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cinnamonest · 3 years

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Yandere Profile - Link (Legend of Zelda)

ABSOLUTELY YES. MY BOY. LOVE OF MY LIFE.

As some of you may know, today is the release date of Skyward Sword HD for Switch!! So I decided to release this one now in honor of that :3

NOTES:

I went towards the idea of a Princess!reader because that just opens the gate for sooooo much potential. I'm leaning heavily towards the ZeLink interactions in BoTW and Skyward Sword just because those games have the most interaction between the two.

Also! This is great bc it gives me the opportunity to explore an idea I've actually had a long time! I've always thought about how many opportunities there have been across the games for Link and Zelda to be kinda like "haha well seeya later" and just... bolt, run away from everything, abandon their roles and responsibilities and all that. Like, if OoT kid Link got her before Ganon did and ran, if SS Link just decided to get her on the bird and bolt before everything went down, if botw Link was just like haha what if we ran away from everything together... jk... unless...?

And final note, Link is a great pick for the very traditional yandere -- sweet and : ) but can snap into darker personas. I really liked writing this bc I tend to have more self centered yans and less of the "worships the ground you walk on" type of yans like I think Link would be, so it's a nice change.

As usual now the nsfw section is divided by a ---- line.

TWs: fem reader, heavily implied Zelda!reader, stalking, murder, very brief mentions of gore/dismemberment of rivals, manipulation, very brief suicide mention, themes of reincarnation (I’ve been told this can be triggering to some people so just in case)

TWs (nsfw section): noncon, somnophilia

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Severity Scale

Intelligence/Perceptiveness: 4 Brutality: 8.5 Physical capability: 8 Mental/emotional instability: 7 Restrictiveness: 6 Sexual sadism: 5 Stubbornness: 8

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

The primary trait of Link that any darling -- any person, really -- would notice is that he is, well, quiet. He has always been a man of few words, and really, he often doesn't know exactly what to say. On his own, at a first glance, he really does seem like a gentle, humble spirit, someone who blends into the background pretty well, who isn't particularly prideful or reckless or aggressive.

Which is why, to be honest, he might sort of evade the gaze of most people -- he doesn't stand out. You remember him as the boy that smiled at you now and then, it's a soft, gentle sort of smile, one that you feel conveys nothing but the utmost innocence and contentment with the world. You know he's pretty good at fighting, but doesn't get into fights needlessly, he's accomplished and respected, but has never been the guy everyone is talking about -- he's in the background, against the wall. Never speaking, always looking out, sometimes at the sky, sometimes carefully watching people. Sometimes you see him, gaze blank and tranquil, and wonder what he's thinking about. Whether he's the village boy in the time of Twilight, the trained and honored warrior that slept for many years, the boy that came down from the sky -- you can't help but feel at ease around him, safe, you can't help but find him endearing and pleasant.

Yet, you always seem to notice him. Other people... forget he exists, sometimes, he's so quiet. You never do, for whatever reason.

When he needs to get something across, he prefers to express himself through actions, not words. If you lived in Skyloft, or Ordon village, you might find problems mysteriously solved, work suddenly done that you don't remember doing. That fencepost outside your home that broke has been replaced overnight. A village child went missing and he comes back a few hours later with them in tow. Always humble, never demanding or expecting thanks, he tells you in his quiet voice that he's happy to help you.

And should you ever ask him for anything, he'll drop whatever he's doing to help. Anything for you, he says with a smile, which makes you feel a bit guilty when, honestly, you're not even sure you're remembering his name right.

And yet, sometimes, you feel so at ease around him it seems unnatural. He seems so easy to trust. You feel like you've known him forever. And sometimes you feel... for just a split second, less at ease. You find yourself randomly stiffening at his calm, sweet voice. You find yourself looking around when you're alone, as if you feel someone is there, and for some reason, his face flashes through your mind. Sometimes when he looks at you, you feel sort of cold. It's almost like invoking a memory you don't have, like some kind of learned instinct you can't recall a reason for. But those moments are fleeting, they come and go before you can even process them, replaced by warmth and comfort.

If you do spend time with him, if you find yourself gazing out your window when he's training, the next thing you notice besides him being quiet and sweet is that he's strong. It's almost ironic, how all the other knights or village boys are so aggressive and rowdy all the time, many of them taller or bulkier, and yet, none of them could ever dream of defeating Link. Not one can match his agility, speed, prowess. Such a pleasant, calm person, with so much skill, strength, and power, but that power is so rarely seen exerted. People marvel at his talent, they say it's as if he has the experience of lifetimes and lifetimes of battle in his blood.

And it's why you feel at ease when he's assigned the task of guarding you. His capabilities are unmatched, and yet you'd never fear any harm to you from him. Both of those traits put together make him the best candidate to protect you.

Of course, you do find yourself doing most of the talking. Sometimes you find yourself rambling to fill the silence, and you fear you're annoying him, but when you stop he raises an eyebrow and asks why you got so quiet. Did he do something wrong? He seems to worry about that a lot -- has he done something bad? Has he made you upset? Are you mad? At first you think he's worried about his position security, but after a while you realize he genuinely worries about it.

And when you do continue your ramblings, you're surprised to find he remembers your words -- every little thing you say. Things you don't even remember telling him. He asks you about that relative you mentioned one time, his eyes light up and he walks a bit to the side because look, it's your favorite flower over there, he'll get it for you. It's impressive, really, how he manages to remember such things. He must take his job very seriously.

He does enjoy giving you such things -- he loves giving you gifts. It's usually things he finds, wholesome little things -- makes a crown out of the flowers you like so much, finds something interesting here or there, while he was off-duty he saw something in the markets he thought you'd like and got it for you. You almost feel guilty, it's so constant that he's giving you things.

Sometimes you ask him about himself, you realize he knows so much about you and you so little about him. He blushes, he rubs the back of his head, he insists there's nothing interesting about him, he wouldn't waste your time like that. It takes time to get him out of his shell, but eventually, he tells you this or that, little stories from his life.

Sometimes you take long walks, you like to get out of the stuffy walls and have fun outside, he accompanies you across Hyrule. Sometimes it feels familiar, you pass places you've never been that give you a feeling of nostalgia, deja vu, a sense that you've been here before.

He’s protectiveness incarnated. Insanely so. He can spring to his feet at a moment's notice and deals with anything that comes for you before they can even get close.

It makes you feel safe, but there's something else there. It's a ferocity that is so contrasting to his normal self, different even from the times you've seen him fight as he trains. It's a glint in the eyes, an aggression in his expression, that almost makes him seem like a different person. And it lingers for a moment, once the creature is dead and his sword hand falls to his side, he turns and glances at you to his side, a hand raised to wipe the blood off his face, and for that lingering second, it's still there, his blank expression and wide eyes -- a ferocity so intense it starts to look like bloodlust, chaos, destruction. And then, it's as if you imagined it. Smiling and telling you it's gone now, you're ok. You're glad he's so truly devoted.

In fact, he's so dedicated to his job that he starts... doing it... outside of his job hours...? Well, today he was given the day off, and you were told to stay inside because you didn't have to go out. He comes knocking on your door, says not to be startled if you hear someone outside your door move or shift or anything, but he just wanted to let you know in case. He'll be right here. Keeping watch. So don't worry. You're safe.

And likewise, he was supposed to have a day off when you were supposed to enter the town. You were assigned two other guards to watch you, since it's a special trip, so you're surprised to find just Link waiting for you. He took care of it, he says, he didn't feel right leaving your safety up to someone else, he doesn't trust them. So they agreed to let him take over for today.

All of this said, he doesn't have to grow alongside you, he doesn't have to be the childhood friend, the knight who guards you. He doesn't even have to have met you. Fate works in odd ways like that. There's a sort of inexplicable instant attachment he takes to you, almost as though it's some kind of destined, divinely inspired sort of thing. He would describe it as saying you feel familiar to him.

He's also, notably, prone to a more traditional trope of what you might call humility whiplash. For the most part, he's got that overly humble, worshipping, "I don't deserve to even stand in your presence" sort of mentality. However, although it's rare and requires a lot of wearing down his mental state, if pushed far enough, he can have brief moments where he snaps into more or less the complete opposite -- entitlement, arrogance, aggression, getting mad at you for the behavior he'd normally take with a smile on his face. Thankfully, unlike some yanderes that have a whole snapping episode towards their darling, his are very very brief, usually only a matter of seconds or a single snarled sentence before he snaps back to normal, wide-eyed and apologetic and telling you I don't know what came over me. It’s... a little frightening to say the least, but you blow it off, tell yourself that hey, everyone has moments like that... Right?

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

For the most part, he doesn't need it, he can pretty easily cling to your side well enough to be assured of your safety, and he manages to scare off the undesirables not with a glare, but a smile that's just a little too sweet and far too persistent -- it unnerves people. You hear a lot of people say that something about that guy rubs me the wrong way. Or that he gives me goosebumps for some reason. Even the people he scares away themselves can't pinpoint exactly what it is, all they know is that, despite being reputed as kind and quiet (and maybe a little dense), somehow a lot of people agree that something about him puts people at unease, and that's all he needs. Because they stay away from him, and if he’s by your side all the time, that means they stay away from you too. Why keep you trapped when you can just be isolated?

An aware Link is a a unique scenario. One scenario that's rather... interesting to imagine is a Link that defies fate itself, a Link that decides to be selfish in one of those rare snapping moments of his. Perhaps he makes a decision when everything starts going down, when the chaos is beginning, or perhaps he has somehow managed to gain knowledge of the bigger picture at work, the reality of the nature of your existence and his.

Perhaps he begins to think it's unfair. To suffer again and again. To prove himself again and again, and not always even to reap any benefits, to work so hard and yet still -- still -- you slip out of his grasp. He longs for a life with no tribulations, no struggle, no fights to be fought. He begins to feel like it's what he wants the most. He begins to feel like maybe it's what he deserves. So many lifetimes of struggles, if the higher powers won't give him a reward, he'll take it himself.

And perhaps, for all their higher power, not even the great goddesses themselves would have ever predicted it -- humans are ultimately creatures of will. To defy fate and to run away from destiny -- it wouldn't be the first time a human has tried such a thing. Sure, Hyrule may be destroyed. The people may all die. There may be nothing left. But you know what? He's stopped caring. If you're alive and he's alive, tucked away in your little corner of the world where you've found respite, well, that's all he needs. Even if you're on the run from forces that would want to find you, even if the threat of the final third of the triforce owner looms over your head. He'll ignore it, he'll look away.

You'll live a quiet little life together, a happy life without suffering, without quests and enemies, without strife, without worry. That's what he tells you when he steals you away, lifts you out of your bed one night. Says to be quiet, there's danger outside your door, he's rescuing you. You have no reason to not believe him. He waits until things go down, a castle under siege, but rather than taking you to where you're supposed to go, he climbs onto the horse and starts... riding away. It gets further and further into the distance, and you might ask why, what's going on? You have a job to do, he has a battle to be fought. But he says you're going far, far away, someplace you'll be safe.

But what about the divine beasts, the seals, the Twilight, whatever threat runs in this world in this time, what about the threat of Ganon, you ask? He says it doesn't matter anymore. You were doomed to fail, he thinks, it's either stay here and die, or run away. All that matters is you. And he'd like you to feel the same way for him. You will with enough time, don't worry.

He just wants this happy, quiet life with you that he’s been denied time and time again. It’s all he wants. If fate won’t give it to him, he’ll make it happen himself, and carve out the life he is determined to have, defying even the will of higher power.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape?

He gets it. Really, he does. "Stop following me!" You yell. Well, he understands why you might feel that way, but this is kinda his job. He thinks you're naive. Not that he would ever, ever have a thought that you're imperfect, of course! It's because you're so perfect and pure that you're... less aware of the dangers all around.

He'll let you think you're free, perhaps. He's more than capable of being quiet, quiet is kind of his thing. Watching you from a short distance is easy. Of course, his horse might make a noise, he can't really help that, or he might misstep on a branch or something. And then you turn around and get all mad again. Now you're even more angry. Well, he can also tell your guardians/father, who will encourage you to accept it. You can't help but feel a little bad -- he's just doing his job.

Now, our aware, runaway Link, well, does he really need to keep you restrained? What would you go back to? Certain death, a land destroyed? Sometimes you mention home, and he's quick to remind you that home doesn't exist anymore. His home is where you are. Can't you feel the same way? You found peace here in this little place -- a village far far away. Travelers, you call yourselves. What's the point in going elsewhere? How would you ever survive without him? He's not very good at being subtle or skillful about the psychological manipulation, it's obvious he's trying to scare you into not leaving, but... it still works, because really, he has a point.

He doesn't want to have to use physical restraint, in any case. And for the most part, it's not needed, because one important aspect of your relation is that his job kinda revolves around you (in some incarnations), or, perhaps you live in the same little village, but either way the thing is that his presence does the job well enough -- he's always there, perhaps more so than almost any other yandere. Even when you think you've managed to get away from him for a moment, somehow his face pops up out of nowhere. How he manages to pull it off is a mystery, you swear he manages to find you so well and predict your movements it's inhuman.

But if you really, really pose a problem, a smarter and sneakier darling that somehow manages to keep slipping out of his grasp and running off (you never get away for more than about 20 minutes or so, but nonetheless), you keep trying to run off when he's sleeping (he wakes up in approximately 25 seconds if your presence is absent from the bed, but that's still enough time to run out the front door), every time he turns his head (which isn't often) you're trying to disappear... well, in that case, he can reach a point of deciding more straightforward measures are necessary. He hates to do it, really, at least when he's not yet at a snapping point. But it's for your own good. And he says so, quite apologetically.

But it's not so bad, it's not like you're being chained to a wall or anything. For one, he got leather ties so you'd be more comfortable, but more importantly, as your guardian, he figured the best thing for you to be tied to would be... himself. Think of it like friendship bracelets! It's just... got a 5-foot chain connecting them. This way you can't sneak off at night, and you won't get too far when he's distracted. It's a safety measure.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

He's a learner. At first, it's easy. Honestly, he is a rather naive, gullible boy, sometimes he reminds you of a happy dog with his bright eyes. He likes to believe the best of people, give them the benefit of the doubt in all circumstances, and that goes double for you, who he believes can do no wrong.

And even when you do lie to him, it's still not wrong. You didn't do anything bad. Clearly there has simply been a misunderstanding, and you thought you had to lie. Or perhaps you simply forgot a detail or were confusing something with something else. It wasn't malicious on your end, he knows that.

He's actually significantly smarter than he lets on in practical knowledge, though. Those dungeon puzzles pay off, you know? He's got pattern recognition down. So over time he learns how to distinguish when you're lying to him or attempting to deceive him, and sees through it increasingly well.

And yet, he doesn't really... get mad over it, most of the time. Again, he's just capable of deluding himself into believing there's a reason. He believes so strongly in your goodness that he finds a way to interpret everything you do as out of benevolence. So you snuck out the window and didn't tell him you were going for a walk because you just wanted to get away from his suffocating presence for once? You were just thinking of him. You didn't want to burden him and wanted to give him a break. Well, that's thoughtful, but don't worry, he doesn't need a break. He thinks it's precious you're so considerate of him though!

You don't tell him you were talking to that person, and you lie and say no when he asks, because you don't want him to worry, and because you underestimate how dangerous others can be. He's told you a million times and you don't listen, but that's ok, it's because you're just so pure you see the best in everyone. Everything you do is good.

Because he perceives your lies, he will still work against and around it. He won't confront you on your lies, he'll just make sure to deal with the situation -- you lied about sneaking out, well, he'll just keep watch and be ready to meet you outside next time. You lied about talking to a person, well, he'll just have to make sure they stay away from you instead.

If you're trying to trick him, he just plays along until necessary. Smiles and nods. He gets the suspicion you're planning a break-out when he told you he was leaving to go get something from town... rather than saying so, he just decides, you know what? Why don't you come with him? Oh, you're feeling sick, you tell him it's ok, go without you? Well, he can't leave you alone then! Because you're clearly not and just trying to get him to leave... or, as he says, he can't just leave you alone. He'll go another day.

He's fairly manipulable when it comes to praise and affection. You can easily Pavlov him into certain behaviors or patterns with just the slightest words of praise and affection. He's not a very outwardly expressive person, tends to stay quiet, but you can tell how he feels inside when you give the slightest praise, a hug, a kiss on the cheek -- you can see that soft hint of a smile and tell that inside, he's basically melting, even if it's not obvious to most people. And, much like the lying, he’s honestly often aware of it, but he just can’t help it.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He tries to get you the things that he feels will make you happy. Your happiness is incredibly important to him, and he usually thinks about how any action he plans to take might affect you, spends a lot of time debating choices of things to do or say and try to determine how each one will affect you and choose accordingly.

As such, he goes out of his way to support the things you want to do. Have a hobby? He'll find the best materials available. Want a book or a food? He'll obtain it through some means. Even if procuring it involves a side-quest-y set of mundane tasks or scouring the world for 70 of this and 50 of that to exchange it for the item from an obscure specialist, it's all worth it.

The only thing he just doesn't give up on is the constant vigilance and insistence on being by your side more or less every waking second. And every sleeping second. And just every single moment you're alive. It's for your safety.

This is actually one of the things he can get a little nasty about when it comes to how he deals with it, because he quickly has the bright idea that if you don't get it, he'll make you understand. Of course, he can't actually risk you getting hurt, so he stages it. Allows you to sneak off, or at least think you have, and walk right into the path of those monsters he lured, or the people he hired to intimidate you. Of course, it's only natural that he shows up at the last possible second, right on time to save you. You should expect that, after all, it's his responsibility to protect you, of course fate works out perfectly like this. See, he was right, it's so dangerous, and without him you'd be dead. Hopefully you grasp that now.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

His is mostly related to vigilance. Where are you? Who have you been talking to? Who was that person you were talking with just now? What did they say? He's not nosy. He just cares about you. It’s in the job description. You ought to understand just how much certain bad people would love to find you and hurt you. That's why he has to know.

This isn't our modern world, so there's no phones or tracking devices to speak of, just himself, which, well, might as well be a tracking device since he never seems to have difficulty finding you. Sometimes you're not sure how he does it.

He tells you that you don't have to be with him 24/7, but you will be, even if you don't realize it. He's aware enough to know that you'll feel suffocated and get mad if you're aware of his presence all the time, so he gives you your "alone" time, aka, the "follow her quietly from a 20+ foot distance" time. It all feels the same to you. Well, sometimes you feel eyes on you, but you shake the feeling off as paranoia.

So it's not so much that he sets rules and reacts when they're broken, but rather, he works his way around anything you might do so well that he doesn't need you to follow his rules, or really, you take them more as suggestions. But honestly, that's kind of worse. It's enough to drive a darling to the brink of a mental breakdown very quickly. With Link you will inevitably become paranoid, nervous, you feel like you're going insane because he manages to pop up everywhere, he always knows what you did when you did it and you have no idea how it is even conceivably possible for him to know some of the things that he knows. He confronts you very plainly and quietly, often sweetly, asking why you did this or that or telling you it's ok, you don't have to hide anything, surely there’s a good reason, and if not, he forgives you anyway. In a way, it's worse than an angry confrontation. You begin to feel like he's omnipresent, like he can read your mind, and it truly takes a mental toll and affect you worse than any normal yandere's concept of punishment.

This ultimately works out well in his favor. The more you just do what he wants, the less it feels like a violation or intrusion that he knows these things, since he was there with you, it makes sense, and you continuously get bent to his will.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Ah, and thus we get to that brutality rating.

It would be unthinkable to think that any sort of scum would even dare. Even he isn't worthy of being with you, and someone else thinks they could be? So, he more or less views "rivals" as an offense. When they're threats, well, he's allowed to deal with them. When they're not, well... he has a wonderful reputation. If he says he overheard that person planning usurpation or assassination, that they realized he was listening in and wildly attacked him, everyone will believe him. Even if the death seems a little... non-immediate. And uh... frankly... overkill. How exactly... did those limbs get perfectly severed during equally armed combat? And was it... really necessary... to kinda spill entrails all over like that? He'll apologize, of course, he was just so outraged by the thought of someone hurting you or your family, you know? You notice his eye twitches a bit as he says it.

He has a lot of... bottled up frustrations, which we'll touch on in the nsfw section as well, but it tends to manifest in those two ways: sex and violence. Rather than exerting stress and anger and frustration as it comes, he lets it fester. He tries to maintain being the noble, humble, self-sacrificing person he feels he should be. That is... difficult to do for a long time. People expect a lot from him, even in timelines where he's not necessarily realized as the hero quite yet, he usually has a lot of responsibilities. But then you tack on the whole hero thing? The weight of the world is sometimes, quite literally, on his shoulders. Do you have any idea the kind of stress that comes with that knowledge? It's not pleasant. And it quickly bottles up, a very very fragile bottle set to eventually shatter in a matter of time.

On a longer sort of quest, he just kinda... leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. Enemies don't actually just poof out of existence the way they do on-screen, you know. Anyone coming across an area he's just been through is met with literal piles upon piles of corpses, sometimes monsters, but sometimes people. He takes a very scorched earth sort of policy when it comes to dealing with things.

He's able to easily get close to people, with that sweet face and puppy eyes and lithe body, people don't really feel on guard around him nor intimidated. That makes it significantly easier to infiltrate enemy hideouts, earn favors, and work his way in to be able to commit mass murder more easily. Granted, no one thinks too much of it because they *are* truly enemies, after all, they *did* need to be taken out and well, if the rulers can choose to either send a group of ten soldiers or just one guy and get the job done equally well either way, they'll go with the latter option. No one thinks anything of it, except the occasional person who laughs and says something to the effect of remind me to never get on your bad side, haha! He gives that sheepish, sweet little smile, and jokingly tells them that yeah, better not.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

For you, nearly impossible. For others, at a hair trigger.

For the most part, he conceals anger well until, as aforementioned, it bottles up and bursts. The truth is he gets irritated virtually all the time by other people. People who talk to you. Look at you. Smile at you. He’s actually rather easily annoyed even when you’re not involved, but again, he’s good at hiding it until it builds.

His rage has a commonality with his calm -- it's quiet. At least, at first. When it's directed at others, his eyes narrow. It's the telltale sign that someone has ignited his rage. It burns on the inside, it starts off as a spark that builds and builds and grows larger and larger until it's a blazing fire that consumes everything in his path. It's a loss of composure, a rare moment of complete loss of self-control. From his own perspective, it feels like he's not in control of his own body, it's all a blur happening in front of him and when it's over he's looking down at his own hands, unable to process his own actions, sometimes unable to remember them.

But it's violent, merciless, unforgiving. It does not yield to begging, it does not leave anything alive unless forced to. You remember the first time you realized how unnatural it was, how shocked you were at how he did something that certainly went against the code he was sworn to follow, the very first time you felt truly afraid of Link. It was a walk in town -- someone called out to you, spitting obscenities about you and your family, your lineage, threw something at you -- he caught it in his hand and crushed it, and quickly, without a word, advanced on the offender. And, to make a long story short, you had to prevent him from beating a man to death in public in broad daylight. He was forgiven by his superiors, but even they seemed shocked. You had to pull him off, and when he jerked his head around to look at whatever was stopping him -- before his face softened as he recognized your own face -- the split second you saw the burn of hatred and fury in eyes that were normally so soft and loving, was nothing short of unsettling, you still recall the chill that ran down your spine.

And honestly? It's terrifying. And the first time, it's shocking. Sure, you knew he could fight. You've seen him fight off monsters, bokoblins and lizalfos and the like. But something is different about seeing the blood of a human being run down his sword, dripping onto the ground, to see the bodies and the blank, numb gaze on his features he always has after it's over. The absolute lack of hesitancy he has to run human enemies through before they even have a chance to explain themselves, how unbothered he seems by the carnage left in his wake. The way he turns back to you, drenched in red and smiles, tells you it's ok, you're safe now. There's no need to look so scared.

And it changes how you view him, in the long run. Less of a guardian angel, more of a guardian dog, one that defends your name when you never asked him to. Pleads to tell him not to fall on deaf ears -- you just don't understand why it has to be this way, he says, you can't comprehend the threat they posed. From the sweet boy that leaves you flowers and repairs and instead leaves a wave of destruction in his path you would not have thought possible.

Directed towards you, though, it's entirely different. He tries his best to have patience with you, no matter what. He smiles, he tries to make excuses as to why you'd say this or do that, why you'd feel a certain way, and he's rather good at deluding himself to give you the benefit of the doubt.

But when it reaches an end, when he can no longer lie to himself, when you push it to a point that you truly make him mad, it's more of a snap. The times he'll lay hands on you in a truly violent way are rare, and as aforementioned, very brief. It's usually not so much of actually a blow, so much as a grab. He just can't get what he's trying to tell you through your thick head, so he stresses it, trying to make you understand as he grabs you by the upper arms, shaking you with each word, and he only stops when he sees the pain and fear in your eyes, drawing his hands back at lightning speed. He saves you from some danger very narrowly, one of the few times he lost track of you for a moment and had to frantically search before coming across you being attacked. What would I have done if something happened to you? Don't you understand that? He's so lost in the relief it takes him a moment to feel you beating on his arms in the embrace, choking and wheezing that you can't breathe, that his grip is so tight it feels like he'll snap you in half. He draws back again, and he apologizes, but it will certainly happen more than once.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Above. Like, so, so, so far above. He feels like he doesn't even deserve to look at you. Of course, neither does anyone else, so he's just, you know, stepping up to bear the burden of wrongdoing to keep people even worse than him away from you.

So it's less that you're just above him so much as you're above everyone. He's actually, perhaps surprisingly, a little bit of a pessimist about the world. The world is full of so many terrible people and so many horrible things happen that he's borne witness to. It's a "world cold and hard, (y/n) soft and warm" sort of thing. You're the one good thing, the thing that makes him happy, the ultimate source of comfort he has, and he has to prevent you from being defiled by the evil of the world, keep you innocent and sweet (even if he's just deluding himself to think you are those things in the first place).

This ties into, again, how he interprets every action you take as good and benevolent -- he has the "you can do no wrong" mentality. Even very blatantly malicious things, he'll interpret in a way that makes you somehow still come out a perfect, innocent angel. If you do harm to others, well, they simply deserved it. You did something technically wrong, but you knew no better, or you were desperate. You can't be held responsible for any of it. And if you're mean to him, well, he probably did something to make you upset.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Sort of a duality. Yes, he's very persistent. He thinks about it all the time. Every time you yell and try to run and hurl nasty insults at him, it hurts far more than you realize. He doesn't let it show on his face or in his voice, but it really does, and it gets to him sometimes. He's hyper observant of every little thing you do, your body language, your tone, the way you look at him, and the slightest of differences can change his mood internally, although it tends to look the same outwardly.

He makes little mental notes of it -- today she didn't flinch when I touched her shoulder. Today she didn't frown when she saw me coming. Little things like that will make his entire day. Likewise, the inverse kills him inside. He aims to make every day one of the former days, where the littlest signs of acceptance or even kindness and affection give him a sort of high that makes him feel like he's floating.

He tries his best to do things that he thinks will, well, earn love. Every opportunity to do something for you, he takes it. Everything he sees he'd think you'd like, he buys (or steals, or... loots from a dead body) for you. On and on that idea goes. And although he doesn't say too much, when he does speak to you, he usually has something nice to say. He views it in a formulaic way -- ironically, think about it like those collectibles in overworlds. You get enough of this or that thing, and once you have enough, you can go talk to this or that person and donate them all and get a reward, right? He's accustomed to viewing things that way. Love should be the same way. If he just completes enough tasks and gathers enough items, eventually he'll unlock your love.

That being said, even if it doesn't happen, much to your despair, he just... doesn't. Give. Up. He doesn't quit. No matter how many times you tell him, it doesn't make a difference. You can tell him you'll never love him, and it's like it goes in one ear and out the other. He keeps trying. And he never, ever, ever stops trying. What did you expect? The boy's been fighting the same enemy over and over across lifetimes, needless to say his spirit has build up some persistence.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Bonus: Zelda/Triforce of Wisdom Darling

And don't worry. If it all goes wrong, when he fails, those divergences in time where the hero is vanquished and evil wins out -- it's not the end. Somehow, that's the feeling he gets, holding your little lifeless body up, running hands across your cold skin. Somehow, he feels oddly calm. Like it hurts, but it's ok. Like he'll see you again. Maybe not soon, but one day. This time didn't work out. But the next one will.

And that's the feeling you'll always have. Every time you meet him and you feel like you've met before, the lingering memories when you wake from your dreams -- flying through skies and sailing on oceans, a child, an adult, a boy you've never met, or one you've known all your life, but it's always the same face, the same voice, the one right beside you in the waking world. You sometimes wonder if he has the same feelings, the same dreams, the same sense of something greater than yourselves at work, the sense of being just smaller pieces in a much bigger picture.

The sense of permanency, that each other is all there will ever be -- regardless of how it makes you feel, regardless of how that scares you, sometimes you feel like you can never be free. Sometimes, when you think of running away, those dark moments when you think of even escaping from life itself, it feels futile. It's as if you know it would never hold him away forever. As if death is insignificant. Perhaps in this lifetime, you'll become aware of why that is, or perhaps not.

With other obsessive lovers, just the idea of til death do us part is a terrifying thought. But, for Link, not even death can keep him away from you. Your suffering is already determined by the will of higher power, for the sake of a greater good.

In truth, it’s the goddesses who made him this way intentionally -- it’s designed to ensure your safety, even at the cost of your suffering. Again, for a greater good. Sure, you may live one lifetime to the next desperately locked in the same cycle in which your freedom and will is stripped from you, but in the end, it serves a purpose.

Nor will he change -- perhaps this one this time is a bit more spirited, more calm, more pessimistic, more optimistic... but in the end, at their core, they're the same soul, with the same will deep, deep down. The same drive to find you and protect you. The same love for you, an all-consuming love that destroys everything in its path to you and leaves ruin in its wake.

And if fate should one day keep you apart, should things change, for whatever reason, it’s unable to change him. There's another force even more powerful than fate determined to keep you together. The only thing more unavoidable, inevitable, and unescapable than fate, is Link himself.

------------------------------------

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

In moments of passion, he changes a bit, unlike other more submissive yans who stay consistent in their reverence and desire to please.

You see, after a while, being as lenient and tolerant and flexible and completely devoted as he is... constantly self-sacrificing in so many ways, to you, to Hyrule, to the world... some frustrations build up. It's a big, big bottle of emotion, all tucked away and festering, getting greater and greater and eventually it has to explode somehow.

His reservations and inhibitions fall away. Perhaps a darker, more selfish side comes out. Perhaps that's why he's so rough. He knows he'll regret it later, the bruises from how hard he grips, the marks from the bites, but the hormones and the heat takes over. He'll feel bad for defiling you. He'll apologize. And he'll do it again. And again. And again.

But once the resolve crumbles, it topples. That is, he can't partially maintain it -- if it's partially gone, it falls apart completely. He lets go, so to speak. And when he lets go, you find that underneath that carefully constructed resolve and willpower that holds him back, he can be a very, very rough and possessive lover. In his normal state, he wouldn't dare think of you as a possession, or as something he's even worthy of. He would like so, so much to think that, to feel like he's allowed to -- but he doesn't. He chastises himself for even having such a desire. But in those moments, when his resolve is gone and his brain isn't thinking quite too clearly, he might even have to audacity to say "mine." Even if it's not true, not now, maybe it will be. He would like that so much. His and his alone.

And in a moment of clarity, he might even throw away the inhibition on purpose. The more selfish side, the same Link that drags you away from your destiny -- he's already forsaken his responsibilities, hasn't he? Why care anymore about the structures that no longer exist, your status and his, if there's no kingdom left? He likes that it happened, even. This way, this time, you can throw off those titles, those roles. Without your status, your title, there's nothing stopping him from making you his. And you will be his, and nothing more. It's all you need to be. So he doesn't have to care anymore about any of that, he doesn't have to stop himself from going wild. Biting into every little spare patch of skin, covering your body with marks that make him feel comforted to see.

As far as drive it's a bit of a two-sided duality. Outwardly he's not a very sexual person at all, blushes and stutters and averts his gaze at the slightest mention of suggestive topics, tries his best to be Respectful(tm) by always looking away when you're in a compromising position, or your skirt flies up, etc etc. Given how constant his vigilance is, he has a tendency to accidentally walk in on your changing or bathing, except unlike with many yanderes, it's genuinely an accident. Not that the image doesn't stick in his mind, nor does he wish he hadn't gotten to see, but he does feel guilty, and it was genuinely unintentional. He kinda freezes up, so it takes a moment for him to actually snap out of it and run out.

That being said, he quickly develops something of a masturbation addiction when he's younger, it starts as more of a stress reliever than anything, He's so sweet and always feels bad about talking about his problems and feelings, so that and, well, violence are the only ways he can get it out. Thus he learns to channel stress and nerves into sexuality, and once he has a real living body and not just his hand, that dependency on cumming to relieve it doesn't change.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Particularly so, yes, cares quite a bit. And it takes a while for him to feel comfortable. Even consensually, the first few times he touches you for several months, he's got trembling hands and stays quieter than ever, constantly freezes up every time you move or make a noise because he thinks he's done something wrong. He has to be coaxed into feeling more comfortable before he gets used to it, but he will build confidence over time.

As addressed before, though, if he's pushed and pushed and pushed long enough, you can get a darker side to come out. This is most likely something that would only occur post-kidnapping in a distant time, once he's far away from any possibility of consequence and destruction has set in to the world around you. He starts to get a little bitter, if you've been mean to him. It all builds up. Don't you get that he's literally saved your life? That he devoted every waking second to you? Isn't he kinda entitled to some thanks? The cycle of time never rewards him. Even the figures he helps over time rarely give him more than a verbal praise and thanks, maybe an item here or there, and then disappear. His role feels thankless. He starts to feel like he deserves something, something tangible, in return.

Surprisingly, though, he actually does not take the route of guilt-tripping or emotional manipulation or gaslighting his way into it like a lot of the sweeter yanderes when he does have that snap. His snaps/breakdowns are rather extreme in terms of how much of a polar opposite they are to his normal state, rather than just a slight bend of his normal personality. Rather than taking the route of most yanderes like himself, he just gets directly physically forceful. Still somewhat sweet, though, reminds you he loves you, he'd die for you, you're his entire world. You'd argue that doesn't really change the actions, but considering how frightening he is in that state, you're not dumb enough to vocalize that.

The guilt consumes him alive afterwards. Like, immediately afterwards. He's still panting and twitching and buried inside when it sets in. That being said, he doesn't get to stuttering and profusely apologizing, like he does over smaller offenses. It's all done and he can't take it back, so he just kinda collapses and says nothing. He's not the best with words, you know. It's an odd mixture of guilt and, honestly, a bit of satisfaction and relief. It feels like letting go of some self-imposed burden, that feeling of finally surrendering to some deep want, even if it comes with a lot of remorse, the relief of finally letting go does have a good feeling as well... and because of that, it’s another one of those barriers that, once broken, can’t be built up again.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

In all honesty the boy is, for the most part, a fairly gentle and vanilla lover. He doesn't really need anything special to get off -- he's easily excited and cums very very easily too. Just the prospect of getting to stick his dick in you in any capacity is enough to make him nearly burst at the thought honestly.

In general, as aforementioned, he's very very cautious and gentle to a point, but has a tendency to get actually kinda rough once he gets into it. The thing is, the roughness aspect is actually unintentional. He's one of those boys that is a little bit unaware of his own strength, doesn't process exactly how hard and fast he's going. He just gets lost in the feeling, kinda enters a dazed lusty haze where he's less aware of his actions. Doesn't realize he's literally got an iron grip pressing your head down on his dick or into the bed until you start flailing your hands because you can't breathe. Doesn't realize how hard he was gripping until he sees the bruises on your arms and hips later. That sort of deal -- poor thing is just unaware and doesn't have enough blood in his brain to think straight.

Biting

Surprisingly a really big one for him. (Remnants of a past life cycle with some lupine experiences perhaps?) In all seriousness, he could not explain exactly why if asked, it's one of those "I just like it" sort of things. It feels like yet another way to conjoin the two bodies, pulls you close. The marking aspect is also nice. Granted, he feels guilty afterwards, tries to help it heal. He has that same duality where moments ago he was this intimidating beast of a human being, rough and growly and jerking you like you were weightless, and now he's back to this bright eyed softie stuttering while he apologizes.

The guilt is mixed with a bit of enjoyment, though. It's constantly conflicting -- sure, part of him understands it's embarrassing and will help you cover up, but part of him doesn't want to, he wants people to see. Part of him looks at the marks and tells himself internally to never do that again, and part of him sees them and just wants to give you even more. It's a constant internal conflict, poor thing.

As far as a place, he likes the neck and shoulders best, simply because it's the most visible and it's the most passionate ones to create, when your bodies are tightly locked together. That being said, though, he also has a thing for biting at the insides of your thighs. It's another one of those I just like it sort of things.

Sometimes, when you're asleep, or pretending to be, you can feel him trace the bite marks with his fingers, softly running them over the circular pattern, just enough to barely ghost over your flesh.

Somnophilia

It puts him at ease. This one is particularly prevalent towards the beginning of your relationship, before you really know... how he is. He has this image of you as so pure and he couldn't bear the thought of defiling you with his horrible horrible thoughts. The guilt eats away at him for a while, but eventually he just can't hold back, but how could he ever do anything to you and risk consequence? So... the solution he comes up with is waiting until you sleep.

He tests the waters to see how heavy of a sleeper you are. Calls your name at increasing volume, lightly runs his fingers over your hair, pokes your face, whispers in your ear, runs his hands over your arms. Just to see what makes you rustle, if anything, so he knows the limits. If it turns out you're an incredibly light sleeper, well, unfortunately that means he's limited to just jerking off to your sleeping form, but that's ok. Just seeing your soft face and the cute way you breathe, the slightest way your lips open, that's enough for him.

If it turns out you're a heavier sleeper though, well, he tries to fight the temptation, but ends up going further. Slowly climbs onto your bed, careful to make the weight shift as gently as possible. Slowly pulls the covers back. Runs his hands up and down. It's a lot better when he can actually see your body as he jerks off, honestly. If he's feeling particularly risky, he might press your thighs together, feel how soft your skin is to his cock, how nice the squeezing pressure between them is.

He gets easily lost in a haze, though, so he inevitably ends up accidentally cumming on you and has to frantically find a way to lightly dab it up without waking you. He panics quite a bit, but that doesn't stop him from doing it again the very next night.

Overstimulation/Forced Orgasm

It just means he's doing a good job, really. Sure, you squeal and kick your feet back and forth and tug at his hair, but that's just because it feels good. Orgasms equate to love and feel good, right? Sure there's a little bit of pain when you go overboard, but then it just leads to feeling even better, right?

It's kind of an irrational compulsion rather than a logical goal, though. He just has an impulsive need to feel you quiver and spasm and clench, it basically gives him a chemical high hit and a wave of reassurance, makes him feel good in both the physical sense and the emotional sense. The first one sends him into this compulsive need to feel it over and over and over again, as many times as he can. It's another one of his internal conflict things -- sure, he knows it's hurting, but he just has to get one more. Just one more. But of course, every time turns into "just one more" when he's been saying that for half an hour now.

And, to be honest, it kind of gives him a pride boost to think he can make you cum against your will. How many people struggle to achieve that even when both parties are trying? It makes him feel good in an adequacy sort of way, he feels needed.

Size Kink/Distension

You know, there's a well-known thing among the male-lovers in this world when it comes to size. It's never the arrogant, loud guys, it's never the social butterflies, it's never the tall guys, it's never the beefy muscly guys. No, they're not the ones that end up somehow bestowed with absolute monster cocks. It's always the soft, lean boys who don't talk much. And they're always painfully unaware of it, too.

He's no exception. Not to the size or the complete lack of awareness. He hasn't spent a lot of time around guys his age too much, he's always been the one sent for some special task and ends up out in the wilderness by himself on journeys, or, in some lifetimes, accompanying you most of the time. He doesn't know what the average dick looks like, so he has no idea he's far above average.

This might sound like a plus, and of course in some ways it is, but also he doesn't think about the fact that the average body isn't properly equipped to handle it. You're supposed to just kinda put it in, that's how the sex works, right? Poor thing, especially if it's entirely consensual sex, he's just kinda ???? because why are you in pain? What is he doing wrong? You have to eventually explain it's literally just his body, not something he's doing.

That being said, naturally, he's a humble person, but hearing you say that does kinda... make him feel good inside. A little bit proud. He's not a person who takes a lot of pride in many things, so he likes having this one thing, and quickly notices you can visibly see it through the bulge it makes in your stomach. Especially if it's in a position where your back is pressed to his front, every little movement creates the bulge, so expect to get a lot of that.

He doesn't really bring it up much or talk about it when he's actually fucking you, it's more like, as with many things, something he's quietly aware of and silently enjoys a lot internally, even if it's not voiced.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

Yes and no. It has to do with his overactive protection instinct. What if something happened or went wrong? He couldn't take that. He couldn't lose you.

At the same time, he likes kids, and he's very good with them, very patient. And over time, realizes that a kid would be the perfect tool of manipulation, and besides that, isn't it a beautiful thing, an ultimate manifestation of love?

So how to work around that... Ultimately, what he decides to do is have a kid... Just not by blood. There are plenty of orphans in Hyrule, wandering the streets and the wilderness, picking one up is easy. ...You wouldn't leave this poor child to suffer out there, to fend for themselves, would you? Nor would you leave him to take care of it by himself... Right?

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Oh, it's not like he thinks of it that way. He would call it... a reminder. You put yourself in danger again? You tried to go back again? You were gone and for ten whole minutes he didn't know where you were? What could the solution to this issue be? The only thing his brain can really come up with is making sure you need him. Making sure you're content and satisfied here with him so you don't go running off.

Thus we return to the forced orgasm thing -- see, you do need him. It feels good, right? You say it hurts, and maybe it does a little, but ultimately you wouldn't be cumming if it wasn't good. No one else can ever do that. No one else knows you like this. No one else was made for you like this. You can't replace him. You need him. And he can keep going as many times as it takes until you see that, too. Even if he gets milked dry, he has a mouth and hands for a reason.

And by "until you see that," I mean until you say it. In his more... emotionally intense moments, he gets a bit insistent. He needs to hear you say it. Admit it to yourself. And to him. That you need him, that you depend on him, that you'll never leave again. And don't think your patience and tolerance can stand a chance of outlasting his -- it will keep going until you say it.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

He's one of those wholesome type of boys who goes with something sweet. He says maybe your hair, your face, your skin, your eyes. It's all so comforting. So familiar. Of course, not to say that he doesn't like your less wholesome mentionable parts, but he wants to be chivalric about such a question, and feels answering that way would be too disrespectful.

In his unspoken thoughts, though, he likes the hips. It's a part of you he can grab onto and hold you close with. He puts his hands there a lot and holds tight, like he feels like at any moment you could slip out of his grasp. And, I mean, it's nice to look at, can't forget that.

#atml #scheduled post #yandere x reader #yandere legend of zelda #yandere link

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shutterbug2012 · 3 years

Note

Cursed Euro Report time!!! (early for once because I don't care about sleep apparently)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ENGLAND WON THE SEMI-FINAL!!!!!

Tumblr Louies were conflicted between rejoicing on behalf of Louis and the fact that we deep down do not vibe with England as a concept at all. But once again, the things we do for love for Louis Tomlinson.

The Englishmen were very HAPPY to win! Seriously, the way they are so naturally getting on top of each other, getting on their knees, getting straddled, putting their asses up in the air. 🌈L-O-V-E 🌈

Congrats to your boï Kane, for shooting the winning goal!!! Good for him for mastering the art of putting a ball in a hand-guarded hole on the second try!!! The first time is often slippery but usually the second try ends up being making everyone come together!! There's shooting, there's shouting, it's basically sex.

Ok so I decided to check out Team England's twitter as per usual and I was like... there's not gonna be anything left they've used all the innuendos possible but BOY OH BOY was I wrong!!!

Here are some of the most recent thirst tweets:

For a moment, we can breathe. (that's what she/he/they said 😏)

I know it's growing strong... (that's what they said 😏)

So good. So good. So good. (that's what they said 😏)

So many BIG performances! (that's what they said 😏)

We're tired just looking at it (that's what they said 😏)

One more to go. (that's what they said 😏)

Still up? (that's what they said 😏)

A night we’ll all remember (that's what they said 😏)

They could straight up include the 🍆 emoji every time and it would WORK. In short: the social media manager is on crack.

We got Loutent from the match, even tho it started with some VERY DUBIOUS footage of a "Louis" who was wearing atrocious clothes and had suddenly bulked up overnight... FAKE NEWS!!! I was feeling superior and wanted to call everybody out on that obvious mistake but I had fallen prey of the Bus 2 tattoo fake scandal the day before so I didn't feel like I was standing on high ground....anyways!

Real Louis appeared later on, with his "boyfriend" Hot Luke, his "girlfriend" (El), and his girlfriend's girlfriend (Ella), his girlfriend's girlfriend's boyfriend (Ella's bf I don't know his name) and his boyfriend (no quotation mark here) Hot Bald Guy with Glasses aka THE real Mr. O™️, I have declared. His presence is becoming strongly suspicious and if he's there on Sunday then they're definitely doing it, I don't make the rules. (I have not seen any trace of Oli but I could be wrong. Maybe he was at Hogwarts...hahaha)(also one bucket hat was in view because of course there was)

Not that I'm counting but I've counted 3 Bald Men™️ within a 1 meter radius of Louis in yesterday's pub footage, so... draw your own conclusions at that. 😌The man has a clear type.

SO!!!! Finals on Sunday!!! Against ITALY 🇮🇹!!! Our 11 Englishmen better get ready to get their asses licked kicked, to get 💦destroyed 💦 on the field (and maybe off of it too, who knows 😏) to get 💦dominated 💦 by strong Italian sports gods as the ✨tension✨ will be hard high and at the end of 90+ min of balls play 🤲, each team will try to chase their own release 👅and be declared the winner of the ⚽️ Euro 2020 ⚽️!!!

Louies conundrum will come to an end as I believe the general consensus is that England will/should/deserves to lose, but at least the team will have made it 'til the end and thus provided us with Louis footage for as long as possible and also made Louis very happy, which is all we want (no, we don't want music or first-person content, whoever told you that...!!!). We shall see, but unless Louis treats us to a HD selfie if England wins, then I could care less about the brexiters getting the cup, which, may I remind them, is called the EURO cup.

Also the final is on Loudependence day??? 👀 Is something going to happen??? IS MUSIC COMING??? Louies, who have been tolerating Louis' football antics (the tweets! the jerseys IG stories!) for weeks and are desperate for any kind of information on LT2 coming directly from the Boss himself, are franticly asking themselves... Alas, there is no way to know right now...

But I'd say, in conclusion to this 1,000 words essay, that we can't infer that England making it so far in the tournament is based on Louis' wishes and Louies energy backing his deepest desire... BUT we have learned that 🕯manifesting🕯"works" so we need to gather our strength and send ✨good vibes✨ for music content soon. *starts chanting*

In the meantime KMM at Wembley, YES KING!!!

xoxo,

Gareth Girl.

a wild ride from start to finish but so worth it 😌

#the match was not their finest moment that's for sure ksldfjskdls #and we truly do not vibe w england as a concept but then again. we have harry kane #the way these british men have me fawning over them ugh can't believe it #the straddling though 😭 get a room boys you're being watched 😭#ive seen enough posts dissing the penalty goal so idk what to think about their win now 👁👄👁 BUT ty mr kane for making louis happy #:DDD #england's social media is on FIRE though im sure they know what they're doing w those tweets JSKDDLSJDJFJSSK #and that tiktok pls 😭😭😭 insanity 😭#your logic for not calling people out 💀 it's ok bestie we all make mistakes 🤝#dt is inexcusable though they're the ones who said louis was holding the knife upside down and now this video of a different man?? jail pls #louke 🥰 unknown bald man 👀#i just hope eng doesnt turn the finals into a clown show like this match jdksldlsjgdkl pls play better my boys u have a lot riding on you #and!! i donot agree w the consensus!! most importantly kane my beloved does not agree w the consensus 🥰#so louies will just have to tolerate my pro eng rants on sunday <3 ily all but i love kane more <33 #kmm at wembley so true ‼‼ keep manifesting people we might just get loudependence music content ‼‼#ty for ur service gareth girl <333 #clem's mission reports my beloved <3 #mail #berlinini

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alicanta77 · 4 years

Text

Chapter 4: Maze of Memories

Pairing: y/n x Haechan

Themes: angst, fluff, suspense(?)

Warnings: swearing, zombies, blood, violence, death, virus, illness, anxiety, mentions of abusive family, needles (two injections)

Words: 10k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Finale

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Inspiration from my friend @2-cute-4-school and her story called ‘Evanescent’. This girl is such an incredible writer and honestly seems to be able to write anything beautifully and I can't praise or recommend any of her work enough! Thank you to the ends of the earth for letting me use it as a starting point xx

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Doctors and nurses bustled around you, taking your temperature, checking your breathing levels, heart rate, and pressing different buttons on the countless monitors that surrounded you. You just lay there, still in shock from the last thing you had heard Jeno say before he was removed from your room.

‘You’re finally out of the simulation.’

You hadn't had time for ask for any sort of explanation before the doctors rushed in and shooed him out. You tried to listen to what the nurses were telling you, discussing certain things about your health, but you couldn’t focus.

It was a simulation? Were you the only one in it? Were Hyuck and the others still there?

Hyuck...

Your throat closed up as the memories of his broken screams clouded your mind. You would do just about anything to see him, to hold him one last time, to kiss him and tell him that everything will be alright.

You weren't sure how much time had passed until the doctors and nurses eventually emptied out of your room, leaving you alone in the monochrome, sterile white walls.

There was a small knock at your door and it slowly began to open. You pulled yourself up so that you were sat in a more upright position and turned your head in order to see who was entering. Jeno’s head peaked out from behind it, causing a smile to spread across your face.

Even though you were scared and confused beyond belief, seeing your friend alive and smiling at you was an easy thing to feel happy about.

He made his way closer to you, pulling up a chair before speaking.

‘Hi... Sorry, I guess I should have started with that earlier, rather than dropping the whole simulation thing on you like a bomb.’

You opened your mouth to speak for the first time since you woke up, but his eyes went wide and he quickly continued to talk.

‘No! No, don’t try to speak until you've had some water. Your throat is gonna be really dry and it’s going to hurt.’

You shut your mouth and nodded, watching as Jeno stood up and walked into the adjoining bathroom. He came back with a full glass of water and gave it to you before sitting down next to you again.

‘I woke up in this room too. Doctors and nurses were crowding me, but they only stayed for a few minutes before they left me alone. Finally a female doctor came in and gave me a glass of water. Then she explained everything... it didn't make a lot of sense, and it’s really overwhelming... are you sure you want to know it all now?’

Jeno looked at you, concern clear on his face. It was obvious that whatever he needed to tell you wasn't easy, but you had to know. The uncertainty was driving you insane and your heart was screaming for you to find out if you could find Hyuck. You nodded, fast, making Jeno sigh before taking your hand.

‘I don’t really know where to begin, but I guess there’s one thing that you need to know more than anything. The apocalypse, everything we went through over the past few months, none of it was real. It was all a simulation.’

You brain was running at a million miles an hour, none of this making sense. You were glad that Jeno kept talking because you were sure that you couldn’t form a complete sentence to respond to him if you tried.

‘There was a virus that hit the world, it was called Harmless Deterioration, that much of the simulation was true. We were lucky that HD was only incredibly infective and not that fatal. Very few people died, but the world leaders came together after a medical report was released that showed HD mutating. This time into something much more fatal. Scientists realised that they had only two years maximum to prepare the population for the next wave, a much more dangerous wave. So the world leaders decided to create a simulation. They put people of all ages, sizes, backgrounds and ethnicities into the simulation to study how they reacted in a similar but different environment. Obviously the virus isn’t going to raise people from the dead, but studying brain activity in such a harsh environment can give them an idea as to what it is that makes people immune or less at risk.’

Jeno paused for a moment, giving this time to sink in.

‘Do you have any questions so far?’

You raised an eyebrow at him and croaked out a small reply.

‘Yes. Just shy of a million.’

You were glad Jeno had made you drink that water because even after having a large glass, your throat still felt like sandpaper. Jeno smiled sympathetically.

‘But I’m sure I’m going to have more so just keep talking.’ You replied, too confused and dazed to even think about where to begin. Jeno grabbed your now empty glass and moved to refill it for you. When he reappeared, he took the same position as before, sitting close to you and holding your hand.

‘Okay, here’s the next part. Tell you what, squeeze my hand really tight if it gets overwhelming and I’ll stop talking for a minute.’

You smiled at that, his small yet thoughtful action was something so typically Jeno that the realisation hit you again, this time with much more force. He was actually alive and sat in front of you. Before you could stop it, tears started to gather in your eyes, making sheer panic spread across Jeno’s face.

‘Oh no, no, no, no, no. Please don’t cry, I’ll stop talking. Are you okay?’ He moved closer, leaning over you slightly as you nodded.

‘You’re here...’ You whispered, not trusting yourself to say anymore than that for fear that you would completely break down. Jeno’s smile broke out across his face, the eye smile that you had missed so much and you moved up slightly on the bed, making room for him to lie next to you. As soon as he got comfortable, you threw your arms around him and held him as tightly as he did to you when you had woken up. You started to realise that you were finally safe, you would never have to wake up at 3am for a lookout shift, never have to risk your life for a supply run, never have to hurt anything or anyone ever again.

‘Where’s Donghyuck? And the others? Can I see them?’ You asked, turning your head to look at Jeno, the picture of him slightly blurry through the tears that you were furiously trying to blink away.

Jeno stayed silent, opening his mouth to speak but quickly shutting it again. He looked away from you and down at the covers, his grip around your shoulders tightening.

‘I’m really sorry y/n... But you’re not gonna be able to see any of them for a while.’

‘Why?’ You asked, the tears starting to gather again.

‘Because they’re still in the simulation.’

In that moment, the world stopped. It felt like the longest second of your life had passed by the time Jeno started speaking again.

‘In order to leave the simulation, you have to die. That’s why I got out after our final day at Mark’s and you left it after you were bitten. As long as the boys are still alive, they are still in that simulation.’

You said nothing, not knowing at all what to say. You just waited for Jeno to continue speaking.

‘In order for scientists to gain accurate results from us, we couldn’t know that it was an experiment and all fake. So they removed parts of our memories before we went into the simulation. You should be getting yours back any minute, or at least that’s what happened to me. After about half an hour they came back in, put some wires on my head and gave me a few injections and electric shocks and all was good.’

Jeno turned to look at you expectantly, as if asking you to agree and say everything was fine. You didn’t quite say what he was hoping.

‘Hold on, my brain is melting. How long are the others going to be in the simulation for?’

‘I don’t know...’ Jeno admitted. ‘It depends on how long it goes on for or how long they survive.’

‘Well they’re pretty secure at the army base so I’m sure they’ll be fine.’ You said, remembering the security measures that you had all taken.

Jeno smiled to himself.

‘Yeah, you guys did a good job with that. I saw... I saw the grave too, I was really touched.’ His arms tightened again around you, but you managed to turn yourself so that you were looking at him.

‘You saw that?’ You asked, in complete shock.

‘Yeah, there are monitors here that show a live feed of the simulation. I would spend all my time watching what you guys were doing. Other scientists are taking down data but, I would just watch over you and pray that you would be okay.’ He admitted, avoiding your eyes slightly.

You curled into his chest once more, relishing in the knowledge that he was alive and with you right now. Nothing else made sense, but you planned to figure it out later. And in this moment, all you cared about was that you had Jeno back.

However, the reunion was short lived as your door quickly opened and two doctors walked in. Jeno moved himself off your bed, giving them room to see and attend to you.

One of them held a simple t-shirt and trousers, which he placed on your bed and the other a clipboard. She began to speak first.

‘Hello y/n. I understand that all of this may have come to a complete shock to you. There is no pressure on you to understand everything straight away and there are many of us who will gladly answer any questions that you may have. I trust that Jeno has filled you in on all the details?’

You nodded silently, sending a small smile her way. She smiled back at you, a much larger and warmer one than what you had managed to produce.

‘If you would like to get your memories back, just change into these clothes and there will be someone waiting outside to guide you to where you need to be. There is no pressure on timings, so please, only go when you’re comfortable to.’

With another smile, both of them left. Jeno walked up to your bed once more and moved the clothes so that he could sit down.

‘When do you think you’ll want your memories back?’ He asked, watching your response carefully.

‘As soon as possible.’ You replied honestly. ‘If my memories can help me make sense of this situation, then I’d like them back as soon as possible.’

Jeno nodded and gestured that he would wait for you outside, before leaving your room and shutting the door behind him.

You stood slowly, finishing off the last bit of your water as you did. You were careful when standing up, as the room began to spin slightly. You sat down again on your bed and reached out for the clothes that were there. You pulled off your hospital gown and slid on the white t-shirt. You pulled the dark blue tracksuit bottoms over you legs and prepared yourself to stand again.

You pulled open your door and saw Jeno sitting in a chair opposite it, he stood up when he saw you and offered an arm for you to steady yourself on. You gently held onto him and he guided you towards where the doctor was waiting.

‘There’s only one chair outside that room and I wanted to be the one waiting for you.’ He explained, making you smile.

The doctor saw you approaching and gave you a friendly smile and nod. He then gestured to his left, at a door marked ‘Lab 4F’. You looked up at Jeno for reassurance and he quietly informed you that this was where he got his memories back too.

So you entered.

---

Donghyuck rolled over in his bed, pulling the duvet further over his head as the persistent knocks on his door drilled into his brain. He attempted a weak ‘Go away’, but his throat was so sore from crying last night that it only came out as a feeble groan.

The door opened anyway and but Donghyuck didn’t roll over to face whoever it was. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be left alone. Whoever it was could screw themselves. That was until he heard Renjun’s broken voice.

‘Hyuck?’ Renjun’s voice cracked in the middle and Donghyuck realised that he was crying. He summoned all the energy he could and rolled over to face the boy in his doorway.

‘We’ve got time off our chores, they said that it’s okay for any of us to take whatever time we need. I- I know it’s only been two days, but, I- I-’ His voice cut off completely and Hyuck simply pulled open his duvet, a silent invitation and plea for his friend to join him. Renjun wasted no time in climbing in and Hyuck rolled over to hug him.

The boys had never had that much of a touchy friendship, preferring to make fun of each other and rile them up instead, but in this moment, all they wanted to do was hug the closest friend that they had left.

---

The final electric rod was placed onto your temple as the doctor prepared the injection. He placed a light hand on the top of your head and tilted in to the left slightly so that he could have access to the vein in your neck. You winced slightly as the needle pierced your skin and the liquid was injected.

You immediately felt yourself begin to be taken over by the darkness that was surrounding you, the doctor’s voice only just cutting through the haze.

‘Just relax, and let the memories change you.’

You didn’t have time to question what he meant before you fully blacked out.

~~~

You, Renjun, Donghyuck and Jeno were sat at your normal lunch table at school. Renjun and Donghyuck were arguing over something unimportant when you felt Jeno’s hand slip into yours under the table. You interlaced your fingers and sent him a smile, getting one back. Donghyuck noticed first.

‘Oh look at the lovebirds.’ He teased, suddenly cuddling up to Renjun in an attempt to imitate the two of you.

Renjun stared down at him in disgust and pushed the younger boy off of him.

‘I still can’t believe that you guys are actually dating. It’s weird, we’ve known each other for years.’ He stated, Donghyuck nodding in agreement.

Jeno shrugged.

‘I guess sometimes things change. You can wake up one morning and look at a person you’ve known your whole life in an entirely different light.’

Both Renjun and Donghyuck groaned loudly at that, the bell that signified the of lunch cutting through. They both jumped out of their seats, not wanting to be around the two of you for much longer.

You and Jeno both laughed, enjoying this newfound power over the rest of your group. You both began to head off to your afternoon classes as well, Jeno pulling you in for a quick kiss on your forehead when you had to go separate ways.

~~~

You were lying on your bed, scrolling through your phone when Jeno’s head popped around the door frame. You immediately sat up, a smile stretching across your features. But when the smile on your face wasn’t mirrored on his, you began to worry.

‘What’s wrong?’ You asked, watching as Jeno shut your previously open door and moved to stand next to the bed.

‘I volunteered to go into the simulation.’ Jeno said bluntly. He couldn’t meet your eyes, not being able to quite predict what your reaction would be. Both of you had decided over a month ago that you wouldn’t do this, you didn’t know the risks and the idea simply terrified you.

‘What do you mean?’ Your eyes never leaving Jeno, even though his were fixed on the duvet underneath him.

He said nothing.

‘You’re leaving me?’ Your voice trembled slightly at the thought of going without him for who knows how long.

Jeno’s eyes snapped up at the sound of your voice shaking, not hesitating at all to pull you into his chest for a hug.

‘I don’t want to. But I have to do this, I want to be able to help and say that I had a part in preventing the spread of a disease capable of wiping out humanity. I’m sorry, but, I’m not changing my mind.’ His words were quiet but calm, a determination behind them that you knew only came from Jeno.

You nodded, hugging him tighter as if he was going to slip away in that moment. Jeno gently repositioned you both so that you were lying on him. He leaned down and kissed the top of your head as you turned to place a kiss on the small bit of his collarbone that was exposed by his t-shirt.

‘You’re gonna lose your memories.’ You whispered.

‘I know.’ He whispered back, taking a deep breath as if to calm himself from the simple thought of it.

‘What if you forget me?’ You knew it may be selfish to ask but it was all you could think about.

Jeno chuckled at that.

‘We’ve known each other our whole lives, they’re only going to erase the memories of the virus and things to do with it.’

‘But we started dating at the beginning of the virus... remember we both stayed at mine for that month while my parents were stuck at my grandparents and that... that was when everything changed.’ You realised.

Jeno went silent at that. He swallowed, trying to collect his thoughts before replying.

‘I hadn’t thought of that...’ He pulled you even closer. ‘I’ll get them back, I won’t forget you forever.’

With that thought neither of you had the courage to ask or answer any more questions. You just enjoyed one of your last fews nights together and went to sleep.

~~~

You sat next to Jeno on what would be his final day before heading into the simulation. Not a single word had been spoken, the words left unsaid being much heavier than anything you could have anticipated. The tears that were welling up in your eyes began to fall down your cheeks, Jeno trying desperately to blink his away. Finally, he spoke.

‘I’m going to miss you so much y/n.’ He said, his voice breaking as he turned to look at you.

‘But you won’t.’ You replied, your voice as equally full of emotion. ‘That’s what so scary about this whole thing. I’m going to miss you, but you’re not going to have any idea that that isn’t me in there with you.’

Jeno shut his eyes and lowered his head to the ground, the tears falling freely. When he looked up again he raised one hand to you cheek.

‘Then come with me.’ He pleaded. You opened your mouth to disagree but he continued. ‘Please, we can get through it together, if I have you by my side then I am not going to be scared to go into it. I can do anything if you’re with me.’

You were silent. You had never wanted to go into the simulation and you watched as all your close friend chose that path, leaving you alone.

‘As much as I hate the thought of going into that simulation, the thought of being on the outside and watching you all without being able to help, is much worse.’ You said slowly.

Jeno’s eyes shot up, begging you to repeat what you had just said.

‘So, yes. I’ll go into the simulation too. I’m not going to leave you guys alone.’

Jeno burst into the biggest smile possible at your decision. And, as terrified as you were, you couldn’t help but smile back at the boy in front of you. He pulled you in for a happy kiss and grabbed your hand saying that you needed to sign up as soon as possible and that you had to tell the other boys.

~~~

You opened your eyes and the doctor’s face slowly came back into focus.

‘Take it easy. After five minutes you should be back to normal and you can head off, Your brain is just processing all the new information.’

The doctor’s voice cut through the blurry surroundings and you gradually felt yourself becoming more grounded. The room soon fully came into view and you registered the doctor pulling all the rods off of your head. He then placed a glass of water next to you, which you took some small sips from.

It didn’t take long before you were up and walking and being guided down a new corridor towards another door labelled ‘Examination room 3′.

‘Nothing to worry about, they’re only going to conduct a few tests to see how you’ve changed while in the simulation.’ The doctor turned to you, before opening the door and showing you in.

You were greeted with a large open room with monitors all around you. There was a treadmill to the left side and a large glass pane sectioned off the right half of the room. A group of half a dozen doctors came up to you, explaining certain procedures and what they were going to be testing.

It all went in one ear and out the other with you. You were still overwhelmed with the memories you’d received that you were quite looking forward to just being put on a treadmill so that you could think. Luckily for you, that was exactly what they started with. They attached wires to your chest and hands and measure your breathing and blood levels.

Then you began running.

While you were running all the beeping from the monitors and quiet chatter from the doctors faded into nothingness as you became lost in your memories again.

Were you and Jeno in love before the simulation?

All you knew was that you needed to speak to him about it. If he was the reason that you had gone into the simulation in the first place then you must have really loved him.

But why didn’t you have feelings for him in the simulation? Surely they can’t erase actual emotions? And you didn’t remember feeling any kind of romance for Jeno before the simulation, you’d only ever remember caring for Hyuck. But, they were still your memories... They were probably the only trustworthy thing you had.

---

Donghyuck sat by Y/n’s grave, his knees pulled up to his chest as he cried. He kept whispering the same two sentences over and over again, loud enough for only the wind to hear.

‘Why did you leave me? You promised.’

He reached out a shaky hand and placed another wild flower by her headstone.

‘You promised. Why did you leave me?’

He wiped away his tears with one hand and held his knees tight with the other. Then he began to sing.

‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.’ His quiet voice starting out clear, but shaking as he progressed onto the next line.

‘You make me happy, when skies are grey.’ Hyuck thought back to all the times he had relied on you when he had been struggling. But now, with you, his sister and Jeno all six feet under, his skies had never been greyer and there was no one left to show him how to get through it.

‘You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.’ His voice began to break as he thought back on all the wasted and unsaid words. He thought about the fact that you died without knowing how loved you were, and how he would do anything, literally anything to have you back.

‘Please don’t take my sunshine...’ Hyuck trailed off, the sobs taking over him as he struggled to finish the chorus of the song that you have sung to him countless times. He missed his sunshine, he needed it. He was dying without it, the grief slowly poisoning him from the inside out. He put his head fully into his knees a he whispered out the final word.

‘Away.’

Donghyuck let himself break down, a state he was used to being in at the moment. He mourned the girl he had always loved and appreciated but never told her just how much.

And he was blissfully unaware of that same girl, watching him mourn her, through a screen.

---

You stood awkwardly in your room. The layout was eerily similar to your room at the army base and it was only provoking memories of your time there. You couldn’t help but think of Hyuck and what you had just seen.

You had been walking towards the lobby to be shown to your room after your tests. You were glad that the directions were clearly marked as it gave you a chance to walk around without an escort. On the way there you had seem a door labelled ‘Camera room 2′. Curiosity took over you and when you headed in you were immediately greeted with the sight of Donghyuck crying over your grave.

The scene pulled at your heartstrings more than you thought was possible and all that was occupying your mind was the desire to hold him close, kiss his head and whisper that you’re never going to leave him again.

That song had always been important to the two of you. But when he sang ‘you’ll never know dear, how much I love you’, there was so much emotion in that single line, that it shook you to your core.

You remembered the moment before leaving to try and find his sister, when you had nearly kissed. Why was it, when you sure that you should be in love with Jeno, that kissing Hyuck was all you wanted to do?

At that moment, Jeno knocked on your open door.

‘Hi...’ He said, seeming more nervous than before. ‘Are you okay?’

You nodded. ‘I guess so. Things are really confusing right now and I don’t know what to make of anything.’

Jeno took a step forwards. ‘I know what you mean. When I got my memories back, for a short while I didn’t think they were real. I mean, I couldn’t recall ever having romantic feelings for you.’

You chuckled slightly at that.

‘No offence!’ He added quickly, scared of upsetting you.

‘No, it’s okay, I feel the same way.’ You reassured him.

‘But, at the end of the day, these are our memories. And surely they’re the only things we can trust right? Cause they’re ours.’ Jeno reasoned.

You nodded again. Jeno did make a lot of sense. It wouldn’t be strange for you to be confused when suddenly hit with a whole string of new memories.

You turned towards the bed, exhaustion from the day catching up with you quickly and, all you wanted to do was go to sleep and face everything else in the morning. You took a step but stumbled, your legs sore from the treadmill earlier.

Jeno moved forwards swiftly and caught you, supporting you as you climbed into bed. He tucked you in gently and whispered one last sentence before leaving you.

‘I mean I entered the simulation for you so it must have been real.’

You were too tired to ask what he meant as he placed a kiss on your forehead and left you to sleep.

---

Jeno led you through a maze of corridors, the silence between the two of you was comfortable but unusual. You never usually found yourself with nothing to say to him, but, since you got your memories back, it was like you had to look at him in a whole new light. And you weren’t sure you wanted to.

Jeno slowed to a stop outside an unmarked door, placing his hand on the door handle before turning to you.

‘I know that it’s difficult, coming out of the simulation. So I thought you might want to talk to some people who have gone through the same thing you have.’

With that, he opened the door in front of him and you were greeted with two boys around your age. You turned to Jeno with a confused look but he simply nodded at you to move forwards.

You were wary as you didn’t recognise either of them, but, soon enough, one of them stood forwards.

‘Hi.’ He said with a friendly smile.

‘Hi?’ You answered, really unsure of what to say.

The same boy suddenly took a step even closer and pulled you in for a tight hug. You had no idea how to respond so you just hugged him back and asked if he was okay.

‘Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Sorry that may have seemed weird.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘I just wasn’t sure how to thank you.’

‘Thank me?’ You questioned. You couldn’t be any more confused than you were at this moment.

‘Yeah. For looking after my friend in the simulation. For looking after San.’

Suddenly it dawned on you who the boy in front of you was.

‘Wooyoung?’ You breathed and watched as he nodded in confirmation. You turned to the other boy. ‘So that must mean you’re-’

‘Jeong-in. But you can call me I.N.’ He interrupted you with a grin. ‘Welcome back.’

You turned back to Jeno, a look of absolute amazement on your face and saw that he was smiling. I.N. began to talk again, drawing your attention.

‘Jeno mentioned that you had been struggling with adapting to your memories and, we just wanted to say that we understand.’

‘Yeah and if you ever need anyone to talk to, we’re also here for you.’ Wooyoung said, placing a hand on your shoulder.

‘Oh my god, I just- I can’t believe it’s really you. The guys-’ Your tone turned slightly more serious. ‘The guys really miss you both.’

Both the boys looked slightly to the floor, sadness dancing across their feature.

‘We know. We’ve had to watch them grieve and mourn us. Just as Jeno watched you.’ I.N. said, gesturing to the boy behind you. ‘That’s why we were so glad that your group found the army base and they managed to move on slightly through the new friendships they made.’

Wooyoung nodded.

‘Yeah. I suppose it was easier for you and San though.’ He said, making I.N. nod and you frown in confusion. ‘You know, cause you guys are old friends.’

You looked between the boys in front of you, who both seemed to think that this was true.

‘What- what are you talking about? I only met San in the simulation.’ You said, staring as I.N. and Wooyoung’s faces both changed to confusion.

‘No y/n.’ Wooyoung said, never breaking eye contact with you. ‘You and San have known each other for a really long time.’

You opened your mouth to argue, to tell him that you had no memory of ever knowing San outside of the simulation, but a voice cut through. A voice that you never thought that you would hear again.

‘y/n?’

You stopped in your tracks and turned to your left, praying that she was really there and that this wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you.

It wasn’t. She was alive. Donghyuck’s sister was alive and standing in front of you.

‘Oh my god.’ You whispered before you ran towards her and pulled her in for a hug.

She wrapped her shorter arms around your neck and you felt her tears start to wet your shoulder. You whispered to her that it was okay and she shouldn’t cry, but you weren’t in a better state yourself. You were almost sobbing into the little girl’s shoulder, so filled with relief that she was alive.

‘Donghyuck is going to be so happy when he wakes up.’ You said to her, placing a kiss on her temple.

She looked up at you with the biggest smile on her face.

‘I can’t wait to see him. I didn’t get to see mum but it’s okay. I’ll see her another time.’

You smiled at her, fresh tears filling your eyes.

‘You’re so strong, never forget that.’ You told her, proud and amazed by the attitude this young child had.

‘I bet you can’t wait to see Donghyuck either. He misses you.’ She said to you, making you remember the scene you had saw the night before.

‘I know.’ You said, sadness filling you slightly. But she only frowned back at you.

‘No, you don’t. Hyuck never told you how much you meant to him. He always said he would and whenever he didn’t he would tell me how much he regretted it. I remember telling him he was being stupid cause you obviously feel the same way.’

You stuttered a bit as you tried to deny it and defend yourself but she was having none of it.

‘What are you talking about? You’ve always loved Hyuckie.’ Her words hit you like a ton of brick. Your mind was a complete mess and you felt as though you couldn’t sort out which memories were yours and which people thought were yours. It felt as though you had three different version of the past year of your life swirling around your head at the same time.

A bell sounded throughout the building, alerting people to head to their jobs. After giving you one last hug and asking you to see her again later or tomorrow, Hyuck’s sister climbed off you and headed off.

Both Wooyoung and I.N. gave you their room numbers before leaving as well, and then, finally, Jeno approached you.

For the first time in your lives, the silence between the two of you wasn’t comfortable. He had clearly heard what was said and you were both struggling to find any words to say.

‘What did you mean when you said you entered the simulation for me?’ You asked suddenly, remembering the words he had spoken to you the night before and praying that his answer would help solve some of your problems.

Jeno raised an eyebrow.

‘I meant, I entered the simulation for you. I’m not sure what else you want me to say.’ He answered, not understanding where you were going with this.

‘No...’ You trailed off, trying to find the right words. ‘I mean, how do you remember that day, choosing to go into the simulation?’

‘Oh...’ Jeno’s features relaxed as he shrugged. ‘I mean, you had told me that you were going to go into the simulation about a month earlier, and within that time both Donghyuck and Renjun decided to join you. I didn’t want to watch helplessly from the sidelines, so, even though it meant risking forgetting our relationship, I decided to join you guys the night before.’ He looked at you, expecting a reaction but you were frozen solid.

Something had felt wrong ever since you had gotten your memories back, and this was the final straw.

‘We need to go somewhere private to talk. Now.’ You said, trying to convey how urgent this was to him.

‘What do you mean? I don’t under-’

‘Now!’ You cut him off.

Jeno’s eyes went wide and he nodded once before grabbing your hand and pulling you into the corridor. He led you down the corridor before bringing you into the same room where you got your memories back.

‘Huh, how fitting.’ You commented, missing the confused look that Jeno shot you as he shut the door. ‘And you’re sure that no one will hear us?’ You asked, knowing that it was vital that this conversation was kept between the two of you.

‘One hundred percent.’ Jeno stated firmly. ‘They only use this room for returning memories and no one has woken since you, so there’s no reason to use it. Apart from out bedrooms, it’s also one of the few rooms with no cameras or microphones in.’

You nodded, feeling much more reassured with this fact.

‘Right.’ Jeno said, moving closer to you. ‘Now will you please tell me what is going on?’

‘Yeah, okay.’ You took a deep breath, unsure of how to start or say any of this without hurting him. ‘Something has felt off ever since I got my memories back. At first, I just thought it was me getting used to the feelings for you that I’d forgotten I had, but now, I’m sure that I never had them in the first place. No, wait, that’s not what I meant, that sounded really mean. I’m sorry. I- I’m- I think- wait I don’t know how to say this.’

‘Y/n! For the love of god, spit it out!’ Jeno raised his voice at you, the tension levels high in the room and his frustration clear.

‘Our memories aren’t real!’ You almost shouted at him. ‘None of them are real.’

You watched as Jeno physically deflated at your sentence. You could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t sure if he believed you so you continued, praying that you would be able to get through to him. And the more you talked, the more sure you were that you were right.

‘Think about it. Our memories claimed that we got together at the beginning of the disease right? Because my parents were away visiting my grandparents? But, that doesn’t make sense because my grandparents haven’t spoken to my parents in three years. And I only have one living set of grandparents so it was definitely them that we were referring to. And then don’t forget Wooyoung. He said that I’ve known San for a long time, but I have zero memories of meeting the boy before the simulation. I did not know him when I was growing up. And you can vouch for that can’t you? I never had a friend growing up who you didn’t know about and approve of. And then the final straw. The memory of how I entered the simulation is different to you. I remember you volunteering and me being the one who changed my mind the night before. The details are exactly the same, the roles are just reversed. You have to admit that something doesn’t feel right. Jeno... be honest. Do you have feelings for me?

Jeno seemed to be left without words after your speech, but you needed him to talk. He needed to talk, to understand, to realise that this isn’t what you thought it was.

‘Jeno! Do you have feelings for me?

He caught your eye, his mouth open and moving slightly but no words coming out of it. Then you snapped.

‘Jeno! Are you in love with me?!’

‘No!’ He shouted. ‘No, I’m not! I have no romantic feelings for you whatsoever and the thought of having those feelings is really weird because you’ve always been like my sister. I couldn’t love you like that if I tried.’

Both of you stood there in silence, you heavy breaths being the only thing to break the thick levels of tension in the air.

‘No offence.’ He mumbled.

‘Yeah no offence to you either, but I feel exactly the same way.’ You said honestly, both of your voices much quieter than before.

‘Our memories aren’t real...’ Jeno mumbled, the reality of the situation sinking in.

‘Our memories aren’t real.’ You repeated, confirming all that had been tormenting you since you woke up.

---

The silence that hung over the two of you was heavy. The recent revelation was not an easy thing to accept and figuring out what to say next was almost impossible.

But then a sudden thought hit you.

‘Jeno?’ You asked as he looked up at you. ‘Did you say that no one has woken up since me?’

‘Yeah, why?’ He replied.

‘I don’t know it just, I would have thought that someone else must have.’ You said, shrugging slightly.

‘You’ve only been awake for around 48 hours y/n.’ Jeno reminded you.

‘I know, god it feels like longer. How many people would you say have woken up entirely?’ You asked instead.

‘I don’t know y/n.’ Jeno replied, clearly tired with your questions and overwhelmed with what you had both previously figured out. ‘I haven’t met all of them but I’ve met most and I’d say that there’s around twenty of us here, maximum.’

‘Twenty? Is there another facility where people wake up?’ You were shocked with his answer.

‘No, I don’t think so... y/n what’s wrong now?’ Jeno turned to you, not wasting time and just wanting you to tell him the truth.

‘Just... how is it possible for so few people to have woken up? I know I was only in there for a month and a bit, but… it doesn’t make sense. There are so many zombies, surely all of them used to be people who should have woken up by now? How can they not? They’re dead.’

‘They can’t be dead then.’ Jeno said, already tired of this conversation.

‘But they are dead. Those people are zombies and zombies literally are the dead.’ You said back, your mind starting to run again.

‘Technically zombies are the living dead.’ Jeno said offhandedly. Suddenly, he straightened up and stared straight at you. ‘That’s it! They’re the living dead. Zombies are dead but, to an extent, they’re still living beings. They must be to be able to move, breath, make noise and understand that humans mean food and that they need food to survive. Those who are zombies, aren’t completely dead.’

‘But if they’re still living in some form, and you need to die in order to leave the simulation, then that means...’ You trailed off as the answer hit you, Jeno finishing your sentence.

‘That they’ll never wake up. What if that’s the plan?’ Jeno’s sentence caused a chill to run down your spine as you turned to him, fear in your eyes.

‘What the hell is really going on here?’

The rattling of the door handle stopped either of you from saying anything, sharing a quick panicked look before Jeno pulled you around the side of a long cabinet.

You quietly pulled open the door of the one to your right, relieved to find it empty. You crawled in the space at the bottom, Jeno following afterwards, gently swinging the door shut after him.

The door of the cupboard shut with a quiet but audible click and the footsteps stopped.

Both you and Jeno held your breath as they approached your hiding place.

‘What’s wrong?’ You heard a muffled voice ask.

‘I just thought I heard a noise, nothing else.’ Another replied, his voice much closer.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, nobody is going to be in here. Now, can we please finish our conversation?’

The voice closer to you sighed. ‘Fine, speak your mind.’

‘With all due respect doctor, as brilliant as your plan is, there is one fatal flaw. The subjects are waking up. Aren’t you concerned that once all of them become the undead, and wake up, you will have a lot of questions to answer when a deadly virus doesn’t sweep across the globe?’

Both you and Jeno shared a confused, fearful look. Whatever conversation these two men were having, you were not supposed to be hearing it.

‘No, not at all actually.’ The doctor sounded almost bored.

‘How can you be so sure?’ The first voice asked in confusion.

‘Because, my paranoid friend, those who are infected aren’t fully dead.’

You and Jeno stared at each other with wide eyes as the doctor went on to confirm everything that the two of you had just figured out.

‘These zombies have functioning lungs and hearts to breath and keep them alive to an extent. Their brains are formed enough to be able to move, and understand the concept of food. The are programmed to know that human flesh means food and that they must eat it in order to survive. We have created these zombies so that they are not just the dead, but rather the living dead. Therefore, as long as they are a zombie, they can never leave the simulation.’

A silence fell over the room as neither of the men moved and you and Jeno sat in terrified silence, learning the true nature of the simulation.

‘Well, what about those who have already woken up?’

The doctor hummed.

‘Yes, a shame about a few of the earlier deaths. The two boys from the army base come to mind. However, they were useful as it helped us to understand that we must programme the zombies to bite and not kill. We can learn from each death and alter the simulation to ensure that the same mistakes don’t get made twice.’

‘How about the most recent one. Who woke up two days ago?’

You heart stopped at the mention of you, Jeno grabbing you arm from where he was sitting next to you.

‘I agree that was annoying... Her friend’s death was as well. I guess sometimes there will be some who wake up due to sacrifices and loyalty. It’s the same as how some zombies will wake up once they’re killed by a human. But I wouldn’t worry about those two humans. The recent one may be asking questions now, but once their memories settle in they’ll become a pawn. We could probably even convince them to go back into the simulation.’

The doctors laughed at that, making you feel sick to your stomach.

‘A genius idea to use fake memories to tie them together.’ The first one said.

‘Yes, I was proud of that.’ The doctor replied. ‘And don’t worry about the other survivors, we can simply mutate the virus again to make it more infectious. They won’t last much longer.’

The doctors laughed again, before you heard their footsteps getting quieter, signalling that they were headed towards the door. You waited until the door had shut before you let out the breath that you were holding.

You weren’t, by any means comfortable in that cupboard, but you couldn’t move even if you wanted to. You were also sure that the corridor was going to have people walking down it, so escaping without being seen would be a challenge.

Jeno turned his head to you and opened his mouth to say something when you heard the door open again and two pairs of footsteps ran in. However, this time, the door was locked behind them.

You and Jeno, huddled together, positive that the doctor’s had come back to find you and you where going to have your memories wiped and probably be put back in the simulation.

That was until the people in the room started to speak.

‘I thought you said you knew what you were doing?’

‘No, I said I thought I knew a way I could do it? Wooyoung, this is stressful enough, please just go and get y/n and Jeno.’

‘Do you think that they’re going to believe us without proof. Unless we are sure that you can do this, I.N., I’m not getting them.’

You and Jeno shared a look of relief and, in sync, burst out of the cupboard you were hiding in, surprising both of the other boys. You had to hand it to them, as neither of them screamed. They did both freeze in fear and I.N. almost dropped the screwdriver he was holding but they didn’t give away their position to people who may be walking nearby.

‘Trust me.’ Jeno said. ‘After what we’ve learnt today, there is nothing you can say to us that we will not believe.’

---

Donghyuck stood from his spot by your grave, placed his final wildflower and headed inside. He visited you at least three times a day, just talking, singing and crying. Saying all the things he wished he had said before you were taken from him. On the way back inside he stopped to trace his fingers over the carving of your name into the wall. He didn’t regret asking San to do that, in fact he was glad.

He was in the middle of doing this when San turned the corner. The two boys held silent eye contact for a second, a heavy silence over the two of them. They hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even seen each other since your death. San choosing to keep himself busy and going out on longer runs every day, and Hyuck only moving from his bed to your grave, both of them only ever thinking about you.

Hyuck finished tracing the last letter of your name before turning around to face the other boy head on. He wasn’t going to speak first. If San wanted to find him, to see him, San could speak first.

And he did.

‘I’m sorry... I didn’t know you’d be here.’

Donghyuck only raised an eyebrow.

‘I come here, after every run. Just to tell her how it went and apologise.’

San voice was shaky, but it was nothing compared to the hoarse and broken sounds that left Donghyuck.

‘What for?’ He asked

‘For leaving her. For letting her get bitten. For letting her die. It’s my fault.’ San’s head dropped and Hyuck could see the tears that were falling from his eyes. Hyuck knew he probably should be crying, but he had cried so much that day he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to cry anymore. So instead he spoke.

‘Look up.’

San kept his eyes on the ground.

‘San, look up.’ He said more forcefully, and the other boy did as he was told.

‘You didn’t kill her.’

San went to shake and drop his head by Hyuck continued.

‘No, look at me. You didn’t kill her.’

‘But I did. I didn’t help her when I could have. I left her to die.’ San argued.

‘No you didn’t.’ Hyuck said with such conviction that it surprised both San and himself. ‘She sacrificed herself. She sacrificed herself to save us, her friends, her family. Don’t take that away from her.’

San nodded, and with that, Donghyuck left. He walked all the way back to his room before he proved himself wrong.

He did have the strength to cry.

---

You and Jeno stared at Wooyoung and I.N. in disbelief. The four of you, in your two pairs, somehow figured out the same thing, and decided to act on it. So far all you knew was that your memories weren’t real and you weren’t safe here.

‘But here’s the good part.’ Wooyoung said, grabbing both your and Jeno’s attention. God knows you could do with some good news, however small. ‘I.N. thinks that he might know a way to get our actual memories back.’

Your eyes shot to I.N. as he fiddled with the computer that was connected to the electronic rods.

‘How?’ You asked, praying that this was true.

‘I had a revelation. With risky operations such as fake memories, the best way to make them seem realistic is to keep them as close to the truth as possible. So they must have kept our real memories somewhere, so that they can consult them if they ever run into difficulties or irregularities. Now, if I can hack into here... Got it! Now all I need to do is find their folder and then we go through the same process as before, only I can give you your real memories back.’ I.N. explained.

‘And you’re sure you know how to do that?’ Jeno asked, looking warily at the syringe and electronic rods.

‘Yeah.’ I.N. said casually. ‘I don’t really know how to describe it but it’s like downloading something from your computer onto a memory stick. The actual process isn’t too difficult, it’s just finding the right memories that proves a slight challenge.’

‘Okay, be quick about it cause we haven’t got a lot of time.’ Wooyoung mentioned, looking quickly over his shoulder at the locked door. ‘Someone will eventually come looking for us and we need to be out of here when they do. So how can we help?’

I.N. rattled off a few instructions to you and you all ran around looking for certain solutions that you needed in order to calm your mind. Apparently you didn’t want to be fully blacked out but rather on the brink, so that your mind is still awake but there is nothing else occupying it but your memories. After a short while, you had everything gathered and I.N. seemed to have found everyone’s real memories. He asked you all to check that what you saw was the truth. You check on the screen and saw one of the last times that Hyuck had run over to your house because of his father. You were curled up together in your bed and you were singing ‘You are my sunshine’.

‘Yeah, that’s real.’ You said quietly, trying to avoid your voice cracking with emotion.

Jeno watched you from the side, having already confirmed his memory. While I.N. and Wooyoung were looking through theirs, he pulled you to the side for a second.

‘What are you doing?’ You asked, confused. ‘You know we don’t have time for a casual chat right now.’

Jeno just placed both his hands on your shoulders and quietly spoke.

‘When we get out of this, you and Hyuck need to tell each other the truth about how you feel. I think it’s stronger than you realise.’

‘Jeno, I-’

‘No.’ He cut you off. ‘No excuses. We have only got here because you couldn’t forget how much you loved him, even when your brain was reconditioned into thinking you loved somebody else. Tell him. You two deserve a happy ever after.’

You just looked up at Jeno before wrapping your arms around his waist for a quick hug.

‘I promise.’ You whispered into his chest.

I.N.’s voice came through, calling the first person up.

‘Y/n, we have your memories on the screen do you want to go first?’

Nerves filled you to the brim but you nodded. They were your memories, and you wanted them back.

You sat down on the chair you were in before, waited while Wooyoung and Jeno placed the electronic rods on your head, and then I.N. approached you with the syringe.

‘Are you sure?’ He asked, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

‘Do it.’ You replied, ready to feel like yourself again.

He put the needle by your neck and slowly pushed in. You winced slightly in pain, but it was quickly over and the darkness slowly began to envelop you.

---

To say that you woke up feeling like a new person would be an understatement. You mind felt clearer than it had in the past two days and all the other boys claimed to feel the same. However, you knew that this wasn’t the end.

After getting your real memories back, you and Jeno had brought Wooyoung and I.N. back to your room. You all sat on your bed, and you and Jeno replayed the conversation that you had overheard earlier that day.

Wooyoung and I.N. sat in shocked silence at the revelation.

‘We need to shut down the simulation.’ I.N. said immediately.

‘Well, it’s all good saying that but how are we actually going to do it? It’s not as if they’re just gonna have a kill switch that we can push.’ Jeno said, making you groan at how difficult this was going to be.

‘Wait...’ Wooyoung said, slowly, as if he was struggling to remember something. ‘I think they do.’

You all looked at him in disbelief as he continued.

‘It was my first few days here after waking up. I had snuck into the camera room to watch the boys, to see if they were okay. I heard people coming so I hid under the table. They were talking about this self destruct button, they said it could shut the whole simulation down. They didn’t say where it was, but they did say that it was the same thing. Whatever that means.’

After Wooyoung had finished you all just stared at him in shock. He had just given you the key to shutting down the whole simulation.

‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’ You asked, laughing slightly out of disbelief.

‘I don’t know.’ Wooyoung said, laughing himself. But his smile quickly disappeared and he frowned slightly. ‘No, I do. They found me. They found me under that desk and took me into the memory room. They must have wiped my memory, that’s why I can only remember it now. Because we’ve got them back.’

None of you knew what to say. Jeno placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Wooyoung just nodded to say that he was okay.

‘Lets shut this thing down.’ A new determination laced Wooyoung’s voice, making you all nod in confirmation. I.N. spoke next.

‘Here’s the problem though, it will take us ages to search this entire place for the button. And not to mention, there is no way we could do that without getting caught’

‘No, I don’t think it’s here. If they had a control switch to shut it down, they wouldn’t put it just anywhere one of us could randomly find it.’ Jeno reasoned. ‘Especially if you think about how much we’ve managed to get into and away with so far, finding a door or room that we weren’t allowed in at any cost would have rang some alarm bells.’

Wooyoung nodded in agreement.

‘Jeno’s right, its gotta be somewhere no one would ever think of looking, somewhere dangerous, somewhere deserted-’

‘Somewhere not real?’ You said looking up at the others. They all just stared back at you blankly.

‘What do you mean, not real?’ Wooyoung asked.

‘I mean, not real like, a simulation. What better place to hide a kill switch than in the thing it kills. That’s got to be the last place you’re gonna look for it.’ You explained.

‘It’s inside the simulation...’ I.N. whispered, before Jeno piped up to be the voice of reason.

‘Ok, wait, again, it’s all good to assume that but where? I don’t know about you guys, but, I’m not exactly excited to risk going back into that again to chase something that may not even be there’

You all sat in silence before another idea popped into your head, this one causing a cold shiver of fear to run down your spine.

‘I.N., not to bring back any bad memories, but when you were killed wasn’t it by a random zombie in the army base?’

I.N. blinked in confusion before answering. ‘Yeah, why?’

‘Didn’t you completely search the place from top to bottom and clear it out?’

‘Yeah, we were sure that we had got them all. I guess not. Well, obviously not.’

You looked him dead in the eye while asking him your next question.

‘What if you had?’

Another short silence spread over the group before Wooyoung spoke.

‘What are you saying?’

You took a deep breath.

‘I’m saying, what if there’s a spawn point? Like a pace where they can add more zombies if they need to? There’s no way that a zombie could have got into the base, let alone that far, without being detected. There must be a place where they can create new ones, to attack survivors who think they’re safe. Maybe that’s where the kill switch is.’

‘Oh my god.’ I.N. suddenly breathed, drawing all of your attention.

‘What?’ You all said in unison.

‘I know where it is. There’s an old training room, that we had plans to turn into a shooting range to train new recruits, but we didn’t have the ammo for it so we simply shut the door. y/n its by the showers do you remember?’

You shook your head apologetically, but suddenly Jeno spoke up.

‘I remember it. From my camp, I know exactly what your talking about. But I think there’s more to it than you realise.’

‘What do you mean?’ I.N. asked, not knowing the bombshell that Jeno was about to drop

‘Well, in case the army base is ever taken out from the inside, there is a secret route under an old training area. It leads to a chamber, kind of like the one at Mark’s house but with a self destruct button to blow up the whole building. I don’t think it was a spawn point, I think a zombie must have got in there and been stuck until you found the room. Just beyond that button is a tunnel that leads five miles out into the forest for the troops to use to escape. If they’ve got a self destruct, I’m sure they’ll have reprogrammed that button.’

‘It makes sense. Who’s going to hit a self destruct button on your only safe haven?’ You said to no one in particular.

‘The same thing.’ Wooyoung whispered.

‘What?’ I.N. asked, not quite hearing what he had said.

‘The same thing.’ Wooyoung repeated. ‘That’s what the guys in the camera room said before they caught me. The self destruct button is the same thing. I thought they were pointing to an object like a keyboard and talking about that, but now I realise, they meant the exact same thing. It’s still a self destruct button.’

‘And it’s in the army base. Where all our friends are.’ Jeno said, silencing the rest of the room until you spoke.

‘We’re going back into the simulation.’

120 notes · View notes

casualotptrash · 3 years

Text

Why the Persona 3 FES vs Portable Debate Makes Me Want to Fly Into the Sun Pt. 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Da da da daaa!

Part 3 of this lovely emotional rant is here, for anyone who wants to spend their time reading these. With the last two posts, I have mostly tried to be informative or just complain a bit about why this debate makes me want to fly into the sun, but for this post it’s going to go a little different. Perhaps a bit more subjective than the others.

In this post, I’m going to go over everyone's favorite clusterfuck...a definitive version of Persona 3.

Now, as we established in the previous post, we know that the argument of FES vs Portable is essentially pointless because everyone’s opinion on either game is subjective. However, I have neglected to bring up this topic that puts a huge ass nail into this dusty old coffin: the fact that there is objectively no definitive version of Persona 3.

Everyone can argue all day and night about which version of P3 is better, but no one can deny that either version are “definitive.” By definitive, I mean that the game has the most content that is offered, like Persona 4 Golden or Persona 5 Royal. The reason none of the P3 games are definitive is because base P3 lacks stuff from FES and Portable, FES lacks stuff fro Portable, and Portable lacks things from FES. It’s a gamble of whether you want to experience cutscenes, an overworld, and The Answer, or a whole new route with the FeMC and the brand new option of dating male party members and saving...you know who.

One might be able to say FES is definitive because it has The Answer, which I believe is considered canon according to the Arena games. Another could say Portable is the definitive version because it came out after FES, added the FeMC (who is technically canon as per the second Persona Q game), and removes The Answer (which a lot of people said The Answer messed with the core theme of P3). However, the definition of definitive in this case, and with all of the other games, is that the game offers the most content. Arguably, FES and Portable provide the same amount of content, just in different ways. This is why this whole conversation of which one is better, or which to play first, spawned in the first place.

The reason I am bringing this up in this post, about why this whole discussion physically pains me, is because having a real, definitive version of the game could finally put this discussion to rest. At least, it somewhat would. People would probably still argue that FES is the best for some reason.

Now, the argument becomes...well, what does a definitive version of Persona 3 look like?

I have seen quite a bit about this topic, and people seem to really miss some common sense points. For example, they get caught up in whether it would be considered a remake or a remaster. I know some use those terms interchangeably, but the “official” definition for each is that a remake is a game that is made from scratch, while a remaster is made by updating the existing assets and engine. For example, the upcoming Nocturne HD release is a remaster. Personally I find it difficult to neatly fit the typical persona definitive editions, like Golden and Royal, into either of these categories. It may just be me not fully grasping the differences between the two, but I believe they would fit into more of the “remaster” category. It is true that there are new assets and content being added to the game, but it’s so minor that I’m not sure it could be considered a remake. On the other hand, because new content is added it couldn’t just be defined as a remaster because typically the effects and such aren’t even changed that much. It’s just gameplay and story content that is tweaked.

When people get so caught up in what it would be considered, logic seems to...go out the window? For example, in a debate between a P3 remaster or remake, a person made a comment that if a remake was to happen then people would demand that all of the social links be available to anyone. Now, that just isn’t possible for a variety of reasons. There’s no way we could ever mix and match social links to get a preferred grouping. Another issue with this is that if just a remaster was made, then one of the two games would be left out.

This is why I don’t really think about whether a definitive edition is a remaster or remake, because using such strict labels make it harder to judge what could, or should, be in one. This is why I’m just referring to this process as making a definitive edition. That being said, I would consider a definitive P3 game to be more of a remake (not that it really matters) because my ideas would essentially combine FES and Portable, in a way?

So here we go, into my idea of what a definitive version of Persona 3 would look like. (Warning: This will contain spoilers for all of the P3 story and *gasp* may be a bit biased toward Portable because I like it more)

1. Presentation

In simple terms, I would want the game to essentially be Portable...but with updated graphics, cutscenes from FES, and an overworld. It’s easier to use Portable as a base because it’s already closer to the format of P4 and P5, so then adding in the good parts of FES with the cutscenes and overworld are par for the course. As far as graphics go, I would like the models and environment to look more like P3D (aka whatever engine they used for Persona 5?) because damn did the characters get a glow up.

2. Gameplay

Along with the format of Portable, I would also want the gameplay of Portable to be in this definitive version. That means no jealousy system, no fatigue until after you leave tartarus, the vision quest, and the other changes I mentioned in the first post. Sorry FES fans, but yes...I would still want the option of controllable party members. However, a new change that should be added is backup members earning exp. I don’t think baton passes or anything should be added, we don’t want a clone of P5, and the combo attacks in P3P kind of fill this role anyway. The idea of having social links give certain perks with ranks, like how confidants work in P5, is interesting but I don’t think it would be necessary. I would also say that the soundtrack should be exclusive for each side, like how it is in Portable, and that there should be an option to choose which skills are inherited.

3. Social Links

The stance I would take with social links would essentially be how Portable did it, but with a slight tweak. No matter how much it would be cool to date Rio or Saori as the Male MC, or vice versa with Kaz or Keisuke and FeMC, I don’t think any mixing of the two sides would really be feasible. However, I would love to see cameos of those characters in the opposing routes. For example, you see Yuko and Kaz in the female route, but in the male route you could see Saori and Rio at school. That being said, and this is probably one of the biggest issues, I would want the male protag to be able to have social links with the entire party, men included. This brings up the issue of what social links you would cut out because you can’t have two social links be the exact same arcana. Unless they want to add more arcanas to the game, which would probably not go over well either, the best option is probably to prioritize the male party members and then have who would usually be in their place just show up sometimes. For example, Kenji would show up in the social link with Junpei instead of the magician social link just being about one or the other.

I know this seems weird, but it does kind of avoid shafting one or the other. If it was too hard to fit the two together (such as Chihiro and Ken both being Justice), perhaps a few more school scenes could be added where the MC interacts with the school friends that are not seen as much (Kenji, Chihiro, etc.) However, and this might piss off 1% of people but whatever, but the moon arcana with Nozomi (Gourmet king dude) could just be completely taken over by Shinji. Nozomi is a meme, but he is not needed in any way. Also, I would prioritize Yuko in the male route over Koromaru since, although he is a very good boy, he is still a dog. Also, please get rid of the option that you’re forced to romance every girl in the male route, and personally I would say keep in the fact that you cannot date Junpei. In a headcanon sort of way, I totally dig the idea of the MC being able to help Junpei through his rough time after Chidori dies (if she dies?) and feelings grow from there, but from a story perspective I think it’s integral to his character that he friendzones the player if they try.

So TLDR; who the social link is about would mainly stay true to the original route (male route with Kaz, etc. and female route with Rio, etc.), however in the male route the party members would take priority (so Akihiko would take the star arcana place and Mamoru (track guy) would just be featured in the link sometimes), and in both routes Shinji would take Nozomi’s place as the moon. Important note that besides including the other character, the main substance of the social link shouldn’t be changed; aka they should not change the format of the social links to operate more like P5 social links where the MC is just solving all of their problems.

(Sidenote: This is imply my idea on how to include party members into the social links for the male route, however if they just decided to keep the social links the exact same as Portable with no male party member social links with the male route then I’d be fine with that too. It wouldn’t really take away from the game as a whole for me, personally.)

4. Romance Options

Riding off of the social link talk...and I know this is like the least likely option of happening, but please make some gay options Atlus? If we can romance every single girl in the male route, why not just add the romance option for the men too? Yes yes there’s the whole argument about the issue of “making everyone bi” (thanks for erasing sexuality that care more about connections rather than gender?), but I say look no further than how Dragon Age 2 did it. Every romanceable option in that game can be romanced be either the male or female main character (barring a DLC character who is only romanceable by females), and it works just fine. Turns out, no one really gives a shit if it’s “realistic” enough (aka only having one or no bi/gay people apparently?) because it’s a video game and people want to romance whoever they want...because it’s a video game. Even if you really, really don’t like this approach there is also the option of going the Dragon Age Inquisition route, where characters are able to be romanced by certain genders and not by others (race also plays a role in this in the game, since there are elves and other fantasy races and such, but this is not applicable to Persona obviously). This is simply a hypothetical example, but how this would work is that like Fuuka can only be romanced by the Male MC, Akihiko and Yukari could be romanced by either MC, and Mitsuru could only be romanced by the FeMC. Obviously social links specific to a run would be a romanceable option to the MC in their route (as in Yuko would only be romanceable by Male MC because she’s only in her run, and social links like Saori could be a romance for FeMC because she’s specific to her route). I have a gut feeling this would cause an even bigger uproar with the fandom, so having any romance option (barring route specific social links for the route they’re not in) be available for either male or female MC is the best option in my opinion.

Take out Ken’s romance option altogether though. I know some of the language is different, so it doesn’t say you “spend a long night together” or whatever, but that doesn’t really make it any better. I do think it’s fine if Ken has a crush on the MC, and maybe has a whole Kenji thing of thinking they are together cause he’s 10 and kids can be like that, but the MC wouldn’t actually act on this and the player could be given the choice to actively dissuade Ken. The only good thing that came out of Ken’s romance option was the fact that him and Akihiko can argue in Tartarus if you romance them both, and I don’t want to lose that hilarious dialogue.

5. Tartarus

Tartarus...uh...to be honest I’m not really sure what to do with this beast. It’s boring and tedious in the first place, probably by design for symbolism in the game, but I’m not sure how to make it interesting without copying the dungeon/palace format. Perhaps the blocks could be restructured to act more like a big puzzle that needs to be solved, like certain sections of palaces in P5, but also have bosses and shadows thrown in. For example, perhaps one block could be more reminiscent of hide-and-seek stealth tactics while another is formatted like a series of arena-esque gladiator fights. Also probably lower the number of floors you need to climb? It gets a bit ridiculous when you realize there are 264 floors of Tartarus and 99% of them are the same but just with more funky music and slightly different decorations. This job is suited for someone with actual video game making experience though, and not me.

6. Awakenings and Pacing

Let’s talk about some quick fixes to awakenings and pacing of the game. Now, since this is a definitive version and not a true remake, I wouldn’t want them to rewrite the entire story or something. Most of the party member’s original awakenings happen off screen, which can be kind of lackluster. The MC’s and Fuuka’s are the only two we really see, and those moments were really cool in my opinion. Obviously we wouldn’t see Mitsuru’s, Akihiko’s, or Shinji’s original awakenings, but that is fine. Yukari and Junpei also fall into this boat because Yukari awakens before the MC gets to the dorm, and it would be hard to show Junpei’s awakening while also having his whole “reveal” moment when he comes to the dorm to live there. I don’t know if it’s ever mentioned when Ken awakens to his persona, but making a scene to show both his and Koromaru’s would be helpful instead of just saying Ken has the potential and he’s joining, and hearing about Koromaru awakening but not actually seeing it. As for the pacing, I’m mainly talking about the summer time where you can’t hang out with a good number of social links. I would just change this so that you can hang out with school social links during this time more readily, like if they’re just hanging out somewhere in town if they’re not at school. Like I said, this isn’t a remake (and I’m not a video game designer) so I didn’t want to get into how to fix the overall pacing of the story, which can be pretty slow until October or so. My one suggestion is maybe adding in a few extra scenes with Strega before October so it’s not like we run into them a couple times and suddenly they’re a major villain.

7. Shinjiro

(Spoilers for after October) I know certain people will definitely not like this point, but I think the option to save Shinji should remain in the game (and Chidori too). I’ll go into this in another post, but my main reason for keeping this in is because some people really do like this option, so it would be kind of unfair just to get rid of it because other people don’t like it. However, I would suggest a change to his social link so that there is the option to save him or not while also being able to complete the social link. Perhaps after rank 10 would be when you could give him the pocket watch, so that people could get the rank 10 and not be forced to save him.

8. Extra Content

(Spoilers for the ending of Persona 3 and The Answer) Each definitive version has extra content in the “third semester” (because Persona 4 and 5 both essentially end after December), but in Persona 3 the natural game ends in January. I am not sure if they would try to add another whole months or so on, but because The Answer already exists, but I assume they wouldn’t add extra content in February or something for the MC. For The Answer, I would keep this in the game as sort of the “extra content” but add a FeMC version of this. Obviously it would be largely the same, except with the FeMC and perhaps the male party members could get more of a focus since the female party members get a larger focus in the male route (ie. Yukari breaking down with the keys. Maybe Junpei or Akihiko could take on this role as the people who don’t want to let go). Also, as a possible new addition to The Answer, Shinji could be a part of it if he is saved during the main game. In the NG+ run of Portable FeMC route, if you romance Shinji he comes to the rooftop for that final scene, so in a way it could be possible for him to recover by the time The Answer happens in March.

Now, if Atlus decided to add a more typical “extra content” thing, I hope they wouldn’t try to cram The Answer in on top of that unless they were able to do it cohesively. It might be a lot to have the whole ending of the game in January, come up with a reason to have extra content in February (presumably with the MC still alive, but also combat would need to be a part so then the issue arises of Tartarus coming back or something?), and then have the answer take place right after near the end of March.

Well that’s the end of that I think. This will also be the last post in this little “series” because I pretty much went over everything about this debate that makes me want to fly into the sun. I know the things I talked about in these posts will probably never stop, but I really hope that if a definitive version comes out at least the discussion will change to saying what is good or bad about each game rather than FES supremacy or whatever. That being said, above all I really hope this debate doesn’t discourage new fans from Persona 3 or the series in general, because that would probably be the worst outcome from all of this. It’s a great game, and it’s a shame that the game itself is kind of held back by being split into two (I’m not counting base Persona 3) different forms.

#persona 3 #persona 3 portable #p3 #p3p #long post #this is the end guys #my rocket is finished and im ready to fly into the sun #thank you to whoever decided to read all of these #you're the real mvp #is there a hashtag for persona fans to stop fighting persona fans #or to at least stop persona 3 fans from having a pissing contest with one another

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singsearpaxe-blog · 4 years

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calliecat93 · 4 years

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Top 5 Things I Disliked About RWBY Volume 2

(Top 5 Likes)

It’s hard to believe that Volume 2 aired over five years ago now. Unlike V1 where I watched it just as it ended, I watched V2 as it was airing and I still remember my excitement over it. It was a different time back then as well as this aired during the Summer, while every volume after happened halfways through the Fall. Ah, the days of innocence. Anyways, IDT that V2 is as memorable as other volumes, which IDT is necessarily a bad thing but it’ not one that you see many people talk about as a result. But ho boy, do I remember the discussions going around during the time that it aired, especially about the finale. Oh God, the finale...

So then, what are my thoughts? Well, I’ve got a few. Let's go ahead talk about my… not so good ones. Which tbh, these are mainly nitpicky cause I really don’t dislike much about V2. It’s overall a good volume. Not as good as others, it’s my five on the list and may drop to six depending on how V7 goes. But I don't have any rela issues with it, but I was able to brain up a few. Therefore, here are my Top 5 Thing That I Disliked About RWBY Volume 2!

#5. The Dance Arc

As I said, this list was hard. I was able to come up with four things that I disliked, but I couldn’t think of a good fifth one I thought about doing Ironwood and Glynda’s Ship Tease that went nowhere, but… it was a lot minor than I remembered and didn’t bother me like I thought it would. Anything else that I thought of I already had written down and going through my old posts from back when V2 aired provided nothing, so… the Dance Arc was the only thing that I could think of to fill in the spot. Which is kinda unfair because all in all, the arc is fine. It’s more of just dance arcs being a pet peeve of mine. It brings the story to a screeching halt to focus on relationship drama that I nor ally don’t give a shit about. A good example is the Yule Ball in Harry Potter, which single-handedly made Goblet of Fire my least favorite entry in the series, both with the book and with the movie.

RWBY’s arc though avoided most of that. It doesn’t do much in terms of story, but it does have Cinder’ break-in that’ll have consequences later. There isn’t really any relationship drama or nothing that felt overblown. Blake in particular hd some good development and seeing her happy at the dance was really nice. Jaune had some… bad moments. Moments that I’m gonna talk about here in a bit. But nothing so bad that I was annoyed. It did a lot of good character stuff, had the great JNPR dance sequence, and was overall just nice. But it’s not an arc that I particularly care about either, and I’m hoping that V7 won’t do a Ball like I know that a lot of people do half because it likely will focus on relationship drama there and because it’ll just be repeating V2. Still, it’s overall fine, but I needed something to fill in the Number 5 slot. So.. there we go. It was fine, but I could also live without it.

#4. The Season Finale

To this day, I can STILL remember how much the finale was derided by the fanbase when it aired. Kinda funny now since people seem to get bad if RWBY doesn’t end with a massive brawl, but people hated it when they did it here. I didn’t min the finale when it aired… and tbh, I still don’t. But I do have a better understanding of why people disliked it now. Part of it is something I’m going to get into later, but… what did the finale really wrap up? Not much. It was just a bunch of fights just to have a bunch of fights. Monty maybe went a little overboard with it here and it really feels like nothing truly wrapped up as a result. But IK how else they could have done a proper finale without messing up things that happen later, so… meh. Again, the finale doesn’t bother me and I do think that it feels more like a finale than V1 at least. But it certainly is one of the weaker ones and I don’t blame people at all for not liking it.

Oka, so 5 and 4 only barley count as dislikes. They’re more nitpicks than anything else tbh. Can’t say the same about the other three though. Speaking of…

#3. Jaune Cringe

In this volume, we see Jaune trying hard to get Weiss to go out with him. He continues to fail and makes himself look like an idiot. Now in itself, this isn’t so bad… but IDT that it’s aged well. Mainly because the narrative kinda feels like Weiss is int he wrong for continuously rejecting Jaune’s advances. It’s kinda hard to say how much that’s intentional because she doesn’t get punished for it or anything. And it does end with Jaune essnetially letting it go, calling Neptune out on his petty reason for rejecting Neptune despite liking her, and getting him to quit worrying about looing cool to make Weiss feel happy. It shows that Jaune can realize his mistakes and make it right and that he isn’t into Weiss just because she’s pretty or rich. He did have genuine feelings for her, and gave it up once he finally realized that Weiss wasn’t interested and was looking at other people. He hasn’t repeated it since aside from RWBY Chibi, where he suffers for his idiocy, so I do think that he learned. Which is good!

But… ti is really hard to watch. The narrative frames it like we’re supposed to find Jaune an idiot, but also sympathize with him. And we’re supposed to find that Weiss is being cold and harsh in how she keeps rejecting him. Again, this has not aged well. I don’t think that Miles and Kerry had any bad intentions whatsoever and would probably do ti differently nowadays, but… Weiss was completely in the right to keep turning Jaune down. He refused to get the hint and just move on. Sure, he knows how stupid it was now, but the narrative makes it feel like we should feel bad for Jaune. But.. why should we? He kept being an idiot. He refused to just get the hint no matter how many times that Weiss said no. Do I hold him against him? No. He’s no Adam. As I said by the end, he seemed to let it go and his part with Pyrrha greatly redeemed him. But I do wish that Jaune got called out for it and that they did a better job at painting him in the wrong because he was. Weiss could have maybe been nicer about it, but we saw as early as V1 that Jaune acted like this, so she’s been dealing with it for a pretty good while so… yeah, I don’t blame her in her reactions.

Again, I don’t hold it against Jaune. His character has grown greatly since this volume and he hasn’t repeated his cringe since. If anything, I appreciate how far he’s come after seeing this again. But it was not fun to revisit and I’m glad that we’re past this part for good.

#2. The Post-Credit Stinger

UUUUGGGGHHHH! This stupid stinger! So… as we all know, at the end of every volume, they put in a scene after the credits. These have all been canonical in some fashion...except for this one. This one ended with Yang finding Raven at the Beacon Courtyard, in which the unmask herself and says that she and Yang have a lot to talk about.

And then Yang doesn't meet Raven in person until Volume 5, three volumes later… okay!

So… I know that some stuff changed when they began working on V3. For example, the Maidens thing was created by Monty in between Volume 2 and 3 and when he passed away, they decided to keep it. I can only assume that after they decided to make her the Spring Maiden, the plans for Raven changed, so whatever the plan was with the stinger got tossed aside. I don’t mind that so much since I was perfectly happy with what they did go with. But every time that I watch V2 and we get to this, I just get… annoyed. Really, really annoyed because this scene exists, and is apparently non-canon.

It’ hard to get mad about it because I get it. Plans change. But at the same time the show pretty much promised us something and didn’t deliver it. It’s like if Volume 4’s stinger that showed Oscar meeting Qrow suddenly got tossed out in V5, making a promise that they ended up not upholding. It’s frustrating as a viewer, especially since you gotta figure out what to do with that scene after. I guess we can just say that Yang dreamed it, but still. It’s not that big a deal now and so far, they haven’t repeated that mistake with the later stingers. Still, I remember how much this frustrated me all the way up to V4 when I finally realized that the stinger was non-canon now, so I still hold it against this volume. Hopefully, this won’t happen again, but you never know what’ll happen.

#1. What Does This Volume Accomplish?

Each volume of RWBY has a clear goal… except for this one. V1 introduced us to the world and characters. V3 had the Fall of Beacon. V4 was reaching Haven. V5 was the Battle of Haven and getting the Relic. V6 was reaching Atlas. We can argue about how well the volumes accomplished those goals, but they did accomplish them. Volume 2… what is the end goal? Hat does this volume want to be? I didn’t think about it much back when it aired, but now? I… honestly don’t know what this volume’s purpose was.

I guess it was to bring Team RWBY closer together? Flesh the girls and their motivations out? Which is fine… but the story itself doesn’t seem to have a clear place where it wants to end. It’s why I think that the finale was how it was, there was nothing to truly wrap up. The girls couldn’t figure out the villains’ plans because then V3 shouldn’t go the way that it did. But since finding out what the bad guys’ plan was their goal and they don’t do that… it just makes you wonder why you invested our time in it. The girls’ reaction makes it seem like they know that the ending is flimsy, but that the viewers are just going to have to accept it. The good guys didn’t make any progress. The villains were no closer to being defeated than they were before, and none of the hurdles like the bombs going off early did anything to affect them. Which makes them look OP as Hell.

Volume 2 is not a bad volume. In the character development department, it is very good. It’s pacing and flow is better than Volume 1, hence why I place it above it. But it also doesn’t feel like it 100% knew what it wanted to be. At least, it didn’t know where the final destination was. So I still pace 3-6 above it since all of those knew where they wanted to end. Even if some had bumps in the road, they did accomplish their primary goal and I could see what that goal was. IDK what Volume 2 was meant to do outside develop characters. I guess it did do that, but it didn’t really progress the story. I guess it made V3’s impact all the greater, but still… it makes me conflicted.

Okay, that’s one post down. One more to go. Likes will hopefully be up later this afternoon. So I hope that you’ll all enjoy that~!

#rwby #rwby reviews #top likes/dislikes

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eggoreviews · 5 years

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Viddy Games Monthly #1 - February 2019

Is this really late? Sure Is!

Here's something new I'm trying! In this 'issue' (lol):

NEW RELEASES - A look back at everything exciting that dropped this month, from Resident Evil 2 to the new 2D Mario!

NEWS - January is usually pretty dry for viddy games, but there's some interesting stuff still!

Release dates, updates and more!

NEW RELEASES

Fitness Boxing (RD: January 4th - Nintendo Switch)

And here we have Nintendo’s first real attempt in this console generation to draw in the fitness crowd they catered to so well with the Wii. Except, Fitness Boxing feels a lot more technical and niche than those other titles from a decade ago. Fitness Boxing’s main draw is teaching you how to improve your boxing form, meaning it’s definitely not one to play with the family unless you’re all die hard boxing fans. But if you’re less interested in picking up the technical aspects, Fitness Boxing works just as well as a fitness companion, coming packed with its own motivational trainer (I haven’t picked this game up purely because it would feel like I’m cheating on the Wii Fit Trainer. Plus this basically dashes all hope of Wii Fit Switch so I’ll need to mourn that for a hot minute).

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey (RD: January 11th - Nintendo 3DS)

As the 3DS reaches the end of its lifespan and its screentime in the Nintendo Directs gets shorter, this Mario & Luigi title could well be one of the last RPGs we see on the system. In this enhanced remaster, the worlds of turn based RPG and 2D platformer collide and, coupling this fact with some odd setpieces including Bowser’s literal stomach, also make for one of the weirdest games on the system. Despite this, there’s no doubt that it works. With the addition of the Bowser Jr.’s Journey expansion, there’s undoubtedly a wealth of content to explore here, especially if you’re new to this oddly charming RPG spin-off.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (RD: January 11th - Nintendo Switch)

The latest in a long line of Wii U ports, Nintendo has bundled up Mario U and Super Luigi U and released it yet again on the Switch. This is by no means a bad thing, as we had yet to see a 2D Mario on the system, but the general consensus seems to be that the play time is much shorter than the price would have you believe. Of course, if you’re a die hard Mario fan, there’s no doubt you’ve already picked this up and it’s definitely worth a go if you didn’t have a chance to play on Wii U. Alongside this, new features include new playable characters and helpful items for if you’re like me and are terrible at platformers (I welcome these changes). But really, I think the talk of the town was the fact they patched in Blue Toad before release when everyone got sad that he was absent. Thanks Nintendo.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (RD: January 11th - Windows, Xbox One, PS4, Switch)

An enhanced port with updated HD graphics to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this beloved entry in Bandai Namco’s Tales series. This edition comes packed with a beefy selection of new content, including all that was exclusive to Japan at the time of the PS3 port’s release. Generally, this game scored high at the time of its release, being cited as an interesting and unique JRPG that was made all the better by its trademark combat system that has been carried throughout the series.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Episode 3: Broken Toys (RD: January 15th - Windows, Xbox One, PS4, Switch)

Against all the odds, the critically acclaimed Walking Dead game series has somehow survived the closure of its creator, Telltale Games, continuing under Skybound Entertainment. The series continues to shine in critic reviews, which thankfully continues into the penultimate episode, Broken Toys. With a firm release date of the final episode being March 26th, we won’t have to wait long to finally witness the end of Clementine’s story.

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes (RD: January 18th - Nintendo Switch)

The third entry in the No More Heroes series has finally arrived 9 years after its second effort, though this time to mixed reviews. The gameplay fans of the series are used to has been totally overhauled this time around, instead throwing Travis into a possessed game console containing six wildly different, self-contained video games. This time, the gameplay is entirely from a top-down perspective. Some enjoyed this radical change of pace for the series, but other fans of Travis believed the drastic change was a little too jarring to enjoy in contrast to this entry’s predecessors.

Resident Evil 2 remake (RD: January 25th - Windows, PS4, Xbox One)

The highly anticipated remake of Capcom’s horror classic finally dropped this month, and let’s be honest, it’s everything fans wanted. The controversial move to ditch the usual fixed camera the early RE games are known for so the game could be built in Capcom’s home-grown Resident Evil 7 engine was what made the game so immersive and genuinely terrifying. With tons of gameplay tweaks, Capcom managed to tread the line between creating a fresh experience and staying faithful to the original game. Entirely different puzzle solutions, new dialogue and a whole new playable character in Sherry Birkin ensures that those who know the original inside out will still have more to discover, but the return of each horrifying boss and setpiece in glorious HD puts the nostalgia into overdrive. Plus, the tofu block came back so really there’s nothing to gripe at.

Kingdom Hearts III (RD: January 29th - Xbox One, PS4)

Here it is. The game fans have been waiting 14 years for. The one that ties every character and confusing plot arc together and says ‘Merry christmas, Baymax is in this game now!’

With a few fan favourite worlds returning among a handful of new ones, Kingdom Hearts has finally launched itself into the current gen with a heartfelt tale of friendship and big hair. There really is very little to say about this, because we all knew it was going to be good.

Also out this month:

First person shooter Bright Memory released this month to positive reception, despite controversy around the stolen assets used by the devs.

Charming adventure game Vane dropped this month, allowing players to explore a beautiful world as a boy who can turn into a bird.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, the critically acclaimed combat flight sim series, released for PS4 and Xbox One, with some great VR content.

Life Is Strange 2 Episode 2 - Rules released this month, continuing the heartfelt tale of two brothers on the run

Gothic Indie RPG Sunless Skies released at the very end of January, showing a detailed focus on narrative and exploration

NEWS

What’s been happenin’? Probably a lot, but this is what I picked up on!

Metroid Prime 4 has gone a bit wonky

As everyone has probably heard by now, the long awaited Metroid Prime 4 has officially been halted and restarted, as announced in a commendably transparent video Nintendo published on their YouTube channel last month. Basically, they weren’t happy with how development was going so they’ve gone back to square one, this time with the help of past Prime developers Retro Studios. Honestly, this is a really good sign, as it shows how committed Nintendo are to creating a solid game to stand next to the other three. Plus, this makes a Prime trilogy switch port way more likely in my eyes, so hooray for that.

Piranha Plant got here early!

At the tail end of January, those who redeemed their plant boi codes turned on Smash and suddenly got the gratefully received ‘Piranha Plant joins the battle’ message! I can confirm I made a bit of a weird dolphin noise when I saw he’d turned up before the estimated February release. In another post, I’ll be breaking down his moveset in a bit more detail, so keep an eye out for that if you’re a fellow plant connoisseur!

Sony patents retro back-compatibility for PS5?

A new patent Sony put through last month that they tried to sneak by us MAY hint at retro back-compatibility for their next system, spanning all four of their home consoles. If this news is true, this could give Sony a massive edge in the next console gen, as remasters and retro games become increasingly popular, as well as the fact that people are unlikely to want to leave the considerable PS4 library behind. So at the very least, we can hope for PS4 games to be playable on the PS5.

Cross platform achievements could be a thing!

A since removed GDC listing teased the possible integration of Xbox Live onto iOS, Android and, interestingly, the Nintendo Switch! At a base level, this would very probably mean that achievements between these two consoles would be cross compatible, or at least viewable on either console. While nothing is confirmed just yet, this could be a sign of the growing partnership between Microsoft and Nintendo.

Nintendo is really lovin’ their mobile games!

With Switch sales beginning to level out ever so slightly, Nintendo seems to be turning to the mobile market. A mobile Mario Kart was announced a couple of years ago, but now it finally has a name, Mario Kart Tour. It’s now slated for a Summer 2019 release. Alongside this, Nintendo have announced Dr. Mario World for mobile, as well as rumours bubbling under that Dragalia Lost could be seeing a localised port for Canada and Europe.

New Nintendo Selects for the States!

Super Mario Maker, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and Star Fox 64 3D have arrived in America as Nintendo Selects, thankfully proving that Nintendo aren’t quite willing to let the 3DS die just yet. Not to be that guy, but Majora’s Mask over in Europe as a select would be pretty great. Pls.

Indie Highlights

And finally, Nintendo has dropped another Indie Highlights on us, featuring the likes of Wargroove, When Ski Lifts Go Wrong, Forager and the (long awaited?) Goat Simulator port. Worth a look if you’re looking for something a little wackier to play this month!

That’s all the headlines for this month!

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Are you subscribed to whatever online service your console has? Then oh boy, you got some free stuff!

NES Nintendo Switch Online - Blaster Master & Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

This month, Nintendo added the ever wonderful and upsettingly hard Zelda II to their retro lineup, along with lesser known run-and-gun platformer Blaster Master.

PlayStation Plus - Steep & Portal Knights

It’s a good month for snowboard enthusiasts over on the PS4 this month, as Ubisoft’s open world sports game Steep joins the lineup. Alongside this, the artistically charming RPG Portal Knights was free last month. January also marked the final month of PS Plus support for the Vita and PS3, with Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion & Super Mutant Alien Assault joining the Vita lineup and Zone of the Enders HD Collection and Amplitude free for PS3 owners

Xbox Game Pass

January was a hecking good month for members of the Xbox game pass, with the entire Life Is Strange saga joining the service, along with other quality games such as Just Cause 3, Farming Simulator 17, Absolver, Aftercharge and ARK: Survival Evolved.

RELEASE DATES

Yoshi’s Crafted World

Nintendo released a story trailer for Yoshi’s creative new outing, showing off Baby Bowser and Kamek as the game’s villains. The release date set for this uniquely cardboard platformer is March 29th, so fans won’t have to wait long!

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn

Breathing new life into the 3DS is this enhanced port of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which originally released on the Wii in 2010. Featuring all new content that wasn’t available the first time around, fans of the Kirby series will be able to pick this up from March 8th.

Final Fantasy remasters

After the exciting announcement in September that beloved Final Fantasy games would be coming to other consoles in 2019, Square Enix have finally announced release dates for a couple of these titles. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster will hit the Switch and Xbox One on April 16th, while Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age arrives on both of these consoles on April 30th.

RUMOURS

Welcome to probably the most controversial segment of this, the rumour-y bit! Just a pre-warning that nothing talked about here is by any means confirmed, so keep your expectations tempered.

SNES for Switch Online?

A recent datamine into the NES Switch Online app has apparently revealed a list of 20 SNES games in the code that could be coming to the system in the future, including Mario World, Kirby Superstar, A Link to the Past and Super Metroid. I’m hesitant to say this is true because nothing has been said on Nintendo’s end yet, but considering the lack of content for Switch Online as of yet, I’d say it’s fairly likely in any case. If this is true, we can all hope for DK Country and EarthBound also because pls Nintendo.

Smash Ultimate Fighter Pass Leak

There have been two notable datamines in the past month that could reveal our four remaining DLC fighters for Smash Ultimate. The first uncovered three names in the coding for the game, Plant (obviously referring to Piranha Plant), Jack (Likely Joker from Persona 5) and Brave (Speculated to be Erdrick from the Dragon Quest series). The reason why Brave is so heavily speculated to be Erdrick is because, in Japan, the hero class Erdrick belongs to in Dragon Quest is called ‘Yusha’, which translates to brave in English. Alongside this, one of the heads of development for Smash Ultimate, Shinya Kumazaki, recently posted a photo of the iconic shield from Dragon Quest with the caption ‘the brave’s shield’, which naturally sent the internet into meltdown. Personally, I think Erdrick is pretty much a dead cert for the DLC roster at this point, especially after that Instagram tease.

Thanks for reading!

In the next issue, most likely in the first week of March, I’ll be reviewing the likes of Jump Force, Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn and Anthem, plus giving you a rundown of anything game-y that happens in February! Plus, the new game of the month feature will begin next time, as I explain my choice for January’s best game. Have a fun day. Stay hydrated.

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satoshi-mochida · 6 years

Link

Square Enix has released new information and screenshots of The World Ends With You: Final Remix, its upcoming enhanced Switch version of the 2007-released DS action RPG.

Get the details below.

■ New Elements of Final Remix

The World Ends with You: Final Remix adds new scenario, background music, and more to the 2007-released DS action RPG, which was critically acclaimed worldwide.

(1) HD Resolution Graphics

Beautiful graphics through HD resolution support. Characters, scenery, and more have been reconstructed and renewed as highly detailed visuals.

—DS version.

—Switch version.

(2) Choose Your Play Style

Play The World Ends with You in TV mode, table mode, or handheld mode.

—Handheld Mode: Control the game with the same touch controls as the DS version. In battle you can enjoy intuitive controls such as “slashing Noise,” “tapping spaces,” and more.

—TV Mode and Table Mode: Control the game with a pointer using the Joy-Cons. Two-player co-op battles with one Joy-Con per player is also possible.

(3) High Quality Background Music, Sound Effects, and Voices

In addition to making all background music, sound effects, and voices high quality, new songs and arrangements by composer Takeharu Ishimoto have been added, allowing players to enjoy various sounds. Players can switch between the original and arranged versions of the background music via the in-game menu.

—In addition to switching between music, you can also change the battle difficulty in the main menu.

(4) New Scenario Added

With the appearance of new Reapers, get to the core of a story that has yet to be told. New Noise have been added to compliment the new scenario.

■ Summary

Welcome to Shibuya, a mishmash of attitudes and styles in the heart of Tokyo.

A boy named Neku wakes up in a crowded intersection with no idea how he got there. As he fumbles with a pin he found in his hand, he realizes he can hear other people’s thoughts.

Before he can make any sense of it, he receives a baffling text: “Clear this mission or face erasure.” Suddenly, a countdown appears in the pal mof his hand, and strange monsters—the Noise—attack.

In the confusion, he meets a girl named Shiki, who insists on teaming up. So begins their mad scramble as they fight off the Noise and try to survive seven days in the Reapers’ Game…

■ Characters

Neku (Neku Sakuraba)

At 15, Neku is an ardent fan of graffiti, but far less enthusiastic about forging relationships with other people. When the Reapers’ Game throws him into contact with other Players, he has two choices: open up… or get picked off.

Shiki (Shiki Misaki)

Fashionable and fabulous at 15, Shiki knows clothes. While she puts on a cheerful face to lend Neku some much-needed moral support, deep down she harbors a secret… She never parts with her homemade stuffed animal, Mr. Mew; to survive, Neku can never part with her.

Joshua (Yoshiya Kiryu)

It’s quickly evident Joshua is clever beyond his 15 years—as sly as they come. Unfortunately, his insufferably snotty attitude only serves to widen the gulf between him and Neku… but his knowledge, especially about the Game, does earn him some points.

Rhyme

Rhyme’s earnest and hard-working attitude proves a big help to Neku and Shiki early on, as well as to her partner, Beat. She has an addiction to adages and no shortage of smiles, and without her, the others would be lost.

Beat (Daisukenojo Bito)

Hot-blooded and hard-headed, Beat is the polar opposite of Neku—even if they are the same age. Still, despite his emotional outbursts, he has a big heart. He’s always ready to throw down and ollie into combat on his board, with Rhyme right there beside him.

■ Reaper Soldiers

Kariya (Koki Kariya)

If he weren’t trying to erase Neku, this brotherly sportsman might be an okay guy. He partners up with Uzuki, and somehow succeeds at coming across as unmotivated and inspirational at the same time.

Uzuki (Uzuki Yashiro)

For someone only a couple of years older than Neku, Uzuki manages to be hopelessly patronizing—even for a Reaper. Maybe she’s sensitive about her stagnant employment status?

■ Reapers’ Game

Neku and the others, who are trapped in Shibuya, are forced to participate in the Reapers’ Game. The Reapers’ Game is a game of life and death, which threatens erasure to those who do not clear one mission a day. Cooperate with your partner to survive the seven days!

—Missions are sent to the participants’ cell phones. Erasure awaits those who do not clear the mission within the time limit shown on the palm of their hands…

—The life or death game is held for a period of seven days. The content of the missions and their time limits also change each day.

■ Shibuya

The Shibuya of the 2000s has been faithfully recreated as the gameplay fields of The World Ends with You. Run around Shibuya to gather the information needed to clear your missions.

—Various people come and go at the famous multiple intersection in front of Shibuya Station. Those participating in the Reapers’ Game can read the thoughts of other people. Most of it is just chatter, but there may be hints to clearing your missions among them.

—Shibuya is lined with real-life buildings and street corners. Shibuya is divided into 29 areas, and you can purchase equipment and food items at the shops.

■ Noise

Noise are the mysterious creatures created by the Reapers that exist in countless numbers in Shibuya. Since the Reapers are not allowed to directly take down participants of the Game with their own hands, the Noise were created to attack the participants in their stead.

—A partner is required to battle the Noise. Participants will work with their partner in order to survive.

The World Ends with You: Final Remix is due out for Switch on September 27 in Japan, and this fall in North America and Europe.

View the screenshots at the gallery.

#The World Ends with You: Final Remix #The World Ends with You #Square Enix #TWEwY #Nintendo Switch #Gematsu #Under a readmore due to length

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rqs902 · 6 years

Text

bias explanation tag

ok so @banana-jiayou tagged me to do this about one month ago and me being the forgetful person that i am, am just getting around to it now!!!

nini actually tagged me to talk about either my banana or my mr-x bias, but because i still consider myself as “developing” my bias order in mr-x (altho anyone can probably tell im leaning towards luo zheng) i’ll go with banana kids!!

you may know already, my banana bias is Lu Dinghao 🌞🌞

(i dug deep into my #ludinghao tag to try to piece together what i can remember of what happened hahahha)

the rest will go under the cut bc i think this is gonna get kinda long....

Idol Producer Era

you may have seen me rant about this in my tags before, but I really did not plan on watching Idol Producer... at all. I watched p101s2 and it wasn’t the greatest experience for me (kenta and youngmin were my favs ;;;) and so I wasn’t too keen on starting another extremely similar show, because I had little hopes that the kids I’d like would make it to the end, so I thought the show would just end in disappointment for me again.

but! *drumroll please* cue chen linong! (i promise, im getting to dinghao, itll all make sense eventually LOL)

so I forget why, but maybe when I was just on the internet, I heard a LOT about chen linong. (even my friends who don’t watch ip who are just normal taiwanese kids HAVE HEARD OF chen linong. he’s honestly THAT popular in taiwan that regular people who dont care about ip know his name - its crazy!) so i heard he was taiwanese and I heard he was super popular and tons of people loved him. so what did i do? I went and looked up his audition video bc i was like wtf why is this kid so popular?? whats so special about him??

youtube

so one audition video, one intro video, one upward!trainee video, and a couple of douyins later, i was officially committed to watching idol producer for chen linong.

the next step, what do I do? go to wikipedia (LOL) and search up what other taiwanese boys are on the show. i immediately notice 3 of them are from banana ent and banana ent actually also has a malaysian child. (which was super interesting to me too bc i have a lot of friends who are southeast asian and southeast asian representation is super cool!!) and so i watched all of the 5 other taiwanese kids’ intro videos and upward!trainee videos. I’ll be honest, at the time none of them stood out to me as strongly as linong (I just love love love smiley guys, and linong’s personality was so strongly taiwanese and so down-to-earth in his audition video, i just couldn’t resist!) but from there, bc 3 of the 6 taiwanese kids were in banana, I knew to look out for the banana kids.

fast forward to episode 2, I watch the banana audition perf and dinghao sort of stands out to me because i usually go for the “happy/ mood-maker” member in kpop groups, so when he introduced himself as “小太陽陸定昊” i was like oo who’s this? also im soft for boys with the curved lip smile thing heheh and so in my curiosity to find out who he is, i look him up and find his instagram! (i didnt have weibo yet) and I start seeing pictures like these and I’m like oh my goodness he’s beautiful :o

but i think julie (@qinfour) was one of the first people i talked to about this, but one of the reasons why i usually like “happy/ mood-maker” members is because I feel like I can relate to them (ie: dinghao) bc I feel similar to them. In high school i was seen as the crazy hyper happy one and people actually thought that i was constantly happy.... all the time... which is impossible. so it was hard for me at times bc when i wasn’t feeling happy, people would discredit my feelings, or as soon as I stopped smiling, people would be like omg whats wrong with you?? so to me, seeing idols who are like that, having a happy, fun exterior but are actually insecure / experiences hardships inside, makes me feel like i can relate to them.

so anyway, so after ep 2 im already like kinda interested in dinghao (but also still interested in linong and the other banana trainees, but he’s on my radar) and so ep 3 rolls around and this HISTORIC xinfan ep from Feb. 2nd comes with it:

youtube

(in the original video, the banana part starts around 8:36) and from watching this and dyING of laughter at zhangjing being adorable and sassy and dinghao being HILARIOUS, i was like ok i like them, they’re my fav banana children!! (even tho neither of them are taiwanese and i only became interested in banana in the first place bc they had taiwanese people LOOL) and you may be wondering, what about yanjun?? he was really funny in that video too?? but actually yanjun didn’t stand out to me until around “ai ni” bc he was in the same group as dinghao maybe bc i just didnt get his humor as much??? HAHAHHAHA like zhangjing and dinghao were like SO FUNNY to me but yanjun i was likeee okayyy (i love him and his humor so much now, but idk i just didnt get it back then?? LOL oops sorry yanjun) but yea, it wasn’t until “ai ni” that i started noticing him and then gradually it snowballed into i was MADLY VOTING FOR YANJUN by the the final ep and SUPER EMOTIONAL when he made it into the final 9, like my body was shakinggg, i was so happy !!! (i was MUCH happier with the result than i was with p101s2!)

but anyway, back to the point, I think around this time was when i found out about the “rock the show” mv (it was actually released beforehand, on 1/29 and the dance version 2/6??), and I think i freaked out to violet (@zhu-xingjie) like !!!! wtf is this ?!?? its so good omgomg (something along those lines, at least ;;;) and then after watching the mv i was like ok im def gonna be a banana stan wow they make good music, so talent, super funny members, much visual wow

youtube

(tumblr only lets me embed youtube videos, but you can find the official video in HD!! here and the dance version here. id highly recommend watching both if you havent already!!!!!!! the dance version has more closeups???? and i felt even more attacked than i thought was possible after watching the official video???)

and so basically from there, I became a banana stan, focusing on lu dinghao and you zhangjing. and ofc i love zhangjing to bits and he’s so warm-hearted and adorable, but I think I’ll always feel the most connected to dinghao, which is why he became my bias.

some other moments that led me to love him:

his mini chinese lesson because i also struggle with “zhei” but also since then, ive discussed with nini on multiple occasions how weird dinghao’s chinese is?? hahahahahha its like hard to understand sometimes??

4/9 banana boys discussing getting rid of fans at the airport !!!! this is actually one of my favorite videos because LU DINGHAO IS HILARIOUS!!! SO EXTRA WOW

the entire banter with yanjun during the “ai ni” era bc he finally got more screen time!! and also he showed how good of a friend he was to keep voting for yanjun until he just really couldnt anymore

nursery coloring class with chaoze bc dinghao is ridiculous??

during the hot pot ep, just watch for any clips of dinghao and he’s probs doing something ridiculous

the banana family scene from the “boom boom boom” era where dinghao shows his insecurity, bc it was a moment where i felt i could really connect to him, as a flawed and normal human who isn’t happy all the time

fun fact: I think this banana boys post was one of the first i ever translated, probs bc beibei was leaving and im soft for that boy too and bonus you can see in my tags that im already dinghao trash at that point bc i freaking had 芝麻糊 for the first time (and bought it with my own money!!) bc of freaking Lu Dinghao !!! (about two weeks later, i bought a whole pack of it at the grocery store....)

but anyway, so “that’s how the story goes” (gotta include a zzt reference heheh) of how dinghao became my bias... i tried to keep it as relevant to dinghao as i could? lol and i also could be remembering things wrong LOL but basically post-ip, all that’s changed is that i’ve realized dinghao is even weirder than i first realized HAHAH BUT I STILL LOVE HIM.

some additional fun moments:

this interview where he describes roasts all the other banana trainees

watch “sawadika banana” if you havent already and you’ll get some GOLD dinghao moments like this crazy mess and other hilarious shenanigans

idk if its been subbed yet, but this bazaar interview is one of my fav dinghao / yanjun / zhangjing videos bc theyre so funny!!! i was literally laughing the whole time, its so fun to watch c:

im not gonna tag anyone else to do this, because it does take quite a while (3 hrs for me LOL) but its fun if you have the time to reflect back and if anyone wants to do it, id love to read your story as well!!

#ludinghao #mine #sorry it took me forever to do this nini!!!#i did my best to keep it dinghao centric altho i still strayed lol #i wanted to include more pictures but my internet wasnt cooperating so i had to take them all out lol sad...#thank you for tagging me nini!! this was fun to do c:#translation

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imshoshyy · 6 years

Text

Just watched Osomatsu-san S2 Episode 24 and-

(is kept under because of possible spoilers ahead)

Can you hear that?

That’s the sound of my paranoia on whether the staff had somehow read my post on episode 23 (Don’t read if you’re not comfortable with implied suicidal mentioning) and so decided to give me a scare by putting Matsuzo in the hospital. WHY IS THE STAFF ALWAYS ON POINT AT PLAYING WITH MA FEELINGS

Anyways, ahem, there may be spoilers ahead so the rest of the post will be hidden under

Oh My gosh

Guys.

I just realised (but it could just be me XD)...... Just like how the brothers have their own 'proper' versions of themselves, this episode 24 is the 'proper' version of episode 24 in season 1. The flow of this episode 24 somehow feels not only the same but a somewhat 'better' version of the previous episode 24 (It’s like the staff decided with “Why don’t we do a repeat of episode 24 but we change the elements of it a bit and incorporate a more positive vibe?”). Cause this one scarily gave me more good feelings than that previous more heartbreaking one. Think about it:

A 'proper' incident that triggered the brothers' insecurity regarding their lazy NEET lifestyles.

A 'proper' resolution as to how they should proceed with their lives after said incident.

A 'proper' display of progress as to how they live in their new ‘paths’.

A 'proper' indication of scenes portraying Osomatsu's loneliness after taking his 'new' path

A proper AND WHAT'S MORE HEALTHY acknowledgment of Osomatsu's loneliness

And a 'proper' ending as to foreshadowing the six of them 'getting together again' in episode 25

Gosh. What are they planning to hit us with in the last episode?

K now we get to what I biasedly feel was the MOST important part to mention and appreciate about this episode:

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT OUR NII-SAN. OSOMATSU-NII-SAN. OSOMATSU. OCHOMACHU-NII, MATSUNO CHOUNAN- kk I’ll get there. Basically, I have never felt so graced with so many Osomatsu in season 2 like in this episode 24, I mean he’s had his moments for a significant amount of times throughout the season, BUT YOU GOTTA APPRECIATE HOW HE WAS IN THIS ONE. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS:

JSKBDNSLJGDBDJHSNFJHFNSDJHVEWINU SO HD HE GOOD BOY. I CAN FINALLY CONFIDENTLY SAY THAT THIS IS THE FACE OF AN ANGEL. I LITERALLY NAMED THIS SCREENSHOT ‘FACE OF AN ANGEL.JPEG’ AND THIS WAS ONLY ONE OF MANY IN EPISODE 24 but I JUST HAPPEN TO LIKE THIS THE BEST BECAUSE OF HOW IT IMPACTED ME; IT’S THAT CONFIDENT, KIND, ASSURING OLDER-BRO LOOK. YES, I AM FULLY AWARE THAT I AM EXAGGERATING BUT LEMME HAVE MA MOMENT HERE. It’s such a nice expression to look at; that sincere grounded-like confidence that seemed to indicate his seriousness and actual interest in getting shit done. But at the same time, it scared me because I was worried of the possibility of him changing from the Osomatsu we all know, as in the good aspects of him changing, I mean, if the shitty parts of him are changed to good ones I’m definitely not gonna complain, cause that’s somewhat is a good thing tto occur, but if his Osomatsu qualities disappear...? Ugh, I think I’m blabbering again but well, at least he stayed the same till the end of the episode’s cliffhanger... such a gentle cliffhanger, and yet, it scared me because I don’t know whether this is gonna end up being another prank of the staff’s or somehow they are actually going to end Osomatsu-san with a proper ending since it’s slight dwindling popularity makes the show getting a season 3 becoming more unlikely and it’s not gonna happen anytime soon (with everyone feeling hyped for Avenger’s Infinity War and all)

Also, I just wanna point out Osomatsu’s appearance in this episode was a big contrast as to how much he ‘appeared’ in the previous episode 24 in season 1. In the old episode 24, we’re more exposed to the other five brothers’ facial expressions and at times subtle thoughts about their ordeal, while, we’re not revealed much on Osomatsu’s expressions, and his thoughts and feelings were unreadable when viewed without our own speculations and interpretations. And in this one, We see more of Osomatsu as he was coming to terms with his conflicting feelings; not only do we get to see his expressions, we also actually get to listen to him talk about it, we were given a direct chance to know of his thoughts (Thank you Totoko-chan for showing up!)!

This was an interesting semi-finale episode. For some reason, I think I cried watching this more than I should (I’m not sure why for certain scenes in this episode my tears just decided to flow X’D). It gave me warm and at times delightful feelings, but at the same time it made me feel uncomfortable and doubtful due to that dreading feeling that this current ‘proper’ lifestyle the Matsuno’s are practicing now may potentially be ‘cracked’ in the last episode (Am partially wondering if the treasure hunt Iyami introduced is a possible foreshadowing of their activities)

Well then, one more week

#osomatsu san #osomatsu san season 2 #matsuno osomatsu #thoughts #some attempt at episode 24 comparison #AND OSOMATSU APPRECIATION #AAAAAAAAA NIIII-SAAAAAAAANN

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alicanta77 · 4 years

Text

Chapter 3: Elysium Burning

Pairing: y/n x Haechan

Themes: angst, fluff, suspense(?)

Warnings: swearing, zombies, blood, violence, death, virus, illness, anxiety, mentions of abusive family

Words: 11k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Finale

——————————————————————————

Inspiration from my friend @2-cute-4-school and her story called ‘Evanescent’. This girl is such a beautiful writer and honestly seems to be able to write anything, can't praise and recommend her work enough! Thank you to the ends of the earth for letting me use it as a starting point xx

——————————————————————————

Three days. It had been three days since you had left the safety of Mark’s house. Three days until you had reached the army base. Three days since Jeno had died. And those three days had been the hardest since the apocalypse began. Learning to live without Jeno was something you never thought you would have to do, never thought you would know what it was like. You never wanted to know what it was like, but you did. It was your new normal.

Since Jeno died, a hole had been ripped out of your group dynamic. Renjun wore his necklace everyday, you often caught him holding onto the silver tab that read his name and birthday. Donghyuck went silent. He was still in mourning for his sister, and piling one of his best friend’s deaths on top of that seemed too cruel to be real. But it was. And you couldn't focus. Whenever someone started talking, you remembered Jeno. Whenever you keeping watch at night, you remembered Jeno. Whenever you were doing nothing, you remembered Jeno. He was such a huge part of your life that you didn't know how to function without him there.

Jaemin had been a massive help to you all. He had been patient, repeating anything you didn't focus on, kind, always staying with you to talk about him, and understanding, helping you when you broke down about him. That photograph you had of the four of you was your last memory of him. You held onto that every second you could, treasured it like you had never treasured anything before. Donghyuck cried every night, and every night you hugged him and sang ‘You are my sunshine’ to calm him down. He found it hard to let you go afterwards though. So you never left. It was getting to the point where you were needing Donghyuck by your side in order to get a good nights sleep.

After three of the most mentally exhausting days of your life, you reached the army base.

You watched as the high walls grew over the horizon, your supposed safe haven. You knew that a fight was awaiting you. There was a slim chance that the building would be empty of zombies, but you felt ready to take them on. You hadn't killed a zombie since the school and, after everything of the past few days, you thought you could do well with letting out some pent up anger and frustration.

Jaemin drove you, Jisung and Donghyuck in one car, Mark driving the others, and you approached the gates at a steady speed. Last night you had come to the decision that it would be best to drive around the base once, allowing you to check how many zombies you could see, before launching your attack. You also knew that you only really had one shot at this, so you decided to stick together and move as one, clean the base out one room at a time.

Mark’s car was a bit further ahead of you, so you were surprised to see the brake lights flash up suddenly, signalling them stopping. Jaemin followed suit, shooting you a quick confused look as you all watched them exit the car and stare up at the base. You opened your door, Donghyuck meeting you as you climbed out of the backseat and walked up towards them.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jaemin asked.

Mark turned around to look at you all.

‘It’s quiet.’

Chenle raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s quiet? Isn’t that a good thing?’

‘No as in it’s too quiet. Surely there must be zombies somewhere, but you can't hear a thing. It’s as if the entire area has been cleared of them.’ Mark tried to explain his paranoia.

‘This place should be crawling. The infection rates of HD were highest in the military due to the close contamination in their living quarters.’ Renjun spoke quietly. Neither you, Renjun or Donghyuck had spoken much since Jeno’s death, and even when you did it was mainly to each other.

Renjun moved closer towards you and Donghyuck, relaxing a bit as he was closer to you before continuing: ‘Statistically speaking, there should be something here.’

‘Exactly. What should we-’

Mark was cut off by a metallic groan that drew your attention to the walls in front of you. The gates began to creak open, causing all of you to grab your guns and pull them into position. Then you saw two figures begin to walk towards you, but, they didn't seem to move like zombies did, the was no limping or sharp twitches. There were also no trademark moans or groans that you usually heard from the undead. This did not, however, calm you down, instead fuelling your fear and you gripped your gun tighter. You could see the rest of your group still had their guns ready, everyone anticipating a fight.

But the fight never came. As the figures got closer you couldn't see any tell tale signs on their skin of them being infected, and you felt your grip on your gun being to loosen. Soon the figures had reached a few meters from you and put their hands up, as if in surrender or showing that they meant you no harm. Both figures were male, and as the shorter of the two males began to speak, you felt your nerves disappear slightly.

‘Hey, are you guys okay? I know you must be terrified right now but, I promise you’ll be safe here. Can you put the guns down?’

You looked at Mark for guidance and watched as he lowered his gun and nodded at the rest of you. You all followed suit, causing smiles to break out on the two male’s faces.

‘Now that’s more like it! Before we let you in, we have to ask and do a quick check for injuries and bites. Is that okay?’

Mark nodded, slightly in shock at the current situation.

‘Yeah that's fine, no one is bitten, we can show you.’

You all rolled up your sleeves and trouser legs, showing your clean bodies. Instead of forcing you to stand in your underwear, the boys asked for you to do certain stretches. This originally confused you but, only once you did them did you realise that, if you had a bite anywhere on your stomach or back, these would have been excruciatingly painful.

Once you were all cleared, the two boys smiled and the taller one held out a hand for Mark to shake.

‘I’m Hyunjin, this is San. Nice to meet you.’

Mark shook his hand and turned to you all, pointing at you in turn and introducing you.

Hyunjin and San repeated each name after him in an attempt to learn them before nodding in confirmation.

‘Well if you want to get in your cars, and don’t mind giving us a lift too, we can get you in through the front gate.’ San informed you, all of you easily nodding in agreement.

Hyunjin climbed into Mark’s car, while San followed you to yours. Donghyuck gave San the passenger seat and came around to sit in the back with you and Chenle. While driving up towards the army gates and through the army gates, you couldn't help but grab onto Donghyuck’s arm and think of Jeno and how much he would have loved to be here, how much he deserved to be here.

Donghyuck turned around and gave you a sad smile, showing that he was thinking the same.

‘Sorry about those weird stretches we asked you to do back there.’ San turned around to you in the back. ‘It’s just an easy way of knowing if someone is injured without having to make them undress. The two leaders of this group we have, Chan and Hongjoon, came up with the idea. They didn't really want to make anyone uncomfortable before they had even got through the door.’

After that he turned back around. You were glad he didn't force you to talk and he seemed to realise that there was something that you didn't want to talk about. You hoped everyone in the army base would be as kind as he had been so far.

The cars pulled in through the gate and you saw a small group of people waiting. San opened the door and gestured for the rest of you to follow suit.

‘Someone will take your car to our makeshift garage.’ He explained before turning around to a brown haired boy and saying, ‘They're clean Seungmin.’

Seungmin nodded and greeted you with a kind smile. He approached you carefully, as if you were a frightened puppy, but somehow it comforted you that he gave you time to step back if you needed.

‘Hi, I’m Seungmin.’ He held out a hand for you to shake.

‘Y/n.’ You replied, you voice weak.

‘I’m the head medic here, so if you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I know this may be a bit overwhelming, right?’

You smiled slightly, ‘Just a bit.’

‘Well, again, come and find me if you ever need anything okay?’

‘I will, thank you.’

Donghyuck approached you from behind and placed a hand on your shoulder, causing you to flinch.

‘Sorry.’ He mumbled. ‘Who was that?’

‘Uhhh, Seungmin. He’s the medic apparently.’ You replied, turning around to face him.

‘Oh right. Isn't this insane?’

‘It’s not what I expected, that's for sure.’ You agreed.

Suddenly San called you both over again.

‘So we’re gonna show you around and let you meet the people in charge of this joint. And also some other useful faces to know.’

He smiled at you again, an eye smile that reminded you of Jeno’s, somehow managing to fill you with warmth and simultaneously tear your heart out at the same time.

You all followed as he took you into the main complex building, guiding you down winding corridors until you finally reached a door marked ‘Commanding Officer’. San knocked three times before a voice replied ‘Come in.’ and he opened the door.

The room didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. There were two desks facing opposite each other, each equipped with a chair and covered in papers. There was a bookshelf and filing cabinet that seemed to be in good use and an overhead light. There was also two sofas and three arm chairs placed around a coffee table. Sat at each desk were two more men who both stood up to greet you as you entered.

‘You must be the cars we saw driving up!’ One of the men exclaimed, surprising you with how happy and trusting he was around people he had just met.

‘How are you all feeling? San gave us the nod to you being all clean so does anyone want any food, water or a shower?’

None of you replied, all in complete and utter shock at the sudden turn of events.

The two leaders shared a look before the first began to speak again, his voice much calmer and softer.

‘Sorry to throw all of this on you, you can’t have been expecting this so it must come as quite a bit of a shock. My name’s Chan and this is Hongjoon. If you guys want to take a seat, we can answer any questions you may have?’

You just about managed to nod before being guided by Renjun to a sofa. You sat down next to him and watched as the rest of your group followed suit and chose their seats. All of you sat onto the two sofas, leaving Hongjoon and Chan to take two of the chairs. Hongjoon quickly turned around to grab San’s attention.

‘Could you go and grab the heads so that we can introduce them?’

San nodded and left the room, leaving Hongjoon to turn around to you.

‘Well, I guess we should start at the beginning. Chan why don't you explain?’

‘Sure. I assume, like us, you guys had the idea that an army base would be the safest and more reliable place to live during the apocalypse. And you would be right. I was actually working here when HD began to spread. The military infection rates were steadily growing everyday, and we couldn't figure out why. When people started to fall and rise again, I suddenly clicked what was going on and I opened the main door. It may sound selfish, but, I knew that this would be the safest place to live permanently and there were too many soldiers infected for me to take them out by myself. They were also people I knew and worked with so it wasn't easy. I called a few of my friends who weren't in the army base, but were nearby, and told them of my plan. One of them, Changbin, knew another called Wooyoung.’

Then Hongjoon began to speak.

‘He is a good friend of mine, and that is how our groups became one. We figured that, the larger our group, the better our chances so we rushed out here to help. Thanks to Chan opening the doors, many of the infected and non-infected abandoned the base as soon as they possibly could, leaving a large but manageable amount for all of us to deal with. For the first few days we were on edge, clearing out the rooms and we even ventured into the surrounding forest as far as we dared. Once that was done, we knew that we would need to pull ourselves together as fast as we could. We created jobs for everyone, including medics, scientists, farmers, raiders and warriors. Each job having a head, decided by who was the most experienced in that field when we arrived. Chan and myself oversee everything so far, but we have also been working mainly on reinstating many of the defence systems.’

He turned back to Chan, as if silently asking him to carry on, while the door creaked open. Chan turned back to the door and gestured with his right hand for those that were waiting outside to come in. San led Seungmin and four boys you didn't know into the room while Chan began to speak again.

‘If you guys wish to stay here then we have three rules. Rule number one, do your part. Everyone here will have a job and we believe that this place will run smoothly as long as you put effort in to keep it that way. Rule number two, trust those around you. This place is built on trust and, in the current situation, it is the most important thing you can have. And rule number three, never leave the army base without letting us know first. We want to make sure that everyone here is protected, therefore, if you don’t return within a timeframe, we can send people out to find you. That being said, here are the heads of our department. Each of you will get a job under one of these boys. This is our head medic Seungmin, he will bandage you up if you ever get injured. We have our chef, Seonghwa, who also works on the farms. And there is our head scientist, Yeosang, he looks at possible cures and preventions for HD. Then there is our head farmer, Yunho, he takes care of our fields. Jongho, is our head warrior, he takes care of any zombies we see lurking around the walls or at the edge of the forest. And finally, San, he leads the raiders who will head into the town to raid local pharmacies and shops while we get this place up and running.’

You looked around the boys, each of them sending a small nod or a wave when Chan introduced them, allowing you to finally put some names to the faces.

‘So we’ll let you guys get settled in, show you around and, after a few days, we can give you a job or let you try some of them out and see where you best fit. How does that sound?’

Hongjoon looked around all of you. You weren't sure if he was expecting a verbal answer but at this point all you could do was nod. Seungmin and two boys that you now recognised as Yeosang and Jongho left, bringing in three new ones.

San quickly spoke up as the news boys entered, explaining their reasoning for being there.

‘This place is quite big so we also thought that you may want a guide here, so we’ve brought a few boys to show you around for the early days. Can you guys tell us your names?’

Hongjoon and Chan looked around again at you and Mark quickly pointed to each of you, informing the others of what you were called.

Chan nodded and looked to the boys who were standing.

‘Well, Mark do you want to go with Mingi, Jisung, you can pair off with Yunho, Chenle, Seonghwa can look after you, Renjun, our Jisung will show you around, Jaemin, you can go with Changbin, Donghyuck, you and Lee Know and finally, y/n why don't you pair with San? Does that sound okay?’

A chorus of yes and sure echoed throughout the room and then the two leaders smiled before standing up.

You took this as a clear sign that the meeting was over, the rest of the boys beginning to stand as well. You took Donghyuck’s outstretched hand and pulled yourself off the sofa.

San and Lee Know approached you two, San speaking first.

‘Donghyuck, this is Lee Know, Lee Know, Donghyuck.’

A short introduction, but both the boys nodded at each other before Lee Know offered to show Donghyuck to his room.

‘Yeah sure, just a sec.’ Donghyuck replied before turning to you, clearly wanting to say something but he seemed to be struggling to find the words.

‘I’ll see you later okay? It’s gonna be fine.’ You reassured him with a smile.

This seemed to calm Donghyuck down and he turned around and looked at Lee Know.

‘Let’s go.’

You watched as he walked towards the door, stopping for half a second to send a quick look back at you, before he disappeared from your sight.

You turned to look at San as he began to speak, leading you out of the door.

‘So, is there anything you want to do or any place you particularly want to see?’

You thought to yourself before you suddenly remembered something Hongjoon had said when you arrived.

‘Hongjoon mentioned that you guys have showers here?’ Your voice trailed off slightly at the end, but San turned around and gave you a comforting smile.

‘Oh they are amazing! Definitely the area where most of the military budget went. I’ll show you to them.’

---

You exited the changing room, freshly showered and wearing clean clothes for the first time in four days. You saw San waiting for you as you walked out.

‘Sorry for taking so long.’ You apologised quickly.

‘Oh don’t worry, and honestly, that was not long. When we first arrived, Mingi took a two and a half hour shower. You think I’m joking but I’m really not. The only way we could only tell he was still alive from his rather out of tune singing.’

You chuckled at this, remembering the tall boy who had greeted you all with a large smile.

‘You guys have done a lot with this in only a week.’ You commented, genuinely impressed with what had happened. ‘It’s very different to how it used to be.’

San looked at you, while you continued walking, a curious expression on his face. ‘You’ve been here before?’

You almost tripped over your own feet as you were suddenly smacked in the face with the memories of Jeno describing the place after his summer camp. He had been so excited, showing you countless photos and videos of the building, making you feel like you had learnt the layout of it.

San shot out a hand to steady you.

‘Sorry! I didn't mean to throw you off I just- you seem to sort of know your way around and then you said that. Sorry, are you okay?’

You stopped walking for a minute and looked into San’s kind, brown eyes.

‘Yeah, I’m okay. I just... I haven't been here before. A friend of mine did this summer camp and he showed me pictures. It was his idea to come here and he- he would have been amazed with everything you guys have done here.’

San said nothing, just watched as you blinked back tears that were threatening to fall. Then he began to walk away from you and turned to you and gestured after him.

‘Follow me.’

You followed San for only about a minute until you arrived at a room that Jeno had never shown you. The room was empty apart from a stone bench in the middle, the kind with no back so you could sit facing any direction you liked. There was an opening into a field at the back that was also empty apart from two rock piles and some wild flowers growing in random places around. The walls were bare, except for two names carved into the stone.

Jung Wooyoung

Yang Jeong-in

San took you by the hand and led you outside. He sat down in front of one of the rock piles, leaving space for you to sit next to him. As you sat down you watched as San closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, you could see tears forming on the waterline. He turned to look at you a smile sadly.

‘I didn’t know your friend.’ He turned away from you and looked at the rocks in front of him. ‘And you didn't know mine.’

You followed his gaze and suddenly you realised what you were looking at. You were looking at a grave.

‘But, to an extent, I think I understand how you are feeling. Getting this place to the point it is wasn't as easy as Chan and Hongjoon claimed it was. In the first three days we had been here, we’d lost two of our group of sixteen.’

San stood up and walked back inside, with you following closely behind. He sat down on the stone bench and continued to talk, staring at the names engraved on the walls.

‘Wooyoung died first, he died our first day here and then Jeong-in died two days later. We had just arrived at the base to help Chan, some of the others were already here so Wooyoung and I began to take out some of the zombies that were breaking out of the door. Before we knew it, more started to emerge from the woods. We were surrounded for a minute but, somehow, we cleared a path to the entrance and walked backwards towards it, but they didn’t seem to stop coming.’

San’s voice dropped to a whisper as the first tear rolled down his cheek.

‘There were so many of them. And we hadn't got any defences at the base set up either. At the last moment, he pushed me inside and ran off in another direction. He drew their attention away from us, away from here. We found him, but it was too late. They... they had ripped him apart. We carried him back here and buried him in the field.’

You placed a hand on his should as he took a shaky breath.

‘It was hard on all of us. Wooyoung was the bridge between our two groups and without him we wouldn't have ever made it here.’

You couldn't help but compare Wooyoung to Jeno. Jeno was the reason Jaemin had saved your group, he had been your bridge to the other boys and he had also sacrificed himself. Without Jeno you would never have made it as far as you did. Tears of your own began to fall as you listened to San tell Jeong-in’s story.

‘Jeong-in, we all called him I.N. Not really sure why to be honest. He was the sweetest thing... didn't deserve any of this. His death affected Chan the most, I.N. was like a little brother to him. He died three days after we arrived. We thought we had cleared out the entire base of zombies, having spent the previous two day scouring every corridor and every room looking for them. But, as I.N. was in his room one night, he discovered he wasn't alone. He didn't have any weapons on him and- he didn't stand a chance. We could hear his screams down the corridor and we ran to find him but, it was too late. We had to put a bullet in his head just to make sure before we buried him. You’ll never hear him admit this but, Chan blames himself. He thought he should have checked one last time before letting us walk around without a weapon. He never goes anywhere without a gun now.’

You looked down at your hands that were now placed in your lap. San’s words being the only thing you could hear.

‘I know that you guys are grieving, and I’m not going to make you talk about it or ask you to suddenly be okay. But, if it’s any consolation, you're not the only one. I’m grieving too. Chan’s grieving, Hyunjin’s grieving, Yeosang’s grieving. All of us here are. We all know what it’s like to lose someone in this messed up world, so, if you ever do want to talk to someone who didn't know him, there are countless of us that will happily listen to you.’

You pulled San in for a hug.

‘Thank you.’ You whispered.

Eventually the two of you pulled away from each other, wiping away your tears. San stood up and offered his hand for you to take.

‘Come on. I’ll show you to your room.’

You grabbed his outreached hand and pulled yourself up. When you reached the door, you turned back one final time and said a quiet ‘Thank You’ to the two boys who had lost their lives in order to build the sanctuary you had found a home in.

The walk to your room was a quieter one. San gently pointing out that they had decided to use the bedrooms of the higher ranking officers rather than the communal bunks. On the outside of the doors was your name written on a piece of paper. You also noticed that the boys had placed all of you on the same floor, making you thankful that you were kept close together.

‘Seonghwa will probably be making dinner now and when he’s ready, he makes an announcement through the intercom. Do you remember where the dining hall is?’

You nodded in response and San sent you a smile.

‘Brilliant. I’ll see you there then.’

He turned away and began to walk down the corridor. You stepped out fo your doorway and called after him.

‘San?’

He turned around and looked back, waiting for you to continue.

‘Thank you.’

‘Anytime.’

With that he turned around and you headed into your room. Your bag had been brought up from your car and been placed on your bed for you. You look around your room and you were blown away. A double bed was pressed against the wall to your left, on either side of it were two bedside tables, one with an alarm clock on and the other had a bottle of water. You had a wardrobe opposite with the door left open so you could see that the boys had filled it with clean clothes for you along with a note that read ‘Gave you a few sizes, just choose which fit best and put the rest outside your door for us to deal with. Smallest to largest - left to right’. You looked at the note in disbelief, the boys were so considerate it blew your mind. There was also a bookcase opposite the door, filled with books. Upon closer inspection you saw some fiction stories and some were more educational books on types of plants and medicines. Next to the bookcase was an ensuite bathroom with a shower, loo and sink. You wondered why you didn't shower there earlier until you vaguely remembered San mentioning that they were preparing your room when he took you to the communal showers by the gym.

Suddenly a voice came over the speakers, making you jump.

‘Dinner is ready! Meet in the dining hall.’

You stopped where you were, your body starting to shake slightly. The voice over the speakers, although you were very much aware that it was Seonghwa, reminded you so much of the moments before Jeno died. You remembered watching helplessly through a camera as he fought for you. You remembered all of you screaming through the speakers for him to wait for you, to stay safe, stay alive. You remembered the blast of the grenade and the sinking feeling you felt when you realised it was him. You shut your eyes and pulled at your hair when a voice called out your name.

‘Y/n?’

At first you didn't register it. It wasn't until they grabbed you gently by the arm did you open your eyes and see Jaemin’s worried face in front of you.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked, concern clear in his eyes.

You stuttered, trying to find the right words.

‘Yeah- yeah I- I just kept thinking and rem- remembering and I don’t-’

Jaemin cut you off, pulling you in for a tight hug. He whispered reassuring words in your ear and gently petted your hair. You took a deep breath.

‘Do you want to go to dinner? I can bring some back for you if you don’t.’

You shook your head, whispering that you wanted to go and he smiled back before opening the door for you.

---

You sat at dinner on a long table with all of the boys around you, making idle conversation. You were sat in-between Donghyuck and San with Jaemin opposite you and Hyunjin and a new boy, Yongbok, on either side of him. You found the boys surprisingly easy to talk to and, before you knew it, found yourself laughing and joking around a meal. You hadn't laughed like that since your last meal at school the day before HD became deadly. Even though that day was just under two weeks ago, it felt like a lifetime go. It was a weirdly nostalgic feeling, like you were remembering a life you used to live.

After dinner, the boys began to clear away but, despite your efforts, insisted that you didn't help. They claimed that, since it as your first night and you must be exhausted, that they do all of the work. Once they left the room, you turned around to the six boys around you.

‘I have an idea.’

---

You looked a the stone wall, the two names carved there being one of the only signs that those boys had ever been alive, and turned around to face your group.

‘It’s a graveyard.’ You explained. ‘These two boys, Wooyoung and Jeong-in, died soon after the group arrived here. The boys are using this as a place to bury and remember their dead and I thought that, maybe we could bury Jeno. We could carve his name here and make a grave stone and get to say some kind of goodbye.’

Renjun smiled at you.

‘I like that idea.’

‘Me too.’ Donghyuck agreed.

The other four boys all either nodded or vocalised their agreement, so you picked up the knife that was placed in a holder next to the names and turned around.

‘Renjun, can you do it?’

Renjun gently nodded and took the knife from your hands.

‘I’d be honoured.’

You all watched, breathless, as Renjun began to immortalise your lost friend. Then, after a short while, he stepped back, allowing you all to view his work.

‘It’s perfect.’ Donghyuck whispered, slipping his hand into yours.

You led the boys outside and showed them the gravestones for Wooyoung and I.N. The boys all grabbed a few stones from the path, with you also picking a small bunch of wildflowers, and met back, ready to place them in memory.

You watched as Mark and Jaemin strategically balanced each rock on top of the other, forming a small pyramid. You stepped forward and placed the flowers in front of the pile, a small ‘I miss you.’ leaving your lips.

And you stood there. Seven friends mourning the loss of another, standing in solidarity through the pain and heartache, saddened by the knowledge that you were probably the last seven people on the planet who knew who Lee Jeno was. Together, standing around the grave of the young boy, you all finally said the one thing you never got to.

‘Goodbye.’

---

You lay in bed that night, unable to go to sleep. Your body was screaming at you with exhaustion but you just couldn’t seem to get comfortable. After saying goodbye to Jeno, you felt as though a small weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Of course you still missed him more than anything, but being able to give him a grave had made you feel like he had at least been put to rest.

You were so lost in your memories of Jeno and the events of that day that you almost missed the timid knock at your door.

‘Come in?’ You said, rolling over to face the door so that you could see who it was.

The door opened slightly and Donghyuck’s head appeared from behind it. He saw you smile at the sight of him and came into your room fully. He shut the door behind him but didn't move from his position there.

‘Are you okay Hyuck?’ You asked, while you watched him fiddle with a loose strand on his t-shirt, a nervous habit he’d had since he was a kid.

‘I can’t sleep.’ He stated, still looking at the floor.

‘Nor can I.’ You replied quietly.

Silence fell over the room for a few seconds, neither of you knowing how to say what you wanted. Eventually Hyuck gained the courage to ask you what he had wanted to for the past few hours.

‘Can I stay here? I haven't gone to sleep without at least being in the same room as you for two weeks and I've slept with you by my side for five days and, I don’t think I can sleep without you there.’

You were rendered speechless by his honesty, so you simply just nodded and moved over to make room for him. He climbed in next to you and lay on his side so that he could look at you.

‘Do you want me to sing?’ You asked quietly, but he shook his head.

‘I just want to be close to you.’ He whispered, not breaking eye contact for half a second. You could see that he was deadly serious and you lifted up a hand to softly move a piece of hair out oh his face. ‘Is that okay?’ He seemed almost nervous about your answer.

You nodded and he opened up his arms for you. You moved into his chest as far as you could and he wrapped his arms around your body. You moved one arm so that you were holding his waist and gently stroked his face with the other. He had one hand on your back and another petting your hair. After all of this, his eyes found yours again, his stare making you weak. You were sure that if you were standing right now, your knees would be wobbling. You wanted to look away out of embarrassment but you couldn't bring yourself to break his gaze. It was an expression that you had never seen on him before, some kind of mix between admiration, love and fear. He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead closing his eyes as he did so. You couldn't help the burst of love that blossomed throughout your chest. And wrapped around each other like that, you both drifted off to sleep, whispering words so quiet that you almost missed them.

‘Please never leave me...’

‘I promise.’

---

You kept your breathing steady and in time with your fast paces as you ran alongside San through the woods. It had been a month since you had arrived at the base, and you were now fully settled in your new job as a raider. Your boys were nervous about letting you go out but, you and San had a good dynamic between the two of you and at least they knew he would protect you. And, at the end of the day, they knew it was your choice. The group was also in desperate need of a second raider after Hyunjin had sprained his ankle on his last run.

Mark was working closely with Chan and Hongjoon and together they were working on rewiring the security cameras and defence machinery. Mark’s experience with his home security and the time he spent interning for his father really came in useful here. Jaemin helped out with Seonghwa in the kitchen at times and also worked with Seungmin in the medical office. Chenle was immediately chosen by Jongho to join the warriors, due to his impeccable aim with a gun, and was also working on training Donghyuck. In the meantime Donghyuck also worked in the field alongside Jisung. Renjun and Yeosang worked together in the lab, studying HD and its properties and were looking into any possible cures or preventions. They were working hard but couldn't seem to get anywhere, the virus made no sense.

You visited Jeno everyday, sometimes with the other boys, sometimes alone, but gradually, you were beginning to cry less and move on. You had learnt that moving on didn't mean forgetting, it just meant accepting what had happened. Jeno became the motivation for your group, the same way, you assumed, that Wooyoung and Jeong-in were the motivation for the other boys. Hyuck also still slept with you every night. You two would alternate who’s room you slept in and it had reached the point where the boys would be worried if you ever spent a night apart. Your feelings for the sunshine boy grew more and more everyday, and you were terrified at what you would do if something ever happened to him.

You loved your job as a raider. Of course you were terrified every time you left the safety of the compound, but, you loved the freedom that came with the quick run to the local town. You only ever came here if you needed a small amount of supplies, taking cars to a larger city further away for when you needed a larger amount of loot.

You had only needed to grab some more pain medicine for Hyunjin’s foot, a job that probably only needed one of you, but, for safety reasons, you never left the base alone. You were approaching the exit of the woods and you knew you would soon see the walls of the army base appear from beyond the trees.

Suddenly San skidded to a stop, putting out a hand to stop you as well. You quickly tried to stop yourself, holding on to his arm to keep your balance and looked in the direction he was pointing.

In front of you were five zombies, all shot dead, you assumed thanks to Jongho and Chenle. But you couldn't tell why San was looking at them so strangely. His head was tilted slightly to the side, a habit of his that you had learnt means that there something he can’t quite figure out.

‘What’s wrong? Aren’t they Chenle’s and Jongho’s kills?’ You asked, breaking the silence that was only previously disrupted by your deep breaths.

‘Yeah they are, but something’s just confusing me about them.’ He replied, his eyes never leaving the bodies in front of him.

‘What is it?’ You moved out from behind him slightly to get a better look at the figures on the ground.

‘Well, it’s just- the differences between them. Why do some have a greyer tint to their skin, and others have dark veins and some have both and look here!’ He pointed to two various wounds on the zombies corpses. ‘This one has red blood, and this one black. Something’s just a bit weird about it.’

You thought for a minute, realising San was right. Then suddenly, you remembered something that Donghyuck had said when you were escaping the school.

‘Donghyuck once mentioned that it could possibly be a sign of who was bitten and who was infected. Maybe it’s that?’

San nodded in agreement.

‘You’re probably right. But then what’s the third? There’s three different kinds here.’

You looked once again at the bodies and realised that he was right. You meant down to the zombie with black blood, something you had never seen before today, and gently went to roll up his sleeve. As you did, you exposed long, deep scratch wounds up his arms.

You stepped back in shock, San quickly coming around to be next to you.

‘I guess you can get turned by scratch now.’ You mumbled. You couldn't help but quickly roll up your trouser leg and check your ankle. You let out a deep sigh of relief when you saw nothing wrong. The injury was so small that it hadn't even scarred.

San nodded, before turning to you in a slight panic.

‘We need to tell Renjun and Yeosang! They need to hear about this. They may even want to see the body.’

‘Oh god, you're right. Let’s go.’

You ran the final stretch back up to the base, quickly lifting up your right hand to signal to Chan through the cameras that you were unharmed. The signals were an idea of yours that you were quite proud of, allowing those inside to be aware if something was wrong without needing to open the gates and potentially put everyone in danger. If you lifted up your right hand, you were both unharmed, if you lifted up your left, one of you was injured but not because of a zombie, if you waved one hand then it signified that one of you had been bitten and, finally, if you waved both hands then one of you had been left behind.

The doors quickly opened and you both ran inside, San and you heading straight to Yeosang and Renjun’s lab. As San had predicted, they wanted to see the body so San, along with Jongho and Seungmin, took them back to it, while you headed to the medical wing to bring Jaemin some more medication for Hyunjin.

---

You knocked on the outside of the door, hearing a faint ‘Come in!’ shortly after. You poked your head around the door with a smile and saw Jaemin’s face light up at the sight of you. You and Jaemin had become increasingly closer over the past month, relying on each other more than you did before and turning to the other for advice more often than not. He was also the only one who you had told about your feelings for Donghyuck. He was calm and kind while listening and never judged you for being too scared to admit how you were really feeling.

‘Hey!’ You greeted, taking off your backpack.

‘Y/n! How was your run?’ He asked, quickly standing to get you a glass of water.

‘Good. It’s nice to be running somewhere other than the grounds. As crazy as it sounds, cause, you know, we’re in a literal zombie apocalypse, I really like being outside these walls.’ You took the glass with a grateful smile, taking three large gulps before putting the, now half empty, glass back down.

‘Nah, I think it makes sense. I mean, as safe as it is here, walls can get quite restricting so I guess it feels like bit of freedom. As terrifying as it may be.’ He laughed the last bit, making you giggle as well.

‘It does get rather tense.’ You opened your back and pulled out the pills. ‘Here you go, I hope this is what you were looking for.’

‘Perfect!’ Jaemin almost screamed, making you jump before laughing again. Your laughter soon died away however, leaving you to just look at the boy in front of you, suddenly remembering all that he had done for you.

Jaemin soon noticed your stare and asked a gentle:

‘Hey, is everything ok?’

‘Yeah, everything’s fine. I just..’ You trailed off, unsure how to begin.

‘What's wrong?’ He asked, stepping forward and placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. ‘You can tell me anything’

‘I know, I just... I realised I never thanked you.’ You confessed.

‘Huh?’ Jaemin raised an eyebrow, looking genuinely confused at what you had just admitted

‘I never thanked you. For everything you did. For me, for Haechan, for Renjun, for Jeno, you saved our lives. I know that no amount of words or actions can make up for everything you have done but-’

‘Y/n...’ He cut you off

‘Wait. Please just let me finish. I really need to say this’ He nodded and let you continue.

‘Thank you for getting us out of that gym. Thank you for calming me down after my panic attack. Thank you for not judging me when I killed that girl. Thank you for not losing faith in me after my scratch. Thank you for convincing Mark, Jisung and Chenle to trust me. Thank you for coming with me to see my parents. Thank you for saving me when I was there. Thank you for looking after us when we lost Jeno. Thank you for keeping everything together when we were falling apart. Thank you for getting us here. Thank you for everything.’

By this point, Jaemin had stepped even closer to you and you just hugged him. You hadn’t hugged him since the trip to your parents but, this time it was different. It wasn't you completely breaking down while he shook in sheer panic. It was everything over the past month and a half, all the emotion, all the loss, all the unsaid words exploded in this hug and you never wanted to let go.

You stayed like that for God knows how long before finally stepping away from each other slightly.

‘You don’t need to thank me for anything. Just stay alive. That’s thanks enough.’ He quietly murmured, making your hands around his waist tighten slightly at his words.

You stepped away from each other fully as you heard fast footsteps approaching the medical office and the door swung open to reveal San along with Chan and Hongjoon.

‘Everything okay?’ You asked.

‘Sorry to do this to you, we know you two must be tired, but we are gonna need you to make one final trip for us today.’ Chan looked at you apologetically.

‘Where to?’ You asked, reaching for the rest of your water to hydrate yourself.

‘The medical store you were just at. Yeosang and Renjun are looking at the different bodies and thought that they may be able to conduct some tests, but they need some alcohol.’

San spoke up from behind the two leaders.

‘I remember seeing some in a glass bottle when you were grabbing what we needed for Hyunjin. It was that clear liquid.’

You nodded as a look of realisation coming over your face as you remembered San pointing it out to you.

‘Yeah, I know exactly where you mean.’

Hongjoon nodded at your words before speaking up as well.

‘Again, we are so sorry to send you out again, but you guys know the area better than anyone and since you know where it is in the shop, it seems smartest to let you go.’

‘No, no, don’t worry about it. It’s our job.’ You reassured them. ‘Let’s go in ten?’ You directed at San who nodded in response.

You made a quick trip to the loo, having learnt the hard way on one of your first runs that, running when you are desperate is a really bad idea. You also refilled your water bottle, grabbed a cleaner pair of running shoes and emptied your backpack of things you wouldn't need. You were just leaving you room when Donghyuck appeared out of his.

‘Are you going out again?’ He asked, furrowing his brow at your outfit.

‘Yeah. We need to grab something else from the shop that San and I went to earlier to help Renjun and Yeosang. Shouldn't take that long.’ You explained.

‘Please be careful. I hate watching you go out there.’ He looked at you, fear evident on his face.

‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Have I ever not come back to you?’ You asked with a smile.

‘Yeah well, don’t start now. Just be careful.’

You stepped forwards and gave him a quick hug goodbye.

‘I will.’ You promised as you went to meet San.

---

You knelt down next to some of the shelves of the pharmacy, filling up San’s backpack. At the last moment you had decided to only take one, not really needing two for such a small trip. You grabbed a few bottles, just to make sure you had enough, and stood up and nodded at San. He nodded back and you two turned around to leave.

You had checked this entire place upon you arrival for zombies and had found nothing, so when you two heard the signature blood chilling groan that signified the presence of the undead, you both stopped in your tracks. You shared a quick frightened look before grabbing your weapons and moving closer together.

You listened carefully for any other sounds, hoping that you would be able to slip out of the shop unnoticed.

You had no such luck.

Shuffling footsteps and groans suddenly started multiplying and you could tell from the sheer volume of noise that you and San were vastly outnumbered. San grabbed your arm and pulled you behind one of the display cases.

‘Okay, here’s what we are going to do. We need to bust open that window at the back of the store and climb out of there. Once you are out, run for the base like you have never run before. We know from previous experience that we can outrun them so don’t turn around to shoot unless you have to. It will just slow you down.’ San’s voice was shaking as he explained his impromptu plan.

‘Okay, but what's wrong with the door? It gives us a clear path to the base and is closer than that window.’ You asked. San simply turned your head so that you caught the reflection of the door in a nearby mirror.

You counted at least twenty five zombies starting to flood the store, making your panic only increase when you thought of how many more must be on the street.

‘Since when did they start travelling in packs?’ You whisper-shouted at San who shrugged his shoulders in response. His eyes were wide and full of fear and you had never seen this expression on him before. ‘Hey, don't panic on me now. We got this.’

San nodded, a flicker of determination flashed across his face and he gripped his gun tightly.

‘You fire at the window and break it, I’ll fire in the opposite direction, hopefully mine will draw their attention long enough for us to get out.’

San nodded again at your addition to his plan. You counted down from three very quietly and pulled your triggers in sync.

You aimed for a glass display case that crashed down with an echoing smash, also breaking everything inside it. Without wasting anytime, San grabbed your hand and you were running. The store wasn’t by any means huge, but that short run to the window felt like a mile. San had cleverly fire two shots, meaning that a single hit from the but of his gun had caused the entire window to smash. This sound was luckily muffled by a zombie knocking over the neighbouring display case. He stepped over the ledge and held out a hand for you to grab. You hoisted yourself onto the broken window, just as you were noticed by the zombies.

Their groans increased in volume and you leaped down the other side. Without waiting a second, you two took off as fast as you could, slinging your guns onto your backs so that you could run faster. The only problem, however, with escaping out of the window was that the army base was in the opposite direction. That meant that, at some point, you had to pass through the wall of zombies waiting for you.

San was a naturally faster runner than you. He was a few paces ahead of you and was gaining distance, but you could tell he was tiring. So were you. You had ran this distance three times already today, and your legs were burning. Your lungs felt like they couldn't get enough air and even the wind seemed to push hard against you.

But still you didn't stop. You pushed forward as hard as you could, watching as San did the same. But, it still wasn't enough. The zombies were chasing you, running at full speed towards you. They could see you and knew that their food was only a short minute away. San had been right when he said that you could outrun them, but he hadn't taken your exhaustion into account.

‘Keep running!’ San shouted. ‘We can lose them.’

You couldn't. You knew that you couldn't, and you also knew that San knew you couldn't. So you pulled your gun off your back, turned around and began firing. You began to take out a few of the zombies chasing you, hitting head shot after head shot, but San easily heard your gun firing and turned around to see that you had stopped running.

‘Y/N!’ He screamed, preparing to run back and get you.

‘Go! Don’t be an idiot, just go! I’ll distract them and meet you back at the base.’ You yelled back, jogging backwards slightly and praying that he would just do as he was told. ‘San, that alcohol may change all of this, I am begging you, just go!’

So he did.

---

San turned on his heel and ran for his life towards the approaching walls. He spared one last look over his shoulder and saw you disappear into the woods, an entire army of the undead following you. The picture reminded him so much of Wooyoung that his adrenaline spiked and he ran faster than he ever had before. He approached the cameras, waving both arms above his head wildly, signally that one of you was in trouble, and, when the gates finally opened, he saw your friends there, asking where you were.

‘Attack- too many- she- distraction- help-’ San managed to get out through his gasps for air, but it was enough. It took a total of thirty seconds for all six boys to be geared up and running out of the door, screaming out your name.

San ran back with them. He had already lost one friend to a death like this, he would be damned if he lost another. San ran next to Donghyuck, hearing the boys panicked words fall out of his mouth:

‘Don’t start now. Please. Don’t stop coming back to me now.’

San led the boys to the last place where he had seen you and the boys all stopped and looked at him.

It was silent.

‘Where is she?’ Donghyuck turned to San, his face a picture of pure rage and fear. ‘Huh? Where is she!’ He stepped forward towards him and San instinctively stepped back out of fear. He had never been afraid of Donghyuck at all, the boy seemed like sunshine personified, but when it came to you, all his emotions were heightened and, at this moment, San was convinced that Donghyuck was about to hit him. Suddenly a timid voice cut through the tense atmosphere like a knife.

‘Hyuck?’

And stood there, holding nothing, their clothes torn at the shoulder to reveal a large bite mark, was you.

---

‘Hyuck?’ You whimpered, the pain in your shoulder being almost unbearable.

‘Y/n... no...’ Hyuck whispered, his body almost deflating at the sight of you.

You looked around at the boys in front of you, all of them staring at you with such disbelief and dread in their eyes.

‘They only bit me once, then- then they left. It’s like they know that’s all it takes, as if they want to turn not ki- kill.’ You voice started shaking slightly as the reality of the situation began to hit you. ‘I’m so sorry...’

San stared at you, his face full of guilt and pain, making you worried that he blamed himself, so you continued.

‘It’s my fault, I chose this, I’m so sorry... but I- I have to ask you guys to sho-’

‘No!’ Hyuck cut you off. ‘Absolutely not.’

The rest of the boys turned to look at him, Chenle being the one to speak.

‘Hyuck... we have to. I-’ He choked up on his last words, unable to say anymore and turning away from you all so that no one could see him cry.

Mark tried next, also struggling to get any words out.

‘Hyuck, she’ll turn, what would be do then?’

‘But we can’t kill her. We can’t?’

‘We have to-’

‘But it’s her!’ Hyuck shouted, whirling around to face Mark with pure panic in his eyes. ‘She can’t die.’

‘I’m so sorry but it’s the safest option we have.’ Mark was trying as hard as he could to explain to Hyuck why they had to do this, and you just watched. You wanted them to shoot you. You didn't want to become anything that would ever hurt the people you loved, but watching Hyuck panicking like this was making it impossible to ask.

‘I can’t watch her die.’ He whispered to Mark. ‘You know why.��

‘You have to kill me. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.’ Your voice was soft and calm. You knew that this was the right choice and what you wanted, making it easier for you to come to terms with it. On the inside you were terrified, but you couldn't let them see.

You lowered yourself to your knees, partly because it would be easier that way and partly because of the pain in your shoulder and exhaustion in your legs from how much you had run that day.

Renjun stepped forward and lowered himself to your height. You looked up at his tear stained cheeks and smiled slightly.

‘You know this is the right thing to do Junnie. Please...’

He whimpered at your words, leaning forwards and pressing his forehead to yours. You reached towards his leg and pulled out the gun that he strapped there. You held it out to him.

‘Please? One last favour for your best friend?’

Renjun looked at the gun for a minute before taking it out of your hand. Donghyuck threw himself forward to stop him, only to be caught by Mark and San, who held his struggling body back between the two of them.

‘Stop, please, no!’ Donghyuck pleaded as he watched Renjun raise the gun to your head.

You nodded at your longest friend, giving him permission to end your life, but Renjun almost didn't see it. He was crying so hard that his vision was almost entirely blurry. He heard the small voice of the friend that he had loved his entire life and it broke him.

‘Thank you for being my friend.’

He dropped the gun.

‘I can’t do it.’ He cried. ‘You can’t ask me to do it.’

He fell to his knees, Chenle gently moving him away from your kneeling form.

You lifted your eyes and looked around, seeing all the boys avoiding your gaze, refusing to come forwards. Your eyes settled on one in particular, the only one you thought would be able to pull that trigger if you asked him.

‘Jaemin...’ You whispered. ‘Please...’

Watching the scene in front of you was causing you almost more pain and guilt than you had ever felt in your entire life. Jisung and Chenle was sat on either side on Renjun, who was crying out for you, pleading for this to be a dream. Jaemin stepped forwards hesitantly, his hand shaking as he reached fo the pistol on the ground, and Donghyuck... your Donghyuck... The boy who you’ve loved for longer than you’ve known, was on his knees, pushing with all his might to get through the two stronger boys that were holding him back.

Jaemin lifted the gun into the same position that Renjun had held it before. You looked into his kind, brown eyes and whispered a small:

‘Thank you.’

You shut you eyes and waited.

Jaemin just look at you, completely silent, completely prepared. You and him were the only two people who were completely silent. You were at ease with your decision, Jaemin, given the worst task a human could possibly be given, watching with silent tears making their way down his cheeks.

He heard Renjun’s cries as the boy watched from the ground beside you. He heard Chenle and Jisung crying over you before you were gone. But worst of all, he heard Donghyuck. He heard him pleading for Jaemin to spare you, to save you, to do anything but take you away from him, the desperation in his voice clawing its way to Jaemin’s heart. He closed his eyes and blocked all of it out.

Jaemin pulled the trigger.

Your body hit the ground with a soft thud.

Silence.

Donghyuck screamed.

It was a scream of pure anguish and pain that erupted from the boy’s chest. Jaemin had never heard anything like it and the scream itself was enough to bring Jaemin sobbing to his knees. Renjun buried his head into his legs clawing at his hair as he pleaded with himself to wake up from what he hoped was just a bad dream.

Donghyuck finally burst out of Mark and San’s grip and ran towards you. He pulled your limp body into his arms and brushed some stray hair out of your face. He looked at your relaxed face and shut eyes.

‘Y/n?’ He whispered, sounding more broken than Jaemin knew was possible. ‘Y/n? Please, no please! You promised me! You promised!’

It was at this point that he lost it completely, burying his head in your shoulder and sobbing that he couldn’t lose you too.

‘No! Come on, you promised! You promised me- you promised. Please wake up. Wake up!’

His voice lowered to another whisper, the final sentence he uttered tearing out the hearts of every boy present.

‘Please don’t leave me.’

---

Donghyuck carried you all the way back. He stumbled every so often, but refused to put your body down. The gates opened quickly upon their return and, when the boys registered that it was your body in his arms, they rushed forward to help.

But Donghyuck refused. You were his y/n. He was going to carry you. He was going to take care of you. He was going to bury you.

He carried your body all the way to the mausoleum, and sat on the bench with you in his lap, with Renjun and Jaemin on either side of him as San carved your name into the wall. San had been taken aback when Donghyuck asked him to be the one to carve it, but, Hyuck knew that San and you had become good friends when you were here and, even in his mind numbing grief, he knew that San must be hurting.

He lifted you up and walked out towards the field, only accepting help from the others to lower you into your grave. He watched helplessly as the rock pile, marking your last resting place was made, Mark handing him the final rock. Donghyuck placed the stone on top, along with a small bunch of wildflowers. They were identical to the ones you had placed by Jeno’s grave the day before.

Donghyuck sat down, and cried. He let himself cry for everything he had lost, for every promise he had made to you that he had broken. He cried for all the missed opportunities, all the times he should have kissed you but didn't, all the times he should have told you how he felt, but didn't. Maybe if he did, you wouldn't have gone on that last raid. Maybe you would still be safe. Maybe you would still be alive. Maybe you would still be with him.

There were too many what ifs. Too many things he could have done differently that may have ended up with you still being alive. But he didn't do them. And you were dead. It was too late. Too late for Donghyuck to tell you how he felt, too late to kiss you, to late to tell you he loved you.

And that was how the boys eventually left him. All going inside one by one, until there was only Donghyuck left. Sitting alone at two graves. One of his best friend and one of the girl he loved.

---

You awoke with a start. Shooting straight up into a sitting position, your body still running partially on the adrenaline you had felt the moments before you died. Your thoughts were running at a mile a minute and you couldn't seem to figure anything out. Was this all just a dream? But it couldn't have been. You remember it too clearly. You remember the feeling of that zombie sinking its teeth into your shoulder. You remember pleading with the boys to shoot you. You remember Jaemin pulling the trigger.

You couldn't seem to sort your thoughts out, so you took a look around the room you were in. You took in the monochrome white walls all around you, the bed you were lying on and the machines that were monitoring various aspects of your body, including heart rate and blood pressure. You noticed a drip attached to your arms and suddenly panicked. What if this wasn't meant to help you? What if it was the virus? You went to pull it out of your arm when the door to your room burst open.

A figure shot in and ran towards you at full speed, wrapping their arms around your torso. They had moved so fast and you were starting to feel slightly woozy, having woken up with such a start, so you couldn’t see their face enough to recognise who it was. But the second they hugged you, and you took in their scent, you wrapped your arms around their neck and squeezed as tight as you could.

You had Jeno back.

You had no clue how Jeno had come back to you. Maybe you were dead? Maybe this was some kind of afterlife? You didn't care if this was reality or not, you had him back. And you just listened while he thanked every deity known to man for bringing you back to him. Due to your confused and slightly foggy state, most of what he said went completely over your head, but one sentence struck you right to your core. One sentence that would change life as you know it, forever.

‘You’re finally out of the simulation.’

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