#lol I just realized I redid that last one ages ago | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aureli-us · 2 years

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AMOMK - unexpected (ar)rivals; pt 2

This work was based on the original story A Map of Mrs. Kims (and the drabbles that started it all!) created by @bonvoyagenoona and various members of the Tumblr BTS fanfic community! (You can also read it on ao3!)

i'm not super satisified with how this came out but PROBABLY because i wrote it when i SHOULD'VE been working on finals. anyway. i also gave jin his fluffy black swan mullet bc i'm a sucker for that look. enjoy :^) and be sure to read the original work, ofc! (also bear w me as i try to figure out the new fancy ways to format stuff on tumblr, i'm so behind lol)

Korea.

She can’t remember the last time she stepped foot in her home country - it has to be close to a decade, if not more. She left after only one year in university, went to America to pursue some dreams, and now after so, so many years abroad, she is back not only in Korea, but her hometown, the place where she grew up; the place she missed the most in all the time she was gone. It almost seems as if nothing has changed, and the whole town has stood still through time.

Not this grocery store, though.

The grocery store is busier than she ever remembers it being. Once upon a time it was a quiet little place where local parents did their shopping, everyone knew everyone else and could stop to chat in the fridge aisle to boast about their kids and make plans for the weekend. But the atmosphere - and the shop - have changed so much, she just keeps walking in circles, trying and failing to find all the items on her relatively short list.

“They moved the noodles?” She sighs, making the middle-aged woman beside her give her a quick side eye. She really does need to stop talking in English so much. But seriously, how could they have switched all the aisles around? Did that happen before they redid the floors or after? Before or after the store was expanded? Before or after they moved the entrance doors?

As if to relieve her of worrying over where to find everything for just a moment, her phone rings in her back pocket, and she’s too quick to fish it out and answer.

“Hobiiiiii,” she groans. “I can’t find anything.”

“Yuna?” Her cousin asks over the phone. “I can’t hear you.” So they redid all the floors and expanded and moved the entrance and switched the aisles, but this place still has horrible reception?

“How about now?” She asks, adjusting her basket on one arm and walking to the end of the aisle.

“Little better. Listen, are you all set with grocery shopping?”

“All set? I’ve barely started,” she mutters in English, before switching back to Korean and repeating herself. Jung Hoseok, her beloved cousin and dance twin, is silent for a moment before sighing.

“Well, maybe we can go together later? I need the car pretty soon. Sorry, Yu-yu.” She chuckles when he calls her that - despite being a cousin and two years younger than him, they’ve always operated on the same wavelength, and no one else has ever given her a nickname except once a long time ago. So long, in fact, that she really can’t remember what it was.

“Yeah, sounds good,” she replies finally. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how much everything would change.” Hoseok laughs joyfully, which is a good sign. She knows he’s a busy man between his dance studio and getting ready to move into a new apartment, so her arrival back in Korea and deciding to crash on his couch is less than perfect timing.

“Don’t worry. Text me when you’re on your way back and I’ll meet you downstairs?”

“Sounds good,” she promises, and hangs up after he gives her a sing-song farewell. It’s only been a week, but she thinks Hoseok might begin to crack sooner rather than later. She needs to find a hotel or something, maybe a cheap apartment of her own, to get out of her cousin’s hair.

Yuna swivels into the aisle parallel to the no-longer-noodles aisle and is immediately greeted with an overwhelming orchestra of scents and fragrances. On her left are scented and unscented candles, and on the right are air fresheners, little hanging car trees, Febreze canisters, and what looks like scented wipes. What for, she has no idea.

Quickly she takes her phone out again. Hoseok loves scented candles, but he’s particular.

“Hobi?”

“That was quick,” he giggles. “I’m not even dressed.”

“I’m not home yet,” she scoffs. “What kind of candle do you want?”

“Oh! Hmm,” he hums thoughtfully. “What do they have?”

She starts down the aisle, switching her phone hand and her basket arm to avoid the group of people clustered around the center of the aisle where all the red-colored candles are. Three men and one woman a bit past her middle years. One man is in an obviously tailored suit, somewhat out of place, and the other is dressed in a button up and slacks and glasses. The third has a mop of messy mint hair and is staring down at his phone, shifting his weight on his heels. The three form a little circle around who she assumes is their mother while the son in a suit reaches towards the top shelf for an apple cinnamon scented candle.

“Hold on,” she mutters in English, and Hoseok hums again, rustling around on the other end as he gets dressed. “What’s in French vanilla that makes it French?”

“Huh?”

“What’s in French vanilla that makes it French?” She asks again, this time in Korean. She skirts around the back of the suited man, carefully tucking her elbow in to avoid hitting the small of his back. Out of curiosity she steals a glance at the stranger, just to see if his face reveals anything as to why he’s wearing such expensive clothes in a local supermarket. With shoulders that broad. And lips that plush. Does she know that smooth face?

He begins to turn towards her and she swivels around casually, squishing her phone between her cheek and shoulder.

“So French vanilla?”

“If you want,” Hoseok replies, his voice a little far away. “I’m not a huge fan, though.”

“Oh.” She realizes he’s been talking in her ear the whole time and she wasn’t listening. “So maybe something-”

“Don’t worry about candles, Yu,” Hoseok chuckles. “I just need the car for now. We’ll go back out tonight, okay?” It’s a gentle push - she expects nothing less from her Hobi - but a push nonetheless.

“Right. I’ll just check out quickly,” she replies, a little embarrassed. The feeling of eyes on her back is strong, burning almost, but she turns out of the aisle without looking back at the suit with the shoulders or the others. Maybe she recognized the guy in slacks and the one with mint hair, too, but it’s hard to tell.

A lot of people have been almost recognizable since coming home, but she’s sure she doesn’t know as many of them as she thinks she does. A lot of people must have moved up and away by now, grown up, had their kids and spouses and gotten their houses.

She checks out as quickly as possible and winces at the price tag for even her small basket, and then reluctantly swipes her card through. Hurrying to the car, she doesn’t linger in the parking lot to set up her aux cord before getting on the road and back to Hoseok’s apartment.

That night she and Hoseok don’t make it to the grocery store, so they go the afternoon after, just before rush hour. He’s driving with the windows down and music loud, wind whipping at their hair together and sometimes threatening to tear her sunglasses off. His current apartment is conveniently equidistant from the heart of the city and the suburbs, but to take in the nice spring weather Hoseok had decided to go into the burbs for shopping.

“Less smelly,” he had cackled as they got into the car. So far, he’s right.

His music is good, of course, and he dances a little in his seat which means they drift a little in their lane, but she doesn’t care too much. She’s happy to be taking it in with him, happy to be back in Korea where her family - not just Hoseok, but her sister and mother - are all close by.

Another car comes around the corner, sleek and shiny and looking slightly out of place in the suburban setting...more spaceship than car.

“Someone rich lost their way from the city,” Hoseok sings teasingly, but abruptly cuts himself off as the other car lurches to a sudden halt. They gasp a little in unison and then crane forward over the dashboard to peer into the road, checking to see what could’ve possibly caused the spaceship car to stop so soon; she expects some kind of animal, but there’s nothing. Just the road. Not even a pothole.

Hoseok slows down as well, scanning for something in the road, but when he sees nothing he merely mutters and finds the gas again, turning the music back up. He squints through his sunglasses as the other car passes.

“Oh, wow, I think that was the Kims,” he says as they drive by, lifting his sunglasses briefly before sliding them back down.

“You know there are a lot of people named Kim in Korea?” She laughs. “Who are the Kims?”

“You know them,” Hoseok says, glancing quickly at him. “Kim Namjoon? Weren’t you in school with him? There was another Kim brother in my class, too, the older one.”

“Namjoon?” She echoes.

She does recognize the name, but it’s a bit difficult to recall his face. She remembers a tall and lanky kid who might’ve run track or something, but not much else. They had been friends once, close friends, throughout school. But there were three Kim brothers, weren’t there? Namjoon, and two others. One of them she’d gone to university with before transferring to America and living with her dad.

“Like Kim Seokjin?”

His name sounds so unusual on her lips after so long, but there is also a tinge of familiarity to it. What did everyone call him? Jin. They had started university together; she remembers playing games late at night and studying early in the morning, getting their meals together, spending time in his dorm since he was alone...spending lots of time. She remembers suddenly the three men and their mother in the grocery store earlier, and the one in the suit with those wide shoulders. And the one in glasses. Was that Namjoon? He’s filled out nicely, if so. She wasn’t able to catch the full face of the one in the suit, but no one else had shoulders like that, in this world or any parallel version of it.

“And Taehyungie,” Hoseok adds. “I see him around sometimes, with his crazy hair.” He giggles. The mint one - that had been Taehyung? Last she saw him he had been a kid, or at least a teenager. God, how long has it been? “You look spooked,” her cousin laughs, reaching over to nudge her arm. “Feel old yet?”

“Yeah, God, I do,” Yuna mutters. “Do you keep in contact with the Kims? I’d love to see them all again. I hope their parents are doing well.”

“Oh, their mom is doing great,” Hoseok snickers. “I only have Taehyung’s number, but maybe I can text him? Dinner on the weekend when everyone’s free? I haven’t seen those three in a while.”

“Sounds good,” she murmurs, nodding absently, the Kims stuck in her mind. Dinner on the weekend. From the moment her plane touched ground in Korea, she began operating under the assumption that everyone from the past is gone, moved away, settled down or scattered on the wind. But the Kims remain. All three of them remain in their hometown, or at least nearby, probably not more than a healthy stone’s throw from their parents. Why?

Quietly leaning against the passenger side window, Yuna files that question away into the suddenly emerging folder in the corner of her brain, and lets the other memories of her last years in Korea bubble up to the surface.

On Wednesday and Thursday it rains, restricting her inside while Hoseok bounces to and from work during the day and focuses on packing at night. She makes a point to cook for him and do her best to help with the packing; this is the first move ever since he came to the apartment. Packing up your whole life from the past few years is no easy task, but she likes to think what little she does with him, sitting on the living room floor and sorting all the things non-essential to daily life into boxes carefully labeled by her own hand, helps.

Thursday night while the rain falls, she gets a text.

☀️hobi🕺(7:02 PM): Gonna be late tn! :((((( would you mind starting some dinner around 8?

YuYUUU (7:02 PM): of course :) i’ll go look to see what you have

She originally types in what we have, but she still feels guilty grouping herself forcefully with Hoseok; plus, it gives her a false sense of longevity to their current situation. She has about a week, maybe two, until she really needs to get out of her cousin’s hair. So far he’s agreed to host her even after he moves into his new place, but it’s still a one-bedroom apartment, if more spacious and with a better view and water pressure (so he claims), and the air mattress in the living room is getting old fast. He says it’s mostly selfish, since she’ll be able to help him with his move, but after that she can’t imagine he wants her around much longer.

When she walks into the kitchen and begins opening all of the cabinets, the fridge, the drawers, she quickly realizes that Hoseok has no food.

At least, no ingredients. They have leftovers that are getting suspiciously old. Instant ramyeon. Some veggies and fruit, some noodles, but nothing really substantive enough to put together a meal, especially if he won’t be home for the next hour or so. Leaning against the fridge she turns to her phone to scroll through takeout places around them, since she’s sure he won’t want to sit down anywhere. Some of the delivery charges are through the roof, though they seem almost worth it in the downpour outside.

A single name catches her eye and she puts her thumb down to stop the lazy scrolling of her screen; the picture of the front of the place looks a little different, but it’s definitely the same place she remembers from before. Seoul Food. A cute name, but definitely not the only restaurant in the country that uses it. It had been a personal favorite back in high school, when the original owners - a cute old married couple - ran it. She remembers the pork bulgogi and the tteokbokki, delicious and hot, and quickly checks the hazy PDF of the menu uploaded on the barebones website. It hasn’t changed too much, but where the names of the owners were once listed, there’s now only one name.

YuYUUU (7:17 PM): is some takeout okay? there’s a place down the street

☀️hobi🕺(7:21 PM): What about the rain?? :((((

YuYUUU (7:21 PM): it’s letting up a bit, i’ll just go there and back before it gets bad🏃

☀️hobi🕺 (7:22 PM): Only if you want!

☀️hobi🕺 (7:22 PM): nothing in the kitchen?

YuYUUU (7:22 PM): just some really...interesting smelling leftovers

She can imagine Hoseok’s laughter when he reads that text, sudden and gleeful and full. Hopefully, despite the long day, he isn’t feeling too stressed.

It takes some rifling to find his one umbrella tucked away in the packing boxes, but when she does find it she opens it once - just to see if it’s still as broken as Hoseok claims (it is, but it’ll work.) Then she has to sort through her half-unpacked suitcase to find the rainjacket she definitely put in here somewhere, and then find her old sneakers that are so discolored and worn that it really won’t matter if they get sopping wet. In fact, it might give her a reason to buy a new pair.

The rest of the apartment building is relatively quiet, enjoying their little secluded lives behind their closed doors. She jogs down the stairs while putting her earbuds in and pulling her hood up, pushing through the unusually heavy glass doors of the lobby and out into the storm. In the end, Yuna finds she was right; it did lighten up just a bit, but the rain was still hard enough to be unpleasant. In a few moments her forehead is soaked, and the soles of her shoes are getting soggy. Definitely an excuse to buy a new pair - she can picture them now, custom platform Converse. Just before moving back home from America she’d gotten into a platform shoe phase, and bought a few pairs of inch, inch a half, and two inch sandals for the upcoming Korean spring. Heels weren’t really her thing, but modest platforms had a different kind of kick to them.

But custom platforms were, what, almost $100 in American dollars? How much was that in won? 127,000? They would have to wait until she found an apartment and a steady job over here. And that would probably have to wait until she got around to visiting her mother and sister, which would hopefully happen after her mother and sister even knew she had moved back to Korea.

The bell hanging just above the little door leading into Seoul Food rings daintily as she enters, shivering at the sudden change in temperature. A woman appears behind the counter almost immediately, smiling at her but looking a little frazzled.

“Hi, did you call ahead?” She asks, eyes scanning the small collection of large brown bags already set on the counter with receipts and names attached.

“Oh, no. I’m not in a rush, though,” Yuna replies, adding that last part quickly as the woman’s face tightens. “I’d like an order of the yachae mandu to start, and then some pork bulgogi, tteokbokki, and...the chicken bibimbap, please. For Kang, all to go.”

“Alright,” the woman says, her voice a little strained. “It’ll be about 30 minutes, is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m not in a rush,” Yuna repeats, smiling at the woman. “I’ll just take a seat over here?” The woman behind the counter nods, her smile turning a little more genuine, before turning and scurrying back into the kitchen.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, Yuna makes her way to the small, two-person table that’s situated against the big window near the door, looking out over the parking lot. It’s more or less empty, just two other cars. The rain is getting heavy again, beating against the glass as she squeezes the water out of her hair and pulls it back into a damp bun to get it off her neck.

☀️hobi🕺(7:52 PM): Any luck??

YuYUUU (7:53 PM): just put in an order, i’ll be back hopefully right around the time you are :)) you still like bibimbap, right?

She squints as someone’s headlights swing around and land on her through the window when a new car pulls right up to the restaurant, idling for a minute or two before switching off. Above the sound of the rain she hears the car door slam, and then the little bell rings as someone else walks in.

“Mr. Kim!” The woman from the kitchen calls out, waving one hand at the man. Yuna smiles to herself - there really are a lot of Kims in Korea. “Just a moment, please!”

“Take your time,” the newcomer replies, and his voice is surprisingly young.

☀️hobi🕺 (7:55 PM): of course 🤪 what else did you get?

The newcomer’s phone rings before he can look around for a seat to take, and she watches from the corner of her eye - he’s standing a decent distance and slightly behind her - as he takes it swiftly from his pocket and lifts it to his ear.

“Hello to you too,” he mutters after a moment. “Do you need something, Taehyung?”

And Taehyungie.

Maybe there are a lot of Kims in Korea, maybe too many, but she only knows one Kim Taehyung. Carefully, Yuna adjusts in her seat so she’s sitting sideways on it, legs outstretched parallel to the table. The man is in a tailored suit and shoes that look like they really shouldn’t be worn in this weather. He stands with one in hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone, his back to her. The spitting image of that man in the grocery store with the wide shoulders and business clothes, with the same silky-looking black mullet that looks a little frizzy from the humidity of the rain.

“Send me the address,” he sighs. “I’m picking up dinner right now.” He waits. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll call you when I’m close.” He chews his lip for a moment before adding: “Stay safe until then, okay?” And then hangs up with a disgruntled sigh.

“Here you go, Mr. Kim,” the woman at the counter says as she reappears. The eldest Kim brother doesn’t seem to hear, staring down at his phone and the post-call screen for too long. At that moment Yuna decides to stand up, patting her scalp to press down any stray hairs and adjusting her rain jacket.

“Excuse me,” she says, and watches the muscles in the back of his neck tense and move as he lifts his head. After a second he turns, a little too forcefully, but she doesn’t move. “Are you Kim Seokjin?”

Seokjin is silent. But she’s sure it’s him. She recognizes his smooth face, his soft jawline, his American doll lips and his dark eyes. His hair is a little longer, but the mullet looks good on him. Surprisingly. He’s grown up. His nose is still cute. His neck is still thick and strong. His eyebrows are still envy-inducing.

“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help but overhear your phone call. Your brother’s name is Taehyung, and the cashier called you Kim, so I-” she stops herself and gives a little shrug, her wet rain jacket rustling hollowly.

“No, I-” he speaks for the first time, and his voice is a little different too, probably a little deeper and more relaxed, but still somehow exactly as she remembered it. His eyes finally move, quickly tracing over her face and her hair and her clothes. “I had no idea you were back home, Yuna.”

He fumbles a bit with her name. Didn’t he have a nickname for her once?

“Mr. Kim?” The woman calls again, and Seokjin’s left shoulder jumps as he turns, hurriedly taking his wallet out as he walks over.

“Sorry,” he mumbles as he swipes his card, and takes the big bag she hands him once the payment goes through. “Have a good night.”

“Stay dry,” the woman says, smiling at him. Her eyes linger a little too long when his back finally turns on her and he walks back towards Yuna, but then she flies back into the kitchen.

“Wow, Yuna, I really had no idea,” Seokjin starts again, bag under one arm. He looks utterly lost. “Are you in a rush? How long have you been here?”

“No, I’m just waiting,” she replies. “I moved back about a week ago.”

“And you’re here permanently?” He asks. He keeps staring at her without blinking. “Or at least for now?”

“Here to stay,” she nods, smiling up at him. He’s average by American standards, but tall in Korea. He certainly feels tall. “Wow. It really has been a long time.” Seokjin’s lips curl into a polite smile before he looks around the restaurant.

“Maybe we should sit? I have some time,” he tells her, though judging by that phone call she isn’t quite sure how true that is. Either way, she gestures back to the little table by the window and he eagerly takes the seat across from her, placing his food on the wooden top.

The silence after that edges near awkward.

“You look great, Seokjin,” she says kindly, disbanding the quiet between them with ease. “I like the hair especially.” He chuckles a little shyly - was she always so direct with people? - and runs one damp hand through his hair. “Do you make a habit of wearing suits to get dinner?”

He’s still entranced by the way she says his name. His full name. People rarely ever call him Seokjin, just Jin. Seokjinnie or any variant of it from his mother doesn’t count. But Seokjin tumbles so easily off her lips, like she never stopped saying it even after so many years away. So smooth, so effortless, unlike the way he had struggled through Yuna earlier. It just feels unfamiliar, but as much as he searches his brain, he can’t figure out what else there was to call her.

“Not usually,” he chuckles. “I just got out of work. Late night. I wasn’t expecting it to rain so much these past few days,” he adds, looking out the window, squinting at his car through the water running down the glass. “You look soaked - did you walk here?” The rain has made her hair - a platinum blonde, he notices, with pink highlights, just like at the grocery store - wet, even though she’s pulled it back from her tan face into a little bun. Some errant strands still stick to her temples and the sides of her neck. And she has a septum piercing, a small silver ring resting against her philtrum. It looks good.

“Yeah, though now I’m regretting it a bit,” Yuna giggles, looking out the window too. “Hobi lives just down the street, and I’ve been staying with him until I can get my own apartment.”

“Hobi?” Jin mutters. “That’s right. Tae said he was moving out.”

In her absence he’d totally forgotten that she and Jung Hoseok, dancer extraordinaire, were cousins. Jin didn’t keep too much contact with Hobi, though they had been in school together; they’d occasionally acknowledge one another in local stores, and he was sure he’d seen Hobi out driving a few times, but only Taehyung talked with him more or less regularly. Taehyung always talked about bringing Hobi for dinner, but it never seemed to happen.

“Ms. Kang?” The cook calls her name, placing another big bag on the counter. Jin stands after she does and mingles around the door as she gets her food, watching her face hover unusually long above the little card reader before she pays.

It felt unreal. When she left him at university, he never expected to see her again. Moving across the world was no small feat. It had made him sad, and then angry, and after years alone he had finally given up feeling anything about it at all. She left to pursue her dreams, to live her life, to do her best, and he had to do the same. He had given up, and then he had forgotten.

She doesn’t look too different; she’s tanner, but still shorter than him, and her face is equal parts soft and well-defined, her eyebrows are still that perfect. Her green eyes seem lighter than before, but he doubts that’s possible. Her damp skin gives off a certain ethereal glow in the calm restaurant lighting, and when she sees him waiting for her, the smile she gives is so pristine, so model-like, so dimpled, he wonders how he forgot it at all.

“If you’re close, I don’t mind driving you back,” he says, putting one hand on the door. “It’s just getting worse as the night goes on.” She stands beside him, examining the black sky outside and listening to the rain pound away against the glass. Suddenly he feels like he’s at university again, but the feeling fades as quickly as it comes. “Plus, I’d love to talk some more.”

“That’d be great,” she agrees after a moment. “I appreciate it a lot. I don’t know what Hobi would say if he came home to soaked pork bulgogi.” His chest seems to swell at the fact that they got the same food; how could he not remember how many times they ate together before?

“Ready?” She asks, looking up at him with a playful raise of her eyebrow.

“If you are.”

He pushes open the door in one hard shove, making the bell rattle frantically, and they both dart out into the rain just as a massive clap of thunder shakes the sky overhead, so close it’s deafening. Jin hears her yell a little as she jumps off the sidewalk and hustles to the passenger side door.

“It’s locked!” Yuna cries.

“Shit,” Jin hisses, reaching into his pocket and fumbling with the key fob while he hunches over his takeout bag. “Ah, shit!” Her laughter drifts over the top of the car to him as lightning lights up the parking lot. His shirt is soaked. “There you go!”

They flop into their seats together. Jin winces as he thinks of his dripping wet shirt sticking to his seats, and her rain jacket, shit. But he doesn’t say anything - he can’t, not when he’s also soaked head to toe. Yuna is giggling breathlessly as she adjusts in her seat, gesturing for his bag and placing it on the floor between her feet while holding her own in her lap. The car comes to life with a low, vibrating hum, and Yuna eyes the dashboard as it lights up.

“Fancy,” she comments, “reminds me of a spaceship.” Jin rolls his eyes hard, groaning when he sees that the backup camera is so blurred by rain it’s basically useless.

“Everyone says that,” he replies, twisting around and placing one hand on the back of her seat to watch behind him as he backs out. The front of his shirt is slowly dampening against his chest as water drips off his hair and runs down his neck. “You, Namjoon, Eomma, Appa. Everyone.”

“Because it’s true,” she snickers, gliding one finger along the interior of the door. “How is Namjoon, by the way? And Taehyung?”

“Joon’s doing well,” Jin says, shifting the car into drive and fastening his seatbelt before pulling out of the parking lot. “Left or right?”

“Left. Is he teaching, like he wanted to?”

“Yeah, he’s got a teaching job at a school a bit outside the city. As far as I can tell he’s enjoying it a lot. Taehyung is...well, he’s doing Taehyung things.”

“Which is?”

“Mostly good. Left or right?”

“Right,” she instructs. “I’m glad to hear they’re doing okay. I think Namjoon follows me on Instagram, I see him like all my posts.”

“He said he did,” Jin chuckles.

“You aren’t on Instagram, right?”

“Not really. I have one, but I never use it.” He ticks the windshield wiper speed up. “Pretty sure my profile picture is still just the default blank.” She smiles to herself - that sounds just like him.

“And you?” Yuna asks, looking at him as he drives. “How’s Seokjin doing?” His plump lips grin a little and his eyes do a full cycle between the dashboard, rear view, her, and driver’s side mirror.

“Seokjin’s doing fine,” he replies. “A little wet, though.”

“A little?” She snorts. “I’m sorry about the seats, by the way. I hope these aren’t real leather.”

“They aren’t,” he assures her, and she feigns relief. Lying to avoid making her feel guilty also sounds just like him. “Are we close?”

Yuna leans against the window and spots Hobi’s humble apartment building cozied between the lower-lying buildings around it, and then leans towards the dashboard to point it out to her driver.

“Oh, Hobi lives here?” Jin wonders aloud, leaning over the wheel to squint through the rain. “Where’s he moving to?”

“Somewhere a little closer to the city. I haven’t seen the new apartment yet.” The eldest Kim brother nods after a moment in approval - the action reminds her vaguely of his father - then sidles the car right up to the sidewalk in front of the building, pulling it into park. “Can I give you gas money or something?”

“No way,” he laughs. “You want to tip me for driving you a few minutes down the road?”

Yuna rolls her eyes at him as she unbuckles her seatbelt and wraps one arm around her bag. “I know you like driving, but I figured I’d offer anyway.” Though, judging by his suit, he likely doesn’t need her pocket change to pay for gas anyway. “Thank you, though.” She hesitates, looking at him, feeling his eyes staring at her again, and then leans over the center console to offer a polite hug.

He returns it, albeit hesitantly. His touch is light and cautious, not really a proper hug. She understands, and doesn’t linger.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Jin,” Yuna says, one hand on the door handle. “Let’s meet up properly sometime soon, okay?”

“I’d love to,” he replies, nodding. “Do you want my number or something? So we can...?” he trails off and shrugs, extending his phone towards her.

“Oh! That’s smart,” she giggles. “Yeah, hold on.” She fishes her own phone out of her pocket and unlocks it before handing it to him. His Samsung is sleek and doesn’t have a case on it, which is stress inducing, but Kim Seokjin is not nearly as clumsy or prone to dropping things as his younger brother Namjoon is.

🌈Yuna✈has been added to your contacts list.

“All set?” Jin asks, holding her phone back out to her. Why the plane emoji?

“No contact name?” Yuna snickers. “Do I get to choose?” He shrugs.

“You’ll know it’s me either way,” he replies.

He’s right.

She says goodbye and then clambers out of his car back into the rain, waiting for a brief moment before scurrying back into the lobby. Wiping her wet shoes on the rug, she trudges to the elevator, and hits the button for the fourth floor.

KSJ has been added to your contacts list.

“Tae, send me the address, I’m on my way,” Jin says into his phone. Taehyung’s voice crackles over the speakers, filling up the car at once.

“Yeah, okay. Just a sec.” A message appears across the top of his screen, a long address, and when he enters it into Google Maps it’s nearly half an hour away. “Got it?”

“Yeah. Be there soon, okay?”

Instead of a response, he gets the dull triple beep that tells him he’s been hung up on. The call screen vanishes and brings him back to the last open page, his contacts, where Yuna’s name is sitting at the bottom of the list.

But he had given her a nickname, once, hadn’t he?

Jin taps her contact and goes in to edit it, smiling to himself as he props his phone back up on the dashboard and shifts into drive to pull away from the curb. He hasn’t felt this happy in a long, long time.

🌈Yunnie✈has been added to your contacts list.

#a map of mrs kims #amomk #aurelius and amomk #bts #bts jin #kim seokjin #seokjin fanfiction #bts fic #kim line #bangtan #bts x oc #jin x oc #inspired by other original works!

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realife-mermaid · 3 years

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Reading Log for May/June

We are GETTING INTO THIS SHIT lmao I was behind in my goodreads goal and slacking on some of my reading goals so I tried to read more for May and June. Here is that effort, I think I did a fantastic job, and also I read a lot of books that I fOcking LOVED which was a nice change from the “mostly eh” pattern I’ve been stuck in.

I also bought a bunch of books (mostly starring queer and/or characters of color bc I realized my books feature way too many cishets) then inventoried all my books and redid my counts. And in June I ONLY read queer books as a “this is a gays only event go home!” power move on all the heterosexuals currently on my bookshelves. Can’t let those dudes get too cocky, they gotta know they’re on a Bisexual Bookshelf and they can’t be embarrassing me. So books 7 on are all queer in some way, and most of them were written by queer authors as well.

New Total Books Count: 184

New Unread Books Count: 94

Goodreads Goal: 49

This Place: 150 Years Retold Anthology - 3.5 stars. Eh. To be honest the summary was really misleading. I thought it would be more post apocalyptic takes on colonialism but instead it was mostly just straight history. Some of them did not have enough story for the pages they got and some of them had far too much story for the pages they got, or told them in a really awkward way. Still, seeing history centered from an Indigenous perspective was interesting and there’s some beautiful art here. Standouts include Red Clouds (read that one during daylight hours for my peace of mind if no one else’s lol), Rosie (BEST art by far), and Migwite’tmeg: We Remember It.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie - 5 stars. I know he’s a grade A creep but I bought this several years ago before I knew that and I wanted to at least read it once. I both understand why it’s considered a classic (the stories about Norma, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, and James Many Horses really stuck me with specifically) but I can also Really pick up on Alexie’s opinions of women lol.

Clockwork Prince by Cassie Clare - 4.5 Stars. So much better than the first one. Felt like there was more going on, the romantic scenes are SO beautifully romantic, the character arcs more well defined, and the writing really improved. Still too long, and idc what she says, Jem should have gotten a POV chapter and the fact that he didn’t bc ~plot reasons~ is just laziness, so I knocked half a star off. Also, the audiobook I listened to was AWESOME, the male voice did such a good job, and the female voice improved as well.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones - 5 stars. This was a solid, 4 star horror urban fantasy/coming of age story and then the last two chapters just punched me in the chest and took it into “absolute favorites” category. Told from the point of view of the nameless nephew who may or may not be a werewolf, raised by his werewolf aunt and uncle, who have been on the move since his grandfather died, it’s a fantastic horror book and a fresh take on werewolves and also just a great book.

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee - 5 stars. Historical fiction about a Chinese aspiring acrobat who boards the titanic in the hopes of reconnecting with her twin brother. It’s SO GOOD, so engaging, with characters that feel so alive and painfully real. Loved it and loved being emotionally destroyed by the ending. The injustice of what happened to the lower class passengers really STUCK with me, I had to sit with my feelings after.

Among Others by Jo Walton - 5 stars. I don’t even know how to describe how much I loved it. I think The Book Thief might have a rival for my affections. It’s magic realism about a girl named Mor in, as she puts it, the Scouring of the Shire section of the story. Evil has been defeated, so what do you do next? It’s about grief, disability, abuse, and the power of connection and love and LIFE and I cried reading it. Everyone should read it.

Nature Poem by Tommy Pico - 4 stars. This was an audiobook listen and I loved hearing his narration. Very animated and fun. The poem itself is very interesting and there’s quite a few bits that really stuck with me about like Indigenous Experience and also about being gay and Indigenous. Excited to read more of his work.

Space Opera by Catherynne Valente - 5 stars. I would like to formally apologize to my friend Addi @monstersandheartache who recommended this to me like a year ago and I dragged my feet on reading it because I’m a dumbass holy shit. So funny, so witty, so zany, and yet so ripe with emotion. It’s Eurovision in Space and pays homage to sci-fi and glam rock, and the general overreaching theme reminds me a lot, of all things, Pacific Rim - it’s a humanist ballad of queer rockstars singing to (and often fucking and flirting with) aliens and it’s so damn good.

Beast by Brie Spangler - 3 stars. The writing was solid, I liked how Jamie as a trans girl was written to be very Aware of how others perceive her but just ignoring it bc she’s here to Have Fun, and the beginning was very good but the characters went from lovably dumb to plain annoying around the 70% mark. There comes a point when there has to be more to the plot than “I say something dumb, we argue, don’t talk, and then make up” ya know. Disappointing bc I was looking forward to this one.

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsburg - 3 stars. I think every teenager should read howl because that’s when it’s most gonna resonate, when it’s the first time you’ve read something like this, because the Beat Generation WAS the first time they were doing this. Now though, there’s so many poems that say similar things that the moment of “I didn’t know other people felt like this” won’t ring as true. I did really like A Supermarket in California.

Fortitude Smashed by Taylor Brooke - 3 stars. This is one of those “clock runs out when you meet your soulmate” stories and it was really boring. There were also a lot of PoV switches, like multiple in one chapter and I found it distracting and annoying.

No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll - 5 stars. It’s a short story compilation about trans characters subverting gendered prophecies. Really smart, interesting world building and it also juggled giving characters personalities with very little time to do it incredibly well. I liked the third story about Nociem (awesome world building) and the sweet wish dragon story at the ending.

Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde - 4 stars. I wasn’t like, exactly sure how to rate this because the prose is beautiful, Ballad of Reading Gaol is just amazing, and several other poems really spoke to me and then BAM anti-semitic reference to the merchant of Venice. It was a lot, but also, I liked it enough I might finally read his other stuff.

Cinnamon Blade by Shira Glassman - 3 stars. It’s sort of urban fantasy esque erotic short and tbh, I think if it had been a full length novel I might have liked it more. Just too much going on in the background, and Soledad didn’t really have a personality beyond “quirky.”

Girls Made of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan - 5 stars. This is a heavy book. It’s centered around a girl named Lei from the paper caste, the lowest caste, who is forced to be a concubine for the demon king. While there, she comes to grips with the oppression her people face and falls in love with another concubine, Wren. The love story is sweet and well developed but this is a difficult book. I was unsettled and panicked the whole time I read, just like Lei is forced to be. The rough, vivid, and fascinating world building makes this an awesome, but disturbing read. I’m so excited to be deeply unsettled when I read the sequel.

Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea M. Cameron - 3.5 stars. Sweet, cute, and funny but it reads more like fanfic than a novel in a bad way. Like, it really needed a round of edits and also the backgrounds characters change personalities a few times. But still a fun and cute story about a lesbian who marries her best friend for the money, only for the two women to fall in love.

Our Bloody Pearl by DN Bryn - 3 stars. The concept is great but the dialogue was weird and preachy and the narrative voice was sooooo boring. It’s cute but forgettable and a lot to get through.

The Cursebreaker Countess by Sasha L. Miller - 4 stars. Kas breaks a curse on a sleeping woman named Anika mostly because the curse freaks her out, only to get dragged into a political feud involving magic that she barely understands. This was slow moving, more adventure fantasy than high fantasy, but I liked the slow pace. It was like unraveling a knot. Also Kas and Anika are awesome characters separately and as a couple they’re adorable.

Heart and Hand by Rebel Carter - 4.5 stars. Julie answers an ad for a mail order bride, packing up from her high society life to move to the Montana terrifies - except she will be marrying not one man, but a pair of best friends. I thought this was MMF bc it was on a bunch of “Bi love interests” and MMF lists but it is in fact MFM, which was slightly annoying bc the relationship between Will and Forest was incredibly romantic and it felt like a waste of a great dynamic. So I knocked off half a star. Otherwise this was a really solid read. Incredibly well written with a town that is well developed as it’s own entity, and three characters that all have lovely arcs. It’s steamy, romantic, and sugar sweet and I loved it (also WoC in a historical AND a triad romance? Bro sign me UP).

Peter Darling by Austin Chant - 5 stars. Once again I should never doubt Addi ever because holy crap this was so good. Peter Pan goes back to Neverland only to find that since he’s grown up, Neverland doesn’t appeal like it used to, but neither can he go home, to where he would never be accepted as Peter, but forced to live as his assigned gender at birth. This is like. Immaculate. Beautifully written, fast paced, romantic, heartbreaking, but with an ending that feels so full of hope. Not wrapped up with a neat bow, but instead looking to the future.

New Books Read: 19

Rereads: 1

Total of Books Read: 14/94; 19/184

Goodreads Goal: 30/49

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