#when I woke up after drawing this comic I hated how I wrote the end part

[naturecalls111]

#black leg sanji #red leg zeff #one piece #comic #fanart #sanji vinsmoke #< the tag I use more often so just for easy navigation on my blog. #my dog of 17 years passed the other night and god knows I suck at processing things #I wanted a way to distract myself but I couldn’t Really distract myself so. #when I woke up after drawing this comic I hated how I wrote the end part #my brain was muddled so words weren’t coming to me the way I wanted it to #I was going to change it before posting it here but that feels… disingenuous. so I’m keeping it #my puppy’s name was Sunny. it’s silly of me but it makes me feel even closer to one piece now #anyway sorry for rambling #I miss my big baby

[whumpsterfire]

The Guardian Angel’s Doll - Prologue

cw: car accidents, hospitals

4169 words

It started with a car crash.

Well, not exactly. If Efrem thought a little more about it, things had already been set in motion. Of course, Efrem would make some bad choices afterwards this whole incident under the ill advice of their friend.  

But it was the car crash that really sealed their fate.

Efrem… absolutely hated being late. Kieron just had to come over last night, staying up late with Efrem with a new game he had wanted to show them. And it’s not like Efrem minded – they didn’t, they liked it when Kieron came over, liked watching him play and listening to his voice as he talked and hearing the way he laughed – but Kieron knew how much Efrem hated when he came over unannounced. At least send a guy a message, you know? Efrem had a schedule, a whole routine. Kieron just happened to fuck it up every time he appeared out of nowhere behind their door to visit them.

It was frustrating. Well, they got over the irritation after Kieron had hung around for a while. But still. He should learn some manners and try asking them when they’re free. Or send a warning, at the very least. That absolutely wasn’t too much to ask.  

In any case.

Kieron stayed over for the night and Efrem stayed up way too late. The man also happened to have that effect on them. Which in return made Efrem miss their alarm in the morning, made them rush out of the appointment ahead of Kieron – he wanted to sleep a little longer and Efrem didn’t have the time nor the patience to argue – and well.

Rushing to the streets, just woken up? Turns out that isn’t such a good idea.

Efrem had never thought that you would really see things in slow motion when you were in a dangerous situation. And well, they kind of didn’t. The colours of the world deepened for a while and Efrem was acutely aware of the loud screech of someone hitting the breaks of a car.  

Really, they hadn’t even seen it coming.

How did it feel to be hit by a car? That wasn’t an easy question to answer. Sure, Efrem wrote a lot but they mostly did laid-back slice of life comics about their own life. They tended to be very dialogue-heavy. No need to use copious amounts of purple prose to describe the colour of the sky when the sun rose, that feeling when you looked at your best friend smile when he told you about this new set of dice he had pre-ordered, or what kind of physical sensations were going on with who’s body at whatever moment.

So, the first word that came to Efrem’s mind was pain. The sound came first – a thud and a disgusting, wet sound of something in their body going crunch. Efrem was just going to assume that this is where they went flying, because the next thing they remembered was blinking sluggishly back to consciousness on the pavement and thinking:

Oh, that fucking hurts.

Their whole body hurt. A sharp, searing pain on their chest and arm. And fuck, their head throbbed with a dull pain. The crushing pain lingering on them had to be the most intense Efrem had ever felt. They laid on the ground, brain scrambled and limbs not moving no matter how much they tried and then...

Well, then they woke up in the hospital.

Efrem wasn’t one to exactly like hospital visits. They were an unnecessary evil, they supposed. They hadn’t stayed in hospitals for too much but they did have a few surgeries under their belt, some more recent than others. They were glad for the painkillers, that was sure. But let’s see, what had they told Efrem again?

They had been suffering from a concussion. Their left collarbone was broken, along with a cracked humerus and rib. Apparently Efrem had been lucky that the rib didn’t puncture their lungs or harm any of their organs.

Efrem didn’t feel especially lucky. What kind of ‘luck’ is it to get hit by a fucking car? Now they had to stay in the hospital. They would need to take time off from school. They would need to take a break from drawing their comic. They would need to make a new routine around the current state of their body and they hated that.

At least Kieron visited them. As much as Efrem hated to see the guy fuss over them, they appreciated the awkward hug, careful of their many injuries, and the company.

Efrem really, really appreciated Kieron��s company.

He obviously seemed to think that he was responsible for Efrem’s accident. No, Efrem didn’t think he was – they could have just slept earlier or put on more alarms so they wouldn’t miss theirs – but Efrem also... kind of didn’t think he wasn’t responsible. Not that they would ever say that to Kieron, not directly.  

In fact, they were hell-bent on proving the guy otherwise.

“Listen. I was careless. I got hit by a car because I didn’t make sure there wasn’t any coming and because I was in a hurry. I do that so often too – don't look at me like that, I know I shouldn’t - but nothing’s ever happened. I just... I got lucky those other times.”

Kieron looked at Efrem in that miserable way only he could – brows upturned and chewing on his lip like he tended to when he was worried.  

“But if I’d just gotten up and gone with you--”

Efrem rolled their eyes.

“Don’t blame yourself because I’m a dumbass”, Efrem said. Gods, Kieron really needed to get over himself about this. “This was bound to happen some time. It was only a matter of time, really.”

The other man didn’t look too convinced so Efrem let out an irritated sigh.

“I did this to myself and no, I’m not listening to you whine more about this. That’s that on that.”

That was that on that.

“You have to start being more careful, Em.”

“Yeah, I kinda got the message on that from the universe. Could’ve been more subtle.”

That earned a careful chuckle from Kieron. Despite Efrem’s general bad mood over well, starting their day by getting hit by a car, they found a small smile forming on their lips. Kieron tended to have that effect on them.

“Really, though. Getting hit by a car isn’t... it isn’t a small thing. You could’ve--” Kieron cut himself off, as if afraid to finish that though. Efrem was happy he didn’t. In that small moment of quiet, they didn’t know how to act. They swallowed.  

“I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re okay. Or that you know, you’re not worse”, he finally finished.

“Yeah.” Efrem agreed. “Me too.”

There was a small silence, where Efrem let the gaze of their dark eyes fall onto their lap. As much as getting into an accident like this sucked, they couldn’t help but think that they had definitely earned this. It was them who hadn’t been careful enough and them who had practically ran under the car driving by. So yeah, this was a painful lesson with a price they wouldn’t have preferred to pay but probably deserved anyway.  

Then there was the thing Efrem hadn’t considered they would feel: guilt. A part of them felt guilty for being so careless, for getting hurt and for having Kieron visit them like this. Efrem may have earned their lesson, but Kieron definitely didn’t deserve the scare of having their friend being wounded like this. Efrem knew they needed to apologize but they couldn’t bring themself to. For ending up here and for... not entirely thinking it was all their fault, alone. They bit their tongue.

“How long do you have to stay in the hospital?”

“Oh?” Efrem was caught off guard by Kieron’s question. “Oh, just for like, tonight. They want to keep me overnight because of the concussion.”

“Right. I mean, that makes sense. I’m glad you don’t have to be here longer”, Kieron seemed visibly relieved. Maybe he was understanding that a few broken bones really wasn’t that serious. That despite the accident, Efrem really was okay.

“Same. I honestly could go home already but they’d never allow it.” They knew for a fact they wouldn’t - Efrem had asked.

“Yeah, maybe it’s better they’re observing you for tonight”, Kieron said and it’s not like Efrem disagreed. They just preferred their own bed over this hospital one. They winced when their collarbone protested with their shrug.

“Hey... I know that you don’t care about shit like this, but I kind of have an idea. I mean, you’re gonna think it’s stupid and all, but...” Kieron started and Efrem hated when they started talking like this. No, Efrem didn’t think Kieron’s interests were stupid, even if they made fun of them sometimes. Yes, they wanted him to be able to talk to them about anything without having to feel so damn insecure.  

“What?” They urged Kieron to continue.

“There kind of this, ritual?”

Oh, it was that kind of stuff.

“Go on.”

“I was kind of thinking if you’d be interested in doing it? When you get home, I mean. I know it’s stupid, but I don’t know—this whole car accident thing got me kind of, well, scared? And if I knew that you did that it would put me at ease ‘cause well, at least I’d know that there was some small extra form of protection on you or something, like isn’t it better to do a ritual and go on with your life and not do one, even if you don’t believe in that stuff? And--”

“I mean, sure. I don’t mind?” Efrem said casually and before they could sound too much like they actually believed in whatever occult stuff Kieron had lately been into, they added: “If it puts you at ease, I mean.”

There was a beat of silence, where Kieron just blinked at Efrem. Efrem felt their face get warm. They looked away.

“What? I don’t have to if you don’t--”

“No, no! I’m just surprised, you know? Since you always say that this stuff isn’t really your thing or don’t seem too interested in it, so I didn’t think you’d actually agree to it”, Kieron admitted.

Efrem brushed some of their dreadlocks aside awkwardly.

“So, what is it like”, they asked, casually.

“Huh?”

“The ritual, Kieron”, Efrem said with a roll of their eyes.  

Kieron’s brown eyes lit up with excitement. They always did when he was talking about something he was interested in. Efrem loved to see it.

“It’s actually really simple.”

***

Efrem looked over at their room. They liked to keep things clean, so they didn’t need to make space for the ritual. It really did seem fairly simple. Kieron had sent Efrem a message with the details to this thing he called a ‘ritual for protection’. It was... something about connecting with the spirits that protected you to have them watch over you in everyday life, or whatever. Definitely not Efrem’s expertise or even something they believed in.

But well. They kind of wanted to do it for Kieron. Or well, to just put his mind at ease. And it would be easier to actually do the thing than to lie to him about it. Efrem didn’t like lying, anyway. They had agreed to do the thing so they would do it.

They had the room set up for the ritual. They had used chalk to draw a circle on the floor, just like the instructions said. It also said to use salt for ‘protection’, but Kieron knew Efrem’s vacuum cleaner was broken. Getting rid of the salt would be too much of a pain without one and Efrem didn’t know when they’d be able to buy a new one, so chalk would have to do for now.

And Kieron had said it was probably fine. If they ‘charged’ the chalk to protect them, it’d be cool. So that’s what Efrem did... they assumed. They didn’t really know how charging worked and how you would know if you succeeded in it or not. Still, they drew that circle and it didn’t look too bad, either.

There was an incense Kieron had given them to burn for the ritual. Sandalwood. Efrem quite liked the smell of it, too. They didn’t mind knowing that the smell would linger. Burning it like this, they noticed that Kieron kind of tended to smell like it.

Efrem thought it was nice.

They looked at the circle. So they had it drawn, they had the incense burning, they had the four candles burning – for each cardinal direction respectfully – and they had the herbs they were supposed to burn and the words they were supposed to say. Kieron had instructed to use white candles, but Efrem didn’t own four white candles. They supposed it wasn’t that important – two white candles, one red and one blue should do just as well.  

As long as they burned.

So they were ready. Efrem looked at the bundle of herbs Kieron had given them. They weren’t actually sure what it contained – it seemed to have several ones and Efrem had never been too good at recognizing plants. It wasn’t important for them to know what kind of plants there was in the bundle, though. Kieron was the one who knew about this shit and he was the one who gave them this.

Efrem pulled a lighter from their pocket with their hand that wasn’t out of commission and packaged up. They lit it up, bringing it to the herbs. They didn’t just start burning instantly, to their surprise. It took a little while of trying, but eventually, the fire took.

“And now I’m supposed to say...” Efrem couldn’t dig out their phone while they were holding the burning bundle of herbs. They didn’t want to put it down either – that didn’t sound exactly safe. They could remember this; they took pride in their good memory.

What was it again...?

“May the spirits keep me protected.”

Yeah, Efrem was pretty sure that was it.  

Silence followed. Having said the actual words, Efrem felt kind of... silly. They were facing the circle, standing a few feet from one of the candles – the one signifying South. They stood still, waiting the bundle of herbs to burn out as per Kieron’s instructions.

They waited. Standing became boring soon, so they sat down to wait.

And they waited.

The herbs stopped burning. That meant the ritual was done.  

So that... was it, then.  

Well, Efrem didn’t know much about rituals but they supposed that this wasn’t too bad. This pretty much aligned with Efrem’s idea of what occult-stuff was about, anyway. Drawing circles, burning incense and candles and herbs and saying things. Now when they had tried it out, they knew it wasn’t really their thing. But Kieron was free to be into it and maybe Efrem wouldn’t mind hearing more about this stuff on an occasion or two. The herbs would apparently go under Efrem’s pillow and everything else they needed to clean up. Maybe they should call Kieron up to help them with the chalk on the floor, that was going to be a bitch to wash away with Efrem’s broken arm--

Efrem blinked, looking at the circle.

There was a guy.

Standing in the middle of it.

And he was looking at Efrem.

They froze.

“Uhh.... hello?” Efrem could hear themself say.

That’s weird. The pain medication Efrem was on wasn’t supposed to be that strong.

The... guy, stood there, right in the middle of the chalk circle. His skin was brown and he had short and curly white hair. He was wearing some kind of a blue robe, and the thing seemed to flow with a wind Efrem couldn’t feel. His eyes were surrounded by thick, white eyelashes and his eyes seemed to... miss their irises entirely, with only small black dots in the middle of the white scleras.

He was smiling. With very, very sharp teeth.

Efrem found themself unable to move.

“Hello, Efrem”, the guy (? Creature?) answered. His voice was smooth and light, almost like silk.  

It was a beautiful voice, Efrem found themself thinking.

More silence. The thing kept looking at Efrem with his weird, unsettling eyes. This certainly wasn’t anything Efrem had expected. What did they do now? What was going on? It was too fast to jump to any conclusions, so for now they should get some information.

“You’re in my circle”, Efrem said, carefully. The thing’s feet shifted inside the circle. His eyes didn’t leave Efrem’s form.

“You invited me, Efrem”, he said, slowly. It almost sounded like he was... speaking with an accent. Like the words quite didn’t fit his mouth. It was... unnerving.

“I did?”

The thing looked at the circle around him, breaking eye-contact for the first time since his arrival. Efrem swallowed.  

“A ritual for protection, wasn’t it.” He smiled at Efrem again.

“Y....yeah. It was.”

“It is a very nice circle, Efrem.”

“Oh! Thank you... um. Do you have a name...?” Keiron hadn’t said anything about this. Anything like this wasn’t supposed to happen, was it! Not that Efrem really knew what exactly was going on, yet. Was Keiron pulling a prank on them? Was this one of his friend’s that he had put to mess with them? No, Keiron wouldn’t do that, especially since this was like, Efrem’s second day at home after staying at the hospital.  

“You may address me as ‘Zey’”, the thing responded after what seemed like a moment of pondering.

“Cool, cool”, Efrem nodded along. “So uh... I invited you. What exactly are you?”

“I am... your guardian spirit.”

He was a what? Not an answer Efrem had expected, nor was it one they knew how to react to. He seemed to be serious, though. What the fuck do you say to that?

“You mean like a, err, guardian angel?”

The creature’s face lit up, smile widening. A sense of terror sparked through Efrem – there were a lot of teeth. Too many teeth. It didn’t - it didn’t look natural. Efrem’s skin felt clampy with the cold sweat rising to it.

“Yes. Exactly like a guardian angel.”

Efrem didn’t know what to say. The room was starting to feel increasingly small – there was plenty of space around, but suddenly they felt claustrophobic. The thing – Zey – pinning them down with his eyes didn’t help much either.

Could he... could he really be a spirit...? There was no way, right?

Right?

“I’m so glad you invited me, Efrem. I’ve been watching you.”

Efrem blinked.

“You... have?”

The self-proclaimed spirit chuckled, looking at Efrem in a way that looked almost...

Adoring...?

“Well, I am your guardian spirit, aren’t I.” He said it like it was something obvious. “I haven’t been able to keep you safe properly until now, but...” Zey took a step. And another.

He stepped out of the circle, stopping to stand in front of the still-sitting Efrem. Efrem looked up at him and for the second time in the span of a few days, they found themself completely unable to move. He looked at Efrem and--

And--

His eyes were the only thing Efrem could look at. Like everything around them was left in the dark, Zey’s eyes the only light there.

Efrem was entranced.

“But now when you invited me to your world, I can finally touch you.” Zey reached down and Efrem didn’t even realize they were reaching for his hand before they made contact.

They took Zey’s hand. His palm was cold, colder than a human body would be.

“I must say, though, Efrem. This time it was me who managed to come through, but you could not be as lucky in the future.”

Efrem’s throat was dry. They could barely form thoughts – what was he saying? It was so difficult to focus on the words coming out of his mouth.

“Never, ever, forget the salt from your circles.”

That must have been when Efrem’s mind faded to black. The last thing they remembered was the sound of that voice, the feeling of that hand squeezing theirs and...

Those small, black pupils, fixed on them.

***

Efrem woke up in a room. It took them sitting up and a few blinks to realize that wait, this isn’t a room they recognize. They didn’t remember drinking, they didn’t remember... anything. What was this place? They were on a bed – it was a big, a double bed and a fairly comfortable one, too. They got up fast – too fast – and was hit by a wave of nausea and dizziness. Efrem had to squat down, waiting for it to pass.

They remembered... getting hit by a car. Shit, were they still alive? A quick pinch convinced them that yes, they must still be in the books of the living. What about any injuries...? They didn’t seem to have any.

Efrem guessed they had gotten lucky.

But they still needed to figure out where they were. They got up in the dimly lit room as soon as they started to feel more normal. There wasn’t much light, but there was enough for them to be able to see around them. They couldn’t see any sources for the light.

For now, the room.

Small investigation brought Efrem up to date about their surroundings. There was a bookshelf full of books. They opened it, browsing through a few books. All of them seemed to be written in a language they couldn’t read - in fact, the scripts engraved on their pages weren’t anything Efrem could recognize. There was a wooden desk and Efrem found ink, a few quills and what seemed like several pages of empty parchments from inside it. There was a piano. Efrem had never learnt to play one and they had no idea whether it was in tune or not. They were, however, able to tell that it sounded terrible. There was a wardrobe, packed full of... what seemed to be different types of robes. They weren’t from any culture Efrem could recognize.

Robes...? Efrem blinked.  

This... didn’t seem right. What was this place? Efrem saw a door – they could have sworn it hadn’t been there just a moment before. But there it was now and Efrem marched to it.  

The door knob didn’t turn. The door didn’t budge. Efrem felt cold.

“H...Hello?” They knocked on the door. “Hello! Is anyone out there!” Slowly, a sense of panic grew inside of them. What the fuck was going on? Where the fuck were they? They started banging on the door, voice growing louder as they got no response.

“Somebody! Help me! I’m trapped here! Some--!”

Efrem was cut off by the door opening in their face. It was closed as fast as it was opened, a figure stepping inside with ease.

Recognition sparked inside Efrem’s mind as the figure’s small, black pupils fell on to them.

“You have awoken”, he announced.

“Yeah, I noticed. W-Where am I?” The thing was standing way too close to them. Efrem took a step back. The creature – spirit, Zey – took a step closer.  

“This is your room, Efrem. I made it for you.”

That didn’t clear up anything. Actually, what was he even talking about?

“What do you mean? This isn’t my house. Where is.. Where I am? Where’s my phone?” Efrem needed to message Kieron. Zey looked at them, with a look that was almost pitiful.

“This is your new home. You won’t need your phone here, pet.”

What?

“The car accident was an unfortunate little thing. I wasn’t able to protect you.”

Efrem remembered – they did wake up in the hospital. They did get injured. They went home and they, they--

The ritual.

“So I brought you here, Efrem. So you can’t get hurt anymore.” Zey’s hand was on Efrem’s cheek and they jumped. He was tall. Why was Efrem unable to get away from them?

“So I can protect you better.”

Oh, okay. So the gist of it seemed to be...

“I took the liberty to fix up your injuries. It’s so fragile, that mortal body of yours”, Zey chuckled, like he was telling a joke. His hand was no longer on Efrem’s cheek.

“Please, make yourself comfortable in your new home. I can’t stay with you at this very moment, but I promise that I’ll play with you later, pet.”

Efrem stood still, staring at the spirit as he talked. They didn’t remember if he said anything else, absent-mindedly staring at his many sharp teeth as he talked.

He must have left at some point, because soon enough, Efrem was alone. The room was cold and empty. Never in their life had Efrem felt more confused and more alone. They more collapsed and less sat on the bed.

The gist of it seemed to be that Efrem was, thoroughly, fucked.

#the guardian angel's doll #tgad #whump #whump story #whumpee #whumper #whump community #fantasy #fantasy whump #non-human whumper #caretaker #original fiction

[throughthewwods]

100 Days of Productivity. Day 56-ish

📚 wrote up my response to the book Heart Berries.

Now I only have my lit review to write and I am done with at least one of my Incompletes, which would be such a relief and motivation boost. Boarding myself up in my bedroom so Kiddo didn’t overhear as I plowed through hours of often graphic trauma material day after day was not fun for my PTSD. 😬

Glad to have it done. 🥳

🧡 Created a little game plan to give the next 6 months some direction

💙 did some house stuff that was bugging me

💚 worked out for the second day in a row without my leg getting angry

Woke up still in good shape today, so that’s delightful. I enjoy being able to walk without squinting in pain. seriously though, it’s a big deal. I can’t drive. I need to be able to still walk everywhere again once this house cat life is behind me and I can rejoin the world. this reoccurring strain is no Bueno.

💚 I’m on 🎉Day 14🎉 of my super restrictive elimination diet!

And I only cheated a couple times in small ways 😆

🥳

Gawd I don’t want the last two weeks to be forever - I’m French. Fresh bread and butter is life. Cooking without any garlic and onion has been blasphemous 😬 but something I was previously eating was definitely making my digestive system unhappy. I hate to admit it, but there’s an obvious improvement and I’ve been sleeping better, which means waking up with more energy and mental faculties to handle existence. I also lost some of the Covid squish that’s had me feeling a tad insecure, so... I may keep at this. 🤷🏻‍♀️

💙 talked to my counselor finally for the first time in a month

He had some helpful anxiety grounding suggestions. By the end of our session I realized the only way I’m going to feel safe a.k.a. not anxious about my research methods class is if I go back to the beginning and review everything 🙄 ughhhh... yay... this morning I am trying to remind myself that having a plan you’re not thrilled about is better than drowning in no course of action.

This morning Kiddo is proud of how much her hand writing has improved over the last year. She is giggly showing me her comic about the rise and fall of a tiny Napoleon Bonaparte. She wants to join a drama club. I am laughing to myself at the fulfillment of a prophecy I foresaw when she was three as she faked a fall then came down the hall limping tragically.

Last night RB came over despite the brain zaps. At first I was a little nervous about what would happen if he weaned off the Zoloft, but the change has been positive. I can tell he’s generally happier and less stuck in slow motion. He is more talkative and lately, more inspired. His eyes are electric as he muses aloud the obscure parts he envisions needing for the sculptures he wants to build and explains to me some of the process of how recycled randomness becomes a desk lamp. His reignited artistic passion is an aphrodisiac.

More on happiness post-30’s:

Reflecting on a passing thought I had days ago, I ask him if the simple things that bring him joy post-30 are reminiscent of the things that brought him joy as a teenager? At first he said no, as who/how he is now is quite matured and removed compared to who he was then, but after more consideration his response affirmed my theory: For a time he let those joys go and in that time grew as a person only to be called to them again later. Something at the heart of it was still alive, but now in an evolved incarnation. He doesn’t make street art anymore, but there is still an edge to his drawings.  His love of classic cars with age blossomed into rockability. He still enjoys travel, but with a greater appreciation for history and the aesthetic of decaying ruins. He is the butterfly that doesn’t relate to the caterpillar anymore nor the metamorphic goo, yet there are small, transcendental mementos, which remain home.

#journal #writing #my writing #100 days of productivity #studystudystudy #positivemindset #relationship #love #couples goals #existentialism #thoughts #30something #happiness #adulting #motherhood #parenting #RBlovestory

[chainsmokespens]

2021.01.10: Redcaps and Manga Reviewing, Vigor and Nostalgia

Alright, so what happened this week?

Well, I don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened this week. I was six when September 11th occurred, so I wasn’t really cognizant of what had happened. But I am cognizant now. And I won’t forget what happened on January 6th for a very long time. I don’t consider myself especially patriotic or loyal to the democratic system of government as it operates in this country, but I do acknowledge when something so sacrosanct is violated.

I don’t want to spend time getting into this. If you’re old enough to find this blog post you’re old enough to know what happen. I hadn’t intended for that to be what I wanted to talk about anyway.

Where I left off last week, I wanted to announce my intention of making a video on Shaman King.

There are a number of hurdles—some might even dare to call them issues—with this idea. I’m not a reviewer. I don’t have any video editing experience. I don’t have a platform of great enough scale to protect my work. And, for the nature of what I intend to write, I may not even have enough time to get it out before the series drops in April.

So why bother?

Because I love the series. For years, it almost never came up in conversation, but when it did, I was pumped up with the nostalgia I had while reading it. I didn’t know where this excitement came from for years.

It’s a good manga. Not the best that there ever was, but yet I inexplicably loved it. And I didn’t really know why. But when I was asked what my favorite manga of all time was my answer would be Shaman King.

When I heard the anime was getting a re-release and when I heard they were going to re-publish the manga in full this time, I was ecstatic. I told my friend about it and, being the type of person who’s typically late regarding news related to anime releases, they already knew.

Then, I saw the articles. And my heart ached.

Read my article about how Shaman King is pulling a Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Read my article about ten characters that will be in this anime that weren’t in the original.

Read about whether or not this character is okay for woke 2021.

And I my stomach sinks when I think about what will be coming next.

Theories made by people who read the series and are reciting spoilers for clicks.

Essays on why Hao is the greatest anime villain of all time for clicks.

Speculation on whether or not Yoh can beat Goku in a fight.

I don’t have a very high opinion of journalism. And knowing that the series I love will be used and disposed of for quick clicks is upsetting to me.

In deciding to do this project, I put it all together. I realized why I loved this series.

When I drew as a youngster, Shaman King’s stab-your-eye-out-on-my-protagonist’s-edges art was my early influence for character design.

Every story I’ve come up with—whether or not it’s been continued, recycled into another idea, or wholly abandoned—has had themes of spirituality that I’d only seen present in Shaman King as a child watching it on the FoxBox.

It was my exposure to the reality that manga and anime don’t always coincide; I hadn’t watched FMA or FMAB yet.

I used to record the Saturday morning cartoons and watch them with my grandmother, and while for years I’d hop between Fox, the WB, and ABC recording cartoons so that we’d watch things like Lilo and Stitch, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, the Proud Family, Xiaolin Showdown, Coconut Fred, Ultimate Muscle, Johnny Test, Mucha Lucha, Jackie Chan Adventures, even One Piece—to name what I could from the top of my head, these shows didn’t all run on these channels in the same breadth of time—I’d skip over Shaman King, keeping it selfishly to myself like a child would.

This week, it hurt watching a bunch of redneck monsters trample over the Capitol. As someone cynical of the government, it hurt to know something so sacrosanct could be treated so shamefully. But it hurts so much worse to imagine that I wasted all these years, like a boy concealing his affection for a girl until she falls into the arms of someone else, to actually take the time and express the love I have for this series.

The image of this post is an issue of Jump a buddy of mine bought at a thrift store or yard sale and gave me almost three years ago. I posted the picture with a long blurb about how my week feeling on Facebook. A lot of it is auxiliary, but I’d like to recount what I wrote here.

Spoiler alert, I was feeling a little pretentious that day:

 “Vigor. Even writing this feels more cumbersome than it actually is.

How do I say what I mean? I hate nostalgia. It’s true, if hyperbolic. I see it cut down so many peers, creatives, and critics like a guillotine; a sloppy, artificially guided, swift force that lops their heads into a collective basket of thought.

Still, this past week I’ve felt my own dismissive chest opened with a more surgical precision that permissed” [NOT A WORD] “nostalgia to play with my heart strings. I reflected on Avatar, a show from a time when animated shows didn’t have their runtimes bisected for the simpler consumption of children that would choke on anything longer, that powered itself on the labor and inspired vision of its creators and crew as opposed to memes for the children and references for the adults, and had the temerity to demand that an audience be comfortable going thirty minutes at a time without a joke to amuse them.

My friend went to Pennsylvania and got me an issue of the now defunct Shonen Jump magazine from 2004. It had series of comics I’d forgotten about and an ad for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, but those were inconsequential. I find Shaman King to be the greatest comic I’ve ever read and in August, the month of the issue I’d received, the protagonist was featured prominently on the cover. I remembered how engrossing it was to read something with that level of complexity; taking into account my age. And never since have I seen a series with such a great balance of brutality and humor and never since have I seen any form of media where” [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] “led to a happy ending.

To round it off, within the hours before writing this I’d watched Feel Good Inc. I couldn’t help but feel my eyes begin to water at the genius of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. An unforgettable song latticed with moments of haunting beauty and brilliance.

As a child I would sit down for hours to draw terribly. And I loved every warped, misshapen, humanoid, tailed thing I drew. I’d scan my grandmother’s cookbooks and write recipes by mending foods I liked together in a manner similar to Frankenstein assembling his monster. I wrote chapter after chapter of a terrible story because I wanted to prove to my first girlfriend that I could write something better than twilight. I had a sense of self-motivation. I hadn’t struggled through college for a year to graduate without confidence in my own abilities. Or lost friends to unfair circumstances beyond my control or the ignorance of how much control I had. Or been stressed to the point of genuine fear from some of my earlier work. In many ways I still feel like the child I was when I lived at my grandmother’s house. Except now as a child too anxious to do anything besides what he knows will keep him alive.

How do I say what I mean? Not well. That, too, may have been a bit too hyperbolic. It’s not that I hate nostalgia, but that I fear being stagnated in memories of better days. Still, like a failing vegetarian having a hamburger the time I’ve taken to indulge myself has let me realize something I’ve been missing from my diet.

Vigor.”

#writer #author #writerblr #blog #shaman king #vigor

[basketofverbiage]

Angels Calling

Hi everyone! I just wanted to give a bit of a preface to this story. I know I was supposed to post a much happier story but I just couldn’t. A little bit about me that you may not know is that I worked for a local Hospice for 6 years. I helped people shower, maintain their homes, and just be there for them as they died and provided love and care to their loved ones as they were passing. My dad’s parents have been my next door neighbors since I was 4 years old, and I started noticing my sweet Gram declining a lot last year. When it got to the point that she needed help with showering, she wouldn’t let anyone else but me help her. So, when she was actively dying and in Hospice at the hospital, I stayed with her a lot and when she was still aware, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She lingered for 9 days. The night she died, I did her final post-mortum (after death) bath and got her ready for the funeral home to come myself. Because of my time with Hospice, I have a very unnatural way to deal with grief and everything is a little more complicated. When I started having nightmares about being at the hospital just waiting for her to pass, I knew I needed to do something to get it out of my system, and this story was born out of my need to deal with both my time working for hospice and the hundreds of patients I cared for and losing my Gram over the summer. So, with that, I’m sorry, but this story is really sad, but lightens up a bit at the end. But also know that I wrote this more for myself than for anything else.

Warnings: character death, grief, Hospice, terminal illness

Words: 18301

“Appa, I don’t feel so good.”

Hoseok never dreamed that those simple words spoken to him at 2:30 am would be the start of his worst nightmare come to life, but it was. Hoseok was a single dad, and as difficult as it could be, he wouldn’t trade his precocious 3-year-old daughter for anything in the world. Almost every father would say that if asked, but for Hoseok it was the truth. As far as he was concerned, the sun, moon, and all the stars rose and set in Dasom. Dasom’s mother had been young and a bit flighty, so when she found out she was pregnant she begged Hoseok to let her have an abortion, but he refused. He finally begged enough and promised that if she carried the baby to term, she’d never have to see either of them again, and she’d agreed. After 15 hours of labor, Dasom was born and her mother signed documentation resigning all parental rights to the child leaving her solely with Hoseok. As much as it broke his heart that she wanted nothing to do with this vibrant child, he was just selfish enough to be relieved that she couldn’t stroll in whenever it benefited her and shatter pieces of Dasom’s heart.

Hoseok could only think of a handful of times in her short life that Dasom had been ill, but she had recently begun attending pre-school and came into contact with more children her own age. He figured that it was only a matter of time before she would catch a cold, so when she came into his room and shook him awake and said she didn’t feel good, Hoseok figured she might have the cold that was going around.

“What doesn’t feel good, my Love?” he asked gently as he turned on the lamp on his bedside table.

“Appa, everything hurts. My skin even feels sore.”

Hoseok reached his hand out and felt her forehead and she was burning up. He picked her up and she immediately snuggled her face into the crook of his neck. He carried her into the bathroom and sat her gently on the countertop to take her temperature. She was old enough to take her temperature orally now and tolerated him holding the digital thermometer under her tongue until it beeped. When he glanced at the number on the screen, he did a double take. How was it possible that his baby had a temperature of 106 degrees? He was no doctor but he knew enough to know that her fever was dangerously high and probably the reason her little body was aching.

“Dasom, darling, we have to go to the doctor, but first I want you to take some medicine, okay?”

“Okay, Appa. As long as it helps. It hurts so much,” she whimpered as tears started streaking down her cheeks.

Hoseok hated seeing her in pain, so he gave her a dose of children’s fever reducer then got dressed to take her to the emergency room. After dressing himself quickly, he helped Dasom slip out of her pajamas to put on something that would be comfortable but warmer to go out into the chilly late-autumn night. When he took off her pajama pants, he gasped. There were big dark bruises down her legs that had not been there several hours ago when he’d helped her bathe before bed. As much as he was panicking on the inside, he was trying to stay calm for Dasom.

“Darling, did you fall out of bed or bump your legs coming to wake me up?” he asked, quietly.

“No, Appa, but it hurts.”

She was beginning to cry in earnest as he helped her into her booster seat in the back seat of his car and helped her buckle her seatbelt. The drive to the hospital went quickly, but Hoseok was so worried that it felt like it took hours to get there. Luckily, when they arrived there were no other people in the waiting room.

“Hi, Sir. How can we help you?” the receptionist asked.

“It’s my daughter. She woke me up saying she felt really bad, her fever was 106 degrees when I took it under her tongue, and she has bruises on her legs now that weren’t there when I helped her with her bath at 8:00.”

After entering the information into the computer system in front of her, the receptionist stepped from behind the desk with a clipboard.

“I’m going to go ahead and take you back to have her checked out by a doctor, but in the meantime, I do need for you to complete some additional information please.”

She led them back into a small room that was sectioned off with a curtain but had a bed in the middle. Hoseok laid Dasom gently on the bed and pulled a chair over beside her. She had brought a small yellow stuffed dog with her, and while she still cried a bit, she was toying with its ears while Hoseok completed the paperwork. He wrote down their insurance information and paused slightly when he got to the section about emergency contacts. His parents and sister lived several provinces over, and while he had some friends in the city, he and Dasom were pretty much solitary. After pondering for a moment, Hoseok wrote in the name of his best friend and business partner, Kim Namjoon. As far as Dasom was concerned, Unca Joonie and his partner, Unca Tookie, were her best friends. Namjoon and Hoseok ran a small bookstore/coffee shop combination in Seoul, while Namjoon’s partner Jungkook ran a game and comic book shop down the street. Namjoon and Jungkook had met a couple of years ago when Jungkook started coming into the café every morning for an Americano with double espresso shots every morning before opening his shop. Hoseok had just finished completing the requested documents when a doctor in a long white coat slipped into the room.

“Hi! My name is Dr. Kim Seokjin, but you can just call me Dr. Jin. What’s causing you so much trouble in the middle of the night, Princess Dasom?”

The dark-haired doctor was gentle and playful enough with her that he eased Dasom’s worries about being in the hospital, while still performing a thorough examination. After looking her over and taking her vitals, he turned to Hoseok.

“Mr. Jung, how long ago would you say Dasom had the fever reducer?” he asked.

“It was around 2:45 am,” he said, looking at his watch. “So maybe an hour and 15 minutes ago?”

“Hmm…” Dr. Kim thoughtfully jotted a few notes down. “It should definitely be taking effect by now, but her fever is now 106.3. I am going to have my lovely assistant come in and draw some of Dasom’s blood to do some tests. I’m also going to have him start an IV so we can give her a different medication to try to bring that fever down.” He turned to Dasom then and gave her a blinding smile, “I’ll be right back, Princess Dasom. I just want to step down the hall and get you some juice. Don’t give my lovely assistant too hard of a time, okay?”

Once she had giggled a bit and agreed, he exited the make-shift room. Since the room was essentially a big curtain in a circle around the bed, Hoseok could hear Dr. Kim speaking softly to someone outside the room but couldn’t make out what he was saying. He was watching Dasom snuggle under the light blanket with her puppy when someone new popped into the room.

“Oh my goodness! You must be the beautiful princess Dr. Jin was telling me about! My name is Taehyung,” the tall man said cheerfully before bowing to Dasom.

Dasom started giggling as soon as he called her a beautiful princess, and Taehyung shot her a big boxy smile before he came and sat down on the side of the bed.

“Princess, Dr. Jin said you are feeling pretty bad, and he wants us to do some tests to find out why. In order to do that, I need to take some samples of your blood which might not be fun for you, but I’ll be as gentle as I can, okay?”

Hoseok was still on edge, but the kindness of the nurse to even make his baby girl smile in this scenario was so appreciated. Dasom reached over and squeezed Hoseok’s hand while Taehyung drew three different tubes of blood and inserted an IV. Once the IV was in, he hung a bag of clear liquid and connected it.

“Alright, Princess Dasom! We are all done with the worst part now. I’m going to take your blood off to my friend to run some tests. In the meantime, why don’t you try to take a nap?”

After Taehyung left, Dasom lifted her little arms up to Hoseok and asked, “Appa, can I sleep in your lap?”  

“Of course you can, my darling,” he smiled to her. He picked up her small body being careful not to tug the IV lines and climbed into her bed. She snuggled into his arms and within a few minutes she had fallen asleep.

After she had fallen asleep, Hoseok checked the time. It was nearing 5:30 am, and they still had no idea what was wrong. Hoseok was exhausted with worry, so he tilted his head back on the pillow in Dasom’s hospital bed and drifted off to the rhythm of her sleepy breaths on his neck.

 The phone at the nurse’s station rang and Taehyung picked it up, chatting with the person on the other end for a moment before covering the mouthpiece with his hand and flagging Jin down.

“Dr. Kim, this is Dr. Min in the lab about our pediatric patient in Bay 1.”

Jin looked up from his charting and walked over to take the call.

“Hi Yoongi-chi. Have some good news for me?” he said cheerfully into the receiver.

Taehyung knew that Dr. Kim and Dr. Min had gone to medical school together and were close friends. They usually bantered back and forth for a bit, but from the look on Jin’s face, something wasn’t right.

“You’re sure, Yoongi-chi? Damn. Okay, send me up the report.”

After hanging up the phone, Jin pulled up the digital report before swearing softly under his breath.

“Tae, I hate cases like this. She’s really sick,” he said. “Do me a favor and go make Mr. Jung a strong cup of coffee and get some chocolate milk for our princess.”

 “Mr. Jung?”

Hoseok startled awake at the deep voice calling his name. He still held Dasom to his chest, and he could feel where she had drooled some in her sleep onto his shoulder. Taehyung smiled softly at him then helped him sit the head of the bed up a bit. He sat a sippy cup full of chocolate milk on the over bed table, before holding out a cup of coffee.

“Here, you are going to need this. Dr. Kim is going to come in after you’ve had a few minutes to wake up to talk with you about Dasom. It’s not the best coffee you’ve ever had, but it’s not jet fuel either.”

Hoseok thanked him and sipped on the hot coffee while waiting for the doctor. Something about how Taehyung had given it to him made his stomach twist with nervousness. After a few sips, the coffee and the churning of his nerves made Hoseok a bit queasy, so he abandoned the cup onto the over bed table beside the cup with Dasom’s chocolate milk. Before he had the time to overthink, Dr. Kim came in and sat in the chair beside the bed.

“I see our princess is still sleeping. I’m a little glad that she’s going to sleep through this conversation,” Dr. Kim sighed then and ran his hands through his hair. “We got the blood tests back that I ordered on Dasom. Her white blood cell count is literally off the charts. It’s so high that our machine that reads the count gave an error. Our lab director is a friend of mine and he personally ran the test for me. I really suspect that Dasom has a form of leukemia, but I can’t treat her here in the emergency room. I’m going to have her admitted to our children’s ward upstairs and personally refer her to a colleague who specializes in things like this. Dr. Park is a couple years younger than me, but he’s brilliant and knows all the latest treatments. He should be able to pick up where I leave off. Is there anyone you can call to be with you? I didn’t see mentions of Dasom’s mother on the paperwork…”

“She signed away parental rights the same hour Dasom was born. I haven’t seen her in literal years. My best friend lives in the city, so I’ll call him,” Hoseok murmured.

He was in shock. His baby was so sick. He could feel the panic bubbling up a bit, but he swallowed it harshly down.

“Taehyung is going to come in a few minutes and take you upstairs. Dasom will have to go up a separate elevator due to hospital rules, but we will make sure you have her room number before you go. That will also give you a chance to call your friend.”

Dasom was still asleep when Taehyung came to push bed and all up to the 7th floor of the hospital. He gave Hoseok the cup of chocolate milk and a slip of paper with her room number written on it. Hoseok stepped out of the emergency room bay and walked out into the lobby inside the main portion of the hospital to make a phone call.

 It was still dark outside when Namjoon’s phone rang. He knocked a closed bottle of water off his bedside table trying to get to it and then croaked out a greeting. He was trying to stay quiet enough not to wake Jungkook sleeping with his head on Namjoon’s bare chest, but when he heard Hoseok sobbing on the other end about Dasom and the hospital and something about leukemia, he sat up fast enough to dump the younger man off his chest harshly.

“Hobi, we will be right over. We will stop by and put a note on the door of the shop that it will be closed for the day.”

Jungkook had pouted at first at his rough awakening until he heard how upset Namjoon was. Namjoon was rushing around getting dressed faster than Jungkook had ever seen, and it made Jungkook respond with his own shaken brand of frantic dressing.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Who was on the phone?” Jungkook asked as he pulled a black shirt over his head.

“Hoseok. He’s at the hospital with Dasom. They’ve been there all night and the doctors think she has leukemia.”

 That was the beginning of the flaming hellscape that Hoseok’s life became. After four months of intermittent hospitalizations for weeks at a time, chemotherapy treatments that made Dasom vomit everything out for days afterwards and made her beautiful hair fall out, other treatments in the form of shots, IVs, and elixirs, and a bone marrow transplant, Hoseok wasn’t sure how much more either of them could take. It seemed like their options were slowly running out, and that was terrifying to him. It was still amazing to him how Dasom was still as bright and playful as she had ever been despite how sick she truly was. Namjoon and Jungkook had been by their sides the entire time, and Jungkook had spent a small fortune in cute hats and headbands for her when all of her hair had come out.

“I can’t help it, Hobi. I just want her to still feel as beautiful as she is, with or without hair,” he’d said when Hoseok had commented on it.

The three of them took turns staying with her during the day. Luckily, Jungkook’s friend Yugyeom was able to help out at the game shop on the days when Jungkook was babysitting, much like today. Hoseok and Namjoon were both in the shop that day preparing for a book signing coming later in the week, and Jungkook was sending them both photos of their adventures as the day went on. Hoseok was re-arranging the window display for the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday when his phone rang. He hadn’t been expecting a call, so it startled him a bit when he saw the phone number for Dr. Park’s office on his caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Jung? This is Eunwoo at Dr. Park’s office. He’d like to schedule a time for you to bring in Dasom to go over her recent labs. Is there any way you can come this afternoon?”

Something in Hoseok was shattered by the urgency of the request, but he set the appointment for 3 pm. That gave him a little more than 2 hours to pick up Dasom from Jungkook and arrive at the office. He placed the red tinted fairy lights he’d been attempting to detangle back in the box and headed to the back of the shop to find Namjoon. He found him in their office on the phone confirming the time with the local author for the book signing that Friday. Hoseok sat on the edge of the chair in front of the desk and waited for the call to end.

“Alright, Hobi. That was just confirming the details for our signing Friday afternoon. He will be here at 4 and we can get him settled at his table with some tea before we let in the masses.”

“Joon, Dr. Park’s office called and scheduled an appointment for Dasom in 2 hours. I’m going to have to go pick her up and go,” Hoseok told him anxiously.

“That doesn’t sound good. Why don’t I ride with you and we have Kookie meet us at the office with Dasom? If it’s not good news, I don’t want you to be alone,” Namjoon asked. Hoseok knew that he was worried by the way his forehead was crinkled just between his eyebrows, but he was trying to hide it.

“Okay. If it’s not too much trouble for you and Kookie.”

 Hoseok was so nervous about the appointment that they ended up leaving nearly an hour before they had to be there. Hoseok felt the anxiety buzzing around his abdomen like he’d drunk live bees instead of tea with breakfast that morning. Namjoon’s presence at his side was soothing and familiar as they sat on a park bench in front of the office waiting on Jungkook to get there.

“Hey, Seok? No matter what happens when we walk out of this appointment, we will handle it together. We are brothers. Jungkook and I love Dasom just like she is our own child. We will help you with whatever comes next,” Namjoon said softly, squeezing Hoseok’s hand gently as they watched Jungkook park his car and help Dasom out of the backseat.

Hoseok felt his throat close up with nerves, so he just nodded and plastered on a bright smile for his daughter. While the smile was initially fake, it slowly became a true grin as he heard Dasom and Jungkook singing “Baby Shark” as loudly as they could while crossing the parking lot. Jungkook was holding her against his chest and she was wearing a sparkly lavender princess dress and was clipping her matching tiara into Jungkook’s curly locks as they walked.

“Wow, Kookie! Who knew you made such a beautiful princess!” Hoseok teased.

“I’d be offended, but Dasom already told me that I’m the prettiest princess, and her word is law since she’s the queen,” he sassed back, making Dasom giggle.

“Hi Appa!” she squealed when Hoseok reached out for her.

“Hi my Love! Have you had a fun day with Princess Kookie?”

“Yes! We read more of The Princess Bride after lunch, then Unca Tookie let me play dress up for a bit.”

Hoseok listened to his daughter chatter about her day with Jungkook as they checked in with the receptionist. The group had only just sat down when a familiar face popped out and called them back.

“TaeTae! I didn’t know you worked here!” Dasom squealed out while she hugged his legs.

“Hi Princess! I just couldn’t wait another day to see you! And Dr. Park’s assistant had a baby last week, so Dr. Jin let me come over to help out. Plus, you know how much trouble Dr. Park gets into. Someone had to come keep him straight,” Taehyung explained as he hugged her.

They had gotten to know Taehyung pretty well as he had transferred up to the children’s unit shortly after their night in the emergency room. He still worked in the ER when they were short staffed, but he mostly worked in the inpatient unit for sick children. Since Dr. Park Jimin was the head of the children’s ward, Taehyung also floated over to the doctor’s office when needed. Somehow, just seeing his boxy grin and easy demeanor always put Hoseok and Dasom at ease; Dasom loved Taehyung and said he was her favorite nurse because he gives the best hugs. Taehyung took them back towards a room but stopped to weigh Dasom and measure her height.

“Princess, you have grown another inch since I saw you last! I’m going to give you a rock for a hat so you don’t get any bigger!” he teased before taking the rest of her vital signs.

Hoseok was a little surprised that Taehyung picked up Dasom and carried her while leading them to Dr. Park’s actual office instead of an exam room.

“Dr. Park wanted me to bring you in here instead of an exam room. He said he’d be in to speak with you in a few minutes. Make yourselves comfy. Do any of you want coffee or tea?” Taehyung asked. When they all refused, he patted Hoseok on the back and left the room, leaving the door slightly open.

They had only been sitting for a few minutes when Dr. Park came in. Hoseok always thought that if he’d met the man in a different setting, he’d have never known he was a doctor. Park Jimin was a bit shorter than Hoseok and had this habit of pushing his blonde hair back out of his eyes. He never wore a lab coat like most doctors Hoseok had ever met unless he was at the hospital, and then he just wore the lab coat over jeans and simple shirts. He had no qualms about kneeling in the floor to speak eye-to-eye with his young patients and his entire manner was soft and friendly. Children liked him and he was great with them. Not only was he great with his patients, but the man was truly brilliant. He had presented treatment options that Hoseok had never even heard of and had been willing to try anything. When Dr. Park came into the room, Dasom climbed out of Namjoon’s lap where she’d been doodling on the notepad that he always kept in his pocket to hug her doctor.

“Hello, Princess! I see that you brought in your royal guard and a new princess I don’t think I’ve met yet with you!”

“Oh Dr. Chim, that’s not a princess! That’s Unca Tookie, and you’ve met him before,” Dasom giggled.

“Well, don’t tell him I said so,” Dr. Park whispered conspiratorially to her, “but he makes a very pretty princess.”

Hoseok glanced over at Jungkook, who was blushing a bit and sneakily trying to remove the tiara from his hair and chuckled to himself.

“Princess, why don’t I take you to play with TaeTae for a little while? I need to talk to your Appa,” Dr. Park said before taking her hand and leading her out the door.

He was only gone for a few minutes, then came back and closed his office door. He shook each of their hands in greeting before sitting down behind his desk and opening up a folder that Hoseok hadn’t noticed before.

“Thank you for coming in at such short notice, Hoseok. I just didn’t want to dally in discussing this with you. As you know, we were hoping that the bone marrow transplant would help Dasom. I got her labs back this morning, and they were discouraging. While her white blood cell count is a little bit lower that it was before the transplant, it’s higher than it was during her last bloodwork. This tells me that it isn’t working,” Dr. Park paused at this point to look Hoseok in the eye. “You know that the transplant was the last-ditch effort we had to get ahead of this. I don’t have anymore tools on my belt that I can use to magically heal Dasom, and God knows I wish I did.”

Hoseok struggled to speak for a few minutes before finally choking out, “So what does this mean?”

Dr. Park ran his fingers through his hair, then stood and walked around his desk to take Hoseok’s hand before speaking again. “Hoseok-ssi, it means that with all of the efforts we’ve made to heal Dasom, none of it has worked. She is still very, very sick and there are no more options for treatment. We’ve tried them all.”

“Is she…please…is she dying? Is my baby going to die?” Hoseok stumbled over the words in his horror.

“I’m so sorry, but yes. I think she’s dying, Hoseok. I wanted to bring you in and talk to you about requesting some help for you. What do you think of Hospice?” Dr. Park said gently.

Hoseok couldn’t speak. His mouth fell open, but Jungkook spoke for him. “Isn’t Hospice for people who are going to die right away?”

“That is a misconception that a lot of people have. Hospice is designed for patients who are terminally ill and have a prognosis of living 6 months or less. While they won’t get better or heal really, the entire goal is for the patients to have the best possible quality of life and be comfortable in the end. Not only that, but you’d be able to keep Dasom at home throughout the process. She won’t have to be hospitalized again. I would still be her doctor and manage her care, but there would be other people involved. A nurse would come at least once a week and would be on-call 24 hours a day, a social worker would be available to you, and you would have access to 13 months of completely free bereavement care after Dasom dies. And that offer is for more than just you, Hoseok. It would be available to both Namjoon and Jungkook. They can also help arrange bereavement with your parents and sister through a Hospice nearby their homes.”

Hoseok crumpled under the weight of the shock. He couldn’t help but to fold in on himself. Dr. Park was still knelt down in front of him and holding both of his hands, but Hoseok’s head was nearly resting on his knees. He started to sob unintentionally; he had wanted so much to be strong for his baby girl, but he was so scared and devastated at this news. Before he realized what had happened, Dr. Park had released his hands and pulled him into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry, Hoseok. I wish I could do more to help her,” he whispered into Hoseok’s ear.

When he finally calmed down enough to pull back from the doctor, he could see the tears streaking down Dr. Park’s own face. He was an amazing doctor, so compassionate and brilliant, but there were still limits to what he could do. He couldn’t work a miracle. And while Hoseok understood that in his mind, his heart was shattered.

“I’m sorry for breaking down. But she’s my whole world. I literally exist to be her father, so the thought that she’s going to die before me is incomprehensible to me,” Hoseok said while trying to wipe his tears away. “Since we can’t do anything else, I guess Hospice is the next best thing. I don’t want her to be in pain, and if she can be at home to pass, I think she’d be more comfortable.”

Dr. Park sucked in a stuttered breath then said, “Okay. I will make the referral today, so please expect a call in the next couple of days. A nurse and a social worker will come out to your home for that and begin to get to know you. And I will of course make visits occasionally to check in on Dasom.”

Hoseok listened to the rest of the things that Dr. Park said about Hospice services as if he were standing in a tunnel. The sound echoed around his head, but most of the words were lost. After a few minutes, Namjoon and Jungkook helped him to stand and walk out of the room. They found Dasom sitting in Taehyung’s lap reading a storybook just down the hall. A toy stethoscope was clipped around her neck over the top of her princess dress and she had a disposable cap on her head like the ones used for surgery.  Taehyung was doing silly voices for all of the characters in the story and Dasom was laughing along with him. Hoseok just stopped to stare at her, gripping onto Namjoon’s arm while he saw how lively she seemed in this moment. It took everything within him not to hit his knees right then.

“Hey, Seok? Why don’t Jungkook and I come over and help you make dinner for Dasom? I just want to help support you both,” Namjoon asked softly. Hoseok just nodded before approaching Taehyung and Dasom. As he got closer to her, she looked up at him with a huge smile on her face.

“Appa, are you all done with Dr. Chim?” she asked.

“Yeah, Darling. Let’s go home now. Uncle Joonie and Uncle Kookie are going to come over for dinner. Should we order something?” he replied as he picked her up.

He couldn’t resist hugging her to his chest, and when she wrapped her tiny arms around his neck, more tears slipped out of his eyes. Would this be one of the last times he was able to hold her? To see her smile? Hear her precious giggles?

 After Dasom and her family had left, Taehyung stepped in to check on Dr. Park. They were good friends outside of work, and Taehyung had suspected that whatever news had been delivered to Mr. Jung was not good; Taehyung knew that Jimin would not be handling it well. In fact, he had rescheduled all of his appointments for the rest of the day when the reports had come in.

When Taehyung got to the office door, he could hear the sobs. Jimin was such a tender-hearted soul that his patients affected him deeply. He slipped in the door to find Jimin with his head down on the desk, crying into his folded arms. Taehyung closed the door behind him, then went to kneel beside Jimin.

“What happened, Chim?” he asked gently.

“She’s dying, Tae. The bone marrow transplant didn’t work. Her labs are still terrible and there’s nothing else I can do. I had to bring her father in and suggest Hospice to him for his 3-year-old daughter. I’m a horrible doctor. I can’t help her!”

Taehyung pulled Jimin into a hug and squeezed him tightly. “You are the best doctor at this hospital, Chim. Seriously. You have helped so many sick children recover. And I know, Dasom is a special little girl and it sucks so much that she’s so sick, but you can only do so much. You have tried every single treatment available for her, including some non-conventional methods and nothing has worked. Maybe her candle was only meant to be lit for a short while. All we can do now is make sure she’s comfortable and as happy as she can be through the end. Are you going to do home visits for her?”

Jimin nodded against Taehyung’s shoulder. “Want me to go with you those days?” Taehyung asked. Jimin nodded again. “Okay. We will go together. And we will make sure that she is the happiest that she can be.”

 Y/n hated pediatric cases. They were always the worst. She had begun working as a Hospice nurse to help dying people pass in comfort and peace and to make them smile as often as possible, but most of her patients were elderly. They had all lived long, mostly joyful, lives and were tired of being sick. As she stared at the admission information for her new patient, her heart sank.

Jung Dasom, born 26 May 2015, is a 3-year-old female patient with Juvenile Myelomoncytic Leukemia. The patient has endured a variety of treatments, including various chemotherapies and a bone marrow transplant. The transplant slowed down the growth of the leukemia for a short time. The patient’s mother has revoked claim to all parental rights and should not be given any information whatsoever regarding the patient’s condition should she reach out or inquire. The primary caregiver for the patient is her father, Jung Hoseok, who runs a bookstore/coffee shop. Additional caregivers are the father’s business partner, Kim Namjoon, and his boyfriend, Jeon Jungkook; information regarding the patient’s condition can be shared freely with both. The patient’s grandparents and aunt live out of town but do visit regularly. Mr. Jung has given permission to also speak with both regarding the patient’s condition. Mr. Jung has expressed interest that the patient remain at home for the duration of her illness and not be hospitalized again. Primary physician is Dr. Park Jimin, who will continue to manage the patient’s care and should be contacted for any and all changes in the patient’s condition. Dr. Park plans to make regular home visits to the patient to monitor the progression of the disease.

Y/n had not been the nurse to admit the patient as she had been attending a visit for another patient’s death, so her colleague, Sara had gone.

“Hey Sara, I see you did the admission yesterday for my pediatric patient. How are things there?” Y/n asked.

“She’s an absolute doll. You will fall in love with her. She is still very happy and playful and doesn’t report pain often. She lost all of her hair from the chemo, and complains of nausea when she eats, so Dr. Park has her on some meds that she takes before meals. Her dad is a total sweetheart and is super hands on with her care. He’s absolutely devastated at the news but is trying to hold it together for Dasom. The entire scenario is horrific, and I’m so glad she’s your patient and not mine.”

 The night that they’d gone home from Dr. Park’s office, Namjoon had driven Hoseok’s car back to their apartment and Jungkook had followed behind with Dasom so that Namjoon and Hoseok could talk.

“I swear I never dreamed that she would die before me, Joon. The thought rips the breath out of my lungs. I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell her, but I think I have to,” Hoseok cried to his friend.

Namjoon had tears rolling down his cheeks by the time that he parked the car, but they had developed a bit of a plan. Namjoon and Jungkook would order in dinner and set the dining room table while Hoseok tried to explain things to Dasom. Before stepping out of the car, Namjoon reached over and squeezed Hoseok’s hand a couple of times to give him strength then wiped the tears from his face. They looked at each other and both took some deep breaths before stepping out of the car.

Jungkook and Dasom were singing “Baby Shark” again. Jungkook was doing a great job of keeping his energy up for Dasom for the moment, but Namjoon could see the sadness in his eyes.

“What sounds good for dinner, Somie?” Namjoon asked as they took the elevator up to their floor. “Jungkookie and I are going to order something yummy for us.”

She tapped her little index finger against her chin for a moment while she thought about it. “Can we have noodles?”

“Of course! We will order loads of noodles,” Jungkook replied with a soft smile.

“Can we have chicken too?” she asked.

“Yeah, we can order chicken too,” Namjoon said, also with a smile.

“When we get home, can you meet me in my bedroom with your puppy, Love? I want to talk to you for a few minutes before we have fun with Joonie and Kookie,” Hoseok asked her as he knelt before her as the elevator was nearing the 8th floor where their apartment was.

Dasom nodded then put her little hands on each of Hoseok’s cheeks and blew a raspberry on the tip of his nose. “Yes, Appa. We can talk,” she said as she giggled at the silly look on Hoseok’s face.

Hoseok stood then and held her hand as they exited the elevator. When they got to their apartment, Dasom kicked her shoes off beside the door and put them in their designated spot on the shoe rack before running down the hall to her room. Namjoon, Jungkook, and Hoseok all stepped into the kitchen after removing their own shoes. Namjoon and Jungkook stepped forward to hug Hoseok, but he held his hands up to stop them.

“If you hug me right now, I’ll lose it. And I have to keep it together to talk to her,” he explained before grabbing Dasom a juice box out of the refrigerator then heading towards his room.

When Hoseok opened his bedroom door, Dasom was already there. She was sitting in the middle of his bed with her puppy plushie in her lap, fidgeting about with his ears. When he heard the door open, she smiled at him. He put the straw in the juice box and handed it to her before sitting down in front of her.

“Dasom, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about our visit with Dr. Chim today. You know that you’ve been sick for a while and had surgery, right?” Hoseok paused for her to respond, and she simply nodded as she took a sip of juice. “Well, Dr. Chim talked to me today because the surgery didn’t do what it was supposed to, and you are still sick. Dr. Chim told me today that there is nothing else he can do to help you get better.”

“Appa, am I going to go to heaven?” Dasom asked softly.

“Yes, Baby. At some point soon, you will go to heaven. Dr. Chim is going to help us make sure that even though you are still sick, it won’t hurt, and it won’t be scary. I’ll be with you the whole time. So will Uncle Joonie and Uncle Kookie. Dr. Chim is also going to send us some new friends that will help us take care of you at home, so you won’t have to go to the hospital anymore.”

“Okay, Appa. Will I get to see TaeTae again?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll call Dr. Chim’s office tomorrow and see if TaeTae can come visit you sometimes.”

Hoseok had to stop talking because his voice got caught in his throat. He reached out and picked Dasom up and pulled her into his lap. She instantly snuggled into him and wrapped her little arms around him to hug him.

After a minute, she looked up at him and said, “Appa, I’m not scared to go to heaven. I just will miss you so much when I’m there. You are the best Appa in the world. I love you so, so much.”

Her words broke him more than he already was. Hoseok cried as he whispered back that he loved her several times.

“Appa, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay,” she said as she kissed his cheek. “Unca Joonie and Unca Tookie will take care of you when I get to heaven.”

 The minute Hoseok had walked out of the kitchen to speak with Dasom, Jungkook had lost it. He had been strong the whole time he drove so that Dasom wouldn’t realize how upset he was, but when Hoseok left the kitchen, Jungkook wrapped himself up in Namjoon’s arms and let his own tears fall. Namjoon held him as he shook in his arms until they heard the click of Hoseok’s bedroom door open. Jungkook pulled back from the hug and walked to the kitchen sink to splash some water on his face to clear out all of the tears from his cheeks.

Jungkook had just dried his face on Hoseok’s hand towel when Hoseok himself came around the corner. He took a deep breath before turning around and seeing Hoseok taking slow deep breaths.

“How’d it go?” Jungkook asked gently.

“Better than I thought. She said that she loved me and that she’s not scared to go to heaven and that you and Joonie would take care of me when she’s gone.” Hoseok whimpered, fighting hard against the pain in his chest. “I don’t want my baby to die.”

Jungkook started crying again with him as he pulled him into a hug. Namjoon draped his arms around both men, and they all stood there and cried together for a few minutes, before a small voice spoke up.

“Don’t be sad please. I don’t want you to be sad,” Dasom cried as she wiggled into the middle of the three men. “I don’t want you to cry because I’m sick.”

Their tears had made their favorite princess cry because she didn’t want them to be sad because of her. Jungkook picked her up and snuggled her into all three of them.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I’m just sad that I won’t get to see you anymore when you leave us. But I promise I won’t cry anymore.”

 Y/n called and scheduled an appointment to meet her new patient 2 days after she had been admitted to Hospice. She was a little nervous about meeting Dasom and her father, but her nerves were immediately put at ease by the man with the 1000-watt smile who greeted her at the door.

“Hi, my name is Y/n. Mr. Jung, I presume?”

“Oh please. Mr. Jung is my dad. Please call me Hoseok,” he said warmly as he shook her hand. “Dasom is playing in her room. Should I go get her?”

“There’s no need. We can chat with her in her room if that’s better,” Y/n said. She couldn’t help but smile back at Hoseok as he led her into the apartment and down the hallway on the right side of the living room.

“Can I carry something for you? You look like you have your hands full,” he asked.

“I’m okay. Thank you though. I lug my bag and computer around from place to place all day long, so I barely even notice it these days.”

Hoseok nodded, then led her into the little girl’s room at the end of the hall. Dasom was sitting in the floor in front of a dollhouse at the end of her bed playing with some tiny dolls, one of which she was currently putting into the tiny bathtub in the upstairs of the dollhouse. She was wearing a light blue cotton dress with a picture of a unicorn on the front and some pink house slippers. She had very little hair, just a bit of peach fuzz that had begun to grow in after her chemotherapy treatments had ended, but she had on a blue headband with a bright yellow flower attached to it. She looked up at them when they entered the room and her dark brown eyes twinkled brightly when she saw her father.

“Somie, this is Y/n. She is one of the new friends Dr. Chim sent to help us out here at home. She needs to check you over so she can report back to Dr. Chim,” he explained as he introduced Y/n to the little girl.

“Hi Y/n! I’m Dasom. Are you friends with TaeTae?” she asked.

“TaeTae is Dr. Park’s assistant. His name is actually Taehyung, but Dasom gave him his own nickname because she loves him so much. He’s her favorite nurse,” Hoseok explained with a smile at the confused expression on Y/n’s face.

“Oh okay. No, I don’t know TaeTae yet, but I’m sure I will meet him soon since I’ll be calling Dr. Chim on a regular basis. Can you sit on your bed for me? I just need to take your temperature and your blood pressure.”

Dasom was completely unbothered by the discomfort of the blood pressure cuff as Y/n took her blood pressure. She was quiet until Y/n finished taking her blood pressure then she chattered about random things as Y/n continued her assessment.

“Dasom, do you hurt anywhere? Do you feel okay today?”

“No, nothing hurts today. I had a headache yesterday, but Appa gave me medicine and it helped. I haven’t thrown up in 3 whole days!” she replied excitedly.

After doing a physical examination, Y/n and Hoseok left Dasom to play with her dollhouse as they chatted a bit more in the living room. Y/n sat down on the sofa in front of a coffee table to chart on the visit on her computer and speak a bit more with Hoseok. Hoseok brought her over a cup of hot tea to sip as they talked more.

“Thank you so much for this,” Y/n said as she took a sip. “I just wanted to sit down with you and answer any questions you might have about Hospice, Dasom’s illness, or any concerns you have. I’m planning on visiting twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Since Dasom is so young, I just want to be present a bit more to get ahead of any symptoms that come up. I also want to be here to support you as much as I can.”

“I appreciate that very much. My best friends, Namjoon and Jungkook, will probably be here at times when you come so that I can work. My priority is Dasom, but on the days that she feels okay, I try to go to the bookshop to help Namjoon. I can do quite a bit of work from home since I do most of the bookkeeping and ordering of supplies, but it helps to get out some.”

“That’s understandable. I can call you and give you an update or leave you a note if you prefer on days you can’t be here. I have some families that keep a journal of sorts to write down their questions for me and for me to leave notes for them. We also have a nurse on call every night. If you have any issues, please call and someone can either give you instructions by phone or will come out as needed. I’m regularly on call as well, so sometimes if you call, you might speak with me.”

They chatted a bit more and Y/n could tell that Hoseok was a bit nervous, but she tried her best to assuage his fears. “I know this seems super overwhelming at the moment, but I will be by your side throughout this process. Death and dying seems like such a foreign process to most people, but I will be here every step of the way to help manage her symptoms and help you know what to expect as we go along. Don’t worry about that part though. For now, I just want you to take things day by day and enjoy spending time with your daughter.”

 Months passed before anything really changed. Dasom had good days when Hoseok could barely tell she was sick, and she played and laughed and grew. Other days were worse. She complained of headaches more often, and her nausea was harder to control. There were days she couldn’t even keep water down she was so nauseated, and she would cry and beg him to make it better. Those days were hell for Hoseok because he couldn’t make it better for his baby as much as he wished he could. Y/n was an angel throughout everything, and Dasom had taken to her as quickly as she had taken to Taehyung. It was so reassuring to Hoseok that she came on a regular schedule, every Tuesday and Friday. It was also so good to know that if something went badly during the middle of the night, he had someone he could call right away for help.

When they had first been admitted to Hospice, they had been given a special packet of medications that were tailored to Dasom that Y/n called an emergency kit. It was a set of medications that were often needed during end of life care for patients and kept in the home so that they were on hand if needed. The dosages and medications had been modified from what was typically given in a standard emergency kit because Dasom was too young to be given doses of that size of some medications or needed alternate medications altogether. This kit was kept in a high cabinet in the kitchen where Dasom couldn’t access it but was handy if something was needed. While Hoseok hoped they’d never have to use it, there was something so comforting about knowing it was there.

Hoseok never anticipated that things were going downhill until the floor collapsed from beneath him. He was out at the shop doing some work there since Dasom had been doing wonderfully for 2 weeks. She’d felt good and had been able to eat normally and play. Her hair had finally begun to grow back in earnest and she currently had the equivalent of a cute pixie cut. She still wore her hats and headbands that Jungkook had gotten her, and he’d bought several more since then. Since she had been so well, Hoseok felt safe with leaving her with Jungkook for a few hours while he worked in the shop knowing that Jungkook would call the second anything happened. It was nearly 4 in the afternoon on a Thursday, and Hoseok was shelving the newest batch of best-sellers he had ordered when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey Seok, its Jungkook. I think you need to come home and have Namjoon follow you. Dasom was fine up until after lunch. She said she was tired and fell asleep on my chest watching Frozen. That was at 12, and I’m having trouble waking her up. When I try, she opens her eyes a little, says, ‘So tired, Unca Took,’ then conks back out. I’m worried.”

That was all it took to bring the walls of a normal day shattering around Hoseok. Namjoon immediately closed the shop and they left to head home. While he was driving, Hoseok called Y/n to update her on Dasom.

 Y/n was leaving another patient’s home when she got the call from Hoseok, and she could tell he was panicking. She promised him that she’d meet him at their apartment. She got there just before he did since she had only been a few blocks away. Jungkook answered the door holding Dasom to his chest, and Y/n could see the fear in his large, bright eyes.

“Y/n! I’m so glad you’re here. Dasom isn’t really waking up and she’s breathing kind of funny,” he said. “She fell asleep on my chest and I’ve just been holding her so she wouldn’t be scared.”

Y/n instantly noticed that Dasom was a bit paler than usual. She naturally had her father’s golden skin, and it was a bit disquieting to see her so pale. Y/n convinced Jungkook to carry her down the hall to her bedroom and lay her on her bed. Several weeks ago, they had switched Dasom’s toddler bed out for a hospital bed so that they would be able to elevate the head of the bed as needed. Jungkook and Y/n got her settled in the bed and laid her favorite blanket over her lap. The whole time, Y/n noticed that her breathing was starting to be a bit more rapid than was normal but had begun to have periods where she stopped breathing altogether for a few seconds. Y/n was able to rouse her a tiny bit, but she instantly went back to sleep after finishing her sentence. Y/n was taking her temperature when Hoseok ran down the hall with Namjoon hot on his heels.

“What’s happening?” Hoseok asked, panicking a bit at the way his daughter looked. In his eyes, she already looked dead because of the pallor of her skin, but he could see her staggered breathing.

“Please, sit down, all of you. This might be a lengthy conversation,” Y/n said as soothingly as she could. Jungkook stepped and grabbed two chairs from the dining room table for himself and for Namjoon to sit in, while Hoseok opted to sit on the edge of Dasom’s bed.

“Thank you. I don’t want you to think I’m being unsympathetic of the situation or being harsh. I just need to speak honestly with you, so you all understand what’s happening. Dasom has been such a strong girl, but her body may be starting to give out. She may start to sleep a lot more than is usual for her and she may not breathe normally. Her heart rate might speed up and she could have periods where she doesn’t breathe at all; you may hear me call that periods of apnea. She may also start to have constant fevers. This will just get worse and worse until eventually she stops breathing altogether. Now, I would love to be able to tell you how long something like this will take, but I simply don’t know. She could also have several days in between where she will have more energy and be more awake; these periods are called rallies. She is rallying her energy up to take care of any business she may have and to say anything she needs to say to you. I will start to come more often for a while because I want to be here for you. I’ll also call Dr. Park to update him. He will probably call you to make a visit.”

Y/n’s heart was breaking with these three men. While Namjoon and Jungkook were not related to Dasom at all, this child might as well have had 3 fathers with as much time as they spent with her. Over the nearly 5 months she had been taking care of Dasom, she had rarely had a visit where only Hoseok was present. She had even come when Taehyung and Dr. Park had been there a few times. Everyone that she came into contact fell in love with this little girl, Y/n included. If her father’s smile was bright as the sun and his heart just as warm, his daughter’s smile was brighter and her heart warmer. As sick as she was, she always wanted to know that the people around her were happy, and she spoke wise words for such a small child.

While Y/n would never breathe a word of this to anyone, she had suspected that this was coming soon. Dasom’s birthday had been a week ago, and Y/n had visited the day before her birthday party. Her birthday had fallen on a Thursday, but she had wanted everyone she loved to visit for her birthday on Saturday, Y/n included. Hoseok stepped away to take a call as Y/n was finishing up listening to Dasom’s lungs.

“Y/n-ie, will you promise me something?” Dasom asked solemnly while her father was distracted.

“Of course, Love. What can I promise you?”

“Promise me to take care of my Appa. I love him very much, but I’m scared for him when I go to heaven. I’ve been hearing angels say my name when I’m sleeping, and I know I’m going to heaven soon. You’ve taken such good care of me. Will you take care of him too?” she asked.

Y/n blinked away tears before speaking again. “Yes, Somie, I promise. I will help take care of your Appa. I will help Namjoonie and Jungkookie. We will make sure he is okay when it’s time for you to go.” After securing that promise, she returned to her usual happy, giggling self as Hoseok came back into the room apologizing for his rudeness at having to take the call.

All 3 men in her presence were crying after Y/n explained what was happening in Dasom’s body. Namjoon was crying hard into Jungkook’s shoulder. Hoseok had climbed into the bed with his baby and wrapped his body around hers protectively. He had pulled her into his arms and was crying into the top of her head as quietly as he could. Y/n herself was struggling not to sob with these men who were watching this whole thing.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to step into the living room and call Dr. Park,” Y/n said before walking quickly from the room.

Y/n took her phone into the kitchen and dialed the number to the doctor’s office.

“Thank you so much for calling Seoul Pediatrics and Youth Care. My name is Taehyung. How can I help?”

“Hey Tae. It’s Y/n. I’m here with Dasom. Is Dr. Park around?”

“Hey Y/n! He just stepped out of an exam room. I’ll call him over,” Taehyung said happily.

“You might want to send him to his office, Tae. I don’t have good news.” Y/n’s voice broke at the end of the sentence and tears started flowing in earnest.

“Oh no! Let me put you on hold a minute, and we’ll both pick up in there,” Taehyung said before the overly cheery hold music started.

 Taehyung and Jimin had closed the door to Jimin’s office and picked up the call on speakerphone. Taehyung had warned him as well as he could that the news was grim, so Jimin had tried to steel himself for the call.

“Y/n, this is Dr. Park. What’s happening with Dasom?”

Jimin’s hands were shaking as Y/n relayed that Dasom was experiencing states of heavy sleep and semi-consciousness, periods of apnea, and she already had a fever.

“I think you’re right, Y/n. It does sound like she’s approaching end of life. I have 2 more appointments, but could you please let Hoseok know that Tae and I would like to stop by?”

At the end of the call, Jimin looked up at Taehyung’s glassy eyes and swallowed hard. He couldn’t even speak for a few minutes, so he squeezed Taehyung’s hand and they just sat there in silence composing themselves to endure the rest of the afternoon.

 Before she left that afternoon, Y/n kissed Dasom on the forehead softly and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sweet Girl.”

Hoseok, Jungkook, and Namjoon all walked with her to the door. They were all still crying a little bit, but she hugged them all tightly before picking up her laptop case and bag.

“Dr. Park and Taehyung will be here in a bit, and I’m on call tonight. If anything happens, please call me, okay? I don’t care if it’s 3 am.”

 As much as he wanted to hurry to see Dasom, Jimin knew that he had to keep his head in the right place. Lucky for him, his final patients of the day were just general check-ups on a pair of siblings who were getting over the flu. He put on a smile and made sure that the pair were recovering appropriately. Their lungs were clear, so it had not turned into pneumonia. He sent them on their way with instructions to rest and keep up the increased liquids for a few days before going back to school.

Once his final patients left, Jimin charted the visits using his laptop then nearly bowled his receptionist over as she came around the corner. “Eunwoo, Taehyung and I are going to see Dasom. Her Hospice nurse called earlier, and it sounds like she’s dying. I may need you to reschedule some appointments for the day of the funeral.”

 Taehyung insisted on driving to the Jungs’ apartment. He and Jimin had been taking turns, but he knew that Jimin would be upset when they left this visit, and he didn’t want him taking a chance. They put on some soft classical music for the drive just for background noise.

“You ready for this, Chim?” Taehyung asked gently as he backed his car into a parking place at Hoseok’s apartment building.

“No. Not at all, but it’s part of my job, Tae.”

Neither of them spoke again until they were standing outside the door of the apartment. Taehyung squeezed Jimin’s hand and whispered, “Let’s go say goodbye to the Princess.”

 After Y/n had left, they all just stared at each other for a second. Hoseok was completely in shock. His baby had been fine yesterday, and today she was dying. He lifted his left hand and pinched himself hard to see if he was dreaming, but he didn’t wake up; this nightmare was very real.

“Can I have just a few minutes alone with her?” Jungkook asked softly through his tears.

“Of course, Kook,” Hoseok replied, waving him towards her room.

 Jungkook sat down on the side of the bed as close as he could get to her, and just looked at her. The first time he had met this beautiful girl, she’d been barely 10 months old toddling about the café at the bookshop on wobbly legs while holding onto Namjoon’s fingers. It was the first time he’d been in the shop, and she had taken one look at him and abandoned Namjoon. She’d reached up to him with a sweet smile and upheld hands, saying, “Up peez.” He hadn’t been able to resist her then and he couldn’t now. He loved her so much and she lit his life up so much. Dasom had lived the meaning of her name in every sense of the word. Hoseok had named her well: Love is what she truly was.

“Somie, its Uncle Kookie. I just want you to know how much I love you. I know you don’t remember the first time I saw you, and how you wanted me to pick you up even then, but you won me over that day,” Jungkook spoke softly to her through his sobs. “I love you very, very much, Princess. I want you to know that I will watch out for Joonie and your Appa, so please don’t worry about leaving him behind. We will make sure he will be okay. When it’s time for you to be our guardian angel, let go and fly.”

Jungkook kissed her gently on the cheek and stumbled out of the room. He couldn’t see through his tears, but he didn’t have far to go before Hoseok was hugging him tight. They were still standing at the head of the hallway sobbing into each other’s arms when Namjoon answered the door to let Dr. Park and Taehyung in.

 Jimin and Taehyung went together back to Dasom’s room. She was peacefully lying in the bed, but her breathing was very shallow when they entered the room. Jimin could feel his heart break and the pieces leapt up into his throat as he sat down on her bed beside her. He took his stethoscope from around his neck and listened to her heartbeat. It was definitely beating at a higher rate than normal as her little body desperately struggled to ward off the leukemia in her veins.

Hoseok had excused himself to the bathroom for a few minutes to try to calm down before coming into the room, so they were alone with her.

“Hi Princess! It’s TaeTae. I needed to come see your beautiful face one more time. I know that you are about to become a star in the sky, so I wanted to ask you a favor. When you get there, please go find my grandma and give her a hug for me. Then, both of my favorite ladies will be together. I know you’ll be looking down on us. Your family is going to be fine; I promise. Your Appa is a good, strong man, and he will be okay. I’ll miss seeing your smiling face,” Taehyung murmured to her softly before kissing her forehead gently. After speaking his gentle goodbye to her, he squeezed Jimin’s shoulder as he left the room to check on Hoseok.

Jimin had a much more difficult time finding words to say, so for a moment he just sat quietly and held her small hand in his own and thought back over the time since Jin had referred her to him as a patient.

“Dasom, it’s Dr. Chim. I just came by to check on you. Y/n called me and told me that you weren’t doing so well. You don’t seem to be in any pain, which is good,” he paused a moment when the tears started streaming down his face. “I’m sorry, Dasom. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to help you get better,” he whispered to her before rushing out of the room.

 Hoseok felt like he had no more tears left to cry. He had wept out every molecule of fluid in his body in the hours since Jungkook had called him. Namjoon and Jungkook had opted to spend the night, and Hoseok had told them to sleep in his room and he’d wake them if anything happened. He had planned to curl up in bed around Dasom so if she needed him, he’d be right there. He laid down beside her in her hospital bed and brushed his fingertips gently over her forehead. It was almost as if she sensed him since she curled up to him at that gentle touch and snuggled closer to his chest. He drifted off to a fitful sleep as soon as she settled down into his arms.

Sometime later, he woke up to her tiny hands touching his face. He opened his eyes to see her looking up at him and stroking his cheeks and the shape of his nose.

“Hi Appa,” she said softly.

“Hi, Baby.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up but I needed to see you one more time. I love you, Appa. Please don’t be sad, but it’s almost time for me to go,” she said with a soft smile.

“I’m so glad you woke me up, Somie,” he cried, trying to smile at her through the tears dripping down his cheeks.

“Can you see them, Appa? Can you see the angels? They’re so pretty.”

“I can’t see them, Darling. But they aren’t here for me,” he whispered to her. “You can go with them if they ask you to, okay? Please don’t stay for me. I’ll be alright.”

She just nodded and wiped his tears away with her little hands. After a few more minutes, she laid her head on his chest and put her arm around his waist. She drifted off to a deep sleep soon after, but Hoseok couldn’t bring himself to sleep anymore. He watched and counted every breath she took that night, and just held her small body to his chest for the last time. Just as the dawn was breaking and light was peeking through her window across their faces, Dasom took her last breath.

 Namjoon woke up to Hoseok’s nearly screaming sobs confused as to where he was, but when he opened his eyes, everything came smashing back in on him.

“Jungkook, get up! Something’s wrong,” he said as he flung the blankets back and grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table.

Namjoon practically ran down the hall to find Hoseok holding Dasom to his chest, sobbing and begging her to wake up. She looked like the fairest china doll he’d ever seen and she wasn’t moving, even with her father being as loud as he was.

“Oh my god. Seok, please, you have to calm down. We have to call Y/n,” Namjoon said soothingly as he reached out for his friend.

At that moment, Jungkook slipped past him into the room and wrapped his arms around Hoseok. “I got this, Joon. Go call her.”

Namjoon stepped into the living room and dialed Y/n’s familiar number. She answered on the second ring even though it was still super early.

“Hey, Y/n. It’s Namjoon. We need you to come. Please…I think…” he stopped to breathe in for a moment before he could continue. “I think Dasom is gone. Hobi is holding her and is nearly hysterical begging her to wake up.”

“Oh no. I’ll be right over, Namjoon. Just give me 20 minutes to drive there.”

After disconnecting the call, Namjoon stood in the living room trying to steel himself a bit. Hoseok wasn’t screaming anymore, but Namjoon could still hear his sobs echoing down the hallway. He was afraid they were going to have to sedate Hoseok to get him to let go of Dasom’s body at this point. Luckily, they’d already planned a basic service back when Hospice was called so that Hoseok could just mourn when Dasom passed instead of having to make major decisions. Namjoon took a few more deep breaths then walked back down the hall.

Jungkook had managed to get Hoseok to lay Dasom back down on her bed. After he put her down, it was almost as if all the bones in his body disintegrated and left the man in a crumple on the floor. Jungkook was wrapped around him trying to offer some measure of comfort while he was crying himself. Namjoon knelt down beside both of them and whispered that Y/n was on her way and she’d be here soon. When he heard Namjoon’s voice, Hoseok unfurled from Jungkook’s embrace and moved to Namjoon’s instead.

“Joonie, I thought we had more time. Can I go with her? Please? Please let me be with my baby,” Hoseok begged as he buried his face in Namjoon’s chest and fisted the sides of his shirt.

“Seok, I’m so sorry. It’s not the same, but we loved her too, and we will be with you every step of the way. I promise you that Kook and I will take care of you until you can stand again, okay?”

Before they could talk anymore, the doorbell rang. Jungkook got up and went to let Y/n in. Hoseok took a few deep breaths as he listed to Namjoon’s deep voice assuring that he wasn’t alone in the hellscape that his life had become and was no longer sobbing. Tears were still raining out of his eyes, but his chest had apparently finished caving in because there were no wracking screams or sobs leaving his mouth.

 Y/n had expected this to be a horrible death visit. She had known that when she had to officially pronounce Dasom, Hoseok was not going to do well. And what father out there would do well with having to bury their 4-year-old?

The scene she walked into was worse than she’d dreamed. Hoseok was curled in a ball on the floor, shirtless and bare feet, but flannel clad knees pulled to his chest and his bare back pressed against the rails of Dasom’s hospital bed. He was crying into his best friend’s chest and Namjoon was crying too. Jungkook’s face had been red from crying too when he answered the door for her, and she had been able to hear Hoseok’s screams during Namjoon’s phone call. She dropped her bag inside the door and knelt in front of the two men in her black scrubs, gently rubbing Namjoon’s back.

“Hoseok? Can you look at me?” she asked softly.

He leaned back from Namjoon and launched himself into her arms when she offered a hug. “I’m so sorry, Hoseok. Was she comfortable?”

He nodded for a second before speaking. “She woke me up a few hours ago rubbing my face. She told me she loved me then asked if I could see the angels. After we talked, she fell back asleep and I just held her over my heart and watched her leave me. Oh my god, Y/n, bring my baby back. Please! I need you to bring her back!”

Y/n just sat down in the floor then, scooting the fully broken father in between her legs and brought his head to her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and held him and let him cry for a bit, knowing that he just needed to get a bit of the grief out of his system. After a bit, she could feel his hysteria starting to slow down a bit, and she moved her hands to his shoulders to pull him back to look at him. He had stopped crying, but big tears where still standing on the apples of his cheeks and his eyes looked so incredibly lost.

“Hoseok, I’m going to stand up now and do the part I have to do for Hospice, okay? I have to officially pronounce that she’s gone. Do you want to stay while I do?” she murmured to him.

When he shook his head slightly, Y/n stood then let Namjoon lead Hoseok into the living room to sit him down. Jungkook remained behind, still crying, but softly mentioning that he knew which outfit that she should be buried in. He had gone to the closet and chosen Dasom’s favorite glittery purple princess dress and matching tiara. He laid it beside her on the bed and held her tiny, now cold hand as Y/n listened with her stethoscope for just a few minutes. Dasom was definitely gone, and Y/n officially pronounced her at 6:47 am. Y/n hugged Jungkook and left the room to give him a moment alone with Dasom before going into the living room and checking on the others.

Hoseok was beginning to succumb to the emotional exhaustion already, but his breathing had begun to return to a stuttered normal where he had wept so hard. Y/n hugged Namjoon and whispered that Jungkook wanted a moment to say goodbye alone, before turning to Hoseok. She crouched down before him where he was crumpled onto the sofa and took his hands before speaking.

“I’m all finished with her. Jungkook picked out her final outfit. I just wanted to see if you are ready for me to call the funeral director. It’s okay if you aren’t,” she said in a soothingly gentle voice.

Hoseok took a deep breath and nodded. “I think so. I can’t bear the thought of her getting cold though. Can we wrap her in a blanket?”

“Is there a certain one you want to wrap her in?”

“There is a purple one at the end of her bed. Its super soft. That’s the one she always wanted when she felt bad,” he whispered.

“Do you want me to do it? Or do you want to help?”

“I can’t. I don’t want to remember the way she looks cold and lifeless. I want to remember my happy, giggly baby.” Hoseok whimpered.

Jungkook had come back into the room when Y/n stood to go back and wrap a blanket around Dasom. Namjoon’s face was pressed into his chest and they were softly crying together. Y/n smiled sadly at them before heading down the hallway. She found the blanket easily enough that Hoseok had wanted her wrapped in. Y/n gently picked the tiny body up and held her to her chest as she spread the blanket out with one hand. She swaddled Dasom’s lifeless body in the blanket as if she were a large infant, then kissed her on the forehead.

“Bye, Baby Girl. I’ll keep my promise to you. I’ll take good care of your Appa,” she whispered before calling the funeral director.

 For Hoseok, time seemed to stop. He had no idea what day it was or how long it had been since Dasom had died. He knew that it couldn’t have been any more than a week, but he felt like his life had stopped the same moment hers had. Namjoon and Jungkook refused to leave him alone for any length of time and they’d practically moved in at this point. Hoseok only slept when the crippling sadness and exhaustion made him stagger down the hallway to Dasom’s room where he’d collapse into the “big girl bed” that she’d used for maybe two weeks before it had been replaced by a hospital bed. The only time he could sleep was when he was wrapped up in the sheets that still vaguely smelled of her baby powder scent with her stuffed puppy squeezed to his chest. In those moments, he could pretend that she was just across town with her Unca Joon and Unca Tookie and he could pick her up.

Hoseok is unsure how he survived the funeral. He remembers standing by the too small casket in a borrowed suit, locking his knees to remain on his feet, and shaking the hands of everyone he knew. He remembers his mother and sister crying softly beside him in the visitation line, and his father struggling to not let the tears fall. He remembers the pastor saying a few words and the prayers before they closed the casket. He remembers Namjoon holding him back from tackling the funeral director who closed the lid and to keep him from collapsing as he begged them not close his baby in a box. He remembers Y/n being there too and standing beside him at his insistence at the graveside service, the death grip he had on her hand, and he remembers the sweet amber scent of her perfume keeping him from going insane when they lowered the tiny casket into the hole in the ground. And he remembers Jungkook wrapping his arms around him and hiding his face in Jungkook’s chest when they started shoveling the dirt back over his daughter’s grave.

After the funeral, Namjoon and Jungkook drove him back home while his parents followed behind. His mother and sister came in and began trying to cook away the pain in their chests. They cooked enough food to feed nearly the entire Korean army it seemed. They made Hoseok sit down at the table in front of all the food, but he just stared at the chopsticks and the dishes like he’d never seen them before. After a few minutes, Namjoon helped him walk into his bedroom, and for the first time since they’d graduated college, Namjoon helped Hoseok change clothes and helped him into his bed. Hoseok just stared at him with empty eyes for a few minutes.

“Hey, Seok, I’m going to step into the kitchen and grab you a bottle of water. Then I’ll come lay down with you for a while, okay?” Namjoon told him.

When Namjoon came back, Jungkook came with him and they each curled their bodies around Hoseok’s and wrapped their arms around him. They both knew that he wasn’t doing well and wanted to provide as much support as possible. When they enveloped him in their arms, Hoseok shattered again. He cried these terrible sobs that sounded like they were scraping the inside of his chest out and left his voice raspy and broken. Namjoon and Jungkook looked into each other’s tear-filled eyes and knew that they were in for a long road.

 Over the next several weeks, Hoseok walked around an empty shell of the father he had been. He found himself searching the apartment for Dasom sometimes, then breaking down when he remembered he’d never find her again. After a while, he threw himself into work so that he wouldn’t have to come home until late. Namjoon and Jungkook practically moved in with him for the first 3 weeks after the funeral until Hoseok had insisted that he was okay and that he needed to bite the bullet and get used to his childless house alone. The first night they had relented and gone home, Namjoon called him every hour to make sure he was still okay. At midnight, Jungkook had turned Namjoon’s ph0ne completely off so he’d give Hoseok some space.

Hoseok needed time alone to remember his daughter and try to come to terms with her death. While he did take advantage of some of the bereavement services that were offered, he never felt totally comfortable speaking with a gentleman who had never even met Dasom about her life and the giant black hole her death had created in his chest. So, he worked. He worked nearly 90 hours a week for practically a month after Namjoon and Jungkook had returned home. He needed something to fill all the time he had designated for caring for Dasom. It helped him to be so exhausted at the end of the day that he could fall into bed and sleep immediately without feeling any of the sorrow that had consumed him.

Just 2 short months after Dasom’s funeral, Jungkook had needed to attend an out of town conference primarily for gamers. He had reserved a booth there nearly a year in advance, before Dasom had ever gotten sick. Hoseok insisted that he’d be fine and that Namjoon should go with Jungkook, so they’d reluctantly agreed. They left on a Friday morning and were slated to return on the following Tuesday. Hoseok worked in the shop diligently, but the problem came on Sunday. The shop was always closed on Sundays, and he was so far ahead on work that he had nothing he could do on that day, so he was stuck at home. He did well until dinnertime that night. He had thrown himself into doing some research into some less well-known authors in the area that he wanted to feature in the shop and planning a display.

When he realized that he should eat dinner, he warmed up leftovers from the night before and decided to have a glass of wine. A single glass of wine with dinner became a bottle and a half as he tried to drown the ache in his chest. Before he knew it, he was completely inebriated after having finished the second bottle. In his drunken grief-stricken hysteria, Hoseok lost it completely.

 It was 2 am on Monday morning when Y/n’s phone rang. She had kept her promise to Dasom and kept in regular contact with Hoseok. He had been doing okay, or so he portrayed to everyone else, but Y/n had a little more experience with the cycles of grief. She knew that he was putting on a good mask, but it would crumble sooner or later.

“Hello?”

“Hi Y/n, is ‘oseok. Can you come over? I can’t find Dasom.”

“Hobi, honey, how much have you had to drink?” she asked softly. He was mumbling a lot and slurring his words.

“Um…I don’t know? A bottle or two of that red wine Joon likes?”

“Oh wow. Um…yeah. I’ll be over in a little bit, okay? Can you make sure the door is unlocked?”

Hoseok hung up after promising he’d unlock the door. While she was not sure what had led up to this, she got up and dressed in leggings and a comfortable sweater to head over. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew she had a long night ahead of her. Luckily, she had the next 3 days off from work after her weekend on call.

 When Y/n got to the apartment, she knocked lightly at the door before entering. Luckily, Hoseok had kept his word and the door was unlocked. She paused at the door to remove her shoes and smiled softly when she saw Dasom’s tiny pink house slippers still sitting on the mat beside the door.

“Hoseok?” she called as she walked through the living room. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room.

“In here,” he replied, followed by the distinctive sound of vomiting.

She found him, in nothing but his boxer briefs, knelt in front of the toilet in his master bathroom. The skin of his shoulders and up his neck was flushed from the alcohol and from getting sick from drinking too much. Y/n knelt down beside him and rubbed his back softly for a moment before speaking.

“Oh Hobi,” she murmured. She stood and wet a washcloth in cool water and placed it over the back of his neck, before heading toward the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and some painkillers.

“Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me,” he begged when he had a moment of a break between heaving.

“I’m just going to the kitchen, Hobi. I’ll be right back, okay?”

When he nodded, she quickly gathered the water and medication and placed them on his bedside table. Then, she turned back his bedsheets and fluffed the pillow on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom door before joining him in the bathroom. She found him sitting with his back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. She wet another washcloth and gently used it to wash some of the sweat off of his face. He tilted his face into her touch, and tears slipped out of his closed eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I just wanted to not feel so much hurt.”

“Hoseok, I wish I could help more with that. I hate seeing you hurt so much, but the only thing that will help is time. In time, you will be able to look back on the memories of your baby girl and smile at the light she was instead of sobbing. But for now, sob when you need to.” When she spoke, he opened his eyes and looked at her for a moment. His eyes were glossy with tears and the alcohol coursing through his system. “You feel okay to walk to bed?”

He nodded, so Y/n helped him stand and stood with him while he brushed his teeth. She took the washcloth from the back of his neck and hung it over the side of the tub. When he was ready, she wrapped her arm around his waist to make sure he’d stay steady until he got to the bed. He seemed to have begun to sober up a bit after being sick, so she helped him lay down and tucked him under the blankets. She turned to walk out of the bedroom, but he grabbed her arm.

“Please…don’t leave me. Stay?”

She just nodded, and he shuffled over in the bed to make room for her. She laid down beside him and turned off the lamp.

“Y/n? Could you hold me?” he asked softly.

“Of course, Hobi. Come here,” she whispered back. When she opened her arms to him, he curled into her and put his head on her chest. She could feel him crying and shaking a bit, so she hummed a song and rubbed his back soothingly until he fell asleep.

 It was several hours later when Hoseok woke up. The first thing he noticed was that his head was throbbing. After a few moments, the memories of the wine, vomiting, and Y/n came back to him. His eyes flew open, and he was a little surprised to find himself alone in his bed. He remembered her holding him until he fell asleep and the little song she was humming to him. Hoseok gingerly sat on the edge of the bed and saw the water and medication on the bedside table. He took it and walked into his bathroom to brush his teeth again. He pulled on some lounge pants and a white tee shirt before walking into the living room.

“Y/n?” he called.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

He walked toward his kitchen and saw her propped against the sink with her phone pressed to her ear, and ingredients for a possible breakfast spread across the counter.

“He’s okay, I promise, Joon. You had to know that this was bound to happen eventually, right?” she said with a smile into the phone. Hoseok could hear Namjoon’s voice murmuring on the line, probably fretting over him. “Namjoonie, I’m a nurse. He called the best possible person. Besides, he was puking his guts out when I got here, so I’m pretty sure he learned his lesson. And with the way he’s squinting at me right now, I’d say he has a hangover from hell…Yeah, you do that. See you soon.”

She hung up the phone before turning to Hoseok. “Think you can handle some breakfast?” she asked.

“Nothing much. I don’t think I could handle the smell of eggs or anything like that cooking.”

Y/n just nodded and popped some bread in the toaster before turning to pour him a cup of coffee. He handed him the coffee mug before pouring her own. When he added milk to his, she giggled, sipping her own coffee black.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked when the toast popped up. She spread just a bit of peanut butter on the slice before cutting it in half and handing it to him before treating the second slice the same way for herself. “The peanut butter is high in protein and will help take the edge off the hangover.”

He thanked her before sitting down on the stool behind the kitchen counter. He took a small bite of the toast and chewed thoughtfully before speaking. “Thank you for coming last night. I know you didn’t have to, so it means a lot that you cared enough to come check up on me then stay over.”

“Hobi, I care about you. Of course I would have come when you called.”

 That night was the only night he tried to drink his pain away. He had learned that it just made him feel worse in the long run. He began to simply take it a day at a time and tried not to work so much. Around nine months after Dasom’s death, Hoseok finally decided that he needed to clean out her room. Leaving everything like she was just going to come back was making it so much harder to heal. Plus he wanted to donate some of her things to the children’s ward. He had called and spoken with Taehyung to see what they needed, and he had a list of the things he could take them. Once he had decided, he called Y/n to see if she could help. They had begun talking more often since the night that he’d called her in a drunken stupor, and he considered her a good friend. He knew that Namjoon and Jungkook wouldn’t be able to hold it together in cleaning out her things, but Y/n would be. Something about her was soothing to Hoseok, and he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Y/n came over early on a Saturday morning to help Hoseok empty out Dasom’s room. They had several boxes to fill. Hoseok had already removed the bed and had labeled each of the boxes. One box was to be taken to a local shelter that helped women and children who were escaping domestic violence situations, one box was to be taken to Dr. Park’s office for the children’s ward, a small box for things that Hoseok wanted to keep, and another small box of things to give to Namjoon and Jungkook. Hoseok had already taken all of the tiny hats and headbands that Dasom had collected to Dr. Park’s office except for one. The tiara she had worn the day that they had gotten the news that she was dying was in the box for Jungkook. He had asked for that one, since he knew it was her favorite and it was the one Dasom would always clip in his hair. Hoseok had moved her yellow puppy plushie into his room. It sat on his bed all day amongst his blankets and pillows so he could squeeze it tightly the days he missed her so much he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Hoseok and Y/n worked diligently that day. Neither said much, but together they were able to clear out the room. Dasom hadn’t accumulated that many possessions in her short life, and they were able to empty out the room in a little over 6 hours. She helped him load the boxes into his car. He wanted to deliver them himself to the different places. He knew that Dasom would have been so happy to know that other little girls were going to have her princess dresses and dollhouse; she had always been so giving.

“Y/n, could I ask you something before you go?”

“Sure, Hobi. What’s up?”

“After I drop off all of these things, would you go to dinner with me? I don’t think I should be alone tonight,” he replied.

“That sounds good. I’ll go home to shower and grab some pajamas and my toothbrush. How about I meet you back here at 6 oclock?”

Hoseok delivered everything to their respective donation points except for the box for Namjoon and Jungkook. He’d take theirs with him to the shop on Monday. After dropping everything off, he returned to his emptier apartment. Even though he knew that he had needed to do this, it still was difficult. The familiar ache in his chest had lessened some and he was able to remember happy times with his baby as he sorted through her things. He showered and thought about the day and how much help Y/n had been, and not just physically. Her presence was soft and soothing, and it was no wonder that she made a fantastic Hospice nurse. If the way she had handled Dasom’s Hospice period was any indication of the way she did her day to day work, she helped a lot of families. In the past year or so since meeting her, Y/n had become a welcome addition to his life and the lives of Namjoon and Jungkook. They often all spent time together playing games or watching movies. She’d even tried her best to teach Namjoon to cook Jungkook’s favorite meal at one point.

In thinking it over, Hoseok realized that he hadn’t actually been on a real date since he was with Dasom’s mother. While dinner with Y/n wasn’t an official date, he found himself wondering if she would be willing to go on an actual date with him. Even the thought of asking her made him a little nervous, so he decided that he’d ponder that a bit more when he wasn’t about to spend extended amounts of time with her.

 Y/n rushed through her shower to spend a little extra time getting ready. In the amount of time she had spent with Hoseok since caring for Dasom, they had gotten very close. Lately, she had realized that she’s developed a huge crush on the man with the heart shaped smile. While having dinner together as friends wasn’t a huge deal, and she knew that the invitation to stay overnight with him was just as a comfort measure to him, she couldn’t help but be a little nervous because of her stupid crush. Besides, she told herself, he was still in mourning for his child; he didn’t want a relationship with her.

They hadn’t discussed where they were going to have dinner, so she opted to dress in an outfit that would be appropriate for a variety of places. She opted for a light-yellow sundress with a jean jacket over it and ballet flats. She packed shorts and an oversized sweater for sleeping in and an outfit to wear home the following afternoon. After packing her things for the overnight stay, Y/n finished curling her hair in loose soft curls and pinned it out of her eyes, then did just a touch of natural makeup.

She pulled into the parking lot of Hoseok’s apartment complex at 5:56 pm, and decided she’d just take her overnight bag up to his apartment and they could leave from there together. She glanced down at her phone after ringing the doorbell, and when Hoseok opened the door, she looked up to find him in just a pair of jeans and still towel drying his hair.

“Hi,” she said softly, “I’m a few minutes early, but I thought I’d bring everything up.”

Hoseok smiled and apologized for not being ready yet. “I just lost track of time in the shower. Go ahead and take your bag into my bedroom. I’ll just finish drying my hair and grab a shirt then I’ll be ready to go.”

Hoseok walked back into his bathroom as Y/n placed her overnight bag just outside his closet door. When he’d opened the door to see her standing there in her cute dress and her hair curled that way, it had nearly taken his breath. She was gorgeous in such a soft, gentle way that he was a little bit addicted to. Something about her just felt like home.

 They had opted to go have sushi at a place near Hoseok’s apartment, so they had just walked over. During dinner, they had laughed and joked as much as possible to lighten up the solemnity of the day. Hoseok had to admit that he felt better after laughing and just being around Y/n. As they were walking back to the apartment, the sun was just starting to set. Without thinking about it, Hoseok reached over and took her hand, linking their fingers together. He felt her stiffen up for just a second before relaxing and squeezing his hand. He looked down at their linked hands and smiled at her.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve wanted to hold your hand all evening. I hope you don’t mind,” he said to her shyly.

“I don’t mind at all, Hobi. I kinda like it.”

 When they got back to the apartment, they decided to watch random reality tv shows and just lounge around. Y/n slipped into his master bathroom to change into the shorts and sweater she’d brought to sleep in. When she got the sweater on, she realized that it covered her shorts completely but there was nothing she could do about it. She stepped out into the living room to find that he’d changed into a tee and some lounge pants and was pouring them each a glass of wine.

He turned around with the glasses in his hand and found her standing in the living room in just a sweater that was so big that it kept slipping off of one of her shoulders.

“I swear I have shorts on. It just looks like I don’t because my sweater is so big. I just didn’t realize it when I packed it,” she said, nervously fiddling with the seams on her sleeves.

“Oh…okay,” he stammered. “You look so cute standing there. Seriously, my heart is pounding.” His face turned bright red as he realized that he’d actually said that out loud, but her giggle in response was enough to make him feel less embarrassed.

They curled up on the couch, sipping the wine and making fun of the rash decisions that the contestants on the reality show were making. To Hoseok, this felt like something they did every day, and he realized that he kind of wished it was something they did every day. After finishing the show they were watching, Hoseok glanced over to see Y/n dozing against the arm of the sofa. He smiled softly before deciding he’d just carry her to his bed. They hadn’t discussed sleeping arrangements, but there was no way he was going to make her sleep on his couch after everything she’d done for him that day. He scooped her into his arms bridal style and started towards his room. She woke up just as he was laying her down on his bed. He’d laid her on his side of the bed without thinking about it and was tugging the blanket up over her when her eyes fluttered open.

“What’re you doing, Hobi? I can’t steal your bed.”

“I’m a gentleman, Y/n. I refuse to let you sleep on my couch. I’ll sleep on the couch; it’s no big deal,” he smiled at her.

“It is to me. Can’t you just sleep in here with me? I promise I’ll be good,” she pouted at him.

He chuckled softly at the way she’d phrased it, then finally agreed. “Okay, Darling. If you insist. I’m just going to go turn off the living room light and the tv. I’ll be right back.”

She was already back asleep when he returned to the bedroom with her back facing the door. Hoseok went to the other side of the bed and climbed under the blankets. The light from the full moon was streaming in between the sheer curtains hanging over the window, and it caressed her cheek softly, making her glow. Y/n looked beautiful in sleep, and something about the way that she was snuggled into his pillow like she belonged there made his heart ache in such a good way. He kissed her forehead gently before whispering, “Goodnight, Darling.”

 Hoseok woke up the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee and something savory that definitely had bacon in it, and his bed empty. He used the restroom and brushed his teeth before following his nose out to find Y/n singing softly in his kitchen as she pulled a beautiful quiche out of the oven. She had to have been awake for a while to have put this together.

“That smells amazing,” he murmured as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Thank you,” she giggled. “I hope you don’t mind that I raided your fridge and made breakfast.”

“Not at all. I rarely make time to eat more than a slice of toast as I’m running out the door to the shop, so this is a serious treat for me.”

Y/n sliced up the pie and plated it before grabbing a fruit salad out of the fridge she’d also made. Hoseok moaned at the first bite he took of the quiche. It was so good. The crust was flaky, the eggs were cheesy and there were just enough chunks of vegetables and bacon to make every bite a little different. Paired with the tangy pineapple and sweet strawberries in the fruit salad made it twice as good. Y/n blushed a little bit at his visceral reaction to the food she’d made before they began chatting about the day. By the time that Namjoon had called to see if they wanted to catch a matinee of some horror movie that Jungkook wanted to see, Hoseok had eaten two big slices of the quiche.

“I need to shower, but I’m so full,” Hoseok whined.

“I didn’t tell you to try to eat half the quiche at once,” Y/n laughed. “Go shower. I’ll put everything away and clean up our breakfast dishes.”

 Y/n had fallen asleep quickly after Hoseok had carried her to his bed. She’d woken up just after 7:30 with her head pressed to Hoseok’s bare chest, her ear pressed just above his heartbeat. He’d had both arms wrapped loosely around her. It felt so good that it scared her a bit; she’d wriggled her way out of his arms and tucked a pillow in her place. When she was stressed or needed to think, she cooked, so she made breakfast. She’d actually been on her second cup of coffee when Hoseok had stumbled into the kitchen in all of his golden glory, and when he’d moaned at the taste of the food she’d made, her heart stuttered in her chest. It had made her wondered how else she could make him make that sound, and that was something she was not prepared to deal with, so she decided to shove those thoughts deep down and not consider them again.

She covered the quiche with plastic wrap and slid it and the fruit salad into his refrigerator. There was enough left for him to have that for several more breakfasts. She began to sing softly to herself as she emptied the coffee pot and washed up the plates, mugs, and silverware from their breakfast. She was rinsing the last of them when Hoseok slid his arms around her waste and snuggled her into a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered to her.

“You have nothing to thank me for.”

“Yes, I do. You took beautiful care of my daughter, and you are still taking care of me in subtle ways. So thank you. I wish she’d had someone like you to be her mom.”

Y/n sat the mug down, then turned around in Hoseok’s arms to face him. He had tears on his cheeks as she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

“I’m sorry for getting emotional. I was just thinking about Dasom in the shower. If she had never died, I’d never have met you. And while I wish sometimes she was still here, I would never want her to suffer the way she did for any longer,” he whispered through his tears. “If she’d never died, we’d have never met and you wouldn’t be making my heart skip beats by singing while you clean my kitchen. I don’t know how to feel about that thought, but I don’t want to lose this chance at happiness. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m still a lot broken and a bit damaged from losing my daughter, but I like you a lot.”

“Oh Hobi,” Y/n smiled. “I like you too. I never told you, but Dasom made me promise to take care of you after she was gone. Keeping my promise to her has been a joy in itself, and when I woke up with my head on your chest this morning, I kept thinking how much she’d have laughed and teased me for falling for her Appa.”

Hoseok pressed his forehead to Y/n’s and closed his eyes. “She so would have. And she’d have asked me why I hadn’t given you kisses yet.”

He opened his eyes and looked into hers for just a moment. When all he saw was a soft happiness in her eyes, he pressed his lips to hers. She sank into the kiss slowly, slipping her fingers into his shower dampened hair. When he pulled away, they just stood staring at each other. He knew that they needed to take it slow, but he could feel the gap that was still in his chest from Dasom’s death closing up just a little bit. Y/n herself had been so healing to him just being there for him. They stood there for a few minutes, just holding on to each other before Hoseok spoke again.

“Why don’t you ride with me to the movie later? We can tell Joonie and Kookie about us. But there is a stop I want to make first.”

 Hoseok parked in the parking lot of the cemetery where Dasom was buried a couple of hours later. Y/n was sitting in the passenger seat holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers for him to leave on her grave.

“This is the first time I’ve been back here since the day we buried her, Y/n,” he sighed. “But I felt like I needed to do this. Just stay here. I won’t be long, I promise.”

She nodded before handing him the flowers. He got out and stood beside the car for just a moment before walking down the pathway that lead to the section designated for children. He knelt down in front of the tombstone and laid the flowers just at the base of the stone.

“Hi, my Love. I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit you here, but I’ve had a hard time adjusting to you being in heaven without me. Joonie and Kookie have taken good care of me. Y/n too,” he stopped speaking when the sobs collected in his throat before spilling out. “Speaking of Y/n, I kissed her in our kitchen this morning, Somie. I’m sure you’re looking down asking me what took so long, but your Appa can be so silly sometimes. Ah, Somie. I wish you were still here with us. I wish Y/n could have been your Eomma, but I wouldn’t have been able to meet her if you hadn’t gone to heaven.”

Hoseok stopped speaking for a moment to trace Dasom’s name on the tombstone. After he brought his hand back, a purple butterfly landed on his knee. It felt to him like that tiny butterfly was his baby girl acknowledging his words and telling him that she was okay. The butterfly fluttered it’s wings a few times before fluttering away, but it was enough to add a balm to his heart.

“Thank you for the butterfly, Baby Girl. I bet you are the most beautiful angel in heaven. Keep watching over me, yeah? I love you,” he whispered before wiping his tears and standing up.

As he walked slowly back to the car to rejoin Y/n, he knew that he still had a long way to go with healing, but he felt like he was finally making a solid step in the right direction. While he still missed his daughter, he knew that she’d want him to carry on without her, and for now, that was enough.

#bts #bts fic #bts fanfic #bts imagine #bts imagines #bts imagination #bts hoseok angst #bts hobi #bts jhope #bts jhope angst #hospice au #bts jung hoseok #bts hobi angst #angels calling

[spookyspaghettisundae]

After All These Years

Snow gently fell outside the diner’s window. Danielle sipped from her cup of steaming hot coffee and watched the spectacle of Sheriff Blake arguing with Old Gambino, whose snowplow had broken down and now blocked the narrow road. Gambino’s arms flailed as he flapped his mouth and Blake visibly recoiled from him. The window and distance almost turned it into a silent film and gave it a comical look.

Michelle, who sat in the same booth, leaned over the table and clicked her tongue to draw Danielle’s attention.

“You know this is crazy, right?”

Danielle peeled her eyes away from the roadside conflict and let the exhaustion from the fifteen-hour drive weigh down her eyelids. Soaking up the warmth inside the diner that slowly dispelled the tingling cold from outside, with the sounds of Eva tinkering and toiling away in the kitchen, and that pleasant smell of the black coffee rising into her nostrils, it was easy for Danielle to imagine that her twin sister Michelle didn’t exist.

Still feeling the weariness of rolling up the roads from the city all the way to the sleepy town of Evergreen, she opened her eyes again and gave Michelle a tired smile.

“You know as well as I do that I had to come here. It was a letter from Harry. Our best friend,” she reminded her sister.

“Who has been dead for over ten years,” Michelle countered.

Danielle shrugged and sighed, taking another sip from her cup. Michelle hadn’t touched the cup in front of her on her side of the table.

“Like we haven’t seen our share of hoaxes. You’d think that the supposed UFO lights over the old reservoir, or the kids gone missing in the Misty Pines, or Butcher Benson’s grisly murder would have made us just throw that out. Just disbelieve such a thing flat out,” Michelle continued.

Danielle put her cup back down and poured some sugar into it. Michelle just glared at her in the moment of awkward silence, filled by the clink and clank of Danielle’s teaspoon mixing the sugar into the cup.

“I could really go for some of Eva’s pie,” Danielle said.

“No, you’re not gonna just drop that and—no. Even with what you and I know about all the, y'know, all the—occult stuff? You don’t believe that Harry’s ghost just up and possessed a pen, wrote a letter, got proper fucking postage, and sent it to you in the mail. Come on.”

Michelle crossed her arms.

Danielle peered over the edge of her cup at her and said, “Allie got a letter too.”

“Yeah, all the more reason to think it’s bullshit.”

“I thought so too, but she said it was his handwriting. And she had some guy she knows test it. Some expert. It was written recently. How do you explain that?”

Michelle’s lips formed a thin white line and her silence expressed a deep-rooted frustration. Invisible fumes rose from her head with her inability to rattle out a rational explanation for that.

“I don’t know, maybe Harry’s ghost possessed someone and, had them send the letter he wrote while riding the body?”

Danielle shook her head.

“No. I mean, maybe? That’s so far-fetched. Though it would explain a few things.”

Danielle craved a cigarette. The bad old habit crept up in the back of her mind, tickling her lizard-brain. She fought it by looking over to the pies on display. Eva was still busy in the kitchen, whipping up some breakfast for the truck driver sitting in the booth at the other end of the diner.

“So how about a little séance? We go to the cemetery, visit Harry’s grave, and—”

“Allie and Ryan came to Evergreen, too,” Danielle interrupted her.

A shadow passed over Michelle's face and she said, "Not Ryan. Rhiannon."

Danielle shrugged and continued on, "We all got a letter from him each. Looks to me like Harry wanted to get the whole gang back together again."

“And possessed someone to write a letter to the three of you. Yeah, this still makes no sense to me.”

“Allie also said she was attacked by a naked man wearing a horse’s head and carrying a street sign.”

Michelle just stared at Danielle upon hearing her say that. Stared right through her. Like her gaze consisted of two Superman-like eye-laser beams, and they were burning holes through the wall behind her.

Danielle leaned over the table, closer, and lowered her voice to a hiss to add, “Rhiannon said that Sheriff Blake told her to leave town when he got here.”

Michelle clicked her tongue again and shook her head, “So what? Blake always hated us. Doesn’t mean there’s any conspiracy going on in this crappy hick town.”

She leaned back in her seat and spread her arms across the length of it to lounge there with that same level of laziness that she always used to display.

“Okay. Sure, fair enough. It’s just weird, though. Also, look—even if this is just some prank—”

“You bet this is a prank. Listen, I think one of those jock assholes did a good job at faking Harry’s handwriting, and they’re gonna punk us if we show up at the reunion party.”

“Or, we could show up and then show them up with a prank of our own,” Danielle said with a feeble smirk.

“Oh, right,” Michelle said with a derisive giggle. “Like that’ll work out how you expect it to. Like that ever worked out.”

The smirk faded from Danielle’s face as those words cut through her confidence like a hot knife through butter.

“I have not forgotten that time when Bradley—that jerk—pantsed you in front of the team when you tried to mess with him,” Michelle said. “The cheerleaders sure had a—”

“Yeah, right. Okay, enough,” Danielle said to stop her.

Then her stomach growled.

Michelle grinned at her, “Isn’t that inconvenient? If only we could all be ghosts, without the need to eat and sleep, and all that.”

With a sigh, Danielle said, “Shut up.”

Michelle’s grin widened, stretching from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat. Danielle broke eye contact and took a bigger and greedier gulp from her coffee cup to squelch herself from replying with any profanities. The dark brown substance cooled with each passing second.

Eva had returned from the kitchen and served the truck driver a plate of eggs and bacon. The man over there replied in gravelly grumpy growls to Eva’s cheery tone, though it was far away enough for the jazzy background music playing from the speakers to drown out the precise words.

Taking a break from staring at her twin sister, Danielle looked back out the window and saw Blake helping Gambino push Mills’ tow truck. She had to stifle a giggle when the wheels spun without traction or moving the truck, and instead just shot a pile of muddy slush onto Blake’s jacket, prompting him to step away and glare at Old Gambino, then shout something at Mills.

When she looked back up at Michelle, her sister had tilted her head and just stared at her in that typical fashion whenever she expected her to admit she was right.

Danielle just shook her head and chose to continue ignoring her, so she waved Eva over.

The elderly waitress and now owner of the diner approached with a big beaming smile plastered across her face.

“What can I get'cha, darlin’?”

“I could really go for a slice of that apple pie,” Danielle said with a tired smile.

“Not for nothin’, but you do look like you could use some meat on those bones o’ yours,” Eva said with a mischievous wink. “Bet the boys in the city never leave you alone, huh?”

She turned to follow up on Danielle’s request. Danielle somehow wanted to feel mad about Eva’s comments—but couldn’t. This place hadn’t changed one bit in all these years.

Out of the blue, Michelle asked, “Allie said she slept in Room 214 of the Lakeview Inn, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Danielle said with a shrug and feeling more tired than before.

Maybe it was the mention of a place with warm beds—conveniently ignoring that Room 214 was “the suicide room.” Maybe it was just the stress and slow, grueling exhaustion from the long drive catching up on her, coupled with a chronic lack of sleep. Maybe it was having Michelle around all the time.

“Which is where the horse-headed freak attacked her.”

Danielle didn’t even merit that non-question with a word, she just nodded and mumbled a sound of confirmation through tight lips.

“She said that she woke up from a nightmare with a real injury that the freak had caused,” Michelle continued drilling.

Danielle didn’t feel like talking anymore, but she always appreciated the futility of saying so to her sister. Michelle always did whatever the hell she wanted and Danielle never felt like stopping her.

Not since the incident.

“Anyway, there’s no fucking way we’re staying in the Lakeview hotel,” Michelle said. “Wembley offed himself in that creepy-ass old Shining place. And Allie said she was attacked there. So. Just, no. No fucking way.”

Danielle set her jaw and decided she had to push back. Even if just a little bit.

Harry’s letter wasn’t a hoax. Allie wasn’t imagining things.

Something was wrong in their hometown. Always had been. And she had to get to the bottom of it.

“But what if there are ghosts? What if Evergreen is haunted? Shouldn’t we—of all people—be the ones to do something about it? To investigate?”

Michelle rolled her eyes and groaned.

“Okay. Fine, Nancy Drew. You win. We sleuth around, prove there are no ghosts, and get the fuck out of dodge again, before we get snowed in in this God-forsaken town.”

“I’m actually kinda worried about that,” Danielle said, shooting a glance outside to the beached snowplow and the combined efforts of Blake, Gambino, and Mills failing to move it from the ditch it was stuck in.

“Worried about what, sweetie?” asked Eva.

She had returned to the table with the pie Danielle had ordered. She put the plate down in front of her and gave her a smile, but it didn’t quite reach the woman’s eyes. The bright fluorescent lights reflecting in her irises flickered with worry.

“Oh, it’s nothing serious,” Danielle said. But her voice cracked and trembled with a hint of concern. “I do have to get back to work in a few days, and the snowfall is getting worse by the hour.”

“Yeah. But don’t you lose any sleep over it. Old Gambino will have it cleared out, just you wait. You can go to that high school reunion o’ yours and leave on time, no problem-o.”

Danielle forced herself to smile a sad smile at that, as she had zero interest in going to the high school reunion.

“You’re right, Eva,” Danielle said. She had to squeeze out the rest alongside a sigh, “You’re always right.”

Eva shuffled two steps closer and bit her lip before leaning in and whispering, “Maybe try to stop the, uh—you know what I mean? Them bullies might still hassle you over it. Y'know, some boys just never grow up.”

Eva’s pained smile poorly masked pity and it made Danielle more uncomfortable with each passing second. She forced herself to nod and peeled her gaze away from the waitress, then trained her eyes on the three men outside struggling to rescue the snowplow.

“Uh, do you want me to get you another cup o’ coffee? This one’s probably all cold now,” Eva asked.

From the corner of her eye, Danielle saw her point at the one on Michelle’s side of the table. Michelle’s gaze wandered back and forth between the two like someone watching a tennis match.

“Nah, it’s all good,” Danielle said. “I kinda like cold coffee.”

Eva took a deep breath and said, “Alright, knock yourself out. You need anything else, honey, just holler.”

Then the waitress left.

Danielle grabbed the cold coffee from Michelle’s side of the table. Michelle did nothing to stop her in any way, just giggled. Danielle poured sugar into the cup and stirred once more. The two of them remained silent while Eva visited the truck driver again, who had waved to her from across the diner.

Danielle asked Michelle with a frown, “Couldn’t you have, y'know—warned me? That I’m talking out loud again?”

She took a sip and winced. While the smell still enticed her, no amount of sugar could mask how strong the coffee was—and Danielle remembered that she didn’t even like coffee that much.

Michelle sprung forward and leaned over the table again, grinning, “And spoil this? I fuckin’ love watching you squirm whenever you gotta come up with excuses for this.”

Danielle shook her head and put the coffee down. Grabbing a fork, she sampled some of the apple pie. Her eyes went wide with the explosion of a delightful taste unfolding in her mouth. It obliterated any frustration she felt welling up, pushed back all the complaints she wanted to level at Michelle.

She just chewed and savored the sweet flavor and the silky feel of the pie on her tongue.

Observing Danielle’s face, Michelle’s lips curled into a warm smile. It was untypically warm and gave her a glow—a somewhat surreal appearance. She was fuzzy around the edges and almost translucent as daylight outside the diner grew brighter, and the sun rose.

“I love you, sis’,” said Michelle. “This is gonna be great. We were destined for this. I miss Harry, too. Who knows, maybe he is a ghost, too? Maybe we’ll get to talk to him.”

Danielle swallowed the delicious bite and returned the smile. Genuinely happy that Michelle was still with her. After all these years.

After Michelle had died in the car accident all those years ago.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Evergreen #reunion #ghost #mystery #sleuth #detective #Nancy Drew #supernatural #unnatural #possession #snow #isolation #insanity #madness #ghosts #diner #twin #sister #Danielle Witt #unknown armies

[tessatechaitea]

Kid Eternity #3

In this issue, Kid Eternity fucks a Rastafarian hippo.

This comic book, more than any other comic book, taught me that I don't have to keep buying every issue of a comic book just because it's under the Vertigo imprint. This comic book took me by the hand, led me out of the misty forest of Vertigo's obfuscating nonsense, pushed me out into the bright clarity of presumed reality and said, "Stop coming around here to get your butthole molested, you skanky little perv." After blinking the sunlight out of my eyes for a bit, I gasped and thought, "Sometimes art is art with tits and sometimes art is just tits distracting from nonsense. And it's up to me and G.I. Joe to tell the difference." This is where I'd post an image of tits to distract you from my nonsense but this isn't a porn site, you skanky little perv. This issue begins, like all Ann Nocenti issues, with me shaking my head and contemplating self-harm. Also tits and nonsense. So much nonsense. Like more nonsense than a shaking stick could shake another stick at. Usually I appreciate comic books with dense dialogue and a thick, rich story. But the first page has a dialogue between two of the Pope's demon children that's 160 words long. I'm not sure Ann Nocenti completely understands how comic books work. The second page's dialogue contains 199 words (and five tits). I have a new theory about Ann Nocenti's writing: she was paid by the word and the only way to keep the editor from cutting down her word count was to make the dialogue incomprehensible so the editor didn't know which words to cut. I'm not counting the amount of words on the third page but I'm pretty sure it's even more than page two. Page three sort of introduces two new characters (as if this comic book needs any more subplots). I think they're brothers but all we, as readers, are allowed to see are hands and books. One book is The Book of Sin in which the brothers invoke temptation against Kid Eternity. This sends the Pope's devil children to ruin his plans with their vaginas. The other book is The Book of Reflection in which Kid Eternity's own narcissism is used against him. I guess nobody wants the modern Buddha Christ Child to be born? But aren't they all wasting their time? Didn't we discover the magical child was fished out of a garbage can in the dirty alley where the homeless guys constantly discuss the value of women?

This newscast, awash in speculation and false premises, is still more informative than the talking head opinion pieces and non-expert debates that form the bulk of most 24 hour news stations. And look at all those words! This was just two-thirds of one page!

Meanwhile, the FBI agents are still lying around in bed. How they ended up in bed after being shot by Ares' hate arrows isn't information that was deemed necessary for the readers to understand the story. Which is fine because I think Nocenti just wrote them out of the comic book in a scene where the Fates are stitching a quilt and one is all, "What are we doing with these two?" and another one is all, "Forget them! They're lost to entropy! We have so many more stories to knit!" And she's write because I don't think I could even remember all of the character and story arcs from just the first two issues! Let's make a list! 1. The homeless guys philosophizing in the alley. 2. Kid Eternity and his search for the Christ Buddha. 3. Madame Blavatsky's search for snacks and causing time to rewind. 4. The FBI agents looking to help Kid Eternity but somehow winding up in bed not fucking. 5. Hemlock the feminist who could be the Christ Buddha's mother but has become the mother of a computer virus. 6. Dog the gross dude who wants to fuck Hemlock. 7. Keep, Kid Eternity's keeper, who probably isn't exactly into helping Kid Eternity. 8. Beelzebub deciding to go to Earth to be more like Lucifer. 9. Judas, just hanging out with Beelzebub. 10. Jesus getting drunk in a bar. 11. The Malocchio, or Pope's demon children, trying to stop the birth of the Christ Buddha. 12. The Christ Buddha who was found in a trash can but then taken away by some woman who might have been its mother. 13. Cupid, summoned by Kid Eternity to make the FBI agents do it but who arrived late because he was in a coma and shot them with hate arrows anyway so he just decided to get drunk with the homeless guys. 14. Zeus and the other Greek Gods who woke back up when Cupid was summoned. 15. The Catholic church who seem to be Kid Eternity's main atagonist. 16. Freud and Jung, brought in to show how much Ann Nocenti knows about the founders of psychology. That's all I can remember! I'm sure I've forgotten some story bits and characters. This issue wasted no time introducing even more! Now we have the brothers reading metaphysical books, the Fates, and a transgender sex worker.

Is the point that they won't date women because they're afraid to talk to them? I just thought women didn't want to date them because they're filthy itinerants with no ambition.

Oh! It turns out the "brothers" reading the books about all the other characters are Jesus and Beelzebub! Thank goodness I don't have to remember any new characters! Hopefully the transgender sex worker turns out to be Madame Blavatsky. Double oh! I just realized the transgender sex worker is one of the Malocchio! Whew! I think I'm shaking off the Ann Nocenti Dome of Confusion! I'm beginning to follow and understand her plot! I mean, really, it's not so hard. Kid Eternity wants to inspire mankind and thinks a new Buddha Christ child is the way to do it. Everybody else wants to stop him because mankind sucks ass. Now add a bunch more words and about thirty random Wikipedia entries to my summation and you'll get Nocenti's version of the plot.

This is a great example of Nocenti's profound nonsense. Sorry but the tits were in the previous panel on the previous page.

I'm worried that I'm going to completely burn out on reading old comics because after this excruciating three issue run of Kid Eternity, I've got about six issues of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. Not that I'm comparing the quality of the two comic books! It's just that I don't understand this comic book but that in no way makes me feel stupid. But when I don't understand The Invisibles, I'm going to feel like a huge idiot. This issue, which is the final issue in my head canon, ends with Fetish, the Malocchio transgender sex worker, fucking Kid Eternity until he falls in love with her and then leaving him. His heart is broken and now he's ready to be fucked by the other Malocchio. Plus Jesus and Beelzebub are playing some kind of game with Kid Eternity and a mad girl named Christabel who can draw reality. So that's another character and piece of the plot that I never would have kept straight if I'd kept reading this comic book. Kid Eternity #3 Rating: C-. It's really fucking falling apart at this point. Yes, the basic premise is pretty easy to understand. But it's tiresome trying to keep it all straight when every single one of Nocenti's characters speaks in never ending analogies. So if love is like sailing, you don't just get, "Bright skies and still seas until the storm clouds gather and toss the ship." No, you get "Love is sailing in bright skies on a calm sea with freshly waxed decks and clean billowing sails, a pleasant breeze that stopped over in Manhattan to waft the fresh smell of baking garlic and Margherita pizza into your upraised nostrils as you watch two seagulls playfully dance in the sky until the next instant stormy seas, black skies, flailing ropes, ripped sails, riggings down, the decks awash, and death is licking the back of your neck." That whole last part where the stormy seas start is actually a direct quote. I embellished the first half!

#Kid Eternity #Ann Nocenti #Sean Phillips #Vertigo #DC Comics #DC

[pixie-skull]

AU Disney Heroines # 2: A causal Day with your Cutie (no worries dates will happen)

Before I go, yes I am going to attempt to make this open to anyone, but this creator wants more LGBTQ+ AUs, so this one just if you and x character went and the character’s thoughts. Please share your thoughts if this good or not in my ask box? :D Here are the rules too.

P.s. Like mentioned in the first AU on Disney Heroines, I can not promise all featured like in the first one, but I try to list the ones that are fan favorites and please feel free to give kindly worded feedback. Lastly, I do edits with (non)Disney hand-drawn characters, so feel free to request. :D I kinda did the “what family thinks of you” here too. XD So two in one. I am aware some of these are borderline dates, but I do hope for date AU just list the character’s respected dream date.

Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs): 

*When hanging out, Snowy likes to learn how to cook a few things together. She not a perfectionist, but if you do tease her and try flavors without asking, she would be nervous. (kinda like Jenna Marbles with her cutie, I swear them cooking together is so cute).

*If not cooking then (very inspired 500 Days of Summer, down below) run around a houseware store and act like a married couple already, even though she acts bashful about it at first.

*At first a Grumpy (it is not you, it is him), Sneezy (you accidentally brought flowers once to Snow, that he was allergic too), and Sleepy (he felt you hanging out once with her, that laughing too much woke him) were not sure of you, but luckily Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful all liked you.

Cinderella (Cinderella):

*Cinderella favorite thing to hear your favorite little pins, designs, etc on various sites and saves up to make you something and even teach how to do a few sown tips. You act like you do not care, but you secretly make tiny projects.

*You give her letters that her animal friends (like her dog Bruno fetches it and gives to her) to the other and explaining how much you look forward to meeting “the secret admirer” who wrote this. Her (step*)sisters kinda like you, but her (step)mother does not, but you still happy to see your strawberry^^ blonde cutie.

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty):

*Aurora favorite thing to dance together, like walking down the street she hears a nearby song and dance a bit to it, but be she shy about it.

* She loves to go in tiny shops on healing stones and thinks of her aunts.

* Aurora enjoys the evening or sunset walks, the only downside she gets sleepy.

*Her aunts and parents all like you, especially when being aware she gets tired easily and take her home instead drag on the hangout.

Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit):

*Jessica likes to dance like a dork, nothing sexy because she feels so comfortable with you. 

*Just get away the public eye and be just with you, so you both wear outrageous outfits. Her favorite when you wore a pair of rabbit ears and a colorful bowtie combo.

Ariel (The Little Mermaid):

*Swimming or even (yes an ex I had was like this, the first point here) run in sprinklers, while you stand watching and smile. The downside is holding her hand it is so wet and the respect side of your gets a bit wet too, and you try to not feel concerned about her catching a cold.

* Ariel loves more than anything to hold her breath in and see how it feels when inhaling.

* On clear days after rain, she loves to comment how clear it feels in the air.

*Her sisters' all different feelings of you, but secretly they all notice a trait about you that is complimentary. Attina felt you have a “good crown” or brain for how witty you are. Alama tries to socialize, yet a bit shy yet does say how romantic Ariel acts around you makes her happy. Aquata tries to make up for Alama and interact with you and encourages everyone to talk to you, while oddly enough by accident embarrasses everyone. Arista likes how much you think of Ariel and even her family, for when Ariel taking forever or late to an event (sadly common) she shows off her music skills. Adelle feels so touched you include, even not make mean (sibling teasing) on her weight. Andrina clearly being close to youngest goes through a lot of questioning and even has a girlfriend, she not ready to introduce to the family, but you overhear Ariel give words of comfort. **

*Ariel’s dad seems a bit standoff, like say little to nothing.

Belle (Beauty and the Beast): 

*Belle likes to find books on your passions and if not that, then a book she feels like you would enjoy. This, of course, includes comics, graphic novels, and more.

*She may not be a huge talker, but if you talk about what she loves or her recent book, she is happy to fill your time in her enthusiasm on either.

*Sometimes you ride her horse, Philippe and whoever in front, likes to hold the other closely. You have a soft spot when she in front, for how much she reads her horse’s mini responses so well.

*Her dad likes to be playful with you, but if drunk, be ready for him to list of all facts he knows relating to a machine and try to arm wrestle you while laughing a lot.

Jasmine (Aladdin):

*Jasmine is outgoing, yet she is an ambivert, so after a nice walk around the market, she wants to relax in her home.

*Her cat loves you, but will play off as if hates you, but if you rub the right spot, this huge kitty is purring for you.

*Jasmine’s dad wants to get to know your family and traditions too.

Pocahontas (Pocahontas):

*Besides walks and talking (what can I say her love language is quality time and words of affirmation) she likes to go to dog parks and see all the different animals.

* She looks up what flowers are in the season and always plays with the idea of creating a garden or not.

* Her best friend Nakoma sometimes hangs out with you two, because of thanks to Nakoma you met Pocahontas and of Pocahontas’ exes (John Smith and John Rolfe, and even her semi-ex Kocoum), Nakoma thinks you are the most wonderful. 

*Pocahontas’ dad appreciates your consideration and respect to his child.

Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame): 

*Esmeralda’s friends and you all hang out together and you quickly get along with Quasimodo and you joke one of his three dogs, Hugo, (the gargoyles) are cute with her dog, Djali (her goat^* and yes I am aware in the first AU I misspelled XD) and are couple and older happy men (I am sorry, not clear in the first AU). You even jokingly make a wedding for the two, while Victor the best man and Laverne the maid-of-honor.

*With her, Phoebus, and you all play sword fighting, while Quasi’s cheer on whoever currently loosing, typically you sorry to say, but hey underdog you do make Esmeralda play easier when just you two because how much Esmeralda’s find you cute.

*Sometimes you go to Church events with Esmeralda and not she pushes you to convert to her faith. However, if you are Christian, she respects that she likes you for so much more then just that. 

Megara (Hercules): 

*She may not have the most friends, but the ones she cares about, she is loyal to, as much she denies she cares about anything. So when hanging out she may at first seem distant, but gradually she opens up.

*A tip you get from friends is complimenting her and she does like to be a flirty tease, but this fun game of seeing who can out cute the other. Once you both jokingly teased of how each of you can name 97 cute things of each other to see who would win but got so each other face, you almost ended up kissing, Phil though put you on blast of you two to stop.

*She though likes showing up to your place of work or something and make you flustered as she gives you “the look”. Oh yes, that is your Achilles’ heel. 

Mulan (Mulan):

*She likes to just relax, her family can have plans back to back, so do not feel her literal eyebrows be pulled it nice just hang out, drink tea and catch up.

*Sometimes her friends give you a hard time, especially when asking you do you like Mulan when more feminine, natural, or masculine. You do not know till later inside joke how one of Mulan’s friends was a former significant other, but luckily both are on good terms.

*Funny enough for a such a friend group of guys, all enjoy a good tear-jerking movie, while Mulan offers them all hugs.

*Mulan and you enjoy walking her dog, Little Brother and you jokingly call him all types of words like Dude, Kind Sir, etc.

*Her family, at first find you bit odd, but seeing you like Mulan, they warm up to you, especially her grandmother who loves to embarrass you both.

Jane Porter (Tarzan):

*You and her love to find little cute spots, like a turtle pond, and she draws away.

*When extra flirty and alone, you joke and pose and she too gigglingly to focus.

*Sometimes she brings a book full of haikus and it shocks you how such simple words strung together make such beautiful writing, that or you love hearing her British accented voice speak.

*Jane does get busy sometimes, so you have to visit her when she waits for her. Her father a professor, so when she waits for him you chat a bit.

Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire):

*You both hangout often at this cute little good well store, where she finds all types of goodies. Her favorite finding something and giving a fake history to it.

*Kida may act immature, but she seems so beyond her and your age.

*She loves to teach you self defense, even though sometimes she overpowers you even.

*If you have (sun)glasses she likes to take them and wear them to show off.

*She oddly can find any animal cute, even spiders she jokes are beautiful for their ability to make tapestries.

Audrey (Atlantis: The Lost Empire): 

*Audrey may joke her dad wanted sons for boxing and wrestling, but she knows a fair share of both; her recent passion is rollaring derby.

*Every once in a while when looking around her home town, you are shocked how much she can recognize about cars by just looking at certain types. She even offers to help with any car related trouble you have or friends and/or family.

Helga (Atlantis: The Lost Empire):

*Helga takes you back when you realize this femme fatal loves to go fashion.

*She is oddly though careful with her purchases to not waste money all at once.

*However when a good deal, she buys beautiful dresses, that either compliment her shoulders and slender neck, that sexy leg slit, or both. She also has a huge collection of racerback tank tops and a few designs too.

Nani (Lilo and Stich):

*Outside of being busy with work, Lilo, and even the once in a while Stich, you two go to the beach. She tries to teach you how to surf, but not much luck, but oddly body surfing you grow to love. The feeling of being pushed gently over a wave to shore is fun.

*If she does have Lilo with her, plus their dog Stich, you all enjoy hanging out at a dog park and have a picnic.

*You love hearing the stories of Stich, for you joke he is more Alien then dog.

Tiana (The Princess and the Frog): 

*When hanging out she excited make you try her new meals and even you learn a thing or two and she gives you feedback.

*Her few pets are frogs and she thanks you actually because you feel like a pet would be a cute surprise for her when hanging out by a pond.

*Her mother finds you so respectful and even already jokes how much hear the wedding bells.

Charlotte or Lottie (The Princess and the Frog): 

*Lottie first favorite thing to go shopping and does not mind spoiling herself and loved ones.

*Her favorite place to go outside shopping malls, is seeing puppies and kittens. She would tell you about her “Big Daddy” give her pets.

*Speaking of “Big Daddy” you try to not laugh at his nickname from her, luckily he takes it well, and already happy someone makes Lottie so that is his approval.

Rapunzel (Tangled):

*Rapunzel favorite hang out just hang out in your place or hers, yet she sometimes does like to go out. Bonus if a good clear and cool she draws with chalk, yet if not then paint inside to the rain.

*She can be hesitant at first if a fun new drive, yet after a bit of encouragement she has so much fun.

*Her parents she was unsure how they react meeting you, yes her parents were missing her for 18 years and clearly show a type of love that kept their bond intact for so long, but she still understandable not too sure. However, her mother was excited to meet you, while the father was distant yet in an “I have respect for you and over time like you” view.

Merida (Brave): 

*If the hangout has a competition or competitive element Merida is happy.

*Her own brothers, help her win and sometimes shock you in how they help you. However, you enjoy letting the triplets winning and do a dog or should I say, bear pile on you. They are still young kids, so not too heavy.

*Her mother took time to give her approval for you but seeing how much a positive effect you on Merida helped her warm up to you. The father was so happy to someone who takes his jabs and sure awkward smiles ensue, Merida secretly appreciates you go with it.

Anna (Frozen):

*If it involves new foods, especially sweets, Anna so excited.

*She also appreciates you asking her on if tiny things are alright like it can hold her hand, hug, and more. You are aware you could just do it, but her various smiles are so adorable you can not help but ask, it is like each tiny thing is a tiny gift for her. She also asks you too and the most adorable one is when there one piece of food left and she asks in a tiny voice if can have, you typically say yes.

*Actually anything new and bonus can do with Elsa sometimes just as to the two alone, she is more excited. Or in other words, likes you find events or ideas for the two siblings to bond over.

*Speaking of Elsa, she actually did not like you at first. She worries Anna see too much good in people and not enough bad to be realistic. However the fact you would check on things that could be so simple, she wished someone did for her, but to see you care for Anna like this, makes Elsa happy.

*She loves the daytime for walks, seems more energetic by it.

Elsa (Frozen): 

*Very distant, she mistook your awkwardness as bad and luckily Anna helped her see good in you.

*You two just do tiny night walks (for some reason Elsa feels her powers more and therefore can show off).

*However she did struggle to open that side of herself to you, but when noticing things, she asked Anna to actually makeshift break up with you. Luckily when confused Anna said “it is not you, it is her” and accidentally implied too much. However luckily seeing you did not react poorly, with tiny steps to Elsa she opened up.

*Even though these hangouts are not quite dates, she does like how much you stayed by her side, even though she knows she can be hard to work with. No worries keyword above, makeshift, she does want to date you but gives it some time.

Moana (Moana):

*Swimming, dancing, singing, are her top three hangout ideas.

*However she loves adventure, so if you can suggest something new, she almost every time says yes.

*So much her family, minus grandmother, were getting worried but saw you always had each other back and were safe.

*Her grandmother actually loved how much you two would plan something impulsively, well Moana would do a tiny bit of research, but enough she understood what to pack.

*Your favorite aspect of Moana how much she loved her pets, yes simple, but she has such respect for the pig and rooster, you smile as they walk to you excited each time you visit.

*Her friend, Māui, he bit in competition to “prove yourself”, yet after a simple “quest” of certain rocks, leaves, and more to give him, he gives his approval. His quest was a leaf with you writing on why you like Moana, which after blushing, he liked what you wrote.

*=I have older step-siblings and I do not like how stepfamily is seen as evil, I may be lucky, but I love them as siblings. ^_^

^^=Yes, in the animated movie Cinderella, had strawberry blonde hair.

**= Heavily inspired by these two artists and please look at their amazing work. :D 

(^ an idea of Snow White and you cooking)

#AU #disney #Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs #Cinderella #sleeping beauty #Who Framed Roger Rabbit #The Little Mermaid #Beauty and the Beast #Aladdin #Pocahontas #the hunchback of notre dame #hercules #Greek Mythology #greek #mythology #Mulan #tarzan #atlantis: the lost empire #atlantis #lilo and stitch #The Princess and the Frog #Tangled #brave #frozen #Moana #500 days of summer #The little mermaid 3 #jenna marbles #jenna and julien #julien solomita

[velvetchen]

Anonymous | pt. i

[ back to masterlist ]

Scenario: Tumblr AU Pairing: Chanyeol/Reader Word Count: 1671 Rating: T 

Summary: You just shot to tumblr fame when the latest chapter of your webtoon went viral. Messages start flooding in – hundreds of people saying things good and bad alike. One anon catches your eye, and you find you just have to reply to them… 

next part >>

You found out when your friends all started calling you. That morning, you woke to your phone bursting with notifications – your twitter, tumblr, texts, everything. You picked up your friend Jia’s next call, your groggy hello met with the sound of her excited screaming. “Y/N! You’re famous! You’re all over the internet today?”

Groaning, you rolled over and checked the time. 8:37, too early for anything. “What?”

“I said, you’re internet famous,” she said. “Strawberry Shortcake just hit it big.”

That shot you awake. You jolted upright and pulled your laptop towards you, logging in and opening your tumblr. “What? Oh my god.”

“I know!” Jia squealed. “Oh my god! You totally deserve it, Y/N, you’ve worked so hard on it. Congratulations!”

Your activity page had numbers you’d never seen before. Reblogs with comments. Your inbox, full. You felt dizzy. “I’ll call you back, Jia,” you said. You didn’t wait before you hung up.

What had just happened?

Opening a new tab, you typed ‘strawberry shortcake tumblr’ into the search bar – and nearly fainted at the results. The first link was your tumblr. The second was an article about it. About you. About your webtoon.

You didn’t know what to feel. The webtoon you’d been working on for more than six months, so far resigned to a few reblogs and barely more than five hundred followers, was suddenly famous.

We Can’t Get Over This Super Cute Romance Webtoon, And Chances Are You Won’t Either

Strawberry Shortcake, a super sweet love story written and illustrated by the owner of the strawberryshortcakecomic tumblr – known only as S – is something we just can’t get enough of. The cute story, light humor and to-die-for cold-hearted, bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold love interests will have you rushing through the chapters and smiling like a fool. The webtoon is available in English on Tumblr and translated to Korean on LINE Webtoon.

You scrolled down to the comments.

iluvBTSxox: aha wow so cute ~ ^o^ prettyboy88: ㅋㅋㅋ so nice blossom3bunny: i love it so much, thanks mika-chan for recommending it~~~

So that was how it had gone viral. Mika-chan, another webtoon artist, ultra-famous for her anime-style webcomics on LINE and tumblr. You felt flattered beyond belief. Immediately, you pulled up her tumblr – and there it was – her reblog of your latest episode along with the caption “one of my favorite webtoons ;o;”.

strawberryshortcakecomic asked: mika-chan!!! Thank you so much for liking my webtoon ;;;;;; I’m so happy you liked it <3 I hope you enjoy my work in the future too!

You’re welcome ㅋㅋㅋ it’s very cute

You couldn’t believe she had replied to you. Much less reblogged your work. It felt surreal. Opening your tumblr inbox, you got to work answering, still on the high of your newfound fame.

Anonymous asked: author-nim~~~~ the last chapter is so nice, please update, when does jinho take yoon ah on the date

I will be updating soon! thank you for liking it

Anonymous asked: that lake scene is so sweet omg

Haha I know right! Thanks :)

Anonymous asked: I CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER OH GOD THE FEELS!!!

You won’t have to wait much longer, the next chapter will be up soon !!

 You moved to the kitchen with your laptop, setting it down on the counter and opening the fridge to get some yogurt and fruit for breakfast. You sat back down immediately, intent on answering as many new messages as you could.

snsd-superfan asked: i love jinho he’s so hot ugh

;)

Anonymous asked: mika-chan brought me here and can I just say I’m in love with you and your work

Thanks! Love you too anon

The next message stood out, because while so far you had only seen one-liner compliments and messages about your work, this one was much longer. You read on, intrigued:

Anonymous asked: Dear S, I’ve been following you almost since the beginning of Strawberry Shortcake and I wanted to congratulate you on your newfound and very well-deserved fame! I know how hard you’ve worked and how much effort you put into making the chapters for us, your readers. I’m so happy to see you get the fame you were destined for! Now, about the last chapter, hmm. I feel like something is going on with Seong-jin...is he plotting something behind Yoon-ah’s back? Sincerely, C

You thought a minute before you wrote out your reply, pausing in between words to make sure it was perfect. This ‘C’ person had obviously put a lot of thought into their message. At least that’s what it looked like.

Dear C, Thank you very much for your long and thoughtful message! Honestly, I feel extremely surprised. I don’t know what to do with all this fame, haha. I’m so flattered you think I deserve it, and that you’re a long time fan. How long have you been here?

As for the plot...you’ll just have to wait and see. I have a lot of things in store for Seong-jin!

Love, S

You continued scrolling through your inbox, but that was the only message of its kind - which only made you more intrigued. When a reply popped up, you felt yourself swell with a strange excitement.

Anonymous asked: Dear S, you’re very welcome for the praise ^^ I’m sure things will only get better from here. I meant it when I said you deserved all the fame. I’ve been following your blog since the third or fourth episode I think. That was a long time ago! You’ve come so far since then. Your art has improved a lot too. I can’t wait to see what you have planned for Seong-jin. He’s my favorite character (yes, I don’t like Jin-ho! I think he is too perfect...something’s wrong...haha) Sincerely, C

Was it too soon for you to reply? Shrugging, you started typing anyway.

Dear C,

Aw thank you, you’re making me blush lol. Thanks so much for your support! And wow, since the third episode? I don’t even remember that far back, you’re right when you say we’ve come a long way. Thanks for the comment on my art, do you really think so?

I should be offended you don’t like Jin-ho, but maybe you’re on to something ;) kidding, kidding, I don’t want to give away any spoilers. Seong-jin is my favorite character too, he’s very close to me. He was the first character I came up with for SS. At first he was going to be my main character but I made Yoon-ah the main character at the last minute.

Love, S

Anonymous asked: Dear S, I clearly remember the day I found your comic. It was actually reblogged by one of my real-life friends. I was crazy about webtoons so I was super excited to find a new one to read. You didn’t disappoint :) Am I really on the right track about Jin-ho? I mean, he is a vampire, but he still doesn’t have any flaws. I’m guessing that’s intentional. Maybe he’s hiding some dark secret lololol. I hope Yoon-ah ends up with neither of them though, they’re not that nice to her :( Sincerely, C

Dear C,

Oh, please thank your friend then! They must have known me from my other blog ^^

You’re right, it is intentional, but there aren’t any dark secrets coming up...yet. Haha. Jin-ho is that very cliche k-drama character isn’t he! Hot and cold and handsome as hell. I have a lot of fun drawing him. ;) And yeah, neither of them treat Yoon-ah right, but that’s plot progression for you. I’ve already confirmed on this blog that she will end up with one of the two. The ending is still a long ways away but I hope it’s satisfactory!

Love, S

Anonymous asked: Dear S, yes, I’ve been following your other blog too since then! You’re very private haha. But you’re very nice and friendly too ^^ Jin-ho is total eye-candy! My friend has lots of screenshots of all the shower scenes lol. She sends them to me. He is definitely a cliche character, but those can be very fun to read and write too. Even if there aren’t any dark secrets I’m sure he’s still hiding something. Oh well, I hope Yoon-ah ends up with the right one then. I like her a lot and hope she gets a good relationship. I don’t doubt in your ability at all to come up with an amazing ending :) Sincerely, C

Dear C,

Am I private? I guess I must be, since I don’t even have a proper pen name! Aww, you think I’m nice and friendly, thanks, you’re not too bad yourself :)

Your friend has good taste lol. I’ll draw more shower scenes just for her ;) You’re right about cliche characters not having to be one-dimensional. I put a lot of thought into Jin-ho when I was creating him and he’s actually very similar to me. Stubborn, secretly caring, introverted (unfortunately not I’m not as hot lmao). You seem to know a bit about this writing thing, do you write?

Yoon-ah will get the happy ending she deserves! She’s my precious little flower baby.

Love, S

 Anonymous said: Dear S, it’s okay, you can be as private as you want,. I’m just warning you that fans can get a little crazy about finding out who you are...so be careful. No, I don’t write, unless you count writing music, which is a lot different from making webtoons I imagine :) Are you really similar? I guess I’ll have to start paying more attention to Jin-ho from now on. Sincerely, C 

Dear C,

Thanks a lot for the warning! (wow, do you have experience with this fame thing?) I know, just a couple of hours since the explosion and I’m already getting hate. Writing music could be like making a webtoon, hmm...you’re making a story without words. Or with only dialogue. Huh, I guess not really.

Oh no, have I revealed too much? ;)

Why don’t you come off anon? I’d love to talk to you some more.

Love, S

a/n so a little background - like all the scenarios i’ll write this is set in an ambiguous location with no set culture/mix of cultures, so you can take it to be anywhere (i intended korea). webtoons esp. romancey webtoons however are pretty popular in korea so a bunch of the comments and etc will be like on a korean website. after this part the story will mostly be told through a collection of messages, articles, posts & dialogue. also i know asks don’t let u write that much but bear with me ok

#my fic #exo #exo au #exo fic #exo fluff #exo angst #exo x reader #chanyeol #chanyeol fic #exo chanyeol fic #chanyeol fanfiction #chanyeol scenario #chanyeol angst #chanyeol fluff #exo fanfiction #exo smut #exo imagine #chanyeol imagine #park chanyeol fanfiction #park chanyeol #byun baekhyun #do kyungsoo #kim jongdae #oh sehun #kim minseok #kim jongin #kim junmyeon #zhang yixing #anonymous

[tyranttortoise]

Fell Underwater

Soooo, for Day 9, I wrote something that I’ve wanted to write for a while!  It’s a small one-shot drabble of me doing some world-building on an AU I’ve had on the backburner for a while.  It’s pretty much Oceanfell, I suppose, but mine doesn’t really follow any of my standard Oceantale headcanons, so maybe Fell Underwater?  Or Ty’s Oceanfell?

-shrug-

Either way, it’s got pirate skeletons.  

I did quite a bit of world-building before I got to the smut, so I’m going to post all the SFW bits here, with a link to continue reading on Ao3 at the bottom.  Hope you guys enjoy!  It’s the first thing I’ve written with a legitimate AU and AU Sans that’s mine.  

You’d always had terrible luck.

If something could go wrong, it couldn’t just go wrong for you; no, it’d be a disaster.

That’s why you saw it coming. The Raffle occurred every seven years, after all. When you came of age to be put into it, you tried to run – to move away from the coastal city you despised – but they dragged you back, kicking and screaming. Your name had been entered thrice as punishment, but somehow, you miraculously didn’t get pulled.

You knew your luck wouldn’t last, however. You knew it, and yet, you weren’t able to leave the city, your infraction pushing back your request until after the next Raffle. And when they called your name that time, along with six others, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. When they forced you to stand along the coastline, dressed in your best attire, you didn’t wail or whine like the others. No, you impassively stood there, glaring at the crashing waves and cursing the fact that you’d been born beneath a terrible omen.

When the pirate ship rose from the depths of the murky water, sporting a Jolly Roger sail and a skull with flashing red eyes affixed to the bow like a demon rising from hell, you sucked in a breath and put on a brave face. When literal skeleton pirates disembarked from their vessel and began examining the sacrifices, trying to pick out which one had the strongest SOUL to power their barrier, you concentrated on keeping your breathing even. One by one, they Confronted the others, calling forth their SOULs despite their frightened cries. You kept staring straight ahead, though you saw flickers of greens and purples and light blues from your peripherals.

And then the shorter of the two skeletons stopped directly in front of you. You defiantly stared at a point just past his shoulder, and you could see his smirk widen, the sharp golden tooth glinting. Skeletal phalanges gripped your chin and tilted it back, forcing you to look up and meet his single crimson eyelight. The opposite socket was concealed beneath an eyepatch, a jagged crack vertically running through his orbit and disappearing beneath his feathered hat. Despite the grandeur of his attire, his appearance was slovenly, the dark jacket too big for his frame, a rusted shackle clasped around his neck, and his ivory, button-up shirt mostly undone and halfway untucked.

“well, well…” the monster drawled, tilting his head as he regarded you with amusement. “ye look like a lass that gives no quarter. i wonder if that’s the tale yer soul’ll be singin’.”

A shiver ran up your spine; you could smell smoke and must on his breath from his close proximity, and you had to avert your eyes. He chuckled, and the tips of his fingers dug into your chin. In the next moment, you felt something grip within your chest, squeezing the very breath from your lungs. The feeling forcibly ripped something from within you, and you gasped, the world suddenly draining of color.

All except for the bright orange glow of the little heart floating before you.

Your SOUL.

The stout monster’s bone brow raised, and the light seemed to draw the attention of the taller one. You barely registered the other’s lankier, more jagged appearance; everything seemed muffled, like their voices were coming from underwater.

When they both smirked at you, you finally allowed yourself to feel fear.

A month has passed since that day, and yet… you’re still alive.

Your SOUL hasn’t been harvested for the barrier, and the skeleton brothers (you discovered they were brothers the second day, when you realized just how comical their nagging, back-and-forth banter could be–under other circumstances) have kept you fed and well. Their boat descended beneath the water, to some part of the ocean that felt much colder than you expected, but… you were actually able to breathe and see just fine underwater. They amused themselves in watching you struggle that first day, desperately holding your breath and clawing at the porthole of your cabin.

“FOR SUCH A COURAGEOUS LASS, SHE’S RATHER DAFT,” the taller one (Papyrus, you later discovered his name was) rasped as he passively observed your struggles.

“breathe, bucko,” his brother (Sans, the one with the golden tooth and promiscuous winks) instructed, chortling over your display. When you actually gave in and were forced to take a breath, you were surprised when water didn’t fill your lungs. You turned your wide-eyed stare to your captors, and they both started laughing all over again.

“did'ja really think we’re such monsters that we’d drown ya first thing? underwater’s full o’ magic, lassie. an’ magic can do all sorts o’ things.”

You’d hated them at first. Their mocking smirks, their probing questions… you avoided talking to them, but also flailed your arms out whenever they got too close. If you were going to die by two monsters much stronger than you, then fine. The world was cruel, but you accepted the impossibility of your situation. But that didn’t mean you were going to just roll over and let it happen. No, you were going to fight for your life until the bitter end.

As time stretched, however… you began to wonder what was taking so long.

You had full run of the lower decks of the ship, though most of the wood was rotted and riddled with holes that you could easily slip through if you wanted. The first time you attempted that, however, a monster with jagged teeth and fins almost immediately devoured you. Sans had been there to save you; he’d apparently been lazily tailing you the entire time. He didn’t force you back to the ship, but he warned you of the dangers lurking beneath the ocean. It confirmed every horrifying myth you’d ever heard growing up.

You tried to swim to the surface, but your arms and legs got so tired that you actually passed out. When you woke up, you were back in your cabin, with monster food left on the nightstand. Sometimes, it was disgusting… sometimes, it was actually delicious. It depended on which brother brought you the food.

One night, when Sans was in your room, kicked back in a chair with his feet propped up (one of his legs was a peg leg, you’d discovered) and his hat tilted over his face, you finally spoke.

“W…why?”

Your voice was hoarse, and cracked with disuse, but the sound was enough to rouse Sans immediately. When he tipped his hat back, surprise was clear on his face, though he quickly amended it with his usual smirk. “ahhh, so she finally speaks! i was beginnin’ to wonder if ye were mute, lassie.”

You ignored the comment and pressed on, “Why am I here?”

He shrugged with nonchalance, crossing his boot over his peg leg. “ye got a fool’s luck an’ one o’ the strongest souls i’ve ever laid eyesocket upon.”

“But if you were going to use my SOUL for the barrier… why haven’t you done it yet?”

He’s silent. After a few moments, he starts to snore.

UGH, did he seriously fall asleep in the middle of an important conversation?

More time passes, and you’re still alive.

You begin speaking to Sans whenever he comes by to loiter in your cabin, and you also begin eating meals at the table with both brothers at night. They’re growing on you, despite your best efforts.

There’s even a moment where Sans falls asleep on the couch in your cabin, and you end up moving to lie down on the cushions beside him. You don’t know if it’s Stockholm Syndrome, or the fact that these brothers have been much nicer to you than any human has on the Surface, but… you just wanted to be close to him.

He slings his arm around you, and you fall asleep with your cheek pressed into the ribs exposed from his sloppily-buttoned shirt.

When you awaken, you’re back in your bed and wondering if it was all just a dream.

Whenever you ask Sans why you’re still alive, he either hedges the query or Papyrus decides to choose that very moment to interrupt.

“SANS! YOU BILGE RAT, I SWEAR YOU’RE ALWAYS SLACKING OFF! IF YOU DON’T COME HERE AND FINISH YOUR WORK INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY GALLAVANTING WITH YOUR WENCH, I SWEAR YOU’RE IN FOR SOME KEELHAULING!”

Sans rolls his eyelight. “aye, cap'n!” he calls, dead-pan and irritated. Then he gets up and moves to leave. “we’ll continue the conversation later, lassie.”

Yet he continues to avoid it until weeks later.

You’ve both had too much grog–which you’ve discovered is apparently a more tolerable version of rum.

Sans has had a rough day, evident by his drinking. You’ve come to be able to pick up on his moods, but he always plays it off when you attempt to pry. Your inhibitions are down enough that innocent joking and flirtatious smiles turn into touches–teasing and light at first, but then bolder, more exploratory.

“careful, lass…” he warns, his voice a low growl. His forehead is against yours, his usual hat now tipped back on your head. You’ve managed to completely unbutton his shirt, and your fingers are gingerly moving along his ribs, feeling over the grooves and ossifications from countless partially-healed fractures.

“What? Am I going to ‘awaken the kraken’?” you tease with a smirk, and you catch him off-guard enough that he makes a strangled choking sound before he starts chuckling.

“ok, that was a good one. yer jus’ full o’ surprises, ain'tcha?” His eyelight is much brighter than usual, his socket half-lidded as he hums when you hook your fingers around his sternum and start rubbing along the underside. “ye'know, ye got too many buttons still in-place. let ol’ sans take care o’ that.”

“What a gentleman,” you continue to tease as he reaches out with both hands and abruptly tugs your shirt apart. The buttons pop off, jettisoning through the water. It’s his shirt you’re wearing (his slacks, too), so you don’t mind the fact that he just ruined it. If anything, you find it to be a turn-on.

“aye, but i prefer the term ‘swashbuckler.’ in this case, i’m ‘bout to swash yer buckle aside.”

*continue reading on Ao3

#oceanfell #fell underwater #of!sans #i don't have a good nickname for him yet #but dammit #i like that he uses lass and lassie instead of sweetheart #probably lad for the gents #and bucko for neutral? #or matey #i kinda love writing his speech #i don't even have a thing for pirates really #but shit i have a thing for pirate red #instead of calling edge boss he calls him cap'n

[josieswrk]

“Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”

(Jane Austen)

I have everything and nothing to tell you at the same time. This morning I woke up highly anxious, but I took refuge in God. I asked Him to please be present in everything in my life - my mind, my relationships with people, my schedule. I asked Him to permeate these things with His goodness because I don’t have it in me to put goodness into these things. Since I listened to this week’s sermon on Jesus and the rich young ruler, who could not bring himself to give up his love for wealth in order to follow Jesus, I have been thinking a lot about how I am a slave to something at all times. There will always be things clamoring for my attention, things promising me security and salvation, things glittering and gold that addle my little seagull brain. 

My mom and I often tease my dad, saying that, when it comes to electrical cords, he’s like the Niffler from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. (The Niffler is the platypus-looking little guy who can’t resist shiny things and stuffs them into his magically expanding stomach pouch.) If my dad sees an unoccupied electrical cord (chargers, USB connectors, HDMI cables) in the house he has to take it and stash it away in his office. It’s like this weird instinctual, uncontrollable impulse he has. He can’t leave the electrical cords alone. But he doesn’t tell us when it happens, so often my mom and I find ourselves searching fruitlessly for phone chargers that we left lying around somewhere...

Anyway, I bring that up because I have a little Niffler brain too. Perhaps we all do, it’s just that our irresistible “shiny” item is different depending on who we are. It’s the treasure that ensnares Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit. It’s the ring that corrupts the power hungry hearts of men to do its bidding in The Lord of the Rings. In our hubris we think we are our own masters, but the truth is, we are weaker than we think. That is why I believe Boromir is one of the most important characters in The Lord of the Rings (but I can never take credit for this insight, a dear friend opened my eyes to this). My thoughts are probably best encapsulated by this meme I saw the other day:

It bothers me when people hate on characters for being “weak.” Like okay tough guy if I transported you into that universe I doubt that you would do any better. But more importantly, “weak” characters invite us to be more compassionate toward our own flaws and failures (things I know we all have!). Boromir is not there for you to shit on so that you can feel better about yourself. He’s an invitation for you to understand the parts of our hearts that make us lose our mind, even if for a moment, and make us feel justified in harming others. We’ve all been there - the space where deep down you know something’s not okay but in the moment you’re like “Nah, this is harmless!” or “I deserve this/I have a good reason for this!” (Also, Boromir is a reminder that even after moments of weakness, there are genuine pathways to redemption. He shows his true quality in the end when he sacrifices himself to save Merry & Pippin and expresses his fealty and love to Aragorn with his dying breath. Beautiful stuff, no? :’) )

I think, for me, my “shiny” thing is anything and everything. I want everything. I want to know everything (I used to borrow computer science textbooks from my friends because I was convinced I could teach it to myself). I want to connect with everyone (and at the same time I want to be home alone forever. Haha). I want it all. Time conflicts stress me out because I want both experiences. I want to have lunch with this person *and* attend this class at the same time. I want to binge watch this show *and* I also want to read this book. It’s why I watch multiple shows and read multiple books at the same time - I want it all. 

But since Monday, when I listened to the sermon, I have become more sensitive and aware of what’s asking for my attention. “Who is my master in this moment?” I ask myself. I’m not gonna lie, when I woke up this morning with anxiety, I really just wanted to stay in bed all day and watch shows. And honestly, some days in life, you gotta do that as self-care. But it has to be a choice. Like “You know what? I’ve been working really hard this week - I’m going to take the day off today and just stay in bed and watch shows.” But this morning it didn’t feel like that. It felt like the television was my master and if I watched TV in that moment it wouldn’t have been my choice. It would have been because I wanted to avoid or resolve the distress I was feeling in my heart. It would have been because I wanted the TV to take away my stress about my future and my worthiness. 

I knew I needed some extra help, so I played some praise music while I made myself coffee and breakfast. I sifted through some emails and wrote this post. 

I have zero control over *how* things happen, but I know what I want in life. I want to be a therapist by day and creative by night, with taking care of a family and many cups of coffee all mixed up in between. I want to pay the bills by helping people understand themselves more deeply and compassionately. I want to love on my family by supporting and inspiring them to be the best versions of themselves they can be. I want to love on myself by creating consistently. I need to fight for this. My writing partner once said that writing is the only place where you can truly be yourself. And by fighting to create space in your life to write, you are also fighting for the truest version of yourself. This is so, so true. Whenever I do get over myself and my fear of man and just create~ write, sing, whatever - I feel the joy of being exactly who God created me to be and not the version of myself I think other people want me to be. It’s really healing. 

I know I’m a late bloomer. I know I’ve been slow to mature in some areas. But every day I wake up and hold God’s hand and lean into wherever He is taking me - is one more day I move forward in His plans for me, whatever that looks like. 

  P.S. I wish I knew how to write (lol) *and* draw. My favorite creators are graphic novelists/cartoonists/illustrators like Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, some Avatar comic books), Sarah Anderson/Sarah Scribbles (I *love* her new comic Fangs), Chanel Miller (this video made me cry today), Lisa Hanawalt (Bojack Horseman, Tuca & Bertie, and her own stuff... Plus she has THE CUTEST horse and dog), and of course a whole list of mangakas... but that is enough blogging for today. 

[itsjayyyy]

January 16, 2019 4:51 pm

So on last thursday after that update, I met up with heather for the first time since October. We met up at starbucks, but neither of us bought a drink. She already knew about my moving out because she saw me posting about it on snapchat. I told her all about how my new roommates don’t really talk to me (or do the dishes, or pay rent on time...) and also how my parents didn’t let me have my own bed (she was really shocked at that, which i didn’t understand like girl ive been homeless because of my parents no shit they won’t let me take a bed they bought themselves). I also told her about the whole rose situation, and ofc anna. I thought it was funny how when i told her about the whole “surgery on a porcupine” she was like “how is that possible? you mean she did surgery on those things that fall off of trees?”

After hanging with her, I went home since I had like 5 hours until my next class. rose kept messaging me like “hey are you ready to meet up?” “i can see you’re home now” etc. I didn’t answer, and honestly i was annoyed that she used my location as a weapon, so i left my phone at home when i went to class. Which was kinda annoying tbh, i felt so disconnected without it. (just got sidetracked, but i think when i get my student refund i’m gonna buy an ipod nano 1st gen, which was the first mp3 player i ever had. prob gonna fill it with the 3 vocaloid cd’s i found). After class i went to get a smoothie, then drove home. rose was waiting outside my door for me to get home, and she started going on about “omg i was so worried you weren’t answering my texts etc” we get into my apartment, and i just kinda unloaded onto her (again). just told her how it’s not even just the whole mom situation, but all of them had piled so much hate onto me since i was a kid that i’m incapable of loving myself, and it only frustrates me when they say “don’t see yourself negatively!” it’s like someone breaking your arm and then saying “just use your hand to grab x” without acknowledging that your arm was broken by them. she starts crying (as she always does tbh), then we go to get sushi. 

friday i only had one class (psychology) so i chilled at home most of the day. can’t really remember what i did lol. oh wait i think i hung out with rose, to make up for not hanging out on thursday. yea we chilled at my apartment for a bit, then went to the west side to scoop up peter and get hooter’s. and then i complained about how i started feeling sick, and then called in saturday. i told myself that i would get ahead on my homework and clean my room, but i spent most of the day chilling. the gray cat that hangs around my apartment walked by my window, so i opened it and pet her. She climbed into my room, and i spent a good 3 hours just playing with her. I texted the owner asking if she was pregnant or not (bc she really looked like she was about to give birth) but he texted back saying it was a boy, and neutered. apparently he’s just super cuddly. 

i called in sunday too, since it’s like i already lost an attendance point and i didn’t feel like going to work. i actually was productive that day, like i did laundry and cleaned my room. still getting the depressive episode out of my system, though, so i wasn’t running at full capacity. 

on monday, i checked anna’s twitter (btw after i soft blocked her i felt that she was still looking at my profile tho, like our tweets would mirror each other in mood a lot), and she tweeted “omg i think my crush is flirting with me” so rip my chances with her. and yea i know it wasn’t about me bc outside of class i heard her talking about how they were talking thru snapchat. :c

i really can’t wait until fall when i get transferred to the downtown campus, though. as i was walking up to msb, i saw someone sitting directly next to the entrance. and you can probably guess who it was. I really thought “new semester, new schedule, no more stalker savon waiting outside my classes” but i guess i was wrong. as i sat in the hall waiting for my class to start, I had a minor anxiety attack that i tried to cover up by talking to my classmates and professor about high school funding. luckily in that conversation, i learned that msb has two side exits, so now i have different paths to take. (honestly this whole time i’ve gone here, i thought the “handicap accessible” sign in front of the side entrance was trying to say that wheelchairs should go down the stairs, but my classmate pointed out that it was supposed to say ���handicap accessible, up this path to the right,” not directly forward. I took the side stairs after class and basically ran to the garage in case he was following. At home i still had an assignment for comp, which was “visit a place on campus that you’ve never been to before and draw it in a 4-panel comic” (this class is all about multimodal writing) which, by the way, is really only possible for freshmen. as a spohomore, there isn’t a single place on campus that i haven’t been to. except for that side stairwell. so i drew my experiences taking a new staircase as an exit. let me make this journal entry multimodal by adding my comic:

anyways, that comic was apparently way overdrawn, when all of my classmates did simple stick figures at memory mall. kinda felt like wednesday addams wearing a long black dress at summer camp. it was nice tho, gave me a way to express all of my feelings about the whole thing (since i had nobody to talk to). it was like art therapy.

tuesday we had a quiz at the end of calc. i know hindsight’s 20/20, but seriously how the fuck did i fail this class it’s so damn simple. I finished the quiz in a literal 30 seconds and then sat there because i didn’t want to be the first person to finish. all of my classmates looked really deep in thought too, so i started to wonder if i was maybe not doing it right. but then the professor walked by and saw i wasn’t doing anything, so i was like “is this all that we have to do (setting up an integral but not even solving it)” and he was like yea, ur good. surreal.

then i went home and chilled until my evening class, then after that drove to peter’s bc we were gonna hang. so rose remembered that i was coming over, but peter forgot; while peter remembered they invited paul over, but rose forgot. i know that they’re kinda close with paul and all but tbh i don’t really know him that well, and it feels awkward hanging with him. when i told rose that, she was like “but you guys have hung out together, remember that time you got blackout drunk and slept on his bed, i felt like that was a real bonding moment for yall” um no i actually didn’t remember that, probably because i was BLACKOUT DRUNK. anyways i told all of them about anna (since peter and paul didn’t hear the story), then we smoked a little and played comer. We all won a round except for peter lol. then we watched an episode of marie kondo’s show (i wanted them to see how she lowkey looks like a robot), and then i headed home. i got home at like midnight tho, and since we had a sub today in calc, i figured i could skip it. so today i woke up around 10, got on campus at 2 since i was gonna hang with heather (but her boss didn’t let her have a break since she only worked 5 hours so we’re gonna meet tomorrow instead), went to psychology (and we finished the chapter early so no class friday!!!), and since then i’ve been in the library writing this.

here’s my plan for surviving this semester: i’m gonna act like this is fuckin birdbox, but extreme version. he wants to get a reaction out of me, and he’s not gonna. from now on, any time that i’m outside of a building (and even most times that i’m indoors but not in class) I’m going to have headphones in, and look down at the ground (not like directly at my feet, but like looking forward but at the ground ahead of me) or at my phone. that way if he finds me, he still can’t get a reaction bc i’m visibly distracted in the only two senses that he can reach me through. i don’t think he would go as far as to try to touch me, so i should be safe.

i hate that i feel like i’m always on the defensive at my own damn college. i hate feeling like i can’t even walk around freely without being followed. but hopefully i just need to make it to fall, hopefully ucf doesn’t delay the opening of the downtown campus, hopefully i transfer in a few months and can *really* put this all behind me. then it’s all smooth sailing, just gonna go through my final two years at uni, then graduate, get a job in CPS for a few years, then go back to school for my master’s. from there become a licensed clinical social worker, so that i can maybe work for cps but in a hospital setting where i get paid more, buy a house, have a family. get out of orlando. (but i kinda like orlando...)

anyways it’s 6 o clock now, so in about 15 minutes i’m gonna leave the library, use the guidelines i wrote above, use the side entrance, and get to class.

[letterstoocean]

my ocean, 

ok my love,  this is the beginning fo the story with e sotrm at teh end. i lvoe it, but am so scared to write teh storm scene....

Deep Fried Cats and Mr. Moray

A part of me is wishing that you will create me when I began to undress in front of you.  

Seeing me in the way I wanted you as I saw myself in your eyes.  A part of me will always hold on to that.  

But the part of me that needs this knows as I sit on the edge of this tub, soaking wet and lost in my own life, knows that you are drawing me for what I want to be, but have yet to reach.

You can see it, but I can't.  

I know I will hate you for this.

I know this is going to make me what want you more.

A part of me knows all of this, but other part, the part I am listening to right now?

That part of me wants you to get up, walk over to me and show me what you see in me.  

And yet you just keep drawing as I talk…………………….

Deep Fried Cats and Mr. Moray

Some one was driving. Driving.  Driving.  Driving through the night.  It seems it was always night and I was always asleep in the backseat.  This isn't true, and I know it, but my memory usually plays it out that way.  

There are little flashes of sitting in restaurants and staring down at my food. Of sleeping in roach infested hotels as some one put cotton balls in my ears and nose to keep the roaches from crawling in.

I hear a voice say, “You breathe through your mouth, if they crawl in, you will spit them out in your sleep or swallow them. Not as bad as in your nose or ears.”

All I keep hearing is the scream and all I can see is Yankee Johns head exploding over and over again.

We were driving.   The mantra of the wheels to the road is the other constant as I sleep in the backseat.  The screams, the wheels, Yankee Johns exploding over and over again.  The wheels, the screams, Yankee Johns head.  Yankee Johns head, the wheels, the screams......

I woke up beneath a mound of warm, comfortable blankets that  smelled like wood smoke, fresh air and the only way I could describe it is, love. I had never felt blankets so soft, so heavy and so comfortable.

There was the smell of coffee, baked bread and muffins.  My stomach let out a growl like a tiger in the water.

I felt a weight at the bottom of the blankets moving up towards my head. My first thought was rats,

This is going to be one of those nightmares, isn't it?   I thought.  

There was a purr.  Better than rats.

“Hello kitty,” I said as the cat walked up my body and poked its head out of the blankets. “You been there the whole night?”  The purr grew louder and the cat plopped on my chest.

“Sorry, but we have to find a bathroom.  Don't suppose you could tell me where I am could ya?”

I kept the cat in my arms, got out of the warm bed and followed the smell of coffee hoping it would lead to a restroom. I walked down three flights of winding stairs and finally into a kitchen where a woman was sitting at a table drinking coffee, scratching some notes on a coffee stained yellow legal pad, and humming along to a radio on the kitchen counter.

She looked up, saw me and smiled at me with the most powerful green eyes I had ever seen.

She was not a big woman, nor was she small.   She looked to be anywhere from seventy to a hundred years old and she was definitely a woman you did not mess with.

She was solid. Everything about her was solid.  

(description of sally here)

She stood up and I guess a part of me was expecting her to move slowly like some one her age would.  But she moved gracefully as she used her bare foot to slide a stool over to the counter in the center of the room.

“That’s Scaramouch. He is a jazz kitty.” she said.  A deep southern Kentucky accent emphasized her words.  She sounded just like my grandfather.

“A what?”

“A jazz kitty.”  She said it like there should have been a “duuuuh” at the end of the sentence.  Maybe in this area every one knew what a jazz kitty was. I did not.

“A jazz kitty?” I asked again.  Staring at the cat as it jumped down out of my arms and onto the counter where it curled up by the  radio playing jazz.  

She nodded at the radio. “A jazz kitty.” She said again. “He listens to it.  He hopes to one day have his own radio show.  I'm Sally. I'm your great grand mama. You will be staying with me until we git ya back to your grandfather.”

Her words didn't quite stick. Great Grandma?  I was going to my grandfathers?  Where was mom? Where was I?  I was about to open my mouth and ask when she nodded towards the stool.

“We will talk more later, right now make yourself useful. Get those taters cut and ready for the skillet.”  She handed me a knife, handle first, and gestured towards a giant pile of potatoes. “Coffee is brewing on the stove, but there's my brew next to it. You can have some. Don't think you are anything special just cuz you get ta drink out my pot. Ya here?”

I shook my head. “No ma’am. And thank you.”

She looked me up and down for a couple of seconds and I began to hear her music inside my head. Music much like the jazz coming from the radio, soft and strong with the feeling that it would go on that way forever.

 She was waiting for me to say something.  Believing I was under some sort of judgment, I stood silent and stared back.

Her music grew louder inside of me.

She was a good woman. A Proud woman.  She had seen the  rough side of life in a lifetime much more rough than any of us would know.  She would survive in any age, because the age when bend to her, at least it better bend if it knew what was good for it.

I made a nervous smile but kept staring into those powerful green eyes.

After what seemed like a lifetime, she nodded and said, “Come with me.”

I followed her out of the kitchen and down a very long hall .  On both sides of the walls were coffee mugs from hip level almost up to the ceiling. All kinds of mugs. Some looked really old.  Some looked brand new.  Sally reached up and grabbed one at the top right by the front door.

It had once been white, but years and years of coffee being poured in it had stained it yellow.  On the outside was the comic strip B.C. Riding a unicycle. The rest was worn away.

“This is the wall of dreams.  People who earn it get a mug on the wall. This one was your gran daddy Whitley's.  Got it when he was seven years old. A gift from his daddy. He drank from it every morning before he went out and worked in the tobacco fields. Drank from it every day, til he went off to that damn war.”

She looked away for a second. Like she was re-living a bad memory.

I began to reach for the mug.

She held the mug away from me. “You have not earned it.”  

I smiled. “Yes. Ma’am”

“Manners.  Good. That's a start.” She put the mug back up on the wall. “Maybe one day when you can reach it, it will be yours.”

She nodded to a table of mugs.  “You can go through those mugs til maybe one day you earn a spot on the wall.”  

I grabbed a mug  and we headed back to the kitchen where I poured a cup of what was hands down the best coffee I had ever had in the short time I had been drinking coffee.

If I was struck dead at that moment it would be a good death because the last memory I would have would be the taste of that coffee on my tongue.

I must have shown the enthusiasm on my face because Sally let out a chuckle.

“You are gonna stay here for awhile. Your gran daddy is in the hospital.  I told him I have you and he needed to git his ass better to take care of you. That will give him some fuel to git out of that damn place.  You okay with that?”

Without hesitation, I nodded.  And for the first time in a long time, I felt something besides despair.  Hope.  And hope is a great feeling.

Would I actually get to live in a normal home? With my grandfather?  I barely remembered him, but no, I couldn't think about it. I was so used to being let down that it hurt worse to have a dream like that and then get it destroyed.  Better to know the place you are in and not dream.

For a spit second I heard mom scream and saw the dead Yankee John thing staring at me from the table.  That hissing coming from his mouth.

I took a sip from the coffee and tried to shake it away.

Sally looked at me.  

“I know what happened. That should never happen to anyone, let alone a child. But it did happen. And when you are ready, we will talk about it. But I can see the look in your eyes that is not time yet.  I can't tell you to let it go. But I can tell you that you are alive and living through something that bad will make you stronger.  Doesn't seem like it, but it will.”

She took a deep breath, clapped her hands, rubbed them together and headed back to the kitchen.

“Now we have mouths ta feed and it aint gonna git done standing in a hallway feeling sorry for ourselves. Suck it up! Now you don't stay for free so get to those taters.” ”  

I nodded and followed her back into the kitchen.

I cut the potatoes in silence listening to the jazz and Scaramouch the Jazz Kitty purring next to it.  After all the potatoes were cut, she dropped an apron full of garlic on the counter.

“Cut the garlic as well.”

She let me struggle with the first couple of  cloves to make sure my heart was in it and then she reached under a counter and pulled out an orange Tupperware bowl with a matching lid that smelled just like the garlic.

She put the garlic in the bowl sealed the lid and then shook the whole thing.  The garlic thumped around with a crazy drum beat.  

“Good trick to learn.  Don’t thump too hard or you will bruise the garlic Just thump it enough to get it excited.”  She pulled the lid off and slid the bowl towards me.  “Now try it.”

The garlic practically peeled itself and I diced it into small pieces and put it in the pile with the taters.

“Onions?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded, “Pantry, bottom back.”

The coffee adding an incredible energy to my step, I hopped off the stool and bounced into the pantry.  She didn't tell me how many but I grabbed five thinking that would be an equal amount with the taters and garlic we had.

“Who taught you how to fry taters?” Sally asked as he wrote something down on a chalkboard she had on her lap?

“A woman named Mama Louise?” I put everything in a giant cast iron skillet on the stove along with olive oil, butter and lard.  I refilled my coffee, and watched her crack about a thousand eggs into a metal bowl.

“Mama Louise taught me to cut the onions, taters, garlic, put em in the cast iron skillet, put the heat on medium and then LEAVE THE DAMN THINGS ALONE!!!” I said trying to imitate Mama Louise's voice.

Sally truly laughed this time. Nodding and covering her mouth so she didn'tspit out her coffee.

“This Mama Louise knows what she is doing.” Sally said still laughing. “She sure does. She teach ya the right way.  Most people play with em. Always checking em, turning them over and never letting them get the love they deserve.  Gotta have some burnt. Gotta have some soft. That's the secret.”

“Sit.” She slid a stool next to Scaramouch the Jazz Kitty and the radio. “Enjoy your coffee. The girls will be awake any time and the kitchen will be crowded enough. You made yer bones. For now.”

Sally started cooking sausage and bacon in two giant skillets that took up the rest of the stove.  It seemed nothing was small in her kitchen.

There were footsteps in the hallway and a woman walked in the kitchen wiping sleep from her eyes.  She poured herself a cup of coffee, leaned on the counter and took a sip with her eyes closed.  She looked like a younger, very beautiful version of Sally.

“Oh sweet blessed coffee, you are my one true love.”  she whispered.

She looked at me, tilted her head to the side then looked over at Sally.

“Christophe?” she asked Sally

Sally nodded, turning the bacon as she did.

“Mr. Dorazio, pleased to meet you. My name is Mindy. I am one of Sally's many many grand kids. I should never speak to anyone before coffee. So let's chat later.”  

I heard thumps on the porch outside and then the doggie, correction, cat door flipped up and two massive cats came trotting through.  Each one could have been mistaken for a small dog.  One was a three legged tabby, one Siamese; the biggest Siamese cat I had ever seen.  Both of them wore war wounds.  The tabby was missing an ear and the Siameses left eye was swollen shut.

As Sally threw more sausage in the skillet, the two cats ran to her legs as Scaramouch got up from the radio, stretched, hoped down and did the same. They did a figure eight  “meow” dance between her legs.

“Hand me that coffee can in the corner,” she said.

I walked over to the counter and reached for the first coffee can I saw.

“No, not that one. The one next to the flour coffee can.  The flour can in the corner.”

I wanted to say, “They are all the same coffee can.”  But I just kept putting my hand over the cans until she said, “That one, slide that over ta me.”

I  slid it and she flipped the lid up, put both hands in the can, scooped out a mound of bacon grease, and then bent down and smeared one of the cats from head to toe with it. She then proceeded to do the same thing to the other two cats.  

I know I stood there with my mouth hanging open. The only thing I could think of was, “Holy crap! This crazy lady is going to deep fry these cats!”

I looked over at Mindy and she was just going about her business. Smearing down cats with bacon grease from head to toe must have been an every day thing around here.

I looked back down at the greased kitties and all three had a sheen to them and each one took a separate corner where they plopped down and proceeded to lick themselves clean.

I looked up at Sally. Mouth still open.

“You thought I was gonna cook em didn't ya?”  She said laughing. That laugh was contagious.  “Keeps em from under my feet when I'm cooking.  Any other time they are out catching mice or rats or lsitening to jazz. We are close to the river so we get all kinds of varmints.  The cats are good hunters. The fat shits know it.  So I bargain with em.  This is the bargain.” she said as she washed the bacon grease off her hands.

I stopped to think about it. It was quite frequent brilliant actually.

When the cats were done, Scaramouch hopped back up next to the radio and the other two cats went out the cat door.  

[superradgaydad]

80 questions

what’s your favorite memory? - probably the one of when my friend slept over, and we just curled up and watched jeff dunham on netflix

what song(s) describe your mood right now? - siberia by lights, or all for you by sister hazel

tea or coffee? - TEA

sunsets or sunrises? - neither bc it’s a bitch to drive during both lmao

vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry? - chocolate

rain or sun? - rain all the way

is your first language english? if not, what is it? - i’m too lazy to learn another language other than english, but I know some phrases in sign language

do you like your ice crushed or in big blocks? - big blocks bc then i can cronch it

if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? - my chest, bc i hate how big it is, or my muffin top

who are you closest to, your father or mother? - probably my father

what time period would you like to live in other than your own - definitely medieval bc knights >:3c !!

is it hot or cold right now? - fUCKIN BELOW ZERO OVER HERE HOLY SHIT MY ASS CHEEKS ARE FROZEN TO MY PANTS

what is your accent? - i’ve been told i have a boston accent but i can’t really tell

has anyone ever save you from a situation? if so, what happened? - i don’t remember a lot of stuff that happened in the past so i’m not really sure??

who did you last hug? - my best friend :)))

who are your top 5 fictional characters? - hearthstone (magnus chase), kenny mccormick (south park), lance (voltron), chat noir (miraculous ladybug), and no-face (spirited away)

how have you changed in the past year or two? - my hair has gotten shorter and it’s been dyed different colors, and i’ve been more self conscious with everything about myself

biggest regret(s)? - falling in love

biggest fear(s)? - heights, spiders, the ocean, being rejected, the dark, being forgotten

is your room messy or clean? - messy af my dude

have you ever had a near-death experience? - umm i choked on a cracker once, does that count?

favorite scent? - my grandma’s laundry detergent lmao

would you survive a zombie apocalypse? - probably for a bit, but then i’d die in the dumbest way, like falling down stairs or getting stabbed by my own knife idk

what lyric(s) do you love? - “look into your heart and you’ll find the sky is yours”

what do you like about yourself? - my arms, my freckles, my eyes

what would you change about yourself? - my clingyness

do you like your handwriting? - yeah, as long as i can read it, i’m fine

how do you like to style your hair? - the poofier, the better

what time is it? - sUMMERTIME (god i wish)

what time did you wake up today? - 6:10, bc of school -_-

what are your bad habits? - biting my nails, not replying to texts, forgetting important things

what was your first fandom? - the pjo fandom :)

burger or pizza? - pizza, but i peel the cheese off

do you have any unusual talents? - no, i’m super boring lmao rip

when did you last feel infinite? - tbh i haven’t felt that way in a long time, so probably when i heard that my papa was doing better :’)

when did you last cry? - a week ago, i think. it was over how i can’t understand my advanced english class

who was the last person to see you cry? - my parents, bc they were the ones yelling at me

best movie? - i have literally too many favorites, but probably the star wars series or me and earl and the dying girl

best tv series? - gotham or sherlock

have you ever wrote fanfiction? - yes, but i don’t like to bring it up anymore haha

are you happy? - truthfully, no, but i’m trying :)

do you really relate to your zodiac? - sometimes

what year were you born in? - 2001

do you often find yourself jealous? - yES. mainly if one of my friends ends up in a happy and healthy relationship, while i’m over here dying

are you a fan of 80’s music? - yes!

what has been your most vivid nightmare? - i try not to remember nightmares

what has been your most vivid dream? - where green day broke into my house, and played with my cat while making pancakes and putting on my sister’s makeup

have you ever had your first kiss? - no, but i guess i’m waiting for that one person who i want to spend the rest of my life with

what has been your most intimate moment? - haha when i woke up next to my best friend, and we were like all intertwined and shit

do you usually start conversations? - no

are you superstitious? - i don’t know??

what do you believe in most, ghosts or aliens? - both. i believe that there is life after death, and that there are beings out in space. i’m pretty 50-50 on it

what song(s) do you hate? - any stupid/overplayed pop song on the radio

turn ons? - disney movies and panera mac and cheese

turn offs? - “those” girls (like complain too much, or obsess over how “fat they are”), people who insult others

are you comfortable with talking about your flaws? - not really bc then people know how to defeat me aha

what are your otps? - stormpilot (finn and poe), blitzstone (blitzen and hearthstone), and iko and kinney (i don’t know their ship name tho)

do you have any bizarre experiences? - umm stuff usually goes missing, and i hear sounds in my house when no one else is home, but that’s basically it

do you have a night/morning routine? - in the morning i shower before school, and at night i just get in my pajamas and go to bed

do you have a bittersweet memory? - when we were visiting my papa. sweet that we got to see him, but bitter bc he was getting worse

are there any friends that you miss? - my friends from montserrat college prep

do you have an enemy? - vIOLENCE IS AN ENEMY

are you a night owl or an early bird? - night owl

what is your dream job? - to be a writer, or an animator, or a comic book illustrator

if you had to pick a fictional universe to live in forever, which one would you pick and why? - either star wars bc then i could be a pilot and hang out with finn and poe all the time, or harry potter bc then i’d be a wizard!!

do you know any form of self-defense? - i took karate when i was younger, but i don’t remember anything from it

favorite planet? - pluto, bc it’s small and nobody remembers it’s there, and i can relate to that. also my favorite god is hades/pluto

do you consider yourself to be more masculine, feminine, or a mixture? - uhhh i’m genderfluid, so my feeling fluctuates all the time, but most of the time i feel pretty masculine

do you rely on others, or do others rely on you? - i rely on others more

what do you think happens when someone dies? - i think they kind of hang around for a bit, traveling through loved memories, and it’s all colors, but then i think they eventually pass on when they see that they don’t have anything else to do

are you a leader? - good god nO! me, as a leader? you’d all be dead immediately lmao

what question do you hate answering? - “why’d you cut your hair? boys like long hair” or “are you a boy or a girl? i can’t tell”

do you believe in guardian angels? - not really, except for mysterion in south park lmao

can you rap? - a bit, mostly twenty one pilots or hamilton’s guns and ships

how do you stay warm? - sweaters and layers upon LAYERS of blankets. heated blankets work the best :) also bonus points if you have a warm cat!

do you want to be in a relationship? - i don’t really know anymore

how was your day? - okay, what about yours?

are there any fictional universes you would not want to be in? - the hunger games, divergent, or the lunar chronicles series bc i’d get killed in literally all three

what fictional character do you relate to the most? - right now it’s eliza from eliza and her monsters, bc i bottle myself up in my room and draw my life away

who hurt you last? - relationship-wise: my ex. heart-wise: my papa

#80 questions about elfstonewriter

[happynowidiot-blog-blog]

Can it just be Friday?

For the most part my last weekend in London was fun. Penny and I went and hung out with the boys in Greenwich on Friday night. We originally wanted them to come out to Kings Cross but George is pretty much skint and apparently spent today working. Yes, this is a development.  So, anyways, George will be broke until he gets his first paycheck. We decided to venture down to Lewisham. He wasn’t getting away with not saying good-bye. Penny and I managed to get to the house all on our own and then had to convince George to let us in. He was legitimately talking to us through the mail slot. Other George was apparently watching this but had no idea what was going on. He was so confused. Eventually we gained access to the house and Other George greeted us with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

We then spent a good ten minutes digging through their take-out menu drawer trying to find somewhere that would deliver us pizza. We pestered our George for awhile about what he wanted on his pizza and then got into the millionth conversation of the year about our accents. Other George spent a few minutes telling me that Chicago is pronounced “Chic-caahgo” instead of “Chicaago” (the way I pronounce it) before George jumped in and said Chicago with the hardest -a sound possible and I laughed and stopped arguing. Other George lectured us on the existence of the “imaginary r” in the English language. That’s why the English say “parth” instead of “path”. Apparently. We rolled out eyes and the Georges left to go buy drinks.

Karim, Esam’s brother, was in the shower when we got there and looked very confused when he came downstairs because he didn’t know we were coming over. He still greeted us in typical fashion with hugs, kisses, and pleasantries. Before he’d come downstairs and he’d just gotten out of the shower the hallway was flooded with the smell of clean boy. Attractive, clean boy. Mmm. Penny and I were standing at the bottom of the stairs sniffing and sighing. I was waiting for the Georges to come home right at that moment. Luckily, they waited until we were sitting in the living room willing the channel on the tv to change. Karim sat in one of the armchairs and I claimed the other. Penny and Other George took the couch and George sat on the beanbag at Penny’s feet.

We watched about an hour of Spiderman 3 before someone suggested changing the channel and we all went “Oh please god yes!”. Watching it had been funny if only because of the number of times Penny and I groaned whenever Mary Jane emotional. Karim and I also shared our extensive knowledge of comic book movies (I was so glad there was another geek present). When Spidey goes emo George made a comment about his “fringe” and Penny and I just about died. When the jazz club that Mary Jane works at first came on screen George cheered and I tried not to melt into a pile of goo. During the break up scene we were talking about boys crying and Other George admitted to being a crier. He’s more sensitive then he looks, he said. This is hard to believe because he looks like a teddy bear. An attractive teddy bear, but a teddy bear nonetheless. Our new goal is to get him to cry.

Penny and I went into Other George’s room to dig through his dvd shelf. Not a bad collection but the best part about this is just the room itself. We’d never been in it and the boys were all downstairs. There’s a huge Buddha statue on his mantle and candles on his shelf. There’s an incense holder, a single bed, the only full length mirror in the house, and a hilarious amount of beauty products visible inside the wardrobe. We came downstairs after snooping holding Dodgeball ready to fully embrace our roles as British men. Seriously, we are so not girls. We watched the movie while eating pizza and Penny and the boys drank beer. Karim set to work rolling joints for him and George. At one point he stopped to complain about a long hair he found in the grinder, “No one in the house has hair this long!” Penny and I tried not to laugh or make eye contact. It was one hundred percent one of ours. I’d forgotten about this but the first time we’d gone home with George, Esam had been hesitant about smoking in front of us. Most of the girls he knew disapproved of weed so he felt weird smoking with girls. Penny and I had laughed. Thus, the only girls that had been around that grinder recently were us. Whoops.

I wasn’t drinking but I desperately wanted to ask George for a drag. I didn’t though partially because I kind of hate that I felt like I wanted it that badly and partially because I didn’t want to be rude. He didn’t offer and I do know how expensive it is here. It was mostly tobacco anyways. I’m probably better off not killing my lungs this week. We were watching the movie and at one point Other George and Penny were cuddling. It was just more comfortable for them both the sit that way but it looked adorable. I was crazy jealous because Other George would be who I’d pick to cuddle with out of almost anyone. Other George at one point fell asleep and that was pretty hilarious. And then he shifted and woke himself up a bit but didn’t open his eyes. He literally was laughing at the movie with his eyes closed. That was awesome. Penny and I kept looking at each other and cracking up (or trying not to in some cases). George was a bit quiet but we found out later why (besides the obvious that not everyone talks through movies).

Other George went to bed and George disappeared into his room. I stuck my head in and found him clicking refresh on a some random football website. We ended up bugging him and spent like three hours watching stupid YouTube videos. There are moments when I think about my life like the English major I should be. I notice irony and pick out symbolism and enjoy drawing parallels and identifying foils. I think about my life in terms of plot diagrams and analyse things like most people struggle to analyse literature. I’ve always been very, very good at English. When I was 12, I attended a camp for gifted students at Northwestern. My class was literary analysis. It was three weeks long and condensed a semester of a high school class into this time period. I swear this is entirely responsible for shaping how I think. Anyways, Friday night was one of those moments. The second time we hung out with George and Jules it ended up being the four of us in Penny’s room until 6 AM watching stupid YouTube videos after forcing the boys to finish off the gin and vodka in the room (there was like four shots total between the two bottle. We didn’t know how much of a pussy George was about shots at this point). It was a nice parallel considering that we’ve known him for a year as of this weekend. And no, that isn’t creepy that I know that. It was my sister’s birthday. George is actually on the voicemail I left her last year (as is a bunch of random Swedes but that’s a different story).

It was nice to see George loosen up. Turns out he’s been annoyed with Other George lately which is why he wasn’t being super talkative while he was around. It also explains his annoyed face when Penny was cuddling with Other George. When he was talking about it he did a hilariously accurate impression of Other George. I never actually noticed how different their accents were (or at least I’d never thought about it) until then. We talked for awhile and Jesus do I love when we actually get to hang out with George, not the cool guy he likes to pretend he is or the asshole he becomes when drunk. He laughed his ass off at some of the videos (there was one that had him almost on the floor). At risk of sounding ridiculous, I love his laugh. His whole face lights up. It’s adorable.

We were screwing around on his computer and somehow got onto the discussion of people’s old MySpaces. This led to the not-so-fun discovery of my MySpace which includes a mortifying blog entry I wrote when I was 14. I had to leave the room while they read it. I tried to get control of the computer and Penny literally held me back while George clicked on the link and started to read out loud. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed, I could have actually died. George and Penny, on the other hand, were dying of laughter. It was this like free-verse psuedo-intellctual poem thing. Oh god, it’s bad. George, after he’d stopped laughing long enough to speak, said that it would actually be good if he didn’t know the context. However, as it was a 14 year old girl’s emo MySpace blog entry there was no way it could be taken seriously. It could have been worse. At least they laughed and didn’t just decide to never speak to me again.

We sat around in George’s room for awhile and then decided we should probably take off. We were cabbing it home as it was late. George offered us his bed again. Well, he said “You can stay but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa. Just kidding, you can sleep in my bed considering you hijacked it last time.” We protested that Esam had offered his bed and he looked so shocked. It was hilarious. We said thank you but we did really have to be up kind of early. He kept emphasizing that he wasn’t kicking us out. He was totally ok with us spending the night. The more he said it the more I wanted to turn to Penny and just say fuck it. It was really sweet of him to keep offering. Our cab got there eventually and we said good-bye. George finally opened the Christmas card we got the boys. It was actually a hilarious card. On the outside it said “Sorry I got so drunk at your party (next week)”. On the inside, it was addressed to “Dear Boys” and signed “<3 the Girls”. George laughed at it and put it on the mantle in the living room. We hugged Karim good-bye and he kissed us on the cheek and wished us a merry Christmas. We told him to have a good break and then moved to hug George. His hugs did not last nearly long enough. We’re not going to see him for a month (well, three weeks-ish). Penny and I were both a tad disappointed but he did tell me he wanted to Skype while I was in the States so that’ll be fun.

All in all, it was a really good night. Out faces literally hurt from laughing so much. We giggled for like six hours straight I swear. We also got the bonding time with George we wanted to badly. None of us were drunk and George wasn’t flying by any means. It was nice to just chill and talk and really solidify the friendship we’re not always convinced exists. He’s so much more relaxed and himself when he’s home. It’s amusing to watch how he interacts with the boys too. Things like right before we left Karim was in the kitchen doing something and George stuck his head in the hallway and asked what he was cooking. Karim said something and George goes, “Wanna make that a meal for two?” So adorable. He then said that he could contribute digestives to the meal. He was nibbling on a cookie, lookin’ adorable. Karim eventually brought him a plate with two pieces of toast on it. One piece had beans on it, the other had scrambled eggs. Karim held a plate set up the same way for himself. Penny and I were resisting the urge to profess our love for the two of them. It was completely the way one of their parents used to make food. You could just tell that they’ve been friends forever.

I also just love being around to observe that house. I swear to god I should just major in sociology. The kitchen is a disaster area. Seriously, no clean dishes at all. The floor is literally covered in random spills and I’ve never wanted to wipe down a counter more in my life. The best part about all of this is the post-it note stuck to the fridge that says “I cleaned the kitchen. You mess it up and I’ll mess you up!”. The number of boys that live in the house has been clarified as five. It’s George, Esam, Karim, Other George, and Leon. Hilarious thing? There are only four bedrooms. Esam has his own room (or is sharing his bed with Karim which would be funnier) and so do the Georges. The only room we haven’t been in is Leon’s which in our heads now contains bunk beds that he shares with Karim. No idea how the living arrangements were decided. Esam appears to be the only one with a double bed and definitely has the biggest room. George is the only one not in school but has his own room. Karim is Esam’s older brother but appears to be sharing with someone. It’s a mystery. Another mystery is what they’re all doing for break. George isn’t going home and neither is Karim but Esam and Leon are. Other George will head home to Chestnut (wherever the hell that is). How did Karim and Esam decide who get’s to go home? I know George and Karim are excited to be in London for NYE but that also means Christmas alone. Before I knew Karim was staying I was ready to miss my flight home so that George wouldn’t be alone for Christmas (that would have led to all sorts of good decisions, I’m sure).

We got home pretty late and tried not to say anything that could be in anyway funny because our faces literally hurt from smiling and laughing too much. This is much harder then you’d imagine. We went to bed and got up the next day and rushed to the Tower to go ice skating. It ended up just being Penny and I who went. It was fun though. I really enjoy ice skating and there is no better place that the Tower of London to go. It was incredibly pretty and wintery. We then went back to the flat and Penny went Christmas shopping while I cleaned up our mess from brunch and tried to nap. We ended up watching four episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl once she got back. We then went to dinner and got ready to go out. Shahida was out with her brother so it was just the two of us again.  Coco came over and hung out with us while we got ready. It was nice to see her.

We decided to skip the End of Term party and just go to the Big Chill. We went and it was alright. We decided to check out what was going on at the Social Club. There was supposed to be some Indie concert going on. Yeah, we walked in and something became very clear. “Indie concert” was apparently code for “lesbian night”. Yeah. We were literally surrounded by lesbians and some very confused guys who apparently didn’t get the memo either. It was kind of hilarious. We ended up talking to these guys Toby and Kev who ended up buying us drinks so we wouldn’t leave them with the lesbians. We did anyways and went back to Big Chill. The music had taken a turn for the worse somewhere along the way. I was quickly sobering up and far too drunk to keep drinking. My feet were killing me and Penny was drunk. In short, I was not having a good time. I didn’t want to leave though because Penny had started talking to this guy. I wasn’t sure why I was in such a bad place to be out but I didn’t want to ruin her last Saturday because I can’t keep my emotions in check. Eventually we were sitting on the couches upstairs and Penny started making out with this guy. I opened Facebook on my phone. I am so cool.

I was already pretty miserable at this point and then someone from home’s status was “BLIZZARD WARNING!”. I almost burst into tears. That was the worst time to find out that anything might prevent me from getting home on Friday. The music was still bad and I ended up getting hit on by the old French guy when I went to sit downstairs because I got sick of watching Penny make out with this random. I took that as my cue to get Penny and go home. My feet hurt and I was tired and I just wanted to go to bed. We got home and Penny was washing her face when she goes, “Oh no.” I asked her what was wrong and she said she’d show me in a second. I immedietly knew what was wrong and started cracking up. She managed to get her first hickey in a year and a half from a 24 year old random who break dances, has a US passport, and lays bricks for a living. So unbelievably funny.

The next morning, Coco came over and we exchanged Christmas presents. Penny got me this really pretty gold necklace with a stag on it and a keychain from Harry Potter world. Shahida got me this incredibly pretty leather bound notebook from this boutique in Kensington. They both seemed to like what I got them and Coco was really excited about the cupcake shaped piggy bank I’d gotten her. Coco, Penny, and I then went and got brunch and Penny sent me home to go study. We were supposed to meet Myles for dinner and they ended up coming out to Earl’s Court so I didn’t have to put money on my Oyster card. Shahida stayed in and got pizza with her brother and sister in law. Penny, Myles, and I went to this Japanese restaurant. Myles seemed like he was in a pretty good mood. Dinner went really well. We had a lot of fun and he really liked the hat and socks he got him for Christmas. The socks had super heros and comic strips on them. We couldn’t not buy them for him. The hat was fleece lined and had furry ear flaps. I’ve never seen him as excited about anything as he was about his hat. It was so adorable. The check came and he gave the waitress his card. Penny reached the bill so we could give him cash and he pulled it out of her way with a, “Fuck off. I got it.” It was sweet of him. I like when he’s in a good mood. It’s a nice change. He’s going to come by the flat Wednesday night to give us our presents. He hasn’t had time to shop yet apparently.

I’ve been thinking about where I was in life a year ago and it’s actually kind of funny. When I went home for break last year I spent the whole time talking about T and Ollie and Massimo. Now I’m going to go home and talk about the Greenwich boys (or the Boys O’ Lewisham as we wrote on their Christmas card) and Myles. It’s actually crazy how much has changed in year.

I have four days left and three more finals. I have two tomorrow, the first of which is at 9 AM so I should probably get some sleep. I’m going to need to wake up early and keep studying (or you know start).

[historywhore2-0]

For the most part my last weekend in London was fun. Penny and I went and hung out with the boys in Greenwich on Friday night. We originally wanted them to come out to Kings Cross but George is pretty much skint and apparently spent today working. Yes, this is a development. He got a job and we’re very confused. Well, we were but then he told us where he’s working and it made it more sense. He’s bar-tending. In Canary Wharf. Oh yes. He is way too pretty to bartend. He’s going to make so much money in tips. I have twenty bucks on some forty year old banker trying to make him his boy-toy in the first month. So, anyways, George will be broke until he gets his first paycheck. We decided to venture down to Lewisham. He wasn’t getting away with not saying good-bye. Penny and I managed to get to the house all on our own and then had to convince George to let us in. He was legitimately talking to us through the mail slot. Other George was apparently watching this but had no idea what was going on. He was so confused. Eventually we gained access to the house and Other George greeted us with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

We then spent a good ten minutes digging through their take-out menu drawer trying to find somewhere that would deliver us pizza. We pestered our George for awhile about what he wanted on his pizza and then got into the millionth conversation of the year about our accents. Other George spent a few minutes telling me that Chicago is pronounced “Chic-caahgo” instead of “Chicaago” (the way I pronounce it) before George jumped in and said Chicago with the hardest -a sound possible and I laughed and stopped arguing. Other George lectured us on the existence of the “imaginary r” in the English language. That’s why the English say “parth” instead of “path”. Apparently. We rolled out eyes and the Georges left to go buy drinks.

Karim, Esam’s brother, was in the shower when we got there and looked very confused when he came downstairs because he didn’t know we were coming over. He still greeted us in typical fashion with hugs, kisses, and pleasantries. Before he’d come downstairs and he’d just gotten out of the shower the hallway was flooded with the smell of clean boy. Attractive, clean boy. Mmm. Penny and I were standing at the bottom of the stairs sniffing and sighing. I was waiting for the Georges to come home right at that moment. Luckily, they waited until we were sitting in the living room willing the channel on the tv to change. Karim sat in one of the armchairs and I claimed the other. Penny and Other George took the couch and George sat on the beanbag at Penny’s feet.

We watched about an hour of Spiderman 3 before someone suggested changing the channel and we all went “Oh please god yes!”. Watching it had been funny if only because of the number of times Penny and I groaned whenever Mary Jane emotional. Karim and I also shared our extensive knowledge of comic book movies (I was so glad there was another geek present). When Spidey goes emo George made a comment about his “fringe” and Penny and I just about died. When the jazz club that Mary Jane works at first came on screen George cheered and I tried not to melt into a pile of goo. During the break up scene we were talking about boys crying and Other George admitted to being a crier. He’s more sensitive then he looks, he said. This is hard to believe because he looks like a teddy bear. An attractive teddy bear, but a teddy bear nonetheless. Our new goal is to get him to cry.

Penny and I went into Other George’s room to dig through his dvd shelf. Not a bad collection but the best part about this is just the room itself. We’d never been in it and the boys were all downstairs. There’s a huge Buddha statue on his mantle and candles on his shelf. There’s an incense holder, a single bed, the only full length mirror in the house, and a hilarious amount of beauty products visible inside the wardrobe. We came downstairs after snooping holding Dodgeball ready to fully embrace our roles as British men. Seriously, we are so not girls. We watched the movie while eating pizza and Penny and the boys drank beer. Karim set to work rolling joints for him and George. At one point he stopped to complain about a long hair he found in the grinder, “No one in the house has hair this long!” Penny and I tried not to laugh or make eye contact. It was one hundred percent one of ours. I’d forgotten about this but the first time we’d gone home with George, Esam had been hesitant about smoking in front of us. Most of the girls he knew disapproved of weed so he felt weird smoking with girls. Penny and I had laughed. Thus, the only girls that had been around that grinder recently were us. Whoops.

I wasn’t drinking but I desperately wanted to ask George for a drag. I didn’t though partially because I kind of hate that I felt like I wanted it that badly and partially because I didn’t want to be rude. He didn’t offer and I do know how expensive it is here. It was mostly tobacco anyways. I’m probably better off not killing my lungs this week. We were watching the movie and at one point Other George and Penny were cuddling. It was just more comfortable for them both the sit that way but it looked adorable. I was crazy jealous because Other George would be who I’d pick to cuddle with out of almost anyone. Other George at one point fell asleep and that was pretty hilarious. And then he shifted and woke himself up a bit but didn’t open his eyes. He literally was laughing at the movie with his eyes closed. That was awesome. Penny and I kept looking at each other and cracking up (or trying not to in some cases). George was a bit quiet but we found out later why (besides the obvious that not everyone talks through movies).

Other George went to bed and George disappeared into his room. I stuck my head in and found him clicking refresh on a some random football website. We ended up bugging him and spent like three hours watching stupid YouTube videos. There are moments when I think about my life like the English major I should be. I notice irony and pick out symbolism and enjoy drawing parallels and identifying foils. I think about my life in terms of plot diagrams and analyse things like most people struggle to analyse literature. I’ve always been very, very good at English. When I was 12, I attended a camp for gifted students at Northwestern. My class was literary analysis. It was three weeks long and condensed a semester of a high school class into this time period. I swear this is entirely responsible for shaping how I think. Anyways, Friday night was one of those moments. The second time we hung out with George and Jules it ended up being the four of us in Penny’s room until 6 AM watching stupid YouTube videos after forcing the boys to finish off the gin and vodka in the room (there was like four shots total between the two bottle). It was a nice parallel considering that we’ve known him for a year as of this weekend. And no, that isn’t creepy that I know that. It was my sister’s birthday. George is actually on the voicemail I left her last year (as is a bunch of random Swedes but that’s a different story).

It was nice to see George loosen up. Turns out he’s been annoyed with Other George lately which is why he wasn’t being super talkative while he was around. It also explains his annoyed face when Penny was cuddling with Other George. When he was talking about it he did a hilariously accurate impression of Other George. I never actually noticed how different their accents were (or at least I’d never thought about it) until then. We talked for awhile and Jesus do I love when we actually get to hang out with George, not the cool guy he likes to pretend he is or the asshole he becomes when drunk. He laughed his ass off at some of the videos (there was one that had him almost on the floor). At risk of sounding ridiculous, I love his laugh. His whole face lights up. It’s adorable.

We were screwing around on his computer and somehow got onto the discussion of people’s old MySpaces. This led to the not-so-fun discovery of my MySpace which includes a mortifying blog entry I wrote when I was 14. I had to leave the room while they read it. I tried to get control of the computer and Penny literally held me back while George clicked on the link and started to read out loud. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed, I could have actually died. George and Penny, on the other hand, were dying of laughter. It was this like free-verse psuedo-intellctual poem thing. Oh god, it’s bad. George, after he’d stopped laughing long enough to speak, said that it would actually be good if he didn’t know the context. However, as it was a 14 year old girl’s emo MySpace blog entry there was no way it could be taken seriously. It could have been worse. At least they laughed and didn’t just decide to never speak to me again.

We sat around in George’s room for awhile and then decided we should probably take off. We were cabbing it home as it was late. George offered us his bed again. Well, he said “You can stay but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa. Just kidding, you can sleep in my bed considering you hijacked it last time.” We protested that Esam had offered his bed and he looked so shocked. It was hilarious. We said thank you but we did really have to be up kind of early. He kept emphasizing that he wasn’t kicking us out. He was totally ok with us spending the night. The more he said it the more I wanted to turn to Penny and just say fuck it. It was really sweet of him to keep offering. Our cab got there eventually and we said good-bye. George finally opened the Christmas card we got the boys. It was actually a hilarious card. On the outside it said “Sorry I got so drunk at your party (next week)”. On the inside, it was addressed to “Dear Boys” and signed “<3 the Girls”. George laughed at it and put it on the mantle in the living room. We hugged Karim good-bye and he kissed us on the cheek and wished us a merry Christmas. We told him to have a good break and then moved to hug George. His hugs did not last nearly long enough. We’re not going to see him for a month (well, three weeks-ish). Penny and I were both a tad disappointed but he did tell me he wanted to Skype while I was in the States so that’ll be fun.

All in all, it was a really good night. Out faces literally hurt from laughing so much. We giggled for like six hours straight I swear. We also got the bonding time with George we wanted to badly. None of us were drunk and George wasn’t flying by any means. It was nice to just chill and talk and really solidify the friendship we’re not always convinced exists. He’s so much more relaxed and himself when he’s home. It’s amusing to watch how he interacts with the boys too. Things like right before we left Karim was in the kitchen doing something and George stuck his head in the hallway and asked what he was cooking. Karim said something and George goes, “Wanna make that a meal for two?” So adorable. He then said that he could contribute digestives to the meal. He was nibbling on a cookie, lookin’ adorable. Karim eventually brought him a plate with two pieces of toast on it. One piece had beans on it, the other had scrambled eggs. Karim held a plate set up the same way for himself. Penny and I were resisting the urge to profess our love for the two of them. It was completely the way one of their parents used to make food. You could just tell that they’ve been friends forever.

I also just love being around to observe that house. I swear to god I should just major in sociology. The kitchen is a disaster area. Seriously, no clean dishes at all. The floor is literally covered in random spills and I’ve never wanted to wipe down a counter more in my life. The best part about all of this is the post-it note stuck to the fridge that says “I cleaned the kitchen. You mess it up and I’ll mess you up!”. The number of boys that live in the house has been clarified as five. It’s George, Esam, Karim, Other George, and Leon. Hilarious thing? There are only four bedrooms. Esam has his own room (or is sharing his bed with Karim which would be funnier) and so do the Georges. The only room we haven’t been in is Leon’s which in our heads now contains bunk beds that he shares with Karim. No idea how the living arrangements were decided. Esam appears to be the only one with a double bed and definitely has the biggest room. George is the only one not in school but has his own room. Karim is Esam’s older brother but appears to be sharing with someone. It’s a mystery. Another mystery is what they’re all doing for break. George isn’t going home and neither is Karim but Esam and Leon are. Other George will head home to Chestnut (wherever the hell that is). How did Karim and Esam decide who get’s to go home? I know George and Karim are excited to be in London for NYE but that also means Christmas alone. Before I knew Karim was staying I was ready to miss my flight home so that George wouldn’t be alone for Christmas.

We got home pretty late and tried not to say anything that could be in anyway funny because our faces literally hurt from smiling and laughing too much. This is much harder then you’d imagine. We went to bed and got up the next day and rushed to the Tower to go ice skating. It ended up just being Penny and I who went. It was fun though. I really enjoy ice skating and there is no better place that the Tower of London to go. It was incredibly pretty and wintery. We then went back to the flat and Penny went Christmas shopping while I cleaned up our mess from brunch and tried to nap. We ended up watching four episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl once she got back. We then went to dinner and got ready to go out. Shahida was out with her brother so it was just the two of us again.  Coco came over and hung out with us while we got ready. It was nice to see her.

We decided to skip the End of Term party and just go to the Big Chill. We went and it was alright. We decided to check out what was going on at the Social Club. There was supposed to be some Indie concert going on. Yeah, we walked in and something became very clear. “Indie concert” was apparently code for “lesbian night”. Yeah. We were literally surrounded by lesbians and some very confused guys who apparently didn’t get the memo either. It was kind of hilarious. We ended up talking to these guys Toby and Kev who ended up buying us drinks so we wouldn’t leave them with the lesbians. We did anyways and went back to Big Chill. The music had taken a turn for the worse somewhere along the way. I was quickly sobering up and far too drunk to keep drinking. My feet were killing me and Penny was drunk. In short, I was not having a good time. I didn’t want to leave though because Penny had started talking to this guy. I wasn’t sure why I was in such a bad place to be out but I didn’t want to ruin her last Saturday because I can’t keep my emotions in check. Eventually we were sitting on the couches upstairs and Penny started making out with this guy. I opened Facebook on my phone. I am so cool.

I was already pretty miserable at this point and then someone from home’s status was “BLIZZARD WARNING!”. I almost burst into tears. That was the worst time to find out that anything might prevent me from getting home on Friday. The music was still bad and I ended up getting hit on by the old French guy when I went to sit downstairs because I got sick of watching Penny make out with this random. I took that as my cue to get Penny and go home. My feet hurt and I was tired and I just wanted to go to bed. We got home and Penny was washing her face when she goes, “Oh no.” I asked her what was wrong and she said she’d show me in a second. I immedietly knew what was wrong and started cracking up. She managed to get her first hickey in a year and a half from a 24 year old random who break dances, has a US passport, and lays bricks for a living. So unbelievably funny.

The next morning, Coco came over and we exchanged Christmas presents. Penny got me this really pretty gold necklace with a stag on it and a keychain from Harry Potter world. Shahida got me this incredibly pretty leather bound notebook from this boutique in Kensington. They both seemed to like what I got them and Coco was really excited about the cupcake shaped piggy bank I’d gotten her. Coco, Penny, and I then went and got brunch and Penny sent me home to go study. We were supposed to meet Myles for dinner and they ended up coming out to Earl’s Court so I didn’t have to put money on my Oyster card. Shahida stayed in and got pizza with her brother and sister in law. Penny, Myles, and I went to this Japanese restaurant. Myles seemed like he was in a pretty good mood. Dinner went really well. We had a lot of fun and he really liked the hat and socks he got him for Christmas. The socks had super heros and comic strips on them. We couldn’t not buy them for him. The hat was fleece lined and had furry ear flaps. I’ve never seen him as excited about anything as he was about his hat. It was so adorable. The check came and he gave the waitress his card. Penny reached the bill so we could give him cash and he pulled it out of her way with a, “Fuck off. I got it.” It was sweet of him. I like when he’s in a good mood. It’s a nice change. He’s going to come by the flat Wednesday night to give us our presents. He hasn’t had time to shop yet apparently.

I’ve been thinking about where I was in life a year ago and it’s actually kind of funny. When I went home for break last year I spent the whole time talking about T and Ollie and Massimo. Now I’m going to go home and talk about the Greenwich boys (or the Boys O’ Lewisham as we wrote on their Christmas card) and Myles. It’s actually crazy how much has changed in year.

I have four days left and three more finals. I have two tomorrow, the first of which is at 9 AM so I should probably get some sleep. I’m going to need to wake up early and keep studying (or you know start).