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sindrafalcone · 3 years

Text

Adventures in Babysitting pt. 3

Fandom: BIGBANG/ Choi Seung Hyun x reader

Synopsis: A babysitting job turns into something unexpected…

Warnings: Fluff for now, but it will evolve into something steamier in a later chapter. You’ve been warned!

Author’s Note: It has been entirely too long since I updated this story! My apologies... But I finally think I’m un-stuck on the storyline, so hopefully I can finish it in a reasonable amount of time. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This story contains fictional representations of real people. None of the events are true. This is from an American standpoint, so some of the situations may not happen the same way they might in Korea. I make no money from the writing of this fictional work.

Masterlist

Part 1 Part 2

You had only made it about half a block before Seunghyun stopped dead in his tracks. When he quit moving you did as well, peering at him to see if he was okay. Between the dim city lights and his face mask you couldn't make out very much, but he was still holding on to your hand so that had to count for something. Before you could ask him what was wrong, he spoke softly. “This place that you're taking me...” his deep voice trembled a little bit. “Is it going to be very busy?”

You were a little taken aback by the clear apprehension in his voice. But then you remembered how happy he'd been when you had given him his space back at the museum. Maybe he just didn't like crowds.

“Sometimes it can be.” you admitted. “Usually around lunch time, but this late at night I doubt there's very many people in there. It's just a small Mom & Pop shop.” He seemed to take a moment to think about what you said & you patiently waited for what he was going to say next. Perhaps he was getting cold feet about having dinner with you and just wanted to go back to the hotel instead.

“I still want to go with you.” he said, as if reading your mind. “I just... um, do you know if they have a private room?”

“Yeah...” you answered him hesitantly, not really seeing where he was going with this. “There's a medium sized room in the back of the restaurant that can be reserved for parties or large groups.”

“Do you think maybe you could call ahead and ask if we could eat in there?” Seunghyun shifted his weight back and forth from foot to foot nervously. “I'll be happy to pay extra if they want. Or if that's not available, we'll need a table in the very back, preferably as far away from other people as possible.”

You looked at him closely for a bit before taking out your phone. You decided he was being completely serious and you had the fleeting thought that he might actually have a phobia about this. “Okay... give me a minute.” you relented & you could finally see the tension in his shoulders relax as you did so. He let go of your hand so you could make the call and you found that you missed his warmth more than you wanted to admit.

Luckily for him, you were very good friends with the owners. You had been eating lunch there almost every day since you'd found the place a couple years back. The food was good and relatively cheap, especially once they had started giving you the 'family discount' even though you had tried to object. In a matter of minutes, you had secured the private room for you and Seunghyun to use. You brought up his willingness to pay a fee, but the owner just laughed at you. Telling her that you'd be there soon, you hung up only to find him looking at you anxiously.

“We can use the private room.”

“Oh, good.” he sighed, relief obvious in his voice. “That usually works out much better.”

You really wanted to question him about this whole thing, but decided that it might be better to wait until you were actually in the restaurant or maybe even back at the hotel before deciding to pry into his apparent agoraphobia. This time Seunghyun held his hand out for you to take & you stared at it in shock for a few seconds before gleefully interlacing your fingers again and setting off once more towards your destination for food.

When you rounded the corner and pulled him in the direction of the restaurant, he stopped once again.

“Pho?” he said, a curious tone to his voice. “You're taking me out for Pho?”

You turned to face him, not letting go this time. “Is that a problem?”

“No...” he smiled & you could see it in his eyes, despite the face mask he still wore. “I'm pleasantly surprised. That's all.”

“Well come on then.” you told him, playfully tugging him along towards the door. “I'm starving!”

He chuckled and the two of you tumbled into the warmth of the Pho shop holding hands, laughing and pink cheeked from the cool outside air.

“You didn't tell me it was a date!” the woman who stood at the counter exclaimed loudly. “_______! You should have warned me.”

“It isn't... we're not...” you stammered, looking down at your interlocked hands. You attempted to pull away, but Seunghyun just held tighter and chuckled louder.

“Nonsense! I know a date when I see one.” she dismissed as she motioned for the two of you to follow her to the room in the back. “I wondered why you wanted to use the party room. You should have just said, dear!”

Thankfully you noticed that the restaurant was mostly empty as she walked you through it, so there weren't very many witnesses to your embarrassment and none that you recognized.

She opened the door and gestured the two of you inside. “Here, just sit at the smaller table in the middle of the room. It will be more intimate that way.”

Beside you, Seunghyun made a small choking sound as she continued fussing. “I wish you had told me it was a date when you called. I would have set up some candles or something.”

“It's fine.” you told her, voice cracking a bit. “It'll be fine just like this.” You all but ripped your hand away from Seunghyun's and started to take off your coat, but before you made it very far you felt his hands slide over yours to remove it for you. Then he draped it carefully over a nearby empty chair before he set about sliding out of his own outerwear.

“Such a gentleman!” the old lady exclaimed, hearts practically dancing in her eyes as she backed out of the room. “I'll be back with your drinks shortly.”

As soon as the door closed behind her, you rounded on Seunghyun and hissed. “What the hell was that?”

He held his hands up innocently, face mask still dangling from one long-fingered hand. “What?” he asked, laughing slightly, his eyes lit with mirth.

You plopped down into a chair inelegantly. “I was trying to let go of your hand and explain to her that this wasn't a date...”

“Is it not?” he interrupted, setting his mask down on top of his coat. “She's right, it does look like a date. And, you have to admit, it's slightly less awkward than the truth... that you're my babysitter.” he put a special emphasis on that last word that made you squirm in your seat a little bit.

“True...” you agreed. “I suppose when you put it like that...”you started, but Seunghyun held his hand up to you again just as he had earlier in the evening at the hotel. And, just like before, you stopped talking.

“But that isn't what's important right now.” he told you as he pulled out a chair and sat down in the seat across from you.

“It isn't?”

“No.” he said, his face utterly serious, all traces of joking gone. “It's probably best that she thinks it's a date. But I have to tell you something before she gets back.”

You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the table so you could give Seunghyun your full attention. He leaned forward as well, until your faces were mere inches apart.

“___________.” he whispered your name. “I have a confession to make. I'm not...” he took a deep breath and blew it out. “I'm not who you think I am.”

“A rich, foreign guy with impeccable fashion sense who knows his wine and appreciates contemporary art?” you quirked an eyebrow at him, spilling all the details that you'd managed to piece together over the past few hours you'd spent with Seunghyun (or at least all the observations that you were willing to admit to him, anyway).

He flashed you a dangerous smile. “Well, yes... I am those things. But that's not all of who I am and you need to know the vital details before...”

The door the room slid open again, interrupting whatever Seunghyun had been about to say & he cursed quietly under his breath. You watched as he leaned back in his seat and winced, seeming to brace himself for something he knew was inevitably coming. From the pained expression on his face, it didn't look as if he expected it to be pleasant.

“I've got your usual right here. Iced Vietnamese coffee and a glass of water. I brought the same for your gentleman, I hope that's okay.” the older lady said as she bustled over towards you. “Now, do you two love birds need menus or...” her voice trailed off as she finally made it to the table and caught a clear view of Seunghyuns face, without his mask. “Oh my...” her voice faltered, the tray immediately started shaking in her hands.

“Ma'am...” Seunghyun said tightly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes still closed.

“Oh my goodness!” she practically yelled, her voice echoing slightly in the almost empty room. “Y- y- you're... T.O.P!” she whispered those last three letters as if they were some sort of secret.

You just looked between the two of them, completely lost as to what was going on. “Um, Mrs. Tran?” you placed a hand carefully on her arm to get her attention away from Seunghyun.

“Yes, dear?” she asked, still looking at him with sheer disbelief written all over her elderly face.

“You might want to set the tray down before you drop it.” you told her gently.

“Oh, yes... good idea.” she replied, voice weak.

She did finally manage to set the tray down on the table with a little help from you.

Seunghyun sighed, opened his eyes & smiled at the old woman. It was a polite smile, but tight. Something that someone who hadn't spent much time with him probably wouldn't notice as a fake smile, but you could see it nonetheless.

“Mrs. Tran...” he soothed, having picked up her name from when you'd said it. “Tonight, I'm not T.O.P. I'm just Seunghyun, trying to enjoy a normal date with the lovely ________, here. I'm happy to sign as many autographs as you want and I'll even mention this restaurant on my Instagram if you'd like a boost in business. But I'd appreciate it if you could keep my visit here a secret for now. And please, no pictures.” Seunghyun gestured over to you. “I'd like to keep our date as private as possible.”

You were so confused right now, but Mrs. Tran seemed to understand what was going on. It was as if a light bulb immediately went off over the little woman's head and she smiled knowingly. “Oooohhhhh, I get it. Don't worry, you aren't the first celebrity we've had in here. It's just been a very long time and you caught me off guard, that's all. I know how to be discreet.”

“Thank you.” he said with a little bow towards her that made her giggle like a school girl and blush.

“Now that's settled...” she clapped her hands together excitedly. “Menus?”

“I think I'll trust __________ to order for both of us. She obviously knows this place quite well.” Seunghyun said with a wink in your direction.

“Um...” you faltered, still reeling from their entire conversation, not to mention the fact that he had just referred to you as 'lovely'. 'Celebrity?' you thought quickly to yourself. 'What the hell is going on here & what have I gotten myself into?!?' you cleared your throat awkwardly.

“Is there anything you don't want to eat?” you asked him. “Or are you allergic to anything?”

Seunghyun smiled. “I'm allergic to peaches & I don't eat intestines. Other than that, I'm fair game.” he said, already reaching for a glass of water from the tray.

You nodded at him at turned back to face Mrs Tran. “Just double my usual then.”

“So...” she pulled out an order pad and pen from her apron. “A double #4 and two medium # 45's?”

“Actually, make those #45's a large please. We're both kinda hungry tonight.” you said without thinking of the implications of that sentence.

“Oh, I bet you are.” she sassed under her breath as she walked away, causing Seunghyun to almost snort water out of his nose. Mrs. Tran merely hummed happily to herself as she walked out of the room. As soon as the door shut, you could hear her yelling in Vietnamese, presumably to her husband who was in the kitchen.

You briefly thought about immediately grilling Seunghyun about this whole “celebrity” business, but as you remembered the look on his face as he braced himself earlier, you paused. You never wanted to see that look from him directed at you. So instead, you settled for pouring the coffee that had just finished steeping over the ice & sweetened, condensed milk in the other glass.

“Are we going to talk about this or would you rather pretend that whole scene never happened?” you asked, not trusting yourself to look at him.

A few seconds ticked by before he answered quietly. “You'd be willing to do that? Just ignore everything she said about me?”

You shrugged, stirring your coffee to combine it with the milk. “I mean... I'll admit to being curious. But it obviously bothers you & I was just fine with not knowing before.”

Seunghyun sighed heavily before pouring his own coffee. “Right now, I'm just Seunghyun to you. A rich, foreign guy with impeccable fashion sense who knows his wine and appreciates contemporary art.” he smirked. “If I tell you everything, that changes.” he said, his voice melancholy.

“It doesn't have to.” you told him softly. “Let's try this... You tell me your secret, and I'll tell you mine.” you said, finally looking up and locking eyes with him.

That statement seemed to intrigue him and he arched an eyebrow up at you. “You have a secret double life too?”

“Saying it like that makes it sound like I'm a superhero or something.” you laughed & smacked him playfully on the arm. “But, yeah... there are things that you don't know about me yet. Maybe not as big of a bombshell as yours, but still... something that might change the way you see me too.”

“How about we wait until after dinner?” he asked tentatively.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Interrupting the conversation, Mrs. Tran came back into the private room, bringing two large bowls of pho over and deposited a plate with bean sprouts, sprigs of basil and quarters of limes on the table; along with four egg rolls and two bowls of dipping sauce.

Seunghyun inhaled deeply. The aroma of the broth and the slices of rare beef and shrimp wontons floating atop the long rice noodles making his stomach growl once again. “This smells amazing.”

Mrs. Tran just giggled at him again. “You know, I didn't even realize Bigbang was in town...” she started before he held up a finger to his lips.

“Technically, we're not.” he whispered. “We're just... having a bit of a vacation that's all. Very hush-hush.”

“Ohhhhhh.....” she nodded knowingly. “I guess everyone needs a break sometimes. Well, I will just leave you two alone. I'll be back later to check in on you.” and without another word, she was gone.

Seunghyun started plucking the basil leaves off one of the sprigs, rolling them up and then ripping them into little pieces and dropping them in his soup while you watched him, completely mesmerized by the movements of his fingers.

“I guess you've had Pho before then?” you asked, taking an egg roll from your plate before tearing it in half, dipping it into the sauce & taking a bite.

Seunghyun nodded, “It's been a while though. So, thanks for bringing me here.” he told you sincerely, picking up an egg roll with his chopsticks and dipping it before taking his own crunchy bite.

“Show off...” you muttered, grumpily picking up your own chopsticks and spoon just to show him that you did, in fact, know how to use them.

Seunghyun merely laughed.

The two of you spent the next hour simply eating and discussing the art and artists from the museum exhibition. Conversation flowed between you effortlessly & before you knew it, Mrs. Tran was bringing in the check and fortune cookies.

Seunghyun pulled out his wallet and when you tried to object, reminded you that you'd paid for the taxi earlier. You caught a glimpse of the black card he held between his long, slender fingers & swallowed hard, nodding your head in acceptance.

You both made the decision to take the fortune cookies back to the hotel and, after Seunghyun spent some time signing the promised autographs for Mrs. Trang, you left the restaurant the same way you'd come in... laughing and holding hands.

Only this time, you were headed back to the hotel and a discussion that could possibly change everything between the two of you.

#Choi Seunghyn #T.O.P #kpop fanfic #bigbang fanfic #choi seunghyun fanfic #T.O.P fanfic #t.o.p bigbang #BIGBANG TOP

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heartbreakgrill · 4 years

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Omg can I have a part 2 to the Walmart thing about how their relationship develops from there? Pls I need it :(

a/n: there will be a part 3 because I wanna write about you performing on stage and also paris!! Send more requests for anything else, too! 💘

The weeks on tour seemed to pass much more quickly now that you were falling in love. With each day, a new butterfly would land on your stomach, flapping its painted wings with a giddy smile arising to your lips.

Having been friends with Calum prior to being “his girl,” you knew that he was affectionate in his relationships. You’d always admired how kind he was to any girl he ever dated: He’d hold open the door for them, be it to his car or the restaurant, showed them with gifts no matter the occassion, respectfully ask to kiss them no matter how long they’d been together, hold their waist or hand in public and to his chest in private.

However, none of his relationships had ever lasted past three months, and no one knew why. You knew it wasn’t him, no, how could the kindest boy with the softest smile and sweetest words be the cause for girls to cheat, yell, scream, and curse his name? He was never at fault.

It was always them.

Because what you also always noticed in his relationships was that they were one-sided. The girls wanted fame, eyelashes and lip injections to add to the collection. There was nothing wrong with prosthetics or makeup, but they used him to the point that he had stopped being so affectionate over the years.

They’d shrug off his hand in public, get argumentative when he’d ask for, “the third time today!” to kiss them, get chided for opening the door because she, “was perfectly capable of doing it myself, thank you very much.”

You had made it your mission to hold Calum’s heart in your hands as if you were holding the world by the strings of your fingers. Calum was an airplane, and you were the goddess in the sky, dangling him across oceans sheets and towers of gifts.

It was a month into your endeavors when you really got good at being affectionate with him. No one had failed to notice your relationship boom, but you weren’t trying to hide it. So, there was a tranquil balance for everyone.

It was the morning of their last day of European press before everyone got a week off in Paris. Then, you’d be flying back to the US to finish the tour, only to end up in Los Angeles. That would three months from now.

You were curled into Calum’s blankets, having moved from your bunk to his because it was unfairly larger. Your heating blanket was plugged into his wall, his roll of fabric abandoned in his drawer beneath you. You had been discussing with him for weeks that he should figure out how to make it into a proper blanket, but he said he didn’t feel like it because he was, “only good for playing the bass.”

Your boy, and his brothers, were inside an office building with press all day. The show would be shortly after. Crystal was outside with Moose, letting him run off much needed steam. Sierra was in the living room, watching a movie. You had plans for dinner, but that was still an hour and a half away.

You drug yourself out of bed, only slightly bored because you finished the books you had bought again. You pulled fresh clothes out of your suitcase, showered, changed, and plopped down beside Sierra on the couch.

“You smell really good,” she commented, turning down the television so you could hear one another.

“It’s a mixture of my perfume and Calum’s cologne because this is his hoodie,” you giggled lightly while your fingers pulled at the strings on his jacket.

Sierra tilted her head with a sweet smile, “You guys are so cute. I’m so glad you finally got together.”

You wriggled your shoulders happily, “Yeah...”

You sat back with her, chatting about Luke’s want to get his nails done and how attractive you thought Calum was when his nails were black all those years ago.

After a while, the movie ended and you agreed to get up to go to lunch. You grabbed your purse from Calum’s drawer when you noticed his roll of fabric. You had a good idea spring into a head and whipped around, the lightbulb above your head vanishing as you jogged out into the living room of the bus.

After telling your idea to Sierra, the two of you exited the bus and met the driver assigned for the boy’s in the near-end of the parking lot. You ate lunch at a local café before locating a fabric store down the street. You walked there, parusing the store fronts, but resisting the urge to buy too much.

You entered the fabric store and immediately approached the counter. Sierra started by the back corner, browsing through buttons and string. You were somewhere in Nothern Italy, and luckily, had went over a few phrases in the language in case you needed to use them. Because it was a small store, pretty much untouched by foreigners, you expected the cashier to not know English.

“Ciao! parlo inglese e ho bisogno di aiuto per creare una coperta da un rotolo di tessuto,” your eyes were flicked back in your head as if the words were written there, but you were able to recite them from memory.

“A blanket, tu dici?” The elder leader responded, grinning through her smile lines.

“Sì!”

After a few minutes of communicating through broke English and Italian, she was able to guide you to the proper sewing needle, string, and pattern for the blanket. She taught you an easy method to make the blanket.

After thanking her with a hug and a plenty of extra money tips, you and Sierra loaded up in the car and travelled back to the tour bus. For the rest of the day, you tucked yourself into the back room of the bus, random movies and show queued up on Netflix, a few snacks indulged in your system. You even missed the boys’ press day to finish the blanket, having Sierra tell them that you just felt a little sick.

Realistically, you were completing his blanket. Some of the seams were off, there were countless bloody pricks in your fingers, and you were sweating with frustration. But it was done by the time you heard the door of the tour bus open. You quickly shot up, shoved it in your own drawer, and closed yourself in the bathroom. With shaky hands from excitement and nerves, you bandaged two fingers on your left hand and three on your right. You washed the uncovered skin and dried your hands.

You heard a few voices move past the door, even heard Calum poking around in his and your bunk for, well, you. “Where is she?” Calum mumbled to Sierra, worry evident in his exhausted voice.

You popped out of the door, which led straight into the living room, and shuffled down the hallway. Sierra pointed behind his back with a soft smile before moving to the back room where everyone else probably was.

Calum spun on his heel, a grin growing on his face. “Hi, baby.”

You opened your arms for him, and he fell into your embrace, head shoveled into your neck and hands around your waist. You brushed the curls on his head, unbothered by the sweat laced through his hair. He hummed into your embrace, alight with adoration.

“Pardon me,” Ashton slyly passed by the two of you, breaking up your hug.

You pushed Ash away playfully, pulling a chuckle from his and Calum’s chests. “How was press?” You asked him, grabbing the tips of his fingers and leading him to the living room.

You sat beside him, legs tucked under you, knees practically in his lap. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, staring down at you with tired but smiley eyes. “Pretty decent. I felt all sad without you there, though.”

“Well, I guess Italy’s just not interested in me,” You pouted slightly.

“It’s okay, because I am,” he played with your fingers before he noticed the bandaids. “What happened? You okay?”

You noticed his eyes turn worried, pupils dilating wider. You shrugged, “Oh, fine. I’m fine. I was doing come arts and crafts. Oh! Actually. I made you something.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, “Wait, really? What?”

You got up from the couch to retrieve the blanket. It was wrapped up in the Walmart bag, so you dropped it in his lap and sat back down. Calum glanced around you suspiciously, “I know you’re talented at, like, a bunch of stuff. But, if you have that many bandages, I’m slightly concerned by what’s in here.”

You smacked his shoulder, “Just open it.”

He did so, but he was not at all disappointed. The widest grin took over his face when he pulled out the blanket. He set it beside him and wrapped you up in a huge so that you were nearly straddling his lap. He pressed a firm kiss to your cheek, gushing over and over how amazing it was.

“Oh, no big deal,” you laughed, leaning back to kiss him properly. “Just thought you could actually make use of it.”

“It’s awesome. Thank you so much,” he unraveled the blanket and draped it over both of you. “It’s so warm, too.”

“You’re also sweating, so that could just be it,” you laughed.

Calum scoffed and pushed you down into the couch. “Shut up!” He exclaimed, tickling your sides.

“Never,” you pushed back with your own fingers attacking his neck.

When you calmed down from your war, you decided to go to bed, with an early flight to Paris in the morning. It was just the beginning, but Calum already knew you were better than anything he could’ve ever imagined. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with you, let alone the next week in the most romantic city on Earth.

TAGLIST: @dinosaursandsocks @everydayimfangirling @truly-charmed @wallows-spring

#5sos fanfic #5sos fluff #calum hood #calum hood imagine #calum hood x reader #calum hood x y/n #calum hood x you #calum hood fluff #calum hood blurb

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saeyoungs-sunflower · 4 years

Text

As Sweet As It Is Bitter (Jumin Han)

I personally feel that this part of Jumin’s story doesn’t get talked about enough. So I wanted to give my interpretation of it.

Warnings / Notes:

Spoilers for the Secret Endings

Alcohol abuse, grief, general sad times. Big ol’ bag of angst here.

Brief mentions of violence/injury.

This isn’t intended to be Jumin x V, but if that’s how you wanna read it then go for it. It’s down to your interpretation/what floats your boat.

Playlist:

Before You Go - Lewis Capaldi

Say Something - A Great Big World

Saturn - Sleeping at Last

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

Artwork also helped inspire me when writing this, especially art by the absolutely incredible @sikuzxxx . They are ridiculously talented and I encourage you to check out their art if you haven’t already. Here are the pieces that inspired me most: 1 / 2 / 3 /

It was straightforward, really.

Unlock door. Enter. Shut door. Hang up coat. Take off shoes.

It was routine, the same as it was yesterday and the same as it will be tomorrow. Yet, it couldn’t feel more wrong. Something as simple as unlocking a door became foreign to him when a steady hand was replaced with clumsy fingers, and a quiet mind became swarmed with static.

Jumin loosened his tie and undid the top button of his black shirt. He stepped into the centre of his penthouse, a bouquet of chrysanthemums under one arm and his head reeling. He stood motionless, staring out into the city through the large glass panels. He couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t understand how it was that, despite everything they had, this was the way it ended. After every family dinner, every walk home from school together, every bottle of wine shared, this was the way God had planned their friendship to come to a close. Before, he would have guessed that it would end in a hospital, with silver hair and cracked skin, fond memories and shared joy in abundance; but instead it ended with bullets and screams and whatever it is that nightmares are born of. It was no place for the end.

Jumin surveyed the room, a dark and hollow space only visible by the illumination of nearby buildings. He was completely and utterly alone.

Therefore, for the first time in his twenty-seven years of life, Jumin Han let himself break.

He took out a bottle of red wine, pouring himself a generous glass. And then another, and then another, until he gave up on the glass all together, instead opting for strangling the neck of the bottle as he emptied it of its poison. With every drop that passed his lips, the scene that played in his head grew more vivid as reality began to blur.

The scene started with him sprinting through the building, guards on either side of him as they rounded the corner, stopping in their tracks when they spotted the intimidating doors that lay ahead. He had made one step towards them when he heard the gunshot, and then did not hesitate to charge towards the doors, bursting through.

He can see his body now, limp and resting in a pool of rich red. He could literally see the life flowing out of V with every passing second as he merely looked on, utterly helpless. He couldn’t help, he was too late.

He didn’t say goodbye.

With a frustrated grunt Jumin stumbled towards the bedroom but stopped himself halfway, his eyes landing on the bunch of flowers that he had brought back from the venue, already starting the wither and the petals starting to fall. That was the first crack.

It started with a single drop gliding down his cheek, that rested on the tip of his chin before falling onto his dark tie. He impatiently wiped his face, standing tall and looking straight ahead, but it all in vain. Without warning nor control, every tear that had remained unshed had surfaced and poured.

He should just go to bed. Leave this day behind him. He had his closure now, it was time to move on and to be the man he was before all this chaos. To be Jumin Han again.

Then why did he remain where he stood?

Jumin dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets hard enough to see stars as his knees buckled beneath him, his frame crumbling to the floor. He was renowned for his stoicism, practicality, and his unwavering ability to keep whatever pain that threatened to bite to only get as far as barking at his door. But tonight, he let himself entertain the torturous idea of the hypothetical, the ‘could have’s and the ‘should have’s that may have saved the life of the only man, the only human being who he wanted to be by his side until his last breath. The one who stayed with no conditions attached, who loved Jumin truly and effortlessly. A companionship, a bond like no other; Jumin and Jihyun. The rich kids. As similar as night and day, but just as perfectly matched. Friends, brothers.

What if he had tried calling him an extra time? What if he had gotten into his car and hunted him down himself? What if he called the helicopter five minutes earlier? Was that all it took? Could he have done it?

But he still couldn’t understand. His door had always been open, his light always left on, waiting for V to come to him. To ask for his help, to tell him where he’s been hiding away, and why he thought that the darkness was more forgiving when walked through alone.

He wanted to scream, not realising that he already was until his voice broke and died out.

He just simply couldn’t understand how V didn’t realise his own worth. How he didn’t know the extent to which the world needed his kindness, his warmth. How he could let his life be thrown away like that, a life as rare and giving as his was.

Maybe it wasn’t that Jumin couldn’t understand, perhaps he just wouldn’t. If this was the bliss of ignorance, then what kind of hellish agony did knowledge feel like?

Jumin’s hands trembled as he grasped the empty wine bottle so fiercely that his knuckles turned white, contrasting the red of his blood-shot eyes. His impulses took over as he launched the bottle at the wall, droplets of red wine scattering across the cream walls as shards of glass showered around him.

He rested his forehead against the icy floor and slammed his fist against it, hardly registering the sharp pain of glass piercing his flesh. He intertwined his fingers whilst he desperately prayed. Not to God, but to whom he had lost.

Please, V, not yet. Don’t let go yet. Tell me it’s not true.

We were going to grow old together. You were going to be my best man, and I yours. What about all the laughs, smiles, memories, that now we’ll never have? We were meant to have longer than this. I’m begging you, Jihyun. You always believed in magic, please believe in it one last time. Come back.

For the love of God, don’t leave me here alone.

Minutes, maybe hours past in that position, until his tears ran dry and his voice grew rough. Jumin tried to move, but the dizzying effect of sitting up meant it took him a moment to become steady before he dragged himself to the wall. He rested his back against it, elbows on his bent knees and his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Grief was a funny little thing. It gnawed at you from the inside, feeding on everything that had any flavour of regret or devastation. But, in a twisted sort of way, it was such a beautiful thing to love so deeply that the wound was just as deeply felt. Unfortunately, the love Jumin felt during his grief also ate away at him, since it was left abandoned with no place to go when the one person it would run to was gone.

Perhaps God saw how tired and wounded his friend was and showed mercy on him by letting him rest, by bringing him home. In that case, was Jumin not home? Did Jihyun not have a home on earth at all? What a tragic life, if the only home you have to go back to at the end of the day is Heaven. But at least Jihyun had peace now, even if that was something that Jumin couldn’t provide.

Jumin used these ideas in an attempt to convince himself that grief was bittersweet. He only wished that the taste which lingered on his tongue was as sweet as it was bitter.

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he did recall the flashing images of Jihyun’s lifeless and icy body as it laid frozen before everything went black, and he slowly began to slip into the realm of a dream.

A warm light pierced through the darkness, revealing a tall figure as they made their way towards Jumin, and his eyes pricked when he identified the burst of mint-coloured hair.

Jihyun embraced Jumin and his tears resurfaced, streaming down his face before floating away into the oblivion. Jihyun pulled back, looking into the eyes of his oldest friend, his voice soft as he spoke.

“You’re okay, Jumin. You’re not as alone as you’ve tricked yourself into believing you are, alright? I’m never too far away, but you’ve also got to take a look around you. Stop being afraid now. Stop letting your emotions run just below the surface. If you open up your heart, you aren’t going to bleed out; you’re going to set yourself free.”

Jumin’s lips curled into a faint smile, “Always so cheesy.”

“That’s me,” Jihyun chuckled. “Be brave. For me.”

“If it’s for you, I’d do anything.”

“Then live. Please, for Christ’s sake, Jumin. Just live.”

“…Alright. But,“ he had to ask, he had to know, “Jihyun, what could I have done-“

But Jihyun faded away before Jumin had a chance to finish, before he had time to ask what could have saved him, and to say everything that he didn’t get to say the day he left. To say thank you for everything he taught him, to ask where it went wrong; to say goodbye. But he disappeared, just like he did before. Without warning, without explanation. As if he was never there at all.

The light of the morning sun blinded Jumin when he pried his eyes open the next day, a pounding in his head and every movement sending a wave of nausea through him. He found himself lying in fragments of glass, the ringing in his ear returning as he sat up straight. He checked the time.

8:17am. He would usually be at work by this time-

His thought was interrupted by an incoming call, every ring feeling like a strike against the head. Jumin squinted as he read the contact name before answering.

“Assistant Kang.”

“Mr. Han, is everything alright? You are scheduled to have a meeting in less than an hour, would you like me to cancel it?”

“No need, just push it forward by an hour. I’ll be there soon,” Jumin croaked, his voice coarse and weak.

“…Mr. Han, if I dare to make a suggestion, I think you should rest today. You must have had a rough-“

“Jaehee.”

The woman on the other side was caught off-guard, which was evident by the pause before her response, “Y-yes?”

“Move the meeting,” he attempted to say sternly, but it came out with a tinge of desperation, “Please.”

“…Okay, sir. I will see you soon.”

“Yes, see you soon.”

Jumin hung up, prying himself off the floor when his gaze once again fell on the bunch of white flowers, some now stained with red wine. He reached for the only pristine one, extracting the flower and moving towards his desk, taking out two pieces of parchment paper and the heaviest hardback he could find on the bookshelf. With careful hands, he placed the flower in the middle of the sheets of paper, before slipping them between the pages of the book. Lastly, he rested a paper weight on top and stepped back. Jumin never used to be overly sentimental, but he had experienced a lot of firsts recently, so what was one more?

He showered, he ate, he dressed himself. He fed Elizabeth the Third and brushed his teeth. There was a knock at the door as he was fixing his tie in the mirror, and he told them to enter as he smoothed down his jacket.

“The car is ready when you are, sir,” said Driver Kim.

“Thank you. I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he heard the door click shut, Jumin peered out the windows, looking out into the sky where the clouds gathered and the sun shone. He smiled. An unconvincing one, but a smile nonetheless.

It was a pleasure, old friend. Rest well now. I will see you again, but not soon. I have some things to do before I join you.

One day he would be able to start afresh. One day he could fulfil Jihyun’s wish. To seek help, to open up his heart, to set himself free of his threads. To live.

But today was not that day. Today he had to be the Jumin Han that everyone knew. Executive Director, heir of C&R International. Leader of the RFA.

It was routine, the same as yesterday and the same as it will be tomorrow.

Put on shoes. Shrug on coat. Open door. Exit. Lock door.

And yet, it couldn’t feel more wrong.

He let his mind wander on the drive to the office as he watched out the car window, letting the sun’s rays caress his face. It was a comfort, a gentle and constant reminder that his friend was, indeed, never too far away.

I miss you, and I won’t forget you, but I’ll let you go now. In time, I’ll do what you’ve asked of me. Be patient, have faith.

I will live. For you.

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junggoku · 4 years

Text

Lemon Curls and Latte Art - Ethan Ramsey x f!MC

book: Open Heart

pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Nina Valentine)

word count: 6,679

summary: Ethan’s been having a tough time with a case and desperately needs some coffee and time away from the hospital. His small impromptu trip to his favorite coffeeshop may just become more than he expected. (Alternatively: local doctor man goes to get coffee. Gets roasted for 5 minutes straight by cute barista.) A coffeeshop au

A/N: Soooo first and foremost, I’m super excited about this. I’ve been surprised at the lack of coffeeshop au’s in this fandom so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I’d like to give all my love to the wonderful @namkook for keeping me sane through this whole project and for helping me every step of the way. I love you and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for putting up with my constantly annoying you with this. I typically don’t like my writing, I’m so proud of this one and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did when working on it. Without further ado, buckle in and enjoy! She’s a long one wheew

Sometimes it was easier to just drown it all out. The rustling of the nurses as they moved about. The moans and groans of patients as they anxiously waited for their diagnoses. The shrill voices of interns trying to suck up to him to better polish up on their resumes, instead of focusing on their damn jobs.

On that particularly busy afternoon, Dr. Ethan Ramsey felt it was especially crucial that he drown out all the background noises and forget about his surroundings for a moment, if he was going to hang onto his sanity.

He had been pouring over a patient file all morning, having reached an impasse. When something like this happened, it was best for him to go out and clear his head. Sighing heavily, Ethan pushes out of his leather chair, leaving the mountains of scans and paperwork behind him as he closes the door to his office with a resounding thud.

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

Day 1

The chime of the bell above the door signaled his arrival into Derry Roasters, a soft click of the hinges punctuating through the air as his eyes adjusted to the gentle lighting in the quaint coffee shop.

The scene was completely opposite the hospital, with almost all of the tables here being empty save for an elderly man in the corner with his book. It seemed the cafe was experiencing a quiet afternoon, soft music playing from the small speakers lodged in the ceilings.

Whenever Ethan was stuck with a case he couldn’t quite figure out, he found himself wandering to the coffeehouse, a humble mom and pop establishment that made decent coffee. It was a step up from the caffeinated dishwater the hospital cafeteria served and he didn’t hate it at the very least. It was also close enough to the hospital that he could get to it by foot, but far enough that none of the gaggle of bright-eyed parrots interns would follow him to kiss his ass.

Crossing the distance of the room up to the front, Ethan stops right before the register. Having seen not one soul behind the counter, his hand found its way to the small silver bell waiting by the tips bucket, ringing it albeit impatiently. There was normally always someone waiting up at the front, the usual barista－a short and kindly old lady, her slightly stout face adding to the welcoming atmosphere－felt it necessary to be present at all times to best serve customers so they did not have to wait long. So much for that. Their service is going to shit.

A bright ding reverberates throughout the shop, ricocheting off the walls. With a purse of his lips, he waits for a few minutes for someone to respond to the bell, the dimple in between his eyebrows growing more prominent the longer time stretches.

About to forgo the coffee and just head back, his ears pick up a foreign sound coming from somewhere. Is that...singing?

Singing was perhaps too generous a term. There was a faint humming emanating from behind the door that led to the back, and his ears tickled as it continued for a few more seconds, before the door swung open and a figure stepped out.

Ethan’s train of thought stutters for a brief second as ice blue eyes meet a warm chocolate brown, wide and doe-like staring up at him in surprise.

She’s new.

Silence envelops the room and Ethan finds himself studying the woman in front of him as he does with everyone, an occupational habit he’s honed over the years.

Long, dark brown hair cascades over her shoulder like a wave, a pair of chocolate brown eyes to match the curtains as they peer up at him, a hint of curiosity in them. The new barista is donning a polo the color of mustard paired with the black apron of the coffeeshop. His eyes glance over the silver name tag that brandishes the name “Nina”. Next to the tag, a small frog pin sits crookedly, the silver lining a bit dim from what he expects comes from overwear.

In his musings, he doesn’t notice the barista, Nina, pursing her lips, “Are you going to order something or are you just gonna stare at me all day?”

Shaken out of his thoughts, he raises a brow at the bland tone of her voice, before deciding to ignore it, “The Vienna.”

Slipping his card from his wallet, he sets it down on the counter as she rings up his order, sliding the piece of plastic back to him once she’s finished.

Wordlessly, he starts moving over to a table nearby when she pipes up, “What? No ‘thank you’?”

He spins around, a brow quirked as he meets her eyes. The slight curl of her lips tells him she’s mocking him and his lack of a response.

“Thank you.” He speaks, voice flat and face unimpressed. Her lips twitch.

“Gee, you’re a real charmer, aren’t you. I do need to know if you want this here or to go,” Eyes lit with mirth, Ethan itches to end this interaction and head back to the hospital. So much for that break.

“To go.”

The smirk doesn’t leave her face as she turns around and gets to work, and Ethan is eternally grateful for the conversation being over.

A few minutes pass by before he hears his name being called. Striding to the pick up station where the barista placed his order of Vienna in a styrofoam cup, her cheeks lifted into a winning smile, one she must use on all her customers.

Ethan picks it up promptly, the desire to get back to work coursing through him strongly the minute he glimpses at her face (his mistake) and finds that she’s still staring at him with a strange amusement lighting her eyes.

“Hope it's to your liking, Dr. Ramsey.”

“How do you know my name?”

Nina raises her brow, and throws a look at the elegant Dr. Ethan Ramsey, etched into the fabric of his white doctor coat, “I’m assuming that’s your name since it says so on your coat. If you were trying to go incognito, maybe lose the coat next time.”

With a wink, the barista spins around and disappears behind the door to the back, not giving him time to answer to her quip. Something pricks at the back of his mind as he watches her go. Casting a quick glance down at his coffee cup, the letters Ethonk are scrawled on the curved surface, and he couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or groan. More the latter probably.

Sighing for what was possibly the millionth time today, Ethan tightens his grip on the cup and makes his way out, feeling more annoyed than when he had come. I’m not coming back here.

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

Day 2

Why am I here?

He sincerely had no idea why he found himself lingering at the front of Derry Roasters a few weeks later, shoes avoiding the crunch of leaves under his feet as a delicate autumn breeze curls through his hair and rustles the pages of the book he had nestled in his arm.

Ethan had initially planned to not come here again for a long while, having no desire to run into that impudent barista from last time, Nina, her name was.

Annoying.

Shaking away the thought, he pushed the front door open and strode into the cafe, the click of the latch bolt falling back into its frame announcing his arrival once more. The shop was fairly empty again at this time, being so long after the busy lunch rush hour.

As usual, Ethan made his way up to the register, but his steps faltered for a half second when he noticed a new addition to the counter by the pick up area: a small potted cactus, its thorny arms appearing almost golden bathed in the gentle autumn light streaming in through the windows.

A little curious, he continues walking and taps the bell once when he makes it to the front.

Unlike before, the door leading to the back whipped open almost immediately after the ding, and out came the petite barista, long brown hair tied into a loose ponytail today. Small specks of what looks like cream powder dotting her cheek and on the sleeves of her peach-colored blouse, the brunette saunters over and plants herself directly across him.

Chocolate doe eyes instantly find his blue ones and Nina flashes him an amiable smile. Or it would be amiable if it weren’t for the twinkle of mischief he catches in her gaze. He bites back a mental groan.

Ethan opens his mouth, prepared to just tell her his order quickly so he could leave, when she beats him to it.

“Did you see Henry?” Her voice is a little hushed, conspiratorial. Bemused, his eyebrows furrow in place of a question.

“...Henry?”

The barista nods her head in the direction of the pick up station, eyes darting to the potted plant he saw earlier and back to him, “Henry!”

He’s not sure how to respond. Nina waits for a few beats before crossing her arms across her chest, ogling him for a reaction, “We just got it yesterday. I thought it’d be nice to spruce up the place,” She leans forward, her apron brushing against the register.

“You don’t feel a connection with it?” She pursed her lips, brown eyes twinkling with mirth. The furrow in his brows deepens, not quite enjoying the way she was eyeing him.

“Why would I feel any connection to a cactus?”

“Well, you are one emotionally,”

Ethan lets out a short scoff, his expression wholly unimpressed, “We’ve had a grand total of two interactions.”

“And the two were all I needed to know everything,” Nina tosses him a tiny smirk, seemingly relishing in getting under his skin, a frown beginning to mar his features. How tedious.

Sighing deeply and already feeling exhausted, Ethan ignores the quip and barrels forth, “The Vienna.” He tosses his card on the surface of the counter, almost impatient as she gingerly grabs it and rings him up, saying nothing more all the while.

Not giving her an opening, Ethan snatches his card out of her grasp the minute she’s done, and turns around to find an empty table far away from the register.

“I’ll bring it over to you when it’s done,” He hears behind him as he continues moving.

Settling into a table in the back corner of the coffeeshop, Ethan sinks into the leather chair and opens his history book, determined to ignore and forget his interactions with the barista so he can take a break. Why he came back here when he already predicted this happening was beyond him. He won’t repeat the mistake again.

A few minutes later, Ethan feels a presence in front of him and peeks from his book to find Nina placing his cup of Vienna on the table. Turning his attention back to his pages, he reads another line from Robert Service before glancing back up.

She was still standing there. Hands clasped together in front of her chest, Nina was peering down at him, blinking innocently.

“...Is there something wrong?”

“No,” She answers, giving a slight shake of her head in emphasis. She still didn’t move.

“...”

“...Did you want something?”

Her expression shifts promptly, fixing a saccharine smile his way and a sense of dread creeps up his spine.

“Well you see,” Nina sweeps an arm around the expanse of the room, where only one other patron beside him was sitting in the opposite corner, tapping away on their laptop, “no one’s really here.”

He feels a budding headache pricking, “And what does that have to do with me?” He asks, tone flat.

Her large smile widens a little more, “I’m bored and you’re the most entertaining thing here.”

There’s a brief moment where the two of them did nothing, a staredown ensuing with the only sound coming from the ceiling speakers and the tap, tap, tap of the laptop.

Pressure behind his eyes growing, he brings up a hand to scratch at his stubble. Yes, he really regrets coming here today.

“Well what do you want to do then?” The defeat in his voice is evident as Nina starts shuffling over to the chair opposite him, appearing so pleased with herself Ethan could only breathe out another sigh.

“If it’s cool with you-”

“It’s not,”

“-I’m just gonna hang out here with you,” She plops into the leather recliner and beams at him, eyes scrunching into two crescent moons. Huh. “Besides, I’m doing you a favor really.”

His annoyance fading just a smidge, he eyes her, distrustful. Closing his book with a small thud, Ethan leans back, sinking further into the plush material.

“How on earth is you neglecting your work and bothering me when I’m trying to read you doing me a favor?”

Nina flicks her chin at the cover of his book. The glossy surface catches the warm rays of sunshine drifting in through the windows, the text Comrades!: A History of World Communism almost swallowed whole by the natural light.

“I am doing you a favor,” The steam from the coffee mug wafts up and swirls in the air between them, “I’m sure you’re already busy being a doctor full-time, I’m giving you a chance to take a break from your communist endeavors so you can actually enjoy your down time.”

Seeing no point in disagreeing when she looked determined to stay there, Ethan takes a sip of his Vienna, the liquid still warm and settles pleasantly on his tongue. Over the top of the cup, he catches Nina leaning forward slightly as though waiting for his reaction.

Putting the mug back down, he turns his head to the window, content on ignoring her still and watching the people strolling up and down the street outside.

Her quiet voice breaks him out of his reverie, “What’s it like? Being a doctor?”

At the question, Ethan turns his gaze on the barista, finding her peering at him with a mix of curiosity and...admiration?

He shrugs, “It’s alright.”

“...That’s it?” Her head tilts to the side, eyes widening as she silently urges him to elaborate. He’s not sure why he’s humoring her, but he relents and continues.

“It’s...it gives me opportunities to figure out the mysteries of the human body. To find ways to conquer and defeat the things that defeat us,” He keeps his gaze on her, watching as the brunette follows his every word like he’s telling her some universal truth.

Nina nods, seemingly soaking in his explanation and satisfied with it, “That sounds really cool. You’re like a hero,” She laughs a little, a tenderness in it that confuses Ethan, but he doesn’t say anymore on it. Hardly.

A beat of silence falls over them again. There’s no awkwardness in it though and Ethan’s content to let it stretch on.

“I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger.”

The spell is broken and Ethan’s attention is now directed solely at her, the barista tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. When he doesn’t speak, she continues, “Always wanted to help people. It just seemed like the perfect job for me to defend those who were fighting for their lives. For their second chances.”

The small frog pin on her apron gleams as she fidgets, light from outside hitting its metallic surface.

“Why didn’t you?” He finally asks, albeit hesitantly, “Become a doctor.”

A wistful look crosses her face and she smiles, “My brother’s health deteriorated and he collapsed as I was graduating from high school. Things just never worked out,” Nina pauses and considers the room, Ethan noticing for the first time that the other customer had left, no more tap tap-ing sound to be heard.

“But it’s whatever. I like working here. And at least I get to keep my sleep schedule,” She jokes, eyes landing on him again.

Ethan doesn’t speak for a long moment, holding her gaze. At the lack of reaction, Nina begins to squirm, appearing nervous, but doesn’t prod him.

Finally, he finds his voice, uncharacteristically timid, “This place is lucky to have you.”

A blink and a beat later, and a glowing grin stretches across Nina’s face. She chuckles, a soft pink flush dusting her cheek.

Waiting another beat, Ethan clears his throat and begins to move, grabbing his book and nudging the now-drained cup of Vienna away, “I should head back. I have work. At the hospital.” He holds back a grimace. Moron.

Nina tilts her head, the action releasing a couple of strands to fall from her ponytail, “I would hope so, since you’re wearing your white coat,” She snorts when she sees the unimpressed expression on his face, “Go save lives, Dr. Ramsey.”

With that, the barista turns and heads back to work, humming softly as she goes.

A feeling he can’t place courses through him, sending a slight shiver up his spine as he steps out into the street. Just a chill. With that, Ethan makes the familiar walk back to Edenbrook, the gentle breeze returning and dances through the soft locks of his hair the whole way.

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

Day 3

“Quit stalling already and drink!”

Grumbling, he lifts the cup to his lips, taking a cautious sip.

The silence settles throughout the room, and Nina leans forward just a little bit, in an attempt to gauge his reaction. He tries to keep his expression blank.

“...Well?”

“...”

Ethan lets the silence linger for another moment before bringing the cup back to his lips. Slowly, a smile begins to bloom across Nina’s face, bright and smug, “Heh. So what’s the verdict, Doctor?”

He refuses to give her the satisfaction of a reply, instead determined to keep his eyes trained on the inside of his coffee cup. His ears pick up a tinkle of a laugh.

“I told you you’d like it,” The barista giggles, her eyes forming crescent moons, as she attempts to stifle the full force of her laughter. Placing a hand on her hips, Nina gazes at him, her self-satisfied grin making a home on the corner of her lips. Ethan decides, right then and there, that he hates it endlessly.

He especially hates how that cheeky ass smirk makes her eyes sparkle more.

Releasing a bone-weary sigh, Ethan sets the mug down on the table and leans back in the chair, training ice blue eyes on the brunette across from him, “I tried it. Are you going to tell me what it was now?”

Still beaming, Nina sinks down into the soft leather chair opposite him, hand coming up to tuck a stray lock of dark hair behind her ears. Crossing her legs, she glances down at the drained coffee cup, “Espresso Romano. As you can probably guess, it’s a shot of espresso with a slice of lemon served on the side and rubbed on the rim.”

A soft calming song plays in the background, the notes resonating through the air and floats around them, framing the little pocket of the world they were occupying. Nina looks back up at Ethan, holding his gaze as she continues, “The lemon’s zestiness brightens the drink and cuts off the bitterness. Which, no offense, but that looks like something you could use some help with.”

Biting back a retort on the tip of his tongue, he picks up the discarded lemon curl, long fingers absentmindedly playing with the garnish. The silence settles once more between them as he takes in what she said.

In a voice so quiet he’s hoping she doesn’t pick up on it, the words leave his lips: “It’s decent.”

The crescent moon smile she gifts him with tells him that she heard it loud and clear. He doesn’t say anymore, but he doesn’t need to. She hears the rest of what he left unspoken.

“Such a way with words. You really should’ve been a poet instead of a doctor,” Amusement never leaving her eyes, she leans over to pick up his mug and plucks the lemon peel out of his hands, dark brown hair falling over her shoulder at the movement. Soft afternoon sunlight streams in, bouncing off the tan of her skin and for a brief moment, she looks like she’s glowing. Ethan frowns, averting his attention to the space behind her instead.

Humming quietly, Nina stands up and turns, the soles of her white Converse squeaking in protest. Tossing him one more knowing smirk, she begins her trip back to the register, the arm of his empty cup resting on the crook of her finger. A minute later, she disappears through the door into the back area, the gentle music from the ceiling filling up the room in her stead.

Ethan releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and glances back out the windows overlooking the street, the faint taste of lemon still sitting on his lips.

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

Day 4

The coffeeshop feels a bit different in the mornings, fresh dew and the gentle rise of the sun blanketing the room, wrapping it in a peculiar warmth. The lack of customers at this time adds to the ambiance, though Ethan doesn’t pay much mind to any of that at the moment. Instead, his attention is aimed at the disheveled barista in front of him and the mayhem surrounding her.

The next time Ethan walked through the doors of Derry Roasters a week later, he was met with what he could only describe as chaos. A collection of discarded coffee cups littered the counter and drops of milk and cream dotted the floor all around Nina. The brunette ran a hand through her long hair frustratedly, apron stained with liquids.

A quick explanation told him that she had been attempting to perfect the craft of latte art, though Ethan would argue that you can’t perfect something you didn’t even have the basics for. Recognizing that her skills were abhorrent and wanting to please customers, Nina had made it a habit to arrive at the cafe very early in the mornings, where she could practice in solitude. And that was what he had walked in on when he dropped by, having thought to get coffee before his shift later that day.

He watches her struggle with the milk for another minute, bumbling around like a newborn, before peeling off his white coat, a strand of hair falling just over his eyes at the motion. Nina turns at the rustle beside her and is greeted with Ethan’s tall figure peering down at her handiwork.

Startled, she takes a half step back, eyes wide in surprise, “What...are you doing?”

In place of a response, he rolls up the sleeves of his button down shirt and helps himself to one of the aprons hanging on the coat rack by the back area.

“Watching you spill milk on yourself like an infant is getting painful. I used to work as a barista through undergrad so I remember some things...” He pauses, gazing inside one particular mug that was housing what resembled more creamy vomit than coffee, “...though I’m skeptical if it could even help you at this point.”

The flat tone of his voice must have irritated her, as she shoots him a mild glare, a cool determination flashing in her eyes, “That sounds like a challenge, Doctor.”

“It definitely will be.”

A couple hours later, the work area resembles a battlefield, thermometer and portafilters thrown haphazardly all over the counter, milk and coffee powder strewn across its surface in reckless abandon.

Ethan shakes his head, arms crossed over his chest and focused intensely on the mess she’s making, “You’re not doing it right.”

Nina groans, the sound tickling his ear. Her grip on the pitcher slackens which promptly spills more of its milky contents all over the counter.

“I’m doing it exactly as you said. You just suck at teaching,” She mumbles, tsk-ing a little at the new addition blooming on her apron. Taking in the growing clutter decorating the counter, Nina lets out a sigh before turning to Ethan, “This feels hopeless.”

“Giving up already, rookie?” He quirks up an eyebrow, a corner of his lips twitching.

She stops and blinks at the nickname, but doesn’t comment on it further, “No!...Just. Ugggh,” With a loud whine that sounds awfully like a puppy’s, Nina sets the pitcher down, knocking it into the thermometer that was sitting nearby. Placing a hand on the surface of the counter, Nina leans into it, sagging with disappointment. The chagrin expression on her face so directly contrasted her usual bright grin that it makes his chest throb strangely.

Clearing his throat, Ethan glances back down at the mugs, highlighting all her failed attempts. Despite the mess, he could still see her progress, the more recent works showing slight improvements.

With a flick of his fingers, he starts selecting some of the cups out of the batch, “These aren’t too bad. The shape is starting to take place.”

Not looking entirely convinced, Nina skeptically eyes the attempts he singled out.

“You sure?” She points to one, “This one looks like a bad rendition of the Scream.”

Gently, Ethan nudges the pitcher and the thermometer towards her, voice quiet but firm, “It’s an upgrade from the foamy blob you made earlier. You’re getting there. You just need to keep working on your technique.”

Releasing a sigh, Nina relents and pours more milk into the pitcher, readying for another round.

Delicate sunshine slants through the windows and catches on the tips of her hair as she bends forward, eyes narrowed at the face of the thermometer. Ethan keeps a watchful eye on her movements, leaning towards her a fraction more.

Despite the intensity coming off of Nina as she tackles the task, Ethan feels curiously light, as though the usual restlessness humming under his skin was dimmed. Hovering a little closer, the weak scent of apples from Nina’s hair tickles his nose, as she turns to heat the milk. Grabbing the steam wand, she inserts it into the liquid and turns it on, the thermometer clinking onto the side of the pitcher.

When she gets to the part of pouring the milk into the coffee, the hand holding the steamed milk trembles slightly as she tips the wide-mouthed cup of the espresso forward in her non-dominant hand. Stepping ever closer and settling right behind her, Ethan leans his head down until it practically rests on her shoulder, her back to his chest, and brings a hand forward to steady her grip.

At the contact, the warmth of her skin spreads through his fingers, scalding in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

This close to her he can hear the intake of breath, the slight shudder in her voice as she continues, concentrating on the feeling of his hand and the milk as it spills into the espresso.

Morning light grows warmer as the sun rises up higher in the sky, and Ethan loses track of time as he watches Nina pour the foam, successfully forming an asymmetrical flower. The minute she finishes with the last drop, the barista sets the pitcher down, staring wide eyed at her work.

Turning her head slowly, she fixes her stare on him, a look of utter disbelief on her face, “...I did it.”

Ethan’s lips quirk and he nods once, “You did.”

There’s a pause as it sinks in.

“...Oh my god! I did it!” Elated, Nina leaps towards Ethan, throwing her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug.

“Oof,” He braces himself at the force of her knocking into him. Letting out a snort, Ethan finds himself chuckling at the brunette’s joy, a small feeling of pride spreading through his chest, having spent all day trying to get to this point.

The moment lingers, Nina’s arms still wrapped around Ethan’s broader frame, the thumping of her heart beating against his rib cage. In a tiny, slightly muffled voice, “Thank you.”

Tilting her head up at him, she awards him with a gentle smile, the softness of her face accentuated by the tender curl of her lips, “Seriously. It was thanks to your help today. Guess you really are a good teacher,” Nina quips, a levity about her now that made it difficult for him to look away.

Ethan smirks, “Of course I am. I’m good at everything.”

The barista rolls her eyes all the way up to the ceiling, “Glad to see you’ve got a strong ego.”

“Was it not earned?”

“...Okay yes, but it doesn’t mean you have to be annoying about it,” She grumbles, lips forming a pout.

It takes Ethan another minute to realize that neither of them had moved, the both of them still wrapped around each other. The warmth of her skin bleeding through his shirt, the faint apple scent of her hair tickling his nose once more and he unconsciously leans down.

Nina’s eyelids flutter as she moves towards him, and soon he’s close enough that he can count every speck of caramel in the brown pools of her eyes. The pink of her lips. The small shudder of her breath. Every second that ticks by is another he’s falling...Wait, what?

Ethan jolts, his thoughts crashing to a stop, his entire body tensing. Sensing the change of mood, Nina halts as well, pulling back slightly to look at him, brows furrowed in concern, “Are you alright, Ethan?”

No. He doesn’t respond as he starts extricating himself from her grasp, peeling away from her. The groove in between her eyebrows deepen as Ethan hurries to place some distance between them.

There’s another moment of silence that blankets over them, but this one is different. It’s tense, making Ethan’s gut churn a little.

“...Did I...is something wrong?”

Unable to meet her eyes, he holds back a grimace, hearing a tremble of hurt in her voice as she asks. He stays silent for another beat before glancing in her direction, not meeting her gaze, “No, it’s just. It’s...I gotta go. My shift starts soon.”

Not waiting for a reply, Ethan yanks off his apron, roughly throwing back onto the rack before hastily grabbing his white coat and rushing out the door, never once turning back to look at the barista, whose eyes never left his back as he briskly walked off back to the hospital.

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

Day 5

“You’re still here, Ethan?”

At the sound of the voice, Ethan looks up from a patient’s x-rays he’d been examining, finding his colleague, Dr. Baz Mirani, standing in the doorway of his office.

Throwing a quick glance at the wall clock, it read 11:54 p.m.

Damn. It’s this late already? He’d completely lost track of time.

Rubbing a tired hand over his chin, Ethan releases a sigh before packing up his things, and leaving his office for the night, brushing past Baz on the way out. He wasn’t going to be able to do much more tonight.

A full effect of autumn had taken root and blanketed across the town in the past month. Stepping out in the night, Ethan lifted up his face, the scent of the fall leaves and cool evening air caressing the tip of his nose. As he moved closer to his car, a restlessness buzzed under his skin and he was unable to shake it no matter how much he tried.

He’d been feeling this way for about a month now. Ever since then.

A flicker of brown eyes and soft smiles crosses his mind and a gnawing apprehension sits in his throat, one that feels suspiciously like guilt. Guilt and...something else Ethan doesn’t want to define yet.

Sighing once more into the autumn night, he reaches his car door, ready to go home to his bottle of scotch waiting for him. The feeling continues to nip at him though, and he pauses when reaching for the handle of his car, the weight in his backpocket feeling much, much heavier.

Maybe...He suddenly...felt an urge for some coffee.

Before he could talk himself out of it (this is a bad idea), he leaves behind his car and takes off in the direction of the coffeeshop, his footsteps slow and effortful.

The lights are still on when he reaches Derry Roasters, the blinds of the windows all pulled down save for two that overlook the counter. His eyes immediately land on the barista, sweeping away at the floor on the other side of the register, expression tight and disappointed.

The guilt started to creep back in at the look on her face.

This really was a bad idea. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to talk to her yet, after his abrupt exit last time. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be ready, but he certainly wasn’t today.

Backtracking, Ethan began turning back in the direction from which he came, but the movement catches her eye and right away, Nina glances up, brown eyes connecting with blue ones. Ah shit.

Seeing him, the barista’s expression tightens a fraction more, a cool gleam flashing across her eyes, and she frowns before beckoning him to come in with a quick nod of her head.

A weary sigh leaves his lips as Ethan ambles over, the ding of the bell ringing out like it was announcing his execution. The minute he walks in, Nina folds her arms across her chest, still wearing her black apron over the pale blue sweater she donned today.

“Did you need something?” She asks after a long, tense moment.

He doesn’t reply, the lump in his throat growing as he hears the familiar line, ones uttered by him not too long ago. The circumstances in which they were said so different.

She presses forward when he doesn’t speak, “You haven't been around much lately.” It sounds a little like an accusation.

“My coffee machine’s working again. So I didn’t really need to come here anymore,” He tries to hold back a grimace at how calloused he sounds.

Nina’s frown morphs into a glare and Ethan’s sure he’d rather be toughing it out in the Amazon right now than having to be the object of this woman’s current woe and ire. He’d rather be anywhere else.

He regrettably continues to dig his own grave, “There wasn’t much else this place could offer since I could just get coffee from my office now,” Why the fuck-

“Well sorry I don’t have much to offer a world renown doctor,” A tinge of bitterness laced in her tone and he holds back a wince.

It was strange how easy it was for him to deal with the people at the hospital, never finding any need to mince words with idiots with fat pockets, and vultures trying to increase their profits at the expense of others. With his patients, always doing his best to be honest with them as they faced their own battles everyday, fighting for their lives. But here, in front of this woman who miffed him and intrigued him to no end, Ethan always found himself hesitating and clumsy with his words.

He stays quiet for too long and his silence, his lack of anything annoys her.

“You really are a cactus,” Nina mumbles, tightening her grip on the broom, keeping her eyes trained to the ground.

Taking a steadying breath, the barista glares pointedly at the crack in the floor before speaking up again, “You’re always like this, you know. I’ve talked to you like five times, and even I can tell you what you’re like.”

He doesn’t speak, the tension in the air making it difficult for him to cut through, his throat closing.

Nina holds up her hand, dainty fingers curled into a fist before she begins counting, “You always have to be sarcastic or ironic about something,” She lifts up a finger, “You’re always grumpy and kind of an asshole,” She puts up another finger, “You’re so closed off it’s sometimes so hard to talk to you because I have no idea what you’re thinking,” She pauses, ticking off another finger as the edge of her glare starts to fade, “...You never say what you mean. You’re so emotionally constipated and you make a habit of running away. You can’t just admit you like something and you always have to find a roundabout way to-”

During her tirade, Ethan had inched closer to her, slipping out what he had hidden in his back pocket. In one swift motion, he presents it to her, shoving it right under her nose and effectively cutting her off mid-rant.

Nina blinks, staring down at the trinket. A small frog keychain sits in the palm of his hand, the plush material appearing velvety under the beam of the ceiling light.

“...What?”

His other hand reaches up to scratch the back of his neck as she peers up at him, wide-eyed and confused at the gesture, “I saw it a while ago. I don’t know why I thought of you but I bought it.” He nods at the pin clipped dutifully on her apron, right next to her name tag.

A long stretch of silence envelopes them and Ethan’s not sure what to classify this one. It didn’t feel comfortable nor was it tense like before. The brunette continued to stare at the item in his hand before gingerly, almost shyly taking it into her hands, rolling it a bit between her fingers.

After another long moment, she speaks up, “My brother...always liked frogs,” Voice airy, she keeps her eyes on the plush and continues, “He got sick a lot, and they always made him feel better. So I would always be wearing them and bringing them to him whenever he got sick again.” Nina glances up at him finally and he notices her eyes glistening with emotion.

“He’s alright now, but I guess old habits die hard. I’ve grown attached to frogs myself,” She chuckles.

Ethan watches her, blue eyes lingering on her frame before finding his voice again, “I’m glad your brother is fine now. You’re a wonderful sister.”

Nina remains quiet, eyes still fixed on the gift and Ethan’s not sure why he feels the need to keep going, “I found it in the gift shop at the hospital.”

There’s another pause as Nina freezes again. As the seconds stretch on, Ethan’s worried he overstepped. Maybe don’t tell her that. Preparing to backtrack and excuse himself from this scenario, he readies an apology on his lips, when he’s interrupted by the sound of a snort.

She’s...laughing?

Bemusement takes over his face as he blinks, watching as the barista starts curling over, laugh growing in intensity and volume. One peek at his face and she’s launched into another fit.

Nina continues to laugh, her body shaking as the amusement runs through her small frame. Ethan stands there silently, not sure what he should be doing as the barista keeps giggling, hand clutching the keychain tight in her grip.

Finally, after what feels like ages, Nina’s laughter subsides, fixing her posture and settling her gaze on him, something that Ethan can’t define sparkling in her eyes.

A fond sigh leaves her lips as she regards him, “You make it hard to stay mad,” She lets out, voice delicate like a whisper.

Nina links her hands behind her back, expression happy and radiant, and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from her. In his daze, he doesn’t notice her moving, approaching quicker than he has time to form a coherent thought.

Nina practically skips towards him, closing the distance between them. Ethan almost reflexively took a step back, the sudden proximity shocking him speechless as he catches the caramel flecks in her eyes, sparkling and utterly captivating.

“So,” Drawing out the one syllable, Nina’s eyes crinkle into those familiar crescent moons, as she lifts herself up on her tiptoes and leans towards him, noses almost touching. Ethan finds himself rooted to the spot, completely at a loss before her as her eyes reflect like stars.

“Are you gonna ask me on a date or what?”

Fin.

taglist: @openheart12 @ethandaddyramsey @noboundariesplease @drethanramslay @ethanramseysgirl @senseofduties @messrprongs @x-kyne-x @ethxnrxmsey @newcolonies @choices-love-affair @sekizincimektup @nooruleman @fightingtheinevitable @kaavyaethanramsey @agent-breakdance @blueacacias @edith-eggs1

#open heart #playchoices #choices oph #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #choices fanfiction #choices fanfic #ethan ramsey fanfiction #my writing #SHES SO LONGGGGGG #please don't let this flop i will swear off writing forever #so help me gOD #no seriously leave your comments and what not i'd love to hear your thoughts #i'm so proud of her sHES MY BABY #my shitty writing

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yuta-nakamots · 4 years

Text

Beautiful Time - h.rj ; Part 2 of 6

Pairing - Vampire!Renjun x Reader

Genre - almost just pure fluff

Warnings - Mentions of blood

Summary - Vampires are creatures forced to walk upon the earth for longer than humans could possibly imagine. One would think it gets boring after a while, but not to Renjun, the foreign exchange student who seems to know a little too much about the early twentieth century.

Word Count - 4.6k

A/N - next chapter is gonna be low key angsty so enjoy the fluff while it lasts :’)

Renjun didn’t show up for school for about a week after your incident with him and Haechan. You were almost glad that he wasn’t here since you don’t know how you would have acted around him. However, the deadline for your final project was quickly approaching and though you could see he was still doing his part of the assignment and making progress, you knew that you’d need to speak to him sooner or later if you wanted to get it done on time.

You texted him to meet you at the same coffee shop later that day to which he sends a simple ‘ok’ as a response. You text him again, asking if for now, you guys can act as if the incident never happened and only focus on the project. He sends a thumbs-up emoji back. You don’t know whether to be upset or relieved that he was giving you these minimal responses, but you didn’t want to dwell on it any more than you already have, switching your thoughts to the next steps of your project.

When you meet up with Renjun at the cafe, the tension is almost suffocating. The atmosphere wasn’t as bright as before but Renjun agreed to only talk about the project so work goes by faster than usual, finishing what you and Renjun had planned to do around 8pm. As both of you are packing up, Renjun asks how you’ll be getting home again and you tell him that you’re planning on walking since you live barely a ten-minute walk away from the cafe and you don’t want to bother your parents since they had both come home in a bad mood.

Renjun immediately offers to walk you home, which you accept, but only because you are actually scared to walk home alone anyways. You didn’t expect both of your parents to come home upset but you didn’t want to get yelled at in the car either. You show Renjun the route you normally take to walk home so he knows how to retrace his steps back to the cafe and get back to his apartment before you both leave the cafe.

The walk home was almost silent, as Renjun still wanted to give you your space since you hadn’t indicated otherwise yet. It was peaceful, the freshly fallen leaves crunching underneath your steps, the concrete just faintly wet. You were just about to speak to him until you heard a loud laugh coming from down the road and a large figure coming towards you. As you get closer, you make out the form of two boys, one being piggy-backed by the other.

“Jaemin, shut up, she’s going to hear you” You stop in your tracks, recognizing Haechan’s voice and his figure, carrying a boy with blue hair who you presume to be Jaemin, not wanting to go any closer. Renjun stops next to you, still leaving his arms width of space, before calling out to them asking where they were heading.

“Home,” Haechan responded, “got into a fight with a hunter, well, Jaemin did. I had to bail him out before he went all feral and exposed us,” you heard Jaemin let out a whine as if to refute Haechan’s statement, “where are you headed, princess?” Haechan asked, directing his question at you as he slowly got closer until you could see all the wounds and bruises littered across his skin.

Renjun answered him before you could, “I’m taking her home. We were just working on a school project and I didn’t want her to walk home alone.”

“Alright then buddy, be careful,” Haechan warned, “you might wanna speed it up because I don’t know how long that hunter is gonna stay knocked out for.”

Renjun gestured for you to cross the street with him before Haechan and Jaemin reached you guys, knowing that you weren’t comfortable being around Haechan after the incident. “Okay, will do” Renjun says, looking both ways to make sure it’s safe for both of you to cross.

Once you make it to the sidewalk, Renjun gets down on his knee facing the direction you were previously walking in, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to let me carry you,” he mumbled, “I don’t want us to get caught by a hunter, they can be deadly to both of us.”

You hum to let Renjun know you heard him before placing your arms around his shoulders and your legs next to his waist. He stands up, his cold hands grabbing the back of your thighs as he tells you to hold on and close your eyes. You oblige, though you’re beyond scared for what’s about to happen.

You can only assume when Renjun starts running as you feel your hair start to fly behind you the cold air nipping at your exposed skin. It all stops within fifteen seconds, Renjun telling you it’s safe to open your eyes. You look up, noticing Renjun had stopped just at the foot of your driveway, whispering a small ‘thank you’ into his ear as he bends down to gently let you off his back.

“I’m sorry you had to see him again,” Renjun told you, obviously alluding to your run-in with Haechan, “I swear it wasn’t planned or anything like that-”

“Renjun, it’s okay,” you interrupted, “I’m glad we were able to work on our project today but I’m much more concerned about your safety. You should get going” you said to him, half of you just wanted him to leave, the other half being actually sincere.

“Should we meet up again on Saturday? For the project, I mean.”

“Saturday works for me. At the same cafe?” you asked him.

“Okay, see you then.”

“Get home safely, Renjun.”

He flashed you an apologetic smile, before taking a few steps away from you and almost vanishing right in front of your eyes, the only sign of him being the leaves along the sidewalk thrown into the air as he used his enhanced speed to get himself back home.

The next time you meet Renjun was a little over a week later on a Saturday, two days before your project is due, to be exact. You hadn’t said anything to him, other than confirming the time and place of your meetup since he had taken you home. Your relationship with him is still undefined, though you were meaning to sort things out once you finished your project.

As you arrived at the cafe, you found Renjun sitting at one of the tables outside, sitting uncomfortably against a wall, under the shade of one of the table umbrellas as the afternoon sun was lowering in the sky. The brim of his cap was pulled down to cover his face and the hood of his jacket settled nicely on top of it until he looked up at your figure approaching him. “It’s closed for renovation” he said, as you read the sign on the door, confirming his statement.

You hummed in dismay before suggesting “should we go to the park then?” Renjun only nodded as he lowered his hat again, standing up to walk with you.

There weren't many people at the park, which was a little surprising for a Saturday afternoon but you were also thankful for that, as it meant that the good shaded spots were available. You chose to sit under a large tree that provided more than enough shade for you and Renjun to sit down and work on your project, Renjun giving you a shy smile as he whispered a ‘thank you’.

About an hour passes before it starts drizzling, interrupting the pace you and Renjun were working at. You were almost done with the project too so you suggest going to Renjun’s apartment to finish up, much to his surprise. After making sure that neither Jaemin nor Haechan are at his apartment and do not plan on showing up, you and Renjun run through the light rain, though it’s more like Renjun running while pulling you along, making it to his apartment complex just before it starts to pour.

Once inside his unit, Renjun offers you a towel to dry yourself off before he goes and changes into a new set of clothes. You already had your laptop and all of your papers spread out on the couch by the time he came back, this time wearing only a long-sleeve shirt and sweatpants. You quickly look down, hoping that he didn’t notice you staring as he joined you on the sofa.

As you went through the list of all the components of your project from the newspaper article about the end of World War I, to the jazz piece Renjun had analyzed, all the way through to the first film featuring Mickey Mouse, you checked off the last box next to the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 and you let out a gasp of surprise, not realizing you had crossed the finish line.

Renjun looked up after hearing your gasp and you showed him the paper with all the ticked boxes and he let out a yell of satisfaction before leaning back over the armrest, his head dangling over the edge. He lets out a sad whine when you remind him that you guys should still double-check everything and make sure you have all your information in order, though he complies and does as you tell him.

It was still light out by the time you and Renjun officially finished your end of semester project, pulling him into a hug without much thought as you let out a scream of delight. Renjun paused for a bit before joining you in your mini celebration as he gently pulled away from your embrace, his arms stilling around your waist as his eyes caught your gaze.

Your smile slowly began to fade from your face, though never leaving it completely as you finally gained the confidence to voice the thoughts that were lingering in your mind for quite some time now. “Renjun”, you began hesitantly, your eyes cast upon the floor, “I know I promised you an answer a while ago but I wanted to make sure of my choice before telling you.” You ran your hands from his wrists to his elbows, lightly gripping them before looking him in the eyes, his brows furrowing as if he was lost in thought, “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to give us a chance.”

Renjun’s face immediately relaxes as he pulls you in from your waist to hug you while uttering countless ‘thank you’s and promising to make you happy. Though the moment was quickly broken by the sound of the door opening and Haechan lugging in a dazed-looking Jaemin. Renjun rolled his eyes as he let out a scoff, “what now? Another fight with those kids at school or what?”

“No, Renjun,” Haechan replied, “it’s the hunters again. I think they’re onto us this time.”

Renjun’s hold on you tightens as both of you watch Haechan drag Jaemin down the hall to Jaemin’s room. “I’m sorry, I’ll be right back” Renjun says, quickly going to join the other two. Once you heard the door shut, you knelt down next to the couch and organized the papers to put away into a folder. You didn’t mean to, but you had given yourself a paper cut as you were filing the papers away, only noticing when you say a tinge of red on the paper you just grabbed.

Faster than you could even see, your hand and the paper you were holding were snatched away from you and you looked up to see Haechan sitting on the sofa, eyeing the blood slowly oozing out of your cut. “Little princess is quite fragile isn’t she?” Haechan teased. You looked around, starting to panic as you noticed Renjun hadn’t come out yet. “Don’t worry princess, I won’t bite you. I’ve got more self-control than that, though we should probably get this covered up before Jaemin smells you” he said, letting out a laugh as you looked at him looking like a deer caught in headlights.

He yells for Renjun to bring in a first aid kit, and in less than ten seconds, Renjun was in front of you, already opening the box muttering how he feels more and more like a babysitter these days. He froze upon seeing your hand in Haechans’ and the thin line of blood coming from your cut. You didn’t dare look into his eyes as he swatted Haechans’ hand away to take your hand in his and tend to your little injury.

“So tell me why only Jaemin is all beat up and you’re not” Renjun said, not even sparing a glance at Haechan as he wrapped a band-aid around your finger.

Haechan let out an indignant huff before responding, “they tranquilized him with some sort of serum so while I was busy fighting them off, they were also busy messing with Jaemin. It’s difficult to take on three hunters on your own, you know.”

Renjun looked up at him, disbelief evident on his face, “three?”

“Yes, three. That’s why I said, I think they’re onto us” Haechan said, his voice coated with a light layer of sarcasm.

“Where are they now?” Renjun asked, eyeing your finger to make sure he applied the band-aid nicely.

“I wasn’t able to kill them because I was outnumbered so they got away but not without a good butt-kicking from yours truly” Haechan cheekily remarked, crossing his arms.

Renjun let out a sigh, shaking his head. “I’m really sorry y/n. I don’t think it’s safe for you to go home right now.” You opened your mouth to argue but Renjun silenced you with a single look into your eyes, his own were tinged with bits of maroon. “You were with me for at least four hours today and that’s enough time for my scent to rub off on you. If you were to go home right now, those hunters might think you’re one of us and it’s too dangerous to let you do that.”

“When will I be able to go home then?” you asked, “I can tell my parents that I’m sleeping over at a friends’ house but I still need to go to school. We need to go to school.” You emphasized the ‘we’, remembering that your project was due on Monday and you weren’t about to let all your hard work go to waste.

“Monday should be fine.” Renjun said, looking to Haechan for confirmation.

Haechan nodded as he told you, “as long as you’re at school and with your classmates and Renjun then you should be safe. There’s other vampires at your school anyway, so there’s no way the hunters would make a move then, especially when there are so many humans around.”

You let out a groan at the realization that your life just got impossibly more difficult as you texted your mom that you wouldn’t be coming home until Monday morning. Renjun stayed with you, running his cool fingers through your hair in an attempt to calm you down. Haechan had already gone back to Jaemin’s room, probably to check in on him and to settle down for the night, even if he didn’t sleep anyways.

As you hit send, Renjun stood up from the couch and offered you his hand, helping you off the ground and pulling you towards his room. He went through his drawers, pulling out one of his hoodies and a pair of his boxers as he tells you where the shower is and how to turn it on.

“That’s not the only thing y/n will be turning on tonight” you hear Haechan yell through the wall, feeling your face heat up in embarrassment. You and Renjun leave his room, you head towards the bathroom, Renjun to Jaemins’ room to lecture Haechan on respecting women.

You follow Renjun’s instructions and finish showering, slipping into the clothes he gave you and taking a moment to appreciate the slight vanilla scent mixed with the smell of the detergent he used. You make your way back to Renjun’s room, finding him already lying in bed, playing on his phone. You were about to ask him where you were going to sleep, not wanting to intrude on his space, but he pats the side of the bed next to him, telling you to lie down with him.

You slide under the blanket next to him, not letting yourself get too close to him, though he grabs your hips and pulls you in anyways, saying that you’ll fall off the bed if you sleep like that. He reaches over you to place his phone next to yours on his nightstand before getting comfortable next to you.

“I promise, I have more self-control than you think. I’ve been alive for more than a hundred years, it wouldn’t hurt to trust me a little bit” Renjun said, a playful smile dancing across his face. You sigh before allowing more of your body to rest against him, allowing him to wrap his arms around you, though you insist on facing him, your face nuzzled into his chest, just as a safety precaution so he couldn’t reach your neck. You soon drifted off to sleep, lost in your thoughts about how crazy your life has gotten in these past few months since you first met Renjun.

You slept better than expected, though you felt bad knowing that Renjun stayed with you the whole night even if he doesn’t sleep at all. When you finally came to your senses, you noticed that you had shifted around in your sleep as you were now facing away from Renjun, who was now laying on his back, and your head was resting on his shoulder rather than on the pillow.

You rolled over to face him, not wanting to wake up yet and nuzzling yourself into his side, causing Renjun to let out a faint laugh at your actions though he didn’t say anything and put his attention back to his phone. After a few minutes of trying to go back to sleep, you smelled something oddly similar to pancakes and you raised your head to look up at Renjun in confusion, knowing that other than you, no one else in the apartment would eat pancakes, which you had figured out due to all the times Renjun had turned down your offers to feed him whenever you ordered food at the cafe.

“Jaemin went shopping earlier because he was worried that you’d be hungry,” Renjun explained, turning his head to gaze down at you. “I don’t really know what kinds of foods you’d be into so I let him cook what he thought you’d like.” Renjun said, now reaching over you to place his phone on the nightstand. You use his positioning to your advantage, wrapping your arms around his torso and pulling him down to lie on top of you. “Someone’s a little affectionate now huh” he teases, though not moving off you, letting his hands make their way under your shoulders while locking eyes with you.

Your eyes trail down to his lips that look surprisingly soft and warm, though you force yourself to look back into his eyes, noticing that he was now smirking. “You’re awfully bold in the mornings, love” he said, the new nickname causing the butterflies in your stomach to flutter. You wanted to kiss him so badly, his fluffed up bed hair making him look that much cuter, but the lack of clarity about your relationship was unsettling.

“Renjun,” you began, he hummed in response as he rested his head on your chest, “what are we? Like, I know we’re mates and all but what does that make our relationship? What am I to you?” you asked, regretting your words as soon as they left your mouth for sounding like an idiot.

“I’d consider us lovers,” he responded, now looking up at you, “only if you would like us to be though. I won’t make you commit to anything yet if you’re not comfortable.”

“Is it, uh, normal for a vampire to be ‘lovers’ with their mate even if they’re a human?” You’ve only dated a few people before, not a lot, but enough to count on one hand. You were fairly experienced though not in this realm.

Renjun smiled at your confusion, finding it amusing, “of course it’s normal, y/n. Our mates are the people who are given to us, they are the other half to us. We were meant to fit together whether it be a romantic relationship or not,’ he told you as he ran a hand through your hair, causing you to lean into his cool touch, “though I’d hope our relationship is or will be someday.”

“Does that mean I can call you my boyfriend?”

“Only if you agree to be my girlfriend.”

“I’d love to” you said as you leaned up to place a kiss on his nose, though he reacted faster, tilting his head up so you kissed him on his lips instead. You pulled away in shock, your cheeks heating up as you realized what just happened.

Renjun laughed as he rolled to get off the bed, pulling you up with him and into his arms. “You must be hungry,” he said, placing a kiss on your forehead, making you push yourself further into his chest though your stomach let out a growl as if confirming his statement. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

You and Renjun made your way to the kitchen to find Jaemin flipping a pancake, letting out a soft ‘wow’ as it landed back into the pan. He looks up when he hears you enter and smiles at you before telling you “I’m sorry I’m always such a mess whenever I meet you. I hope this will give you a better first impression of me when I’m actually conscious enough to stand on my own.” His smile was so wide, reminding you of a bunny, and you couldn’t help but notice how cute he was, Renjun putting his hands on your waist as if he read your thoughts.

Once you finished choosing your toppings from the broad selection Jaemin had bought, you sat down at the kitchen island next to Renjun and took a bite of the pancakes Jaemin made for you. “Jaemin, these are so good,” you exclaimed, “well, good considering you probably haven’t cooked for a while now” you said, laughing at your own joke.

“Actually, I’m pretty young in vampire age, believe it or not. Though I may have stopped aging at twenty, I’ve only been this way for nine years unlike your boyfriend, who’s got over a hundred more years of life experience” he said, making you turn to Renjun, your eyes wide in shock.

“Haven’t you ever questioned why I know such obscure things from the 1900s?” he said to you.

“Alright, this is borderline pedophilia.” Jaemin joked, causing both you and him to laugh as Renjun just rolled his eyes.

After eating breakfast, you stayed sitting on the couch with Renjun, your legs resting over his lap as you forced him to watch Twilight since he admitted to never having seen it before. He took you home later that afternoon, ranting the whole time about how inaccurately vampires were portrayed and how even Haechan could’ve done a better job with the styling and makeup.

Over such a short period of time, you had already grown used to Renjun’s constant presence, whether he was ranting about Twilight or not, which is why you had trouble sleeping that night. You called Renjun and talked to him until you fell asleep, the conversation mostly lingering on your presentation tomorrow, making sure you both had everything set and ready to go, though you were already deep in your sleep when Renjun whispered ‘I love you’ before ending the call.

The presentation goes smoothly, as does the remaining week of the semester, leaving you flying into winter break. You convinced your parents to let you stay over at Renjun’s every so often by making up an imaginary friend named Hina who was a transfer student from Japan, at which Renjun only shook his head when you told him. “I don’t even speak Japanese,” he said, “but I can learn it for you so your story isn’t THAT unbelievably false.”

Another time you’re over, he tells you about the annual Christmas sleepover party that he, Jaemin, and Haechan have, though it’s more so for Jaemin because he misses spending time with his family during Christmas, the fact that he’s unable to eat his feelings away, making it only worse. You agree immediately, finding it so cute that Jaemin still enjoyed indulging in human festivities even if he was nine years removed from the species.

Leading up to the party, you suggested doing a Secret Santa, in which you had gotten Jaemin. You spent a lot of time thinking about what to get him, but ultimately settling on a cute white bunny plushie you saw in the store during a grocery run with your mom. You were excited to see what your Secret Santa got you, though you were really hoping it was Renjun.

Two days before Christmas is when you, Renjun, and Jaemin gather around a small miniature Christmas tree placed on the coffee table in front of the sofa and open your gifts, assuming that Haechan probably forgot and would be buying something last minute and super-speed running over from his own apartment.

Renjun unwraps his present first, finding an apron and a cookbook titled ‘40 Things To Cook For Your Girlfriend’. He gets up and places Jaemin in a chokehold while Jaemin tries to reason with him, telling him that he should “learn how to cook for your girlfriend because I won’t be doing it forever.”

Once they settle down, Jaemin opens his gift, letting out a coo of delight when he sees the small white bunny. He immediately names it Snowball and proceeds to affectionately hug it, though if it were alive, he would’ve suffocated it. He tells you ‘thank you’ and Renjun asks how he knows it’s from you. “You wouldn’t ever buy me something this cute, Renjun. You don’t even own a single plushie, you’re such a monster.” Jaemin said, earning another chokehold from Renjun.

The only remaining box on the table was addressed to Haechan, which you now knew was from Renjun, meaning Haechan was your (now, not) Secret Santa. Just as Jaemin was about to open Haechan’s present, having grown tired of waiting, the front door bursts open revealing a very frantic looking Haechan.

Within a blink, he was sitting at the coffee table anxiously explaining why he was late, saying that he went to the mall to buy your gift, which he forgot to get, as expected, and when he came back, his apartment was broken in to and he found a sticky note on the back of his door. He pulled it out of his pocket, unfolding it on the table for you all to see. ‘we found you’ was all it said, accompanied by a stamp of the emblem which Renjun explained to you, was used by vampire hunters.

A/N - next chapter is gonna be low key angsty so enjoy the fluff while it lasts :’) feel free to give me feedback and tell me your thoughts so far

@nct-writers

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abundanceofsoph · 4 years

Text

SkyFire 1: Chapter 4

FLASHBACK - New York: August 2011

Word count: 1.6k

SkyFire 1 MASTERLIST

The first thing that Rori noticed when she entered the penthouse at the beginning of August was the size, the place was gigantic, and she couldn’t help but compare it to the tiny apartment she had shared with her mother. The walk in closets in this place were probably bigger than their entire apartment combined. The second thing she noticed was the view of Central Park through the windows. Having never been to America before, she had only ever seen New York in movies, and she was itching to go out and explore her new home. The third and final thing that she saw, and what stole her attention away from everything else in the room, was the glossy, black grand piano sitting by the wide floor to ceiling windows. Tony noticed her staring at the instrument from where he was standing behind her, and he smiled sadly thinking of how it had gone mostly unplayed for so many years.

“It was your grandmothers,” he said softly. “It only really gets played when there’s a party.”

“Could I?” Rori asked softly, looking back over her shoulder with a shy smile.

“Of course,” Tony replied instantly. Steve stepped up to stand behind Tony, wrapping his arms around the shorter man’s shoulders as the teenager approached the piano, taking a seat on the bench before lifting the fallboard and hovering her fingers over the ivory keys for a moment. Both men watched on in silent awe as Aurora closed her eyes and played. The music filled the large space, breathing life into the room and Steve began to sway to the tune, forcing Tony to move with him. Slowly the song morphed from one to the next as Aurora revelled in the freedom of playing again, and after a few simple pieces she forgot completely about her audience, beginning to sing.

“She’s incredible,” Tony whispered, not wanting to shatter the stillness of the moment but needed to voice his astonishment.

“Just like her dad,” Steve murmured in his ear.

xXx

“Mind if I join?”

Steve looked up from his sketch book to find Aurora standing in the doorway of his art studio, looking shy with her sketch book and pencil case tucked under one arm.

“Make yourself at home,” he replied with a warm smile, moving his feet to make space for her on the sofa next to him. She sat down, looking around the room, taking in the finished art hanging on the walls and some of his unfinished pieces on easels over by the large window.

“You’re really good,” she finally said, shyly looking back at the blond.

“Thanks,” Steve replied with a warm smile, “I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid, before the war.”

“Do you ever wish that’s what you got to do?” Aurora asked.

“No,” Steve replied immediately. “If I hadn’t been so hellbent on joining the army I wouldn’t have been given the serum and I never would have come out of ice or met Tony… or you.”

Aurora looked up at him in shock at his confession. “But you barely know me.”

“True,” Steve agreed. “But what little I’ve learnt about you so far, I’ve liked.”

“Thanks,” Rori whispered. “I like you too.”

“I know this isn’t where either of us expected to be, but I’m glad you’re here,” Steve told her. “I know Tony’s glad you’re here too.”

“Really? He always seems like he’s terrified of talking to me for too long.”

“I think he’s just trying not to overwhelm you… or himself,” Steve replied. “He doesn’t want to come on too strong and have you run away.”

“Oh,” Rori said, surprised by Steve’s admission. “I guess that makes sense.”

The pair lapsed into silence and after a few moments Rori turned her attention to her sketch book. The two sketched side by side for hours until the sun started to set, and the studio started to darken with the lengthening shadows.

xXx

A few days after the day she spent in Steve’s art studio with him, Rori made her way downstairs to Tony’s workshop. She asked JARVIS to announce her presence outside the glass door, watching Tony stare intently at the screen in front of him before he snapped his eyes up to look at her, a smile stretching across his face as he spoke, clearly telling JARVIS to let her in as the door slid open a moment later.

“Hey,” he greeted as she walked towards him.

“Hi,” she replied nervously. While they had gotten along easily when they met in London a few weeks ago, Rori had not been lying when she had told Steve that Tony seemed afraid of talking to her. Now that she knew the reason behind his hesitancy, she was determined to bridge the distance between them. If she was going to live here with him for the next 2 years, then she needed to create a relationship with her father. “What are you working on?”

“A new Iron Man suit,” Tony replied. “Did you need something?”

“No. I just thought it might be nice to get to know each other a bit.”

“Oh,” Tony replied, “Um… yeah, ok. What do you want to know?”

“Everything? Anything? I’m not sure,” Rori laughed awkwardly. “I don’t really know how to have a dad, so I’m not really sure how to do this.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know how to do this either,” Tony admitted.

They started with small talk, Tony showing her some of his designs and telling stories of his past and Rori telling him about her childhood and friends back home.

“I had JARVIS set up some internet search protocols,” Tony told her after a few hours. “Just so that we would know if the paparazzi or anyone work out who you are or something.”

“That makes sense,” Rori replied, “I guess it’s inevitable that it’ll happen at some point, right?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have to worry about that for a while I don’t recon,” Tony said. “I only mention it because when I was doing that it pulled up any mention of you online and I saw your social media accounts.” He paused, not knowing whether he had overstepped and invaded her privacy, but she remained quiet, waiting for him to reach his point. “I found your YouTube channel.”

“What did you think?” she asked, looking at her hands in her lap, nervous to hear his reply.

“You’re really talented,” he said. “Your landscape paintings are beautiful, and I like that you record your own music for the videos. I know Steve’s already told you, but you’re welcome to use his art studio whenever you want. I know he’s looking forward to having someone around the house that can talk art with him.”

“Thank you,” Rori told him. “He said you built the studio for him when he moved in last year.”

“Yeah, I did,” Tony replied. “I wanted him to feel like this was his home as much as it’s mine. Same goes for you.”

“It’s a little overwhelming right now but I think I will after I have a chance to get used to it all.”

“I’m glad,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief at her admission. “So, is art what you want to do with your life?”

“I think so,” Rori answered. “I’m not really sure if I want to be a painter or a musician or what but I’m pretty confident I want to do something in the arts.”

“You know there’s an incredible Arts school only a few blocks from here.”

“LaGuardia?” she asked. “I’ve read about it. It’s unbelievably good but the audition process is brutal apparently.”

“I could make some calls,” Tony offered.

“Really?” Rori gasped. “But the school year starts in like 2 weeks.”

“You’re a Stark now, kid. That name opens up a lot of doors if you want it to.”

She bit at her bottom lip, torn between desperately wanting to attend the school of her dreams but feeling uncomfortable using her newfound privilege to get in when plenty of other kids had worked hard for years to audition for their place.

“Please let me do this for you,” Tony asked as he watched her internal debate play out across her face. She looked up in response to his tone, and her decision was made when she saw the expression on his face. It was clear as day that he wanted to be able to do something to help her adjust to her new life and feel good about leaving behind everything to live in a foreign country with a stranger.

“Ok,” she agreed, unable to stop the excited grin that split across her face.

xXx

It had been 5 weeks since Aurora had moved into Stark Tower and while the three of them had quickly adjusted to living together, today was a disruption to the easy going atmosphere that usually settled over the penthouse.

“I’ve been walking to school on my own for years,” Aurora argued as she stood in front of Steve and Tony in the living room.

“Not in New York, you haven’t!” Tony retorted.

“It’s a 10 minute walk!” Rori countered.

“It’s not safe to walk around Manhattan on your own,” Tony continued. “Not when you’re my kid.”

“But no one knows I’m your kid,” Rori said, “at least not until I step out of a chauffeur driven town car on my first day.”

“Tony,” Steve interjected softly, having stayed out of the argument until that point. “She’s right. It’s only 10 minutes to LaGuardia High and no one knows who she is. She’ll just be one of countless students walking those streets. She’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, Steve!” Aurora replied with a smile. “Now if you don’t mind me, I’m gonna go before I’m late on my first day.”

Without waiting for a reply from her father, she turned on her heels, scooped her bag off the nearby couch and headed for the elevator.

“Not cool, Steve,” Tony said once the elevator doors closed behind her. “Very not cool.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire #skyfire fic #aurora stark #dad!tony #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #stony #stony fic #boyfriend harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #superfamily #harry styles #tony stark

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asfaltics · 6 years

Text

unindations

ane n inon un 1

—

enable unable unénable enúnable unúnable 2

at last, however, being ununable

unc. unca, unco 3

—

unck uncked ununcked 4

uncome uncomes come

uncomes 5

—

unda undula 6

inúndula uníndula uníndulata inúndulata 7

inundate unindate 8

vast mazy, unindating flood liable to unindation, and cut sometimes the unindation is so sudden the Unindation; or by unindation from 8a-e

indelible undelable unindelable 9

—

undern 10

undone undones 11

undex 12

—

undern days undones done quyk erthe among undure as lie is made

undure 13 unjure 14

—

unscape on the wish

nunscape anunscape ununskup 15

únsula únsular unwater 16

—

unwatered 17 unthing

unthis unthat unthis that thut thing

unsome unwhat

—

unsum unsong 18

eene verkorting von perhaps unsong is the name of the new art. unsong there were very few

undersome unsion unsions 19

unstruct unward

unhere unwhere

unward unwards 20

unword unwords these 21 unders

—

ununder únununder unúnunder 22

un o n inen an 23

sources and asides

1 "la ordenación silábica," ex Enrique de Vedia, El Arte de Leer Buenos Aires, 1905) : 31 as for an en in on un, numerous instances in grammars, shorthand and phonographic texts, and in Alexander Melville Bell, his Letters and sounds: an intr. to English reading, on an entirely new plan (London, 1855) : 77 2 ˈɛnable (initial emphasis, short "e") at last, however, being ununable from "Analyse de Bayle" in The Monthly Review (December 1756), and from James Lynd his The First Book of Etymology 1853 and — enénable — from Francis O. J. Smith his The Secret Corresponding Vocabulary 1845 3 unknown, strange, foreign Wright, English Dialect Dictionary previously encountered 4 ex Latin, lock, locked 5 an ulcerous swelling; unarrived (as of yet) uncomes come here, before 1999 6 Latin, wave. Ian Hamilton Finlay, UNDA (1987) undula, diminutive of unda 7 Bertholdia inundulata Rawlins (species of butterfly) * (Field Museum, Zoological Collections) 8 forms of unindate — typographical errors all — 8a vast mazy, unindating flood from A. Sanderson ("daughter of the late Robert Stephenson, Esq., Captain of the Northumberland Regiment of Militia"), "On the absence of friendship," in her Poems, on various subjects (North Shields, 1819) : 33 8b liable to unindation, and cut from T. Fraser, "Some Notes on Military Engineering Incidents, in the War of 1877-8," in Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers (Occasional Papers, v. 4, 1880; London, 1881) : 69-70 8c sometimes the unindation is so sudden, from "Hollanders' Care for their Cattle," The Farmers' Review (May 10, 1893) : 293 8d "The Unindation; or, Peace and Pardon," title of an illustration listed in an auction sales catalogue, The Anderson Galleries (1917) : 30 8e "by unindation by the Feather, but" in Thomas R. Jones, comp., "California, A Half-Century Back" in The Grizzly Bear (November 1915) : 2 9 his undelable due ex Walter Scott, his Anne of Geierstein (1829; an 1868 printing) here 10 O.E. undern, third hour, nine in the morning; morning; also, the forenoon; the period between noon and sunset; the evening. (in OE, ME, dialect.) undern days and, obs., OE ca 1225, "not hidden, open" (all OED) 11 "dones" and "undones," John Ruskin's discussion of, in letter of 1872 included in Arrows of the Chase (1880) : 208 — "...they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble themselves about what they ought not to do, but about what they ought to do..." and "...the Undones are now the greatest Family in England, (thank this blessed Parliament...) I know no honest Man but is a Kin to the Undones; no Trade but is undone, no City but is undone; none but the knavish Committee-Men, Parliament-Men, Excise-Men, and their Vermin, the Soldiers, thrive in these days; they get, and grow rich, whosoever looses..." ex The Parliament Arraigned, Convicted; Wants nothing but Execution... Written in the Year of Wonders, being the Eighth Year of the Lords and Commons dissembled at Westminster; by Tom Tyranno-Mastix; alias, Mercurius Melancholicus... Printed for the Public View of all His Majesty's faithful Subjects; and are to be sold at the old Sign of You may go Look (1648) : 23 12 undexical index, pointing unwhere; and und ex und 1895, and elsewhere. to unsay, to make unknown 13 undure : unhard, i.e., soft, crumbled "quyk erth" ex Palladius on husbandrie (Barton Lodge, ed., 1879) to impart artificial flavours, ca. 1420 14 from Latin iniūria (“injustice; wrong; offense”), from in- (“not”) + iūs, iūris (“right, law”) unjure, what, to de-legalize? to un-law something? unright it? 15 to be anunscape is to be in a fidgety, uneasy state... Lit., it means "on the wish," i.e., very eager or desirous about a thing; cf. Dan önske, to wish. ex C. Clough Robinson, A Glossary of Words Pertaining to the Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire; with others peculiar to Lower Nidderdale... (London, 1876) : 93. 16 sular water, waters, of waters, to waters ex J. Dyneley Prince, "Tatar Materials in Old Russian," in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1919) unwater : to free a mine of water, to drain of water, to carry off water from OED that reports the word to have appeared as a mistranslation in a1300 E.E. Psalter — and watres outran, and scaldand and unwatred... 17 unwatered : not so watered OED, see water, vb. 9 to produce a moiré or wavy lustrous finish on (silk or other textile fabrics) by sprinkling them with water and passing them through a calendar. 1708 No two pieces were ever water'd alike OED the term came up (25 October 2018) in Jennifer Roberts her talk on "The Moiré Effect: Robert Rauschenberg, Print, and Interference" 18 unsum, an OCR misread here and there, among them a passage in what appears (from imperfect scan) to be "Aanmerkingen op de Javaansche spraakkunst" in Tijdschrift voor Nederlands Indië 6 (Batavia, 1844) : 22 unsong : Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964 *) on opera soprano Mary Garden (1874-1967 *), in The Merry-go-round (1918) : 115 (there's a Gertrude Stein connection to Garden and Van Vechten) unsong there were very few ex B. C. De Lissa, "British North Borneo" in Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australasia (1884) here 19 unsion an OCR misread for unction that I would pass over in silence (or delete entirely), save that it occurs in Joseph Bellamy, his True Religion Delineated; Or, Experimental Religion, Distinguished from Formality on the one hand, and Enthusiasm on the other, set in a Scriptural and Rational Light, in Two Discourses. With a preface by Mr. [Jonathan] Edwards (Second Edition, London, 1788) : 73 why? a detour into experimental reading led to experimental preaching and religion, and — for the latter — a brief intersection with experimental science. a long-ago asfaltics post — comfortlesse, swimming notions — provides a hint of (and entrance point to) some diversions on experimental religion and experimental reading. 20 unwards most frequently found as OCR misread for "upwards" 21 unwordy, a dialect form of unworthy (Wright, English Dialect Dictionary; unword, obs., rare, to make speechless (OED) 22 ...the un—un—under, no, the un—under—un—no... ex "Harry’s Secret." Two Scenes. Four Characters: One Boy and Three Girls. in Robert St. John Corbet, his Uncle Grumpy : And Other plays for juvenile actors and actresses (London, 1880) : 26 23 un on in en on is several-wheres, including Bastiaan Cramer, his De geheel vernieuwde en verbeterde Trap der jeugd... Spel-Lees-Schrift en Taal-Kunst... (1804; 1862) :5

—

method — initially, extrapolate from existing forms, to others; without euphony, nothing; no attempt at completion; started with sound, in fact... but got waylaid (by sourcings); sound remains.

among sources or, more often, looks to see if a particular form existed, were — the OED, the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, and — most importantly — Joseph Wright his English Dialect Dictionary Volume VI. T-Z (1905), where the prefixed un doesn't always mean "back" or to "undo" a thing or action.

—

...a bad linguist, tangling my words at will. — Jessica J. Lee, turning, a swimming memoir (2017) : 212

—

all tagged un all tagged excess

#un #excess #Jessica J. Lee

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limitededitionsanderssidesblog · 6 years

Text

Speech Impediment - Chapter 5

Ships: Logicality, platonic dlamp

Summary: With November now here, his project turned in, and Logan’s birthday in less than 24 hours; Dexter decides to ask Patton about how he met Logan in an attempt to learn more about him, and hopefully buy an appropriate birthday present. However the story is much more complex than Dexter ever could have imagined.

AO3 - Here

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Trigger Warning: Past alcohol addiction, drug abuse, peer pressure

It was a Tuesday morning, the time was fifteen to nine, and he couldn’t sleep. Dexter had crashed early last night while working on his stupid College Calculus homework. Whilst in high school, he had stupidly made the choice to take accounting over calculus because he had been to lazy to put in any effort into his final year. Little did he know that those credits would mean nothing to his University and he’d be forced to take calculus anyway. Work was piling up on him and Dexter was finding that he was didn’t understand more of the material than he understood, and his solution was just to put it off. In fact he had forsaken his homework assigned last Thursday in favor of his writing project, leaving him to finish the five page assignment in just under nineteen hours, taking away sleep, class, and other distractions.

Sitting up in his too soft bed, Dexter looked over at the incomplete work that sat mockingly on his desk. With a groan he fell back onto his bed, then, after a thought, pushed himself back up and got out of bed. His work would be due at one O’clock when his first class of the day started, so this had to get done before then.

Stepping quietly over to the closet, as Patton was still resting, Dexter pulled out a dark grey button-up shirt and a black, long coat since winter was closing in and the days were becoming colder. Pulling open the very bottom drawer of his dresser, he chose a simple pair of black jeans. After he dressed and prepared in the bathroom, Dexter began to gather his papers and books off of his desk, placing them into his Letterman bag. He was half way out the door when a sleepy voice called out behind him.

“Dee?” Patton yawned, “Where are you going, what time is it?”

Dexter glanced down at his wrist watch to provide the correct time, he wasn’t one for rounding. “It’s not 8:58, and I’m not heading to the coffee shop to start last night’s homework.” He replied.

“Oh! Wait for me, I’ll join you!” Patton said as he hurriedly jumped out of his bed and ran to his, smaller that Dexter’s, dresser. Pulling on a pair of light blue jeans and a pastel pink t-shirt, he then sprinted to his side of the closet and pulled out a cat-hoodie. Grabbing his floral backpack, he jumped over to join Dexter out the door. His total time under four minutes, not even bothering to brush his teeth or comb his hair.

The conversation between the two of them had been light as they made their way to what had become their favorite cafe, Sugar & Spice. They sat down at what had also become their usual booth, and waited to be served. A sleepy looking waitress came to them after a minute, the only occupants of the shop, and asked for their orders in a dead, monotone voice, clearly too tired to bother putting on a fake smile. Dexter ordered a Chai tea, and Patton a Green tea latte, after being told it was too late for pumpkin spice and too early for peppermint. Taking their orders, the lady left them alone.

Dexter grabbed his notebook, textbook, and worksheet, and began the last two pages he needed to finish of the five-page section of the packet. His professor handed out a new homework packet each unit, and assigned page numbers after each class. The amount was unholy, but at least it was well organized.

At the same time Patton pulled out a drawing pad, and a packet of specialized artist pencils.

Before Dexter could even start his first problem, Patton called his name in question for the second time that morning, bringing his attention up and away from his work.

“Hey Dee? Would you mind if I drew you for my weekly art homework?”

“Yes, don’t.”

“Oh, thank you!” He cheered gratefully, “Just keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll draw you like that.”

Dexter nodded and craned his head back down to the packet before him. It wasn’t easy, in fact he probably was getting more of them wrong than he was getting right. Dexter would consult his textbook every time he got confused, which was becoming about every two minutes. Almost everything seemed foreign to him. Right when he thought he was doing it right, the answer sheet told him he failing at every step. He seriously had to resist throwing the book out the window and repeatedly slamming his head into the table. He’d rather not be banned from his favorite cafe, plus he had to keep still for Patton. So, putting on a calm facade, Dexter continued to work, not even noticing when his tea arrived.

Exactly forty-two minutes passed when he finally allowed himself to crumple over and groan in frustrated defeat.

“You okay, kiddo?” Patton asked him, peering up from his drawing.

“I’m not okay,” He answered back, “Just completeing my work. I understand everything!”

Patton looked at him questioningly as he processed what he had just said, still not the best at comprehending his impediment at times. It made sense thought, Dexter didn’t blame him for not understanding him all the time.

“Well, what are you working on?” He asked once it all clicked together in his head.

“Not calculus.”

“Oh! You should ask Logan for help then, he’s taking that class as well. He’s really good at it too!” Pat told him, suggesting seeking help.

Dexter looked up, keeping his head on the table, and saw Patton smiling down at him with his signature bright grin. The same grin he had worn when he woke up with a bleeding headache Sunday morning. Everyone had been worried for their friend, and even more so when he had bolted away from them to throw up in the toilet. Yet, Patton simply smiled at them, made a joke, and began the day like nothing had happened.

Dexter payed close attention to everyone during that time, and while they all looked concerned, none of them looked surprise by how he acted. Logan, especially, looked sad. This brought the question to his head of how exactly the two of them met, and their past that could have caused this between them.

Within the short few months that Dexter had known these people, Logan was probably the biggest mystery of them all. He could be so emotionless at times, acting like nothing but an android at work to accomplish a set task. But then there were those moments where he would act like the most compassionate man on the face of the earth. And nearly each one of those times was when he was talking with Patton.

The fact that Logan’s birthday was tomorrow jumped back into his head; yet he had no idea what he’d like as a gift. It seemed that if Dexter wanted to understand Logan and what type of person he is, he’d half to first understand Patton, and their relationship.

“How’d you and Logan start dating?” Dexter asked suddenly, sitting back up.

Patton, who had previously been pleasantly relaxed, had then gone stiff as an ironing board. His trademark grin that made him look so kind sank away into a look of shock, and discomfort.

“That- that’s a long story,” He said hushedly, his voice saddened, “and not the happiest either.”

“That’s bad, I don’t have time to listen.”

Patton sighed, and twiddled his fingers around, looking down intently at his lap. His awkwardness was as clear as the sun, and so unlike him. Dexter was about to tell him he didn’t have to say anything when he finally spoke, his voice lightly shaking.

“It was my freshman year of college, I had come here from two states over and didn’t know anyone. I was eager to make friends and willing to do whatever people wanted to be liked. I had gotten into a crowd of rather... mean guys who always wanted to party, skip class, and do bad things. To me they were my only chance at making friends, other people were put off by my energetic behavior, but they seemed to like it; encouraged it even.

Subsequently I started adopting their bad ways and my grades began to drop, but I was too worried about being alone to care or doing anything about it. After a while they began to pressure me in more than just skipping class. I gained a drinking habit from them that changed me, and even though I could never hold more that a bottle or two, I would drink almost every day.

When I went home for winter break my parents became concerned over my change in behavior, and I promised them I would fix myself. But when I came back, I couldn’t help myself. These guys were my only friends, how could I leave them? Yet I had made a promise to my parents to bring up my grades, so I sought out a peer tutor.

Logan was- well, Logan when we first met. Cold and collected, simply focused on the material whenever we met. The time I spent with him was helpful and my grades went up a bit, but that’s all that changed. I remained with the guys and my experience with them was becoming much more judgmental and manipulating, but I ignored it, believing that if I did what they said I’d finally belong as part of a group.

They had always pressured me into trying new things that I never would’ve done, but they never forced me to, they’d simply laugh and call names, but... this one time was different. I had skipped a chemistry class to hang out off campus. They tried to talk me into drugs before, but I had always said no. That’s not how it went this time however. They threatened to stop being friends with me, and I- I got scared. Without them I was alone, and I couldn’t stand that thought. I said yes.”

Tears were falling down his face, and snot was dripping from his nose. Patton’s breath became heavy as he reached this part in his story. Dexter had never seen him so vulnerable before, he was kinda regretting asking in the first place.

“They left anyways.” He gave a soft, deprecating chuckle, “Logan had found me that day, apparently he didn’t have class at that time and was going to grab a bite to eat at a local restaurant. He could immediately tell I was under the influence, so, helping me into his car, he drove me back to the dorms and took me to his room, where he helped me clean up and rest. When I woke up he was there, a glass of water and toast with his favorite jam in his hands. And when I looked up at him, I felt myself lose it for the first time in a while. He listened while I cried, and after I told him about the past five months, he said something I’ll never forget.

““While your want in human companionship is understandable, it is inconceivable as to why you thought you had no one else. I’m here am I not?”””

Patton smiled as he said that, a true smile, pure and happy.

“After that Logan would rarely leave my side. He helped me from my alcoholic addiction, kept me from the risk of a drug or smoking addiction, and changed my life around.

One year later, on the same day that he had found me there in the park, he asked me out. Little did I know that It had been Valentine’s day, so that was a funny addition to the meaning of that day.”

Dexter had no words at the end of that huge dump of unexpected feels and angst. He never would’ve guessed that someone so kind and trusting and welcoming as Patton would ever have been a partying alcoholic, even if he was under pressure. It brought a whole new light to Saturday night’s situation.

He had asked in the hopes of understanding Logan and Patton’s relationship better, but this just raised more questions. Questions that would have to wait. Dexter could tell that Patton was rather emotionally spent at the moment, he wanted to say something to ease his pain, anything to help.

“Well that was what I was expecting.” Fuck! Why did he suck at talking?!

“Ha, I guess.” Patton said gently, with a sad smile. “Man, this is getting depressing, how about we get back to work?” Patton asked, returning to his drawing pad.

“Patton?”

“Hm?”

“You’re lonely now, right?”

Patton smiled. “Of course I am, I have you guys.”

The pale sun shone lightly on Dexter as he walked through the small shops of downtown by himself. He and Patton had went their separate ways hours ago, both of their work being completed before they went to their afternoon classes, which had been let out thirty minutes ago.

Dexter drove his old, yellow Volkswagen bug around in search of a birthday present for Logan. He was still very much a puzzle to him, but in the very least he had gotten an idea of what to get him. Dexter only hoped he’d like it.

The party they were throwing was simple. They all wet out to Mongolian Barbecue, Logan’s favorite, to celebrate after class and had brought presents and a red velvet cake, also his favorite. Thee restaurant owners had been nice enough to allow them to keep it in their refrigerator until they finished their meal.

Once their meals were done, their bowls emptied, the cake was brought out and lighted with candles. Each of them, even the staff, sang the traditional birthday song to Logan, and even though it sounded like death being hit by a car, it was fun. Once each of them was given a slice of cake, they all brought out their presents and gave them to the now twenty-one year old mom- I mean man.

Patton had gone first, giving him a hand-knitted scarf and a necklace locket with a picture of the two of them in it. Roman went next, giving him a book on the Broadway Musicals of the 1940s. Just the right amount of boring to keep Logan entertained. Virgil then gave him a gift-card for an audible book along with a hand-drawn card. That left Dexter as the last to give him his present.

“Here.” Dexter said simply, shoving the small box into Logan’s hands. Logan opened it without hesitance, revealing a digital watch.

“How useful, much appreciated Dexter.” Logan thanked him.

“That’s all. There isn’t a special feature so you can’t link up your watch to make emergency calls. You can’t input numbers that won’t allow you to contact people if you’re away from your phone. There isn’t even a GPS tracker.” Dexter explained, giving a small glance to Patton before pulling out a second one. “I didn’t get one for Patton as well.”

Logan’s eyes light up as he looked back to his watch with new found interest, taking the second watch into his hands as well. One was dark blue, and the other was light blue, their two favorite colors.

“This way you can never be closer to each other.”

Logan looked to Patton, Patton looked to Logan. Their faces full of love and happiness. This had been a good present.

I loved writing this chapter! It gave me the feels, and I’m the one who wrote it. Please comment if you got some feels too.

Tag List:

@noneed4thistbh @romanasanders @fuckingemoace @bunny222 @sea-blue-child @astraastro @helloitstimetofight @blue-wolfbane @applecannibal @ryuity @anxiouslyfred @i-identify-as-a-mango

#sanders sides #deceit sanders #sanders sides deceit #patton sanders #sanders sides patton #logan sanders #sanders sides logan #roman sanders #sanders sides roman #virgil sanders #sanders sides virgil #logicality #prinxiety #platonic dlamp #speech impediment #my writing

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hellobengski · 5 years

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THAILAND: POST COLLEGE ADVENTURE 2017

The last time I felt clouds in my presence was in the year 2012, month of December, in which the airplane landed to Hong Kong. The dilemma of life and death in an open space was merely forgotten, where everything you could see was tranquility. I never wanted to stop looking at cottony clouds. They made me feel safe. It was 5 years later when I felt it again. I remember how it feels to fly without wings, appreciating the beauty of nature beyond what I imagine.

Thailand was the next stop on my travel bucket list all over Southeast Asia. It was a place that had similar atmosphere with my very own country. EDSA was the first thing that came into my mind when I walked outside the airport. I heard various honking of buses and cars, but in a more disciplined way, I guess. But more than that, I had a view of a new horizon of tradition and culture.

My mom, sister, and aunt had to travel 2 hours away from the airport so we could check in to the hotel where my sister booked through the online. I was assuming somehow it could be near a quiet place, or maybe a road of consecutive coffee shops, but I failed. It was entirely different than what I anticipated. Khao San Road was a place where small bars and party houses were all located. Abstract shirts, different items with elephant designs were displayed along the narrow road of which tourists could experience a good bargain with merchants. I have seen discrete races all over the world who stayed for quite some time in their respective hotels. I could turn my head 360 and whichever direction I bumped into, I could always see unfamiliar but lovely faces.

We met Ms. Nancy, our tour guide for the 1st day. She had a medium short hair, showed a very long glittery eyelashes in her face, and a pale pink lipstick on her mouth. She had a pleasing personality, I could say, or maybe she needed to be because it was part of her job. She was shorter than me, maybe an inch, and was in her typical shirt and pants with Chuck Taylor shoes to stay comfy.

I only had 2 hours to prepare and fix my baggage before I travel with Ms. Nancy. I swiped the card through the doorknob, allowing me to embrace a very relaxing and convenient 1 single room with 2 large soft beds and pillows. I put my sister’s make-up kit in front of the mirror with a hairdryer beside it. My personal hygiene necessities were located just outside our bedroom, in the midpoint of two comfort rooms, so it would be easier to grab just in case we’re in a hurry to take a bath. My aunt placed some leftover biscuits all the way from Philippines next to the huge flat screen TV. My mom being my mom, tried to clean some of her stuff, but there was no enough time left. Angela, my sister, did some of her retouch on her face to make her feel fresh even when she already felt exhausted. We left the room and ate one of the most popular Thai food called, “Pad-Thai” along the road.

The value of respect of Thai people for their King was the very first thing I ever noticed. As I was riding in an outsized van, I spotted some black and white colored curtains hanged outside the gigantic temples of the individual kings who passed away, and for the royals who are still living. Ms. Nancy shared some of her ideas about Thai’s history, telling us that these long curtains represent grief and condolences for the King who died due to his old age. And this will last for a year, until they go back to the feeling of relief.

I went inside historical temples of different images of Buddha, taking pictures for a remembrance to my relatives when I get back home. I tried eating coconut ice cream for P50 baht, which savored my starving throat into something refreshing. Tuk Tuk, a classic Thai vehicle, impressed me with its three wheels, although Ms. Nancy recommended us not to ride on it. Even if I wanted to stay longer in a certain place, we only had limited time to grasp some of the stories that were in there.

Alarm clocks in our own phone woke up us too early. I didn’t have enough sleep. Maybe because of too much excitement, or maybe because of the extreme coldness inside our room. I woke up at 4 in the morning holding my phone, checking some news and updates in the Philippines. It was a never-ending extra judicial killings on my newsfeed, letting me feel the frustration and agitation for my government’s administration. And few days from now, ironically, I would be home in a place where I wouldn’t feel safe. I didn’t want to think about overthinking, so I tried to wake up my mom. I went directly to the bathroom, thinking about the plans and places Ms. Nancy listed for us the day before she left us in the hotel. Everyone else seemed to be freaking out when I finished taking a bath, considering the only time we had to eat for a buffet breakfast. I chose to wear an orange shirt and shorts with floral design, supposing it would match the places we would be visiting.

Just by the time the restaurant open its door, I hurriedly walked into the different kinds of food. I was truly overwhelmed seeing complete set of breakfast that made my stomach perfectly full. Sausages on my left, croissants and toasted bread on my right, a problem of choosing between fried rice or pasta, and slices of watermelons and pineapples were put into my plate. I wasn’t even contented at all, I made my own coffee to match my croissants, even bother to get cucumber juice just in case coffee wouldn’t give me satisfaction. The question of time never crossed my mind when all these food were prepared in front of me. Although it was a must to rush, a Thai man, who works with Ms. Nancy in the same travel agency, fetched us. It was a group tour, consisted of two couples, one from America, and the other from Malaysia.

The tour started by introducing Mr. Thai’s name. I forgot, though. He considered making jokes out of telling stories, associated with historical Thai’s exotic food too. He is a 55-year old man, who has 3 kids. All I could remember was every time he gets to see me smiling, the memory of his daughter blissfully retains in his mind. He shared about how he got involved into a travel agency, which I think a lot of Thai people are working at. He was not as chatty as Ms. Nancy, nevertheless, he was entertaining. He showed us the famous Floating Market in Thailand, where tourists needed to ride on a boat to purchase some stuff. I have seen amazing paintings in all sizes, carved vases, coconut ice cream with nuts for its toppings, “lansones” which was sold by an 85-year old woman, weaved hats, and a lot more. The biggest Eureka moment was, all I thought Thailand has only one floating market. By the time we had to leave the place, Mr. I forgot-the-name actually revealed that in every town, has its own one. Well, not a thing was bought during the boating experience, all I know was my heart was fulfilled seeing people enjoying moments that could only last once in a life time.

The magical performance in theater happened at night after the tour in Floating Market. We entered a huge closed room with people wanting to witness such beauty in arts and entertainment. Siam Niramit, is a state-of-the art theater yielding one of the largest stage productions in the world. It’s a captivating adventure through Thailand’s history and culture in high-flying fashion, with live elephants, acrobatics, pyrotechnics and stunts – all performed by a troupe made up of thousands of performers adorned in great costumes. I would never forget my mom’s unexplainable reaction and experience throughout the entire show. She wanted to cry out of joy most of the time. It’s as if she didn’t want to go home in the hotel. I never saw rejection from her face, telling me that next time she comes back, it would be with my dad. We captured moments with several actors and actresses after, leaving us a souvenir with elephants, making this as her favorite art of the travel.

Off my bucket list was also riding an elephant. One of the many animals I have always wanted to experience, carabao was supposed to be the first. I think elephants were made to listen closely to everything, to everyone. They were made to be friends with people most especially when you treat them with care and respect. They love watermelons and coconuts. They like being splashed with water after taking us into a routine. They were also trained to take pictures with various poses of their trunks, and that’s how they get to be attractive for locals and foreigners.

The famous Thai massage will never be forgotten. So my brother’s friend who happens to work in Bangkok accompanied us after a very long day in market. This has got to be the most effective massage in my whole life. At first I thought it was brutal, since it was my first time the legit Thai massage. I was taking it easy for the first few minutes but later on, it kinda felt horrible. In a matter of seconds, the compress became weapon and I was literally cringing under the pressure. I actually found myself concentrating on regulating my breathing. The way they provide Thai massages are with entire body. They leverage their own body weight with certain movements in order to provide enough pressure to the body. I did fall asleep several times but still ended with a very soothing cup of tea.

Of course, our vacation wouldn’t be complete without the “party.” Prior to shopping in Chatuchak Market, my sister and I had been planning to socialize with people. We were really after drinks and fries, although it wasn’t our first time doing this, we wanted to make sure to at least meet good-looking guys from Europe. Our mom was subtle with her words but still she allowed us to explore. By the time we went down from our room, that’s when the party started. I thought we were courageous enough to do things beyond our control, but surprisingly, we were like high school students who just stayed in a corner of the street to observe how a street party works. There were people who literally danced as if it was their last day on earth, girls and guys French kissing each other while tossing their drinks, Asians and Americans twerking as if they’re showing off to every person they’d bump into. There was also robbery that happened in 7 Eleven Convenience store, unknowingly grabbing sodas and fresh milk from the fridge, to ease their drunkenness. After all, I saw emptiness. I felt emptiness. The superficiality of society where people wants to fit in to get accepted because after all, no one wants rejection. The façade of being proud “in” but in reality, they’re slowly dying. And for me, street party seemed to be an outlet of frustration, sadness, anxiety, and depression. People always long for something in the end. But life should be more than a night of drinks and smoke. It should be more than meeting temporary people.

Four days and three nights was a short term goal achieved in knowing and living the life in Thailand. More insights were added to my unending learnings in life. It was more than the feeling of being grateful of what the life has more to offer for people like us who seek for journey mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Life is really full of surprises and adventures and I couldn’t wait for my next destination. Until next time, Thailand!

#thailand #bucketlist #vacation #vacationtrip #asia #asianculture #thaifood #floatingmarket #party #travel #travelexperience #travelblog #travelstory

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buri-art · 6 years

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Wuqiao Acrobatics World

A few years ago while trying to keep my Mandarin skills in tact, I saw a short documentary about Wuqiao, Hebei Province, said to be the birthplace of Chinese acrobatics, and where all the villagers can at least do some acrobatics (I treat that saying with a big grain of salt, but phrases like this do have some impact on local identity). For my last six-day backpacking trip in China, I planned it around going to Wuqiao for a day trip and seeing this circus-y place myself.

I’ll start out by saying that if you don’t speak Chinese or feel very comfortable getting around in a place that speaks no English, I wholeheartedly recommend going with a tour group from Beijing or Tianjin if you want to go here yourself. The venue is designed for groups with coordinated performance times and dependable transportation. I found this out through trial and error and missed a few morning performances that way. Sniffle!

Anyway, if you search “Wuqiao” in English most of the results will be the same short article on multiple websites and several tours designed for foreign travelers from Beijing, so while I don’t have a specific recommendation, I can say that Chinese tour guides will vary a lot and as long as you have a small group, you’ll have an easier time getting a good guide who will be flexible to your interests. So now onto my June 19, 2018 experience!

Sometimes when people talk smack about tour groups, they say it’s because they want to the see the “real” things, not touristy things. I see where this comment is coming from; sometimes a superficial run-around of a handful of packed locations that the locals never go to and then hours spent being shoved into gift shops is going to make it feel like you learned nothing in a foreign country except for the stresses of international travel. However, as someone who has worked in foreign tourism before, I want to point out a couple things: 1. If you have a good guide, you’re going to get a far more awesome experience than you might have been able to plan on your own. You’re not lame for enjoying the good (and often amazing) services of a tour operator who cares about giving you a good time. 2. In China, you’re getting something “real” anyway. That was one of my biggest impressions of this very dilapidated tourist venue.

“This is so China,” I thought.

To boil the past several decades of Chinese economic history down simply, China has lifted millions of people from starving to having disposable income (it can’t be understated how large of a feat this has been, though poverty is still a significant issue). When a population goes from “most people are so poor that everyone stays put” to “whoa, we have... money?? Um... let’s do fun stuff! Let’s go places!!”, this is what gives birth to the development of domestic tourism. And China, as you might guess, is chock full of amazing landscapes and historical locations.

China got this great idea: Now that people are making money, let’s make them spend money, so we can make more money!

China, more so than any other place I’ve been, will find any way it can to monetize a tourism destination. Is there a cool rock? Put a fence around it to obstruct the view, make people pay to see it. Is the lake too big to put a fence around it? Have Zhang Yimou make an “Impression” show there and have people pay to see that! Too big of an area to charge admission at each spot? Block off the whole area and add some nifty transportation options inside. No possible way to block it off because the historic area is in actual daily use? Call in the vendors, kids, we’re still going to make something off of this!

Yes, I’ve been to places with free admission, and often I only stopped in because they were free admission. And I rather liked a lot of those free places, yes. But in general, if you’re traveling to see something, you’re going to pay to see it, even if it means paying admission to even get closer to a village.

But that means building stuff to justify it being something to see and spend money on. That means, with extra money suddenly available to you and/or pressure from above to make something snazzy and brag-worthy really fast, you build a lot of things. Domestic tourists have come to expect big fancy stuff, and construction makes this world (or at least this country) go round!

And then you do the press reports. Take some good pictures. Have people make a cool documentary. Welcome the tour groups, stay busy while the place is shiny.

And then let it fall into disrepair.

There are many tourism facilities in China which are really, really nice, and kept that way. But there are also not only tourism projects finished and then abandoned, or slowed indefinitely partway. This is pretty “real.” It’s not just tourism; this is very “real” for a lot of China’s rapid economic development and construction projects, even entire new cities that they couldn’t get anyone to move into.

So yes, by coming to Wuqiao Acrobatic World, you’re getting a very real experience of what modern day China is like, especially outside of the biggest cities or especially famous tourism facilities.

But you know what makes that awesome? The people here were so much fun to interact with.

Before leaving on my trip, I told some Chinese friends and coworkers where I was going, and they had never heard of Wuqiao. When I told them about it, some reacted in horror that I’m interested in acrobatics. “But it’s so sad,” one friend said. “The kids go through so much pain to train like that.”

Yes, the performance arts and competitive sports worlds of China have a long and ongoing history of this. But I also really, really like watching circuses. If someone loves their art and works hard at it, then I want to watch them, I want to be impressed by them, I want to reward that hard work by giving it my attention. I’ve had some fun experiences in the past with helping backstage when grassroots level diplomatic groups of performers went to my college in the US or in the city I worked for in Japan, and I’ll never forget how spirited those Chinese contortionists were, and how easy they made being bendy look.

So anyway. In all this preamble I haven’t even gotten to my travels yet. I took a morning train in from Tianjin and with only some little red tuk-tuk like cars with three wheels available for transportation, I went with a guy who gave me a ride for 5 RMB (about 77 US cents). He was a nice old guy who also picked me up later right on time for my return that afternoon. But, uh, one of the doors of the little vehicle wouldn’t close.

It’s a short ride, but not really walking distance, especially if you only have about six hours to spend there. The town is still mostly farming community, on the platform of the train station you can watch people take care of sheep and stack up dry reeds. The town is hot and dry in summer with smooth traffic, wide roads, and no tall buildings. I arrived at the Acrobatics World on a weekday morning with no line to get tickets and enter.

There were a few scattered people who stared and whispered (loudly), “Whoa, it’s a foreigner,” a phrase that after a while either bounces off of you completely or piles up on you so much that by the end of a trip off the beaten path you think your trapezius will snap if you hear it again. I found buildings under construction and a temple, and because many tourism facilities have temples built into them, I assumed I’d politely go straight through it. Not so! Turns out you go around this one, which I would have had no idea about had a woman not approached me and told me so.

So, with no one in sight (an odd sight in and of itself at a tourism facility in China), I went hunting for the acrobats.

I hunted a long time, saw a few people here and there. Passed a few people making noise in what looked like a wuxia version of a renaissance festival fairground, but according to the maps, I decided to press northward, looking for, well, whatever it was I was looking for, or at least trying to figure out what all was there.

Well, like, nobody, basically. A few people here and there, but mostly some lonely statues in various groupings around a wide park, some architectural pieces ignored and serving no purpose, some poorly kept animals (I chose not to check out the “Funny Zoo” area), but mostly big expanses of nobody. After living in a place like Shanghai for a while--a place unkind to introverts--you come to really appreciate those periods of nobodyness, and walking around this place had the same sort of bizarre allure of photos of abandoned, flooded shopping malls.

This would be such a great spot for hanfu photoshoots with nobody in your way! But I’d need someone to take the photos, something to wear in the photos, and a much better hair day than I was having on that whole trip.

Anyway, based on the size of the building, I had assumed that I reached the “main spot” I was aiming for, whatever that was.

This was a combination of performance space and museum, so I started at the museum. When I approached there were a couple women hanging out on the red queuing gates, not quite doing acrobatics, but not keeping their feet on the ground either. They were surprised to see me, and I asked if I could go in, and they were like, “um... okay,” and turned the lights on inside. I asked if I could take pictures, and they said yes. While enjoying myself in the first room of the winding exhibits, I heard them talking to each other and saying, “She asked if she could go in. Then she asked if she could take photos.” What I wish I would have overheard them saying would have been something like, “What the hell is she doing over here, doesn’t she know that the only action taking place in this whole facility is going on as scheduled over in the Jianghu Culture City ren-faire-ish-place?” But I heard no such thing, and enjoyed the museum in ignorance.

As far as Chinese museums are concerned, they’re a very mixed bag, but I rather liked the contents of this simple, small one. Everything had good English translations--and by that I don’t mean clear and grammatical, but actually useful content that puts what you’re seeing into context. Here are a few bits I liked:

Not all of the rooms were as interesting as others; and although I have a passing interest in how Chinese circus is used diplomatically, I didn’t have enough of one to stay in those exhibits for long. I was starting to get the sense that I was missing out on the performances. If I felt less rushed and was there with friends, however, I probably would have had a great time in this room, with this corner of traditional circus props, easily in arms’ reach and not mounted in place.

Nothing said not to play with them, but nothing said that it was okay to touch them either. I decided to err on the side of doubt. After all, assuming such things in the past had lead me to get bitten by a penguin.

Back to acrobats, I zoomed through the very empty painting and gift shop (if it can even be called that) rooms, where the people working there did not even look up from their phones. After that I found where they keep the horses (poor, skinny horses... let’s not even get to those bored, chained monkeys I saw later with nothing and nobody around to prevent a wandering tourist from walking right up to them--I imagine that could have been more disastrous than my encounter with the penguin). Then I found--what?? People??? What’s more, it was like a group of moms and a couple little kids watching some teens in capes on a round stage, the Red Peony stage. I asked if I could watch, and finally, these people told me what I wish someone would had told me in the first place:

All the performances are scheduled in different locations. The Jianghu Culture City has the morning and late afternoon performances, and the northern buildings and horse track have the early afternoon shows. Ohhhhhh, no wonder.

So I hurried over to where all the smart tourists and their group guides were; watching this guy.

I only caught the tail end of his act, and from the looks of the stage he must had been smashing bricks with his face or something earlier, who knows. He climbed down the handles of the swords at the end of his act, but if I had gotten there earlier, I assume I would have seen something like this:

Hmm. Not super sharp at tourist-reach, but still, ouch.

Immediately after that everyone shuffled over to this tent for some other folk acrobatics by a little troupe: Some lovely ladies young and not-as-young, some burly men, a dwarf, and a guy from the audience picked out for the knife-throwing show who had the build, expression, and haircut of a circus performer himself. He was at the other shows that day too, so I don’t suspect he was a plant. Chinese men just have some weird haircuts, that’s all.

Couldn’t really get good pictures in there, but you had a girl sitting on a chair balanced on a swinging trapeze, a routine with blocks complete with juggling and handstands and flips, the aforementioned knife-thrower who doubled as the clown of the show, a jar juggler who catches the big jar on his head and neck, a jar juggler who spins a much, much, much, much larger iron jar on her feet that three burly men needed to lift together, and this lady doing what you see here:

A note here about those tour groups---they were overwhelmingly made up of middle age men. I did see a few families with small children, some younger couples, and a fair number of women mixed with the men, but the groups of men who all knew each other was striking. Maybe I just happened to go on a day when they were planning big outings, who knows.

After that, there was a very, very small “performance” in this little back-alley area of the Jianghu Culture City, where there were many performance areas with signs stating the folk artist and their performing times, but with seating areas filled with, well, seats that they had probably pulled out of other areas and had not yet taken to the dump.

That said, some of the area felt downright homey. I was the only person over there at first when a lady was about to do her sales pitch--I mean, “performance” explaining that they were selling fans decorated with the origins of the 100 most common Chinese surnames. Many of the men bought them for 30 RMB each ($4.61 USD). I got one for my roommate since her surname is rather uncommon, she hadn’t seen something like that before and found it interesting.

Anyway, the lady there was very friendly, and insisted I put my heavy backpack down on her chair so I could relax while looking around (she also insisted I leave it there while enjoying my afternoon, but I declined). She would have been the right person to meet right away when I got to the park, she explained the whole schedule of the park (which I had mostly figured out by then) and helped me to plan how to make the best of my time left that afternoon, and she walked with me part way to the only place to get food in the whole area. She was on her way home for lunch, she said. Everyone working there is local and all the performers go home for lunch, except the director, who often has to show VIP guests around. Since she was so cheerfully talking about the place and clearly took pride in this being their local claim to fame (I got that sense from a few other people too), I considered asking if it was true that everyone could do at least a little acrobatics. I decided against asking, but kind of wish I had.

If you do ever get there and want to make sure you get to the see every performance offered from the moment the park opens, you do have the option of staying at the Red Peony Hotel! This is really your only option for food anyway. The staff was very friendly (and not overly friendly, so I could thankfully eat my meal in peace!), though I can’t say the food or ambiance was anything special, even for a tourist facility.

The fish sauce tasted like ketchup.

It was a really long lunch break. I imagine that’s when wiser people would have walked around the odd groupings of statues and architecture of questionable purpose in the park, or gone to the museum to play with hula hoops and throw ceramic jars at each other. I went out to the empty horse track to reapply sunscreen, smell the nature, listen to birds, and gaze into the lotus pond. And frown at how skinny the horses were.

The Red Peony theater opened at 1:30pm. There was a very small line; I was one of the first people there and got a good seat in a round theater that looked like it could hold up to 200 audience members. People continued to trickle in for 25 minutes. They were starting late that day, they said, blaming it on either having VIP tour groups who take their time or having foreign performers who take their time. For twenty minutes they played a Backstreet Boys song on repeat, and I looked at the apparatuses around the stage--a small Russian swing, three aerial hoops of different sizes, a couple silks, a triple-wheeled Wheel of Death (does it have a different name when three people are cheating death?) behind a curtain, a large net hung up out of the way, and some set pieces that looked like a wooden ship set to either side of the stage. After twenty minutes of Backstreet Boys they played the entirety of Hotel California before starting the show.

They had signs forbidding photography and Yours Truly is a rule-follower even in China where these silly rules about video recording are flat-out ignored even at Cirque du Soleil performances, so I doodled the show on the train a few hours later.

This was no Cirque du Soleil, let’s be clear about that. It was more like the community theater version of a Broadway show; everyone was doing their best but items were unintentionally dropped and costume pieces flew off, but everyone was encouraging because the kids were doing their best.

Let’s look back at a few parts of that sentence: 1. Encouraging audience: Chinese audiences can be extremely frustrating to perform in front of, because they are so likely to chat among themselves or play on their phones--I charitably chalk this up to a cultural difference that historically elevates the pleasure of the audience over the hard work of performers, but it still drives me crazy in my current job that involves training kids to do things in front of audiences. That said, this works in another way--when a Chinese audience is engaged, they’ll be very, very engaged, and even if these performers were dropping their stuff, they still kept the audience’s attention and smiles and applause, so it’s all good.

2. Their best: Sure, they weren’t the sort of performers I’d expect to see if I paid the big ticket price to go watch the Shanghai Circus, which is primarily geared toward foreign tourists. But they are still insanely skilled and have obviously poured hours and hours and hours of their life into this. Also, very importantly, many (but not all...) of them look like they truly enjoy it. As a point of comparison, I went to the Shaolin Temple eight years ago, and the whole little town of Dengfeng surrounding it was filled with schoolyards of boys from all over China studying there to fulfill their kung fu dreams. The boys in the temple, however, are often problem children sent there for discipline. I watched the show they put on, which the adults are full-on performers for. The boys also performed amazing stunts, but the whole time looked like they were sick and tired of tourists and having to do the same flips and feats every day. It was unintentionally funny to see such bored, sour looks on their faces as they were soaring through the air. The performers in this show did see themselves as performers and acted like it--though the expressions came much more naturally to some than others.

3. Kids: Yeah, no two-ways about it, the vast majority of this cast looked very, very young. This includes both the foreign troupe and the local Chinese kids. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if none of the local performers in this show were adults. Even the stage crew looked like they were all teenagers.

My friends’ words about “aren’t you sad for them, having to do all that painful training?” rang through my head during a couple of the performances in particular. The five contortionists smiled charmingly and performed without mishap, but I was very afraid that someone was going to break in one way or another. Their bodies shook with both unbalance and strain, and sitting that close to the stage, I could read some “uh oh” in their faces at times. The rollerskating show was charming at first with the pairings of what looked like high school boys with elementary school boys, all of whom kept a gracious performer’s attitude the whole time, even with small mishaps. At the end of the act they spun the little boys around by cords on their necks (like the graceful aerial hoop duo had done in a less startling way). Despite being really impressed, my stomach churned with pity for them.

The foreign troupe had quite a mix as well of veteran and less-veteran performers, and some mishaps here and there, but overall good shows. They seemed a little casual and self-managed, like one of the kids who performed earlier in the show snuck out into the middle of the audience later to watch his buddy and then sneak backstage again. I had to wonder about them too--how long were they going to be in Wuqiao? Did they go to other places around the world too? Did they choose the circus life, or did the circus life choose them?

Before getting dragged too deep into wondering about the darker sides I know exist behind something I love watching perhaps a little bit more than the average person does, the clown came out.

The very, very, very white, platinum blonde clown.

She and the person in a polar bear suit did a charming, although not particularly funny or impressive routine, but what struck me most was how naturally she lit up being on stage, and that she might had been told in clown schools that she was “too pretty” to be a clown (something I recall hearing about happening to many young women who try to go into that). What was really captivating about this clown was that it was like she wanted more than anything to be a clown, and she looked like she was having the time of her life.

At the end of the show the performers all came out to, well, not do a final bow persay, but wave at all the tourists on their way out to go to the “Home of the Demon Hand” theater across from the Red Peony Theater. I let things clear out before standing up, and the clown saw me, locked eyes, and very smilingly said, “AMAZING!!”

Amazing to see another lone white girl there, I’m sure.

We were both on our way out in opposite directions, but we had the following conversation: Me: Where are you from? Her: Ukraine! Me (pointing to the guest performers heading backstage without her): Where are they from? Her: (wild look over her shoulder, a look back at me, a giant shrug and nervous laughter)

We waved and then went our separate ways, but I wanted to say, “Come back here, girl, give me your life story.”

Instead I went to the next show and squeezed into what I thought would give me a good view of the sleight-of-hand tricks that old’ Demon Hand was apparently famous enough for to have his own theater hall.

The 74-year-old man in a silk outfit (the top of which he later took off to prove he had nothing up his sleeve) and ponytail started the show by very, very firmly insisting on no photographs, but they had the option of getting a logo’d photograph with him before the show. A small crowd of people, mostly middle age men but a spunky younger woman too, went up and forked over their cash.

To be honest, I got really irritated for the first ten minutes or so of the show. He was a gifted performer, yes, but he was more of an improve comedian who talked a big game (his sleight of hand tricks were impressive, yes, but they made up a very, very small portion of his show). Furthermore, I couldn’t see very well around the guy in front of me, so I had to lean forward and to the sides. It was so much trash talk with men in the audience that I couldn’t follow very well (my Chinese is good, but not enough to understand all the humor), and it wasn’t very possible to stand up and leave without calling a huge amount of attention to myself.

Call attention to myself I did anyway.

As part of his goading the audience, he invites skeptics to come crowd around him and watch him closely to verify his tricks. I stayed put, not really in the mood for all the talk and just wanting to see some impressive tricks to justify my staying put. Well, he saw me, and pointed everyone’s attention in my direction, and I had to announce where I was from, and he ordered me down to his side to watch.

So I sat directly next to him and had to play along with the “I’ll show you some real Chinese kung fu!” bravado and do my best to answer any quick questions he shot at me to answer, like “how many are under the cup?”.

He made some men bet their cigarettes on a few tricks, and was accumulating a stack of cigarette boxes on the table. The number of people standing, sitting, and squatting around him dwindled. I awkwardly stayed put because I knew he’d call me out if I tried to escape, so better that I stayed there and ready to quip back the next time he quipped something at me. And yeah, I totally had a better view of the tricks and could appreciate them a lot more from the table-eye view, so it was my luck that I was the one foreign face in the room.

Toward the end of the routine he dared anyone in the rowdy audience to come sit in his chair and do the tricks themselves to make a bet. No one did.

He told me to sit in the chair.

I half-way expected that. Thankfully I can play along well as the casual “I just came here to have a good time, I don’t know what you’re making me do and I never asked for this, but okay, tell me what to do” young foreign beauty* there to make the show more interesting for the audience.

*(This is how the locals describe me, and they often insist on taking photos with me. Often without permission. Often when I am looking my worst from days of backpacking in hot weather with tired looking skin, extremely unruly hair, and practical although unflattering outfits.)

He asked me to place a bet, but I think we had some difficulty understanding each other’s Mandarin, because he’s got a thick local accent and I have a foreign one.

Him: You don’t smoke, do you? Place a bet for something else. Me: Me? Him: What do you want? Food or something? Me: ...how about something sweet? Him: Money!? Me: No, sweets... Him: No no no, we can’t do money. Come on, there’s no point if you don’t bet anything. Hmm. Tell you what. If you win, I’ll make you my ghdrtsmplwssz. Me: (His what???)

I have no clue what he said. My guess is something along the lines of either “disciple” or “bride.”

Well, the coolest part was that he had me hold one little styrofoam ball in my hand, and next thing you know, I had two of them in my hand, and that was pretty impressive, enough to make the whole show’s worth of trash talk worth the experience.

And then he had me stand up with him and he thanked me as the audience applauded, and he introduced me as his ghdrtsmplwssz, everyone clapped, and then he hugged me a few times from different angles so a couple sides of the audience could see my face. I played along with a wide-eyed “what the hell is going on, save me” look.

And then he went in for the smooch.

I can do the “pure innocent maiden who blushes at the sight of a man’s lips” routine really well. Plus, practicing martial arts makes me really fast at blocking incoming attacks like this that I have faced at a few times throughout my life, so the dramatic hand in the air, lean backwards, and turned maidenly face were all automatic rather than calculated.

We repeated this a few times, with the lean getting more comically pronounced each time. He tried to insist that this is what they do in America (like the hug), but my maidenly virtue won out in the end, and he graciously played it off and gave me the send off back to my seat in the audience. Sorry dude, I’m stubborn about kissing strangers.

After that was the horse show. I skipped it and went back to the Jianghu Culture City to catch some of the repeats of morning shows I missed.

Which was really only one. A lady saw me walking around and tried to help me plan where to be at the right time, in a helpful, non-pushy way (I am so grateful when I get this mix of helpful and non-pushy). The only other show I had time to see was Chuipotian, the suona (horn) performer. His bio introduces him well:

It was a short show with just a few audience members, including a couple women who wanted photos with me and a girl who looked around one year old who kept wandering off so her dad had to chase her while mom enjoyed the show. I found his crosstalk with the audience a lot more enjoyable than Demon Hand’s, though I had to stay on my toes to make responses here too.

As for the sound of the suona, it’s like a screaming duck. If you’ve ever seen Beijing Opera, you can probably recognize its sound. (I don’t think it’s used as much in southern opera styles. On that note, I find southern styles more melodic.) It was a fun cacophony of a show.

He mostly used smaller ones, this just makes for the funnest photo. He also included some non-instrument related tricks, like taking a lit cigarette from someone and doing tricks with the smoke, swallowing the cigarette, and pulling it out of his ear, still lit. All while reminding you that smoking is harmful to your health.

Immediately after the show, the ladies with him pulled me aside and started teaching me his catchphrase. They caught on through the crosstalk and a little conversation before the show that I’d be a good person to do a little social media routine for them, saying “(Something I could not for the life of me understand but sounded catchy), he’s the real deal from Wuqiao, CHUIPOTIAN!” After rehearsing it several times to make sure I got it right, and the woman in red holding the camera directing me to just be big and fun with it, we recorded it with me standing next to him, looking into the camera, and pointing at him. They were all very pleased with my good work and looked forward to uploading it.

They were super nice and fun to talk to (there weren’t any other immediate performances to watch while everyone else was still at the horse show), and Chuipotian gave me his business card so we could be friends on WeChat, but within ten minutes of taking my leave I dropped it. Good thing I’m not a juggler.

My friend the 5 RMB driver with the one functional door met me right at the appointed time, and people chilling at the train station were also very aware of me. They were a great mix of kind and looking out for me, but not all up in my business. I appreciate it greatly.

And then I left on a crowded, cheapest-seat car of a train that would take over three hours to reach Tianjin. I had enjoyed the day and all the people I got to interact with the (even old Demon Hand, I guess), but being an introvert, I was grateful to have the chance to chill and make the above doodles in my notebook.

But then people figured out I understand Chinese and started chatting with me.

For three straight hours.

To be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the position to play a vehicle of foreign exchange for hours and hours at a time, and it can be fun, but it’s such a relief when you can rest.

And rest I did, on the night train I switched to in Tianjin to get to my next stop on the trip. I slept pretty well for it being on the cheapest berths, stacked three-high with little more than the average Chinese man’s body width. After maneuvering on the top berth with my heavy backpack, I felt like a pretty good circus performer myself.

#China #circus

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damedarcy · 6 years

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Hi Jax & Hi Jinx autobiography @DameDarcy on Feral House Fall 2018 @AdamParfrey A little tale about what a complete maniac I was when I was 20 years old in San Francisco. MY HORRIBLE LOVE LIFE / The Reverse Mermaid Part 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I walked in on my boyfriend having sex with the Reverse Mermaid I freaked the fuck out. It took a minute for my mind to process the shock of what I was seeing. But once it did, I coldly said. “Your dead now Bitches.” Then I turned back around, walked into the kitchen. Appearing once again in the doorway, I threw the dishes and glasses at their naked bodies. The dishes smashed against the wall and broken glass crashed on the floor. They cowered and screamed, trying to shield themselves from the shower of broken glass cutting up their cheating asses. I took the broken glass shards and attacked them. Cutting them and cutting myself. My boyfriend overpowered me and held me down. The Reverse Mermaid scrambled to gather her odious rags, and ran. My boyfriend tried to talk me down through my hysteria but I was inconsolable. He was, as I mentioned before a huge support system and mentor to me. I was deeply in love with him and we had been together three years. He was the second love of my life ( my first being High School BF T. of course.) And I couldn’t believe the pain and fury I unexpectedly found myself in this afternoon. He took me to the living room and gave me a couple of Xanax while I sat shaking on the couch. While he went back into the bedroom to get dressed I cut my wrists more with the broken glass and took the rest of the bottle of Xanax. When he came back into the living room I was already passing out and bleeding out everywhere. So he called 911. While dying, I hallucinated that I went to Atlantis. I saw a beautiful immaculate and elaborate undersea ball, populated by people of various races blended with different kinds of fish, spinning under chandeliers in a bubble dome with portholes looking out to a view of sea life. Mana rays and exotic glowing fish and sharks swimming by. The mysterious music made by Mermaids sung on a stage made from a giant shell, and the Reverse Mermaids were there too, ladies in long silver gowns shimmering with fish scales, ugly fish heads wearing rococo powdered wigs and large elaborate hats. As a mermaid I joined in the dark blue song, swimming in the calm, peaceful, deep. I repeated my name to stay afloat Darcy, Dark Sea, Dark…. Sea? Dark? Now I no longer knew my name, nor did I have any cares in the world. I floated deeper into this place, content to drift away and be lost in the depths. Then I came to a bright torturing white light, and a creepy homeless troll weirdo from the hospital was pulling back my privacy curtain to see the "hot" young girl wearing only a thin hospital gown get her stomach pumped. I tried to scream but the tube in my nose stopped me. It really fucking hurt, and then they put gross black charcoal back into me and made me drink white cement. The doctor asked me, “Why would you do such a thing?” I responded “ Might as well face it, I’m addicted to love.” He was yelling to someone I couldn’t see, “What did she take?!” Then later an I.V. drip was in my hand, with my arms wrapped in bandages also in restraints with my arms bound to the sides of the metal hospital crib bed. Weird sticky circles were on my chest making it so I could hear my heartbeat as beeps through a monitor thing by my head. When I regained most of my senses I spoke through a mouthful of marbles. “Please untie me from this bed. I need to write what I saw in Atlantis.” My boyfriend was there, also wrapped in bandages. Slumped like a wet dishrag in a chair. I had not seen him until now. He acted as my advocate and convinced the nurse to unbind my hands from the metal rack thingy. He brought me a pen and paper and I wrote what was to become later the Black River short story in Frightful Fairytales published by Ten Speed Press in 2002 and also my first feature film Planet Blue finished in 1999 and optioned in 2001. (I’m Only telling this part of the story to show how long some ideas take to get published). Anyways, while I was writing my boyfriend was crying and saying how sorry he was. He tried to touch me. My heart monitor started racing and I was like “Don’t touch me.” Then the doctor came back in with a clipboard and said “ I was a harm to myself and others and I had to be admitted into a different hospital.” I put my clothes back on and my boyfriend and I took a cab to the mental hospital. By the way this whole incident took place while I was wearing a black Victorian mourning gown which was ninety years old and already ripping from dry rot, held together with a series of elaborate paste diamond broaches. Now, due to the incident, it was super shredded and my cut up skin and bandages were showing through the rips. At the mental hospital they made me put all the broaches in a lock box due to the fact they were century old rusty long pins that could harm myself and others. I told the orderly lady while being admitted, “First off, I have to be out of here by Christmas because my Mom bought me a ticket to Idaho and if I miss the plane she will be furious. Secondly, due to Regonomics cut in health care for the mentally ill, because no one is paying for this, I’m sure I will be released soon anyway so you might as well release me now so I can make my plane.” They didn’t give a shit, and they put me in a room with a bunch of weirdos. Because I came in wearing ripped up black rags, they made me wear two hospital gowns together one in front and one in back so my butt wouldn’t pop out. I sat in cafeteria that smelled like Lysol with depressing people. The dudes were looking at me creepy and coming on to me and making lude comments. “Can I request not being in a co-ed mental ward”. I said to the nurse. “You are refusing to eat.” She responded. “Duly noted.” She curtly scribbled on her clip board. “I’m a freakin vegetarian bitch!” I said. “I’m eating the peas, but I can’t eat chicken! You can’t hold that against me!” Meanwhile my boyfriend came back with my clothes. He had grabbed the first thing he could see in my closet which was a bright red barn dancing dress printed with bandanas with a super flouncy skirt. Also he brought a giant valentine box of assorted chocolates. An endless stream of my wacky art school friends annoyingly came to the hospital and bothered the staff from the beginning of visiting hours in the A.M. till they kicked them out at the official closing time. Plus my boyfriend was there all the time holding my hand when he wasn’t working at the library. We took over the art therapy room and cut obnoxious capers as usual while gobbling up all the chocolates. All this behavior got me kicked out of the mental hospital early. The sugar from the candy plus the Reverse Mermaid foreign bacteria injected into my utheria through my boyfriend cheating on me, and the stress of battle, caused me to get a bladder infection which quickly moved into my kidneys. This sent me back to the hospital where I had to immediately go on dialysis or else my kidneys would have shut down and I would have died. Needless to say I officially broke up with my boyfriend. After these two near death experiences back to back.

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theaveragekenyan · 4 years

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Industrial Disease...

Industrial Disease…

To anybody that worked in the UK TV industry circa 2000, ask them what their favourite TV shows of all time are and I guarantee, that somewhere amongst ‘Big Brother’, ‘Harry Hill’s TV Burp’, ‘X Factor’ ‘The Day Today’ and ‘Noel’s House Party’ all great shows, but ‘Faking It’ would definitely be mentioned.

‘Faking It’ had a memorable format, by where the programme selected a protagonist to see if they could perform a job in which they held no previous experience, i.e a Plumber being a Chef, a Traffic warden being an Orchestra Conductor, a Politician being an Politician, you get the idea. Then, from within a group of candidates who had actual experience, a panel of experts would decide who was the best and thus work out if anyone was actually faking it.

‘Faking It’ was particularly relevant because in one of the episodes they set up a person who had no experience at all to fake it as a TV Director. They did remarkably well and actually beat the other 3 contestants who were proper TV directors.

I’ve been working in Kenya for 8 years now and ever since I started working here, that show has constantly been at the back of my mind.

My first Kenyan contract started in 2012 and this was the first time I came across the expression “Fake It ‘til you make it”. As soon as I heard that expression, It never sat right, it made no sense to me. I mean, I know the TV show was vastly entertaining and proved that you can fake it, but then again the ‘Faking It’ contestants had a team of experts essentially providing the greatest intense training course ever.

To me, faking it, means that you can’t do the real thing, yet people use that saying to help them believe they can fake performing a job until they succeed. From my experience, I saw straight through the expression and anybody that was indeed “faking it”, or a better description “shit at their job”, would be found out and fired, we switched the format to ‘The Apprentice”.

In my early days of working in Kenya, we went through a lot of fakers. Back then though, I was working for an International company, so it was always easier to work honestly, without fear and tell people the truth about aptitude in the workplace. Of course, we’d train, nurture and encourage all of our employees to change, open their eyes and become better, smarter, more productive and skilful workers, but sadly, for too many annoying workers, change was a skill they weren’t happy to learn.

It’s deep working in Kenya, really deep. On the vast majority of days working, you will have the best day ever of your entire career. The pace is much slower, you get no way near as many of those socially awkward colleagues you find elsewhere in the world and it’s usually warm.

Put simply though, it’s impossible to compare working in a productive, efficient, time conscious, rule compliant business, because companies working to all of those standards don’t exist here.

Of course, any international that’s worked in Kenya would add balance to my thoughts. They’re probably of the type that came here and worked for two weeks, taught people chapter one, stayed at a lovely hotel, discovered the better parts of Nairobi, went to the Mara and then fucked off home leaving us to deconstruct their incredible ideas.

In those early days of working in Kenya, I was tied up in knots, I became so confused it was scary. We inherited a magnificent team who’d learnt from “the best”, only problem was that “the best” was a scattered, dysfunctional and obtuse role-model at best. So the ‘magnificent’ team had learnt all those crippling behaviours thus creating a magnificently illogical mess of wires that we had to sort out.

And I feel this is the problem, Kenyan’s have had to learn most of their technical skills from Westerners and this does not help at all if the Westerners that are sent here are cluttered with Western Anxieties and conditions, which from the ones I’ve met, is mostly the case.

You see, if you give orders for a Kenyan to go dig a 3’ x 3’ x 3 hole in the ground’ , that’s exactly what you’ll get, no questions asked. If you need it deeper, you can have it deeper, no questions asked, if you want to hit Magma, that’s fine. The problem arises when instruction becomes blended, so the 3′ x 3′ x 3′ hole is now a 4′ x 4′ x 4′ hole and not round, but square, hang on....triangle, no, keep it round, don’t dig it there though, dig it over there, yes there. This scattered instruction style creates a pandemic of distrust, by where Kenyan’s assume that white people coming to work here are all insane and should not be trusted.

Again, within those first few weeks, I’d give my Kenyan team instructions and always would be met with a “yes” then the instruction once it had been processed would either be executed incorrectly or simply not executed. This used to make me wonder why?, then it was explained to me very clearly that Kenyan’s will say “yes”, to anything a Westerner says.

A typical example of this is;

Me - “Can you do that?”

Kenyan - “Yes”

2 hours later

Me - “Where is it”?

Kenyan “I can’t do it”

Me - “but you said you could do it”

Kenyan “you know…blah blah blah…lie…lie…lie…it can’t be done”

Me - “Thanks, I’ll do it myself”

Always get your new colleague to repeat back the instruction to you, once you’ve learned that, it’s ‘Welcome to Working in Kenya’.

Sadly the majority of people in the workplace tell lies which does not help. It’s tricky to cut through the lies and the genuine problems. I’m used to it now, but Kenyan’s will happily lie about taking their sick child to Hospital, their Uncle dying, their Aunty dying, their Uncle dying, their Aunty dying, their Uncle dying, their Aunty dying, their Uncle dying, their…ok all Uncles and Aunties are dead, their cousins dying. No shame at all, no fear of tempting fate, anything goes to get a few hours off work to go and moonlight i.e do another job elsewhere. They will then wonder why you have zero trust in them at all.

I work in the Kenyan creative industry, which means the imagination gap leaves creativity as a challenge for many, but that’s a gap I see closing with more and more automated technology. Unfortunately, by the time AI has destroyed the world, Kenyan’s should be just about ready to compete.

It’s tricky trying to explain natural skill, instinct, aptitude, how to look between the lines and not just follow rules but create them.

There are three simple factors that have determined this situation.

1 = Incorrectly privileged bosses in the wrong positions.

2 = A binary style of working, inherited from the NGO / Finance world.

3 = An under valued creative arts industry.

I have no idea how this translates across industries, but from what I can see, the story theme is common, an expectation of being told exactly what to do, fear of responsibility, fear of losing a job and copying too many bad habits.

The most obvious industry where apathy is plain to see is customer service. In all honesty, Customer Service is considered in about 20% of the country and this is often exclusive to where foreigners will be. Kenyan’s know foreigners demand a better level of service i.e they expect to be greeted, they expect to be welcomed, they expect customer service. Whilst this will be a certainty in the nicer parts of Nairobi, lusher parts of the coast and the more modern game lodges, the rest of the country generally sucks.

I had to go and collect a TV from repair, it wasn’t repaired. All I had to do was collect a TV, but I couldn’t help myself so it turned into a lecture about customer service.

I walked into the shop and was greeted by two assistants sat down at the counter eating their lunch, this practice is common in Kenya, so, now the persons mouth is full of beef. I waited for the gob full to be finished and I waited for my greeting. This greeting never came, so through my silence she became uncomfortable enough to shrug her shoulders at me in an attempt to ascertain why I was deliberately disturbing her lunch. I try and say as little as possible these days, the majority of what I say is indecipherable to the average Kenyan anyway.

We go through the motions of me doing the persons job for them and I end up with the TV. It’s at this point I request the person searches “customer service” on YouTube, I explain it may help to get a promotion. That’s a positive solution right?

In Kenya, the first disagreement a foreigner will have with the average Kenyan will be whilst in a customer service scenario. This is why I implore every single possible online feedback opportunity to be completed in full detail. I believe businesses are learning the importance of reviews and stars and are generally increasing their responsibility to customers because of this.

When it comes to opportunity, Kenyan’s have been shafted by their adversaries far more than any white man. Colonisation sadly set the tone of working for a boss and being told what to do without any questions asked. In 2020, I find the legacy remains, which is sad.

I’m proud of the people who have learnt from myself, and vice versa, what I’ve learnt from them.

I’ve been able to open minds, increase focus and promote a productive way of working, however far too many people have chosen not to take the opportunity and preferred to stay blinkered.

I am all for the notion of Kenya working out its own destiny, to take control of its ambitions and develop the nation, but from what I’ve seen, this is not happening. There are too few people benefiting from the corrupt economic model for the country to succeed anytime soon.

If we’re led to believe what NGO’s and Embassies spout, then the road to a prosperous Kenya is just around the corner. All except it really isn’t, this is their agenda to keep the blinkers on the people. Evidently, the country has a huge skills gap, yet remains reticent against making foreign investment and implementing international expertise a priority.

The lies need to stop, corruption needs to end, the people need to be honest with themselves, international aid and investment needs to be regulated and to produce their development goals plain as day. Kenya needs to work out what is most important to itself, it needs to take an online course in customer service.

The most disappointing thing about living in this country is the inept apathy that exists. So many Kenyan’s I talk to tell me this, they are sick, fed up, embarrassed, disgusted in the way their country is governed.

The potential of Kenya is incredible, yet week on week, we read stories of businesses and even even whole industries unable to survive because of greed.

Whilst the hand out mentality and legacy of foreign aid remains, for now, this country will never be an entrepreneur, but rather remain a hired help faking it until it makes it.

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thearrangment-phff · 7 years

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I. Laying The Foundation

May 2016

Harry had spent his youth as wild as the next boy. When he joined the Royal Army, Harry had turned his life around, not that there was much chaos, to begin with. His relationships came and went and Charles wondered about the day his youngest son would marry.

Charles was 33 when he married Diana. Harry was to turn 32 later on this year and his last relationship ended just 2 years prior. He remembered Cressida even though she and Harry were together for about 2 years. He also remembered Chelsy. She and Harry could have married as well if Chelsy was up to the duties of a royal wife.

Now Charles planned to help Harry find a wife. It wasn’t an arranged marriage as he kept on repeating in his head. It was simply a push into a relationship by Charles. He went through aristocrats of the United Kingdom finding fault with one or the other. Scottish ladies were high on the list, but none could make it past the first round. The problem with nobility in the United Kingdom was the political parties they associated with or scandal that made Charles dismiss the girls.

Foreign nobility was a stretch, and something he did not want to come to. A foreign princess was a gamble. Royals marrying royals may have been normal in the 19th century but now it could receive backlash. When German princesses and other protestant countesses were ruled out the private secretary of the Prince of Wales was forced to look at Catholic royalty and nobility.

Mark Leishman, private secretary of the Prince of Wales found no shortage of Catholic princesses. There about a dozen Catholic Archduchesses of Austria, a few Princesses of Orleans and Orleans-Braganza, a Luxembourg princess, a few Princesses of Nassau, Liechtenstein, and Bourbon.

Orleans and Orleans-Braganza were supposed to be the first off the list. Charles knew there would be a backlash with a relationship between Harry and one of the princesses. They no longer had a claim or a monarchy to lay back on. The Archduchesses of Austria and Princesses of Bourbon-Two Sicilies were also in that category.

There was a problem in the process of elimination for Charles. Many of the Archduchesses of Austria had family ties to Orleans, Orleans-Braganza, Luxembourg, Belgium, Nassau, Savoy, and Bourbon-Two Sicilies royalty. Marriages within Catholic royalty in the older generation was prominent. Many had a maternal and paternal second or third cousin marriages uniting the bloodlines.

There was a name, a picture, and a profile for every girl organized by Mark. Charles had gone through them all and went he got to the bottom of the stack he simply started over. He spent hours going through the files of Scottish ladies, German countesses, and Catholic princesses not finding a one who stood out to him.

By the night time, all of the papers were scattered around his desk. It was a jumbled mess and Charles couldn’t match a name to picture, let alone her file. With a small hint of frustration Charles simply picked up a picture of a blonde, blue-eyed girl thinking that she looked similar to Harry’s ex-girlfriends. His first guess was she was a German princess.

"Mark, what is this girls name again?" Asked Charles holding up one of many pictures.

"Isabella, I believe, though I could be wrong, Let me check" replied Mark as he went to his computer and started typing.

There was a minute of complete silence before Mark pulled up the girl’s file on his laptop of placed it in front of Charles, "She's a Catholic correct? There is nothing under religion for her."

"Raised Catholic, yes, but lately her religious views seem to be changing," answered Mark.

"Protestant perhaps?" Asked Charles as he continued to read more about her.

"No, humanist. Her work with United Nations has changed her views in all aspects of life I believe."

"Her father is an archduke and her mother was born a princess. Would she be a good choice? I don't know how I feel about this. Harry is my son," pressed Charles.

"Isabella and her family are popular humanitarians. She had a good education in Geneva, went to Yale, and has been working for the United Nations. She can speak 4 languages and is popular within Belgian nobility as well as with friends and family ties to Luxembourg as well," explained Mark.

"Do you think Harry and Isabella could be happy one day? If they got to know each other and all," asked Charles. His concern was Harry’s feelings. Charles never wanted Harry to marry someone only for their marriage to end in disaster.

"No one could say but them two sir," responded Mark.

"Can we invite Isabella and her parents here to Clarence House this weekend? I think it would be nice to meet her in person. I want to get to know her before I introduce Harry to her."

"Of course, it shall be arranged."

Isabella got a call from her father asking if she could go to London with him and her mother for a business trip. She agreed after her mother said there was no option of saying no.

When they got to the hotel Isabella was called into her parent’s room. Since she was a child she knew never to question her parents and their reason behind everything, but as she grew older she found out it was more of a protection than to shut her up.

Her father stood while her mother was sitting at the edge of their bed. Isabella’s mother motioned her to come closer and she did. Her mother wrapped one of her arms around Isabella’s shoulders and planted to kiss on her temple. This was when she began to question everything in her head.

“Will you tell what are we really doing here now?” asked Isabella.

Christian looked at her wife before looking at his daughter, “The Prince of Wales has asked to meet you and us. More so, he wants to meet you.”

Isabella slowly nodded, “Why would he want to meet me? It’s weird enough being here in London.”

“The Prince of Wales thinks you would- he wants to meet you and if he approves he will introduce you to his youngest son, Prince Harry,” explained Marie Astrid.

“He wants me to date his son, is that it? That’s why we’re here in London?” asked Isabella was a small chuckle.

“It’s more than that darling,” said Marie Astrid.

“The Prince of Wales isn’t looking for a girlfriend for his son, he’s looking for a future wife for his son. He thinks you could be that.”

“I’m sorry is this like an arranged marriage? Have you both gone mad?! You can’t expect me to believe that the future King of England is putting his son in an arranged marriage,” protested Isabella.

“It is not an arranged marriage. There is no talk of marriage,” Marie Astrid couldn’t even finish her sentence.

“You mean there is no talk of marriage yet. That’s the plan, right? Introduce us, tell us that we much get married and hope we fall in love. Talk about borderline Stockholm Syndrome,” scoffed Isabella.

“Marriage is always the goal when dating someone darling. Dating someone who you could see spending the rest of your life with,” spoke Marie Astrid in hopes of calming her daughter.

“So you push me to marry a man I do not know, let alone love,” questioned Isabella.

“Isabella have you ever doubted me?” asked Christian.

“Of course not. But now I’m starting to rethink never doubting you as a child too,” replied Isabella.

“Do not doubt what I would do for you, what I would do for this family Isabella.”

“So Christine, Imre, and Alexander can marry someone they love but I cannot? How is that fair?”

“Christine married a German count. Imre and Alexander’s children will bear the title Archduke or Archduchess because they are of the male line. You may not lose your title but you will marry below you. Marriages, when you have a title, are tricky and life is not fair,” replied Marie Astrid.

“Well if I’m going to be pushed into an arranged married couldn’t it be to Josef, Amedeo, or Joachim. At least I know them,” said Isabella.

“Don’t be cross Isabella you are cousins,” argued Christian.

“Well, you are talking about an arranged marriage which is very 19th century might as well marry your cousin. I mean your marriage isn’t any different.”

“Isabella you know it’s different. Our situation is different,” argued Marie Astrid.

“Yes because a marriage like yours was normal back then,” fought Isabella.

“We married not even 30 years ago Isabella. We are Habsburgs. We are no ordinary people.”

“Yes being apart of a family notorious for inbreeding and literally going extinct for it is such an accomplishment,” spat Isabella in frustration.

“Isabella you love the history behind the Habsburgs. The art, the history, and the fact that your own family changed history for the better,” began Marie Astrid

“Yes and committed genocide helped enslave a bunch of people, and probably a hundred other bad things our family has helped do. I have a minor in European history I know a thing or two about what exactly our family did in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, I will do what you say,” interrupted Isabella.

“You will agree to meet the Prince of Wales and his son with no objections? Not even act smug around them?” asked Christian.

“I will obey like a daughter obeys her father in the 15th century on one condition.”

“Which is?” asked Marie Astrid.

“I can divorce him whenever I feel like it whether it be 2 years from now or 20. I can leave him.”

“Of course. If the Prince of Wales likes you and Harry agrees to the arrangement as well then that will be your only condition,” said Christian.

“Yes, that will be my only condition.”

Next Chapter

#PHFF #Prince Harry Fanfiction #Prince Harry Fanfic #Royal Fanfic #Fanfiction

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artificialqueens · 7 years

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saint in the city ch.5 (katlaska) - comeapart

a/n: there isn’t much left to write, which begs the q: if i wrote a side witney/trixya in the same verse, would anyone be interested? anyway, ch.1 here & ch.2 here & ch.3 here & ch.4 here. p.s thank you for all the kind comments. p.p.s pink roses

Alaska was proud of her ability to fall asleep in her office without anyone noticing, leaving her with a small amount of privacy and dignity between her long shifts, and her ability to stay under the radar meant that nobody noticed. She was sure if Willam found her, she would be the laughing stock of the staff-room for the next week, and if Courtney did, she would be the subject of all of her pity. She didn’t want to be found, though, and the idea of secrecy sounded perfect. She had mastered the art of making her office looking unoccupied while she slept, and it meant that Courtney and Willam stopped telling her to go home.

She vaguely thought that there might be something against hospital rules about sleeping in her office, but she didn’t want to know. People napped in the staff room all the time. She caught Trixie sleeping there several times on her breaks, and Trixie had never gotten in trouble before.

She must have left her door open one morning, taking the scheduled nap from two till six and avoiding most of her responsibilities, because she woke up to the sound of the door shutting as someone left the office. It took her a few moments for her vision to return to normal, heavy with sleep, and by that point the visitor was completely gone.

It was a surprise to realise that the stranger hadn’t taken the opportunity to make fun of her or shower her with pity, but had simply draped a blanket over her body and left a bag on her desk. There was a note scrawled onto the top that read ‘don’t forget to eat.’ The handwriting was familiar, but Alaska couldn’t quite place it.

She opened the bag up quietly, blinking at the sight. It was vegetarian sushi, but not like the stuff she normally bought. It was expensive, fancy sushi, like the kind that people bought on dates. She hadn’t realised how starving she was until she finished the sushi in record time, and sighed when she was done. It was better than anything she’d eaten in the last week, and the secret note-leaver was right. Being busy meant less time for remembering to eat.

She checked the clock on her desk, and she still had an hour before she had to go back to the clinic, so she tried to settle back into her seat and get comfortable again. The blanket spread over her seemed like it was almost handmade, with the communist symbol that she had learnt about in high-school sewn into it. The hammer and sickle were kind of cute, if not a little sloppy on the stitchwork. It was really warm, and it smelt good too, and soon she was fast asleep again.

Later, once Alaska finally returned from the clinic and went back to meet with a regular patient, the quilt was gone from her office. There was a pink rose on her desk, where the empty bag had once been, and Alaska felt her cheeks flush the entire walk back to the consultation.

Alaska was exhausted by the time the next meeting rolled around, and the situation had only proven to get worse to the outside world. Once the meeting was over, she could go home and sleep in her own bed - something that she hadn’t been able to do in days, which was one of the few things keeping her going - and when Courtney nudged at her, it took her a few minutes to zone back to reality and realise exactly why she looked so distressed. She forced herself to listen, and stood as still as possible, despite the overwhelming anxiety filling her stomach.

“It’s just a complete waste of resources, Miss Act,” Dr Crawford repeated, pursing her lips into a tight line. Alaska wanted to punch her, and not just because she was trying to sabotage Courtney. “I understand that there are concerns, but at the rate this virus is spreading, we can’t afford this indulgence. People are sick all over the hospital and we’re struggling to find a cure. It’s ridiculous that you should have a special set of staff all to yourself.”

“It’s not indulgence. It’s quarantine,” Alaska said carefully, unsure as to why this was even being brought up because last time she checked, children shouldn’t have to die due to mistreatment in a place that they went to get better. “Courtney works with very ill children who are undergoing radiotherapy and can’t be subject to a killer virus.”

“Miss Thunder, the flu patients are in clean rooms. You of all people should know this,” Dr Crawford said, as if everything Alaska had told her meant nothing. The fact that she had the nerve to imply that because her ex girlfriend had been admitted made her less of a nurse was insulting, and Alaska didn’t miss how Courtney tensed up. “The staff are clean when they walk in and when they walk out. There is essentially no possibility of an infection from the virus.”

“The smallest possibility is too much,” Courtney frowned, turning to Bianca in an attempt to get her to say something. She was confidently staring between the two of them, watching the scene unfold and silently making her own decision. “These kids are dying, Bianca. Or they’re recovering from nearly dying. You can’t put them in danger like that.”

“We’re short staffed, Miss Act, we need as many people working with the flu patients and in the clinic as possible. We can’t afford to give one department special treatment, and I’m sure they’ll agree with me. We can vote on it.”

“No, Bianca, you can’t allow this,” Alaska frowned, stroking over the back of Courtney’s hand as she turned to look properly at her. They didn’t share a department, but Alaska knew exactly how Courtney felt. The virus was the only strain currently to affect both kids and adults at the same rate, and it was essentially a death sentence if it got into the paediatrics department.

Bianca just raised her brows, glancing to Dr Crawford and then back to Alaska. “Magnolia makes fair points. I don’t like it any more than you or Courtney do, Alaska, but the risk could be worth it. If the extra staff can bring us closer to the cure, then it would be unethical to stop them from doing so.”

“They won’t, though. You know they can’t, Bianca. Look, everyone knows it’s wishful thinking. Courtney is working harder than anyone here, and she’s covered more hours in the clinic than anyone else here whilst still keeping her patients in recovery.”

“Nobody has questioned that, Miss Thunder. She’s clearly dedicated, but there are at least ten doctors and nurses that can be working towards the cure that currently aren’t.”

“Those kids will die,” Alaska frowned, shaking her head.

“They won’t. We’re professionals, and the risk pales in comparison to the possible benefits. Miss Thunder, you’re overreacting completely.”

“She isn’t overreacting,” Katya said, and Alaska’s head turned so fast that it hurt. Katya had been stood in the corner of the room for the past half hour, silent and leaning against Trixie every so often. Alaska was speechless, and Katya was like some knight in shining armour, except she wasn’t. She was just seeing reason. Katya looked just as exhausted as Alaska did. “It really doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry?” Dr Crawford asked, her voice cold and harsh. Katya sighed, pushing her hair out of her face and standing up straighter.

“This shouldn’t even be up for debate, Magnolia. You can’t risk exposing immunocompromised patients to a deadly flu we don’t know how to fix. It’s clear.”

“Katya,” Bianca started, but stopped when Katya stepped forward, looking up at her with a certain disappointment in her gaze.

“I know everyone is tired. Desperation shouldn’t blind you, Bianca. There are fourteen doctors and nurses in the cancer ward, and you and me both know they won’t find the cure. The only thing they would bring would be extra shifts, and we can’t risk patients lives like this. You know that.”

Courtney bit her tongue, and Alaska squeezed her hand a little before letting go. Dr Crawford glared at Katya and said, “Dr Zamo, sticking up for your friends is a very valiant thing to do, but we’re all professionals here.”

“Really?” Katya asked, and if Alaska had never met her before, she would’ve fallen in love all over again at the sight. “A professional would be able to pronounce my last name. I learnt yours, why can’t you learn mine? Is it because you’re scared that someone foreign might possibly be better at their job than you? You’re being ridiculous, Magnolia.”

Bianca looked like she wanted to get up and leave, shaking her head and rubbing her forehead like it might fix the situation. “Katya, is this really worth -”

“Yeah, it is, Bianca. And if you go ahead and do it anyway, me and the other surgeons are going to take a surprise vacation for a couple of weeks. I have years of holiday saved up. Oh, and Magnolia? Eat shit, kindly,” Katya grinned, showing off all of her teeth in the process before picking up her cup of coffee and walking out, Trixie following suit. Alaska had never seen that side of Katya before, the side that wasn’t serious in order to keep her job. It was the first time in years she’d seen any actual personality other than coldness to the surgeon, and she liked it.

“Okay then. I guess that’s that. You’re all dismissed,” Bianca said, sighing and picking herself up, bolting out the door before everyone else could.

Courtney turned to look at Alaska, eyebrows raised and eyes wide. Alaska wanted to do the same, but she was trying not to act like she was still miserable about what had happened between her and Katya, so she just smiled. No matter what happened, she was pretty sure she was going to be in love with her for as long as she worked in medicine. Katya was perfect.

Courtney raised her eyebrows again for effect, leaning into her. “What was that all about? That was awesome. I see why Willam says she’s cool. God, why did Katya do that? She doesn’t even like me that much.”

“I have no idea.” Alaska said quietly, pulling her scrubs a little closer and trying to ignore the way her mood lightened at the thought of the meeting.

One thing Alaska didn’t mind about the overtime was the fact that her secret admirer continued bringing her things. There was always her order from Starbucks in the morning, hidden in her office, and when there were night shifts, she found hot chocolate appearing in her path. Most of the time the gifts were left in her office, but when she had to work in the clinic, she would find things left behind the main desk with her name on them. Alaska was pretty sure she was being stalked, but she wasn’t too worried. They were either incredibly good at stalking, or worked in the hospital, and she hadn’t been drugged yet, so she was going with the second option.

She received more pink roses, and more meals. Sometimes they were from local places, but sometimes they were homemade, and most of the time, they tasted really good. There were a few times where she had been gifted things like Okroshka, which she had only learnt the name of after making Willam taste it and google the ingredients. It was Russian. Once, there was a box of chocolates, and they were all perfect. Alaska took them home and ate them while she watched a movie that Courtney had promised was good, but it was kind of bad. She didn’t even mind that much.

“I don’t know if it’s weird or if I should be charmed,” Alaska told Courtney in the cafeteria, picking up a green apple and placing it onto her plate. “It’s weird, I mean. I know it’s weird. But it’s sweet. They know all of my orders, though. Like, even things I haven’t eaten in months.”

“Stalking is kind of creepy, but maybe they’re scared of you. Some people are anxious, they can’t just talk to beautiful girls,” Courtney said way too seriously, and Alaska laughed, nearly knocking the apple off of her plate.

“I guess that’s kind of true,” Alaska smiled down at her, picking the tray up and adding, “Isn’t it kind of stupid to get a crush on someone you don’t know, though? I think someone wise told me that a few years back,” Courtney just smiled, her eyes widening as she turned away, looking back up to Alaska after a moment and raising a brow.

“You didn’t hear that?” Courtney asked, eyes wide, and Alaska shook her head. “There was like a crash or something. That was weird.”

“You know you’re working too hard when you’re hearing things,” Alaska laughed quietly, leading Courtney over to a table and stealing one of the fries off of her plate when she wasn’t looking.

By the time Alaska had gotten back to her office, she felt a lot better, and eating actually did make things feel a little more bearable. It was one of the few simple pleasures in life, like bubble baths or taking drugs in clubs and not getting caught in med school. Willam was in her chair, and there was another Starbucks cup with her name on. Alaska grinned at the sight, picking the cup up and sipping at it. “You didn’t get me this, did you?”

“No, girl, you playin’. I’m not about to go to Starbucks for you. I don’t even like doing that walk for Court,” Willam laughed, staring up at her and crossing her legs in the chair. “Your creepy stalker knows your exact Starbucks order?”

“Apparently. And the fact that I don’t eat meat. Really, it’s more like I have a guardian angel, y’know,” Alaska smiled, biting her lip. “It’s still hot. What’s up?”

“Not much. I’m killin’ time. Me and Court were going to hang, but she’s got a patient, and I was informed that you were supposed to be in the clinic. I was supposed to be going home, but Katya had a tragic accident with a door in the cafeteria and burnt her hand, so I’m covering. Have you heard any news on Needles?”

“I’ve heard that her situation isn’t good. I don’t - I know I shouldn’t care, but I’m worried about her.”

Trixie called at two am. Alaska normally would’ve ignored the call, but it wasn’t just Willam or Courtney. Trixie didn’t normally call, unless something was wrong. Her voice was urgent, and everything felt like white noise as Alaska changed and drove herself to the hospital. She was pretty sure this was karma for starting to feel good about her life again, and letting herself forget the distress she had been in since Katya had slept with her.

She broke the speed limit, and tried not to wince when she had to make a sharp break before a speed camera. She pulled into the parking space fast, and sprinted through the main doors directly into somebody making their way out.

“Alaska, hey, whoa,” Katya said, and in any normal situation, Alaska would’ve melted right then and there. She barely recognised the contact, and blinked at Katya’s hands on her arms like they weren’t real. There was a bandage wrapped around her hand. “What are you doing here?” She asked, looking up at Alaska with tired eyes. “You’re not supposed to be in for hours.”

“Courtney’s got the virus,” Alaska said, shoving past and not looking back.

Willam and Trixie were waiting for her by her office when she walked up, and Alaska had never seen Willam so sad. She looked like she had been crying, and Alaska wrapped her arms around her tight and kissed her head like it was the only thing she could possibly offer.

“When did she start displaying symptoms?” Alaska asked, pulling away from Willam and looking up at Trixie. Both of them knew Willam shouldn’t have been there, but neither of them had the heart to make her leave. Alaska was pretty sure Willam was going to kill Magnolia Crawford the second that Courtney was okay, though, especially after Courtney had taken on more shifts in the clinic to help relieve staff.

“At ten? She’s been in since one, but she hasn’t been around patients. Willam drove her here. It looks like she’s got a bad case.” Trixie explained. Alaska frowned, but tried not to look so openly heartbroken. She was lacking her normal protective layer of makeup, and she could only imagine the lengths that they would be going to in order to stop more staff getting the virus. She wanted to cry.

“Willam, you need to go rest. You know her room number, okay? Come down once you’ve slept. Let’s get to work, Trixie,” Alaska sighed.

It was nine by the time she returned to her desk, and there were more gifts on her desk. There were fresh strawberries and a bar of chocolate with a bottle of water, and the note read ‘don’t forget to sleep. No caffeine.’ Alaska ignored the note for the most part, eating the strawberries and ignoring the water, and headed back to the lab. She watched Trixie work and hoped for the best, and tried to ignore the fact that Willam hadn’t stopped crying in the staff-room for the past few hours. She had never seen Willam be anything other than unapologetically fearless, and now she was a mess.

When she got back to her office on her way to the clinic, the water was gone and replaced with a cup of Starbucks coffee, and Alaska drank it all before collecting her things and going downstairs. As she went to throw it away, she saw that the cup had ‘идиот’ written on the side in big writing. She didn’t think twice about trying to translate it as she set up camp in one of the rooms, calling in the first patient of the shift.

Once she was out, there wasn’t enough time to clear her thoughts, and two of her consultations ended in her nearly crying over both Sharon and Courtney. They were no closer to the cure, no matter how hard they were trying, and the death rate was rising around her. Alaska was walking with ghosts in the halls.

#alaska thunderfuck #katya zamolodchikova #trixie mattel #willam belli #courtney act #magnolia crawford #bianca del rio #katlaska #witney #shalaska #hospital au #comeapart #rpdr fanfiction #saint in the city #lesbian au #tw hospitals #submission

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mitsunari · 7 years

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Skybound We Roam: Ch. 5

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.

This chapter is from Yuuri’s POV after he’s done his tours for today. Otabek and Phichit are in a different building. Yuuri wants to show Otabek a meteorite crater!

Koyanshyk, i’m told, is Kazakh for “son of a bitch”. Пиздец (pizdetz or w/e romanization) is a Russian exclamation for when shit goes wrong.

Oirandau is a darker spirit in my story. It and Otabek last met a couple years ago because its behavior prompted an earthquake that would’ve hit Almaty, but Otabek used his flute to deal with it. Yuuri was in Almaty during this and saw Otabek riding through town. I edited this flashback out of this chapter because I didn’t know how to write it in well, so i might reference that later.

I wanna say that all my stuff may as well be rough draft work. I write and sometimes I take out stuff or add stuff, then consequently forget things or mention stuff vaguely. I don’t have an editor and my attention span is like... dead for editing. I’ve been struggling on this on and off, trying to figure out what direction I want to take this. I’m worried that I’m adding too many layers onto the story. :’( I want to make sure it’s interesting but I tend to overcomplicate. However, when I finish this series, I’ll go through and edit the whole bit or ask someone to beta it for me before I put it up on A03.

When his second tour of the day finished, Yuuri lingered in the observatory’s viewing dome to answer questions. Tourism was a large part of funds and he never begrudged learning minds, but there was always a part of him feeling like he struggled at keeping a crowd’s interest. His anxiety had come a long way from his First Tour Ever. If anything, skating when he was younger and still in his hometown of Hasetsu, Japan, garnered him some confidence. Not… much… Yuuri wasn’t a professional ice skater, just a hobbyist, but seeing other people whose heart burned for the sport really inspired Yuuri to go back to college.

At the time, he’d floundered between “you’re turning your back on skating because you failed” and “n-no, i’m not running away, I’ll get back into school to do what I love”. He liked to say he kicked depression’s ass, but he didn’t do it alone. Yuuri sent an an initial e-mail to Phichit, who already studied at Touhokudai in Miyagi. Their next Skype session, he may have drank a little (a lot) and opened his heart about passions and space and… well... Yuuri didn’t actually remember applying for anything. He just woke up to an email notification from Phichit’s favorite professor and, weeks later, Touhoku University’s acceptance of his application.

Phichit refused every one of Yuuri’s promises to pay him back. Instead, Yuuri snuck them in by driving all their field trips and cooking their dinners. Sometimes they’d eat out in Almaty, but driving an hour to and from never happened every day. Even though they’d both graduated by now, he still had those habits. Not that he minded! Yuuri made a mean katsudon, and Phichit taught him Thai foods that they always cooked together. Most of the Kazakh workers lived in Almaty, but as foreign nationals, he and Phichit stayed under the government’s provisions, booking in the observatory’s bunker. Yuuri called their living quarters that because they hadn’t updated anything except the observatory’s command center since the Soviet Era. Even the tourist’s lodges were fresher than theirs! But Yuuri’d lived in Japan and knew all about spartan living space. They’d made their rooms their own as best they could.

Making the kitchen hospitable was the first rule. It even had a recipe book--all in Cyrillic, of course--so Yuuri practiced his translation abilities with Kazakh and Russian foods that seemed feasible. There were many bastardized quasi Russo-Japanese meals in the beginning. Russian food eventually grew on Yuuri. In fact, his lunchbox for today contained butterbrod instead of solely a Thai or Japanese bento.

When the tourists finished milling out the door, Katsuki Yuuri let out a soft sigh on his way in the opposite direction, off to the employee break room to fetch his lunchbox. For once, his coat hung from his labeled coat hook instead of across his office chair. Yuuri put it on, along with his winter wear, and grabbed his lunch to take it outside. He fished out his phone to text Phichit.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: Where are you? I’m about to head out to the meteorite so will you cover me?

Yuuri walked down the hall to the security office to sign out a mountain aid kit and fill out the location docket. It was safer to work in pairs. The officers opened up the kit to ascertain the walkie talkie worked, the first aid half was sterile, the mini-radio worked, etc, etc. While he marked his coordinates so they’d know where to look for him in an avalanche, his phone beeped a reply from Phichit.

From: Phi-chan!

Message: The lounge in B2!!

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Otabek’s here with me. ＼(・ω・)/

Yuuri’s pen nearly punched a hole through the paper when he read the message preview on the screen. He filled out the rest of what he needed to sign out of a government building temporarily, then quickly typed out a reply to Phichit. In his haste, his phone’s keyboard typed out a mass of kanji that he deleted and repeated in English.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: WHAT?

He sent that just as Phichit added, “He’s been waiting for you so I kept him company, so he can cover you instead. I won the bet, remember? (•́⌄•́๑)૭✧”

Yuuri groaned. He did remember, but it was still awkward to ask anyone else to partner up with him in winter. He already worried enough about imposing on others, now he was hit with the double whammy of inconveniencing Otabek for waiting and asking him to babysit so Yuuri didn’t roll over a mountainside alone.

To: Phi-chan!

Message: Are you serious? Please tell me he is not bored to death!!!!

This time, it was a snapchat bing instead of a message. Yuuri opened it to a selfie of Phichit and Otabek. Phichit was winking and pointing a finger to his smile, but also to Otabek sitting next to him and a completed painting sitting on the table. Yuuri recognized the lounge for its table and intense amounts of sunlight coming in through those windows.

He sent a SnapChat back--a selfie of himself with his chin tucked into his scarf and a caption that said “i’m walking there soon”. He took his lunch and the mountain kit in both hands after stuffing his phone away. He wobbled out the door into the cold, crossing from Building 1 to Building 2, and fighting with the frozen doorknob.

“BRR!” Yuuri shuddered loudly and trod hastily down the angular halls, turning into the open lounge. His eyes widened at the sight of the table taken over by art supplies. A plastic cup filled with dirty water there, a palette and sketchpad here. “Otabek! Phichit!” He bowed his head quickly and approached. A nervous look flickered over Yuuri’s face at the sight of Otabek’s stoic one.

“Yuuri!” Phichit crooned. “Come look at this! Our man is Hokusai!” He pointed at the sketchbook. Otabek’s paintbrush rested diagonal across the corner.

“Whoa!” Walking around to Otabek’s other side, Yuuri marveled at the sketch drawn in pencil with its lines painted in. The picture was a lovely landscape of mountains and trees with the new star shining down. The stylized star was left unpainted. “Wow! This is amazing,” Yuuri whispered.

“Thank you,” Otabek said to the both of them. A small smile cracked upon his face. “Phichit said you were busy today.”

“Y-you didn’t come just to talk to me, right?” Yuuri stammered.

“Seeing my friends was an added benefit of scouting the mountain pass between here and the park,” Otabek said, and Yuuri’s shoulders visibly relaxed.

“Wow! And you’re not thirsty?”--Yuuri saw the teacups and hastily launched into--”Cold? Saddlesore? Are you comfortable?” he blurted out.

The corners of Otabek’s almond eyes crinkled when he gave a musical laugh. Yuuri blinked dumbly at him, feeling very much like he was witnessing God’s gift to mankind minus the angelic trumpets to go along with that sparkling smile.

“You and Phichit are of similar minds. Be at peace, Katsuki Yuuri; he has been a good host,” Otabek replied.

Yuuri looked at Phichit who gave a proud nod back, but it just made Yuuri even more apprehensive to ask Otabek to cover him. He kept squeezing his fists around the lunchbox and mountain kit, staying quiet.

“Yuuuuuriiiii?” Phichit singsang. Yuuri started, blinking up at the two men. Otabek cocked his head at him, and Phichit had a concerned look. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I… well, uh.” Fuck, why did his tongue keep knotting up? “I was just wondering, uh, well since Phichit won his bet, uh, Otabek, do you want to cover me on the mountain?” Yuuri made to gesture outside and nearly dropped his lunch. “There’s something cool I can show you--”

“Let’s do it,” Otabek interjected.

“--so it’s not a total waste... of your.. tim--really?!” Yuuri blurted out.

Otabek nodded and started putting the art supplies away. He said something to Phichit about “remember what you promised” before joining up with Yuuri, who didn’t ask what that was all about. He looked over Otabek, wondering if this really was an imposition, but with a sigh, Yuuri forced the anxious doubts aside. There wasn’t anyone he’d be safer with in the wilderness than Otabek.

Yuuri sighed again, this time in relief. He was glad Otabek agreed. Living in the mountains was a lot like living on the edge of the world. Between wild animals and natural disasters, it held as much danger as it did beauty. Yuuri, who’d seen the Kazakh shaman calm earthquakes with a quray’s hollow notes, felt the same could be said for Otabek.

The man’s affinity for nature was even more valuable than any government-made machine Yuuri worked with. After Phichit’s video of them in Aralkum went viral, there were a lot of questions over the internet. Who was he? Was it a hoax? Thankfully, in the age of plentiful CGI and Photoshop, Yuuri had been able to just let people speculate by saying “aliens lol”.

Yuuri trusted Otabek… and he wanted Otabek to trust him too. The last thing anybody needed was a government sticking their fingers where they didn’t belong. Otabek called him his friend. Yuuri hoped he could be worthy of that.

“Which exit? Otabek asked, bringing Yuuri back to the present.

Mouthing “oh, right”, Yuuri turned away to say bye to Phichit. He told Otabek to hop into the truck. Once it roared to life, Yuuri pulled out onto the snowy road that wound around the entirety of Big Almaty Lake. Seven months ago, a meteorite barreled through Earth’s atmosphere and struck the side of the mountain near the observatory. If he hadn’t been monitoring it, Yuuri would’ve mistaken it for an earthquake.

“Hey, do you remember when that little meteor hit us a couple months ago?” Yuuri asked. His voice was a little muffled behind his scarf, for the pudgy man was bundled up well.

Otabek took a moment to think. “I was told of it,” he said, frowning. “But I had business in Atyrau.”

Yuuri didn’t know the region names that well but nodded anyway. “It’s where I’m taking you.” Yuuri smiled and glanced over expecting a smile too but Otabek simply acknowledged his statement with a neutral nod. Tapping his fingers fretfully over the steering wheel, he reminded himself that Otabek’s frown was his default expression. Seeing frowns just made him instinctively worry. I’m dumb… Yuuri ground into himself, gripping the steering wheel hard. “Uh, were you traveling again?” he asked, referring to Atyrau or wherever.

“Mhm. Caspian Sea this time,” Otabek rumbled.

Yuuri let out a sharp gasp. He knew where that was. “Don’t tell me we missed its disappearance!?” he blurted out.

Otabek’s eyebrows disappeared into his fur-lined hat. “No, that was only Aral. The Kaspiy had a spiritual imbalance and needed my attention. You did not use the feather I gave you to write for my aid so…,” he trailed off with a shrug.

Oh right. Yuuri had kept it until the Plisetsky’s new star showed up. Truthfully, he’d been so excited geeking over the meteorite with his crew that he hadn’t thought about Otabek. Yuuri hadn’t considered the idea of Weird Fantasy Mojo at work. “Haven’t you gone to see it?” Yuuri asked incredulously, receiving a head shake “no” in reply. Wasn’t Otabek like, King of Pride Rock? Everything the light touches was his kingdom, that whole schtick? Didn’t he have to check everything out?

For a second, Yuuri thought Otabek could read his thoughts. The Kazakh laughed a single amused note and said, “It would take me a lifetime to ride through every pass in these mountains. I confess I have not been that way since the meteorite hit, but”--he paused with an enunciation of the world, holding up a finger--”I can tell you that I haven’t been warned about it either.” Otabek paused again and turned his head to actually stare at Yuuri for a few seconds. “Is this why you were preoccupied about a world-ending omen?”

Yuuri’s entire face went red. He sputtered out a nervous laugh. “Ehehe...heh…... I mean we have precedence of meteors wiping out the dinosaurs. Of course it would be my luck to witness an event that hasn’t happened in a bajillion years.” He started chuckling even harder. “And… pfft... aliens….” He gestured at Otabek.

“...Aliens?” said Otabek.

“Yeah, that was our joke cover story whenever someone tweeted Phichit about the Aral Sea video.”

His passenger snorted a laugh, giving Yuuri a gloved thumbs up. A few seconds of silence passed, and then he shook his head, smiling a little. “It works.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened. Okay. He could finally relax over the idea that the video wasn’t going to summon government troops down on Otabek. “It’s like an old meme now, I guess. ‘Oh, the aliens chose Kazakhstan. When did your fav ever?’ type of posts still go around sometimes,” Yuuri chuckled.

He suddenly pointed to the curve around the mountain. “This is where we’re going.” He turned onto a service road that looked no different than their environment with all this snow. Otabek looked around curiously at their surroundings.

Yuuri’s eyes brightened but didn’t look away from the road. “Hey!” he burst out. “It’s, uh, it’s good that you haven’t seen it then. I can show you something impressive for once,” he said.

“Oh really?” The corner of Otabek’s mouth quirked upward.

“No lights or flutes though. Or special feathers for that matter.” Yuuri took him up a kilometer further, rounding the mountain’s wide base until Big Almaty Lake couldn’t be seen anymore. The “service road” stopped at a natural vista. On this side of the range, the mountainsides were sharp, and their cliffs dropped into a bowl-shaped depression shared with all the surrounding mountains.

Yuuri turned off the truck and shoved the keys into his pockets. Together, he and Otabek crunched over the thick snow, wading in between leafless bushes. At the edge, he trod carefully and pointed Otabek’s gaze down. The meteorite had crashed into the wall several meters beneath their cliffside vista, leaving a crater pocket in the bowl.

“Climbing?” Otabek commented. “I see no other way down.”

“That was our problem too.” Yuuri said. The vista was only a ten meter gap from one wall of mountain to another. He knelt at the left wall, pushing snow off the cliffside until he’d cleared all the way to the bottom. Otabek watched as Yuuri pulled aside a shelf of frozen snow and let it fall.

“In springtime, this is all covered with plants,” he explained. “I had to get to that meteorite and there’s no way to get into this part of depression without climbing or flying in.” Helicopters were popular with hunters but not part of Yuuri’s budget. “Until… I discovered this.” Yuuri pushed his entire arm through snow and grinned, turning around at Otabek.

Otabek’s eyes widened and he approached the rock. “A cave?” he whispered almost reverently.

“A cave,” Yuuri repeated eagerly. Wringing his arm around, he knocked free all the fallen snow blocking up the narrow slit in the wall. He pulled off his backpack and shimmied sideways. Once he passed the gap, Yuuri clicked on his flashlight, shining it through the slot. “Look at that, huh?” The crack in the wall was the gateway to a cave system inside the mountain.

Otabek nodded quickly. He too removed his pack but it was wider than Yuuri’s own and harder to shove through. He turned it on its side and pushed it through to Yuuri’s side.

The dark cave was the size of an office cubicle, but they were both relatively short men. Yuuri knew there were three holes leading deeper in. One unnavigable one above his head, dripping water constantly from the ceiling. The second and third were ground level. The cave possessed one hole in the wall, heading into the mountain’s belly probably. The other was a hole in the sloped ground, forming a descending tunnel.

“Be careful,” Yuuri said softly, pointing his flashlight at the slick rock . “It’s like a slide.” He placed his bag on his knees and squatted in the hole, crawling into the pipe-like tunnel. Although dark like the initial cave at first, the lower he and Otabek came, the more light revealed itself at the bottom. The tunnel opened up and became a ledge in a wall of another cave. Yuuri walked to the very end, able to stand up and let his bag sit on the ledge. He looked around for a safe foothold before climbing to the second cave’s floor.

The crashing meteorite broke through the cave’s ceiling and wall, opening it up to the elements. The fallen portions of mountainside had formed crude stairs between this high-roofed cave and the tunnels Yuuri discovered, allowing him to climb down to the secondary cavern in the first place.

“I haven’t cleared away all the rubble,” Yuuri explained, “but there’s a path to the meteorite, see? And much of the crater’s edges.”

A sledgehammer laid discreetly against the wall Yuuri dropped down from. He sat his backpack near it, then his lunchbox atop the bag. Otabek remained on the wall ledge in silence. He just looked. Yuuri didn’t know him that well to know if he was impressed or not.

“Um… I didn’t do anything bad, right?” Yuuri asked quietly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Like…” Yuuri gestured between the Kazakh and the meteorite. “I didn’t disturb the ‘spiritual balance’ or whatever?” He lined his index and middle fingers up in front of his nose. “I can pray to the Buddha and burn incense.”

Otabek’s eyebrows came together, and after thinking for a time, he nodded silently. He jumped down from the four meter ledge easily, straightening up in front of Yuuri. “Sit somewhere.” said Otabek. He chose a place on the ground with the two meters-wide crater stretched before him.

He’s serious! Quickly Yuuri picked three o’clock to Otabek’s noon, letting his legs dangle in the crater. The meteorite itself sat in pieces in the crater’s middle. Besides the biggest chunks of collapsed rock, it alone remained unmoved by Yuuri. The meteorite’s chunks were incredibly dense; he was certain one weighed the same as his truck. Yuuri returned his wondering gaze to Otabek.

The shaman pulled a long bamboo tube out of his bag. He drew a long amber-colored flute from it, carefully looking over it first before putting it to his mouth.

“Before we get started, I should say I don’t know what will show up… if anything. Understood?” Otabek grunted.

“I trust you, man. You have more experience with this,” Yuuri replied. When he had last seen Otabek in Almaty, this flute had not been with him. Yuuri squinted at the beautiful instrument. “Is that new?” he asked.

Otabek thought about it before nodding. “It is different from the one you remember. That Almaty earthquake was caused by a spirit on the wind. It disturbed the peace, and the mountains took offense. The flute dealt with the spirit. The quake quit once it went away.” He sucked on his tongue in lament. “It destroyed my flute. But”--he gestured with the amber one--”I was gifted this one shortly thereafter.”

“Wait, is there really a spirit in here for you to use that on?” Yuuri exclaimed, looking hastily around the cave before going back to Otabek.

“Well.” He paused. Otabek pointed to the broken meteorite. “Let’s welcome whatever this is. Traditionally we welcome the coming of new things, like the new year or springtime, with prayers and music. This can count too.”

Yuuri nodded, familiar with ringing the bell in the temple and praying to Buddha. “We do that back home in Japan. I’ve, um, never prayed to welcome a space rock before though. Here.” He turned to open up his lunchbox. “I can give offerings.” He pulled a riceball from the rest and sat it down by his feet. Otabek bent down with him and placed a small loaf of bread into the crater.

“You can say whatever you want for this,” Otabek said, adjusting his flute.

Yuuri clapped his hands together firmly. “Is this really going to wake up some kind of sp-sp-space spirit!?” He sucked in breath. He had been coming to this cave at least once a week for seven months now. It was the perfect private place, and no one, not even a spirit, had disturbed him here. He didn’t want a new earthquake to mess this up.

“Guess we’ll find out. Pray well, Katsuki Yuuri!” Otabek grinned.

Yuuri’s eyes went wide like a spooked deer, and he quickly shoved his ham on bread into his mouth. He wasn’t about to get started on an empty belly! When he finished, he pressed his hands together again. “Namu Amida Butsu Namu Amida--” he muttered, pressing his thumbs against his forehead.

Wait. I sound so bored… Yuuri was way more excited the first time he saw the meteorite down there, but now, he certainly didn’t feel the same. He tried to channel the glee he’d felt upon seeing the dark smooth space rock. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, this time praying within himself instead of aloud. I am not a stranger to you, amazing meteor, but I hope you don’t mind an official welcome this time instead of me gushing over your dimensions. He didn’t feel strange at all speaking to a beautiful figment of space. Finding “gods” (“kami” in Shinto) in all living things was what Yuuri suspected Otabek’s powers to be about, or that he was a “kami” himself). Yuuri was quite familiar with all the old Japanese folk tales, so it was easy for him to believe.

Please, if there is a kami, please do not smite me for my bad singing or shitty chatter every time I’m in this cave. I laugh at my own dumb jokes too much, I know. If you’re just a space rock, that’s, uh, chill too. Space rocks are welcome here. Please keep staying here.

He gently bowed his head once before the rock. Yuuri had plenty of experience hosting in his parents’ inn back home so he ended his prayer feeling very much like he was greeting valued customers. Opening an eye, he peered past his fingers, wondering why he didn’t hear any music.

Yuuri inhaled a deep breath in surprise at the sight that befell him. Silver specks of light hung in the air all around them. In an instant, he was transported into a dream, surrounded by the lights that touched his fingertips.

“Yuuuuuuuuriiiii…” His name was whispered lethargically in his ear. He could hear no whistle of the flute, only this.

Standing up slowly, Yuuri drifted toward the meteorite and he rested both hands on the meteorite’s cracked top. It was as tall as a kitchen counter, and Yuuri short and squat. He felt suddenly compelled to climb atop it by any means necessary. Without a step stool, he was forced to dig his fingers into the crack and pull himself up.

“Where are you?” Yuuri whispered to the voice. Who had said his name? Looking to his right, he saw Otabek with the flute. His eyes were shut, his cheeks and mouth worked, but Yuuri could not hear the notes.

A light touched the tip of his nose, and once more he was drawn to the meteorite’s cracked midsection. Every day, it was exposed more to the harsh mountain elements. The smooth space rock was icy and harder to get a foothold, but he struggled anyway, pushing up until his knee caught leverage. As he adjusted his glasses, the lights continued dazzling him. He rubbed the speck off his nose.

Blinking, he dug his finger into his ears, wondering if he’d gone deaf or if he’d been bewitched somehow. The voice did not return, but the lights falling into the meteorite’s crack stayed there and glimmered inside. The porous rock contained minerals of some kind in their pockets, for Yuuri saw a honeycomb of jewels inside. The brightest of these reflected like a mirror.

Yuuri reached in with one arm at first, then decided to hang by his thighs, climbing head-first to grab the shiny thing deep inside. The meteorite’s worsening cracks revealed a silvery portion previously unseen. His fingers grazed the sparkling thing. Straining, Yuuri managed to hook a finger under a lip he felt, and pulled it up, taking it with both hands.

It’s a… It’s a…?? Panting, Yuuri turned the silvery mineral over. He couldn’t tell what element it was made of or even what it was. It was as pretty as a glassy seashell. It took both hands to cup it, and Yuuri realized the inside had a pearly reflection. He could see his glasses reflected in this side.

“Yuuri. Quickly, is it safe?” the voice asked quietly.

“Y...es?” Yuuri replied. His thoughts raced uneasily between Oh my God it’s aliens! And Is WHAT safe? And How the hell can it know my name? He thought of Otabek and decided to agree that it was safe right now.

A sleepy sigh exhaled right into his ear. “I will send him to you….,” it murmured.

Wait, what? Yuuri blanched.

Otabek drew the flute away from his lips. The stars vanished as if they were a trick of the sunlight. Yuuri blinked and he was seated again, as if he’d never been on the meteorite. What the hell just happened? However, he sucked in a breath when he looked down at the strange plate still in his hands.

Tilting his head at Yuuri, Otabek asked, “What did that sound like to you?” at the same time Yuuri yelled, “WHAT HAPPENED?” Their staring eyes widened at each other.

“Mm!” Otabek blinked in astonishment at the object Yuuri held up. “That appeared because I played?”

“Played what? I didn’t hear any music!” Yuuri said. “I saw… lights… and I heard a voice. What were you doing?”

“An invitation,” Otabek remarked in English, then switching back to their mutual Russian. “A reveal. Encouraged all latent magic to show itself.”

“But why did it come to me?” Yuuri asked. “It knew me. It said my name!”

“You went down to it first, didn’t you?” Otabek pointed to the tools near the wall. “You broke these up. You said you cleaned all this. It knows you took care of its housing.”

“I mean I had some help,” Yuuri stammered. “You mean to tell me there’s been a spirit in here this entire time.”

“I… actually don’t know what it is,” Otabek admitted.

“ It s-said ‘i will send him to you’ but send WHAT to me?”

“It sounds generous.” Otabek went quiet for a moment, observing him. “It has no aura. I didn’t detect it before. Still don’t..”

Yuuri turned it over, but he did not hear the voice again. When he tapped it with his fingernails, it sounded like tapping on a window, but it had no blemishes or marks despite being inside a space rock. He put it into his empty lunchbox for now.

“Weird,” Yuuri sighed.

“That’s not all that’s revealed itself.”

Yuuri froze. Oh no. He stared at Otabek bewildered until suddenly a movement by the meteorite caught his eye. Two snakes floated around the meteorite’s bottom curiously. Yuuri did not dare move around the creatures.

While they were legless, their dark crocodile-like heads and overlapping diamond-shaped scales made them unlike any snakes he’d ever seen. Their bodies were as thick as Yuuri’s fist. He’d put them at 1.5m long. They took interest in the human food sitting in the crater. They opened mouths that were bright blue inside. He tensed. To Yuuri’s shock, each snake ate their respective item whole.

What the hell? Since when do snakes eat rice? Yuuri thought. He stared at Otabek in disbelief..

“They’re aidaharlar. Kazakh dragons,” Otabek murmured low. At the sound of the shaman’s voice, the snakes’ heads both zoomed in his direction.

“Wait a minute, did they come out of there?” Yuuri pointed at the meteorite. He hadn’t seen those creatures in that illusion.

“I don’t think so. They’re younglings but still older than your rock. I think they answered the flute and got greedy at the sight of our offerings.” Otabek suddenly frowned as one of the snakes struggled with the bread. Their heads were more like dragons than snakes, but retained the distending jaw.

Yuuri grimaced as he heard the creature make a gagging sound. “It’s choking!” he cried.

The dragon that had eaten rice hissed distastefully at the other. It used its tail to thwack its companion, until the serpent spat out the bread and a circular pearl-like rock. It rolled down all the way to the meteorite. Tink. The mandarin-sized stone pinged a clear hollow note.

“What did you steal?” Otabek asked coolly as he stood up. He stepped over one aidahar in the crater to fetch the pearl. Yuuri couldn’t tell if the aidahar were deterred by Otabek or if the man was simply fearless. The scaly beasties floated out of Otabek’s way, and Yuuri’s legs jerked away from them. He eased up when he saw the aidahar take no notice in him.

“What is it?” he asked Otabek, who rolled the gleaming rock across his palm.

“They boggart shiny things and love to cause havoc,” Otabek grunted. “I am suspicious of where they got this.” Turning to Yuuri, he walked toward him and showed the circular white jewel. It rolled over to reveal an eye made of crystal gleaming in Otabek’s palm. Otabek’s eyes widened at it

“Pretty… and strange,” Yuuri mumbled. The unsettling X-files theme ran through his head. However, his eyes quickly flicked down to the dragons. “H-how long are they sticking around?” Snakes frightened him, and these Kazakh dragons looked a lot more dangerous than those.

Before Otabek could answer, both dragons showed their small but numerous small fangs at him. The dragon who’d puked earlier glared and let out a hissy snarl. “Give it back! It’s mine!” a childish voice squeaked. It sprung up at him with jaws spread, teeth digging into Otabek’s wrist.

Yuuri hollered in surprise, throwing his lunchbox down at the aidahar and springing backward for dear life. The creature wailed at being hit. He heard his lunchbox clatter to the ground, but he looked away from the scene, cringing back from whatever retaliation the aidahar had in store for him. When nothing came, he ventured to peek out. He quickly fixed his glasses and saw dark blood streaming all over Otabek’s hand.

“Oh no!” Yuuri said. Panic rushed through him. His eyes raced from the downed aidahar wailing thick infantile tears,, then up to the wound on Otabek’s hand.

A pulse sounded audibly in the cavern.

“Be still,” Otabek whispered in Kazakh. He stared at the ground, long black hair framing his face. How he hadn’t moved or flinched was beyond Yuuri.

“Otabek,” Yuuri gasped. “Otabek…?” The lunchbox, with the plate rock inside, had hit the dragon in the head and yanked it off his hand. The wailing creature fled back to its comrade, who hadn’t said a thing the entire time and was actually backing away, further around the curve of the meteorite..

“Are you--?” Yuuri couldn’t finish his sentence once he finally saw Otabek’s face.

Otabek’s eyes were completely black. They stared at him, following him up when he straightened from the frightened crouch he’d been in. Yuuri felt his blood turn cold.

“Yuuri. Run.” Each word came out deliberate. Otabek turned his hand over to show the jeweled eye. Its elaborate painted lines all glowed red. The gleam spread infectiously to the wound. “It’s chosen me as a conduit.” Otabek’s voice cracked.

Yuuri tripped over his own shoes in alarm. Otabek was scaring the shit out of him. “What does that mean?” Fuck, he tried not to wail. Where the hell was his sledgehammer? Did it even work against spirits? Yuuri glanced to the wall where he’d rested it last, and turned back to check on Otabek. The man’s furs no longer looked like clothes. They darkened, blending together, bulking out.

“It… belongs to--Koyanshyk!” A swear tore through him. “Belongs to … a great spirit… and it acti-acti-activaarroooOOARGHHH,” Otabek’s words disintegrated into an animalistic sound. He brayed as his hair was lengthened before Yuuri’s eyes, roiling in black waves down his front. “Пиздец, I can’t control this one!!” he managed to spit out before he roared once more. A shadow fell upon Otabek’s face. He staggered, bending double until the blackness swallowing him whole.

The great spirit took his friend’s place. Yuuri gaped in horror as the black mass stood completely upright at four meters high. No way. I can’t do anything against this. Even if he grabbed the sledgehammer, he couldn’t risk hurting Otabek inside that thing. I have to run. Except he knew that thing would intercept him to the ledges.

The jeweled eye emerged at the top, and four completely white eyes opened once it stood totally upright.

“The thief lingers…” It spoke with such malignance, Yuuri’s whole body shuddered.

“I am not a thief!” he protested. “Two aidahar came--.” The monster rounded on him and with no aidahar in sight to blame, Yuuri floundered.

“An insect like you dares speak to the Hero of Kazakhstan?” A deep voice interrupted straight into Yuuri’s head. Its scathingness made him flinch, but his spine straightened afterward, even if his leaden legs wouldn’t.

“You’re not the Hero. Otabek is,” he replied before he could stop himself.

“I am he,” snarled the deep voice.

The spirit was utterly dark, as dark as the nothingness of space, save for the four narrowed eyes fixed down upon Yuuri. The jewel hovered at the very top of him, where a forehead would be on a man or beast. It glowed, just as the four eyes glowed, but none of the light fell upon its wearer’s skin. All of Yuuri’s experience through science fiction books told him that was the source of all this shit.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

“Y-you’re not!” he yelled back at it. He groped behind his back, found the ice-cold hammer head, and drew it close. “Now you’ve swallowed my friend. Give Otabek back please.” Yuuri eyed the ground to measure the distance between him and the darkness.

“Friend?” A brutal laugh tore through the word. “The Hero has no need for those. He is neither human nor spirit. We transcend you maggots.”

With another snarl, the mass crouched over and lunged at Yuuri. Its posture was that of a predator. Yuuri was used to his shitty eyes giving him visibility issues but this spirit’s lack of definition really took the cake. Turning the hard head away, Yuuri shoved the wooden end out. The spirit swung at it before it could sink in, and the wood exploded into fragments. Splinters tore into Yuuri’s right hand but he had no time to register the pain there once the spirit was fully upon him.

Pressure squeezed hard upon Yuuri’s body. He did not feel the thing sitting on him or pinning him physically, but it forced him hard onto stone nonetheless. His winter hat cushioned his head slightly, his glasses askew as the monster pushed its eyes near his.

“Being a poor thief and a poor liar makes you fat enough to become Oirandau’s prey,” it hissed.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. Let us go,” Yuuri sniffled. His head hurt awfully.

Without warning, a flame burst in front of Yuuri’s glasses and smote Oirandau. The spirit roared in surprise, turning away from his face. In that moment of weakness, a brown-skinned elbow slid out of the black mass. Yuuri let out a high-pitched gasp and grabbed it, tugging it, yanking it.

“Otabek!” he cried.

The creature turned its eyes back down on him. Yuuri felt that heavy pressure close around his throat, but still he held onto Otabek’s arm. “Do not presume the Hero has business with prey like you,” it snarled. “Heroic duty is to the land, not to thieves. Water stealers, desert makers, hate bringers.” Every insult was punctuated with the sensation of pins and needles digging into his shoulders. “First, you will disappear….” Yuuri’s breathing became harder. “then the others will follow too.”

I don’t want to die. Yuuri had never wished on a star in emergencies (unless final exams counted…) but he was desperate. I know I wish on you all the time, but Nikiforov… please… help… Otabek…

#Yuri on Ice #Katsuki Yuuri #Otabek Altin #Phichit Chulanont #my writings

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