words “Head there alone and find your destiny.” were scratched in the lower corner of the sheet, probably the cloaked stranger’s handiwork. I was getting increasingly concerned and confused, until I saw what the map had been laying on!

It was a hoodie with a skeleton pattern on it’s front!

Suddenly it all clicked! The events of the prior night replayed over and over in my mind, making more and more twisted sense as I thought it through!

I slipped on the hoodie and called in sick to work, curious to see if this map lead to what I thought would be waiting under the snow.

Because at worst, I was given a colorful dose of saline; but at best, that crazy Ronin had just started my personal ninja origin story!

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kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995 · 7 years

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A Dauntless Warrior And His Amity Weakness Part 6

Disclaimer: There is a self-harm scene but only in the beginning if there are any triggers I apologize if you want you can skip over the scene Eric’s POV When I wake up to see it’s still dark out then I hear Emmanuel whining at first I thought it was because he had to go to the bathroom but then I see the light on in the master bathroom and hear quiet sobbing and that’s when I put two and two together. I immediately get up and run to the bathroom and where I see Izzy crying with a razor blade in her hand running across her skin my jaw drops as crimson flows to the surface. I snap back to myself “Izzy are you insane? stop hurting yourself” I yell as I grab a hand towel and put it over her mocha brown skin while grabbing her by the cheek and forcing her to meet my eyes. She answers immediately when she sees my questioning eyes “I hate being overweight! I don’t understand why I’m built this way, plus the fact that you came into my life how could you love someone as disgusting as me?” I place my forehead onto hers and tell her “You’re the only one I’ve ever been with who noticed the little things and cared enough to make an effort to remember how I like my coffee at the diner or my diet routine to Emmanuel schedule you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” I get the Erudite healing cream and massage some onto her wrist and kiss her bruise that’s when I notice all the scars on her arm and the tattoo of a birth date and a Pisces horoscope sign on her ribs. I don’t pay any attention to it as I pick her up and put her back into bed i then turn my iPod onto "Greg Laswell And Then You " I get into bed and bring my arms around Izzy and pull her into my chest, being mindful of her scars I wrap my arms around her determined to protect, she may be broken but I will hold her together for as long as it takes. Lost in my own thoughts I start twirling a strand of her luscious hair around my finger and After several minutes of absentmindedly playing with her dark cherry red hair, she asked me. “Would you consider ever having kids?” I look down at her when she asks me. I had thought about little feet running around but never thought it was possible, not willing to confess my deep desire I just give her a questioning look as she continues. “I have a little boy about three years old named Jayden when I lived in Amity I had him after I was raped but I ran back home after my ex boyfriend found out he was so furious that I wanted to keep what he thought “an abomination” but I was done with initiation and I was deemed independent so I had to leave him behind in Amity with my mother I’ve been trying to get him back but it’s been hard because I’ve been denied adoption” I can only look at the tattoo while she finishes because I now know what her tattoo stood for. It’s been two weeks since Isabella’s revelation and I couldn’t get having a child out of my mind so I told Izzy that I would be home late because while it was true that I had business in Amity I also wanted to look for Jayden. As the meeting progresses I am getting more and excited to meet my her son to see what he looks like so I act like I’m listening but really I could care less for these meetings I can’t get Jayden out of my head. Izzy doesn’t know this but Jayden lives in a sort of orphanage after her mom got too old to take care of him and as soon as the meeting is over I walked toward the building. I step in the building and scan the small faces to find Jayden from the picture I have and my eyes land on the face of Jayden and I let out a snarl when I hear and see Jayden being mistreated I walk over I see that he has Izzy’s mocha colored skin, white blonde hair, and handsome brown eyes. I barked “What is the meaning of this?” my eyes narrowing at the lady who has Jayden by the arm and injecting him with peace serum and Jayden gets startled. Jayden yells to me while crying “Pwease mister I miss my mommy I want my mommy” I tell him while getting on my knees “It’s okay, my name is Eric and I’m your Mommy’s boyfriend and I’m here to take you to her” I pick him up and he clings on as I go to his room I ask him “Can you show me which room you stay in?” . He nods his head ok and I put him down and he grabs me by the finger and takes me to his room. A few hours later after I had a long conversation with Joanna about adopting my soon to be wife’s son we are driving up to the building when Jayden wakes up and see his mom walking Emmanuel and Jayden asks “Who’s doggy is my Mommy taking care of?” I tell him “That’s my dog Emmanuel” Jayden gets excited when we pull up. I tell him “Wait in here so we can surprise mommy okay?” he puts his two pointer fingers to his mouth and nods his head. As soon as I walk out Emmanuel notices me and runs over and I scratch him behind his ears after I go surprise Izzy by wrapping my two arms around her midsection and I tell her “I have a surprise for you in the truck” she looks hesitant but walks over and I grab Emmanuel leather leash and follow her. She opens the truck door and Jayden screams “Supwise mommy”

I can’t help but smile when Izzy grabs our son out of the car and Jayden squeezes his arms around her neck. I walk over and put my arm around her waist and whisper in her ear “Will you marry me?” She looks up her eyes watery and nods her head yes. I kiss her soundly on the lips and then we look over and see Jayden asleep on her shoulder so we go inside as a family.

#jai courtney #eric divergent #love #kids #animals #imagine

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jiminwolf · 7 years

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When the cherry blossoms fade

Soulmate!Jiminxreader oneshot

Genre: Soulmate AU/ Fluff

Summary:The fate entwining You and Park jimin are much stronger than they seem.

A/N: The whole story was inspired by this song written by B1A4’s Jinyoung. I actually started writing this story in May last year when the song first came out, but I guess I took too much time to work on it and even after IOI disbanded I'm still not done with this. If there are mistakes and sudden changes in writing style, please keep in mind that i spent an entire year on this. This is still unedited.

Prologue

Year 00

Tuesday 2:11 A.M.

The hospital

A new life is brought into the world, loud wails and cries filling the small operating room, the pungent smell of blood filling the air. The new mother tears, her husband grasping her hand tightly, still unable to let go after the tedious 6 hour delivery filled with painful contractions that made her feel like ripping all her hair out. The doctors and nurses smile at her brightly, and she can only reciprocate with a weak smile.

The newborn is wriggling, struggling against the doctor’s grasp, as he brings the child over to the exhausted parents. A mark is fresh on its tiny, pink wrist.

“Congratulations, it’s a girl.”

The parents lean over to carry the small bundle of joy, excited to see her mark. They both gasp in shock, as the mother’s fingertips smooth over that certain spot.

“She has two, what does this mean? Is there something wrong with her?”, the mother worriedly questions, for she has never seen anything like it before.

“There’s nothing to worry about. Babies that have two marks combined together are very rare, yet very lucky. It just means that she has a second chance to meet her soulmate again if she happens to miss the first chance.”

The pair sighs in relief, and return to staring lovingly at their child.

The soulmate system was established to save mankind, for there were simply too many people in the world who failed to find a partner in life. A tattoo, often known as ‘the mark’, forms on every newborn. Each mark is unique to two individuals in the world, and often acts as a hint to a significant event occurring in both of the soulmate’s lives where the two will finally meet. However, once the two meet, it is necessary for the both of them to recognise each other as soulmates. If the opportunity to find each other is missed due to the both of them failing to recognize each other in the crowd, the mark gradually fades to nothing. A person with no mark is looked down upon in society, and to have no mark is a disgrace to the family name. Once the soulmates successfully recognize each other, both their marks remain permanent and stay for life. The meeting between soulmates can occur at any point in time.

---

The start.

Year 04

Saturday 4:55 P.M.

Your house

The summer was getting to your head, the heat rising up around you, surrounding and suffocating you. The climate is hot and humid, the sweat dribbles down your tiny forehead and the baby hairs that fall out of the little braid your mother did for you stay plastered to your neck, the minimal amount of clothes on your figure all glued onto you with sweat. Sticky, icky, disgusting sweat.

Despite the sweltering heat, you were sitting outside by the steps that led to your little house by the countryside. Mommy is in the living room watching television, you think, swinging your small feet around where they are unable to touch the ground. You hum a familiar tune, the same tune that you hum with the other neighborhood kids when you go out for ‘adventures’ around the small cluster of houses.

You glance at the daisies, the marigolds, the budding tulips that sprout up in your garden; the bees that buzz excitedly around them in a frenzied dance. You pause, and wonder, how nice it would be if I could draw the flowers with my crayons and give the picture to mommy as a present? You immediately scramble to your feet but turn to meet soft fabric.

“Daddy!” You exclaim excitedly.

He puts a finger to his lips, and you immediately quieten down. In his hands, he has two red packets, dripping with water from the packet. You have no idea what it is called, yet you love it so much. He passes you one, and you desperately tear open the packaging to reach for the sweet treat within. It is icy cold and tastes like fruit, yet the artificial taste of it lingers on your tongue afterwards. As you continue to gobble it up, your father whispers, “ It’s called a popsicle, sweetie.”

You glance up at him with glassy eyes, your pouting lips stained by the red food colouring found in the popsicle, before bursting out into a fit of giggles. He smiles with you too. The two of you sit side by side, watching the cars drive past the front gate, whilst sucking on your strawberry flavoured popsicles.

The heat causes the popsicle to melt quickly, sending glossy red syrup running down from your hand to your arm. You rub at the ruby red liquid, only to make your hands stickier and the situation messier. You stare at your dirtied arm in disgust and discomfort. Your father laughs again.It is then you first notice the weird looking mark on your right wrist.

“Daddy.”

“Hm?”

“What’s this?”

He turns to inspect your tiny wrist; but he knows very clearly what you are talking about, the mark on your wrist still ever so clear despite the intrusion of the new sticky, red lines across your skin.He holds your tiny wrist delicately, rubbing soothing circles on the porcelain smooth skin.

“It’s your mark.”

“My mark?”

“It will help you to find your future husband, a person you will love even more than Daddy and Mummy”

Your lips form an ‘O’ shape, then you frown in thought, the deepest kind of thoughts a four year old could possibly have.

“But I think I’ll still love Daddy and Mommy so much more.”

He lets out a bitter laugh, one a four year old will only interpret as happiness, before turning to face the little girl and gaze at her lovingly. She looks ever so innocent, so protected from the ways of the world.

He mutters under his breath,“We’ll see then.”

---

Year 18.4

Monday 10:47 P.M.

Someone’s House

The party is still going strong, but you feel like you’re dying. Young adults your age are scattered around the house, some grinding feverishly against each other on the the makeshift dance floor, loud pop music blasting from the cheap speakers, flashing lights that seem to make your headache even worse. Others are either seated on the couch beside the dance floor or are in the backyard. Most of them are couples, making out wherever they can. If your parents were here, they would have commented, “No sense of social modesty!”

But they aren’t here, which makes things 10 times better and 10 times worse.

The heavy bass of this music is deafening, and you aren't sure it's the music or the alcohol clouding your mind that sends the surrounding walls thumping to the beat.

Your roommate, Claire Park, the one that got you stuck here feeling like shit in the first place, is nowhere to be seen. You scan the place, the bright, flashing lights impairing your vision. Your head is throbbing like crazy and you are very sure you look very haggard. All you want to do now is get out of this damn place. You had a shot too many, despite knowing very well that you cannot handle liquor. The guys that were initially hitting on you have also moved onto other girls, leaving you drunk and stuck to the kitchen counter.

You saunter over to the living room, the current dance floor, and finally spot Claire. She defines the word ‘goddess’, literally. She is right smack in the middle of it, flaunting her jaw-dropping physique accentuated in a sparkling silver dress, grinding on a jock at the same time. He looks so familiar, yet you can’t lay a finger on who the hell he is. You, on the other hand, look like a potato. Absolute crap, decked out in a suspicious looking hoodie and sneakers, which earns you dirty looks and sniggers from the cheerleader group a few meters away from you.

Just before you can reach out to her, you feel bile bubbling over in your stomach and you instinctively cup your hand over your mouth, rushing upstairs towards one of the available toilets, only to find that it is locked because of some stupid couple in there. You rush into the other toilet and breathe a sigh of relief when you find that it is unlocked. You lean over the seat and release. Wiping off the excess spit on your mouth, you rise and flush the toilet.

Your phone suddenly rings and when you see the Caller ID, you feel like slapping yourself. It’s your parents. You’re supposed to be studying in the dorm as finals are round the corner. You hesitantly pick up the phone.

“Hello? Are you studying now?”

“Uh..um yeah, I am.”

“Why can I hear music in the background?”

“Um...I like to listen to music while studying??”

You are such a horrible liar.

“You get your lying ass back to your dorm right now! I am in your room right now and there isn't a single soul in here! Don't you get how important studying for your exams are? How can you still go to parties at times like this?”

You mutter a few apologies to your parents on the other side of the line and sigh as you end the call. What a bummer.

Pissed and grumpy from the alcohol and the phone call earlier, you storm right onto the dance floor, pushing and shoving other party goers away to grab Claire’s hand, earning a few glares from the surrounding partiers as you practically drag the girl shouting in protest out of the house. The both of you stumble out, and your lungs relish the feeling of fresh air after being trapped in that stuffy old house for the past 4 hours.

“Hey! What the hell man! I just managed to meet some cute guys. The night is still young!” Claire whines. She's the kind of girl you would classify as a goddess and a troublemaker at the same time.

“My parents just called. I just got myself into some deep shit.”

“What?! You should have told me earlier, I would have left with you.”

“Says the one who got me into this kind of shit party.”

“At least there were cute guys! You should have seen! I—-”

You cut her off abruptly.

“No thanks. Now can we get both our asses back to the dorm? I’m strangely hungry after puking so much.”

“..Or maybe we should go check out that new Chinese Korean restaurant near the dorm. I heard they open till eleven!” She giggles.

Sometimes you really just love and hate your roommate at the same time.

Year 18.4

Sunday 2:31 P.M.

Wang’s Chinese-Korean food

Jimin

Earning pocket money has never been this nerve wrecking.

It’s his first day working as a part-timer at Wang’s Chinese-Korean food, and already females are eyeing him like a tasty morsel.

He had only ended up there because of his stupid roommate, Kim Taehyung, who told him that the part time job would be a good deal, good pay, flexible hours. What he wasn't told was that it already had a reputation within the campus despite it being a new store, something that only transfer students that had just joined this term would not be well aware of. That is exactly what he is.

The restaurant is situated near the campus, and is known to have attractive waiters. Very attractive waiters. As a result, both senior and junior girls flock to the place after lectures, determined to either talk to them or score one of their numbers.

Sadly, he wasn’t aware of this particular situation at all. He didn’t feel that he was particularly good looking whatsoever, or rather, when he was compared to the other six boys working the same shift as him.

Kim Seokjin, a tall wide-shouldered lad slightly older than him with the face of an idol, makes him seem like your typical Prince Charming. He cares for every single customer; and girls swooning over him has become so common that he is used to it already.

Min Yoongi, with flawless, glowing skin that snow white would even be jealous of. He seems like an ice prince, but once you get to know him, he can be pretty chill. He has legs that are too pretty to be on a man.

Kim Namjoon, tall and charming, with a gentlemanly air that makes girls flock around him, desperate for attention. His pastel pink hair can be easily spotted around the restaurant, accentuating his glowing olive skin that girls drool over.

Jung Hoseok, a cheerful and energetic man, is super nice to everyone around him, and has a perfect ski slope as a nose bridge. His radiant aura infects everyone around him, giving everyone in the shift a newly found energy.

Kim Taehyung, perfect height, perfectly defined features,a perfect deep voice that surprisingly does not fit his age. His annoying roommate and a fast worker, yet he tends to goof around on the job.

Jeon Jungkook, his favorite and also the current maknae, has flowing onyx locks that frame his doe like features. He is often nicknamed ‘The Golden Maknae’, and he does not deny it, though his only current weakness is girls, but it increases his likeability by a ton.

Then there’s him, just good old Park Jimin, who has totally no idea why girls are chasing him like crazy. He doesn’t mind anyway, since the job earns him good money and the others treat him well.

Then he has an absurd thought : Was there the slightest chance that he could meet his soulmate? Unfortunately, he is dragged out of his reverie for the umpteenth time by Hoseok’s shrill screams for help with the ice water at table 10.

The rest of them chuckle and he rushes over to give Hoseok a hand, but the thought embedded in his mind just doesn’t fade away. It sticks to his mind just like bubblegum to the sole of a shoe, and he smiles to himself, and the group of girls in the far corner start squealing like crazy.

Maybe, he thinks.

Just maybe.

Year 18.9

Friday 10:35 P.M.

Campus

Your stomach growls for the very fifth time, and you are only halfway through the first lecture. The other students that sit near you stare at you in disgust, and you whisper silent apologies to them. Claire is all the way at the back of the hall, already making herself comfortable with the surrounding students.

You scoff at her, only to slump back in your seat in agony because of how hungry you are. You have food in your bag, in fact lots of food that your mom prepared for you that morning. There is carbonara, a tub of salad, Oreos and a bag of chips in your bag, but it would be too risky to start eating in the middle of the lecture. You calculate your chances, considering the fact that the current lecturer has hawk eyes and he would not hesitate to shout at you with that microphone of his and publically embarrass you for life. The students around you would also cause a big commotion upon sight of food which would in turn result in you getting spotted by the teacher.

You sigh, and reach into your bag, fingering the smooth plastic packaging of the Oreo packet, before sneakily popping one in your mouth. You chew once, twice, then reach for the second chocolate biscuit in the pack. The now empty blueberry coloured packaging is then abandoned in the small bag you own, and you hum a soft merry tune to yourself. The students behind tap your shoulder and shush you up. Three small chocolate biscuits would obviously never be able to satisfy your hunger, yet it is enough to last you through another lecture.

You turn your attention away from the scripts, notes and colorful stationery scattered around your tiny makeshift table and scan the hall; shifting uncomfortably in your seat Most of the students look super bored while taking notes down from the lecture. The lecturer is busy telling everyone his life stories while forcing them to listen as if it is some inspirational speech. Nobody is listening, except for the few new faces you spot within the crowd. Most of the girls and boys scattered amongst the front row are busy taking down whatever he says, a telltale sign that they are newbies in this school. One boy with hair the colour of a setting sun; the colour of maple leaves hanging on the trees in breezy autumn, sits in the second row. It makes him stand out in the whole hall full of students. None with a colour as striking as his. His hair looks so velvety soft, just like liquid gold.

He casually threads a hand through his gorgeous hair, then moves to continue taking notes down. Even with such a simple gesture, he oozes charm from every part of him. His aura built from sunshine is basically that alluring.

Wow, what a find.

You lean forward to take a closer look at him; your new interest. To be honest, you have never been this attracted before, not in this particular manner. You almost never take much notice of your surroundings, as you could not care less about the people around you but this, this boy, immediately catches your eye the moment you spot him. It isn't just because of his hair, instead something else, something you just can't lay a finger on, that makes your heart race at abnormal speeds.

At this moment, he chooses to turn around and meet your eye. Even from such a far distance, you notice how his beautiful eyes twinkle. A connection as thin as a string of spider silk forms between you and him, and the world feels like it stopped for that three seconds for the both of you to hold your breaths and just stare.

You quickly turn away and cup your face, feeling it heat up rapidly; your heart fluttering. The string is broken, and you are left dangling and confused. You turn back to look at him, only to realize that his back is now facing you once again.

You slump back into your seat and whisper to yourself, “What the hell was that.”

The bell suddenly rings, and the whole student body is in a hurry to escape the tiny hall. You are the only person still glued to your seat, eyes staring into blank space. The students quickly drain out and take to the halls, enjoying their next 5 minutes of freedom between empty classrooms and lockers. You don't even notice.

“Earth to y/n, earth to y/n, are you in?”

You snap out of your trance and glare at the waving hand in front of your face. You suddenly remember the boy and shoot out of your seat, startling Claire and sending her stumbling back a few steps.

“Where is he? Where has he gone?” You exclaim, whipping your head around the now empty lecture hall, leaving you with a confused Claire.

“Whoa wait what who?”

“Y’know, the orange haired boy.”

“Oh him? He’s a transfer student isn't he.”

“I already know that. Did you see where he went?”

“Yeah,he just left the hall like 1 minute ago.”

You grab your bag and sprint out of the hall and into the corridor, desperate to find his familiar face again, but all that meets your eye is an ebony crowd, no boy with hair like sunsets in sight, except for a senior year student with pastel pink hair leaning against a locker, smirking at you.

You sigh in disappointment before a panting Claire collides into you head first from behind.

So much for luck.

Autumn boy is gone.

Year 19

Friday 6:46 P.M.

Dorm room

It’s been a few months since you last saw him.

Okay maybe not just a few. About

You seem to have forgotten him, yet it doesn’t seem like it too. What have you been doing with your life.

Music blasts from your room, and you lie motionless on the bed. Thoughts of studying have already been abandoned and you honestly just feel like staying in your room for the rest of the day doing nothing. You glance at your desk, back at your hand then back at the desk again. The feeling of skin against fresh linen. The refreshing scent of the sun that is embedded in your blanket makes your toes curl in pleasure. You roll yourself up in the sheets to form a giant human burrito, the warmth from your body contrasting with the cool, humid air that tickles the tips of your toes that stick out from inside the blanket.

Soft rhythmic tapping of raindrops on your window have been overwhelmed by the heavy bass of the song. You wiggle out of the comfy blanket and turn to sit at your bedside. Your toes trace tiny circles on the cold wooden floor. Staring at the raindrops against the backdrop, the window forms a barrier, separating the two worlds. The soft lavender fabric of your oversized sweater pools around your figure. It is raining heavily outside, yet it accentuates the lovely colour of the sunset outside. It reminds you of your favourite season,autumn, where the leaves of maple trees gradually transform to a beautiful amber shade.

You then remember the boy you had seen last month, his bright, silky hair standing out in the crowd. You sigh to yourself, then land softly onto the heap of linen spread across your bed. You consider calling Claire to ask her to go out and get take out for you, before you remember that she is already outside that the emptiness of the house finally strikes you. You then contemplate calling home delivery, reaching out for your phone.

You turn the music off, and the house becomes eerily quiet. Using your phone to scroll through the contact list, you lift it above you. Just as you were about to press ‘dial’, your phone rings loudly, and you drop the gadget on your face in shock. Speak of the devil.

You answer hurriedly, your voice still shaky, “Hello? Claire?”

Instead, someone else is on the other line.

“Uh um yes? Hello? This is Claire’s phone and um.. Oh Oh we’re calling from Wang’s Chinese-Korean food. Is Claire your friend?”

The person on the other line is definitely a male; his voice deep and mellow.

You clear your throat.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

He mutters something on the other line that you can’t make out before replying, “You see, we have a bit of a situation here. Your friend, er..Claire, has gotten herself slightly drunk and is disrupting business here. Just wondering if you would be able to bring her back?”

You mentally slap yourself. You should have known better to let Claire go out alone on a friday night.

“Sure, I’ll make my way over now.”

You throw the first pair of jeans you find in your closet on and head out with your trenchcoat, only to curse yourself when you realise that you have no idea where the hell ‘Wang’s Chinese-Korean Food’ is. Goddammit.

Thank the world for whoever invented GPS.

You spend the next 40 minutes of your life scrutinizing the small text on your phone, listening to the machine telling you where to go and trying to locate the restaurant, only to realize that it is just outside campus. How dumb was that.The rain only makes it worse by wetting your hair, clothes and brand new shoes. Great.

There is a pretty long queue outside the restaurant, and you push and shove your way through the crowd, cursing when someone steps on your already dirtied shoes. The smell of oily food wafts out of the place; the air conditioning blows the hair out of your face. Standing right at the front door taking orders is someone you recognize as a senior on campus. You’ve seen him around because of his striking pastel pink hair, but you have no idea what his name is.

“How many people?”

“Looking for someone.”

He moves out of the way, gesturing to another waiter within the restaurant, and your shoes make contact with the magenta ‘WELCOME’ rug.

You don't even have to scan the place to know where Claire is.

Jimin

He looks up from the cashier time to time, glancing worriedly at the girl drowning her sorrows in alcohol. He feels sorry for her, he wants to help her out, but the circumstances do not allow him to do so. He continues to observe the girl and takes a profound interest in her actions.

She continues to call for more soju, and Hoseok shoots uneasy glances at her then at him again, as if trying to determine if the girl has gotten herself drunk enough the night, but he signals to Hoseok to continue supplying her with soju. Hoseok stares back at him in confusion, then shrugs it off unwillingly and gets back to work. Jungkook and Taehyung walk past the girl occasionally to check on her, and they both walk off with worried faces.

The tapping of his fingertips on the wooden counter becomes a rhythm, just before shouts from the table in front of him interrupts his daze. It is that girl, bursting out in horribly sung pop songs in her drunken fit. Jin and Taehyung immediately stop in their tracks and tend to the girl, but she smacks Taehyung right in the face, and Jin is struggling to keep her under control. He has to cover his mouth to stop himself from bursting into a fit of giggles. Jungkook apologizes profusely to the other customers affected by the commotion as the other two men try to calm the girl down.

Taehyung somehow manages to gain access to the girl’s phone and calls somebody while Jin pacifies the girl with iced water. He straightens up at his seat, and continues with his duties as cashier.

He doesn't know how long it's been, but he notices the instant where a new customer has just entered the store. He stares at the girl, strangely feeling a warm tingle crawl up his spine. The girl is breathtaking, and every step she takes is effortlessly graceful. She is dressed so casually, a lilac sweater pulled over her figure, the faded jeans fitting her legs perfectly, her hair swaying with every movement.

But she looks like an absolute goddess to him, and she would most definitely be his religion.

Jungkook leans over the counter and nudges at his side, motioning to the girl.

“Whoa Hyung, you’re totally drooling at the sight of her. She’s your type?” Jungkook jokes, earning a sharp glare from him.

“I don't know,” he shrugs, “but she's really attractive though. I mean, she's not pretty or anything, but for some strange reason I feel like finding out more.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue.

“Eyy,You should go for it Hyung.”

Jungkook nudges his side one last time, winking at him before getting back to work.

Jimin huffs in annoyance at the maknae.

A few more hours left to the end of his shift, and he's going to give this girl a shot.

You

You don't even notice the boy approaching your side because you're so preoccupied with Claire and that really good looking blonde waiter with wide shoulders attempting to help Claire out.

Claire has black bean sauce smudged all over her pretty lips, a streak of her mascara inching down the side of her left eye. You frown at the sight, and the handsome waiter in front of you grins sheepishly. Before you can blurt out your apologies, the feathery light tap on your shoulder has you whirling around. You wince at the whiplash, only to make contact with a pair of beautiful brown eyes, the colour of roasted coffee that is warm on the tip of your tongue, and dark tea that swirls within delicate china porcelain. The tiny specks of caramel in his iris flash, and you feel the bond forming all over again, this time even stronger and even more overwhelming than before. The feeling of warmth shoots through your entire body and spreads, just like the shimmering fireworks on the 4th of July.

You shudder slightly and glance back at him, realizing that he is wearing the exact same expression as you are. You scan his face, a pink blush crawling up your cheeks. It’s the same boy from the lecture hall, the autumn boy, just that under closer inspection, his olive skin carries a warm glow and you realize how deliciously plump his rosy bottom lip is. He looks starkly different from the encounter at the lecture hall, for his hair is now a stunning onyx, the colour of the city night sky devoid of stars, hinting at the infinite number galaxies that lie beyond earth, engulfing us entirely in a world of mystery.

You make eye contact with him once again, noticing that he has the exact same blush spreading across his cheeks. You swallow and look down at the ground in embarrassment, feet tracing tiny circles on the tiled ground. The handsome waiter takes note of these small actions, chuckling softly to himself before taking his leave. Claire is too forgotten within 3 seconds within the entry of this ‘new’ character, despite the fact that you were here for her in the first place.

“Uh, hello.” He meekly asks, his voice pitched slightly higher than most men you know. As a result, he sounds like an absolute angel to you.

“O-Oh, hi.” You awkwardly reply.

He rubs his neck, then he flashes a super cute smile at you. What he doesn't know is that he's already got you reeled in with just his eyesmile.

“Uh she's your friend, I'm guessing?”

“Yeah, she kinda got herself pretty drunk, and it's pretty embarrassing for the both of us, considering that most people already know who she is.”

He nods in agreement, the both of you bursting into laughter.

Just as you were about to ask this beautiful angel for his name, Claire chooses to lean over and attempts to puke over you, sending you jumping back. Unfortunately, she does puke all over the cement floor, and some of it stains the fabric of your jeans. Several customers turn to scoff in disgust but a waiter behind you with flowing locks like caramel sighs and heads over with a mop. You sigh too, but turn to ask the waiter with large doe eyes and Raven hair in the corner for a mop to help clear the area up. He’s actually been staring at you and the boy with hair that once reminded you of flames for the past 7 minutes, yet you shrug it off.

“No, no it's alright. I can do this on my own. You better head back to take care of your friend.”

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind helping-”

“No! I-I mean it's better if you don’t. Your friend there needs help.”

You glance back at Claire who is now banging the table and notice how all the other customers are complaining about the ruckus to the distraught waiters. Leaving might be the better choice. A step forward, and you trip over thin air like the klutz you are. Your fingertips touch when he reaches out to grab your hand to pull you back, and the both of you flinch away. It sends a warm tingle shooting down your spine. You smile awkwardly; blush again.

“I-I guess I gotta help her out then. Nice meeting you?”

“Nice meeting you too.”

You apologise to the other waiters and pay the bills with Claire’s money before practically dragging Claire by the arms out of the shop. You look back at Autumn boy in the shop, sending him an apologetic smile. He reciprocates.

Unfortunately, it’s drizzling outside, and the walk home with Claire leaning over you every few minutes gets the both of you soaked by the end of the journey. Thankfully, after the GPS incident earlier, it only takes 20 minutes for the both of you to stumble back into the dorms, arms linked casually.

After helping Claire change into fresh, clean clothes, you peel off your clothes too, stuffing the big heap of cotton and denim into the washing machine before dashing into the hot shower. It soothes your nerves and your freezing body, sending you into a dazed trance after you drag yourself out of the steaming bathroom. The moment your hair is blown dry you collapse onto your bed and knock out, sprawled across soft linen.

2 days later.

Claire is awake.

Wide awake.

Someone keeps screaming like a banshee from the bathroom, and it's already been the third minute straight. It's loud enough to wake the whole building of students.

She groans and shouts back in irritation, “What's with all the racket so early in the morning.

The screaming stops for a moment, then it intensifies.

Claire has to reach for the emergency earplugs in her drawer before heading over to the bathroom with a metal bat in her hand. The door is wide open for Claire to enter, and there you are standing in front of the mirror, a toothbrush still in you mouth full of toothpaste. Tears are streaming down the side of your face, your hand trembling while brushing your teeth. She doesn't realize why you're so overcome with grief until she glances in the mirror and recoils in shock, metal bat clattering noisily on the white tile floor. She gasps, and takes a step back. The chopstick part of your mark has already faded halfway, the chopsticks now a translucent red against your skin.

You stop screaming and turn to stare at Claire with reddened eyes.

“What do I do now.” you whisper, your voice trembling.

She is shocked into nothingness, and stares at you like a deer caught in headlights, a blank canvas in her head.

“Erm, but do you have any ideas about who your soul mate might be? Like maybe it was that other guy on our campus or some guy you passed by..”

“No no no… If my mark has a pair of chopsticks, it MUST mean something, but I can't think of anything now. THIS IS SO DUMB!!”

Claire suddenly lights up, snapping her fingers.

“Chopsticks! Chinese restaurant! Did you feel a connection with anyone you met there?”

“Shit, I just might. That guy, I felt something for him. I felt something.”

You lurch forward to engulf her in your embrace, and she giggles along with you.

“Well no time to waste! We’ve got to get you your soul mate!”

You nod feverishly, and within minutes you are fluttering out of the house, a grey coat draped over one arm, running as hard as you can to that restaurant from yesterday. You can't afford to miss him again.

Thankfully you reach the place in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately everything is wrong. Totally upside down kind of wrong.

The staff staring at you with suspicious eyes in the restaurant are totally different people from the ones you met yesterday. You feel an invisible Claire wingmanning you, and you clear your throat to speak.

“Uhm excuse me, but do you know this guy who works here at night with like really nice brown hair and uhh like equally nice brown eyes?”

You start gesturing and drawing figures in the air to explain your point better but the staff there just low key judge you for everything you do. You then proceed to lose all hope, as well as the image you never had in front of them, but not before someone calls you from behind.

You spin around so quickly that you experience whiplash to meet your saviour and realise. It's the raven haired boy from yesterday, and he smirks at you. That kid. You frown, obviously feeling personally victimized and slightly cheated. (You had hoped for it to be that manly pink haired waiter or… Oh oh!! That waiter with really pretty plump pink lips instead of this cocky kid)

“You’re looking for Jimin hyung?”

“Wait Jimin who??”

Jeongguk literally facepalms himself.

“Like, that hyung you were talking to just yesterday, the one with the brown hair and sparkly eyes?”

You snap your fingers in triumph and start hopping on the spot. Your heart soars.

“Yes him!”

You start nodding your head vigorously and Jeongguk has to literally hold you down in order to effectively convey his message over to the hysterical you.

“You see, Jimin hyung told me to tell you that he's not in town now because he has to return to Korea for an emergency trip. He doesn't know when he’ll be back...or if he'll ever be back.”

Your jaw drops and you feel an irresistibly strong urge to start shouting hysterically and tear everything in your way apart.

But you don't, and stay fine, calm and cool like the civilised student you ought to be. You take a deep breath. Exhale. Ignore the tremble in your heart. Ignore your shaky exhale.

“I understand.”

You turn on your heel and calmly walk out of the shop. One foot out, and you start bawling like a three year old kid on the streets as you run back to the dorm, tears streaming down your embarrassingly red face. The sleeves of your pastel pink hoodie serve as temporary tissues for you to dry your tears.

Life is unfair to you, so unfair.

So much for finding your so called destined soulmate.

What utter bullshit.

Still year 19

2 days after the ordeal

King Ramen Shop

7.42p.m.

The tiny shop located at the end of a staircase leading to the basement is filled to the brim with people, some college students, mostly the working class. They all huddle in their assigned seat, head down, busy slurping down the ramen noodles swimming in the hot, miso broth. The whole restaurant smells like a mix of faint soya with boiling ramen noodles. Chattering echoes off the walls in waves, and the chef is busy serving the other customers seated in front of him. A bowl of happiness served, freshly made, steaming with the scent of miso enveloping your senses.

You noisily wolf down the hot shoyu noodles in front of you while Claire rambles on about the theories taught during the boring ass lecture that morning. The two of you engage in a heated debate about whether or not to buy the new campus jersey in navy blue or black, bursting into laughter when Claire just shouts out “BLUACK!!!” in the middle of her meal, the whole restaurant of customers turning back to stare at her. Even the chefs stop for a moment to smile a little and shake their heads in disapproval,

While the whole restaurant gets caught up in the atmosphere, you are suddenly reminded of the fact that you might never see your soulmate again. At officially the worst timing ever. A surge of anger fills you, then a hot tear of mixed disappointment and fury slides down your cheek. You hurriedly wipe it off, awkwardly laughing it off, but Claire has already noticed.

She places her warm hand on your back as you forcefully stuff the noodles into your mouth

“Thinking about him?”

You choke a little, then place the chopsticks on the rim of the porcelain bowl with a soft clink and face her.

“Telepathic.” you mumble under your breath.

“What?”

“Oh no no it’s nothing, I mean yeah kinda I guess. The full weight of the situation is still sinking in and I’m feeling pretty crushed under it. It’s pretty vexing to me considering the fact that I have no idea if he’ll ever return and I’m already feeling overwhelmed by university life, so it’s all piling up on me and stuff. You feel me?”

Claire sighs and looks you in the eyes; her warm brown eyes carry a sort of considerate and loving glow.

Her reply pricks your eyes with tears.

“I feel you.”

Jimin (3rd person POV)

Year 23.3

12:24 P.M.

Airport

“The white of the airport is too much, glaring even but then again, where is my luggage? Which row do I collect it from? Shit.” were the thoughts running through his mind, hidden behind the thick black sunglasses, covered by the ochre coloured beanie. He absently glances around, desperately attempting to spot the screen with his flight number displayed on it. People just stream past him, their shoes tapping lightly against the large white tiles on the floor.

He casually jogs over to the correct conveyor belt when he spots his ‘lucky number’, grabs his sky blue luggage and strides off as if his whole internal ordeal never occurred before. Not before flashing a bright smile to the friendly old lady whom he had sat next to in the plane.

The airport somehow has a faint jasmine fragrance spreading through it. Glorious sunlight pours through its large glass walls and delicate installations are everywhere. He steps out of his designated gate, relishing in the moment-

“Jimin hyung!! Over here hyung!”

He removes his sunglasses and smiles. The whole crew he worked with at Wang’s Chinese Korean food is here to welcome him back, with Taehyung holding up a large, glittery pink sign that says ‘Have you seen this handsome boy called Park Jimin?” Taehyung chants his name repeatedly as Jeongguk smiles to himself from aside. Jin runs forward to envelop him in a big hug, pull his beanie off and ruffle his silver-grey hair which smells faintly of blossoming flowers.

“Yah, kid, we missed you.” Yoongi comments.

“Especially your ass.” Taehyung adds, sending the whole bunch of rowdy boys bursting into laughter.

“C’mon, we’ve got to get you some rest after that tiring flight from Korea. After that, we’ll party.” Namjoon says while loading Jimin’s luggage into the boot of his car.

“Besides, I believe you have someone you’re looking for here too.” Jeongguk mutters. Jimin smiles.

“I do.”

Day after

8:04P.M.

Juniper Bar

Jazz music plays in the background, with Taehyung mimicking the saxophonist’s nimble finger movement as he rambles on about his prior experience with the saxophone.

“It was like she was my lover. I needed her, she needed me. We would then have our private concert where she would be the star and the sounds of her would mesmerize the crowd. Sexy sounds, I would say.” Taehyung describes, with the occasional wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Dude, that sounds so suggestive.” Jimin comments as he exaggerates his shiver, his hands running all over his body.

“Goosebumps.” Jeongguk whispers. The group of them burst into laughter.

“Yo, Kookie, betcha couldn’t bust a note even if you tried, like, on the saxophone. Took me like three months and if that isn’t fast I don’t know what is.”

Tae finishes his blue cocktail and waves his hand carelessly in front of Jeongguk’s face.

“I betchu I can. I bet it on Jimin hyung’s fine ass!” Jeongguk retorts.

“Hey! Don’t drag me into this!” Jimin exclaims in fake horror, and the group of boys laugh again, with Jin’s window wiper laugh being especially loud this round.

Namjoon leans onto Jin with a low groan, grabbing only thin air when he tries to reach for Jin’s dark brown hair. Tired and half-drunk, he mumbles, “Did y’all hear about the festival thingy next week. Heard some peeps mentioning it a few days ago.”

Some ‘yes and ‘nos’ here and there, but then Jimin nudges Jeongguk’s side. Jeongguk stares into the addictive caramel brown of Jimin’s eyes. Light flashes across his irises, akin to shooting stars in a dark night sky when he says, “Hey, Kookie, how bout we give it a try. It sounds fun.”

Hoseok hollers, “Hell yeah!” before he stumbles onto his barstool. Namjoon chuckles at his fellow 94 liner, gently nudging Jin’s side.

Jeongguk almost trips over his tongue in his hurry to reply.

“Sure.”

You

Year 23.3

9.52 p.m.

Your room

F(x)’s ‘four walls’ reverberates against the walls of your room, quite literally the four walls of your room, as you shuffle across the wood flooring in your fluffy pink bunny slippers. Hopping, twirling like an ice skater across the ‘ice’, you take a calculated jump and land on the comfort of your bed, screeching, “triple axel!!!” ,proceeding to kick the blanket vigorously.

Queen Y/N claims the day again, as the crowd chants her name crazily, waving their big blue banners around. You stand up on your bed, take a deep bow, wave to the imaginary audience; blow a kiss.

“Love is four walls-”

You let yourself drop onto the bed, then wrap yourself up like a lil tiny warm fluffy sushi roll and huddle in the soft linens of your comforter, preparing to sleep in your super cute pastel pink rabbit pjs.

Well, not before the door to your room slams shut.

“AaaGhhH!! Will you please shut up!! I'm trying to have some beauty therapy time here!”

Claire charges in with a charcoal black mask plastered to her face; fiery red hair wrapped up in a white towel. Two thin slices of cucumber are held delicately in her left hand while her right tightly clutches the doorknob. She embodies rage; written in big red letters across her face.

“Sorry.” You sheepishly mumble, lightly tapping two of your fingers together in an attempt to appease her with your ‘cuteness’. She is unfazed, and only agrees to leave the war zone of your room after cursing loudly against your even louder music.

Amazing how she managed to put up with you as her roommate for the past few years.

You sigh in relief, but it is short lived, for Claire returns with a loudspeaker and shouts, “SHUT UP AND SLEEP! DON'T FORGET WHAT WE HAVE TO ATTEND TOMORROW.” right in your face. She storms out once again. A grand entrance, a grand finale.

Oh, right. Tomorrow. The ‘big’ day.

It’s the annual spring festival tomorrow, where practically almost everyone in the town gathers to celebrate, sing, dance, watch the cherry blossom petals fall. Mostly couples, though, who attend because of the ridiculously romantic atmosphere of the whole getup. Lots of families attend too, their children showering in the pale pink petals that flutter down from the trees; kiss them gently on the tip of their noses.

It’s especially important for you, too. You still have one more chance. One more chance to find that wretched soulmate of yours again and whoop his ass for escaping the first time. It’ll be a sight to see under the pretty spring backdrop.

Your fingertips trace the cherry blossom on your wrist, then press onto it slightly harder at the empty spots. The mini Claire in your head nags you to doll up and look real pretty tomorrow, for someone you are destined to see again, but just not today. You kiss your mark tenderly, then drift off into the world of dreams.

Tomorrow

You

11.52 a.m.

Apartment

“ Y/N!! Hurry your ass up! The festival probably started already!” Claire hollers from across the room, jamming her bright yellow strap on heels onto her tiny, perfect feet.

“Coming! Coming!!” You retort, hopping out of your room in a white blouse and a flowery pleated skirt. You double check your makeup in the glassy reflection of the window while slipping on your white sneakers.

“We’re gonna make it on time.”

“So this was your idea of a fast way to get to the festival?” Claire half questions, half screeches.

“Yup!” You shout back, pedalling even faster on your bike to overtake the cars which stop at the red flash of light.

Thank goodness you wore safety pants under, and that your hair is in a loose mini bun.

Jimin

12:44 p.m.

Festival Venue

Though it’s only mid afternoon, the festival is happening. Children are running along the petal scattered road, ice cream and cotton candy in hand. Couples with matching marks stroll, hand in hand, under the trees, smiles plastered onto their faces. Love is written clearly in their eyes.

Jimin stares enviously at the pair while lapping away at his sea salt cherry blossom flavoured ice cream, Jeongguk by his side. The spring breeze is surprisingly refreshing, for it carries a tinge of flower fragrance which tickles at his nose. People stream past him continuously, as he sits there in silence with Jeongguk, soaking up the festive atmosphere.

Ice cream drips onto his hand when he doesn’t notice; it leaks onto his wrist.

“Aishh, not again.”

Jimin stares blankly at his wrist, the pink mark, identical to the current romantic backdrop of the festival, and smiles. Jeongguk glances over his shoulder, raising a brow at Jimin questioningly.

“Hyung.”

Jimin doesn't respond to the call.

Instead, the pink petals call out to him, entrance him, make him remember. They reach out, kiss his cheeks, tug at his cotton candy pink hair. They make him remember. He recalls his sole purpose in returning, for the image of her flashes right before his very eyes; it flits across his mind. He has to find her, no matter what.

And today might just be his day.

You

Claire literally drags you off the ridiculous get up of a pink bike and right into the heart of the festival, where music blasts at crazily high volumes. Cherry blossom ending by busker busker, a favorite amongst spring songs plays, and everyone starts to hum along; tap their feet to the rhythm.

Even you look up from your box of cherry blossom mochis to sway to the song ;relish in the cool spring breeze that blows at your hair lightly, the cotton candy held in your other hand fluttering in the breeze.

You, now let’s hold hands on this street How is this love song that you hear right now? I hold hands with you, whom I love As we walk together on this unknown street As the spring wind blows The scattering cherry blossom petals Spread out on this street As we walk together

At the back of your head, you suddenly feel a familiar ring, then a tingle that shoots down your spine. As though possessed, you look around for a figure, someone that resembles him. The wind pulls your hair to the left, as though to tell you :Hey! Look there! He’s there! Your legs decide to have a mind of their own, and you wander away from Claire, chasing your formerly lost lover solely based on feeling. You can feel it, 100 percent, that he’s around here somewhere. You just know it.

When the wind blows, my heart sounds to pound without knowing When the wind blows, from way over there, I keep seeing you When the wind blows, my heart sounds to pound without knowing When the wind blows, from way over there, I keep seeing you

A boy, from across the street, matches your eyes. He stares at you curiously, despite the petals that attempt to obscure your vision; to cut the connection between the two of you off. You would have missed him; you almost missed him, just because of his cotton candy hair that hides him delicately in the surroundings. It is impossible to miss him now, because you've already figured him out. The longing in his eyes that feels like a reflection of yours had already given him away. Nothing is stopping you now.

Jimin

He looks around, his eyes holding no purpose, except for the girl he is looking for. People walk around him, in front of him, beside him, but he takes no notice. Some girls walk past him and Jeongguk and giggle softly to themselves, but he does not heed them and neither does Jeongguk. The ice cream has long been finished and forgotten and the two just sit there in comfortable mutual silence.

Jeongguk glances around upon hearing the spring song from the other side, his ears chasing the melody, and he spots a familiar figure bouncing along at the other side of the street. She moves like a dandelion floating through the air, dancing in the breeze. Eyebrows scrunched, he thinks hard about who she is. It clicks in his mind.He turns around to tell Jimin.

“Hyung! Isn’t that-”

Then he realises that Jimin has already seen her. The girl on the other side locks eyes with Jimin, and Jimin rises to his feet.

No words further exchanged, he makes his way over to her.

Jeongguk smiles to himself while he watches Jimin’s silhouette get smaller and smaller as he gets further, further.

“Lucky him.”

3rd person POV

The two of you automatically gravitate towards each other, just like how unlike poles attract, the force pulling the two of you together is simply too strong to break. He runs towards you, you run towards him too. You meet in the middle, below the big cherry blossom tree, where the spring breeze blows once again, taking petals and the faint fragrance of flowers with it. Some petals entangle themselves in your hair and his. The two of you stand there and smile at each other because finally, finally you've found each other.

The both of you stand and stare; stare into each other’s eyes; immerse yourselves in their endless galaxies filled with stars and unexplored planets. You are his moon, and he is a lonely astronaut floating within your orbit, pulled towards you by gravity.

It’s almost as if you’ve read each other’s minds. Face flushed, you breathlessly mutter, “ Y/N, my name is Y/N.”

He timidly smiles to himself. His heart, his insides are bursting with colour upon hearing the sweetness of your voice; a sweet honey that he would absolutely get hooked on; a love drug he would submit himself to. Absolutely illegal.

“Park Jimin..from last time.”

Your heart leaps across oceans, continents and back. You hold your trembling hand out for him, your hand that trembles as much as your tiny heart. Your sleeve pulls back slightly to reveal your mark, a cherry blossom with two faded lines in the middle. Jimin glances back at his own wrist, and his mark matches yours.

“Soulmates?”

“Soulmates.”

Just before his hand meets yours, a tiny cherry blossom drifts down from the tree above. Slowly but surely, it lands in the square of your palm.

Surprised, the both of you let out a hearty laugh. His eyes form tiny crescents, twinkling and beautiful.

He closes in on the distance between you and him, enveloping you in his warm embrace; his arms wrapping around you tightly.

The cherry blossom tree rains pink on the couple below; it rains love, and love is quite literally in the air.

As for the both of you, nobody knows what the future may hold, but like what they say, you will marry your first love if you catch a falling cherry blossom.

He was your first love.

And you were his.

#btssunshinenet #armiesnet #bdcnetwork #bdcnet #park jimin #jung hoseok #kim taehyung.#jeon jungkook #kim seokjin #min yoongi #kim namjoon #bts #bangtan #it was great fun writing this #please tell me if you find any loopholes or anyth that doesnt make sense

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unpretty · 7 years

Text

La Belle et la Bête

(if this is your fault you know who you are, i’m using previously established au rules @megan-mayhem and i came up with and no one is allowed to judge me)

Wayne Manor was even more empty than usual, and the emptiness made it feel haunted. Diana found it horribly unsettling.

"Bruce?" she called, and it echoed through the empty halls. She opened the curtains in the front parlor to let the sunshine in. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, I was in Italy." She'd come as quickly as she could once she'd gotten his message, but he'd sent it in the dead of night.

Something's happened. It's not life-threatening, but I'm not myself. I sent everyone away to minimize the incident, but I think you're the only one who can help. Come alone if you come at all.

"Bruce?" she called again. Perhaps he was downstairs. She listened carefully. There was the distant muffled clicking of a mechanical keyboard, intermittent and slow. She didn't think she'd ever heard anyone in this house ever type so slow. Not even Alfred.

Her phone chimed. She checked it. A message from Bruce. In my office. She looked toward the stairs. The clicking had stopped.

Her walk up the stairs was cautious. What could possibly have happened to him?

In the hall, one of the side tables had tipped sideways. Its former contents had been neatly arranged into a stack beside it on the floor.

"... Bruce...?" She peered into his office.

She shrieked, then put her hands over her mouth to try to muffle her shrieking. It lessened to a high-pitched squeal.

"Tiny baby!"

"I am a grown man, Diana."

He was a black Pomeranian of less than five pounds, standing on his computer desk.

"Tiny!" she repeated.

"Diana, please take this seriously." He wasn't speaking, but barking; a peculiarity specific to people who shifted into animals, that the sounds they made were understandable as language to her. True animals were much more impressionistic in their communications.

"Your little tail is wagging," she said through her fingers, her voice still high-pitched.

"I don't know how to make it stop doing that." It continued to wag furiously behind him. His eyes were still the color of the sea.

"You're so little," she said, descending on him to pick him up from the desk. His little legs flailed as she picked him up.

Put me down, he demanded, the contact allowing a telepathic connection between them.

"So fluffy!" she said, tucking him into the crook of her elbow like an infant.

I didn't ask you here for bellyrubs. He tucked his paws in neatly, his tail thumping against her arm.

"How did such a wonderful thing happen, you sweet little lovebug?"

I am not any of those things. An indignant huff of air escaped his tiny twitching nose. I've been cursed.

"Is it really a curse, though?" she asked, holding a tiny paw between her fingers.

Yes.

"Do you know who cursed you?"

I think it was a carnie.

"What?"

I took Vicki to the carnival. I may have accidentally insulted a carnie.

"When we communicate directly, I can tell when you're lying," she reminded him. Her lariat was humming on her hip, besides.

I very deliberately mocked his shitty dog, he amended.

"There is no such thing!" she gasped, offended on behalf of all involved.

It looked like a moldy Bubble Eye goldfish in a sweater.

"Be nice," she scolded, tapping him on the nose. "Bad boys don't get kisses."

Since when? No, that wasn't—

She took him out of the crook of her arm, in her hands to rub her face on his fur. "You're so fluffy!" she said. "I can't stay mad at such a fluff." She started burying her face into his fur to dot him with aggressive kisses.

That wasn't an invitation, he said, pressing his paw to her mouth. She frowned. His tail was wagging furiously again.

"Oh, fine," she said, holding him against her chest. She couldn't help continuing to rub her fingers through his fur, but he didn't complain. "Where is this carnival?"

Disappeared off the face of the Earth, he said. I've been looking for two... nights. He exhaled another huff too large for his body. I'm only like this during the day.

"How convenient!" she said. "You can still... do so many things." She'd nearly forgotten his blanket ban on referencing Batman within the house, paranoid as he was about being spied on.

I have a company to run, he reminded her. And this makes it very hard to travel.

"Won't Alfred or the children help you?"

They're at Tokyo Disney for another week.

"Why?"

I told them there was a mystery.

"And they believed you?"

Probably not, but they know better than to look a gift unicorn in the mouth.

"I don't think that's how that saying goes."

I improved it.

"Why did you send them away at all?" she asked, sitting down in his desk chair. Even the relative disarray of his office was tidy, everything that had fallen stacked into impromptu stairs. There was a half-eaten bowl of mixed nuts on the desk, next to a bowl of water. She could only assume he'd left them out for himself.

I wanted to be alone.

She waited for him to remember that he couldn't lie to her.

I misinterpreted the nature of the transformation that was occurring.

She set him down in her lap, and he sat stiffly on her thighs. She scratched along the back of his neck and behind his ears. He remained stiff and alert, but his tail beat against her leg.

Did being a dog make things more enjoyable, or was he always enjoying things more than he let on?

"So what are we to do?" she asked. Then she gasped. "We can go on mystery-solving adventures!"

We always go on mystery-solving adventures.

"But not with a talking dog!"

You're the only person I can talk to.

"It counts! Clark will—"

No. Bruce sat up on his hind legs in her lap, pawing aimlessly at the air between them. Don't tell him. No one can know about this.

"Clark can be discreet."

I don't want him to know.

"He might be able to help."

He's worse at dealing with magic than I am. You're used to this kind of thing, and you can talk to me while I'm like this. You're the logical choice.

"Oh, fine." She picked him back up to rub her face in his fur again, with plenty of noisy kisses. "Only because I would like a talking dog sidekick."

Please stop babytalking at me.

I don't like this idea, Bruce said again.

You haven't liked any of my ideas, Diana reminded him. He won't know it's you.

He's a detective. He'll figure it out.

You're too paranoid. She pressed the doorbell again, and listened carefully for activity inside the apartment.

She heard a muffled and slurred, "Fuck off."

"I wish to speak with you," she said, projecting her voice to reach him.

There was muttering and mumbling and a great clattering of things.

Finally, the door opened a crack. John Constantine's face peered out at her, reeking of cigarette smoke and beer. His eyes were bloodshot and dark-circled, his face pale. He had a split lip, and a trail of blood down the front of his shirt. He opened the door wider. His initial gaze had been too low. He did not correct the mistake. Bruce growled.

"Sorry, love," John said, looking up at her face. "I wasn't looking at your tits, I was looking at the dog. Well, I was looking at both. Why've you got a dog in your tits?" He put the cigarette he'd been gesturing with back in his mouth.

"I don't have a purse," she said.

You can set me on the ground, Bruce pointed out, again. He'd done his best to make himself as small as possible since she'd tucked him into her bodice. She thought it was marvelously convenient.

I wouldn't want to lose you, she said. There was something comforting about being able to feel him breathing when he'd become so delicate.

"Makes sense," John said, standing out of her way to let her inside. "I assume you're not here for the pleasure of my company."

"What do you know about werewolves?" Wonder Woman asked, stepping over discarded clothing not his own.

"Who's asking?"

"... I am?" she said with a frown.

He wants to know if you're a werewolf, Bruce explained.

"I've not been bitten," she added.

"Thank Christ for that," he said, trailing ash along the floor. "Don't think I could handle Wonder Werewolf today."

"Could you ever?" she asked with an arch of one eyebrow.

He exhaled smoke. "No, but especially not today."

"Werewolves," she reminded him.

"What kind we talking?" he asked. "Genetic, viral?"

"A curse."

"General punishment for violating the laws of man kind of curse, or a specific curse?"

"Specific," she said. John clicked his tongue, took another drag of his cigarette. He exhaled, and the smoke made Bruce sneeze. She squealed with delight, bending her head to snuggle at the top of his head. John stared. Bruce made an indignant attempt to paw her away, so she pulled him out of her bodice to tuck him into her arms again. "Is that bad?" she asked, trying to smooth out Bruce's fur. He sneezed again.

"Pretty bad," John said. "No consistency to that kind of thing. Need to know how to kill it?"

"No!" She clutched Bruce so tight he started to whine. John squinted. "I need to know how to break the curse."

Diana please let me breathe.

John looked at Bruce. He looked at Diana. He looked at Bruce again. He took a long drag of his cigarette, then pointed with it. "That it?"

"What?"

"Your werewolf," he said. Her face must have given her away. "Anyone I know?"

"I found him, and he asked me for help," she said, stroking Bruce's head.

"Right — because you can talk to animals."

"Yes."

John scratched his head, the cherry of his cigarette nearly at the filter. "He know who cursed him?"

"He believes it was a carnival man, but the carnival is now missing."

"Oof. That's a toughie." He dropped the filter into a beer can sitting on a nearby shelf.

"Is there a book we can consult? A ritual we can perform?"

"Nothing I'd be comfortable trying blind," he said. "Best thing to do is find the original caster. Second-best is find an experienced witch you don't mind owing a favor. And it can't hurt to try the usuals."

"The usuals?" she repeated.

"True love's kiss'll take care of most of these, if he's got someone."

She and Bruce exchanged a look. "I don't think that's an option," she said delicately.

She wasn't offended that her earlier flurry of kisses hadn't been effective. When it came to magic, 'true love' often had a very specific meaning, unique to the spell's caster.

"You sure?" John asked. "It doesn't have to be romantic. Parents will do, in a pinch."

She tried to keep her face neutral.

I told you he'd figure out who I was, Bruce said.

He'd know not to say that if he knew, Diana protested. "Thank you for the suggestion," she said. "We'll have to see what we can do."

"Can I pet him?" John asked. "I know he's not really a dog and all, but he's a cutie."

Bruce growled.

"He'll be nice," Diana assured him, holding Bruce out with both hands so his paws dangled in the air.

"Aww." He bent down to Bruce's level, and scratched him gently between the ears. Ears that were pinned back against his head. "What a sweetheart." Bruce's snout twitched with the threat of a snarl. "I like him better like this, personally. I'll want an explanation next time I'm in Gotham."

Diana's eyes widened. She pulled Bruce back close to her chest. Then she slapped Constantine flat across the face. He staggered backward, nearly falling to the floor, pressing his hand over where she'd hit him.

"His parents are dead!"

Bruce had asked Diana to close him in the bathroom when the sun began to set. She sat on his bedroom couch, playing games on her phone while he showered.

When he emerged, he was fully dressed and wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

She didn't think that she had ever in her life seen him wear a hooded sweatshirt.

"What's wrong?" she asked, standing to approach him.

"Nothing. I'm going downstairs to change."

"You need sleep," she said, standing between him and the door. "You've been awake since I got here, I'm sure you were awake for some time before that." She'd tried to convince him to nap, since she was carrying him anyway, but he'd refused.

"I have work to do while I have opposable thumbs."

"I can cover for you for one night," Diana said. Then she reached out, and knocked the hood off his hair.

He shut his eyes with an expression of the most profound mortification as she unleashed another high-pitched squeal of delight.

"You still have ears!" she said finally.

"It lends another layer of urgency to the situation at hand, yes."

He still had his usual ears on either side of his head. But there, almost hidden in his hair, were proportionally-sized triangles of skin and fur. The same color and even the same texture as the rest of his hair, they could almost look like they belonged.

"Those won't fit under your cowl," she accused.

"They fit," he said. "Not comfortably, but they fit."

"Bruce. You have to sleep eventually, so you may as well do it while you're big and strong and not so... vulnerable."

Her attempt to be practical made him hesitate.

"Just for a few hours," she added. "If anything major happens, I'll come get you."

It was such a subtle thing when he gave in, the slightest tilt of his head to avert his face and gaze from hers. "I might be able to get some work done on the laptop," he said.

This meant she'd won. In contrast to if he had, for instance, looked her right in the eye and said 'fine'. That would mean that he was going to do whatever the hell he wanted once she'd stopped watching him.

She was becoming gradually more fluent in Batman.

Unable to help herself, she reached out to stroke his ears.

"Don—nnn—"

He was cut off with a sound like his tongue had grown too big for his mouth. He went slack but not limp, his eyes fluttering half-shut and glazing over.

"Bruce?" she asked, still rubbing one of his ears between her fingers. She waved her other hand in front of his face. He looked like he was struggling to respond, but they were only weak twitches of his mouth.

She let him go. He blinked, swallowing hard as he recovered. His face started turning pink. "Don't do that," he said, smoothing his hands over his hair and ears. The ears popped right back up.

"That looked fun," she teased. "You're sure you wouldn't like me to do it again?"

"Not right — no."

"What's that sound?"

"I don't know."

Her lariat hummed. "Do you still have a tail?" He pressed his mouth into a thin line, saying nothing. The sound had stopped. "May I kiss you?"

The sound resumed.

"I question your motives in asking," he said.

She giggled. "Go to bed, Bruce," she said, patting his cheek. "You need your rest if we're going to solve this thing you've decided is a problem."

Bruce went still as he woke all at once.

"It's just me," Diana said quietly from near the door. The sound of her coming in must have roused him. He relaxed. He was sore and tired, even more than he was usually sore and tired. Being a small dog was exhausting. He kept wanting to shiver all the time. He wasn't even cold. He thought he was using about eighty percent of his energy on not shivering.

He now knew what it felt like to be tucked into the cleavage of an enormous woman, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with that information.

Diana was climbing into his bed. Faced with no good options, he rolled onto his back to pin his tail beneath him. And was attacked. By something small, and fluffy. He recoiled and wiped his mouth with disgust.

"Please tell me you didn't try to buy me a friend," Bruce said, as a Yorkshire Terrier puppy jumped at his face, licking whatever it could reach.

"I'm borrowing him," she explained, lounging sideways. She had to have been deliberately posing.

"Why."

"I wanted to see if it would work."

"What."

She reached out, and ruffled his hair.

He frowned. He ran a hand through his hair. Just his hair. Nothing but hair.

"You're fucking shitting me."

"What an unpleasant combination of verbs."

Bruce picked up the puppy. It wiggled and licked his hand. "A kiss," he said.

"True love's kiss," she corrected.

"This counts?"

"For your carnie."

"Of fucking course it does."

"You are very welcome," Diana said.

Bruce sighed. "Thank you, Diana."

She pulled one of his pillows close to prop her head on it. "Bruce?" she asked, taking the puppy back from him. It curled up against her so that she could stroke its fur.

"Yes?"

"Why did you ask for my help?" she asked. He glanced at her hip. Her lariat rested there, waiting. "I think that it was humiliating for you, to be seen that way," she said. "I think that you would have preferred no one to see you. You would have solved it yourself, eventually. You could have called Zatanna." She reached out, and touched the back of his hand.

I was very small.

Alone in a big house full of big things. Unable to leave, unable to speak. Trying to account for everything he might need before daylight came to steal his autonomy away. Everything so loud, even in the silence.

She squeezed his hand.

"I miss the ears already," she said.

"You had your fun," he said. "Now you have six hours to get that dog out of here before the kids see it and decide they want one."

She kissed the puppy's head. "It will be our secret."

La Belle et la Bête - AO3

#original #batman #wonder woman #wonderbat #bruce wayne #sorrowful and immaculate hearts #werepoodle au #fanfic

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Sympathy for the Incel

If you want to know why young men are broken, ask them.

There is a cultural crisis emboldening the misogyny and violence of the little-known incel movement (an abbreviation for the self-professed involuntary celibate community of men) and which has now been tied to three mass murders: Elliot Rodger, Chris Harper-Mercer and, this week, the alleged Toronto killer Alek Minassian, who is accused of killing 10 and injuring 15 people in one of the most horrific acts of mass violence in Canada in years.

One after another, media outlets are seeking to understand how this could happen while raising the question of how we got here. The Internet is enabling a community of men who want to kill women, read the headline in The Verge. Can the radicalization of incels be stopped? asked the Globe and Mail. But one headline stood out, from The National Post: What should we do about the incels? Maybe help them. Shouting about what horrible women-hating losers they are (which they may be) is not going to prevent one of them from murdering again.

This, in particular, is the question Im concerned with, and why I am attempting to find whatever empathy or compassion might be possible for the disconnected young men flocking to the movement and who might be at a crossroads. One young man stood out in the countless hours I spent listening to podcasts, videos and chat room conversations within the incel community which I have been following for months now: 19-year-old Jack Peterson, a socially awkward Chicagoan who after hours of interviews agreed to reveal his real identity for the first time to The Daily Beast.

To be clear, Peterson initially did not want to do any media regarding the group, particularly a profile on what the makings of an incel look like, but after considering my appeal that perhaps others might want to reach out if they could have a better understanding, he agreed.

Born Kalerthon Demetro in the suburbs of Chicago, Peterson (his mothers last name) is a high school dropout who lives with his single mother and whose father left when he was two years old. Peripherally involved in the online incel community for years, Petersons first reaction to the Toronto horror was to record a podcast specifically condemning violence and misogyny and underscoring that for the majority of participants, this is not their reality. For him and many like him, he says, the incel community is a means of supporting one another in a world when it sometimes feels like there is no one else.

To listen to the teenager speak, he does not seem psychopathic. He does not seem like he endorses psychopathy. On the contrary, he seems shy and awkward and lonely and angry. He laughs when other incels make dark jokes about killers, but he does not make them himself. He gets it. They are blowing off steam.

Being an incel is not about violence or misogyny, repeats Peterson, who is the only incel who has been on television doing interviews in recent days since the alleged Toronto killer pointed a finger at the incel movement in a cryptic post on Facebook confirmed earlier this week. Yes, for some guys it is, but not for me. Not for many of us.

The challenge in covering the incel movement is that in many cases the cherry-picked and sensationalist coverage reinforces these mens persecution complexes and drives them further into a pit of rage-fueled nihilism. Attempting to find any kind of compassion is in no way to excuse or normalize the deranged among them. On the other hand, it is to see what options we have left in reaching them at all.

In the groundbreaking book Change or Die, author Alan Deutschman writes, [The sense of self is threatened by any major change in the deep-rooted patterns of how we think, feel, and act, even a tremendously positive change such as leaving behind a life of crime and addiction. A change in progress demands new explanations for a past thats now cast in a darker light.

Essentially, reaching someone entrenched within a near-fanatical belief system is often impossible because the ego will put up a fight to the death in order to not deal with the psychic pain of feeling that everything that has been done up until this point has been done wrong. But it is possible.

In Deutschmans book, spanning extensive research on changing past negative behavior to future positive actions, one case study of a parole officer illuminates how he found the most success in reaching the seemingly unreachable. By realizing that the real reason why people dont change is demoralizationthe overwhelming sense of hopelessness and power he applied the theory that the most he could do is to inspire a new sense of hope and power. Indeed, this officer invited 14 of the most argumentative ex-convicts and spent 90-minute sessions listening to them rather than telling them what to do. The response was extraordinary. The parole officer recounted: In one and a half hours they calmed down. They said, These guys arent against us. Now they come back every week and say, At least Im being listened to. In the last year the difference has been huge. They want to make a change.

In speaking to Peterson on the phone, while a journalist is about as a far away from a parole officer as you can get, its amazing the difference that occurs when I listen to what he has to say about the reality of incel culture versus how he sees the media portraying its members.

In his view, as despicable and morally unfathomable as the psychopathic fringe is, the reality of the wider membership estimated in the tens of thousands of active members is far more complex.

The way Peterson tells itand as is supported by his digital footprint of videos, podcasts and commentsfor him and many others, to be an incel is to seek the camaraderie of a group of male peers who provide an outlet where, for once, they can honestly talk about the increasing fragmentation, disconnection, alienation and ostracization they feel in an always-online world in which, as far as they can see, they are not welcome or wanted.

Peterson compared the mischaracterization of incels to the xenophobic broad brush that takes a minority of radicalized Islamic suicide-bombers and uses it to condemn the vast majority of Muslims. Instead, he said, there is an acceptance that there is a vile minority who distorts the vision of the communitybut that it is not his vision for the group.

Like many in the incel community, Peterson essentially grew up without a strong father figure.

His mother kicked his father out because, in Petersons words, he used to beat the shit out of my mother and she got a restraining order. His father was the same age that he is now when he got his 39-year-old mother pregnant, and hes never met him, but they have spoken on the phone a few times.

I dont really have any feelings about him, Peterson says. He just kind of is.

From an early age, Peterson felt a level of social anxiety that was bearable but distinct. His kindergarten teacher asked him why he did not play with the others. He said, I dont know how.

Things started to change around the third or fourth grade. It was the first time the girls started making fun of him, he says, saying he was creepy and gross and weird.

I didnt understand it, he says. I was told either to act like a man or that girls could do no wrong. And yet I was constantly told that men were the cruel, bad ones. None of it made any sense to me. I was just extremely shy. I didnt talk to them, but the teasing was relentless and made me want to kill myself.

In the seventh grade, Peterson transferred to three different middle schools all in one year as the bullying followed him everywhere. By the time he reached high school, he says, one young woman started taking photos of him and sharing them with other girls who openly laughed in his face about how ugly he was and why they did not want him near them. He did not finish his freshman year at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, but dropped out after the first semester. His mother never knew the extent of the bullying he experienced.

I was just ashamed, he says. How do you talk about that?

The profoundly formative pain of youthful bullying has been around forever. When a classmate taunts you and proclaims your worthlessness to all your peers, if you are a kid, the humiliation of such an experience doesnt feel like its happening in a classroomit can feel like a worldwide-televised death sentence.

Very few kids on the receiving end of the cruelty know how to deal with itbecause of a lack of life experience that is just as undeveloped as their pubescent brains.

But for a kid growing up today, the tool of the Internet levels the game. No longer do you wonder, Will anyone ever love me? Now you can Google it, and find secret places and communities and bodies of knowledge that your parents dont even know exist. This can be exciting, emboldening, a total game-changer.

I remember the first time I found a site that even mentioned the word incel, I was like, Woah, these guys are outcasts, too, he says. I kind of felt like, maybe Im not alone.

At the age of 11, Peterson visited 4chan for the first time, and he saw his rage and loneliness expressed as well as the impotence of such advice as just get over it. He didnt know how to. He didnt have anyone to ask. He just didnt want any more ridicule.

It was kind of crazy to see and read a lot of the stuff I did, Peterson says. But it was also the only place where other guys talked about some of the things I was experiencing. Feeling so alone and rejected by the people around you. I was extremely shy then, and still kind of am, but it makes you feel really fucked up to be told youre a creepy loser by a pretty popular girl when youre just sitting there, saying nothing, doing nothing, wishing you were invisible but instead being the quiet freak with the cystic acne all over his face.

He also received an indoctrination into the culture of these young men who accepted him and what they found acceptableand what he would need to as well if he were to finally fit in somewhere.

To understand the increasingly irony-rich language of the users, its essential to read Angela Nagles book Kill All Normies, which exquisitely captures the critical shift in online perspective and the death of what remained of a mass culture sensibility that happened at exactly the same time Peterson began actively engaging with it.

In her brilliant book documenting the culture wars of the extreme left and the extreme right in recent years, focusing on subcultures including 4chan and incels, Nagle describes the attitude rebellion on the site against the sentimentality and absurd priorities of Western liberal performative politics and the online mass hysteria that often characterized it.

Peterson is one of the best representations of exactly how these culture wars are shaping our young mens identities.

When everything is ironic, nothing is. So they mock it. All of it.

Theres this big hypocrisy in the fact that so many people who say they are all about human rights and empowerment think its actually funny when boys get mocked, he says. I never said a single misogynistic thing growing up. And I was punished. Just because I was weird. I couldnt help it. I honestly wanted to die.

On the contrary, the incel communities he found online seemed different.

When I dropped out of high school, the one place I felt okay about stuff for a little while was when I was online, Peterson tells me. By the time I discovered the incel culture on Reddit, it felt like, Okay, Im not insane. I was reading all these other guys stories about how girls told them they were repulsive. I never identified with the misogyny, but I did identify with the rage at the hypocrisy of just how untouchable women were in society. No matter what, no matter what awful thing a woman did, it was always supposed to be like, Oh yeah, thats female empowerment. But when you have no friends and are getting bullied and humiliated by women constantly and are told to both man up and renounce your masculinity its like the one bright light you see is this community.

By the time he was 16, Peterson finally met in person a young womanfour years older than himwith whom he had been chatting online since he was 12 years old. She did not know what he looked like for some time, and when he finally shared his picture, she told him that she didnt find him attractive. He lost his virginity to her, after which he says she ridiculed his penis size and laughed at him. Later, she sent him copies of messages that she had sent on to other men she was cheating on him with where she explicitly described the sex acts she wanted done to her. (Ive seen corroborating evidence of all of this.)

I was literally cucked, Peterson says. That word doesnt have any meaning anymore, but thats what I was. I still wanted to see her though. She was the only girl who had ever expressed interest in me, even though she tore me down and told me how ugly I was. It was still better than nothing.

According to Peterson, the relationship finally disintegrated when she began choking him and tried to go after him in her car. He ran to a nearby store to get help, and has the actual footage of the security cam showing him flailing against the glass window. The police came, and to cover for the girl, he said that he was suicidal. He spent three days in a mental institution because of it.

This was a turning point for Peterson.

He finally aligned himself fully as an incel. He was, in the words of Internet argot, black-pilled.

Anyone who has dabbled in understanding Internet lingo is likely familiar with the term red-pilled (inspired by the film The Matrix, where Neo is offered a blue pill where everything stays status quo or a red pill where the ugly truth is supposedly exposed). Adopted by mens rights activists around 2004, to get red-pilled is to subscribe to the particular ideology that feminism is a cancer and men are the real victims. But what does it mean to get black-pilled, as many refer to this communitys belief system? It sounds as bleak as it is.

Essentially, the philosophy is that everything is broken and the answer lies in refusing to engage in a meaningful or constructive way with society. (The phrase black pill first appeared in 2012 on a blog called Omega Virgin Revolt.) A critical part of being black-pilled is recognizing, with zero sentimentality or euphemism or explaining away, that women do not like genetically inferior men. They now have infinite options in the form of men who are higher status (be it, economic, physical, or intellectual) because of the breakdown in societal monogamy and now high-status men can game apps and use hypergamy (or dating up) to their advantage. (Meaning, a less attractive woman will nowadays reject a less attractive male if she is suddenly able to have meaningless sex with a high status man, who can juggle multiple women. This leaves men who are not as good-looking in the dust.)

Incels theorize that once you are black-pilled, you are finally given the gift of brutally honest Darwinian truth that, essentially, the game is rigged, so why bother? With such entrenchment in the truth of the doctrine comes freedom. No longer do you have to run around in circles. You can accept the world for what it is and settle back into your status on the lower rungs.

If you are red-pilled, you might take this theory of female behavior to use it in manipulative pick-up strategies to try to game women into thinking you are higher status or to find the weakest prey.

If you are an incel and have never had a single successful romantic attempt or only disastrous ones, this type of theorizing provides that wonderful feeling of certainty that comes with confirmation bias and the emancipation from regret of knowing that nothing could have been done anyway. Which is why many incels describe being black-pilled as an awakening from humiliation. Like finally realizing that you have been the subject of a joke that everyone else has been in on the whole time.

For a young man like Peterson, spouting such beliefs, he seems not so much a product of toxic masculinity as a failure of masculinity itself.

No one is teaching these men how to be men. This doesnt mean men in the sense of mens rights activists, but a healthy, balanced (not extremist) definition which includes someone who treats women well but also treats himself well by not being afraid to think for himself with opinions that deviate from the loudest, most hateful elements in the community.

But isnt the worst parts of the incel community hate speech? And shouldnt such hate speech be eradicated?

In Nadine Strossens timely new book Hate, she makes the case for countering bad speech with more speech, and illustrates how in countries where hate speech speech laws have been enacted, support for racist and xenophobic politicians has risen. In Europe, hate speech laws have in fact been used as a means of stifling dissent amongst the disenfranchised.

Equal justice for all depends on full freedom of speech for all, she writes.

Not only that, but as Keith Whittington argues in his new book Speak Freely, offensive speech is crucial to safeguard because of its utility in generating, testing, and communicating ideas.

One of the most brilliant defenses of the subject is Jonathan Rauchs 2013 essay, The Case for Hate Speech in The Atlantic, where he thanks the loudest and most noxious voices he faced along the way in his fight for gay marriage. [W]e won in the realm of ideas, he writes. And our antagonists–people who spouted speech we believed was deeply offensive, from Anita Bryant to Jerry Falwell to, yes, Orson Scott Card–helped us win.

For the incel community, of course, many of the ideas espoused are in defense of their identity as the losers of society, which frees them of the need to take personal responsibility.

I think thats a valid criticism, Peterson says. I get sick of the guys who seem like they just want to keep others down no matter what. Its almost like you are scorned when you experience a little bit of success.

The podcast Peterson recorded after the Toronto attack represents the incel community as not seeming as extreme as a cursory visit to the incel-tracking site We Hunted the Mammoth or the incel-mocking community Incel Tears might lead you to believe. On these sites, in the communitys most chilling screengrabs, posts include suggestions that in order to truly terrorize the women who have rejected incels over the years, perhaps mass acid attacks and rapes could be coordinated in order to inflict the same damage upon women that these young men feel has happened to them.

In contrast, Petersons podcast discussion contains an unusual degree of literacy about sociological phenomena, including the Japanese trend of hikikomori, or isolationism and utter retreat occurring with young men, which many incels predict will spread around the world in due time.

But at its core, it is still a conversation littered with misogyny and resentment.

At one point, someone says that women use men like emotional tampons. Another brings up the possibility of mandated girlfriends (or state-sanctioned rape, as shown on the new season of The Handmaids Tale). A joke is made that the best-case scenario is when incels go ER (or Elliot Rodger). There is discussion about the evolutionary benefits of sexual violence, which harkens Rodgers infamously deranged advocacy of a program where men could kill all women because if women were able to choose their own mates, their inferior brains would devolve humanity completely. Someone laughs about the idea of blackmailing women into having sex with them by threatening to post nude photos online. Peterson himself brings up the idea of access to assisted suicide for incels to prevent future attacks, and he suggests that talking to those who wonder about incel culture might help with improving our image, especially if you attach a face to the incel phenomenon, I think that that makes it more sympathetic.

Peterson clarifies to me: He was not suggesting it be him.

I meant someone else, but then it turned out, I guess I was the only person dumb enough to show my face in videos I made online, he says. So here we are.

When I ask him about the references in the podcast to Rodger, he responds, That guy was fucking nuts. I dont really joke about going ER, but I dont tell the guys who make those jokes not to do it because I know theyre being sarcastic. All this shocking stuff is often just the guys trolling. I would argue that I dont think anybody is going to be stupid enough to believe that sanctioned rape is being talked about as an actual suggestion. Sometimes the most ridiculous shit makes me laugh, even though I dont condone it. So if I do laugh at some of this stuff its probably me laughing at something because its fucking stupid.

The psychopaths are the problem, not the incels, he says.

If someone is going to carry out an attack like this theyre gonna have to be severely mentally ill to be capable of that, he says. Making jokes or being active in the incel community doesnt cause it. Being mentally ill does.

But what about when jokes arent just jokes?

I mention how last year when the Nazi website The Daily Stormers guidebook was leaked online, it contained the message: The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not. So what about when such humor is actually a means of subversive propaganda?

I can see that, Peterson acknowledges. I mean, Ive had guys tell me some really fucked-up shit, and Ive told them, you know, get some help because I dont want you to hurt anyone. But I do think that making dark jokes for people who arent mentally ill helps keep a lot of us from going crazy.

And how exactly does he feel about the disparagement of women in saying that they use men as emotional tampons? Men do the same fucking thing, Peterson says. Thats not a one-sided thing. Men can use women emotionally, too.

And what of the suicide idea?

What it really comes down to is that Id rather these mass shooters and attackers just kill themselves than kill 10 or more innocent people. So maybe if it was easier to commit suicide wed see less of these attacks. Im not condoning suicide but I prefer that to innocent people dying.

On the incels.me forum, a stated list of rules for participation include guidelines that are stricter than most elite private clubs in America.

No women allowed. No exception.

Yes, this means that a forum dedicated to decrying success with women has as one of its primary rules a focus on enforced isolation. Other rules also brutally shut out any chance to provide advice or mentorship to other young men.

A few months ago, when Peterson was using the forum, he suddenly found that he was banned from having certain privileges in the chatrooms. Even the incels, it seemed, were rejecting him.

In response, he filmed and put on his YouTube one of the most astonishing, hyper-granular deconstructions of modern Internet life Ive ever seen.

It is bizarro land for anyone not deep in the world of Internet language.

To create the video, he spent three days nonstop (two days spent up for 24 hours straight in between passing out) to create a meticulous 30-minute PowerPoint video that he filmed objecting to the ban and making his case that he in fact was a genuine incel using a barrage of evidence and minutiae and dictionary definitions and failures of logic to try to break down the bullying he felt he experienced on the forum.

And, if you want to get brutal about the absurdity of the exercise (and the insanity such subcultures can create amongst its members), to prove exactly why he was just as reprehensible to society as the rest of the incels.

It was pretty ridiculous, he says in retrospect. Its like American Vandal, Netflixs mockumentary on super-deep-dive crime docs, except with the heartbreaking element of seeing how brainwashed a young man is into trying to obtain peer approval.

At one point in the video, he even includes a diagnosis that he is paranoid schizophrenic as evidence that he ought to qualify as an incel because of this mental illness. The reality is that after he was given that diagnosis, another psychologist said he was not. Instead, the doctor told him (and is evidenced in the video), he was making himself sick with his own thoughts.

All of this humiliation is laid out for his fellow community of incels to seeand all of it to get back into good standing in the incel community. Thats how bad isolated young men want status and the reassurance of having a community to call their own. Even when the group identity is in how perversely low and entrenched their status really is.

Is it any wonder that these boys need a father figure?

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson (no relation to Jack) has been known to be moved to tears in interviews when discussing the crisis of alienation he sees amongst young men today and the need to provide them with tools that will reach them.

As he told Tim Lott of The Spectator late last year about his 90 percent male audience, Im telling them something they desperately need to hearthat there are important things that need to be fixed up. Im saying, You guys really need to get your act together and you need to bear some responsibility and grow the hell up. The lack of an identifiable and compelling path forward and the denialism these kids are being fed on a daily basis is undoubtedly destroying them and that is especially true of the young men.

Lott then observes the author of The 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos displaying a level of vulnerability on the subject that is striking.

At this point, to my astonishment, Peterson begins to weep. He talks through his tears for the next several minutes. Every time I talk about this, it breaks me up, he says. The message Ive been delivering is, Find the heaviest weight you can and pick it up. And that will make you strong. Youre not who you could be. And who you could be is worthwhile.

As psychologist William Pollack articulates in the documentary The Mask You Live In about the boy code that warps masculinity from an early age: The way that boys are brought up makes them hide all of their natural, vulnerable, empathic feelings behind a mask of masculinity When theyre most in pain, they cant reach out and ask for help because theyre not allowed to or they wont be a real boy.

In fact, boys express depression in a completely opposite way than girls. They act out. But most people see it as a conduct disorder or just a bad kid.

After the Parkland high school shooting in March, one of the foremost activists in trying to address the crisis of reaching out to troubled young men before they become killers met with President Donald Trump to say his piece. Every single one of these school shootings has been from young men who are disconnected, said Darrell Scott, the father of the first student murdered at Columbine High School almost 20 years ago. In response, he founded Rachels Challenge to intervene with action rather than yet another toothless spectacle of condemnation of the empirically condemnable violence itself.

In a tweet rant posted during this same time by Martin Daubney, the editor of the English lad magazine Loaded, he articulated a similarly jarring portrait of collective angst from young men who feel callously tossed aside and branded as innately wrong, which only serves to compound the sense of victimization even further.

Im mindful of a seminal TEDTalk by Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis, Daubney wrote. He looks at school shootings, and says: Boys who hurt, hurt us…They say todays boys feel part of some grand problem. You could frame it as #ToxicMasculinity: the notion that all males are to blame for the actions of a minority of damaged individuals. This is identity politics at its most destructive. Because we live in a world where every male indiscretion is used to attack all males. Im saying this: many boys are switching off. Were losing them.

How does an incel feel about all of this concernextended within the realm of ideas and intellectualism?

Itd be nice, Jack Peterson says, if he just had someone else to talk to about it.

I like Jordan Peterson a lot, he admits in a tone that sounds more upbeat than the rest of our conversation. I was going to go see him with another incel but that guy ended up not being able to go. But I bought a VIP ticket so I get to meet him next week.

In the wake of the Toronto attack, Peterson is unique in that unlike many in the incel community who have scrubbed their social or taken down their WordPress blogs that chronicled their life, he decided to see what happened when he went on TV to talk about his life in this widely reviled community now most associated with mass murder.

The decision to do so was gutsy. Especially considering the against-the-agenda talking points he is now presenting in condemning misogyny and violence.

The reaction he has received from other incels has been negative. And the public certainly doesnt like anyone who might be an incel.

Its an unwinnable place to be for someone who might still have a chance of climbing out of the twisted, self-fulfilling prophecy gutter that such dangerous places can become for young men who dont think they have anywhere else to go.

But Peterson doesnt regret doing the media and putting his face out there.

Instead, he speaks with an inverse of the perverted sadism of the Toronto attacker. It is a nihilism of potential that is in stark contrast to the nihilism of murderous revenge.

As he describes the decision, you can almost hear an epiphany clicking: When you dont care when you have nothing else to lose, it can be used for good or evil.

I dont know why I said yes to identifying myself as an incel, he says, mulling it over. I just felt like, you know What do I have to lose?

Of course, within the incel community itself, the answer is clear.

He could very well lose his status as an incel.

They called him all the predictable names. He was a cuck. He was a status-seeker. He was an opportunist. He was a number of slurs that are not fit to print. But for an incel, the worst insult he received of all was that he was a fake.

And, this being incel-world, the name he was called was targeted and precise.

You see, for incels, each man within the community self-identifies with how they qualify for their incel status. For instance, mentalcels achieve their status as a result of mental illness. A braincel is that way because of intelligence. A truecel has never had sex, a relationship, any kind of success at all.

Thus Peterson was called a fakecel. No, Peterson says, thats wrong. He definitely still is an incel. He is a part of the group. Where then does he now belong?

Peterson is quiet as he considers the answer.

I think something where I can help people, he says. I like talking about the positive stuff more, even if its frowned upon.

He considers a while longer.

I dont know, he considers, maybe Im a hopecel.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/sympathy-for-the-incel

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch? Most of us are currently missing things like Outside and Proximity to Other Humans. For the lucky ones, at least, monotony and loneliness are our most prominent enemies, as we stare down seemingly endless nights of Netflix and bean soaking, longing for the day we can experience somewhere else. If you run a business that requires anyone travel from one place to another, this means that you’re particularly reeling. Airline capacity is down 73 percent, hotels are empty, and even the potential reopening of restaurants and bars comes with heavy caveats. Because of that, brands like Airbnb, Viator, Google, and various tourism councils have begun offering virtual “experiences,” so that hypothetically you both keep spending money and also don’t die of boredom. But can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? Or are they, you know, both screens? Broadly, there are two types of experiences happening today. First, there are interactive classes and group activities, where you can learn to make pasta or Irish step dance or listen to a museum docent talk about statuary on a video call — all with other people looking to emerge from this time with a new skill set. In Philadelphia, one restaurant owner is trying to mimic the experience of dining out. He video calls you for your order and then, once it’s delivered, calls back to check in on your wine and see how everything is. Aside from the fact that they take place over a video call, these experiences are pretty close to their in-person counterparts: you sign up for a particular time and date, you follow directions, and supposedly you learn something, or at least pretend you’re in a restaurant. Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? And then there are the experiences that aim to “immerse” you in some locale that is not your apartment, whether that’s Rome’s colosseum or an orchard of cherry blossoms in Japan or the British Museum. Often, the entirety of the experience is just a 360-degree camera or other pre-recorded video footage of a beautiful place, and sometimes it’s free. Maybe for a brief moment it will seem as if you aren’t on the couch with your partner who won’t stop bouncing every time they try to catch a tarantula in Animal Crossing, but instead are surrounded by skulls and a haunting breeze in Paris’s catacombs. Or seeing the Faroe Islands through the eyes of a local with a camera strapped to their shirt and whose movements you can control with a joypad (yes, this is real, and no, it does not seem ethical). Both of these types of experiences are not new, except for the joypad thing. Virtual cooking classes and workouts are offered by plenty of companies, and Google has long allowed you to tour the world’s museums, or plant yourself in the middle of a national park on Google Earth. Normally, these offerings are an invaluable tool for those who don’t have the ability — whether financially or physically or because there’s only so much time — to visit these spaces in person. Personally, I’ve avoided them all. Aside from the occasional video yoga class, it just didn’t seem worth it — too much potential for technical difficulties, too easy to open Twitter in another tab. Plus, I could just go there if I really wanted. But now that the pandemic has wiped out any in-person plans for the foreseeable future, boredom is my primary struggle. I finish work and move from my dining table to my couch, queueing up another movie or TV show or video game. The idea of a plan, of something to look forward to, feels increasingly distant — and online experiences increasingly appealing. Can they actually fulfill our collective void of “doing,” or just highlight how far we are from ever “experiencing” in person again? I decided to fill up my calendar again to find out — or at least see if I could forget about the confining walls of my apartment, even for a few minutes. The instructions for Airbnb’s “GINspiration History & Cocktails at Home” said that points would be given for the best outfit, so I put on earrings and an actual shirt before signing on. The company best known for providing vacation and short-term rentals offered “experiences” — both real-life and virtual — before the spread of COVID-19, but has taken care to promote the latter on its homepage recently. You can learn to cook tacos or pasta or tapas, or watch a man wandering the streets of Prague in a plague doctor costume as you learn about the Black Death. My hour-and-a-half long class promised the bartender would teach me to make some great gin cocktails, as well as tell me a bit about the history of the spirit itself. It took place at 11:30 in the morning EST (the host was in England) but time is meaningless now, right? I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student. Signing onto what you assume will be a bustling Zoom chat only to find yourself the only one there is a little like showing up early to a party; it’s deeply embarrassing for no specific reason, and the only way through is to act like being a party of one is your favorite thing. We waited a few minutes for the other student who had signed up, but he never came. He is my enemy now, and I began the class feeling resentful that I had no other participants to hide behind, and that I had to make an extra grocery run to pick up the limes and juices necessary for cocktail prep. These should have been provided for me, I thought. There should have been more people. It shouldn’t be like this. But as I listened to my instructor’s story about accidentally spilling a bright pink Cosmo all over a bachelorette’s white dress, I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. For an hour and a half the bartender and I chatted, he told jokes, we traded stories and watched each other’s reactions, I drank a French 75 on an empty stomach, and he taught me how to make daiquiris and Cosmos as well, because I came woefully unprepared in the ingredients department. And I know it’s a bartender’s job to make everyone feel like their friend, but I felt like his friend, which meant I felt like my kitchen was a bar. The magic worked, and I’m not sure if my socialization itch would have been scratched had that other guy (still my enemy) showed up. So I tried another one. I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times in my life. As a New Yorker, I can name my price and visit my personal highlights on any rainy day — the Arms & Armor section, the Asian and “Arab Lands” wings, jewelry, “Inferno” by Franz von Stuck. The Met is currently offering 360 degree video of some of its corridors, but to see any art up close right now, I had to sign up for a tour with Walks. The hour-long tour promised a docent would uncover the “scandals and secrets that lie behind some of the artifacts in America’s greatest art collection,” and an art lecture would mean I’d experience the Met in a way I haven’t since I was a kid on a class trip. I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. Our docent first started by highlighting all the benefits of an at-home video tour, as if we had a choice. On a normal day we’d probably have to wait outside in a line, waddle through security, and check our coats before seeing any art. Now, he joked, we could be “naked with a glass of cabernet” on hand, and because our “tour” took the form of a slideshow of images, we could zip from the Egyptian wing to “Washington Crossing the Delaware” nearly instantly. In the museum it would have been a 15-minute walk. Our docent clicked through works I’d never stopped to notice before, and famous paintings I’d never really considered that deeply. I learned who Madame X was in John Singer Sargent’s portrait, and that Monet’s water lilies were more staged than I’d previously imagined. I regretted that I’d spent so much time at the Met cycling through what I already knew. But I found myself missing that 15-minute walk. Our tour was an hour long and featured 87 PowerPoint slides. As soon as we were done with one painting we hopped to the next, leaving barely any time for our new knowledge to sink in. I pictured myself in the alternate-universe version of the tour, following a man holding a flag, maybe chatting with a stranger on the tour about what he’d just said as we weaved through galleries, feeling whether the energy of the group was “bored” or “amused” or “laughing politely.” Our video host turned off everyone’s cameras, so I couldn’t even see the nine other participants’ faces as our docent spoke, or allow him to see my genuine laughs at any of his jokes. I joined to stave off the loneliness, but once the call was ended, I felt newly alone. In an online conference hosted last week by Arival Online, a resource specifically for the tours and attractions companies, members of the tourism industry gathered to discuss the pros and pitfalls of virtual tours, and whether they were worth investing in. The short answer was yes. Andy Lawrence of Vox Group (no relation) noted that this is what business will be like for a while. “From that we know social distancing will become a norm, and the easiest way to deal with this is to give someone the power to take a tour how and when they want,” he said. However, he denied it was a long-term solution, as people can get free videos of monuments and museums on YouTube. Online education may be a need now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last. But others noted it didn’t seem like interactive tours were really competing with the videos on YouTube. “I don’t see it as a full replacement for travel, but a new initiative that’s complementary for travel when we get back to normal,” said Matthijs Kefi of Withlocals. After all, streaming a video is one-way. “Our hosts also want to connect with other people, everyone likes that interaction.” The point of a guided tour or a lesson is rarely just the accumulation of new information. We had cookbooks and Wikipedia before the pandemic. What we want is people. Public anonymity is one of the things that keeps me in my hometown of New York. I’ve cried in parks, in museums, and at well-renowned bars. I’ve sat quietly with my thoughts at crowded restaurants, and I’ve had life-changing conversations in front of world-famous monuments. Some of the most important things have happened to me while I’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers. Now, all of these things happen on my couch. There is no white-noise of humanity to provide cover to my sobs or my half-baked ideas. I am not anonymous, but alone, and the thing I am missing the most is being in public with strangers. What I wouldn’t give right now to attend a book reading, have a drink, or look at a painting with people I’ll never know. What I miss about the world isn’t being told about an artist’s life by a docent. It’s meandering through a museum, talking to my partner about why a newly seen painting is hitting us, quietly experiencing the beauties of life alone in company. As soon as I named this craving for myself I started feeling it in anything else I tried to do. I clicked around a virtual tour of Machu Picchu where tourists in bucket hats and cargo shorts stand frozen and warped by the circular camera. I tried to recall what the wind felt like on my own trip there over a decade ago, but I could only focus on what it would be like to overhear another person’s conversation. I looked at cherry blossoms blooming in Prospect Park, and thought of the last time I was there, which happened to be the same weekend as the West Indian Day Parade so the Japanese garden was juxtaposed with booming dancehall music from the street. I tried “going” somewhere I’d never been before, the Great Wall of China, only to find myself focusing more on a tourist squatting while drinking a water bottle than any of the sights. “The same” is too high a bar to set for these experiences. Nobody is advertising that these virtual tours and classes will provide an identical experience to one in person, but rather they’re a way to support docents and guides and bartenders who would otherwise be out of work. But even then, it’s too easy to recall the other version of this experience, the one where your conversation isn’t studded with glitching video, where you can shake the bartender’s hand after he’s taught you how to make a lemon twist, where even after you’ve found a quiet spot at the top of Machu Picchu where it feels like you’re the only person in the whole world, you can walk back down and watch everyone else having their own moments of transcendence without ever having to ask them about it. Most everything about life right now is both deeply essential and muted. We’re instructed to leave our houses only for necessary work or supplies, and only touch those we live with (which could mean no one at all). Every decision carries the weight of literal life and death. And yet every action feels like a photocopied version of reality, like we’re in a holding pattern until life gets switched back on. The virtual tours and classes are no different. Human interaction, however it happens, feels newly vital. But mostly, these tours and experiences don’t provide that any more than watching Too Hot to Handle on Netflix does. The majority of them are one-way entertainment, good enough if the topic interests you, but the equivalent of an interesting PBS special. And even when they are slightly more interactive, there is no lasting release. You say goodbye, feeling smarter or tipsier or full. The video sputters and freezes and then it ends, and you’re still in your living room, with no one to even ignore you. Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-actual-experience-of-virtual.html

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