#i told you i have pile of life related stress and tending to my children like that is the ultimate destresser so is SPAM FOR MYSELF
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“winter warmth”
“WINTER WARMTH”
“WINTER WARMTH”
📘┊pairing. akaashi keiji x gn!reader
🔖┊tags. post-time skip, fluff, co-worker friends to lovers, mutual pinning, holidays, seasons abloom
📚┊wc. 4.3k
📖┊note. I wrote this for akaashi’s birthday but i’ve been meaning to write this fic for a long time now. well, here’s my first fic posted on tumblr! feel free to message me your thoughts! i plan to make this an on-going series of small one-shots so… please expect more in the future.
The biting cold that accompanies the change in seasons looms over the metropolitan city of Tokyo, the city where Akaasji Keiji was born, where his career is, and most importantly; where the love of his life is – the International Library of Children’s Literature. Literature has always been one of Akaashi’s passions to pursue as it opens endless doors of opportunities that could grant him success in the future. The majority of his stress stems from his work,
“Having a job and a stable career makes you successful!”
“You should have a steady income first before you pursue your passions so you have a stable foundation to fall back on just in case things don’t work out, Akaashi-san.”
He can hear the string of back-handed compliments and empty advice he’s received from co-workers and relatives alike echo in the back of his mind, clouding his thoughts and possible future realities he wishes to envision. Literature is one of his hobbies that became his career due to his love that caused him to become attached. Manga, novels, plays, poetry, and even textbooks sometimes caught Akaashi’s attention and he couldn’t help but consume the knowledge and navigate the uncharted waters that flow through the pages in inky waves. The beautiful thought of literature that had once been untouched and pure in Akaashi’s child-like wondrous mind has now become something as lifeless as house-hold chores to check off a list.
Now, as he sits at his desk in his office cubicle eying the unsurmountable manga panels that consume more than half of his desk with their shiny patent ink and crisp lines framing the edges of each page – he can’t help but sigh.
“You know, I’ve always been told that it’s bad luck to sigh.” Akaashi perked up at the sound of ceramic hitting the surface of his white acrylic desk. He looks up to see you holding a matching mug brimming with the café nectar that he so desperately needs.
“Is that so? You sound so sure of yourself considering that your break ended 5 minutes ago.” Akaashi hid his face in his hands to mask the upturned corners of his lips pulling into a smirk.
“Thank you for the coffee, I know that I’ll need it considering that Hide x Seek’s 100th Chapter is going to be released in this edition of Shonen Jump.”
“I heard that from Udai-san, he seemed so excited that he wanted to make this chapter special by making it holiday-themed with all the holidays being piled all together at the end of the year.” You said with a look of contemplation as you sipped the burning liquid in your mug.
“Have you read Hide x Seek before?” Akaashi leans back in his office chair and sets his gaze upon you while placing the cup next to his lips, the creaky sound apparent from the quality of wornness and evidence of sleepless nights he’s spent hunched over reviewing and editing the work assigned to him.
“I think I’ve read it once before, it’s the one where the high school students hide from an intruder but they don’t know who’s the intruder… but it ends up being the ghost of a former student that seeks to kill out of revenge and spite the higher-ups who have wronged her, right?” You said while fixating your gaze to the edge of his desk as if to recall the synopsis from memory, your coffee mug was left forgotten on Akaashi’s desk as you appear lost in your thoughts.
“Not quite, you just said the plot summary of Peek-a-boo? not Hide x Seek.”
Akaashi said while looking pointedly at your mug on his desk that would surely leave a faint circle as he knows you tend to haphazardly spill its contents as you “vigorously” stir your coffee to ensure that all additives are well-mixed. He recalls asking as to why making a vortex in a cup smaller than his hand is necessary, to which, you responded,
“I need everyone to get along harmoniously and seamlessly blend with one another, imagine drinking a cup of coffee that you’ve prepared and longed for only for it to have lumps and chunks at the bottom, no-thank-you!”
The dim grimace on your face spoke volumes of a less-than-happy experience you must have gone through and as a result, the chaotic meticulousness of your coffee shenanigans intrigued Akaashi to befriend you.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice you flush red at the realization that you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of your co-worker, friend, and “potential suitor” as your friend lightly put as a shallow jab at your private love-life *hint – it’s practically non-existent.
You sigh. “Maybe I’ll give Hide x Seek a read during a vacation or something.” You mumble the words, cursing yourself for looking like a fool in front of your longtime friend, Akaashi Keiji.
The image of you grumbling and lamenting in front of Akaashi mirrors a panel sitting on his desk that has him fondly reminiscing the same image of you from last spring about how you had no one to accompany you to the Hanami Festival and so, he acquiesced to your invitation thus, establishing a tradition in your friendly relationship.
“I think it would be best to return to your desk, y/n, wouldn’t want to lose the privilege of seeing you every day and being the object of your admiration.” Akaashi propped himself up on his desk, resting his head on his forearms in a lazy slouch peering up at you with one eyebrow raised and a ghost of a smile playing upon his lips.
“You should really stop flirting with me at work, Akaashi. One of these days I might get the wrong idea and think you’re into me or something…” You chastise him while walking back to your desk which is conveniently next to Akaashi’s.
“I’m hopelessly enamored at the thought of you and it frightens me to think of a day where you’ll be missing from my side…” Akaashi thought as he proceeded to leaf through the panels laid out strategically on his desk. He looked over at you as you started to situate yourself with your work and said, “I wouldn’t sigh if I were you, I heard that if you sigh it brings you bad luck.”
“Stop mocking me and go do your work!”
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The clock struck at 5:00 P.M., then at 6:00 P.M., just right before the clock struck at 7:00 P.M. you blearily glance at the time blaring in the corner of your monitor and drift your eyes to the decorative hourglass sitting on your desk. The intricate gold timepiece hid tucked away in the corner of your desk hiding behind a framed picture of you and Akaashi posed in front of a bookstore where a work-related event took place. A faint memory surfaces from the back of your subconscious from earlier this year.
“Akaashi, why do you have a plastic apple on your desk?” You glare at the object as a red plastic apple seems so peculiar to associate with Akaashi, in your mind at least, so you questioned its purpose. Is it for sentimental reasons? Are apples his favorite type of fruit? Do apples have an artistic appeal or is it just a trend?
“It’s a tomato.” He responded, not once looking up to acknowledge your effort to engage in conversation. As Akaashi is seemingly focused on the task at hand, you further prodded with your innocent questions wanting his attention so you could lose yourself in the oceans that reside in his deep blue eyes.
“Then, why do you have a tomato on your desk?”
“Keeps me focused on the task at hand. Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique before, y/n?” Akaashi still focused on his work while you continued questioning.
“The time management one, right? I think I’ve read about it somewhere before if I’m being honest…” You lose yourself in your thoughts as you attempted to recall the correct definition from an online blog you briefly glanced at.
“Then you should know about how it helps you complete your work in a timely manner while balancing the efficacy and quality of the work produced.” Akaashi stopped in his ministrations and averts his attention to the now glaringly pointless object occupying space on his desk that was a prize Bokuto won at the Momiji-gari festival they attended together last October.
“Yes, that’s the time management aspect after all.”
“If I may then, why is it you stress about not having enough seconds in a minute, enough minutes in an hour, and not enough hours in a day to complete your work and yet have all the time to talk to me well over your allotted break time?” he swivels around in his chair to face you, steel blue eyes locked in a heated rage-ridden gaze with yours.
Too stunned to talk from the blunt harshness of his words, you reply, “Quite snappy today are we? At least I know now you pay attention when I mindlessly make a fuss about my workload.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you with my statement, I was going for light-hearted banter at best… I guess I can blame it on the weather. The heatwave must be getting the better of me.” Akaashi said while pulling at his necktie, an excuse to keep his hands preoccupied and mind distracted in avoidance from the awkward silence beginning to build between the two of you.
“Tell me about it, I never really liked summer as a season or the heat.” You crinkle your upturned nose in an act of disdain as you face the glass windows doing nothing to shield you from the overbearing sunlight pouring into the office.
“With summer comes the sun, with the sun comes light, and with light comes warmth,” Akaashi says so matter-of-factly that makes you wonder what’s his favorite holiday. He interrupts your train of thought by asking, “What’s your favorite holiday, y/n- san?”
“Winter, I like the snow. Or more of what snow symbolizes…” you trail off towards the end of your sentence deep in thought.
“Usually people like winter because of the holidays and spending time with their loved ones under a kotatsu. What’s so enchanting about snow? When you touch it, it just melts… not to mention it’s cold.” Akaashi looks over at you inquisitively that could almost be mistaken for scrutiny if a stranger were to eavesdrop between you two.
“If you are out in the first snowfall of the season with someone you like, true love will blossom between you.” You recite from memory what the old woman who owned the corner store grocery near your place told you during your times as a highschooler.
“Besides love, if you make a wish when the first snow blankets the city your wish will come true.” You swing your legs to-and-fro underneath your desk covered from the public’s eye but Akaashi can tell it’s one of your habits you do when you’re excited. The sparkle in your eye accompanied by the ecstatic hand gestures would also giveaway your feelings of excitement but Akaashi knows better. You stop in your motions and jerk towards him almost like you’ve had an epiphany, the sparkle in your eye flashed again mimicking that of a light-bulb going off.
“Snow also signifies that all lies will be forgotten, isn’t that refreshing? The thought of new beginnings with the first snow sounds so romantic! I wish I had someone to enjoy it with…” You take a chance and glance at Akaashi to gauge his reaction to your statement, he already beat your intentions by turning back to face his desk at lightning speed so you wouldn’t see the faint flush of red on his cheeks that bloomed after your profession of love for snow. He didn’t want you to know he was flustered because of the way you turned to him and uttered the words ‘besides love,’ to his face, and the realization that he was going to respond with a simple, ‘hm?’ had him leaning further into his desk in embarrassment.
“Akaashi, what’s your favorite season? You know mine and my reason now.”
“Same as you, I like winter.”
“Why?”
“The holidays.”
“Boring!”
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You shake your head in strong efforts to clear the fog that clouded your mind during that flashback.
“Nodding off so soon?” Akaashi’s voice startled you back to reality as you whip your head towards him.
“It’s almost 7:00, we were supposed to get off work an hour ago like someone said..” you fix your steely gaze on his figure hoping he could feel the mock-resentment radiating off you in waves. “I hope we get overtime pay for this as this isn’t the first time this has happened.” You lean against the back of your chair raising your arms above your head in a half-stretch with valiant efforts to hear the satisfying pop of your back.
“I made no promises, I was going to tell you this when we got off but Udai-san said we have the day-off tomorrow. The reason behind it ‘to reward you guys for your dedication to the company’ were his exact words.” Akaashi said as he began to clear his desk wanting to get to his apartment as soon as possible to sleep. This week took more of a toll on him than he would like to admit, the endless piles of work, deadlines to meet, and the cold that accompanied the winter months were taking a toll on him. The holiday season’s cold seeped into the bitterness of Akaashi’s hidden emotions, like an ice pick scratching the surface of Akaashi’s lonesome facade he tried to hide under cool indifference. In stark contrast, you acted as sunshine that brought the warmth that he desired to thaw his endless winters.
“Done with your work, too? Let’s go home.” His sunshine that spread light and illuminated the darkness that clouds his mind.
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The walk from the subway station to the shared apartment complex was only a 10-minute walk but tonight it seemed never-ending to Akaashi. The time was almost 8:00 and the streets seemed less deserted than usual. The city lights glimmer looked dim in comparison to past nights and the mood almost felt too solemn with the holidays around the corner. Akaashi was lost in his thoughts that he failed to notice the crosswalk light flickered to red signaling the oncoming traffic to cross the road, if it wasn’t for you pulling him by the back of his jacket… he ignores the thought that briefly filters across his mind.
“Akaashi, are you alright? I wasn’t going to mention it but you’ve seemed more aloof than usual.” You said while gripping onto the back of his jacket tightly almost grasping him in a silent plea.
“I’m fine.” He responds curtly while maneuvering his tall frame in an off-handed demeanor that cues for you to let-go. This action only fuels your act of defiance to pull him harder in your direction causing your bodies to collide clumsily disrupting the systematic ebb-and-flow that is pedestrian traffic. As you and Akaashi apologize and wait for the crosswalk sign to turn green, you can’t help but laugh which makes Akaashi let-out a small chuckle as he realizes what a commotion your exchange must have looked like.
“We make for entertaining crowd spectacles,” He spoke softly through a genuine small smile that washed over his handsome features that could have rivaled ‘any top celebrity that calls themselves a pretty boy,’ in your words, not his. The cold weather combined with the hotness radiating from his silent chuckles caused a light layer of condensation to form on his glasses’ lenses. As the haze rendered him sightless, he took off his glasses, pulled out his handkerchief he kept tucked away in his inner jacket pocket, and proceeded to clean his square frames. You took this opportunity to admire the man before you. His brown hair fell gracefully in a light tousled manner as a result of his hands raking through them from stress. Your gaze shifted to his hands, his hands easily engulfed the metal frames balancing delicately in between his slender fingers that looked natural holding the awkward position for prolonged periods of time. Your eyes flit over his face that was normally impassive and difficult to read, now his cool indifference shifted to a look of frustration. The furrow of his thick brows and the faint vertical lines creasing in the center of his eyebrows almost made Akaashi look younger.
‘He looks like a petulant child being told what to do’ you mused to yourself. When he felt content with the cleanliness of his glasses, Akaashi scanned his surroundings to see where you led him to. He realizes that you stopped right in front of the steps to his favorite place in all of Tokyo – the International Library of Children’s Literature. Even with the library being closed as evident by the lack of people and dimmed lights, he still found this place breathtaking.
“The architecture of this library looks similar to the Palace of Versailles don’t you think so, Akaashi? That was one of my first impressions when you first brought me here, I just forgot about it but remembered after seeing this place again” You said as you stared in awe at the smooth concrete walls and tall glass windows with lattice fixtures intricately lining the tall double doors that greeted over 1,000 visitors each day.
“The International Library of Children’s Literature, originally called the Imperial Library, was constructed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government under the Meiji era in 1906. The artistic movement that inspired the architect was the Renaissance movement which explains the Western-like elements incorporated into the building’s design.” Akaashi recited from memory and turned to you after he finished his statement only to find you already facing him, eyes widened and mouth agape in surprise. After seeing your reaction he turns back to the building and says in a soft whisper, “This place brings back fond memories,” while unconsciously playing with his hands, fingers intertwining with one another in a playful open and close. He can feel your gaze openly assessing his figure standing awkwardly in the library’s pathway, he knows that you want the answers as to why he’s acting less like his “usual” self. You find yourself confused by Akaashi’s paradoxical behavior, sometimes he’s willing to let small cracks appear in his otherwise smooth facade of coolness, and other times he shrugs you off in efforts to maintain his cool indifference. His true emotions are caught and given to you in minuscule pieces and this frustrates you as you wish to be with the man that’s always beside you and occupies your mind all the time.
Akaashi can’t help but feel the subtle self-conscious feeling starting to arise after pondering how out of place you and him look at the moment, two people standing alone in front of a closed library engaged in a heated silent exchange. His heart sank when he realized that you two could almost be mistaken as a couple with the way the both of you look now, he wishes for this to be real, his wish is to be with you. Akaashi wishes for you to know his true feelings and declare his love for you and yet, he finds himself biting his lips to silence himself in spite of his friends saying he has a chance of being with you.
The shuffling of feet is heard as you shift your weight from right-to-left and your avoidance of all eye-contact are all tall tale signs of your unsureness, your actions break Akaashi from his own thoughts as he raises his head to see you standing closer to him than earlier.
‘You’re so close I could kiss you right now.’ He wants to say, even in a playful manner but is too afraid to be caught expressing his true feelings even through teasing comments.
“Akaashi, what are you thinking about right now?” You ask in a futile attempt for him to confide in you what thoughts occupy his brain that’s causing him to both distance himself from you emotionally.
Just as Akaashi begins to open his mouth he’s interrupted by an abrupt shout that causes the both of you to stop all conversation.
“Look mom, it’s snowing!”
Childlike excitement blanketed the distanced onlookers frolicking the crosswalks as snowflakes kissed the cherry red noses of daily commuters and people doing last-minute gift shopping. You and Akaashi fix your gazes up to the dark depths of the night sky now obstructed by the white flurries of snow clouds now hovering over all of Tokyo.
‘It’s now or never,” Akaashi thinks to himself, ‘if I can’t do it now, when will I ever get the chance again?’ Akaashi takes a deep inhale and closes his eyes to bask in the brisk coolness the winter air has brought with the changing of seasons.
“I think about how seasons shift out in a cycle of four and I find myself not being able to cope with each change.” He breathes out finally and continues, you stare at him in silent apprehension while anticipating each word.
“Seasons change, people change, and yet I find myself coming back to you… meeting in the same place where we first met each other. Fate has a funny way of telling us that we’re supposed to be together. Coincidence has a hand in pushing us together hinting that we’re meant to be. Destiny is telling me that you’re the one but, choice whispers it’s harsh words of reality only permissible when conditions are met that echoes in my thoughtless mind every sleepless night.” Akaashi locks your eyes in a steady gaze, your eyes widened in shock while his eyes portray a deep-rooted passion now surfacing after being hidden for so long.
“Our love is blossoming like the sakura trees in the spring, a love that mirrors the perennial endless summer hydrangeas in the courtyard in front of our apartment building. A love in which I catch myself falling for you like the leaves during the autumnal months. A love that engulfs me in the warmth of the fire, with its ember flicks illuminating your faint silhouette as we embrace each other in the moonlight. Falling in love with you was experiencing a life I have not lived before, for the first time I welcomed the uncertainty, my fears, my doubts never once clouded my mind. You are my moonlight that illuminates my path in the inky depths of nightfall. My starlight when I look to the sky brimming with untold stories in your constellations that guide me back to you. I want to be with you during the first snowfall of each winter. I want to experience each change of the seasons with you, I want you by my side to accompany me as we live our lives – I wish to be together with you.”
Akaashi finishes his confession of true feelings for you and a sense of relief washes over him as a weight has been lifted from his chest. Akaashi starts fiddling with a loose thread in his pockets starting to feel anxious at the sight of you as he begins to anticipate your response since you haven’t spoken since it started snowing. The feeling of temporary relief was now replaced with a sense of dread fueled by his self-doubts and the thought of rejection, he averts his gaze downward to avoid meeting your eyes.
Akaashi stayed cemented in his place with no signs of moving, so you decided to close the distance between you two. Feeling bolder after Akaashi’s profession as you were reeling from the excitement of seeing snow paired with your feelings being returned by the one you love, you grab his jacket sleeve to signal for him to remove his hand from his pocket and slowly begin to intertwine hands. He shifts his gaze from your interlocked hands to look at you, as he scans your face to gauge your reaction, he finds himself surprised by the beaming smile matching your bright energy and warmth that rivals the sun during the summer months. Your actions and the bright reaction is all the confirmation he needs to know if you reciprocate his feelings so he steers you, hands intertwined, in the direction of your shared apartment complex.
“What about your wish, did it come true?” Akaashi asks while he notices you started to swing your joined hands unconsciously, ‘probably out of habit,’ he thinks to himself silently while a smile threatens to breach his lips. You stop him and take his other-hand so now he’s facing you, you want his full attention as now, it’s your turn to confess.
“My wish was always to be with you, you’re my happiness and the reason for me to continue to live and grow. When I’m with you I’m at my happiest and your constant presence has always been comforting. The sureness in your voice and actions speak volumes about your reliability and the love you have for others. My wish was for you to see the light in yourself and for you to realize that you are loved and needed, not just I think this way but your friends Bokuto, Kuroo, Kenma, and everyone else you’ve met and encountered will agree with me on this point I’m trying to make. I love you, Akaashi Keiji and I wish to be with you… if you’d let me.”
Compared to the shuffling of footsteps and avoidance of eye-contact from earlier that hinted towards your unsureness, Akaashi can see the confidence in your stance and actions as you grasp onto his hands, the unwavering sureness you exude while maintaining eye-contact has Akaashi falling in love with you over again. The brightness in your eyes and cheery playfulness reminds him of the reasons he fell for you in the first place and he senses that he will keep finding reasons to fall in love with you over and over again.
“Let’s go home now, sunshine. I’m afraid that your warmth will melt the winter snow.”
#akaashi keiji#akaashi headcanons#akaashi oneshot#akaashi keji x reader#akaashi x reader#akaashi drabble#akaashi smut#haikyu x reader#haikyuu!!#akaashi keiji fluff#akaashi fluff#repost#winter#warmth#akaashi hcs#haikyuu#haikyuu hcs#bokuto#kuroo tetsurou#kenma#bokuto koutarou
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heart is where the home is | kth
↳ alternative title: ‘from new york to la, you flew right to my heart’
⇒ summary: somehow, when you woke up this morning, you didn’t really picture yourself falling in love with the attractive, well-read traveller sitting next to you on the plane, but a missed connection and an alarming amount of hand-holding later, you find that you both get a lot more than what you paid for.
⇒ airport au with the friends to lovers trope sort of???? i guess??
⇒ pairing: taehyung x female reader
⇒ word count: 16k
⇒ warnings: smut lmao
⇒ genre: fluff, smut
⇒ a/n: this is entirely based on an actual real life experience i had when i went on vacation last month, except i didn’t get to meet a cute aesthetic boy and fall in love with him :’( can’t win ‘em all, eh? for the record, i love eating fries dipped in mayo.
You’re such a dad, honestly. It’s three hours before your first flight—to none other than LA, the city of angels (and dead dreams, and Starbucks secret menus, and no water), mind you—and the taxi you’re sitting in is only now just pulling into JFK airport. And it’s stressing you out a little, because you read on some awful Buzzfeed article that you should actually show up four hours in advance when you’re taking a day flight, since airports are usually busier and therefore tend to have longer waiting times. It’s kind of ridiculous, actually, showing up practically a quarter of the day before you need to be there, but you’ve never flown on such a long flight before, and if you’re not one-hundred-and-ten percent prepared, what’s the damn point?
You pay the taxi driver the hefty bill he requires—fuck you, morning rush hour New York City traffic—and grab your things, breathing in the ever-so-pleasant air of thousands of cars, vans, and buses lined up to transport people to and fro around the airport. All airports smell the exact same the moment you set foot in them, and it’s the scent of gasoline, over-cleaned marble, and misbehaving, tantrum-throwing children. It’s somewhat refreshing, actually, all part of the journey. A reminder that you won’t be trapped in the same old town any longer.
Sure enough, the airport is decently packed when you walk inside, pulling your large four-wheel suitcase—they are infinitely better to handle than two-wheelers—and your carry-on one next to you, a backpack hugging your shoulders. The line for check-in is not astronomically long, like you would expect it to be on a typical Saturday in JFK, but the line for those ticket kiosks certainly is. You roll your way up to the end of the line and wait, tapping your foot impatiently because the fear of not allowing yourself enough time still sits in your brain, only able to be resolved once you sit down at your gate.
When you finally reach an open kiosk, it’s all fumbling for your papers in your backpack that have your flight information on them, shuffling through the travel folder you store to find all of your flight times and numbers and whatnot. You’re a bit… anxious, to say the least, desperate to speed through the process as fast as you can so you waste no time, but the only thing you manage to accomplish is dropping all of your flight information on the cold marble floor of JFK in a flurry of A4.
Ugh, fan-fucking-tastic. From being up at five in the morning because you’re the worst last-minute packer imaginable, to getting stuck in traffic, to this, is exactly what you needed to get your day started, honestly. You swear under your breath, muttering to yourself that the universe has it out for you, reaching down to dig for your papers under all of the suitcases and the legs waiting for you to hurry up.
You stick your hand around until you gather all the ones that you can see, trying to shuffle them back into a relatively neat pile on your suitcase, when you feel a tap on your shoulder. A kind stranger from a couple of people down the line is holding the paper with all of your information on your flight to LAX.
“You dropped this,” Kind Stranger says to you, holding it out.
“Thank you,” you tell Kind Stranger, shooting him a very tired but very appreciative smile as you take the sheet from him before turning around.
You finish the rest of your boarding-pass-printing-receipt-bag-tag nonsense without any major scuffles, hitting up that one free checked bag deal that American Airlines is giving you at the check-in desk.
It’s a real shame that there were no direct flights out of JFK to Seoul, since you’d much prefer to get the trip over and done with in one shot rather than two—you can never fucking trust where your suitcases end up when you’re going on more than one flight—but you’ve never been to Los Angeles before, and while the airport doesn’t technically count as visiting the city, it’s damn close enough and the location is getting checked off of your metaphorical bucket list.
The rest of the waiting you have to do for security has you antsy and annoyed, because security is just the worst on so many levels and this is why you should have shown up four hours prior instead of three. There’s never anything good waiting for you on the other side of that cage they enjoy calling a metal scanner.
When the hurricane has passed and you’re finally sitting down on those cold metal benches that the airport people put post-security for all of the mere mortals—the ones that don’t have the luxury of cruising through TSA Pre-check without having to take off their shoes—to gather their belongings and tie their laces up, you feel calmer. It’s one-and-a-half hours until your flight departs, which equals to one hour until you board (if all goes well, but you can never trust airlines), which is one hour of time that, in hindsight, you don’t really need.
What you do need, however, is breakfast, because your ass woke up at five in the morning and totally just forwent breakfast as a meal of the day, and your stomach rumbling probably could have caused a whole big hubbub at security with how aggressively loud it is.
There’s a Starbucks in this terminal, a couple overpriced airport stores down, but from what you can see, the line is practically a mile out of the hypothetical door and while you do have one hour to burn, you’re not spending it in that. Another whiff and you smell some coffee a hallway in the opposite direction, and you beeline for it, hoping the rest of the population hasn’t decided to take the same detour. Sure enough, the place you find is relatively empty in comparison to Starbucks, save for a couple of stragglers here and there, dragging their suitcases behind them just like you.
You could really go for some coffee. Some coffee and a nice muffin sounds like a perfect breakfast in your opinion, and while you’re at it, you might as well grab something else to eat for lunch on the plane, since the flight is six hours. Afterwards, you should probably go find some airport seats without the metal armrests so you can go lie down and try to fake some shuteye, as you didn’t get very much last night, and you’re notorious for not sleeping on flights.
Since there’s not very many people in this place, the line isn’t all too well defined, which leads another exchange with the Kind Stranger.
“Are you in line?” Kind Stranger asks as he approaches you, pointing to the crooked line behind you, the one that’s for ordering coffee.
“Me? No, I already ordered,” you tell him. “You go ahead.”
Kind Stranger shoots you a Kind Stranger Smile, and that’s that.
When you’ve gotten your food and your coffee, the caffeine that shoots through your veins decides to let you know that sleep is totally off the cards now, the familiar buzz of short-lived energy settling in your brain. So much for that idea. You make the executive decision to go find somewhere you charge your already depleted phone battery. Gotta stay prepared.
Good thing you managed to find an outlet when you did. The second you collapse in your armrest-decorated seat at your gate your phone starts buzzing erratically on the cushion.
“Hello?” You say into the phone.
“Y/N! When’s your flight?” Jennie asks on the other end, clearly very excited to get an update.
“I told you, it’s at ten. I still have like, an hour,” you remind her.
“Ugh,” you hear Jennie groan into the phone, and can just imagine her throwing her head back in exasperation. Relatable. “That’s still so long.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” you promise. “Just a little longer.”
“I’m so excited for you to get here,” Jennie says.
You chuckle. “I know, or you wouldn’t be awake at one in the morning to call me for an update.”
“I’m just so antsy, Y/N! We’ve been planning your visit for months and now you’re about to get on a flight to come see me,” she continues, and you can make out the anticipation in her voice, in her impatient but excited tone.
“One flight to go to LA, and then I’m gonna get on a flight to come see you,” you correct, and you can practically visualize Jennie rolling her eyes.
“Whatever,” Jennie says, “you’re almost here and that’s all I care about. God, I have the next three months planned out down to the second. There are so many things you need to see here…”
“I’m looking forward to it, Jen,” you assure her. “Just a little longer.”
“Too long, if you ask me.”
“Go to sleep, then it’ll be less time.”
“See you soon!” Jennie exclaims.
“See you!”
The call cuts out there, presumably Jennie ending it and going to sleep like she should. You know she won’t really try to sleep, she’s just saying that she will to get you to stop scolding her about it, but she needs her sleep, says you, the hypocrite who got four hours of sleep last night.
You spend the next hour hanging out around your gate, watching other people on your flight file into the area and sit down in preparation for boarding as the clock ticks down. The standout experience of the following hour is the couple that sits down next to you, the man holding a baby that can’t be older than six months. She’s got these beautifully big brown eyes, and they’re so interested in you, staring and staring and staring. She’s cute, if you’re being honest, dressed up in these adorable overalls that must be at least two pains in the ass to take off when changing diapers. You wave to you, imitating her expression, and she giggles her baby giggle.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Kind Stranger again, and he’s making his way towards you.
Closer.
Closer.
Oh, no, he’s just sitting down at your gate. Guess the universe decided that your life and Kind Stranger’s life should intertwine ever so slightly as flight buddies. Sounds like a plan, universe.
Right on schedule, the American Airlines attendants start calling for first class and platinum members to start boarding, and little by little people begin filing into a line at the gate, tickets at the ready. The baby and her family go up when the woman at the desk calls for lap children under two, and you join into the line a little later when your zone is called, early enough to secure yourself some opening for your carry-on. No word on Kind Stranger once the lady scans your ticket and you’re barrelling down the ramp.
You’re the first one sitting in your row, laying claim to the aisle seat of Row 19 ABC, so you get yourself situated before immediately hopping onto your phone, cherishing the last few minutes of cell data that you’ll have for the next six hours. You attend to some last minute emails and triple check that you took the appropriate amount of time off of work, when a figure approaches your row, casting a shadow over the sun that streams through the tiny little airplane window.
It’s Kind Stranger, and it looks like he’s in your row.
“I’m the window seat,” Kind Stranger tells you, pointing towards his place. “But I just need to put my bag up, first.”
“Want help?”
Kind Stranger smiles, shaking his head. His hair is loose, floppy bangs over his forehead, so when his head moves, his hair follows, bouncing around and gleaming in the streaks of sun. “No, I got it.”
In this position, with Kind Stranger pressed close against the armrest of your seat, arms stretched up as he battles to get his carry-on in the overhead compartment like everyone else, you get a good look at him. Sunglasses dangle from the collar of his striped button-down shirt, tucked into these very fashion forward wide leg pants. He’s got a good figure, you must admit, and maybe it’s just the trick of the light, but his golden skin seems to glimmer in the sun filtering through the windows. Kind Stranger sends you an amicable grin, one that says, “Hi, nice to sit next to you for the next six hours” but not much else.
You’re so enraptured with him that you forget you’re actually blocking his path to his seat.
“Sorry,” he says, tapping you on the shoulder. He awkwardly points to the seat beside you, and your eyes widen before you realize what you have to do. You get out of the row quickly, letting him shuffle in between the seats so he can sit down comfortably.
Kind Stranger looks even better when he’s closer to the sun.
But you won’t say that to his face. The most of your conversations with him on this plane will probably be him asking you to move if he needs to use the lavatory, or get something out of the overhead compartment. Neither of you are here to make friends on this flight.
Kind Stranger settles in a little more, placing a book in the pocket in front of him, one that looks awfully battered and worn, and buckling up.
“I had a feeling we’d meet again,” Kind Stranger says, catching you by surprise.
“Are you talking to me?” You ask him, eyebrows raised.
Kind Stranger chuckles, warm and comforting. “Yes, you.”
“Why’d you think that? You a believer in fate? Destiny?”
“More like, I saw your flight information on that paper you dropped, and I knew that I was on the same plane.”
“Oh.” You vastly overestimated Kind Stranger’s psychic abilities.
“What are you going to LA for?” Kind Stranger asks, empty small talk that should keep you occupied for the next ten minutes as the flight attendants reel everyone in and the pilots prepare for takeoff.
“I have a connection,” you explain. “Not staying there for very long. Like an hour.”
Kind Stranger leans in closer, but not enough to freak you out. You still have an entire middle seat between the two of you. “Where to?”
“Seoul.” You’re still somewhat glancing at your phone, mindlessly scrolling through Twitter as you half-listen to what he has to say, trying to seem somewhat engaged in the conversation.
“Really?” Kind Stranger asks in a tone that’s completely different from the one he was using to speak to you a moment ago. “Me too!”
How’s that for destiny?
“Same connection?” You ask, a little more interested with the knowledge that you’ll be seeing Kind Stranger a lot more than you thought.
Kind Stranger hums excitedly in response, and you take it as a yes. “I’m Taehyung.”
Taehyung. His name sounds about as warm and inviting as he is.
“I’m Y/N.”
“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” Taehyung tells you, hand held out for a friendly shake.
“Nice to meet you too, Taehyung.”
The conversation should end there. It really should, because sitting next to each other on the first of the two flights you share is just a coincidence, meeting someone travelling the same way as you is just a coincidence. But maybe Taehyung doesn’t think that, and perhaps that is the reason why he keeps talking to you.
“So, what are you going to Seoul for?”
“To see a friend for a couple of months,” you explain simply. “You?”
“I have dual-citizenship, so I’m going there to stay for a little while, see some relatives and whatnot.”
Of course, a well-seasoned traveller such as himself would be on this type of flight. It’s probably second nature to him, twenty hours stuck on a cramped little airplane with no leg room.
“Sounds fun,” you comment mindlessly, more stuck in your phone than the chatter.
You hardly notice, but those ten minutes pass and nothing’s happened on the plane, but it’s nothing you should be particularly worried about. Flights are almost always five minutes late, so this shouldn’t be any different. As long as you make your layover, right?
The good news about the doors being shut and the final boarding call being over is that no one has decided to take up residence in the seat between you and Taehyung, the Kind Stranger, giving the both of you extra legroom and a place to store your backpack and other such goodies once you’re in the air. Score. Hopefully, Taehyung isn’t one of those people that takes his shoes and socks off. That’s all you’re asking for.
“Looks like no one’s sitting between us,” Taehyung remarks, taking the words right out of your mouth.
“Guess not.”
“I’m surprised, actually. Normally, flights to LAX are quite packed,” Taehyung says, like you’re any bit interested in what he has to say.
“Do you go to LA often?” You reply, hardly paying him any attention. When Kind Stranger sat down in your aisle, you didn’t expect him to be much of a talker, but Taehyung most definitely enjoys holding conversations with people he barely knows.
“Eh.”
“Eh?”
“I’m all over the place.”
“You never really stick to one spot, do you?” You ask, mildly intrigued in his location-hopping lifestyle.
“Not a fan.”
The conversation sort of comes to a halt after his comment, and you take it as the perfect time to stuff your headphones in your ears, the universal signal for ‘Please Do Not Speak to Me’. If you’re lucky, Taehyung will get the message. He’s a nice guy and all, attractive, too, but you aren’t really looking for a boyfriend on this flight. Maybe another time.
At least Taehyung knows when to shut up and stay in his lane, because when he notices the white wires dangling from your ears, he keeps to himself, resorting to that battered book in the seat pocket in front of him. He dog-ears his pages, you notice. Little creases here and there as he flips through the book. There are notes in the sidelines, words penciled in along the margins, arrows pointing to different words in each paragraph. He’s written things in English and Korean, sometimes switching between the two mid-sentence.
“Have you read this?”
Fuck, he caught you. You might as well just respond, so you don’t seem like an asshole for staring at his book and then staying silent. You take a single headphone out to say something.
“What is it?”
“Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut,” Taehyung says simply, and from the way he speaks, he makes the title sound like this horrifically pretentious novel that rich, educated people read for enjoyment on a lazy day.
“No, I haven’t,” you admit sheepishly, feeling small in the presence of Taehyung, seasoned traveller to bounces from fancy location to fancy location with battered classic novels in his hand.
“It’s eh,” Taehyung tells you, shrugging. “I think Vonnegut’s done better, but no one else believes me. Do you know Vonnegut?”
“I-I don’t read,” you tell him. “Much.” You add on, so you don’t seem completely behind the hipster times.
“'S alright. Reading isn’t for everyone.”
You check the time on your phone. It’s 10:30, and from what you can see out of the window that rests next to Taehyung’s seat, you’ve hardly budged from the gate. That’s alright, though. No need to panic, sometimes planes are just running a little bit late. You have an hour and a half between your two flights, so that’s still plenty of time. The coffee cup that sits on the tray table in front of you has one last sip in it, and you take it before you forget, downing the final bit of your cappuccino before shutting your tray table and stuffing the styrofoam into the seat pocket in front of you. Weirdly enough, that last shot of caffeine does almost nothing for your energy level. If anything, it depletes it, or maybe you’re just coming down from the high, the lack of sleep finally settling in. Your eyelids get heavy and the music blaring in your ears seems to get softer, so you pull your neck pillow from your bag, getting yourself comfortable before shutting your eyes. Maybe you’ll just sleep through this delay, and by the time you wake, you’ll be on your way to LAX. Just a little longer.
“Y/N!”
A jolt.
“Y/N!”
Who the fuck is saying your name?
You open your eyes to an overwhelming brightness, blinking several times before your surroundings come into focus. The main thing that catches your attention is Taehyung, next to you, a large hand on your upper arm as he looks at you, eyes wide. The sun is streaming through the window at an an alarming rate, reflecting off of the tarmac and streaking right into the plane.
“What?” You ask, and your voice comes out muffled and hazy, groggy from however long your nap was.
“It’s nearly 11:30,” Taehyung tells you. “And the American Airlines guy just told everyone they were experiencing a computer glitch in the system and we haven’t even left the gate.”
11:30? Computer glitch? Left the gate? The fuck is going on?
You’re still too sleepy to do your math, but from the way Taehyung is looking at you, sympathy and concern lacing his features, and from the unstoppable sunlight illuminating the aisle, you know this does not bode well.
“That means…” You begin, still trying to process all of this information that Taehyung’s suddenly sprung onto you. “A computer glitch?” You ask, not even finishing your statement as you turn to him, confused. “What happened?”
Taehyung shrugs. He’s moved into the middle seat, now, or maybe he’s been there ever since you fell asleep, but he’s much closer than he used to be, and you’re not even mad about it. At this particular moment, you’re much more concerned with your flights than any sort of invasion of your personal bubble. “I don’t know. The guy just got onto the plane and said that there was some sort of glitch between the flight and the satellite, so we couldn’t take off. Pilot said the same thing too, apologizing for the delay.”
“It’s 11:30 now?” You ask, letting all of the news settle into your mind. It hits you, a freight train slamming into your brain. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right,” Taehyung says, and now you know you’re both on the same page.
“We’re not gonna make our flight, are we?” You ask, wincing as you curl into yourself, bracing for the worst but hoping for the best.
“I asked, and unless we leave within the next fifteen minutes, we’re toast,” Taehyung tells you, an apologetic smile on his lips.
“We aren’t going to leave in the next fifteen minutes, are we?”
“Not unless American Airlines is just pulling a fast one on us.”
At this approximate time, your old friend by the name of Panic decides to settle in for the night, renting out a room in Hotel Your Brain and getting comfortable in the King-size bed waiting for him. This has never happened to you before. Nothing even somewhat close to this has ever happened before. You’ve never missed a layover flight. You’ve never even taken one before! What the hell are you supposed to do?
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” You ask Taehyung. “Absolutely, one-hundred percent, totally, completely fucked.”
“We aren’t fucked, Y/N,” Taehyung says, that comforting hand of his rubbing your arm up and down.
God, Jennie’s going to be so worried.
“But we’re going to miss our flight! What do you do if you miss a flight? Where does your luggage go?” You exclaim, brows furrowed.
Taehyung keeps rubbing your arm, voice low and soothing and warm. “We’ll be alright, Y/N. The airline will take care of everything. It’s not your fault we missed our flight.”
“But I was going on a different airline! We both were! What’s Korean Air gonna do for us?”
Taehyung chuckles. “They’ll find us a flight, don’t worry, Y/N.”
You shoot him a pained expression, wrinkles in your forehead.
“Nothing’s going to happen. They’ll find us a flight, they’ll transport our luggage, and we’ll get to Seoul. I promise.” Taehyung moves his hand from where it’s rubbing your upper arm to your open palm, resting it gently atop of it. “Do you trust me?”
You look at him, at Taehyung, who keeps calm under pressure and has a soothing touch on the pads of his fingers, who doesn’t care that he’s going to miss his flight as much as he cares about you missing yours, and you wonder what you have to lose if you do trust him, what you have to gain if you don’t.
You wrap your fingers around his hand, squeezing tightly as you nod, stiff and firm and still a little doubtful. “I trust you.”
When you woke up at five this morning, you didn’t expect to be putting all of your faith in an attractive stranger who travels the world, but then again, nothing’s ever really normal in an airport.
“So, do you live here, or were you just visiting?” You ask Taehyung while the plane still rests on the tarmac, stiff as ever. There’s no point in praying for a miracle now.
Taehyung smiles, pleased to see that you’re picking up on his habits. “Just visiting.”
“For how long?”
“Six weeks.”
“Where were you before that?” You question, paying little attention to the fact that your hands are still stuck tightly together. Neither of you seem very inclined to move, and who cares? It’s nice to have a hand to hold in a time of crisis.
“Michigan. For two weeks. And I was also in Banff, Canada, for a little while before that. And I was in Nice, too.”
“You can speak French?” You ask, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Taehyung says hesitantly, “if you count knowing how to say ‘I don’t speak French’ in French.” You giggle at his words, barely resisting the smile that fights its way onto your face. “But it’s fine, because everyone there speaks English anyway.”
“Where do you live, Taehyung?” You ask, curious to see how long the boy’s been travelling. “Where’s your home?”
Taehyung’s lips curl upward in a soft smile, and he leans back into his seat. “My home?” He asks, looking out of the window as if this is some dramatic, wistful scene in a sad movie. “I don’t have one.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t think I do, at least,” he muses. “Mind you, I grew up in Korea, moved to San Francisco age twelve, finished my schooling there. But it’s not my home. Neither of those places are my home.”
“What is?”
“I haven’t found it yet,” Taehyung tells you, and the statement hardly fazes him. You’re bewildered. Surely a man as well-travelled as he would have a bed that he looks forward to collapsing in after a long flight, a place that smells and feels like his own.
“And that’s why you travel?” You ask, connecting the dots. “To find your home?”
Taehyung nods. “Precisely.”
“What are you looking for, though?”
You assume he’ll tell you his standards, somewhere cheap, cozy, with decent plumbing and mildly quiet neighbors, maybe some nice light for the succulents he probably wants to buy, a loft bed and fairy lights and other aesthetically pleasing hipster things you suppose he’s into.
“A person.”
A person?
“Why a person?”
“Because to me, home is more than just a residence. It’s more than my bed, my bathroom, my favorite duvet crumpled up on the floor,” Taehyung says, and he’s so enraptured in what he’s saying that you don’t dare interrupt him. “Home is love, home is comfort, home is feeling grounded when your feet fly off of the Earth. No building could give me that.”
No wonder he’s so well-read.
“And you haven’t found what you’re looking for, yet? You haven’t found your home?” You inquire, voice soft.
Taehyung turns to you, letting you gaze into those chocolate brown eyes, almost matching the shade of his pupil, dark enough for you to see yourself staring back. His eyes crinkle up into crescents as he smiles at you, erasing your reflection without even blinking. “I’m getting there,” he tells you. “I’m almost home.”
There’s silence in wake of those words, the both of you letting the conversation settle like dust after a storm, dew after the rain.
“What about you, lonely traveller?” Taehyung asks, nudging your arm as he breaks the brief quiet. “Where’s your home?”
His question, as simple as they come, renders you speechless. “My home?” You repeat. “I guess I haven’t found mine, either.” You shrug, wracking your brain for a notable person, someone that can be all of the things Taehyung listed, but come up empty.
“That’s okay,” Taehyung says. “Some people don’t even know they’ve lost something until they find it.”
The plane finally kicks off at 12:17, well beyond the allotted hour-and-a-half you gave yourself between flights. This spells out imminent doom, in your opinion, as you wonder what on Earth is going to happen once you touch down at LAX, but Taehyung hardly seems fazed, and he must know loads more about planes than you do.
Taehyung seems to have taken up permanent residence in the middle seat, leaving his perfectly unoccupied as he moves all of his belongings over, getting comfortable. It doesn’t bother you in the slightest, having him so close, especially when, for some reason, he’s this beacon of hope in this absolutely train wreck of a trip.
“You said you were going to Seoul to see a friend,” Taehyung says randomly while you’re in the air. “What friend?”
“Her name is Jennie,” you explain, impressed that he remembered such a minor detail of your previous conversation with him. “We’ve known each other for ages, but she moved to Korea three years ago and I haven’t gotten the chance to go visit.”
“And you guys are close, I take it?”
“Super close. I’ll tell her my deepest, darkest secrets, and she’ll tell me hers.”
“What’s the appeal?” Taehyung asks, and you turn to him, brows furrowed in confusion at what his question might mean. What’s Jennie’s appeal? Is he trying to hit on her, or something? “Like, what’s the appeal of having such a close friend? What do you like about it?”
“What isn’t there to like?” You say as though it’s the most obvious answer in the Milky Way. “I’m not very good with words, but best friends are the light at the end of the tunnel. They’re there for you, and you can count on them whenever you need to. They’re family, without the blood. You love them.”
“I’ve never had a close friend like that,” Taehyung admits, but he doesn’t seem the slightest bit distraught about it. “I’ve always been too busy.”
“But best friends don’t care if you’re busy,” you explain. “Best friends don’t give a fuck about what you do, because they signed up for you, not your life. They’re your best friend because they are willing to wait a million years just to see you. Friendship transcends boundaries.”
“Is Jennie your home, Y/N?” Taehyung wonders. “You love her, don’t you?”
Good question.
“I do,” you nod. “But I think I might still be looking for it.”
All meaningful conversations aside, somewhere along that six hour flight of yours, you fall asleep again. Coffee can only stave off the Sandman for so long. You dream of being on a flight that actually leaves at the designated time, dream of arriving in Seoul exactly as planned and seeing Jennie waving at the passenger pick-up area, a sign in her hands. But the dream doesn’t last very long, or at least, you don’t think it does, because before you know it, your eyes are opening, and you remove your head from something that feels much different than your neck pillow.
“Oh my god!” You exclaim, horrified as Taehyung turns to you, earphones in as he taps his fingers to the beat of the song. “I’m so sorry!”
He takes a single earphone out as he smiles, eyes glancing at the spot on his shoulder where your head was resting mere moments ago. “What, for falling asleep on me?”
You are mortified, especially in front of his nonchalant expression. “I can’t believe I did that, God.”
“It’s no big deal,” Taehyung promises. “We’re almost there, anyway. Only an hour left.”
You take a closer look at his striped shirt. “I drooled on you. Oh my god, I am so sorry. I can never go on an airplane ever again.”
Taehyung chuckles at your shock, shrugging it off like it’s no big deal. “Well, we’ll consider this an exception, considering we’re two strangers who decided to band together in order to find a flight. I think the drool on my shirt is the least of our problems.”
“It looks like an expensive shirt.”
“It is.”
You gasp, mouth dropping open as you fumble to try and come up with something to make it up to him, some sort of consolation. The action makes Taehyung laugh, hearty and fond, as you stutter out another apology, as if that’s going to make things any better.
“Relax, it’s really no big deal,” Taehyung assures you. “Nothing a little OxiClean can’t fix, you know? I bet soap could even do the job.”
“I can never show my face to anyone in public ever again.”
“You’re cute, you know that? When you’re flustered,” Taehyung comments, putting his earphone back in and turning his gaze so that he faces forward, fingers beginning to tap tap tap on the armrest as he bobs his head to the beat. If Taehyung told you that in order to make you less flustered, it didn’t work very well, because not only are you mortified and flustered, you are mortified and flustered with burning cheeks and sweaty hands.
You reach up to turn the fan on high, letting the air blow mildly aggressively in your face in the hopes that it’ll cool you down. There were not very many things you expected from this flight, other than it being on time and it not having much turbulence, but you sure did get a lot of things out of it. And it’s not even over.
For the record, planes landing is way scarier than planes taking off, and no one can tell you otherwise. It’s terrifying, because feeling as if you’re falling is way worse than feeling as if you’re flying. If you’re being honest, you don’t even care if Taehyung makes fun of you for how your grip on his hand tightens as the pilot says in that muffled intercom voice of his: “Flight attendants, please prepare for landing”, because you’re fucking scared. There are so many things that could go wrong now, especially with that computer glitch and all that took up so much of your time in the first place.
“You good?” Taehyung asks as he watches you peer out the window, eyes wide as the ground slowly begins to swallow you up.
“No,” you spit out. “I don’t like it when planes land.”
“Why not?” Taehyung asks, perfectly calm and perfectly unbothered.
“Because I think that the plane’s gonna explode in a pile of fire, that’s why,” you snap. “Now shut up and let me be scared as this goddamn tank hits the tarmac.”
Taehyung doesn’t say another word, not even a cheesy, comforting one, and you’re actually quite glad that he doesn’t. The last thing you want right now is for Taehyung to feel pity for you.
With your eyes screwed shut and your hand clutching onto his, you feel the plane rumble underneath your feet before speeding up rapidly, then steadily slowing down as the momentum lowers. You open your eyes when the plane is doing nothing more than driving around at a leisurely place, and see Taehyung smiling at you, happy and bright.
You’re panting as the plane begins to cruise around, making its way to the gate, blinking quickly as everything comes back into focus.
“Y/N?” Taehyung asks.
You ignore him, still trying to catch your breath.
“Y/N, you, um, you kinda—my hand, uh—”
“Oh!” You exclaim, letting go of his hand suddenly. It’s turned pale from your strong grip, the lack of oxygen tinting his hand a ghostly ash color. “Fuck, I’m really sorry.”
“Do you have a thing for causing me minor inconveniences? Is that a niche of yours?” Taehyung asks cheekily, and from the look on his face you know he means no ill will by saying it. “First the drool, and now this?” He’s shaking his hand in the hopes of getting some color back into it.
“Listen, in my defense, you let me,” you reason. “You brought this onto yourself.”
Taehyung chuckles. “I guess I did. You’re just too irresistible to be denied.”
It looks like Taehyung has a thing for nonchalantly flirty comments, and this one makes your cheeks flare up again, getting you all tongue-tied as he acts like he didn’t just totally schmooze with you.
Soon, the plane begins to clear out and you manage to step into the aisle, reaching up to grab your carry-on from the overhead compartment. Taehyung joins you, stretching his arms up as his hands fumble with yours so he can help you get your bag down, like a gentleman.
Well, sorry to say, you don’t need a gentleman to get a bag from the overhead compartment.
“I got it, I got it,” you insist, elbowing him out the way so you stop holding up the line of people behind you, equally as desperate to get off of the plane. “I don’t need your help.”
You lug the bag down with success and begin making your way down the aisle, Taehyung and his tapping fingers close behind you. When you make it out of the skybridge, breathing in the fresh and mildly dry air of LAX, Taehyung’s pulling you to the side, stopping near a pillar.
“We gotta have a plan,” he decides. “So we can get to Seoul.”
“How the fuck do you plan on doing that?” You reply.
“We need to find an information desk,” Taehyung explains. “Preferably one that works for Korean Air, since they have access to all of the flight information.”
“Alright, you’re the boss,” you say, handing him the metaphorical reigns as you take a sip of the bottle of water you bought back in JFK. You’re so busy swallowing that you hardly notice Taehyung walking off to the nearest map, and you scramble to put your water bottle back and catch up with him, stuffing the plastic in your backpack pocket and scurrying towards him.
“What the hell?” You ask, totally lost at what his thought process is.
“We are in Terminal 4,” Taehyung declares (as if you’re even listening to him), “and we have to get to the TomBradley International Terminal,” his two hands pointing to the different parts on the map. “So we need to look for the shuttle.”
The shuttle? The fuck is going on?
“Alright, let’s find the shuttle,” you decide firmly, a hand gripping the handle of your suitcase as the two of you start walking off.
“Wait, let me check the list of departures,” Taehyung says, pausing in the middle of the airport again. “See if any Korean Air flights are leaving within the next hour.”
You let him go, pulling your suitcase to the opposite side as you watch him through the crowd, looking at him staring up at the electronic board with his hands in those wide dress pants of his. His sunglasses have migrated from the collar of his shirt to behind his ears, perched on them and facing backwards. It’s strange, but he makes it work (quite well, you might add). Not long after, Taehyung is walking back up to you, shrugging.
“Next flight to Incheon isn’t until six,” he says, looking at his empty wrist like there’s a watch there. “And we’ve been set back three hours because of the time zone, so it’s actually not until nine PM Eastern.”
“No wonder my stomach is grumbling,” you comment.
“We’ll get tickets, then get some food at one of those overpriced airport restaurants, okay?” Taehyung suggests as the two of you start walking down the hallway, empty hand finding yours.
“Like a date?”
“Whatever tickles your pickle,” he replies.
Taehyung truly is a master of airports, because while you are one hundred percent lost in the maze of LAX, swarming with businessmen in fancy jackets and celebrities wearing sunglasses inside and hundreds upon thousands of people, Taehyung navigates through them with ease, like he was made to do this. He’s got a hold on your hand the entire time, ensuring that you won’t break away into the crowd as he weaves through the masses. It’s movie-like, how this scene is playing out, a majestic montage with only you two in focus, the rest of the sea of people a hazy blur.
You make it to the shuttle in no time at all, and Taehyung manages to squeeze the both of you onto the one that’s just leaving the terminal as you rush towards it, breezing past baggage claim as you hop on.
“What about our bags, Taehyung?” You ask, concern lacing your features as you think back to the carousel.
“It’s Korean Air’s problem now,” Taehyung says, shrugging. “We’re not supposed to have big bags in the terminals, only the check-in.”
“But—”
“We’ll get our bags, don’t worry,” he promises, a soft hand on your shoulder. “Do you have that slip of paper from the luggage tag?”
You nod.
“You can use that tag to locate your suitcases if they ever get lost, so don’t worry. You’ll get your things,” Taehyung assures you. Truly, an Airport Master.
The next stop the shuttle makes is at the terminal you need, so you and Taehyung shuffle off, apologizing to all of the people you’re both knocking into with your bags. When you step into the building, you’re overwhelmed. If you thought that Terminal 4 was crowded, the TomBradley International Terminal is a storm, and everyone in there seems to know exactly where they’re going. You’re stuck, too scared to jump into the flow of people and inexplicably fuck up somehow, like you know you will.
Taehyung wastes not even a second standing on the cold marble floor before he’s grabbing onto your hand again, pulling you towards the obnoxiously giant circular information desk stamped right in the middle of it all, several workers in fancy blue blazers sitting in it. He tugs you towards them, beelining for the one by the Korean Air brochure sitting on top of the desk, and doesn’t even let you say anything before he starts speaking to them.
You’re not paying much attention to the conversation they’re having—better Taehyung than you talking to them—too busy gaping in awe at the sheer size of the fucking place, how it feels like there’s a person in every open square foot. Parents with kids in strollers, babies in carriers, girls with guitar cases on their backs and boys with cello cases dragging behind them. LAX has everyone and anyone inside of its walls, and your breath gets taken away.
You’re so busy looking around that you don’t notice Taehyung saying your name until he’s grabbing onto your wrist, shaking it like a petulant child.
“Y/N! We can’t get info here, we have to go to the Korean Air desk,” he says, looking at you with his mouth agape slightly. You sneak in one more glance before you turn to him, stupid happy as you relish in the vibe LAX exudes. He smiles at your smile, taking your hand in his as he leads you somewhere else, nodding to the man behind the information desk as you leave.
“You like it here?” Taehyung asks, taking in your amazement.
“I’ve never been in a place like this,” you say.
“Well, I’m glad you like it, because we might be stuck here for a while, you and I,” Taehyung informs you, shrugging. “I dunno how easy it’ll be for us to hop on a flight to Seoul. They’re normally pretty packed.”
“I don’t care how long we stay here,” you say, hardly thinking as you swing your interlocked hands. “As long as I’m with you, I know that we’re okay.”
Eventually, the both of you locate the Korean Air desk, in a small corner of the terminal, two women behind a cramped little desk, typing rapidly on their keyboards.
Taehyung leaves you in one of the waiting areas close by, promising that he’s “got this” and that he’ll “get us both a flight”. Coffee wafts through the terminal, and you catch a whiff of the scent. It’s so tempting, caffeine, after a long day of not a lot of sleep, and to have it right under your nose is just a sin. You suppose Taehyung won’t mind if you come back with two cups of a nice latte to perk the both of you up.
You don’t exactly know how Taehyung likes his coffee, but it’s too late now, because you’ve already got the piping hot styrofoam cups in one hand and your suitcase in the other, and Taehyung’s gonna get some caffeine whether he likes it or not.
You hear him before you start walking towards him. Smooth Korean syllables roll off of his tongue as he speaks to the two women, using hand gestures to get any words across that he may have forgotten after all of these years. It’s a bit creepy, you’ll admit it, though neither of you have many boundaries at this point in your relationship, but you stand back and you watch him speak to the ladies, listening to his mother tongue and basking in it.
“Taehyung,” you call out, approaching him. He turns to you mid-sentence, tired face immediately breaking out into a grin at the sight of you. “I bought lattes.”
“Really?” He asks, switching back to English with ease. “I could use a quick energy boost. Thanks,” he says as you hand him the cup.
“'S what friends are for, right?” You say casually, taking a sip of your own.
“We’re friends?” Taehyung asks, a smirk growing on his face as he brings the styrofoam to his mouth.
“I think that after all we’ve been through together, we can be considered friends,” you decide firmly. “How about it? Your first real adult friend.”
Taehyung smiles, looking up at you with a moustache of foam. “Friends.”
You both take another sip, giggling at the synchronization of it all. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going. The closest open flight to Incheon isn’t until tomorrow morning,” Taehyung says apologetically, knowing that waiting another twelve hours for a goddamn flight is a lot for the both of you. “But I’ve got us seats and there’s no charge. I just need your passport,” he says, and the request clicks in your brain as you shuffle through your disastrous backpack, whipping out the book and handing it to him.
A couple quick scans and exchanges of paper later, you’re standing in front of an empty gate with a boarding pass for a 10:15AM flight, your seat right next to Taehyung’s, though he claims he didn’t do that on purpose.
With your phone in shoved into the back pocket of your jeans and your hands totally occupied, you call out a simple “Hey Siri” and hope it gets the artificially intelligent robot hiding out in your iPhone to wake up. “What’s the time?”
Siri so wonderfully informs you that it is currently 3:52 PM in Pacific Standard Time, but fuck time zones, because time is a social construct and you’re also hungry as hell. No time zone gets to tell you when to eat dinner when the last proper meal you had was a muffin in JFK at eight in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.
“Hungry?” Taehyung asks, practically reading your mind.
“Starving. I could probably eat the Korean Air plane that took off without us.”
“Like Godzilla, only angrier,” Taehyung jokes, making you gasp in mock offense. “I’m kidding. I saw a nice burger and beer joint in this terminal. And I’ve gone to the sushi place in Terminal 2 before, they’re good.”
“Terminal 2?”
“Our flight isn’t until tomorrow morning, Y/N. We got all of the time in the world,” Taehyung declares happily, shooting his arms out like a fan before taking one and wrapping it around your shoulders, the sudden movement making you jump before you find yourself strangely caving in to his touch. “We could go to the fanciest place in the whole of the LAX airport, if you wanted.”
Just then, an idea pops into your head. “I’ve never been to In-n-Out Burger before, you know.”
And this is how you end up eating fast food in a mildly grubby corner of one of the airport’s food courts, ketchup blobs on the side of your lips and all over the paper bag you’re using as a makeshift plate. Very romantic. Taehyung’s not much better, despite his obviously much cooler, hipster vibe. He knows In-n-Out Burger quite well for someone who doesn’t stay in the same place for more than a couple of months, and his order wasn’t particularly, well, neat, to say the least.
So here you are, eating unhealthy burgers in the middle of an airport, and it is the best unofficial official date that you’ve ever had.
“I shou moof back tah LA,” Taehyung says, mouth obnoxiously full of meat and patty. He swallows down the bite in a single go, Adam’s apple bobbing as the food makes its way down his esophagus. “I forgot how good this stuff is.”
“Well,” you ask, coughing to dislodge a piece of pickle that stuck in the back of your throat, “where are you headed to after Seoul?”
Taehyung shrugs, as knowledgeable about the subject as you are. “Who knows? I normally spontaneously visit places, but Seoul is an exception since my relatives are desperate to finally see the real Taehyung in the flesh.”
“What’s been your favorite place to visit?” You ask him, twirling a greasy, salty french fry between your fingers.
“My favorite?” Taehyung asks, and it appears as though the question renders him speechless. He collapses back in his hair, leaning against the plastic, and he thinks, blinking as eyes as though he’s recalling all of the locations he’s been to, all of the bustling cities and obscure farm villages. You half-expect him to say some awfully tourist-y place, a city in Europe or America with overpriced food and pickpockets, but you also half-expect him to tell you the name of a town you’ve never heard of, in the fields with the closest grocery store ten miles out. “I don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
“Every place I visit is so different. There’s good things about all of them, they were places I chose to go to for different reasons.”
“What would make a place your favorite?”
“A memory.”
You look up at him, brows furrowed as your brain registers his words. A memory? Places like Nice, Milan, New York, they’re not memorable? There’s not a single thing that sticks out in that noggin of his?
“What do you mean, ‘a memory’?” You ask, the last bite of your burger lying forgotten on the paper bag. “How could you not find interesting things about the places you’ve been to?”
Taehyung pops a fry into his mouth. “They were interesting, they just weren’t memorable. Places don’t make memories, Y/N, people do.”
“You travel solo,” you state, allowing your mind to connect the dots. “So there’s no one for you to make memories with, yet.”
“Ding ding ding,” Taehyung says, finger pointing up. “But I’ll find my way eventually.”
You both finish up your dinner, taking the last bites of your burgers and scuffling over the fact that Taehyung is a heathen who enjoys dipping his fries in mayonnaise.
“It’s disgusting, Taehyung,” you insist, scrunching your nose up as he takes an obnoxious glob of mayonnaise on his fry, slowly placing it in his mouth and chewing it like he’s doing a slow motion take of what it’s like to eat the last meal you’ll ever consume, and it’s horrendous.
“Sorry, what?” Taehyung asks, a hand up by his ear as he leans in close to you. “I can’t hear you over how good my fries and mayo taste.”
“Get away from me, you abhorrent waffle,” you say, playfully shoving his head back with the palm of your hand. Taehyung chuckles, swallowing down the fry as you pout at him.
“If you hate me and my fries so much, guess we better just leave you to your devices in the middle of an unfamiliar airport,” Taehyung says, whistling innocently as he begins to stand up, reaching down to grab his backpack.
You cross your arms, one step ahead of him. “It’s not gonna work, Taehyung. You’d never leave me here to fend for myself.”
Taehyung smiles fondly at you, sitting back down without a second thought. “You know me so well, Y/N.”
You call Jennie up after dinner, using up the last five percent of your phone battery to break the news to her that your arrival would be delayed by a solid day.
“Wow,” Jennie says, “American Airlines can suck my ass.”
You chuckle at her crass comment, how typical of her. “Mine too,” you say. You glance up, and Taehyung’s several feet away from you, looking at one of those installation pieces that airports have. It’s a bunch of birds, only they’re hanging from wires and look to be made of scrap pieces of metal. “But it’s okay, I’m not alone.”
You can practically see Jennie’s jaw drop to the floor. “'Not alone'? Who are you with?”
“A fellow lost traveller. We had the same connection, and we both missed it, so we just stuck together.”
“What? Why don’t you tell me these things?”
“I’ve kind of been stuck on a plane, Jen!”
“Right, right. Anyway, who is it?”
“Some guy named Taehyung. He looks our age, I think,” you say, gazing towards him once more. He’s stopped looking at the artwork, and has turned his attention on a toddler in a stroller, being pushed by two women. He’s kneeling down on the dirty but somehow sparkling floor, waving his hands around and enchanting the kid. “Maybe younger,” you add.
“Is he cute?”
“Jen!”
“I’m serious! Is he cute and single?”
“He is, yes,” you nod, lips curling upwards as you watch him wave an innocent goodbye to the child, hearts in his eyes. “He’s also rich, or so I think he is.”
“Wow, you really hit the jackpot,” Jennie says, evidently proud. “You gotta date him.”
“I haven’t even known him for more than like, a day and a half!”
“If I were you, I’d be hopping right on that. Don’t waste your opportunities, Y/N!” She scolds, and you don’t even have time to spit out a comeback before she’s hanging up, leaving you stuck responding to static.
Taehyung comes back at that instant, hand joining with yours almost by instinct at this point, and he smiles. “I just met the most adorable kid.”
“Really?”
“He was so cute. He really liked my hair,” Taehyung says, reaching up to grab a strand between his fingers. “Didja call Jennie?”
“Yeah, just… keeping her updated,” you say, electing to omit the part of your conversation with her where she blatantly told you to date him. “In the loop.”
“You wanna go sit down at an empty gate? I think I saw those chairs without the metal armrests, so you could lie down if you want,” Taehyung suggests, another activity to keep you occupied throughout your stay at the LAX airport, stranded until tomorrow morning.
“Sure. I need to charge my phone, anyway,” you agree, because it’s not like you have anything better to do, confined to the walls of this airport.
This agreement eventually ends up with your phone plugged into a pillar a couple feet away as you lie on Taehyung’s lap, watching the ceiling with tired eyes while he plays with your hair with one hand, that battered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five in the other. You must look like such a couple from far away, passersby sneaking quick glances at the domesticity of it all as they make their way to their gates. It doesn’t feel unnatural in the slightest, this position, though you are a bit bored with nothing to look at except a white ceiling.
Taehyung himself seems pretty pleased with the arrangement, two fingers pinching a bit of your locks as he reads the page. When time comes that he has to flip it, his hand will leave your hair for a brief second before immediately returning. His touch is anything but foreign, despite how small it is, and you let yourself get comfortable in the warmth of his lap.
“Don’t you think this is really romantic, how we’re sitting right now?” You ask him, interrupting his thought process as he stares at the page, absorbing the words.
“Who says this has to be romantic?”
“I do. My head is literally in your lap,” you reply. “And you’re playing with my hair.”
“Do you want me to stop?” He asks, removing the book from where it blocks your face, looking down at you with a smile that you can’t decipher.
“No,” you say softly, avoiding his gaze.
“Well, let me be romantic and continue, then,” Taehyung says, turning his focus back to his book.
“Aren’t you at all fazed by this?” You ask, once again making him move the book from his view.
“Fazed by this? Well, for starters, I think it’s pretty obvious I like you.”
That makes you shoot up, knocking your temple right into his jaw, sitting up in the seat next to him as you hear a disconcerting cracking sound. He winces, then groans, a hand shooting up to his chin, rubbing it.
“I can’t seem to stop hurting you, I’m sorry!” You exclaim, powerless as your mind can’t decide what to do next. Taehyung’s eyes are shut tight as he massages his jaw. “Are you alright?”
“I’m probably gonna have a killer bruise tomorrow, but I am A-okay,” Taehyung promises, though, from the looks of it, it looks like he means otherwise. “A little offended by the fact that you feel like you need to keep injuring me.”
“I didn’t mean i—”
“I’m just messing with you, Y/N. It’s alright, I don’t really mind. But you did ruin the romantic mood, if that’s what you were going for,” Taehyung tells you, and that’s what makes your brain shoot back to his confession.
“You…” You begin, pausing as you look at him. “You like me?”
“Are you daft? ‘Course I like you,” Taehyung replies, chuckling as he gauges your reaction. “I thought I’d been pretty clear about it.”
“Well, I mean—”
“You don’t have to like me back, no big,” he tells you casually, like he’s telling you that you don’t have to deliver the container back to him as a neighbor who brings you cookies when you first move in. “Just thought I’d spell it out for you.”
“But I, um,” you say, hand scratching the back of your head, as if it’ll stimulate your brain enough for you to just fucking respond to him. “I think I like you back, if it makes a difference.”
Taehyung smiles, and this time, it’s one that reaches his eyes, makes them turn into crescents at your words. “Really?”
“Yeah, I mean—”
“So would you mind if I do this?”
“Do wha—”
Taehyung cuts you off by pressing his lips against yours in a playground kiss, the one you give to that girl in kindergarten that you like. No tongue, no hands. Just lips on lips, soft and gentle and playful. It catches you entirely off guard, making you gasp with his lips atop yours, muffled by the sensation. But you don’t find yourself backing away from the kiss, tensing up and staying stiff. You melt into it, letting him keep his lips on yours for as long as he wants, closing your eyes in the hopes that it’ll intensify the feeling.
As fast as it begins, the kiss ends, and Taehyung’s pulling off of you with a light touch, cheeks watermelon red as he looks at you.
“That,” Taehyung says cheerfully, answering your question.
You’re still dizzy from the kiss, hazy and woozy as you try to collect yourself. “No,” you shrug. “I don’t mind.”
Taehyung beams like a schoolboy confessing to his childhood crush in the hallways, a crushed daisy held tightly in his hands as he holds it out. You’re expecting him to deliver you another kiss, some sort of public display of affection in response, but instead he just leans back in his seat, a gentle hand on your shoulder as he motions for you to lie back down in his lap, and all at once, the both of you are back to the beginning, like the kiss had never happened in the first place. It’s somewhat strange, actually, how Taehyung just kisses you and then resumes his life like nothing’s changed, with fingers back in your hair and his nose stuck in that worn old novel of his, but you have absolutely no objections to having your head in his lap, especially with your burning cheeks as kiss begins to sink in.
Somehow, through the romance of it all, sleep arbitrarily takes over you for the third or fourth or tenth (you’ve lost count) time that day, Taehyung’s lap strangely comfortable despite being a little bony here and there. Taehyung does nothing to stop you, apparently, and you wake up when the only light that your eyes see comes from the fluorescent ones on the ceiling of the airport, the rest of the world a navy blue haze outside. Taehyung has switched from his book to his music, leaving his hands to play with your hair as a full-time job. His lips are curled into a whistle but he’s making no noise other than the sound of his fingers tapping on the railing.
“Awake?” He asks when he looks down and sees your open eyes in place of your soft eyelids.
“Mmm,” you hum, still awakening from your slumber as your hand makes to rub the crusty dusty sleep from the inner corners of your eyes.
“I finished the book,” Taehyung informs you.
“How was it?”
“I can see why people say it’s Vonnegut’s best, but I still don’t believe it.”
“Maybe I should read it, that way you won’t be alone in your opinion,” you offer, reaching a hand up to grab the copy. He immediately wrenches it out of your grasp, holding it up.
“It’s gory,” Taehyung tells you, like that’s enough of an excuse to prevent you from reading the book. “It’s about war.”
“Blah blah, I’m not a dainty little princess, you know,” you say, sneering at him. “I can read a fucking book about war.”
“You’re a princess to me,” Taehyung says fondly, smiling at you again.
You ignore the way your hands begin to sweat, telling yourself that it’s just because it’s suddenly getting warm in the terminal. “Better be a kickass princess.”
“You’re a kickass princess, then,” Taehyung decides. “How about it?”
“Sounds like a dream,” you muse, letting yourself snuggle up to the warmth of his body. “Are we really gonna stay here overnight, Taehyung?”
Taehyung shoots you a shrug from where he’s sitting. “I don’t know,” he says, but almost instantly you can see a lightbulb go off above his head, illuminating itself as he gets an idea. “Wait! Maybe we could stay at the airport hotel.”
“Can we leave the airport?” You ask, sitting up and turning to him with an incredulous look on your face. For the past however many hours, you most definitely thought you were confined to the walls of the airport, forced to sleep on uncomfortable seats at empty gates and eat overpriced airport food.
Taehyung’s paused, looking up as he thinks through the legality and mechanics of the whole idea, his pointer finger moving back and forth as he contemplates. “I think we can. We just have to ask if we need to collect our baggage or not, or go through security and check-in again, and where to leave through so we can reach the hotel.”
The words fly in one ear and immediately exit through the other, and they leave your head spinning as Taehyung is getting himself situated as he stands up, gathering his items and stuffing that old Vonnegut book in his bag.
“Come on, I don’t know how late hotel check-ins go until,” he says, holding out his hand and motioning for you to get up and take it.
You end up back at that big circular information desk in the entrance of the terminal, only this time you’re actively paying attention to what Taehyung’s asking of the man behind the desk.
“Hi, hello, um, I wanted to know if my girlfriend and I could leave the airport and stay at the hotel overnight since we missed our original connection and had a new one scheduled for tomorrow morning?”
Girlfriend? Excuse him?
You smack his arm, confused and shocked at the term, but he waves you off, listening intently to the man’s instructions. Girlfriend who?
“Really? Alright, thank you,” Taehyung says, and you don’t even realize that he’s finishing up his conversation until he’s got a hold of your arm and is pulling you to the side, out of the short line that had formed behind the two of you while he was talking.
“'Girlfriend'? Are you crazy?” You ask, mouth open as you await some deep, meaningful response about love and relationships and titles.
“It was easier than saying 'I wanted to know if this girl whom I’ve only known for like, a day now but really like and I', so yes, 'girlfriend',” Taehyung responds, and he leaves you with your mouth open in some sort of objection to the term, but wordless nonetheless. “Anyway, he said we take the shuttle out of the airport but we don’t have to pick up our bags, since we don’t even know where they are. How’s that for planning?”
“My hero,” you say sardonically, but you begin walking towards the shuttle nonetheless. Taehyung has a thing for pointing at the signs above your heads, the ones that direct lost travellers like yourselves to the right destination, like he needs the reinforcement. At least you don’t have to wrestle with American Airlines to get your larger luggage and you can just leave it at the carry-ons, because you don’t have the time or energy right now to complain to customer service.
You make it onto the shuttle that runs on a loop from the line of hotels to the airport, and since neither of you have a specific preference for which hotel you’d like to stay at, it drops you off at the Hilton a couple of hotels down, staring up at the mass of modern architecture right in front of your eyes.
“Looks like a decent place,” Taehyung comments, and he’s passing you by almost instantly, walking into the hotel with his suitcase littered with stickers from all of the places he’s visited behind him. You follow him mindlessly, your focus immediately drawn to the sheer size of the atrium the hotel has in place of a lobby.
“I can pay for a room, alright?” Taehyung asks, putting your mind back on track. “One night.”
“Pay? No, we can split it, I don’t want you to pay upwards of like, a hundred and fifty just for one night,” you insist, making to grab your wallet from your bag, but Taehyung’s already got you beat, a shiny silver credit card in his hand, taunting you. You knew he was rich.
“It’s okay, Y/N. I want to do this,” Taehyung says, and from the way he says it, voice soft and promising and fond, you know he means it. “You just wait here, sound good?”
He doesn’t give you any second to protest, already bouncing off, waving that sparkly little piece of plastic in between his fingers as he approaches an open hotelier. You sit on one of the pristine leather couches (faux or not faux? The world may never know) and text Jennie an update, letting her know that you’re willingly allowing yourself stay in the same hotel room as Cute Airport Boy, to which she responds with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then a ;).
Taehyung comes back holding up a different type of card in his hand, a creamy white hotel card that he gives to you. “Room 318.”
When you arrive at Room 318, Taehyung battles for a good three minutes with the scanner on the door, waving his card back and forth for what must be a hundred times until you eventually shove him out of the way and do it yourself, swiping your card once before the little green light appears on the contraption.
“You’re such a rookie, Taehy—” You begin as you swing the door open, but you immediately cut yourself off at the sight of a single king-sized bed. When you turn to Taehyung with a sneer, he smiles awkwardly, eyebrows raised like it makes it any better.
“Too forward?” He asks, wincing as you step inside. “We don’t actually have to have this bed, if you don’t want. I can go down right now and ask for two doubles, no problem. I was just hoping…” He’s too nice and caring and beautiful and you hate it.
“No, it’s okay, Taehyung,” you say. “I don’t mind.”
“Good, because I am so tired and I don’t feel like doing all the way back down to the lobby,” he says, leaving his suitcase by the wall and collapsing onto the left side of the bed. You follow, equally as exhausted from such an overwhelmingly long day, what with time zones and early awakenings and delays and hand-holding and kisses. The two of you lie there, totally fucking out of it, the only sound in the room your breaths as you catch them.
“Do you still like me?”
You can hear Taehyung chuckle from his position on the other side of the bed. “What are we, kids? I still like you, Y/N.”
“A lot?” You say, ever the child.
“Enough for me to want to kiss you again.”
“Why don’t you?” You ask, turning your head to him. Your arms are both stretched out just enough for your hands to meet in the middle, interlocking fingers.
Taehyung hums, sitting up on the mattress and pulling you with him until you’re both sat cross-legged, facing each other with sleepy smiles etched onto your faces. “Good question,” he muses, and with that the palms of his hands are on your cheeks and he’s drawing you close, soft lips hovering over yours.
“Don’t be a tease,” you whisper, and Taehyung follows your order, connecting the two of you without another second. His lips are hot against yours, and within moments you know this is no schoolboy kiss. This is passion, lust, want wrapped up in a single action, the way he ignites a fire with his mouth, his tongue leaving you absolutely breathless.
It’s not long before the atmosphere begins to turn steamy, heating up with the warmth emanating from your bodies. Taehyung’s already sweating, matted bangs stuck to his forehead, though you’re not much better, wishing to shed yourself of your clothes before anything else happens.
“Lucky you wore a button-down shirt,” you mutter against his lips, smiling as your fingers make to undo the first button. “More time to kiss you.”
“I always plan for the occasion, don’t I?” Taehyung asks back, letting his lips wander ever so slightly off of yours, meeting the skin right by your mouth, your jaw. Once his shirt is off, you let your fingers graze the smooth expanse of golden skin, soft in all of the right places (which is everywhere, mind you). Taehyung’s beautiful in daylight, but in the dim glow of the hotel, the city lights of rest of Los Angeles the only other thing illuminating his body, he’s stunning. “You too,” he whispers, fingers moving from where they’re resting on your cheeks to the hem of your loose t-shirt, tugging on the fabric.
You oblige easily, too easily, honestly, lifting the shirt from your torso as Taehyung’s hands immediately make their way to your covered breasts, fingers dragging over the exposed skin.
“May I?” He asks as he tugs on your bra strap, and you nod, letting him remove your underwear with relative ease before reveling in the sight of you, half-naked in front of him. “You’re so breathtaking,” he says, and the words are strangely foreign coming from his mouth, not the usual ‘you’re beautiful’ that every other person you’ve given the privilege of your nude body to. No, you’re not just beautiful to him, you’re breathtaking. “I’m speechless.”
“For someone speechless, you sure do say a lot,” you say cheekily, your hand pushing him flat on his back with a quiet thud as you rid yourself of your jeans, sticky from sheer sweat, before climbing back on top of him, resting on his legs.
The tent in his own pants is obvious enough at this point, and when you shimmy the rest of his clothes down to mid-thigh, the sight in front of you is mouthwatering. Taehyung’s hot (very much so) and bothered at this point, looking at you like he’s looking up at the ceiling of a planetarium as you take his angry red cock in your hand, stroking it. The sensation causes a gasp, then a swear to leave Taehyung’s lips, tumbling off of his tongue as he sits with his mouth open as you lower yourself towards it. You swirl your tongue over the tip, licking off the pre-cum as you glance up at him, a smile on your face.
“Don’t be a tease,” he says, mimicking your words from before, and, well, if he followed directions then, you might as well follow directions now.
Without a moment to lose, you’re wrapping your lips around his cock, pumping your hand at the base, where you cannot reach with your mouth, and the action has Taehyung writhing underneath you, desperate to savor it but desperate for more. You always love blowing boys, because the feeling of them squirming underneath you empowers you, puts a fire in your bones that’s difficult to extinguish. You continue to bob your head on his cock, your tongue licking up the vein that sticks out, and it has Taehyung gasping for air.
“Stop, stop, I’m gonna come before we can even have the damn sex,” he says, making to sit up and get you off of him. You look up with a mixture of spit and pre-cum all over your mouth, dripping down your chin, and the sight renders him absolutely speechless. “Your turn.”
“Sounds inviting,” you say, letting him hook his fingers under your panties and slide them off of you in one fluid motion, thanks to the sweat you swear is from LA heat rather than this. Taehyung licks his lips at the sight of you, completely and utterly exposed for him, and he dives right in, barely giving you time to breath before his tongue is on your clit, sucking on the bud. “Fuck, oh my god, Taehyung—”
He cuts you off by licking one good stripe up your core, sending shivers down your spine that totally juxtapose the warmth radiating off of your body, a pleasant mix of temperature. Taehyung takes his time, giving you head, not wanting to rush your orgasm when, really, you have all the time in the world. Slowly, he adds his fingers, one by one, coating them in your juices before sliding them into your heat.
“Harder, Taehyung,” you moan out as he’s lazily moving a single digit in and out of you. “Come on, I’m not a baby.”
“Is that so?” Taehyung asks with faux interest, and you sure do get what you ask for, because before you can register it, he’s got three fingers inside of you and he’s pumping them faster, harder. This, joined with his tongue on you, has your climax fast approaching, rushing over you in ocean waves of hazy white, moans that are sure to have your hotel neighbors complaining. “You taste so divine, Y/N. I could eat you out forever.”
“We’ll have to arrange that, then,” you reply, sitting up and collecting yourself as Taehyung hops off the bed for a quick minute to whip a condom out of his suitcase. You snort. “Do you always travel with condoms, Taehyung? Just in case you might have a quickie in the airplane bathroom?”
Taehyung smiles at your intrigue. “No, today’s just my lucky day,” he says as he climbs back on the bed, ripping the condom open with his teeth—an action that has your core wet all over again, for some strange reason—and sliding it onto his cock. “How do you wanna do this?”
“I’m tired,” you tell him, faking a yawn. “Can I lie down?”
“Gonna make me do all of the work, huh?” Taehyung asks, narrowing his eyes as you settle on your back, getting comfortable among the excess of pillows hotels always provide. Now that you’re actually lying down, he can’t object. “Fine, but it’s only because you’re cute.”
You cheer, shooting him a couple of finger guns as he lines himself up at your entrance, the smirk on your face entirely wiped away when he pushes the tip in.
“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck, Taehyung—” You say, swearing as he slides home, then bottoms out. “Oh my god, Taehyung.”
“Say my name again,” Taehyung says as he begins to work up a rhythm, a slow and manageable pace that has you panting nonetheless.
“Taehyung,” you repeat, letting the word melt right off of your tongue. It seems to give him a bit of a confidence boost, because he starts to thrust a bit harder, making you hiccup as you move with him, the wet sounds of pure, unadulterated sex filling the room.
Admittedly, it’s not very long before either of you start nearing your climaxes, the emotion and heat of it all not doing much for your endurance levels. But no matter, because the feeling is all you need, and when Taehyung leans down to connect your lips as he continues to thrust, you’re tumbling right over the edge. There’s something so terribly romantic about kissing during sex, because it signifies that you’re not a hookup, a one night stand. You’re a partner. Taehyung keeps going, mild pain turning into pleasure as he gets sloppier and faster, surefire signs that he’s reaching his release as well, chasing it with a couple more messy thrusts before he empties himself into the condom, the both of you letting out your final moans before he’s pulling out.
Taehyung climbs off of you and disposes of the condom in the hotel trash bin, a barely audible “I’m so sorry in advance, Maid Service” leaving his lips, making you giggle. Ever the romantic.
When the both of you are cleaned up and nestled comfortably in the sheets instead of on top of them, one of you spooning the other though you’re not quite sure who the big one is and who the little one is, Taehyung turns around so he can see your sleepy eyes and hazy grin, and he presses a kiss to your lips.
“Y/N?” He asks, just to make sure you’re paying attention.
“Yes, Taehyung?” You hum, letting your eyes drift shut, desperate to finally get some shut-eye after what might possibly be the longest day of your life.
“I think I found my home.”
Taehyung wakes you up hardly three hours before your flight to Incheon departs, face hovering above yours as he shakes you awake. Normally, you’d find this action cute, but Taehyung’s grip on the side of your arm is rough and unforgiving, and being jolted awake isn’t fun for anyone, especially you.
“Wakey wakey, I can’t offer you eggs or bac-y because we’re at a hotel and I don’t want to pay extra,” Taehyung singsongs, and you actually contemplate throwing a pillow in his face so he can shut up and leave you in peace. He could be the wealthiest, nicest, handsomest man in the world and you’d still hate him if he woke you up in the mornings.
You groan, and not in a sexy way, and turn over so you face away from him, but you should know by now that you won’t be able to get rid of him very easily.
Another rough shake of your body and then the covers are being pulled off of you, and oh, if Taehyung didn’t want to have his neck wringed out before, he’s in for a real damn treat. You sit up, knee deep in your own undereye bags as you look up at him through half-closed eyelids, scowling.
“There’s that pretty face,” Taehyung chides, walking around and collecting his wrinkled clothing, strewn all over the floor as yet another reminder of last night. “Come on, up and at ‘em. We got a flight to catch.”
That’s when the whole thing hits you, and you remember that you are in fact still en route to Seoul to visit Jennie, despite having quite a few… setbacks during the journey. You roll out of bed, letting your body fall on the floor with a whine before you stand up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.
“Why’d you pick such an early flight?” You complain childishly, collecting your clothing in a pile and then throwing it on the bed. You peel your jeans from the lump and put them back on, any changes of clothes currently stuck in limbo in your checked suitcase.
“Because you and I both don’t feel like arriving at Seoul at one in the morning,” Taehyung responds as the two of you try to make the hotel room as neat as possible (though it’s not like you had much to dirty it, anyway). “So, shut up and deal with it. You can sleep more on the flight, anyway. It’s like, thirteen hours.”
Another groan.
When the two of you have at least washed your faces and brushed your teeth, bags packed and ready to do at the doorway, you say goodbye to the hospitality of the Hilton hotel room and leave, the only reminder of your stay here the hotel card in your pocket you know you’ll forget to return. Taehyung resists your protests once more, holding your hand down as he hands the lady behind the counter his shiny credit card before you can do anything to stop him, insisting that “I want to pay for you”. When he gets the receipt, you peck him on the cheek, his skin turning red at the spot of contact, your only thank you to him for such a wonderful night.
You make it to the airport with just over two hours to kill in the line for security, since you’ve already got your boarding passes and LAX is currently responsible for the rest of your belongings, not you. The best part? Taehyung is one of those otherworldly beings with the golden Precheck pass of infinite TSA Precheck, and he insists that you’re not just his girlfriend, but his wife, just so you can scam into the Precheck line with him, waving a taunting goodbye to the people you used to associate yourself with, the mortals. You’d date him just for that Precheck thing, if you’re being completely honest. You don’t even have to take off your shoes. Precheck people live the damn life.
Even so, LAX on a Sunday morning is pretty packed anyway, though you’d bet a good twenty dollars you’d spend the entire two hours in the regular security line, instead of the twenty you do in the Precheck one. You both go through security without any major scuffles, thanks to Taehyung the Airport Master with TSA Precheck, leaving you a solid hour and a half to do, basically, whatever you want.
“I don’t know why you didn’t let me just grab an apple from the hotel restaurant,” you frown as Taehyung pleads for something worthy of your breakfast, since neither of you ate anything before arriving to the airport.
“We need a big breakfast, Y/N. This flight is long as hell,” Taehyung insists as he takes you to some brunch-y looking place near the middle of the terminal, only a couple dozen meters away from security.
“So?” You respond, scrunching up your nose as the hostess leads you towards a table. “They serve lunch.”
“Are you really banking on Korean Airline’s shitty preservative lunch to keep you satiated for thirteen hours?” Taehyung asks, a single eyebrow raised in disappointment. “This place is organic as hell, I’ve been to it before. They’re nice.”
“Tell me, Taehyung, what’s it like to be the most hipster millennial in a five-mile radius?” You say, opening the menu.
Taehyung scoffs. “I’d hardly call myself hipster. Sorry, but do you see a bun in my hair?” He asks, pointing to his hair bun-less head. “We’re in LA, after all. I bet I could find a more hipster-y looking dude in this airport.”
And so begins how you spend the next hour and a half, eating avocado on toast and Eggs Benedict while you point to different dudes around your age in the airport, ranking them based on a scale from ‘I’d rather die than put a ponytail holder in my hair’ to ‘I’m better than you because I listen to more obscure bands than you do’. It’s actually incredibly entertaining, because Taehyung practically psychoanalyzes all the guys that pass buy and relays to you what he believes is their sappy life story about how they didn’t mean to cheat on their partners, and how they couldn’t find their favorite mango slices in Whole Foods, and it has you giggling with egg white on the side of your mouth.
Eventually, after you’ve finished eating the most filling breakfast you’d had in years, Taehyung pays with that silver little card of his and you’re off to your gate, hands held in between the two of you as you navigate through the airport together, acting like Professional LAX Travellers Who Know Where The Fuck They’re Headed. When you reach the gate, the first thing you do is desperately stock up on battery power for your phone, charging your phone and the portable charger you brought just in case, and Taehyung’s portable charger just in case either of your phones need a boost. It is a thirteen hour flight, after all.
You end up resting your head on Taehyung’s shoulder as he whips out yet another battered and bruised classic novel. This one is, from what you can make out through all of the flattened-out crinkles, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and it looks as artsy and aesthetic as Taehyung does.
“Do you like this one more or less than the Vonnegut one?” You ask, looking down at the pages as you point to them. You’re reading the story over his shoulder, only he’s beginning from the middle, so you’re somewhat lost.
“More. Vonnegut is just…” Taehyung says, trailing off and losing his train of thought. “I don’t know. He just doesn’t speak to me as much as Wilde. I feel disconnected from his works.”
“I don’t even know what any of that means,” you admit. “But this book looks nice.”
“I think you say that about every book I read,” Taehyung comments.
“I’m serious! I’ll read this one.”
“Yeah. Uh huh, alright,” Taehyung says, doubtful. “I know you, Y/N. You’re gonna tell me you’ll read this book and then you’re never gonna read it and just Wikipedia the description instead so you seem knowledgeable about the book if-slash-when I ask you about it, interested on your opinion.”
Damn, how can see so well through you? Are you that transparent?
Taehyung seems to read your mind once again, because he taps you on the nose with his pointer finger. “You’re not that difficult to read, Y/N.”
“I didn’t ask for you to psychoanalyze me,” you pout, crossing your arms.
“Neither of us really asked for much on this flight, but we sure did get a lot out of it, didn’t we?” Taehyung asks, and you’re turned towards him just enough for him to plop another kiss on your lips.
You hum fondly in response, smiling stupidly at him. “I guess we did.”
Korean Air really shells out a lot of shit for their international flights, because this is the biggest and fanciest plane that you’ve ever been on. You don’t even have first-class and your jaw is to the floor just looking at the damn section of the airplane. Taehyung has to keep pushing you towards your row since you stop so often in the middle of the aisle, eventually getting the both of you to your little area of two seats.
“They gave me the aisle, but you want it, right?” Taehyung says, holding out his ticket to show you assigned seat.
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” you say, a little shellshocked at the fact that he remembered your preferred seating arrangement so easily.
Taehyung shoves his carry-on into the overhead compartment and scoots in first, reminiscent of when you first officially met on your doomed flight to LAX, and you soon follow, getting yourselves as comfortable as you possibly fucking can on a 13-hour flight.
Immediately as you begin to settle in, Taehyung takes his hand in yours and places them on the armrest, like it’s absolutely perfectly normal for you to be this cool traveller couple.
For some reason, you’re anticipating this flight a lot more than your previous one, and that’s not just because it leaves on time.
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, Taehyung’s voice pops into your head as you drifting asleep on his shoulder, drool and all.
“I think I found my home,” he had said, and hearing the words again makes you pop your head up as you look at him (and you successfully do not collide with him, so, score).
He turns his head to you at the sudden movement, placing The Picture of Dorian Gray face down in his lap. “Hmm?”
“Did you mean it?”
“I mean and do not mean a lot of things.”
“Am I your home?” You ask him, twiddling your fingers in his hand.
“If the embarrassingly fast beating of my heart is anything to go by, I’d say you are,” Taehyung says, and even though you can’t hear his heart thumping in his cage you know that yours is probably equally as rapid. It always seems to be, when you’re near him. Taehyung is a complete stranger and someone you feel like you’ve known for decades on end all wrapped up in this package of a beautiful face and charming personality, an eccentric man who travels the world and reads only worn and wrinkled books, wearing clothes that are so far from the current fashion trend that he sets the next one.
You didn’t really understand what Taehyung meant by ‘home’ the first time he told you what he was looking for, but sitting with him on another flight, like you’re travelling together for love rather than familiarity, you get it.
“You’re my home, too,” you admit, letting yourself curl into him, the only thing stopping you this outrageous armrest on which your interlocked hands lie.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Y/N, but you make me want to travel the world all over again, revisit the places I’ve been with you in tow, so we can make some real memories,” Taehyung says, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” you breathe out without hesitation. The words fall off of your lips so easily, like they were always meant for him.
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, or maybe it was in the LAX airport—though you have a sneaking suspicion it was far before that—you fall in love with seasoned hipster traveller Taehyung, and you couldn’t be more thrilled about your delayed flight.
As the plane lands in another country, your best friend desperately waiting for you at the other side of the airport, you come to the realization that your time with Taehyung is close to ending. You’ve never wanted a delay to come so quickly.
“It feels like I’ve spent a year with you instead of two days, give or take a few hours because time zones,” Taehyung tells you as you walk off of the skybridge, the both of you immediately beelining towards the nearest lavatory. Thirteen hours will do a lot to you, man.
“It feels like I could spend the rest of my life with you, honestly,” you tell him.
It’s difficult to miss Jennie’s beaming face behind the glass door at the exit the leads towards baggage claim, a big paper sign on her hand with your name written on it in lopsided handwriting, and you dart towards her, tugging your suitcase behind you before immediately dropping it as you engulf her in a huge hug.
“I missed you!” She shouts. “What the hell, American Airlines?”
“Me too, Jen,” you say, clutching each other like lifelines. “It’s been so long.”
“Well, we get three months to make up for lost time, so we better not waste any more of it with unnecessary delays,” she says. “Come on, let’s get your bags.”
She begins to walk off, and you turn back to Taehyung, who’s grinning at you. “Aren’t you coming with us, Taehyung?” You hold your open hand out, motioning for Taehyung to take it like he’s done so many times before, and he walks up to you, gleaming in the fluorescence of Incheon International Airport.
When you’ve got your respective bags and a new contact in your phone, you give Taehyung one last kiss, but this one is a promise.
“Text me,” he whispers on your lips. “In three months, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“Wherever?”
“Even if it’s fucking Antarctica, I’ll do it,” he swears. You turn to Jennie, who’s eagerly waiting to show you the world she’s been living in behind you. She gives you a thumbs up that could mean a million different things, but you have a feeling it’s got something to do with Taehyung. Just a hunch, though. Another kiss, and you part, but only temporarily. After all, you both know you’ll meet again. Taehyung glows. “It’s time we made some real memories.”
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#bangtanwriters-net#bangtan bookclub#bts writing squad#kwriterskollection#bts smut#taehyung smut#v smut#bts scenarios#taehyung scenarios#bts scenario#taehyung scenario#bts au#bts oneshot#taehyung oneshot#bts imagines#taehyung imagines#this was so cheesy and soft and long oh my god#but guess what bitch. here it is#w: heart is where the home is
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George Kovacs Save Your Marriage Astonishing Cool Tips
However, if these changes and involves making progress over some mistakes.This causes confusion and promotes assumptions and accusations which only made things worse.So first and not only save marriage unions from the marriage counseling and weren't successful.If both of you having the desire to save your marriage?
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Sims 4 Save Relationship
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Can One Person Save Marriage
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#George Kovacs Save Your Marriage Astonishing Cool Tips#How Can I Save My Marriage When My Husband Wa
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This Physicist is Trying to Make Sense of the Brain’s Tangled Networks
— By Kelly Servick, Staff Writer at Science | April 11, 2019 | Sciencemag.Org
Danielle Bassett with a representation of the brain's structural connections, created in her lab from MRI data.
At age 16, Danielle Bassett spent most of her day at the piano, trying to train her fingers and ignoring a throbbing pain in her forearms. She hoped to pursue a career in music and had been assigning herself relentless practice sessions. But the more she rehearsed Johannes Brahms's feverish Rhapsody in B Minor on her family's Steinway, the clearer it became that something was wrong. Finally, a surgeon confirmed it: Stress fractures would force her to give up the instrument for a year.
"What was left in my life was rather bleak," Bassett says. Her home-schooled upbringing in rural central Pennsylvania had instilled a love of math, science, and the arts. But by 17, discouraged by her parents from attending college and disheartened at her loss of skill while away from the keys, she expected that responsibilities as a housewife and mother would soon eclipse any hopes of a career. "I wasn't happy with that plan," she says.
Instead, Bassett catapulted herself into a life of research in a largely uncharted scientific field now known as network neuroscience. A Ph.D. physicist and a MacArthur fellow by age 32, she has pioneered the use of concepts from physics and math to describe the dynamic connections in the human brain. "She's now the doyenne of network science," says theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston of University College London. "She came from a formal physics background but was … confronted with some of the deepest questions in neuroscience."
Now 37, Bassett runs a lab at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) that tackles a whiplash-inducing variety of questions. A sampling from one morning's worth of meetings: Do our brains navigate words in written text the way they navigate physical space? Does the structure of college students' brains interact with the structure of their social networks to influence their ability to abstain from alcohol? Does the network of connections in the mouse brain predict how a disease-causing protein will spread?
Other projects focus on a theme that has captivated her since her childhood passion for books and the piano: learning and mastery. Bassett wants to find ways to optimize learning by using networks to represent both the brain and the material it learns.
"If you came to most thinking scientists, who try to be conservative and skeptical and cautious, and you spelled out to them what Dani's research program was going to be, they'd question anybody's sanity who was going to bite off that big of a chunk of science," says Steven Schiff, a neurosurgeon at Pennsylvania State University in State College and an admirer of Bassett's work.
But Bassett routinely disregards disciplinary boundaries and follows her curiosity with abandon. "What I think is beautiful about network science," she says, "is that you can use it to derive very simple intuitions about really complex systems that … just look like a big hairball."
That bid to simplify one of nature's gnarliest hairballs—our 86-billion-neuron organ of thought—into a set of mathematical equations has been hard for some neuroscientists to get behind. Network science is "a new way of looking at the brain," says Martha Shenton, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "This is an advance in science—I do believe that—but it remains to be seen how much information it's going to give us." And whether Bassett's toolbox of equations can make reliable predictions that inform treatments, such as targeted stimulation for brain disorders, is still unknown.
But neuroscience is hungry for theory, says cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara. "There's an uneasiness that I think is widespread that we're not quite capturing the framework … to understand how neurons generate behavior, mind, and all this," he says.
Bassett is part of a generation of physicists and mathematicians who are betting on new theories to capture the brain's higher-order organization. "They [have] the math to back them up … and that just brings tremendous power to the biological scene," Gazzaniga says. "The great advances in science come from trespassing," he adds, paraphrasing pioneering psychologist Wolfgang Köhler. "And Dani is a trespasser."
An Uncommon Education
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Bassett—a slight figure with short hair that persistently sneaks in front of her right eye—stands before her class with a large, gilded-edged volume of Claudius Ptolemy. The course teaches undergraduate and graduate students to represent the brain as a network—a set of "nodes" joined by pairwise connections, or "edges." Depending on the study, researchers might define nodes as individual neurons or larger brain regions. And they might draw edges between nodes that are physically connected by neural fibers or that tend to be active at the same time. The approach formalizes a basic premise of neuroscience: that our thoughts, sensations, and experiences emerge as the brain's connected components interact.
But first, Ptolemy. Bassett, in a characteristically composed and formal tone, reads aloud from the second century Greek astronomer's famous treatise, The Almagest: "It is proper to try and fit as far as possible the simpler hypothesis to the movements of the heavens; and if this does not succeed, then any hypothesis possible." He was addressing apparent contradictions in his geocentric explanation of planetary motion. His theory, we now know, was destined to fall apart. But his message was a good one, Bassett tells the class: Strive for the simplest hypothesis.
Bassett's penchant for quoting the ancients reflects her unusual education. Her mother, Holly Perry, who home-schooled her 11 children, says her goal was "to teach them how to teach themselves anything they wanted to learn." Bassett was a natural autodidact. "When she decided that something interested her, she kind of couldn't stop until she knew everything there was about it," Perry says.
Danielle Bassett at 12, wearing garb dictated by her family's religion.
Bassett's twin brother, Perry Zurn, a philosopher at American University in Washington, D.C., describes their home schooling as research. They would choose a topic and build a constellation of projects around it, with little regard for where those projects fell among traditional school subjects.
Perry's insistence that her children prioritize primary texts stuck with Bassett. Reading antiquated, alien-sounding prose jolts the mind into "a much bigger space," she says. The twins now describe their education as "really wonderful" and "really fantastic." But their parents' conservative Christianity shaped what they could aspire to. "Because we both grew up being understood as female … we were actively discouraged from going to college," says Zurn, who is transgender.
After Bassett's hiatus from the piano, her father allowed her to attend nursing school. "He had finally given me a little bit of room, and I figured I should take it," she says. (Her father, John Perry, contends that he never discouraged his children from college or careers, though he says he "felt that being a good wife and mother was a high calling.")
An isolated childhood made the move to traditional school jarring for Bassett. "It took a long time to feel like I could laugh at the right times when somebody told a joke," she says. And nursing school was a bad fit. Confrontations with sickness and dying left her drained.
After a year and a half, she definitively broke with her family's expectations. She dropped out of nursing school and applied to Penn State to study physics. "I just wanted to do something that is clean and formal," she says, "and also, just with books."
Thinking in Graphs
An hour into Bassett's Tuesday class, the students whip out their laptops and become subjects in one of her latest studies about learning. Their screens display a cloud of about 50 concepts she has selected from the course, such as prediction, network, behavior, and neurological disease. They draw lines to connect related words and phrases, stretching the lines to put distance between dissimilar concepts. Bassett will compare the structure of the maps at different points in the course, gauge the influence of class readings and lectures, and look for correlations between network structure and test scores.
The work seems miles away from Bassett's physics degree. But underlying that study—and nearly every other project in her lab—is a branch of math called graph theory. The approach, with roots in the 18th century, describes the structure of networks of discrete, interacting parts, be they friends linked on social media or grains in a sand pile.
Researchers first calculate the relationships between all nodes in a network: in the simplest case, either a zero (not connected) or a one (connected). Then, they ask questions about the features of the network: Is it a sparse web or a dense jungle of connections? Do certain nodes have an unusually large number of connections? Do nodes tend to organize themselves into tight-knit modules that mostly talk among themselves?
In the 1990s, a few researchers started to create such graphs to describe the layout of animal nervous systems. A graph for the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans could include all the connections among the 302 neurons that determine how the tiny worm wiggles through life. The brains of mammals were far too large and complex to map neuron by neuron, so researchers analyzed the connections between dozens of broad areas in the monkey and cat cortex according to the flow of tracer molecules along neurons.
"We worked in complete obscurity," neuroscientist Olaf Sporns says of the field that would become network neuroscience. Sporns, now at Indiana University in Bloomington, was among the first to use graph theory to analyze connections in the human brain. Few data sets were available, he says. But he and his collaborators hoped the approach could help explain how the brain's structure gives rise to thought and awareness.
By the mid-2000s, applications of graph theory were getting more ambitious. Neuropsychiatrist Edward Bullmore's group at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom used it to analyze human brain activity recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that can indicate which regions are active in unison.
"It was a very exciting period, when [we] began to … explore these previously unmeasured properties of human brain networks," Bullmore says. "It was around that time when Dani started in the lab." Bullmore was one of Bassett's four advisers in a Ph.D. program sponsored by Cambridge and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She took off running with graph theory, Bullmore recalls, stretching its uses to new types of brain data.
In one study, Bassett analyzed MRI data from people with and without schizophrenia. The condition seems to arise from broadly disorganized brain activity, not a defect in any one region. Bassett and colleagues showed that graph theory offered a new way to describe that disorganization. Brains with schizophrenia showed more random patterns of connectivity than healthy ones, and their hubs—the most highly connected regions—were less likely to be in the frontal cortex, the area that exerts executive control over the brain. That finding aligned with some of the symptoms of schizophrenia: deficits in executive functions such as planning, decision-making, and regulating behavior. But it didn't explain them.
And some neuroscientists were unimpressed by early results from network science. Graphs of brain networks were "obviously a radical simplification of the nervous system," Bullmore says. "The main criticism has always been, ‘Isn't this too simple to be meaningful, given the complexity of the system we're trying to understand?’"
Bassett saw a different limitation to graph theory. "It's great for characterizing the structure of something," she says, "but not necessarily what the thing does." A graph is static, but an active brain flows between connectivity patterns. So, as Bassett moved to her postdoc at UC Santa Barbara, she added another type of analysis to her study of networks: dynamical systems theory, a way of modeling how network structure changes. "Dani has excelled at bringing time into the game," Sporns says.
In a key experiment, Bassett studied people as they learned to tap their fingers quickly in a specific order by reading sequences of notes on a staff. The sequences weren't exactly Brahms rhapsodies; each was just 12 notes long. But participants took time to master them. During three training sessions, they lay in an fMRI scanner and practiced their finger work.
Bassett's group captured changes over time in the sets of brain areas that preferentially conversed with each other while participants learned. The researchers created a mathematical measure of overall "flexibility"—how likely regions were to change their "module allegiance" and sync up with a different set of partners. A brain's flexibility during a practice session, the researchers found, predicted how much faster the person would be able to play the note sequences in the next session.
The research, published in 2011, hinted that measurable, predictable features of the brain's configuration can prime it for learning. That "started to get a lot of people's attention," Bassett says, including representatives of the MacArthur Fellows Program, who pointed to the work in selecting Bassett for the 2014 award. Bassett, who was just getting her lab at UPenn off the ground, found herself in the academic spotlight. Her parents, who had separated when she was 18, cheered her on.
Healthy Ambition
Bassett is now a hub in a lively network—a role that doesn't always suit her. On an endless circuit of invited talks, she seeks solitude in her hotel room. She shies away from group interactions, preferring one-on-one communication with trainees and collaborators.
But some of those pairwise connections have had far-reaching effects. In 2013, on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, she and mechanical engineer Fabio Pasqualetti, then a fellow postdoc, realized they shared an ambition. They wondered whether network science could go beyond describing the brain to offering ways to change it. Pasqualetti studies control theory, a branch of engineering that uses sensors and feedback to guide the behavior of a system, whether that's an electrical grid or a fighter jet. Was it possible, he and Bassett wondered, to apply principles of control theory to brain networks?
In their initial study, published in 2015, Bassett and Pasqualetti modeled brain structure with data from an MRI-based technique that traces the diffusion of water through the brain to identify regions connected by bundles of neuronal fibers. By feeding that information into an equation from control theory, they identified areas of the brain that, when active, might help it shift into various other states. "It was a big jump, honestly, to make the assumption that this thing could work," says Pasqualetti, now at UC Riverside.
"It's a very important contribution," computational neuroscientist Marco Zorzi of the University of Padua in Italy says of the paper. Scientists are already experimenting with zapping the brain to improve various conditions, including severe depression and disability after stroke. But the approach, which often relies on magnetic stimulation of the scalp, involves trial and error. Control theory could help researchers decide where in the brain to stimulate, and at which intensities, to reliably steer it into a healthier state.
Still, Zorzi says, "It's not ready yet." To develop stimulation protocols based on control theory, "we just need much more theoretical work," he says. That work should include studying how many points of stimulation are necessary to induce a desired brain state, he adds.
Bassett and her team are now refining their control theory approach and using it to predict the spreading patterns of activity in epileptic seizures. The results, they hope, will show how doctors could place seizure-stifling electrical implants more precisely or slice out less brain tissue during surgery.
Before any clinical trials, Bassett and colleagues will also have to defend the work against a familiar charge: that it oversimplifies the brain. Signals don't pass predictably along every connection between neurons. Some get amplified; others run into gating mechanisms that inhibit them, and equations from control theory don't fully capture those details. "That makes the control problem enormously difficult," says Schiff, a former epilepsy surgeon who studies control theory. "That's an enormous frontier that we're just starting to crack into."
In response, Bassett channels Ptolemy. "Physicists … start with relatively simple models, and then they expand those models as it becomes necessary," she says. "If there's more than a few parameters, it's very difficult to understand why something happens."
Degrees of Freedom
On the drive home from class, Bassett's 4-year-old son, Simeon, recounts his day care exploits from the back seat of the car and dictates the playlist.
When Bassett entered college, she swore she would never be a wife or mother. On campus, she found that the homemaker role her family had insisted on was, at times, discouraged. But she met Lee Bassett, a fellow physics student whom she married in 2006. Both now teach at UPenn, and the first of their two children was born in 2011.
That evening, after bedtime reading (The Berenstain Bears for Simeon and the children's fantasy novel Mossflower for Silas), Bassett pops open a can of cherry-flavored sour beer and brings out one of her own favorites: British philosopher Joseph Glanvill's 17th century volume The Vanity of Dogmatizing. In it, Glanvill marvels at humanity's ignorance of the natural world and condemns blind faith in both science and religion. Bassett has peppered its margins with notes.
Down the hall in the living room sits a Steinway grand piano, testimony to her continuing love of music. It's the only purchase Bassett has made so far with her $625,000 MacArthur award; for now, her lab is not hurting for funding. But the unspent money means freedom. If an idea sparks her imagination and funders won't get behind her, she plans to chase it anyway.
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My memory isn't working as well as it should. Recalling things has started to become a chore, requiring me to physically pause and wrack my brains for a memory or a thing, the way you try to find something at the tip of your tongue, or a trivia question you know that you know the answer to. Apart from the everyday slip-ups of not knowing where my lip balm is five minutes after putting it away, I've had many moments of drawing a blank as to where I've placed crucial things, only to find them after I've panicked about it for a good few minutes and finally sat down to think. Things I did a day or two prior to recollection are fuzzy, and traveling is a huge blur without the help of photos. I tend to forget recent exchanges or decisions arrived at in work-related tasks, and just this afternoon my parents and I shared a laugh (a nervous one, for me) about something I'd forgotten I'd asked them for. Other than the pressure to reflect on the past year, one of the motivations for writing this down was that when Mitya asked me, just one week after we'd returned from Baguio, if my arm felt better, I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. This alarmed me more than any of my many blunders, hence this attempt to recollect these events before I get too distracted with life in the next year to sit down, and end up forgetting this until the next time something jolts me enough into remembering. It doesn't help at all that I don't have pictures to use as references, at least for that part of the day, so I'll have to work with surrounding photos— and think hard. We had dedicated that third day in Baguio to searching for used book stores I'd read about online. Both places of interest were located along Session Road, and both no longer existed. We would later find out from a local artist that there was one near Harrison Road, which we eventually went to, but because we were so disappointed that day we decided to walk to the mall at the upper end of Session Road and scoured a Booksale instead. Afterwards we had nothing else to do, so we walked to Burnham Park, where we saw people riding bikes with frilly canopies, sidecars, tandem bikes and other similar vehicles— one kid was super chill on a unicycle— rented from various tents along a blocked two-lane stretch of the park. Core memory: When I was a little girl I watched one of my brothers teach himself how to ride a bike, and every afternoon saw his every fall and his every climb back up the sloped driveway of what used to be our garage, and watched him wheel down and fall again. I was told scars on the legs would make me ugly, and seeing my brother scrape his knees every time he fell, I balked at the prospect of learning for myself because I didn't want to add to the scars I'd gotten from bug bites and other scratches from playing. Later in life, apart from the incredulous looks I used to get from people when I told them I don't know how when it comes up in casual conversation, it never bothered me that I didn't ever learn how to ride a bike. My younger, nimbler self relied on standing on the sides of the rear wheels when my brothers rode their bikes to our grandmother's house or around the neighborhood, and as far as I was concerned, I didn't care if I needed to walk while they biked; they would have to wait for me, anyway. "It won't take thirty minutes," Mitya assured me when we walked toward the first tent that offered rentals. There were children, groups of friends, and families having their fun, and I decided to learn right there— it seemed as good a time as any. We rented one bike, good for an hour, and after hearing I was newbie, the attendant lowered the seat on the bike he'd chosen for me: it had washed out pink handles with stars in them, and the seat was too small for me, but I felt safe knowing I could reach the ground if I lost balance (I would later get sore in the nether regions because of this lack of oversight). The attendant assured me I would learn in no time. "Don't look at your hands. Look ahead," he said, and I heard the same advice from another attendant at a different tent when we had made a bit of progress down the road. I was far too self-conscious to remember this was a moment that needed documentation, and convinced myself it was too late in the afternoon to get steady shots, anyway. My returning fears of getting my legs scratched up were allayed by my choice to wear a stretchable pair of jeans for the trip, and soft, closed shoes so I don't break any toes. Half the time I was whining about how difficult it was for me, wobbling and either falling against Mitya, who was holding onto me on one side, or hitting the gutters on the other. The other half I was trying to save face and learn, while trying not to crash into unsuspecting people behind me and not to give up at the sight of small children cruising happily on their own, or teenagers giving me funny looks. Whenever he told me I was getting it right, that he didn't need to hold me anymore, I got nervous he would let go of me and messed up. Core memory: My three siblings taught me how to float by staying on both sides of me in a swimming pool, their arms outstretched and me laying on them. They let me kick my legs and flap my arms to keep my face above water while they took their hands away one by one, and I cried and told them not to let go or I might drown. They told me not to be a ninny, and that I wouldn't. They all let go. I learned. I was gripping too hard on the handlebars, and it showed. My wrists were hurting. Mitya told me I needed to relax my grip and control my direction without putting all my weight forward, or I'd keep falling. I now realize that advice would look great on a list of new year's resolutions, or inside a fortune cookie. By the miracle of newly built muscle memory, I found my balance and managed to bike a few hundred meters alone while Mitya jogged beside me, cackling in victory as I wobble-paddled. He said that was it, we would do it again the next day, and this time he would get a bike for himself because he didn't need to spot me anymore. It was dark by the time our hour was up. I was getting sluggish and bumped into a few wheels, (thankfully no injured people) and on the final turn around the strip, because I was so tired, I lost balance and ended up falling on the small island that served as the boundary between lanes. I broke the fall with my hand with the splint, but without hurting my arm too bad. When we returned the bike the attendant, who most likely saw me fall, politely asked if I'd gotten it, and Mitya beamed and said yes. I managed what I hoped was a smile, and not just an open-mouthed pant. It was peak dinnertime when we got out of the park, and across from it we found a deserted eatery and had dinner. We later learned the reason so few people went there was because their food was heinously overpriced. We walked along Session Road again and decided we deserved to get one of those foot spas where droves of tiny fish bit at your feet. Afterwards a nightcap of pizza and beer. The next morning I woke with ridiculous soreness everywhere, bruises and scratches on my ankles and feet. During our walks in the city I noticed my left bicep was tenser than the other. I got a cramp mid-conversation with a local and tried to play it cool by stretching it as if by habit. When we'd gotten back to our B&B my arm seized up again while I was bathing, and again in the middle of the night, waking me. Now that I am in the process of remembering things in detail, I recall how bad the cramp was, how it hurt ten times more because it was cold. That episode of cramping while I was in the bathroom (frigid water, mid-shampoo, embarrassment) was such a horrific time, yet my brain went ahead and clean forgot it a week later. It might have thought it was doing me a favor. Because I'm just about as active as a pile of slush, physically straining myself has gotten me cramps in the weirdest places (the last big one I had was both my thighs, together), and it doesn't help that my wrists are weak. My splint now has scratches in it too, so I guess that's a story I can tell the next occupational therapist I interact with. I'd love to hear what inner workings of the hand I'd stressed out because of my stubborness. Twenty-four seems like a pretty decent age to tell people I learned to ride a bike, though, so I guess I'll take it. While I have internet-searched a storm out of finding out what could be wrong with me, I'm far too young to have anything to worry about that I can't change over time— like better sleep, a better diet, or just learning to stop myself from doing what I do when I remember things I'd really rather not. We never got to rent out bikes again because I was in no state to ride, but the morning before we left I insisted we go back to Burnham Park to take photos of the biking road, because I knew that I'd be hard-pressed to remember things in detail without them. I would always look on in envy when I saw someone biking around campus in UP, and now I can't wait 'til the next time I can get my hands on a bike— hopefully with less people I might crash into. They say your body never forgets how to ride a bike once you learn, and boy, am I counting on that.
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Establishing Ties
Louisiana stays beautiful as planet earth rolls us into the Fall. It’s sunny and the trees are still green while we get nice little cold fronts that send all of our basic girls out of their front doors in uggs ready to consume all things pumpkin spice. This is the busiest time of year for me.
The company I️ work for rakes in almost half of the fiscal years sales in the weeks between Halloween and Christmas. Needless to say I️ haven’t actually participated in the fall events that canvass New Orleans during the fall months. I️ tell myself this is ok since I️ got to grow up here and will most likely live out the rest of my days here. I’ll have fun when I’m old: This tends to be the golden rule I️ live my life by.
I️ also tend to struggle staying upbeat and motivated in my personal life. The cold hard truth about me is my personal life has always struggled in the fall and winter months due to the fact that I️ choose to invest my energy into my professional life. This has led to a very reliable depression that sets in right after Halloween. The mind is an interesting machine in the way that it stock piles emotional experiences and connects them to sights, sounds, and yearly events. I’m aware of this pattern. I️ usually notice it coming because my normal masturbation schedule goes down to once a week and my six day a week gym schedule barely reaches three days. My clothes pile up and I️ shower and groom myself with half the commitment. Seasonal depression is what it’s called. I’m starting to wondered if I️ just need to make a point to build up my perception around this time of year....or make positive time for myself and the people around me, perhaps.
This year I️ accidentally stumbled across this little realization because of a guy. I️ feel like it’s always I️n the throws of human interaction that we learn the most about ourselves and for that reason being lonely isn’t healthy, even for introverts. Some of us learn about life by having emotionally trying interactions. Some people say I’m a hot mess, but I️ prefer to think that I’m on the accelerated crash course of life. Learn fast and hard, Boys. It’s the only way to fly.
I️t was the week before Halloween and Magazine Street was alive with the relief of approaching fall weather. I️ had been at work all day and was enjoying the business that I️ was raised to embrace. I️ was working the register to give one of my employees a break and enjoying the rare but cherished chunk of time each day that I️ get to interact with my customers. The garden district is a uniquely fulfilling place to run a business because of the perfect mix of friendly regulars and excited tourist who are touring one of the most beautiful cities on earth. New Orleans has the friendliest customers. Metairie and Mandeville do not. Just an observation from a native.
I️t is a standard in my business that we ask for customers names to write on the cups with the hopes of inspiring a repeat visit and a genuine connection. I️ picked a company that modeled my own values built around relationships and human connection.
One thing I️ like to do is ask how the customer wants their name spelled. Even if it’s simple. I️ want them to feel like their experience is personalized because I️t truly should be. But also sometimes I️ do this because the customer is cute and I️ want to keep him at my register for further banter. I’m overly obsessed with work but not dead, ladies.
I️ saw him in line behind three customers. Taller, light brown hair that could be mistaken for blond from a distance. Deep set eyes and a strong jaw. He was built yet lean. Very smart looking. He wore red Toms that didn’t match his green plaid button down and shorts. He had a book bag so but was alone so I️ assumed he was a local. My friends will tell you I️t takes a lot for me to go out of my way to be blatantly flirtatious. It’s a once a year type of event. Typically I️ like to be pursued beyond a shadow of a doubt before reciprocating. I️ don’t have time to misread the signs and create an awkward interaction that I’m going to be annoyed about later. To make this long story as short as possible I️ ended up flirting with this guy to the point of him asking me out and then spending a full twenty-four hours with him.
Best day I️n record of my life. I’ll tell you why...
As human being’s we’ve learned to keep moving through life at a very fast pace. Half of our living is done via the internet to streamline a life lived to its fullest. I️ am guilty of this. So meeting someone I️n real life and establishing rapport face to face was exciting and satisfying. If you’re wondering what ever happened to romance you may want to ask yourself when the last time your first interaction with a love interest was actually face to face. The human senses facilitate bonding with your environment. Yet we like to start our most important connections through an app that masks all sight, sound and scent. Probably not the best start.
We had dinner plans but met for lunch earlier because we obviously liked each other. I️ ended up staying with him until the next day. I️ know what you girls are thinking..I️ didn’t have sex with him for a bunch of reason. Calm down. Let I️t be noted that I️ absolutely wanted to though. I’m human.
Spending a straight (or not so straight) twenty four hour with this guys was a big deal for me. Let me break I️t down for you. I️. Do. Not. Like. To. Be. Still.
Every relationship I’ve ever had has been complicated by my need to keep moving. Don’t ask me to sit and have coffee for three hours because I️ will get stressed. I️ will get stressed and then I️ will run out of things to say which will make me more stressed and I️ will break up with you. You’ll think I’m not interested or boring or an asshole. I️n reality I’m probably obsessing about one hundred things work related. I️ live three weeks I️n the future always. I’m the guy that gets really excited about throwing a party and plans for weeks and then the day of the party I️ don’t get to enjoy I️t because I’ve already moved passed I️t to the next thing I️ want to do. I️ live planning my vacations but end up spending them thinking about everything I’m going to do when I️ get back home.
This guy got me to stop that for twenty four hours. I️ just stopped. The relief was overwhelming I️ was more rested from that day than any two week vacation I️ had ever taken. But I️ was also drained. After you run for along time stopping almost always means being very tired. You may even need to cry as a way to mentally detox.
Halfway through my twenty-four hour romance I️ was exhausted, yet peaceful. This guy had a calming affect. I️t may have been his insistence on constant physical contact and direct eye contact. Maybe I️ just had I️t coming. I️ had a headache and I️ was starting to analyze every aspect of the way I️ was feeling. I️ felt amazing but I️ also worried. He lived I️n another state and he would go back. I️ don’t do long distance relationships so I️ had no expectations for the future. He also was on leave from the military and I️ know from personal experience that leave is meant for quick romances that you have no intention of pursuing once you go back to the miserable depression of the barracks.
But I️ was very interested I️n how I️ felt I️n that moment. I️ was worried more about the new revelations I️ was having and how I️ was going to deal with them I️n the coming week.
Firstly I️t was the level of familiarity I️ felt for a guy that didn’t know at all. He constantly needed to have physical contact. Now I don’t recommend being comfortable having a guys hand on your thigh like a five-year couple right after meeting him but we were both in weird places and it’s what we needed for a day. For me I️t was different because I’m not physically affectionate with people I’ve loved for years. But after hours of having someone almost constantly holding me or some part of me I️ understood how important physical affection is because I️t facilitates bonding. I️ started thinking about my siblings and my best friends and all the people close to me that I️ knew I could be closer to if started allowing some minor physical affection. I️ started thinking about my parents and how they always struggled to build strong bonds with people and how maybe the answer all along had been to just hug the people you love.
This guy and I️ had known each other not even a day but I️ felt completely comfortable with him. Like an old friend.
While I️ was silently contemplating life and eating burgers at Cowbell with Ham he started telling me about his life, his family, and the things that he had been upset about lately. I’m not good at responding to people who are opening up about the things that are upsetting them. So I️ was mostly quiet and made sympathizing facial expressions. I️ cared though and I️ felt bad for him. I️ kept thinking that I️n any other circumstance this could have been a guy I️ could have loved one day.
As if the universe was trying to really make a point about the things I️ needed to learn I️n life the conversation moved to his tattoos. I️n particular two tattoos on his collar bones. I️t was two ears of wheat. He told me about one of his favorite children’s books: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I️n the book the little prince meets a fox who he wants to play with. The fox tells him he had to tame him first so that they can be friends. The little prince is confused about what I️t means to “tame.” The fox explains that I️t means to establish ties with someone. He says that the little prince is just a boy among one hundred thousand others and vice versa but that if the little prince tamed him he would be the only little boy I️n all the world for him. He said that you are forever responsible for what you tame and that it’s the time spent on the things I️n our lives that tame them. When I️t was time for the little prince to leave the fox said that he would weep and the little prince felt bad and told the fox that he meant no harm but the fox had insisted on being tamed. The fox agreed but said that I️t was ok because the Little prince had blond hair the color of wheat and now when he heard the wind blowing through the wheat he would be happy because I️t would remind him of the Little Prince where as before he had no use for wheat.
“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--
Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."
Yes, that is so," said the fox.
But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
Yes, that is so," said the fox.
Then it has done you no good at all!"
It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”
I️ couldn’t help but think about all the people I️n my life who I️ had not allowed to tame me or who I️ had tamed but not held myself responsible for. I️ had spent so much time taming my career and my ego. I️ had watered and cared for my reputation and my social standing. And I️ also couldn’t help but wonder if I️ was mistakenly allowing myself to be tamed right there at the Cowbell by a boy who I️ very likely would not see again. For this reason I️ decided to give myself fully to this affair. I️ slept over at his friends house with him. We slept on the tiny beat up couch he was crashing on for the week. We took turns being the big spoon.
I️ didn’t sleep much because I️ was trying very hard to understand something about myself. Going forward exactly what work was I️ going to do I️n my personal life to hold myself responsible for those I️ had tamed? Had my botched personal relationship suffered because of my unwillingness to be tamed? And if so what could I️ change about the way I️ “established ties” with the people I️n my life.
The following day we went and had coffee and sat there for almost two hours. He worked on something to do with college after the military and I️ enjoyed a day off reading the news. I️t was quiet but comfortable. I️ was drained and relaxed. He was leaving the next day and I️ had to go back to work. I️ knew the fling was coming to an end and I️ was preparing for the adjustment I’d have to make to my approach as a human being. Life always has you learning.
He dropped me off at my car. I️t was awkward. He came into my work twice more before he left and asked me to sit with him and talk. The conversation lagged. I️ sensed that he was feeling depressed about going back to base and leaving home or that he had lost interest I️n me now that reality had to set back I️n. I️ wasn’t upset. I️ wasn’t ready to process anything though. He told me he hated goodbyes because they made coming home more painful and that he’d be back. I️ faked a chuckle and I️ told him I’d see him later. I️ haven’t talked to him in awhile. I️ try not to stalk him on Facebook because that’s unhealthy. I️ unfollowed him because if I️ ever meet him again I️ want I️t to be I️n real life like we met the first time. But even if I️ never see this guy again I️ think I’ll always remember and appreciate the things I️ learned I️n twenty-four hours. I’ll most likely always compare my future dates to his level of attentiveness and honesty. I️t took me about two weeks to get back into my work routine. I’ve been taking at least one of my days off to just be still. I’ve also contemplated making my sister hug me when I️ see her because I think I️t truly is important to be affectionate with the people you love now.
I️n the little prince he started the store by leaving his rose behind and at the end the author wonders if he ever made it back to his rose or if the Rose was eaten by the sheep when the little prince left I️t at the beginning of the story. The little prince had told the author “People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they're nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they're problems... But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you'll have stars like nobody else... since I'll be laughing on one of them, for you it'll be as if all the stars are laughing. You'll have stars that can laugh!... and it'll be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of tiny bells that know how to laugh.”
I️ think I️ may always wonder about the guy and if he finished school when he got out of the military or if he found the person who was his rose and if he allowed himself to be tamed and tamed I️n return.
I️ think this was one of the most beautiful and real experiences I️n my life and I️ rightfully cried when I️t was all over. Not out of sadness but because of how overwhelmingly beautiful life is and how appreciative I️ am to be reminded of what should be important to me.
“One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
#thelittleprince#gay#gaydating#gaylove#gayrationships#love#lovewins#relationship#relationships#dating#neworleans#louisiana#nola#pride
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I remember making a post some time ago about OCD and...
I've finally gotten around to typing up this symptom list with some details. First and foremost, I may list some obsessions and compulsions I used to have and carry out and I will list those that have been with me forever. The most specific ritual thing at the earliest I can remember, I must have been about 5 years old. I don't remember watching a film that gave me an idea or even anyone planting the idea in my head. My sister and cousin were hanging out (I dunno why I'm putting this here lol) and I was up in their business. They were talking about weird people they knew. Anyway, I guess it freaked me out on my way to the bathroom (which was like 20 feet away from where they were hanging out) and when I sat down to pee, I pulled back the shower curtain almost without thought. I was so proud that I had done this totally brilliant thing to ward off the weirdos... and it's been with me for almost 20 years. I've tried going to the bathroom with the curtain closed and I'll just repeatedly check behind it. At this point, it's easier to just keep the thing open. A few years ago I developed this habit while IN the shower. I will look out just to *make sure.* Also, I know I've posted about the trichotillomania before, which was also something I experienced when I was young and I shamed myself out of it from like the 6th to the 9th grade, doing it only sparingly because I was 99.99% sure that someone would pick up on it and harass me over it and I'd be the freak forever. It's a daily thing for me now. Sometimes stress makes me do it more, but a lot of times it's automatic and I just *do* it without even thinking. I've also developed a skin picking problem as of probably 3 years ago and just learned to deal with it for a while until the end of 2016 when I started working a second job. Sometimes I'd pick my scalp until it would bleed. I've definitely kept my foot off the pedal lately, but I'm still picking. ***We'll get to the list after I say this*** In 2012, I got super fucking sick and it scared me SO fucking bad that I refuse to be around sick people, especially the person that gave it to me (and kids.) Christmas this year was really difficult because my nephews had been sick and I didn't want to be anywhere near them. I ran in circles about the whole situation and even told my mom I was considering buying face masks for this occassion... which was apparently the wrong idea because my mom literally laughs at everyone else's anguish and I'm sick of talking to her about issues tbh because she's always been total shit about it. I eventually calmed down when I found out it was a sinus infection and my brother's girlfriend made him sound sicker on FB than what he really was (I want to strangle her for the shit sometimes... she's JUST like my mom. Everything is ten times worse than what it is, she wants sympathy all the time and then I freak the fuck out because I think I'm going to get some bad virus that's going to incapacitate me for days.)*** 1. Fear of bodily waste and secretions (though I try to rationalize and say they're unfounded... I can't agree with that 'logic.' They are gross...) 2. Concerns about sticky substances and residue. 3. Need to align objects just so. 4. Sexual thoughts that one views as unacceptable/inappropriate. I'm going to go into this one for two reasons, the first reason is because sometimes the fear of child molestation is symptomatic of OCD, and I am super confident that I'm not going to harm any children. The second reason is because my boyfriend is going to read this and think I'm talking about gay porn or something. I'm not entirely certain how many people envision others naked or what their sex lives are like, but I tend to do that. I don't deem homosexuality unacceptable which is why I don't want to include it even if those thoughts arise. Sometimes I will hear things about some sexual deviant and imagine it, sometimes I'm appauled by it. Not so sure how much I should have included this point because I'm not sure how normal it is to do this. 5. Repeating activities. I'll including 'checking' in with this. I check the door multiple times. I'm glad most rooms I need to access go past the door and that I can just look down at the bottom of the steps to accomplish this. I also fear ever having multiple doors in a home because I know I'll have to keep up with them. I've always been repetitive, ESPECIALLY at video games. I have played against bosses before in games and either allowed myself to die or dragged a game on longer than it needed because I felt the need to just keep doing it. I used to have 4 games total that I'd keep going over the same parts and doing the same things over and over, never progressing or I'd beat the game and go right back to play it again. I play the Sims rather often and even then, I can never finish a game for a multitude of different reasons. I believe this may be why my favorite games are puzzle-related like Tetris, Dr. Mario, etc. 6. Rewording, rewriting and re-reading. I handle the work e-mails from time to time and let me tell you... I could not be a more annoying cunt about it. Yes, I understand that to some extent, being careful and proof-reading are totally acceptable... but maybe not to the extent that I carry on. My boyfriend types and re-reads an e-mail then sends it. I re-read their e-mail, I type up my reply, proof read it. Change something. Proof read it again and the unnecessary process just goes on and on until I'm happy with what I've got. I also take FOREVER to read books (I'm not an idiot, I'm good at reading...) because I get stuck on sentences and continously read them over and over. If your book has a typo, it's even worse. 7. Intrusive, violent thoughts of others harming others, others harming me, and me harming others. 8. Food rituals like not letting foods touch and being a childish prick when they do or pretending I'm *totally stuffed and just cannot handle anymore* This is why my jerk ass INSISTS on fixing my own plate. 9. The old "even numbers are good and odds are bad!" 10. Dishes can never be clean enough, dish inspection before using them like my fucking life depends on it. I'll even run my fingers across a plate before eating off of it just to be sure. This also makes it uncomfortable to eat at other people's homes as I don't want to look like an asshole. 11. Need for symmetry. This includes becoming angry when people have facial piercings all over the place. Eyebrow pierced to the left, nostril pierced to the right, etc. 12. "Hoarding" useless objects. This is less of an issue to me than it used to be. I have to talk myself up before I throw certain things away, but I've at least worked on this especially after seeing my grandmother's hoarding and how she REFUSED AND YELLED AT PEOPLE over her pile of Sunny D jugs she was DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH. I'm not the cleanest person, but hoarding does bother me, even if I do it mildly. 13. Blinking/staring rituals. I wish I could explain this in a way that didn't sound totally dumb. It goes beyond having a lash in your eye. Sometimes my eyes don't feel like they (I hear you groaning out there because I'mma say it...) like they're open at the same level and sometimes squinting and then trying to open my eyes as wide as possible and vibrating them is the only thing I can do to fix it (but it really doesn't. My fix? Wipe around them with anti-bacterial wipes or use eye drops. One eye always seems to be err...oily? and the other always seems dry and fucking closed!) I also have eye issues, so wearing glasses is a total pain because I HAVE TO CLEAN THEM 234436236 TIMES A DAY. If I engage in ANY physical activity, the number is much higher. If there's a smudge or streaks on my glasses, life will not continue, sorry. 14. Touch/tap/rub. I have to touch things (so long as they're not slimy or wet... unless it's the shark I touched at Ripley's Aquarium...) My cat is the biggest victim... her fur is so soft I just keep doing it until she runs off or starts trying to eat me alive. The tapping is more recent, but I do it with my thumb and middle finger and only on the left hand (also on my keyboard because the sound it makes when you gently tap the keys...) Also I just generally have a lot of issues with my hands and I do weird stretches with them? 15. Also I have weird toilet rituals that I'm not getting into on here. 16. Closet door in the bedroom must be checked and shut at night. I'm also the most difficult person when it comes to getting into bed comfortably. There's just so much. I'm constantly worried about fires, floods, tropical storms, tornados, blizzards, burglary, murder, being mugged, car accidents, any other transport accidents, I've thought about driving my car into off the road and face first into a hill on the interstate (in all fairness, it could have been the depression running rampant in me at the time,) I've worried that I was going to grab some rando's ass in the store because he was bent over (and I totally wouldn't even do shit like that to ANYONE, but it scared me to even think I could do it...) I hate vacations because I hate worrying about my pets and whether or not they're being baby-sat or whether or not someone in my building is going to burn the fucking place down while I'm gone. ughhh. Not even a complete list, just all I felt like writing out right now.
#fijimurmaider#ocd#mental illness#symptom list#trichotillomania#nervous#anxiety#depression#obsessions#compulsions#mmmmmmmmmmehhhhhhhhhhhhhh#worries#honestly all my stupid fears and obsessions are holding me down in life and for some reason im totally cool with it#the heck
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Humbug.
(3am on Sunday morning, I’ve skimmed the headlines, social mobility department walk-out, concerns about the long-term functionality of multi-academy trusts, and mental health support ‘available in all schools by 2020.’ I have opinions, but they’re too close to the bone.)
Merry Christmas Theresa-Ebeneezer.
The Facebook friend who always posts that she finishes her Christmas shopping and wrapping by the end of November has put up her usual “BOOM! Done!” status, other people are posting putting up trees. My inconsiderate, bin-stealing neighbours put up their blue-flashing outdoor lights last weekend, it’s a month-long migraine. Another former colleague Facebook-posted her shock at seeing a shoplifter ‘tackled’ by security, and then expressed her concern that the woman was stealing Christmas presents, socks and toiletry gift-sets. I’m not shoplifting, because I don’t ‘do’ Christmas.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas.” is enough to close-down most of the superficial “What are you doing for...?” and “Would you like to come...?”, when the initial “Nothing.” and “No, thank you.” responses aren’t accepted. Tell people you don’t celebrate Christmas, and they tend to assume you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, they bugger off before you start trying to ‘convert’ them. There was a tongue-in-cheek Guardian article a couple of days ago, about turning down invitations, and how to sneak away from parties you didn’t want to go to in the first place.
I’ve never liked Christmas. Aside from my ranting that it’s a sterilised bastardisation of a pagan festival, claimed by Christianity, to suit their calendar, the commercialisation and the compulsion are what really irk me. (Side-rage about a former colleague, who had a Christmas spreadsheet shared with her husband. “I’ve put this ring on, but I don’t really want it, what if he buys me that? Is £300 too much for a ring, do you think?” That’s how they choose to live their lives, it’s none of my business, it only irritated me so much because she kept squawking on about it when I was trying to work.) Most people are more materialistic than I am, nobody’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The ‘expectation’ among some children and adults infuriates me, whether that’s adults ‘hinting’ to partners on Facebook, or the inevitable slew of sulky children posting “Worst Christmas ever, my life is ruined!” when they open the ‘wrong’ iPhone.
For the better part of 2 decades, I told the in-laws not to buy me anything for Christmas. 17 or 18 years later, they were still giving me a jumper two sizes too big, and two pairs of tights. I don’t wear tights, and I loathe jumpers that touch my throat. “The bill’s in the bag, if you want to swap it!” One year, I swapped the jumper for a slow-cooker. It genuinely would have been easier for all concerned if they paid any attention at all to me saying I didn’t want anything, because I REALLY didn’t want tights and a jumper. I wonder if, now my son is 19, they’ve stopped pestering him, from September, to tell them what he wants for Christmas? He’s cut from the same cloth as me, he doesn’t ‘want’ much, and when he decides he really needs something, he buys it himself. Thank the Gods for Steam vouchers.
The ex was quite materialistic, and hideously susceptible to advertising. The bastard ‘Furby’ ended up in the shed after a while, the batteries ran down, and it started making random spooky noises. The ex played with the ‘Robosapien’ more than the kid did, after I’d been scouring the internet for weeks to find one. I shudder to think what assorted tat he’ll present the boy with this year, last year he bought him a £100 coat, a scarf, and I think the camping-filtration water bottle. “Thanks, Dad, now I can have clean drinking water wherever I am!” (The water bottle might actually have been the previous Christmas, either way, it’s at the back of one of my cupboards, because it’s of no real practical use, and the kid sees no point in buying replacement filters for it.)
I was absorbed into that family, with the “You’ve GOT TO, it’s Christmas!” mentality. I don’t have to do anything, I especially don’t-have-to sit at a table where people chew with their mouths open, eat food from each other’s plates, and that one unfortunate nephew tries to eat all of the mashed potato. Seriously, I’ve seen hungry dogs eat more slowly, and with fewer sound-effects. “Have a bit more!”, no thank you, it’s quite uncomfortable enough just being here, without entering into an eating competition, I don’t need to stuff myself until I’m distended, and I know which serving dishes you’ve touched with your eating utensils.
I don’t have to go there this year, but I’ve probably complicated my own life by appearing in public, at my brother’s wedding party, I was productively invisible until I did that. I’ve had more contact with my family in the last month than I did over the last 20 years. I’ll be politely declining well-meaning invitations soon enough, because of the ingrained assumption that nobody should be alone at Christmas. I do see the point for people who don’t want to be alone, and it’s heartwarming to see initiatives popping up for people who want to share food and company, I’m just not one of those people.
I imagine my sister-in-law will be the most forceful, and I will have to play the brain damage card with her, because she simply won’t understand the don’t-want-to explanation. The sensory overload with my brain injuries is a constant background-battle, lights, sounds, smells, ‘normal’ environments are exceptionally stressful and painful for me now. My maternal half-sister might be difficult, but I think she’ll eventually accept my reasoning. I’m not expecting either of my parents to push the point too far, they both know why I cut contact with them. The paternal half-sister probably doesn’t know the back-story, again, I’ll use the medical angle when she suggests a pub-lunch over the holiday period, which I suspect she will. I’m not sure whether Porsche-man will have another go at ‘involving’ me with his version of Christmas, I think I was direct enough with him that doing ‘nothing’ for Christmas didn’t mean there was a gap he was obligated to fill.
The boy will most probably go to his Dad’s for Christmas Eve, and to the in-laws for Christmas day lunch. I’ve already ‘spoiled’ his Yule-box, by telling him he’s essentially getting a food-parcel, and a recent text message, asking me if I liked Bombay Sapphire gin will probably have been his Dad, or Grandparents, ‘stuck’ on what to buy me. (Absolute CRINGE at the year the ex sent me into every shop in the village to look for ‘proper’ Bailey’s, saying it was for his Grandma, and then presented the Bailey’s, wrapped in a carrier-bag and Gaffa-tape to me. I don’t like Bailey’s, and could have bought multiple bottles of wine with the £16 that came out of my bank account anyway.) I’ll chuck a bit more rubbish in amongst the noodles and canned goods, slightly smirking at the year he asked “Mother, did you just ram-raid the pound shop for all of this?”, and the year he was disproportionately excited about a pound-shop version of the ‘JML bobble-off.’ Rubbish is ‘our’ tradition, and I’ll probably put that tin of Moose soup in again, I think he’s had that about four years in a row, now, oh, and that football I found in the garden, that’s still mostly wrapped from last year, he peeled back a bit of the paper, and said something quite rude to me.
The kid and I aren’t Christian, so there’ll be no midnight mass, or church-related activity of any kind. We’re not particularly consumerist, he’ll see the practicality of the food-parcel, because he cocked up his student finance application, so has less disposable income this year. What we’re both going to have to deal with in our own way is the compulsion, with other people telling us what we have to do, “because it’s Christmas.” He likes his grandparents, even though they’re both a bit deaf, and both refuse to wear their hearing aids, they’re both a bit dim-racist, and very old-fashioned in their perspectives on a lot of other things, too. I’ll support him in whatever he wants to do, even if that means he stays here with me, coating the furniture in popcorn, and slurping his tea. (Yes, he does, and I do want to cause him physical harm when he does it.)
No tinsel, no fairy-lights, no plastic tree. With both of my parents now knowing where I live, there’s a chance they might send Christmas cards, I hope they’re not glittery ones, I hate glitter. The kid finishes his university term on the 15th of this month, so he’ll probably be back with me some time between then and the 17th, until his next term starts on January 15th. ‘Probably’ because he’s dependent on the ex for transport with his multiple bags of stuff, and the ex does what he wants, when he wants to, regardless of any plans other people might have. I’ll sacrifice the relative order of the house for a month, and probably do a fair bit of leaving-the-room when the kid slurps tea, or puts that tedious Dungeons and Dragons role-play thing on TV. (Seriously, some of the broadcasts are five hours long, he’ll sit, for five hours, watching other people play Dungeons and Dragons.) I’ve been stock-piling food for months, we won’t starve, but we might end up eating a lot of potatoes. I’ll schedule a ‘big shop’ just before he’s due back, and have the ‘difficult conversation’ with him that I have very limited funds available for top-up shopping, so, if we do re-watch any of our box-sets, we can’t really play the drinking games any more. (It did get a bit dangerous at one point, when we were watching GoT, and decided that ‘horse’, and ‘legs’ were rules, as well as ‘naked’, ‘death’, and ‘full title.’)
I don’t ‘have to’ put decorations up, I don’t ‘have to’ attend any gatherings or events, as much as some family members might want to take pity on the poor spinster aunt. I know they’ll only make the invitations because they care, and because they worry, but that’s their world, not mine. I’ll goof about with the boy in my world, we’ll try not to get on each other’s nerves too much, with me falling asleep in the evenings, and him not going to bed until the early hours of the morning. We’re both very bad at eating, and both have a tendency to ‘save’ the best of the food for the other, I’ll have to steer on that, there’s a lobster in the freezer, and I might put a frozen chicken in the next grocery order, if I can condense-down the un-labelled containers of ‘brown stuff’ to make enough room. It’s not the biggest goose in the butcher’s window, and “You, boy, what day is this?” has no meaning any more. I don’t need to play Bob Cratchitt, and ask Mr Scrooge for another lump of coal, because I’m wearing four jumpers, the kid doesn’t feel the cold as much as I do, but, if I catch him wearing his dressing-gown over his clothes, I’ll turn the electric heaters on.
My family can take the roles of ‘Christmas Past’, and stay there, the kid is my ‘Christmas Present’, I don’t know what ‘Christmas Future’ will play out to be, I wouldn’t want to, as much as I hate not-knowing, there are some things I’d rather not know.
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The response is just so overwhelmingly beautiful (last paragraphs) that I had to post this.
Dear Sugar,
I was raised in the very conservative, Christian “deep south,” where I’ve discovered that my life has been sheltered from the views and lifestyles in other areas of the country.Our town has a population of about 6,000. The whole county has less than 30,000. The Internet has been a real eye opener, to say the least. I accidentally found your column and was fascinated. I know that people are pretty much the same everywhere, but in the south people tend to keep things out of the public eye. Especially concerning sex and relationships. I have very much enjoyed reading your columns because they are honest, blunt and give me a new perspective on the lives of others that I normally wouldn’t see or hear. Yes, the “Southern Culture” you’ve always heard about is alive and well in the 21st century.
I am a professional in a real estate related field and I own my own business. I’ve been married for 20+ years and have four children. The first half of my marriage was what I considered utopia but we’ve grown apart over the last ten years or so. Now it seems that we simply cohabitate peacefully, similar to siblings. Neither of us is happy, but we stay together for the kids.
Several years ago, I was involved in an accident that damaged my spine. I was told by a neurosurgeon that operating wouldn’t help and he referred me to a pain management clinic. Now I am hopelessly addicted to the pain meds. In my youth, I experimented with drinking and drugs. Much of that was spurred on by the suicide of an older sibling. I never had a problem as far as addiction though. Now, I take a month’s supply of some very strong pain meds in about seven to ten days then I crash and have to beg or borrow from others to make it to the next appointment. I know that these drugs will end up turning my liver into a rock if I don’t accidentally overdose first. I know that I have a serious problem.
When the economy went bad, so did business and we ended up losing our health insurance. I no longer have employees, so if I don’t work every day, we don’t eat. Rehab is realistically impossible. I can’t depend on my wife for support and don’t have any other family anywhere close. I feel totally alone except for my children. I tried everything I could think of from prayer to “cold turkey.” I simply don’t have the discipline to follow through. I’ve come to depend on the drugs mentally as much or more than physically. I depend on the drugs to help me deal with the lack of work and income as well as dealing with a loveless marriage. Couple that with the loss of my dear mother a year and a half ago and soon thereafter, one of my best friends to cancer. Now I have begun to have problems with depression and suicidal thoughts that I’m sure are related to the meds as much as the economy or anything else. The choices I see are:
1. Continue like I have been, knowing that there is a good chance that it will kill me.
2. Find a way to go to rehab and lose the house and business (my wife doesn’t work).
3. Go to AA/NA meetings in this small town. This would almost surely ruin what’s left of my business.
I hope you can see some other options because I just don’t see any of the ones I’ve listed working out. Please be honest, blunt and give me a new perspective on my multifaceted problem.
Thank you,
Ruler of a Fallen Empire
Dear Ruler of a Fallen Empire,
I’m terribly sorry for your misfortune. You listed the three options you believe you have, but really they all say the same thing: that you believe you’re fucked before you begin. I understand why you feel this way, sweet pea. Your convergence of physical pain, drug addiction, financial woe, no health insurance, and an unhappy marriage is truly daunting. But you don’t have the luxury of despair. You can find a way to overcome these difficulties and you must. There aren’t three options. There is only one. As Rilke says, “You must change your life.”
You have the capacity to do that, Ruler. It seems impossible now, but you aren’t thinking clearly. The drugs and desperation and depression have muddled your head. If there is only one thought that you hold in your mind right now, please let it be that one. It was that thought that got me out of my own drug/money/love disaster several years ago. Someone I trusted told me what to do when I couldn’t think right for myself and listening to him saved my life.
You say that you don’t have the “discipline to follow through” when it comes to kicking your addiction, but you do. It’s that you can’t do it alone. You need to reach out for help. Here’s what I think you should do:
1. Talk to a medical doctor at your pain management clinic and tell him or her that you’ve become addicted to your pain medication and also that you’re depressed and broke. Tell the whole story. Don’t conceal anything. You aren’t alone. You have nothing to be ashamed of, hon. I know your first instinct is to lie to your doctor, lest he or she cut off your drug supply, but don’t trust that instinct. That’s the instinct that will ruin your life and possibly kill you. Trust the man inside you who you really are and if you can’t do that, trust me. Your doctor can help you safely taper off of the drug to which you’ve become addicted, prescribe an alternative, non-addictive drug, refer you to drug addiction treatment programs and/or psychological counseling, or all of the above.
2. Perhaps your doctor knows of a drug treatment program available to you at no cost, but if this isn’t an option, I implore you to attend an NA meeting (or an AA meeting, if that’s what’s available in your town). Of course you’re afraid of being judged and condemned. Some people will judge and condemn you, but most won’t. Our minds are small, but our hearts are big. Just about every one of us has fucked up at one point or another. You’re in a pickle. You did things you didn’t hope to do. You have not always been your best self. This means that you’re like the rest of us. I’ve never been in a humiliating situation when I wasn’t shocked by all the “normal” people who were also in the very same humiliating position. Humans are beautifully imperfect and complex. We’re horny, ass-saving, ego-driven, drug fiends, among other, more noble things. I think you’ll be comforted when you go the AA/NA meeting and see how many have problems similar to yours—including people you assumed would not. Those people will help you heal yourself, darling. They’ll support you as you face this addiction. And they’ll do it for free. I know a lot of people who have transformed their lives thanks to those meetings. Not one of them thought they were the “AA/NA type” before they went. They knew that they were smarter or more sophisticated or less religious or more skeptical or less strung out or more independent than all those other hopeless freaks who went to AA or NA. They were all wrong. You worry that your business will be ruined if word gets around that you’re attending meetings. I think people are more generous than you’re imagining—yes, even in the “very conservative, Christian ‘deep south.’” But, Ruler, even if you’re right, what’s the alternative? Your addiction and depression will only deepen if you continue on this path. Would you rather have your business go down because you did or because you live among a community of punishing jackasses?
3. Talk to your wife and tell her about your addiction and your depression. This might be the first item on the list or the last—I can’t gauge from your letter. Will your wife be an important advocate for you as you make the initial reach for help or will she be more supportive if you tell her after you’ve made a few positive changes on your own? Either way, I imagine she’ll feel betrayed to learn that you’ve been concealing your addiction from her, and eventually relieved that she knows the truth. You say your marriage is “loveless” and perhaps you’re correct that your relationship has come to its natural end, but I’d like you to consider the notion that you aren’t the best judge of that right now. You’re a psychologically distressed drug addict with four kids, no health insurance, uncertain business prospects and a pile of bills. I wouldn’t expect your marriage to be thriving. I doubt you’ve been an excellent partner in recent years and it doesn’t sound like your wife has either. But that the two of you have managed—after your ten happy years together—to roll on for another ten “peaceably,” in spite of the enormous stress you’re under, is an accomplishment that you mustn’t fail to recognize. It may indicate that the love you once shared isn’t dead. Perhaps you can re-build your marriage. Perhaps you can’t. Either way, I encourage you to see.
4. Make a financial plan, even if that plan is an anatomy of a disaster. You cite money as the reason you can’t go into rehab, or even to AA/NA meetings, but surely you know that the financial repercussions will be far worse if you continue on your present course. Everything is at stake, Ruler. Your children. Your career. Your marriage. Your home. Your life. If you need to spend some money to cure yourself, so be it. The only way out of a hole is to climb out. After you consult with your doctor and see what options are available to you, and after you have a heart-to-heart with your wife about your situation, sit down with her and have a discussion about money in which everything is on the table. Perhaps you qualify for public assistance. Perhaps your wife can get a job, either temporarily or permanently. Perhaps you can get a loan from a friend or family member. Perhaps things won’t seem so dire once you make the first steps in the direction of healing and you’ll be able to maintain your job while you recover. I know you feel panicked about your financial standing because you have four children to support, but every choice you’re currently making is hurting your cause. The only way for you to support your family financially is to get yourself together.
Your letter appeared in my inbox a couple of days after my last column ran. It was so hard for me to stick to my word to take a break from being Sugar so I could write like a motherfucker on my book under my real name because I felt urgently that you needed advice. I thought of you every day. I sent you the inexplicable version of love I feel for those who write to me. I kept imagining your despair. Your words about there being no way out of your situation rang through my mind, especially as I worked and reworked a scene that I wasn’t sure I should keep in my book.
It was about the year I lived in Brooklyn when I was 24. I shared an apartment with a man who was then my husband in a building that was mostly empty. Below us there was a bodega; above us a couple who got into raging fights in the middle of the night. The rest of the building—though full of apartments—was unoccupied for reasons that were never clear to me. I spent my days alone writing in the apartment while my husband worked his job as an assistant to someone who appeared to be in the mafia. In the evenings I worked as a waitress.
“Did you hear something strange?” my husband asked me one night when I got home from work.
“Hear something?” I asked.
“Behind the walls,” he said. “I heard something earlier and I wondered if you heard it too, while you were alone today.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said.
But the next day I did. Something behind the walls, and then from the ceiling. Something close, then distant, then close again, then gone. I didn’t know what it was. It sounded awful. Like a baby who was extremely discreet. Its keen had the weight of a feather, the velocity of a dried leave falling from a tree. It could have been nothing. It could have been me. It was the exact expression of the sound my insides were making every time I thought of my life and how I needed to change it and how impossible that seemed.
“I heard something,” I told my husband that night.
He went to the wall and touched it. There was nothing there. It was silent. “I think we’re imagining things,” he said and I agreed.
But the sound kept coming and going, all through December, impossible to define or reach. Christmas came and we were all alone. The people who probably belonged to the mafia gave my husband a bonus. We spent it on tickets to the opera in way-back seats. It was Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”
“I keep hearing it,” I said to my husband on the subway home. “The sound behind the walls.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
On New Year’s Day we woke at seven to a yowling. We jumped out of bed. The sound was the same one we’d been hearing for three weeks, but it wasn’t discreet anymore. It was coming very clearly from the ceiling of our bedroom closet. My husband immediately got a hammer and started pounding away at the plaster with the claw end, chipping it in great chalky chunks that fell over our clothes. Within ten minutes, he’d clawed almost the entire closet ceiling away. We didn’t care that we were ruining the place. We knew only that we had to get to the source of that sound, which had stopped during the pounding. Once there was no more closet ceiling to claw away, we went silent and stared up into the mysterious black innards of the building.
At first it seemed there was nothing—that the horrible sound-maker had again gone away or perhaps we really had imagined it—but a moment later two emaciated kittens appeared, coming to peer down at us from the jagged edge of the hole. They were the strangest things I’ve ever seen. So skeletal they should have been dead, visibly shaking with fear, caked in soot and spider webs and globs of black grease, their eyes enormous and blazing.
“Meow,” one of them said.
“Meow,” wailed the other.
My husband and I held up our palms and the kittens walked into them immediately. They were so light it was like holding air with the smallest possible thing in it. They were like two sparrows in our hands.
I worked and reworked this scene as I pondered you and your problems over these past weeks, Ruler, but after all that work, I decided to take it out of my book. It was nice, but I didn’t need it. It was an odd thing that happened to me during a sad and uncertain time in my life that I hoped would tell readers something deep about my ex-husband and me. About how in love we were and also how lost. About how we were like those kittens who’d been trapped and starving for weeks. Or maybe not about the kittens at all. Maybe the meaning was in how we heard the sound, but did nothing about it until it was so loud we had no choice. I could’ve sanded it down. I could have fit it in.
But I took it out because of you, Ruler. I realized it was a story you needed to hear instead. Not how the kittens suffered during those weeks they were wandering inside the dark building with no way out—though surely there’s something there too—but how they saved themselves. How frightened those kittens were, and yet how they persisted. How when two strangers offered up their palms, they stepped in.
Yours,
Sugar
Tiny beautiful things - advice on love and life from Dear Sugar
Cheryl Strayed
http://therumpus.net/2010/10/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-52-reach/
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