#and being vegan doesn’t mean that you eat it either

[bumblebeeappletree]

Every once in a while I’ll see some posts about everyone should become vegan in order to help the environment. And that… sounds kinda rude. I’m sure they don’t mean to come off that way but like, humans are omnivores. Yes there are people who won’t have any animal products be it meat or otherwise either due to personal beliefs or because their body physically cannot handle it, and that’s okay! You don’t have to change your diet to include those products if you don’t want to or you physically can’t.

But there’s indigenous communities that hunt and farm animals sustainably and have been doing so for generations. And these animals are a primary source of food for them. Look to the bison of North America. The settlers nearly caused an extinction as a part of a genocide. Because once the Bison were gone it caused an even sharper decline of the indigenous population. Now thankfully Bison did not go extinct and are actively being shared with other groups across America.

Now if we look outside of indigenous communities we have people who are doing sustainable farming as well as hunting. We have hunting seasons for a reason, mostly because we killed a lot of the predators. As any hunter and they will tell you how bad the deer population can get. (Also America has this whole thing about bird feathers and bird hunting, like it was bad until they laid down some laws. People went absolutely nuts on having feathers be a part of fashion like holy cow.)

We’re slowly getting better with having gardens and vertical farms within cities, and there’s some laws on being able to have a chicken or two at your house or what-have-you in the city for some eggs. (Or maybe some quails since they’re smaller than chickens it’s something that you’d might have to check in your area.) Maybe you would be able to raise some honey bees or rent them out because each honey tastes different from different plants. But ultimately when it comes to meat or cheese? Go to your local farmers. Go to farmers markets, meet with the people there, become friends, go actively check out their farm. See how the animal lives are and if the farmer is willing, talk to them about sustainable agriculture. See what they can change if they’re willing. Support indigenous communities and buy their food and products, especially if you’re close enough that the food won’t spoil on its way to you. (Like imagine living in Texas and you want whale meat from Alaska and you buy it from an indigenous community. I would imagine that would be pretty hard to get.)

Either way everything dies in the end. Do we shame scavengers for eating corpses they found before it could rot and spread disease? Do we shame the animals that hunt other animals to survive? Yes factory farming should no longer exist. So let’s give the animals the best life we can give them. If there’s babies born that the farmer doesn’t want, give them away to someone who wants them as a pet. Or someone who wants to raise them for something else. Not everyone can raise animals for their meat. I know I can’t I would get to emotionally attached. I’d only be able to raise them for their eggs and milk.

Yeah this was pretty much thrown together, and I just wanted to say my thoughts and throw them into the void. If you have some examples of sustainable farming/agriculture, please share them because while I got some stuff I posted from YouTube, I’m still interested to see what stuff I might’ve missed!

#solarpunk #farming #hunting #agriculture #sustainability #sustainable farming #sustainable agriculture #like Rewilding farm land is pretty interesting and trying to replicate an ecosystem with farm animals but also allowing wild animals #to make homes in the rewild farm land is pretty cool #and I have an absolute love for food/garden forests #and hydroponics have shown to be really great for communities in the winter time and they want to have fresh produce #all sorts of cool stuff

[ugh-yoongi]

the retreat | jhs

(or, the one where namjoon just wants hoseok to take care of himself, but then there's a fake relationship, only one bed, a guy who doesn't talk, and maybe a weird cult.)

✤ pairing: hoseok x f. reader ✤ genre: childhood bf2l, fake dating-ish au; crack, fluff, smut ✤ rating: explicit. minors do not interact. ✤ warnings: there is a lot of talk about food and eating in here, so i would not suggest reading this if you are sensitive to those kinds of triggers. tropes galore! side taegi. 5th muster jimin from that one vcr. hobi is pansexual and i do not wanna hear from the weirdos during pride month, or ever. he is a millionaire tho so he's not off the hook. a slight astrological dragging. a strained mother-daughter relationship. the smut is not super explicit or detailed but warnings are as follows: kissing, oral sex (f. receiving), biting, hair pulling, hobi may or may not rip a pair of underwear, fingering, protected vaginal sex. a brief but canonical breaking-the-fourth-wall appearance by park bogum. beta'd by me, so any mistakes are my own. ✤ wordcount: 19.6k ✤ thank you: @the-boy-meets-evil, as always, for the encouragement and reading every draft of this. @hot-soop for both the astrological advice and advice in general. @effortandmore for reading this over recently and telling me it was worth finishing. i would get absolutely nothing done without the three of you. ✤ author's note: i was supposed to have this posted for jess's birthday two years ago. we're not gonna talk about that, because this just means i'm a month early for this year. happy early birthday, jess! anyway~ this is basically a 20k love letter to jung hoseok bc i miss him. i hope you enjoy it.

Jung Hoseok is overworked.

(He’s also filthy rich, the proud owner of not one but two Lamborghinis [that he doesn’t even drive], and smiling on the cover of Forbes. He has a top floor penthouse in the most expensive high-rise in the city and a vacation home along the Italian coast. When he needs to go on a business trip, his driver takes him straight to the tarmac where he boards a private plane. His tailor just sends him clothes now, the cost of dressing Jung Hoseok far outweighed by the dozens of other filthy rich men who flock to his store to buy whatever he’s wearing.)

Jung Hoseok is also going to have a stroke and die before the age of 30, because what’s a little money at the expense of his mental well-being and cardiac health?

“All things considered, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go out,” he argues, clammy palms flat on his expensive desk. Rosewood, because not only is he a millionaire, he’s a millionaire with taste. None of that monochromatic minimalist bullshit for him, thank you.

In front of him, Kim Namjoon also looks to be on the verge of a stroke. Not of the same variety. Namjoon is paid well because he works for Hoseok and Hoseok insists on it. None of that heartless, dickhead-to-everyone, impossible-to-work-for CEO reputation for him, either, thank you.

Namjoon is also a militant vegan and has twenty-six plants and one bonsai on his desk named Bonnie. He insists on spending his lunch breaks in Hoseok’s office, lecturing him on the benefits of plant-based diets and exercise and meditation. Despite his perpetual smile and sunny demeanor, no one else speaks to Hoseok this way, but Namjoon does. Absolutely doesn’t give a shit.

“It absolutely would be the worst way to go out. Have you even been listening to me?”

Hoseok sighs and closes the symptoms of a stroke tab in his browser. “I always listen to you, Namjoon, I just don’t always listen.” A smart choice, too, judging by the swamp-colored sludge Namjoon has in a glass container, because he doesn’t use plastics.

Following his boss’s line of sight, Namjoon frowns. “It’s a pitaya bowl. Don’t look at it like that.”

“It looks radioactive,” Hoseok says, face contorted in a wince. “Like it’s going to become sentient and sprout six arms.”

Namjoon scoffs. “If it does, I hope it uses all six of them to slap the shit out of you.”

“I could pay it to spare me,” Hoseok insists, chin jutting out indignantly.

One of the reasons Hoseok had all but demanded HR hire Namjoon—despite there being a plethora of other candidates who were just as qualified and nowhere near as hell-bent on him taking care of himself—was his grit and determination. He’d showed up two hours early to his interview and steamed his suit jacket in the employee bathroom. It was completely insane and even more neurotic, but Hoseok had been taken with him immediately.

Now, it seems that determination and hard-headed nature is coming back to bite Hoseok in the ass.

“Oh, yeah? You’re gonna pay your blood to not get cut off from your brain and your heart, too? Well, good for you, Hobi. I heard blood has even started taking American Express. You’re in luck—”

Unable to take anymore, Hoseok groans and waves his arms to cut him off. “Okay, I get it! God, why did I hire you? Your desk alone has to be violating at least fourteen different health codes. Your office is humid. Do you know how impossible that is to achieve outside of a greenhouse?”

“You hired me because I’m good at my job and I’m not afraid of you, so I have no issue slapping your fourth double bacon cheeseburger of the day out of your greasy, on-the-brink-of-dying hands. Christ, you act like it’d actually kill you to eat a vegetable for once.”

Hoseok squawks. “Hey! That definitely didn’t come up in the interview, and I have never eaten four cheeseburgers in a day. Stop being hyperbolic.”

“Speaking of things that start with hyper- and have a Bin them, hyperbaric therapy is great for people with infections from oxygen-starved tissue—”

“Is this what you do all day? You just sit on the internet and search for diseases I could potentially die from and then you come in here and harass me about them?”

Namjoon’s face, which had previously been scrunched up in righteous indignation, smooths over into something far more serious. (He doesn’t even have wrinkles. Namjoon’s skincare routine must be immaculate.)“Someone has a stroke every forty seconds in this country, Hoseok. I wouldn’t joke about this.”

Well, okay. Every forty seconds is far more often than Hoseok had been expecting. Not that he thinks about stroke statistics often, and definitely not outside of Namjoon’s overbearing presence—but, in his defense, it’s not like he’s had much of a reason. He gets a physical and routine blood work done every year and his doctor has never rung any alarm bells, so why would he?

But the resolution with which Namjoon is hammering away at this is definitely giving him pause.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, either. “See, you are concerned! Look, you’re far more likely to stick with something if you don’t overwhelm yourself, so let’s start small, okay? One salad per day. And a real salad, Hoseok—not one of those ones loaded with cheese and bacon and drenched in ranch dressing.”

Hoseok’s jaw snaps closed. “Then what’s the point of eating a salad?”

“To prevent you from dying before your thirtieth birthday. We’ve already established this.”

“Okay,” Hoseok drawls, “but it’s not the salad’s fault if that happens. You shouldn’t take it out on him.”

Namjoon gags. “Leave it to me to work for a man who thinks salads are male.” He casts his gaze skyward. “Please, Lord, if you’re listening, please put me out—”

“Please put me out of my misery first,” Hoseok interjects, also staring at the ceiling. Then, with a leveled glare, he says to Namjoon, “Fine. State your terms.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks, having the audacity to look shocked.

“Yeah, if it’ll get you off my back. I can’t spend one more lunch break in here with you.”

Namjoon smiles. Nothing friendly, either—it’s purely sinister and mocking. Then he says, “Great success!” in a horrible impersonation of Borat and the moment’s gone, lost to the stagnant air conditioning of Hoseok’s office.

Unsurprisingly, Namjoon’s terms include a lot of vegetables.

Hoseok has a private chef, of course, so it’s not like he has to really do much other than smile through the pain. But, really, would it actually kill him to be allowed a steak or some lamb skewers? What had started off as salads for lunch has turned into a full-blown war between the two of them. Hoseok had shown up with cheese and bacon on his salad one time and Namjoon nearly went off the rails, performing a very enthusiastic speech about how Hoseok cannot be trusted when left to his own devices, so here they are.

Namjoon’s trying his hardest to crack Hoseok, and Hoseok wouldn’t have become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the age of twenty-eight if he were so easily cracked.

So, yeah, here they are. Locked in a stalemate like two idiot deer with their antlers tangled together, except instead of feuding over territory or a mate, they’re ready to spear one another over vegetables.

Darwin would have a lot to say about this.

On Friday, at exactly one-o’clock on the dot, Namjoon barges into Hoseok’s office and slaps a stapled-together pile of papers onto his desk. “New terms.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Hoseok replies airily. “I’m not much of a Dua Lipa fan.”

“Wha—that’s ‘New Rules.’”

“Is it?” Hoseok’s smiling, eyebrows raised in that way that makes him look super charming and innocent.

Namjoon isn’t fooled, though. “Cut it out. I saw you eating ribs under your desk the other day. You owe me this.”

Not much shocks Hoseok, but being outed like this so brazenly sure does. “How did you know about that?”

“Uh, did you forget your office walls are made out of glass?” Namjoon twirls a finger in a circle, as if to say look at your four glass walls, you fucking idiot. Isn’t it great to be rich and have no privacy? “Not to mention you had a glob of barbeque sauce on your shirt that I could smell from a mile away.”

“I could’ve put it on my salad,” Hoseok reasons.

“Oh, please.” Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Six ribs and a side of potato salad does not a salad make.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally called potato salad, isn’t it? God, you’re uptight.”

Namjoon sucks in a deep breath, most likely reciting meditation mantras in his head while he thinks about his plants. “I didn’t come in here for this,” he eventually says, and Hoseok is honestly impressed at how collected he sounds. “The point is you can’t be trusted, so there’s new terms.”

Grabbing the stack of papers, Hoseok flips through them casually. “And if I don’t agree? Don’t forget I’m your boss.”

“If you don’t agree, I’m posting the security footage of you eating those ribs on Twitter.” Hoseok’s looking positively scandalized now. He wouldn’t. Namjoon wouldn’t do that to him. “Honestly, Hoseok. You should be ashamed of yourself. You looked like that video of that oversized baby covered in peanut butter.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Hoseok asks, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, who are you? Because the man standing across from me is not my sweet baby Namjoon. Sweet, sweet Namjoon, who always checks the toilet bowl before he uses it because he saw one of those videos from Australia of a snake being in there and he’d feel too guilty to even piss on a snake—”

Namjoon plants his palms on Hoseok’s desk and puffs out his chest a little. It’s a great chest, Hoseok must admit. Namjoon had mentioned in passing he’d started going to the gym, so he’s not—“I’m not afraid of you,” Namjoon reminds him. “Try me.”

“I have thirty-two lawyers.”

All Namjoon does is quirk an eyebrow. “I have thirty-thousand Twitter followers.”

“I can fire you.”

“Please do. Capitalism is a scourge on this earth and I no longer wish to participate in it.”

“I can fire you and make sure you never find employment in this city ever again.”

Namjoon shrugs. “Fine by me. I’ve been thinking about moving out of the city, anyway. Too much air pollution and I have no space to garden.”

Two things become clear very quickly: 1. Namjoon is far more cut-throat than Hoseok ever anticipated him being; and 2. Hoseok is woefully underprepared for this particular battle. No matter. He’s business-savvy. There’s no shame in conceding an unwinnable battle if he can still win the war, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

“Fine,” he relents after an awkward staring contest that lasts two minutes too long. “What are your new terms, then?”

“You have to go to a wellness retreat.”

Hoseok can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of his mouth. “Sorry, did you say a retreat? How is that a punishment?”

“It isn’t,” Namjoon says. “It’s meant to reset your body and mind. No phones allowed. Just you and your partner in the refreshing, reinvigorating air of the rainfor—”

“What was that?” Hoseok interjects.

“What, the rainforest part? Don’t worry, it’s safe. You’re not, like, sleeping outside with tarantulas and shi—”

“No, not that. Me and my who?”

“Oh!” Namjoon grins. “Your partner. See, I did a lot of research and found the absolute best and most effective wellness retreat for people of your… uh, standard. And the man who runs this retreat is incredible. Like, world-renowned. But the catch is it’s a couple’s retreat, so you’ll have to find someone to play pretend with you for a month.”

Hoseok is a great businessman. He’s good at negotiations and managing relationships and making smart, anticipatory decisions. He has the bank account and name plate with accompanying title on his desk to prove it. But, as he takes in Namjoon’s words, the only thing his brain can come up with is the Windows shutdown sound and a glaring blue screen alerting him to danger.

Nevertheless, one of Hoseok’s rules for business is to never let the opposition see him frazzled. “Why don’t you just come with me?” he offers casually, his tone completely at odds with the pained, panicked expression on his face.

“Two reasons,” Namjoon says quickly and without hesitation, as if he expected this and had all the time in the world to prepare a rebuttal. “First, you couldn’t pay me enough to act like we’re a couple. No offense, but you’re kind of insufferable and I would never date a carnivore—”

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Wow. Some offense taken.”

“—Second, someone has to stay behind and hold down the fort if you’re going to be gone for a month.”

“Why can’t Brad do it?” Hoseok asks. This time his strained tone completely gives him away.

“You don’t trust Brad.”

Hoseok’s brows furrow. “I never said that.”

“You absolutely did say that,” Namjoon responds immediately, pulling out his phone. “On April nineteenth at approximately ten-twenty in the morning, you said, and I quote, ‘Namjoon, why do you think I hired you? If I had to suffer through having one more Ivy League white guy who played lacrosse and got grandfathered into a fraternity as my assistant, I was going to throw myself down this elevator shaft.’ To which I replied, ‘Oh, you don’t like Brad?’ And you said, ‘Brad’s fine, I guess. I just don’t trust him.’ So, I asked you why, and you said, ‘I wouldn’t trust Brad to order a box of staples, let alone to know the difference between tteokbokki and hotteok—’”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d say at all,” Hoseok lies. It absolutely sounds like something he’d say at ten-twenty in the morning on the nineteenth of April. “Also, did you really make a note of that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Namjoon fires back. “I obviously took a voice recording of it first and transcribed it later. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat when I really want to strangle you and it calms me, because it serves as a reminder that if I go to prison for attempted murder, Brad will take my job. And we can’t have that, because you might simply distrust Brad, but I fucking hate him.”

Hoseok gapes a little. “We sure can’t,” he agrees. Tense air settles between the two of them as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Namjoon’s patient, having already played his hand knowing Hoseok has nothing to trump him, but Hoseok’s stubborn. He’ll drag this out as long as humanly possible. He’ll be ninety years old, on his fourth heart transplant, and still waiting to go on this trip. He’ll—

He’ll have to step down as CEO, because he has, once again, severely underestimated Kim Namjoon.

“Stop thinking so hard. It’s already booked and paid for.”

“With whose money?”

“Company card.”

“Which has my name on it. I’ll just cancel it.”

“It’s non-refundable, but go ahead. You’re still out all that money, though, so you might as well go.”

“I can’t just take a month off,” Hoseok says. He’s grasping at straws now. No one would dare tell him no, even if he wanted to take the next six years off. Human Resources would simply say of course, sir, have a great vacation, sir, see you in six years, sir, and off he’d go.

“Sure you can.” Namjoon stands, wipes his hands on the dress pants stretched to their limit across his thighs, and looks entirely too smug. “Better start looking for a date. Maybe you’ll have some luck on Tinder.”

Bile rises in Hoseok’s throat. “Tinder? Are you joking? I’m too rich to go on there. What if I find a nice date, take them home, and wake up in a bathtub full of ice because they found out who I was and decided to sell my organs?”

“No one would want them,” Namjoon deadpans. “I see the absolute filth you funnel into that body of yours and I can say, with one-hundred percent certainty, that your organs are worthless. Mine, on the other hand. Pristine—”

“Get the hell out of my office. I can’t even look at you right now.”

Good thing, too, because Namjoon’s still wearing that stupid little smirk. The really smug one that infuriates Hoseok to no end because it brings out his dimples, makes him look innocent and cute even though he’s not. The one that gloats Namjoon’s victory, like he’d known all along it was going to end this way. He’d hid those cards so far up his sleeve, Hoseok’s surprised they hadn’t started sprouting from his ears. God, he’s really insufferable. Makes Hoseok’s blood pressure spike something fierce.

“Did you ever stop to consider you’re the problem?” Hoseok calls to Namjoon’s retreating frame. When had he gotten so broad? “That maybe, if my heart does give out, it’ll be because I have to deal with you, the most stressful person on earth?”

“Nah, it’ll definitely be because two of your desk drawers are full of those disgusting oatmeal creme pies.” Somehow, Namjoon looks even more smug as Hoseok tries to discreetly glance at the aforementioned drawers. How does he find out all these things? “Anyway, you leave in two weeks! Good luck in your search. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, sir.”

Just as he’d assumed would be the case, Hoseok has no luck on Tinder.

See, he’d fucked up from the beginning, deciding to be honest and truthful and explain his plight to any sympathetic pair of eyes that may have gazed upon it. He’d also decided to use his real name, and anyone familiar with those List of Billionaires We Should Eat listicles had snuffed him out immediately. Long gone were the days of genuine conversation and playful flirting. Now, Hoseok’s inbox is full of more genitalia than he’s ever seen in his life. He’s literally drowning in it and can’t even take time to appreciate the situation in which he’s accidentally found himself.

He’s absolutely going to kill Kim Namjoon once this is all over.

After getting over the embarrassment of the next day’s MULTIMILLIONAIRE CEO JUNG HOSEOK SPOTTED ON TINDERheadline, because he hadn’t even had the good sense to use Raya, Hoseok resigns himself to scrolling through the contacts list in his phone. He’s not desperate or stupid enough to invite his ex, or any of the myriad of names he can’t put to faces because, despite what Namjoon says, he’s still concerned about his organs, so he also resigns himself to calling you.

His best friend.

Who’s going to spend the rest of her life roasting him over this.

“What a pleasant surprise,” you greet him. “Haven’t heard from you in weeks. Let me guess, you need me to make another burner account and explain to Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter why they shouldn’t eat you?”

“No—”

You tsk. “That’s a shame. I think I missed my calling in life.”

“Being a Twitter troll?”

“Yeah, obviously,” you agree. “Do you remember that time I set up the fake Gofundme to pay for my conservative cousin’s cephalanalectomy surgery because the liberal snowflake surgeon refused to perform it and he was going to die if they literally did not remove his head from his ass? That was fucking gold, Hobi. I’m a natural.”

“You’re definitely something,” he acquiesces. Then he has an idea. “Hey, do you wanna help me troll Namjoon?”

Your silence is deafening. “Uh, that depends.” Oh, Hoseok does not like your hesitation at all. “He has, like, a lot of Twitter followers, so I’m not trying to beef with him publicly, even if it is on a burner account.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afr—what the fuck kind of Twitter following does this guy have?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” you say, voice laced with faux-concern. “I like Namjoon and I’d like him to remain employed by you simply so he can annoy the absolute fuck out of you until the day you either retire or die. So, yeah, let’s keep that between him and I.”

Hoseok feels dizzy. Probably because he’s been eating all these goddamn salads and now he’s nutritionally deficient. “Whatever. I do actually need your help with something, though.”

“You know my rates.”

“Why do I have to pay to hang out with you?” Hoseok whines. “Isn’t my life-long friendship enough?”

You snort. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why is everyone bullying me lately? Can’t you spare a crumb of empathy for your best friend?”

“Empathy machine broke,” you deadpan. “Come on, ask me what my terms are. I already know what I want this time.”

Hoseok sighs. He wouldn’t relent this quickly for anyone else. He has a reputation to uphold, after all. “Fine. What are your—”

“I want a Birkin bag and dinner from that new Brazilian place by your office.”

“That’s a definite no on the bag,” Hoseok says. “I’m not spending that much money on anyone who isn’t my future spouse. We can have dinner, though.”

“I think you misheard me, sunshine. I said I want to go to dinner there. I’m going to gorge myself on expensive all-you-can-eat meats and I do not want to taint my experience watching you shovel a miserable, wilted salad into that pretty little heart-shaped mouth of yours. I’ll get agita.”

“Agi—I can’t believe this,” Hoseok whines, feeling the apples of his cheeks tinge red. “Have you and Namjoon been getting together to conspire against me? Is that why the two of you are bullying me?”

Hoseok expects you to say no. He expects you to say that you and Namjoon don’t even speak, you’d only met him once at that Christmas party a year ago, during which Namjoon spent the entire time waxing poetic about conifers and that time he dropped acid at Yosemite and cried for a week straight. But no. No, you don’t say anything at all, and if Hoseok was feeling bullied and just a little scandalized before, he’s absolutely feeling tortured now.

Namjoon, on his own, is bad.

You, on your own, are worse.

The two of you, together? No. Hoseok simply can’t—and won’t—allow it.

You suck in a breath. “In my defense—”

“You absolute traitor,” Hoseok seethes. “You, of all people, have betrayed me?”

There’s a tiny gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh, come off it, Hobi!” you snap. “Have you ever seen yourself eat? It’s foul. Like something straight out of Animal Planet.”

“It is not!”

“It is, and you know it,” you fire back. “I once watched you eat an entire personal-sized pizza in forty-two seconds. I don’t even think you chewed it. You just detached your jaw like some kind of creepy snake and inhaled. Something needed to be done.”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to gasp. “And that something was going full Judas Iscariot and selling me out to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver?”

There’s a pause on your end. “Is Namjoon the Romans in this scenario? Because, if so, I’ve got to say—”

“Who cares!” Hoseok snaps. “Who fucking cares who the Romans are—”

“The Romans, probably,” you chime in unhelpfully.

“—because the two of you have officially given me agita. How’s that? Huh? First I have to sit through all of Namjoon’s lunch lectures—”

“He should trademark that. Has a nice ring to it. Namjoon’s Lunch Lectures.”

“—then, I had to start eating salads. Salads. Then he signs me up for some stupid wellness retreat in the goddamn rainforest and tells me I have to find a fucking date, so off I go to Tinder, but everyone on there only wanted me for my harvestable organs, so I was like, ‘You know what, Hoseok? You know who you can always count on? Your best friend of twenty years. She’s never let you down. She’ll go with you, and the two of you will have a good time, because she’s your best friend and you enjoy her company.’ But no, come to find out—”

There’s a very loud shriek of laughter. “Oh my god. Holy shit, Hobi, is that really why you called? Namjoon actually signed you up for that couple’s retreat?”

Now, there’s a very loud shriek of disbelief. “You fucking knew about that?” You try to contain your snort. Really, you do, but it’s no match for Hoseok’s palpable ire. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be good for you, sunshine. You’re clearly overworked. You had visible stress lines in the last selfie you posted on Instagram.”

“I did not, I use hyaluronic acid!” he insists, but if Hoseok swipes out of your call to pull up his Instagram account, no one has to know.

You groan. “Why do you keep arguing with me? I’m never wrong.”

“Yes you are.” There’s a very pointed pause during which Hoseok can very clearly, in his head, hear you say see?

“Listen,” you say, voice strong with all the conviction of a person who hadn’t spent the last five minutes being a menace to society—and Hoseok. “I’ll go with you. I have some time off from my program and there’s nothing I’d rather do than spend a whole month in the rainforest with you.”

“I feel like that was sarcastic.”

You tut. “Honestly, Hobi, it’s like you don’t even know me at all. You know number three on my bucket list is going to Costa Rica to hang out with sloths.”

His phone pings a second later with a text from you. An article about a sloth sanctuary greets him, and he swallows the immediate ew that’s on the tip of his tongue. Sloths are cute, sure, but they also have bugs. “Great,” he chokes out. “Are you gonna meet a sloth and turn into Kristen Bell? Because I’m not signing up for that. You look like Kim Kardashian when you cry.”

“Fuck you.” Hoseok is a millionaire, he doesn’t deserve this treatment. “Now, what are your plans for tomorrow night? Let’s do dinner. We need to take a bunch of selfies during sunsets so we look like a plausible couple.”

When he was eight and you were seven, Hoseok witnessed his first act of violence.

A kid on the school bus had been giving him a hard time. Nothing totally awful, just being a bit of a dick the way kids are wont to do, and Hoseok was a pushover back then. Just wanted everyone to like him so he never really stuck up for himself. Just smiled and laughed off the teasing and cried about it later.

Apparently this was unacceptable to you.

You tossed your bookbag in Hoseok’s lap, pushed up your sleeves, made your way to the back of the bus, and told that kid you’d slam his head into the window if he didn’t stop picking on Hoseok.

He’d gotten his head slammed into the window approximately fourteen seconds later.

(Never messed with Hoseok again, though.)

Since then, the two of you have been nearly inseparable. Sure, there had been petty arguments here and there, and Hoseok had gone to an Ivy League across the country, but it was rare for the two of you to go more than a few days without talking. Even now, when Hoseok works eighty hour weeks and is busy being a Very Important Person, he still makes time for you. Sometimes that time is just exchanging stupid memes over text, but he always makes the effort.

Which is why, even though you don’t see the point in crafting some elaborate backstory and had only said the thing about the sunset selfies to con him into coming over, he stays quiet and shows up to your apartment for dinner and worldbuilding anyway, because it’s been too long since he’s last been here and he misses you.

“Are you taking notes?” Hoseok asks, pointing at you with his fork. “This is important.”

You groan into your wine glass. “Fake dating is so hard,” you whine. “Why can’t we just tell the truth?”

He levels you with a stare. “Because! Don’t you think it’s a bit…”

“What, you think it’s totally unbelievable that I could be in love with you?”

Oh. Hoseok doesn’t like this at all, either. Doesn’t like the way the words sound in your mouth. Doesn’t like the way his stomach drops as he digests them. Doesn’t like how nice they sound, like you’d just waded through all the extracurricular bullshit to get straight to the point and arrive at the inevitable conclusion, which is the two of you riding off together into that sunset you’d mentioned before.

He doesn’t like feeling like he might want that.

It’s not like he’s never thought about it. You’re his best friend and he has 20/20 vision, so of course he has. It's always just been one of those things: didn’t want to ruin your friendship, moved across the country, got too busy, didn’t think you’d want him like that in return.

“I—no,” he says unconvincingly. “I just… it’d totally be weird, right? Us pretending to be a couple?” He throws in a chuckle for good measure, as if the thought of dating you is so preposterous it simply has to be a joke.

You just shrug. Where Hoseok is all nervous jitters, you’re solid and unshaken, always. “Not really. We’ve been friends forever. We’re obviously comfortable with each other. You showing up to my place in those disgusting crochet shoes is proof enough of that.”

Hoseok looks down at his feet and frowns. “They’re Valentino.”

“More like Valenti-no.”

He rolls his eyes. “See, that right there is why we can’t wing this. I can’t pretend to like your awful jokes. I’ll out myself immediately.”

You roll yours right back. “Nah, I think it works. You’re obviously the high-strung CEO who doesn’t appreciate good humor when he sees it and I’m the sad housewife who just wants you to laugh at my jokes.” You jut out your bottom lip and pretend to cry. “Why won’t you just laugh at my jokes, Hobi?”

He flicks a green bean at you. “How’d we go from fake dating to fake marriage? Stop trying to swindle me.”

Once again, you pout dramatically. “God, first you refuse to laugh at my jokes, now you refuse to marry me? You’re breaking my heart here.”

“I’m not buying you a ring,” Hoseok scoffs. “I know for a fact you’ll just turn around and sell it for triple the price to some poor, unsuspecting bastard.”

“Not my fault there’s a lot of poor, unsuspecting bastards in the world. All of this just proves, for the billionth time, that I’m the better businessperson between the two of us.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hoseok sighs. “Just because your lemonade stand outsold mine once doesn’t mean—”

“I also outsold you during that candle fundraiser in the fifth grade. And the candybars during Little League. And that bullshit one in high school with the pineapple pizzas—”

“Fine!” Hoseok throws his hands up. Then, with as little of a grimace as he can muster, he says, “Let’s go to Costa Rica, Mrs. Jung.”

It doesn’t land.

Your jaw drops immediately, an exaggerated gag spilling from your lips. “I changed my mind,” you deadpan. “No marriage for us unless you take my last name.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“Feels bad in my mouth. What’s wrong with mine?”

Hoseok rolls his lips together. “Nothing, really. Just—”

“Is this some kind of male pride thing? You refuse to take your wife’s last name for fear of public ridicule and castration jokes?”

“No.” Hoseok glares at you. “It’s just—the reservation’s in my name. Besides, if someone made shitty jokes about you, I’d slam their head into a window, too.”

“Oh.” As soon as your jaw snaps shut, a brilliant smile splits your face. “That was unexpectedly wholesome, Seok. You’re getting soft in your old age.”

Only for you, he wants to say. Instead, he shoves another forkful of rice in his mouth and a copy of the itinerary in your direction.

(For all your bravado and willingness to slam the heads of elementary school bullies into windows, you hate flying. So, if you squeeze Hoseok’s hand too tight and he snaps a photo of it under the guise of how comically purple-red it’s turning, and not at all because it’s the first time you’re holding his hand and some weird, sentimental part of him wants to commemorate it, that’s his business.

If his heart is so full it nearly bursts out of his chest at the sight of you crying over a sloth, and if he memorizes the stars in your eyes as you hold one—not caring about the bugs or the giant claws or the fact that sloth fur kind of looks like a bird nest, algae included—that’s his business.

If he posts the photo of you crying to his Instagram, knowing damn well you’re going to yell at him for it later, and he cackles wildly over Namjoon’s comment:

[namjooning commented: why does she cry like that kim kardashian meme? junghoseok replied: Right? That’s what I said]

—that’s his business. It’s only because he’d said you look like Kim Kardashian when you cry and, if nothing else, Hoseok loves to be proven right. It has nothing to do with wanting to remember you that happy forever. Not at all.

If he feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest when you hug him tightly, murmuring a quiet thank you in his ear on the last night of your stay at the sanctuary, it’s simply because you’re not very tactile. Hugs—and outward affection—from you are rare. That’s all. His skin absolutely does not break out in goosebumps. Doesn’t feel tingly all over. His breathing continues as normal.

If he finally comes to the startling realization that he’s in way too deep when you fall asleep on his shoulder during the drive to the resort, well…

Hoseok may be deadly smart, but he’s always been a complete fool when it comes to you.

If he sends a panicked text to Namjoon asking how he’s supposed to survive the next month, and if Namjoon misinterprets it as an ambitious, live-to-work type-A personality freaking out over not knowing how to unwind and tells him to just take it easy, and Hoseok misinterprets that as go for it, well…

The next four weeks sure are going to be interesting, aren’t they?)

See, the thing about Hoseok is he has all the money and prestige a man of his status could want.

He’s filthy rich, he’s well-respected, he’s kind. People love him. He loves people in return. He’s been called the living embodiment of actual sunshine more times than you or he could possibly count. There’s truly nothing he wants for in this world.

Hoseok is also the type of person who gets anxious at the thought of calling the Malaysian restaurant you two frequent to place a delivery order. Namjoon has to force him to make his own personal appointments under threat of death. He changed doctors because his new one lets him schedule appointments online. He won’t go to a fast food drive-thru unless they have mobile ordering.

It’s just the way Hoseok is. He’s been that way as long as you’ve known him—at least since that time in the fifth grade when his mother once gave him twenty bucks and told him to call the pizza place and order dinner for the two of you and he totally balked, resigning the two of you to toaster oven Ellio’s that tasted way too similar to skating rink pizza to be a coincidence.

Which is why he balks again as soon as the two of you reach the front desk of the resort, shoving you in front of him to talk to the man behind it.

Maybe it’s the raging pansexual inside Hobi rather than his uncharacteristic fear of talking to literally anyone, but you totally get it. You don’t really want to talk to this man, either. He’s ash blond and bathed in golden light, highlighting his already golden skin to look completely ethereal, and he’s got a smug look on his face that tells you he knows exactly how intimidatingly good-looking he is.

Still, you’re not easily shaken. Jung Hoseok is your best friend—and fake boyfriend, lest you’ve forgotten—for fuck’s sake. You’ve committed violence for him. Golden Desk Boy is going to have to try a whole lot harder than this. “Hiii,” you say, lips painted in a saccharine smile. God, you’re so fake. “We’re checking in under Jung.”

The man—whose name badge says Jimin—returns your fake smile. “Great! Thank you so much for joining us for your stay.”

You take a moment to look around while Jimin pulls up your reservation, purposefully skipping over Hoseok’s form. He’s not doing anything, just sitting in a plush armchair as he pretends to read the newspaper, but you feel the flames of annoyance licking at your heels nonetheless, because you wouldn’t be here to begin with if it weren’t for Hoseok and his subordinate micromanager, and what kind of weird place has he brought you to?

Everything is white. Not in the sterile kind of way, because the monotony is broken up with lush greenery and the occasional piece of teak furniture, but there’s enough white for you to wonder if it’s some sort of statement. The floors and walls are white. All the non-wooden furniture is white. Jimin’s silk uniform and teeth are both blindingly white. Not that you’d seen many people since you stepped into the lobby, but the ones you had seen had been wearing white, too.

Jimin looks up from the computer screen and you’re almost surprised to find his irises aren’t white, too. Maybe it’s rude, but he seriously gives you the creeps. “Everything is ready for your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Jung. I’ve requested someone come to retrieve your luggage.”

You gawk. “Oh, we’re not—we’re not married.”

“Oh?” Jimin asks, one perfect eyebrow arched as his eyes twinkle with intrigue.

“Yeah,” you insist. “Not that I need to explain my morals and ethics to a stranger, but I don’t believe in the patriarchy.”

“Really? That’s great,” Jimin lies. This man is overflowing with shithead energy. “Neither do I.”

You scoff. “Oh, sure. That’s why you just assumed my bes—my partner and I were married.”

“That’s what the reservation says.” He looks very amused now. Kim Namjoon is going to receive a very lengthy text message in approximately ten minutes. “I do apologize for this mistake. I’ll make sure to correct it right away.” Amusement slowly morphs into a challenge. “Is there a new last name I can put on the reservation for you instead?”

Call it a hunch, but you think it best to not give this person any of your identifying information. “No.”

“Shall I leave it as Jung, then?”

It physically pains you to say this, but you manage to choke out a very strained, “Yes.”

“Fantastic,” Jimin sing-songs. “I’m very glad we were able to sort out this issue for you, Mr. and Mrs. Jung.”

Choke on a dick and die is what you want to say (for no reason, really; it isn’t like Jimin’s been outright cruel to you), but as much as Hoseok avoids people—and avoids confrontation even more—he appears at your side, looking every bit the sunshine after a storm he always is. “Everything okay?” he asks, placing a gentle hand at the small of your back. “…Dear,” he tacks on as Jimin’s eyes study the two of you.

“Everything’s great!” you chirp, determined to cast away Jimin’s obvious suspicions. “Jimin here says someone’s coming to get our bags.” Another fake, saccharine smile. Like sweet’n low. “He’s been very helpful.”

Everything’s great, in you-speak, translates to I once, foolishly, thought Kim Namjoon was on my side. I now see the errors of my ways and I demand justice and revenge. Fool you once (getting roped into being Hoseok’s fake partner to come to a weird wellness retreat), shame on Namjoon. Fool you twice (allowing him to book the reservation and label you a married couple), shame on you. There won’t be a third time, because Kim Namjoon’s days are numbered once you’re both in the same country again.

“Will you be needing a tour?” Jimin asks, voice tinkling like expensive crystal.

You grasp Hoseok’s hand far too tight to be believable and wave off the receptionist. “No, thank you! Just a map will do. That’s how we met, you know—at a… map… class.”

“A map class?” Jimin parrots. “Riveting.” He smiles. Sweet’n low.

“It sure was!” You turn to Hobi. “Wasn’t it? …Babe,” you choke out. The word tastes so gross on your tongue.

When you look up at him, Hoseok’s wearing that trademark expression of his: the one where his eyes are too wide, tight-lipped smile stretched too thin. Hoseok’s convinced it’s convincing. It isn’t. It’s terrifying and makes your skin feel itchy from the inside. “Mmm, yep,” he agrees easily. “Love a good map. Some good… cartography.” He pinches three fingers together because he’d seen it on The Sopranos and it’s just a thing he does now.

Sometimes you forget Hoseok is rich-rich.

Of course Namjoon had mentioned booking the trip on the company card and of course you know what someone like him having access to a company card implies. It’d implied you were going on an all-expenses-paid trip on some massive company’s dime. But, perhaps naively, you’d just envisioned a fancy hotel room at some resort near a beach. Shoreline bonfires, tiny portions of food on massive plates when you order room service, colorful drinks with tiny umbrellas and a skewer of fruit stuck inside, three-digit price tag.

Instead, the two of you follow the map to a secluded, private house. There’s a balcony. The shower is made entirely of glass and surrounded by the lush greenery outside. The exterior wall in the bedroom is also made of glass and affords you panoramic views of the beach and forest and everything in between. The thread count of the Egyptian cotton sheets is disgustingly low.

(Which, speaking of Hoseok and all his money—he’d been the one to teach you about thread counts to begin with. You’d wrongfully assumed the higher the number the better, but Hoseok had gently grabbed the scratchy 1500 count sheets out of your hands with a pained grimace and handed you a set of Supima cotton sheets with a startlingly low thread count instead.

Rich people have everything backwards.)

Truth be told, it’s exactly the kind of place you’d see on some influencer’s Instagram account. The kind of place they’d delude you into thinking you could afford, too, because having your influencer boyfriend take a picture of you sinking into the lush white duvet and plastering a $10 filter on it is more important than affording your student loan payments.

But you digress.

Either way, you’ll have to send a thank you card to the board of directors.

Hoseok, on the other hand, balks for the second time. Takes one look at the singular bed and completely shuts down, Windows sound effects practically blaring over an invisible loudspeaker above his head once again. “Where’s the other bed?” he asks stupidly.

You snort. Stash your suitcase in the corner. You’ll unpack it later… or next week. Whenever you get around to it, really. “What other bed?”

“You know, like. The other one.”

“There’s only one, Seok. Why would there be two? This is a couple’s retreat.”

He pouts. “Not every couple sleeps together, you know. My grandparents have separate bedrooms.”

“No offense, bud, but your grandfather also wears diapers.”

“So?”

“So there might be a correlation, is what I’m saying.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as your husband of seventy years just because he might pee the bed sometimes?”

You level him with a look. Unpacking doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore. “I’m well past the age where I could conceivably be married to someone for seventy years, so it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not even thirty yet.”

You click your tongue. “Hoseok, you of all people know I never expected to live past the age of thirteen. There’s no way I’m making it to ninety-seven.”

“You only thought you were gonna die when you were thirteen because you had your appendix removed.” You give him another look. “And you got your tonsils removed that same year.” Another one. “What?” he huffs. “What’d I forget?”

“That time we were playing volleyball in gym class and you spiked the ball right in my face and broke my nose.”

“Not a life-threatening injury.”

“Thirteen was a really hard year for me,” you retort, overdramatic as always. “It’s a miracle I survived.”

“Oh my god—”

“A miracle, Hobi.”

With a disapproving shake of his head, he’s off to unpack his luggage, because Hoseok is filthy rich and has expensive clothes that, according to him, cannot, under any circumstances, go hours without being hung up properly. You’ve never seen a silk shirt with a wrinkle in it, let alone a wrinkle on any article of Hoseok’s clothing, but you learned a long time ago it’s much less stressful to just let him be neurotic about his wardrobe.

You, on the other hand, are going to do no such thing. You’ll live out of your suitcase for as long as you can get away with it, so you flop face-first onto the bed, careful to leave your shoes dangling off the edge. Hoseok’s already going to give you shit about—

“Yah!” he wails, his fifteenth white button-down shirt draped haphazardly off a hanger. “No street clothes in the bed!”

You roll your eyes. “Street clothes? Who says shit like that? Most people just have clothes.”

“You’ve been wearing them all day,” Hoseok argues, because there’s very little he loves more than an argument. “They’re dirty, and now they’ve made the bed dirty, too.”

However, to the detriment of Hoseok’s well-being, you love arguing, too. You look down at both your clothes and the pristine duvet and vaguely gesture at both. “Ah, yes. So filthy. The bed—which you’d nearly had an aneurysm over sharing with me not even ten minutes ago, might I add—is so dirty. How will we ever be able to sleep in it?”

Watching Hoseok mentally tabulate through the Seven Stages of Grief is the most entertainment you’ve had in hours. Jaw clenched, he simply stares at you for a few seconds before leveling his voice and repeating, “No street clothes in the bed.” Then he tacks on a please that’s clearly an afterthought. “Didn’t you bring loungewear? Can’t you just wear that instead?”

You did, in fact, bring loungewear. It would’ve been irresponsible not to, considering the length of your stay and proximity to paradise, but stubbornness seems to be the flavor of the day so you just shrug and toe your shoes off. “I’m not going to change. We don’t have long before we have that welcome dinner, anyway. I’m not going to put on loungewear only to change into dinner-wear and then come back, shower, and change again into pajamas.”

Hoseok’s nose scrunches in distaste. “What welcome dinner?”

“Do you not read?” you tease. “There was a whole itinerary attached to the map. We have a welcome dinner tonight with that guy Namjoon’s in love with.”

“Which one?”

You click your tongue. “The guy who runs this place.” Then you furrow your brow. “What do you mean ‘which one’?”

“Nothing. Just—you know how Namjoon is. He falls in love at least eight separate times whenever he goes to the gardening store.”

“Guess he doesn’t herb his enthusiasm.” Hoseok groans loudly as you point finger guns at him.

He lobs a mated pair of socks at your head that bounce off your ass instead. “Please just get ready for dinner. I can’t do this.”

To put it mildly, Kim Seokjin is fucking weird.

Hoseok hadn’t noticed. He’d taken one look at him and his mischievous eyes and welcoming smile and dove right in, engaging him in endless conversation about god-knows-what. That’s just how Hoseok is. Aside from his justifiable distrust of Tinder dates, he makes and keeps friends effortlessly. It’s the sunshine in him, your mother always used to say, because Hoseok was always the sun and everyone else were sunflowers, desperate to bask in him and reflect his light.

(Namjoon has always said it’s because he’s an Aquarius. You don’t know what that means, but you assume it’ll click once you buy a few crystals and start exclusively listening to Fleetwood Mac.)

And that has always been okay—good, even. He’s never lost that innate goodness, even when he’d been placed at the head of a billion-dollar corporation where ruthlessness is encouraged. Hoseok’s edges remain rounded and soft; he emphasizes a need for kindness, shows it has a place amongst the cold, calculated world of business. Really, it’s great. You can’t be more proud to call him your best friend.

However.

It doesn’t mean Hoseok isn’t a fucking idiot sometimes.

Because he’s good, his first assumption is always that others are good, too. No matter how many times you’ve grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him away from a fire, his first instinct is still to reach out and touch it.

His first serious girlfriend, back in high school? Yeah, you’d warned him about her. Told him she was messing around with a kid on the soccer team on the side, but Hoseok had insisted she’d never do that. “She’s into embroidery,” he’d said, as if that excused someone from being a two-timing cheat.

That guy he’d been partnered with for a serious project in business school? You’d listened to Hoseok talk about him over Skype once and suggested he find a new one. Kept silent as he unloaded on you a few weeks later after the guy had fucked him over.

You’d even advised him against hiring Namjoon. Couldn’t fathom why Hoseok would even be considering hiring someone who showed up to an interview hours early. Obviously he hadn’t listened, and look where it’s gotten the two of you.

It isn’t that you’ve got a sixth sense for assholes or anything. It’s just that Hoseok’s such a terrible judge of character that it makes you look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison.

So it comes as no surprise to you when Seokjin excuses himself for a moment and Hoseok turns to you with hearts in his eyes only to be greeted by your Hoseok you’re doing that thing again where you put people on a pedestal who are not to be trusted look.

“No,” he dismisses immediately. “Him? No way.”

Your nostrils flare. “Hoseok. Don’t be an idiot about this. He’s weird.”

“He’s just eccentric. Aren’t all these New Age hippie types like that? The guy runs a wellness retreat for fuck’s sake—of course he’s weird.”

“His vibes are off,” you retort, which admittedly sounds like a New Age hippie thing to say, but the longer Hoseok insists you’re wrong, the more you begin to wonder if you are. The two of you had been sent here by Namjoon, and he’s easily one of the weirdest people you’ve ever met. Maybe Hoseok’s right.

You allow yourself two minutes of self-doubt. Then you’re shaking your head and poking your tongue into the fat of your cheek because you know bad vibes when you feel them and Kim Seokjin has them in spades.

The man in question returns a few moments later, two new men in tow: a taller one with a boxy smile and a tan and a shorter one with a scowl that looks permanent but not on purpose, like it’d just shown up on his face one day and forgot to leave. The grumpy-looking one sits across from Hoseok, looking every bit as unsure as you, while the other one takes the empty seat to his left, right in front of you.

“I’m Taehyung,” he says, ass barely in the chair before he’s leaning over the table to shake your hand. His feels like a hand that’s shaken many others—firm, warm, soft. Feels a lot like shaking Hoseok’s hand might feel, an importance simmering beneath the surface, but you’ve never had a reason to do so. “This is Yoongi.” Taehyung gestures to the man beside him. “He doesn’t talk much but you get used to him, I think.”

“You think?” Hoseok laughs, an eyebrow quirked, fully in his element. Words soft, edges softer. Hoseok was born for these types of moments. Meeting strangers, knowing what to say.

Yoongi stays quiet. Barely looks around the room, which is a feat in itself. Seokjin had invited all of you to dinner in a grand dining hall, walls tall and floors gleaming, both stark white like the rest of the resort. Immediately sat at the head of the table like some sort of king, and you would’ve thought something of it, maybe looked at Hoseok and mouthed what’s this guy’s deal? But then he placed his napkin neatly across his lap, looked at the two of you, smiled dazzlingly, and said, “Is cereal soup?”

It had all gone downhill from there, really.

Now Taehyung and Yoongi are seated across from you and Hoseok and Yoongi still hasn’t said a word and you’re hoping maybe, just maybe, he’s also picking up on how weird all of this is. Taehyung has that exuberant optimism that reminds you a lot of Hoseok so you disregard him as a comrade immediately. Just the kind of guy to love any and everyone, oblivious to bad vibes. No, Yoongi’s the one you need on your side and it’s glaringly obvious.

One small hiccup, though: he really doesn’t talk.

Like, at all.

Taehyung talks enough for the both of them, endearing everyone with a smile and an endless supply of stories told in that deep baritone voice of his. Every now and then he’ll turn to Yoongi and say isn’t that right, dumpling? and Yoongi just hums an acknowledgment. Doesn’t seem put off by the pet name at all, despite looking like someone that’d be put off by pet names.

They’re cute. You mouth as much to Hoseok and he just smiles at you in return, a soft little thing. Yoongi and Taehyung are the kind of couple who give off we’ve been together for decades energy even though they don’t look much older than you. Just two people completely at ease with one another, and it does something to your stomach. All small, hidden touches and words communicated through looks alone. Best friends and lovers. Partners both in crime and in life.

It’s a sweet moment.

It’s a moment completely negated by Seokjin’s booming voice at the head of the table. “Well, this was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s move to the lounge.”

Yoongi doesn’t look to Taehyung. Yoongi looks to you, and it’s only because you’d looked at him instead of Hoseok that you notice the subtle downturn of the corners of his mouth, the slight pinch between his brows. He doesn’t outright ask it, but there’s a question in his body language: What’s this guy’s deal?

It’s one you’d also like an answer to.

Yoongi keeps his eyes on you the entire time the five of you talk in the lounge. Well, Taehyung’s once again speaking for both of them, hands and arms gesturing wildly all around him, and Yoongi seems more than content to sit in silence. Seokjin and Hoseok chime in where they should, asking questions and emphasizing words and generally being agreeable. You, on the other hand, sit next to Hoseok and try to exude the same energy Taehyung and Yoongi do. The we’re so in love and comfortable with each other we don’t even need to touch type. The we only post selfies together three times a year because we don’t need to flaunt our relationship variety.

But, as all inevitable things inevitably do, the conversation moves to relationships. Seokjin sneaks it in under the guise of getting to know everyone, and Taehyung takes the bait immediately, seemingly always looking for a reason to show off Yoongi and talk him up. You hate that it’s endearing. You hate that you want something like it—someone enamored with you without preamble. A just because kind of love. Something solid and bone-deep.

“It was totally by accident,” Taehyung’s saying as your attention drifts back to him. Not soon enough, because he’s clearly halfway through a story and you have no idea what the plot is. “We’d both been backpacking through Europe, and I was trying to check in at this tiny hostel in Thessaloniki but my Greek is terrible, understandably, so I was really struggling. Trying to tell the poor woman behind the desk my name and that I’d booked a private room, and she just kept shrugging and looking at me like I was crazy. It was, like, midnight, so I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, and then out of nowhere this guy”—He jerks his thumb at Yoongi, who remains silent and still—“just comes up behind me and starts speaking fluent Greek.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. “Fluent Greek? Wow,” he says, eyebrows disappearing beneath his fringe, “that’s really impressive.”

“You have no idea,” Taehyung continues to gush. “He speaks, like, fifteen languages fluently, I swear to god. Anyway, turns out the hostel never received my reservation, which makes sense because I’d tried booking it from the top of a mountain. Yoongi took pity on me and let me share his room since they were fully booked.”

Seokjin smiles and touches a hand to his heart. It’s completely performative but it works—Taehyung looks like he’s just passed some silent test and won the lottery. “Adorable. And so noble, Yoongi. Not many people would do that for a stranger.”

Yoongi shrugs.

Undeterred, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “How about the two of you? Set up by friends? Blind date?” His beady eyes are studying you both diligently, eyes raking over your face for the tiniest tell. “Childhood friends turned lovers?”

Hoseok coughs.

“We met at a cartography class,” you explain, voice even despite Seokjin’s prolonged eye contact making you want to lock yourself in the nearest bathroom. Hoseok had nearly given the two of you away, and it was all you could do to recall whatever bullshit you had tried selling Jimin to cover your asses.

Yoongi’s fighting off a smile. Taehyung looks enthralled. “Cartography? Whoa, now that’s something you definitely don’t hear everyday.”

“A lost art, if you ask me,” Seokjin says. “Are either of you geographists, then?”

Hoseok tenses, fidgeting ceasing immediately. The two of you hadn’t talked about this—about how honest you wanted to be, how much would be fabricated—so while this is typically the kind of environment he’d thrive in, you pluck the reins from his hands and take over. “Double majored back in undergrad. Geography and psych.”

“Interesting combo.”

You nod. Not the first time you’d heard that. “Well, there are things you want to do and things you should do, so I did both.”

“And what was it you wanted to do?”

You wave your hand, gesturing vaguely. “Ah, you know. You go into university with all these aspirations, have all these starry-eyed ideas. You’re gonna be someone, you’re gonna help people, you’re gonna make an impact and travel all over and be super important. People are gonna pay to hear you speak and all that bullshit.” Hoseok’s looking at you—you can feel it, but you can also see the blurred outline of his profile. “What did I want to do? Something in human geography, maybe cultural or political geography.”

“The psych degree?” Seokjin continues prodding, and you find you don’t mind it. Hoseok certainly never had. Was always far too busy doing important business things on the opposite side of the country.

“Picked it up about halfway through. Figured I should have a back-up plan in case I wound up being the only geopolitician working at Starbucks.” Your fingers start picking at your pants even though there’s nothing to grab onto. You’d only packed your best, keenly aware of the standards required to be in Jung Hoseok’s inner circle. “A lot of the research and analysis courses overlapped, so I just… did it.”

“That’s very ambitious.” Seokjin’s compliment feels like some weird kind of approval, like another unspoken test Taehyung would grin over passing. “And now? You’d mentioned undergrad.”

“Started a post-bacc in GIS since I liked doing research. Hence the cartography class.”

Hence the cartography class, as if that’s the end of it and there’s nothing else to say. Like you hadn’t dropped out of that to pursue a Master’s in psychology and maybe med school or a PhD to follow, because your mother would be proud of someone with a doctorate, right? You could finally stop hearing—

Did you hear Hoseokie got an internship at Google? They pay $8,000 a month!

Did you hear Hoseokie graduated at the top of his class? His mother said he didn’t even have to apply to any MBA programs, they recruited him! He’s torn between Stanford and the University of Penn. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?

Did you hear that Hoseokie finished his program early? He’s so smart. His parents must be so proud of him.

Did you hear Hoseokie’s moving back? Just an associate vice president position for now, but his mother says there’s already talks of him being promoted to CEO within the next few years.

That’s not to say you weren’t proud of him or that you were resentful. You’ve always been Hoseok’s biggest fan, but Hoseok had moved across the country and still casted a shadow so large it was impossible to not be swallowed up by it, and it’s hard to have all the things you want to hear be said about someone else.

So, yeah, hence the cartography class.

“What about you, Hoseok? You’ve been quiet.”

Hoseok’s never quiet. When you turn to look at him, he’s already staring back. There’s no perpetual million-dollar smile, no wrinkles at the corner of his eyes from laughing too much, smiling too much, enjoying life too much. There’s just a concerned look that you don’t really know what to do with, because you’ve spent so much of your life worrying over Hoseok—over his concerning judge of character, his inability to cook, those kids on the schoolbus, his diet and now his organs—that things feel out of sorts now that the script is flipped.

It takes him a while to come back down to earth, realize someone has asked him a question. “Business,” is all he says.

He’s still staring.

Things are tense.

Weird-tense, because things are never tense between you and Hoseok. Not even back in high school when you’d threatened his then-girlfriend, the one who was cheating on him, and she ratted you out. Hoseok had shown up all red in the face, talked a lot about what would happen if you ruined things for him, but you’d just said alright, Hobi, whatever you say and things had gone back to normal.

But back in your overpriced rental house, things are definitely weird-tense.

“You never told me any of that.”

Ah. You shrug, toweling off your hair after your shower, and rifle through your suitcase for suitable pajamas. “You never asked.”

“I thought the map story was bullshit. You never—you double majored?”

Isn’t this so typical, you think. You could write a biography on Hoseok, all his accomplishments and dreams and all those silly little subplots that connect at the end, and he didn’t even know your college major. Majors. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

In the bathroom, you go through your skincare routine on autopilot and floss and brush your teeth. Try to rid yourself of the taste of disappointment. Smear cold cream under your eyes and try to pretend the sting is from the scent and not welling tears, because this is not something to cry over. This is stupid and unimportant, and you now have two and a half degrees in psychology that tell you how to deal with it.

But Hoseok’s reluctant to let it go. Wants to talk it to death when you’re more than happy to never discuss it again. You’re twenty-seven, meaning you’ve had at least five years to accept the fact that your mother had given all her pride to Hoseok instead. You’re not really keen on spending another five years feeling inadequate. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He appears in the doorway of the bathroom looking positively distressed. “Mom had only told me about the psych degree and that you were trying to get into UCLA for your Master’s. She never said anything about the geography degree.”

You just shrug. “Things you want to do and things you should, right?”

Hoseok doesn’t buy it. “Was telling me what was going on in your life not something you wanted to do, then?” He looks stung.

You’re tired, still a little fucked up from the jet lag and sitting through a bizarre dinner and serving yourself up on a silver platter to an even more bizarre man that now knew something about you that not even Hoseok had known. “I’m going to sleep,” you say, because you’re even more loose-lipped than usual when tired and prone to irritability, and provoking an argument on the first night of a month-long vacation is not something you’re going to do.

And Hoseok—

Hoseok must get it, you think, because he seems to deflate. Just sighs, shoulders hunched, before he steps aside to let you out of the bathroom. No argument, no thinly-veiled threats, no guilt-trips. Resignation: the same kind Namjoon had spoken about when he’d relayed the story of how the wellness retreat came to be.

A resigned Hoseok is probably a dangerous Hoseok, but you’re too exhausted to give a shit. You’ll strategize in the morning, come up with a new plan.

Except the morning comes and Hoseok doesn’t mention it at all.

He doesn’t say anything about it for the next three days, actually, which are all the same and go like this:

On the morning of day two, Hoseok reluctantly wakes you up just after six. There’s a small offering of fruit and coffee waiting for you on a tray that you promptly ignore in lieu of going back to sleep, which lasts until approximately 6:06am when Hoseok wakes you again. The two of you are scheduled for a morning yoga session at seven-o’clock, which is supposedly mandatory and can’t be canceled.

Taehyung takes the mat next to you, leaning over to ask, “Have you ever done this before?” with a slightly panicked expression on this face.

“Every Saturday morning back home,” you answer. Taehyung chuckles nervously, and your experience becomes painfully clear when you’re nailing your Sugarcane pose and everyone else topples over sideways. Yoongi doesn’t make a sound as he hits the floor, and he’s so quiet that your instructor misses him completely when they fret around the room helping everyone else.

You’re so distracted by helping Yoongi yourself that you miss the deep furrow of Hoseok’s brow. And the crestfallen look on his face. Just another thing he hadn’t known.

After you survive yoga, the two of you sit through an awkward breakfast with Taehyung, Certified Chatterbox, and Yoongi, Not One. Taehyung doesn’t comment on Hoseok’s newfound quietude, which is a little surprising, but Yoongi quirks an eyebrow at you that makes your coffee suddenly taste stale.

Between the hours of nine and one, Hoseok disappears to go to the spa or the gym or the gift shop, because he is literally incapable of not spending money. You’re waiting for him to realize how weird it is for a wellness retreat to sell souvenirs but he never brings it up, just strolls back into the room each time and dumps a concerning amount of magnets into his suitcase.

(You wonder if any of them are for your mother. You wonder what she’ll think about this—you and Hoseok going to a couple’s retreat together, playing pretend. You wonder if bagging someone like Hoseok would finally make her proud of you and how shallow that is.)

After lunch, which is barely less awkward than breakfast, the four of you are ushered into a so-called Meditation Clinic, hosted by a very muscular guy with a baby face and a lot of tattoos. His name is Jungkook, and he nearly sends Hoseok into Sexuality Crisis Episode No. 2. Hoseok doesn’t do a damn second of meditating for three days, just stares at the wall looking like a baby who’d just been tricked into sucking on a lemon. Taehyung chatters away at you the entire time, completely oblivious to Jungkook’s annoyed stare. You share an exasperated look with Yoongi on your way out.

Hoseok returns to your rental home on the evening of day three looking scandalized. Apparently, this is the result of him running into Jimin, who’d offered to read and analyze his birth chart for him. Apparently, this is Jimin’s second job when there’s no new check-ins to harass. Apparently, Hoseok has been “read for filth” by “the stars” and “doesn’t wish to discuss it further.”

(Interestingly, Jimin corners you not long after. There’s a dangerous twinkle in his eye as he says, “Curious?” and gestures to a small room just off the lounge.

“The curtain’s kind of corny, isn’t it?” you say, scoffing as one strand of beads smacks you in the side of the head. “Like, this all feels very mysterious carnival tent and not billion-dollar resort, y’know?”

Jimin takes a seat behind a large desk, completely void of decoration. You’re not sure what you expected—some tarot cards, maybe a crystal ball to sell the illusion—but it’s empty. “You must have Leo placements,” he mutters.

“Moon and Mars, actually. Lucky guess.”

He gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. “Mm, not really luck, they’re just really good at lying.”

“And what am I lying about?”

Jimin ignores your question. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and says, “When’s your birthday?”

“Aren’t you the astrologer? Take a guess.” Jimin just stares, looking endlessly amused. Eventually you huff and answer. “March 15th.”

Overdramatic as always, Jimin fake-gags. “A Pisces sun with a Leo moon? Horrendous, truly. How do you function?”

“Stunted, clearly.”

He actually laughs at this, rewarding you with a brilliant smile and an endearingly crooked front tooth. “No matter.” He shakes his head, blond locks falling elegantly around his face as if arranged by the gods themselves. “You may have a truly tragic sun-moon pairing, but it bodes well for you and that neurotic mess of a best friend you’re fake-dating.”

You choke so hard Jimin actually offers you a glass of water.)

Dinners are spent as a five-piece. Seokjin asks more idiotic questions, such as are eyebrows considered facial hair, which prompts a very deep exhale from Yoongi, and did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons, which sends Taehyung into an existential crisis he’s yet to recover from.

Sometimes there are bonfires on the beach at night during which Jungkook plays an acoustic guitar and sings like an angel. Hoseok is conspicuously absent during these.

He’s also absent during your nightly routine. You shower, smear your skincare all over your face, and brush your teeth alone. You change into your pajamas and crawl into your side of the bed alone. By night three, you’re so annoyed you build a pillow wall between the two of you that you instruct Hoseok, under threat of bodily harm, not to demolish.

On the morning of day five, you’re awake before the sun. You sit in the darkness for a while, listening to Hoseok’s soft breaths on the other side of the pillow wall. He hasn’t gone five days without talking to you in twenty years. Even when he’d threatened you over his high school girlfriend, you were back in his good graces within 48 hours, and all of this for what? Because your mother is kind of an asshole and you’re kind of jealous and Hoseok is kind of self-centered sometimes?

“Hobi,” you say, leaning over the wall to nudge his shoulder. “Hobi, wake up.”

He doesn’t budge, mouth hanging open as he continues snoring quietly, these little hiccups of breath every now and then. All you can do is sigh. “Hoseok.” Nothing. “Jung Hoseok,” you try again, voice hardened into a baseless threat. He keeps snoring.

You groan, run your hands over your face in exasperation. Stupidly, you’d assumed that Hoseok would be easier to wake up now that he’s a Very Important Person worth millions of dollars. Clearly he’s not. So you throw the duvet off your legs and stumble to the bathroom in the dark. Brush your teeth and wash your face and throw on a loose long-sleeved shirt and a pair of yoga pants. It’s the weekend, so you’re free to do as you please, no mandated schedule, and you know exactly who you’re going to see.

Unsurprisingly, Taehyung is on the beach, cross-legged in the center of a large blanket close to the water but far enough away that the tide isn’t a concern. His curls are blowing gently in the breeze and every now and then he lets out a huff as he tries to flick them out of his eyes. No wonder Yoongi took pity on him back in that hostel in Thessaloniki. You’ve barely known him a week and are already hopelessly endeared by him.

“Good morning,” he says, eyes closed. Even the sun is barely awake this early, but it spills across Taehyung’s cheeks in dusky, golden rays nonetheless. “The beach is beautiful at this hour, isn’t it?”

Ah, so Taehyung’s one of those. Chatty at all hours, just like Hoseok. You groan. “Yeah, sure.”

“I have a thermos of coffee if you want some.”

“You just carry around thermoses of coffee?”

Taehyung laughs. “No. I don’t drink it, but I always make some in the morning and put it in a thermos in case today’s the day Yoongi decides to wake up before noon and join me.”

You eye the empty space next to him. “I’m guessing today’s not the day.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “After forcing him to wake up at 6am to do yoga the last few days? I might never see him again.”

“It’d be deserved, in his defense.”

Taehyung seems to think on this. Has a laugh just as airy as the gentle ocean wind, one that makes you feel like you’re the funniest person in the world. So much like Hoseok. You wonder if you’re like Yoongi. If you’re just as closed off but more talkative. You wonder if there’s a reason Yoongi holds his cards so close to his chest or if he simply sees no reason for anyone to know him. He’s got Taehyung and fifteen languages and a lifetime’s worth of stories, what more could he need? “You’re probably right. Where’s your other half?”

“Also asleep.”

“Wow,” Taehyung deadpans, “there are parallels everywhere.”

You don’t know him well enough to know how he means it. If it’s sardonic and taking the piss out of that sort of thing the way Yoongi would mean it, or if he’s genuine how Hoseok would be. So you just hum a maybe-agreement and stare out at the ocean.

Truth be told, you’re not sure why Taehyung was the one you wanted to find. He just seems like the type to know a lot about relationships, people. Seems like someone who’d meet and befriend more people in a day than you would in five years, so someone like that’s gotta have some sort of answers.

“How long have you and Yoongi been together?”

“Oh. A long time. I was nineteen when I went to Greece and Yoongi was twenty-one, but it was such bad timing, you know? Like, I was only two months into a year-long trip, and Yoongi has to be dragged into everything kicking and screaming, so we didn’t reconnect for over a year after we met.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

Taehyung smiles: small, tender, fond. “A little, yeah, but I think that sort of stuff is inconsequential in the long run. What’s a year’s worth of distance when you’ve got the rest of your lives?” He shifts on the blanket, a frown dragging down the corners of his mouth. “Although I went to Australia a month later and got bit by this huge fucking spider, so I guess the rest of my life was questionable for a while. In that case, yeah, it would’ve been really hard.”

You hum again, and in a need to fill the silence, Taehyung asks, “What about you and Hoseok?”

“What about us?”

“How long have you been together?”

We’re not, really, sits on the tip of your tongue. Jimin has already seen straight through the bullshit, so why not Taehyung, too? What’s the worst that can happen—they kick you out because you’re not a proper couple? What does that even mean? You’ve known Hoseok for twenty years. You watched him grow into a successful, kind, intelligent adult from a stupid-as-fuck eight-year-old. You’ve watched him fall in love and get his heart broken and piece it back together again. You know his takeout orders and his favorite color and the movies he still cries over but lies and says he doesn’t. You know the smell of his mother’s perfume when she squeals and hugs you like you’re her own. You’re one of two-hundred followers on Hoseok’s private Instagram account—the one you and Namjoon and Hoseok’s sister always join forces to bully him on when he tries posting a thirst trap.

You know what Hoseok looks like when he cries. You know what he’s like when he’s vulnerable and insecure and you know how to be a pillar for him when he’s like that, and he knows the same about you.

Some couples don’t have half of that, so what does it mean or even matter if your coupling is proper? Isn’t what you have enough?

You sigh. “We grew up together. I’ve known him for twenty years.”

“Oh.” Taehyung sucks in a breath. “I thought you’d said—”

“Yeah,” you interject. “We’re not, like, romantically involved.” Another sigh. “It’s a long story.”

Taehyung just smiles, looks at you with those butter-soft eyes, and you’re diving into twenty years of history and backstory. You tell him about punching the kid on the bus. You tell him about Hoseok’s first serious girlfriend in high school and how it made your stomach hurt—

(“Because you had a crush on him?”

“What? No.”

“Hm. Okay.”)

—and you tell him about your mother and all her misplaced pride. He laughs at every story you tell him about Namjoon and how you and Hoseok wound up at this weird wellness retreat. He stops laughing when you tell him that you and Hoseok haven’t spoken properly in days, and his eyebrows get very serious when you admit it’s the reason you came to find him.

“You just look like someone who might know how to help me fix it,” you finish.

Taehyung tries—and fails—to not look pleased as punch at this. “I’m generally very unhelpful. Well, Yoongi says I’m not-not helpful, but sometimes I try to help too much and wind up making things worse.” You shoot him a dubious look. “I won’t do that this time, though, I promise! Please consider me your official relationship fixer.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore.”

“It probably isn’t, if I’m being totally honest, but if I can manage to make Min Yoongi fall in love with me, I’m extremely overconfident I can do just about anything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

He claps his hands together. “Great! We can start with you apologizing and telling him you’ve been acting out due to temporary insanity on the basis of being in love with him for years and never saying anything.”

“Excuse me—”

“It’s best to be extremely honest about these sorts of things as to leave no room for misinterpretation or misunderstandings,” Taehyung says, tone condescending like you’re a child though it’s working overtime to not sound that way. At your slack jaw, Taehyung’s eyes grow wide. “Have you seriously never thought about it?”

“Me and Hoseok?”

Of course you’ve thought about it, it was just dismissed immediately each time. You love Hoseok; he’s the most important person in your life, and that’s exactly why you shooed those intrusive thoughts away every time they crept up. You’re not generally one to overthink on consequences, but Hoseok is always an idea you’ve treated with kiddie gloves. Something delicate. Something placed in an enclosure with 21mm glass walls and eighteen security alarms. So, sure, you’ve thought about it in the same way you’ve thought about winning the lottery or telling your PhD advisor to fuck off and moving to some remote island paradise where there’s always someone to wait on you hand and foot.

Of course you’ve thought about you and Hoseok, in the same way you think about all inevitable things (like the heat death of the universe) and also impossibilities, both wistful and staunch.

“Yeah,” you eventually answer. “Of course I have.”

Taehyung blinks owlishly. “I thought for sure you were gonna deny it.” Then the smile is back and it makes his eyes glitter like tiny stars. “But that’s great! The first step is admitting you have a problem, or whatever. Anyway! Do you still have feelings? Yoongi thinks I’m bad at reading people”—Yoongi is right, you think—“but I’ve seen the way he looks at me a million times, and sometimes that’s the same way Hoseok looks at you. So I think you should tell him.”

Snorting, you turn your gaze to the ocean. Even the water seems to still be sleepy at this hour, the waves small and gentle as they lap against the shore. “Maybe later on. Getting rejected a few days into a month-long trip doesn’t really sound like my idea of fun.”

Face scrunched up in disgust, Taehyung whines, “You wouldn’t! You’re gonna waste all this time because you think you’d get rejected when in actuality all you’re doing is wasting some really great glass walls to fuck against.”

You blanch. You can say, with one hundred percent conviction, that you’ve never thought about sleeping with Hoseok. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There was the one time you had to defend him from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter when they threatened to eat him and one person suggested sparing him because, excessive wealth aside, he had big dick energy. That’d given you pause. Did Hoseok have a big dick?

“No way,” you retort, “Hoseok is like a Ken doll. Completely smooth from the waist down. Dickless.”

Taehyung heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Another L for the gay community.”

Hoseok sleeps until noon.

You’ve already washed the sea salt from your hair and returned to the rental house with your own small haul of gift shop magnets by the time he stirs awake, groggy and looking worse for wear. “Wha’ time s’it?” he slurs, voice far too deep for you to remain unaffected.

“Just after twelve,” you answer. “I can make you some coffee if you want.”

All you get in response is a muffled groan, Hoseok’s dandelion bed-head disappearing under the fluffy duvet once again. You’ve known him long enough to know that means yes, to know he takes his coffee with far too much cream and sugar, the liquid something close to bone white by the time he’s done adding and mixing.

You set the mug on his nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over to peel down the duvet and scratch at his scalp. “Coffee’s ready, sunshine.” Eyes still sealed shut, you move your fingers lower to tickle at his neck. “C’mon, Hobi, you’re pissing away another beautiful day in paradise.” You don’t bother telling him it’s overcast and drizzling; not like it matters, because Hoseok groans again and swats your hand away before shoving his head under his pillow.

He says something you can’t catch, words unintelligible beneath layers of down. “What’d you say?” you ask. When his head pops up, expression frustrated and cheeks flushed red, you poke the dimple in his left cheek. He has to fight off a smile.

“I asked why you’re being so nice to me.”

You frown. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

Hoseok sighs. Adjusts until he’s sitting up, long, skinny legs tangled in the comforter. Something about his hands is so interesting he’s unable to focus on anything else. “Because I’ve been a dick to you.” When you move to protest, he tacks on, “And not just on this trip, either. For a while.” For a second, you think he might cry. Hoseok used to cry a lot as a kid—had too much empathy for such a small body to know what to do with so all the excess tended to leak out. “God, there was so much I didn’t know? Like your majors? And the yoga? I just…” He trails off, looks lost. Picks up the coffee mug just to do something with his hands. “It feels bad. It just feels really bad.”

You return his sigh, wishing Hoseok was a little less honest. Always the first to put himself out there, be vulnerable, and sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it makes you feel guilty. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t,” he argues.

You hold up a hand. “I know where you’re coming from, and I get it. I would probably feel bad, too, if I were in your position.” He whimpers, earning a soft laugh from you. “But I’m telling you it’s okay. I don’t blame you, all right? I never have. I don’t lay in bed at night agonizing over it. This isn’t like that for me.”

“Then what’s it like?”

You hum, knowing this is a moment to handle with care. You can’t be reckless here. So you think it over, and you say, “It’s… I don’t think this happened because you don’t care, because I know you do. I know I’m your best friend in every way someone can be your best friend, and you’re my best friend in all the ways someone can be mine. It’s just that those two things look different, is what I’m saying. And I think that’s okay.”

“It’s unbalanced.”

You nod. “Yeah, maybe it is, but sometimes that happens. It hasn’t always been unbalanced.”

This seems to calm him, and his smile is slow, reluctant, but it’s there nonetheless. “Okay.” He exhales the weight of the world. “Okay. I’d still like to be better, though.”

“We have all the time in the world, Seok.”

You normally eat most of your meals with Taehyung and Yoongi anyway, but since your conversation on the beach, Taehyung attaches to you like a limpet.

The first time had been unnerving. He’d cornered you outside the dining hall, stomach rumbling even as he demanded to know everything, please spare nothing, no detail is too small. There hadn’t been much to report, just that the two of you had talked and things were better.

“Did you tell him you’re in lo—” had earned him an elbow to the ribs.

He hasn’t asked again.

But he’s still hard to shake during mealtime, especially breakfast, because he wakes up ready to talk, conversation locked and loaded on his tongue. Yoongi, of course, doesn’t talk at all, so he offloads onto you and Hoseok, who’s too good-natured to ask for some peace and quiet.

“Seokjin asked me last night if water was wet,” he says, spearing a long piece of pineapple on his fork. “Like, obviously it’s wet? It’s water.”

“It isn’t, though,” you argue. “Water is just water. Wet is a state—”

Taehyung, cheeks bulging around the fruit like a hamster, frowns. “Huh? No. California is a state.”

Yoongi faceplants onto the table.

“No, Tae.” You shake your head. “Like, a state of being. Water makes other things wet, but it’s not wet itself.”

His frown deepens. Looks to Yoongi for help, clarification, but he’s still face-down, so he looks to Hoseok instead. He, very steadfastly, says, “She’s weirdly smart, man. I dunno. I’m not arguing with her.”

“Why? Because you’re also—” Another elbow to the ribs. He coughs, makes a very valiant attempt to look cool, calm, and collected. “You’re also very smart, Hoseok,” he amends. “I am very interested in hearing what you have to say.”

“In business, though. I’m not really smart in science stuff.”

“Interesting,” Taehyung muses. “Would you say you’re smart in love?”

Hoseok is good-natured enough to look genuinely confused. “Huh?”

Yoongi finally picks his head up. Sends Taehyung some kind of look that must mean something to only the two of them, because Taehyung just sighs, put-upon, and shoves a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. He doesn’t talk to Hoseok for the rest of the day.

Two weeks pass in a blur.

The schedule remains the same. Yoga, shared meals, weird quasi-therapy sessions which you have come to realize are just minor cult recruiting, bonfires on the beach. You and Hoseok stay up late talking and barely make it on time to whatever activity you have first thing in the morning. Jimin corners you at least once a week to talk about your “fucked up and frankly demonic” birth chart because he refuses to believe it’s real. Jungkook offers to teach the four of you how to surf but abandons that five minutes into the first session after Yoongi refuses to touch sand and Hoseok nearly passes out from seeing Jungkook shirtless.

…Which Taehyung catches, of course, because he just sidles up alongside you. Says, “Ooh, interesting,” again, in a really smug way, before intercepting Jungkook and leading him far, far away from the beach. You think he winks at you over his shoulder.

Bastard.

But it works, much to your surprise. Of course the two of you have talked it to death, but part of Hoseok’s bid to be better also seems to include being more tactile. Which… is nice, you’ll admit. Hoseok’s fingers are long and slender and perfectly manicured, his hands soft, so it feels nice when they play with your hair or scratch gently at your back or hold your hand, but it also fills you with an anxious kind of dread.

Uncertainty, maybe.

You know how these things work. Forced proximity, only one bed. You’re two-thirds of a psychologist, after all, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Hoseok is just caught up in the moment, at the relief of overcoming an obstacle and making it to the other side. (God knows the bender he’d gone on after graduating business school attests to that.)

Curiously, none of that stops you from leaning into it.

It doesn’t feel weird. It doesn’t feel awkward or strange or anything besides natural. Hoseok’s bare face is the last thing you see before you fall asleep and the first thing you know you’ll see when you wake up, and just having that certainty, that security, makes the early mornings bearable. It makes them something worth looking forward to. It makes all the tension in your body unwind. Makes you pliable, has you laughing freely and leaning into Hoseok’s side during all those meals Taehyung spends talking. Except he’s not talking so much anymore—now, he’s studying. Smiling. Sending little glances only you and Yoongi catch.

Everything comes to a head at another of Seokjin’s weird dinners.

“A question for your discussion,” he begins, and you swear you hear Yoongi groan under his breath. When you look over at him, he’s nonchalantly chewing his food, no indication at all that he made a sound for the first time in two and a half weeks, so you convince yourself you’re hallucinating. “If no one ever sneezed again, how long do you think it’d take you to notice?”

Yoongi must feel you looking this time, because he offers up a dead stare in return. While Taehyung and Hoseok debate their answers—

(“Well, I work in an office, so probably not long.”

“Ah. I work from home, but I think it’d be pretty obvious? Especially during allergy season.”

“Yeah, for sure. It’s one of those things you’d definitely notice. It’s like—you know when you’re cooking and finally turn off the vent hood and the quiet is a little disorienting? It’d be like that, I think. Like, you definitely—”

“You notice something’s absence more than you notice its presence.”

“Yeah! Yes, exactly.”)

—that dead stare of Yoongi’s morphs into something more mischievous, slow like molasses. He catches your eye, winks, and fakes a yawn.

Taehyung startles, like he forgot Yoongi had been sitting next to him the entire time. “Oh, you’ll have to excuse him,” he says, cheeks dusting pink. “Someone told him once he’d been a rock in a past life and it catches up with him every now and then.”

Seokjin lets out a high-pitched giggle, looking absolutely delighted at this. “A rock, huh? Fascinating. Please tell me all about it.”

“Well, I think a lot of people would assume igneous, but that’s always seemed a little shallow to me, you know? I think he’s more metamorphic—”

As Taehyung rambles on, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “What about you two? What do you think you were like in a past life?”

“He had to have been a monk or something,” you declare, poking the crater of one of Hoseok’s dimples. “He’s been hoarding good karma for centuries and cashed it all in for this lifetime.”

“Aish,” Hoseok replies, cheeks matching Taehyung’s as he scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t know about all that. It’s just luck, isn’t it?”

You look at Hoseok. Really look at him—at the way his lips curl around his teeth as he tries not to laugh at the way Taehyung’s still going on about rocks; at the way he pouts and gags a little whenever he takes a sip of champagne; at the way the stars in his eyes turn to glitter when Seokjin gives him an opening to talk about his dog. You look at Hoseok and you think yeah, it could be luck, but it feels more monumental.

It feels predestined.

And you’re not sure what that means. Of course friendships can feel predestined; you’re not one to discount the importance of platonic relationships. You’re not sure what it means in the context of yours and Hoseok’s friendship. You’re not sure if your stomach hurt back when Hoseok got a girlfriend back in high school because it was predestined to be platonic.

You frown as you swirl the wine around your glass.

Truth be told, you’re not sure about much of anything right now.

“Hey,” Hoseok says, patting your thigh to get your attention. You’re in a dress. A nice one: silk, a slit up the side, drapes perfectly over the lines of your body and clings where it should. Does absolutely nothing to spare you from the heat of Hoseok’s skin through the fabric. “You okay?”

You’re fucked, is what you are.

“Yeah,” you reply, offering what you can only hope is a convincing smile. “Think I drank this a little too fast.”

“Do you want to go back to the house? We don’t have to stay. Taehyung’s still talking about the difference between limestone and sandstone, so I don’t think we’ll miss anything.”

You nod, dropping your voice to a hushed whisper. “Yeah, that might be a good idea. They look like they’re about ten seconds away from mixing up geography and geology and being really offended when I don’t know anything about rocks.”

The two of you stand, and Hoseok’s hand immediately moves to the small of your back. Warm, warm, warm, and you can’t convince yourself it’s the wine that’s making you lightheaded.

“Oh-ho-ho,” Taehyung chimes, looking pleased as punch at the sight of Hoseok’s hand at your back. Throws an elbow into Yoongi’s ribs. He doesn’t even flinch. “And where are the two of you going?”

“Uh, home?” Hoseok answers at the same time you say, “Fuck off, Taehyung,” because your face feels like it’s on fire and you’ve had enough of his ribbing.

Except, as it turns out, some amalgamation of home and fuck off sounds a whole lot like home, to fuck, and Taehyung might’ve been serious about the matchmaking thing, but even this kind of misunderstood forwardness has him choking on his sip of wine. Yoongi slaps at his back in the most patronizing way you’ve ever seen someone try to save another person from choking.

“Is he okay?” Hoseok asks, completely oblivious.

You shrug. “No. In so many ways.”

Through his choking, Taehyung manages a glare. “Takes one to know one,” he childishly responds, and you roll your eyes at the exact moment Seokjin grins and does a little wiggle, starts up a very enthusiastic fight, fight, fight! chant.

The thing is—Taehyung is drunk. You know he’s drunk, so him overriding Seokjin’s chant with one of his own—kiss, kiss, kiss!—certainly excuses and explains his behavior, it does absolutely nothingto extinguish the wildfire that’s sparked in your belly.

It’s a bad idea.

You and Hoseok have kissed before, when you were twelve and he was thirteen and he landed on you during a game of Spin the Bottle. Everyone around you had erupted into excited jeering, but the two of you shared a mortified look before he shuffled over on his hands and knees looking less like he was about to have his first kiss and more like he was being dragged to his death.

Looking back, that had been offensive, but he’d still puckered his lips and kissed the pout off your face all the same.

So it’s a bad idea, and you should tell Taehyung that the two of you have already kissed and to knock it off, because the second time you kiss shouldn’t only be to shut him up, but you’re both a little drunk in general and a lot drunk on the thought of redemption. If you pursed your lips the way he had fifteen years ago, leaned in close enough for him to smell your perfume, would he wear another mortified look? Or would he—

Fuck it, you think.

Because, once he realizes you’re serious, that you’re actually considering kissing him, the look he wears is not mortified. He looks a little awestruck—slightly dumb, if you’re being honest; definitely dazed—and it takes all that wildfire raging in your gut and unleashes it. Inspires just enough confidence to step closer, lean in; close enough to feel the warmth emanating from Hoseok’s skin, but still far enough for him to pull away if he wanted to.

Hoseok doesn’t want to.

And his hands are already at the small of your back, so it’s so easy to pull you closer. So easy to move them to your hips, grip a little tighter just in case you start to drift away. So easy to press his lips to yours and kiss the absolute life out of you.

You've kissed a lot of people over the span of fifteen years. None of them had lips as soft as Hoseok’s.

He must’ve done a lot of kissing, too, because the way he moves his mouth is sinful. Precise and confident, just a tease of his tongue. You can feel his smile against your lips and it nearly makes your knees buckle. Reminds you, more than the taste and smell of him, that it’s Hoseok you’re kissing, and the thought alone has you gripping at his dress shirt.

Any other time he’d complain about the wrinkles.

Not this one, though.

“Are you nervous?”

The question finds you halfway out of your dress. “Not really,” you answer. “I think my strap is stuck.”

A nervous laugh is punched out of him, but he moves to help you nonetheless. Gently touches your arm and spins you around, fingers ghosting along your skin as he untangles the strap and pushes it off your shoulder. The fabric pools on the floor, emerald and glittering, as you step out of it, and you laugh. It’s been three days since you and Hoseok kissed. The two of you have done a lot of kissing since then, and he’s still so hesitant; eyes still widen every time you lean in close, like he can’t believe it.

Hoseok is still so shy.

“Why would I be nervous?” you ask, because keeping him talking is the best way to keep him out of his head. “It’s you.”

He whimpers, like that’s the worst possible reasoning you could’ve given him. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m nervous.”

“It’s okay if you are,” you say, turning around to fully face him, and Hoseok looks struck. Torn between the way his nerves are eating him alive and the sight of you in just a pair of lacy panties. “We can do whatever you want, Seok.”

“I—no.” He swallows hard. “No, no, I think—we should definitely… you know.” You quirk an eyebrow. “My dick is fighting for its life right now.”

You dare a glimpse downward. Hoseok’s dick doesn’t look like it’s fighting for its life, outlined and half-hard in his expensive trousers, but what do you know? “Taehyung asked me about your dick once.”

“What.”

“Well, not exactly. He’d asked me if I ever thought about having sex with you—”

Hoseok whimpers again. “Please do not tell me what your answer was.”

“—and I told him you were like a Ken doll.” At his questioning look, you clarify, “You know. Dickless. Smooth from the waist down.”

“Wow. Why would you tell me that? Not gonna lie, it’s a little emasc—”

“I might need to see it. For science.”

Hoseok startles. “M-my dick?”

“Yeah. For science,” you repeat. “Taehyung is gonna be thrilled. He called your dicklessness, and I quote, an L for the gay community.”

Your best friend seems to ponder this. His hands hover uselessly in the air, and it’s ten seconds, twenty—you think he might call the whole thing off, but then he shrugs and undoes his belt, the metal clanky in his haste. “For the gays,” he explains as he pushes his pants down his thighs.

“Of course,” you agree, nodding seriously. “They deserve it.”

“What else did Taehyung say?”

“Nothing much. Just that we need to get our shit together because we’re wasting some really good windows to fuck against.”

Hoseok doesn’t fuck you against the windows the first time.

The first time is slow and unhurried. Because it’s Hoseok, he lights a candle and the two of you take your time touching, learning, shaking off the dregs of apprehension. He flushes crimson and nearly does a runner anytime something goes less than perfectly, and it’s so endearing you have to stop yourself from sinking through the mattress under the weight of all your affection.

The second time is all raw, desperate need. After a day of sly smiles reserved only for you, Hoseok meets you in the bathroom at the end of another night. There’s a spot of toothpaste on your sleep shirt that he disregards at the sight of your bare legs. His eyes meet yours in the mirror and then there’s only enough time for anticipation to start simmering beneath your skin before he’s moving.

(Technically, the third time is only a few hours later. Just like it has everyday since you arrived, your alarm goes off at six sharp, time for yoga, but instead of ushering you out of bed, Hoseok hits the snooze button and pulls you closer. Fits himself to your back and slides your panties to the side, speaks an is this okay? in his impossibly deep morning voice, and then you’re nodding your head and he’s pushing inside.)

Now, though—

Nerves have been shaken off. Another weird dinner has been sat through to which you’d worn a two-piece outfit, the top cropped just enough to show off a strip of skin—modest enough for the motley crew you share your evenings with, but apparently scandalous enough to drive Hoseok insane. He’s all barely-contained energy beside you, hand gripping your thigh, not paying a lick of attention to the conversation.

You lean over, speak the question just below his ear. “You okay?” Goosebumps erupt all over his skin.

“We need to leave right now.”

“Really? Why? You aren’t having a good time?”

Hoseok makes you pay for your smart mouth. Has you pressed against the expanse of windows in your bedroom, stripped down to just your underwear and the top he insisted you keep on, only your shoulders pressed against the glass. Presses wet, open-mouth kisses along your calves, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, and then he’s canting your hips forward to nip at you over your underwear. More silk and lace—thin enough to feel the warmth of his breath, then nothing but warmth when he licks a stripe up your folds, spit seeping through the fabric.

“Fuck.”

He does it once, twice more before he leans back, refuses to meet your gaze. Your brows furrow because your hands are tangled in his hair, tugging as you try to get him to look up at you, wanting to see the evidence of your arousal on his face, but then he’s smirking out of the side of his mouth, hands reaching for your underwear.

You register the cold air of the room on your skin before the sound of fabric ripping.

Then you’re saying, “What the fuck, Hobi, did you just—” and he’s laughing as he nods, not a care in the world except getting his mouth back on you. He licks and sucks until you’re nearly trembling with the need to come, begging him to let you, and you think if you were anyone else he’d drag it out longer. Make you beg a little more. But regardless of whatever he’s told himself over the years in order to cope, Hoseok can’t deny you anything, so he presses two fingers inside, right on the spot that whites out your vision.

He touches himself to the sight of your orgasm.

Rolls the condom on. Runs his cock through your folds, tells you to slick him up. As he presses inside again, crowding close, breath fogging the glass behind you, he tells you to thank Taehyung for the idea.

You’re gonna have to thank him for a whole lot more than that.

In hindsight, you should’ve known Namjoon was nothing more than a dirty little schemer.

There’s three days left of your stay, and the question had been nagging at you ever since you cut through the reception area to get to the meditation class you were running late for. Jimin, of course, gave you shit for it: wordlessly, because he was busy checking in a man with far too much luggage. A man who was checking in alone, and that was not a thing, so far as you were aware, so your curiosity was to be expected.

“Can I just ask,” you say, once again in Jimin’s strange little room behind the beaded curtain. “Why a couple’s retreat?”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it less effective for Seokjin’s weird cult? Like, statistically speaking, you’ve got to be more likely to recruit single people, right?”

“Huh?”

You blink. “What part is confusing you? And don’t say the cult, because I had that pegged on, like, day three.”

“No,” Jimin agrees quickly, “Seokjin is definitely officiating a cult. I just—why do you think this is a couple’s retreat?”

“Uh, because Namjoon said it was? That’s why me and Hoseok are faking being a couple—”

“Were. Were faking.”

“—and it just sort of made sense, considering the people who showed up after us were literally a couple.”

Jimin sighs, schools his expression to the one he always uses when he has to be condescending and speak to you as if you’re a woefully stupid child. “I don’t know who Namjoon is, but I’m assuming he lied in order to get you two to do… exactly what you’ve done.”

“What.”

“This isn’t a couple’s retreat, buttercup, just a regular ol’ wellness one.”

“That Seokjin also uses as his cult recruitment headquarters.”

“Yep.”

“I feel betrayed.”

“Pisces usually do.”

“Excuse me—”

“You’re excused,” he dismisses, shooing you out of his closet.

Despite his innocent nature, Hoseok isn’t nearly as shocked as you to learn Namjoon deceived him.

That’s life, I guess, was all he’d said, the picture of comfort and nonchalance as he lounged in bed, wrapped in a fluffy robe, arm behind his head like a king. You had been shocked—no longer at the betrayal, but at Hoseok’s quick acceptance of it. Hoseok from a month ago would’ve been flustered and on the brink of a meltdown. Hoseok today just shrugs it off.

“I’m just saying.” He dangles a stem of grapes over his mouth like an asshole. “Jimin called it a wellness retreat, right? I didn’t get roped into Seokjin’s cult and we’re… well, whatever we are, so a win is a win. Seems like wellness to me.”

“Whatever we are,” you mimic, pitching Hoseok’s voice up a dozen octaves. “Wow, how romantic.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes, pats the spot next to him on the bed. “If you’d like to come over here, we can have the highly-anticipated ‘what are we’ discussion that no one in the history of human relationships has ever once dreaded having.”

You wave him off. “No need. It’s you, and I trust you, so I don’t think we’re going to go back home and you’re going to write this off as a weird forced proximity thing and ghost me.” You finish the application of your facemask, laughing to yourself at Hoseok’s offended scoff. “Besides, constantly having to defend you from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter is the pinnacle of devotion and love. That’s the kinda shit that forms a trauma bond.”

“For my peace of mind, then.”

“Fine. Hoseok, I love you dearly as my best friend and I’m probably halfway in love with you as a romantic partner, and even though this vacation has been incredible and rewarding and you are very good at sex, I am also very much looking forward to having my own space again because you are almost impossible to live with.” You roll your lips at the sour expression marring his face. “That said: you still owe me dinner at the Brazilian spot near your office, so I would like it very much if you took me there as a date. You can tell Namjoon I’m your girlfriend if you wish.”

“And are you?”

“Ugh. Of course I am, Hobi. What do you take me for? You think I’m the kind of woman who agrees to spend a month in the rainforest and almost get roped into some sketchy cult with anyone who asks?”

“Well, I don’t know! Maybe!”

“You’re impossible. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not?”

At this, Hoseok’s face lights up so bright it puts the sun to shame. Smiles so big you can hardly believe it. “I would love nothing more.”

During your last group meal, Seokjin invites the new guy to join you.

Taehyung is enthralled immediately, gesturing for him to take the empty seat to his left. “Hello, nice to meet you! I’m Kim Taehyung and this is Min Yoongi. Are you here for the wellness retreat part or the cult part?”

Seokjin chokes on a slice of mango.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kim Taehyung. I’m Park Bogum,” the man responds. “I’m here for the cult part.”

Seokjin promptly stops choking.

Saying goodbye to this place, these people, is bittersweet.

The last four weeks have undoubtedly been the weirdest of your life, but they’ve more than made up for it with what you’ve been given in return: a blossoming relationship with Hoseok, Taehyung and Yoongi’s friendship. Even Jimin and Jungkook come to see you off, and Jimin surprises you by wrapping you in a tight hug, assuring you that you’ll still be his second-favorite Pisces long after you’re gone.

“Wow, rude. Who’s the first?”

“Yoongi.”

“Yoongi? How is he your favorite? He doesn’t talk!”

Jimin smirks, smug and patronizing. “Exactly. Have a safe trip, buttercup.”

Jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t say much at all. You suspect he showed up only to look hot and catapult Hoseok into his final sexuality crisis, and that suspicion is confirmed when he leans against the wall and pushes his hair away from his forehead. The sound that comes out of Hoseok is part whimper, part pain and suffering, and truly catastrophic for his ego.

“Get it together,” you plead, but it falls on deaf ears. Hoseok is in a Jungkook-induced haze until you’re halfway to the airport, Taehyung chattering the entire way.

And then—

And then.

“Well, that was fucking weird, huh?” Yoongi asks.

Hoseok is running late.

He’s gotten better at equalizing his work-life balance since returning from your trip, but he still gets held up sometimes. A lot to catch up on, he’d said, and you can understand that. He’d spent his first week back doing nothing but haranguing Namjoon, so that surely ate up a lot of time.

Still, he’s never been quite this late.

The waitstaff are looking at you with concern. They used to look at you only to see if your water needed topping up, so this is an unfortunate development, especially for someone who looks as you currently do. Any person in this overpriced Brazilian steakhouse would be honored to even sit at the same table as you, let alone be able to call you their date, so Hoseok really has a lot of nerve.

You’re halfway to telling him as much over a very angry text message when he appears in front of you, face flushed, chest heaving, hairline dotted with sweat. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologizes, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. “Got a little caught up.”

“No shit,” you whisper-yell, “that waiter over there looked like he was about ready to call the cops on me. I probably can’t even afford the water in this place.”

Hoseok grimaces. “In my defense, I have a very good reason.”

“Oh yeah?” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest. “And what is that?”

Wordlessly, Hoseok hands over a garishly orange shopping bag emblazoned with a very familiar logo and brand name. Suddenly, it feels impossible to breathe. “You didn’t. Hobi, tell me you didn’t—”

“You know how much bullshit you have to go through for one of those things? God, I had to put in a request. Not to mention it was like fourteenseparate credit checks…”

You tune him out. Instead, you peek inside the bag with what you can only describe as pure dread. Not at the implication, because that has you thrumming with joy and affection, but at the cost of—

“You got me a Birkin.”

Hoseok looks at you like you’ve sprouted a second head. “Um. That’s what you said you wanted, right?”

“You said you weren’t spending that much money on anyone who isn’t your future spouse.”

The look doesn’t budge. “Yeah? I’m clearly not following.”

“When did you put in the request?” If your voice is audibly waterlogged, Hoseok doesn’t mention it, but you can feel the tears pooling at your lash line nonetheless.

The confusion finally clears and gives way to another brilliant smile. A little bashful, too, because he hides behind the menu and refuses to look at you. Says something you don’t catch, can’t hear over the dim chatter of this restaurant, and he groans in pleased faux-annoyance when you tell him to repeat himself.

“I said… I put it in the night you kissed me.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the chest. “You’ve known that long?”

And Hoseok—Hoseok ducks behind the menu again, but this time you can hear him loud and clear: “I’ve known a lot longer than that.”

author's note pt. 2: if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, any reblogs are greatly appreciated and my inbox is always open for feedback. ♡

#hoseok x reader #hoseok x you #hoseok x y/n #jhope x reader #hobi x reader #hoseok fluff #hoseok smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok fanfic #jhope smut #jhope fanfic #bts x reader #bts smut #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic

[prodigaldaughteralice]

So I’m fascinated by the coffee, because I don’t think it affected Aziraphale’s decision in any way.

And I don’t think it affected his decision because his decision was completely in line with his character! I’ve seen the whole cyanide theory thing and it doesn’t make sense to me; he didn’t seem high or compromised in any chemical way. And his decision, as much as it hurts, makes sense with who he is and his (toxic) relationship with Heaven.

So why is the coffee so weird?

Maybe I’m just focusing on it because I was a barista for a long while, but I’m so confused.

First of all it’s slightly inconsistent. When the Metatron orders it (ha ha I’m so predictable my autocorrect tried to turn that into Mettaton), he orders it with ‘a dash’ of almond syrup, and when he hands it over to Aziraphale he describes it as having a ‘hefty jigger’ of almond. What?

Secondly, the Metatron is weirdly pushy about it. He comes up rather close, puts it in Aziraphale’s hands, there’s a bit of odd business where he watches him drink it.

Thirdly, oat milk. Why oat milk?

(I admit to being slightly and entirely irrationally biased against oat milk bc the people who wanted other milk substitutes we didn’t have were generally polite about being redirected to our three options, while the oat milk people were very “HOW can you NOT have OAT MILK” and then the chain replaced coconut, imo the best of the ones we had, with oat. But that’s not the point here.)

Point being why a milk substitute at all? Side-stepping the argument about whether veganism is actually good for the planet or for animals, it doesn’t really make sense for it to be an Angel Thing— they’re not interested in preserving the planet, they want to end it, and it’s not going to be out of respect for the fauna, because the whole “the stars are just there to look at” along with Job’s innocent goats make it pretty clear that this theology falls on the “the animals/everything else is there for the humans’ use/appreciation” side.

Fourth point, why coffee at all? Correct me if I’ve missed one, but I can’t recall a single point in the book or either season when Aziraphale drinks coffee. Alcohol, tea, cocoa, but not coffee. Even when he goes to Nina’s shop earlier in the season, all he gets is a plate of Eccles cakes nobody eats. Him asking if six shots of espresso will calm Crowley down also kind of suggests he’s not very familiar with coffee, haha.

So it’s been nagging at me a lot, and what it seems like to me is… the coffee doesn’t mean anything in universe. But it means something to us. It’s Doylist, not Watsonian. It’s weird. It’s just weird. The Metatron’s description of the coffee is a little inconsistent because he doesn’t give that much of a shit about minor truths. He’s pushy about Aziraphale drinking it because it’s a gift and he needs Aziraphale to accept it and feel grateful, it’s a signifier of the hierarchical dynamic between them. It’s an oat milk latte because that’s trendy and available across the street, and because the Metatron doesn’t actually care what Aziraphale is specifically fond of or interested in— it’s one of those human ingestables he likes, after all.

I think what the coffee’s there for is exactly what it did to me— it makes everything really uncomfortable, even before we really know why the Metatron’s there. It’s the first pang of anxiety as things turn from lovely resolution into everything going to shit. It feels weird and wrong because it’s weird and wrong.

I thought it might be anticlimactic for it not to mean anything in-universe, but… I actually don’t feel that way. What it’s there for is incredibly important, even if it’s just to illustrate where we’re going.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens s2 #good omens season two #gos2 #go2 #go meta #pd alice talks

[amaryscita]

Slut me out

So have y’all noticed how Miguel’s theme song sounds so close to Slut me out by Nle? Hehehe

Miguel x Reader smut (i honestly don’t know what I’m doing)

Slut me out-Nle Choppa

(Btw this is my first nsfw & minors dni Ty<3)

(Ps: i Listened to slut me out like 10 times help)

“Rip off my shirt if you love me”

You and Miguel decided to have a quickie in his office since you both were so pent up so he ripped off your shirt as he disable his suit, He pushed you onto the desk and got on top of you starting to suck your nipples “A-Ah~ Miguel por favor mi amor..” You said in a whiney tone “Sé paciente, muñeca” Miguel mumbled while attacking your nipple, leaving hickeys all around your chest <3

Spit in my face when you fuck me

You and Miguel were arguing which turned into hate sex “Eres una puta de mierda” Miguel said which made you spit in his face, that just made him angrier which made him pound into you harder. Legs wrapped around his waist scratch marks on his back. <3

Play with my gooch, while you suck me (rich guy Miguel au)

You were Miguel’s assistant and of course you both fell inlove which is how you landed here, on your knees messing with Miguel’s Gucci belt as you suck him off, “good girl.. you listen to me so well.” Miguel said as he pulled your hair into a ponytail as you looked up at him, your glossy pretty eyes. <3

Eat the dick like you was ugly

You were feeling insecure about how many girls gave Miguel attention so you decided to give him the best head ever, you tied him up so he couldn’t stop you once he finished cumming. His body was shakey “Ba- Ah~ baby.. enough I-i just finished…” <3

(I’m skipping ‘Where your friend? Bring your buddy I don't think that you enoughie.’ Idk if Miguel likes threesomes😇)

Her favorite thing to say is, "Cuff me"

You and Miguel’s sexy time was kinky sometimes, and Miguel liked seeing you cuffed and in restraints it turns him on, “You look so pretty like that doll, all cuffed for me” “Please Miguel.. touch me…” <3

Slut-Slut-Slut me out

Miguel had you in different positions hitting you in every right spot as you’d be either gripping the sheets or gripping his shoulder, he’s made you cum 5 times now and he’s aiming for five more “C’mon pretty, take it for me.” Your legs were shaking and the sheets were soaked but oh you looked so sexy like that, ass red from spanking during doggy style, bite marks on your shoulders from missionary it was a long night <3

(I kinda skipped the repeating 😇)

Big dick energy, I give it

Si, Miguel does give big dick energy cus this man has an 10.8 inch defeater, so good luck 😬😬

Don't believe me, then come feel it. Gon' put this here in your kidney, please

He’s definitely in that kidney, he think it’s cute when he sees your tummy bulge <3

Suck my balls, come chickpea me

He likes his balls sucked 100% i mean yeah it feels good “mm.. yeah.. just like that.. a-ah~ amor..” <3

Fuck you anywhere, I'm that type guy

Public sex is a go, as long as you can keep quiet of course, i don’t blame you if you can’t that man is Woo! <3

What position do I like? All of 'em, baby

He loves you already but you being flexible is a pro, he loves putting you in different positions seeing the way you bend and stuff yah know just trying shit out <3

Put it on camera, masturbate to it later

Definitely records you sex sessions so when you’re away he has jerk off material, Like once!! You were at your parents house without him and poor boy was so horny :( so he went into his private files and had a video of you saved while he’s pounding you from behind 💕 <3

Ever sucked a vegan spider dick? Baby, come taste me

You never thought you’d have sex with someone like him let alone suck his dick but there’s always new experiences all around :D! <3

Don't cum quick, I control my bladder

You’re lying if you tell me this man doesn’t have stamina, this MAN can go HOUUUURRSSSS (well not hours) but he’ll definitely edge you so you both can cum at the same time “C’mon baby.. hold out a little bit more for me?” “M-Miguel.. I-i can’t..”

Dick real big, come climb my ladder

Better bring some rope (iykyk)

Fat coochies, little coochies, all coochies matter

He doesn’t care, he loves you for you (I don’t think talking about coochie is the best explanation buttttt)

Ass real fat, I can make it get fatter

He likes to do doggy style so he can see ur ass clap from behind

Wanna see a magic trick? Bend over backwards

You were cooking and Miguel thought it’d be funny to bend you over backwards and grind against your ass

IM FINALLY DONEZ and yes I’m skipping repeating!! Enjoy

#Spotify #female reader #spider man: across the spider verse #x female reader #x fem!reader #atsv miguel #miguel smut #miguel spiderverse #miguel o'hara #miguel x y/n #miguel x you #miguel x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel o'hara smut

[soopsiedaisies]

Hey!! Hey!!! Do you want to bake an easy snack?? Do you want something sweet and fruity, but not too sweet?? Boy have I got the thing for you

APPLEFLAPS

This is a treat that, as far as I know, is rather common in Belgium, The Netherlands, and some parts Germany. It’s one of the first baked goods that Dutch kids learn to make, shortly followed by peppernuts and apple pie and poundcake. It’s easy, only requires a couple of ingredients, and has quite a short baking time. You literally cannot go wrong with this I promise. Recipe under the cut

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

Square puff pastry sheets, but round ones work as well. About 12cm by 12cm preferably (like 4 and half inches by 4 and a half inches). Each sheet will be one (1) pastry. If you get one massive sheet, cut it into smaller squares with like a pair of scissors. Idc I’m not your dad. 

Apples, for the filling. Ones you use for apple pie work best but any apples will do. Make sure you’ve got at least 4 large ones (you can eat the leftover filling by the spoonful) 

Lemon (or lime) juice, to prevent browning of the apples (and to prevent overwhelming sweetness, if the apples aren’t a bit sour themselves)

Sugar (to taste and for decoration) 

Ground cinnamon

An egg for the eggwash (if vegan or allergic to eggs or without eggs, water works as well)

Some lukewarm water

Optional: Vanilla sugar

Optional: (rum-)soaked raisins 

UTENSILS NEEDED

Baking sheet

Baking paper

Bowl (large enough for at least 4 cut-up apples)

Knife

Cutting board (covering my bases here) 

Spoon

Fork 

Lil brush for the eggwash

Your fingers

A fucking oven. 

To start

Preheat the oven to 175 Celcius, or about 350 Fahrenheit. If you got the kind of puff pastry that’s frozen, take that out to thaw a little bit. Line your baking sheet with baking paper. 

The filling:

Peel the apples. Cut them in half, then in quarters. Core them. Cut the quarters in half lengthwise, then gather a few together and cut these width wise: you want to end up with little triangles. The thickness of these triangles depends wholly on how chunky you want the filling to be. I usually go for about 5 millimetres, which means there’s still some chunk after baking. 

Throw the pieces in a bowl. Add a dash of lemon juice, maybe a bit more if the apples are really sweet and you don’t really like that. Throw in the (totally optional) raisins, add some sugar, and pound the bottom of the ground cinnamon jar. Mix with a spoon and give it a little taste. Not sweet enough? Add more sugar. Not cinnamon-y enough? Add more cinnamon. Is it too sweet, or too cinnamon-y? Don’t worry, if you’ve got another apple cut that one up and throw it in. Give it a taste. Still too sweet? Lemon juice. It’ll help. Not more apples? Just roll with it. It’ll taste great either way. 

You can heat the filling a little bit if you want, but it’s not necessary and will only result in extra dishes. 

Folding and stuff

Filling’s done, and puff pastry’s thawed? Great. Let’s get to filling and folding. 

The common shape of the appleflap is a triangle because we tend to use square puff pastry sheets. It doesn’t really matter what the shape ends up being, as long as it’s folded in half and forms a little pocket (you don’t want the filling to spill out a whole lot). 

What you do is grab one of the pastry sheets, put it down flat, and put a spoonful (a little less, a little more. It’s a bit of fiddling) in the middle of it. Avoid the edges. Then you use that jar of lukewarm water: using the brush or your fingers, wet one half of the edge of the pastry sheet. Then pinch the dry half and pull it a bit, folding it over. The filling shouldn’t burst out of the pocket or tear the dough: if it does only a little bit, it’s fine, but if it’s far too much simply peel the pocket back open and take some of the filling out. 

You’ll notice that when you press the wet edge to the dry edge, it’ll stick shut. Decorate/further secure the edge by crimping it with a fork. There. You’ve done it. That’s a fucking pastry. Carefully place it on the baking sheet, and just continue on until you’re out of pastry dough. 

(There will usually be some filling left. This is for you to eat, or for the kiddos you’re making it with) 

Finishing touches 

Stand before the overfull baking sheet and determine whether or not the pastries will touch as they bake. If they do, take some out. Two rounds of baking is also doable. It’s kind of like cookies. 

Brush the top of the pastries with the eggwash or water, then sprinkle some sugar on top. At this point you throw them into the preheated oven for about 25 minutes and just wait. Keep bit of an eye on them though, you don’t want them to burn. 

…and that’s it. That’s all there’s to it. They’re fantastic to eat when still warm, and they’re still fantastic when cold. The sugar melts and comes a bit caramel-y so the pastry is a bit tacky, yet the puff pastry itself is still fluffy and dry. The apple pie filling is just fruity goodness. Easy, fun. You can replace the apple filling with different fruits if you want (cherry and apricot is also brilliant). Enjoy!

#appelflappen #recipe #baked goods #dutchblr #nederblr #ik wil appelflappen met de wereld delen excuus #appleflaps

[evieljaydedandmalicious]

The VK’s favorite foods because I did this with Ninjago and had a lot of fun (plus it did well lol.)

Mal - Mal’s favorite food is strawberries. They say this, like, 100 times in canon and I can’t ignore it even if I find it dumb.

Evie - Evie doesn’t have a great relationship with food. EQ rarely let her eat anything, especially if it was high calorie. In Auradon, she had to teach herself how to eat and enjoy it. Although she is much better now, she still occasionally feels guilt eating high calorie foods, so I don’t think her favorite food would be anything like that. Honestly, I think if you asked her what her favorite food was, she wouldn’t have an answer. Food is still a tough spot for her and she’s always worried that whatever she says could be taken as either gross and unhealthy or dangerous and worrying for being too healthy. I feel like she really like smoothies, though, and enjoys trying different combinations of fresh fruit. Found out she enjoys coconut a lot. Also, I think she’s vegan. Now that she has plenty of food at her fingertips, she wants to be eating food good for the environment and protecting the animals (plus it means she can knock out a lot of food she feels is “too unhealthy” just by being vegan, but she doesn’t mention that part).

Jay - We learn he likes pizza with the tourney team a lot, but I feel like he more prefers that because of the social environment rather than the food itself. I feel like Jay really enjoys eating foods from his culture in Agrabah. Shocking absolutely nobody, more cultural foods didn’t show up a lot on the Isle, and in Auradon, Jay got to lean a lot more about his culture in Agrabah, and learned to love the food there. I’m not going to give a specific food because I don’t know a lot about the cultural foods in the middle east and don’t would rather give no exact foods than give a stereotypical answer. If you know more, feel free to give your thoughts and fill in my knowledge gaps!

Carlos - Chocolate (specifically chocolate peanut butter cups.) Again, this is canon even if I don’t love the answer.

Uma - Can we talk about the fact that a part octopus person serves fish at her restaurant? I know this is kinda unrelated, but it’s still weird af. It honestly makes my choices so much harder because, like, would she eat fish? Would that be cannibalism? How does that work? I don’t know and I don’t really care. What I do know is octopi eat clams and I feel like Uma would like those so that is her favorite food now. I make the rules, sorry.

Harry - Part of me really wants to say calamari solely for the look on Uma’s face, but I don’t want this post to be quite that morbid lol. I do feel like he enjoys the fish they catch around the docks, though. I feel like his favorite food, though, would be bacon. The crunch, the flavor, the manliness of eating strips of dead pig like a snack, if fits Harry well. That and, like, beef jerky. In summary, he’s a psycho lol.

Gil - He canonically likes eggs. Again, I’m just saying what canon says, although I actually feel like eating just eggs fits his character a lot lol.

#descendants #disney descendants #descendants headcanons #descendants hc

[melodygatesauthor]

Fool Me Twice

Steven Grant X f!Reader

Part 10 of 28 in the February Fluff and Fuck 2023 Challenge

Day 10 Prompt - Second Chances

Summary: You are a tour guide, and he's a gift shoppist. Steven Grant stood you up on your first date. Now it's Valentine's Day, and he has come back after being gone for three days. You may find it within yourself to forgive him, but what happens when you discover the reason he stood you up in the first place?

Tags/Warnings: SFW, violence, canon divergence, second chances, mentions of Marc but no Marc appearance, Steven's a little pathetic (ofc), cute, fluffy, this is my first time writing moon knight canon stuff so please be gentle

Word Count: 3.5k

“Does anyone have any questions?” You asked, looking around at the kids in front of you. You wished you hadn’t noticed the one picking his nose and immediately felt your stomach turn.

It was a hit or miss whether or not kids would ask questions. This crowd seemed like they would rather be anywhere else than there at that moment, but when you started directing them to the gift shop, they lost their minds and started running for the door. Everyone loved the gift shop. You sighed when you followed them inside, looking to your left and seeing that Steven, the guy who worked the register, was ringing up a customer.

He hadn’t been to work since asking you out a few days ago. You remembered it clearly.

He was sitting in the employee room eating what looked like a vegan burrito. You were having your lunch at the table across from him. The two of you were chatting about common inconsistencies in the marketing department and how he tried to tell Donna they’d messed up the posters for the event the museum was having later that week.

“I’ve tried telling her that you should at least get to cover tours when other people are sick or something. Like per diem. You know so much.” You’d said, taking a bite of your food. “I mean, you know more than I do about some things.”

“Yeah well, she doesn’t seem to like the thought. Can’t even get my name right, ‘course she can’t get a poster right.” The two of you chuckled.

“You’re funny.” You said, feeling the heat rising to your cheeks.

“Erm, thank you.” He blushed, “I…I’m sure you know about that new restaurant on High street?”

“Yeah, the vegan place?” You took a swig of your water bottle.

“Yeah, that’s the one. I’ve been meanin’ to check it out.” He was shifting uncomfortably. You had a feeling you knew where this was going so you thought you’d help him get there.

“Oh I would love to go there, I just don’t like going places alone.” You looked at him in a way that you hoped urged him to invite you out.

“Yeah, I don’t either.” The awkward silence had you internally groaning.

One of the things you liked about Steven was how shy he could be. Not all the time, you’d seen him when he was intrigued about something, or when he’d stand up for himself to Donna. He wasn’t a pushover. When it came to something like dates though, and asking you out, he seemed to get anxious, like all the confidence fell from his body. You found it adorable.

“Steven…” You touched your fingertips to his on the table.

His lips parted slightly, “what?”

You smiled, “I said, I don’t like going places alone.”

You watched him suck in a breath and a smile played over his lips. He had such a nice smile, it was bright and had a way of making butterflies go crazy in your stomach. He wrapped his hand around your fingers and rubbed them with his thumb softly.

“Would you…” He was speaking slowly, as if doing so would allow him to retract the words if he got too nervous mid sentence, “would you like to come with me to dinner tomorrow night?”

Dinner was supposed to be three nights ago. Three nights ago you stood in front of your mirror adjusting your breasts in the tight black dress you’d picked out. You wore a complementary necklace and touched up your makeup quickly. You looked down at your phone.

Steven: I’m still surprised that you said yes. I’ll be there at 7 :)

You: I practically BEGGED you to ask me haha. See you in a bit.

Steven: :D

You’d never thought about Steven using emojis, but you found it endearing. It was 6:30pm when you left your house, and 6:55pm when you got to the restaurant. Steven wasn’t there yet, but you’d assumed he would be right along. You got a table and ordered a drink while you waited. Steven had been late to the gift shop a few times, but you were genuinely surprised when 7:10pm hit and he didn’t show. You’d thought he would be too excited to miss out on a date with you. You looked at your phone again.

You: Guess traffic must be giving you trouble?

You waited some more, sipping at your drink. By the time you were finished, and the server had come to your table asking if you were ready to order something for the third time, you checked your phone again…nothing, and it was 7:25pm.

You: I don’t want to sound rude, but are you standing me up?

You: It’s just almost been 30 minutes and I thought you were excited…

7:40

You: I never really thought you were the type, Steven. It’s too bad, truly.

You ordered a meal to-go. You hoped that by the time your box of food came out that he would’ve come through the door, but he never did. That night, you went home alone, toed off your shoes, crawled into bed, and cried for a bit before finally drifting off. Steven always seemed like such a nice guy, so when someone like him turned out to be a jerk, you wondered if there was even any point in dating.

Now it was Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, and the man who stood you up was smiling away, friendly as always. You couldn’t understand how he could be so chipper after what he’d done. Didn’t he know that he’d see you at some point and he would have to answer for what he did? Didn’t he know that he’d have to face you again?

There it was, the stupid face that lit up every time he saw you. The face that melted your insides with hot molten lava every time you saw it. He looked so damn happy to see you, like he hadn’t skipped a beat. You gulped, letting out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

“Hey…!” He said your name from across the gift shop.

You turned your head away and walked off, and Steven stood there, feeling a pit forming in his gut as his lips curled back downward. What had he done now? When he’d seen you yesterday at lunch, you’d touched his hand and practically asked him out yourself. It didn’t make sense, now you looked at him with so much disdain, he wondered if he should even approach you. Weren’t you still looking forward to that date with him tonight?

He waited until later to talk to you.

“Hey…” He said your name softly in the employee lounge later that day at lunch.

You let out a heavy sigh, “hey.”

You didn’t want to talk to him, but there he was, not letting you get out of it easily.

“You seem upset, was it Greg? That guy is always…” He stopped. He could tell by your expression that it was, in fact, not Greg that had you upset. “What is it?”

“You’re really going to come in here and act like nothing happened?” You scoffed, shaking your head. “You know I expect this from some of the dead beat losers out there but I really thought you were better than them, Steven.” You got up from the table.

“Wha-what do you mean?” His face was distraught. “I haven’t even…we haven’t even been out yet. Aren’t we still on for the vegan place?”

Your jaw dropped, “yeah…we were on for the vegan place…three nights ago.”

Steven’s mind went blank and the panic set it. It happened again. He had lost track of time, and this time he’d missed out on a date with you. Marc must’ve taken over. He ran his hands through his hair. He and Marc had talked about this, he couldn’t just do that without warning, unless something big had happened, and he wasn’t telling Steven about it.

His palms started sweating while he was trying to think about what to say to get you to forgive him, but instead he felt his eyes welling. He couldn’t very well tell you so early on that he was an alter for a man with dissociative identity disorder who also happened to be the Moon Knight for the Egyptian God Khonshu. He couldn’t tell you that Marc Spector had taken over the body that they shared and in doing so Steven had lost track of days while Marc, no doubt, rescued someone, or several someones. Hell, Marc might’ve even saved the world. What was most troubling, was that he hadn’t said a word to Steven.

You saw this, his defeated expression, and realized that something was very wrong.

“You…you never showed up. I sat there until eight.” You explained with a softer tone now.

He wasn’t even looking at you. His hand was over his mouth and he was looking down at the ground.

“You’re sure it’s not still Saturday?” He asked.

“Yep, sat there for an hour, got a drink and had the black bean burrito to go.” You pressed your lips together.

Steven had to think about how he was going to make this up to you, right now. You were standing there with your arms crossed over your chest, and though your expression was softening, it was clear that you were still irritated. If Marc had messed this up for him, he was going to be upset.

“Can I take you out tonight? I know it’s a longshot, but…I really didn’t stand you up on purpose. I have a…sleepwalking problem.” He was desperate, brows turned up and knitted together pathetically.

He reminded you of a dog begging for treats, not a man asking for a second chance. You’d never heard of a sleepwalking problem that made someone lose days of their life, but you sensed he was being genuine. You groaned and rolled your eyes. You had a soft spot for him, and you figured that if he really did try to stand you up, he wouldn’t be asking for a second shot.

“I don’t know what it is about you, but…yeah, yeah sure.” You dropped your arms and grabbed your lanyard from the table before replacing it on your neck.

You watched Steven’s entire body sigh with relief, “oh thank goodness, I won’t make you regret it.”

You started to walk out of the employee lounge, “yeah, we’ll see.” You said.

Part of your agreeing to let him make it up to you was purely out of your own feelings toward the gift shop clerk. You’d always liked going to the gift shop at the end of the tours, mostly because you got to see the cute and quirky guy ringing up customers and passing glances at you from across the stuffed Taweret plushies. He always had this look on his face when he saw you walk in, as if he were standing dormant until you came into view. As soon as you were in his vicinity, he came to life, color went back to his cheeks, and his smile formed.

The truth was that he had fallen for you the second he first laid eyes on you. You were new there, just starting your first day as a tour guide, and he happened to be walking in while you were explaining the symbols on a stone tablet. He saw you as he was walking by on his way to the lockers, and he thought you were the most beautiful person he’d ever laid eyes on. Your confidence, your brilliant smile, everything about you took his breath away.

“Hi.” You said, noticing the awkward man standing there, staring at you.

He jumped, “oh, hi, sorry I was just erm…heading to the lockers.”

He scurried off, and you shook your head before returning to the tour. You thought he was a weirdo at first, but over time he went out of his way to converse with you more and more. It started with little compliments in the lounge. He’d say things like…

“You really know a lot. Sometimes I think the tour guides don’t really know anything, they just learn a script but you…you’re brilliant.”

And,

“Wow, today you really had those kids hangin’ on to your every word. You’re a brilliant storyteller.” He said.

Then he started doing other things like, if you mentioned liking the way his lunch looked, he would bring in a second helping the next time so you could try it. There was even one day where you didn’t show up for work because you had a cold and when you came in the next day you found a “get well soon” card in your locker along with a basket that had tea and other sick supplies to help you feel better. These things were the reason that you said yes to a second chance. These things are the reason that you were standing in front of your mirror again after work, in that little black dress you’d worn just a few nights ago.

This time, before you left, you sent him a text.

You: Are we still on?

His lack of response was worrying, but you went anyway. Once again, you arrived at 6:55pm, and once again, Steven wasn’t around. He has five more minutes, you reminded yourself, five more minutes.

You walked inside and got yourself a table and a drink. Your palms were sweating and you started to feel like an idiot when 7:05 rolled around. You let out a heavy sigh. You weren’t going to do this again. When the server came back you ordered another meal to go. Steven had one shot to get this right, and he blew it.

If only you could see him though, frantically running down the street as though his life depended on it, and to him it did. Losing you would cripple him, losing you would be one of the worst failures of his life, so he had to get there. He looked at his watch, 7:07pm. He cursed under his breath as he closed in on the restaurant. Surely you were fuming. Surely you were already gone, but you weren’t. You were sitting there, he could see you through the window in a beautiful dress that fit your body perfectly. He could also see your slumped figure, clearly upset by his absence. He wasted no more time rushing through the door to see you.

Steven’s hair was stuck to his forehead. He looked like he’d run the entire way there. He sat down and held a finger up to you, trying desperately to catch his breath. The server came back to the table.

“Can we maybe get a water please and some napkins?” You smiled. “Oh, and please put in my order for here, to go with his order when he gets himself sorted.”

“I’ll just have whatever you’re having.” He managed to choke out.

The server nodded in understanding and disappeared behind a set of double doors. You crossed your arms over your chest and leaned back, waiting for him to catch his breath. It took him a minute, and when the server came back with napkins and water, Steven gulped down the entire glass and set it down on the table a little too harshly. He gasped and pointed to the glass.

“More…please.”

The server complied and then stepped away quickly. The restaurant was a little busy for Valentine’s Day, so you were sure he had other things to do instead of sitting there filling Steven’s glass endlessly. You laced your fingers together and rested your arms on the table. Finally, Steven was able to talk to you.

“I am so sorry, I was trying to leave and I had…I had an episode and…and…” He shook his head, eyes landing on the glass of the window.

You saw him make a face at the window, the same face a mother would make when trying to tell her child to shush without making a scene.

“Steven.” You said coldly. His head snapped to face you. “What is going on? I know I’ve only known you for a couple of months but…that’s long enough to know that you haven’t been acting yourself lately.”

“I’m not even so sure I know, love.” He said, looking pathetically at the flower in his hand. He’d squeezed the life out of it and it held no petals. “Got this for you, but I guess that’s a mess now too, innit?”

You were, truth be told, just glad he’d actually shown up. You thought for sure you were going to be spending Valentine’s Day alone when the clock rolled by and he hadn’t arrived, but then he ran through the door. Whatever his reason for being late, you were willing to forgive it, even if you shouldn’t. If he was any other guy, you would’ve told him to hit the road, but it was Steven, and he was different.

When you reached out your hand and touched Steven’s fingers, he could’ve fallen into tears. Not only did a woman like you say yes to a date with him, but you’d agreed to a second date after he bailed on the first one, and you were still there when he was late to said second date. He didn’t deserve you, he didn’t deserve you at all, but he was grateful for you to the moon and back.

“The least you can do is tell me why you were late, yeah?” You asked, sipping your drink.

“Darling, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He said.

“Try me.” You leaned back in your seat.

The truth was that Steven was secretly grateful for the well timed attack that took place right by the restaurant the two of you were sat in. He was racking his brain trying to figure out ways to tell you that he was the Moon Knight. How could he tell you that there were two others in his head, and that was why he’d been missing for three days? How could he tell you that there was a colossal and skeletal bird that gave him his power? The only way would be to show you.

A woman outside screamed and you jumped, looking through the window. It was dark, but you could see her running by the light of the streetlamps. You couldn’t see what she was running from though, and wondered if she might be insane.

“Stay here.” Steven said, jumping out of his seat.

“Steven, what are you-”

“Stay inside.” He ordered.

Steven being demanding was out of character for him. You’d never heard him talk quite like that to anyone, and especially not you. He held out his arms and you watched in awe as his entire outfit changed before your very eyes. The new fit was sharp, stark white, and actually looked quite remarkable on his body. His beautiful face was hidden with a mask now, and his eyes were glowing like the stars.

“Steven?” You asked, looking at him in complete shock.

“That’s me, love. I’ve gotta go save the town now, but you just stay in here, yeah?”

He left without waiting for your response, and you were just standing there, completely dumbfounded. He had told you to stay put, but of course after he left you had to follow, at least to the curb. You saw him, fighting what looked like an extraordinarily strong man. This was it. This explained everything. Why he always looked like he hadn’t slept in days, why he went missing sometimes, and why he stood you up on Friday night. He was a superhero, like the Avengers. You’d been fortunate to never see any of these types of things in person, yet here you were, witnessing it first hand.

“That’s the girl!” You heard someone yell behind you.

You turned, seeing two men walking toward you quickly. You thought for sure they couldn’t be coming after you, but they were. Damn the heels you’d decided to wear. If not for the clumsy shoes that made you look a little taller and dressier, you might’ve been able to fight, or get away. Instead you stumbled, falling to your hands and knees with a gasp.

One of them grabbed one arm, and the other grabbed your shoulder.

“No! Get off of me!” You yelled, trying to pull away unsuccessfully. “S-Steven!” You screamed.

The last thing you saw was Steven turning to face you, and then it all went dark.

To be continued… (not sure when tho, but it will be continued after Feb is over)

AO3 LINK

TAGLIST (please let me know if you would like to be added or removed): @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction, @my-secret-shame, @thatmomwitchfriend, @alexxavicry, @welcometostayingawake, @jake-g-lockley, @campingwiththecharmings, @steven-grants-world, @lia275, @ninebluehearts

#Steven grant #steven grant fanfiction #moon knight #moon knight fanfiction #steven grant fic #steven grant headcanon #steven grant fiction #steven #grant #fanfiction #moon #knight #moon knight fic

[makima-s-most-smile]

I wanted to write today, but then @revenantghost came along with this and a scene haunted me. Something, something, modern au, where plants and humans were separated, but are now integrating. Vash is a vet tech, Wolfwood is a former cop trainee that went to social work instead and Nai is a high-earning manager of a company called Plant Bee (either something for contraception because the less humans the better or something with bees... I like both ideas). Nai is an arsehole, but at least not evil? Edit: Now with part 2 more sillies

It was a joke gift, really. Vash should have known that Wolfwood would love it and wear it. There are some regrets, but they pale besides Wolfwood’s broad, proud smile when people take a double look. It is a white shirt. The kind of shirt on which you see the bad quality of the fabric just by how it falls. “Eat plantussy. It’s vegan <3,” is written in big, green letters - in Comic Sans, of course. Wolfwood doesn’t wear it for work, fortunately. The teens know Wolfwood supports plant rights and the kids do not need to know that he does more with Vash than holding hands and sharing kisses. Wolfwood knows how to dress adequately being around different kinds of company. Though, somehow, Wolfwood always wears it when they encounter Nai. 

At first, it was an accident, when they were lounging in the shared flat, then it became cruel with intent. The first time, Nai stared at the letters in obvious disbelief. His mouth hung open. His eyes even bulged a little. The utter shock was too immense. And Wolfwood beamed like Vash’s little joke gift was a gift that would keep on giving… And it has kept on giving. Wolfwood and Nai get along like cats and dogs. Nai being full of very polite and distant, but backhanded compliments and comments and Wolfwood countering by showing his roots. The shirt was just another layer added to Wolfwood showing his nasty side. Nai’s office party? Wolfwood has worn it. Celebration dinner with Wolfwood as his plus one? Wolfwood has worn it, under his suit jacket. Nai knew and was foaming, politely. And today, at Vash’s award? Wolfwood has repeated it.

Nai has even tried to appease the demon Vash has awoken in Wolfwood. He has gifted him high quality, silken shirts, a fitting suit jacket, he even used real compliments when he made Wolfwood try the clothes on. But to Nai’s dismay Wolfwood loves his worn-out clothes. Being a somewhat unkempt, gritty former streetrat makes the kid's trust come more readily and Wolfwood fosters that trust to the best of his ability. He'll never know if and which positive interaction reaches them, that's why any interaction counts.

“You will not take a step into my flat with that on,” Nai’s tone is low, growling. His patience has finally snapped in this very staircase. Vash sighs, trying to shimmy between them. ‘It’s our flat. I live there, too,’ Vash wants to say, but Wolfwood wraps his arm around his waist and moves him aside. God have mercy, please. 

Wolfwood tilts his head in his best delinquent manner, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Huh? What did ya say?”

“This,” Nai pokes his finger against Wolfwood’s chest on the white shirt. “This is nasty.”

Vash wails internally. Wolfwood grins like he has just received the biggest compliment. “Well, yer brother loves it.” In one fell swoop his suit jacket is in Vash’s arms and his shirt is off and offered to Nai.

Nai recoils as if he has just touched something slimy in the dirty dish water. “I mean what is written there! It is objectifying! And purely factually wrong!”

“Why?”

Nai just shoots a glare at Wolfwood, who trots behind him into the flat. “Because!”

“Aw, widdle Nini can’t give a reason why he’s pouty.”

“I can and I will elaborate!”

“Cool,” Wolfwood goes to their alcohol cabinet and pours them a glass of whiskey. Nai takes even more offence to Wolfwood drinking his whiskey warm than Wolfwood being topless in their living room. He pointedly goes to the fridge and gets the cooled metal cubes to put in his drink, Vash’s drink and then, while staring Wolfwood down, in Wolfwood’s drink. Wolfwood stares back and empties his glass in one swoop. Nai has to take a deep breath to not scream at Wolfwood for drinking whiskey wrong.

“This shirt mocks women, dehumanises… no, demammals plants and slams down on veganism as a cruelty free form of living. How can you live with yourself?”

“Pretty swell, actually. That said, I heard more than once that a man willing to eat pussy is at least not totally lost in the machismo sauce, because the act focuses on the woman and not on the male pleasure. Feminism is not my expertise, but that is a point to think about. The one who got me that shirt is a plant. He chose the lettering and the writing. He knows a joke and he knows I respect him and both of yer rights and will defend them. Ya know that one, too, buddy.” He pauses and fills his glass again. “I hope.”

 Nai clicks his tongue. “It still mocks vegans.”

Wolfwood deadpans: “Listen, we both know this is not about veganism, plant rights or women’s rights. This is about me eating yer brother out. Daily. Ya have no power here, man. Sucks to be ya, but I will rail yer brother until he sees stars as long as he’ll have me. That can be a week, that can be a year, that can be the rest of my human life,” Wolfwood takes the last swig of his whiskey. Vash lets Wolfwood talk, but the ‘rest of his human life’ has made a big knot appear in his stomach. Wolfwood keeps on talking, but Nai seems to have noticed it with the worried glance that got thrown immediately at Vash. Vash smiles back and waves it off. Completely unaware of the brother’s little, nonverbal talk, Wolfwood points a finger at Nai. “And ya have to deal with it. Yer brother likes sex. And! He somehow got a liking to me. That means, he’ll get it, all of it, any minute I can provide. Ya don’t like sex. And ya despise my existence. But that is on ya and not him. Ya can either accept that one of ya has good taste and the other one tames street rats in his free time, or ya don’t. But ya won’t make me disappear. So how about ya start being a good brother and let yer brother enjoy exploring his sexuality.” Wolfwood thinks for a second and continues: “Because he will do that with or without me and even ya have to agree that I am a somewhat safe partner. Or do ya have someone better in mind? For example, Lega…,” he can’t even end his sentence, because Vash and Nai scream in obvious terror or disgust.

#trigun #trigun au #millions knives #nicholas d. wolfwood #there is talk about sex #I have no idea what has possessed me #but it is fun writing an interaction with Nai as a somewhat equal #because then he can get so much thrown sass in his face and I love it #sexaversed nai is true to my belief #but I think in this au there is also just real worry for his brother because of that weird man thing relationship and their lifespans #and since I like angst my brain also said #hey the couch? yeah Wolfwood tries to save a kid #dunno if that is permacouch though since this is just a little brainworm and I don't plan on making more of this au #I hope #my writing #my art

[localplaguenurse]

So uh idk how to present this

But blood is a substitute for eggs in baking so the substitution ratio is like 65g of blood for one egg (approx. 58g), or 43g of blood for one egg white (approx. 33g)

So that means if you want to make a vegan baked good, you can just stab yourself. I mean you consented to it right, so doesn’t that make it vegan?

Also this is totally my agenda for why vampires can eat normal food because I’m starting to get sick of “vampires can’t eat normal food” bs

Also doesn’t that mean that technically speaking. Wifey can just eat eggs as a blood substitute

Oh I knew that lmao. I wanted to be a horror author when I was younger, so I know a lot of weird facts.

Vampires can’t eat normal foods reminds me of when I watched Tokyo Ghoul when I was 14 and when they were like “we can only eat meat and coffee” my brain went down a rabbit hole of “what could a ghoul theoretically eat?” I’m not up to date with the series at all btw and again I was in middle school but hear me out regardless and assume my thought process applies to vampires.

So they primarily eat human meat but Touga (?) was fine eating Kaneki in a pinch (granted he was human before) so surely they can eat the flesh of other animals, like pigs and chickens and cows. They don’t even eat that often, so surely you can just save up money, buy a few high quality steaks every now and then, eat them raw, and be good for a while. Also, they drink coffee. Do they add milk to coffee? If they add milk, does it have to be cow’s milk, or could it be any animal milk? If they can drink milk, then does that mean they can eat cheese? And if we’re going down the road of milk, there’s no reason they can’t eat eggs, both because of the blood substitute thing and also if milk is safe to consume as an animal byproduct while not being flesh, SURELY eggs count too.

This is legitimately a thought process I had during my rather brief Tokyo Ghoul phase, and have continued to have because I haven’t read the manga to actually see why the ghouls can only eat humans or watched anything past season 1.

So my rough headcanon/worldbuilding is that vampires don’t really need to eat, but they can, it just won’t give them the nutrients needed for their new metabolism or satiate the bloodlust. Like if you wanna eat cake to keep your vampirism a secret, or because cake is delicious, then go for it. There are alternatives to drinking blood, namely consuming a high protein/iron diet through predominantly eating meat/animal products and perhaps taking like iron supplements. This will not deter bloodlust though. The only way to combat bloodlust is to either indulge in a feeding, or to lock yourself away and try to wait out the symptoms. The symptoms do fade after some time, but they will come back stronger next time if you don’t drink some actual blood in the meantime. If you have a willing participent, you can feed off of them a bit and then take iron supplements after a feeding so you don’t totally drain them. Human blood is preferable but animal blood also works.

Assume my thought process applies to wifey, but wifey also doesn’t have to do all that because Morax is kind of an infinite blood glitch because Archon and adeptus powers.

#ask #as gold as the ginkgo trees #ivy! #vamp wifey au

[rotationalsymmetry]

Hate discourse around environmentalism centered on how much better Hope is than Despair.

I don’t care what anyone’s mood is. Positive attitudes do not heal people* and they don’t heal planets either. And I really don’t like hope being conflated with individual actions when the military and fracking and dragnet fishing and whatnot are generally only sorta connected to individual actions or else aren’t really a choice. (You can not pay taxes, but chances are you’re either going to be arrested or also too broke to afford things you actually need. You can choose what you eat up to a point, but if the only protein you can afford/tolerate is canned tuna you’re eating canned tuna.) It is not wrong for people to do what they have to do to survive. But it is massively fucked up when society is organized in ways that doing what you have to do to survive inevitably fucks up other people and the planet. That’s not something you can fix by tending your own garden.

And, I mean, I’m basically in favor of beach clean-ups and whatnot. But it’s not “doomerism” to acknowledge that it’s too late to stop climate change from happening and also that no measure of personal consumption choices from veganism to slow fashion to living in a cottage in the woods where you compost your own shit is going to actually stop environmental catastrophe. (Those of us who are willing to make that level of personal sacrifice simply do not have that much power!)

For one thing, some of the worst environmental catastrophes have already happened. The Midwest isn’t covered with open prairie grazed on by bison herds any more, that was a devastating environmental catastrophe, ok? And an act of (deliberate) genocide, given how dependent Plains cultures were on bison.

That is not “doomerism” that’s the fucking truth. And that’s completely unconnected with whether I or anyone else thinks it’s worth doing what we can in the world as it exists.

You don’t need to choose between having uncomfortable feelings and getting shit done, and in fact, your action is going to suck if you ignore reality every time it gives you bad feelings.

*it’s a little complicated with things like depression and anxiety where the way you see the world is the illness, and ok yeah there’s evidence that keeping a gratitude journal can help with depression for instance, but you know what else helps with depression? Figuring out how to feel your feelings, including the yucky ones. Better mental health does not require denial and it doesn’t require and is in fact incompatible with selectively only believing the things that make you feel good. Generally speaking in my experience with mental illness, let alone physical illness or injury, having a “good attitude” or not is completely fucking irrelevant.

[antipatriarchyaurora]

Abortion As A Medical Right

So many pro-choice arguments focus on the economics of abortion rather than the mother’s health. Without first establishing the dangers of pregnancy, all pro-choice arguments fall apart, which is why I felt so compelled to write this post. Abortion is more than just women’s rights, reproductive justice, or privacy. It’s a medical right, first and foremost.

Pro-lifers argue that abortion isn’t worth it even if that means the child ends up in foster care. If you said that a life of poverty is better than death, then I wouldn’t disagree. But this isn’t about death vs the quality of life. This is about death vs death.

I don’t know how to convey to you the gravity of pregnancy and childbirth. Most people don’t get it. Pregnancy sucks so much of your nutrients, blood, oxygen and energy out of your body. It can cause serious and irreparable physical damage, organs slipping and falling out of place, stress on the heart and cardiovascular system, tears and so much more.  

Evolutionarily speaking, during pregnancy, the mother’s body is 50/50 invested in her survival and 50/50 invested in the offspring’s survival. The offspring’s body is evolutionally 100% invested only in its own survival. It doesn’t care about the mother’s body at all and will destroy it if it needs to survive. You know who told me that? My biology professor. I used to only be lightly pro-choice, but my education only cemented my pro-choice stance even more. I studied maternal mortality. I know things that most women don’t know. It was from there that I knew that a) I never want to be pregnant and b) I’ll always be pro-choice.

Some abortion bans allow exceptions if the mother’s life is at stake, but what they don’t get is every mother’s life is at stake. To understand the danger of pregnancy, what you must understand first is that the nature of pregnancy is inherently complex and unpredictable. Anything can happen. You can be young, healthy, wealthy, have the best doctors and still your pregnancy can go wrong. That’s what happened to Lauren Bloomstein. She had everything in her favor. She was a nurse herself, knew the doctors and was in the best hospital. Her pregnancy was very smooth-sailing until the very end when she unexpectedly died. You cannot predict what happens during a pregnancy, so no woman should be forced to take on those risks and should be allowed to have an abortion as early as possible to avoid those risks.

This isn’t frivolous bodily autonomy. This isn’t like getting a tattoo or dying your hair. This isn’t for cosmetic reasons. This is for medical reasons. It’s to preserve your own health and literally, your own life. You won’t die from not getting a tattoo. But you can die from pregnancy.

“Abortion is murder!”

First of all, you sound like the vegetarians who chant “meat is murder!” And yet, even the most militant vegans aren’t asking for meat eating to be illegal. Technically speaking, eating meat is more murderous than abortion. I admit this even as a carnivore.

Abortion is less black-and-white than murder, and what makes abortion more nuanced is that there’s another life at stake: the mother’s. Letting pregnant women die is also murder! That’s why different religions have different ways of handling abortion. In Judaism, for example, the mother’s life always comes first.

I don’t want children to die either. I want to protect teen and pre-teen girls, you know, the actual child, from dying from pregnancy.

“If you don’t want to be pregnant, just close your legs!”

Forcing a woman or girl to go through all the risks of pregnancy, including death, after she’s raped is more cruel than aborting an unconscious embryo.

“But that’s rare!”

Being so dismissive of these situations shows a lack of empathy from the “pro-life” side. Rape is not rare. Lots of rapes go unreported and even then, some rapists never get convicted. The point of laws is to protect the rare and vulnerable. You can sleep soundly tonight knowing that the chance of an intruder coming into your home and murdering you is statistically low. But on the rare chance that that happens, you hope the law is on your side.

“You don’t have the right to murder!”

Actually yeah, sometimes you do, for self-defense. If an intruder comes into your home and threatens your safety, you have the right to act in self-defense. The toll of pregnancy on the body is so high that ending a pregnancy really is a form of self-defense.

“Abortion is murdering babies! That means toddlers and children can be murdered too! Where’s the line?”

First, you need to be born to be a baby. Anything before that is a fetus.

Second, birth is that line.

If you were to have a second body inside of you and this arrangement could pose a significant risk to your health and livelihood, you have the right to remove said body in the interest of your own health. You don’t have the right to kill that body once it’s been removed from you because it’s no longer affecting your body.

Abortion is the early termination of pregnancy. If a baby lives through that termination, that means that baby is born and shouldn’t be killed. That would defeat the purpose of the abortion, which is to terminate the pregnancy of the mother, not necessarily to kill the child. So the term “late-term abortion” is meaningless. Because termination of pregnancy at that stage is usually just an early birth.

You have the right to terminate your pregnancy at any time. You do not have the right to kill the baby once it’s born. Once the baby’s outside of your body, you have no right to dictate what happens to it. It’s no longer in your body. It’s no longer affecting your body in any way.

Terminating a pregnancy is a decision between the pregnant person and her doctor to determine what’s medically appropriate. Government officials with no medical knowledge sitting in a congress building should not be intruding on that decision.

While life does start at conception, that relies too much on the technical definition of life. Plants and microbes are also life but we don’t treat them the same as sentient creatures like animals. That means there’s a more meaningful indicator of life, a human meaning of life. That is, your experience as you pass through the world. That’s why we often describe life as beginning at birth and ending at death, as going from cradle to grave.

Consciousness/sentience really is an indicator of whether we regard life. In order to be conscious, you need sensory input (either from the past or present). Birth is the first moment that the baby receives sensory input from the external world and starts building their conscious experience. Birth truly is the defining moment of life.

There’s no reason why the life, safety and health of the mother, who’s undeniably a living, conscious, sentient being (and whose body is being used) should be sacrificed for a ZEF who’s not even yet conscious. The mother’s life comes first. Always. No questions asked.

That’s why the personhood argument still matters. If you think crushing an acorn is the same as cutting down an oak tree, that you’d rather save 1000 embryos than 1 newborn, then I have no words for you. 

If you can accept 1) Bodily Autonomy, and 2) Personhood that makes abortion justifiable.

“What about exceptions for the mother’s life?”

While that’s a nice idea in theory, I have serious doubts how it would play out in real life. Knowing the health care system for what it is, this would only create more administrative burden. Imagine you’re at death’s door, and now you’re required to provide burden of proof that you need an abortion to save your life.

Doctors might hesitate and hem and haw and wait while the mother’s life is in imminent danger because they’re not sure if the mother is sick enough to legally perform an abortion. Delaying care is extremely dangerous because when it comes to medical emergencies, every second counts.

This goes beyond ectopic pregnancies. Making one exception for ectopic pregnancies isn’t enough. Pregnancy is such a complex condition that there are so many rare and unique scenarios that you cannot foresee.

“But pro-life is feminist because females get to be born!”

As a woman, I find that insulting. You only care about my life up until the point I can get pregnant? After that I’ll be at mercy to be exposed to the dangers of pregnancy? How is that sanctity of life? Where is my sanctity of life to protect my life at all costs, to preserve my physical and physiological integrity from cradle to grave? All that tells me that you only got my back now before I’m even born, only for 10-20 years later, you got my back no more.

“But Margaret Sanger was racist!”

And Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. Does that mean we should cancel the Declaration of Independence? Just because these people represented awful things doesn’t mean every thing they advocated for is bad. Despite Jefferson being a slave owner, it was things like the Declaration of Independence that paved the way for other civil rights, including the abolishment of slavery.

It’s not anymore racist than increasing the “domestic supply of infants.” The world is already overpopulated. We have 8 billion people on this planet. There's more than plenty to replace us. And there’s a very clear solution to the domestic birth rate problem and that is immigration. Rejecting that obvious solution is racist.

#pro choice #pro-choice #roe v wade #roe vs wade #roe v. wade #roe vs. wade #abortion

[redheadbigshoes]

honestly “mspec lesbians” to me are like vegans that eat meat. you can say it’s a thing all you want but that doesn’t mean it exists or that what you’re saying actually means anything at all, you’re literally just using words wrong and ignoring the fact that they have real meanings that don’t fit what you’re using it for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s not that it’s “too complicated/nuanced” for us to understand, it’s that it’s just a stupid and nonsensical label that cancels itself out. you can tell me that you only eat meat occasionally or that you only like a specific type of meat, or that you don’t eat much meat until you see a particularly delicious steak, or that you still eat meat as much as the next person but you just like the idea of being a vegan, but none of that makes you vegan. you’re still an omnivore who for some reason refuses to call themself such, even though there’s nothing wrong with being an omnivore and plenty of other omnivores don’t eat much meat either because it’s not exactly the same ratio for everyone and that’s okay. idk this got longer than i expected but basically words have meaning and im tired of people pretending they don’t

I completely agree with you. The difference is that if someone says “I’m vegan but I still eat meat” they will never be taken seriously or I don’t think real vegans would suffer negative consequences (not that I can think of) of someone misusing that word, which when it comes to us lesbians we do face negative consequences of people misusing our label.

#stephanie answers #anon #long post #‘bi lesbians’

[cinnamon-bunni]

HEY HI SO IT'S STILL HALLOWEEN FOR ME IN MY TIMEZONE AND NOT YET MIDNIGHT AND I FINISHED THIS PIECE AS QUICK AS I COULD SO UHHHHHH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIAM!! (please excuse all the issues, i did not look through this whatsoever <;3) Read it on Ao3! Word count: 2.9k

Liam hated the way the others were staring at him. Well, no, more specifically, he hated how his so-called friends were staring at him. All he was trying to do was get the perfect picture of his (quite frankly) disgusting vegan mac-and-cheese the school was serving, and they couldn’t even let him do that. They all whispered in a way that made his ears twitch, because try as he might to listen to what they were saying, he couldn’t pick up a single word. Not that he wanted to know, of course not, he didn’t give two shits on what people thought of them.

But…knowing would be nice. On why they were obviously talking about him, literally behind his back.

“You know Polly, just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you don’t cast a shadow.” At some point she ended up a few feet away, instead of a table or two away like the others.

“Uh, Li, I’m pretty sure being a ghost means literally that.”

“Then how are you blocking my lighting?”

“Am I? Huh, maybe that’s another ghost thing. You know how we ghosts are! Always unable to keep track if we’re translucent, corporeal, casting shadows and whatnot. Anyhoo!” She slid into the seat across from him. She perched her elbows up on the table, resting her head in her hand. “Do you have anything planned for Halloween?”

He gave an aggravated sigh. So this was what they were whispering about. “No Polina. As usual, I will stay at home for the night.”

“Aw, c’mon! Why not? It’s the great Hallow’s Eve, let’s go out for once, together!”

“No thank you. As much as I am one to not practice habits and love to destroy all sense traditions and rituals, this one I think I’ll keep up.”

“But there’s gonna be a huge Halloween party! We’ll put on some loud music, drink until we get sick, use every type of drug there is and more, and have crazy sex. Probably even end the night with orgy.”

“And that’s different from every other party, how exactly?”

“Costumes, duh. Like, extremely sexy costumes.” She pointed over behind Liam. “Also Damien’s hosting.”

Her smile faltered a bit, turning into a confused look. Liam turned around to see what was happening, and was met with Damien sitting on the table, making quick cut motions across his neck. Liam stared at him with the most deadpan stare he could muster, as he was not impressed with either of their antics. At least Vera nearby knew to stay out of his own business, why couldn’t Polly and Damien by the same?

When he made eye contact with Damien, the demon slowly stopped the motion, and hopped down to only sit back up again, but now at Liam’s table. Liam wished for the bell to just ring already.

“It’s not at my place, stop telling lies,” he hissed. Polly responded by sticking her tongue out at him. “It’s gonna be in that one human city nearby,” he continued, as Polly’s invisible jabs went ignored, “and me and Scott were gonna go. Wanna come with?”

“I thought Polly was going to go?” Why had she even brought it up in the first place if she wasn’t going?”

“Sorry boo, but a different party is calling my name! Maybe I’ll see you guys later in the night though.”

“Hm. Either way, I’m not going.”

“Aw, come on dude! Just once will you leave and party with us? We don't even have to go to a party, we can go to one of those shitty hipster restaurants that you like so much. Or! Or, we could go see a dumb movie–your choice! I'm pretty sure there's some out playing in theaters tonight, we can go and you can make fun of it and all of its clichés all night long, while I get to enjoy the gore. And Scott can eat all of our snacks."

"I'd prefer to watch something in the privacy of my own home. And pirate it. Because then at least the movie makers won't get any money out of it and will regret the day they decided to hire an actor based on their name and not their ability."

"Okay, fine, Jesus, no movie."

"Oh, how about a concert?" Polly suggested. "I'm sure there are a ton of bands playing tonight. Just go sneak into one of those!"

"Why can't I just be left alone?" Liam asked with a sigh. "Honestly, what is up with you two? You've always left me alone to my own devices, so why today of all days? Why this year?"

"Because it's Halloween!" Polly said, as if that explained everything and made him want to go out, "and you deserve to go out and have fun! Seriously, all you ever do is brood. And like, why not go out and enjoy yourself?"

"And besides, it's Hallow-fucking-een! The one night where we can trick the dumb humans that we're just them in paint and costumes. You can get all the free blood ya want without any consequence!"

"Damien, I can get free blood on any day of the year. It really isn't that hard to trick a human, especially with sex."

"Yeah, but it's more fun! We just want you to have some fucking fun, asshole!"

"Well, my type of fun is staying at home, and 'brooding', as Polly so exquisitely put it." God, what was he doing? Why was he even bothering with this in the first place? Why did they care so much? Halloween was just like any other day, there was no reason to celebrate. It was a human-made holiday created out of pure greed and the need for money, and the need to capitalize off of everything until it inevitably loses its meaning. It was just a normal day to Liam, nothing more. What even was the passage of time to an immortal being such as him?

"Now, if you excuse me, I have to get going. I have classes to get to and art made by students that needs to be judged ruthlessly." He left the cafeteria, with Polly’s groans and Damien’s pounding of the fist to the table going through one ear and out the other. He didn’t want to deal with any of this. He just wanted the day to be over already, with everything forgotten.

~~~

Later in the day, he finally got home. Finally, Liam was able to relax alone, in his own space. He could finally just put everything behind him, and move on like normal. As he reached to unlock the door, a hand caught his arm. The red hand squeezed his arm tight, and was quick to pull him away.

“Gh–Damien! Where the hell are you taking me?” He wasn’t even able to put his keys away. Damien’s grip was strong and never tired as he led Liam down the apartment stairs and out onto the sidewalk. “Let go of me!”

“No way dude! You and I, we’re going out in the city tonight, whether you like it or not.” Liam could hear that damned smirk that the demon undoubtedly wore. Liam tightened his fist, the grooves of his keys stabbing into his skin. He continued though, keeping up with Damien’s pace.

Surprisingly, Damien didn’t say much. He hoped that the man could feel the daggers that he was glaring, but knowing Damien, he didn’t care. “Where are we even going?” He had a sneaking suspicion though, that Damien himself didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” Aaaaand there it was. “But, what I do know is that we’re going to have some fucking fun, got it.”

“Oh, forced fun. How lovely. Because surely being dragged around like a sad mutt by my friend will make me smile and just make my day. Maybe next you can drag me to a birthday party where we’ll eat cake and open presents and sing happy birthday. And force feed me some O negative type blood, because that will surely be delicious.” He hoped the venom stung, but he knew it wouldn’t. Damien was always thick-skinned. But all Damien did was tightened his grip even more so, and continued to walk.

They ended up at some sort of dive-in bar. It probably just caught Damien’s eye, and he wanted to go somewhere. He very much doubted that this was their actual end destination, but Liam also knew that Damien had no plan whatsoever.

The night consisted of Liam refusing to drink any of their blood that they had (while kind of them that they had that in stock, it was the most disgusting shit he had ever tasted, and he was pretty sure all blood was supposed to taste relatively the same), and him stewing quietly in his thoughts. Damien himself was either talking it up with the bartender, trying to strike up conversations with Liam (who would shoot him down at every chance), and checking his phone every three minutes. Not uncommon, Liam supposed, but something about it felt…off.

Liam pushed his drink away, towards the bartender. “Are we done here?” he asked. “Because I want to go.” Why couldn’t he just go home? He had a canvas and unopened paints calling his name, and spending the night with a demon who was clearly preoccupied was not how he wanted to spend it.

“What? No! Wait, just-” Damien pulled out his phone, quick to unlock it. “Don’t you wanna do something else? Anything that’s, say…thirty minutes long?”

“Damien.”

“Okay, twenty-five!”

“Damien.” God fucking dammit, Liam was tired. He just wanted to go home. “I’ll forgive you for this whole night if you let me go now.”

“But-”

“Have a nice night.” Liam got up, and once again left Damien behind. A large yell could be heard from inside of the establishment, but Liam continued as the bells rang when the door closed. Damien then caught up with him. Great.

“Jesus fuck, fine! Just–slow walk, yeah? Let’s enjoy the starry night sky?”

“Damien, we literally can’t see shit because of the light pollution.”

“Yeah but like, we can still appreciate the one or two stars, yeah?” Liam didn’t answer. Instead, he continued to walk the empty street, with Damien following suit, until the demon spoke up again. “Okay yeah, star watching is boring as shit.”

Liam kept in a chuckle. “Yes, well, I’m sure it’s a lot more beautiful when you escape the city.”

Damien gave a hum. “Scott and Polly are gonna go road tripping this summer. Maybe we should go with them.”

“Maybe.” It wouldn’t be bad, he supposed, but definitely after having a few weeks to himself. Scott and Polly weren’t the worst, not by a long shot, but they, especially together, could be a lot. Though, he could say that for just about all of his friends. Didn’t mean they weren’t bad, just…a lot to deal with. Like earlier that day, with Polly and Damien, and Liam being left annoyed by the two. They cared, which warmed his undead heart a bit, but…they were just a handful.

By the time they arrived back at Liam’s apartment, he had cooled down just a bit from his anger towards Damien. Still pissed, just a bit, but nothing more than that. Why Damien was still hanging out behind him as he reached into his pocket for his keys though, Liam wasn’t sure.

“Something you need?” he asked. Damien didn’t answer, and Liam unlocked the door.

“Wait, uh-” Liam paused. Just seconds away from escaping this hell and so close to sweet freedom and isolation.

“Yes, Damien?”

“I know you were being sarcastic and shit when you were talking about the birthday party and stuff but uh, how would you feel if we did throw you one? Not that we are or anything! But like…how would you feel if we did?”

Oh, Liam did not like where this was going. “Well, considering how often I have made it clear that my birthday is not something I want celebrated, I would be very very pissed off. But luckily that is something I don’t have to worry about, because my good friends all know how to respect my decisions and boundaries. Right?”

“Yeah. Right.” With a turn of the knob, Liam walked into his apartment, his sweet home, and was met with many people inside. All who were doing a poor job of hiding.

“Wait, fuck-”

“Ah shit-”

“Oh, surprise!” Scott was the first to shout it, with a chorus following him. Liam whipped over to face Damien.

“You did this,” he hissed, pointing an accusing finger at him. Damien raised his hands up, as if to show that he was guilt-free.

“Hey, don’t blame me! I was just hired to get you out of this apartment. And Scott was gonna join us originally, which would’ve been a lot better, but then they needed his help with decorations and presents, so then it was just me to make sure you didn’t come back early. Which didn’t work out in the end anyway.” He shrugged. “So really, I’m not to blame. If you wanna blame someone, blame Polly.”

“Hey!”

“You’re the one who came up with the stupid idea in the first place! I told you Liam wouldn’t like having a party. And this is the most half-assed party I’ve ever seen!”

“Well sorry, Mr. I-throw-literal-galas-for-my-birthday! You only gave us an hour and a half to prep, decorate the place, bake the cake, and wrap all the presents!”

“That was plenty of fucking time!”

“Are you two really arguing over this?” Liam asked indecorously. “First you ruin my day even more, and now you try and throw blame around when all of you did this?” 

Suddenly, a hand placed itself on top of his. He looked down at Miranda, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. 

“Now now, Liam; how about we look at the cake! Polly and Lester baked it themselves, and I helped by getting my serfs to decorate it! Surely that will brighten your mood.” Liam wanted to argue that it honestly wouldn’t, that she didn’t understand, but she gently guided him across the apartment to the kitchenette.

“Oh yeah, the cake! Turns out baking is like, all chemistry and science and shit, which I’m really good at. Who knew!”

“Miranda,” Liam started, as she led him across the whole living space, “why is my couch covered in glass and blood stains?”

She giggled politely, hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh, that? I asked my serfs to make a lovely decoration of a pyramid made out of glasses filled with blood! But then an incident happened, Scott knocked into it, and it sadly fell.” She sighed. “Disappointing, really. My serfs should’ve known better really, to give it a better structure down at the base. But my cleaning serfs should be here soon, and your couch will be as good as new! Oh, the cake!” She picked up the plate for the cake. A simple drip cake, with a simple layer of purple frosting, with a simple drip of black over the sides. All-in-all, a very simple cake. He tried his best not to hate it.

On the top was icing that spelled out “Happy Birthday Liam!” with lots of curls and hearts around it. A very sweet message, one that Liam might’ve smiled at if he didn’t hate it so.

“So? What do you think?” Oh, Miranda was looking up at him with such an expectant look. So were Polly, Damien, and the others, Liam was sure. 

“It’s…thoughtful. Thank you, all of you.”

“Wait, we still got presents!” Suddenly, a present, wrapped in Halloween themed wrapping paper (who knew that was even a thing?), was shoved into his hands. Polly had a bright smile. “C’mon, open it up, open it up!”

He sighed, but did so. He cut through the tape with his nails, unwrapping it in a strategic movement. Inside was a book–more specifically, a copy of Frankenstein. 

“I sorta bought this for me, but then I thought, ‘hey! Liam might really like this book!’ so I decided to buy another copy. We could read it together, and start, like, a book club but for cool people. It’ll be awesome.” Liam decided against telling her that he had already read it, time and time again, back when it first came out. 

“...Thank you. Now, while I do appreciate this, I really think-”

“Ooh, do mine next!” Scott, from the other side of the apartment, scampered to get his present. Liam watched, a mixture of astonishment and bewilderment and happiness and exasperation and sadness and other emotions he didn’t even know how to describe going through his cold heart. It almost felt too much. The stinging in his eyes said so too, even though he’d never let them tell.

“Happy birthday, dude!” Scott said happily, shoving his own messily wrapped present into his arms. “Vera and Zoe should be back soon–they’re filling up the balloons right now at the Balloon Store–and then you can open their presents!”

“Hey, don’t forget mine,” Damien added. He shot Liam a manic grin. “Mine’s fucking awesome. Though I kinda had to leave it in Hell, since I’m pretty sure it would burn down this whole place the second it gets in here. But trust me, it’s fucking metal as all hell, you’ll love it.”

Liam hated his birthday. Why were the others trying so hard to make him enjoy it? Why were his friends so determined to do this for him? He clutched onto the present a bit tighter, until he decided to open it before Scott exploded from anticipation.

Huh. His friends really did care, didn’t they?

#made this in a few hours but anything for my favorite vampire <33 #its been forever since ive played prom okay? characters are probably a bit rusty lol #liam de lioncourt #polly geist #polina geist #scott howl #damien lavey #monster prom #miranda vanderbilt #bunni mumbles #monster prom fic

[jossujb]

Anyway, tomorrow I am attending a little winter themed day after I get out work. Shrive Tuesday related things, in Finland Sunday to Tuesday 8 week before Eastern is a typical time to have some winter related activities with children and stuff.

Tho it is super uncomfortable for anyone at my age who doesn’t have children - I’v been asked like 7 times this week what I am gonna do with “my family” and if I am gonna bring my kids to the happening and like. Nobody is being mean, it’s just so uncomfortable to say that ha ha funny you to say that I don’t even hav a dog hahahhahhhah let me die

My dad’s side of the family is also Orthodox, so like, the 40 days fasting would start at Wednesday, but I don’t remember ever in my life sticking with the rules. Or does it start from Sunday for Orthodox, I can’t seriously even remember. I think in school day they say that fasting starts after Shrov Tuesday, but Orthodox do things their own little Orthodox way lol.  I don’t remember my dad either keeping up with them despite being so religious xDDD I guess it’s more like, only the rules apply he personally finds enjoyable, and not eating is not one of them.

Well it’s not about “not eating” at all, it’s basically just vegan, but no oil or wine either.

#jossu's random rambling

[caustic-light]

In Reddit anarchist communities, there is a big and old debate on whether or not meat-eaters AKA "carnists" can call themselves anarchists. Many anarchists argue that people who eat meat or have pets are upholding human supremacy/hierarchy over animals and thus cannot be considered anarchists.

What are your thoughts on this? Can you eat meat and be an anarchist or is vegetarianism and/or veganism essential?

Preface: this got rambly and I can’t be arsed to look over it, so don’t expect a well written essay post. This is just my exhausted rambles written in one go from start to finish as they came up in my head. I think ascribing the human concept of hierarchy to animals is some Jordan Peterson shit for a start, completely irrespective of my actual opinions on human/animal relations. Generally pushing human concepts onto animals is something very dangerous that we should not be doing.

As far as eating meat goes, I think it’s no surprise to anyone, nor something very controversial when I say that looking at current conditions of the meat and animal industry, this ain’t it, chief. I hope people who’s political views are based on compassion and seek to improve life will agree there.

This does not extend to all forms of eating meat, using animal products, or living with animals in some shape, though. First of all, some people need to eat meat. That is a simple fact and means that a society that doesn’t have meat, at least at current standards of technology is one of implicit eugenics. Some people don’t necessarily need meat, but are better off for it. And creating a form of arbitrary judgement on who may eat meat and who doesn’t is incompatible with anarchist thought.

To get rid of meat and animal product is as of yet simply not an option and in a utopic anarchist society would not be one either. Unless science progresses enough where actual animal products can be created artificially in a lap or machine, that are functionally indistinguishable from the real thing, this will never be an option.

On the other side of this humans are in the end animals, too. And animals kill and eat each other. Ecosystems rely on this. Is it cruel to allow wolves to eat deer? Obviously not. The opposite, however, leads to widespread suffering and the ravaging of ecosystems. Under the currently dominant mindset in the world, for many people it’s unspeakable to consider humans part of the ecosystems we inhabit the same way other predators are. The way we treat the environments we inhabit, and by we I mean people in places and systems under the shadow of imperialism and industrialization, is one of control and exploitation without regard for sustainability. And that separates us from the systems we take advantage of and places us in the position of some invasive predator that devastates the local wildlife and leaves it in a state that will take far longer to recover than we can afford to wait.

But that’s not the only way people have lived and do live. And to treat it like that is frankly just an extension of anglo/european imperialism and white supremacy. All over the world people have lived as parts of stable ecosystems, hunting animals and raising them, functioning for the sake of the environment not different from other predators. Even in problem areas where prey animals like deer are overrunning and wrecking ecosystems due to a lack of predators, very often human hunters fill the role of the wolves who have been killed and driven away.

Don’t take this as me saying that hunting is okay and farming animals is not, though. The fundamental idea of farming animals for meat and products is a simple trade of the animal being cared for and spared the cruelties of the wild in exchange for being killed one day. Chances are the death is much less violent and painful than what would happen in the wild. Humans and animals have been living forever in mutually beneficial relationships. This is one of them. And I understand finding the idea cruel, I have issues with it myself, but it’s not something I can argue very much against without relying on humanizing the animals and applying concepts to them that simply can’t be applied to them.

A lot of it comes from a very fundamental discomfort with death that generally cultures more in tune with their local environment and more sustainable don’t seem to have in the same way. And at the same time a lot of these cultures also seem to place a much greater value in life, making it important to value and respect any life taken. I think in westernized societies we are very desensitized to death, but at the same time we are never allowed to grow any form of peace with it. So we will kind of just look away when excessive cruelty and waste define our meat industry and at the same time we wince and complain when a hunter shoots a deer to eat it, use the hide for leather and conserves the skull as a keepsake, despite the latter being a lot less cruel and a lot more respectful to life and to the animal.

Now this is where I admittedly hit some hard limitations on this topic because I frankly never really looked into a lot of the options for different animal products. So apart from knowing that a lot of people fucking despise honey for literally no reason, I actually don’t know how much cruelty is for example in dairy compared to eggs, compared to different meats, ect. Neither currently, nor in ideal conditions, so I refrain from commenting on that. I have some opinions on the killing itself, as I explained, but the living conditions for different products are simply above my pay grade to have educated myself on very much so far. Sorry if that is a disappointing ending to this.

Oh also millitant anti vegan meat eaters are 1000 times more annoying than any vegan on this planet combined could ever be. I have a lot of issues with a lot of things many very loud vegans say and do, but oh my god it holds no candle to people who can not eat a piece of meat without explaining to you how good it is that they eat real meat and how unhealthy meat substitutes are. I know one person who keeps calling veganism an eating disorder and I kinda wanna smack her across the face.

Also, other side note, but I do think veganism, not necessarily under that name, but the idea of relying less on the meat industry and it’s cohorts is a good thing to become more and more normalized. I don’t believe in voting with your money, that’s bullshit, but we do eat meat and animal products at a very unsustainable level and normalizing ways to reduce that as well as the idea that a lot of people can live without meat helps prepare us for eventually changing that and changing the conditions of animal welfare. Because frankly, our current meat consumption can not be satisfied without excessive cruelty.

[sebbysheepie]

I’m not going to lie, as a vet student in an agri uni, as in someone who learns and works this shit, your posts are so wrong it’s almost funny. My favourite is the using a calf as ah image of a ‘happy milking cow’. Ftr 50% or so of the US dairy herd are continuously housed

Please do some proper research into the industry and stop glorifying it, even pro animal agricultural people need to acknowledge there’s downside and harm to some practices, you just need to make an argument the pros of animal ag our weight the cons, if you won’t even acknowledge the cons, or acknowledge animal agriculture beyond idyllic children’s book versions, you can’t make an effective argument

Well first off. The U.S is not the whole world? I’m not American either. Which never fails to amuse me, there are animals in other countries! I would have assumed you would understand that and how not all methods or regulations are the same from place to place. If you know one small area.. that doesn’t mean the entire world practices the same methods as your small area does.

I live in Canada. Northern Canada at that. Our summers are basically 2 months long and yet we do allow the animals outside. Even in winter! As a “vet student”. You should know that a happy content animal will stay where it is most comfortable. That’s a sign of good management and proper comfort levels. Non stop food, deep comfortable bedding. Plenty of warmth/coolness as they desire. Even as a person wouldn’t you prefer to be at home then play outside? Certainly the animals can go out but studies have proven so much the animals enjoy being inside and with the increase in dairy production to show this, we’ve slowly moved to inside only. Like the current wfh movement. If you can work from home why wouldn’t you? Same as animals.

As a “vet student” you have a very negative look onto the animals you will be treating one day so I’m not sure why you are in that line of work? As a “vet student” you know you will have to deal with all aspects of farming and pet care that will be unpleasant. But must be done for the sake of the animals. You dislike farming but your ok with backyard breeders? The current trend of poorly bred deformed animals for cuteness? But your platform for change is, well cared for dairy cows and farming methods you don’t understand yet? Eating animals? Eating a beef bred cow that’s never knows hunger or pain is worse to you then a crippled cat that’s kept alive with constant meds and human intervention? How else will the cats you treat be fed? They do need meat .. unless you haven’t reached the part that vegan fed cats live shorter lives with far more health issues then meat fed, that part of the curriculum will be covered in the nutrition course, as well as the long term effects part. As eyesight, liver failure, musculoskeletal issues and so forth are all affected by diet.. have you been over the sources and causes for rickets yet? This will be a factor you’ll learn.

Snakes? Lizards? Mice raised for pet food consumption is another method of farming you know. Unless small animal lives are not a concern? I know for many activists they are only a concern if they are in large numbers in a facility somewhere as farming methods that kill them are not a concern as long as it’s for crops that feed people.

I’ve never glamorized farming. I’m honest about the issues and troubles when asked. But I’m also going to call out people that assume they understand farming because they read a few things online and watched a video, thinking that makes them able to understand all aspects of farming when they’ve never stepped foot on a farm or even seen an animal up close. Like in this situation, I’ll happily take advice from my vet. But not the “vet student” as the vet has learned and has experience.. the student is learning and needs an open mind to do so.