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#you trade something of value for value!

trans-axolotl2 · 1 year

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In my last residential treatment stay, I did have one psychiatrist who I trusted and had a positive relationship with. Her name was Dr. R, and when I came in on the first day of treatment and told her that I would not take any psych meds and that I had a lot of past psych trauma, she validated me and told me that she would not bring up meds unless I did. Throughout my stay there, she was empathetic, listened to my concerns, helped advocate for me, and generally made me feel heard. At the same time, when management took away our doors-she did nothing. When I needed to get a feeding tube--she lied to me about how long it would be in, and what I needed to do to get it out. She enforced policies about restricting outside breaks, restrictions on items, and contributed to treatment plans that my friends felt were unfair and damaging.

She was a good person and I liked her, but she was choosing to work within a system where she could not control the dozens of things happening there that harmed us every single day. This is what I mean when I say there is no such thing as a good psychiatrist in inpatient units--she was a progressive, validating, nice person --but her very job description made it impossible for a “good provider” to exist. To be a provider who wasn’t a part of the harm that was occurring on that unit, she would have had to quit, because the very requirements of her job required committing ethical violations, restricting peoples autonomy, and perpetrating iatrogenic harm. If she had stopped enforcing harmful policies and challenged her coworkers publically, she probably would have gotten fired. And that really is the problem--causing iatrogenic harm has essentially become a job requirement on inpatient units, and being a “good provider” by the metrics of the system require you to participate in that harm.

I think Dr. R did a better job than most inpatient psychs in mitigating the harms she participated in, and finding ways to resist shitty systems when possible. I was glad she was there and I think she made my treatment better, but the two of us had a lot of conversations together where she acknowledged the fucked up things happening in the treatment center, acknowledged her role in them, and also stated that she did not have any power to change them. She could not fix the system by working within the system.

I get a lot of questions by people who are interested in careers in the mental health system, and asking me on whether I think it’s okay for them to work there. My first response is usually if you’re asking because you’re feeling guilty after seeing what psych survivors say, I’m not someone who’s going to give you permission to ignore that guilt. The second thing I usually say is this: you need to go into this job aware with the fact that you will cause people harm, you will get into ethical dilemmas, and there will be times where you will either have to betray your personal values or quit. There isn’t one right answer on how to engage with mental healthcare as a provider, with the reality that until we build up alternative systems of care, the current structures still exist and have people who need support inside of them. If that’s something that you think you can navigate in a way that lets you create the least harm possible, then that’s something you need to decide for yourself, and to think really deeply about if the reality of the psych system matches up with your goals.

#antipsychiatry #antipsych #mad studies #disability justice #psych ward tw #i think u also need to understand that if u go to school to work professionally in mental health #if u become a psychiatrist or a therapist or a social worker #even if you're one who does it outpatientt. even if you're an abolitionist social worker #that means there are probably going to be barriers to community spaces. that some people might not trust you any longer. if you are #coming into spaces as a professional #part of that decision might be grappling with the fact that even as you gain legitmacy from a societal side. that as u gain #new opportunities for jobs. to work within systems #you might also lose community trust. opportunities within activism spaces. opportunities #to share and be in those spaces as a survivor and patient #and im not saying this as a judgemnt or to put moral value on it #but i think that's just something you Also need to understand and weigh. sure you will gain something. by getting liscenced #but what will you lose? why might people not trust you in community spaces any longer?#what trade offs will you be making and are they worth it to you? what new communities can you build #what matters to you and what are your passions #<- all things i am really grappling with right now as i decide whether or not i want to go get my masters in social work

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unbecomingsposting · 1 year

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this is a stupid and pedantic pet peeve but kelley didn’t get traded, she walked for free in free agency, which is worse

#if you traded her you’d get something of value back #instead we got Nothing :)#however she did get to choose where she went #which doesn’t happen with a trade 9/10 times

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inkskinned · 5 months

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i think a lot about exactly 1 thing from the roman empire: the concept of bread and circus. the idea was that if your population was fed and entertained, they wouldn't revolt. you are asking us to give up our one small life, is the thing - for under 15 dollars an hour.

what would that buy, even. i am trading weekends and late nights and my back health. i am trading slow mornings and long walks and cortisol levels. i am trading sleep and silence and peace. for ... this. for what barely-covers-rent.

life really is more expensive right now. you aren't making that up. i make almost 3 times what i did 5 years ago, and despite an incredibly equal series of bills - i am still struggling. the most expensive line item i added was to own a dog. the money is just evaporating.

we were okay with it because it's a cost-benefit analysis. i could handle the customer harassment and standing all day and the manager's constantly changing temperament - i was coming home to hope, and my life planned in a blue envelope. three hours would buy me my dog's food for a month. i can give up three hours for him, for his shiny coat and wide, happy mouth. three days could be a new mattress, if i was thrifty. if i really scrimped and saved, we could maybe afford a trip into the city.

recently i cried in the car about the price of groceries.

business majors will be mad at me, but my most inflammatory opinion is that people should never be valued at the same place as products. your staff should not be a series of numbers in an excel sheet that you can just "replace" whenever you need something at that moment. your staff should be people, end of sentence.

it feels like someone somewhere is playing a very bad video game. like my life is a toy. like someone opened an app on their phone and hired me in diner dash ultra. they don't need to pay me well or treat me alright - they can always just show me the door. there is always someone more desperate, always someone more willing.

but i go to work and know i could save for years and not afford housing. i am never going to own my own home, most likely. i have no idea how to afford her ring, much less the wedding. my dog doesn't have his own yard. everything i love is on subscription. if i lose my job, i have no "nest egg" to catch my falling.

this thin life - they want me to give up summer for it. to open my mouth and throat and swallow the horrible hours and counted keystrokes. they want me to give up mountains and any non-federal holiday. to give up snow days. to give up talking to my mom whenever i want. to give up visiting the ocean and hearing the waves.

bread and circus worked for a while, actually. it was the kind of plan that would probably now be denounced by republicans as socialist commie liberal pronoun bullshit.

but sometimes i wonder if we should point them to the part of the history book that says: it worked until it didn't.

#spilled ink #warm up #writeblr #i have a good job please shut the fuck up before telling me to get a better job #girl i have vision and dental.#if u blame the victim that's wild. do u know about economic systems

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txttletale · 9 months

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I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?

alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.

so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.

there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.

when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.

why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!

this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.

so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:

the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered

the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate

shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)

bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.

so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".

(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)

and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!

tldr: it is not imperialism when produce go on boat but it is imperialism when produce grown for dirt cheap by underpaid workers in a country with a devalued currency is then bought and exported and sold by usamerican companies creating huge amounts of economic value of which the nation in which the banana was grown, let alone the people who actually fucking grew it, don't see a cent -- and this is the engine behind the cheap, available-every-day-all-year-everywhere presence of bananas in the usa (and other places!)

#ask

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phantasmagoria-in-neverland · 6 months

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COD men and what article of clothing of theirs they prefer to see you in.

John Price is an elegant gentleman, he loves putting his coat over your shoulders when you're cold. He always holds it for you to help you put it on, and he adjusts the collar as his fingers gently brush against your neck. His coat is big, warm and it smells like him, and he adores the way you burrow yourself into it. During the colder months, he keeps an extra jacket in his car that he can wear if he gives you the one he had on, and if you fall asleep while you're not at home, John always gently lays his coat over you like a blanket.

Simon “Ghost” Riley is an absolute sucker for the way you look in his hoodies, and although he never says it out loud, he gets a certain look in his eyes that speaks a thousand words in his place. They're oversized even on him, and they fit his style perfectly: black with the occasional skull/edgy design of some sorts. He especially loves it if your style is even just a little bit different from his, the contrast makes him melt. He never asks you to wear his hoodies, but he does leave them lying around in a way that is very obvious.

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish goes feral every single time he sees you in his boxers. It doesn't even have to be sexual, just the intimacy of it makes him go wild. It's something that you simply don't share with anyone else, sure, someone else might lend you their jacket, but no one else but him can lend you something as intimate as his boxers. If you also wear boxers he is more than happy to trade, if you don't, he will not so jokingly insist that his underwear is way more comfortable than whatever you're wearing.

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick puts his signature cap on your head every time he isn't wearing it or he isn't on a mission. It's the most him thing he owns, and he thinks there's something incredibly intimate (and attractive) about seeing you wearing it. He's sharing with you the one thing he wears that truly feels like it represents him, and he'd love it if you did the same for him. Sometimes he helps you put it on almost reverentially, other times, he pulls the visor over your eyes and chuckles like it's the funniest thing in the world.

Alejandro Vargas loves when you wear his shirts. It's a bit of a classic, but he loves the difference between how they look on him, tight and accentuating his muscles, and how they look on you, with the neckline wide enough for small flashes of your collarbones to peek out. Wear his shirt as a dress, even just once, and he will never shut up about how much of a breathtaking sight you make. He subconsciously starts buying colours he thinks will suit you, and the wide grin he gets when he sees you in them could light up an entire city.

Rodolfo Parra prefers to give you the most comfortable, cozy clothes he owns. It can vary from a warm sweater, to comfortable joggers, to a loose T-shirt. Whatever makes you feel the most at home is immediately transferred from his wardrobe and into yours. And if you prefer it when they still smell of him, he'll either take the care of wearing them just to give them back to you, or give you a bottle of his perfume that you can spray on whenever you want to. Most of all, he has a gigantic soft spot for seeing you in an article of clothing that has sentimental value and meaning to him.

Phillip Graves loves to give you clothes that are very easily recognisable as his, like the blue button ups that he always wears. He adores seeing how comfortable you look in them while you wear them at home, maybe paired with high socks. And he adores it even more when you style them properly to wear them outside the house, in a way that makes it clear that you're happy to let everyone know who your man is. Either way, his eyes are glued to you for the whole day while you are wearing his shirts, a smug smile on his face.

König always gives you small pieces of himself, small things that remind you of him but that are subtle enough not to bring other people's attention to it. He likes that it's something only the two of you know about, something you keep for yourselves. The things he gives you always change, it could be a ring one day, then a necklace, a scarf, or even a bag. And in the privacy of your home, he adores seeing you in his mask, as he shares the intimate part of himself he never shares with anyone else.

Alex Keller literally gives you free reign over his closet. Everything that is his is yours as well, you don't even have to ask. He'll even change his outfit for the day if he sees you wearing something he was planning on putting on. When he goes shopping, he often asks you to accompany him, so that you can help him choose the pieces that you think would look best on him, and also the pieces that he knows you'll want to steal later. He also adores wearing his clothes after you've borrowed them, your smell still lingering comfortingly on them.

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forlix · 1 month

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𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you.

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere.

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?”

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to hit his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall. Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation.

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath.

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you.

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle.

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly.

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.”

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade.

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment.

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes.

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting.

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything your schedule allows.

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything.

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation.

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights.

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead.

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?”

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass.

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know?

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago.

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek.

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes.

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration.

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off.

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?”

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will.

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back.

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@ur-boyfiend・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・@automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten・@newhope8・@weedforthoughtz・@hyunverse

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qsycomplainsalot · 9 months

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Something very sad and dumb is happening. During the slow collapse of the Roman empire we lost many "luxury" trades and techniques due to them not being sustainable in a post-roman less connected world. People didn't get dumber, and they kept using and inventing new things to improve their quality of life, but, to take an exemple out of many, the recipe of the seawater concrete that was so closely tied to Rome's monumental architectural projects was forgotten for over a thousand years simply because for quite some time there just weren't cities vast enough to attract the kind of patrons to fund them, which stopped the process known as euergetism to take place. Somehow we have been going through the same process again over the past hundred and so years, not because there's no upper class to chase civic recognition by sponsoring the arts, but because the upper class has lost interest in sponsoring the arts at all. It seems like rich people have become more and more into the idea alone of accumulating money, and just can't think of ways to spend it that wouldn't also be thought off by the most basic dudebros around. Not to glorify rich people at any point in time but it used to be that when you had an insane amount of money you'd use it to foster a court of artist, build gigantic public baths or commission a rank in the navy to discover new continents. Nowadays it all goes towards a dick measuring contest of yachts, mansions and what just seems like the least satisfying way one could ever spend their money. This wouldn't be so much of a problem considering the lower class has had more spending money than ever before in history, but aside from that and in lock step with exponential capitalism, rich people seem to take personal exception to the arts existing at all, opting instead to commodify everything, copy it and sell it for cheap. We're staring down the barrel of losing thousands of crafts honed over dozens of generations simply because the mercantile hellscape we live in does not, for whatever reason, value having the best possible teapot ever produced, or the best knife, or the best brush, etc... instead these products are undermined by cheap imitations sponsored by rich assholes wanting the appearance of quality over the real thing for revenues' sake, possibly because the idea that an ultra-skilled artisan class getting paid insane amounts of money completely proportional to their labor feels alien to this bunch of parasites. And I don't think that trickle down economics has ever been a thing, but it sure as hell feels like we went from being the paid monkeys of the elite, to them not being willing to spend the piss it would take to save us from a fire.

#history #politics

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astrosky33 · 6 months

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HOW YOU CAN GAIN WEALTH

THE 11TH HOUSE AND FINANCIAL GAINS

The 11th house in astrology is known for representing friends, socialization, technology, hopes/wishes, etc. However, a lot of people don’t know it also represents material gains (which includes financial gains)

The 10th house represents your career and the 2nd house represents money, so using Derivative Astrology you count 2 houses including 10 (10,11) meaning the 11th house gives insight on money made from your career

This is an underrated placement to check for your long term career to see which career path you should go down in order to make the most money. I discuss this in my readings

ARIES 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you motivate others or ones that motivate you. You would struggle financially in careers you weren’t passionate about. Careers involving courage, athletics, physical fighting/aggression, tattoos, war, heat/fire, confidence, energy, enthusiasm, and/or lust would suit you best (Example- personal trainer)

TAURUS 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers that bring sentimentality to your life. You would struggle financially in careers that were too high stress. Careers involving material items, beauty, romance/love, art/artistry, pleasures, festivities, your voice, and/or luxury would suit you best (Example- singer)

GEMINI 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers that let you communicate your ideas. You would struggle financially in careers that didn’t require much communicating. Careers involving literature/writing, social media, the mind, speaking, lower education, short trips, ground transportation, trading, the press, gossip, and/or math would suit you best (Example- social media influencer)

CANCER 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers that are an emotional outlet for you. You would struggle financially in careers that make you suppress all your feelings. Careers involving emotional expression, family, homes/houses, taking care of people, femininity, the ocean, fertility/pregnancy, baking/cooking, and/or boobs would suit you best (Example- real estate agent)

LEO 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers that allow you to be in the spotlight and shine. You would struggle in careers that you never get to express yourself creatively in. Careers involving drama, your talents, happiness, development, pride, the ego, identity, festivals, royalty, creativity, attention/spotlight, entertainment, and/or leadership would suit you best (Example- actor)

VIRGO 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you can put your analytical nature to use. You would struggle financially in careers where you couldn’t seem to voice your opinion. Careers involving analyzing with reason, health/fitness, literary works, the mind, and/or routine would suit you best (Example- author)

LIBRA 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you’re expressing yourself artistically. You would struggle financially in careers where you can’t have a balance of work and play. Careers involving art, beauty, fashion, harmony/harmonies, romance, pleasures, compromise/cooperation, values, and/or festivities would suit you best (Example- dancer)

SCORPIO 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you use your power for good and that you feel powerful in. You would struggle financially in careers where you have no control. Careers involving transformation, mystery/crime, surgery, sex, athletics, tattoos, aggression, and/or heat/fire would suit you best (Example- surgeon)

SAGITTARIUS 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you’re learning something new daily or going on new adventures daily. You would struggle financially in careers where you’re surrounded by negativity or negative coworkers. Careers involving travel, law/justice, teaching, religion/spirituality, gambling, honesty, and/or fulfillment would suit you best (Example- lawyer)

CAPRICORN 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where there’s stability. You would struggle financially in careers where there’s lack of consistency in your income or just in general. Careers involving business, being the boss, responsibility, confinement, restriction, old age, and/or bones would suit you best (Example- manager)

AQUARIUS 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers where you have freedom. You would struggle financially in careers where you can’t create/invent new things and be your unique self. Careers involving technology, politics, socialization/groups/friendship, invention, film, fluctuation, rebellion, electricity, natural disasters/science, chaos, p*rnography, and/or followers would suit you best (Example- film producer)

PISCES 11H: You can benefit the most financially from careers that are an escape for you. You would struggle financially in careers that cause you lots of confusion. Careers involving compassion/kindness, spirituality, disguise, glamour, idealization, hypnotism, music, disappearance, and/or the hidden would suit you best (Example- model)

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#11th house #11th house in astrology #money astrology #financial gains #wealth astrology #wealth #astro community #astrology #zodiac #astro placements #astrology tumblr #astro chart #birth chart #derivative astrology

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theminecraftbee · 5 months

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Here is how to slowly, completely, and irrevocably fall into having someone know your soul as well as you do theirs:

First, be enemies, but of circumstance. Neither of you were really on opposite sides so much as connected to them. You think he loved them, though, that side that was only your enemy by virtue of not being your ally. He loved them, even if he didn't spend as much time with them. You mock him for this. For calling their leader 'king'. (Later, you'll hold onto mockery like it's all you have. You know it's not a game and you know he was really king, but without your ability to make fun of what's happening, you won't be much at all.)

You have a best friend then. This, too, is almost an accident, although to explain all the ways it's also on purpose will take longer than you have to explain. He's wonderful, and loyal, and going to die. So you die fast and young first, before him. You die in front of your friend. You die in front of him.

You don't regret it, the dying young, because it means you die before anyone else can die for you.

Second, watch your best friend fall in love with him, although that phrase feels both too pedestrian and too much like it's overstating the thing that really happens. You have your own drama for too long to really understand how it happens, of course. You're too busy facing a betrayal that will scrape the inside of your soul forever. (To tell the truth, you've already forgiven him for it, but there's something easy about being each other's enemies, so you keep going, orbiting around each other in betrayal betrayal betrayal. But that's someone else who knows your soul, another story.)

Then your best friend dies, as does nearly everyone else. You sit around a campfire with him. You tell him that your best friend trusts him; you'll trust him too. He stands by your side near the end, the two of you running together, another man's memories on your lips.

You're not sure what you regret, then, but you know there's something that won't undo that's a part of you now.

Third, learn the value of choices, as the universe tries its best to take yours from you. In this one, the people you're by the side of is at once familiar and strange. The finalists who'd protected you last time are now an ugly mix of your chosen soulmate and your enemy by making that choice; you attempt to hold on to your ability to choose even as blood makes it clear you can't. (The universe tried to pick someone who would fit you well, you realize later. More people who know your soul that this story isn't actually about. You care for him too, is the thing; you care for choosing more.)

You don't see him much, this time. You respect each other, though. It's hard not to respect each other after everything that's happened. Still, you don't see him, and he doesn't see you. Instead, you see the end of the game. You nearly hold it in your fingers.

You regret. You regret deeply. You are so tired of watching people die, you think, and you regret more than anything else that you couldn't stop it.

Fourth, become enemies, but this time intentionally. Enemies, maybe, is a strong word; you're assigned co-parents, except bad, divorced ones. There's something hysterical about the whole thing, in both the comedic sense of the word and in the original, more concerning sense, especially given the way you all have thought about your best friend-now-son in the past. (Family ties are a thing you'll come to value; it's just that what the names are don't count, really, not when you do this again and again and again. Plus, it's nice to be able to have an excuse to yell.)

It's almost fun again. Maybe it's almost fun. You trade barbs with each other, and try to kill each other, and this time the consequences are light enough that you try to help each other, too. You see each other a lot. You're enemies, of course, but you see each other a lot, as you are: scared, and tired, and not as frightening as you appear, and happy, despite it all.

You don't regret much. You die fast and young, alongside your allies. You see his face before you do though, and you think he's the one with regrets.

Fifth, trip over him as you run across the first session of a new game. You don't know yet what this one will be, if it will be betrayals, or more stolen choices, or family, or fun, or anything else, but you look him in the eyes and make a choice. You will be friends this time instead of enemies. And it's nice. He and you fit together oddly now, but well, despite the oddities. You've had time to learn to, from a distance, and then closer and closer. (People seem baffled you're friends now. You wish you could explain that that's how these stories go sometimes.)

You're pretty certain he'll leave you when the time comes. He says he's a runner, and not a protector, and yet, when the time comes to betray you, you both know he won't hurt you, and you're both surprised anyway.

"You might regret this," you tell him quietly. You both have scars.

"You might regret this," he agrees. But you also both have choices.

"Okay," you say. "Have you ever fallen in love?"

"Cleo," he says, brushing your hair aside, and he doesn't answer.

"I don't think I have," you say honestly. "I think it's something else. Have you ever accidentally given someone a piece of your soul?"

"All the time," he says, and that's that.

The end is coming soon. You'll find out if you regret it.

#secret life smp #secret life spoilers #zombiecleo #ethoslab #a bee fic #trafficshipping #<- YEAH OKAY THIS IS A LITTLE MORE BLATANT THAN I NORMALLY AM.#you can read this platonically if you WANT but. it's. yeah it needs the tag.#anyway etho and cleo are soulmates but they're soulmates who very slowly and almost accidentally slid into being it #who built their way up to soulmates over time #do you understand me.#...also it DOES strike me the irony of tagging shipping on the fic where the lead SPECIFICALLY SAYS she hasn't fallen in love but #YOU KNOW. ITS THE VIBES.

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k1ngpin42 · 1 month

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𝕀𝕥 𝕙𝕦𝕣𝕥𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕀𝕥'𝕤 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕤𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕪𝕠𝕦

✨Popular Abby x quiet reader✨

I’m sorry I really yapped on at the start, I used to be a wp writer so it’s kinda engraved in my thought process sorry, (I'll put the keep reading part where it get's interesting.) Smut will be in bold tho if u don’t wanna do allat 🤪

MINORS DON’T INTERACT: read at your own risk but there will be mature themes and minors really shouldn’t have Tumblr in the first place. Bare minimum 16+ plsss

——————————————————————————

Warnings: Fisting/fingering (receiving), cunnilingus (receiving and giving), strap on (finally I know- (receiving)), Dominant Abby, provocative sub reader, choking, hickeys, restraints

You had been with the WLFS for almost three months now. You had managed to impress some people during your first month with your shooting skills in addition to stealth combat and how crafty you were. People, specifically Isaac, found you to be an asset. In theory, you were the ideal friend and even partner, however trying to make friends was much more difficult than it should be, especially when the world you lived in was so fucked. You had some, sure, a nice girl called Chloe was your best friend and you had a few others you were close with. It didn’t help that you were known for never going to events and it also didn’t help that one person in particular liked to gloat about it.

Abby Anderson, Isaacs favourite, built like a fucking war hero with muscles bigger than most men and beauty to match them. She was very picky with who she went on patrol with. It was Manny and Owen or Owen or Manny, no outsiders ever. You had asked to join once on a mission you knew you could have been very helpful in, but Abby denied it faster than she could ask your own name. After that, she went out of her way to make sure the embarrassment really hit, asking you to get their weapons for them, making sure Isaac assigned you where you would see her coming back and fourth from the mission she had so confidently denied you from.

You were in the library, if you could call it that. It was really just an old locker room which now had a bunch of books in it, mostly uninteresting. Everyone knows the good shit had to get smuggled in, but you were right out of trading supplies. It’s not like you got many items of value in the first place, everyone else in your patrol groups would take the majority of the rewards, and you were too much of a people pleaser to say anything.

Chloe walks in and your smile widens, your shoulders dropping as you let out a breath with all your tension inside it. Holy fuck, you didn’t realise how tense you were until now.

“Chloe!” You exclaim with a smile, waving at her. She smiles back.

“Hey…you alright?” Chloe probed. You nod.

“Mmm, yeah just…got some stuff on my mind.”

“Abby giving you trouble again?”

“God, when is she not? It doesn’t bother me though, I’ve learnt to just tune their whole group out by now.”

“Didn’t she take your clothes from the laundry and swap them with Owens?”

“…I’d…rather not talk about that.” You say quickly, putting a dull copy of some fuckin book you were reading back on the shelf.

“To be honest, you rocked his ‘chill-dad-with-no-taste’ look. At least in my opinion.” Chloe declares with a smile. You groan.

“Thanks.” You stand up, stretching and cracking your knuckles.

“She put a whole chilli in your burrito.” Chloe reminded you, not letting the subject go.

“I love spicy food.” You explain, nonchalantly. She smiles, rolling her eyes playfully.

“You hate spicy food.”

“Untrue, I love spicy food, spicy food just doesn’t love me.” Chloe sighs.

“…Okay.”

“She also-“

“I get it. Abby gets off on my embarrassment, it’s great.” You sigh with irritation. She nods sympathetically.

“Well, it’s not just Abby, Mel and Owen are also dicks.”

“Yeah, they are.” Chloes eyebrows furrow and a familiar look touches her ordinarily soft features.

“You want to say something, right?”

“I- heard Isaac assigned you with Abby, Mel, Manny and Cole to secure a shipping zone near the old station.” You laugh loudly and her face remains the same, worrying you mildly.

“Yeah, sure he did, now what’s the news?” You ask again. She says your name quietly, almost like a warning. Your smile drops. “What…?”

“I had to grab a radio from the old apartment and I overheard Isaac and Abby talking.”

“Jesus, Chloe.”

“No, no I didn’t go up I swear.”

“You heard them from all the way downstairs?” She rolls her eyes.

“They were arguing.”

“Oh great, Abby was arguing with Isaac, now I know this really is a joke.”

“It’s not a joke, okay? Abby was arguing because she didn’t want to be assigned with you. Isaac said you’re more agile and equipped for stealth than the others. He said he’s pairing you with Abby.”

You’re frozen. Fucking frozen in time and space.

“No…”

“Hey, hey, hey you’re gonna be just fine.”

“Oh my god…” You gasp.

“She’s friends with three thirds of the WLFS in here, if they all like her she’s gotta have some good qualities?” Chloe attempts.

“I don’t love how unconfident about that you sounded. Fuck I can’t fucking believe this.”

“You said you didn’t mind her now though, right?”

“Well that was a fucking lie wasn’t it!” You say, and you both burst out laughing.

“Oh fuck I’m so gonna have my head bashed against a wall aren’t I?”

“Uh…may your death be swift?” You sigh.

“Thank you.”

The door opens harshly, making an echoey bang as it hits the wall. You and Chloe both whip your head around to see Abby, standing there in all her glory. You roll your eyes.

“We’re in a library asshole, you probably don’t come in here much, or know how to read- for that matter, but you’re typically meant to be quiet in these-“ “Ah, if it isn’t the two nerdiest people left on the planet.”

“Speak of the devil.” Chloe whispers. Abby smirks, looking into your eyes.

“Ah, you were talking about me? No surprise there-“

“Fuck you.”

“Mmm, I bet you’d like that too.” Her words shock you and you give Chloe a look through the side of your eye. She returns this by giving you a little shrug of confusion.

“I’m here to set up ground rules. If you even want to step one of your dainty little feet in the direction of me or my friends, you’d do your best to follow it, okay?”

“Good, I’ve got some boundaries I’d like to set up as w-“

“Shut the fuck up.” Abby interrupts. You roll your eyes.

“Okay first of all, don’t talk unless it’s strictly about the mission or someone asks you a question. Second of all, don’t ask me why, if I tell you to do something do it and last of all don’t fuck things up. I can add more rules as I see fit as well.” Abby states.

“You’re a fucking psychopath.” You mutter to yourself and Abby smiles widely. You hug Chloe tightly before you leave, placing a hand on her pale face.

“You’re gonna be fine.” She mouths. You nod and turn to follow Abby out the hallway in silence for some time until she randomly stops in her tracks. She clears her throat.

“Go get our weapons.” You open your mouth to object, but you can’t be fucked wasting words on her. You don’t reply before heading in to the armoury.

“I need Abby’s usual, Manny’s usual and I’ll take a pistol and a silenced literally anything, please.” The man looks at you a little suspiciously, but nods, walking over to the weapon wall.

“Why isn’t Abby just getting them herself?” He asks, not in an overly probing way.

“She prefers me to do stuff for her.” You explain. “Oh, cute.” He says, handing you the things. You look at him, bitterly.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I thought you meant you were…”

“Nope. Do you have any daggers?”

“Daggers…? What century is this? BC?”

“Fine, knifes, then?”

“Here.” He says, handing you a rather average looking metal blade. You sigh.

“Thanks…”

“The ammos on the side of that crate over there.” You nod, giving him a fond expression.

“Thanks.” You say as a rather devious thought comes to mind. You grab a box of Abbys ammo and make your way to the shooting range. As swift as you can, you turn it on and hit the bullseye over and over until there’s just over 10 bullets left in the packet.

“Hmm…” You murmer, looking down at the gun. “Fuck it.” You say, shooting four more bullets. You quickly make your way back to Abby, quickly putting your ammo and weapons in your bag.

“Took you long enough.” She says simply, trying not to laugh at all the shit you’re holding. You roll your eyes.

“You try carrying all of it then.”

“Are you implying I’m stronger than you?” She teases. You continue to glare at her.

“Is the air thin in here?” You question, and Abby looks confused, opening her mouth to retort but you stop her.

“Or is it just the size of your ego making it hard to fucking breathe.” You say. She shrugs, still smirking smugly.

“Who could know?”

You and Abby head over to the wagon and Mel immediately stands up. You sigh.

“Fuck me.” You murmer, and through the side of your eye you see Abby give you a look of what could be mistaken as sympathy, if that girl possessed the capacity for that emotion.

“It’s you.” Mel says, as if the words are physically hurting her to say. You sigh, forcing a fake smile.

“Yep, hey Mel.” Alice runs over to you, leaning her legs against you and kissing you all over.

“Hi beautiful girl.” You utter quietly as you stroke your fingers through her fur. Abby watches you intently, fighting a smile at how affectionate you were. Mel looked less than impressed.

“Come on Alice, here.” She beckoned. You roll your eyes as Alice hesitantly returns to her place beside Mel. Owen sits down aggressively, crossing his arms and looking away from you.

What the fuck is with these people? They don’t even know you. Manny sit’s next to the driver and you sigh as you sit beside Owen. He was a repulsive guy, childish, looked weird, smelt weird and his only personality trait was his relationship with Mel that everyone was so obsessed with. ‘The couple,’ you had heard them be referred to as. So fucking dramatic.

“Did you hear that Brenda’s sister snuck in to that party last night, drank half the liquor and then tried to kiss like 10 guys there?” Abby laughs. Mel shrugged.

“Owen and I were busy, so no.” She says, and they both smirk. Gag.

“You should have seen Manny’s moves, he did a full flip, I wish I could have recorded it.”

“Oh yeah Aidan told me! What a guy.” Owen remarks, placing his hand in Mels.

“Abby how have you been sleeping these days?” Mel questions. This catches your attention but Abby just dismissively shakes her head.

“Fine.” She said, signalling at you with her head. You would rather be in a room of clickers right now.

“Hey, um…where do you sit?” Mel asks you. You look at her, a little surprised.

“Um…what?”

“Well I never see you, so.”

“Oh…I sit with Chloe, Sophie…sometimes Beatrice and Whitney too.” Her expressions remain unchanged and the others look at each other, clearly not familiar with those names or people.

“I’ve…heard of Whitney, I think. She plays the games right?” Abby asked. You glare at her.

“Yeah.” You say simply.

When the wagon finally arrived and you handed out the weapons to everyone, Abby immediately started assigning roles.

“Okay so um, Cole will stay here and scout the perimeter, guard the exits and the truck, I’ll go with Manny to take out whoever, Owen you can go with Mel to get the supplies.”

“Um okay what am I supposed to do?” You practically spit. She sighs.

“Go with Owen and Mel then I don’t care.”

“Hey fuck that she’s not going with us!” Owen says. Mel hits him playfully.

“Owen..” She says, only pretending to care.

“Isaac assigned me to do stealth take downs because brutes like you have no agility, I’m better off with you.” You tell Abby plainly. She looks at you, annoyed.

“Fuck it, we’ll all cut through that building and we’ll go from there.” She says, and everyone nods, Owen still looking considerably more irritable than the others.

“I’m gonna make sure this rooms clear.” Manny says.

“Oh, I’ll go with you-“ Abby starts to say, but he shakes his head.

“No that’s fine, do you want to go with me?” He asks you. You smile slightly.

“Yes, sure.” You say, feeling quite grateful. You walk through the room and check the benches and cupboard for suppliesf. You find some parts and start using a large item on the edge of a bench to adjust one of your weapons.

“What are you doing?” He asks. You smile cautiously at him.

“I’m refining the scope.” “With just that?”

“Well, yeah.” You explain awkwardly. He chuckles and you turn to face him, confused.

“Well shit, you’re actually smart, huh?”

“Um…I don’t know.” You laugh back. He walks over, examining the weapon more closely.

“You think you can upgrade one of my weapons?” “Sure, which one?”

“My pistol, the recoil on that is shithouse.” You can’t help but laugh.

“I’m sorry ‘shit house?’” You ask, still laughing. He smiles back.

“It is what I say.”

“Let me look at it.” He hands you his gun and you examine it closely, getting some tools out of your pack.

“The hammer spring’s smashed. Here.” You unclip the flashlight from your shirt.

“Aim the light on that part there.” You instruct, and he nods, watching as you replace it. You look around the room and find a mostly in tact glass bottle. You approach it and line it up on the bench.

“Try it now.” You say, and he nods, shooting the bottle from a safe distance.

“Oh shit, that’s heaps better.”

“It’s no problem.” You say, your face feeling rather hot. He lets out a deep breath.

“I know being put with our group isn’t ideal.” He starts. You groan, feeling a pep talk approaching.

“They’ll see how good you are.”

“Oh yeah, how? By doing free weapon upgrades?” You mock. He laughs.

“It’s a good start.”

“Did you know Abby put an entire chilli in my food?” He sighs. “She can be…petty.” Manny explains.

“What did I even do?”

“I don’t know, she seems, and don’t tell her I told you this but…obsessed with you. Ever since you wanted to join our patrol that day she made it her whole personality.”

“Ugh, I know right? ‘Look at that loser’ sounds familiar I’m guessing?”

“Um, not really, she talks about you pretty genuinely. It’s more ‘did you hear she slipped past that massive scar base without alerting them? And “did you see what she was wearing?”

“Mmm of course cause she made me wear her crusty ex boyfriends clothes all day. Did you know Mel accused me of sleeping with, quote unquote “her man” when she saw me in those?” Manny wheezes at this comment.

“They’re quite an intense pair.” He admits.

You two return to the others and your eyes immediately fan to Abby’s body. She’s wearing a sleeveless black top and she was clearly lifting something heavy because there was a light dusting of sweat all the way up her arms. You could also tell because of her veins. Fuck, her veins. Her veins were so visible.

God what is wrong with you? No, what is wrong with her? How dare she look so fucking….fuckable? Only to be a genuine dick AND like men? What a waste.

“There’s a lot of them, but if we split into groups we can take them by surprise. Manny, with me.” Abby instructs. You force yourself out of your daydream when Manny taps you on your shoulder.

“Come.” He says, and you follow them out, staying prone in the grass.

“We’ll need to be stealthy, I can go and you guys can stay here and cover me.” You suggest. Abby scoffs.

“No fucking way.”

“You’ve already seen me do more-“

“We’re not putting you in danger!” Abby says quickly. She anxiously avoids eye contact.

“Of…the mission, I mean. You’ll compromise it easy.”

“Abs, this girl is resourceful. At the first sign of trouble we’ll be there, but let her do what she’s here for.” Manny tries. Abby rolls her eyes and then look into yours for what feels like an eternity.

“First. Sign.” She warns. You nod.

“Thank you.” You say, sneaking out towards the group.

“I don’t fucking like this Manny.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“What? That’s not what- ugh…” She says before accepting her defeat and letting the silence win. She watches you the entire time. The way you skilfully pick off the men who are there is like a work of art and your movements are smoother than silk. You enter one of the buildings where Abby and Manny’s vision of your is corrupted. Manny looks over at Abby and is surprised to be witnessing such panic on her face.

“Are you alright Abs?” He asks. She doesn’t reply.

“Abby?”

“Fuck.” She says, before jumping down out of their spot.

“Abby what the actual fuck-“ He mutters as he climbs down beside her and they scurry into some grass.

“What the fuck are you doing? They’ll see us.” Manny protests. Abbys sighs.

“Oh yeah? Well if she gets shot in there who will be there to get the stuff?”

“No one’s gonna get anything if they shoot US for getting out of cover, Abs.” One of the men holding a large rifle stops, looking around.

“Finn?” A woman asks him. He continues looking around, shining his light through the grass.

“I thought I heard something.” The woman nods.

“Keep your guard up.” She tells him. Abby groans.

“How do we get in the building now??” She whisper-shouts. Manny thinks for a moment.

“I think we need to take them both out.”

“Okay, let’s do it.” They crawl towards the building when, to their dismay, Abby’s foot crunches on some broken glass.

“Fuck-“

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Finn calls, alerting you. You hear several gunshots and consider whether or not you should run towards them. It could be Abby or Manny. No, just stick to your mission, you were almost at the jackpot. Right when you get to the safe you start spinning the dial until you hear Manny’s voice.

“Look out!” More gunshots. They probably had it under control, they’re strong, unstoppable really, and Abby would be enraged if she found out you were right in front of the supplies and went to rescue her instead.

“Abby?” Manny calls, desperately. That did it, you run behind the next cover and dive into the grass to look for her. A man points his gun at her and you quickly shoot him with your silenced gun, grabbing her arm and pulling her into you. She falls over you, pinning you under her and using her arms as support on the grass on either side of your head. You’re startled, feeling her warm breath on your face, seeing her eyes up close.

“Abby what are you doing here?” You demand once you finally find your words again.

“I…we’ll talk about it later, where the fuck are my bullets?” Your face goes numb.

“Um…” You say. She practically yells.

“UGHH WHY?”

“Okay well why are you always a dick to me man?? I didn’t expect you to be taking down an entire camp…if you had just trusted me-“

Abby get’s off of you and you sit up.

“You TOOK my bullets?? Give them back.”

“No.”

“Give. Them back.”

“I used them okay??” Abby grabs you, pulling you so you’re standing. Your heart races as she does this.

“Fine, you’re coming with me, we’re getting more bullets.”

“I found the safe.” You blurt out. Abby stops dragging you, letting out a deep breath and smiling ever so slightly.

“Thank god, did you get the supplies?”

“Um…” Abbys groans again at your response.

“And WHY…not?” She asks. Your face flushes crimson.

“I heard you scream.” You admit. You lower your voice to a whisper so quiet that it’s almost inaudible. “I was worried.” You add. Her face softens.

“Alright, that’s fine, we’ll take them out first and come back to it. Let’s just get these fucking bullets since you feel the need to fuck everything up even though I said before we started-“

“Hey you fucked up too, okay?” Abbys rolls her eyes.

“Irrelevant. Now let’s go.”

You follow her into a room and hear a massive bang sound from behind it, feeling the ground shake as a result.

“Abby…”

“Fuck, we’re locked in aren’t we?”

“Try the door.” You say. She lets out a huff.

“If this doesn’t open I’m never letting you come with me again.”

“You’re so annoying, Abs.” You say, and she turns back from the door to face you.

“I’ve never heard you call me anything other than Abby, asshole or dick.” She states. You smile.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I leave ‘motherfucker’ and ‘ignorant, arrogant asshole’ off the list, Abigail?”

“Abigail?” She asks, and your neck feels hot when you say it. She was right, it did feel unnatural.

“I like that.” Remarks Abby, trying the door handle and coming to the conclusion that you were, indeed, locked in.

“What…your name? You really do have an ego second to none.” “Only when you say it.” She tells you in a manner you haven’t heard before. It was sort of…kind? Or something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

“Abigail? Or Abby?” She smiles wider.

“I think it was part of the roof that fell.” Abbys says and your mind is still lingering on her previous comment.

“What makes you say that?” You question, taking a seat on the floor.

“I saw crack marks on it when we entered and there wasn’t anything else around us that could be blocking the door. No shelves, no fridges, nothing.”

“If it really was part of the ceiling, we’ll never get this door open.”

“Okay, well…see if there’s another way out.” Abby instructs.

“Always so authoritative.” You remark, and she raises an eyebrow with intrigue.

“What was that?” She asks.

“Forget it.” You stand up and look around.

“There’s a small window but it’s really high up, even if you boost me I wouldn’t be able to get up there.

“Fuck. I guess we’re going to have to wait for Manny to clear the rest of them, we’ve already taken out a fair few.”

“Even if Manny does take them all out, how’s he going to find us through all this debris?”

“I- you talk a lot.” Abbys says. God you could hit her.

She sits down now too.

“You’re giving up?” You question. She shrugs.

“We’re gonna be stuck here a while, possibly for the end of our lives, might as well not waste our breath.”

“I’ve always loved your optimism.” You tease, and she looks away to hide her approaching smile.

“Why did you join the WLFS anyway?” She questions after some time. You look over at Abby, confused.

“What happened to wanting me to shut up?”

“Fine.” She replies, grimly. You chuckle softly, taking a seat beside her.

“My last camp was close to a large group of these brutal raiders. My group always believed in each other, thought we were all we ever needed but, it was safer to form allies. We were relocating when we discovered those seraphites you’re so fond of. When we took them out the WLFS thought we were doing them a solid or something, invited us to join the WLFS if Isaac thought us decent enough.”

“Oh. Cool.” She says, lamely. You just smile, letting the quiet fill the room again.

“You’re not gonna ask why I joined?” Abby asked. You can’t help but laugh at this.

“Wow, you are…something else Abigail.” Abby doesn’t say anything, her cheeks becoming a light shade of pink.

“Besides, I know where you’re from. You were in a firefly group at salt lake.”

“I’m sorry, what? How did you-“

“My friend works in the apartments. The walls there are thin.”

“Oh. What…else do you know about me?”

“Practically nothing." You say, thinking a while. "I’ve seen you looking at different coins in the main hall late at night like they’re the prettiest thing you’ll ever see. Do you collect them or something?” Abby, still surprised, nods.

“Yeah, some dumb thing my dad used to do. We collect quarters. Collected.” She corrects. You nod.

“You got them here?” Her face warms up as she grabs her bag, pouring the pile of coins into her hand.

“This one’s from Virginia, 1788. I found these ones around the stadium, this is um, from Alaska, Mane, New Jersey and the last one I found was from Vermont.” She explains in a tone so giddy it makes you want to laugh, but you don’t, you just listen intently.

“You think it’s stupid?”

“I think it’s adorable.” You tease, and in reality, you really did. “My friend, Chloe, collects magazines. She’s got like 500 or something crazy.”

“500?”

“Well…49, but it really does seem like a lot.” You explain, and she laughs gently. Once the laughter dies down, you wrestle with yourself internally. Should you mention it? You really shouldn’t, but what else did you have to lose?

“Abby, why are you so mean to me?” You ask.

“I’m not mean. My pranks are funny.” Abby replies, defensively.

“Are they?” You ask, not looking at her directly. Abby hesitates.

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“So why do you do it?”

“I like harassing you.” She says. You stand up and storm angrily to the other end of the room.

“Fine, be like that.”

“No it’s… my friends.” You don’t turn around, but you stop pacing.

“What?” You order. She sighs.

“My friends and I…only hang out with certain people, you know?”

“Wow….”

“No what, what I mean is they wouldn’t appreciate if I was friends with someone different. People would talk and I didn’t want anything to change so I decided being mean to you was the only way we could talk.”

“Abby that is fucking stupid and petty you actual dick! FUCK I could just…HIT YOU.” Abby snorts at your comment. You sigh.

“Fine, maybe I couldn’t, but I still hate you.”

“Don’t.” “Don’t what, fuckwit?”

“Don’t…hate me. I know it’s shallow but being popular, going to parties, it’s the only fucking distraction I have. I work out or party to avoid sleeping, you know? I’m friends with heaps of people because I’m scared that if my group was small enough, they’d see through…me.” You sigh and walk back to her.

“Who knew Abby Anderson had ‘layers?’ You teased with a small smile. Abby forced a smile too, clearly feeling vulnerable.

“Why wouldn’t they like you? The real you who doesn’t poison peoples food?”

“Oh please it was one chilli, it was good for you!” She defends, her smile becoming increasingly more genuine. You smile back.

“Cause I’m angry…and selfish.” Abby admits. You sit down beside her and put a hand on her leg.

“You just exposed yourself to a group of armed men and women with like 4 bullets in your gun to make sure I wasn’t in trouble. I wouldn’t call that selfish.”

“It was incredibly selfish.” “Why?” You ask, softly. She stands up, turning away from you. You stand up too.

“Abby…?”

“Because I let my feelings get in the way. I could have killed you, or Manny.” You feel a chill over your body and you don’t know whether it’s the temperature or her words.

“What…feelings?” You ask, and she turns around and kisses you harshly on your lips, taking you by surprise and making your hands frail around desperately in that confusion.

“I know about you too.” She says, and you’re breathing heavily, surely in some level of shock.

“I know how much you love animals, how you collect knives and are crafty. You hate spicy food, and olives, you love onions, your favourite colour is purple and you always wear a bit of colour in your hair. You can sing, you can cook, and you constantly impress others, and particularly me. You don’t particularly like reading but you can recite any line from just about any movie and I know that because at movie nights I see you mouthing the words, it’s adorable. You always have your feet up on another chair when sitting in meetings, you always double knot your shoe laces because you suck at tying them and you know what I hate about you?”

You don’t know how to respond, you can’t even think real thoughts at this point, so you just let her answer.

“I hate that you hate me because all I’ve ever wanted was to be your friend.” Abby breathes out. She shakes her head.

“That’s not true, I want to be more than that.” Your mouth is open and your wide eyed, not knowing what to say, or do.

“You were such a dick to me.” You say quietly, your eyes on the floor. Abby nods.

“Let me make it up to you?” She asks. You nod and that’s all it takes before Abby’s lips are crashing on yours again and her tongue is deep inside your mouth, tasting you like she’s been starved for a week. She puts both of her large hands on your face as she does this, moaning into the kiss as the tension from both of your bodies starts to calm.

“Can I? I mean, do you want to?” Abby questions, and you nod with a massive smile on your face.

✨SMUT✨

She tears your shirt off, immediately applying firm pressure on your warm skin with both hands as she explores and familiarises herself with your body. She looks at your tits and the way they sit perfectly in a light blue bra.

“Fuck you’re gorgeous.” She exclaims before unclipping your bra and fondling your breasts.

“So fucking sexy.” She hums, delicately rubbing your nipples between her fingers.

“mmm…What about Manny?” You ask. She shrugs.

“May his survival be long.” She says, lowering herself to the ground and your pants along with her.

“Hmm.” She says, clearly unsatisfied with the current conditions. She stands back up and slams you against the wall, supporting your head with one of her wide hands.

“Suck.” She says, pressing her two middle fingers to your lips. You do so without protest and enjoy the way her long fingers push further into your mouth. She removes them quickly, letting a long string of saliva soak her hand.

She pushes them both inside you with no warning, curling the tips of her fingers and moving your clit with her thumb.

“H….holy fuck~” You cry out. This whole situation was so unexpected. You thought you hated her but now Abbys fingers you were always thinking about were actually inside of you, and it felt fucking unreal.

“This doesn’t make us…mmm~ okay, you realise?” Abby smirks.

“If I make you cum will you forgive me for being a dick?” You thrust slightly into her fingers, letting out a loud moan.

“You were a dick more than once.” You manage to say. She grabs you by the neck and kisses you deeply, still playing with you using her fingers.

“Challenge accepted.” She starts practically slamming her fingers inside you, watching you squirm and cry out.

“A…abby-“ “It’s okay, my girls doing good, you can take it.”

“Hurts…” “Just a little longer for me baby.” Abby coos, not letting up her speed. She starts kissing and sucking on your neck as hard as she fucking can, tasting you, admiring you.

“Abby…I’m…gonna….”

“You’re gonna cum already? Aw, alright, show me how good it feels.”

“It f…mmm…”

“I said show me baby.” She says, putting in a third finger.

“MMM!” You cry and she puts her other hand in your mouth, letting you suck it eagerly again. Slowing down ever so slightly, she takes her hand out of your mouth.

“Take a deep breath for me.” Abby instructs, her face riddled with focus. You blush, your eyes struggling to stay open.

“Wh…why?” She whispers a safe word in your ear.

“You say this if its too much okay?” You nod and she forces a fourth finger inside you.

“H…holy…Abby…”

“You’re doing so good baby.”

“I feel so full…don’t….don’t-“

“I know you can take it, look how easily my fingers can slide inside you, you can fit one more for me can’t you?”

“Mmm….mmm…hurts.”

“Say the safe word then.” You finally look at her, still blushing and she chuckles smugly.

“You won’t will you? You want it to hurt, you want your pussy filled with me you’re just too afraid to ask. Admit it.”

“…No.” You try. God, it doesn’t even sound real to you. She just laughs.

“Try again or I’ll stop.”

“Fuck, fuck yes I like it…I like it rough, I want it to hurt just- please don’t stop.” You blurt out, wrapping your arms around her neck to support yourself. She nods and slowly eases her fist into you, making you moan.

“Fuckkkkk, fuck Abigail….” “See? I knew you could do it.” “Fuck….mmm…you..” You stutter. She smiles.

“Fuck me yourself, coward.” Heat swells inside your stomach and slick starts leaking down your thighs and fuck, Abbys never been more turned on in her life. She gets on her knees and licks it eagerly, sucking at your inner thighs and then your pussy.

“Tastes so good.” Abby mumbles between your thighs, moaning as she tongues between your folds. You let out a whimper as she sucks sloppily at your cunt.

Your hand grabs onto her hair, pulling her head in more and practically riding her face.

“Mmm, so…so…” Is all you can manage. She keeps going, using her mouth and fingers at the same time.

“Fuck…fuck….cumming…cu-“ You cry out as you shut your eyes tightly. When Abby returns to your height, her face is glistening. You blush brightly.

“I…um.” You say. She grabs your chin to open your mouth and kisses you passionately, moving her head around to make sure her tongue explores every angle before taking a breath.

“You taste…fuck….” Abby says, grabbing you and pushing you onto the floor.

“Take off your clothes.” You tell her. She smiles, smugly.

“Where’d your manners go?”

“I thought you weren’t gonna be a dick anymore.” You huff. She smiles brightly at you.

“Mmm, that’s right. Wait here then.” She says, walking over to her bag and taking out a black strap. It’s over 6 inches for sure, you guess 7 or 8. You’re not sure what to think.

“I guess that whole ‘I know your favourite colour’ speech was bullshit then. Do you expect to fuck all girls you take on patrol?” You ask, bitterly. She puts her large hand on your cheek, rubbing her thumb over your skin delicately.

“You’re so precious. It’s not…for fucking. I never know how long I’m gonna be stranded somewhere so…I use it. On myself.” She explains. You can’t help but laugh.

“Shut up.” She says, hiding her own smile.

“Aw, can’t handle a patrol without your vibrator, huh? Do you get all tense?”

“Shut. Up.”

“You’re all talk, I bet no one’s ever made you cum, right? That’s why you need this pretty piece of plastic?” You question, not sure where this sudden confidence boost is coming from. Abby blushes.

“I’m gonna make you shut up soon.” She warns. You smirk.

“How many women have you been with?” You ask her. She gives you a death glare.

“Ah, so none.”

“Shut the fuck up. I can still fuck you better than you’ll ever be fucked and that attitude will go along with your ability to walk.”

“Soo defensive.” You tease. She grabs your hands, pinning them down roughly.

“You’re not gonna be this chatty in a second.” She says, letting go of your hands and putting the strap on. You use this break to push all your body strength onto her and start unzipping her pants.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” She laughs, pinning you back down effortlessly. You roll your eyes.

“Please will you just let me taste you…”

“After that little display?” Abby just laughs, taking her shirt off and using it to bind your hands together tightly.

“My fucking girl.” Abby grumbles, and it sounds almost like an order. She towers over you, grabbing onto your jaw with one hand.

“Open your mouth.” Abby orders. You consider putting up a fight, but she’s so intimidating and strong, you don’t know what she’d do. Maybe that excited you more, but you didn’t want to push your luck right now. Your mouth parts obediently and she guides almost the entire strap in your mouth, not giving a fuck whether you gag on it or not.

“Remember who you belong to when you’re gagging on my dick, baby. I don’t take kindly to people who provoke me.” You just whimper as your saliva completely covers the strap. She doesn’t stop though, not for a few more minutes of your precious sounds. She holds your hair as you suck it and already this is one of the best things either of you had experienced. It made you forget about how hard, cold and potentially dirty the floor was. It made you in particular forget how many times Abby had acted so pathetic and childish when it turns out all she wanted was to be something for you. And even though it was still in your mind, it made the reality that Manny could be in danger seem like a distant memory.

She finally removed the strap from your mouth and forcefully pulled open your legs, thrusting into you slowly. “Mmmm….” You moan, lowly. She watches as it goes in and you can tell it made her wet too. She continues at that painfully slow pace, holding your pinned arms as she does so.

“Abby…don’t be a- oh fuck- a tease…” You say, desperately. She smirks again.

“So eager. If you can manage to be completely quiet, I’ll take my shirt off for you, okay?” She asks. You look away, nervously. This is what you had imagined whenever you passed the gym and saw her use her tank top to wipe sweat from her face. You’d see the men around her take off their shirts to work out and at that moment and that moment only, you had wished she was a man just so she could do the same. Another part of you didn’t want anyone else to see a shirtless Abby, though. Yes you would much prefer the private showing she was offering you. Fuck, you’d do anything to see it. When you’d pass her apartment and hear the shower run, your mind would go crazy. You wondered if it would live up to your fantasies.

“M’ I to take your silence as a yes, gorgeous?” You nod enthusiastically and she starts increasing her pace, then, seeing how well you handled that, her pressure as well. Fuck, that had almost got you. You loved how rough she could be with you because you knew she’d balance it perfectly. She’d never hurt you, she had proven that.

“Wow, look how good you can be.” You don’t say anything, but you would let out a desperate squeak at her praise. She thrust harder and you wanted to scream, biting your lip to stop yourself.

“You did so good for me, baby.” She says, slowing down slightly but not stopping as she takes off her shirt. You gape at the sight of her glistening chest in a pretty, pale bra. Fuck…you’d do anything to have her tits in your mouth, to have your hands free and play with them, to treasure them like fucking artefacts.

“Like what you see?” She asks. You whimper in response and she lets out a light chuckle.

“Mmm, I’ll take that as a yes. You almost there, baby?”

“Fuck…yes Abby I’m close…please will you take off the binds?” And for a moment, it seemed like Abby was considering it before she thrust more aggressively and put a hand over your neck, being cautious about how tight she squeezed.

“You’re precious.” Is how she replies, and you would hit her…if you could.

Soon, the heat between you two was growing, leaking onto the floor and each others thighs, not knowing what liquids were what and who’s belonged to who. You were so fucking close. You wanted to grip on to Abbys hair or biceps. Maybe in some other perfect world or one where the woman fucking you wasn’t Abby Anderson. Abby could tell you were close, she could see it on your face, feel it in your body and hear it in your voice. Fuck, she was becoming more in love with you at every moment.

“You gonna cum for me baby?”

“Fuck…fuck please…please can I?” She smiles so wide you were worried her face was gonna stretch. She loved hearing you beg, hearing you make sounds at all that only her ears would be blessed with,.

“Mhm.” Abby agrees, and with her permission you allow your eyes to roll back. Your legs shake ever so slightly as your glowing slick illuminates the strap and Abby’s thighs. Unlike how she had treated you before, she pulls out so gently, untying the strap from behind and pulling you in towards her so your body is against her.

She strokes your hair while hugging you still and you don’t know why it’s the most comforting thing you’ve ever felt, but you don’t complain.

“You listened so well baby. Made me feel real good.” Abby babbled. You look away, nervously and Abby picked up on your shift instantly.

“What?” She asked, softly. You sigh.

“I wanted to…” Your words trail off. Abby nods understandingly.

“Oh. You still want to do that?” She asked, and you nod your head eagerly.

“Please Abby?” You beg. She nods again.

“Only because you were so good.” She says, untying her shirt from your hands and leaning back on her elbows.

“Go on then, take what you want.” She says with another one of her signature smirks. You practically leapt to the chance, removing her bra with the flick of one hand. You immediately start licking and sucking at her tits, leaving adorable bruises in your wake. Abby gives you a warning look and you know she won’t allow it much longer, so you quickly position your head between her thighs. Her muscular, large fucking thighs, you might add.

“Can I suck it through the boxers?” You question, looking up at Abby with doe eyes. She smiles comfortingly.

“Sure.” She says, still not expecting to feel any real pleasure. That is until you suck at the lowest part of the fabric, making her pool in your mouth and drench her boxers.

“I…mmph~” The unexpected and beautiful noise leaves Abbys lips, making you want to explore more of her. You lick a trail up her concealed folds all the way up to her clit which you start drawing vicious circles over.

“F….fuck how are you- fuck….” Abby cries. She’s on the verge of orgasm already, you didn’t expect Abby of all people to be the kind of person to cum too fast, but you’re delighted to have something to tease her about later. You finally remove the boxers right before she cums and you put your tongue deep inside her. Then, you return to her clit and put your fingers inside her hole instead.

“Mmmmm.” Abby’s pornographic moan should be recorded, transformed into a vile and put straight into your lungs. And then, just like that, she’s coming, her pretty pink pussy pulsing under your tongue.

You go back up to face her.

“I knew no one had touched you like that.” You remarked. She rolled her eyes playfully. “Whatever.” Abby said, pulling you in for a tighter hug and kissing your cheek.

“Wanna go again?” Abby asked, only somewhat joking. That was until Manny’s voice echoed outside of the building they were stuck in.

“ABBY???” He yelled. He called your name too and you both quickly scrambled to put at least your shirts on. She boosts you up so you can see out the window.

“We’re in here!” You call to him. He lets out a relieved breath.

“Thank god I found you, you guys must have been so scared.” You turn over to Abby who’s watching the situation unfold with amusement.

“Yeah.” Abby calls out as loud to be audible to Manny. “We were terrified.”

#abby anderson #abby tlou #tlou2 #abby x reader #smut #18+ content #abby x fem!reader #ellie williams #ellie williams 18+

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astrobydalia · 3 months

Text

Astro knowledge

A short more educational post for y'all!

work by astrobydalia

Pisces/Neptune rules marketing while Gemini/Mercury is more about sales. They’re both deeply related but difference is Gemini is the salesman that appeals to your reason and resorts to mind games (Mercury) in a one-on-one to convince you why you should buy into something. Marketing on the other hand is ruled by Pisces because it appeals to the collective unconscious (Neptune). It’s all about crafting subliminal messages that make you see that product/idea as more appealing even when you know what you're seeing is not realistic. Very related to propaganda as well. This is also a field that requires a lot of creativity, they're constantly using metaphors, hyperboles or even making up little fictional stories to sell a product...

I've already said this but for anyone new, the planet that rules real love is moon not Venus. See the full explanation here

Where Sagittarius is in your chart will bring luck and happiness, but Taurus does give off expansive (or dare I say expensive) energy too. Where Taurus sits in your chart is an area of your life that will be more grandiose in nature cause Taurus rules over indulgence and pleasure. You could experience some sort of privilege when it comes to this house, the themes of this house come to you in abundance with little to no effort. Some examples:

Taurus 1st house: have a striking and bold appearance, gives off luxury and attractive vibes regardless of their looks. These people could come across as a "high value woman/man" without trying

Taurus 7th house: very active and abundant love life, lots of suitors and business partners landing on your lab, they want to provide for you and/or give you lucrative opportunities

Taurus 9th house: having access to high quality education or elevated knowledge. Probably attended a very exclusive or expensive collage, payed vacations vibes, easy and frequent relocations

Taurus 10th house: almost untouchable reputation, very respected and liked by others, is always seen as innocent or harmless, lots of success with their ventures

The 2nd house also talks about your roots and upbringing but in a more objective and material sense. This house and the position of its ruler can be very telling of how your actual social and economic context shaped your basic values. It can also talk about your house as the 2nd house rules over real state, lands, properties, etc. The 4th house is more about your home, how you were raised within that reality and how it impacted you emotionally at your core

Example: Libra risings could come from an environment that shaped their values around survival and money gains due to Scorpio 2nd house (I've seen very commonly they come from marginalized groups or humble beginnings or very financially competitive environments). So they have a family that is very demanding and expected them to work or be a boss from a young age (Capricorn 4th house)

Speaking of, 2nd house does not ONLY rule money!!! It rules RESOURCES and anything that you own that is highly valuable and you can put a price on!!!! And yes of course since these things are valuable they can be easily monetized, traded, used to make you money. This can be your skills, assets, real state, etc. The 2nd house is your piggy bank basically

There's a lot of talk about how 11th house is how you make money in your career while 2nd house is how you spend it. Well this is technically true but I'd like to add more explanation to this. In derivative astrology 11th house is 2nd (money) from the 10th (career) so it does show how you actually make money from your career. 2nd house is where you get money but 11th house is how you make money. Your 11th house is the multiplier (credits to @cosmicpuzzle for that fact) while 2nd house is where your financial stability lies on. In other words 11th house is indicative of how you generate more but 2nd house is all about what you already have, its about what you can make with what you OWN already, it deals with money that is already available through your resources' value (again, you piggy bank). This does 'make' you money in a way like if you lose your job and are lacking money your 2nd house where you turn to for example if you own a house you can rent it, you can buy a rare item that costs a lot, selling your art or any other natural skill, etc. The concept of value is important in this house bc it can increase or decrease (while 11th house increases and multiplies). The more valuable your resources are the more potential money you have available which means more financial stability and wealth. Anyways hope all that makes sense

We often refer to water signs when talking spirituality but truth is fire signs are very spiritual in nature as well. Fire symbolizes the spark of life itself, nothing could exist or be created without it. Aries deals with the basic ontological conception of 'I am, I exist', Leo is about how the self manifests and create itself and Sagittarius is about the purpose of the self. Living beings need heat to thrive/live and just like fire radiates heat your spirit radiates energy, creativity, passion, action, inspiration, purpose... and that's what fire signs represent. I'd say fire represents the fundamentality of spirit while water is more about the complexity of inner world.

Just like Aries is the "natural" ASC for a birth chart, Libra is the natural ASC for a composite chart cause a birth chart represents the chart of an individual (Aries) while composite represents the mutual relationship between two people (Libra)

When you develop the themes of a certain house in a healthy manner, you naturally start attracting the themes of the opposite house. This goes to show you that things in astrology aren't as compartmentalized as they seem, everything works together in certain way SPECIALLY axis'. Examples:

You need to focus on yourself first (1st house) to find the right partner (7th house)

You need to investigate and learn (3rd house) in order to find higher answers (9th house)

When you invest successfully (8th house) you earn more available resources (2nd house).

When you develop your hobbies and individuality (5th house) you find keen people (11th house)

When you heal spiritually (12th house) you find healthier habits (6th house)

There's this misconception that you have to disregard your South Node in order to develop you NN, but the thing is the SN is the starting point that can lead you towards developing your NN. This can happen as a harsh and painful lesson tho if you liger too much on your SN. For example NN in Libra need to learn to compromise in this life, there's a lot of focus on the self and independence, but eventually this placement teaches them that if you really wanna develop yourself in full potential (Aries) eventually you'll need others (Libra). If they linger too much on Aries SN they could experience a harsh lesson that forces them to count on others

work by astrobydalia

#astrology #astro #astro observations #astro notes #zodiac #birth chart #astrobydalia #astrology observations

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