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beomgyucoded · 6 months

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Lyrically Bound

Pairing: Rockstar!Beomgyu x Lyricist!Reader

Word Count: 17.3k

Genre: sort of strangers to lovers, soulmate au

Warnings: reality Beomgyu, cursing, underaged drinking, mentions and descriptions of kissing, allusions to sex (no actual smut), use of pet names (Beomgyu calls reader princess), reader is a little judgmental of Beomgyu at first

Summary: in this world, soulmates are a rarity. There’s only a handful of people that have a connection so strong, that they share a fate. Your parents were one of the few, and you could only hope you were too. By high school you gave up most of your hope, however the second you get to Seoul for college you’re met with an ache in your chest and movie like dreams that leave you feeling warm.

Soulmates were so rare in this world that most people didn’t believe they existed. No one tried to discover if they shared a connection meant to last a lifetime because of the infinitesimal chance. Instead, they would listen to stories that felt more like fairy tales- so out of reach- and then express their desire for such a tie to another soul. You were no stranger to these stories. You were often the storyteller, as your parents were one of the few.

Your parents met in high school. Your dad from Seoul and your mom from Jeju. Your mom had begged to go to a performing arts high school in Seoul, which happened to be the one your dad went to. Your mom said she’d never forget how she felt on her first day. There was this indescribable feeling the second she stepped foot into the school. She blamed it on first-day nervousness, but when the feeling continued to grow and a small mark in the shape of a guitar appeared right under her collarbone, she almost passed out. It was a big school, and it wasn't until the school’s winter festival that they encountered each other. When their eyes met, everything fell into place. While your mom knew that it was because they were soulmates, your dad believed it was love at first sight. Your mom, being as bold as she was, walked right up to him and asked “Do you believe in soulmates?” and showed him her guitar mark.

It is also believed that the child of soul mates is more likely to have a soulmate of their own. At least you hoped. Despite how long it’s been, you’ve watched as your parents fall more in love with each other every day. And you only wish to have that kind of connection with another person, too. Since soul links weren’t as obvious and were different for everyone, it was even more difficult to determine whether you had a soulmate or not. Throughout school, whenever you felt the tiniest bit for someone, you’d hold on to it thinking it could be something. It never was.

“It’ll feel stronger than that.” Your mom always told you.

She described it as “all your feelings hitting you at once,” and “there will be this feeling of familiarity when you’re near each other.”

Hearing that made your longing for a soulmate even stronger. When you got to high school, you were sure signs of a soul link would show up like how it did for your parents. But when that didn’t happen, you decided to let go of the idea altogether.

Aside from being known as the “child of soulmates”, you were also a musical genius (as your dad liked to put it). You possessed a lot of natural talent, especially in songwriting, since you were a child. This wasn’t surprising, considering both your parents were musicians in school.

“You have such a way with words,” something you’ve been told since grade school.

And because of this, music and writing revolve around you like the moon revolves around the earth. You had quite the voice too, your mom giving you voice lessons since you were three. Something strange, however, was the moment you picked up a guitar in your middle school band class, you could play it almost perfectly. The strange part being that you were never taught how to play the guitar before. The only explanation you could think of at the time was that your dad played guitar, and the soulmate bond between your parents was stronger than you believed. So strong that even their child could inherit what brought them together. You didn’t think too much of it, instead using the skill to help in your songwriting.

That is how you ended up where you are currently, a resident singer/songwriter who everyone thinks is special, mostly because of her parents being soulmates. It seemed college admission officers thought so too, because at the moment you were packing up your things to go off to college. You were admitted to a college with one of the best music departments in the world, and on a full scholarship. Your parents encouraged you tremendously when making the decision. They said your talent shouldn’t go to waste and that they never had the courage to pursue music like you do.

“Are you completely sure I should go to Seoul?”

You asked one more time, watching as your parents happily helped you pack your things.

“Why wouldn’t we be sure, dear? Music is what you want to do, right? I hope it doesn’t seem like we’re forcing you or that we just want you out of the house.” Your mom said and hurriedly added that last part.

You giggled softly at her rushed sentences and continued to watch them.

“I know you aren't, and I promise this is what I want to do. I’m just making sure you aren’t having second thoughts about sending your only child off.” You joked lightly, reassuring her.

Truthfully, you were the one having second thoughts. You've always been rather independent, but both your parents always gave you unconditional support in any of your endeavors. You never felt alone or had to actually be all alone. Until now. Now, you were moving to the city all by yourself and would be in a new environment where no one knew you or of you. That was terrifying.

“Maybe you’ll meet your soulmate in college.” Your dad’s voice brings you out of your thoughts before they can turn dark.

“I don’t have a soulmate, Dad.” You mumbled softly.

“You don’t know that for sure. Some people go their whole life without meeting theirs because they refuse to look.”

“They refuse because there’s a less than 3 percent chance that they would even have one. And I did look.”

Your dad only shook his head and chuckled at you.

“I didn’t think you were one to lose hope. What happened to the little princess who only wanted to meet her prince and get married?”

“She faced reality,” you said bluntly.

“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out the way I wanted. But seriously, I’m not getting married.”

“You say that now, but when you meet him, I'm sure the first thing you’ll want to do is put a ring on it.”

Shaking your head amused, you returned to your thoughts. To be honest, you never gave up hope. To most people, you had everything a child could want, yet you always felt like something was missing. From your life and you as a person. Your parents met in high school, and it was silly of you to believe that you would meet your soulmate in high school, too. No story is the same. You, of all people, should know that.

“You’re right, I’m not one to give up. I haven’t. Even if I don’t have a soulmate, maybe I’ll meet someone there anyway.” You said, trying your hardest to be optimistic. Soulmates aren’t everything. You seemed to have forgotten that.

“You’ve dated other people before, so maybe you will. Keep your head up, sweetheart. Let’s finish packing your things.” Your mom said warmly.

The next day, you woke up early. You couldn’t sleep, mostly because you were leaving for Seoul today and because of your conversation about potentially meeting someone at college. Your dad’s words echoed in your head as you were trying to sleep, his words slowly morphed into fantasies that you played out in your head all night. Sitting up in your bed, you looked around your mostly empty room and sighed. You picked up your phone and saw that it was just past 4 a.m. Groaning, you pushed the covers off and got up, knowing you wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

After getting ready for the day, you decided to just walk around your house. Looking into every room, all the picture frames and decor, capturing mental images and saving them in your head as you wouldn’t be back here for a long time. Your things were already packed away in your car, just waiting for you to drive away. Your parents will be accompanying you, only because they want to be the ones to show you all around the apartment they got for you. They thought you’d have a better experience in Seoul if you lived in an apartment rather than on campus. You didn’t realize how long you've been standing and staring at the pictures on the wall until the creak of the stairs brought you back to the present.

“You're awake early.” Your dad stated amused.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep.” You said sleepily, a small yawn escaping after.

Your mom laughed softly, and went to the kitchen, bringing back a tall glass of orange juice.

“Here, sweetie,” she said and handed it to you.

You downed it quickly (quicker than you should have), then turned to find your parents interacting cutely. Your dad was on one knee, tying the laces of your mom’s shoes for her while she looked at him lovingly. You smiled at the interaction, just admiring them. They were endearingly perfect for each other, and you were glad to witness their expressions of affection.

“Ready?” Your dad asked animatedly.

“How are you so awake every day?” You asked, failing to understand how they were able to sleep and actually have energy after waking up.

To this your mom answered, 'It's a soulmate thing,” and that was all the explanation you needed. You put on your shoes and let out a huff.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

You took one more glance around the inside of your childhood home and then left, locking the front door behind you and meeting your parents in the driveway. You got into the backseat of your car, your dad insisting on driving, and your mom in the passenger seat. The drive was four hours long but felt like an eternity due to the anticipation. The closer you got to Seoul, the more you felt the nervousness bubble in the pit of your stomach. You rotated between looking out the window, fiddling with the hem of your shirt, twirling strands of your hair around your finger, and replying to texts from your friends asking how excited you must be. You tried replying wholeheartedly, but you were a mixture of excited, nervous, and scared– excited making up the smallest part of the ratio. After what felt like an endless journey, your dad stopped the car in front of a very luxurious-looking apartment building. Your eyes widened, mouth hanging open unintentionally as you looked out the window.

“Are you sure this is the right building?” You asked in both awe and shock as you stepped out of the car and craned your head upwards.

They could only laugh at your response and actions.

“It sure is.” Your mom replied, looking over at your dad and shooting him a proud look.

“Come on, we’ll bring your stuff up a little later.” Your dad said and ushered you forward, taking your mom’s hand as the three of you walked into the building.

Your eyes darted everywhere around the lobby, staying silent as you were at a loss for words. Your parents motioned for you to press the button for the elevator, and you did just that.

“Press 12.” Your mom said excitedly.

Your eyes widened for the umpteenth time since arriving in Seoul, and you shakily pressed the button for the twelfth and highest floor. The elevator ride, unlike the car ride, was both smooth and faster than you were ready for. You followed them out of the elevator and they led you to the last door at the end of the hallway.

“Would you like to do the honors?” Your dad asked you and held up a set of keys.

You nodded and took the set of keys, fumbling them in your hands before finally unlocking the door to your new home for the next four years. You took small steps inside and gasped.

“This... is mine?” You asked, eyes still wide and full of doubt as you turned around to ask.

“All yours sweetie.” Your mom confirmed and smiled lovingly.

You took a look around the one-bedroom apartment, that was definitely too large for an 18-year-old. It had everything you could need, topped with a beautiful view of the city, and was within walking distance from your college campus. It all seemed too good to be true, too good to be all yours. You looked around cautiously, not daring to touch anything, barely even grasping the door knobs to see into each room. You came back to the lounge area and disbelief was written all over your face.

“This is really for me?” You asked in a soft voice.

They smiled at each other and your dad nodded at you.

“It’s the very least you deserve since you earned a full scholarship. We wanted to get you a beautiful place with the money we put away for your college fund. Maybe you’ll continue to stay here after you graduate.” He said proudly.

Proud of you and all your accomplishments and proud of himself and your mom for finding such a perfect place for you.

“I love it so much, how can I ever thank you?” You said, eyes now glossed over as you hugged both of your parents.

“You don’t have to sweetie, just continue to do what you do and be happy. That’s all we could ask of you, for you to be happy.” Your mom said, and that almost made your pool of emotions overflow, but you held it in.

They helped you bring your things from your car and they left soon after that, wanting to reminisce around the city they met in. It was Monday, and classes didn’t start until two weeks from now. The plan was to take the rest of this week to settle into your apartment, take next week to familiarize yourself with the city and take the week before classes started to explore your campus.

However, things never go according to plan. By your third day here, you found yourself both bored and somewhat uneasy. The uneasiness had been present since you arrived, and you hoped it would settle by now. It did settle, by making home in the pit of your stomach with no intentions of easing up. It made you so restless that you were able to unpack most, if not all, of your things and even got your music room set up. That only took you two days, and now on the third day, you were sitting in the music room with your guitar just staring out the window.

“Maybe I should go out today…” You thought to yourself, putting your guitar down and getting up.

You’d been living off whatever you and your mom brought from home and put in the fridge and the pantry. You decided to go out and look for the nearest convenience store or grocery store, and maybe take some time to wander around the area too. Stepping outside of your apartment building for the first time in three days, you typed “convenience store near me” into your phone and set off in whichever direction felt right.

After walking for a few minutes, you finally looked up and realized you had absolutely no idea where you wandered off to. Your phone is not being any help either, so you typed in the address of your apartment building and decided to start again. Luckily you didn’t wander off as far as you thought and when you got back to the only familiar building, you chose your steps carefully this time. That didn’t make a difference, because after a few minutes, you still found yourself lost.

“Are you lost?” a voice asked from next to you.

“Is it that obvious?” you asked and giggled softly, looking up from your phone to meet the eyes of a boy who looked around your age.

He was much taller than you, bleach blonde hair that had grown out a little and he had a very sweet look to him.

“A little bit, yeah,” he replied with a slight laugh, “did you just move here?” he asked.

“Yeah, I did, like three days ago. I’m originally from a little town in Ulsan.”

“Oh wow, that’s far. What made you move to Seoul?”

“I’m here for college.”

“Wait, are you going to Seoul National University?”

“Yes I am, do you go there?”

“I will be. Some friends of mine and I are all starting there in two weeks.”

“Guess I’ll see you around there too”

“I’m Kai”

“(Y/N)”

“Well (y/n), where were you trying to go? I’d love to help.”

“I’m trying to look for the closest convenience store.”

“Oh! There’s one super close to campus if you don’t mind walking there.”

“I don't mind at all, I was going to check out the campus eventually anyways.”

“Alright then, follow me.”

You followed Kai as he walked to the convenience store he was talking about and you were grateful to find someone nice enough to help you.

“So, what are you planning on majoring in?”

“Music composition.”

“My friends and I will also be in the music department. We’re in a band together.”

“Really? That’s so cool.”

“Yeah, we’ve been a band since high school and got enough recognition to get signed under a label.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. I’m a songwriter or lyricist if you will.”

“Oh, that’s really cool too. Do you play any instruments or do you just write?”

“I play the guitar.”

“I play the drums, our lead singer plays the guitar. Maybe you guys will get along well. And here we are, one convenience store.” He said and made a grand gesture causing you to laugh.

“Thank you so much, I hope this wasn’t out of your way or anything.”

“Oh no worries, I was on my way back to campus. I should get back and help them move our stuff into the dorms. It was nice meeting you (y/n), see you around.”

“It was nice meeting you too Kai, thank you again.”

He waved at you and walked off in the direction the campus was in and you let out a sigh. The uneasiness in your stomach moved up to your chest while walking over here. Was Kai your soulmate? You thought to yourself and then remembered your mom’s words. There was no feeling of familiarity when you met Kai, and nothing… clicked. Letting out a huff, you shook the thoughts out of your head and went into the convenience store.

Meanwhile, Kai was greeted with the sounds of frustrating groans and then the sound of something heavy being dropped.

“What took you so long?” Beomgyu asked, panting slightly.

“Sorry, I ran into this girl and she was lost so I helped her.”

“Was she hot?”

“Is that seriously all that matters to you, Beomgyu?” Taehyun chimed in from his place on the floor.

“Well if she was, I’ll let his lateness go.”

“Fine, yes, she was pretty,” Kai replied truthfully.

“Okay, now please help Tae and me before one of us ends up killing the other,” Beomgyu said and pushed the hair out his face, bringing a hand to his chest.

He wasn’t sure if it was because he’s been lugging boxes for the past thirty minutes or what, but his chest was hurting. Shaking it off, he clapped his hands together and picked up a lighter box, watching as Kai and Taehyun struggled to carry the big heavy box in front of him.

You scanned the aisles of the convenience store, pleased with what you were seeing and picking up a few things. As you were checking out, a bright, colorful flyer caught your eye. It was from Big Dreams Music and it was a contest. Specifically, a songwriting contest, your forte. Taking a picture of the flyer, you put your phone back into your pocket and took the bag full of snacks, making your way back to your apartment.

After putting your goodies away, you sat on the couch, pulling out your phone to read over the flyer you took a picture of. It was a songwriting competition for a band called Lethal Division. Their label wanted to change up their sound and was accepting entries. The band's name caused your heart to race out of nowhere. It was familiar to you, you’ve heard girls talk about them in high school, especially the lead singer. But that’s all you can recall when it comes to their image, you didn’t even know their names or anything. You’ve heard their music before, and you remember them being great in the beginning before they gained popularity. Now their music just sounded like noise and you’ve lost interest. You thought it was sad when music didn’t speak. You were always praised for your songs and how they moved people, so maybe you’d be able to help them move people too. You locked your phone, a slight frown on your face as you thought about what you should write.

“I’ll sleep on it. And I should probably look them up tomorrow to get a better idea of what would suit them.” You said to yourself and decided to turn in for the night, hoping this ache in your chest would let you sleep for once.

Waking up the next morning, you felt different, to say the least. You felt warm from the inside. It was a comforting warmth. Better than the ache you’ve been feeling. The more you regained consciousness, the more you remembered the dream you had last night and you gasped. Sprinting out of bed, you hurriedly found an empty page in your songbook and started to write.

Beomgyu woke up the next morning, his mind fuzzy. It felt as if he wasn’t here last night, but he knew that he was. The ache was gone from his chest, instead replaced by a comforting warmth, and he felt a small burning sensation on his arm. Looking, he saw a mark in the shape of a pen. The mark was small, barely noticeable and he wondered if one of the guys drew on him or he got a tattoo he just couldn’t remember.

“Am I still dreaming? Why does this burn?” He thought to himself, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Getting up, he tried not to trip over the many boxes littered around the room. They managed to bring all their stuff into their dorm but didn’t unpack any of it. All that was set up was his guitar stand for his precious guitar. He learned to play the guitar when he was in middle school, his dad taught him and it became his favorite pastime since he learned. So much so that he played guitar in his high school band. The other members of the band convinced him to perform at the end-of-year festival solo, and that was when he and the rest of the school discovered he had a voice. He never had singing lessons before, only really humming to himself from time to time. But his voice was beautiful, it was smooth and deep– and soothing, and people wanted to hear more. It was from there that his friends and him decided to start a band of their own, him being the lead singer and lead guitarist. They became fairly popular in school and their song covers are what led to Big Dreams Music discovering them and eventually signing them. It all felt like a whirlwind, but he didn’t mind it. This was his dream, after all, to be able to play guitar on stage. By their third year of high school, they had an ep out, songs fully written by them, and their popularity skyrocketed all around Seoul, even to other parts of the country.

His ego also skyrocketed. They became known as the rockstars of their school, and he took advantage of his status sometimes. Their newfound fame eventually became more important than their music, their songs going from their heartfelt words to whatever the label thought would sell for them. None of them seemed to mind, knowing their newer fans were more there for their looks and just one chance for a night with a rockstar. Some fans got that chance, the old “band members taking a lucky fan backstage” idea intrigued them, so after a show, that’s what they did and it became an infamous tradition.

“We’re teenage boys.” Taehyun would always say and shrug it off. He was right, they were teenage boys– good-looking, talented teenage boys who had needs.

Their last show was their high school graduation party, and they couldn’t carry out their little tradition then. Instead, they had to pack up for college. Seoul National University offered him and his friends admission to their music department, and although he thought college wasn’t too necessary, he couldn’t refuse the offer. Their music department was the best in the world, and getting to meet college girls wasn’t too bad of a perk either.

Since classes haven’t started yet, he has yet to meet any college girls. Instead, the guys and him would go out and enjoy Seoul’s nightlife. He knew he was attractive, it was undeniable, and being a rockstar only made it that much easier to get anyone he wanted. However, it was nothing more than that, he never thought he wanted anything more. At least that's how it appeared to everyone on the outside, on the inside– he felt incomplete, and despite living his dream, there was still something missing. He heard the stories about soulmates here and there, not believing in them though. He thought it was too good to be true, the notion that there was someone out there just for him.

When he was younger, he looked it up out of curiosity. And after seeing that there was practically no chance of him having one because of the rarity, he tossed any hope he had out the window. Though part of him thinks there’s still a chance, cause he still hasn’t had a steady relationship. His “love life” consists of many baseless hookups, both him and whoever he was with for the night wanting only one thing from each other. This had been working for him, he was overall satisfied and his needs were being met, until recently. A few days ago there had been this uneasy feeling building in his chest, and it had been prominent until now. Now, it was gone and replaced by an internal warm and fuzzy feeling. He didn’t know how to explain it to Kai and Taehyun without sounding insane, now he didn’t have to. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

“Gyu, are you up?” Taehyun called from the other side.

He opened the door to reveal a slightly disheveled Taehyun, bright eyes wider than usual.

“Yeah, I was just about to get ready for the day, what’s up? Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?”

“The label called.”

His eyes now widened to match Taehyun’s and he felt his hands start to clam up.

“What did they say…?” He hesitantly asked.

“They need all three of us to come in right now.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair multiple times.

“Is Hyuka awake?”

“Yeah, he was the one who got the call.”

“Alright, let’s see what they want.”

They got ready quickly and waited for the car to take them to their label’s building. Beomgyu was anxious– no he was scared. Every time they got a call from the label out of nowhere, he was always scared of suddenly being dropped. They all shared this fear, they worked hard for their fame and although their band isn't what it used to be, it was still their dream. A dream they didn't want to wake up from yet. The company car dropped them off in front of the building and they went to their usual meeting room. Everyone was already there waiting for them.

“We’re holding a contest.” Their manager announced.

The three of them let go of the breath they've been holding in, it coming out as a collective sigh of relief. The looks of nervousness were quickly replaced by confusion.

“A contest for what?” Kai was the one to speak up.

“A contest to find your new sound. According to data we've been compiling, your music is no longer selling well and we think a completely new songwriter will help.”

Beomgyu sat up fully now, intrigued by their producer’s words and he crossed his arms.

“And why can’t we go back to writing our own songs?”

“Because I'm not sure you guys know how to do that anymore.”

Their producer’s words felt like a slap to the face. Beomgyu knew he was right, what could he possibly write about now that had any substance? Fame? Money? Sex? That was all people wrote about now and he didn’t show it anymore, but he wanted their band to be different. After that little meeting, the flyers that were put up about the contest became more evident to him. They were there for god knows how long, but he’s only seeing them now.

“How caught up in myself am I?” He thought to himself, resting his head on the window of the car as it drove them back to their dorm.

You had been writing for hours, eventually moving to your music room, guitar on standby to play any melody that came to mind. The dream last night was unlike anything you've ever experienced. It felt like you were watching a movie, except you were able to feel and experience everything the main character was. It wasn’t entirely clear, but whoever the dream was about had such complex thoughts and a beautiful outlook on life, yet it was clear (at least to you) that they were holding something back. Before moving to your music room, you called your parents to tell them what you've been experiencing and about the dream. Your mom confirmed that what you had last night was a soulmate dream, and from now on until you meet him, this is how you will be learning about him. This was more than exciting news, you had a soulmate, he was close by, and just from the first dream, you already knew he was everything you've been missing.

A little more than a week had passed, a new dream every night and you were certain that your soulmate was perfect in every way. Every morning when you woke up, you woke up with that warm, comforting feeling. It went away after some time during the day, replaced by the same ache from before, but always came back when you woke up from a dream.

You finished writing the song and even wrote a few more, all either about him or inspired by him. The deadline for the contest was today, so right now you’re filling out the submission form. Chewing on your bottom lip, you flipped through the pages of your songbook, trying to decide which one to send in. You decided to go with the one you started writing after having the first dream. It had a theme of meeting for the first time, the song sending a message saying “I’ve been waiting for you” or "Where have you been?” Your hands were shaking while uploading the lyrics and the melody you wrote, the last thing left to be filled out was the name the submission would be under.

You had a distinct writing style, and you were always proud of your work, but that was in your small town in Ulsan. This was for a big record label in Seoul. Your thoughts started to eat away at you, fingers hovering over the delete key more than any other one on the keyboard. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes tightly. You didn’t want to have any regrets so, without a second thought, you quickly opened your eyes, typed “Lyric” into the name box, and hit send.

Classes started soon after that, the contest now fading to the back of your mind. You continued to have soulmate dreams, and whoever he was continued to inspire you. You were certain he was beautiful, both inside and out, but you didn’t want to get your hopes up. You tried to keep your thoughts chained to what you knew. Which was that he was nearby and he shared your love for music. You shared many other things too, from what you’ve learned in the dreams, and it only made you want to meet him as soon as you could. However you couldn’t actively pursue him, it needed to happen naturally. Of all the stories you heard, when the soul link became evident, both parties would feel a pull to the other. Not a physical pull of course, but something in your mind and your heart that says that you need to go and talk to that person. With the start of classes, you didn’t know if you’ve felt that pull to anyone. Mostly because all of your attention has been thrown into your studies.

You hadn’t seen Kai since you first met him, even though he said his friends and him were also attending this college and were also in the music department. Being in the music department didn’t mean he was also in the same major or that you’d share any classes though. Aside from that, much to your surprise, some of your professors have heard of you. They knew all about the music prodigy from Ulsan, who was raised by a rare couple of soulmates. And because of this, they decided to try and make your life here a living hell. They weren’t convinced that it all came naturally to you and that you would crumble under pressure. You were determined to prove them wrong though, and you have been, even catching some of them off guard by how quickly and skillfully you were able to submit their assignments. You felt like you’ve been swept up in a storm, and it didn’t seem like it would be easing up any time soon. Any free time you had, you spent writing. Either lyrics that come to mind or anything you can remember from your dreams.

The semester carried on like this and it felt like you were the only one being swamped with work. You were beyond stressed out, not expecting college to be like this. Everyone else around you seemed to have free time for dating or parties or anything else, as you’d hear them talk about plans all the time. You’d hear mentions of that band too, mostly about the release of their next single.

“It’s been so long since we’ve gotten new music from them” you heard one girl say.

“I know right, and I heard it’s supposed to be better this time.”

“Yeah! They got a new songwriter or something.”

“Even if it isn’t good, they’re all still hot.”

“Yeah, and new music means concerts. And you know what concerts mean”

“And since they go here, we’ve got an even better chance”

You started to tune out at this point in their conversation, realization taking over your features.

“Kai said he was in a band and that they go here.” You recalled.

“Apparently Lethal Division goes here and they have a new songwriter..” You started to connect the dots.

“The contest.” You froze and finally concluded that Kai’s band is that band and the contest was to change up their new sound.

Quickly, you pull out your laptop to check your email, you scrolled through hundreds of emails to see if the record label got back to you. Finally, you came across it. You won. Or well, Lyric did. And the new single they were coming back with, was going to be one written by you. You read through the email as thoroughly as you could and you still couldn’t believe what you were reading. You received the email almost a month ago, and they probably thought you ignored them. Sighing, you packed up your stuff and left the lecture hall, going to the practice room you reserved. Your stress suddenly increased, an even heavier weight crushing your shoulders as you walked. You weren’t one to be forgetful, not like this, but judging from the fact that they were still using your song, you guess the email was just to inform you.

You got to the building the practice rooms were in and trudged to room 0121, the one you reserved. However, instead of being met with an empty practice room, you were met with the door locked shut, the sound of instruments and loud laughter on the other side. Dropping your head, you closed your eyes and tried to center yourself. The ache in your chest intensified all of a sudden and you took that as a sign to go home. You also didn’t have the energy to argue with whoever was in there. Opening your eyes, you took one last look at the locked door and left.

Beomgyu didn't think college would go by this smoothly. He thought a school with such a renowned music program would be more difficult, but it’s been the opposite. Maybe it was the fact that he was rockstar Choi Beomgyu, but he found his classes to be a breeze. All the free time his bandmates and he had, was spent either partying or rehearsing for their comeback. The contest was a better idea than he realized. He wasn't going to give their label too much credit though. Their producer and them went through all the entries together on the days they didn't have class and the winning entry was nothing short of incredible. It was by someone who, fittingly, went by "Lyric”. It felt like the song was written just for him, the lyrics struck a feeling in everyone's heart as they listened to the demo. The sound was just what they needed, and he couldn't wait to perform it on stage.

Beomgyu spent the next few days practicing the lyrics to Lyric's song, trying to perfect every cadence and melody. He found himself humming it in the shower and even while he was trying to sleep. The more he practiced, the more he fell in love with it. It spoke to him in a way no other song had before. One thing that never changed about Beomgyu, was that he loved being on stage more than anyone else. He felt like how he did when they first formed the band and he hasn’t felt this eager about their music in a long time. His band members could tell how much the song meant to him and they loved seeing him like this, it made them excited to perform as well.

Beomgyu’s only class for the day went by slowly, he didn’t want to be there, and staring at the clock only seemed to make time pass slower. When the professor dismissed them, he was the first out of the room, immediately making his way to the building where the practice rooms were. He got stopped along the way by a few girls, which he of course had to entertain for a bit. The school gave Beomgyu and his bandmates the privilege of rehearsing whenever they wanted without having to reserve a room, so when he got there, he went to the first empty room he could find. Taehyun didn’t have classes today, so he would be bringing Beomgyu’s guitar and there was already a keyboard and drums in the room. Kai’s class would end soon and then they would practice the setlist for their upcoming show.

Beomgyu sat down on the floor in front of the keyboard, waiting impatiently for Taehyun to arrive with his guitar. He couldn't wait to start rehearsing. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, envisioning himself on stage, the crowd cheering loudly as he performed their new hit single. Suddenly, the door creaked open and he opened his eyes to see Taehyun walking in with his guitar case.

"Finally, you're here," Beomgyu said, grinning.

"Sorry, I got held up," Taehyun replied, setting down Beomgyu's guitar and taking his place in front of the keyboard.

"But now that I'm here, let's get started."

Kai walked in a few minutes later, panting slightly from having to rush to get here.

"I made it," he said with a smile as he sat down at the drumset.

They started with their new single, and Beomgyu's voice filled the room as he sang the first verse. They played through their setlist multiple times, perfecting each song until it was flawless. As they played, Beomgyu couldn't help but get lost in the music, feeling every emotion conveyed by his guitar. It was cathartic, playing music with his best friends by his side.

After a few hours of practice, they decided to take a break and grab some food from the vending machines down the hall. They sat on the floor of the practice room, munching on chips and drinking soda as they talked about their upcoming show.

"I can't wait to see the look on our fans' faces when we start playing," Taehyun said excitedly.

Kai nodded in agreement. "It's gonna be fucking amazing."

Beomgyu felt a sudden surge of adrenaline at the thought of performing for their fans. He knew that they had been waiting eagerly for this concert, and he wanted to make sure that it was the best show they had ever put on. He glanced around at Taehyun and Kai and knew that they felt the same way. As they finished their snacks, Beomgyu stood up and stretched his arms above his head.

"Let's get back to it," he said, his voice filled with determination.

They made their way back to their instruments and started playing once again. This time, they focused on fine-tuning their performance, working on every little detail until it was perfect. Beomgyu felt like he was in a trance, lost in the music. Rehearsing soon turned into them fooling around, playing random chords, and laughing. As they played, he couldn't help but feel a sense of heat building up inside him. That ache from before suddenly intensified in his chest and he had to stop.

“You okay man?” Kai asked concerned, standing up from his place at the drums and looking at Taehyun.

“We should call it for today,” Taehyun spoke up hesitantly.

Beomgyu didn’t want to, but the ache was taking a lot out of him. He put a hand over his chest and sighed.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Beomgyu said, his voice small.

He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"Was I getting sick?" He thought to himself.

The sound of the door trying to be opened caught his attention and all three of them turned to the door. A few seconds later, the ache settled down, back to how it was before. He got used to the feeling in the pit of his stomach, except for now, when it spiked like this. He put his guitar back in its case and slung it over his shoulder, the three of them going back to their dorm.

The moment you got back to your apartment, you sat on your bed and just stared out the window. A lot happened just now, and you were overwhelmed, to say the least. You found out that you won the contest, and the label was practically relying on your song to bring the band back to where they used to be music-wise. You also realized that Kai was in that band and they went to school with you. And lastly, whoever was in that room had to be your soulmate. The closer you got to the practice room, the more your chest ached, and when you were in front of the door, it pained you more than it ever had before. All you wanted was to relieve your stress by writing, however, that wasn’t going to happen now. Yes, you had your music room in your apartment, but you always wrote there. You wanted a change of scenery, and whoever was behind the locked door clearly didn’t know what reserved meant.

When Beomgyu got back to his dorm, he immediately went to his room. He didn’t understand what was going on with him. Every morning he woke up feeling warm, and as if he just got back from somewhere. Then, the mark on his arm. He asked Taehyun and Kai if any of them drew it on him, and they couldn’t even see it. Instead, they asked if he had some kind of sixth sense where he could see things they couldn’t, while laughing at him. It was there though. He saw it clearly. The small mark in the shape of a pen. Lastly, the ache. He’s been feeling it since they moved into the dorm on campus. It’s been bearable, settling in his stomach and it never bothered him much. Not until today. Today it felt like someone was squeezing his heart and it hurt. He couldn’t be getting sick, it would ruin everything right now. And if he wasn’t getting sick, he didn’t know how else to explain what was happening to him.

You thought the dreams would stop since you were so close to your soulmate yesterday. They haven’t, you continued to have them but they were a little different now. They seemed more current, you were learning about how he was feeling and things he was thinking about now. Before, you learned about what he was like, things he experienced that made him who he is, like an introduction. All of it was fuzzy, but you remembered what you needed to. Last night’s dream made you wake up feeling worried, even with the warm feeling present. The dream allowed you to learn that your soulmate was distressed, almost upset about something. It was strange to you, how you don’t know this person but you do. How you care about someone you haven’t even properly met, and how you were able to understand him completely. Whoever he was.

You sighed and got up. It was Saturday today, and it was your first completely free day in a while. The band’s concert is next week, where they will debut your song as their new single. You were avoiding anything about it like the plague, you weren’t going to go to the concert either. No one else has ever performed your songs before, and the thought of that made embarrassment wash over you. Despite it being your free day, you couldn’t shake what you learned in your dream. Pulling out your songbook, you started to write.

It was Saturday today, and even though Beomgyu was out late last night, he woke up bright and early. He thought partying would distract him from thinking about everything, and it did, but only for a short while. The girl he was with last night didn’t help much either. For once he felt unsatisfied, he needed more. More of what? That, he didn’t know. Maybe it was his nerves because the concert was coming up and they were trying a new sound. He woke up feeling warm again, the feeling now something he’s gotten used to. He thought it was nice, to wake up feeling warm and comfortable. He wished it would last longer than it did, fading not too long after he woke up.

Beomgyu got out of bed and stretched, feeling a sudden pang of self-doubt. He knew it was the concert looming over him, it had to be, and the fear of not being able to deliver something new and exciting to his fans. The pressure was weighing heavily on him, but he couldn't let it show. He had to keep up the facade that he was confident and in control.

He made his way to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast, but his mind was elsewhere. He couldn't shake off the feeling of dissatisfaction and longing. He needed something to distract himself, something to take his mind off the concert and all these other things happening to him.

You wrote for most of the day, composing a song meant to make him feel better. Aside from that, you used your free time to talk to your friends, catch up on your shows, and go grocery shopping. Some of your friends were also attending college in Seoul and they planned to go out tonight. You weren’t against going out, it just wasn’t your favorite thing. Yet here you were, putting on a dress, too short to be considered one, and getting ready to go out with them. You felt you looked good, hot even. You haven’t gotten dressed up like this in a while, let alone been to a party or club. Your friends claimed that you needed something to relieve your stress, their exact words being “someone” not “something”.

No one but your parents knew about your soulmate, and you didn’t want to tell anyone else yet. Having a soulmate was a big deal, and you didn’t want the night to turn into them trying to find him for you. But you also didn’t want them to push you onto another guy. It felt like you were cheating. But how could you cheat on someone who was yours, but didn’t know you existed yet? It was complicated. Looking at your phone you saw it was nearing 9 pm, you all agreed to meet up at the house the party was being thrown at 9. It wasn’t a far drive from your apartment, so you took your time getting ready and ordering your Uber.

The guys could tell Beomgyu wasn’t okay. He was normally good at hiding his emotions, but his distress was written plainly on his face. There was another party tonight, and it surprisingly took convincing from his friends for him to go. He gave himself one last look in the mirror, satisfied with how he looked. Kai said he needed a distraction or two, and he knew what he meant. It was around 9:30 p.m. when they met up in the general lounge area after getting ready. Taehyun slung an arm over his shoulders.

“This is just nerves because of the concert. But don’t worry, after our concert, we’ll start up our tradition again and things will be back to normal.” Taehyun said and smirked, giving him a nudge.

He was right. This was all just nerves. Beomgyu was fine, he just needed to let go at this party.

You’ve only been here for an hour and you remember why you didn’t go to parties often. You felt awkward, people you recognized from school were here yet you still felt like an outsider. This was technically your first college party. You stood in a corner of the crowded living room, clutching a red plastic cup filled with cheap beer. Your eyes scanned the room, taking in the throngs of people laughing, shouting, and dancing to a throbbing bass beat. You felt a pang of regret for coming here, or maybe it was just the ache in your chest that all of a sudden spiked again. Your soulmate was here. Despite that, you thought it was a mistake to follow your friends and attend this party.

It didn’t take long for Beomgyu to get comfortable, the party scene being a familiar environment for him and his friends. As soon as he set foot into the house, the ache in his chest spiked again but he wasn’t going to let it bother him this time. After a few drinks, he found himself in the middle of a group of girls. He was sitting in the middle of the couch, girls surrounding him trying to get a word in or touch him in some way. Beomgyu smirked, enjoying the attention but his mind was elsewhere. He scanned the room, his eyes landing on you. You were standing in the corner, looking uncomfortable and out of place. Beomgyu’s heart ached at the sight of you, you were beautiful, too beautiful to be alone like that.

You couldn't stay here. You had no idea where your friends disappeared and your soulmate was here. It was overwhelming to think that someone in this plethora of mostly tipsy people, was your person. Your eyes did another scan of the room, looking for any signs of your friends. Instead of your friends though, your eyes found a boy. He was on the couch, surrounded by a group of beautiful girls vying for his attention. It made sense because he was gorgeous, prettier than anyone you’ve ever seen probably. His gaze shifted to you and you felt weak in the knees. Shaking your head and looking away, you took a deep breath and made your way to the door.

Beomgyu excused himself from the girls and made his way towards where you were. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, he was nervous but he knew he had to make a move. When he got up though, he saw that you were gone. He panicked for a moment, realizing that he might have missed his opportunity. However, he quickly regained his composure, telling himself that he wouldn't let you slip away that easily. Beomgyu maneuvered his way through the crowd, looking around the room frantically for any sign of you, but you were nowhere to be found. The ache in his chest settled, but now it was replaced by his heart pounding, full of disappointment.

You got back to your apartment not too long after you left the party, quickly texting your friends and telling them that you went home. The ache dissipated as soon as you stepped out of the house. Your soulmate was at that party, but all you could think about was the boy you locked eyes with.

Days passed and you still couldn't get the boy from the party out of your head. His image kept flashing before your eyes, making it hard to focus. You weren't sure what it was about him that had you so captivated. Maybe it was the way his eyes seemed to light up when they met yours or the way he carried himself with an air of confidence that made you weak in the knees. Whatever it was, you wanted to see him again. The concert is tomorrow and the label called you earlier today, inviting you to come. You already made up your mind though, way before they called.

Beomgyu couldn’t get you out of his mind. Even after he went back to his group of girls at the party, you were all he could think about. Days had passed since the party and he tried looking for you on campus. He was completely distracted, even messing up during rehearsal for their concert tomorrow. As he walked back to his dorm room, Beomgyu couldn't shake off the feeling of disappointment. He was sure he missed his chance with you, and he knew he couldn't let that happen again. He needed to see you again. Maybe you’ll be there tomorrow. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try. This was unfamiliar to him, usually he was the one being sought after and he let girls come to him. Not the other way around. But you, something was pulling him to you, something inside him was saying "Go talk to her."

The next night came and Beomgyu was determined to perform his heart out. He knew it was a long shot that you would be there, so he tried to focus solely on the performance. As soon as the band started playing, Beomgyu felt a wave of emotion come over him. It was like his heart was speaking through the music, telling a story of longing and desire. He sang with all his heart, every note ringing true. The song Lyric wrote couldn't be more perfect, and Taehyun and Kai were feeding off of Beomgyu's and the crowd's energy. The crowd went wild, cheering loudly, and were full of awe at the lyrics of their new single. But amidst all the noise and excitement, Beomgyu's eyes were searching the crowd for you. You were nowhere to be found and his heart sank, but only for a split second. The lights were flashing, the crowd was still screaming and he felt alive. The audience yelled their approval and the show was over before they knew it.

Beomgyu walked off stage after Kai and Taehyun, feeling a complete rush of adrenaline. As he walked backstage, he couldn't help but scan the crowd again, hoping for a glimpse of you. However, you were still nowhere to be found. Beomgyu's heart sank once more, but he knew he had to keep it together. He couldn't let his disappointment show, especially in front of his fans. After the concert, they were all signing autographs and taking pictures, flirting around to see who they'd take back to their dressing rooms. Beomgyu tried his best to keep his cool, sexy rockstar image up, but he didn't feel like taking some random girl back this time. His heart just wasn't in it. He sent a quick look to Taehyun and Kai, who looked at him surprised but still nodded back, and he left without another word, leaving the girls who were killing for their chance with him confused.

The song you wrote for them became a huge hit and the label called you again, wanting you to write another one for them. You couldn’t deny how much your heart skipped a beat when they said the members were requesting it personally. You told the label that you would love to, however after you agreed to one more song, their request quickly changed from one to enough songs for a full-length album. They didn’t let you respond before they hung up on you, your mouth still hanging open in shock. Sighing you closed your eyes, trying not to panic because you knew you had more than enough lyrics written, but they were just that- lyrics.

Opening your eyes, you went to your room, retrieved your laptop, and looked up the band. You thought you should at least know their names and what they looked like if you were going to be writing their next album. You also wanted to hear what the final, produced version of your song sounded like. You looked up their band name and the title of your song first, playing the audio version. Your eyes widened at the sound of a deep, smooth voice starting the song, goosebumps forming along your arm. You assumed this was the lead singer, his voice sending shivers down your spine as the song continued. When it came to an end, you were left in awe, they did your words justice and you felt proud. Shaking yourself out of it, you looked up the band name next and their group picture made your heart stop. There he was, right in the middle of the trio, the boy from the party. Pictures didn’t do him justice, you concluded. The more pictures of them you went through, you found yourself looking at him more than the other two. Not on purpose, your eyes just naturally gravitating to him. Your heart was racing again like the night you saw him for the first time.

However, the ache in your chest suddenly reminded you of your soulmate and you went from feeling awestruck to guilty in mere seconds. Was it possible to feel attraction to someone that wasn’t your soulmate? Or maybe he was your soulmate… You didn’t know and you were confusing yourself.

Shaking your head to snap out of it, you clicked through a few links. The members' names were Kai (whom you already met by chance), Taheyun, and Beomgyu. Kai played drums and sometimes sang, Taehyun played the keyboard and sang, and Beomgyu played guitar and was the lead singer. You couldn't help but feel drawn to Beomgyu. You chastised yourself for even thinking about him this much. You had a soulmate, for crying out loud. You closed your laptop and lay back on your bed, trying to clear your head. But every time you closed your eyes, you saw Beomgyu's face and heard his voice singing your words.

Beomgyu was still feeling the adrenaline from the show last night even though it's morning now. It felt like an eternity since he stepped off stage yet he could still remember every moment in perfect detail - every reaction from the crowd, every part of himself he gave in each song. The label was pleased with the reaction to the new single and said they were thinking about making Lyric the official new songwriter. Beomgyu couldn't believe it. He knew that they had something special with the song Lyric wrote, but for the label to consider bringing her on as their official new songwriter was a dream come true. He knew he had to meet her, to thank her personally for the magic she brought back to their music. His mind then shifted from Lyric to you. He wished you showed up last night. He was all over the place, he felt drawn to both you and Lyric, and for the first time, he didn’t know what to do.

The semester ended not long after, and you and Beomgyu welcomed the reprieve. During the break, you composed songs for the band's next album, communicating with the label only through your alias "Lyric" and over the phone. The label was awestruck with your gift and offered you a job to be the band's official songwriter in exchange. You accepted without hesitation since this was practically your wish come true. And so that's how you secured a permanent job, all the while hoping your second semester wouldn't be as hectic as the first.

Beomgyu spent his break trying to clear his head. He couldn't stop thinking about you and Lyric. It was like he was being pulled in two different directions, each one equally tempting. He couldn't decide who he was more drawn to, and he was starting to feel guilty about it. He had never felt this way before. He was a rockstar, he was confident and in control. But now, he felt lost and confused. They had two shows over the break and he found solace in the usual flashing lights and screaming fans. But it didn't last too long.

He and his friends also started recording the songs for their new album, most of them being written and composed by Lyric. Beomgyu couldn't help but feel a spark of excitement every time Lyric's words were sung. They were all so raw and emotional, and they fit the band's style perfectly. They fit him perfectly, and it never failed to surprise him, how understood he felt. He found himself constantly thinking about her, wondering who she was and what she looked like. He wanted to tell her how much the songs meant to him, how they made him feel alive and understood. But he couldn't. He didn't even know who she was.

When you arrived on campus the following Monday, it marked the beginning of the second semester. You didn’t expect to see Beomgyu sitting under a tree by the lake with his guitar. You went the entire first semester without seeing him once.

“What was he doing here so early?” you thought to yourself, watching the way his fingers gently strummed at the guitar. You couldn't help but smile at the way his fingers moved effortlessly over the strings. He was so focused, and so passionate, and it was beautiful to watch. You couldn't bring yourself to go over there like you originally planned, so instead, you decided to leave him be and simply admire him from afar for a little before leaving. While walking back to the main area of the campus, the warm feeling was still present from your dream, so you brought your mind back to your soulmate. The dreams still occur every night and from what you can remember from last night, your soulmate has been feeling a mixture of things. Most of all though, he was confused, just like you.

As the week went by, you couldn't help but think about Beomgyu. You've been seeing him more on campus lately, in the library, in the cafeteria, in between classes. He was either with his bandmates or surrounded by girls, and an obnoxious smirk took over his pretty face most of the time. You tried to push him out of your mind, but it was like he was always there, lurking in the back of your thoughts.``It's just because he's so pretty." You kept trying to remind yourself, also recalling the one time you heard him open his mouth, his words making your eyes roll. You had a soulmate, and that was all that mattered. Your soulmate was perfect to you, perfect for you, and he wasn't an obnoxious rockstar who thought he was better than everyone.

You tried to avoid him as much as possible, but fate seemed to have other plans. One day, while walking to your next class, you accidentally bumped into him, your lyrics and sheet music flying out of your hands and scattering across the hallway.

"I'm so sorry," you said, bending down to pick up your things.

"It's fine," Beomgyu said softly, crouching down to help you. As your hands brushed briefly while reaching for the same paper, a spark went off and that warmth spread throughout your entire body, you looked up at him, surprised. He didn't give you a single look though, but even that didn't diminish your surprise.

At that moment, you knew. You found him. Beomgyu was your soulmate.

You tried to shake off the feeling to remain calm and gather your papers, but Beomgyu’s touch lingered on your hand, sending shivers down your spine. You looked up at him again, and he met your gaze this time. You could see the surprise and confusion in his eyes as well.

“Do you feel that?” he whispered, his voice barely audible above the noise in the hallway.

You nodded, unable to speak. You knew exactly what he was talking about. The warmth, the spark, the connection. It was unmistakable.

"I've been looking for you," he admitted, his eyes not leaving yours.

When he finally acknowledged you, his eyes were full of surprise. It was you, the beautiful girl from the party, the one he couldn’t get out of his head. His world felt like it finally aligned again, the warmth he would feel every morning, was present now while he was in front of you. The mark on his arm tingled, as if reminding him that it was there. He looked at the papers he picked up for you, “(y/n)” he read to himself, “so that was your name.” He then remembered that the mark on his arm was of a pen.

"Wait, are you a composer?" He asked, eyes widening in realization.

You couldn't believe what was happening. Beomgyu was your soulmate? The obnoxious rockstar who you'd been trying to avoid since the semester started, was the one you were meant to be with? It didn't make any sense. But as you looked into his eyes, you knew it was true. The way he looked at you, the way he touched your hand, it was all too real. And it felt right. The connection between you was too strong to ignore. But you can’t do this right now. Instead of answering him, you hurriedly took your papers from him and walked off in the opposite direction, not giving him a chance to say anything else.

You found yourself in a space between two buildings outside. Your heart was racing, and you couldn’t breathe. After you calmed down, you closed your eyes, your head leaning back and gently hitting the wall. You were mad at yourself first of all. Mad for judging him without even talking to him. You knew your soulmate, but you didn’t know Beomgyu. You thought you didn't want to know Beomgyu. But now you did. And it scared you. You didn't know how to handle it. It was like everything you thought you knew was turned upside down. You took a deep breath and opened your eyes, knowing that you had to face him eventually. You couldn't ignore your soulmate. You couldn’t stay on campus right now either, so you blew off your classes and went back to your apartment.

Beomgyu stood there, shocked. You ran away from him. His shock was replaced by confusion and then by longing — a need to figure out what everything meant. You clearly knew something based on your reaction, but he didn’t know much. What he did know was that he liked how he felt with you, like it was comfortable and exciting all at once. He liked the way his heart raced when he looked into your eyes, the way his skin tingled when he touched your hand, the way everything just clicked into place. Instead of classes, he went back to his dorm, he wasn’t going to get anything out of you right now so he had to do some research of his own.

As you walked into your apartment, you couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. You needed to clear your head and figure out what to do next. It also wasn't fair to leave Beomgyu hanging like that, he probably had a lot of questions. You sat down on your bed and closed your eyes, taking deep breaths to calm yourself. It was all too much to process, and you needed to sort everything out. You remembered the different types of soul links your mom told you about, trying to piece together everything that linked you and Beomgyu. You couldn’t do this by yourself, you needed him. You always needed someone like him, but right now, you needed him because you both had to put this together.

When Beomgyu got to his dorm, he went to his room and took out his laptop. He started to research all the things he’s been feeling and the mark on his arm. He came to the conclusion that he had a soulmate. You. You were his soulmate and you had to have known that. He was one of the very few to have a soulmate and he found you. He couldn't believe it. He felt like the luckiest man in the world. But then he realized that you ran away from him earlier. He didn't know why, but he knew he had to find you. He needed you, he felt as if he always needed you, but right now, you two needed to talk.

That night you couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. You tossed and turned in bed, trying to quell the butterflies that seemed to be dancing in your stomach. You knew all about him, and he probably didn’t know a thing about you, not even your name. Did he get the same ache in his chest you did? Did it turn into that warm feeling when he woke up too? Did he have dreams like you? If he’s your soulmate, what was he so distressed about that one time? All these questions and more swirled around in your head. One thing you knew for sure though, you wanted to be there for him, always.

He couldn't stop thinking about you either. He wanted to know everything about you, your hopes, your dreams. He wanted to be the one to make you laugh when you were feeling down, the one to hold you close when you were feeling alone. He wanted to be there for you, always. That was the one thing he was sure about amidst all the confusion.

You woke up early the next morning, not having slept much to begin with. You stretched out your arms, feeling a satisfying ache course through your body. You didn't have a dream last night, which you expected, but it didn't stop you from waking up feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The first coherent thing on your mind was Beomgyu. You needed to see him today, no matter what. Even though you had no classes today, you were still going to campus to look for him. You knew exactly where to go. You just hoped he had the same idea.

Beomgyu woke up early the next morning. He stretched his arms wide, letting out a yawn that reverberated through his chest. Placing a hand on his heart, he recalled yesterday's events, a smile blooming across his face at the thought of you. You were all he could think about now and he needed to see you again. Despite having just one class today, something pulled him towards the lake this morning. The scent of fresh dew coated the grass beneath his feet as he walked down the dirt path, still quiet in these early morning hours. Birds chirped overhead as he approached the sparkling waters of the lake. The surface rippled gently in tune with the slight breeze. A sense of calm washed over him as he took in the beauty before him, he took his place under the big tree he always sat under and started to strum at his guitar.

As you walked towards the lake, you could hear the sound of a guitar in the distance. You smiled to yourself, knowing that it was Beomgyu. You could see him sitting under the big tree by the lake, strumming. Beomgyu noticed you and paused his playing, looking up at you with a small smile. You felt your heart skip a beat as his eyes met yours, the same way they did at the party. You quickly looked down, feeling a blush creeping up on your cheeks. Beomgyu cleared his throat, breaking the silence.

"Good morning," he said, his voice smooth and deep, sending shivers down your spine.

You looked up at him and smiled.

"Good morning," you replied softly.

"What are you doing here so early?"

Beomgyu chuckled, closing his guitar case.

"I come here sometimes to practice," he said, standing up.

"It's peaceful here, isn't it?"

You nodded. You felt comfortable around Beomgyu.

"I agree," you said softly.

"It's my favorite place on campus."

“Mine too.”

"Beomgyu," you said softly, your heart racing and you squeezed your eyes shut. "Can we talk?"

As you stood there, waiting for his response, you heard footsteps approaching. You opened your eyes and saw Beomgyu standing in front of you.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft. "I didn't mean to scare you off."

You looked up at him, feeling a mix of emotions.

"No, I'm sorry for running away earlier. I just needed some time to process everything."

"It's okay," he said quickly.

"I understand. I've been doing some research myself, and I think I know what's going on."

You felt a wave of relief wash over you. You weren't alone in this.

"What do you mean?" you asked, your curiosity piqued.

"I think we're soulmates," he said simply, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

You couldn’t help but smile too. You were glad he figured it out. You reached out to gently grasp his hand and intertwine your fingers, sparks shooting up your arm more intense than yesterday.

“We are.” You confirmed, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

Beomgyu's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden sparks that shot up his arm. He felt a jolt of electricity run through his body as he looked into your eyes. He had never felt such a strong connection with anyone before. It was like you were meant to be together.

"I can't believe it," he whispered, pulling you closer to him. "We're soulmates."

You felt a rush of electricity through your body at his touch. You had never felt so safe and secure with anyone before. It was like everything in your life finally made sense. You leaned into him, feeling his arms wrap around you in a tight embrace.

"I've been dreaming about you," you admitted, feeling a sense of embarrassment wash over you.

Beomgyu pulled back slightly, looking at you with a gentle smile. He held out his arm to you, and a small gasp left your lips. On his arm was a small mark, it was shaped like a pen.

“Can you see it?” He asked, “When I showed my friends my arm, they couldn’t see anything.” He continued and chuckled softly.

“They thought I was crazy and had some sort of sixth sense or something.”

“I can see it.” You reached out to touch the pen mark on his arm, feeling the warmth of his skin under your fingertips.

Beomgyu shuddered at your touch, feeling the sparks fly between you. You felt them too, and you knew that this was real, that he was the one for you.

“You probably have a lot of questions,” you said and looked up at him, letting your fingers trail down his arm to take his hand in yours again.

Beomgyu nodded, his eyes fixed on you. He had so many questions he wanted to ask you, but at that moment, all he wanted was to be close to you, to hold you in his arms, and never let go.

"I do," he said softly, his thumb rubbing circles on the back of your hand. "But right now, all I want is to be with you. Is that okay?"

You smiled up at him, feeling your heart swell with affection.

"It's more than okay," you said, leaning into him. "I want to be with you too."

Beomgyu's eyes sparkled with happiness at your words. He felt like he was on top of the world, with you by his side.

"Let's go for a walk," he said, taking your hand and leading you down the dirt path that ran alongside the lake.

You walked hand in hand, enjoying the quietness of the morning. Birds chirped overhead, and the sun began to rise, casting a golden glow over everything in sight. You felt the warmth of Beomgyu's hand in yours, and you couldn't help but feel grateful for this moment.

As you walked, Beomgyu told you all about the research he had done on soulmates the night before. He had read countless books and articles, trying to understand the strange things he was experiencing. You listened intently, fascinated by the depth of his knowledge on the subject and by him in general. You answered any questions he had and told him all about your parents. You two realized the depth of your bond. You shared talents, he was the reason you could play guitar and you were the reason he could sing. The dreams, after you met Kai and he mentioned the two of you to each other vaguely, it was like a bridge. Every night since then, Beomgyu visited you in your dreams, where you got to learn about him. Now he knows why he would wake up feeling like he just came back from somewhere. The mark appeared on his arm the same day you woke up from having your first dream. The pen was because you were a songwriter and only him and his soulmate, you, could see it.

"So what do we do now?" you asked, stopping to take in the view of the lake.

The water shimmered in the sunlight, reflecting the beauty of the world around you.

"I think we should just take it one day at a time," Beomgyu said, standing beside you.

"We don't need to rush anything. We have all the time in the world."

You nodded, feeling a sense of relief wash over you. You didn't want to rush anything either. You just wanted to enjoy this moment, to be with Beomgyu and feel the sparks between you.

As you walked along the lake, hand in hand, you knew that this was just the beginning of something special. You had found your soulmate, and you were going to do everything in your power to keep him close.

"Thank you for being here with me," you said softly, looking up at him. "I'm happy I found you."

Beomgyu's eyes softened, and he leaned down to place a soft kiss on your forehead. You felt the warmth of his lips, and your heart swelled with adoration.

"I'll always be here," he said, pulling you close. "No matter what. You're kind of stuck with me now," he added and both of you giggled softly.

Your hand was still in his, and you didn't want to let go. You never wanted to let go.

“You have a class you said?” you asked him.

He nodded. “ It’s the last thing on my mind though,” he said and gently nudged your shoulder.

You blushed and giggled at him again, "Can I walk you to your class?"

"Of course, you can," Beomgyu replied, smiling down at you. "I'd love that."

Together, you made your way to the music department, taking your time as you walked hand in hand. You couldn't help but feel happy and content, knowing that you had Beomgyu by your side.

As you walked him to his class, he couldn't help but feel grateful for this moment. He knew that he was going to cherish every moment he had with you.

You reached Beomgyu's classroom after some time, and you stopped outside the door and turned to face him.

"I'll see you soon," he said, before turning and entering the classroom.

You stood outside the door, watching as he disappeared inside. You couldn't help but feel excited about what the future held for the two of you. You knew that you were meant to be together, and you couldn't wait to see what adventures lay ahead. As you turned to leave, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You turned back to see Beomgyu standing in front of you, a small smile on his lips.

"I almost forgot something," he said,

You felt his hand on your back, bringing you closer to him. You wrapped your arms around his neck as he pulled you into a hug. It was innocent, just a hug, but you felt like you were floating on air. When you pulled back, Beomgyu placed a hand on your cheek, looking into your eyes.

"I'll see you soon," he said again, before turning to enter the classroom. You watched him go, feeling your heart flutter. You stood there for a few moments more, just taking in the moment before you finally turned and started walking home.

It had been a few months since that day, but the memory still stayed with you in your mind often. You and Beomgyu had grown so much closer over those months, learning more about each other every day. You both spent more time together - going for walks in the park, exploring new places, or just cuddling up under a blanket watching movies at his dorm. He was your best friend now, your other half, the love of your life and he made every day brighter. Every time you were together, it felt like magic – like all of your dreams were coming true. You both shared something special that could never be broken: your souls connected by music and love.

One day, as you sat in Beomgyu's dorm room, strumming his guitar while he sang along softly, you looked up at him and thought about how lucky you were to have found him. He was everything you had ever wanted in a person and more. You couldn't imagine your life without him. There was something you still haven't told him though. You were struggling to tell Beomgyu that you were Lyric, the songwriter his band was always praising. Every time he and the others talked about her, you could feel your heart flutter. You wanted to tell him but something held you back; all the songs you wrote for them had been about him or inspired by him and you wanted to tell him that was why he felt so understood.

You took a deep breath, setting the guitar aside as you turned to face him. Beomgyu looked at you curiously, his eyes shining.

"What's going on?" he asked, sitting up slightly.

You took another deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. This was something you had been meaning to tell him for a while, but you had always chickened out at the last minute. But now, with him looking at you with so much love and trust, you knew that it was finally time to tell him the truth.

"Beomgyu," you started, your voice barely above a whisper. "There's something I need to tell you."

Beomgyu's gaze intensified, and he reached out to take your hand in his. You felt his thumb rubbing soothing circles on your skin, and you took that as a sign to continue.

“I’m Lyric,” you mumbled almost inaudibly.

Beomgyu's eyes widened in surprise, and he sat up straighter, looking at you in awe.

"Lyric?" he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded, unable to meet his gaze. You could feel butterflies swirling in your stomach, and you wondered what Beomgyu was thinking. Would he be mad that you hadn't told him earlier? Would he be disappointed that it was you?

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked softly, his voice gentle.

You took a deep breath, gathering your thoughts.

"I didn't know how to," you admitted. "I was afraid you'd be disappointed that it was me and not some princess with magic songwriting powers or something."

Beomgyu's expression softened, and he squeezed your hand.

"I think it's incredible. I think you're incredible. You have such a gift, and I can't believe you've been writing songs for me this whole time."

You blushed. "I entered the contest and had no idea what to write. Not until I had that first dream. All my songs were written and inspired by my soulmate, which I now know is you.." you trailed off, hiding your face behind your hands.

Beomgyu chuckled, pulling your hands away from your face gently. "Why are you hiding? You have nothing to be ashamed of. I think it's amazing that you found inspiration in me, and I'm honored that you wrote those songs for our band. We couldn't have gotten this far now without you."

You looked up at him, feeling tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. "I'm just so relieved that you're not mad," you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

Beomgyu leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. "I could never be mad at you, my love. You're the most amazing person I've ever met, and I feel so lucky to have you in my life."

"And for the record, you are a princess with magic songwriting powers," he added and you playfully pushed him.

"And another thing, I wouldn't be who I am today without you either." He said while tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You smiled, feeling your heart swell with love for the boy in front of you.

"I never thought I'd find someone like you," you said quietly, your eyes locked with his.

Beomgyu's lips curved into a smile. "Well, you've found me now, and I'm not going anywhere."

You leaned in to kiss him but were interrupted by a knock at the door. Beomgyu groaned in frustration, but you both knew he had to answer it. As he got up to go to the door, you couldn't help but feel a sense of frustration. You were finally about to kiss him, and now you had to wait. This was another thing, every time you and Beomgyu were going to kiss, something got in the way. Every single time.

Beomgyu opened the door, and in walked another member of his band - Kai. You smiled when he walked in, him being you and Beomgyu’s biggest shipper. You got up from the bed, clearing your throat to get his attention.

"Hi, Kai," you said sweetly.

"Hey," he replied animatedly, before turning to Beomgyu. "We've got a meeting with the label in an hour. We need to start getting ready."

Beomgyu sighed, knowing that he had to go. He turned to you, a look of apology on his face.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I have to go," he said, his hand reaching out to grab yours.

You nodded, feeling a sense of disappointment wash over you. "It's okay, Beomie. You have to go do what you have to do."

You got up from his bed and kissed him on the cheek, Kai holding his hand up for a high five which you granted. You said bye to Taehyun who was in the lounge area of their dorm and went back to your apartment. When you arrived at your apartment, you decided to take a hot shower to relax. Shower thoughts flooded your brain as you stood under the steamy water. You realize Beomgyu has never been to your apartment before, all the time you guys have spent with each other has either been at his dorm or out somewhere.

The thought of Beomgyu coming to your apartment made you feel nervous and excited at the same time. You could imagine him sitting on your couch, the two of you cuddled up under a blanket, just like you always did at his dorm. However, here there would be no interruptions. But then again, what if he didn't like your apartment?

You shook your head, trying to get rid of those negative thoughts. You knew Beomgyu wouldn't judge you like that, and even if he did, it wouldn't change how he felt about you. You dried yourself off and got dressed, feeling a sense of excitement building up inside you.

You decided to call Beomgyu to see if he was free to come over. He picked up after the first ring, and you could hear the sound of music playing in the background.

"Hey, Beomie," you greeted him, feeling a smile spread across your face. "Are you busy?"

Beomgyu chuckled on the other end of the line. "Just practicing with the band, why? What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my place. Maybe tomorrow night? I know we've never hung out at my apartment before, and I thought it could be fun," you said, trying to keep the excitement out of your voice.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and you could hear muffled talking in the background. Finally, Beomgyu spoke up.

"Yeah, I'd love to princess. You can give me a tour of your place and everything," he said, and you could practically hear the smirk on his face.

You felt your heart skip a beat. Beomgyu was actually coming over to your place.

"I can practically hear you smirking, pretty boy. I'll see you tomorrow then."

Beomgyu chuckled. "Sorry, sorry. I just can't wait to see your place." His voice dropped down to a low murmur. "And maybe see what other surprises you have in store for me."

You felt your cheeks heat up at his words. "Beomie, don't be naughty," you scolded him, but you couldn't deny the thrill that ran down your spine at the thought of spending the night with him alone in your apartment.

"I can't make any promises," he replied, his voice low and sultry. "But I'll behave if you want me to."

You laughed, feeling your nerves calm down a little. "No, it's okay. I like it when you're naughty. Besides, you're still handsy even when you claim you're behaving."

Beomgyu chuckled, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "I can't help it. You bring out the naughty side in me," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

You felt a shiver run down your spine at his words. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then," you said, trying to keep your voice steady.

"I can't wait, princess," he replied, before ending the call.

The next day, you spent the day cleaning and preparing for Beomgyu's arrival. You wanted everything to be perfect for him.

When he finally arrived at your apartment, you couldn't help but feel nervous. He smiled as soon as you opened the door, making you feel at ease.

"Hey, princess," he said, pulling you into a tight hug. "You look beautiful."

You blushed, feeling a surge of happiness wash over you. "Thanks, Beomie. You look handsome as always," you replied.

"Wow, your apartment is amazing!" Beomgyu exclaimed, looking around in awe. "You never told me you had such good taste."

You giggled. “You don’t think it’s a bit..much?”

"Not at all," Beomgyu replied, walking over to you and taking your hand. "It's just like you, beautiful and perfect."

You blushed and looked away, feeling a little embarrassed at his words.

Beomgyu chuckled and lifted your chin, looking into your eyes. "Don't be shy, (y/n). You should know by now how much I adore you."

You smiled at him, feeling the warmth of his love surrounding you. "I do, Beomie. I adore you just as much."

"Why are you blushing? Is it cause we're finally alone with no interruptions?" he asked and playfully nudged you.

You blushed even harder at his words, and you could feel your heart racing in your chest. You had been waiting for this moment, and now that it was finally here, you didn't know what to do. You nodded, feeling the butterflies in your stomach start to flutter.

"Maybe," you said, a smile spreading across your face.

Beomgyu stepped closer to you, his arms wrapping around your waist. "Well, I have a surprise for you too," he whispered in your ear, his breath hot against your skin.

You felt a shiver run down your spine at his words. "What is it?" you asked, turning to face him.

Beomgyu grinned at you, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He looked around the living room once more, “Why don’t you give me the tour of your place first?” He whispered and put his arm around you. You leaned into his touch, resting your cheek on his shoulder.

“The music room is probably my favorite, I spend most of my time in there or on the balcony,” you said softly while tracing the veins along his free arm. You heard him let out a small sigh at the feeling of your touch.

“Then take me to the music room, princess. That’s where the magic happens right?” He said, lips turning upward into a smirk.

“Okay, Beomie.” You took his hand in yours and gently pulled him along, leading him to where the music room is. You led him down a hallway, stopping at one of many doors. You opened it, the familiar squeak of the hinges filling your senses with joy and you smiled up at him proudly. He stepped inside and took a look around the room you practically lived in, carefully examining each instrument on display with awe. Your heart pounded as he walked by every instrument in the room, this room was like your pride and joy. You hoped he was impressed by it.

As Beomgyu continued to look around the music room, you couldn't help but feel proud of yourself. You had worked hard to make this space your own, and it was clear that Beomgyu was impressed. You watched as he picked up your guitar, strumming a few chords before setting it back down.

"You're so talented, (y/n)," Beomgyu said, turning to face you and leaning against one of the walls.

"I had no idea you could play so many instruments. You're amazing."

You felt a warm blush spread across your cheeks at his compliments.

He pushed himself off from against the wall and took a seat on one of the cushioned benches, motioning for you to come over. You obliged and he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you to sit in his lap.

“Now can I listen to the songs you've been working on for the band? Or are you still trying to be sneaky and keep it hidden from me?”

“Mm, it's not finished though.” You said and wrapped your arms around his neck after being pulled into his lap.

He tightened his hold on your hips and smiled at you. “Well, I’d still rather listen to an unfinished song than nothing at all. Or are you just hiding something from me?” his smile turned into a small smirk.

“And why would I hide anything from you, Beomie?” You whispered softly and looked up to meet his eyes.

He leaned down slightly, his mouth coming close to your ear, “Maybe cause you want me to beg a little…” He whispered and let his lips linger by your neck for a little before pulling away.

“And maybe, just maybe…” he started again, taking his hand and tracing the curve of your neck.

“You think it's cute? Watching me beg..”

“And why would I make you beg me? Hm?” Your voice stayed in a whisper, and you cupped one of his cheeks.

He looked you in the eyes and grinned.

“Why would you make me beg, you ask? I don’t know… you know how I feel about you-“ he paused when he felt your hand touch his cheek.

“But who knows what you can get out of me.” He smirked and leaned down to kiss your cheek.

“Maybe you can make me beg for a kiss… or a little more.”

The touch of his lips to your cheek was enough to light your whole body on fire.

You shuddered lightly and moved his hair away from his face. “And what kind of person would I be if I made my soulmate beg, hm?” You asked softly.

He felt a blush creep onto his cheeks as you lightly brushed his hair out of his face. This time, you leaned forward and lightly touched your lips to the corner of his. Not kissing him properly yet.

He let out a soft gasp and you watched as his lips parted slightly in shock, not expecting you to lean in. His breath got caught in his throat and he kept his gaze locked onto yours. His hands moved down from your hips to your thighs, fingers lightly digging into them, the heat of the moment getting to both of you right now.

“Beom?” You whispered, eyes flicking down to his lips.

His heart skips a beat at the soft sound of your voice.

“Yes (y/n)?” He whispered back, face now flushed and his eyes trailed downward, gaze now glued onto your lips too.

“Kiss me, please.”

He stared at you for a second, processing what you just asked. The slight shock wearing off was replaced by desirousness, and he grinned.

“With pleasure, princess.”

He leaned in while pulling you closer to him and connected your lips, finally. His eyes closed right before your lips touched, his heart hammering against his chest. The moment the gap closed between you, your eyes fluttered closed, already lost in the moment. Your arms around his neck pulled him closer, as close as he could get to you. You felt his hands trail up and down your sides, settling on your thighs once again. Your lips parted slightly, you taking the opportunity to gently bite his lower lip, bringing them back together with yours, not wanting this to end just yet.

Beomgyu's lips were soft but demanding, and they made your heart race. You felt the heat between you grow as you allowed yourself to get lost in the moment. His tongue grazed your bottom lip, asking for permission to deepen the kiss. You granted it, allowing him to explore your mouth until you both needed to come up for air. He pulled away from you, but only enough to look into your eyes. Your faces were so close that you could feel his breath on your lips. You felt his fingers trailing up and down your thighs and his grip on them tightening.

“God, I want you (y/n),” he breathed out.

You leaned in and kissed him again, this time with more urgency. You could feel his reaction instantly as he groaned into the kiss and his grip on your thighs tightened even more. You moved your hands from around his neck to run them through his hair, tugging lightly as he deepened the kiss even more. It wasn't long before the heat between you both became unbearable and you broke the kiss, feeling breathless. You looked at each other for a moment, both of you panting slightly.

“I want you too,” you whispered, cupping his cheek with one hand while the other trailed down his chest.

Beomgyu took in a sharp breath as your hand continued to trail down his chest. His heart sped up and his mouth hung slightly open.

“Let's take this to your room," He whispered.

You nodded quickly and told him your room was the last door to the right. He lifted you up in his arms and stood up from the bench, moving quickly out of the music room with you cradled safely in his arms. Once you were both in your room, he gently laid you down on the bed. You looked up at him as he hovered above you, the desire in his eyes captivating yours and making your heart race even faster.

“Are you ready for my surprise now?” He asked, his voice soft and full of want.

You nodded at him quickly and wrapped your arms around his neck. He leaned down and gave you a light kiss. He slowly trailed down your jaw and reached the sensitive spot behind your ear. His breath tickled and sent shivers down your spine.

You lay next to him, slightly out of breath after what just happened, and felt him press a kiss to your cheek.

“Surprise,” he said teasingly.

You rolled your eyes but giggled softly and your heart skipped a beat as you looked at him. You sat up and picked up the shirt he was wearing earlier, slipping it over your head, the scent of him now enveloping all your senses.

"Was that really your surprise?" you asked him shyly.

Beomgyu had moved his head to rest on the pillow, facing you sideways, and propped up on his elbow.

He laughed at your shared bashfulness despite what you just did together, and kissed your forehead, “it was,”

He blushed and looked away from you for a quick moment, not used to this level of affection and intimacy. He looked back at you when you rested your head on your own pillow.

“This is my favorite thing to do,” he whispered, laying down properly and pulling you to his chest.

“Spending the day with you.”

Your heart sped up, from what he said, but also from the way you were currently pressed against him with your head resting against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around your waist to hold you close.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” you murmured, your eyes closing more with every word.

He smiled lovingly at you.

“Yeah? What does it sound like?”

“Like mine.”

Main Masterlist

Beomgyu Masterlist

a/n: and that’s the end! I absolutely adore soulmate aus and Beomgyu, and I’ve always wanted to try and write one of my own. I hope you enjoyed it, comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3

#✎˖ᝰbeomgyucoded✧˖°#choi beomgyu #beomgyu #beomgyu x reader #choi beomgyu imagines #txt beomgyu #txt x reader #beomgyu fluff #tomorrow x together #tomorrow x together Beomgyu #txt soulmate aus #⇢ ˗ˏˋ beomgyu 🧸 ࿐ྂ

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andreabandrea · 4 months

Text

The AndreaBandrea UTY post

I need some place to put my Undertale Yellow (UTY for short) thoughts & criticism, and this is my blog, so I might as well put them here. If you don't want to see constructive criticism about Undertale Yellow, don't click below the readmore!

Pretty much everyone I talk to really likes this game, and honestly, I'm really sad that I don't like it more. I like some parts of it quite a bit! But I have mixed feelings about other parts-- I think the writing and characterization could have been a little more impactful than they were, and I’ll be discussing that here. I don’t want to just rag on this game without expressing suggestions and parts that I do like in more detail, so those will be covered as well.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't have negative feelings towards the development team or fans of this game in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for the creators of Undertale Yellow. This project was obviously a massive undertaking with a lot of love behind it, and I'm glad to see that it's found success and a community of people who do enjoy it.

The reason I’m writing this post is that, again, I liked parts of this game and wish I enjoyed it more. If I didn’t like it at all, I just wouldn’t engage with it at all anymore. I also haven’t really seen any other people expressing constructive criticism on the game’s writing, so it’s felt more important for me to express these thoughts, be heard, and see if others feel the same way.

The Good

I'll start off with the things I like. The art, the animation, and the music are all fantastic. I was very impressed by the battle backgrounds and the little touches, like the way Clover runs. Clover doing things like reaching for other’s hands, giving fistbumps, drawing their weapon, changing their expression at times-- they feel very dynamic and fun to play as.

The music is really catchy and fun. I love the iterations on the battle theme-- Snowdin’s battle theme having bells, for example.

I also had fun with most of the fights in the game! I liked the unique mechanics that came into play (e.g. the lasso in North Star's battle). I think that changing the way Clover attacks compared to Frisk feels organic and fun.

I also love the mail system. Ever since you could deliver and receive letters in Paper Mario 64, I’ve been hooked on mail as a storytelling system in video games. I think the letters you receive are interesting and clever, and it’s a great way to keep past characters relevant in lieu of a cell phone.

I’m going to be discussing criticism of the characters later, so I’m going to take a moment to talk a little about things I liked about them. I really like Martlet’s optimism and belief in humans. Starlo made me laugh quite a few times and the Feisty Five have a great dynamic with each other. A lot of the background characters in the game are fun-- I like the one who serves you at the Honeydew Resort. The fact that you can go back to these vendors later on and get four new topics to talk about is fantastic and makes the world feel a lot more alive.

The Slightly Less-Good (and more disclaimers)

The writing is where the game falls short for me-- and it’s sad for me, because the writing is the heart of Undertale. I don’t think that the writing is bad by any means! I like the characters and story well enough, but- again- I just wish that I liked them more. I’ll try to incorporate suggestions so this isn’t just a total downer post without anything backing it up.

I want to express something about the ‘suggestions’ that I’ll be offering after the criticism. I know that Undertale Yellow is now out, and the team isn’t going to go back and change it now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to make it sound as if the team should change Undertale Yellow just because I have some reservations about it. I’m just one fan out of many. In the very off chance that a member of the Undertale Yellow development team is reading this--

First of all, hi!

Second of all, I know that changing major parts of Undertale Yellow at this point is very unrealistic, and I wouldn’t want you to. If anything, I’m honored you’re reading my ramblings at all. I’d be touched if you’d be willing to take some of my words to heart as you move onto your next creative projects.

The reason I’m including suggestions, therefore, isn’t because I think that the team should or must make these changes, but because I don’t want to just sound excessively negative about this game without offering a little feedback.

I don’t presume that my criticism and suggestions are objectively correct or better than what the Undertale Yellow team created. This is my personal blog, and these are my personal rambly thoughts about Undertale Yellow. The reason I’m including so many disclaimers is because I’ve gotten into discourse before due to poorly thought-out posts about Undertale, and I hope to avoid that this time. I don’t want to just not post something on my own blog, though, because I’m afraid it could be misconstrued or possibly upset somebody. So, I’m trying to discuss this as carefully as I can.

As one final disclaimer, I'll say that I know that it was more likely than not that I'd be at least a little disappointed by Undertale Yellow. The original Undertale was a very important game for me, and very little could reach that standard. (I think this is one reason why Toby decided to do Deltarune, a sort of AU/spinoff rather than a full-on "Undertale 2", and I respect that decision.)

I also think that quite a bit of my criticism is subjective-- several of the characters didn't fully click with me and several of the jokes just didn't land for me, personally. More people than you might think just didn’t connect with the regular Undertale, either. I’ll be talking a little about my subjective opinion on characters, but I’ll try to explain why I feel the way I do rather than just say, “XYZ character sucks because they’re lame, moving on.”

With that said, the post. I’ll be addressing my criticisms from smallest to largest. To begin, I’ll recap the plot of UTY to better analyze aspects that I do and don’t quite like. Spoilers abound.

Undertale Yellow Plot Recap!!!!

The central story of UTY, to my memory and understanding, is as follows:

In the past, a fallen human being went on a rampage in Snowdin and hurt Kanako, the daughter of Chujin, a former royal scientist and monster who happens to be a boss monster. Dalv, an unrelated monster, was also hurt in this incident and sealed himself away in the Ruins in a self-imposed isolation. Chujin’s family (presumably him or Kanako, but not Ceroba, as she doesn’t recognize Dalv) felt bad about this and left him corn from Starlo’s farm as a gift. But, when Chujin died, the corn gifts stopped coming.

Stepping back a bit, after the incident, Chujin developed a deep hatred for humanity. He invented a security robot called Axis and told it to go kill the human. Axis did this (and we will return to this later). Chujin kept the soul (at least, for a time) to experiment on.

At some point in this, Axis failed to impress Asgore and Chujin was fired as the royal scientist. At some point as well, he began to teach Martlet how to build puzzles. Martlet got a job in the royal guard and Chujin disapproved because humans are very dangerous.

Due to experimenting on his own boss monster soul in an attempt to find a way to turn regular monsters into boss monsters so that monsterkind could potentially stand up to the threat of humanity, Chujin wound up very ill and then passed away. He left video tapes to his wife, Ceroba, asking her to finish his research. However, he asked her to leave Kanako out of this so she could live a normal life.

Ceroba agreed to finish this research, but Kanako found out about it and asked to be experimented on because she, like her father, has the power of a boss monster. Ceroba agreed to experiment on her, which injured Kanako and caused her to ‘fall down’. Ceroba sent the near-death Kanako to Dr. Alphys, the new royal scientist, who was collecting ‘fallen down’ monsters for her own experiments with determination.

Plot summary over. I’ll take a closer look at some of these aspects going forward.

UTY Plot Criticism

I don’t feel like this is a bad story, necessarily. With that said, it doesn’t feel quite as tied together as Undertale’s story does, and I think certain aspects don’t land.

First, I feel that the majority of the plot elements about Chujin & Kanako get dumped on you at the last minute. You might be thinking that the story about Chara & Asriel is also dumped on you at the last minute-- and to an extent, this is true. You do get a massive amount of information regarding their story near the end of the game, in the True Lab.

However, Chara & Asriel's story is a massive part of the narrative from the very beginning. You meet 'Asriel' (Flowey) in the very beginning of the game. Toriel is in the Ruins due to the fallout of Chara & Asriel's deaths. Asgore and the monsters are trying to kill Frisk and steal their soul because of this, and the royal guard has taken it up as their mission. Sans is aware of an anomaly that will end everything (implied to be the player), and he would have 'killed Frisk where they stand' had he not made a promise to Toriel. And so on.

I’ll be reviewing criticism of the game’s plot in sections themed around each major character. I will be discussing suggestions about each character in their respective section here, as I discuss things I didn’t quite like about each character, my suggestions are intrinsically tied to why I didn’t quite like them.

Dalv

The connections between characters and the Chujin & Kanako plot feel a bit tenuous to me. Similarly to Toriel, Dalv is in a self-imposed isolation in the Ruins due to a major incident in his past. He fears humans due to the attack he suffered in Snowdin, and he suffers loneliness after losing his friend (who left him corn). When he sees Clover, he wonders if this is “some sort of haunting” (implying he knows that the human who attacked him was killed).

In the pacifist route, Clover can prove to Dalv that not all humans are evil and Dalv can move out and learn how to trust people again. This becomes a recurring theme-- Clover, pure of heart, proving to monsters that humanity isn’t that bad after all.

However, Dalv then disappears from the story. His motivation is to basically be left alone, but once you prove to him that humanity isn’t so bad, his role in the story is essentially complete.

I feel that, by comparison, Toriel’s motivation is more active-- to protect humans who fall down from Asgore. It’s this motivation that drives her to return at the end of the true pacifist route and ultimately make the true ending of Undertale possible.

Dalv’s passiveness makes him a weaker character to me. Now that you’ve proven that you’re his friend and humanity isn’t so bad, I would have liked to have seen him take an active motivation to protect his friend or help them in some way. We don’t have to copy Undertale beat for beat and have him dramatically save Clover from Asgore or anything, but it would have been nice to see him vouch for Clover in some way at some point.

Now, for the final time, I know that UTY is released and major changes aren’t likely. Some of my suggestions are “I would have liked to see this, but this change would require redoing the entire game,” which I don’t think should or could be done at this stage. This is just daydreaming and- if I’m praising myself highly- potential considerations for the devs’ future works (and the works of any other creatives who are reading this).

With this proposed major change to Dalv’s character out of the way, I’ll suggest instead the most minimal possible change that I would like to see, so my suggestions don’t feel entirely like just daydreaming.

I really like how Dalv sends Clover a letter about his moving out to Snowdin. This is active of him in terms of motivation-- Clover is his friend and he wants to keep in touch with his friend. I’d be absolutely thrilled to see a little bit of extra dialogue for him in an update. After you go back to Snowdin and see him, I think the dialogue he already has is totally fine! But, I’d be really happy if he’d take initiative and tell Clover a little more about his experience with the past human, or invite them to rely on him, too.

Martlet

Martlet felt… a bit restrained in terms of her writing, to me. I think that one aspect of Undertale’s writing is that it’s not afraid to go over the top. Papyrus isn’t just silly, he wears a costume every day and cartoon eyes pop out of his head when he’s surprised. Undyne isn’t just determined, she aspires to be a badass anime heroine. I like Martlet just fine, but she never had a moment where she really stood out to me in this way.

Martlet’s defining traits are that she likes puzzles, she loves reading and abiding by the rules of the royal guard, and she believes in humanity and wants to help Clover. As I said before, I really like this optimism and belief. I’d like to see more of it.

Near the end of the true pacifist route, Martlet says that she was taught in the royal guard that humans are scary, but Clover proved to her that humans are kind. This felt very abrupt to me at the time-- we know that Chujin disapproved of her joining the royal guard due to his own trauma, but Martlet had no personal involvement in the last human’s violent actions.

Martlet doesn’t seem to have any reason to dislike humans more than any other monster. We learn in her diary that she essentially joined the royal guard out of a desire to help people and build puzzles, and also because she needed a job.

If she’s just supposed to be a representative of the average monster and their feelings toward humanity, and her growing to like Clover is meant to represent how all of monsterkind could grow to like humankind, that would be one thing-- but I think that she specifically is meant to represent a person who wholeheartedly believes that humans can be good and that humans and monsters can live in harmony. In the no mercy route, she repeatedly pleads to Clover to do better, that they don’t have to act this way, that she wants to help them. That’s not the response of the average monster, who fights Clover or tries to flee from them.

I believe the intention is that Chujin & Martlet represent either end of an ideology axis (no pun intended). Chujin believes all humans are evil no matter what, but Martlet believes that humans can choose to be good. But why does she choose to believe in humans other than a sense of personal optimism?

I would have liked to have seen some defining event that made Martlet choose to believe in the goodness of humanity. I would have liked to have her being kind and optimistic to a fault be more of a defining trait-- to have that go over the top in an Undertale-style way. A lot of her interactions with other characters just personally weren’t very memorable to me.

Martlet spends a lot of the game sidelined. She loses you in the Mines. She gets thrown in jail in the Wild East. She has to go back to Snowdin once you're freed. Yes, she's there for you in the true pacifist route, but she's otherwise pretty absent through the neutral/true pacifist routes.

I recognize that the main characters in Undertale can be absent after you leave their respective sections of the game. However, you're able to call Papyrus & Undyne as much as you want, and you get a major hang-out (or “date”) with each of them and Alphys which gives time to expand on their backstory and character arc. Martlet doesn't get that. We even get a little bit of time to hang out with Dalv after we become his friend, but Martlet shoves us on a boat and hurries us to the next area as soon as we beat her. And sure, we get to talk to her on the boat, but it’s just a bit of silly dialogue-- it doesn’t really expand on her character. It feels like a missed opportunity.

So, yes, my major suggestion on her would be to zoom in more on her belief in you and let her be a liiiiitle sillier and more over the top, and give more opportunity for Clover to hang out with her.

At this stage, however? In this proposed minor ‘dialogue update’, I’d be really excited to see a little something more from her. Maybe a letter? She does send you one, but only in the neutral route to tell you to meet her on top of the apartments. It would be a good opportunity to either let her be silly or explain a bit about when she came to want to believe in humans-- or both, ideally.

Starlo

I honestly have very little to say on Starlo. He seems to be the fan favorite, and I did find his section fun! Ultimately, though, he's just kind of… there? I mean, he's on the periphery of Ceroba's (and Chujin and Kanako’s) story because he's her childhood friend (and his family grew the corn that Chujin gives to Dalv), and yes, he later on reminds her that she can still choose to be a better person because he also almost killed Clover! However, every monster in the game almost killed Clover.

There’s nothing wrong with having a silly character who wears a costume and isn’t a major player in the plot. I feel like Starlo is similar to Papyrus in this way. But Papyrus isn’t just a goofball, he’s the monster in Undertale who believes unerringly in Frisk & the player’s ability to do better because he firmly believes that you can make anything happen if you just try. This belief helps elevate Papyrus from comic relief to an actual rounded character.

I don’t feel like Starlo has any sort of strong conviction like that. We do learn that he wants to bring hope to the Underground by roleplaying as a sheriff in the Wild East town, giving them a slice of (supposed) surface life. I think this is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more of it. In the no mercy route, he does bravely stand against you because he’s a sheriff and it’s his job to bring justice to murderers like Clover.

My expectation when I first met him, a fellow cowboy (gender-neutral), was that he’d have his own ideas about justice. I expected that he would clash with Clover about these ideals, and neither of them would be quite right or wrong-- and this would prove that justice can’t be measured mathematically, and one outcome can’t be applied to all situations.

But, he’s not at all bad the way he is. He has a lot of fans, after all. The minor change I’d suggest now that the game is out is that I’d be interested in learning why the cowboy aesthetic specifically appealed to him. Maybe a diary in his room explaining that Westerns are the epitome of ‘justice’ to him? I’d like to see a peek into the motivation that transformed an ordinary farm boy into someone who could bravely stand against a murderous human.

Ceroba

I’ll be honest. I want to like Ceroba, but I don’t.

I understand that there's an attempt to mirror Asgore in that the war against humanity, in general, has taken Ceroba's partner and her child from her-- and ultimately, Clover forgives her and helps her learn how to move on. It's about letting go, just like Undertale. I get that. But Ceroba’s story doesn't land for me, personally. In order to talk about Ceroba, I need to talk about her husband, Chujin, because Ceroba spends so much of the story acting out Chujin's will.

Whereas monsters in Undertale do attempt to kill Frisk and steal their soul, and Asgore has killed other children before, it's framed in a very 'video game' violence sort of way (again, Undertale has these meta elements). Ultimately, in the True Pacifist route, none of Frisk's deaths have stuck, and Asgore's actions- while reprehensible- allowed for Asriel to break the barrier once and for all.

Chujin, in the video tapes he leaves for Ceroba, implies that Axis’s murder of the human- presumably a child, like Clover and Frisk- was very violent and bloody. It feels a tiny step beyond the 'video game violence' aspect, for me. While it’s shown that Chujin regrets this, it still doesn’t change the way that this violence is expressed in the game.

Instead of giving the human’s soul right to Asgore to bring monsterkind closer to freedom, Chujin- who has already been fired by Asgore, I should add- chooses to keep the soul and experiment with it.

This is very selfish, even though he has good intentions. He’s told nobody else about his experiments with his soul at this point- not even his wife- and Asgore has told him to cease all activities as the royal scientist.

While monsters do want Frisk's soul for their own selfish reasons, they notably do not butcher them violently, succeed in this, and still try to get painted with the same quirky and fun brush that the other characters get.

After Chujin dies, he leaves detailed instructions for his wife to continue his work-- and although he says "don't involve Kanako", he leaves her all the tools she would need to experiment on Kanako, and notably, no other way to finish his work except to experiment on Kanako.

As I said, Kanako finds out about this and asks to be experimented on. And while she does give consent, she is a child. I cannot stress this enough-- she is a child who just lost her father and is still wracked by grief. Kanako is a child who cannot possibly know what she is consenting to.

Ceroba chooses to experiment on Kanako and more or less kills her. And then she chooses to send her 'fallen down' daughter to Alphys's experiment, despite the fact that Kanako presumably has some sort of trace of human soul/determination left in her-- which could have compromised Alphys's work as well.

Let's return to how I said that Ceroba is a mirror for Asgore. She's made so many mistakes and it's cost her her family and she can't stop now or it will all be for nothing. She's done horrible things, just like Asgore.

But the difference is that Asgore is the king of monsterkind. Asgore has no desire to kill human beings. He declared war on humanity in a fit of anger and grief, but the Underground had lost hope due to the loss of Chara & Asriel. Believing that Asgore could gather seven human souls and free them all brought hope back to the Underground.

His actions, while wrong, are selfless-- and much less explicitly violent and more 'cartoon violence'-like. Chujin & Ceroba have the well-being of monsterkind as their own pure intentions, but their actions are far more selfish and violent. Axis, Chujin’s creation, massacred a human being. Yet we're still expected to find them silly and fun and relatable-- it just feels unusual.

I’m not someone who hates nuance or morally gray characters. One reason I’m so sad that I don’t quite like Ceroba is that I love morally gray women. It’s just that we’re not allowed to really dislike Chujin or Ceroba for what they’ve done, and instead we’re supposed to see Ceroba- and Axis- as silly and relatable like the rest of the characters.

Immediately after Ceroba’s boss battle, instead of processing what just happened to a greater extent, Clover chooses to sacrifice their soul for monsterkind.

I understand that the intention is that Ceroba's grief and Chujin's desperation to protect monsters from humanity contributed to Clover's decision to sacrifice their soul. However, the idea is- to me- abrupt. Ultimately, too, Clover's decision is just as much about how much they love their friends (and how it's impossible for them to hide out in the Underground forever) as it is about Ceroba and her family.

Chara & Asriel’s deaths, Asgore’s war on humanity, the war of humans and monsters-- these elements impact every part of Frisk’s journey. But Chujin and Ceroba’s actions, while impactful on Martlet and Dalv to varying extents, are only part of Clover’s journey. And Chujin and Ceroba did awful things for this comparatively minor impact on the plot.

EDIT: Further analysis about how Ceroba doesn't have a lot of agency and spends a lot of the plot just acting out Chujin's will, as well as the inconsistency in her characterization (and feelings about sacrificing Clover and the well-being of Kanako), with input from @carlyraejepsans. Thank you!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more from Ceroba without any influence from Chujin- maybe an interaction explaining her relationship with Martlet and an additional conversation about Martlet’s nearly unwavering belief in humans vs Ceroba’s inherited grudge against humanity- but I don’t know where this would fit in. Adding more time for Clover to process Ceroba’s boss fight before sacrificing their soul might throw off the pacing.

In general, though, Ceroba's boss fight- while flashy and fun- ultimately feels pointless with how little she learns from it and how quickly she changes her stance on using Clover's soul for the benefit of monsterkind, and what will happen to monsters after they break the barrier. To quote @carlyraejepsans in the ask linked above:

In addition, it's like the writing didn't want to commit to her delusions and little character development. She feels that her daughter is alive and thinks she can save her—wait no that was a lie—wait it wasn't. The moment she's defeated she goes "Agh, what was I thinking!" out loud (which is already a questionable writing choice imo but i digress), and recognizes that sacrificing Clover for her plans is horrible... and then 5 seconds later Clover chooses to sacrifice themself to break the barrier and whoops nevermind she's suddenly the one getting the others onboard with the idea... wait. didn't she say she was making the serum because the humans would've only slaughtered them again if they broke the barrier? oh wait wasn't that also chujin again? whoops.

I would have felt better if there were more room to view Chujin and Ceroba in a critical light (and time to view Ceroba outside of just being a mom and wife). I can’t think of any ‘minor’ suggestion that wouldn’t require a lot of editing.

Axis…

And... okay. Let's talk about Axis real quick.

I want to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, but I need to point out that this security robot's name is "Axis 014." If you don't know what I mean by pointing this out, I'll just say that both of these terms are nazi dog whistles and allow you to look up the specifics.

I recognize that, by this point, it’s too late to change his name. I’d at least be grateful if the team would acknowledge this and confirm that they aren’t nazis.

Axis’s name makes his actions far worse in retrospect. He, as a security robot wants to kill a child, but he isn't able to anymore because his programming has changed. So, as a legal loophole, he forces them to hold 'a weapon' (a trash can lid) so he can justifiably kill them. This is the same robot that brutalized and murdered a human being in the past at Chujin's behest.

It feels tone deaf and ultimately the one thing I’d just outright call bad about UTY. I don’t think it was intentionally done this way, but I don't like that we're supposed to find this nazi-aesthetic police brutality robot "quirky and relatable" like the Undertale cast. In the true pacifist ending, he falls in love with a robot made out of a trash can and his eyes turn into cartoon hearts and etc. It’s even more jarring than viewing Chujin & Ceroba in a fun/relatable way.

In the no mercy route, Axis will defend himself and claim that his programming forced him to kill the human and he didn't want to. This "just following orders" defense feels weak to me as well, personally. Axis clearly delights in harming humans, going out of his way to try to kill Clover. But also, Axis spends a significant amount of the game displaying a very similar amount of free will to the other characters. He’s not just a janitor robot that sweeps back and forth.

He’s a nearly sentient being-- and the fact that there are these nearly sentient robots makes Alphys’s accomplishment of creating “a robot with a soul” (at least, so she claims-- Mettaton is only the ghost in a machine) much less impactful to me, personally. Yes, Asgore thinks that Chujin failed in creating a sentient robot, and so it’s impressive that Alphys supposedly did it. But I don’t know why Asgore wouldn’t be more skeptical of Alphys’s accomplishment after Chujin failed more than eight times and set fire to his flowers.

I think that Axis is ultimately a missed opportunity to make a really villainous character. This concept that he disobeys his programming- used as sort of a parallel for law, as a security robot- to attack Clover could have been explored to further the ‘justice’ theme. He doesn’t write his programming (the laws), he just carries it out (violently enforces the laws).

The ‘minor’ suggestion I’d make, though, is to just acknowledge the name.

Undertale & Meta Elements

Now, we’ll be addressing my largest criticisms-- the omission of meta elements and the way Flowey is written.

Undertale Yellow never quite stopped feeling like a fan game to me. And it is, of course-- but I think that it feels as if it tries so hard to be Undertale (in the writing style, the humor, etc) that it fails to forge an identity of its own, and that holds it back from being just a fangame to a fangame that succeeds in expanding on the original creative work.

At the same time, although UTY tries to feel like Undertale, I don’t think it captures certain elements that make Undertale be Undertale.

Whereas Undertale was ultimately about video games as a medium and the normalization of violence in them, UTY doesn’t have this level of metatextual commentary. UTY does have a running theme of 'justice'-- and I don’t think this is bad! After all, if Undertale already said all there was to say about video games and violence, why retread that path? I respect that UTY knows its limits and simply focuses on justice as a concept instead.

At the same time, Undertale isn’t just an RPG about mercy-- it’s an RPG about RPGs. The fact that you can talk to and spare enemies isn’t just a quirk of the game, it’s what the game is about. This is one thing that makes Undertale great that UTY doesn’t focus on.

UTY doesn’t completely ignore these elements, of course. Flowey takes over resetting for you, and you do have three distinct paths based on whether or not you kill enemies-- the ‘true pacifist’ path, the ‘neutral’ path, and the ‘no mercy’ path (I will not be calling it the ‘genocide’ route, especially in light of recent world events). Through whether or not you choose to kill enemies, the theme of ‘justice’ is explored-- who is Clover seeking justice for? In the true pacifist route, Clover seeks justice for the monsters, while in the no mercy route, Clover seeks justice for the fallen humans before them.

However, Flowey taking over the mechanics of saving and resetting for you makes concept of ‘the player’ obsolete. I recognize that not everyone in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom quite enjoys the concept of 'the player' and the meta elements of these games due to the fact that there can be implications that playing Deltarune (as an example, which ups the meta elements quite a bit) can actively hurt Kris and make their world a worse place. However, Deltarune isn’t a complete work and we don’t know this for certain. Additionally, I feel as if at least acknowledging Toby's intentions are important to analyzing the work, no matter what one's personal feelings are about them.

The Importance of the Player

The presence of you, the player, is important in Undertale. Frisk is a subversion of the 'blank slate protagonist' trope. You think that you're able to name them and control them, but in the True Pacifist route, Frisk begins to act on their own (they walk slowly in some parts of the True Lab because they're presumably afraid, etc). In the end, you realize that Frisk is their own person with their own name, and you as the player have to let go-- when Frisk & the monsters go to the surface, Flowey (a mirror of the player themselves) urges you to let them go. Don't treat this as a game anymore-- don't replay and wring out any last drops of content you can. You enjoyed it, now move on.

But many players want to see the No Mercy route because it’s the last thing they haven’t done in the game, and they don’t want to let go. And that's where the role of you, the player, becomes undeniable in the game's story. What is the No Mercy route except playing a 'typical' RPG in the way it's meant to be played? You grind to become stronger, killing every enemy that stands in your way. And when you've killed all the monsters and become as strong as you can be, you've won.

Many players didn't do this because they hate the characters in Undertale and want to hurt them-- if they hate them, they likely just wouldn't play the game. Many players did it because they like the characters in Undertale, and wanted to see what would happen. They couldn't stop playing. And this is exactly what Sans means in his dialogue during his boss battle-- to paraphrase, "you think that because you can, that means you have to."

This is one of the ways that Flowey is a mirror of the player. Flowey didn't start killing out of malicious intent, but because he had become so bored and isolated that he just "had to see what happens".

Chara's role at the very end of the No Mercy route is to call you out directly for this. They tell you that their power was yours. Their words were very misconstrued by fans for a long time, and they themselves wound up as a scapegoat for the No Mercy route-- but ultimately, there's no reason for Chara or Frisk to kill every monster in the Underground. The only reason is because of you, personally. You want to see what would happen. You want to grind and play it like a typical RPG.

They call you out for this if you don't want to delete the game world at the end. Why go back to that world that you've already destroyed? Why play nice with the monsters that you just massacred because you can?

Why am I talking about this at such length? Because I believe that ‘the player’ and how they interact with the world of Undertale is important. Characters lampshade the UI and battle mechanics often-- Flowey talking about the world as a game and ‘saving’ and ‘loading’, Papyrus telling you to “press C to open the dating HUD”, Sans explaining ‘LV’ and ‘EXP’, and so on.

This is my personal opinion, and I recognize this is very nitpicky, but I feel that not acknowledging this or adding to these meta elements in some way makes UTY weaker for me.

Flowey’s Role in UTY

Flowey essentially saves and resets for you because he's bored, and he wants to use Clover as a tool to access Asgore’s five stored human souls. His role as a mirror for the player becomes him essentially just acting as a stand-in for the player. While this in itself can invite self-reflection, I think that the execution of his role is a little awkward.

We learn at the end of the neutral route that Flowey has already reset the timeline hundreds of times by the time we first start playing the game. According to him, Clover always ends up at a dead end (they choose to stay in the Underground for the rest of their life) or they die (and they can’t reset of their own power). Thus, Flowey chose to set Clover on an alternate path by sabotaging a lever in the Ruins, which made them fall into the Dark Ruins and meet Dalv.

Flowey then tries to kill Clover and absorb their soul because they, again, hit a dead end. Yet he gives up on it after a while because Clover won’t stop fighting back, and he thinks he can just reset and try again anyway.

At the end of the true pacifist route, Clover instead opts to sacrifice their soul willingly to Asgore & monsterkind. Flowey comments that he could just reset (and you still can, if you want to play again), but Clover “earned their rest” and he calls them a friend.

This progression from “Clover is a tool that Flowey is using to access the 5 human souls” to “Clover is a friend and Flowey willingly lets them die and stay dead” feels undeserved and underdeveloped to me.

"But, Andrea," you might say, "Flowey went from trying to kill Frisk as Omega/Photoshop Flowey to hugging Frisk as Asriel really quickly too!"

Yes, but in that short time, Frisk and Flowey/Asriel had a Whole Thing where Frisk 'saved' him like everyone else and he learned he needs to let go, too. It was a short time, but it was a poignant time. By contrast, Flowey is pretty much absent throughout most of UTY's true pacifist route. Sure, you could easily say that he just got bored of Clover and gave up-- but that, too, doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I really hate to say this, but I feel that Flowey’s writing in UTY cheapens the original Undertale for me, which is why this is one of my major criticisms of the game.

Flowey's entire character arc in Undertale is about how he was stuck with the same places and same people for an endless amount of resets. In my opinion, the limited amount of places and characters for him to interact with in Undertale only adds to how trapped he is (and the Underground being so small really strengthens the concept of "there's overpopulation and the monsters are running out of time to find a solution/earn their freedom" that we see in the game, but I digress).

So when something finally changes and he meets Frisk, it's deeply impactful to him. Finally, someone new to play with! Finally, potential for change! Even though Flowey admits that, even if Chara came back, there's a great chance that he couldn't really love them due to his lack of soul, just experiencing something new for the first time in ages is as close to love as he can possibly get. So Flowey:

Starts to believe that Frisk is Chara, this person he ‘loves’ or wants to love, or some manifestation of Chara.

Refuses to let Frisk go, even if that means- when Asriel has the power of seven human souls- just resetting the Undertale timeline over and over instead of going to the surface or doing anything else.

For Flowey to have gone through everything that he does in UTY- all these new places, all these new people, Clover included- weakens this, in my opinion. And sure, there's very heavily implied to be lots of places that Frisk doesn't explore and people they don't meet-- 99% of New Home and its residents, for instance. But Clover themselves is the real problem for me.

No matter how many times Flowey reset with Clover, I really struggle to believe that he would get bored of a human being that easily. He even said that Clover's actions and choices would sometimes change from reset to reset, and he only recently learned how dramatically he could alter their path by sabotaging that lever in the Ruins. Clover isn't a static being-- and even if they were, they're at least a new static being.

And although we learn in the neutral route that Flowey can't really absorb Clover's soul because they fight back too much, I can't believe that would stop Flowey so easily. What about at the end of the pacifist route, where Clover has given it up willingly and it's being transported in a little jar? Clover’s body is separated from the soul, now-- could Clover still fight back?

Or, what about if Flowey tried to kill them as soon as they entered the Ruins? Or, what if Flowey played nice the entire route and then at the end tried to convince Clover that if they sacrificed their soul, he would take it to Asgore for them? With access to full control of the timeline, I don't think Flowey would give up on this. We learn in Undertale how painful it is for him to be soulless and how desperate he is to access power so that things will change.

For Flowey to acknowledge Clover as a 'friend'- maybe even a true person, not just a compilation of dialogue- suggests character growth. It suggests remorse for his resets that he isn't capable of having and doesn't have until the events of Undertale. I just don't feel like it’s earned.

Flowey is, of course, an unreliable narrator.

At the end of the no mercy route of UTY, Flowey expresses that he never saw Clover as a friend-- he only enjoyed watching them die over and over again. It should be noted that this was said while under extreme duress (Clover is LV 20 by this point and has killed everyone save for Asgore), and this route isn’t canon in the way that the neutral and pacifist routes are.

With that said, if we agree that Flowey can’t feel love as a soulless being, then I could argue that this is about as much of a ‘friend’ as anyone could be. This is how he wanted to keep Frisk (“Chara”, in his mind) for eternity when he had the six human souls + the entirety of monsterkinds’ souls-- just watch them try over and over again, for eternity.

Why am I contradicting myself? Because, let’s suppose that Flowey doesn’t mean Clover is a ‘friend’ in the traditional sense- that they earned his respect and he cares for them in some way- but Clover is a new toy that he got bored with and gave up on. I feel like this, too, makes Undertale a little weaker.

If Flowey did have some type of positive regard for Clover, but was willing to let them go, then it feels- to me- like Frisk’s role in his story isn’t that significant. Frisk helped him learn how to let go and move on, but Flowey has already demonstrated being capable of this. The circumstances are different- if Flowey gives up at the end of Undertale’s true pacifist route, it’s over for real, whereas if he gives up at the end of UTY, he can just wait for another human to fall- but I feel like the core feeling is the same. Flowey, by the start of Undertale, doesn’t strike me as someone who’s capable of letting go.

So, how would I have changed this?

I recognize that- again- Undertale already made these points about video games and violence, and Flowey has his entire character arc in that game. For Flowey to have more of an arc in this game would potentially make this game no longer line up with canon Undertale or weaken Undertale further. And why retread old ground that Undertale already talked about?

I respect the decision to tell a self-contained story, but the meta commentary about video games in Undertale is so significant for me that I personally would have liked to see a bit more of it in Undertale Yellow. I also recognize how much of my criticism of Flowey’s writing in UTY is subjective. It feels unrealistic for me, his arc feels abrupt for me, it makes Undertale less poignant for me.

A lot of people love his inclusion in this game, and it’s very novel to see Flowey as a friend throughout most of UTY and hear his snarky commentary on demand rather than having him as an enemy who’s absent through most of the game, as he is in Undertale.

The Flowey Suggestions

First, I’ll be honest. I know this is not and has never been possible, but my easiest solution to the dilemma of Flowey’s lack of a character arc- and the lack of an ability to give him a character arc- would have been to just remove him from UTY.

I think that Flowey’s inclusion in the story of the yellow soul human and his role saving and loading could have been interesting. It goes against certain story elements implied in Undertale, and popular fan theories-- and I don’t mind that, if something meaningful is done with it. But, I feel as if Flowey’s relationship to Clover isn’t impactful enough to justify including him.

To clarify on ‘implied story elements’ and ‘popular fan theories’:

While I might be misremembering, I thought that it was implied in Undertale that Flowey came into being after Asgore had already collected six human souls, and that a significant amount of time had passed since the last human had fallen down.

I won’t go into it at length because this post is long enough and I, again, am not an Undertale expert. With that said, it’s also implied that all human souls are capable of saving/loading/resetting in the Underground. If you make Frisk tell Asgore that he killed them before, he just nods as if he’s used to it-- and he’s the one character who we know has killed humans before.

Now, how did Asgore successfully kill beings that can just reset the game whenever they die? Well, Sans faces the same dilemma in Undertale’s no mercy route. There’s no way that he can permanently defeat you, the player, who is a real being. Therefore, the way he ‘wins’ is by infuriating you enough with his difficult boss fight until you give up and stop playing Undertale (or, at least, reset and make better choices).

Think about all the times you’ve played a game, got stuck on a hard boss, and never played it again. While it’s not ‘canon’ to the story- giving up on your copy of Mario doesn’t mean Bowser really wins- functionally, giving up on a game means that the story ends for you. This is how I believe Asgore captured the six human souls, even if they were also capable of resetting like Frisk is-- he fought them until they gave up.

Humans all are said to have great amounts of ‘determination’, not just red soul bearers. We don’t even know what trait the red soul exemplifies. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s determination itself.

The bottom line is that I don’t think it would be unrealistic for Clover to be able to save/load/reset on their own, or for Flowey to not exist yet during the time they fell down.

But, I get it, Flowey was in UTY’s demo that has been out for seven years. He’s in the trailers. He couldn’t be removed at any part of development, and he sure as hell can’t be removed now.

My second suggestion would have been to zoom in on him, instead. While the prequel is about Clover, the yellow soul human, I would have liked to see it be about Flowey in a significant way. I kept hoping for Clover to have an opportunity to ask Flowey at some point, “why are you helping me, anyway?”.

This is my personal interpretation, but I’ve come to believe that Flowey thinks that the reason he’s stuck as a flower is that it’s a punishment. Because he, as Asriel, refused to fight back, he failed Chara, and now they’re dead. Now he’s stuck as a rinky-dink flower with no soul, he can’t love his former family, and he can’t stop playing this game.

In the no mercy route of Undertale, Flowey feels very much like he’s trying to appeal to Frisk- the person he believes is Chara- in a way like a younger sibling trying to impress an older sibling. He says he’s impressed by how you killed everyone. He helps solves puzzles so you won’t have to slow down. He brags to you about how he’s also a heartless killer.

Notably, he talks about his past. He tells ‘Chara’ that he was afraid to start killing, at first. He said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but he just had to know what would happen.

Then, Flowey laughs and says that you (Chara) know how liberating it is to be this way-- to kill people and shape their fates. He ‘recognizes’ Frisk as being actually Chara because of how they killed everyone in the Ruins.

But we have no indication that Chara was a violent or evil person in their life. I believe that Flowey is partially projecting and partially recognizes Chara because, in the last moments of their life, they were telling him to kill. He always knew that Chara hated humanity and wanted power to better the position of monsterkind. This is why Flowey brags about how he has a plan to get the human souls, and once they do so, they can go to the surface and “finish what [they] started.”

To Flowey, in my opinion, killing people isn’t just about seeing what happens. It’s about trying to understand and appease Chara and doing what he thinks he should have done all that time ago, as Asriel.

I bring this up because I think that I would have liked to have seen this be explored in Undertale Yellow. Flowey is still a very misunderstood character today due to being an unreliable narrator. I believe that a lot of Flowey misinterpretations are due to taking him at face value-- hearing him say that he’s an unfeeling, manipulative, patient killer and agreeing with him.

But Flowey contradicts himself at several points. He gives up his “catch these friendliness pellets” trick after you dodging just a few times. These aren’t the makings of a perfect manipulative killer, but an impatient child. That’s who Flowey is at his core-- a child.

I recognize that, again, if Flowey told all of his tragic backstory to Clover and they became true friends, this wouldn’t fit with canon Undertale and his actions in that game. Flowey and Asriel distance themselves from each other, and it wouldn’t make sense for Flowey to tell this to Clover-- especially if he just views them as a tool to use and play with.

I think, however, it wouldn’t have been impossible for Clover to have learned this information about Flowey in a way that could still be canon compliant with Undertale itself. Hypothetically, maybe the “hopes and dreams” statue in the UG Apartments near the Core could have sparked intrigue in Flowey.

Maybe analysis of Flowey could have come up during his neutral route boss fight-- after all, Clover appears to peek into the minds of Ceroba and Martlet during the true pacifist and no mercy run boss fights, respectively. We already get a little of this- Clover has to run through a hallway of flowers in Flowey’s boss fight, and we hear sad and scared dialogue that’s presumably from a past version of Flowey himself. However, it’s not necessarily new and doesn’t quite add to Flowey’s character in my personal opinion.

I feel that including Flowey’s story more in some way would justify having Flowey in the game, and knowing the history of Asriel & Chara could factor into Clover’s decision to give up their soul for the sake of monsterkind. Chara, too, sacrificed themselves willingly, after all.

I don’t have a ‘realistic suggestion’ that could be implemented with a dialogue update because these suggestions are so vast-- and, ultimately, very personal and subjective. I have very strong feelings about Flowey.

Meta Elements of Undertale

In Undertale, you’re asked when you should or shouldn’t fight. As a pacifist, you can get through the Ruins without killing anyone. Flowey will then ask you what you would do if you met a relentless killer. Would you betray your morals and fight? Or would you give up and let yourself die?

Undertale is the friendly RPG where nobody has to die. While you have to kill Asgore at least once to do the neutral route, and you do have to fight back against Omega/Photoshop Flowey to end his battle, the game ultimately posits that there never is a good time to fight. You don’t beat Omega Flowey by being stronger than him, you do it by appealing to the souls and allowing them to rebel. You don’t beat God of Hyperdeath Asriel Dreemurr by beating him up, you do it by saving your friends- him included. The game, again, is about an inversion of the necessity of violence in video games to me.

I would have been interested in seeing an exploration of when it is necessary to fight, and this could be done through the lens of ‘justice’. Would Clover fight if it brought them closer to justice (on a pacifist route)? Is it morally correct to kill one person if it saves thousands?

Sparing someone is always the correct option in Undertale. In that way, the true route is quite linear-- there’s one solution that works for everyone. What if there were situations in UTY in which there is no single correct option that works for everyone? What if Clover were placed in situations in which they had to act as arbiter and decide between two outcomes and what is right? It could have been like how they get forced to solve the trolley problem in the Wild East, but with consequences.

Adding to putting a ‘twist’ on the elements that Undertale introduces with its combat system-- what if sparing someone ultimately enabled them to keep hurting others? What if fighting to weaken someone was the correct solution for once? These inversions could have built on the meta elements of Undertale, and I think that it would make Clover’s decision to sacrifice themselves to bring justice to monsterkind more poignant to me.

Again, I have no ‘realistic’ suggestion for this in the full release of UTY. I think that the plot about justice alone isn’t bad, but I would have been happy to see it tie into the gameplay a little more.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that UTY tries too hard to be Undertale without iterating on the aspects that made Undertale memorable. The characters feel like they fail to pop or relate to the game’s story in meaningful ways, and to me, the main story isn’t executed as well as it could have been (and far darker than the main Undertale in ways that don’t feel as if they’re handled sensitively).

I will say, again, that this project is very impressive in scope, and I applaud the dev team for finishing it and releasing it. I recognize that a lot of my distaste is subjective, and creating another Undertale is a fool's errand considering the acclaim that Undertale got. I recognize one final time that my suggestions are just daydreaming, and this game has already found a lot of success-- which I think it deserves.

I tend to criticize a lot of media I like, which might sound contradictory to some, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I don’t like something, I won’t engage with it. I think that the original Undertale has its flaws, too. At the end of the day, I like UTY, but no media is perfect. This is how I think it could have been better, and I hope that I think other creatives who want to make Undertale fanworks (or any creative works, for that matter) will take these thoughts into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

#bandrea blabbers #long post #the uty post

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queercafe · 1 year

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phoebe is the queen of pretending not to care. she uses details and humor to obfuscate her emotions. how many times in her discography does she actually tell us what she's feeling? and when she does it hits us like a train.

lucy is the queen of storytelling. she writes her songs through the lens of memory. she tells us the story of a moment where nothing happened with so much clarity we can put ourselves right there. she simultaneously puts us in the moment and in the space she's at while reflecting on it.

julien is the queen of expressivity. she writes in a way that is SO direct and vulnerable that it sidesteps the possibility of feeling cliche, which is so often the danger with art that tells us how it feels. she captures exactly how it feels to be in a given moment, as if she wrote the song right then without giving herself a chance to translate it into something more consumable.

these different lyrical styles are what makes boygenius tick, the push and pull of julien and phoebe deciding whether or not to show us they care, of julien and lucy being in the moment and in the past, and of phoebe and lucy using completely different methods to avoid being too on-the-nose. they all have a completely different way of approaching lyricism but they all complement each other in a way unlike any other group i've ever seen.

#boygenius #phoebe bridgers #julien baker #lucy dacus #music #music analysis

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striving-artist · 1 year

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If you have created, encouraged, enabled, or spread anything to do with Goncharov, Thank You.

Look, today was my birthday, and Goncharov rose today, and those events are not in anyway related. But, it does mean that I got to spend all day watching this unfold. And I have been on tumblr long enough to know that, even if something fades, it always comes back as an anniversary.

I keep writing things and then deleting them. Cause. Look. I do not have a way to say this emphatically enough without it sounding like I'm being sarcastic. I work in the arts and in entertainment. I am a storyteller by trade and training and passion. I love the way that humans are, and have always been good at their core. I love that when left with nothing else, humans will create something to share with others, just for the joy of doing it.

Watching this today is one of the coolest things I have ever seen experienced, and every time I think about it for more than a few seconds, I start to cry because it is the most pure expression of the goodness of humanity that I have ever seen. There is music, art, fic, meta, ships, discourse, a plot, and bits of screenplay invented out of nothing but the happiness of the people involved. I genuinely cannot communicate how this feels to watch. It's just a dumb thing people took and ran with on this strange blue hellsite, and I know that. But I swear, it is also more. It's a light in the darkness, in a way too vast to put into words right now.

And the best of this is that I know, if nothing else, a year from now, I'll get to see this again, and I'll get a reminder that the best of humanity is found when there are no restrictions or requirements. Which means that I know, right now, that I am going to get an incredible birthday present next year too, because I'll get to relive some of this.

So. Thank you.

#goncharov #and some actual emotions #because this is a thing I want theses written on #I want it to be taught in art schools as a reminder #you cannot force creation to walk a certain path #you set it free #and you watch it travel #through the echoes of others' voices #and their memories #you can encourage it #but we cannot control which seeds will sprout #we only get to celebrate those that do

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lensman-arms-race · 3 months

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Happy 1st birthday, Skibidi Toilet!

I've said as much on this blog before, but Skibidi Toilet has given me more laughs, excitement and angst than 99% of anything on broadcast telly. DaFuqBoom is a master of storytelling without dialog or even facial expressions on most characters most of the time. It's been a delight to follow along with this series!

It's given me enough brainworms that I started writing fan fiction (something I'd not done since I was a teen) and I ended up writing literally a novel's worth (currently >136k words). I've greatly enjoyed reading everyone else's fics and seeing everyone's fan art! It's been a treat to be part of Skibidi Tumblr and see all this creativity and love - I don't think there's a Skibidi fan community like this anywhere else on the internet.

Damn, I love Skibidi Toilet!

#skibidi toilet

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eightyuh · 4 months

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That Penn art is so good! ❤️ It's a great fic, too. @ratcatcher0325 does fantastic character arcs.

So... have you transitioned from 'I just found out what G/t is' to 'Okay, I might have accidentally joined this community.' ?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts because G/t has so many potential settings, concepts and vibes, that I think tons more people could get into the 'fandom' (actually more of a trope).

But one of the major things driving people away is the mixed association with NSFW/kink stuff. Even the most wholesome G/t fluff feels like something weird I have to hide from friends/family. 😞

Feel free not to answer: but what were your initial impressions about the G/t fandom? How did they change as you learned more?

(first of all, this is like a really good ask-- I appreciate your insight on the matter haha ... what with me accidentally creating Wick's End as a G/T comic and coming into all this as an outsider)

Thank you!! It was a nice read; they did a good job writing. Unfortunately for me, I can't just enjoy media without analyzing it. It was interesting to see how another author wrote a story intentionally as G/T - setting up scenarios ;) and indulging in the element of physical contact as a love language.

While I hesitate to claim membership to any fandom as an identity, yes, I would say I am a G/T enjoyer among you. :) I appreciate how flexible it can be used to express themes like emotions, protection, vulnerability, disability, etc.

I'll admit, I was initially cautious because I did suspect it was a kink-oriented. As time went on, I came to see that G/T makes efforts to separate itself from the perverted sect off in another corner. The genuine feelings of earnestness, wholesomeness, and shared sense of vulnerability is what won me over. I love that understanding and taking care of one another is a foundation within the G/T community. Really, I can't think of the last internet community I came across and thought positively of-- if that means anything haha. That doesn't mean it doesn't have total weirdos too lol. I even lurk in the GTCon Discord VC occasionally while I work on Wick's End as a sort of parallel-play motivator >/////<

. . .

The reason I still don't tag Wick's End as G/T is because I don't want people reading this story thinking that was my intention. YES it is G/T, tropes and all, but I did not write it with the intention to indulge in that sort of fantasy. It's meant to be a storytelling aid that illustrates chronic burnout... which otherwise would be an invisible condition. I don't want outsiders to mistake this as written for a kink / community they don't belong to -- and at the same time -- I also don't want G/T community members to misinterpret it as fiction written specifically to entertain the trope.

I hope breaking this up in paragraphs + adding a pic made it less of an eye-sore haha. Thank you for asking such a personalized question!

#ask #mod #G/T #WICK'S END #glendale goodwyn #glen #oc #mlp taught me maybe too much fandom is not a good thing and dont put urself in a box -- otherwise that's all ppl will expect from u haha #like many other artists i had to abandon a previous art handle because all people wanted from me was fanart !!#so that's why no more “fandoms” for me haha -- just interests. i'm much happier drawing what i want and i'm elated u guys enjoy it too!#i know its riskier to follow a general artist that does whatever they want (+ music lol) but i appreciate u sticking along for the ride ^^

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hayatheauthor · 11 months

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The Ultimate Guide to Writing Persuasive Arguments

Within the vast landscape of written expression, where words hold the potential to shape opinions and ignite change, the art of crafting compelling arguments stands as a formidable force. As an author, I recognize the tremendous opportunity we possess to harness this power and leave an indelible mark on our readers.

I was recently asked to write a blog about creating argumentative scenes, I found the topic quite interesting as arguments and persuasion are something authors of all genres can find themselves writing. Anger is a very raw emotion that authors often feel the need to perfect, I hope this guide on how to write persuasive arguments can help you reach that point of perfection.

Understanding the Power of Persuasion in Fiction

Persuasion in fiction goes beyond convincing readers of a particular argument or viewpoint. It involves crafting narratives that engage readers on multiple levels, influencing their emotions, thoughts, and even actions. Just like skilled orators sway their audiences, we can use the tools of persuasion to captivate readers, immerse them in our stories, and make them feel deeply connected to our characters and themes.

By masterfully crafting persuasive narratives, we can make readers question their assumptions, reconsider their beliefs, and view the world through a new lens.

However, it's important to note that persuasion in fiction doesn't mean manipulating or forcing readers to adopt specific viewpoints. Instead, it's about presenting compelling arguments within the context of our stories and allowing readers to engage with them organically. Through our characters' journeys, conflicts, and personal growth, we can subtly challenge readers' perspectives, encourage empathy, and foster critical thinking.

Your character doesn’t have to necessarily be wrong or right and it is important to remember your readers can always have a viewpoint completely different from your opinion of your character and that scene.

Developing Convincing Characters and Narratives

Captivating characters possess the power to sway readers' hearts and minds. They are multidimensional, relatable, and possess qualities that make their actions and beliefs compelling. By carefully sculpting our characters, we can infuse them with the ability to embody persuasive arguments and engage readers in thought-provoking ways.

To create convincing characters, we must delve into their backgrounds, motivations, and desires. What drives them? What are their core values? Understanding their unique perspectives allows us to shape their beliefs and opinions, providing a foundation for persuasive storytelling. When our characters' convictions align with the arguments we wish to convey, their authenticity and passion become catalysts for reader engagement.

Character Examples

In Angie Thomas' powerful novel, "The Hate U Give," the protagonist, Starr Carter, serves as a compelling argumentative character.

Through authentic dialogue and poignant internal monologues, Starr articulates her experiences, frustrations, and desires for a more just society. Her arguments against racial profiling, police brutality, and the need for equality are rooted in her personal journey, allowing readers to empathize with her and reflect on their own biases and prejudices.

By skillfully intertwining character development with persuasive arguments, Angie Thomas creates a protagonist whose voice and convictions leave a lasting impact. Starr's transformation from a reluctant witness to a courageous advocate exemplifies the power of persuasive storytelling, inspiring readers to challenge injustice, examine their own beliefs, and work towards a more equitable world.

Crafting Engaging Dialogue

When it comes to persuasive writing, crafting engaging dialogue is a powerful tool that allows us to convey arguments, challenge beliefs, and captivate readers. Effective dialogue not only propels the plot forward but also serves as a vehicle for persuasion.

To craft engaging dialogue with persuasive impact, consider the following techniques:

Character Voice: Each character should have a distinct voice that reflects their personality, background, and beliefs. Whether it's through word choice, dialect, or speech patterns, make sure their dialogue is authentic and consistent. This authenticity lends credibility to their arguments and makes them more compelling.

Conflict and Tension: Engaging dialogue often thrives on conflict. Introduce opposing viewpoints and create tension between characters with differing opinions. These clashes of ideology can spark thought-provoking debates and allow readers to see multiple sides of an argument.

Subtext and Nuance: Effective dialogue often goes beyond surface-level conversations. Include subtext and underlying emotions to add depth to your characters' interactions. What remains unsaid can be just as powerful as what is spoken, allowing readers to infer hidden motives and subtle persuasions.

Relevance to the Plot: Ensure that your dialogue serves a purpose within the larger narrative. Use it to advance the story, develop characters, or explore thematic elements. When dialogue aligns with the overall arc of the narrative, it becomes an integral part of the persuasive storytelling process.

Emotional Impact: Infuse your dialogue with emotion to create a deeper connection with readers. Engage their empathy, evoke their curiosity, or stir their passion through the heartfelt words exchanged between characters. Emotional resonance enhances the persuasive power of your arguments.

Utilizing Descriptive Language and Imagery

By skillfully utilizing descriptive language and imagery, we can immerse our audience in the world of our story and strengthen the persuasive nature of our arguments.

Appeal to the Senses: Engage readers on a sensory level by incorporating descriptive details that evoke sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. By immersing readers in the sensory experience of a scene, you can make your arguments more tangible and relatable.

Paint Vivid Settings: Transport readers to vibrant and immersive settings that act as a backdrop for your arguments. By creating a rich visual landscape, you can enhance the persuasive impact of your words and immerse readers in the world of your story.

Evoke Emotions: Harness the power of emotion to make your arguments resonate deeply with readers. Use descriptive language that elicits a range of feelings, whether it's anger, empathy, awe, or hope. Connect with readers on an emotional level, and they will be more likely to embrace your persuasive message.

Plotting and Structuring Persuasive Storylines

Crafting persuasive storylines requires careful plotting and effective structuring to engage readers and convey your arguments in a compelling manner. By strategically organizing your narrative elements, you can captivate your audience, build tension, and ultimately deliver persuasive messages that resonate long after the final page. Here are key considerations for plotting and structuring persuasive storylines:

Establish Clear Goals: Define the central objectives of your narrative, both in terms of the overall story and the persuasive arguments you aim to convey. What do you want readers to understand or believe? Set clear goals to guide your storytelling, ensuring every plot point and character arc serves the purpose of advancing your persuasive message.

Build Rising Tension: Structure your storyline to escalate tension and keep readers invested in the outcome of your persuasive arguments. Craft each plot twist and revelation to heighten the stakes, gradually intensifying the conflict and presenting new challenges that test characters' convictions.

Use Narrative Devices: Employ narrative devices such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and dramatic irony to enhance the persuasive impact of your storylines. These devices can provide deeper insight into characters' motivations, reveal hidden truths, and strengthen the arguments you present.

Balance Pace and Reflection: Find a balance between fast-paced action and reflective moments to allow readers to digest and connect with your persuasive messages. Provide opportunities for characters to contemplate their beliefs, engage in meaningful conversations, and undergo personal growth, which reinforces the authenticity and impact of their arguments.

Editing and Polishing Your Argument

Editing is the key to refining and enhancing the persuasive impact of your writing. As you revisit your work, focus on clarity, coherence, and compelling language. Here are essential editing steps to maximize the persuasive power of your piece:

Streamline Your Argument: Trim unnecessary details and tighten your arguments. Ensure each sentence and paragraph contributes to the central message, eliminating any tangents that may dilute the persuasive impact.

Enhance Clarity: Clarify your ideas by simplifying complex concepts and using concise language. Avoid jargon or technical terms that may alienate or confuse your readers. Opt for clarity over complexity.

Strengthen Structure: Check the flow of your piece, ensuring a logical progression of ideas. Arrange your arguments in a coherent manner, guiding readers from one point to the next with clarity and coherence.

Choose Compelling Language: Use powerful and evocative language to captivate readers. Employ vivid verbs, descriptive adjectives, and figurative language to engage their senses and emotions, heightening the persuasive impact of your words.

Proofread for Errors: Eliminate grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can distract readers from your persuasive message. A polished and error-free piece lends credibility and professionalism to your arguments.

I hope this blog on the ultimate guide to writing persuasive arguments will help you in your writing journey. Be sure to comment any tips of your own to help your fellow authors prosper, and follow my blog for new blog updates every Monday and Thursday.

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?

Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and marketing tools for authors every Monday and Thursday

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yourmaidsp · 17 days

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How do you come up with your compositions? They are so cool I wanna know if you have any huge inspirations :-) your art is so lovely

Hiiiiiii! Awww thanks for the appreciation!

I'm actually working on a more comprehensive art tutorial rn (bc someone asked here earlier), that would include composition， but I'll do a shorter answer first for u bc you're asking sth. more specific ?( hope it's okey (❁´◡`❁))

(Oh and also I've seen ur req! don't worry, I'm doing that as well, it's just there's still some before yours( ´･･)ﾉ(._.`))

Um and when the long tutorial is out, feel free to check that out ~

On Composition:

Goal

For me the goal of my illustration r Storytelling n full on Emotional experience.

(It's something I've been trying to achieve but cannot guarantee I hit it all the time, sometimes bc of my habit I'll lost myself during the process and looking back find out I miss something important, so the following is the best theories I could provide. Most of improvement r still in daily practice(●'◡'●))

To paint with beautiful compostion, you'll first have a solid story in mind, it can be simplified into " who when where n what", writing them down on a note n stick it near by would help.

And as to emotional experience, is something I can't get hold of all the time... music might help I guess? I have headcanon playlists for every chatacter or ship I wanna paint, and extract emotions from them everyday.

But there's some practical methods too.

Methods

I've worked storyboard n director for 2 years in the past, even though I'm not proud of the projects I worked on, some knowledge might still be useful.

It's mostly 2 methods: Silhouette & Movement

Well for silhouettes there's already bunch of books discussing this, one of my favs is Framed Ink, I'm sure u can find a pdf somewhere on the net.

(I find this photo on the internet bc mine is not around)

Basically it's that, think about the objects within your image, by using shadows n their original colors, you can split it into interesting shapes. This will visually elevate the overall feeling of composition.

Also, there's a cheat build in humem's understanding of an image.

basically this, putting important object on the 1/3 points of an image is the fastest cheat.

Also, contrast your silhouette. If you're painting sth that has no background, try giving your silhouette a constrasted design.

(like in this one, the right side is smooth but I'm putting lots of variation on the left.)

For movement, think about your image as a shot taken when your characters r doing sth.

They would each have a direction to move to, and that forms their movement. Your job here is to arrange them into logical or emotional lines.

If it's a series of work, u can plan out the movement toward the same direction.

(the only time you're seeing their car facing left is when they stopped, I was trying to say that their trip kinda ends here)

Also for manga, comic n movie, make sure your important information is within safe area.

(the area within dotted lines is the safe area, u want your character's expression to be mostly within it. if it's like extreme close-up, the certain area u want to emphasize should be within it.)

I have some examples for these two theories.

First let's analyze this screenshot of one of Kurosawa's film, Seven Samurais.

The story here is that these guys r about to fight, possibly some big conflict. There silhouette can be sumed up like this, within the orange line.

We see this guy sticking out from this shape, implying he might be the head of this crowd.

Movement wise, their spears n heads face the same direction, telling u that the enemy will come from that side. Even this is a still frame, the movement is implied perfectly.

Another sample from Synecdoche,NY by Charlie Kauffman

This is a minimalist way of conveying emotion, u only see one main character here, and hardly any movement. Why is it so powerful?

Our main character, Caden, is in the almost center of this shot. He has a clear n simple shape. You don't normally put your main object in the center, so we'd assume he's very important.

Then there's this repeated notes in the background. When something is repeated a lot, it giver u an impression of pressure. Especially when he's surrounded by them, and they take more space within the frame than he does.

Also, this is a down shot, the camera is pointing down and behind him. You'll feel your character being watched or at his lower point of life when u do that.

Inspirations:

Movies mostly, and traditional artists.

Back when I was in film school I watched a bunch of movies n that slowly became a habit, movies r very good sources for ideas.

Even if you're not having enough time, watching reviews n analysis would also help, (but I'd suggest u try to consume the films not listening to critics to get a unique experience.)

Some of my favourite directors are:

Kelly Reichardt (First Cow)

Apichatpong (Tropical Malady, Memoria);

Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche NY, Adaptaion);

Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Perfect Blue);

Kurosawa Akira (Yume, Kagemusha );

Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz );

Kusturica (Black Cat White Cat, Underground 1995);

Carol Reed (The Third Man)

Errrm I hope it's helpful? (❁´◡`❁) The next tutorial is gonna be even longer.

#maid's requests #art tips #art theory

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chrollohearttags · 2 years

Text

unspoken words • nanami kento

cw : virgin reader, soft dom, missionary, fingering, hand holding, pussy eating, squirting, bulging, praise, slight overstim, mentions of blood

wc: 4.2k

"That'll be it for today's lecture. Thank you all for coming and remember, read through chapters fourteen and sixteen tonight. They'll be crucial to the exam on Friday."

class had just been dismissed for the evening as students shuffled from their seats towards the front door.

it was late so everyone was eager to get back to their dorm rooms for further study sessions or even prepare for some partying.

it was a Saturday night and they all had better places to be. That was everyone except (y/n) and the professor teaching the curriculum.

it was a night English course, signed up for on a whim that delved into literature and creative storytelling.

having been expressive and loving creative writing since you were a kid, it sounded like something right up your alley.

however, last week's assignment was your greatest challenge thus far.

simply, it was to write a vivid, descriptive short story on a subject of another student's choosing.

and yours just so happened to be 'the Art of Love Making', based on a poem you had read a while back.

it was intriguing to say the least and when it was your turn, you spared no details.

but you were afraid you may have gone overboard, even for a college course!

always one of the last to clear out, you'd gather your textbook, bags and water bottle before making a beeline towards the entranceway.

but before you could get out undetected, you'd hear the last voice you wanted to.

"Miss (y/n)..a word, please?"

it was your professor, Mr. Kento Nanami. A very calm and collected man that was quite wise, even for only being in his early thirties.

although he wasn't too expressive himself, you learned a lot and really enjoyed his style of teaching..not to mention, he was very nice to look at.

a tall blonde, with nice blue eyes and a voice that made chills run up your spine. He wasn't married from what it seemed but he always wore two silver bands on his nicely trimmed fingers.

his hands were very veiny and he seemed to be pretty toned.

a very attractive man to say the least..

stepping closer to the desk, he'd unfold his arms and push the chair back slightly.

"Hi professor, what's up?"

you had no earthly idea what this was about but you hoped you hadn't done something wrong. You weren't one much for making scenes or causing trouble.

honestly, you were rather shy and quiet..so you could imagine his surprise when he read your work from last week.

"I—uh, had the pleasure of reading through your submission on the creative writing assignment and I must say..I was taken aback. I'd like to discuss it if you have a moment."

instantly, your heart sank and your stomach began doing flips.

you had a bad feeling about this!

by this time, it was only the two of you left in the room and thank goodness, because this was already awkward enough as is.

nonetheless, he'd insist you'd take a seat in the chair next to him and you felt your heart begin racing instantly.

being this close to him did not help matters any.

"Sure..was there something wrong with it?"

"No..exact opposite actually. I was rather impressed and a little surprised at how..vivid your storytelling was. Especially with such a taboo topic. I think you encompassed it rather well. By far some of the best work I've seen in quite some time."

those words brought a sense of relief over you. You were so afraid that this man was about to chew you out for that debauchery!

instead, he was singing your praises and unbeknownst to you, having interesting thoughts himself.

your lips cracked into a nervous yet bright smile as you'd breathe a sigh of relief.

"Well thank you, professor! I'm really glad you enjoyed it."

that was an understatement for sure. Little did you know, you had this man clutching his pearls and sweating like all hell after getting through it.

but it was the way you so eloquently described the acts that made him do several double takes.

talking about such lewd and explicit acts, he honestly couldn't help but wonder..was there another (y/n) underneath that introverted exterior?

if he was being totally honest, you were a stunning, absolutely beautiful young woman.

wavy, kinky texture hair always styled into a top bun or a ponytail with some sort of accessory in it, almond..cocoa colored skin that always complimented your elegant wardrobe.

adorable sundresses; always dainty, normally pink or light hued and something with flowers on it.

he thought you looked absolutely precious, and yet..

"Of course. I mean, I have to be honest and please don't take offense, I didn't exactly think you'd be capable of cultivating such a piece."

you knew what he meant: people never pictured you as the promiscuous type, just an innocent girl despite being in your twenties.

which if you were being truthful, you still were. You hadn't lived nearly the amount of experience that your peers had.

never much into partying, drinking or even going on dates. You were a recluse that mostly stayed shut in on the weekends.

naturally, it left a lot of time and room for your imagination to wander..

often times, you'd find yourself immersed in the world of erotic fiction novels and became not only inspired but admittedly aroused by some of the things you read!

living vicariously through the characters as they experienced everything you hoped to with that special person someday.

eventually, you decided to try your own hand at it and in your spare time, wrote many pieces.

needless to say, you were a natural at this point.

scooting a little closer, shifting his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose, he'd examine the paper once more as the gap of space closed between you two.

it was borderline embarrassing for many reasons to have it picked apart like this..

especially when the driving force behind it seemed awfully familiar the further he got along.

his tongue scaled the curvature of her bending spine, painting her with his lust, faint breaths raising the minuscule hairs on her delicate skin. Those eyes, cerulean and wavering as the calmest ocean fixated on the beauty beneath him.

"..deeper." she'd call out in a faint whisper and he'd fulfill her demand just like all those she'd made to him before.

clearing his throat and shifting the patterned tie around his neck, Kento turned his gaze toward you.

"Tell me something..and be honest, it's only us here..was there a particular muse behind this piece?"

you were sweating bullets, wanting to dart out of that chair and never look back. Glaring down at the floor, (y/n) squeezed your thighs together and evaded his stare.

it was time to come clean.

"Honestly, Mr. Nanami..it was you. I mean, you are the one that wrote the poem, aren't you? The Art of Love Making?"

those were the words he had been waiting to hear.

since the inception of his career as an English professor, never would he have imagined he'd be reading soft core porn on paper about himself!

even so, he was rather humbled..humbled that someone was inspired by his work from so long ago.

but the distinctive writing style couldn't be mistaken.

"Yes, that's correct. Something I wrote as an undergrad myself..just didn't think it would make its rounds all these years later."

chuckling, he had to hear more about this process. He wasn't mad or even creeped out by it.

you had a brilliant mind and he wanted to pick it.

hearing you describe your process, impressions of him that made him the ideal lead character and how you created such vivid imagery.

you had him pegged to a tee. Truth was, he was a completely different man than the one that sat before you behind close doors.

after a long day of work, he had longed of voiding himself of pent up energy and frustrations with a beautiful woman.

using her body as the canvas to create his 'art of love making.' Sadly, he had been long since single with not a worthy prospect in sight.

after all of that, only one question remained and he hoped it didn't scare you away..but he had to confirm something for himself.

"(Y/N)..can I ask you a very..personal question?"

"Of course, anything."

little did you know you'd regret that statement.

"..are you still a virgin?"

the question made your cheeks burn something fierce and your breathing became labored. But honestly, you saw that coming!

no one who wrote and described the acts so vividly could possibly be doing it!

when he spotted your reaction, he'd begin to try and backpedal, even stuttering over himself.

"Is it that obvious?"

he felt ashamed of himself for even posing such a thing to you! It was unprofessional but it didn't garner the reaction he was expecting.

"No! Not at all, I—Please forgive me, (y/n). That was a very foolish and inappropriate question—

that's when he'd hear you laughing amid his heartfelt apology.

"It's all good, professor. Please don't be sorry. I mean..I guess I never saw the need or rather..the right occasion to lose it. The truth is, I—kinda set my own standards too high. I figured that if I went and hooked up with some random dude, it'd never live up to my expectations of—ya know."

he knew exactly what you meant and he had the perfect solution for it..

that's only if you were willing.

bringing his chair closer, he'd place a hand to your thigh and glare up at you.

"Well..would you like to?"

taking a sharp inhale, you were caught completely off guard by his statement! Even so, you'd be a liar if you said that it wasn't your dream to be deflowered by him.

"I—uh..I-" your words unable to even form into a coherent thought.

mainly because having him do all of those things he described would most certainly corrupt you.

the thing was, he found you insanely beautiful and someone such as yourself deserved nothing but the best for your first time.

the real question was could you even handle it?

"There I go again, speaking out of turn. I am so sorry—

"Yes!"

the shouted answer stopping your bumbling teacher dead in his tracks. His face began to emit a bright red and his heart was thudding.

"Yes, Mr. Nanami. I would like for you to be the one to take my virginity.."

he was normally so calm and serene but this was the first time in ages he became flustered.

the softness and innocence in your sweet voice made him feel emotions he hadn't in a long time. "Well then..I'd be honored."

your faces were drawing closer, only a hair's breath in distance..his palm grazing your leg as he closed the gap with a searing kiss.

your lips crashed together and melded as one; instantly making your body shudder with excitement.

were you really kissing your teacher right now?!

luckily, the doors were locked, no windows were on it and more than likely, this wing was clear of people at this time of night.

because this was really happening and it seemed he didn't want to wait much longer to do so!

coiling your tongues together, you'd place your palm to his cheek; gently moaning into it as he grew closer.

when you both finally withdrew, your breathing was sporadic and your eyes refused to part.

Kento was squeezing your thigh and moving up your dress, about to be in for a surprise because already, you were pretty soaked from the tension alone.

"Oh (y/n)..you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

"So have I..please, show me more?"

and he was delighted to. He'd instruct you to set atop his desk so that he had more room to move around.

anything in his way went flying to the floor because he was only focused on the beauty before him.

soon, you'd find the straps of your dress gliding down your shoulders and his lips following shortly thereafter; grazing your sensitive neck and lacing it with kisses.

he was so gentle but you could tell he was restraining himself for your own good.

the last thing he wanted was to intimidate you but you'd find out just what he was capable of.

next, he'd hone in on your breasts, tugging them from the top and exposing them. Round with perfectly erect brown nipples on display..

"Oh my God.." mumbling underneath his breath as he slowly caressed them in his palms.

he could tell by the way you were chewing your lip, that it felt good to you so they became his next fixation.

his warm breath met with your stiff buds and soft pecks thereafter. He'd keep them cupped in his hands as his tongue danced around, licking them.

tossing your head back, you'd bite your lip and allow him to keep doing his thing.

"It feels so good..I've never had anything like this."

(Y/N) couldn't make sense of the new sensation overtaking your body but you knew you wanted more of it.

that's when he decided to take things up a notch.

bringing a free hand between your legs, he'd part them ever so slightly without so much as even breaking focus on your breasts.

"Well, my dear..we're only getting started. I've got so much more I'd like to give you."

when he got your thighs spread, he was greeted by the plump print of your lips behind your underwear.

releasing a low grunt, he'd just take a second to admire how good it looked just in that state. He could see you becoming antsy and needier..

"Is it okay if I touch you there, (y/n)? Is it alright?"

nodding your head, you'd let him know it was absolutely okay if he touched you anywhere.

"Of course you can."

you were so nervous about messing up or not doing the right thing but as long as you placed your trust in him, nothing would go wrong.

leaving no space between your bodies, Kento leaned down; his taller frame bending as he returned to your lips.

there were those slow tongue kisses that made you melt..meanwhile, he'd snake two fingers inside of your panties and be greeted by heated slick.

"..fuck." a low growl escaping his lips.

it was so warm and your cute little clit was already swollen, responding to his touch.

"Oh! Ahh..Mr. Nanami, please—"

the words making it from your mouth in a high pitched cry as your eyes stretched open. You had felt arousal before but nothing quite like this.

but he was quick to quell you as he lovingly stroked your cheek.

"Shhh, it's alright. Just relax..you trust me, right?"

"Mmm..yes."

gently chuckling, he'd mumble faintly against your lips and smile as he continued rubbing that sensitive area.

"Then just let me take care of you. We'll take as much time as you need to..I only want to make you feel good."

the way he spoke to you was incredibly reassuring and you knew that it would all be fine.

so when you calmed down, he proceeded to slide his digits across your pretty pink flesh and eventually worked them inside of you.

your legs had risen to the top of the desk, your knees pressing into your chest as you watched them sink into you slowly.

the entrance squeezing and clamping down with each pump.

it was causing you to tremble and chew on the material of your dress, hoping you didn't make a wrong move and embarrass yourself.

but Kento had no issue being patient and biding his time to slowly unravel you. Watching those creamy juices splay his hand was making the crotch of his pants tighten.

the sounds of squishing flesh made him want to fold you up right now!

"You're so tight and slippery..my God. How does it feel so far? Talk to me.." whispering into your ear as he gave it a peck.

"I love it..please don't stop, Mr. Kento. It feels amazing!"

as much as he loved watching you writhe in pleasure, it gave a much needed boost to his ego. It had been quite some time since he had heard a woman moan for him.

to give you exactly what you needed, he'd instruct you to raise your legs so he could render your bottom half completely nude.

just from that little bit of fingering, you were so close to the brink of climax.

he had allowed you to clutch his arm for support, watching your nails dig into him.

"That's what I want to hear..and you're doing so good. Just keep rocking on them..just like that."

cooing to you with gentle kisses on your temples whilst he whispered in your ear, talking you through it.

"Don't worry, baby. I know this isn't the most ideal place but I'm going to give you the experience you deserve. Can I do that?"

there was no question about it but the fact that he was so considerate to ask you each time made you feel even safer.

"Yes sir! Do whatever you want."

sucking your teeth, you'd beg for him to do what he pleased and with that, he'd lie you flat against the desk.

now you were wide open, completely at his whim and disposal..you'd be left only with the view of blonde locks.

his head had dipped between your thighs and soon, he'd find himself sliding his tongue across your slit. Now that was very new!

a sharp inhale followed by the clenching of his hair let him know he was doing something right.

swirling his tongue around your folds, sucking on your clit, the bridge of his nose nuzzled deep into your cunt and even leaving a trail of spit, Kento was enamored with your sex. You tasted absolutely divine.

eyes rolling to the back of your skull and a trail of explicative words followed. By the time he showed his face again, it was covered in your juices.

"I'm taking that you've never had your pussy eaten before either? You're trembling, my love.."

shaking your head profusely, that would prompt him to laugh and give that soaking mound another slew of kisses.

"Yeah...definitely my first time!"

in a mere matter of minutes, you had gone from only exploring your own body to being licked down on the desk of your professor.

your legs were resting on his shoulder and he'd give it a peck as well to quell the shaking. "Don't worry..I'll make sure you get used to it."

he'd declare before giving you a wink.

leaning back up, he'd tear out of his blue button down and unbuckle his khaki pants, bearing his weight down over your body.

when he was finally unclothed, you'd get a glimpse of what was hiding behind his print and it looked like a lot.

biting down on your lip, you'd stare intensely until he broke it with a gentle swipe of his thumb across your face.

"Before we go any further, I want you to be sure that you're ready..if it gets to be too much or you want to stop, I want you to say something. Please don't force yourself."

at this point, if you didn't feel something, you were going to burst.

but you'd assure him that you were more than willing to take this next step! And with that, so was he.

your eyes met in a quick haze before Kento grasped his shaft into his palm and eased it across your slit. It was a sopping mess and felt so good when his tip touched it.

"You've got me so hard, I haven't felt like this in so long.."

his voice dropped to a low growl yet again, trying to pace himself and resist his own urges.

this was all for your pleasure and his only purpose right now was to give you the best night possible. The lights had completely dimmed in the classroom and helped some to set the mood.

he could see the anxiety written on your face and how cute you looked.

"Please, Mr. Nanami..don't make me wait. I want it and I want you, so badly."

"I'm right here, sweetheart..here, hold my hands, it may hurt a little bit. Are you ready for me to go in?"

"Yes sir. Go ahead."

you were scared..afraid that once you took this leap, you could never turn back. That maybe he wouldn't respect or even view you the same.

but that was the furthest thing from..he was deeply smitten and admirable of you. Nothing could ever change how he felt.

regardless, the pace was agonizing and as you watched him lay that large erect across your lower half, you were mentally freaking out.

but before you knew it, the tip was making its way inside of you.

it was a very new and interesting sensation, one you'd never thought you'd feel or even like!..

but as you watched it slide in, your eyes swelled and your head eventually fell back as it entered you.

"Oh my God.."

the two of you moaned simultaneously, trying to gather your bearings. But he was quick to reel you back in.

he had gotten just a little past the shaft before he could feel that tightness and knew that was your limit for now.

for the time being, he couldn't look you directly in the eye out of fear of his own premature orgasm. But still, he persisted and gave you two light thrusts.

your fingers were already intertwined with his and you were ready to take it.

"I'm gonna start moving now, remember what I told you, okay?"

"Okay.."

this was too much to bare! His gentle, slow pace, the kind and reassuring words..

how could you have gotten so lucky to have a man like this take your innocence?

two gentle pumps in and out..the feeling was intense, making your skin riddle with goosebumps but once he done it a couple more times, faint whimpers crawled from your lips.

"That's it..just stay still for me. You don't have to move a muscle, just let me do all the work, baby.."

his chiseled abs and muscular frame was pressed against yours as he fed your virgin hole fluid strokes.

it was a lot and he wasn't small by any means, but eventually you'd grow used to the feeling.

Kento, moaning softly began to coddle you with soft tongue kissing as well. To soothe his own sensitivity and because he loved the feeling of your plump lips.

the desk creaked quietly underneath your intertwined bodies. It was so unreal, you felt as if you were currently whisked into one of your romance novels!

but suddenly, a new feeling would overtake you and you'd wind up releasing a sharp breath and clawing his arm.

oh fuck! That hurt..

that invisible 'cherry' that had been spoken about since sixth grade sex education, had finally been popped!

by the time he pulled out again, there was a tiny sheath of blood coating his dick but nothing compared to the arousal on it.

"Are you okay, (y/n)?! Did I hurt you? We can stop—"

but just as he was about to panic, you'd assure him it was fine and to please continue.

"No, don't stop moving..I can handle it."

although, your breath as well as your legs were shaking. But there was no backpedaling..you had to get through this.

proceeding to buck his hips forward, Kento pushed past that first wall and began stretching that untouched flesh.

still, he was so attentive; watching even your tiniest reactions to make sure you were okay.

"Mmm...oh my gosh, this feels so good. Thank you, sir. So much.."

he'd look down to see a single tear trailing down your cheek and felt satisfied that he was doing a good job.

swiping it away, he'd kiss the area and hold your face in his palm.

"You're doing amazing, (y/n)..God, I'm so proud of you, my love. Look how good you're taking me.."

and that was indicative of the squelching sounds it was making. Your little entrance was leaking cream and there was a swelling feeling in the pit of your stomach.

by now, the movements had become a little faster and you had found your rhythm.

(Y/N) was curled into a fetal position, completely folded to bear the grunt of those strokes but you weren't the only struggling.

"Oh God, (y/n)..excuse my language but I'm losing my fucking mind. You're so perfect..I love the way you feel."

panting on baited breath, Kento gripped the wooden outline of the desk behind your head to avoid hurting you.

anything further than holding hands would have to wait..you weren't quite ready to be choked or anything!

but if he didn't come soon, he'd end up breaking it.

pushing in and out, it was clear you were close to climaxing as well so for the last stretch, he'd double down and start pounding your pussy.

pressing your hands to his chiseled abs, you'd grit your teeth, holding on for the bumpy ride.

"That's it..take it..take this dick, baby. You're so close, I can feel it. Are you ready to come now?"

but there was only one problem..it didn't feel like you were releasing at all! But rather..

"I th-think so! But it feels like I have to pe—ahh!" your words fading off into a high pitched wail but he needed no further explanation.

he knew exactly what you were feeling and if you done it on your first time, he'd never leave you alone.

breaking into a hearty laugh, Kento gently stroked your forehead, before pecking it.

"Aww..you're so cute. Go ahead, let it out."

in that moment, you stared at him as if he were insane. Did this man really want you to embarrass yourself?!

"It's alright, my love..just do it. It's fine."

you were so scared but this pent up pressure couldn't stay in any longer so after he pulled out, you'd do exactly as he said.

"OH GOD! YES!.."

that's when it dawned on you..this wasn't urine at all, and what you were actually doing..

"You're squirting..that's so hot, (y/n). Look at you.."

but nothing was hot about losing your goddamn mind as you flailed about, spraying juices all over him!

but you had to admit, it felt incredible!..unlike anything you had experienced on your own.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Nanami! Oh my gosh—"

"No! Don't be..that was perfect."

whimpering and crying as you covered your face in shame but there was nothing to be bashful of..this was a man's fantasy come true.

and after that, he felt no need to restrain himself. That's when you'd hear a loud grunt and felt something warm on your stomach and pelvis.

"Coming! I'm coming—fuck!" jerking himself in his palm, too afraid if he stuck it back in that he wouldn't pull out.

so instead, he splattered his seed all over your lower half. Those moans were so high pitched and passion filled..you had never heard anything like it.

it was official..both of you were absolutely spent!

collapsing atop your body, you'd wrap your arms around him as he panted into your bare shoulder blade.

once he composed himself, Kento met your face again..smiling brightly.

"Hey sweetheart..how are you feeling? Are you okay?.."

"I couldn't be better.."

nodding your head, he felt proud and satisfied of what transpired. Holding each other close, he'd keep your head in his hand.

leaning against your forehead, he'd whisper sweet nothings as you calmed down.

"Thank you..thank you so much for letting me share this experience with you. I'm forever grateful, miss (y/n).."

whimpering faintly into his ear, you'd give it a peck.

"No..thank you, for everything."

Just then, a line from his poem sprang into your head.

"Her body was his canvas; a slate once clear, now marked with the colorful, vibrant strokes of his love. She had now become his masterpiece, forever molded in his image."

and from now on, he was the muse who would inspire your next chapter.

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