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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

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April Contest Submission #30: Break Me Off

Words: ca. 3,000 Setting: mAU Lemon: no CW: none

“Can I try yours?”

Elsa’s head snapped up from the book she was reading to look to her left. Her baby sister was looking expectantly, her small hand outstretched and waiting expectantly, fingers wiggling in a grabby motion.

“Sure,” she answered with a smile, and passed her barely started dark chocolate KitKat on to Anna. “I don’t think you’ll like it though.”

Anna ignored that statement and immediately put the candy bar in her ‘some teeth missing transition period’ mouth, and bit off a sizable chunk. She chewed for a few seconds before her chocolate-covered lips twisted in a grimace, and she threw the KitKat back in Elsa’s lap.

“Ewww,” she said once she finally swallowed the bite (she at least had the decency to not spit it out like she used to a few years ago, something Elsa could bet would drive their father nuts if she did it in the new car), then gave Elsa the dirtiest look ever. “It’s so bitter! Why are you doing this to yourself…”

The last words were said with an overly-dramatic flair as Anna put her hand up to her forehead and pretended to faint like an old-timey movie lady on an ottoman. Which would work much better if she wasn’t stopped by the seat belt.

“It’s not that bitter to me.” Elsa shrugged as she picked up the discarded KitKat and continued to eat it as if nothing ever mattered. “You just still have a baby palate,” she said around a mouthful.

Anna blew her a raspberry, and her gaze dropped to Elsa’s book. “Whatcha reading anyway?”

Elsa swallowed the KitKat. “Harry Potter.” She flipped the cover to show it to Anna, who immediately started tracing and mouthing the letters of the title. “The fifth part comes out next week, so I wanted to re-read it before then.”

“Can you read it to me?”

“Later,” she lowered her voice and glanced in the rear-view mirror at their father’s concentrated face. It wasn’t the best idea to read–and have Anna interrupt with her loud comments–while he was driving. “When we’re settled at the hotel, I’ll read some to you.”

+++

“Hey,” Anna whispered, leaning over the wide armrest so she could reach Elsa’s ear. “You wanna try a bite of mine?”

She offered her the obnoxiously white KitKat, and Elsa immediately took it, as if its glow-in-the-dark properties could be seen by the row behind them. Without thinking much, she chomped down on the half-eaten candy bar. The overwhelming sweetness exploded in her mouth and seemed to coat her tongue with a thick, fatty film.

“You like it?” Anna whispered again, absolutely disinterested in the screen, her eyes locked square on Elsa’s face. “It’s kinda sweet, but I think I dig the white chocolate.”

Fighting through the nausea, Elsa finally managed to push the saccharine mush down her throat. “It’s absolutely disgusting,” she whispered back, then chuckled at Anna’s betrayed face. “I can see why you’d like it.”

Anna opened her mouth to say something (presumably snarky, she was hitting that age) in return, but an angry shhh came up from behind them. Elsa glanced at the people sitting in the back row and mouthed a sorry.

She turned back to the screen and tried to catch up on what she’d missed from the movie. So far The Goblet of Fire was proving to be worse than the previous parts, but she still wanted to know how they managed to work out the lake task of the Triwizard–

When Anna opened her mouth again just a few seconds later, Elsa stuck the white chocolate KitKat in it.

+++

“Hey, tradition!” Anna screamed suddenly as Elsa unwrapped her finals-study-motivation KitKat, almost making her drop it. “Lemme try!”

Elsa blinked. This was just the dark chocolate variety, one that she was sure she’d already let Anna try at some point in her life.

“You already–” But before she could finish, Anna’s shark jaws locked around the still barely unwrapped candy bar in Elsa’s hand with a loud crunch.

She munched for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face as she was considering the flavor. It quickly gave way to a disgusted scowl.

“Ew,” she said with a fake gag. “It’s as bad as I remembered.”

So Elsa did let her try it before. She rolled her eyes and half-heartedly swatted Anna away.

With a devious snicker and a hurried good luck with the exam!, Anna skipped out of the room and left her alone to study.

Elsa shook her head and finally returned her attention to her long-awaited snack award.

For some reason, the sight of Anna’s glitter lip gloss on the dark chocolate made her stomach twist.

+++

KitKats turned out to be the best way to go through her finals that year, and the next semester, and the next next semester, putting in the required fuel, feeling of accomplishment and the calories missing from not having time to eat proper meals.

It was also one of her little pleasures to find and test new flavors, especially those not available locally. It was Anna’s little pleasure to never say she wanted to order some for herself, and instead take bites off of Elsa’s, ‘just in case I don’t like it and don’t wanna finish!’

And over time it was one of Elsa’s little pleasures to look at the print of Anna’s lips on the chocolate and tenderly place hers on top to match the shape.

That little pleasure turned into a major curse when she realized she was daydreaming about placing her lips on Anna’s directly.

From then on, she would only buy the 4 finger breakable Kits.

+++

“I don’t really like this one,” Anna said around a mouthful of the Ruby cocoa KitKat. “It looks super cute, but it just tastes kinda waxy.”

Elsa shrugged. “Honestly, it’s just like the regular, but pink.”

“No, it’s different.” There was no point arguing with Anna on that. While Elsa preferred to try out new flavors, Anna has always been a hardcore true fan and real connoisseur of the regular Kit, so all she could do was to believe the expert. The currently pouting, cutely irritated expert. “Do you wanna finish mine?”

Elsa’s blood froze.

The whole point of the 4 finger Kits (which she personally considered inferior as the ratio of chocolate to wafer was just not quite on par with the single stick) was to not kiss Anna by proxy. Is what she came to call it.

But Anna was holding out the pink KitKat with a darker pink lip gloss outline in her direction, looking at her expectantly.

“N-no, I’m fine,” she answered a little too quickly and in a little too nervous of a voice. “I don’t really like it either,” she lied.

Anna’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said it tastes like the regular to you.”

Elsa could feel herself sweat. Damn, the stupid act of sharing a KitKat, something they’ve done since they were little kids was making her sweat.

Probably precisely because they’ve been doing this since they were little kids. Growing up together. Being sisters. Who should not want to kiss each other, yet there Elsa was, looking away from Anna’s perfect cupid bow glossy lips like a teenager (which she was definitely not anymore, on the final stretch to obtaining her bachelor degree) in love.

Her own lower lip felt numb from biting down on it. Fuck, she was in love.

“Yeah, but you’re right,” she said, mouth dry. She was in love and she was just now realizing this because of a stupid Ruby KitKat. “It is waxy.” Stupidly good Ruby KitKat that she was going to deny herself because her sister’s lips touched it and she would burn in hell if hers did too. “Just toss it out.”

Anna’s face looked like she just told her she actually was planning to vote on Trump for the pure fun of it, but she didn’t say anything.

+++

“Hey, I’m just about to head out– oh is that a new one?”

Elsa almost dropped the half eaten candy bar on the floor. She was not expecting Anna to come in her room any time soon, and like the true disgusting goblin she was, she decided to partake in her secret stash of imported KitKats.

Her dirty little secret stash of single stick KitKats that she couldn’t find in 4 finger format, and thus could not ever, ever let Anna know about because even if she ordered two pieces of each kind Anna would refuse to try an entire bar on her own.

‘I mean, what’s the fun in that? Half of the joy of KitKats is sharing!’

Not really seeing any way out of that, Elsa admitted defeat. “…Yes.”

“Oh, cool!” Anna bounced over excitedly to drop down on the bed next to her. “Oooh, white chocolate and peach? So fancy! Is it from Japan? It looks about the size of the Japanese ones I saw online…”

Her pure, genuine excitement only made Elsa feel even worse about hiding in her room like Gollum with his ring. Then, right as she was reaching for Elsa’s KitKat, Anna’s face and hand suddenly dropped.

“Wait…”

Elsa gulped.

“…you… you were going to eat it without me, weren’t you?”

She focused on the pattern of her carpet.

“Oh my god, Elsa! You stinker!” Anna sounded full-on betrayed, and Elsa could honestly not blame her for that. “I thought KitKats were our thing!”

Elsa blushed, for many different reasons. “I-it’s not like that,” she started explaining herself, fully aware of how pathetic she sounded. “It’s just cause you never want a full KitKat of a new flavor and I couldn’t find them in the sharing format–”

“So? I didn’t know we were suddenly only allowed to share the break-apart ones.”

Elsa sighed. Right, to Anna it didn’t make any sense, because Anna was a normal person who didn’t fantasize about kissing her sister. Or flustered about indirectly kissing her. “I-it’s just easier to portion…”

“I’m pretty good at portioning a bite, thank you very much.” She still sounded a little miffed, but she did smile towards the end– right before her eyes turned very round and glistening. “Did you eat many without me?”

Holy shit, she was looking like the pleading emoji and Elsa was at her wit’s end. “No!” she denied quickly and truthfully. “I-I bought more, but this was the first one I was going to try…”

Anna crossed her arms.

“Aaand now that you know about it I guess there’s no point hiding,” Elsa continued sheepishly. “I’ll uh– I’ll go to the kitchen and cut you off a piece.”

She stood up quickly, holding the KitKat like a relay sprinter holds the baton, clinging on for dear life with the prospect of glory and escaping the rivals, or in this case escaping her sister before she could–

“Wait.” Anna’s hand was on her wrist and Elsa almost yelped. The rivals outran her and the finish line was nowhere in sight as she fell on her knees, defeated, and only metaphorically speaking as in real life she was just standing stiff in her place. “What? Just let me take a bite, it’s easier–”

“N-no,” she interrupted quickly, trying to pry the wrist away from Anna’s surprisingly strong grip. “Cause, uh– umm, that way I can make sure to cut in the middle and give you a fair share.”

Yes, that was a splendid save.

“I just want a bite, I’m not sure if I would like a whole half.” And a gloriously crushing response from the opponent. “Just let me–”

Her peach pink lip gloss would look amazingly fitting on the white chocolate and peach KitKat. Or on Elsa’s lips. Applied with her lips. On her lips. Kissing–

“No!” She yanked her hand away. Anna’s eyebrows shot up in shock, and Elsa realized she yelled that very loudly, even though she was mostly responding to her own dirty little secret thoughts. “I mean– I don’t wanna…”

What? What was she supposed to say to get out of this? There was literally no logical reason she could not be wanting to simply share the KitKat like they used to for so many years, aside from the obvious plague that was currently rotting her mind, but she could not tell Anna that–

“…are you disgusted by me?”

She said it in such a small voice, looking up from where she was sitting on Elsa’s bed with hands folded neatly in her lap, her big teal eyes glazed with a sheet of tears and Elsa’s heart broke into a thousand shards.

“Oh god, no!” Her hands moved on their own to grab Anna and pull her into a hug, but she stopped herself on the way, now with her hands awkwardly hovering at Anna’s eye level. “Why… no, I’m so sorry you would even think that, I–”

“Then what is it, Elsa?”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck shit fuck what was she–

“Just say it,” she damn near sobbed. “Out loud.”

“Your lip gloss,” she said in a flat voice, grasping at straws to not lie, but also not tell the truths. “It stays on the KitKat when you bite it.”

Anna’s eyes went wider. “You don’t like my lip gloss?”

Why the fuck was she sounding this hurt by the idea? “No, I–”

“I thought you said it looks good…”

“It does!” She could clearly feel herself getting flustered. “I like it, and it looks very good on your li– on you. Really good.” God, was she sounding as borderline creepy to Anna as she did to herself? “B-but it leaves a– a stencil of your lips on the…”

She trailed off, not really sure how to get out of the corner she just talked herself into.

Anna gave her a puzzled look. “So you don’t like… my lips?”

“No!” Jesus why was communication so difficult and why was the room so hot and why was Anna looking at her like this? “I love them. Like! I like them. I like. Them. Your lips. Like them.”

If Anna got up and called the ambulance right now because ‘my sister is having a stroke!’ Elsa would find it completely justified.

“Ookay…” Anna said slowly, not reaching for the phone, and instead continuing to try to read Elsa’s face (but what she could potentially read was that inside Elsa’s head there was a wind-up monkey puppet playing the cymbal, and nothing much beside that.) “So what is the problem?”

Elsa mumbled in response.

“I’m sorry?”

“It feels like we’re kissing,” she said weakly, absolutely giving up on her hopes and dreams in that instance. “When I bite the KitKat.”

Anna blinked at her. “That’s it?”

Elsa nodded.

“I mean, that’s all?”

It was Elsa’s turn to wear a confused expression.

“You’ve been getting only breakable KitKats for a year just so you could share with me without feeling like this?”

Elsa nodded again, albeit cautiously. She had no idea where Anna was going with this.

“And denying yourself flavors that don’t exist in that format so that I wouldn’t feel left out?”

Nod again.

“I’m sorry.”

Record scratch. “What? No, why are you sorry?”

“Because you were feeling uncomfortable because of me?”

“No, I– I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable knowing I want to kiss you.”

Wait, no– oh no no no no holy fuck no backtrack backtrack backtrack–

Her stomach sunk. There was no way to backtrack.

Red alert, escape the room.

Anna caught her hips before she could dash for the door and spun her around to face her again, this time meeting her at eye level. She reached for Elsa’s hand–which was currently hanging limply at her side, and still holding the goddamned half-eaten KitKat–and clasped it gently in hers, then brought it up until it was between them, right in front of Elsa’s mouth.

The scent of peach and white chocolate hit her before her brain registered the development.

“Bite,” Anna said softly, but with demand. “And hold.”

Elsa’s mouth opened on its own as her sister pushed the KitKat in, and obediently she clamped her teeth down on it–just enough to break the chocolate layer, but not all the way through.

She stood there patiently with the candy bar sticking out of her mouth, watching Anna remove the remaining wrapper as if her body was not hers to steer, as if she was just a passive observer as her mind was struggling to pick the pieces of what her sister was doing without going for what she really wanted Anna to be doing in her heart of hearts.

Once the wrapper was off, Anna climbed on her tiptoes and– Elsa could swear she saw her smirk right before the free end of the KitKat disappeared in Anna’s mouth, slowly, until their lips finally touched.

Their lips touched.

She was kissing her sister.

She was kissing her sister around a fucking candy bar.

And in just a few heartbeats she heard the tell-tale, trademark KitKat crunch as Anna’s teeth broke through the wafer, and with a final brush of her glossed lips she was off, leaving behind only a chunk of white chocolate and peach mousse in Elsa’s numb, speechless mouth.

“It looks good on you too,” Anna said with her mouth still full and gaze dashing between Elsa’s lips and eyes. “Bet it would be even better without the melted chocolate.” She swallowed down her bite, and let out a satisfied hum. “Mm, I like this one. Funny how the flavors work together so well… chew, Elsa.”

She brought her hand up to Elsa’s chin and pressed on it, and Elsa mechanically picked up the chewing motion, earning a delighted smile from her sister.

Anna glanced down at her watch. “Well, I gotta go. The sea and beach won’t run away, but my friends just might if I keep them waiting any longer.” She placed a soft, sticky kiss on Elsa’s boiling hot cheek. “But I’m really looking forward to trying the other flavors you got.”

With a wink, she pushed past her and out the door, leaving Elsa to deal with the lump (of KitKat) in her throat.

#elsanna #submission #April 2021 contest #prompt: break

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riarushi · 5 years

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mark as your badminton partner.

❥ genre- fem!reader, fluff, friends to lovers, idk sports?

❥ word count- 3.3k

I've wanted to do this for so long :') I play badminton myself and have been training for 2 years, so when I started stanning NCT and saw that Mark liked badminton I was super happy. I know this is my second Mark piece but anyways, please enjoy it! ~Ness

ミ☆

You got partnered with Mark at the beginning of the season.

You coach wanted to try rearranging the lineup, so he put his favourite singles players together as a mixed doubles team.

So now you and Mark are partners.

It wasn’t like you didn’t know him, though.

There were times when you warmed up with him.

From those, you picked up a bit of his playing style.

He was a little bit playful and ambitious, preferring quick attacks like smashes and kills.

Although his judgement wasn’t always the best.

Sometimes, he would hit the net and laugh nervously as he went to pick up the birdie.

You, on the other hand, were a little more cautious.

Every move you made was calculated in some way.

The angle of your birdie, the position of your opponent, you position, etc.

There was always something that determined your next move.

That contrast made you and Mark the perfect mixed doubles team.

However, the first few practices didn’t reflect that.

Neither of you were used to having another person on court.

You would constantly bump into him at the center.

He even hit you with his racket a few times.

“Sorry! Sorry! I forgot to look in front of me, haha...”

Mark massages the back of your head, handing you your water bottle with his free hand.

You smile, and take the water as Mark removes his hand from your head.

“It’s fine, we’re still getting used to this.”

The two of you return to the court after hearing your coach shouting.

You definitely weren’t as skilled as the previous mixed doubles team.

After playing with them for a while, you and Mark couldn’t even score 10 points.

They each came to give their tips and to their respective opponent.

“It’s not that you two aren’t a good pair, in fact your play styles are matched perfectly,” the girl previously in your position explained.

“My net shots aren’t as good as yours.” You laughed tapping your racket against the side of your leg.

“Oh, it’s not that! You guys just need to bond a little. Makes the teamwork better, ya feel?”

You nodded.

“I hung out with that idiot a whole bunch once we were partnered.” She pointed at the guy currently joking around with Mark. “If I didn’t I think playing badminton with him would’ve been way too awkward.”

ミ☆

Taking your predecessor’s advice, you ask your partner to join you for dinner after practice.

“Mark, do you wanna grab something to eat?”

He looks up from his bag, eyes staring into yours.

“Sure, if you want. I don’t have anything to do anyways.”

You settle for a small restaurant.

Nothing fancy, but a place where you can sit and chat comfortably.

You learn quite a lot about him that you never knew before.

He had a passion for music, he disliked sciences, and he had a huge friend group that he shared a house with.

In return, you told him lots about yourself.

Your interests, your friends and family, and some funny life stories.

When the food arrived and you couldn’t finish, he helped you eat the rest.

He’s a growing boy still.

By the end of the night, it felt like you had already become pretty close.

“So that’s why your racket grips are always green?” you ask, laughing as he bounces his bag higher onto his shoulders.

“Look, my friends are ridiculous. I can never buy rackets myself ‘cause they know I’ll try to get a different colour!” he whines.

“It’s kinda cute that you guys have a squad colour, though~”

“Nooo, I want a blue grip or something! Anything other than green! It’s so embarrassing when they come to tournaments..”

ミ☆

You thought it was an exaggeration, but Mark wasn’t kidding when he said they were embarrassing at tournaments.

The famed Jaehyun, Johnny, and Donghyuck from the stories were all hooting loudly as you two stood on court for your first game together.

You had met them formally prior to the match.

Although they acted polite towards you, you could hear them teasing Mark the second you turned around.

“So when are you guys gonna make it official?”

“Dude, we’re literally just badminton partners.”

“Hey, you never know.”

“It won’t happen!”

You couldn’t help but stifle a giggle as Mark’s friends continued to push the idea.

It really helped relieve the stress you had for your first match.

Here you are, on court with your partner getting ready to serve.

It’s nerve-wracking.

As soon as the birdie goes over the net, your mind switches to game mode.

There are more variables than you’re used to, since two more people had been added to your usual setup.

Not to mention the court was bigger.

Just like in practice, you and Mark bump into each other a few times.

He still wasn’t used to covering you if you went back, either.

Formations a little messy, the two of you lose your first set by quite a bit.

Your coach comes over to give his advice before the next set.

“What do you think went wrong there?”

You and Mark look at each other, unsure of what to say.

“Both of you can do better than that. Your formations were fine last practice, what’s up here?”

When he doesn’t get a response, your coach sighs. “Talk it out with each other.”

He leaves the two of you staring at each other.

“So, um...” Mark starts, spinning his racket in between his fingers.

You let out a little laugh. “I’m just a little nervous, sorry.”

“Don’t be nervous! You were doing great,” he comforted. “Did you see that kill you did near the end? I could never do that.”

“Oh, really? I think that smash you did to the front right was just as good.”

He smiles at your compliment and readies himself for the next set.

Although you lost the game, you and Mark definitely improved during the second set, only losing by 2 points.

You high-fived each other after the last point before returning to Mark’s screaming friends.

“HOW COULD YOU LOSE? YOU WERE USING YOUR LUCKY RACKET!”

“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO CHOSE THIS ONE, I’VE NEVER EVEN PLAYED WITH IT BEFORE.”

ミ☆

Since that tournament, you and Mark have been training more and more.

Your skills have been going up quite quickly, actually.

The two of you never bump into each other, and Mark instinctively covers whatever you can’t.

You’re starting to finally become a solid doubles team :’)

Your friendship has been growing stronger as well.

Both of you always eat dinner together after practice.

Though you’ve eaten at a couple of restaurants with him, the first one you went to remains superior.

Mark agrees.

There’s a lot more that you to about with each other, too.

You two feel more comfortable sharing more personal things, like your opinions on other teams and your friends.

Truly a close bond uwu

Of course, this reflects with your improved teamwork as well.

Your coach is happy that he doesn’t have to keep pointing out mistakes since you two point them out for him.

“Mark! You’re supposed to hit at 45 degrees, not 12!”

I know how to do a clear, okay?! I wasn’t even that late!”

“Oh yeah? Then why did it go to the middle left?”

“Shut up! You can’t even hit a net shot without letting the other person kill!”

Of course, it’s all playful.

You guys have grown to care a lot for each other.

Mark makes sure to also fill your water bottle every time he fills his own.

You bring extra snacks for him in case he gets hungry.

From a distance, you guys look like that one athletic couple™.

Which is friends love teasing him about.

You’ve spent the night over at their house a couple times now.

Since the training center is closer to Mark’s home than yours, it makes getting to morning practices a lot easier.

His friends adore you by the way.

At least three of them can’t stop pinching your cheeks (aka Johnny, Yuta, and Jaemin).

They treat you like royalty as the bully Mark about his friendship with you.

“Are you sure you’re not dating? Because I think I’ll take Y/N if you don’t~” Yukhei teases.

“Stoooooopppppp, leave me alooooonnnneeeee!”

Whenever you stay over, Mark lets you take his bed while he sleeps on the couch

What a gentleman uwu

His bed is super comfy.

And it smells nice, unlike the sweaty Mark you usually have to be around.

You always fall asleep pretty quickly under his covers.

The next morning, you’re perfectly rested up and ready for practice.

Unlike your partner, who barely got any rest with his roommates walking in and out of the living room all night.

ミ☆

You didn’t tell him yet, and you made sure he couldn’t see it last night.

But you had a little surprise for him this practice.

You tap your partner’s shoulder as he pulls out his gear from his bag.

“Mark! Guess what?”

“Mhm? What is it?”

Unable to keep the smile off your face, you pull out a racket from behind your back.

“I got you something!”

Mark looks at the object, then back at you before taking it from your hands.

“You like it heavier on the head, right?”

He nods, adjusting his grip and doing a couple of small test swings.

“But most importantly...”

You grab his wrist, prying a few of his fingers off the handle.

“The grip isn’t green!”

Mark smiles, admiring the vibrant blue colour you had chosen for him.

“Thank you, Y/N. It’s perfect.”

“Wait! There’s something else I wanna show you, too!”

You run over to your bag, Mark watching as you rummage around in it and pull something out.

“Tada!”

His smile grows wider as you run back, holding another racket in your hand.

“Is that new, too?” he asks.

You nod happily.

“I got it to match with yours, see? Same colours~”

You hold the racket beside Mark’s to let him look at the matching patterns and shades.

“But my racket is balanced, hehe.”

Your partner’s eyes sparkle as he admires your racket while you practice, glancing at his occasionally.

He better hide this one, or his roommates will whine AND tease him.

That’s pretty much overkill.

ミ☆

“Hey, Mark? Can you fill my water bottle again?”

His eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, but he nods and grabs the bottle.

When he returns, you start chugging the water.

“Woah woah woah.” He pushes the bottle down, take it out of your hands. “Why are you drinking so much? You might throw up on court.”

“Sorry, I’m just really nervous..” You closer your eyes and sit down on the bench.

“Don’t be. We’ve gotten pretty good, we even beat the last pair we versed.”

“I know but... this pair is supposed to be super good.”

You remember the previous mixed doubles player warning you about this duo.

They’ve been partners for years, of course their play would be perfected.

You and Mark on the other hand, have only been partners for a little over three months.

“I don’t think we can beat them like coach said..”

You head your partner sigh as he grabs your hand, placing your racket in it.

“We can, okay? Trust me, I got you.”

He places a chaste kiss on your forehead before grabbing his own racket and walking towards the court.

When your eyes open, they immediately gravitate towards Mark and his bright blue racket grip.

The match was more than you were expecting.

Although you weren’t losing terribly, it felt like you couldn’t keep up.

Every time you tied, something would happen, causing you and Mark to lose the serve.

You ended up losing the first set and just barely winning the second.

The two of you step off the court as the referees call for a quick break.

“We have... a third set to play...” Mark says in between pants.

You nod, setting your water bottle on the bench after downing everything inside.

“We’re so close...”

“And you thought we couldn’t beat them.”

Shoving his racket into his chest, you try to hide a smile.

“Get serious... or else we’re gonna lose.”

He chuckles.

“Okay, okay..”

ミ☆

Please... Please don’t mess this up...

You take a deep breath before serving gently.

They were so close to winning, they had 20 points.

You and Mark were way behind at 11, and were lucky enough to get the serve.

Any mistake and you could lose the game.

With a smash, Mark gets another point.

“Nice one, Mark.” You scoop up the birdie, switching sides and readying your racket again.

You feel a tap on your shoulder just as you’re about to serve.

“Serve high,” your partner whispers.

You turn around, worried. “Isn’t that risky?” you ask quietly.

“Trust me.”

Nodding, you wait for him to get back in position before serving.

The boy in the other pair runs to hit it to your left.

Quickly chasing after it, you toss it just over the net onto the other side of the court.

Surprised, the girl fumbles and misses the birdie.

Another point for you and Mark.

He smiles, spinning his racket in his hands as he walks over to his side of the court.

Making cautious yet accurate attacks, you somehow manage to tie with the other team.

Meaning, you have to play a deuce.

“Just two points, Y/N.. Two more points and we win...”

You can hear the nervousness in Mark’s voice.

“Play safe, be ready.”

Mark walks a little bit closer to the middle of his side, ready to defend.

At your serve, everyone moves around the court, readying for the next move.

The two of you are pushed into defence, returning the bird side by side as your opponents attempt to drive it into the ground.

When the opposing boy drops it to the front, Mark quickly dives to save it.

You move to cover the back, smashing the return onto the other side of the net.

One more point..

“Not bad, Y/N.. Didn’t know you could hit that hard...” Mark pats your back as he passes, mustering the best smile her can.

“I used to be a singles player too, y’know...”

Taking a deep breath, you ready yourself for what you hope is the final serve of the game.

You can feel your partner watching you, and you turn to see the nervousness and excitement in his stance.

He lifts up his pinky, signalling you to serve high again.

“You really need to stop being such a showoff..,” you playfully mock him.

Your partner only smirks at your comment.

The birdie flies to the back, quickly being received by the opposing female.

In response, you aim the birdie to the open spot she leaves in the front.

Unfortunately, she’s quick to get back in time to hit it, allowing her partner to return comfortably to his position in the back.

Her push goes straight to the middle, a perfect place for Mark to attack.

You aren’t exactly sure where he is on court, so you decide to position yourself in the center just in case.

Mark, however, didn’t realize you were trying to attack and collided with you.

“Mark! Hurry! Get back up!!” you shout, panicked.

You aim the birdie aimlessly, allowing the other team to start attacking as Mark tries to push himself off the ground.

“I’m gonna knock you over if you don’t get out of the way!”

“I can’t! They keep hitting here!”

The other team has clearly caught onto a strategy.

By keeping the more aggressive player on the ground, they have a chance to confuse you and gain the serve.

“Just smash! Do something!” your partner yells.

You nod, watching the high receive you were just given.

Trying to hit something that gives Mark time to get up, you gently push the birdie to the front corner of the court.

Mark gets up quickly, only to have nothing to receive.

“Did we just...”

“We just won..”

You turn around to face your partner, who had a smile just as big as yours plastered on his face.

“Mark! We won!!”

Squealing, you drop your racket and run towards him with your arms out.

He lets go of his own and catches you in a hug, letting you wipe your tears of joy all over his sweaty chest.

“I told you we could do it, didn’t I?”

You feel his hand gently stroking your hair, but his quick heartbeat contrasted his calming actions.

Excited from the win and your love TT

Even though your teammates and friends were cheering loudly, all you could hear was the pounding of your partner’s heart.

You were so glad to win with Mark.

ミ☆

“I saw that racket grip! When and how did you change it?!” Donghyuck pouted, hitting Mark’s bag.

Your partner groans. “It’s a gift, okay? I didn’t choose the colour.”

“But you still used it? Just keep using the old one!”

“Clearly,” Johnny chimes in. “You didn’t see Y/N’s racket on the floor.”

He points at the handle sticking out of your bag, causing you to hide it from view.

You could feel your face getting warmer as the older boy laughs at your actions.

“Oh? Are they matching?” Donghyuck wiggles his eyebrows, nudging Mark’s side.

In the dark, you’re unable to notice the blush that had crept onto your partner’s cheeks.

“No response! So they are matching~ I’m so gonna tell Chenle about this one!”

“Hyuck, shut up.”

Johnny chuckles. “Okay, okay. Get in the car kids, it’s getting late and this old man needs rest.”

You whine.

“Johnny, you’re not that much older than us!”

ミ☆

“I still can’t believe that we won.”

Mark smiles at your words, tugging one of his large hoodies over your smaller frame.

“Like, you went woooooossshhhh and then ran after the receive like swiisshhhhhhh...”

He chuckles, watching as you reenact the scene with your sweater paws.

“I know, I honestly shocked myself.”

“What? But you were so cool about it, Mark!”

“Oh, was I?”

You nod. “You were like, ‘Oh, I just hit a shot that was impossible to receive, lemme wipe the sweat off my forehead~’ like it was nothing!”

While describing the event, you dramatically place the back of your hand on your own forehead and throw your head back.

“Okay, you child. Do you wanna watch movies tonight or not?”

You giggle, making your way to the living room.

“Dunno if I’m gonna be able to focus though.”

The two of you watch movies until you start getting sleepy.

With your eyelids getting heavy, you rest your head on Mark’s shoulder.

His arm makes its way around you.

“Wanna go back to your room?” he asks, tucking some loose hair behind your ear.

You nod against him, eyes already shut.

He picks you up and takes you to his bedroom, setting you down on the mattress.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Just as he’s about to leave, you grab his sleeve.

“Did you shower today?”

He raises an eyebrow, though you can’t see in the dark room.

“Yeah, of course I did.”

“Hmmm...”

“Don’t tease me now, Y/N..”

You feel the sides of your lips being tugged at when you hear the pout in his voice.

“Sleep here tonight.”

Your words shock yourself, but you try not to move as you wait for Mark’s answer.

After a few moments, you feel his sleeve leave your fingers and the covers move.

“I have to be honest, the couch sucks,” Mark says, his weight causing the mattress to sink a little.

You smile, shuffling closer to Mark to wrap your arms around him.

“Night, Markie..”

Mark presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“Night, my little champion...”

123 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

May 23rd-May 29th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from May 23rd, 2020 to May 29th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

If someone came to you for advice about starting their first comic, what would you tell them?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

The biggest hurdle I see beginner comic creators (including myself) struggling with is the fear to begin because they "aren't good enough yet." I would tell them to just start. The best way to learn how to make comics is to make comics. You can always go back and fix old pages. Or you don't even have to. The improvement throughout your work can be encouraging. So I say, just begin.(edited)

carcarchu

know your ending before you begin! so many webcomics start and then have no idea how to continue. at least have some kind of idea of the direction you want to go to and at least a basic outline before you begin. you can always change things but going in without a roadmap is a recipe for disaster

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I would tell them to consider a few things: your desired scope, your current skill levels, and how likely you are to still love the project months or years later. I didn’t start with a small scope, so I can’t tell people to keep it simple no matter what, but it absolutely helps. Doing a short 6-10 page comic as your first thing will totally tell you if this is something you like, or totally hate. Assessing your own skill level is hard, but I try and encourage people to practice anatomy and perspective and other skills before diving right into creating a massive world. I’d encourage them to practice some writing as well. But even the act of creating a comic can help with all that. So, YMMV! And you gotta love what you’re drawing! I didn’t feel comfortable creating a story until my late 20s because I felt I hadn’t settled on something I’d be indefinitely passionate about. My likes and dislikes were still changing so much. If you can look at your idea and pretty confidently say you want to draw this stuff over and over again for years... that’s a very good sign

eliushi [a winged tale]

I find my advice will vary depending on what their vision is for their comic! For instance, if it’s a short form, I would recommend looking at different styles and experimental storytelling to find ways to best explore their work. For a long form I would advise as y’all have done so as well: start and keep going to improve. Have an ending in mind. Know the basics of character/plot and storytelling; essentially if you know the rules then you are more easily able to break them in an informed way. Most importantly is to have fun drawing, have fun with friends, have fun sharing your work

I guess sort of as a follow up... did you all receive any advice before starting your comic?

carcarchu

i didn't ask anyone in particular but the advice i read before starting mirrored what has been said so far

the advice about just starting and not being afraid is probably what helped the most

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I was told to make my first comic shorter... but with the caveat that if I absolutely could not, it was okay to try a long-form one from the get-go

carcarchu

another thing that i often tell people looking to start is that comic making is actually a gigantic time sink and requires a LOT of discipline. a lot of people i talk to really don't realize how much of a time investment it is. i don't want to dissuade anyone by telling them this but it's important to realize

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I agree with lazuli! Right now I'm actually feeling more motivation for my long comic than my short story.( I will absolutely finish both though)(edited)

carcarchu

x2 agree with claire, i've realized i'm not good at short stories

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've been asked this question before, about first comics. I always say the most important thing is to draw what you like, for yourself.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Short stories are hard! I’m often jealous of all the marvelous one-shot comics on twitter, telling an affecting story in such little time. I often wonder if my own stuff will ever be half as successful in the emotions department. Short stuff is easier to digest but requires a ton of skill to craft well.(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely. Two of my favorite comics are 3 pages and 5 pages long and years later I am still thinking about them.

I think it takes even more skill to craft a compelling story, world, and characters in only a few pages

It is witchcraft, I swear

carcarchu

there was a beautiful short story i read about a cat before, i'll see if i can find it and share it in recs

eliushi [a winged tale]

I think a lot about the unfinished comics! even though they aren’t finished, they still stay with me. Ultimately if you draw comics, it will touch people and people will remember

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've always wanted to do a short story like that but am not a good enough writer yet unfortunately

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Also agree with @Eightfish (Puppeteer) - you must make something for yourself. You can try and tailor it to certain audiences, but don’t stray too much from your own sensibilities. Make a comic that speaks to your soul, and people will feel it.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Pick something you love, you‘ll spent a lot of time on it.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

If you don't love it, who will?

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

And short stories are their own medium with their own rules, needs and patterns; they‘re not interchangable with longform and the otherway round.

That‘s what annoys me about the „start with 8-page shorts!“ advice. It‘ll teach you how to do shorts, not how to do long form. And I‘ve seen so many treating shorts as a stepping stone to „proper“ long-form comics, and that format deserves better.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I do see the merit in that though. There are a lot of unfinished long comics. If you have a good short story, might as well make it first. For me though, they are way harder than long stories.

I did give myself the option to end puppeteer after about 80 pages though

Luckily I fell in love with making it and won't be doing that now

But it was an option

Capitania do Azar

Yeah I'm gonna have to repeat the points already stated. Everytime I get the chance to give advice to a starter, I do focus on the discipline aspect. Webcomics (any comic actually) does take a lot of work and if you wanna make it in the long run you gotta know your pace and you gotta know where you wanna go so you can make the best use of your time

You don't need to have super solid plans but it's good if you know how much time it takes you to make one, five or twenty pages, so you can get organised

And at least in my experience being organised is one of the most important aspects

That, and liking what you do but also allowing it to change because things take time and you will change too

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

^^^I can't reiterate this last point enough

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

For sure cap! I spent a lot of time experimenting with art style before starting and I think choosing a simpler but still nice looking (to me) style has been vital for me being as consistent with my comic as I have

Having a schedule was really important to me starting out

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I think I would have said..... MAKE SURE YOU DRAW IN ADVANCE BEFORE POSTING.

I've made this mistake, and I know many people have made this mistake, but it's really easy to get stressed and demotivated when you realize that you might not be drawing as fast as you want...particularly if you're starting out.

So make sure you have buffers so that you can post those updates as consistently as you can.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I'd say for my past self that make sure you have.... at least almost everything ironed out for your story first if you want to make a long form comic as your first try because trust me if you don't, you'll end up redrawing the first chapter twice lmao. knowing how it begins and ends, knowing your drawing speed and also recognizing if you're just either motivated to work on it or you're doing it despite motivation. Because those are like the main factors that affect burn out and if you don't watch out, you'll get fucked over from it. have a good sense of your self in terms of your work ethic, and your writing. Art will be supplement for that writing but you're pretty good at least understanding the basics you should be aight Also if you don't feel doing your long story first, you can always make a short story to test waters. but if ya like me and rather just jump making a long ass comic first, go for it lmao

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

I think the biggest advice I'd give would be is to accept what you've already done, kinda related to the "you're good enough to start" advice. A lot of webcomics stall out in the "gotta redraw this to be Good Enough" phase, and it's easy to get caught up in the cycle of redrawing early pages (especially once you get a few years into a comic), but learning to sit back and appreciate early pages for the stage you were when you drew them is important!

also something I don't hear creators talk a lot about, is having a support group. Getting positive responses from strangers from the internet is a rush, but it's not always going to happen, and relying on it isn't a great idea mental health wise. Having a group of friends you can bounce ideas off of and that can support you in your story helps make the lonely art of making comics a little less lonely. I wish I had known about this group sooner because it seems like a really great resource of creators coming together and being supportive!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh yeah that last point especially

like honestly if I didn't met other webcomic creators I probably wouldn't be working in webcomics tbh

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

It's so nice to have outside perspective both for art advice/critique stuff, but also just the general "hey guys drawing pages amiright"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah lmao

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

plus if/when you ever meet up with people at conventions, it's always so nice!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, I would second that. Starting out I had a really hard time knowing how to take praise from my real world friends who are into my comic. It felt like maybe it wasn't real praise and they only like it because they liked me. But honestly the longer I make comics the more I just want my friends to like them and the less I care about what an internet stranger might think X'D Also, I watched the video on new creator tips that Joichi post in #writing_n_misc_resources last night before bed and those tips are super solid. I think folks have already hit on all of them but writing something you really like and is for you first and foremost and being being prepared for a lot of work are super important. Also, get that buffer!

kayotics

I think this was touched on already but having an idea you’re really passionate about, especially for a long form comic, is kind of essential to keep you going. You gotta keep up momentum for years, not just a few weeks. The thing that helped me, personally, was building my comic in a way that let me end it after the first story, but also let me continue if I liked it. My first chapter was definitely like a pilot for a tv show. If I didn’t want to continue, I’d just stop. But I ended up writing the second chapter before I knew it so I guess it worked out

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I don't have too much new things to add but I agree that webcomics, is a lonesome job on your own. But once I started hanging around this discord, sharing frustrations, comic compliments. The support made a big difference, no longer having to shout in the abyss of Twitter to be heard. I know when you first start out, it's overwhelming. There's so many platforms, do I do color or grayscale? (as it felt that way for me.) The best is to begin small baby steps, write scripts. Draw thumbnails, talk about it with people you trust. Generate ideas and put them on paper. Something I learn, is finding a good group community who raise you up, than put your works down(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Seconding/thirding/etcing about support. Other than that, I really don't have a single advice that I could give to someone starting out. Because it would need to be tailored to their situation. Someone who's in my exact same situation back when I started my first webcomic? They don't need ANY advice honestly. They just need to do it (which they will anyway) and learn from the experience.

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

https://tenor.com/view/doit-gif-5247874

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(Again, I'm talking about a hypothetical person who's exactly like Younger Me. Not every beginner will "do it anyway.")

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I corrected my definition, as I found out what the topic was about! I thought from everyone's comment, they felt like talking about internal feelings about community spirit.(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I think that "just do it!!" Attitude is probably what I'll echo, it's what I'd have needed to hear and what I think there's probably the biggest hangup on. I think everyone tries to wait til they're ready, and it's like "you are gonna learn so much so fast and never stop learning once you start making your comic" so just, start learning now! Make changes later. You can't fix something that doesn't exist yet!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

One thing I often think about is when artists completely relaunch their comics once they become a bit more intermediate in skill level. They've improved so much during the creation process that they feel a need to go back and totally start over. I've even run into some comics where they... almost seem in a constant state of relaunch I often wonder about how to encourage new artists to move forward instead of reiterating existing stuff. Or is the reiteration not necessarily a bad thing?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean I guess it's not a bad thing if they're still having fun? Sometimes they're still having a blast; other times it's a form of torturous perfectionism.

Sometimes it's a bit of both, even

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I always frame it as "unless you are rewriting, don't redraw."

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have seen a redrawn comic go well only once

Deo101 [Millennium]

Cause if it's just to fix your art but nothing is really fundamentally changing, then you'll get stuck in a loop I think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

and that comic kept updating latest pages while redrawing the first ones

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I've seen people do that. Where it's not a rebooot that basically stays the same, just a revamp of old stuff.

I could see myself doing that eventually tbh.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The guy had very messy art in the beginning. Not bad art, he just didn't put much effort into it. The comic just evolved into something way bigger and more professional than he'd expected so he went and made the first pages professional looking as well

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup Cause conics make your art improve so fast, every 50 pages you'll feel like your first one has sooo much wrong with it! So you can't get stuck just remaking pages

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo I don't think your first pages are any impediment to new readers. I have noticed a ton of art evolution though :0

Deo101 [Millennium]

Unless, yeah, you are rewriting and need the content on the pages to be different.

Yeah they might not be impeding but they're uglyyyyy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I didn't notice your art changing much while reading your comic but then i went back to the first page and, woah.

big difference

Deo101 [Millennium]

It would be smth like way off in the future though if I did do it. It's not currently in my plans

I'd rather make new pages and new comics

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

has anyone ever commented on your art evolution?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah my art has changed uhhh a lot LOL I think maybe a couple times? I don't have a good memory

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I think it's probably different for everyone. Personally, I don't think really believe in going back and redoing stuff, but I also say that as someone who just spent the last year redrawing most of my first five chapters. For me, Ive always wanted to print my comic, and I felt a lot of self-created pressure to have my first book look really good. Because it's going to be new readers first introduction to the series and if I don't feel 100% proud of it, sell it to other people was going to be impossible. I kind of just felt embarrassed by my old art and writing(some of it was like 8 years old and hadn't aged well). And also if I was going to use up resources to print something, then it should be the best version of that thing. But on the other hand, redoing the old stuff has also made me really sad that I haven't been able to move forward with new chapters. I definitely second Deo. And I also think you have to know where to draw the line. Like "ok, I'm going to redraw this once and then not again" or "I'm going to redraw up to X point and call it good. I think can be a really easy perfectionist trap and time sink if you aren't careful.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it is also hard to get your existing audience to follow the same story twice

OH, webtoons features are rebooted comics oftentimes

I guess that counts as going well!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, since getting featured by Webtoons is kinda like going print; it's a form of getting Published

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah. For this other comic I've not launched yet, I've redrawn the intro 4 times. The intro onky takes like, 20 hours absolute max (latest) but I still find myself looking at it and thinking.. I could have been making new stuff :/ BUT! I did rewrite it every time so it did need to change. I should have just waited to start it til I could commit more so there wasn't a year between each intro

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But since webtoons features update so fast I don't really mind following the same story again. Lone is already almost to where the canvas version was

Deo101 [Millennium]

And yeah wt features need to reboot for a lotta reasons, there's also probably a lot of times like. At least lengthening updates to fit the requirements

They're not necessarily redrawing it, too. They just have to post from the beginning which totally makes sense

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm giving myself a mantra, don't redraw, don't look back. Just move on with what you got. There's chapters I want to cover. It's just years ago, I had constant panic that the story's theme was going to change as it went, so I 'must' change the first chapter to suit the general overview of the story. But it resulted in me burning out and being self destructive to my work. I'm going to take better care of myself(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think most redraw significantly though

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I mean, wouldn't u?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'd have to! My whole story is only like. 20 webtoons updates?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Truuu

If that, 40 panels.. a page is like usually around 5

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

agreed on redraw hell. tried it and I didn't like it at all lmaO

I'm kinda glad I have a good footing on my current comic and I don't want to redraw it at all unless it's adapted for something else. still like

work what you have, if you can orz

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Don't look back" is hard when you feel like the first X pages are dragging all the future pages down with them. I agree that you need to draw a line (no pun intended), set some criteria

The thing Eightfish mentioned -- not so bad that it'd deter new readers -- is a very useful criterion IMO

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

if you must, i wonder if redrawing the first scene would be okay?

Just as a taste of what's to come for new readers

Deo101 [Millennium]

Do you think they would notice the difference in quality and question that?

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip maybe

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've read a long webcomic where only the first chapter was redrawn, and when I got to the second chapter and saw an immediate drop in quality, I knew what exactly happened XD

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, but you're a creator! Readers don't have the same background to necessarily be able to assume that

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just put in a note saying that it's art evolution

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

As someone who redrew their first scene for a lot a reasons, I will say that I personally think it's worth it.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Also same, I've seen it and knew exactly what happened

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it was mentioned in the notes, but I didn't read the notes at first because I knew the archive was huge, and I wanted to Get Through It

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

if i were to do that, i'd put a note in the page itself

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That sounds like a good idea

Deo101 [Millennium]

What were your reasons for redrawing crona?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm not Crona but I redid a big chunk of my chapter 1 for writing reasons. (This was in addition to a whole reboot done prior.) The writing was... not 'this screams terrible writing' kind of bad. But it was extremely misleading/ unclear on what the overall story was going to be

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

dang tbh I did kinda redraw some panels to make the dialogue flow better. But I also tried my best to match up the quality of the pages drawn the time so it doesn't look jarring.

kinda what keii said but just minimizing the effects of shockkkk

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think this is one of the reasons why i don't want to do a comic that goes on for more than a couple years (well, for now that is. Maybe that'll change as i improve)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I redrew one intro 4 times, cause I kept rewriting the whole story.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

after that I was like "don't touch Ch. 1 again" lmao(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

1. Several panels didn't properly show what was happening in the scene. 2. Rewrote some of the dialogue 3. My art had improved so much that even if I hadn't redrawn it, the next scene would look very different. 4. I wasn't super far along, so I thought it would be good to give this another go, knowing much more about paneling, page-layout, and pacing.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

do you think there's a chance you'd eventually redraw wotp as it is now?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Hell no(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lol then i think it's fine that you redrew!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Even if I go back and clean some things up later for print, I'm not completely redrawing anything about WotP anymore

I finally got it to a point where I'm happyish with the way it looks

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I've never totally started over, but I did a ton of drawing edits (and a few writing edits!) on my first chapter before releasing it to the public. The previous version of the chapter does look far less polished. But even then, I really only completely redrew 1 or 2 panels. The rest was just liquifying wonky faces and whatnot. Still, once it got printed, I basically locked the artwork. With how long new pages take, I really don't have time to look back much anymore which is its own kind of blessing!

In that way, I'm very glad I kept it private for a while. I wasn't confident with my skills yet - and I wanted some wiggle room. It's part of the reason I encourage people to at least have some sort of foundation, so that the jump in improvement isn't so... startling

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I actually kind of love to be startled by art evolution

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I could see myself editing wonky faces and things like that more than I can see myself redrawing! My pages only take me like 2 hours and I still wouldn't redraw, can't imagine what your timeframe would look like...

But not in your own work, crona?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

It happened with a lovely comic called Wind Rose, and it is so inspiring

I wouldn't say I don't like it in my work

More that I was completely changing art styles too

Deo101 [Millennium]

I see

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think starting a comic is a good way to get those foundational skills though, lazuli

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Even if you didn't post it online, you did start

Which I think is enough

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

one of the biggest examples of art style shift I've seen

Comic is still doing really well though!

I don't think anyone minded the art evolution at all

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Yeah, that's my dilemma! I've seen a couple very new comic artists burn out quickly, or say that they're relaunching because of their own unhappiness. And part of me wants to tell them to slow down - they don't need to post anything, just use it as a training ground.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Of course, if you yourself hate your old art you're probably more important(edited)

It's still nice to have your story read though

even if just by a few friends

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I haven't read through it, but I know this is another good example...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

another one!

This was intentional though, to convey a change in setting

It's kind of fun to look at these comparisons(edited)

I think most readers would feel the same

carcarchu

my most inspiring art evolution is from zero point idol chapter 1

chapter 90

the artist also got better at panelling too. also not only did the art change but the genre completely did too. it started out as a comedy romance then slowly became a drama romance

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Looks like you switched the images around?

carcarchu

oh it's in the right order on my side

the more bishounen looking one should be the newer one

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh! I think the more colorful one looks much better actually?

But perhaps the author chose a different style to draw more quickly?

carcarchu

uh i think the opposite

the newer art looks objectively better

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

okay i'm gonna look it up maybe I will think differently if i see a bunch of panels in context

looking it up it is definitely clear that the author is putting much more effort into later updates.

Though skimming it I still sort of prefer the style of the earlier pages?

carcarchu

i have never heard someone say that before

people usually complain they got gipped in the first chapter lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Can't say anything about the paneling or anything like that because I just skimmed it

Well, I like the style of the things in the first pages that they tried harder on

There are a lot of like, chibi or messy panels there

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm looking up the titles for these screencaps you guys presented!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The first one I shared is A Matter of Life and Death!

The second is YU+ME Dream (highly recommend)(edited)

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Seconded, YUME is very good and it's complete!

kayotics

I think there’s a lot of good reasons to restart or redraw past pages, but there’s a lot of people who DO get trapped in the constant iterative state of restarting/redrawing their comic, and then they don’t get anywhere with it

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It's hard to come up with any consistent advice because people have different goals starting their comic. Like, some people just wanna do a comic to get better at art, or because they have a bunch of OCs that they want to do something with. And to those people... like, just have fun with it. Now, if you have a full story in mind, and your goal is to complete it in a timely manner that isn't overwhelming (without sacrificing on quality), this is the advice I give: 1) Plan out your story. You don't need to do a full script or whatever, but do try to have at least an outline, with an estimate of how many pages each part will be. 2) Spend a typical month (like, a month that you also have other work to do) drawing the first few pages of your comic. Don't post them yet. Count the number of pages you drew. The number you post per month should be less than that. e.g. if you drew 6 pages in that month, you should post 1 page each week. That way, you can have a bit of leeway to build a buffer without burning out. 3) Look back at that outline. How many pages did you plan it out to be? And how often are you planning on posting each page? Let's see... carry the two... this comic's gonna take HOW many years to complete?! 4) If you're comfortable with the task ahead of you, continue on to step 5. Otherwise, cut some stuff from your outline and repeat step 3. 5) Have fun with it! You might change your mind on future plot points, and that's ok! Just... try to do so in a way that doesn't create more work for yourself.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My advice is to just get started. I see so many people caught up in the idea that you need to perfect your art skills before starting a comic and then they just never start working on it

Your art is never going to be "perfect" and its better to have a tangible comic than a perfect one

I don't mean that in a discouraging way I just mean like no one can really achieve perfection and it's better to just create things

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I like snuffysam's advice because I have noticed there are different kinds of approach to webcomics. Some do it for fun and practice like I do nowadays. While others have a big long form series they are deeply passionate about but to start it seem overwhelming. Everyone's advice is pretty great! (edited)

DanitheCarutor

Fff I don't feel like I'm really qualified to give advice to people. I don't take art and comics seriously enough to follow most rules, so I would just be a bad influence if anything. Lol (Also everyone else has already said what I would.) I guess the one thing I would tell someone on the fence about starting their comic is to do it when you're ready. Like, I wanted to start doing comics when I was 15 but I wasn't quite mentally ready yet? I was used to doing illustrations so I couldn't stick with doing anything longer than 1 page, throughout the years I experimented with doing 1-2 pages of random scenes in stories I wanted to do, it wasn't until I hit my 20s when I was like "Okay, I want to do this!" In a way I didn't totally get into comic mode until my current project, since I was still feeling things out with the previous ones. Kinda went on a tangent there. Lol But yeah, comics are a huge commitment, I don't think it's super good to push yourself into starting if you're not mentally ready yet. Give yourself some time, do some casual stuff to prepare for the comic you really want to do in the meantime (brainstorming, concept art, character studies, etc.), or don't think about it at all if that's how you do things, then when you really get that itch go for it.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

My advice won't be anything that hasn't been touched on in this chat (so many good vibes ;_;) but I do wanna say that if I had any advice for someone to get into comics, it's to do it for yourself as the main priority. Webcomic popularity has been on the rise very quickly in this past decade, with copious amounts of creators trying their hand at their One Story, competition, exposure, and pressure are sure to set in with this wild ride that is comic making. So what do you do to combat that? How do you stay above water, make sure you have fun, or avoid turning this into what seems like never ending homework? You make your goal you. Whether You want to improve, whether You want to explore characters, or whether You just want to experiment- such a large project (let's be real, there's no easy way to do comics!) should be handled with that initial fire you had when you wanted to start the project, when you felt inspired to lay those panels down and tell that story. Don't compare your journey to others, don't feel that pressure to always Be Something.(edited)

Comics are a medium, just like film, canvas, or Video games for that matter, they have their own process and steps. Find what works for you and enjoy the ride, because it could easily turn into a long one!

eliushi [a winged tale]

I love it Krispy! You gotta do what you love

I’m just curious. What are your personal goals that keeps you going for the comic if you don’t mind sharing?

(And for anyone to answer too!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I get what you mean and 100% agree with you. But I wanna bring up a caviat -- some people use the whole "do it for yourself" thing to shut down creators who are doing it for themselves, but also want some recognition. It's not their main priority, but it is a thing they want and it's okay to want it. I guess that goes back to the other advice about getting support. Find support, find people who won't make you feel guilty for simply wanting some recognition. People who will understand and support your goals.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

told myself that I won't let my self to lay my soul to rest till I'm done with the projects I have

so lmao that's somethin that drives me contracted to keep living till everything I do is finished lmao(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One of my friends got told she wasn't a Real Writer simply because she wanted a readership. That kinda disrespect is not okay

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh dang

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

oh that is a whole different level from what i'm saying for sure

first off those people can go away lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeeeah

Again, not what you were saying, just... how SOME people twist the advice

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

and secondly, if you're not doing your work for yourself, you can easily fall into pleasing others and drown in Trying to Stay relevant, burning your creative drive too (i mean, if you can make ur comic and do that , good on you woah) but i've seen multiple comic artists crash and burn for the sole purpose of doing the comic in competition with others, convincing themselves that 'other styles' are crap bc their own work doesnt match up (gosh that was a rough one) and all in all, them just becoming so bitter with their work! THOUGH! this essentially applies to all creative fields and not just comics! And those entitled ppl who do that suffer from jealousy and nothing else. I cannot stand for those types who tear others down when faced with their own insecurity

and creators have every right to ask for help too. y'all deserve that recognition for the hard work you do, sometimes however, that isn't always available to them

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yea

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

(which is why we gotta lift eachother up!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You bring up a good topic that's very relevant to my struggles. It can be very difficult to know: is it okay to disregard this criticism. Am I allowed to do that? Am I allowed to like this thing about my work that people are pointing out as the bad part? Or does that make me a.... bad creator. Unprofessional, bratty, whatever. I'm not even talking about picking a fight/ getting verbally defensive. Just, silently disagreeing. I WANT to say the answer is yes, we are free to have our own opinion about our work. But dang if it isn't hard to feel guilty for doing it.

eliushi [a winged tale]

I think any trailblazers and pioneers feel this sort of sentiment.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That sounds about right

I don't really think of myself as a pioneer, but it is still something I feel in my bones

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I guess that’s the beauty of a self-run webcomic. You are the boss. Your viewership can give you critique, but you can choose what to listen to. You’re not beholden to a higher power (producer, director, patron, etc) to change things no matter what. It’s your project to run, and oftentimes only YOU know where it’s going, and you know how that criticism would change things.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ya lmao. idk like I don't see a lot of stories that run in conflict of towards what I'm doing so it's kinda nervewracking when you're like "oh god am I setting a good example or what? Should I be worried when I just want to create and share a story?"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If you can be proud of the story as-is, I think there’s power in that, and it comes through in the work. A confident comic is a lovely thing.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

That makes me really sad that you have these struggles Kei. Your work is a project of love. Love for the things that inspire you, love for the way to tell your story, and love for that process. You are allowed to proud and tell the world about it, you are allowed to embrace the success that you gain from your work. We as comic makers do SO MUCH WORK and wear SO MANY HATS to make this mainly free to read story available, and that should be celebrated. SO YES, you CAN and you MUST choose what you want to take from others comments, their feedback, reactions, etc- but in the end, it's still about what YOU wanted to make of this work, bc in the end, you are the wheel that keeps this whole thing spinning

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I dunno about confident, but I can say my comic is an honest one. Even if I don't feel confident, I still don't let outside criticisms change what I do.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

webcomic creators aren't given the space they need to grow a lot of times too-- we're essentially producing work that easily requires a small studio to create- there's gonna be ups and downs to the process. But you have to keep in mind for your own sanity that this is still your work and your vision. If you want to explore options of improving then you should be in control of that. (we all know how i feel about crits from randos too XD!)

eliushi [a winged tale]

Agree so much Krispy. I think everyone’s goals and visions for their project are valid and if they sustain your project, then that’s a success in itself

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

agreed!

eliushi [a winged tale]

Often I see this tip and pass on to other writers that when they write their story it’s important to think of a logline or something central that is the heart of the story. I put that as my first page so every time I open my document I see it. I think it’s the same for webcomics. Find the heart of your story — why you want to write it and remind yourself of that. I find it’s helpful to keep me going

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

omg eli....i love that!!!

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

wow that is really great advice eliushi!! I'd love to steal that if you don't mind?

eliushi [a winged tale]

Please do!! It’s a gift!!

take ittt

Miranda

these are all such great suggestions. You people are a fountain of wisdom.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I wrote in the header of my documents, "everything bad that happens in the story is because of me, and everything good happens because of them." Basically to remind myself not to do any sort of ex machina or whatever. And also put my tagline. It definitely helps!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think it's a good guideline -- the "pure luck can only be the bad kind" thing. But my bro brought up the Walking Dead (I think? either that or some other really well known zombie thing?) as an example of going too far in that direction. He said the characters take a turn, open a door, etc. and the zombies just come pouring out like an unholy explosive diarrhea all of sudden, to a point where he was like "lol?" He said it was like the universe was setting it up against the characters, and he couldn't take it seriously. He's played/watched lots of zombie stuff so he's no stranger to jump scares or zombies appearing in hordes, but that one was still too much for him.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

wh lmao about that spoiler part like

Deo101 [Millennium]

Oh yeah no, too much of anything is bad.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah like, I can see that kind of extreme bad luck being used in farce comedy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahaha yeah

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I wonder what a story would be like in the opposite direction where everything bad that happens to them is because of them and everything good that happens to them is because of the writer

Deo101 [Millennium]

Everything Goes Bad Man A horrible superhero trying to do his best

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

A comedy! Could also make it a Shakespearean tragedy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Horror could make it work too

I was meaning my thing more like uhh, make them earn their good things and success kinda thing

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Depressing drama about a person who tries to succeed in life but fails at every turn

Nah I got it deo

Just throwing out hypotheticals

Deo101 [Millennium]

I would hate to watch or read any of these horrible things btw

But it's fun to hypothesize

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think for like, most stories, your direction is much more engaging

I don't want to watch someone fail over and over

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's also that trope where everything goes bad despite their effort, and then Luck just drops success on the character's lap, leaving them feeling empty

Deo101 [Millennium]

Me either LOL coming out of stories like that is always like 0_0 well nkw I'm just depressed

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But I think something like watamote, a comedy about a socially inept girl, might be an example of what I said that a lot of people like. I haven't watched it though so I'm not sure

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I don't know that specific one, but there are cases where people feel comforted by reading about tough luck in that "I'm not the only one" way. Certainly not everyone's cup of tea, though.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Grave of the Fireflies

That movie seemed more like a message about war though. It seemed like it was trying to say something

I think I could enjoy a depressing story like that if it was nonfiction or historical fiction

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It was sorta semi-autobiographical (not 100% but inspired by his own experience)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Something that feels real

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah, grave of the fireflies WAS based off of the author's experiences

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I personally am okay with depressing fiction if it feels real

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Doesn't have to be based on true events

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

his sister and him were taken in by the aunt and they were actually left that way the sister died of starvation (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Hey, spoiler tag that!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

whoops mbad

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm one of those who is 100% not... I can be okay with and love depressing stories after having seen it and then getting time away from it, but watching or reading them is a horrible experience for me

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

My Sweet Orange Tree is thought to be at least sort of based on the author's own experience, and I think that adds something to the book. (Can't confirm because the author's dead.) But even if it were pure fiction, it would remain a lovely, compelling book.

@Deo101 [Millennium] Nothing is for everyone!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I remember feeling really depressed for the rest of the day after watching grave of the fireflies

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Not everything bad that happens to them was their own fault, but Grave of the Fireflies was sort of a story about pride though. A boy who refused to suck it up and apologize to his aunt, resulting in his and his sister's deaths. I think that did make the story more powerful

hubris and all that

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

so I can definitely relate to only watching short bursts of depressing stuff

Deo101 [Millennium]

I honestly try to avoid them entirely, not even short bursts tbh

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

correct! however, a lot of viewers also blamed the aunt for not keeping them. Apparently the real life aunt felt a lot of remorse for being indirectly responsible for their deaths, and her daughter was angry at her. However, the aunt was also feeling depression from her husband who recently died

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I read them rarely, but I feel like they make me more? Grounded? I liked the way Man's Search for Meaning (Holocaust survivor's book) changed the way I thought of the world

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm just hyperempathetic and they really hurt me

Not like I'm like "I wanna be ignorant" or anything

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think that one scene with the farmer telling him to suck up his pride was highlighting that he could have been taken back in but refused to even try

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Deo101 [Millennium] 100% Valid!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah. Entertainment is supposed to be fun or meaningful and if it's not then don't read it

Although, I do really believe we should learn about these topics in school at least

You have to be exposed to them somewhat

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I just don't like the kind of idea that gritty depressing stuff is more realistic, I understand learning about history and hardships but it's not something I like to think of as like "the truth jusy is that the world is terrible" it makes me feel very alone because I work very hard to see the world nit like that.

Miranda

Re: the extreme bad luck/I cause all the bad stuff for my characters I saw a tip that said coincidences can happen to get your characters into trouble, but not to get them out of trouble, and I thought that was an excellent way of putting that. (sorry to plop that in the midst of the most recent discussion)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

TBH as someone who has lived in Eccentric Relatives' House under not so great circumstances, I didn't even get any hint of "the boy should've sucked up" from Grave of Fireflies. My experience may have been worse than the boy's in his aunt's house though, and maybe my bias led me to see his experience as being just as unfair as mine. In any case it's been years since I watched it, so maybe I'm forgetting some key details.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think "realistic" means a mix of good and bad

My favorite nonfiction books contain a lot of cruelty, but also very good people

Reading about people's good work and outlooks despite tragedies really got to me

Or like, perseverance

Perseverance as a theme really, really hits me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I like perseverance but I hate stories that are hopeless or treat hope as naiive

It makes me angry tbh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oof same yeah

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

the aunt was still feeding them though, and allowing them to stay. If he had left his sister at home and tried to get a job like his cousins did, I think it is implied that they would have survived.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I do like my dark themes but lmao i dont want to go to wreckless cruelty. there's an art with that(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Endless pessimism is as unrealistic as endless optimism(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I feel like there's hopeless stories and there's stories that treat hope as naive. The former is like, yeah sure, not everyone's cup of tea, but the latter is like "if this isn't your cup of tea, then you're dumb" which is

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I don't mind dark themes it's just that sort of grittiness, humanity is inherently evil, hope gets you nothing kind of stories that I hate

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Btw. My favorite nonfiction books: Man's Search for Meaning The Gift of Fear The Gift of Pain (no relation to the gift of fear) All showcase a lot of cruelty and suffering but all are still very hopeful

I know it's unlikely you guys will read them but

They're good and I still reccoemend them highly

They are books that changed the way i think

They are also all written by people who have gone through and seen terrible things and yet made it their life's work to help others

I just can't reccomend them enough

But I will stop talking about it now

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for me, uhhh it's from famial experiences mostly

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Do you think your stories err on the side of optimism or pessimism?

@ everyone

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

since most of my family suffered from the vietnam war, a lot of stuff they told me were fist hand accounts of war and cruetlty

like from my mom, my dad, my aunties and uncles

even like the older members of my communties so that stuff is still fresh lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Optimism. I want to say neither but I know nearly no one would read it and say it's realistic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh, I've had similar stories. My great grandmother had her whole family except her killed by a Japanese bomb and my family, despite traveling a lot, has still never visited Japan out of respect to her

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but since they already living better lives I see that the darkness in those times have at least kick started them out to their kind of propserity or still striving towards

so I see myself as a realist lmao

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I think my stories usually go a bit more on the pessimistic side I’m afraid. People have remarked that my more emotional scenes can be surprisingly dark, so I’m trying to introduce some more heartwarming scenes

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't wanna say "err on the side of".... I do bittersweet and slightly LEAN towards the bitter more often than not! But I think this particular aspect may be partly up to the readers to gauge.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think my story is realistic to me. The worst my characters experience is similar to mine, and the best is also similar to mine. But I have no idea if my own life has had more good or more bad than the "average person"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Sometimes life super sucks in ways you have little to no control over, but you can still be there for each other, and that really, really counts" <--- is this too bitter or just right? That's up to each reader to answer, I think.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Hey you said optimism or pessimism you gotta pick

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

like there is hope and optimism but that is meaningless without the critical side of things. and I want to depict those sides in life.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Optimism

But I'm optimistic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Keiiii that's the way I write too and I think it's optimistic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

My life has shown me that I can escape bad things so I don't think optimism is unrealistic though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You can't fix life but you can give love

Deo101 [Millennium]

Exactly

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i guess for my stories they kinda like what keii said like there's good side of things but lmao I somehow add some painful elements that they have to endure in order to have those good times(edited)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

personallly I think stories work if you give people hope

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Eh, not every story is meant to give hope

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

but it's a good goal

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

like as long as you give people a semblance of hope, even if you throw some depressing stuff.....it can work. Oh, I meant as a bittersweet story

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But I think not giving hope is unrealistic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lmao I guess I'm a target since the last story i write

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Though perhaps I only think that because I haven't experienced true tragedy(edited)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it was just bleak in a hopeful light

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It depends, like I can imagine a short story that hyperfocuses on something extremely depressing.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Y'know what I have actually hopeless things in my life and I have 0 interest in reading a story that's hopeless

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ye and that's fair

Deo101 [Millennium]

And even though I have hopeless experiences I don't think my life overall is hopeless

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

i wonder if people actively look for stories that focus on not having hope because i know many people read these stories as a way to escape their lives

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that. idk. for me writing stories that lead to an end that really don't work with both parties... could be just my morbid curosity in just seeing how things won't work out as planned for both persons.

could be like a philosophical thing maybe? or giving a different perspective of some sorts?

like "things are the same but given with the option you gave me, I can't go through with that"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I can relate to curiosity being a motivation for exploring dark stories. It's why I check out horror stories -- horror stories (games especially) show the MC in an extremely "wrong" situation at the beginning, and I check them out to find out the presumably equally extreme "why" for that wrongness. I don't think I could write stories like that myself, though.

Psychological horror specifically

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah, horror has been uh ingraned in my life to this point. and I like writing stories with that kind of edge in mind, more of the psycholgial aspects than horror.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Do you guys think some people search for morbid stories like these to not only satisfy their curiousity....but also to make themselves feel better about their own lives?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't particularly care to find out why Mr. Chainsaw is going around killing everyone in a splatter/slasher horror, for instance X'D

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it's a possibility tbh.

sometimes I do that but I also had experienced simalar kinds of sorts that seeing those works i'm like "dang not alone in these wack feels"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I guess it depends on each person?

"Gee, at least I don't have any literal demons coming after my eyeballs" is not very comforting to me, personally

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i mean lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Sometimes sad stories do make me feel more thankful for my own peaceful life but I don't seek them out for that reason

Deo101 [Millennium]

Imagine if ur disabled and that's the narrative used to make other people feel better about their lives

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Off topic but that's why disabled people hate "inspiration porn"

It's something that's really hard to explain cause "do you not want to inspire people" is really hard to answer

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah, those kinds of stories I really don't like at all.

Deo101 [Millennium]

So I wanted to jump on the opportunity to explain even though it's really off topic sorry

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

No, don't be sorry. "Life sucks but hey, at least you're not me!" is not something anyone should have to put up with

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it's understandable tho!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

To be honest I do seek out stories about disability because I find it fascinating how people adapt to mental and physical changes. I find ingenuity very interesting?

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I guess I look at it more towards like how some relationships with people don't work, and also the diaconomy between individuals interest me. Not for those kinds of stories but I've seen elements of that appear in some works i read in the past

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also seek out stories about disabilities, but only hopeful ones not like "my life is ruined and this is my driving motivation, to not be like this"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

One of the books I recommended was by a doctor who spent his life working with people with leprosy and the workarounds for missing limbs and sensation he and his patients would come up with was just so fascinating to me to read

It's something that's really hard to explain cause "do you not want to inspire people" is really hard to answer

@Deo101 [Millennium] I think I understand you but just curious- how do you respond to that?(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

It's usually like "I want to inspire people to be like me because they're proud of what I can do" but they're always like "I'm proud of what you can do in spite of-" and it's like. Idk just a deep sigh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh yeah rip

i had that happened to me before like "Dang you do did this and you're from some a family that suffered so much--"

"uh huh please focus on the work not my life thanks lmao"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like don't hold me to a different, lower standard. Don't pity me

Yeah exactly

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Hm it's sort of true but also if someone said "I'm proud of what you can do despite not having a dad" I'd be like fuck yoooouuuu

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like there's other things please

It's like, pity. It's not actually inspiration I think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm proud of what you can do in spite of not having a brain

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

pity has left the building

like sure, yeah let's go with that but there's other experiences other than my background and my identity the brought out this work too. that's how we can get some unique voices into the field.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

so yeah, I can understand rip people saying fustrating things like that. maybe they don't have a better way of phrasing it. orz

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

At the very least it's better than the opposite side

"your experiences were not that bad" angle

Deo101 [Millennium]

I get that a lot also

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and sadly I too experienced that angle LMAO

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO tuyetnhi same hat

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

no one wins

hurrah

most of it came about because of my mixed idenity like I don't get hit by the usual racism my viet friends experienced

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

This is overall a very small thing but I casually mentioned I was attracted to women to a long time friend yesterday and she went full on "thank you so much for coming out to me this doesn't change my opinion of you I love you you're a great friend" And then the conversation got hella stilted and awkward after that and AG I Hate that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but er.... I have seen people look at me and was like "mixed baby? that's hot"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Wtfff

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"please no."

it's wack like u put me in a scale where that scale is already wack to begin with

it don't make sense lmao

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

wait what the fuck

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

People are like why TF are u using a cane you're young and I tell them I have a condition and they're like, what does it do and I say the symptoms and they're like :/ I get those too :/

Freak out and tell them to get tested right away

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

also i really get annoyed when I see people just.......treat people with personality disorders like we're all psychos and tell others

hey at least you're not like these psychos

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh the telling others bit(edited)

Nooooo

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

like my experience isn't that universal but it's already terible enough knowing that if you have mixed ethncities then you're treated as an "exotic creature" and i'm like "I'll shoot you down"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Mann luckily I grew up in a place where that doesn't really happen

I hope

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Oh my god i'm glad i live in a really diverse city and yeah deo....they do

we get labelled "troubled people" particularly if we're female in the mental health sector

a LOT of psychiatrists push us around and they use it as code for "difficult"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I live where 80% the folks here are mostly er homogenous white folk

and they ask me these questions that I know boil me blood

I'm too poor for cali man

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oooooof I feel that tuyetnhi i went to a really white uni town for my alma mater

i got called a tall chink by a frat boy there

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah I experienced that shit durring uni

it sucks

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yoooo you can also come to toronto if you can't go to cali ;3

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I can travel to toronto but lmao maybe next year

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

maybe ;A;;

also @Eightfish (Puppeteer) wait what do you mean by your question? is it pertaining to personality disorders or to the race questions?

......yeah people tend to treat you better if they don't know you have a personality disorder

LMAO I MEAN TRUE, that's pretty obvious XD

because people think that personality disorders are untreatable. And I would like people to be more informed about them

Heck, a lot of people don't even know about BPD. So I'd rather that people stay informed about it, even if it means that I might suffer for it.

What if there's another person with BPD who needed help but the people around them didn't know? And I don't think it's fair to keep it hidden when it can easily damage relationships.

Deo101 [Millennium]

And also, "why don't you just hide that part of yourself if people treat you badly for how you are?" Is hardly ever a healthy way of dealing with things

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

better be informed than being ignorant

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Yeah...I've actually considered just...putting a joke warning label on myself lmao

(but thank you guys for understanding <3)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

negatively changed? rip

ohhh nooo

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah.....it's kinda like.....just because you have these negative experiences, you try not to let it stop you

because there's ALWAYS a chance that you'll meet people who understand

........I actually told a good friend that I had bpd and she started ghosting me. She was scared of me and thought i was...."weird"

and scary.

She was scared that i was gonna go psycho.

but I think it's important to know that not everyone is going to be an asshole.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it really is

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

i had a psychiatrist tell me that i probably lost friends....because i was a bitch ;A;

after formally diagnosing me with bpd

yeah and i had one psychiatrist just....diagnost me with anxiety disorder and he wouldn't listen to me just gave me a survey to fill out

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

makes them feel like they're 2d?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah and they are usually very complex and have very VERY varied pasts doesn't help that the media paints us as monsters in horror movies a lot

you see sociopathy and antisocial disorder in the news a lot and then they see people with bpd and they're like

LOOK! YANDERES!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooooffff

that's not even part of the DSM lmaO

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

screams every time i see an article about how to "save yourself from someone with BPD"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

speaking from my experiences as a former psyche major

like that can't be determined solely just by those factors alone

cormidbity is a factor too

oh my godddd

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I get that a lot

also yeah psychiatrists..........they need to keep themselves updated man

they put a lot of blanket terms for people with pds because it's easier or maybe because psychiatrists are simply not equipped to deal with people with pds?

i mean look how many psychiatrists i've met or heard fuck it up with bpd

and that's one of THE EASIEST pds to rehabilitate

imagine rehabilitating someone with narcissism or sociopathy

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

APD

is the proper term lmao

or ASPD

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

also eightfish....nope. it's a really long LONG road to rehabilitation. Some take years.

but it's kinda...a relief to be diagnosed OH WHOOPS

mbad

OH MY GOD THE TRANSGENDER THING

coughs in victorian times exCUSE me

hugs

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip this is from my understanding but if the condition of the disorder is either: a combination of bringing harm to yourself, restricting yourself from your routines, harm to others, or sense of losing control of your daily life then they will mostly likely dianoise. though that's what I

I've known years ago rip. idk if they hold up those standards today

or changed things from it

it really bites when you're seeking help and the folks that supposed to help you say like "but you're normally functioning so I see no problem ya u free to go"

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

"if we can't see it you're not injured so get the fuck back to work"

psychiatrists who just brush you off because it doesn't fit THEIR narrative piss you off

like you're going to them for help....and they categorize you as they see fit

and when you try to go against them they label you as "difficult"

eliushi [a winged tale]

Hey friends, good discussions here but just wondering if it’s best in #general as this will be archived? Just want you all to be safe

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

ah okay! Thank you Eli

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oof wait archived?

In what way?

eliushi [a winged tale]

Check pins(edited)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

OH GOD

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Ahh

I'm deleting every message lol

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

(And this convo is off topic)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

will do man

Deo101 [Millennium]

already on it

I just deleted everything to about 1 cause I think thats where we went off topic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh shit yeah this is creator babble

I will delete messages as well

#ctparchive #comic #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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antagonistchanremade · 5 years

Text

One flaw that exists in all my themes, even Evolution, is that videos and particularly large images sometimes roll right off the post, like this.

Man this is ugly.

I don’t think this is a problem in the default theme, so I’m gonna look into seeing why the default theme doesn’t have that problem.

I mean, I’ve generally had a good time when it comes to reverse-engineering the default theme’s post formatting.

Most themes use Tumblr’s pre-2015 post formatting (where, you know, reblogs are shown in a plain pyramid of blockquotes and links), mainly because the basic implementation of posts just automatically applies that particular formatting; the default theme, however, uses the current style of post formatting. After a brief look at the default theme’s code, you quickly discover that it takes a lot of extra code to make posts look like they do on the dash... and that said code can be reworked to make posts look like just about anything.

Like, here’s the Default Implementation of post formatting, as seen on most Tumblr themes including Antag01 and Bliss, as well as the dashboard until 2015:

If you don’t do anything fancy with the coding for the posts, this is what you’ll get. Because deep down, this is how the site actually stores multiple series’ of reblogs.

Then, here’s the Official Implementation of post formatting, as seen on the Default Theme and the dashboard:

(ignore the fact that carnival-phantasm’s URL is green and in a green box, that’s from the Shinigami Eyes extension, not from the post formatting)

I don’t know how this is implemented on the dashboard, but on the Default Theme, you have to add a whole bunch of extra code to the post formatting to make it look like this. It’s honestly kinda scary-looking at first. I would say that it’s a good example of Tumblr’s Spaghetti Code at work... but then again, this was a late addition (remember, they had to very suddenly find a way to implement real formatting to the posts instead of the hack the site had previously been built around with just having pyramids of blockquotes, AND make it so all the OLD posts WOULD ALSO FIT INTO THIS FORMATTING), AND the complexity actually adds a lot of depth to it. When I first decided to try reverse-engineering the Default theme, I just wanted to implement the modern post formatting, which is why my initial reaction to seeing the code was “Oh, ew”; but then, after starting to understand how it worked, I realized that I could actually totally play with this and create my own entirely new post formatting from scratch, which in my opinion is better than the Official Implementation in most ways but also inferior in a few ways (namely, some things that are missing from my formatting). There is code in place to separate different additions to the post from each other, and code in place to retrieve the avatars of different users, and to disable the links leading to inactive blogs. Honestly, again, while my initial reaction to seeing this was negative... it’s probably the only thing Staff has done since all the way back in the Yahoo buyout in 2013 that’s actually impressed me. Reverse-engineering this was fun and gave me a lot of freedom. A lot more freedom than I would have gotten if I’d gotten what I was expecting and hoping for. There are still problems, of course- for instance, it’s utter nesting hell- but overall, it works.

So, finally, here’s my Evolution Implementation, how Evolution does things, featuring the same post as the Official Implementation:

(again, ignore carnival-phantasm’s green URL, that’s still from Shinigami Eyes)

So, part of the really complex coding for the Official Implementation is built around each individual post testing whether or not it’s an original post. Like, each post has a property that determines if it’s an original post, or if you reblogged it from someone. This is so that the post will run different code depending on if it’s original or not; it’s essential for making any non-Default implementation work. So, after I did all my other work, I realized something crucial- because I created my own formatting that didn’t necessarily fit with what people were used to, I should make it slightly more obvious which posts were original or not. So, I added a bit of code that only executes when the post isn’t original that adds that little “(reblogged post)” marker to the top of the post. It’s not too obvious, but it doesn’t need to be; again, it’s only there as a backup plan in case my formatting didn’t make it immediately obvious what was going on in the post.

Also, in my implementation, I decided to give each different player in the post a bit more gravitas. A big box dedicated to telling you who’s saying what. In my opinion, it’s a bit easier to parse posts with multiple replies.

And, actually, let’s take a look at something from Evolution’s preview blog:

There’s a very similar big box for Asks, in particular for the question and the answer. The box is slightly taller, but also doesn’t quite reach the edges of the post the way the URL box does. The avatars are slightly bigger, and are given a bit more room to breathe. So, it’s a bit consistent, but also there’s just enough going on to communicate that this is a separate style of conversation.

AND ALSO, quotes and links:

Again, a similar-yet-different style of big box. I will admit, formatting the links and the quotes themselves has nothing to do with the Implementation. Even with the Default Implementation, you can play a bit with the CSS formatting for links and quotes. But having the Evolution Implementation gave me the freedom to make that formatting consistently match up with how reblogs and asks are indicated.

Also, that quote is reblogged, but because Quote posts are formatted stupidly to begin with, I can’t have it really display the OP without breaking things. Quotes are.... not good. Even in the modern style of post formatting, Quotes still work the same way that they did in the Default Implementation.

Also also, that bottom part- the part that’s like “Five months ago, 4 notes, via”- that’s not part of the Implementation. Like the links and quotes, formatting those is something you gotta do even under the Default Implementation.

And just to give you an idea how complicated the non-Default implementations are, here’s the code for text posts in Antag01 (again, basically the simplest way to code them that most themes use and until 2015 they all used):

This is it. It basically just says, “This is a text post, and the title is a size 3 header that is also a permalink to the post itself.” There’s more code dedicated to formatting the post’s title than there is to formatting the post itself. Literally “{Body}” is the entirety of what’s responsible for that screenshot of the Default Implementation. The Default Implementation is just what Tumblr does on its own.

Meanwhile, here’s the code for text posts in the default theme (aka, the Official Implementation):

And here’s the code for text posts in Evolution:

Evolution’s “IsDeactivated” block is larger than Antag01′s entire “Text” block. There’s literally more code in Evolution dedicated to deciding what to do if someone involved in the post is deactivated than there is code in Antag01 about text posts period.

Anyways, if I do end up starting Antag 04 soon, I’m gonna come up with another style of implementation. As much as I like the Evolution Implementation, I kinda came up with it on the fly when I realized that I could make my own implementation, and it’s not as well thought-out as it could be. There are a couple oversights, and it’s very aesthetically tied to Evolution, and I wanna make a theme where I know from the beginning that a custom Implementation is possible and thus can tie things even closer together.

#importantagonist

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minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong · 6 years

Text

Dissonance Chapter Nine

Description: After spending a year studying abroad in America, Y/N returns to Seoul hoping to greet the familiar city as a new girl. But what will she do when she’s met with old friends she’d rather forget? It seems the strings of fate are determined to test her resolve…and her willpower.

Genre: Fluff and Angst

Pairing: Taehyung x (f) Reader

Word Count: 10.5k

Tags: Badboy!Taehyung, Non-Idol!Au, Rockband BTS!Au, Bassist Taehyung!Au

Warnings: Swearing and mentions of alcohol, although infrequently

A/N: Uh.....so uh.......these chapters just....haha....keep getting....longer.....haha... I’M SORRY!!! I GOT ON A ROLL TOWARDS THE END AND I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT ALL OUT MY GOD I’M SORRY HAHA. Anyway, I hope you guys like the chapter ;) It is probably my favorite so far, but I can’t say for sure. As always, please don’t be shy and send me anything you want! I love talking with you guys. I’ll answer all asks within a day of receiving them. And please feel free to send me feedback, critique, concerns, or questions and I’ll do my best to address and fix them!

That said!! It has come to my attention that all of my formatting gets washed when you read the story on mobile. THAT’S SO ANNOYING!! I’m working on remedying this, but in the meantime all of the flashback scenes will be written in italics for the first sentence so folks on mobile don’t get too lost. I’m sorry about that you guys! Hopefully this works as a temporary fix.

- Mercury

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Masterlist

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Jimin with a sneer.

Hyerim smiled softly and rested a hand on her hip, pursing her lips. “Well, I need technical experience to put into my portfolio for jobs and Mijin was kind enough to let me help style you guys,” she said.

Mijin stared between Jimin and Hyerim in the circle, brows furrowed as if she was trying to figure something out. “Wait…,” she trailed.

“Sorry, I’m not comfortable having snakes so close to my face,” said Jimin.

I gave his side a pinch and he turned to me with wide brown eyes. “Jimin,” I whispered, gaze still trained on Hyerim.

She tilted her head to the side, silky pink locks slipping over her slender shoulder. “Are you still upset about what happened before? Jesus, you guys need to lighten up,” she said with a laugh, tossing me a smile.

I blinked at her. Truthfully, hearing her say that made my nerves settle slightly. If she was willing to bury the hatchet… “Wait,” repeated Mijin, watching the discourse with puzzled eyes.

Taehyung was tense at my side and I could see Hoseok glancing anxiously between us beside him. How could one person’s presence turn us all to stone? “Hyerim, we all know you’re not here with good intentions,” said Taehyung, his tone measured.

She scoffed. “I told you! I’m trying to get more looks in my portfolio. If I’m being honest, things haven’t been easy for me since I left. I barely got into cosmetology school and after that…,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. She looked briefly familiar. “I haven’t been able to find a job. I’m not even asking to be paid! Just to use you guys as…canvases.” She flitted her hand with a smile.

Taehyung glanced down at me with raised brows. Jimin too gave me a loaded glance. “What?” I asked them both.

“What do you think?” asked Jimin quietly, but nonetheless the whole group could hear.

“Wait, are you looking at me to decide what to do?” I asked, pointing at my chest.

Jimin nodded. “Obviously.”

“Hold on!” called Mijin, raising her hands to draw our attention. All eyes turned towards her. “You guys know each other?”

“We went to high school together,” said Hyerim, chuckling as she patted Mijin’s shoulder. “Well, I went to high school with them. They were friends before.” Mijin, still perplexed, looked over at Hyerim. “So you knew them when you asked to work with me?”

“I thought it might be easier,” she said, then sighed heavily. “Since I’m still nervous with clients I don’t know.”

Jimin feigned a cough that sounded dangerously close to the word bullshit and Taehyung continued to gauge my expression. “Hyerim, surely you can practice somewhere else,” said Taehyung, finally turning back towards her with slightly narrowed eyes.

“So who knows who now?” asked Mijin, rubbing her head with one manicured hand. “I’m so lost.”

Hyerim laughed. “Keep up, grandma,” she said. “I know Taehyung, Jimin, and…,” she paused to slide her gaze across the empty space towards me. “Y/N,” she finished slowly.

Mijin nodded. “Oh…okay…?” she began, but it ended like a question.

“I know her from stories,” offered Yoongi, raising a hand as he glanced lazily around the circle.

Mijin pouted as she thought. “Okay…”

“Oh, me too,” said Jungkook.

“And Hoseok,” offered Taehyung, pointing to the boy at his side.

I blinked as realization washed over me. Of course he knew her. How else would he have known to come grab Taehyung and me? I turned to him to find his eyes focused very intently on a crack in the concrete floor by his left foot.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t know this person?” asked Sunny, her voice high and pitchy as her slight features contorted with a frown.

“I don’t know who these two people are,” offered Hyerim, pointing at Namjoon and Jin before returning her gaze to Sunny with a smile. “So we’re clear now?” she asked, chipper.

Mijin sighed, still rubbing her head. “Alright. Whatever. Point is, she’s here to help me. I never have enough hands to get my makeup done and the boys always get onstage looking a little sloppy. If Sunny gets Y/N as an assistant, then I get Hyerim,” she said, nodding resolutely.

Hyerim turned to me, our eyes locking. I wasn’t sure what passed between us. It felt volatile, slightly dangerous…but not aggressive as it had at one time been. Perhaps she really had moved on. Perhaps I could move on too. Seeing her smile and interact with everyone tugged at something hidden in my chest, something for which I had been carrying guilt for the better part of a year.

“Y/N?” asked Taehyung gently from my side, placing a hand softly on my shoulder.

I glanced back at Hyerim, her doll-like features smoothed into a blank peacefulness. She looked healthy, her skin glowing and her eyes somehow warmer than before. Had she reformed? She seemed to implore me with her gaze alone. I couldn’t help the part of me that wanted to answer that call.

“I…I don’t know why you guys are asking me like I’m the authority,” I said slowly, still locking eyes with her. “But I don’t have a problem with her helping out. Lord knows we need more hands to keep you guys from burning the venue down.”

The group chuckled in response, and Hyerim even cracked a smile my way. She bowed her head slightly my way and I nodded back to her. “Thanks,” she said quietly.

I felt myself blush. Would it have been this easy to reconcile had I chosen to find her sooner? Was it supposed to be so seamless? “No problem,” I said. “Ah, you might wanna take a look at Taehyung’s makeup. I had to finish it and it’s…questionable.”

She laughed, the sound of bells, and at long last approached me, staring up at Taehyung with squinted eyes and crossed arms. “When are your makeup skills not questionable?” she asked with a smile. “Hyerim Ace is on the job,” she said, grabbing Taehyung by the arm and leading him backstage. He walked stiffly at her side, all the while tossing glances over his shoulder at me.

Jimin smacked my upper arm as the circle disbanded and furrowed his brow. I winced. “What the hell, Y/N?” he exclaimed.

I shook my head. “What the hell yourself!”

“She sabotaged your piece for that writing contest. She almost ruined your college specs,” he said.

“Almost,” I said, glancing towards the ground as conversation picked up around us.

He scoffed. “You’re just gonna forgive her?”

“Jimin…Taehyung told you why I freaked out the night before I left, right?” I asked quietly, mindful of Hoseok standing a few feet behind me.

He sighed and nodded. “But Y/N, that wasn’t your fault. That was your parents,” he said.

I nodded. “But…I can’t help but feel like all of this was avoidable. Because of that she started to hate me. I would have hated me too. And instead of asking her why she was doing it, all I did was hate her back. I don’t want to be that person anymore,” I said, shaking my head.

He stared down at me, eyes scanning my face as he chewed on my words. “Y/N,” he said softly.

I smiled. “I left so I could come back and be better. How can I be better if I don’t do better?”

He sighed. “Fine. But I don’t like it,” he said, eyeing me cautiously. “And I don’t like her.”

I laughed and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him into a loose hug. Reluctantly, he returned it. “Thank you for always standing up for me,” I said into his side.

He laughed. “Someone has to.”

“She’s sitting alone,” said Jimin from beside me as we entered the cafeteria, his eyes trained on a figure in the distance.

I followed his gaze and found that he was right. Sitting by herself, pushing broccoli around with a chopstick, was newly seventeen Lee Hyerim. Her complexion was poor and she looked sallow, as if she was sick. I’d taken care of her when she was sick just a few months prior. Oh how quickly things could change. I felt a familiar pang of pity in my gut and forced myself to ignore it. I couldn’t afford to feel anything for a person who was capable of being kind to my face while silently trying to ruin me.

“Maybe someone will come,” I said quietly as we took our seats beside Taehyung.

He eyed me carefully. God, was I ever sick of that. Ever since Hyerim and I had had our obligatory meeting in the principal’s office and the truth came out, the two of them had been too keen to keep an eye on me. Too careful. Too cautious. It was as if I was suddenly a porcelain doll that was dangerously close to breaking.

But I felt fine.

Aside from the guilt tearing holes through my stomach.

“I hope nobody goes,” spat Jimin, leaning over his rice and shoveling a spoonful in his mouth.

I smacked his arm and he looked at me with wide eyes and full cheeks. “Don’t be a dick,” I said, then rolled my eyes and picked at my food. “And chew your food.”

He obliged on my second command, but as soon as he had swallowed he was turning my way with furrowed brows. “Excuse me, but she deleted the essay you’ve been working on for months,” he said, leveling his eyes with mine.

I looked over his shoulder and saw her still sitting alone by the window, her gaze far away. There was something sad in her posture, and I hated myself for wanting to know what it was. Her narrow shoulders looked slouched and thin, and her hair formed a curtain between her face and the rest of the cafeteria.

“Thanks, I almost forgot,” I quipped, still staring at her.

He sighed. “You’ve got that stupid guilty look on your face,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of my eyes. “And it shouldn’t be there. Nobody even knows what she did because you told the principal you deleted it yourself. You’re the only reason she’s not expelled-,”

“They wouldn’t expel her, Jimin,” I said.

He held up a finger to silence me. “You let her off because you’re nice. And because of that, her life doesn’t change. At all. The only one exiling her is herself,” he said with a huff.

Taehyung glanced at me over Jimin’s head and I looked away. I didn’t like him being so wary of me. “You know she doesn’t have a lot of friends. She’s shy,” I said.

Jimin scoffed. “Not shy around a computer apparently.”

I shrugged. “She made a mistake,” I said.

Taehyung continued to stare at me, his gaze far more serious than usual. He hadn’t said a single word. “Y/N, I’m telling you, you’re punishing yourself for no reason. She’s a bad person.”

I furrowed my brow. “We’re more than our mistakes,” I said slowly, trying to tease out what I really meant.

Somehow, those small words seemed to sum it up. She wasn’t one bad action. She was endless nights spent giggling in my pitch-black bedroom. She was reassuring hugs after poor test grades that I didn’t have the strength to show my father. She was evening trips to the traveling fair, sharing cotton candy and screams at the top of precarious roller coasters. She was more than a bad choice. She was more than a bad person.

“Tae, what do you think? You’re being…like, uncharacteristically silent,” said Jimin, giving Taehyung a shove with his elbow.

Taehyung glanced at me before inhaling sharply and, with a shrug, saying as if to dismiss the conversation, “She’s getting what she deserves.”

I awoke in the morning to a clean bedroom. I still wasn’t quite used to that, I supposed. Looking around at the pristine floor, devoid of all the usual clutter felt like a good omen for that quiet Saturday morning. Distantly, my phone gave a shrill call, screeching into the air to remind me to get ready for my date. Outside my door I heard Yuna and Haewon chatting and slowly I slinked out of my cozy bed and made my way into the living room. The girls sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, talking over an episode of Hello Counselor. In it, a girl was being confronted about her addiction to ramen.

“All I’m saying is if that’s how I go then that’s how I go,” insisted Haewon with a shrug.

Yuna gaped. “Excuse me, but that’s a horrible attitude. Health is important!”

“Health is important,” mimicked Haewon, crossing her eyes.

Yuna shoved her shoulder. “Oh! Morning, Y/N,” she said as she noticed me chuckling just outside my door. I plopped down beside Haewon and rested my head on her shoulder. She gave my hair a rub. “I hear through the grapevine that you and Hoseok had a date yesterday.”

I glanced at her with wide eyes before readjusting on Haewon’s shoulder. “It wasn’t a date. We were just hanging out,” I said. “And what grapevine?”

She hummed. “Park Jimin,” she said.

“You two seem to talk an awful lot,” I remarked, smirking.

“He’s a good friend to have!” she said, and without looking I could hear her pout.

I laughed. “Don’t talk about me with him!”

“Grapevines are stubborn! I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

“Spray it with weed repellant!” I called.

She scoffed. “Grapevines aren’t weeds-,”

“Sh!” exclaimed Haewon, shaking me off her shoulder. “Jaehyun is talking.”

I groaned and leaned back against the couch. “How many boyfriends do you have? Kai from EXO, Jackson from Got7, Taehyung, and now Jaehyun?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re one to talk. You’re the only one out of all of us going on actual dates. Don’t you have one today too?” she asked.

“It’s wasn't a date!”

“Today’s a date,” said Yuna from over Haewon’s shoulder. “Anyway, how was the concert? Did they do well?”

I sighed as I recalled it. Jimin was significantly more aggressive onstage than usual, which given his docility and gentle frame was pretty jarring. Taehyung was the same as normal, and I wasn’t sure if I liked that. After that moment in the dressing room, I would have figured…

I glanced at Haewon and scolded that stupid voice in my head. “They were a little distracted,” I said, recalling how Hoseok’s drumstick had gone flying halfway through their second song. He’d almost tripped poor Seokjin.

“Oh? Why?”

“Probably because of Hyerim,” I said, grabbing for Haewon’s unfinished bowl of Lucky Charms and spooning a bite into my mouth.

Yuna turned to me, wide-eyed, and blinked. “Wait, the Hyerim?”

“Do I know any other Hyerims?” I asked, thinking.

She rolled her eyes, tossing the remote at me which hit me squarely on the shoulder. I winced. “Well you never tell me anything, so maybe!”

I nodded. “Fine! Fair. But yes, it’s that Hyerim.”

“Why is she nosing around?” asked Yuna, her tone growing agitated.

I shrugged. “She’s friends with Mijin so she’s working as like…assistant stylist or something,” I said, examining a cuticle.

Yuna snorted. “Who needs an assistant stylist?”

“Who needs an assistant manager?” I asked.

Yuna glanced at me. “Trust me…Bangtan needs it.”

“Anyway, that’s why Hyerim is there. So I’ll be seeing her a lot and I’d appreciate it if we could all just think of her as a new member of Team Bangtan,” I said resolutely with a stiff nod.

“Uh…,” Haewon hedged beside me. “Sorry, but who’s Hyerim?” she asked softly, puzzled.

I turned to her. “Ah, just a girl I used to be friends with when I was younger. We…kind of had a falling out.”

“She almost kept Y/N from going to college,” offered Yuna, her attention once again seized by the TV.

I shook my head at Haewon as she turned to me with surprise etched into her features. “That’s a little severe,” I said. “She lashed out at me because of…well, something I didn’t really do. But I wasn’t there for her either so it’s really nobody’s fault-,”

“It’s her fault,” said Yuna.

“It’s not.”

She glanced at me slowly. “What could have been so bad that she turned into literal Satan?” asked Yuna with a stern look my way.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s complicated,” I said, but hot shame began to bubble inside me, signaling that this topic was a danger zone.

“You have a lot of weird friends,” said Haewon, pursing her lips. “It’s probably because you’re weird too.”

“Probably.”

“I wanna meet her,” Yuna said suddenly.

I gaped at her. “Pardon me?”

She nodded. “If she had anything to do with what happened the night before you left for America, I wanna meet her.”

“It’s not that-,”

“Were you or were you not sobbing uncontrollably in a park at four in the morning that night?” asked Yuna.

I flushed. She’d never been so blunt about it before. “I mean…yeah.”

“And was she or was she not involved in said sobbing?”

“Involved, yeah. But that wasn’t why-,”

“Then I’d like to meet her please. When are you seeing her again?” she asked.

She was speaking like my mother… “Tonight,” I replied quickly, and unconsciously my spine straightened out a little.

Yuna nodded. “Then I’ll be coming to the dress rehearsal,” she said.

“Me too!” offered Haewon, raising her hand. “I don’t like the sound of this girl.”

“You just wanna see Taehyung,” said Yuna with a smirk.

Haewon shoved her shoulder with furrowed brows. “No!” she shouted. “But…I mean, it’s a pretty nice bonus.”

I laughed, but something inside me felt ill at ease. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to involve so many people. Although, to be fair, most of Bangtan already knew her. It wasn’t just a private thing between Hyerim and me after all. It never really had been.

But I had a particularly bad feeling about bringing the girls tonight…

Hoseok slowly laced his fingers with mine, intertwining them as we strolled through Namsan Park. Despite being back in Seoul for a while and living there even longer, I hadn’t really spent much time in the park. It was precisely the kind of date I expected from Hoseok: wholesome. He peeked down at me as if to gauge my reaction and instead of pulling away I simply smiled.

“You’re wearing my scarf,” he said with a grin.

A couple slid past us, tiring of our easy pace as we wandered aimlessly through the falling leaves. “You told me to take good care of it,” I said, resting my chin in the fabric.

He squeezed his eyes shut in an animated smile and cringed slightly. “It’s too cute,” he shouted. He began releasing ambiguous yells as he wiggled slightly, putting on a show.

A few other park-goers glanced at us with worried eyes and, frantically, I reached up to clamp a hand over his lips, halting his string of screams. His eyes went wide as he stared down at me, our bodies closer now, our hands still clasped. Slowly, his expression slackened into something more relaxed and he snaked his free hand back around my waist.

“Don’t scream in public places,” I scolded, but my voice was quiet, timid. “Besides, you have a concert tonight.”

He hummed and I let my hand fall. “Are you worried about me?”

I flushed. “I mean-,”

“I worry about you too,” he said. We’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and a flurry of people were filing past us on their morning walks. “I should explain a few things.”

At the shift in his playful tone I backed away slightly and he released my waist, opting for simply holding my hand as we began walking once more. “Can I ask how you know so much about me?”

“Taehyung,” he said quietly, eyes settled on his sneakers as they stepped one in front of the other, crunching autumn leaves.

I blinked ahead and nodded, trying my hardest to digest the information without reaction. “Oh.”

“He and I became roommates when I moved into the apartment and started drumming for the group,” he said, our pace becoming decidedly more slow.

I nodded. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me you two used to be very close. And he said that there was…something between you,” he said, then cleared his throat. “He said that he fucked it up.”

“We can agree on that,” I said.

Hoseok let out a laugh that felt a little disingenuous. “Yeah. We became close pretty naturally. I told him some things I’ve never told anyone and in return…he told me about you.”

My body was hot and the wind felt crisp and heavy like when you have a fever. “Really?”

“I think…as he told me more about you I started to kind of…I don’t know, idealize you? Like, you seemed like the kind of person I could really respect,” he said, then chuckled. “Which, despite how I may act, is kinda hard to find. I don’t really…like people as much as I pretend to.”

There were moments, I’d begun to notice, with Hoseok in which his words became dark and his usual chipper demeanor faltered in lieu of something…different. Something sad. I’d glimpsed it the night he’d come back for me after the show, and the night he’d kissed me. There was something splintering in him that only emerged when the mask slipped.

“I understand,” I said, then chuckled. “To be fair, I think I’m a better concept than I am a real person.”

He squeezed my hand. “That’s the thing with people. It’s easy to make them more than what they are which is…well, mundane. Flawed.”

I nodded. “I’m…I’m a little shocked that Taehyung told you about me. I figured he’d talk about something more important.”

“You’re very important to him,” said Hoseok, his tone serious. I cleared my throat. “When you came back and we took you on as a co-manager, he didn’t know what to do. He doesn’t really confide in people,” he said, then chuckled and glanced my way, catching my eye. “But you’d know that better than me.”

“Yeah…,” I said, but it felt like I was offering nothing to the conversation. I was processing the information, but it wasn’t digesting easily.

“Well, he kind of…asked me to look after you. Keep you out of trouble since he couldn’t do it,” he said.

I stopped walking and stared up at him with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

Hoseok chuckled. “I knew you’d have that face.”

“It’s just my face,” I said, then shook my head. “But…he asked you to do that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I even tried to play matchmaker a little bit in the beginning. I tried to lead you into his room, hoping you’d see the pictures on the walls and-,”

“And realize he still cared even if he pretended he didn’t,” I finished with a scoff. “Funny thing is, I did see the pictures and they convinced me he didn’t care. The most important one…it’s missing.”

He shook his head. “At any rate, I thought I might be happy seeing him happy. He’s pretty precious to me. But…I started to get a little too greedy.”

“Greedy?”

“The night I went back to the venue to get you,” he said. “Taehyung was the one who asked me to. He noticed you leave the group and worried about you. He felt like he couldn’t worry. Like he wasn’t allowed.”

“But you were allowed,” I said, thinking back. To be fair, I’d made it pretty much impossible for Taehyung to approach me.

He nodded. “I started to feel a little special. And when we spoke that night…I kind of…I don’t know, I found myself being honest with you.”

“Are you not usually honest?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I’m usually…pretty much the opposite.”

The mask was slipping ever further. “Hoseok…”

“Anyway, I felt something towards you. Something that I wasn’t sure was right. And things just kept happening. He hooked up with Haewon that night, and he pushed you away. I kept having to come in and care for you,” he said, letting his thumb slide smoothly over the skin of my hand. “Somewhere along the way, I stopped doing it for him and started doing it for me.”

I blushed. “You…”

“I realized that I kind of liked myself when I was with you. Which is…kinda rare.”

“Hoseok, wait-,”

“I realized that you brought out the version of me that wasn’t horrible, wasn’t made-up. I started to envy Taehyung, and I started to want you for myself-,”

“Hoseok-,” I interjected again, worry edging my voice higher.

He smiled softly as his gaze remained frontward. “All the things I’d heard from Taehyung, all the stories…they created this composite of you that I admired. But meeting you and making memories of our own, not just relying on his memories, it made me feel…kind of happy,” he said. “Like I’d met someone who could look at me at whatever stage I was in and be okay with me.”

“Hoseok!” I finally called, halting my step and so halting his. He finally looked at me and again that sadness was there, thinly veiled with a weak smile. “Hoseok, do you hate yourself?”

He blinked at me and pursed his lips, thinking. After a moment, he chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t everybody? Just a little?”

Without realizing it, I released his hand and fell forward into his chest, wrapping my arms about his waist and placing my cheek beside his heart. I realized then that it was racing. Hoseok stood, as if the action of embrace had shocked the motion right out of him, stiff and still as stone. Slowly though, his arms slid around my shoulders. He rested his chin atop my head and I heart his heart rate slow down gradually, his breathing return to normal.

“Please don’t think you’re unloveable. Whether you smile and laugh or cry and scream you have people in your life who care for you,” I said carefully, rubbing his back. I wasn’t used to providing comfort this way, but the words kept tumbling as I felt him nod his head. “You have so much to give. And so much that you deserve to receive. I don’t know who put it in your head that you don’t, but they’re wrong.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly against my hair. “Thank you,” he repeated once again.

I didn’t know where to go from there. The more I knew him, the deeper entrenched I became in this whole mess. I could no longer view our relationship as casual or fun. There was a new dynamic between us that had been emerging for some time. I worried that perhaps that dynamic would further complicate things. But as he hugged me back, his grip almost desperate, I realized that this person trusted me. And I had to be whatever he needed.

“Are you sure you’re not tired? You look tired.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Jimin pouted at Yoongi as the three of us sat atop the stage, our legs dangling over the edge. “You need to practice self care,” he insisted.

Yoongi glanced over Jimin to lock eyes with me and I fought a laugh. “Self care is me leaving this conversation,” said Yoongi as he stood to his feet and ambled backstage.

The rest of the boys were being taken care of by Mijin and Hyerim, and the girls were sitting cross-legged beside Sunny on the floor below where Jimin and I leisured. I had seen neither Taehyung nor Hoseok since I’d entered the building, and I wasn’t sure if that was unsettling or comforting. With Hyerim’s reappearance and Haewon’s eagerness to get to know Taehyung, part of me just wanted to bury my head in the sand and bide my time.

“He’s such a shit,” mumbled Jimin as he scooted closer to me and rested his chin on my shoulder, examining me with furrowed brows and a pout.

I shrugged him off and squared my gaze with his. I raised my fists in defense and he gaped. “You’re weird today. I don’t like it.”

“Weird how?” he asked, shaking his head. “Can’t I care for my friends?”

“You’re being extra mom-y,” I said.

He scoffed and crossed his arms. “I guess it’s a crime to love you guys,” he said.

“Jimin,” I chided, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I can tell you’re upset.”

He glanced at me out the corner of his eye before, reluctantly, his posture fell with an exhale and he let his expression relax. “It’s Hyerim,” he said.

“I figured.”

“I just don’t trust her,” he said.

“Did she do anything today? When she was doing your makeup?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I won’t let her touch me. Mijin does my makeup,” he said. “I don’t talk to her either.”

“Isn’t that a little much?” I asked. “This isn’t high school.”

Jimin pulled his knees to his chest and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…you and Tae are really important to me. And I worry about you because you’re not gonna be stern when you have to be. I want her to know someone is watching her, even if it’s not you,” he said.

I sighed. “She was lonely our junior year. After everything happened.”

“So?”

“We didn’t do anything to help. Years of friendship…dissolved after one mistake,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a mistake. It was calculated. And then she and Tae started hooking up once she switched schools-,”

“Don’t remind me,” I said with a soft laugh.

His eyes went wide. “Shit! I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Anyway, I guess…now that I have the opportunity I want to give her the chance I didn’t give her back then. I have a lot that I feel regretful for,” I said. “And a lot that I still resent her for.”

Quietly, Jimin exhaled. “I understand.”

“So try not to worry too much. Focus on doing your best tonight,” I said, smiling his way.

He returned it. “You too,” he said, then snapped his fingers and pointed to me, letting his knees fall into a criss-cross position. “That’s right! I forgot to tell you yesterday, but my mom wants to see you. We had our weekly phone call and I mentioned that you’ve been back for a while and she yelled at me for not telling her sooner. She misses you.”

I laughed. “I miss her too,” I said. Of all the parental figures in my life, Mrs. Park had always felt the most like a real mom.

“Next weekend then. We can go back home and stay with her for the night, okay?” he asked. “She’s been bugging me to come back home anyway.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But…if you could, maybe don’t tell my parents.” “Still cold shouldering them?”

I furrowed my brow. “Can you use that like a verb?” I asked.

He bumped my shoulder with his and laughed. “Answer the question.”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t want to see them yet. Not until I can figure out how I want to face them.”

He placed a hand in my hair, ruffling it a little with a smile. “Alright. I’ll tell my mom you’re coming then.”

“Y/N! Can you fix Jungkook’s mic stand please? It’s lopsided,” called Sunny from below, giggling over a pile of snacks with Haewon and Yuna.

I smiled at Jimin and gave his knee a squeeze before standing and stretching. “Duty calls,” I said. But as I turned around I found myself met with a very close view of Kim Taehyung’s broad chest. I stumbled back slightly and glanced up towards his face, shocked when I saw what awaited me. “Your hair!”

He grabbed a lock between his middle and forefingers, pursing his cherry lips. “Hyerim thought it was time to revamp my look,” he said.

I blinked at him. Gone was the cold silver that made his skin look particularly warm. It had been replaced entirely with the same blackish brown he’d had in high school: the same deep color that brought me in an instant back to the days when we’d sit outside and the sun would cast reddish streaks through his hair. The days I would pat his head just to feel how soft it might be. The days when he would laugh brightly in response and pat my head in response.

I flushed as the memories became too much. “Looks nice-,” I began, but Jimin was quick to stand to his feet and cross his arms.

“Looks stupid,” he grumbled.

I sighed. “Just because Hyerim did it doesn’t mean it’s bad,” I said, then turned back to Taehyung who was gazing down at me with a soft smile playing on his face. “You look handsome.” I cleared my throat after my sudden confession and stepped around the tall boy to reach Jungkook’s crooked mic stand.

“She’s just saying that because she’s a girl. Trust me, Tae, you look really, really dumb,” said Jimin.

“If Y/N approves, then that’s enough,” he said with a chuckle before hopping off the stage without so much as crouching to minimize the impact. He sauntered towards Sunny and the girls and began chatting with them. I couldn’t look away from his back, and the way his white t-shirt and dark hair made him almost resemble the Taehyung I’d been madly in love with.

I stood in the crowd the whole night and, even though I enjoyed watching the boys perform I had a hard time focusing. Or rather, I had a hard time knowing where exactly I should focus. Half the time my eyes were stuck on Hoseok as he smiled and laughed, and I couldn’t figure out why the dichotomy of this man on stage and the boy who had hugged me in the park made me so uneasy. The other half of the time I would catch myself locking my gaze on Taehyung as he smoothly plucked strings, occasionally shooting smirks into the crowd which were met, each and every time, with a chorus of squeals. Seeing him up there, smiling and maneuvering gracefully around the stage…it reminded me of when I used to watch him practice in Jimin’s basement. No stage, no lights, no screaming fans. Just him and his smile.

Bodies pressed close to me, shoulder-to-shoulder, and the air was hot with sweat and exhalations. But soon it was over and I stood in the middle of an empty floor looking up at an empty stage. Haewon approached me from behind and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“So when do I get to see this Hyerim girl?” she asked.

I glanced at her. “Uh…I don’t exactly know. She might not even be here anymore,” I said.

Yuna sighed beside her. “She’s here. Jimin told me.”

“Jimin told you,” teased Haewon with a laugh. “If you and Jimin are so close why don’t you just date?”

Yuna stiffened and scoffed. “We’re acquaintances because of our mutual concern for Y/N. It’s a friendship of convenience,” she said.

I smirked at her. “Seems pretty convenient.”

“Stop!” she called. “Seriously! It’s just-,”

“Y/N,” said Taehyung’s deep voice from the side.

I turned to him, still flustered looking up at him, handsome face framed by dark locks of shiny hair. I swallowed heavily and nodded. “Yeah?”

“Um…nobody wanted to be the one to tell you so I offered, but…,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck.

I sighed. “Spit it out,” I ordered, facing him properly with crossed arms.

“Hyerim is throwing a party for us tonight and wanted to know if you could come,” he said.

I cocked a brow. “Why didn’t she ask me herself?”

“Because you haven’t been backstage and that’s where she works,” he said, deadpan.

I nodded. “Um…she…she wanted me to come?” I asked, perplexed.

He smiled softly. “Yeah. You’re fun,” he said.

I flushed. I wondered why he was being so gentle to me, so kind. It felt sudden. “Uh,” I floundered. “I…I guess it’s up to the girls.”

“Yes!” called Haewon.

“If it means meeting the demon spawn, I’m in,” said Yuna, picking at a hangnail.

I shrugged and turned back to Taehyung. “I think that’s a yes,” I said.

He smiled, another tender smile, and nodded. “I’ll let the guys know. She lives right around the corner so we’re just gonna walk together.”

I returned it, but I could feel the heat in my cheeks, in my joints. “Okay. We’ll meet you out back.”

“See you soon,” he said, giving the top of my head a soft pat before turning on his heel and walking backstage once again.

I stood still in the middle of the room, eyes wide in his wake, and couldn’t distinguish any noise apart from the wild pounding of my heart. “Y/N?” called Yuna from beside me.

I blinked and turned to her. “Yeah?”

“The hell was that?” she asked.

Haewon stared at me with furrowed brows. “He seemed different.”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you,” I said, then stared in the direction he’d left. “All I know is that I need a drink.”

I forgot how much I hated house parties…

I stood in Hyerim’s kitchen, nursing a red cup full of soda and rum. I wasn’t sure where either had come from, but it was my third glass. I’d caught sight of Hoseok briefly, but as soon as I’d glimpsed him he was gone once again, dancing like a madman in the massive living room.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected of Hyerim’s apartment. Perhaps something modest and manufactured like mine. Perhaps something artsy and small. But I was wrong on all counts. The place was massive, sprawling into tons of bedrooms and a balcony big enough that all of Team Bangtan could stretch out, fingertip to fingertip. It was furnished lavishly with pop art paintings and gold trimmings and accents. I wondered where she’d gotten all the money, but I knew better than to ask.

Yuna and Haewon had attached themselves to Jimin who, like Yuna, was pouting. He’d only agreed to come because I was there, and he was none too pleased about it. I couldn’t blame him. If the roles had been reversed, and someone had done wrong to him I would have had a horrible time trying to accept the person back into our lives.

But here I was.

“Hungry?” asked a voice from behind me.

I turned quickly to find Hyerim leaning back against a countertop, looking long and slender and sober and beautiful. She smiled. “Oh, uh…sure,” I said, approaching her.

She walked to her tall fridge and produced from the freezer a tub of mint chip ice cream. She offered me a spoon from her silverware drawer. “I bought this because I thought you might come,” she said.

I blinked. “That’s right. You hate this flavor,” I said, digging a spoon into the tub as she set it down on the counter.

She nodded, staring at the ice cream softly. “So you and Taehyung made up?” she asked.

I thought a moment. “I…I don’t know exactly.”

“Well, you guys aren’t awkwardly shuffling around each other anymore which is an improvement,” she said, laughing.

I joined her. “You’re right.”

“I always wondered about that. After how things got between you senior year I was curious if you guys would ever make amends,” she said.

It seemed strange for her to contemplate something like that, as our relationship suffered those hardships partially on her own account. “I suppose…I’d like to make amends.”

“Mature,” she said, smiling. “The old Y/N would have pretended things were fine and never tried to fix it.”

I shrugged. “I’m still like that,” I said. It was true. I was too cowardly to face Taehyung properly, to really hash things out. And I was too cowardly to be honest with Hoseok about my mixed-up feelings. I was too cowardly to apologize to Hyerim, too cowardly to admit to Haewon that I might feel something for the guy she liked, too cowardly to rewrite my essay. And, God, was I far too cowardly to talk to my parents. “I haven’t changed.”

“Don’t,” she said with a laugh. “Watching you make simple things complicated was always my favorite part of being friends with you.”

I turned to her as she took a hearty bite of ice cream. “I-,”

“Don’t change,” she said again. “If you change, I’ll have to change too.” She stuck the spoon straight into the mound of ice cream and turned on her heel to exit the kitchen. “Feel free to eat as much as you want, okay?” she asked with a smile before she wandered out into the living room from which heavy music bumped lowly.

I stared down into the minty ice cream, stared at her spoon sticking upright. I stared at the space she had been occupying only seconds before, now empty. She’d always been that way. Someone whose absence you could feel.

I sighed and removed her spoon, placing it inside her nearly full dishwasher and sliding the tub of ice cream back into the freezer. Quietly, I slipped through the crowd in the living room and made my way to Haewon who had finally managed to get Taehyung alone. The two were chatting close, Haewon grinning up at him with cheeks reddened by a cocktail of shyness and alcohol.

“Hey,” I said, standing between the pair as they hovered near the TV.

Haewon glanced at me and smiled. “Speak of the Devil!”

“Hey,” said Taehyung in response, tipping his cup.

“You were talking about me?” I asked. “Better not be telling her any of my embarrassing stories,” I warned Taehyung with a sever glance his way.

He laughed. “I would never betray your trust that way.”

I almost made a cheap joke about him betraying my trust in other ways, but retained my self control despite the drink in my hand. “What then? Talking about my staggering beauty?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair.

Taehyung scoffed. “No! We were talking about you and J-Hope!” she said.

The stage name hit my ears strangely and I squinted before I realized who they were talking about. “Ah!” I said, then laughed. “Right.”

“I think you two are cute, but Taehyung thinks Hoseok would look better with Irene from Red Velvet,” she said with a pout.

I gaped. “Excuse me?” I called. He laughed boisterously, that high-pitched one that he did when he was drunk. “Irene may be beautiful and talented and perfect, but I’m-,”

“Attainable,” finished Taehyung with a snort.

I smacked his chest. “Shut up!” I called, then laughed with him.

Haewon laughed too, but in a moment her expression fell. It was only midnight, and we hadn’t been at the party all that long, but I could tell from the paleness in her face that she was becoming ill. She glanced at me and before any of us could move, I slung an arm around her waist and pulled her as quickly as I could towards the hallway on the right, Taehyung in hot pursuit as I opened every door and found no restrooms. Nearing the end of the hallway, Haewon began to dry heave and I pleaded with the universe that this door would be the one. I wiggled it once, the silver handle shaking against the wood, and someone called something indistinguishable from inside.

I sighed. “Someone is about to puke!” I shouted.

“Should’ve gotten here sooner!” called a voice, completely different from the first one.

I cringed away from the door as the picture became clearer and I turned towards Taehyung. “She’s gonna blow,” I said, Haewon slumped over her stomach and only holding onto my shoulders limply.

“Must be Hyerim’s room. Maybe she has a bathroom,” he said, pointing to the final door. A piece of paper was taped to its surface reading: Please stay out~

I stared at it. “Do we wanna go in there?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Do we have a choice?”

I glanced down at Haewon, at the blanket of dark hair shrouding her face as it dangled towards the floor. “Good point,” I said, pushing the final door open and fumbling clumsily with the light switch.

Soon the room was flooded with yellow light and I spared no time trying to absorb what it looked like. To our luck, the door on the left of her massive bed opened into a large bathroom and Haewon immediately collapsed beside the porcelain toilet.

In seconds she was puking and Taehyung, sickened, turned away. I kneeled beside her and smoothed the hair out of her face, using the sleeve of my sweater to dab the cold sweat along her forehead. “It’s okay,” I chided.

She wretched for a moment longer before resting her flushed cheek against the seat. She shut her eyes, exhausted. “I drank too much,” she said.

“You always do,” I said, but I tried to keep the scolding tone out of my voice.

She chuckled and nodded. “I know. I think,” she paused to cough. “I think it makes me more fun.”

“You’re always fun.”

“Taehyung said you’re fun,” she said.

I stiffened beside her and began rubbing her back gently. “Stop talking,” I said. “Just rest a minute.”

Taehyung stood in the doorway staring down at us and I heard him sigh. “She should go home,” he said.

“No!” Haewon cried.

I smiled and shushed her. “She won’t go even if we drag her,” I said. “She wants to meet Hyerim.”

“Why would she ever want to do that willingly?” he mused.

I shot him a glare. “We are entering a new, mature era, Kim Taehyung. Don’t ruin it,” I said, but I found it hard to be at ease with Hyerim’s strange words looming in my brain.

He chuckled. “I won’t. Just…I don’t know, be careful okay? You don’t know her like you think you do,” he said.

I glanced at him with furrowed brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just-,”

He was cut off by the sound of Haewon puking once more, her back arched as she curled her face into the toilet bowl. I was quick to rub her back again, holding her hair in my free hand. I caught Taehyung turn around in the corner of my eye. He’d always been a bit squeamish.

“Ah,” Haewon exhaled with a tired laugh. “I feel better.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

She nodded and sat up straight, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before opening them and staring at me. “Mhm,” she said with a smile.

I wiped her lips with a piece of toilet paper and frowned. “Taehyung’s right though. You should go home,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “If I went home every time I puked I’d never go out,” she said.

“Haewon,” I said.

She smiled. “I’m good now!” she said. “See?” She turned side to side, giving me a look at her face as the color returned to it.

“Jesus! There you guys are,” said Yuna, having left the bedroom door swinging as she rushed into the bathroom. “God dammit, Haewon. Again?”

Haewon chuckled and flitted her fingers in a wave. “Hi,” she said.

Yuna sighed. “I saw you guys stumble back here. Haewon, let’s get you some fresh air,” she said.

I turned and saw Jimin behind her, soft eyes rich with concern. “Balcony?” she asked with a grin.

“Sure. Let’s go,” said Yuna, helping her to her feet and guiding her from the room. “I’ll take care of her. You two just…do whatever it is you do when we’re not around.”

And so the trio left, closing the door behind them.

I flushed. Suddenly I was all alone in my ex-friend’s bedroom with my other ex-friend who just so happened to be my first love. I turned to Taehyung as he sat down with a heavy sigh on Hyerim’s bed. He patted the space beside him and, having no reason to say no, I joined him. To be fair, I also had no reason to say yes…

“So…,” he started. “You and-,”

“If you say ‘you and Hoseok’ one more time I’m gonna deck you,” I said, turning to him.

He laughed. “Sorry. I’m just…curious.”

“To answer your question, we had a date today,” I said.

He glanced at me quietly. “And?”

“It was really nice,” I said, then shook my head. “No, well, it was sort of nice. I guess…the more I get to know him the more I worry about him.”

He smiled. “That’s how it goes with him.”

“That’s how it goes with you too,” I said.

He stiffened and I caught his cheeks go slightly pink. He looked away, towards Hyerim’s closed door. “Ah,” he said. “Y/N…can I ask you something?”

“You just asked me something.”

“Something else.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

He pursed his lips and played with his hands. Maybe it was the new hair or the flush in his cheeks. Maybe it was the softness in his eyes. But for a moment I wanted to wrap my arms around his stupid neck. “Why are you giving me another chance?”

I blinked. “I…I mean…that’s a good question.”

He laughed and looked down at me with a smile. “I really wanna know.”

“Tae,” I said, letting the nickname settle in the dim room. We were alone anyway. It was only me and him. “You told me to remind you that people are more than their mistakes. And I didn’t back then.”

“Y/N-,”

“You’re more than your mistakes, Kim Taehyung,” I said, meeting his eyes squarely. “You are.”

His eyes scanned me, leaping from my eyes to my nose, my jaw, my cheeks, then back to my eyes. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Are you sure I’m not just a bad person?” he asked. There was a vulnerability in his voice that I had never heard before, not even when we were the closest.

“You’re not a bad person,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re insecure. And sometimes you’re too quick to lash out. You’re headstrong and stubborn. And you don’t listen to other people very well,” I said. “But…you’re not a bad person.”

Quietly, I pulled my hair to the side so I could reach behind my neck and fiddle with the clasp of his grandmother’s necklace. His eyes trained on the skin of my neck. I’d worn the chain that night with the intention of keeping it safe, as I’d been moving things around in my room and didn’t want to lose it. But somehow, it felt like the right thing to to. I met his eyes again and presented the silver chain to him.

He held the pendant between his fingers as I still held the chain and then glanced at me. “It hasn’t been a month.”

“I trust you.”

He blinked at me. “Are…are you sure?”

I nodded and pressed the necklace into his palms. I moved to let go of his hands, but he held on to me. Surprised, I turned to him with wide eyes and he simply scanned me wordlessly. I stared up at him, and his thumbs began smoothing shapes into the sides of my hands. Just like Hoseok.

But nothing like Hoseok.

He continued to stare at me, his deep eyes boundless as they took me in from above. The light made his skin glow, made his parted lips glisten slightly. I wondered what he was thinking, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Instead I stared at him too. It took me a moment to realize that his deep eyes were getting bigger, his parted lips were coming closer. But when I did I kept perfectly still. Slowly, his nose brushed mine and I watched him close his eyes. I did the same and butterflies flew through my stomach. All those years of friendship, and we’d never done something like this. I felt his breath fanning out across my lips and I could hear nothing buy my own thundering heart. What was he going to do? I could almost feel his lips brushing mine.

“Ah,” he exhaled, and as soon as he’d leaned in he was leaning away. I opened my eyes and caught a flash of horror on his face before he stood and cleared his throat. “We should go back out or Hoseok might get the wrong idea.”

I blushed. Hoseok.

It was again like a spell was broken and suddenly we were free again. It was odd. The thing that kept us from making that choice wasn’t circumstance or interruptions. No fated force had banged on the door, nobody had called for us. Nothing had fallen off a shelf. Nobody had sneezed. It was just the two of us in that room, and it was purely him who had stopped it.

Why did that hurt more?

He slipped out the door, leaving it open and not sparing even a moment to wait for me. I scratched my cheek and as my hand slid from my face, my fingers brushed my lower lip.

“Haewon?” I called through the rapidly dwindling crowd. “Yuna?”

I’d spent the rest of the evening drifting from the drink cooler to the living room to Hoseok’s arms to a particularly comfortable sofa across from the TV. I had spent little time in any one place, choosing instead to move all over: a desperate effort to keep my mind busy.

But the party was winding down and I found myself amidst a small group of people I didn’t know. Across the living room I glimpsed Hoseok and squeezed through a few small bundles of people to reach him. Upon seeing me he grinned.

“Hey, love,” he said, resting a hand on my cheek as his eyes went heavy. He’d had a lot to drink.

So had I.

So had everyone, really.

“Hi,” I said, leaning into his hand softly. I was allowed to touch this person. He was mine to touch. “Have you seen my friends?”

He shook his head. “Nuh-uh,” he said. “Not since way earlier.”

“Way earlier when?”

“When they went to the balcony with Jimin,” he said, nodding. His eyes had slipped shut standing up.

I smiled and grabbed his face, shaking it a little. “Wake up!” I called.

He laughed and his eyes opened once more. Quickly, he leaned down to peck my forehead. “I’m gonna go call a cab. If you see Taehyung tell him I’m down on the street.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to go alone?” I asked, pouting.

He laughed again. “I am!”

“Be careful.”

“Roger that!” he said before turning towards the front door and shuffling towards it.

I waved after him, chuckling, and decided that perhaps I ought to try calling one of them. I pulled my phone from my back pocket. It took my sensitive eyes a long moment to adjust to the brightness of the screen and I winced as I slid it unlocked. But as I did I noticed a notification in my text messages. Curious, I tapped the icon and read the message.

Dad: Mrs. Park told us you’re coming back to the neighborhood next weekend. I wasn’t aware you were back in the country. Stop by and see us while you’re here.

I stared slack-jawed at the message as icy dread filled my limbs. I had to see them? I was an adult. I didn’t have to listen, right? I could avoid it, right? The familiar panicky feeling I’d grown to know too well began rising in my throat. My heart started to beat fast and my face felt hot in a bad way. I blinked at the rapidly emptying living room before me and wanted to crawl away somewhere and hide. How was I supposed to see them? After what they’d told me before I left. After what they’d done. After what they’d said to me.

I felt tears pricking at my eyes and I fought them with a light slap to my cheek. I shook my head. I had to keep it together. I had to.

In my panic I slipped my phone back into my pocket and decided that taking my time finding the girls might be a good idea, an opportunity to settle my frazzled nerves before seeing them again. I didn’t want them to worry, and I didn’t want them to ask why.

“Yuna,” I called, although this time it was quieter, less urgent. I wandered around couches and tables until I was standing beside the massive door leading to the balcony.

Hoseok had mentioned the balcony. Could they still be out there hours later? It was as good a guess as any, I supposed, and I laboredly pulled the heavy sliding door open, embracing the cool night. I inhaled the fresh air and exhaled slowly, but it did little to settle my racing heart.

“Yu-,” I began, but stopped when I heard the sound of sloppy kissing in the distance. I cringed away from it. It was the bathroom all over again.

I would have turned right back around and stepped back inside had it not been for a giggle I recognized far too well. High, like bells, ringing clearly through the quiet night. I went stiff. No, no, no. This was different. Things were different. We were different. This wasn’t high school.

It wasn’t high school.

I turned slowly towards the source of the giggle and found in the dark corner of the long balcony, far from prying eyes except for mine, Hyerim’s back arched and her head tilted to the side. And, with his lips attached to her neck, was a brown-haired boy that I wished I didn’t recognize like the back of my goddamn hand.

I stared with wide eyes and mouth agape at Taehyung as his hands roamed her sides, his kisses clumsy and hungry. Their lips connected and I felt suddenly quiet ill. Why couldn’t I look away, just like before? Why was I mute and paralyzed, just like before? Why had I allowed myself to become hurt, let him close enough to squeeze my taped-up heart until it once again burst, just like before?

“Y/N! Were you looking for me?” asked Haewon from the doorway, sounding remarkably more sober than before.

I couldn’t turn away, still rooted in place. I didn’t have the words in my vocabulary to describe the aching, burning, frozen feeling in my chest. Haewon approached me quickly, sensing something was off, and followed my eyes towards the scene in the corner.

Only they’d stopped as the crowd had grew, likely alerted by Haewon calling my name. Hyerim stared at me with a smile and Taehyung’s face was contorted with shock and shame. I shook my head as he opened his mouth to speak. He stepped forward into the light of the balcony and I stepped back, breaking my gaze with him and turning to Haewon. After all, she would be far more hurt than I was.

Only she was looking at me, all concern. “Y/N,” she said. “You’re crying.”

I wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for the plump droplets hitting my chest but those tears I’d been holding in since before came rushing forth with impossible strength. Startled, I dabbed my cheek and found water on my fingertips. I turned back to Taehyung who was by then shaking his head vehemently, his hair a mess, his brows upturned.

“I…,” I began, but my voice cracked.

“Let’s go, okay? We can catch the Owl Bus,” she asked, rubbing my arms.

I blinked at the tears that fell into my open palms. “I’m…”

“Let’s go,” repeated Haewon.

Taehyung shook his head. “Y/N, please don’t-,”

“Don’t!” I screamed, alarmed at the volume of my own words. With a shaking hand, I covered my mouth and shook my head. “Just…don’t,” I said, the tremors rocking my voice.

“Y/N!” he called as Haewon and I turned back inside and rushed out the front door. The tears persisted.

“Let’s just go,” she said again, like a mantra, repeating the statement again in my ear.

We emerged on the street and I couldn’t stop the tears. Just like before, everything came to a head at the same time and, just like before, the three factors were there: Taehyung, Hyerim, and my parents. It was like a horribly predictable algorithm. I sniffled, but I knew the tears were far from finished. We stood quietly at the bus stop and Haewon rubbed my back, much like I’d done for her before.

“Hey,” she said softly after a long minute of silence and crying.

I glanced at her. “Hey.”

“I’m over Taehyung now, if that makes you feel better,” she said.

Despite myself I chuckled, wiping beneath my eyes. “Good.”

“Are you okay?” she asked carefully, an arm still wrapped snugly around my shoulders.

I met her beseeching eyes. “Mhm,” I said, then rolled my eyes. “I’m starting to think it’s a right of passage for all of my close friends to see me like this.”

“Yuna too,” she said, nodding. “She mentioned something this morning. About a park.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I want to understand,” she said.

I blinked past the tears blurring my vision. “You don’t need to say that.”

“Y/N,” she said, and I turned my head to look at her again. “I want to understand. But you need to explain it to me.”

“It’s a long story.”

“It’s a long bus ride,” she said, expression serious.

I sniffed and wiped my eyes once more, inhaling sharply as she released my shoulders and gave me her full attention. The moon was bright above our heads and the night was quiet, waiting for dawn as we waited for our night bus. I wasn’t sure where to begin or how. I wasn’t sure what it meant to finally share the story. But in Haewon’s soft eyes I could see a margin of unacknowledged hurt, covered by a gentle smile. She deserved the truth more than anyone.

I released my breath and nodded. “Okay,” I said, glancing into the placid nighttime street. “It all started when we were kids.”

#bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts v #taehyung #kim taehyung #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fanfiction #bts au #bts imagine #bts reactions #bts reader insert #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts fluff #bts angst

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andromeda---galaxy · 7 years

Text

take care of me

Lukas feels like he’s at the end of his rope.

Sophomore year started out easy but then came the midterms, then came the projects, then came Philip taking small photography jobs, which led to bigger photography jobs. Which led to some kid in Philip’s class, a kid that Lukas had decided was entirely too attractive, setting up a website for Philip where people could hire him. Philip got a new digital camera to go along with his film one, offering photos in both formats. His rates were good and his photos were great and he’s cute as hell, so of course, everybody jumped on the opportunity to hire him. He’s been getting a shit ton of jobs, which is great, because he’s making money. But it’s also not so great, because he’s hardly ever home. He’s missed the last three date nights, and Lukas is freaking himself out trying to remember the last conversation they had that wasn’t rushed over fast food or that lasted more than ten minutes. Lukas knows Philip loves his jobs, that he always comes home smiling and excited.

But Lukas misses him.

It doesn’t help that he’s in the middle of a group project in Statistics that’s worth half his grade and the rest of the goddamn group is slacking. He’s been doing research and printing shit out and arranging excel spreadsheets and powerpoints for the better part of a week, and he’s positive it’s all garbage and he’s actually gonna fail a class. He wishes his group members would fucking text him already, would stop cancelling their get together’s, and he wishes Philip was here to make him feel better.

Izzy jumps up onto the couch and settles down in his lap, knocking his notebook onto the ground. Lukas snorts, shaking his head and petting her.

“Hey little girl,” Lukas says. Among all the other photos Philip has been taking lately, they’ve accumulated about a hundred new ones of their puppy throughout the last month and a half since they got her. Even a framed one on the wall. “You miss your daddy, huh? Me too.”

Izzy whines, staring up at him with those blue eyes. Today Philip is going to class, then he’s got a job at Inwood Hill photographing some kid’s birthday party. Lukas sighs, hauling Izzy up onto his chest and kissing her face, receiving a bunch of kisses in return. He feels a tightness in his throat about this project and he hates being in charge of it. Hates knowing it’s all on him, that he’s probably not even two thirds of the way done with it and everything he’s already done is garbage. He just wants to relax, let go, have one night where he’s not in charge of this shit. And he feels selfish and shitty but he wants Philip to himself.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and composes a text to Philip. I love you and I miss you he says, and doesn’t care that it sounds dramatic. He hits send.

“Let’s go for a walk, huh?” Lukas says to Izzy. She already knows the word and she hops off the couch, rushing over to the door where her leash is hanging on a hook.

“Hey. Hey, babe.”

Lukas blinks himself awake and for a minute he doesn’t know where he is. Their bedroom comes into focus and he sees it’s dark outside, his computer still shining beside him. Philip’s hand closes it gently, putting it on the bedside table. He scoots closer, tracing the line that the pillow crushed into Lukas’s face. Lukas hums, rubbing his eyes.

“What’d you guys do?” Philip asks, brushing Lukas’s hair from his forehead. “Izzy is in there crashed out, didn’t even wake up when I called her name.”

“Mmm, we went for a run,” Lukas says, blinking. “Then we uh, came home, I washed her and then I took a shower and then she helped me with my project until she went in there and passed out. And then I guess I passed out too, I don’t even remember.”

Philip smiles a little bit but it looks like there’s something behind it.

Lukas takes his hand, bringing it up to his mouth. “I miss you so much, baby,” he says. The dam seems to break and he clears his throat, tugging Philip closer. “I feel really selfish but I just—I miss you. It’s been hard lately.”

“I know,” Philip says, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “I know, I was thinking it too—I’m gonna…I’m gonna be more selective with the jobs, I think. Today the birthday boy threw a plate of guacamole at me.”

Lukas snorts a little bit, watching Philip grimace. “So that’s why you smell good.”

Philip narrows his eyes, shaking his head at him.

Lukas sits up on his elbows, his heart racing a little bit. “But Philip, I—I don’t want you to do anything because of me. I know you love your photography jobs and it’s important to you and it’s what you wanna do—”

Philip shakes his head, leaning in and pressing his fingers to Lukas’s lips. “I’ve missed you too. So much. And it’d be a lot easier when we’re not both in school. But right now it’s—a lot to balance, it’s too much and I, uh—well, not having my proper time with you is taking it’s toll.”

That sends a little jolt through Lukas’s heart and he nods. He tips his chin up and Philip leans in to kiss him. It’s full of intent, Philip’s tongue licking over Lukas’s bottom lip. Something familiar stirs in Lukas’s gut and he hums to himself.

“How’s the project treating you?” Philip whispers, still close.

Lukas sighs. His mind is racing and he knows he’s being dramatic but he feels like he hasn’t kissed him properly in ages. He keeps thinking about his project and Philip and stress and Philip and how he just wants to let go, how he just wants to give up control for a while because he feels like he’s been on the edge of losing it for a month now. He wants to relax and give Philip the reigns and just let him do whatever he wants. Because Jesus, when Philip’s hands are on him, Lukas feels free.

“Fucking awful,” Lukas says, tears beginning to form in his eyes when he starts thinking about it again. “They keep cancelling on me, I’m doing five parts of this thing instead of one and I think I’m doing them really fucking badly. I need this class for the communications major, which I’m not even sure of as it is, and I could just be wasting my goddamn time—”

Philip swoops in and wraps him up in his arms, pressing a long kiss to his temple. “What can I do, baby?” he whispers. “What do you need, how can I help?”

Lukas sags in his arms, closing his eyes tight. His mind is giving him images and he keeps remembering the first time he thought of something like this, how Philip said nothing is weird. He knows they’ve improved immensely since the first time they did anything like he’s thinking of now. He doesn’t know why he’s hesitating. “I wanna—I wanna ask for something,” he says, his stomach contracting.

Philip knows the phrasing means something sexual and he leans back, but there’s no teasing in his eyes. Only open honesty, acceptance. “Anything you want,” he says, his hands still on Lukas’s shoulders.

“Can you just—” Lukas starts, a chill running through him. “Just please, get out those stupid pink fuzzy handcuffs we bought, cuff me to the bed and just—do whatever you want.” Lukas nudges their noses together and closes his eyes. “I just wanna let go, for a little bit. I don’t wanna think about anything but you. I want—I want you to be in charge. I want you to take care of me.”

A small moments goes by. “Yes,” Philip whispers, not a note of hesitation in his voice. He leans in and starts kissing Lukas’s neck, biting a little at the spot. “Is there anything you want in particular?” he asks.

“Whatever you want to give me,” Lukas says, his breath catching, and he knows that’s as open an invitation as any.

Philip leans back, nodding, and his eyelids are already heavy as he leans in and captures Lukas’s mouth in a kiss. It’s slow and full of tongue and Lukas breathes hard, his heart fluttering in anticipation. Philip nips at his bottom lip and then at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t think about anything else,” he whispers. He reaches down and takes the hem of Lukas’s shirt, pulling it up and over his head. “Just think about me. Focus on me.”

It’s all Lukas wants. He shuts out statistics, shitty spreadsheets and all the tabs he still has open on his laptop. He wants Philip to trap him. To bottle up their world, make him hang on when he turns it upside down and pours out everything but them.

And Izzy, snoring in the other room. But Lukas tries not to think about their dog daughter right now.

Philip pushes Lukas down gently so he’s lying on the pillows and Lukas stretches out a little bit. He watches Philip take the lube and the handcuffs out of the bedside drawer. Lukas remembers buying them, remembers being half-traumatized when he made those awful red marks on Philip’s wrists the first time they did something like this and wanting to get something made for this situation for the next time. They’ve used them twice without any remnants left behind, and it makes Lukas feel a lot better.

Philip drops the lube and the cuffs onto the bed and crawls over, pulling Lukas’s sweatpants down his legs and throwing them onto the floor. He leaves Lukas’s boxer-briefs on for the moment and straddles him. He pushes his arms up so they’re stretched up above his head, slipping his hands in between the bars of their headboard. Lukas’s heart speeds up when he watches Philip take the handcuffs, leaning forward and closing them around each of Lukas’s wrists. He drags his hands along Lukas’s arms as he sits back up.

Lukas tests them out, looking up and watching the chain rub against the bar. They’re not too tight and it feels good. It makes him feel grounded.

He gasps when he feels Philip start moving against him.

“Look at me, baby,” Philip says.

Lukas does. Philip is still fully clothed, his hands braced on Lukas’s chest as he grinds down against him. Philip moves slowly, twisting his hips, his eyes locked on Lukas’s.

“How’s that feel, huh?” Philip asks, breathy.

“Feels good,” Lukas says, his heart stuttering and his voice only coming out in a raspy whisper.

“Watch me,” Philip says, smiling all fucking cute and sexy. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Lukas sorta feels like he’s having a heart attack, a couple of small explosions going off in his head. He balls his hands into fists and pulls them back and forth, the chain of the cuffs grating on the bar.

Philip pulls off his shirt, slower than he usually does it, all the while still rolling his hips down against Lukas. He undoes the button on his pants and pulls the zipper down, sitting up and then back until he ditches his jeans. He throws them off the bed and doesn’t waste another second before flattening himself out against Lukas. Lukas wraps his legs around Philip’s waist on instinct and Philip pushes down, their clothed cocks sliding together. It sends sparks up through Lukas’s groin and he groans, pulling his wrists forward a little bit, almost forgetting he’s handcuffed in place.

Philip thrusts down against him, smearing kisses along his cheek. “Picture us somewhere nice,” Philip whispers, biting at the hinge of Lukas’s jaw. “Where do you see?”

“Uh,” Lukas groans, knowing Philip can feel how wet he is through his underwear.

Philip keeps up a good pace, grinding down hard. He cups Lukas’s face in his hands, kissing him all over. “Tell me,” he whispers, tracking his thumb along Lukas’s cheekbone. “Where are we?”

Only brief images flash in Lukas’s head. “Hotel in the mountains,” he whispers, fast. “Colorado.” He doesn’t know where the fuck it comes from but it feels right.

“Mmm, Colorado,” Philip says. He kisses down Lukas’s neck. “I’ll have to remember that.” He keeps kissing down and Lukas’s legs fall away, open wide around him. Philip licks over Lukas’s nipples, pressing a kiss to the hollow of his chest before resting his ear there. “That’s one of my favorite sounds,” Philip whispers, and Lukas looks down at the top of his head. Philip looks up, smiling at him. “Your wild heart. That and how your breath gets all fast for me. Like now.”

Lukas shrugs, grinning, and continues to breathe hard through his mouth.

“And your laugh,” Philip says. He touches Lukas all over, kissing his stomach, the ridges of his ribs, his hipbones. “Everything about your voice.”

He peels Lukas’s underwear off then, tossing them aside. He runs his hand over Lukas’s length once and Lukas moans, his eyes fluttering closed. He can feel Philip kissing his knees, the insides of his thighs, and it feels a lot like Philip is worshipping him. His body shudders and his cock jumps, still so hard and leaking for the beautiful boy lavishing him with kisses. Philip touches, massages, digging his thumbs into every knot and working them out. It’s fucking euphoric.

“God, Philip,” Lukas whispers.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Philip says. He hums, running his hand up Lukas’s chest and back down again. He starts gently pushing Lukas’s legs up until they’re over Philip’s shoulders, and Philip keeps pushing him until Lukas is arched off the bed, his ass in the air. His breath speeds up. He hears the chain off the handcuffs rattle and he grasps onto the bar, opening his eyes. This is what he wanted, Philip taking control, making the decisions, and God, Lukas doesn’t regret it. His whole body is aching and pulsing with Philip’s hands, Philip’s mouth, and it’s weird but he likes the way his legs are bent like this, draped over Philip’s shoulders, knees up high. He thinks he knows what’s gonna happen and he moans at the mere thought, a long whine escaping him when Philip spreads his cheeks apart and dives in.

“Oh fuck, baby,” Lukas moans, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “Oh f—fuck, oh fuck.”

Philip’s tongue pushes in and out of Lukas and he reaches up, holding on to one of Lukas’s ankles. Lukas can hardly breathe, gasping, because it always feels so fucking intimate when they do this, when Philip’s mouth is there. Lukas’s hips are stuttering and he pushes down against it, against Philip’s lips and his tongue and oh my god, oh my god—

“Philip, Philip,” Lukas chants, twisting his hands in the cuffs, feeling almost crazed for a moment.

Philip hums and Lukas feels the vibration of it, which nearly drives him insane. Philip keeps licking, kissing, sucking and Jesus, Lukas is on fire. Philip pulls back then, the heat of his mouth gone as he scoots away, letting Lukas’s legs fall back down onto the mattress. Philip is smiling, watching Lukas writhe, and Lukas can only groan, whimpering a little bit when Philip crawls back towards him. “You like that?” Philip asks, looming there between his legs.

“Yes,” Lukas answers, nodding. God, he loves it.

“You like looking at me?” Philip asks, sliding his hand up Lukas’s thigh.

“You’re my favorite thing to look at,” Lukas answers, his eyes roaming up and down Philip’s body. “You’re the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Philip hums happily, smiling softly. He reaches down and palms himself through his boxer-briefs, his incredible mouth falling open.

“Jesus Christ,” Lukas whispers, still straining against the handcuffs.

“You like it when I do this?” Philip asks, touching himself a little rougher. Lukas nods, weak as fuck, at a loss for words. Philip keeps sliding his hand back and forth and Lukas sees stars, only Philip and the whole galaxy surrounding him. “I think about you all day,” he whispers. “Every moment I’m not with you I picture you, wherever you are—”

Lukas moans, thinking about Philip getting hard for him at some wedding or something.

Philip’s breath hitches a little bit and he moves liquidly, bending forward. “Picture you in the library with that cute look of concentration on your face,” he whispers, his hands on Lukas’s hips. “Picture you with our dog running in the park like some fucking athlete or something—”

Lukas snorts, grinning, his breath coming out in waves. He moans long and broken when Philip leans in, taking Lukas’s cock into his mouth. Lukas wasn’t ready and he feels like all his senses are going haywire, his head spinning. “Philip, Jesus, fuck—”

Philip hums, his mouth full, and takes him deeper. Lukas wants to touch him so bad but he can’t, he’s tied down, he’s under Philip’s control and fuck it’s the hottest thing. But he has to look and he lifts his head, staring down at Philip, those beautiful lips stretched around his dick. All of Lukas’s blood is rushing down to his groin and he feels lightheaded but he keeps watching, drinking in that look of ecstasy on Philip’s face. He hums again and takes him deeper still, nearly letting Lukas touch the back of his throat before he eases off. He licks up and down Lukas’s cock and Lukas can’t think, can’t see—everything is tingling, his toes curling. He feels like he’s floating.

“You are some kinda—some kinda angel,” Lukas babbles, watching as Philip replaces his mouth with his hand for a moment, sliding it up and down. “Some kinda—like, golden angel, some kinda perfect thing—”

Philip laughs again, leaning in and kissing Lukas’s hip. He sucks at the skin there, biting at it and worrying it between his teeth. He sucks and he sucks and Lukas cries out, everything so sensitive, and he knows there’s gonna be a mark there later. Philip kisses it one more time and sits up, grabbing the bottle of lube. He squirts some onto his fingers and reaches back behind him, starting to work himself open.

“Jesus, Jesus, you gonna ride me?” Lukas asks, his voice breaking like a fifteen year-old idiot.

“Yes,” Philip says, his mouth falling open again, his eyelids fluttering closed. “Do you want that?”

“Yes,” Lukas says.

“Say it,” Philip says, arching his neck back. “Tell me you want it.”

“God I want you to ride me,” Lukas says, completely insane now. “I want you on my dick baby, I wanna be inside you, wanna watch you—”

“Lukas,” Philip gasps. “You don’t even know how often I thought about this when I was in Tivoli—”

“What?” Lukas asks, too loud, reaching out with his foot and nudging along Philip’s thigh. “Sex? Us? Us and sex?”

Philip laughs a little bit, moaning, and it’s the sexiest thing Lukas has ever heard. “Us—living together. In love and, fuck—domestic shit. Getting our own dog—helping each other with fucking—issues and—keeping each other safe and—doing laundry together and—buying milk when we’re out and listening to—Christmas music in our—apartment—”

Lukas closes his eyes, breathing out. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much.”

He feels Philip’s hands on him, slicking him up, but he’s already still so wet from Philip’s mouth that it doesn’t take much. He usually likes to guide Philip down when he’s about to ride him and his hands try to go for it but the handcuffs keep him in place. Philip braces his hands on Lukas’s chest and sinks down, making these fucking delicious noises that are so sexual that Lukas almost comes right there. He’s close, he knows it won’t take long, and he cuts that already short time in half when Philip leans over him and reaches out, closing his hands around Lukas’s wrists, right alongside the handcuffs.

Philip starts riding him, his hips working back and forth. “Lukas,” he whispers.

Lukas is sweating all over and Philip leans in, licking at the dip in his throat. “Oh God,” Lukas groans, arching his neck to the side to give Philip better access. He’s never heard their bed creak like this before.

“Lukas, no one—no one is ever gonna be inside me but you,” Philip whispers, kissing Lukas’s jaw, his chin. He arches his back and their bellies rub together, Philip’s hard cock caught between them. “No one, no one, only you—”

“Good, good,” Lukas chants, moaning. He knows they were made for this, for each other, fitting together like it was always meant to come to this. Philip clenches around him beautifully and Lukas sees stars again. “You’re mine—”

Philip squeezes his wrists. “We’re in Colorado,” he whispers, stretching a little bit more so his mouth is right next to Lukas’s ear. He keeps rocking forward, grinding down. “We’ve—we’ve graduated—we’re married, we’re wearing—wearing rings we gave each other. On honeymoon—in a nice little—cabin and we’re—fucking like we’ve never fucked before—”

“Better than this?” Lukas asks, his voice nearly giving out. He’s already shaking, so close.

Philip nods, a sexy little smirk on his lips.

Lukas surges up and kisses him, slipping his tongue into Philip’s mouth. He can taste himself there and his chest goes tight.

“Come inside me, babe,” Philip whispers against Lukas’s lips. “God, I can feel you, know you need to—”

Lukas’s thighs are trembling and he nods, thrusting up a little bit, pulling his wrists apart as far as they can go before the handcuffs stop him again. He feels Philip reach between them and take his own dick in his hand, and he makes one little small whimper that takes Lukas apart definitively. He comes hard, groaning and arching his neck back, clinging to the headboard bar that he’s cuffed to. Philip keeps riding, jacking himself fast, and then he makes another small noise, his breath rushing out as he comes, pressing his face to Lukas’s cheek.

Lukas feels spent. Debauched. His chest is heaving and he feels Philip slide off of him, collapsing at his side. He curls up against him, plastering himself against his hip, sliding his hand back and forth against his chest.

It always turns Lukas on to think of how Philip is the only one who will ever get to see him like this. Who will ever get to treat him like this. It’s love times a fucking thousand.

“I’m gonna uncuff you so you can hold me,” Philip whispers, kissing Lukas’s shoulder.

“Mmm, okay,” Lukas says. Philip reaches over to the bedside table and takes out the key, leaning up and undoing the handcuffs. He takes them and puts them away and Lukas looks at his wrists, happy to see there are no marks to trouble Philip with.

Philip wipes his hand on the sheets and comes back to him—Lukas wraps his arms around him immediately, kissing his forehead. “So did I do a good job?” Philip asks.

Lukas snorts, laughing incredulously. “Uh, that was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, Philip. You’re a piece of art, a fucking—perfect angel.”

Philip leans in, kissing Lukas’s cheek. “I don’t think an angel would do what I just did to you.”

Lukas shivers, chuckling to himself.

“I’m proud of us for not waking the dog up,” Philip says, laying his head on Lukas’s shoulder again. “I’ve had nightmares of her storming in on us while we’re having sex. Our child can’t see this.”

Lukas snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah, you forgot to close the door. Thank God I tired her out earlier with her jog.”

“Speaking of, I need to get a shower now,” Philip says. He braces himself on his elbow.

“I’ll go with you,” Lukas says, groaning a little when he tries to sit up. His body aches in all the right ways.

“You just got one,” Philip says.

“Yeah, but I wanna take one with you,” Lukas says.

Philip grins at him. He leans in, taking Lukas’s face in his hands, kissing him sweetly. “I’m only gonna take two jobs a week now,” he whispers, nuzzling their noses together.

“Okay,” Lukas says. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” Philip says, kissing him again. “So I made you forget, huh?”

“About what?” Lukas asks, in love with the light dusting of freckles across Philip’s nose.

“Statistics,” Philip says, glancing over at Lukas’s laptop on the bedside table.

Lukas laughs, shaking his head. “Baby, I have no idea what statistics even is anymore after that,” he says. “I don’t even know what school we go to or what state we’re in.”

“Well come on, you cute amnesiac,” Philip says, taking his hand as he gets up. “Let’s get you your memory back and I’ll help with that project.”

Lukas grins, gingerly following him.

He’s never loved another human being more. And he never will.

#philkas #eyewitness #philip shea #lukas waldenbeck #my writing #ns//fw af y'all

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