#longest earth-made dam

[tanuandthetriplets]

ChidiyaGhar Me Hahakaaar ! Fountain Me Nahane Ki Zid! | Triplets Vlog - 23rd March’24

#youtube #Tanu And The Triplets Vlog #Triplets Vlog #Triplets Family Vlog #Vlog Like FlyingBeast #Cute triplets vlog #Triplets adventure #Gandhi Park vlog #Hirakud Dam vlog #World's Longest Earth-Made Dam #Fountain excitement #Triplet mischief #Rabbit Dustbin encounter #Zoo of birds #Heartwarming family content #Daily triumphs and tribulations #Life with triplets #Parenthood journey

[whencyclopedia]

Operation Chastise

Operation Chastise, the 'Dambusters' raid, was an attack by a squadron of RAF Lancaster bombers on the dams of the Ruhr basin in Germany in May 1943. Led by Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, the bombers breached two dams causing enormous flooding in the valleys below, disrupting industrial targets and killing at least 1,300 civilians.

Although the damaged factories, coal mines, and bridges were soon repaired, the mission showed the value of precision bombing by specially trained crews, diverted German resources to air defence, and reinvigorated Britain's position amongst its allies.

Objectives

The Ruhr basin in Western Germany was saturated with important heavy industry. These factories, many vital to the steel and armaments industry, were dependent on the water and hydroelectric power supplied by a series of massive dams. If Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers could breach the dams, the consequent floods would put the factories out of action. In a single mission, the same destructive result could be achieved that otherwise would have taken 3,000 bombers two weeks of bombing the factories directly. So vital was this area to the German war effort that RAF planners had considered it as a prime target before the war broke out in 1939. Operation Chastise was about to make these tentative plans a reality. Secondary aims of the operation were to deal a blow to German civilian morale and show both the British public and Britain's allies Russia and the United States that something was being done to take the war to Germany.

Five dams were targeted, but three were a priority: Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe. A second group, depending on the success against the first group, were Lister, Ennepe, and Diemel. The RAF knew that Möhne had air defences, and it was likely the others had, too. Möhne and Eder were concrete and, designed to withstand the massive pressure of water, immensely strong structures but relatively slim targets when seen from the air. Möhne, the primary target since a breach would directly flood the factories below (not the case with Eder), was the longest dam in Europe at 120 ft high (36.6 m), 25 ft thick (7.6 m) at the top, and 112 ft (34.1 m) thick at the base. The Möhne reservoir contained 140 million tons of water (Eder had 200 million). These dams were protected by two rows of anti-torpedo nets. Eder, much further to the east, was the second choice because it was concrete, although there were no military targets in the valley below. Sorpe was strategically more important than Eder, but because it was made of largely compacted earth, the effect of bombing was anticipated to be less. The destruction of these dams and others would require a completely new kind of bomb.

Continue reading...

#History #AirMinistry #BomberCommand #Britain #WHE #[ #]

[readyforevolution]

25 Top Facts about Eastern African countries

1. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest population of (114,963,588 people.)

2. Somalia 🇸🇴 has the largest coastline in the region.

3. Kenya 🇰🇪 has the highest GDP in the region.

4. South Sudan 🇸🇸 is the leading Oil Producing Country in the region.

5. Djibouti 🇩🇯 has the smallest population in the region.

6. Tanzania 🇹🇿 has the highest point in Africa, MT Kilimanjaro.

7. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the strongest military in the region.

8. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest Dam, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project in Africa.

9. Kenya 🇰🇪 has the largest desert lake in the world, lake Turkana

10. Uganda 🇺🇬 supplies electricity to Kenya, Tanzania and nearby DRC regions.

11. Rwanda 🇷🇼 has the cleanest city in Africa.

12. Burundi 🇧🇮 once had monarchs.

13. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is rich with historical sites of king's castles and Emperor's Palaces.

14. Eritrea 🇪🇷 women population in Eritrea is 3 times that of men.

15. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest lion species on earth, the Barbary lion with dark fur on the neck

16. Sudan 🇸🇩, South Sudan 🇸🇸and Ethiopia 🇪🇹 have a long history dating back 3500 years ago.

17. Sudan 🇸🇩 has some ancient pyramids on its northern region.

18. 🇰🇪 🇺🇬 🇹🇿 Has Lake Victoria which is the largest fresh water lake in Africa.

19. 🇹🇿 And 🇰🇪 have serengeti and maasai mara home to the great migration and 8th wonder of the world.

20. Kenya 🇰🇪 Mombasa Port was the first port in the region to be established in 1896.

21. Somalia 🇸🇴 was the first country in Africa to produce a pilot.

22. In Uganda 🇺🇬, less than one dollar is enough to sustain you for a day.

23. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 had the strongest Emperor and Monarchs that made them resist Colonization.

24. Tanzania 🇹🇿, lake Tanganyika in Tz is the deepest lake in Africa,

25. Lastly the longest river in the world is river Nile which is estimated to be 30 million years old...

#blacktumblr #eastafrica

[askthedarksidersfam]

In the Pines

Chapter 2: Morbid Curiosity

Summary: A first meeting with the new soul, but there is more to this strangely dressed man than you expect. Especially when the Dead Court demands his presence to the King.

A/n: This series is slowly becoming a favorite of mine, but why is plot so hard to make. And apologies for the longest wait ever 😭. The band Ghost do be pulling me out of my writers block bless Life Eternal. Please excuse any typos or format weirdness. It's a much shorter chapter this time y'all.

The method of dying isn’t a stranger to War. It is an unwelcome experience than a closely held fear that all creatures hold close to their chests. He wouldn’t be one to boast about having been through the whole shebang of death, but he wouldn’t shy away from exclaiming he doesn’t fear it.

This time however he can’t ignore the waves of shame that ache like a slug to the gut. Indeed, he’d felt shame when he perished in battle when carrying the Ravaiim relic to safety. But this was beyond what he felt all those eons ago.

A failure to keep a relic away from enemy hands was vastly overshadowed by the obliteration of War’s image, his legendary honor. All knew of War’s pride of being the warrior he was, the oaths he’d made and the extensions he’d reach to see them fulfilled. He’d been a poster child, in a sense, of the perfect enforcer of the Balance.

The favorite of the Council with his diligent work ethic, outshining them all in how he’d throw himself into his duties. As if he’d have something to prove despite the need not to.

How far he’d fallen…

Stripped of his power, thoroughly chewed out by them and put under their chopping block to serve as their punishment for a supposed crime he didn’t commit. After War opened his eyes, he didn’t need to see the sickly green hue clinging to his being to know he’s been transported to the Kingdom of the Dead. The stench of stale air and a musk of the ever decaying souls assaults his nose. Beneath him is a ground devoid of any green, and instead substituted with layers of dust that flutter through the air at the slightest disturbance.

He can still feel the vague wetness of tears that trail his cheeks. The rider never felt more vulnerable than before.

The racing images of the past events came flooding through his mind, from the moment of the call to his arrival. The chance meeting with Abaddon…

Abaddon. He must be here, War vaguely thinks between the onslaught of thoughts that plague his mind. If he can find him here, then he will find out why he was there… one way or another…

But that very thought sends a wave of anger through his chest, as War is only able to reflect on the accusations and confusion that follows. What purpose did the Archangel serve among the ranks, he was leader of the Hellguard, a division dedicated to the protection from Hellish infiltration of protected areas, especially the borders of Heaven. They were not at all meant to march at the front lines of the Apocalypse as it wasn’t their duty.

Yet there they were, among the ranks fighting with just as much ferocity as the summoned legions. The gears in his brain churned at an incomprehensible rate as he tried to key together this mystery.

What purpose did they serve, and what secrets are they hiding?

Something greater was at play here. Abaddon, the Call beckoning him to do his duty, and no sense of his brothers and sister in the Earth.

All at once, the frustrations bubbled and broiled over within the Horseman. The memories that lay bare across his vision began to crumble and branch into webbing cracks as his own wrath, hot as frothing lava, rose in terrible tidal waves, fueling dead veins with his famously irremovable ire.

Then, akin to a weakened dam holding back a tsunami, the images of his mind, and the last of his reserves, explode in an extraordinary display.

Pulling his lips back to unleash terrible canines, War’s prosthetic arm clenched tight enough to nearly break the metal fingers. Eyelids snap open to reveal the blazing glow of glacial blue, near blinding as they’re fueled by his rage. He raises his fist above his head and, in one great swell of strength, swings it down with a terrible velocity as War unleashes an agonized bellow of betrayal. The momentum of his arm stops short, colliding with the ground below, stone beneath shatters upon impact. Dust flies everywhere as the shockwave sends throughout.

War doesn’t need to see the ground to know he’s left a crater.

Though he doesn’t need air, War huffs as greatly as a rhinoceros. The fire within him surges through his body, showing no signs of slowing down soon. The rider can only stare hatefully at the cobblestone below as he tries to ride out this immeasurable wave.

For an immeasurable amount of time, the Nephilim stays motionless, sucking in deep lungfuls of dust laden air before forcefully exhaling. His right arm, the flesh one, shakes with tremors under his gauntlet, before it slowly spreads across his body.

The great injustice of it all enraged War greatly, but he can’t reflect upon what the Council said to Fury of their elder brothers being absent. Strife had been sent out on a mission according to them, but Death’s case had his mind reeling.

The Eldest had done this before, in the distant past. Disappearing for five hundred years without a trace until finally showing his face in the wake of the Council’s urgent summons. He had disappeared, likely for his own sake of solitude after the Nephilim’s fall.

But what reason had he now to disappear? Where could Death go that not even the most sensitive ears or eyes could detect him on the furthest comer of Creation?

He wouldn’t abandon them. Not again…

So caught up in the haze of his muddled thoughts, War doesn’t hear gentle footfalls coming up to his side. His hood, far over his head, obscures his peripheral vision and had he noticed, he’d be ashamed for letting an unknown person get so close.

But he doesn’t scold himself as he’s still caught in the fray. At least, that is until he hears a throat be cleared before asking him a question he’s never been directed to in his eons of existence.

“Hello there sir. Are you alright?”

——

The behemoth of a man doesn’t move when you call out. But you know he’s heard you if the tensing of his body is any indication. His face is obscured by the hulking copper pauldron and blood red hood pulled far over his head, blocking off any view of his features.

There’s a tremble to his figure, albeit faint, you can spot the quivers beneath his strange armor. You’d would’ve guessed him to be a frightened Angel if it weren’t for the lack of wings and the doubt of seeing one so scared. Demon was far out of the question due to the obvious absence of a tail, malformed wings or the faint sulfur stink they possessed (a surprising fact to learn).

Was this stranger human? The question rattled in your head as you took in his huge figure, the apex of his shoulders were equal to yours at your full height. But the sheer size of him alone suggested Maker, but even this beast of a man would be minuscule compared to Engri.

But it didn’t matter who or what he was, but rather, the shaking that didn’t cease even as you both stood in silence. A pang of sympathy wells in your chest, remembering how you were just as frightened when you first arrived.

‘He could probably use a hand, after who knows what he went through.’ You shudder at the thought of the untold horrors that he must’ve endured at his death.

‘Friendly face…’ you remind yourself as you clear your throat and try again.

“Sir, are you alright?”

This time you get a reaction. The man’s head whips around in record time, near startling you as you’re suddenly stared down by the mysterious newcomer.

Behind the copper pauldron and his hood, you spot two bright eyes staring you down, unlike anything you’ve ever seen. They’re pupilless, glowing like sulfur fire with just as much intensity. The twin flames stare you down like a wrathful lion roused from slumber, and you the culprit.

You can’t help but find yourself lost in the void, sinking further into the crashing storm of anger and despair. It’s too powerful to pull away now, and you can’t gather the strength to as you spot something within him.

For just a moment, in the moment that time was creeping between the two of you, there was the slightest hint of fear swimming beneath the surface. As quick as you caught it, it was dashed away as those wild and raw eyes hardened. It was not unlike watching the surface of magma cool into solid rock, but beneath did the liquid fire still burn.

Caught up in the swirling hues of burning blue, you failed to catch the stranger’s face contort into something more offensive. If you did, you would’ve wisely backed away instead of gawk dumbly as lips pulled back to reveal glimmering teeth.

“What?” He snarls the question at you, the deepness of his breathy tone pulling you in like a magnet. You still don't give an answer, caught between the urge to swallow up your concern and run and to stay and comfort the man. If you could call him that.

Quicker than you’d expect a man his size to move, the stranger throws himself backwards. Adopting a protective stance, his left arm is poised to cover his body more effectively as he bares his teeth warningly. Simultaneously, you jolt back instinctively putting distance between you and him.

How ironic.

Dead as dust trying to keep alive as if you still possessed a beating heart and blood in your viscera. Even more so considering how you’d been so adamant on approaching him first.

Briefly, there’s a thought that comes into mind, asking if this was a wise idea. But what could one soul do to another when both are dead?

You doubt the dead can be killed again. With that logic you feel less insecure about an attack. So you gulp down your nerves and clear your throat.

“Everything‘s okay,” you begin, arms held up placatingly as the man eyes you warily, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Not that you could even land a single blow on your best day.

The man thinks the same, as his lips pull into a deeper scowl as his nose curls. Though he has no discernible pupil, you can feel him sizing you up. Definitely determining you to be as much of a threat to him as a fly is to a lion.

Seconds tick by like eons, neither one of you twitching a muscle as you stare each other down. One with barely restrained apprehension, the other suspicion and lingering animosity.

Until finally, the man curls his nose with a huff.

Completely unimpressed, he motions to leave you in the dust, metaphorically and literally as he spins on his heel and makes his way out of the tiny pocket of room off the road. The ground below shudders with a muffled tromp, displacing dust to flutter into the air and stray pebbles to rock.

If you’d a moment to think about his sheer impact on the ground, you probably wouldn’t have so brazenly charged forward to meet with him again. Hellbent on trying to understand what was his grand plan here.

Maybe you would’ve wisely backed off, especially when you were so hesitant to approach due to the very threat of bodily harm. Even beyond the grave. You’d definitely be reflecting on this tonight to find the answer to this crazy ass decision. But the only answer you’d receive after racking your brain to find is probably “whoopsie” or “I’m not fucking up my first day of Soul Guiding”.

Just as your hand is about to make contact with the man’s armored arm, there’s a great flash of gray as the world suddenly spins on it’s axis. Roughly your back slams into the ground as the beanie hugging your head jostles loose, half handing to your skull. If you’d any breath it’d be knocked clean out, but all you do is gawk, breathless regardless.

In one swift motion you’d been slammed into the ground with the giant of a man hovering over you. Enormous legs cage you in as he keeps a grip so ironclad on your guilty arm you can legitimately feel the pressure near breaking. You fear he’d break your bones had you not been so caught up in staring him down, dead heart lurching in your throat.

Pinned, outsized and far in over your head, the only plausible thing your panic riddled mind can do is teeter on the precipice of two options. Gather the last remnants of human survival and urge you to break loose or relive the last moments of your life cornered in that concrete trap like you are now. The only difference you felt was no roaring of blood into your ears nor the stir of a certain pounding cardiac organ.

You swear in this very moment this man was really those hound monsters in disguise, ready for a part two in their revenge.

Get off.

You see those hungry eyes through the cracks. Blues bleed into fiery orange, the shadows eclipse into coal black leathery skin.

Get off.

Pulled back lips contort into snarling maws like permanent grins. Bare gums glinting with teeth bigger than your arm. A heavy pant like laughter among the prowling pack that close in on their prey.

GET O F F !

The crushing grip melds into the pain of your arm — your missing arm —

You can taste the blood, feel it running down your throat and flood your lungs-

G E T O F F !

The proximity between him and you is near atoms apart. You feel the wisps of breath he exhales, fluttering over your cheeks like ghosts in the wind. There is no heat, unlike the breath of the hounds whose felt hotter than the pits of Hell. A complete antithesis-

“GET OFF ME!”

The shriek echoes across the empty field, rattling the naked limbs of a nearby tree and disturbing the dust to flutter around the air. Dancing between the two of you carelessly.

The man above you does not move as you demanded, instead he keeps his grip steady, the only indication of him listening to you are his raised brows and slightly widened eyes. Clearly surprised by the outburst. But he still doesn’t make a single move, instead vying to keep you pinned as his lips form words that your brain fails to comprehend. It’s only after a few seconds of silence after his words have passed his mouth did your brain catch it like a delayed echo.

“Who are you?! What is the meaning of this?” Though he near splits your ears with his bellow, the demand sounds as if you’re hearing him with cotton stuffed in your ears. And underwater.

When you don’t give an immediate answer, his patience seems to wear thin, given by the deepening furrow of his brow. Vaguely you think how it’s even physically possible before your ears pick up on a voice ring through the air.

“I-I just-!”

“It will do you good to let them go boy!”

Both you and the man’s head swivel to the origin of the newcomer. Poised for attack, the stranger is dressed in armored regalia, finely detailed with bone imagery long since worn down. He carries a glaive, or at least an imitation of the weapon due to its dramatic length of the blade. It’s pointed in your general direction, but not at you. But the head of the man above you.

He stares you down with well worn eyes, cataracts cloudy yet sharply focused on you.

The stranger doesn’t give away what he feels about the situation, but from the pinching of his brows and snarling of teeth, he doesn’t like what he sees.

The soldier jabs the weapon, the edge near kidding the red hood of the man above. He merely grunts at the proffer of the metal blade, unphased about this. Which was rather ironic given his need to attack weaponless you.

“I will not ask again! Let the ‘uman go.” He snarls, dripping with authority to make you rigid upon hearing. The man above you snaps his head between you and the newcomer, brows pinched together as you shoot him a weary grin, silently begging he’d listen.

“Yeah, uh, please let the human go…” you say weakly, struggling under his grip as you feel an atom more confident with this stranger. Though that is promptly squashed when the man glares daggers into you, sending a wave of cold dread shooting through your chest. The crushing grip tightening even more.

“I am not asking you again boy! 'ave you no sense o’ honor that you’d attack one without a weapon?!”

That gets his attention.

His ironclad hold violently wrenches free, and you immediately scramble out from underneath him. You drag yourself away from the man and put some distance between you and him, with the stranger as a barrier. Despite not knowing either, you’d take your chances with the soldier rather than the goliath.

The guard shuffles until he’s blocked the view of the red hooded behemoth, weapon poised at his head. He tilts his head back to eye you as he calls out. “You alright ‘uman?” Dazed, you can only offer an unsure grunt, grasping at the arm with fresh indents in the dead skin. You wince as you doubt there’s a chance it’ll recover.

“Y-yeah.” Is the feeble answer.

He grunts before turning his attention to your attacker, whose face is twisted into a vicious snarl half hidden by his hood. Those blue eyes are pure murderous as he glares at your savior. However, he is completely unaffected, instead vying to puff his chest out and raise his shoulders. Immediately, the man becomes larger than he already is, the armor assisting him as the oversized pauldrons that sweep towards the air flare out like boney wings.

The tension growing between the two is heavy, like a thick fog and tingling with electricity. Though you’re not caught in the middle of it, you can feel the sharp sting that leaves you dizzy.

Just when you’re sure the fog will stretch out to you and wrap you in the static blanket, it’s so abruptly interrupted.

“I do not know why you attack this ‘uman, but know that this will not go unnoticed by me. However that is not why I am ‘ere,” the man straightened his posture as he keeps his glaive pointed straight at the man, “I am ‘ere to escort you, Red Rider, to the King, for you are hereby summoned to appear ‘fore the Dead Court.”

That gets your attention.

Engri had spoken of the monarchy and his exclusivity on the few to no guests he harbors in his Court. In fact, practically no one has made company with the king in the last century other than his guards and royal advisors and overseers.

Not that making company was as simple as approaching the throne room and waltzing in to share your grievances. Between the tales of the men of the Arena who’s battle prowess could match that of the aged Maker and cynical advisors, you’d heard of one such obstacle to meet the king.

The Arena and its heralded unbeatable Champion.

Engri had shared the stories of the Champion, a creature of bone and sinew nigh invincible. How she’d faced the beast before in boast, promising to bring the skull to the Court not for an audience, but to wipe the smirk off their smug faces when they claimed she’d be unsuccessful as the others. And they’d been right.

The monster was unpredictable in its attacks and twice as formidable in strength, even against a seasoned warrior as Engri. In the end, the battle mage decided it best to abandon her quest and turn tail to save herself the near severed limbs during the excursion.

That was the only ticket to meet the king.

And this guy gets a free fucking pass.

A trickling sensation of horror and suspicion runs up your spine as you wearily eye the stranger. What had he done to warrant the king’s audience per his demand?

Probably something terrible. Right?

The “Red Rider” or he’s been addressed, near snarls at the soldier whilst rising to an impossible height. Your eyes shamelessly bugle from their sockets as your jaw fails to keep itself hinged while you wordlessly gawk.

You knew he was tall from how he nearly reached your shoulder on his knees, but not like this. He towers over the soldier who himself boasts an impressive height, and his glaive stands taller than his helmet which adds a few extra inches. You doubt your head even reaches the bottom of his sternum if you stood on your toes.

“What would your king,” he spits the word out like rot on his tongue, “want with me? I am no stranger to this realm nor am I a foe.”

The soldier doesn’t stop the scoff, making the taller shoot a nasty glare. “Do you think us so shut in from the world of the living we do not know o’ your affairs?” The hooded man immediately stiffens, your head tilts as you questioningly stare at the accused wondering if-

“I've done nothing of the sort. I am not guilty of the crimes the Council accuses me of!” He bellows, voice so powerful you can feel it punch you in the chest. Though the other male seems completely unaffected, not even a flinch.

“Whatever those slags o’ molten rocks decide is not my concern. I am here merely to escort you to the Court.” He cooly says.

Council? Crimes? Molten rocks?! What in fuck’s name are they talking about?!

Too caught up in the haze, you shake your head in efforts to clear the very muddled thoughts you’re trying to piece together. You don’t even register their conversation.

Yeah, the man straight up attacked you, but he hadn’t seemed to do so blindly. Though the whole parameters of why he’d think of you as a threat doesn’t click.

But beforehand, prior to his… lashing out, he seemed completely caught up in himself. The scream you’d heard, how the raw bellow was pained, opposite to his aloof attitude. How he sounded so… betrayed?

Scared.

Like when you first opened your eyes on the cobblestone road.

A pang of sympathy worms it’s way through your chest, leaving behind a bitter aftertaste of the past. A frown stretches across your lips, remembering that wretched feeling.

Why should you not extend that mercy to him? Because of some self preservation to your corpse? A guard claiming he’s to be punished for a possible crime? Your survival instincts screamed not to, and logic dictated that this was none of your own business.

But the man’s protests of innocence were too heartfelt. Too… fervent.

Unlike the aged corpse of a soldier, you listen to those cries. You know them well. Distant wails that cut through the ears of the endlessly noisy city like a gunshot. Too many times you lie awake on your bed, listening helplessly to the sound.

You once burst out of your room with an urgent desperation to quell those cries. Tirelessly searching for the endless laments, overwhelmed to find the city overrun with souls that scream for a life stolen away, of being lost with this insufferably ceaseless city.

Despite your best efforts, you couldn’t help anyone. It seemed as if the screams were not from souls, but part of the very ambience of the city.

You barely slept a week after that, regardless of your exhaustion.

This man, this soul- you can’t bear the thought of leaving him to his fate. It’s selfish but you don't want to bear another moment in the city after the day is done. Returning to that unshakable tune. Maybe this once, you could quell this one’s cries so he wouldn’t join that accursed choir.

Leaving him to go to the Court did not sit right in your gut. You couldn’t stop it, but maybe you could sway them.

Engri’s talk of the King did not soothe your nerves however. But in spite of that, you do not stop yourself from the words that spill out your mouth just as the soldier was about to escort the soul out.

“Uhm,” you scramble to your feet, something more dignified if it weren’t for the dust and beanie falling out of place, “wait right there! I’m coming along!”

The soldier snorts, actually snorts before he can cover his mouth with a hand. That near permanent grin of a half rotted skull seems to widen as he attempts to collect himself. You scarcely notice curious blue eyes drift your way as you pull your beanie back over your scalp, suddenly bashful.

“You ‘ave no business with the King,” he declares, tone trembling with barely held back chuckles, “it’s ‘im that the King wants, ‘uman. You’ve no idea of what magnitude the offense this one has committed.” The Red Rider shoots him a poisonous glare from behind.

“Well, I don’t happen to believe that!” You lamely retort, chest clenching at your weak protest that makes both men take pause. The soldier eyes you with suspicion while Red remains otherwise impassable, other than the slightest widening of his eyes behind his hood.

You absently wonder if he is even affected by your protest. Something within your dead chest screams that it does, that he is in fact, thinking about what you’re doing, but your head seems to think otherwise, filled with doubt.

Your brain weighs the outcomes of both possibilities at blink-fast speed, considering both extremes that could come to haunt you. Either one, this man is indeed what the guard claims, to have committed the worst of crimes, hiding behind a red hood and devastatingly convincing face to trick the bleeding hearts into his scheming and letting him roam free.

Though the worst possible crimes he can commit in this godforsaken realm such as murder was null and void, that didn’t make him less of a threat. You could let him walk free, unpunished and unforgiving into this world, here forever if you can even convince the Court.

Or…

This man is indeed innocent. A victim of circumstance, or even a setup if his protests have any hint of what had happened. You could save him from taking the fall and being wrongly punished for someone else’s crimes. You couldn’t imagine living, or rather, continuing on this dead life with that on your conscience for eternity. Not even after a million years could you imagine that the guilt would even erode in the slightest.

Then, you think about when you first laid eyes on him, how frightened he was, that scream, and those wild eyes that you almost drowned in. There was a deep powerlessness that you recognized that you couldn’t forget.

You’ve seen that look in the eyes of your fellow humans as they were slaughtered on the streets, hopelessly overpowered in the eyes of Angels and Demons. Pure, unadulterated terror soaking into the very bone, leaving no atom unmarred. Then, a ringing in your ear turns into his scream and it blends in with hundreds more you hear a familiar voice come through.

“‘M off tae take ‘em to the city,” It’s Engri’s voice from hours ago, “I doubt there won’ be any other souls while ‘m gone,” you had decided to stay behind, using the excuse of wanting to help ferry souls as a reason not to go back to that wailing city. You did want to help, but you never expected, well, this.

“Well, what should I do if someone comes and they won’t go with me?” You asked, unsure of what to expect, to which she had answered simply.

“Then follow ‘em wherever they go. With time, they’ll go with you.”

Sucking in a breath, you hope this won’t be the biggest mistake of your undead life. Squaring your shoulders and straightening your spine, you boldly stare the guard in the back as you unsteadily declare,

“Take me with him to the King’s Court, I am acting as his voucher of character.”

Sometimes, the heart is bigger than the head.

#I am so sorry for taking forever 😭 #In the Pines #war #war x reader #darksiders #x reader #reader insert #dead kingdom #undead oc #fic #chapter #I finished this instead of studying lmao

[seonewnest]

Dam Construction | Types of Dams | List of India’s Mighty Dams

Dams, those imposing structures that rise across rivers, have captivated humanity for millennia. From ancient irrigation systems to modern hydroelectric powerhouses, they have shaped civilizations and landscapes alike. Today, we embark on a journey to explore the world of dam construction, delve into the different types of dams, and finally, showcase some of India’s most impressive dam creations.

Dam Construction

Building a dam is no small feat. It’s a complex process involving careful planning, meticulous engineering, and immense physical labor.

Site Selection: The very first step is choosing the ideal location. Faktoren like the river’s flow, bedrock strength, and surrounding topography are crucial considerations.

Diversion and Excavation: To access the riverbed, engineers divert the water flow through temporary channels. Then, excavation begins, often requiring massive earthmoving equipment to prepare the foundation.

Material Sourcing and Transportation: Millions of tons of concrete, rock, and sometimes steel are needed for dam construction. Sourcing these materials and transporting them to the site can be a logistical challenge.

Construction Techniques: Depending on the dam type, various techniques are employed. For gravity dams, massive concrete pours are needed, while embankment dams involve compacting layers of earth and rock.

Quality Control and Safety: Throughout the construction process, rigorous quality control measures are implemented to ensure the dam’s structural integrity and safety.

Types of Dams

The world of dams is diverse, with each type suited to specific purposes and terrains. In general, these are the most common:

Gravity Dams: These massive structures rely on their weight to resist water pressure. They’re typically built from concrete and are known for their stability and longevity.

Arch Dams: These curved structures transfer water pressure to the abutments on either side. They’re often used in narrow gorges and are known for their efficiency and elegance.

Embankment Dams: These are the most common type, made of compacted earth or rock. They’re cost-effective but require careful design and maintenance.

Other Types: Other dam types include buttress dams, rockfill dams, and concrete-face rockfill dams, each with its own unique design and advantages.

Dams In India

India boasts a rich history of dam construction, with over 5,300 dams across the country. These impressive structures not only provide irrigation and flood control but also generate a significant portion of India’s hydropower.

Top Dams In India

Tehri Dam: The tallest dam in India, standing at a staggering 260.5 meters, Tehri Dam is a marvel of modern engineering. Its hydropower station generates 1,000 MW of electricity.

Bhakra Nangal Dam: This iconic dam on the Sutlej River is a symbol of India’s post-independence development. It provides irrigation to millions of hectares of land and generates 1,500 MW of electricity.

Hirakud Dam: The longest dam in India, stretching over 23 km, Hirakud Dam is a lifeline for the eastern state of Odisha. It provides irrigation, flood control, and 300 MW of hydropower.

Nagarjuna Sagar Dam: This massive dam on the Krishna River is a key source of irrigation for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Its hydropower station generates 825 MW of electricity.

These are just a few examples of the numerous dams that dot the Indian landscape. Each dam tells a story of human ingenuity, collaboration, and the ongoing quest to harness the power of water for our benefit.

Future of Dams:

While dams offer undeniable benefits, concerns about their environmental and social impacts have emerged. Issues like displacement of communities, disruption of ecosystems, and downstream sedimentation are crucial considerations. As we move forward, responsible dam construction and exploring alternative renewable energy sources like solar and wind will be critical in ensuring a sustainable future.

Dams, with their imposing presence and intricate construction, serve as powerful reminders of our ability to shape the world around us.

#Nagarjuna Sagar Dam #Hirakud Dam #Bhakra Nangal Dam #Tehri Dam

[dan6085]

There have been many impressive engineering projects throughout history, and it is difficult to rank them all. However, here are some examples of notable engineering projects:

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza: This ancient structure is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and was the tallest man-made structure for over 3,800 years. It is made of 2.3 million stone blocks and required the constant labor of 30,000 people to build.

2. The Great Wall of China: This enormous 5,500 mile (8,850 km) long wall is made of stone, brick, tamped earth, and other materials. It was built over a period of centuries to protect China from invasions.

3. The Colosseum: This ancient amphitheater in Rome, Italy, is almost 2,000 years old and has a capacity of between 50,000 and 80,000 people. It was used for the entertainment of the Roman citizens.

4. The Brooklyn Bridge: This suspension bridge was the longest in the world at the time of its construction and was the first to use steel in its cables.

5. The Hoover Dam: This dam formed the largest man-made lake in the Western Hemisphere and generates 4 billion kWh of energy per year.

6. The Panama Canal: This 47 mile (77 km) long man-made canal was designed to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to provide trade ships with a shortcut.

7. The Golden Gate Bridge: This suspension bridge connects San Francisco to the rest of the bay and needed an incredible 600,000 rivets in its construction.

8. The English Channel Tunnel: This 31 mile (50 km) long tunnel is also up to 250 ft (76 m) deep, connecting England and France.

9. The Millau Viaduct: This 1.5-mile-long cable-stayed road bridge is the tallest in the world and spans the Tarn River in southern France.

10. The Large Hadron Collider: This particle accelerator lies underground in a 574-foot long circular tunnel with a 17-mile circumference. It was built to answer many basic questions of science and the universe and to further develop technologies.

Here are additional engineering projects that contribute to the rich history of human ingenuity:

11. The Washington Monument: This obelisk stands at 555 feet (169 meters) tall and took nearly three decades to complete. Its design and construction were revolutionary for their time.

12. The Eiffel Tower: Built in Paris, France, in 1889, this iconic tower stands at 324 meters tall and was initially constructed as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution.

13. The Empire State Building: Completed in 1931, this skyscraper was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the Empire State Building's rival, the nearby Emerson Radio Building (now called the Empire State Building Plaza Office Building). At 1,250 feet (381 meters) tall, it remained the tallest building in the world for nearly forty years.

14. The Burj Khalifa: Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this megastructure stands at 828 meters tall and boasts the distinction of being the tallest building in the world since its completion in 2010.

15. The Three Gorges Dam: Constructed along the Yangtze River in China, this hydroelectric dam is the largest power station in the world, generating approximately 22.5 gigawatts of electricity annually.

16. The Space Shuttles: NASA's space shuttle program consisted of five operational orbiters, Enterprise, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor. They revolutionized space exploration through their reusability and affordability compared to earlier expendable launch systems.

17. The CERN Large Electron Positron collider (LEP): Operating from 1989 to 2000, this particle accelerator was the world's highest-energy particle collider before being superseded by the Large Hadron Collider.

18. The Panama Metro: Opened in 2014, this rapid transit system consists of four lines covering 47 miles (76 kilometers) and serves over 1.5 million passengers daily.

19. The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge: Also known as the Pearl Bridge, this suspension bridge crosses the busy straits of Akashi in Japan, linking Awaji Island to Kobe and Osaka. With a central span of 6,529 feet (1,991 meters), it is the longest suspension bridge main span in the world.

20. The Thames Barrier: Situated in London, UK, this flood barrier protects the city from tidal flooding caused by storm surges. When closed, it forms the largest movable flood defense structure ever built.

These projects represent a small fraction of the countless engineering marvels created throughout history. Their innovations and advancements continue to shape our modern world.

[cheat-river-8y]

cheat river mod menu 0MVR%

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 The Cheat River is a mile-long tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Via the Ohio River, the Cheat and Monongahela are part of the Mississippi River watershed. The magnificent Cheat River flows from five major tributaries, known as the “Forks of the Cheat”, which originate in the rugged Monongahela National Forest. Located in Albright, in North Central West Virginia, the Cheat Canyon section of the Cheat River is West Virginia's premier springtime Class V whitewater run. The Cheat River is amazing! This river canyon is full of great rapids and we loved the guides on our trip. I can't stress how important it is to go with. The Cheat River in West Virginia is again a haven for whitewater rafting and smallmouth bass fishing after years of Clean Water Act funding. The Shavers Fork is acknowledged as the starting point of the Cheat River and emanates from the crest of Cheat Mountain at 4, ft, making it the highest river in the Eastern US. From Parsons, the scenic Cheat flows nearly 78 miles past the historic river towns of St. The Cheat River flows north throughout its entire length. The complete watershed spans an impressive square miles, and the river is one of the longest un-dammed waterways in the eastern United States. It does not appear that there were significant permanent native american villages in the Cheat River drainage, this is probably due to the steepness of the terrain and the harshness of winters. European settlers and trappers roamed the basin starting in The famous cornerstone, The Fairfax Stone, was placed in indicating the divide between the headwaters of the Potomac River and the Cheat River. The Dunkards, a religious sect, were the first Europeans to settle on the Cheat River, in , they established a village where present day Camp Dawson is located near Kingwood, WV. This combination of resources led to the creation of some of the earliest iron industry in the US contributing greatly to the armaments of the war of , cannonballs made along the Cheat River were used in the Battle of New Orleans. The iron industry along the lower reach of the river supported roughly 3, settlers, with the epicenter being at Cheat Neck, the site of current day Cheat Lake, a few miles above the confluence with the Monongahela. The Cheat River watershed is considered a biodiversity hotspot, a portion of it became a West Virginia Natural Area in In fact, land use within the watershed is dominated by forest, at a stunning More than ten endangered, threatened, or globally rare species occur in the Canyon, including the flat-spired three-toothed land snail, which exists nowhere else on earth. The other rare fauna that are hiding out in the hollers include Cheat Mountain salamander, Indiana bat, and the West Virginian northern flying squirrel. The Cheat River above Pringle Run Narrows takeout is an active fishery, boasting a lively small mouth bass population in addition to catfish and rainbow trout. Several Cheat River tributaries maintain native brook trout populations. The size of the watershed and lack of dams has made the Cheat River famous in whitewater circles because of the highly variable flows. One day the flow may be less than cfs, and the next day it will bee 10, cfs. To place in context, rafting river levels are between 1. Here are the top 3 Cheat River Historic Crests. The flood of , known as the Election Day flood, decimated the lower Cheat Valley. The first known descent of the Cheat River by a whitewater enthusiast happened in when John Berry, led a group that took 2 days to descend what we now call the Cheat Canyon. The whitewater rafting industry on the East Coast started on the Youghiogheny River, one drainage to the north in , shortly thereafter in , the Cheat River rafting industry began. The Cheat rafting industry went from nothing to 40, rafters in just 10 years, all of this activity took place during the 8 weeks of April and May. This breathed some serious life back into the Appalachian back water of Albright, WV pop. The Cheat River is best known for rowdy spring rafting on the Cheat Canyon when flows are highly variable due to spring rains. The variable flows mean that a smaller raft may be used to accomodate lower flows, yet still provide a big water feel and an amzing day in a wildreness canyon. Check out Cheat Canyon rafting trips. The amazing whitewater playground that is created by more than miles of whitewater in the Cheat River drainage became a magnet for diehard paddlers and innovaters in the whitewater sport. Along the banks of the Cheat the following companies have impacted the sport world wide:. More than miles of steep and small creeks that are boatable by experienced kayakers exist above the main stem of the Cheat. Do not be alarmed if you are driving around this beautiful country and what casually resembles a pool toy goes launching off a 15 foot water fall. Below are the primary and accessible to the public sections of whitewater that make up the main stem of the Cheat:. The watershed is still very sparsely populated due to the rugged character of the mountains that the river carves through. The cutting of the river has established very steep walls pretty much down to the rivers edge. The flood of also contributed greatly to the decline of these towns when homes were destroyed in the river corridor. In the late s, whitewater paddlers on the Cheat River noticed the water quality degrading. Acid mine drainage AMD was discharging from abandoned mine lands and active coal mines into the river. AMD occurs when water, oxygen, and bacteria come into contact with pyrite, a mineral that is often associated with the Upper Freeport coal seam. Every year, more rocks in the river were stained bright orange. Right now over miles of streams in Appalachia are polluted by AMD from abandoned mine lands. In the spring of , polluted water from an illegally-sealed major underground coal mine blew out the hillside and poured into Muddy Creek. The huge release of mine water entered the main stem of the Cheat River just upstream of the Cheat Canyon. The the river ran orange for miles. The resulting discharge impacted not only the Cheat Canyon, but also lowered the pH in Cheat Lake to 4. A second blowout in further made the problem worse. American Rivers, Inc. The mine blowouts forced the issue into the public eye. Concerned citizens and stakeholders organized Friends of the Cheat FOC to begin to address the problems resulting from over a century of coal mining. By , signatories included more state and federal agencies, academia, conservation groups, and local governments. Meeting quarterly and chaired by Friends of the Cheat, the ROP task force coordinates and initiates projects throughout the watershed. Millions of dollars in projects have been implemented since , including water monitoring programs, water quality assessments, and reclamation projects. Now the Cheat is off the list of endangered rivers, whitewater rafting trips are running, and fish are making a comeback. Stoneflies are a species of insect that indicates a healthy marine ecosystem. The festival takes place the first weekend of May, come show your love for the Cheat! You can donate to Friends of the Cheat. Come on out in the spring to experience this amazing corner of the world and to witness the resilience of nature up close and personal. Throughout the summer, following rain events, we sometimes are fortunate enough to be able to operate improptu raft trips to take advantage of river levels, join our Adventurers Club to be in the know. Cheat River History — Then and Now. Here are the top 3 Cheat River Historic Crests 1 Towns of the Cheat River The watershed is still very sparsely populated due to the rugged character of the mountains that the river carves through. Parsons, WV population located at the confluence of the Forks of the Cheat Rowlesburg, WV population a former railroad town and site of a Civil War skirmish Albright, WV population epicenter of the whitewater community in the valley Point Marion, PA population located at the confluence with the Monongahela Coal Mining Legacy of Appalachia In the late s, whitewater paddlers on the Cheat River noticed the water quality degrading. Now- Tags: cheat river , environment , west virginia , whitewater rafting.

[demowogorgon]

The Art of Breathing

Summary: In which Julie chases you down and fucks you in the woods. CW for Primal/Prey play and Knife Play. Reader is completely gender-neutral but has a vulva. 

Pairing: Julie Kostenko/Reader (Established Relationship) 

Word Count: 2537

If there’s one thing you know about Julie, it’s that she loves the thrill of the chase. The pounding of blood and adrenaline flowing through her veins like a dam newly burst is a feeling like no other, and it's one that she looks forward to in every trial. But it’s even more exhilarating when the chase leads to you: or perhaps, when the chase starts with you.

The cabin is eerily quiet as you pass through the threshold, save for the sound of howling wind gliding off and around the rotting wood. It’s cold and quiet, absent of the joy, jokes and laughter that usually echoes through their halls.

It’s strange to wander around like this. You know that you can’t really be hurt outside of the trials - at least, not permanently - but you still feel the lightest of shivers rack your body as the unsettling atmosphere starts to set in. For a moment you consider turning back and returning to the campfire for the hour, rather than wait for your friends to return.

“Are you gonna come in and sit down, or are you just letting the cold air in?” Julie’s voice echoes from the shadows, making you jump out of your skin. Only then do you notice the edges of her boots swinging from the armrest of a plush chair, illuminated faintly by the dim moonlight that filters through the dilapidated wood. You smile, finally at ease and kicking the door shut with your foot, crossing the room in great strides. The wood creaks underneath your excited footsteps in the most familiar way that makes your heart soar, like a mother welcoming her child home. In another life you would have found the creaking and groaning wood eerie, like a scene out of a horror movie, but perhaps it’s the fond memories that you’ve shared at the abandoned resort that’s made the sound pleasant to your ears?

Julie smiles up at you as you walk around the armchair, kicking her feet off of the armrest and opening her arms for you. You walk closer, draping your arms around her neck while she drums her fingers along your waist. Her cropped brown hair is messy, and you card your fingers through her hair with a chuckle.

“No fire?” You ask.

She hums, pulling you into her lap rather than responding. You’re vaguely aware that the front of her pants isn’t flat as you lean in to kiss her, and you roll your hips experimentally. Your suspicions are confirmed when she leans back with a mutter.

“They just left, you know,” she murmurs, “Everyone should be out for another hour, at least.”

“Yeah?” you smile, leaning back in for another kiss. But you’re stopped when she winds her hands through your hair, pulling you back and drawing a hiss from your lips. The telltale click of a switchblade makes your heart race, although not unpleasantly so. Your eyes follow its path as she brings it up slowly to your cheek, dragging it down delicately past your neck and over your sternum. She makes no marks, but the cold blade leaves electric jolts flying through your body. She releases her hold on your hair, instead resting her newly-freed hand over your thigh. Part of you wants to move, to rock your hips into hers, but the reminder of the sharp blade keeps your hips in check.

“Are you gonna behave?” She all but purrs, flipping the blade and dragging it back up to your neck.

“Yes,” you whisper, “I’ll be good.”

“Good. I think…” she pauses, tapping the handle of the knife gently, “that I’d like to chase you tonight. Would you like that?”

You’re more than familiar with the game, and you can’t help the excited whine that claws its way from your lips at its mention. You hum affirmatively, resisting the urge to nod as the blade presses into your skin.

She smiles, revealing her all-too-sharp canines as her eyes darken in the pale moonlight. She taps the blade again before applying more pressure, peering at you through her eyelashes. “Use your words,” she says. Her voice lifts a fraction, teasing you with a grin. You fight the urge to swallow, heat rushing to your face like a dam newly burst.

“Yes,” you repeat.

She chuckles, letting the pressure off with a smile. “Always so eager,” she coos. She closes the blade with a dull “click” and places it on the arm of the chair, placing her other hand on your thigh. Her hands roam up and down your thighs, and you take the opportunity to lean in once more. The kiss she leaves on your lips is chaste, and you know not to push the boundaries any farther.

One last squeeze to your thighs, pleasant as it may be, coaxes you out of her lap. The silence is deafening as she stares you down like a hungry lion, eyes dark yet playful. Her tongue darts between her lips subconsciously, and it’s embarrassing just how hard you fight to suppress the urge to lean down for yet another kiss. You're so focused on her lips and the look in her eyes that you almost miss the words that flow out of her mouth, lips parting with a smile.

“Run.”

And just like that you’re out the door, rushing into the woods and frantic to abuse whatever headstart she feels like giving you. Your hands scrape against the rough bark of the trees as you run, peeling around one section of the woods before crossing to the other side in an attempt to make your tracks more complex, more confusing. The branches whip against your arms, drawing blood as you dart through the densest areas of the forest, and the air stings as it slaps against your new wounds. You’re not sure how much of a headstart you’re being allowed, but you’re determined to use every second of it. Your lungs burn as you push yourself further and further, leaping over fallen trees and ducking under larger branches like a frantic deer escaping a predator.

That feeling is only heightened as you hear another set of footsteps join your own, but your movements are fluid and practiced as you bound through the dense woods. The supernatural, perpetually-nighttime air is ice-cold in your lungs, but it only serves to exacerbate the burning ache that grows within them. You zigzag through the trees, hoping to throw her off enough to make more distance, but the thudding of her boots seems to come from every direction as you run.

Your only mistake was attempting to pass through a clearing, and you realize it the moment you feel her body slam into yours. You push yourself off the ground, kicking as you try to get away. And for a moment you succeed, rising halfway to your feet before she grabs you by the ankle and pulls your body back with a ‘zip’ along the grass and snow. Your struggle ceases for a moment as she rolls you onto your back, climbing onto you and straddling your hips with her knees pressing down onto the backs of your hands. You try to pull your hands out, to possibly push back and prolong the chase, but you stop the moment she pulls out her hunting knife, slamming the blade into the dirt above your head with a force that seems to shake the world. And in that moment the world stops, rocked by the sheer force of metal piercing through the earth.

“Caught you,” she breathes. The longest strands of her hair hang down from her face, chest heaving with the exertion and adrenaline that comes with her favorite game of chase. Her sepia eyes glint like the cat who caught the canary as she catches her breath, sweat rolling down her exposed arms and disappearing under her black tank top. She leans up, carding her hand through her hair once she’s sure that you’re not going to attempt another escape. The thick and endless woods are silent, save for your shared breaths and the heart that hammers endlessly in your ears. You swallow, eyes tracing the glints of her canines as she smiles down at you.

Your breath catches in your throat as her hand makes its way up your shirt, lingering at the lift of your chest before pushing up and tweaking your experimentally. And oh, the whine that claws its way from your lips is equal parts sinful and shameful, the chase having lit each and every sense on fire. Your body feels like it’s burning, and god how you ache to have her hands on you. She chuckles at your sensitivity but wastes no time, taking her knees off of your hands and undoing the buckle of your belt to pull your pants and briefs away from your body.

And just like that she’s on you, with her teeth on your neck and hand between your legs. Her fingers dip into your natural slick before darting back up to your clit, twisting and pulling at a pace that leaves stars floating in your vision.

“Fuck, Julie, please,” you babble mindlessly, “Please, I need it-”

“Use your words,” she coos.

“Please, I need you inside, please, please,” the words tumble out of your mouth, voice pitching as you buck against her hand. You hardly even recognize the words as they tumble out of your mouth, too desperate to even think straight.

She pulls away from your neck with a hum, drawing your gaze. Her eyes are dark, almost teasing. “I won, didn’t I?” Her voice is cocky as she speaks, the corners of her mouth lifting up in a smirk. “I think that means I get to choose.”

But she dips her fingers into your heat regardless, curling and fucking inside you in the way that leaves your legs shaking. Her palm presses against your clit, rubbing against it each time she pistons her fingers out of you. You can feel your wetness dripping down her hand, and you revel in the way that her breath shakes. She hums, sighing quietly as she gazes down at you - helpless and needy. She rocks back on her heels and returns her other hand to your clit, and you practically sob at the sensation. It’s not long before you’re shaking, the telltale wave of heat zipping through your body and the coil in your abdomen snapping. You come with a cry, unable to suppress the arch in your back or the gasp that tears its way through you.

The soft moan of your lover makes your cheeks flush and she dips down to lick up all that you have to give, holding your hips down with her arm as your body instinctively tries to squirm away.

She hardly gives you a moment to breathe once she comes up, maneuvering you onto your hands and knees. The dirt is cold against your chest, and it’s a mind-numbing contrast to her warm hands as they travel along the dip in your spine and back to your ass. And then she’s pressing you back down again, digging her palm into the valley between your shoulder blades. The noises that follow are a blur - the clinking of her belt, the shucking of her pants, the clicks of a cap. But before you can even breathe, you feel the head of her favorite cock pressing at your entrance.

Each press into your sex leaves you breathless, the ridges of her strap leaving you with stars in your vision. Her grip on your hips is tight enough to leave bruises, and you can’t tell if the whine escaping from your throat is from the strength of her hands, or if it’s because of the way her strap is stretching you, filling out any bit of room you’ll allow. Her breath trembles before she laughs under her breath, and you feel a surge of pride in knowing that it’s because of you.

Your nails dig into the earth as she bottoms out, nerves still reeling from your previous orgasm. You whine at the fullness, prompting a chuckle from her.

“You really are just a dumb little prey animal, huh?” she laughs, “And you’re gonna take all that I have to give, understood?”

You nod rapidly, babbling half-broken yeses and pleads, far too gone to form coherent sentences. You’re vaguely aware of the way you’re moving your hips back against her strap, begging for more movement, more friction, more anything-

And oh, you’re damn close to praising every god under the sun when she starts moving your hips, rocking into your oversensitive hole. Her moans mix with yours as the silicon rocks back into her own clit, and you’re a babbling mess as she pulls you up by the throat, pulling you flush against her chest as she rocks into you relentlessly. Her mouth returns to your neck and shoulder, sucking dark marks into what little space isn’t covered by her hand. Her teeth leave deep indentations, canines threatening to break through your skin in a way that leaves you panting and whining - although whether you’re begging for more or less, you can’t seem to tell. Her mutterings of praise and adoration become background noise as she rocks into you, and each sensation - the way she’s fucking into you, the sting of her bites, her hand on your clit, the feeling of her fingers digging ever so slightly into your neck and instilling the most euphoric sense of lightheadedness - sends you shaking and coming with a cry that would rival the deafening call of an angel from heaven.

You suppress the urge to whine when she pulls out of you, instead choosing to wrap your arms around her neck as she pulls you flush toward her chest once more. Your heart still pounds as you come down from the high, heavy thrums pounding in your ears.

Your voice is dreamy when you find the words to speak, looking softly at her bright brown eyes. “Hey,” you greet.

“Hey,” she laughs. She cards a single hand through your hair before placing a chaste kiss to your shoulder. You smile and return the gesture, humming at the softness of her hair.

The next few moments together are tender as you coax each other into half-modesty, reclothing one another with quiet laughter and gentle jokes. And before you can react she’s sweeping you off your feet, twirling you around as she carries you back to the cabin. And in this world of darkness and uncertainty, everything seems to fall into place - even if only for a moment.

Your feet dangle as she carries you back to the little lodge, arms wrapped loosely around her neck.

“Hey baby?” you ask.

“Hm?”

“Can I have a kiss?”

She laughs obligingly before planting a kiss to your lips. When she pulls back she scrunches her nose at you, sticking her tongue out playfully.

“One more?”

Again, she obliges.

“More?”

It’s not long before she’s twirling you around, placing goofy little kisses anywhere she can. The forest is filled with laughter like no other, and you’re certain that this is where you were always meant to be.

#julie kostenko x reader #dbd x reader #dead by daylight x reader #dead by daylight imagine #dbd x reader smut #the legion x reader #dbd the legion x reader #dbd julie x reader #dbd imagine

[petrichxxr]

can we talk again | l.hj

A/N: this is a veeeeery belated birthday gift for @letteredwings​, happy birthday bub! I love you a lot!

Word Count: 15,304

Genre: mutual pining, light fluff, romance, and angst 

Pairing: fem!reader x lee hyunjae (the boyz)

Warnings: lots of mutual pining and me rambling trying to get it right. also please keep in mind this is a work of fiction and the way certain members of tbz are depicted are simply that: fictional, and do not reflect my views of them.

Summary: After the sudden break-up of a three year relationship that leads you back home to your family and friends, Hyunjae vows that he’ll give you the time and space you need to heal without letting his own feelings get in the way. But what he doesn’t know is that you, too, share similar feelings—and now that you’re back in each other’s presences, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to keep emotions at bay.

Certain feelings just couldn’t be described in words, no matter how hard one tried. Or, in the very least—they could not be described to the extent that they were felt. Every word in every language could be used, with as many descriptors and synonyms as possible, to convey the emotions. The notion of what was being conveyed, ultimately, was understood. Sometimes, though, even those words never truly matched up to that exact feeling, even when described down to the finest detail, as accurately as possible. It would only ever be accurate to that specific person. No single person would ever feel the same thing—the exact same way—even if the emotion was universal.

 To Hyunjae, you were something akin to the universe. To the night sky and the way the stars were littered about the darkest places of the earth, yet shining so brightly and beautifully. Something akin to a supernova and the way light scattered, breaking, igniting in the sky. Vast, with depths that couldn’t be touched no matter how far you might reach. The way you smiled and the way you laughed filled Hyunjae with that sort of emotion—but that wasn’t something he could so easily convey. It wasn’t something that, even when he put it into words—even if he described it as exactly that—made sense. It didn’t quite feel right falling from the tip of his tongue, almost foreign; it didn’t correctly describe the way his chest clenched or the way his breath would catch within said cavity of that chest. It barely even glossed on the fact that his heart would lurch into his throat and he’d feel an ache he couldn’t soothe.

 You were always just a fingertip’s length away from him. So far, yet so close.

For the longest time, describing such emotions had come so awkwardly to Hyunjae. He’d bit his tongue and suppressed them. Because you weren’t his, it felt as though his emotions weren’t rightfully his own to describe. Despite belonging to him, he couldn’t understand why he felt so confused—why it almost felt like he were robbing someone. Hyunjae had always felt if he were to put his emotions into words, if he were to make them tangible, then it might break the facade he’d put up; a marble, impenetrable wall. If that broke, he could only imagine the way that bright and beautiful universe might also fall apart.

 “If you don’t stop sighing, I’m going to think it’s you who just went through a breakup and not her.” Chanhee’s voice cuts through Hyunjae’s thoughts like a knife, breaking the silence he’d been drowning himself in for who knows how long.

 Almost immediately, he’s dragged back to reality and out of his trance. The sounds of the restaurant around them come flooding back into his senses—too fast, too loud. Almost overwhelming, having forgotten where he was at.

 “Why are you the one sighing, anyway? Shouldn’t you be happy about this?” Younghoon pipes up, where he sits next to Hyunjae. He nods at the unlocked phone on the table, the screen contents visible to everyone. It’s like a slap in the face to Hyunjae, seeing her name, and her photo—and her recently changed relationship status. “Anyway, who even updates their Facebook relationship status anymore? That’s a thing?”

 “Are you saying he should be a rebound guy?” Kevin blurts, without thinking. He’s not even looking up from his food as he mixes dishes together. Younghoon snorts at his words and Chanhee, sitting next to him, gives him an elbow to the rib. Kevin’s only reaction is to grunt, but he continues mixing.

 “He’s sighing because he hasn’t spoken to her in three years,” Chanhee is the one who replies, before Hyunjae can even fathom how to form a coherent thought and turn it into a comprehensible sentence. “And she changed her status as an announcement that she’s moving back from America.”

 “What?” Before Hyunjae can further consider how to form thoughts into any sort of verbal communication, that single word slips past his lips, like a rubber band snapping.

 Kevin pauses his stirring to look up in surprise, and Younghoon startles next to Hyunjae.

 Chanhee quirks a brow in surprise. “You didn’t know?”

 “You literally just explained that I haven’t spoken to her in three years. How the hell would I know?” Hyunjae purses his lips. “The most we’ve done is check in on each other. Casual chat, ‘hello’s’ and ‘how are you’s’ and conversations that drop dead after just a few replies.”

 How had it ended up that way? Hyunjae wonders, allowing his eyes to trail down from those sitting at the table around him to his food. He stills his hand, which had been mindlessly stirring chopsticks through ramen broth for who knows how long, now. How could he so easily have these feelings that were much larger and greater than anything he’d known in existence, yet so easily fall out of touch with you? How could he harbor these feelings for so long, despite the distance?

 Hyunjae couldn’t really place when things started to slip through his fingers—little bits and pieces of you and him and your memories together, grains of sand filtering through and scattering away in the wind. It had happened just like that. Unknowingly and quietly, too easily. How naturally it had come about, with neither of you expecting it or resisting the change, was almost concerning. Relationships were fickle things. They came and went in waves. Some were permanent, some fleeting, and some just happened to stick around longer than others. But how could a relationship of almost ten years just slowly dissipate like it did? How had childhood friends turned into almost strangers?

 “What are you going to do, then?” Chanhee asks.

 How could that question even be asked? Hyunjae frowns down at his food. It took two to keep a relationship going. As confused as he was about all that had happened—or rather, not happened—he himself was just as guilty for not holding up his end of the relationship through the years. As soon as you’d started dating him, things had just slowly fallen away. What was he meant to do? He was at fault, too. He shouldn’t have let your dating life get in the way. Who was he to just barge back in again?

 Hyunjae simply shrugs, fiddling with his chopsticks until he’s collected a portion of ramen to eat. “Nothing. It’s not really my place to do anything.”

—

That, of course, Hyunjae realized—was easier said than done. Two weeks later, with you standing in the same room as him, it was like he could feel the presence of your energy vibrating. He hadn’t interacted with you at all, choosing to distract himself with whatever was nearest to him any time you glanced his way. There were a few fleeting moments in which your eyes had locked, and Hyunjae felt as if everything in his chest was about to combust. It was as though all the emotions he’d thought he’d successfully suppressed had been reignited; though with the way they were slowly seeping out and making themself more known to him as the night went on, he’d describe it to something akin to a small leak in a dam.

 You, too, were hyper-aware of just how near Hyunjae was. Yet he felt so far away, as well, and you weren’t sure how to fix that. There was some sort of imaginary wall between you. There had been for years now, a tension slowly building up that you weren’t sure how to break through or knock down. You’d made a few attempts but pulled back, and had felt him doing the same—maybe it was mutual. But now, here you were back in Korea, standing at a welcoming party among all your closest friends and your childhood best friend, and he felt like a stranger. It was a wretched feeling. What was worse was the feeling of uncertainty, and not being sure how to fix it.

 Maybe it was just the alcohol in your system, but you were almost certain whenever you sought Hyunjae out in the crowd, you found him staring. You were almost certain that every time he’d catch you turning his way, or the few fleeting moments you’d made eye contact, Hyunjae would quickly glance away; would quickly bury himself in the crowd among friends and familiar faces. Had the two of you merely lost touch? Or was there more to it? Had you made some sort of mistake you hadn’t been aware of? You let out a sigh… you weren’t sure how to fix something broken with cracks you couldn’t see; and you weren’t sure what to apologize for if you weren’t aware of what was wrong.

 A sudden outburst from Chanhee, standing next to you, makes you startle in surprise and straight out of your thoughts. “I swear I’m going to prematurely age with all the sighing I’ve been hearing these last two weeks! And now you’re sighing too?!” He lets out a sigh of his own, paired with the pursing of his lips. “I swear if I get wrinkles—”

 You turn to look at Chanhee in surprise. “Two weeks of sighing? Who—?”

 “Who do you think?” Chanhee retorts, nodding in the direction that you’d most recently seen Hyunjae in. “Just go talk to him already. You know how he is, he’s not going to talk to you.”

 “But there’s no way that I can either. How in the world do you just go talk to someone you haven’t talked to in three years? If our conversations go anything like they did online…”

 “You’re overthinking.” The bluntness that Chanhee delivers this statement with surprises you, and then immediately has you on the defensive.

 “If I’m overthinking, then what is he doing?”

 “Also overthinking,” Chanhee replies, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. It makes you scowl at him, which he reciprocates by pursing his lips again. “Look, you both have your own ways of overthinking things and you’ll just have to accept that. You sit here brooding and wondering, and he plays the avoidance game. But you’re both overthinking this entire thing. Are the two of you not childhood friends? It’s as easy and natural as that. You’ll be fine.”

 Avidly, you give your head a firm shake and look away from Chanhee. “I can’t. No way—”

 Just as you turn away, Chanhee grabs your wrist and pulls it towards him. He replaces the drink you’d had in your hand with a small shot glass. You stare at it a moment, bewildered, then glance up at him in surprise.

 “Just take a shot and go talk to him,” Chanhee gives you a smile. It’s a smile you’re familiar with, so used to seeing back in college. That fake I’m done with your shit smile that you’d never been on the receiving end of—until today.

 “The good news is,” Chanhee continues, giving your hand—now occupied with a shot glass—a little nudge. “You often turn to the consumption of alcohol when overthinking. Hyunjae doesn’t at all, so this will at least be easy for one of you. The better news is, he doesn’t turn to alcohol because he knows you do so his instincts to take care of you will immediately kick in if he sees you’re intoxicated, even a little.”

 “What kind of nonsense are you blabbering, Chanhee—”

 Of course, as much as you might describe it as nonsense, Chanhee wasn’t wrong. He’d been friends with the both of you for a long time, often stuck in the middle, and he knew exactly what he was talking about. You hated to admit it, but he had described both of your personalities—especially that negative portion, when it came to managing stress, worries, or an overactive brain that had a tendency to overthink—right on the head. Both of you had always been that way, equally hating confrontation. So you turned to drinking and brooding, until it bubbled over into a rant to get it all out. Hyunjae, meanwhile, liked to mope and avoid despite how much his thoughts might yell at him about all of the anxieties he had.

 He was definitely moping and avoiding right now, which made you further wonder what you’d done wrong, if anything. You wanted your best friend back; and though you might never word this part aloud to a single soul—you wanted your first crush back. The boy who’d claimed your heart with his honesty, tenderness, and kindness. The boy who was always there as a shoulder to lean on, the one who could always make you laugh without trying, the one who would come running to pick you up at three in the morning if you’d had too much to drink, and the one who when he smiled had the corners of his eyes crinkle with visible happiness.

 The boy who you were too scared to lose as a friend, so you’d driven a wedge between your heart and him, and never quite gave him the entirety of it. He’d always held it in such gentle hands, even as a friend. You were afraid to find out what might happen if he were to accidentally hurt it.

 But maybe the wedge is what you’d done wrong. Maybe he felt it. And when physical distance had been put between the two of you, maybe that’s how that wall had been built up. 

 “Just drink,” he urges again, giving your hand another little nudge, pushing it higher. “This is my party that I put together, the least you can do is listen to your friend’s request.”

 You frown at him. “You put this party together for me. To welcome me home.”

 “Yeah, well, I still put effort in. And my wish for repayment after all this hard work is for you to talk to Hyunjae again. You can either do that sober—limitedly, since you’ve already had drinks tonight—or you can do it after taking a fresh shot. Or I drag you across the room kicking and make you talk to him.”

 If possible, you feel your frown deepen. Muscles on your face you’d never put to use stretch further than they have before. But, without dwelling much further on the choices he’s given, you choose to down the contents of the shot glass in a quick go. You may as well get this over with while you still had a fresh dose of liquid courage. As you set the glass aside and step forward to push yourself through the crowd, you miss Chanhee’s smirk as he watches you go.

 Even with Hyunjae doing his absolute best to avoid you, you’re still able to easily find him among the crowd. Chanhee’s penthouse is small enough, and there aren’t many places that Hyunjae can go to hide, despite how well he may think he’s doing. You aren’t sure what exactly to do when you fully approach him—the idea of talking to him seemed awkward, especially after three years and some terrible instant message conversations and texts that barely kept the relationship held together. But by the time you’re just a few feet away from him, you realize you have to make an instant decision—and decide to allow your instincts to make it for you.

 Which leads to you stepping up to him, wrapping your arms around his torso in a hug. When you rest your head against his chest, you’re not entirely certain if it’s your heart you hear beating so loudly, or his.

 Hyunjae, of all things, hadn’t expected you to do that. There’d been nowhere for him to go when he saw you crossing the room. The two of you had already been making fleeing eye contact, and while he’d been wondering if you’d just pass the night and not reach out to him at all—since he wasn’t going to make any move to do so on his end—it was inevitable that you’d cross paths, at some point. Even if neither of you wanted to. A part of him hadn’t expected you to seek him out. Another part of him had been hopeful you would. However, Hyunjae hadn’t anticipated this sort of instance happening. He’d also had no time to mentally prepare. As soon as he’d seen you break apart from your comfort zone next to Chanhee’s side, crossing the room with your sights set on him—his mind had gone blank. He’s certain up until the point where you’d crashed against his chest, he’d looked like a deer in headlights.

 The amount of time it takes Hyunjae to react to your hug makes you wonder if you’d made a mistake. But just as you tense, ready to pull away in embarrassment, you feel his arms wrap around you to reciprocate the hug.

 He gives your back a small pat. “H-Hi…” It’s clear in the tone of his voice he’s not entirely sure of what to say.

 “Hi,” you mumble against the material of his sweater, also unsure of what to say. You’d made it to this point, but you weren’t certain what came next, nor did you think you were ready for it. You were afraid to lift your head and look at him. What if this wasn’t the right choice? What if you should have just let things wither out?

 You feel Hyunjae shift, and you know it’d be overstepping boundaries to keep latched on to him despite how much you want to. So, you break apart from the hug, lifting a hand to rub at the back of your neck sheepishly. Hyunjae clears his throat, glancing away from you, though you refuse to lift your gaze up from your shoes.

 “You’re home,” he finally says after a moment of silence suspended between the two of you hangs there for a little too long. You nod, glancing up finally just as he brings his gaze back to you from where it had wandered all about the room, at the same exact time. For a moment, you feel yourself freeze—and you see Hyunjae freeze, too.

 “I am,” you breathe out, surprised by how much he hasn’t changed even in three years. That’s not much time for many things to change, but it feels so odd seeing him here and in person.

 Hyunjae is tangible, and in front of you, and photos do him absolutely no justice—he’s still as handsome as he’s always been, his soft brown eyes offset by the sharper edges of all his other features, like his jawline and the shape of his nose. You’re surprised you can still pick out the little freckle that sits alone on his nose with such ease, as if you’d expected something about him to be different and unfamiliar. He’s smiling softly, tentatively—yet his lip curl is still so visible. The only thing that seems like it may be different is that he’s lost some weight in his cheeks, them being not quite as full as you remember. But every inch of his features are familiar and beautiful and his honey brown hair falling to the sides of his forehead make him seem golden. Untouchable. You feel out of place, even as his best friend, just as you had during middle and high school. He’d always been handsome and gorgeous simultaneously, and so many girls had liked him back then. He’d always turned every single one down, something you’d never quite understood. Not with how perfect he was—a clever mind with a ridiculous and dorky sense of humor, all packaged in a pretty face.

 “Welcome back,” Hyunjae mumbles, after another pause.

 “Thanks.” You glance away briefly, taking in the people around you all chatting and enjoying themselves.

 Chanhee’s wish for you to talk to Hyunjae again… did he just mean to greet each other like this? It felt strange to attempt to return to normal when there was so obviously a large elephant in the room between the two of you. There’d been a reason he’d given you the shot to down before sending you on your way. Liquid courage… you remind yourself. You hadn’t just needed it to even approach Hyunjae. You needed it for what came next, too. Setting your jaw, you turn back to him. “Hyunjae—”

 Hyunjae immediately feels the shift in the atmosphere between the two of you, immediately catches the terse resolve in your voice. And, just as instantly, he can feel his own self—his entire being—tense up in defense. Maybe it was a natural instinct from knowing you for so long that he knew what was coming next.

 “No, let’s not do this right now—” Hyunjae’s tone was almost pleading. “You should just enjoy the party, this can be done later.”

 You purse your lips. “Will it be done later, though? Or are we both going to avoid it?” There was an unsaid, like we have for the past three years, added to the end of your last question.

 Hyunjae mimics you, also pursing his lips. But before he can think of an excuse—or anything to distract you in order to push this off for just a bit longer—you’re stepping forward and grabbing his arm, pulling him along as you move through the crowd toward the rooftop balcony. Even if there were people out there, being outside was less likely to draw too much attention. Hyunjae has no choice but to stumble in surprise after you, glancing over his shoulder to attempt to find Chanhee and shoot him a withering look.

 The cold hits you like a splash of water to the face as soon as you step outside into the winter night air. To your surprise, there were actually people using the rooftop pool Chanhee’s luxurious penthouse came with, despite the chill outside. Even if the pool was heated, you didn’t think you’d ever catch yourself dead in it in the midst of January. A shiver passes down your spine, and you remind yourself that the cold is likely to wash away the effects of the alcohol if you don’t do something soon. Before you can, though, Hyunjae speaks up.

 “Let’s go sit by the firepit.” He gives a nod in the opposite direction of the pool and its occupants, turning and heading in that direction to claim the seats next to the fire just as the lone two people sitting next to it stand up and leave.

 Reluctantly, you follow. The cold might wash away your resolve—but being too warm next to a cozy fire might make you too tired to follow through with this.

 What were you even following through with? You weren’t even sure what you wanted to talk about with him. How the hell were you supposed to bring up the weird imaginary wall between the two of you. Was it simply that, even—just something of your imagination? Were you actually reading into it this entire time, and there was nothing on Hyunjae’s end to even be concerned about…? No… no, you knew there was something off, and you needed to find out what it was. You needed to be able to repair this relationship. Now that you were back home, there was no way you could continue on like this. The distance made it difficult to notice when things had gone awry between the two of you, but it also made it more difficult to approach and mend. There was no way you’d be able to survive like this, when the two of you shared too many common friends.

 Swallowing past the knot that had been forming in your throat, you follow Hyunjae and take the second open seat next to him by the fire. He’s not looking at you as you sit down, gaze fixated on the orange and yellow flames in front of him. For a moment, you too study the fire as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world, before you lift your gaze to look at him—studying the way the light of the fire falls against the sharp features of his face, accentuating them yet also softening them. He looks warm. He looks like home.

 “Hyunjae… are you mad at me?” You blurt out suddenly, biting your lip as soon as the words fall from your mouth. Maybe that hadn’t been the right way to start this conversation.

 Hyunjae glances up in surprise. “Why would I be mad at you?”

 “Just… because?” You offer up, unhelpfully so.

 “I’m not mad at you,” Hyunjae sighs out.

 “Then what—?”

 Hyunjae sighs once more. It’s a half truth—that’s all he can give, a half truth. You deserve a whole truth, especially after all this time; especially after how long he’s harbored these feelings for. But how can he just explain that to you so easily? How can he just pour his heart and feelings out to you so easily? It wasn’t fair to you, who was going through the aftermath of a breakup. Hyunjae had honestly thought he’d have more time to figure out a decent way to tell you the truth. But in two weeks, he hadn’t been able to come up with anything—and here you were, being headstrong and going after that which you needed answers to. So much more determined and confident than him.

 “I couldn’t be friends with you while you were dating Sangyeon.”

 “What?” You blurt out in surprise. Had there been something going on between them that you hadn’t known about? Surely Hyunjae would have said something, as your best friend…? You weren’t too certain about Sangyeon—not anymore, at least. That was an entirely different thing that had ultimately led to your breakup, but he’d hidden so many things for so long, you couldn’t have been sure if he’d even tell you the truth.

 “I can’t exactly say it’s his fault, or mine. I was ultimately the one who made the decision to pull away—even though I had a right not to as your best friend,” Hyunjae purses his lips. “I kept telling myself if I was in his shoes, I’d feel the same. Feel that it’s too hard to have a girlfriend whose closest friend since childhood, who knows all their secrets and otherwise—is a male. But I didn’t see it that way. We didn’t see eye to eye. We didn’t get along, and there was an underlying animosity. And I wasn't willing to sacrifice your happiness.”

 That was half of the truth. The other half, you didn’t need to know right now—or maybe ever. But that was why Hyunjae had always felt as though he were robbing someone. Your now ex-boyfriend had been very easily jealous. It had made Hyunjae feel both uncomfortable and guilty being your friend, but it had made him feel worse knowing he had his own feelings for you. 

 “I wish you would have sacrificed it…” You murmur, voice coming out smaller than you’d intended. And maybe I could have ended things before they got too far… 

 It’s Hyunjae’s turn to glance up in surprise. “You were in love, though… I didn’t want to lose your friendship entirely because me and your boyfriend—ex—didn’t get along. It wouldn’t have been fair to make you choose.”

 You scoff, words falling out before you can second guess or regret them thanks to the alcohol, “Well, apparently love meant different things to each of us.” 

 Hyunjae quirks a brow, and your eyes widen in surprise at what you’d said. You look away from him, grateful that he doesn’t press for more when you offer nothing. You know he has to be curious, after all this time. He had always been such an unwaveringly loyal friend to you through the years, and hearing that he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice your happiness touched you, despite everything. But the wound is still too fresh, not quite yet scabbed over, and you can’t bring yourself to explain. He deserves to know the truth, you remind yourself—and decide that, in time, he will.

 Love meant different things to each of us. If only you had realized sooner what your definition of love was, in comparison to Sangyeon’s. You bite down on your lip, afraid to turn back to your best friend as a stinging sensation builds up at the back of your eyes. You don’t even need to blink for the tears to start spilling over silently, and you can’t help but wonder if you’re crying because you still haven’t healed, or if you’re relieved things would slowly, hopefully, return to normal with Hyunjae.

 You flinch in surprise when you suddenly feel Hyunjae’s hand fall down on your shoulder, having been unaware it was that obvious you were crying. You’d tried to stay silent, but there was nothing you could do to suppress the way your shoulders shook with the quiet tears. Hyunjae gives your shoulder a small squeeze, before lightly patting your back soothingly. Instead of turning to face him, you drop your face into your hands with your elbows resting on your lap. The small action makes the tears flow faster.

 “It’s okay,” Hyunjae murmurs softly. “You’re home now.”

 Home. A place filled with love.

—

The amount of force with which you do not want to get out of bed almost three whole mornings later, after having spent those days recuperating from secondhand embarrassment at the party, is at its peak when consciousness finally begins to creep in on you. Sadly, you’re no longer hungover—though you wish you were. You hadn’t even been hungover the next morning, which is what prompted you to stay in bed and sleep everything away further—on top of some lingering jetlag. It would, however, be easier to focus on lingering alcohol effects than memories from that night. However, only a portion of that night had even been alcohol-fueled, and it hadn’t even been fueled by enough. Which meant that as soon as you’d begun to wake up the next day, your brain had immediately decided to remind you of Hyunjae’s explanation to why the two of you had drifted apart, your recent break up, and breaking down in front of your best friend after three years of pent up emotions. Despite having been through thick and thin with Hyunjae, you were embarrassed to have cried so easily in front of him—let alone after having not seen him in so long.

 And for three days, that’s what your brain decided to repeatedly replay. Much to your own horror.

 When you finally crack swollen eyes open on the third day, you briefly flinch at the morning light that greets you a little too abruptly. Then, you lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Had you been blind the whole time? Had Hyunjae and Sangyeon really not had a good relationship? You remember clearly how quickly Sangyeon was to react whenever you mentioned any sort of plans with Hyunjae, or how you were texting him. He used to almost visibly bristle. There were times, even, when he would get pouty and sulky until you’d inevitably give in and spend time with him, instead. When you’d first started dating him, you’d been so distracted by the softer and tender moments with him—the kind thoughts and actions and how he’d remember the little things, and that damn eye smile—that you’d thought his jealousy had been a bit endearing.

 But now, looking back, it only gave you a sour taste in the back of your mouth. He’d had an underlying streak of controllingness and was very good at gaslighting. Had Hyunjae seen all those traits behind the pretty mask Sangyeon had worn? Did he know? You let out a long sigh, unable to believe that you’d been so blinded by your feelings to miss such a thing festering between the two of them. Unable to believe you would ever miss such a thing that directly affected your longest standing friend. Yet, clearly, you had—you had no reason to feel guilty after this long, but you still did.

 I wish you would have sacrificed it…

 Your mind briefly drifts back again to the night of the party. Seeing Hyunjae again for the first time, up close, and being able to admire him after so long had felt surreal. Being able to study, in person, how naturally handsome he was; his sharp features were soft and boyish around the edges. You feel your heart skip—a little jump of liveliness that it barely managed anymore, not with the leaden heaviness in your chest lately weighing you down. Maybe your thought—your words—had been selfish. You’d always wondered why Hyunjae had turned down so many confessions during middle and high school. You’d always imagined putting yourself in that same situation and wondered if he’d treat you the same. He was your best friend, and that was a sacrifice you had never been willing to make… to step over that threshold and risk it all.

 But he was your best friend, and hearing his words that night had sparked a small inkling of hope. Your words were selfish, you knew that. Was it too much to want your best friend of so many years, who knew the worst and best parts of you, to have feelings for you? To return the feelings you’d been smothering like a kindled fire? It wasn’t fair to him to hear you say that, it wasn’t fair to him for you to think that maybe if he’d fought for you a little more, if he had risked your happiness back then… maybe you wouldn’t be here now. Maybe neither of you would have drifted apart. Maybe you’d be something more.

 At the very least, you’d have been mad at him if he’d put up a fight against Sangyeon back then. You’d had feelings, after all, that was undeniable. Sangyeon was your boyfriend at the time. Hyunjae your best friend. No one would want the two to go head-to-head. If Hyunjae had ruined it—you would’ve written it off as jealousy, been upset about things falling through, and then possibly gotten the crazy idea that Hyunjae had feelings for you. But that last one was a bit of an overstretch. You could wish it, and fantasize about it, though. And you could keep him as your best friend, without any rifts in your interactions and close to you, unseparated by a body of expansive water, a whole continent away.

 “Ugh, shut up brain!” You groan aloud—suddenly blinking yourself out of your ceiling-staring trance to slap your pillow over your face, burying yourself. There was no need to get ridiculous ideas in your head. You just wanted things to be normal again. No matter what, you needed them to be normal.

 Plus, you had work to do today. There was no way you could spend another day withering away in bed losing yourself in your thoughts, as nice as that honestly sounded—and as nice as it had been for the previous few days.

 When you get up to start gathering clothes to get ready, peeking out the window to see what the weather is like—you decide that the gloomy skies outside had you even less inclined, along with the remnants of that night, to even leave the comfort of your home. But, having returned to Korea left for a lot to be done. You needed, first and foremost, a way to pay rent. While you were glad your social life hadn’t seemed to suddenly disappear upon your return, not that it ever would with friends like Chanhee, you’d pretty much dropped everything and left three years ago. There weren’t any pieces of anything to pick up… you had to start completely from scratch.

 The easiest places to start were cafes, considering the fact that you hadn’t really had a moment to touch up your resume to your liking. So, you spend the majority of the day focused on stopping in cafes in your immediate neighborhood and just surrounding, also popping into a few restaurants in hopes of an easier serving job. Anything within walking or biking distance that you spot, you stop in to, inquiring about jobs. You don’t have the opportunity to be picky, unfortunately. The process is repetitive. You stop in, introduce yourself and ask some questions, fill out an application and attach your resume to leave with them—then move on. Somehow, you keep at this for hours. By the end of the process—or what you rightfully decide is the end—your feet ache. You’re more than happy to finally choose a cafe a bit closer to home you’d come across on your way back around as a resting point, ordering a drink for yourself as you fill out what you decide will be the last application of the day.

 “Oh?”

 At first, you don't recognize that the word someone says is aimed at you. At least, not until the words that soon follow.

 “You’re back.”

 The you’re back makes you second guess the original soft exclamation, which had initially just drowned into the sounds of your cafe surroundings. But the following addition has your pen pausing against the paper as you focus to remember your unpracticed written Korean. Your grip tightens on your pen, bracing yourself as you lift your gaze to the owner of the voice—Ji Changmin. Just beyond him stands Lee Juyeon.

 Personally you’d always felt like Changmin had been trouble, from the first moment you’d met him in college. On the other hand, his current companion Juyeon wasn’t so bad. You weren’t entirely sure how they managed to be friends, but that was never really your concern. The two of them, however, were friends with Sangyeon—because of this, they were both people you didn’t entirely want to associate with at the current moment. Yet, here they were having stumbled upon you at random. Just your luck.

 As soon as you make eye contact, Changmin’s mouth is falling open into the shape of an “O” to express his surprise. “Wow, I wasn’t actually sure if it was you, but it is. So you are back.”

 “Hey,” Juyeon mumbles next to him, under his breath, bumping Changmin’s own shoulder with his own. “Don’t cause trouble.”

 Trouble. The original sentiment of not wanting to associate with either of these two people returns, and you can’t help but wonder what exactly Changmin had in mind by approaching you as though he were surprised by your return. There was enough of a hint of sarcasm lacing his voice that you were doubtful he was unaware of current events that had transpired. Which made you wonder if it was him—the one you’d always felt was trouble—that was up to something, or if someone had put him up to it.

 You tense up just as Changmin shrugs Juyeon away, turning back to you to open his mouth to speak—but before you have a chance to find out who it is that’s actually trouble, and what Changmin wants to say, you’re abruptly interrupted—your tense muscles startle in surprise as a Hyunjae appears, practically barrelling up to the table. He bumps into Changmin’s shoulder and jostles the other, who startles in surprise as well. Whatever words he’d been about to say are forgotten.

 “Hey, where have you been?” Hyunjae, slightly out of breath, leans forward and braces a hand on the table you sit at. “Chanhee and I have been trying to call you for an hour now—”

 “What—” Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and you turn to start fumbling through your bag. As you do so, you hear Changmin speak up.

 “Excuse you, are you not even going to apologize? After we haven’t even seen each other in so long?”

 You’re barely paying attention as Hyunjae straightens up, even missing the sideways glare that he cuts Changmin.

 “Sorry, in a bit of a hurry—there’s an emergency. I need to grab her and go.”

 Just as you’re about to pull your phone out of your bag, you feel Hyunjae’s fingers wrap around your wrist. With that hand, he pulls you out of the cafe chair and to your feet, causing you to blink in surprise. You’re confused at how fast everything is happening—watching with a bit of disconnect as Hyunjae, with his free hand, grabs the bag you’d just pulled your phone from off the table. He turns after he does so, brushing past Changmin who voices a protest, and pulls you along with him. Hyunjae pays Changmin no mind, and doesn’t stop walking and doesn’t let go of you until you’re both outside the cafe standing under the awning of the entrance.

 Luckily, you suppose, you’d finished most of your coffee. Too bad you hadn’t finished the job application.

 You blink, recollecting yourself. Remembering your cell phone, you turn your hand upward and glance down as you do so, studying the screen. Empty.

 “You and Chanhee didn’t call me,” you suddenly say, looking up from your phone to find Hyunjae frowning out past the awning of the cafe. Confused, you follow his gaze—suddenly taking in the weather change that had been almost as abrupt as Hyunjae’s appearance.

 The gloomy, overcast skies had decided to finally let all their own pent up emotions out. It was raining. Winter rain. You shiver, aware of the sudden chill that was settling in with the wet weather. You hated winter rain, because it meant that it was attempting to snow. The worst part was that it turned any leftover snow on the ground already to slush and ice, making things slippery.

 “Are you okay?” Hyunjae suddenly asks, breaking the weird suspended silence between the two of you. Personally, you were still trying to process everything that had just happened in such a short amount of time, so you hadn’t really been bothered by the silence. It wasn’t noticeable until you refocused, aware of the way the sound of the rain was filling your surroundings and the space between the two of you.

 “Yeah, fine. But you and Chanhee haven’t been calling me—”

 “I know,” Hyunjae says, suddenly turning to look at you. As he does so, he holds out your bag to return. “I happened to be passing by and saw you—and them—and you looked uncomfortable. So I barged in without thinking.”

 Like a knight. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Hyunjae always seemed to show up whenever you had needed him. He’d always been there, whether it was saving you from tripping in the hall, saving you by slipping his assignment in class to you when you’d forgotten yours, saving you by showing up with an umbrella on a rainy day like this one when you’d forgotten yours, or saving you at three in the morning post-breakup stranded after a party. Hyunjae had always been there.

 Hyunjae himself didn’t know why he’d done it—suddenly barging in like that. It was true he’d simply been passing by. Since your return, and since the night of the party, he’d been trying his best to avoid you. Not completely, per se. He was glad to have you back, glad to have your friendship back—although it might start out awkward and rocky. But he personally wanted to figure out how to suppress his feelings. Every moment he spent thinking of you, every moment he spent knowing you were single again, and every chance he had to remember not making a move or making his feelings known years ago—he was filled with regret. He kept wondering why he hadn’t done so sooner, why he hadn’t just crossed the threshold and tried to step into your heart. He was scared, he knew that much, valuing your friendship the most. But now it was like the emotions were a constant alarm going off in his head that he couldn’t figure out how to get rid of, and taking the batteries out wouldn’t make them shut up.

 But going after someone just out of a breakup was off limits. It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. Despite having caught wind of the words you’d uttered that night—I wish you would have sacrificed it—and the utter confusion they caused by sending his heart and mind into further turmoil, Hyunjae couldn’t bring himself to approach you in that manner now. Despite Chanhee’s urging to do so, he couldn’t bring himself to.

 Yet seeing you—whether you’d looked uncomfortable through the cafe window or not—had stirred up a need and want to just be near you. Growing up, he’d always found himself being protective of you. You knew how to handle your own and take care of yourself, not afraid to tell someone off as needed, but he had always found himself hovering nearby in case worse came to worst and you’d need an extra hand to step in. Even if the situation you’d been in hadn’t been the one he’d come upon, Hyunjae was sure that seeing you through that cafe window, gravity would have taken over and pulled him toward you, anyway. Ever since you were kids, he’d always been drawn toward you.

 You scoff, reaching out to take your bag. “You expect me to believe you still have that special talent for coming to save me?”

 He smiles softly. “You have a special talent for getting into all kinds of trouble, of varying degrees. It’s become a natural instinct at this point, rather than a talent.”

 “Well, thanks. They weren’t exactly people I wanted to see right now, actually.”

 “We should leave, then, before they come back out,” Hyunjae says, glancing away briefly to stare out at the rain.

 You nod, then pause. Wait—we? Why, we? He hadn’t come all this way just to find you, right? There was absolutely no way he knew you were specifically here, at this cafe. You glance back  at Hyunjae in surprise. “You don’t have to walk me home.”

 Hyunjae shrugs. “I was only going to the corner store to get some ramen. Ran out at home and was craving it with the gloomy weather. But now I don’t want to go all that way and back in the rain.”

 You nod slowly. “Oh, got it… did you want to come over for ramen, then?”

 “Here,” Hyunjae says suddenly, causing you to refocus. You blink in surprise when you notice he’s shrugged out of his bomber jacket to remove his hoodie, holding it out to you, while he’s got half an arm back in the jacket itself.

 “W-what’s this for?” You ask, forgetting your offer briefly.

 “It has a hood on it. Your jacket doesn’t. Put that on so you don’t get sick.”

 “What about you?”

 Hyunjae shrugs. “We’re eating ramen, right? It’s warm, and I have shorter hair than you do. Just put it on and pull the hood up so you don’t get too wet from the rain.”

 Still surprised, you stare at the outstretched hoodie, then up at Hyunjae—dumbfounded. Had he actually agreed to come over and eat lunch with you? Although at this point in the afternoon, it was more like an early dinner. The idea made your stomach do a flip. You’d eaten together many times before, and he’d been to your house and your parents house growing up many times before, as well. But this was the first since returning—and since your theoretical make-up. It’s just as friends, you remind yourself, you’re just friends.

 You can tell by the way Hyunjae waits and stares expectantly that he isn’t going to take an argument against his offer. If the situation had been a bit better, maybe you would have stood here and argued against him, but you decided better of it—wanting to get away from the cafe and its occupants as soon as possible. You hold your bag back out to Hyunjae, then your own peacoat after shrugging out of it, trading both items for the gray hoodie he’d offered. Almost immediately after pulling the hoodie over your head—before you even pull your head through—you’re enveloped with the warm scent of Hyunjae. It’s almost a mix of cinnamon, spices, and cream. Like a light caffe latte, freshly made. It smells so familiar, but also foreign, to you. If you had the chance, you’d like to stand there and snuggle further into it, breathe in his scent a bit more until you were more familiar with it and could memorize it—but your head abruptly freeing itself out the top brings you back to reality.

 Hyunjae hands you your peacoat back first, which you shrug back into for the extra added warmth against the winter chill mixed with the rain. Immediately after you’re settled, Hyunjae gives you your bag back while simultaneously reaching for the hood of his sweater, pulling it up and over your head.

 Miffed, you let out a disgruntled noise from the back of your throat. “Hey!”

 Hyunjae just smiles, amused at your reaction, before giving a nod in the opposite direction as he shrugs back into his bomber jacket, signaling, Let’s go. His own jacket is lightweight, and you find yourself worrying if it will even keep him warm enough. Hyunjae won’t say otherwise, but despite his bluff—he too is worried if it will keep him warm and dry enough. The way the rain is coming down makes it a fine mist, likely to soak through the thinnest materials with ease.

 The distance to home is short, but it’s enough that he himself is at risk of getting sick. Before he steps out into the rain, Hyunjae unfolds the turtleneck of the sweater beneath his jacket, pulling it up further against his chin. But he doesn’t give you much of a moment to worry, immediately stepping out into the rain. You have no choice but to scramble after him as quickly as possible. Luckily, thanks to the cold, and now wet, weather, it’s quite easy to match the brisk pace of his longer legs with the cold pushing you forward.

 The walk back to your place isn’t that long, but definitely takes longer than usual with the angle the rain is coming down at. Even with Hyunjae’s hooded jacket pulled as far down over your forehead as possible, you have to keep your head ducked down as you walk. The rain comes down at such an angle that as soon as you look up, you’re immediately hit in the face by it. It’s worse for Hyunjae, who has no way to protect himself at all. He has an arm hovering up over his eyes in a feeble attempt to shield himself.

 When you make it home, you immediately discard wet shoes in the entry of your apartment along with your bag, shredding your coat off first and running further into the apartment. Hyunjae follows suit at less of a rush, kicking his wet shoes off and shrugging out of his bomber jacket.

 “I don’t think I have anything for you to change into,” you call from your bedroom down the hall, shuffling through your closet and dresser drawers—in search of sweatpants or anything warm that might fit him. There are too many things thrown haphazardly into a place to put them, simply to just get them out of the boxes and luggage they’d previously been in. You still hadn’t finished unpacking completely.

 “It’s fine,” Hyunjae says, hovering in the entry as you rush out of your room and into the bathroom, grabbing some clean towels off the rack instead. “I don’t get sick easily, you know this.”

 Despite his words, you still frown as you hand the towels to him. “I’m going to throw your hoodie in the dryer.”

 He just nods, and you move away to do exactly that, pulling the jacket over your head as you blindly move back down the hall to the bathroom. At the very least, Hyunjae can go home in something warm. A part of you hopes, however, that he’ll instead choose to wait out the rain. You toss the gray jacket into the dryer, setting a low heat cycle, and move back out to head to the kitchen to start cooking—though you practically freeze in your tracks as soon as you step out of the bathroom.

 Again, you find yourself forgetting just how handsome Hyunjae is. You’d also conveniently forgotten that he was also standing in your entryway not just handsome but soaking wet, too. When you briefly glance his way after stepping back into the hall to head to the kitchen, you’re taken aback by the timing of which you do so. Hyunjae has just uncovered his face after wiping the towel over and up, sliding his hair back off his forehead. The exposure of his forehead as he rubs the towel at his hair reveals his chiseled features more easily to you, and the dampness of his skin glistens in a way that highlights every single one of those features from his sharp jawline and eyebrows and straight nose.

 Your stomach does a little flip as the towel falls away from his head to his shoulder, revealing his damp and now-ruffled hair. It softens the sharp features of his face, giving him a boyish look that catches your heart off guard—reminding you of the duality of his physical appearance. He can always look so sharp yet soft at the same time, so boyish but mature, so cute but handsome. Hyunjae glances up at you as he rubs the towel along the hair at the nape of his neck.

 “You good?”

 Hyunjae notices you staring, though he tries to make it out to be nothing. He has to mentally remind himself too that it is nothing. You’d just recently broken up with Sangyeon. This was not the time or place for these thoughts—he couldn’t allow himself to wonder where your eyes were lingering, and what they were curiously taking in of him. The idea made his stomach twist warmly.

 “Huh?” You blink away from your distracted thoughts, before nodding—maybe a little too fast, giving yourself away. “Yeah, fine. Was just wondering if that’s going to be enough.”

 “I’ll be fine,” he assures you, with a bit more insistence this time. As he lets one of the towels rest as his neck, he nods you toward the kitchen, grabbing the other towel you’d handed him at the same time to unfold and begin patting at his damp clothes. “Go make something warm for the both of us, though, instead of just standing there. Warm food will help.”

 “Right.” You suddenly remember you’d invited Hyunjae over for some ramen on a whim—and that he’d agreed very nonchalantly. You give yourself a small shake as you make your way to the kitchen to prepare food, reminding yourself that this was normal and you were friends. Hyunjae had been over for meals plenty of times before. He’d been over for meals to both your apartment after you’d moved out, your dorm when you’d been in college, and even your family’s house for regular dinner nights and holidays. So why did it feel different now?

 You could kick yourself for suddenly becoming that much more hyper-aware of your feelings since the night of your welcome back party. How you’d managed most of your life ignoring them was suddenly beyond you. Ever since he’d admitted to why he had pulled away from you, your feelings had begun to rear their head even more blatantly, telling you to give them and yourself a chance. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep them at bay. If you’d felt this strongly for him the entire time, which you knew you had—him being your best friend making the feelings that much stronger since the connection you had with him was that much more deeper—you wondered why your emotions hadn’t chosen to act like this in the past. You suddenly felt like a hormonal teenager, and it was years too late for that.

 The buzz from the dryer going off pulls you back to reality. You glance up toward the hall the bathroom is nestled away in, then back down at the two pots of ramen on the stovetop you’ve been absentmindedly stirring the entire time. You realize, then, that the food is basically done.

 “I’ll go grab that,” Hyunjae declares, setting the towel he’d been using to pat himself down aside.

 “We can eat after,” you state, wondering if he’ll even catch your words—he’s already disappeared down the hall. You move away from the stove to grab some potholders to place atop the counter in front of a seat each, moving both of the pots off the stove after doing so, before turning back into the kitchen to grab chopsticks, spoons, and drinks. When you turn around, Hyunjae is pulling his hoodie over his head and onto his torso, slipping into one of the two empty seats at the counter.

 He lets out a content sigh as his head pops through the hoodie. “This is the best, it’s nice and warm.”

 You set everything in your hands down on the counter, pushing a set of chopsticks and a drink towards him. As you step around the counter, you find yourself smiling fondly. “Just don’t become lethargic and fall asleep from a warm sweater and warm food. There’s still boxes all around this place to be unpacked, it wouldn’t be comfortable to nap here.”

 “Did you need any help unpacking?” Hyunjae asks, picking up his chopsticks to stir the ramen in front of him.

 “No, I’m good. Thanks, though, but it keeps me distracted.”

 “Distra—” Hyunjae doesn’t even finish the word, or question, immediately cutting himself off. “Oh. Sorry.”

 You shrug at his apology. After all, what did he have to apologize for? He wasn’t at fault for the situation at hand. There was no real way to get over everything that had happened, either. Everyone heals differently, and you found the best method so far had been to just keep yourself and your mind busy with other things for every waking moment possible. You felt detached from the breakup, anyway, considering. But the less you had to think about it, the better.

 The two of you fall into an awkward silence, both picking at and eating your food. Just the sound of chopsticks against the aluminum pots, the slurping of the broth and noodles, and the pattering of rain outside fill the apartment. It feels like an eternity before anything is said—before you work up the courage to bring up the topic in a more secluded, personal, and safer space than you had been before. You hadn’t been sure you were ready to truly dump your heart out to Hyunjae, which is why you’d only allowed yourself to cry that night. But after getting what was left of the last of the tears out of your system, you felt a lot safer revealing your thoughts and feelings.

 “Hyunjae?”

 “Hm?” He glances up mid-bite, slurping some of the noodles into his mouth and chewing.

 “What did you mean when you said you couldn’t be my friend while dating Sangyeon? Was it really just because the two of you didn’t get along… or… was there more?”

 Hyunjae finishes chewing, then swallows. He stares at you for a moment—reading you, reading the room. Reading the quaver in your voice that you’d thought you’d done your best to suppress after working up the nerve to even ask those words aloud. Yet, here you were—nervous, still.

 Instead of answering, Hyunjae asks, “Are you sure you want to talk about this right now?”

 You glance at him in surprise—having almost immediately expected an answer, rather than a question in return. Hyunjae had always been direct in the past. Sometimes, even, to the point of bluntness. You’d never been offended by it as some people had. While he was good at penting up his emotions and sometimes beating around the bush to the point that he started to feel guilty, he was also reliable when you needed him to tell it straight. And that’s what you had been expecting. But maybe it was a bit too easy to hear the hesitation in your voice.

 “Well, it’s a better time than any. I’ve been thinking about what you said since that night… I just… am curious about some things, and trying to piece together signs still.”

 You’re not paying attention, so you miss Hyunjae clench his jaw—an attempt to mentally piece together his own thoughts. He hadn’t really expected you to outright ask about his words like this. The discreet statement was meant to be that: Discreet, and enough to subside any curiosities. Explaining anything more would require him to divulge his own personal feelings and emotions on the matter and what had truly prompted him to pull away as he had.

 Sangyeon was only the match that lit the flame. It was true that he never saw eye-to-eye with your ex-boyfriend, and it was also true that he gotten a bad vibe from him whenever you two had been with each other. There was a subtle, underlying animosity that rolled off Sangyeon in waves, and glares that could hardly go unnoticed—as though he were someone protecting his territory. Hyunjae had written it off as just being a jealous boyfriend, despite the intensity at which it had grown as time had passed. He really had tried to convince himself that if he were in Sangyeon’s shoes, he’d have acted the same. But the truth of the matter was, despite all of that, Hyunjae still had his own feelings to work around and out.

 And he had been jealous himself—of what Sangyeon had. It hadn’t been healthy for him to continue surrounding himself with you, burning with his own jealousy just beneath his skin. Hyunjae had been afraid he’d ruin something—your happiness, or his friendship with you.

 Hyunjae sighs. “Look, I don’t know what happened—”

 “He cheated,” you blurt out suddenly. “He cheated, and he was gaslighting me about it the entire time. He made me feel like things were my fault.”

 The sudden resolve to just get the words out surprises you—but it was something you couldn’t hold in any longer. Like a venom rotting away at the deepest parts of your heart, it just kept gnawing away. You weren’t sure getting it out would help anything. Chanhee was the only one who currently knew the situation. But it still felt like something you had to forcefully eject, or it would just keep causing the same damage internally that it had been this entire time.

 You let out a sigh, staring at your bowl of food intently. Your grip on your chopsticks tightens, to the point that your knuckles turn white as the skin pulls taught over the bones beneath. The sensation of Hyunjae’s hand softly folding over yours causes you to flinch in surprise, pulling yourself out of the negative energy suddenly engulfing you. Glancing up, you meet Hyunjae’s gaze—caught off guard by his features being blurred in your line of sight by tears.

 “You don’t have to talk about it, it’s still fresh,” Hyunjae murmurs, but you’re instantly shaking your head at his words. You reach up to rub the tears away from your eyes.

 “No, I have to. I think I have to. If I don’t say it, I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with it. There were so many warning signs the entire time, and I feel so dumb and blind.”

 Hyunjae gives your hand a squeeze. “You aren’t dumb, or blind. When you’re in love with someone, you place the entirety of your trust in them. You don’t expect to have to look for those types of things. If he broke your trust that’s on him, not on you for not realizing it—and if he was doing those things to you, that’s not your fault. People like that are good at what they do, and sometimes if you’re in that situation, it’s hard to realize it until you’ve removed yourself.”

 You frown, not entirely sure that you believe him. It felt strange to be on the receiving end of relationship advice. You’d always thought, seeing others in relationships that weren’t exactly healthy for them, you’d be able to pick out if yours was or not immediately. But instead, you had found yourself twisted up in the same situation as others you’d known. A situation you swore would never happen to you—one you vowed you’d never let happen to you. You felt foolish and naive for believing you could prevent it so easily, and wondered if they had too. And you also found yourself wondering how it was so easy to make that same mistake, over and over, falling for that person time and time again.

 Hyunjae gives your hand another reassuring squeeze. He isn’t sure what to say from there, but it almost looks like you’re about to cry again. Within his chest, he can feel his heart clenching uncomfortably—squeeze, painfully, at seeing you in pain. He doesn’t like seeing you like this. The tears had come so fast the night of the party, he hadn’t been sure how to react or what to say. But seeing them there again from the pain, lingering, on the verge of overflowing—he hurts seeing you hurt.

 He has so many questions suddenly spring into his mind—wondering if there had been more to the relationship that had hurt you. If there was more that had cut you so deep like a knife, or if you had simply been that attached and hopeful in the relationship that it had made you blind to the negatives. It was quite possible that was the case, but with the way Hyunjae’s heart twists in his chest—he can’t help but worry and wonder if there had been more. Had the relationship been bad, or had it just gone south without notice? Had he been bad to you? But even as your best friend, he’s not sure it’s his place to ask these types of questions.

 Hyunjae is surprised when he feels your hand twist in his grip, suddenly turning over to link your fingers with his—you give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

 He glances at you in surprise—had you sensed the turn his own thoughts had been taking?—caught off guard when he meets your gaze. Your eyes are no longer filled with tears, something that brings him relief, but now his heart is clenching in his chest in a different way. It’s a way he’s not unfamiliar with, but one he wished wouldn’t happen now, of all times. Yet the longer he holds your gaze, the further he thinks he’ll fall. He thinks that maybe he can allow himself to drown in your eyes—to simply give in and allow the feelings to flow over him, either washing over him or drowning him completely.

 He wouldn’t mind, one way or another.

 You feel yourself frozen, too—like you’re suspended in time. Of all the times you’ve looked at him, you wondered if you’ve truly ever seen him. You’d always thought he was handsome, and physically attractive, with a personality to tie it all together. But sitting here, staring at Hyunjae and slowly losing yourself in his eyes—it feels like forever and as though it’s not quite long enough. His gaze, filled with surprise and a bit of confusion, is filled with warmth and tenderness.

 It’s filled with a look that Sangyeon had never given you.

 But before you can discern what the look means, or have a chance to even think about it, Hyunjae is pulling his hand from your grasp sheepishly. He clenches that hand into a fist, immediately shoving it under the table. As he does so, he falters a moment, before glancing around—looking anywhere but at you—and settling his gaze on the ceiling.

 “Oh, I think the rain stopped,” he murmurs, as if looking for something to fill the void he’d just caused. Hyunjae pulls his gaze down from the ceiling, looking at you again—trying to keep his expression neutral. “I’m supposed to meet Chanhee later. I should go home and get changed.”

 You nod slowly, trying to wrap your head around the sudden turn things had taken. Dammit, I shouldn’t have done that. But in the moment, holding Hyunjae’s hand had seemed so right and needed. It seemed like he had needed it, just as much as you. While he hadn’t given you a straight answer about Sangyeon, you weren’t sure you entirely needed it—clearly, something had happened. You suspected it had to do with the jealousy that he’d outright shown to you so many times, guilting you about hanging out with Hyunjae over him so much. If it had happened to you, it had likely happened to Hyunjae, as well. And since it was a man to man emotion-fest at that point, it was likely to a stronger degree.

 Still, why had you allowed your body to react without thinking things through? You wanted to groan outwardly; inwardly, you were beating yourself up.

 “Also.” Hyunjae’s voice makes you blink in surprise—the way he’d pulled back so suddenly, you had almost been certain you’d ruined things so soon after fixing them, and that he was about to bolt out of your apartment. But instead, when you look up at him, he has a smile on his face as he looks down at you, having stood up from his seat. “Everyone heals at a different pace, but if you ever need to vent I’m always here. I don’t need to know every detail of what happened, but I want you to stop beating yourself up for not noticing the so-called signs. It wasn’t your fault, and you’re allowed to be upset about it for as long as you need—just don’t blame yourself. Okay?”

 As Hyunjae bids a goodbye, gathering his still-damp bomber jacket and slipping his shoes back on—you’re almost certain you’ll start crying. Yet, when the door closes behind him to signal his exit, you’re surprised to find you don’t.

 You’d been right about one thing, at the very least: You needed to get the venom out and the words out of the cavity of your chest to start the healing process fully. Doing so with Hyunjae had been the best choice.

 Hyunjae’s words linger, filling the apartment with a warmth you hadn’t felt in a while. It felt safe here. Your feelings felt safe with him.

—

The next day, your heart feels much lighter. It’s as though you’ve lifted an entire weight off yourself. There was a significant difference between telling your family and Chanhee, in comparison to telling Hyunjae. A part of you wondered, again, if you were selfish for revealing what had happened to Hyunjae. There was a small voice in the back of your mind torturing you with the idea that you’d only done it to keep him close and ensure you wouldn’t lose him again. At least, not so soon. Perhaps that’s why you had taken hold of his hand so suddenly yesterday, as well. You didn’t want to lose him again. You didn’t want to see him slowly back away from you as he had done before.

 Perhaps it really was selfish of you to do this to him, and to indulge in your feelings for him. But when everything always felt safe and right with Hyunjae—you couldn’t help but think that you should allow yourself, this once, to be selfish and take that risk. If it messed things up, it would hurt like hell. But something was telling you to do it, anyway. That this was right and that things would be okay. You wanted to allow yourself something good, for once. Hyunjae was that good.

 After so long of holding feelings for him in and suppressing them, you weren’t sure you could do the same any longer. Not after being splashed in the face with the reality of the relationship you’d just gotten out of. It was like a wake up call to what was right in front of you this entire time.

 “You seem like you’re in a good mood today,” Chanhee notes from beside you. You glance at him briefly, watching his fingers glide across his phone screen as he types out a text. Despite absentmindedly paying attention to the electronic in his hand, he’s quite keen.

 You exhale, letting out a deep breath. Not quite a sigh. It felt nice to be able to breathe lighter with that weight off your chest.

 “I told Hyunjae about the breakup, and what happened.”

 Chanhee glances up from his phone, eyebrows raising up past the curtain of hair falling across his forehead. “Oh? I thought you weren’t going to?”

 “I didn’t want to, originally. I didn’t want him to worry about what had happened while we weren’t in contact. But I think he would’ve figured it out anyway. Just… from the vibe I got, it seems like Sangyeon was a jealous jerk to Hyunjae, too.”

 “Oh, he definitely was.” The nonchalance with which Chanhee replies has your head snapping towards him in surprise. Chanhee simply shrugs, turning back to his phone.

 “What?!” You’d already guess as much yesterday, but hearing it confirmed was a whole different story. “Why didn’t you say anything?!”

 Chanhee shrugs. “Wasn’t my place to say it. Hyunjae didn’t want you worrying, either.”

 You let out a groan. There was too much he was worried, she was worried, going around—that had been going around for three years, apparently. You couldn’t believe the way you and Hyunjae kept operating on the same wavelength, trying to keep the other worry-free and safe. You also couldn’t believe how neutral Chanhee had managed to stay in all of this the entire time.

 “Hey!”

 Before you can chastise Chanhee for keeping this bit of information from you, the sound of Kevin’s voice alerts you and Chanhee both at the same time. You simultaneously look over your shoulder while turning in the direction of the voice, and Chanehee pushes himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

 “Oh?” The single word falls from your lips quietly, disheartened, as you take in the scene before you. As planned for your lunch today, Kevin and Younghoon—two of your closest friends shared with both Chanhee and Hyunjae—walk towards you. But someone is missing.

 “Where’s Hyunjae?” Chanhee asks when Kevin and Younghoon are near enough. You stumble in surprise when Kevin immediately wraps you in a hug in greeting, practically nuzzling his face against yours.

 Younghoon shrugs. “Dunno. He wasn’t answering his phone.”

 “Or his door,” Kevin pipes up, pulling away from you.

 Not answering his phone or his door? You glance between the two of them, who both seem a bit unconcerned about it. Chanhee purses his lips, pulling his phone that he’d tucked away into his jacket back out. He taps around a bit on the screen, before lifting the device to his ear, and you assume he’s calling Hyunjae to test if what the others said is true or not.

 You’re aware of Kevin starting to chatter mindlessly in your ear, talking about things he’d done yesterday and his walk to meet you for lunch—but your mind is elsewhere, not in the present. You wonder if Hyunjae not answering his phone or his door has anything to do with what happened yesterday? Meeting for lunch today had been planned since the night of the party—something you’re sure that, at the time, Hyunjae had reluctantly agreed to in the first place. Had your actions the afternoon before mistakenly reset all the progress you had made? Was he having second thoughts?

 “He’s not answering,” Chanhee confirmed after a bit, frowning at his phone before shoving it back into his jacket again.

 Without thinking, an urge to just go takes over you. If Hyunjae was having second thoughts—you wanted to halt them right in their tracks, right then and there. You couldn’t stand the thought of everything reverting again. Of possibly seeing him drift away again.

 “Crap—I just remembered I forgot my wallet at home,” you blurt out, and without waiting for a reply, turn on your heel and dart off—back in the direction of home.

 “What the hell?!” Chanhee blurts after you. “You couldn’t remember that ten minutes ago?!”

 “We can just pay for you though?!” Kevin’s voice cries over Chanhee.

 “But my ID!” You yell over your shoulder. “We can’t drink like we planned to, just go ahead and I’ll catch up!”

 Despite your words, you actually had no intentions of catching up. While the ideal situation would be to return to lunch with all your friends, dragging Hyunjae along with you, there was no guarantee that would actually happen. If you’d overstepped boundaries yesterday, you fully expected to have to fix those boundaries. You also fully intended to do just that if it came to it.

 The cold air burns in your lungs as you run in the direction back toward your and Hyunjae’s respective apartments, but you refuse to slow down or waste any time. Even when you reach the stairs, trudging up as quickly as you can, you still refuse to break pace. By the time you reach the floor that his apartment is on, your lungs and the back of your throat feel as though they’re on fire. Despite your wishes, you have to crouch down to catch your breath, clutching the sides of your ribs and wishing that maybe you hadn’t run that fast.

 Steeling yourself, you rub your side one last time and push yourself to your feet, heading down the hall to Hyunjae’s apartment. You wonder what the heck you’re going to say, as you near his door, worried about how to make this right. There’s a turmoil inside of you. You don’t want to lose Hyunjae as a friend, yet you also want to be selfish for once. Why did this have to happen just as you’d finally gathered up the courage to make a decision?

 Lifting a hand, you knock on the door. A few minutes pass, and no answer. So you knock again, but louder. You know the time that passes is short, yet it feels like an eternity.

 “Hyunjae?” You call, cupping your hand by your mouth as you lean closer to the door, knocking again. “It’s me!”

 Still no answer. Frowning, you reach into your bag, pulling your phone out. You know Chanhee had said he hadn’t answered, but it was worth a try.

 It’s then, as you’re pulling your phone out of your bag, that you notice a plastic bag sitting by the door. Delivery food, left outside for whoever had ordered it. You’d been so focused on your inner turmoil that you hadn’t seen it at first. You glance up from the bag, then at the door, then back down. Why had Hyunjae ordered food, when he knew he was meeting everyone for lunch today?

 Crouching down, you grab the handles of the bag, peering inside. There’s a couple of to-go cartons, and right at the top sits the receipt for the entire order taped to one of the cartons. With yesterday evening’s date.

 Hyunjae had ordered the food and then never claimed it.

 Suddenly—like a waterfall of realization—the events from yesterday flood back over you. Rushing home in the rain together, his soaked clothing and wet hair and the cold winter weather, towels to dry himself and ramen to try and warm his insides, and the barely-dry hoodie to slip over his still damp clothes as he’d left your apartment. God, you felt so stupid.

 I don’t get sick easily. Hyunjae had practically boasted. Maybe so, but he was still human with a human immune system. Anyone could get sick with how fine of a soaking mist that rain had been yesterday, paired with the gloomy overcast skies and winter temperatures.

 You immediately jump to your feet, pulling the bag of to-go food with you. You were sure at this point it was probably spoiled, but there was no sense in leaving it outside. Rather than knocking again, you lift your hand to the number pad at Hyunjae’s apartment door, fingers hovering over the buttons. Had he changed the passcode? Would it still be the same after three years? You feel your jaw clench with tension.

 “Sorry, Hyunjae. Don’t report me for breaking and entering,” you mutter, typing in the passcode. The ding that immediately resounds, followed by the sound of the door gears unlocking for you, has you standing there for a moment in shock.

 Realizing the door might engage the lock again, you give yourself a shake and push into the entryway of Hyunjae’s place, tentatively peering in before you allow yourself fully inside. You set the bag of delivery food down by your shoes as you slip out of them, discarding your bag soon after. The apartment is dark inside the curtains in the living room pulled closed, and smells a bit musty. Like someone is sick, you think, recognizing the stuffiness almost immediately.

 “Hyunjae?” You call out, allowing yourself further inside. Your eyes immediately scan the kitchen to your right, peering around the corner of the counter to make sure he wasn’t just passed out somewhere, before your head rubber bands to the left, eyes scanning the living room. Just as they do, a mound of fluffy blanket on the couch shifts and you let out an eep of surprise, stumbling backward.

 You lift a hand to your chest, giving it a slight pat and reminding yourself that he doesn’t have any roommates—and that you’re the only burglar in the area at the current time—before moving forward. “Hyunjae?”

 This time, a groan answers you, and a hooded head very sluggishly peeks itself out from the blanket. It’s Hyunaje, alright, and he looks pale and clammy. You frown at the sight. Definitely sick, you confirm visually.

 Hyunjae blinks a few times, eyes heavily lidded and gaze completely unfocused.

 “Whrye d’ng here?” His words are as sloppy and sluggish as his appearance, but you’re relieved to see he has at least some coherency to recognize that it’s you.

 “I came because you didn’t show up for our lunch plans with everyone,” you reply, not even sure that he’ll understand, with how far gone he seems. You lean over him, resting the back of your hand against his forehead—it almost immediately snaps back to yourself, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. He’s scalding to the touch. “Holy hell, Hyunjae, you’re burning up!”

 “Mhm,” is the only confirmation he gives.

 “You should’ve called someone as soon as you started to feel off,” you scold, the frown on your face deepening. Before setting to work, you lift the blankets off his form—relieved to see he’d managed to change, at least, into dry clothes when he’d gotten home. Instead of letting the blanket fall back over him, you pull it halfway down.

 “No—” A whine sounds from Hyunjae, and he meekly lifts himself to try and grab the blanket back. You swat his hand away, scowling.

 “You need to lessen your body temperature, not make it worse. I know you feel like you’re freezing right now but you actually aren’t. Just trust me.”

 Hyunjae blearily frowns at you, sinking back into the couch with a pout. You wait a moment, watching to see if he’ll go against your words. When he doesn’t, you give him a smile of encouragement, and a nod. With that at least settled, you shrug out of your jacket and move away from the couch to set to work, discarding your jacket on the back of a chair as you head towards the bathroom.

 His apartment hasn’t changed much, something to which you’re grateful for. It makes navigating the place for things you need that much easier. You waste no time in finding some ibuprofen and water for Hyunjae, who protests when you help him sit up straight on the couch so he can take the medication with some fluids. Getting him to eat was probably out of the question, considering he had clearly been hungry but hadn’t even moved from the couch to get his food. A part of you wondered if he’d possibly passed out. Maybe the fever had been more intense than this before.

 As you pat Hyunjae’s forehead with a damp, lukewarm washcloth, you’re relieved that it was simply just that he was sick and not avoiding you. You want to tell that selfish part of you to shut up—this wasn’t the time to be relieved over something like that, for goodness’ sake, considering the state he was in. But you just couldn’t help it. You knew you should have known better than to think he would be avoiding you, considering his parting words before he’d left your apartment yesterday. It wouldn’t have been like him to randomly shut you out like that. But after everything that had happened within the last few years, there was just an innate fear you were being left behind or shut out—or wouldn't notice something when it was going awry.

 Deciding to settle in, you make yourself comfortable on the floor next to the couch. While you’d already decided—for other reasons, originally—that you likely wouldn’t be rejoining the lunch plans as you’d darted away so quickly, you still feel guilty for ditching so suddenly. It had been a week now that you’d all agreed to meet, and you knew Chanhee hated last minute cancellations. He wasn’t going to let you live this down, even with an apology. Still, you end up texting Chanhee apologizing, and telling him what was wrong with Hyunjae, to ensure that he wouldn’t worry about you not coming back. While he’d likely not let you live it down, at least he’d be more forgiving.

 For the next few hours, when they appear, you wipe away beads of sweat from Hyunjae’s forehead. You hadn’t come here prepared, so you end up attempting to keep yourself busy while also monitoring Hyunjae’s condition. It feels strange to have free reign of his apartment, just as you had when you were younger. It had been so long that you almost felt like a stranger intruding. But the stuffiness of the place wasn’t doing his fever any good, and you couldn’t allow him to stay sick because of a sacrifice he’d made on your behalf. You cycle through some light cleaning to help with the atmosphere of the place, wiping down and disinfecting surfaces while also cleaning up stray laundry and trash floating about, and doing the dishes. All this while tending to Hyunjae and keeping watch of his temperature.

 There comes a point where you think you’ve done too much, and you return to Hyunjae’s side, settling back on the pillow on the floor you’d set down for yourself earlier. You’re relieved to see Hyunjae’s labored breathing has eased up, and his brow is no longer furrowed against the pain he’d likely been in at the peak of the fever. Reaching up, you brush away a strand of hair from his forehead, dabbing the washcloth against his skin once more. For the upteenth time, you find yourself admiring his sharp yet soft features. This time, you can’t help but take note of the way his long eyelashes rest against his skin, and how soft his eyelids look with his eyes closed and how peaceful he looks with his lips slightly parted, lower lip slightly jutting out in a pout. You’re amazed that even while sick and pallid, he still looks this handsome.

 “Hyunjae,” you murmur, patting the cloth against his forehead one more time before setting it aside. You rest your arm on the side of the couch, then your chin on top of it. You feel a drowsiness overtaking you, having not realized you’d actually done quite a bit of tasks around his apartment. “You should’ve told me you were getting sick. I want you to get better soon.”

 This doesn’t count as the courage you’d finally mustered up—and you know you’ll have to do this all over again to be satisfied with yourself—but you reach up, pushing a bit more hair off his forehead. “Please don’t be sick, Hyunjae. I like you a lot, so you have to get better. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

 As you pull your hand away from Hyunjae’s forehead, you’re surprised when your wrist is caught suddenly—immediately recognizing the long, lithe fingers that are wrapped around it as Hyunjae’s. You blink, startled, lowering your gaze from his forehead to his face. Hyunjae’s brown eyes blink at you, bleary, but not quite as unfocused as they had been before.

 “Am I dreaming?” He mumbles, much more coherent than before.

 “H-Hyunjae—?” You hadn’t expected him to be awake. Had he heard what you’d just said?

 “Is this a dream?” He repeats, staring at you, before glancing to the side at your wrist he has hold of. Hyunjae shifts his hand, sliding his palm up your wrist against your own palm, engulfing your hand with his own as he entwines his fingers with yours. You stare at your hands, surprised. Just yesterday you’d done this and he’d acted as though he’d been burned.

 A part of you wants to tell him he is. Maybe he’s still feverish enough that he won’t know any better. But the selfish voice at the back of your head tells you not to risk saying it—to not risk the moment.

 “N-no… it’s not a dream.”

 “Good,” Hyunjae mumbles. You feel him shift on the couch, giving your hand a squeeze as he does so. The movement causes you to turn your head, looking at him again—his sudden proximity catching you off guard. What catches you even more off guard is the way he leans in, softly pressing his lips against your own.

 You blink a few times, before allowing your eyelids to flutter closed. Hyunjae’s lips meld with yours—softly, tenderly; shyly. You can feel his uncertainty as he kisses you, but just beyond that there’s also a needy hunger. There needs to be more but there’s no energy for that. Yet Hyunjae pours his everything into the kiss, as softly yet surely as he can. Years of emotions and love and yearning flow out against your lips and you can feel it in the slight intensity and the way he tastes on you.

 If he weren’t sick, you’d allow yourself to suffocate against his lips—for him to steal every last breath from you. You can’t describe the giddiness that suddenly flows into your chest and stomach in words, but it feels so right. It felt nothing like the love you’d thought you’d had before.

 When Hyunjae breaks apart, a small sound of complaint that you have no control over slips from the back of your throat. You wished that kiss would continue for an eternity.

 Hyunjae chuckles. “I know,” he mumbles, giving your hand a squeeze again. “But I’m going to get you sick.”

 “It’s okay, I don’t get sick easily.”

 “I deserve that one,” Hyunjae mutters with a scoff, smiling sleepily. He pulls his hand from your grasp and rests it at the back of your head, pulling your head down with him as he lays back on the couch again. You rest your head against the cushions where you sit on the floor, and Hyunjae immediately snuggles a bit closer, breathing in your scent. You feel his thumb rub in a circle at the back of your head.

 “I like you a lot, too. And I always have, for such a long time. So please don’t let this be a dream when I’m better and wake up,” he whispers into your hair, pressing a soft peck to the crown of your head.

 You reach behind you, taking his hand from the top of your head to link your fingers again, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand.

 “It won’t be. I promise.”

#hyunjae fanfic #tbz fanfic #hyunjae scenarios #tbz scenarios #deobiwritersnet #my head hurts editing this happy belated bday rani

[whencyclopedia]

Operation Chastise

Operation Chastise, the 'Dambusters' raid, was an attack by a squadron of RAF Lancaster bombers on the dams of the Ruhr basin in Germany in May 1943. Led by Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, the bombers breached two dams causing enormous flooding in the valleys below, disrupting industrial targets and killing at least 1,300 civilians.

Although the damaged factories, coal mines, and bridges were soon repaired, the mission showed the value of precision bombing by specially trained crews, diverted German resources to air defence, and reinvigorated Britain's position amongst its allies.

Objectives

The Ruhr basin in Western Germany was saturated with important heavy industry. These factories, many vital to the steel and armaments industry, were dependent on the water and hydroelectric power supplied by a series of massive dams. If Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers could breach the dams, the consequent floods would put the factories out of action. In a single mission, the same destructive result could be achieved that otherwise would have taken 3,000 bombers two weeks of bombing the factories directly. So vital was this area to the German war effort that RAF planners had considered it as a prime target before the war broke out in 1939. Operation Chastise was about to make these tentative plans a reality. Secondary aims of the operation were to deal a blow to German civilian morale and show both the British public and Britain's allies Russia and the United States that something was being done to take the war to Germany.

Five dams were targeted, but three were a priority: Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe. A second group, depending on the success against the first group, were Lister, Ennepe, and Diemel. The RAF knew that Möhne had air defences, and it was likely the others had, too. Möhne and Eder were concrete and, designed to withstand the massive pressure of water, immensely strong structures but relatively slim targets when seen from the air. Möhne, the primary target since a breach would directly flood the factories below (not the case with Eder), was the longest dam in Europe at 120 ft high (36.6 m), 25 ft thick (7.6 m) at the top, and 112 ft (34.1 m) thick at the base. The Möhne reservoir contained 140 million tons of water (Eder had 200 million). These dams were protected by two rows of anti-torpedo nets. Eder, much further to the east, was the second choice because it was concrete, although there were no military targets in the valley below. Sorpe was strategically more important than Eder, but because it was made of largely compacted earth, the effect of bombing was anticipated to be less. The destruction of these dams and others would require a completely new kind of bomb.

Continue reading...

#History #AirMinistry #BomberCommand #Britain #WHE #[ #]

[readyforevolution]

25 Top Facts about Eastern African countries

1. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest population of (126,527,060 people.)

2. Somalia 🇸🇴 has the largest coastline in the region.

3. Kenya 🇰🇪 has the highest GDP in the region.

4. South Sudan 🇸🇸 is the leading Oil Producing Country in the region.

5. Djibouti 🇩🇯 has the smallest population in the region.

6. Tanzania 🇹🇿 has the highest point in Africa, MT Kilimanjaro.

7. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the strongest military in the region.

8. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest Dam, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project in Africa.

9. Kenya 🇰🇪 has the largest desert lake in the world, lake Turkana

10. Uganda 🇺🇬 supplies electricity to Kenya, Tanzania and nearby DRC regions.

11. Rwanda 🇷🇼 has the cleanest city in Africa.

12. Burundi 🇧🇮 once had monarchs.

13. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is rich with historical sites of king's castles and Emperor's Palaces.

14. Eritrea 🇪🇷 women population in Eritrea is 3 times that of men.

15. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 has the largest lion species on earth, the Barbary lion with dark fur on the neck

16. Sudan 🇸🇩, South Sudan 🇸🇸and Ethiopia 🇪🇹 have a long history dating back 35○○ years ago.

17. Sudan 🇸🇩 has some ancient pyramids on its northern region.

18. 🇰🇪 🇺🇬 🇹🇿 Has Lake Victoria which is the largest fresh water lake in Africa.

19. 🇹🇿 And 🇰🇪 have serengeti and maasai mara home to the great migration and 8th wonder of the world.

20. Kenya 🇰🇪 Mombasa Port was the first port in the region to be established in 1896.

21. Somalia 🇸🇴 was the first country in Africa to produce a pilot.

22. In Uganda 🇺🇬, less than one dollar is enough to sustain you for a day.

23. Ethiopia 🇪🇹 had the strongest Emperor and Monarchs that made them resist Colonization.

24. Tanzania 🇹🇿, lake Tanganyika in Tz is the deepest lake in Africa,

25. Lastly the longest river in the world is river Nile which is estimated to be 3○ milliòn years old...

Kindly click on the link to subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/HistoricalAfrica

#blacktumblr #black history #african history #east africa #africa

[sunlightsshadow]

Alex's IT character essay

Im here to talk about how the new movies did the losers dirty

we’re gonna start with the Core four lets go

The first loser I want to adress is Bill, in the book bill is a kind friend and a good leader, encouraging his friends to be brave and giving up at nothing to avenge his baby brother, When he’s young he ventures on his own even when scared, he also cusses out It with no remorse, as an adult he’s determind to defeat IT once and for all, he also treats his wife audra with love and respect, her capture by IT helping further motivate him to defeat it.’

The movie doesnt change much about child bill besides his motivation, he wants to find out what happened to georgie, and he does. Adulthood is where they screwed up with Bill, He’s disrespectful to Audra, is rude to Mike and yells at eddie despite supposedly being Eddies best friend and knowing how he reacts in scary situations. This is something bill would have never done in the book, he would have encouraged eddie to be brave and tell him that its alright to be scared.

Next is Eddie, In the book Eddie, while scared easily, will do anything for bill and is the only one able to lead them through the tunnels, he’s their compass and medic, patching the others up and leading them. He even uses his supposed medical conditions to his advantage, spraying It in the face with his inhaler, believing it to be battery acid it damages the clown. 

The movie takes out a lot of eddie's important scenes, including the hospital where he sees his mom yell at his friends even while he sleeps, he’s not as determind to help bill and is more hyperactive and angry than he is in the book, though this movie is more accurate with myra than in the mini series, they did change his occupation which didnt make much sense to me. Being a driver in the book alluded to his role as having natural affinity towards directions in the book.

The third member of the Core Four is Stan, in the book stan is richies best friend, having an odd sense of humor and switching between being the other boys’ common sense and incouraging him. while it takes him the longest to truely beleive in IT hes the only loser to never truely forget. He’s a boyscout with a hyperfixation on birds that he uses to ground himself when IT traps him in the standpipe. 

The movie changes his character in a couple of drastic ways though not as bad as bill. They make him more sarcastic, putting up with richies antics less. they change his fear compleatly which doesnt really make sense, they didnt really have a need to do this. they also took away his hyperfixation and changed how intensly his family participated in judaism and I feel this affected his character. They also didnt touch on how he is the only loser who left to never truly forget, the book mentions how sometimes he would mutter about maturin or say things relating to IT that would scare patty. I do like how they handled his death more in this movie than in the book. The letter I feel gave his death more meaning than it had in the book.

The final member of the Core Four is Richie. In the book he does funny voice impressions (though they werent very good) and did his best to keep his friends spirits high. He’s also one of the only two losers who were able to see how IT arrived on earth. He was vitally important in the final battle because part of the ritual of Chud is telling jokes and he could tell that Bill needed help in the final battle so he went into the deadlights to help his friend defeat IT and incourage him. He also accidently stole the irish cops voice in his assistance of bill. 

    The movie virtually erases his character, taking out about 90% of his scenes and making him purely trashmouth, the second movie wasnt much better, vocusing on his sexuality which they didnt have to do. They made richies friends alot ruder to him than they were in the book and thats not fair.

    Now that we’re done with the core four Im going to adress the losers in order inwhich they joined the group, starting with Ben. In the book ben is there architect, naturally knowing how to build the dam that starts the begining of their group and later helping build and instructing on how to build their clubhouse, their safe haven from the cruelty of IT and Derry and allowing Mike and Richie to see how IT came to earth.

    In the movie he still builds the clubhouse but his main personality traits are “history nerd” and “loves beverly.” they gave Ben mikes job of historian and just ignored bens help in bringing the club together. Ben is the catalist for the losers club forming.

Next to join is beverly. Im not gonna lie I like how they do beverly in the movie. of the losers shes probably the one closest to how she is in the book. They still screwed up a bit though. for starters she mainly only interacts with bill and ben not the other losers. They also killed her mom which I dont like, her mom was gentle and kind to bev helping deflect her fathers rath. they took that from her.

The last, but no less important, loser i want to discuss is Mike. In the Book hes the historian and light house, He’s the character that puts the most research into It even in adult hood and he brings the others back home. He calmly explaines to them what must be done and the others trust him.

The movies took away his job of historian and made him frantic as an adult, the others don't trust him like they do in the book. Also he fucking drugs bill which is something he never would have fucking done. He’s calm and gentle and the others listen to and trust him. 

My final point: the most accurate character in these movies was the clown. and I dont understand why they couldnt just stay truer to the book. Maybe do something with how heavily queer coded eddie is instead of making being gay richis character ark. come on guys I know you can do better.

#alex speaks. #long post #it 2017 #it chapter 2 #losers club #character essay #im right

[bipercabeth]

👀 anything + "does it still hurt to think about?"

(happy birthday alyssa i love u!!!) 

this is a bellarke fic so let’s pretend it’s on my sideblog and call it a day. s7 compliant until 7x10. then i do what i want. 

It all happens so fast. 

Bellamy comes back, ragged and worse for wear but alive. He and Echo meet an abrupt, messy end Clarke doesn’t catch the details of. And somehow, inexplicably, Clarke ends up alone with Bellamy in Octavia’s quarters while the others recuperate. 

Part of her longs to be with them—making plans, gathering information, maybe trying MCAP to crack Bellamy’s stubborn memories—but loyalty and guilt keep her rooted in place. It’s stupid to think she could’ve prevented Bellamy from being taken in the first place, but still. She should’ve been there. She should’ve known sooner. 

“Stop thinking so loud,” Bellamy calls from the bathroom. 

It earns a laugh in the way only Bellamy can. Laughter has been scarce lately. It always seems to be when they’re apart. 

She pushes the door open and leans against the frame, making eye contact with Bellamy in the mirror. He’s frowning, running his fingers through the long beard he grew on Etherea. Clarke wonders how much time he’s lost. At least she knew the number of days she spent in Eden. It’s a cruel trick of the universe to steal more time after everything it’s put them through. 

“How’d you know?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “I still know you.” 

He says it like it’s inevitable. This man has no memory of the past several months to years of his life, but he knows when Clarke Griffin is overthinking based on her silence alone.  

“Can I ask you something?” 

Clarke smiles. “Anything.” 

He turns to her, scissors in hand. “Will you cut my hair?” 

She takes in his unruly waves, which are nearly as long as her own. “I don’t know, I kind of like matching.”

“Just take the damn scissors, Princess.”

Clarke’s hand freezes, her fingers ghosting over Bellamy’s. It takes all she has to curb the shock from her face, but she doesn’t manage to suppress her smile. “Been a while since you called me that,” she says lightly. She drags a chair from the corner and motions for him to sit. 

She busies herself ruffling his hair. “How short?” 

“Like it was before?” 

It makes sense, wanting to return to who he was and how he looked before this. It’s not Clarke’s favorite cut, but she can do it. She measures the length out with her fingers. “Here?” 

“No, before. On Earth.” His voice is heavy with significance. Clarke learned long ago not to put words in Bellamy’s mouth, but she can almost hear him say with you at the end of that sentence. 

She swallows. “I can do that.” 

She works in comfortable silence, chopping off the longest parts before shaping up the rest. Bellamy’s gaze burns into her through the mirror, but she can’t bring herself to meet it. Regardless of how fun it would be to make fun of him with half his head shaggy, all Clarke can think about is how he’ll look when she’s done. The Bellamy she imagined for six years in Eden is about to be in front of her. That takes some priority. 

Six years of cutting her own and Madi’s hair has made Clarke something of an expert. Before she knows it, Bellamy is halfway back to himself, save the beard. 

It’s a bit shorter than before, she thinks as he looks in the mirror. Despite her experience, she hasn’t done a cut like this. A slight miscalculation meant she had to take in the sides a bit more than she’d have liked, but it works for him. She thinks most looks would, even the caveman thing he has going on on the lower half of his face. After all, it’s Bellamy. 

Bellamy’s responding grin is somewhat hidden under the beard, but Clarke sees it in his eyes. He tips his head back against her chest as she fusses and fluffs the front with anxious hands. “Looks good, Princess.” 

There he goes with that nickname again. This time Clarke can’t hide the way her hands still. 

“You haven’t called me that in 131 years.” 

Bellamy frowns, as if to protest, but quickly devolves into distress and confusion. “I don’t think that’s right. I think I called you that when I was... wherever I was.” 

The amount of baggage to unpack in that statement alone almost shuts Clarke down. She can’t look at him. 

Instead she moves to the medicine cabinet, distracting herself with the need to get rid of that horrific beard. “Does it still hurt to think about?” 

“When I push too hard, yeah. Sometimes the memories are buried so deep it feels like someone is bashing against my skull. Sometimes I can feel them, even if I don’t know what they mean. I’m just drawn to certain things. I think that means they were important to me there.” 

“Like what?” 

“You.” 

When Clarke’s breath stutters and she looks at Bellamy, she only finds quiet resolve. 

“I may not remember it, but there’s no way I was stranded like that and didn’t think about you. And when I came through the Anomaly, that was the one thing that stayed with me. Just you.” 

“I know how you feel. After Praimfaya...” Clarke feels her cheeks heat. “Well, you know how I got through it.” 

The misery of all the times fate has ripped Bellamy away climbs in Clarke’s chest, propelling her back to the medicine cabinet where she finds shaving cream and a straight razor. 

Bellamy’s face changes in an instant, morphing from something wistful and longing to his signature Big Brother face. 

“Why is there a razor in my little sister’s room?” 

Clarke simply smiles. “Little?” 

“I don’t care how long she spent on Penance. She’s my baby sister,” he groans. “Besides. I could still be older.” 

He moves to take the razor from Clarke, but she holds it close. “Can I?” 

“I can shave myself, Clarke.” 

“I know, but—” The misery climbs up her throat, now— “I thought I lost you.” 

That softens him. He leans back and offers himself to her. “All yours.” 

There isn’t much room for talking after that. Clarke wets his beard and rubs in some shaving cream, thankful for the towel she wrapped around him before she started this whole process. She doesn’t want to see him in the stiff Bardo robes or the parka he made himself on Etherea. Here, in the Henley she recognizes from before he left, he is almost her Bellamy again. 

“Have you ever done this before?” he asks as she lines up the blade with his sideburn. 

“No,” she admits. “But I have steady hands.” 

They’re less steady with body heat radiating in the space between Clarke’s body and Bellamy’s, but she won’t tell him that. 

The first swipe is a series of careful tugs with her left hand, assisted by her right holding his skin. Each inch reveals constellations of the freckles she so dearly missed. 

Clarke watches his face as she tosses the hair and wipes the blade. He meets her with unwavering trust as she brings the blade back to his skin, this time with more confidence. With each pass, the man she loves comes back to her. 

Bellamy’s cheekbones are easy, all sharp lines and simple angles. It’s one thing to watch the freckles bloom on his cheeks and another entirely to feel his breath ghost her fingertips as she takes off his mustache. Her fingertip traces the scar on his lip without thought or caution. Her eyes follow. 

Next comes the divot in his chin, freed at last. Clarke rests her thumb there to tilt his head back for the final strokes along his neck. He’s all trust in her gentle hands. He always has been. It becomes them, same as love. 

Love lives in Clarke’s hands as she holds his neck, feeling his muscles jump with anticipation. They have never let themselves get this close, and now she understands why. Clarke has been so strong for so long, but Bellamy is her undoing. 

“All done,” she breathes. 

He sits up, but Clarke is frozen in place. Her blade hovers near Bellamy’s throat while her hand cups the other side. A single drop of blood gathers where she nicked his upper lip earlier. She has the ridiculous urge to kiss it away. 

“Been a while since I saw you bleed,” is all she can say. 

His breath is warm on her lips. “I don’t think it’s been a while since I bled.” 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to patch you up.” 

“You were,” he assures her.

“Bellamy, I...” 

“Yeah,” he eases the razor away and lets it clatter to the ground. “Me too.” 

The dam breaks, unleashing a flood of emotions Clarke never dreamed she would allow to surface. Bellamy’s hand tangles in her hair, and it’s unclear who pulls the other in first, but that doesn’t matter because his lips are on hers after centuries of waiting. She throws a leg over his lap and straddles him, her caution drowned in the wake of passion.

They part too soon for Clarke’s liking, but Bellamy’s hands stroke her back idly, like he has all the time in the world to touch her, and all that matters is that they get that time. They have seen the world end countless times, but it is reborn with each second Bellamy looks at Clarke like he looked at the sky that first day on Earth: joyful, disbelieving, reverent. 

“I never thought I’d get this,” he pants. 

“Me?” 

“Happiness.” He says it like it’s the same thing. 

Clarke kisses him for it, half because he’s sweet and half because she can. 

Their love has eclipsed entire planets, even outlasting the one where it was born, but he has always been Earth to her. The final journey home. Joy. 

And joy tasted better on Earth. 

#TUMBLR ATE THE FIRST PRINCESS LINE AFTER THE READ MORE RIP TO THOSE READING FROM EARLY RBS #this rly got away from me it was supposed to be a DRABBLE #BUT HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALYSSA I AM SORRY ALL I HAVE IS HALF EDITED FIC WHEN U DESERVE THE WORLD BUT I LOVE U!!!!!!!!!! #my fic #my bellarke #alyssa tag #the 100 #bellarke #useralyssa #the 100 fics

[salvatore-moreau-is-perfect]

SLIGHT PART 2 TO MY LUNCH DESASTER

(correct my spelling I will block you)

WHY IS CHEESE SO LIKED????

I am over here having to spray deodorant everywhere simply because the smell makes me physically ill while people like my dad are putting it on almost everything they eat.

Cheese on pizza? 100% ruins the meal and erases almost every other flavour

Cheese tostie? One of the worst foods on the planet

Cheese in sandwiches? WHY DO YOU WANT ONE OF THE MOST OVERPOWERING THINGS ON EARTH TO RUIN EVERYTHING ELSE YOU PUT IN IT

I know that I am over reacting but I am just so mad that I cant even eat my own lunch which was almost 30 fucking dollars all because the dam Door Dash app on my phone no longer lets me choose weather to have cheese on my favorite sandwich

Its the same with butter/margarine for god sakes. I am always seen as the weird/picky one of the family because I don't like those things when they don't seem to understand how sick the stuff makes me.

And I know its not because of a allergy or the lactose thing my sister has because I can drink milk and have ice-cream without any issue. Its just shit like butter and cheese that makes me want to be ill because of how god awful it is.

Edit/Add on even though no one has read this yet: I just remembered this bullshit my grandfather does, he knows how much I hate cheese and goes out of his way to state it every time I have dinner with him but he is a cunt that will deliberately hide stuff in food to make you eat it. I hate his lasagna and for the longest time I didn't know why because he would state every time "There is no cheese I promise, just how you like it" but he made the mistake of getting me to help make it and guess what I found out.......ITS COVERED IN CHEESE BASED SPREAD/SAUCE OR WHATEVER THE FUCK ITS CALLED!!!!!!!!

That is why I can never eat more than 1 piece

#cheese is awful #rant #food rant #screw cheese

[daymeetsnight]

this seems to be the most common map of the full continent- including Haradwaith and Rhun, but I have.......a couple issues with the geography.

Look, I know big vast deserts are cool and all but they don’t just happen out of the blue, even in irl Africa where the Sahara desert is. In most cases deserts are formed in rain shadows on the leeward sides of mountain ranges, where altitude changes force clouds to dump all their water so there’s nothing left by the time they get to the other side. In the Sahara’s case it’s 1. right along the equator, and 2. it’s actually a giant swatch of grasslands that has a dry/rainy season length of about 20,000 years due to how the earth orbits the sun. Seeing as how Arda was kind of two-dimensional for the longest time, it’s probably a different story for Harad.

The fandom wiki lists Harad’s ground as mostly sandstone and limestone which- not only is it way different from the kinds of ground found in the Sahara which it’s supposed to parallel- but sandstone and limestone mean we have a pretty big geographic issue on our hands.

Sandstone is a rock made from eroded bits of other rocks, but limestone is made of dead compressed seastuff. Smash a chunk apart and you’re likely to find bits of seashell and fossils. Both of them can be found forming in riverbeds or, and this is the one I’ve been building up to, inland seas. For the majority of Harad to be sandstone and limestone, it had to have been underwater for at least an age.

So that begs the question; if there was so much water in Harad, where did it all go? I have two different answers and each of them ends up with a very different map than I have here.

First up we have land buckling. Basically Harad would have been seafloor until something catastrophic such as major volcanic or tectonic activity, or say the Ainur sinking an entire piece of continent, which might just make enough ripples to raise part of the seafloor to the surface. We’d get Harad with plenty of limestone, but it would also have huge chunks of basalt, and wherever the continental plate cracked you’d have lines of volcanoes which would fill the whole area with jagged flaming mountains all lined up in scars. You might have a big uneven plateau in the middle of the desert and strangely flat slopes leading into the coast. You’d also have those weird diagonal chunks floating around as islands where the plate tried to rise up but broke apart in the process. Harad certainly wouldn’t be in the nice flat shape the fanon map has it in, and certainly not all in one piece. 

I’ve already briefly mentioned my second theory but let’s go in depth now. Inland seas. They’re fun. Usually they’re formed in an ice age where preexisting mountain ranges and compressed ice walls trap a lot of water between them in a giant bowl, and when the ice age ends the walls melt or break, the water floods out, and you’re left with some fun shoreline markers and really deep canyons. Now again, Arda was a flat planet until Sauron did a bad in Numenor, so cosmic orbital stuff like ice ages aren’t likely to apply yet. But there was continental damage in the sinking of Beleriand that could have broken say a ring of mountains holding in all that water.

It also means Harad should look a lot like the Bonneville shoreline.* And Goblin Valley. And the Grand Canyon. It should have arches, and hoodoos, and flash flood lanes all over. It should have entire plateaus of limestone cut deep with serious canyons. It should have zones of flat with giant boulders of mismatching stone. It should have visible waterlines in the mountains- and by the way, there should be a lot of mountains, particularly along either coastline.

Either way it’s not going to be one big flat grassland.

*okay I may be a little biased here because that’s the field I know the most about. I live next to the canyons. I’ve even been to the exact place where the ice dam broke and there’s just this giant square gap in the hills. It’s cool as hell and I like geeking out about it. And uh. also I have all the references I need just outside my door, including but not limited to: fauna, flora, landscape details, landscape colors, and a million bajillion examples from the indigenous tribes on how to survive from the land.

#about harad #long post #listen the shape can stay but the plains have got to go #i am gonna have to make my own map after all

[intellijuice]

Malfixation

A malicious fixation on a person animal or object that damages the relationship with that particular person, animal or object.

What started as a quick jot down so I would not forget the details of a regular life lesson that I repetitively fail at spawned a poem writing sesh with no food substance or breaks par a few sips of water 👍 at which point I could not remember what started the whole thing which is generally a good cue to break. Time flys when your cheating doves hey? (If you don't get that ask me it will be on the tip of your tongue I swear)

Often I am afraid to address some of the themes inside my poems that concern and investigate the war on drugs. The war on drugs is the worlds longest global conflict and the most deadly conflict of the 21st century and it continues everyday across the globe with no cease fire on a battlefield where the lines between chemistry and humanity are blurred and the victims and enemies share the same title. No matter who you are if you live on planet earth the war on drugs affects you either through psychological or physical addiction and dependancy based issues that have a wide reaching effect across the entire spectrum of society or because our most trusted public and private health providers are in oblivious to the notion that they might not only be ripping us off... but they could also be slowly killing us while we pay for the luxery. I am not an advocate for drugs but i am an advocate for harm minimisation and education. I have seen and experienced an overwhelming amount if pain caused not just these substances but the restrictions and poor regulation that has proven itself as ineffective and causing greater harm while ignoring the deeper issues that connect this problem to the rest of the problems the world faces this very instant. And so I am further inspired to continue my journey to stable sobriety and allow these experiences to serve as lessons to help others on their journey as well.

Right now we have this raw as fuck piece and I have to let it go for at least a day otherwise I might go insane perfecting this bad boy (im going to take some time with this one) So enjoy it in its raw infancy (i honestly cant stand it) before I cull the cheesy bits leaving only the finest mature vintage cheese for your ears to enjoy (that is also an original line and i am claiming it if no one else has). That and the flow needs heaps of tuning because it pops once it gets going and i want it to roll the whole way through but i keep making small edits and yeh I need that break haha. I really like where this is heading but maybe I am just giddy to have some words coming back into my life after and during a time of darkness. I was worried a part of myself was about to be lost and its a great relief to have that feeling come back strong.

And to my close friend and favourite fan who knows who they are. Please also know that I am very sorry and I miss you dearly. I hope you enjoy this poem in progress

Drug malfixiation creates a paradoxical relationship with the truth

Unfortunately the law doesn't always reflect the truth

Some lawful truths are built on a foundation of criminal misunderstandings

And some truths are so wrong they can not possibly be right

So what happens to people when their relationship with a particular truth threatens to expose them in an unforgiving world

How can we accept the phantom of an honest life while we are lead by the faults of our misgivings towards dishonoured hand shakes

Sculpting delusions to sleep inside these delusions we sculpted somewhere out of touch

As we press each other for so much for truth we fall under our weight of of our chests as they break

Forgotten is a beauty found entangled in the pearling of white lies and honest tests of faith

Blackened with protection and providing for redemption covered up with labels for conceptions

A journey started early will find no comfort if its late

Feeding rot stained paint into finite graves and turning powder into cakes

Left to learn from our mistakes and find safety in misdirection

Spinning up he stories told to find the pride we lost in honour and rejection

We find so much fault in failing because we succeed so much at decaying

We created extremes so separated we rarely see the child inside the adult or the human inside the crime

Following poisoned code written by the rot of skeletons who found taste in twisting adolescent minds

Who paid more for the gifts and curses of flesh and bone then keeping the words they scribbled on notes

Leaving the bitter taste of sitting on a throne when we gave up a priceless stream for the price of dams and because sometimes we only listen to what we think know

Strangling mountains for throw away vouchers to a life built by choices we mistook for power

Giving gifts to ill made saints we cry for pity and shed no tears for

Without proper education or dignified incentive

With little sense and heavy dollars

We are rewarded for chocking oceans

From a lifestyle that leaves a trail of orphans

Brought economy is a game that turns men into mouses and women into closets

People do drugs

To swim in the feelings that where stolen

In ways that make my heart sing

In ways that make mt heart weep

And in ways that make my heart bleed

Amplified by a scale so large we can no longer read the details that we need

Stolen by the wants we did not breed

The birthing if our choices is a fantasy that must fail to be conceived

Detailed by the extent of deceit and decency

And met by the breadth of charity when life mistakes our curse for our misery

To make cures we have to balance the toxicity

From the greed that burns through knowledge and turns suffering to mystery

So we cannot see

Only we could

Speak the ghost that haunts truths we lay for paths to foiled treachery

And fly without the boats we sail in births with ideal tendencies

Blind to brittle brutes who fight for empty souls

Masked by fractured glass we are freed by misplaced fools and fractured entities

The carless tracks we paint behind we hope might haunt they who gave more truth to pennies

While we drown in lost gold turning fire into frozen electricity

Atoms into farms and symbols into tools for blood tied by rope dripped in kerosene

Leaving scars on mastered tempered brass so large our warmth lost the moment we let the cold in

Shivering in denial when the mind drys up from being buried by a breaths so heavy it turns the tide

Where matter matters most is when it can be a ladder that we can climb

Before we forget we forgot how to die