#what prompted all of this: i was trying to do my linguistics homework and i made it about an hour in coming up with faulty hypotheses

[arthur-r]

genuinely how does someone succeed in college when you’re so terrified of being incorrect or looking stupid that you can’t even say anything to begin with???? i was trying to go into this year brave and everything but i’ve already been laughed at multiple times by a class full of people older and scarier than me and i already feel like i’m being judged and underestimated for so many reasons that i don’t want to give anyone another reason to look at me that way. but it’s gotten to the point (in the less than one week that classes have been in session; maybe it’s always been at the point) where i’m failing to submit assignments because i know that my teacher is going to see it and think i’m stupid, and never listen to me again, and i’m going to lose all the credibility that i’m trying so desperately to hold onto. and i know from a logical standpoint that it’s the teacher’s job to meet people where they’re at and lift them up from there, but honestly is that much even true anymore?? isn’t college about figuring out who has what it takes and who is going to get left behind???? why did i enroll in fucking honors classes of course i can’t do this???? i’m really not feeling well and i stayed in tonight and missed dinner and i miss home and i miss being able to talk to my friends and not be actively ruining my future. i feel like i’m always good until i’m not, and i don’t realize i need help until i’m too far in and by the time i get it, i won’t need it anymore but i’ll have ruined everything back when things were worse. i’m isolating from my roommate (who hates me because he thinks i hate him) and losing every friend i’ve started to make at the same time as i’m losing all the real friendships that i already have. and my roommate is across the room right now as i’m quietly fucking crying. and i want to go home and i want to be safe. and why is everything so unfamiliar and simple and wretchedly complicated.

#im really not feeling well. i want to go home and im not used to that at all #i miss my little sister. i miss my teachers and i miss my friends. im not used to this #what prompted all of this: i was trying to do my linguistics homework and i made it about an hour in coming up with faulty hypotheses #and i realized that far of the way through. that the only dialects i’m fucking familiar with are all fucking variations of north central #‘whoa somebody talks similar in anchorage as they do in taylor’s falls?? it must signify a deep linguistic thread traceable over generations #they’re just both right next to fucking canada???? of course they fucking sound similar???? the fact that i don’t know anyone from the east #or the south and even the people i know in the west are still the same fucking thing we all talk the fucking same #i know village english that’s a little fucking interesting but it’s not like i have any INSIGHT i don’t KNOW anything!!!! #told my french teacher i’m learning latin he asked me if it’s fucking ecclesiastical because once you’re in college it’s just normal i guess #i just feel like. yes i’m here because some part of me stood out from my peers. but in this group of special people?? i’m nothing!!!! #so i’m really struggling. and i want a hug and i wish things were different. i want to be here but i don’t feel like i deserve it #and i’m not going to get anything done if i keep feeling like this #i dont know. i hope everyone is doing well. sorry for the extra stress it’s just really difficult and strange #i hope everyone has a good night - i’m heading to bed soon #me. my post. mine. #friends only #vent cw #delete later #and everyone here speaks fcuking MANDARIN or something and all of a sudden my five years of french feels fucking basic. #kids who have been in advanced programs since birth. the imposter syndrome is fucking PALPABLE!!!! i want to go home and i want to forget #okay i’m done. im done!!!! everything is fine. hope everyone is well

[khuns]

who else is there to love but you; a khunbaam au

He tastes like Baam has always thought of and more, lips slotting into Baam’s the way he has slotted himself into the space between Baam’s heartbeats, and Baam isn’t sure if he ever wants Khun to pull away.

“Come on, Baam, it’s our graduation. It’s the last time any of us are gonna have time to travel before we settle into jobs and fall victim to the monotony of everyday li-“

A snort crackles through the speaker, and Hatz’s voice rings clear, “Speak for yourself, Isu. Some of us still can’t find jobs-“

A jostle over the phone, then: “-anyway, as I was saying, it’s just one last hurrah before we officially start adulting. Please just say yes, Baam, nearly everyone else has agreed-“

Baam sighs and sets down his pencil. It’s literally the week of finals; every time he rubs his eyes he sees syntax trees tattooed on the inside of his eyelids. How does Isu expect him to make big decisions when his entire brain is clouded with theta roles?

He opens his mouth, about to ask Isu to please just ask him when he gets back to their dorm room because his brain really can’t handle thinking about budgeting and accommodations, but Isu’s sly voice beats him to the punch. “Khun’s coming.”

Baam lets his head drop into his hands and groans.

Damn Shibisu.

-

The first time Baam meets Khun, Baam is splayed out on his stomach on Hatz’s kitchen floor, honey dripping from his hair.

The laughter on his tongue dies out; Isu stops flinging flour at where Hatz is crouched, taking cover.

Baam watches in dismay as the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life stands at Hatz’s doorway, mouth pressed into a thin line and eyes as hard as flint. The man’s fingers are still curled around the door handle as he surveys the mess before a clipped, “Hatz.”

He feels Hatz tensing up from where he’s knelt beside Baam, hands braced against the fine dusting of flour on the floor.

“I’ll make sure the kitchen is spotless,” Hatz bites out, tone frosty.

Baam’s eyes meet the man’s through a slow tangle of honey, and he can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine. Even backlit and haloed in the artificial hallway light, he reminds Baam of someone royal, hair pulled away from cheekbones high and regal and bangs barely covering eyes cool as glass.

An eternity stretches before the man breaks eye contact with him and makes out a curt nod, “Make sure you do.”

And then he’s gone, door locking behind him with a neat click.

Isu is the first to break the silence- “Fuck, Hatz, when you called to tell me your new roommate was an ass you didn’t say he was a beautiful one-“

“Shut the fuck up, he’s a royal pain in the ass, that’s why I called you to come over- “

“His eyes, Hatz, did you see them-“

“I hardly feel the need to look into the eyes of someone who pisses me off from day one-“

“You ask me to come over and make cookies for you, but you just neglect to mention how beautiful-“

“You saw for yourself, he’s so fucking pretentious - look, Isu, if you’ve done quite enough salivating over my arse of a roommate, do you mind helping your poor roommate up?”

Isu squeaks and slides through the flour to Baam’s side, “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Baam says. “Yeah, no, I’m alright.”

As Isu helps Baam pick himself off the floor and sends him into the bathroom to rinse out his hair, all Baam can think about is the man’s cool blue eyes and the way the image keeps sending his heart back up his throat.

-

It’s ten in the morning after his last final and Baam barely has time to stuff his duffel in the trunk when Rak calls shotgun.

It sets off a squabble between Hatz and Isu about who should drive and devolves into an argument over whether Rak can navigate (he cannot) and when Isu will even let anyone else drive his precious car (never).

There is a soft huff of amusement from where Khun is leaning on the side of the car, hands fiddling through what looks like a GPS, and Khun looks up at Baam, grinning. “We’ll never set off at this rate.”

“We’ll have to spend the first night back in our dorms and leave tomorrow instead,” Baam returns, biting back a smile. Khun laughs at that, his eyes sparkling through his bangs and curved into crescent moons, and Baam has to tamp down a familiar flare in his chest.

Keep it under control, he tells himself. It’s just a weeklong road trip, after which Khun will move somewhere in the big city for a job at his father’s company and Baam will move back home, despairing over what little job prospects a linguistics major brings. Useless crushes are just that, useless.

He watches as Khun pushes off from the side of the car and tosses the GPS to Isu. “Keyed in a place for lunch,” Khun grins as Isu squawks and fumbles to catch it, “Now you won’t need either of those two idiots up front.”

Hatz splutters indignantly and the rest of them just laugh, scrambling to get into the car so they can finally, finally get on their way and maybe get a decent cup of coffee.

(Rak, much to his disgruntlement, is relegated to the backseat, sandwiched between Khun and Baam.)

-

The second time Baam meets Khun, Baam neither is on the floor nor has any sticky substance in his hair (thankfully).

He knocks on Hatz’s door, ready to deliver Hatz’s notebook from where Hatz left it in Baam and Isu’s dorm room during an earlier study session.

(A ‘study session’, Baam has learnt, is just an excuse for Isu to bother his best friend into coming over to their room so they can talk about everything other than homework. Not that Baam minds, of course - conversations between Hatz and Isu flow like water, stories from their shared childhood spilling out as they try their best to embarrass each other in front of Baam.)

There’s a click as the door unlocks and Baam’s mouth opens, ready to remind Hatz that even though they only live just a few floors above him, it’s best not to leave his Physics notes behind ever again for Isu to doodle senselessly on, but when the door swings open, it’s Blue Eyes.

Oh.

“Looking for Hatz?” The man prompts, after a beat of silence. “He’s in the shower.”

Baam flushes and makes the conscious effort to shut his jaw. He holds Hatz’s notes out to Blue Eyes, “Hatz left this in my room earlier, could I leave this with you please?”

Blue Eyes raises an eyebrow at the dick drawn in Sharpie on Hatz’s notebook cover. He looks back up at Baam.

“It wasn’t me,” Baam blurts, suddenly anxious to inform Blue Eyes that no, he wasn’t the one childish enough to draw dicks onto other people’s notes. “My roommate and Hatz, they’re pretty close, I guess it’s their thing-“

He’s not sure why words are just tumbling out of his mouth, but Blue Eyes just snorts, corner of his mouth turning up in amusement. He takes the notebook from Baam and nods, “I’ll leave it on his desk.”

“Thank you...” Baam trails off, because for the life of him he absolutely cannot remember what Hatz has called his roommate other than ‘The Royal Ass’ and ‘That Fucking Asshole’. Neither of which, Baam is sure, Blue Eyes would like to be called.

“Thank you,” he manages, and turns to hightail it out of there before he embarrasses himself for the third time in a night.

“Hold on,” Blue Eyes says, and he waits until Baam fully turns back around to meet his gaze. “Who should I say left this for him?”

“I’m Baam.” Baam pauses, then tacks on, “From the twenty-fifth floor.”

“Alright, Baam-from-the-twenty-fifth-floor,” Blue Eyes says, and grins. “I’m Khun.”

Khun, Baam repeats all the way back up to his room, Khun. He tucks the name into the pocket of his cheek the way a child savours hard candy - Khun. Khun, Khun, Khun.

(Baam makes it all the way to the lift lobby before he realises that Khun has in fact cracked a dad joke, and when he tells Isu this Isu can’t seem to stop cackling.)

-

They stop for lunch at a cute diner at the edge of the city. The lights are dim and the booth seats are cracked, stuffing leaking out from where legs have over the years worn the leather down, but the food is warm and the coffee is strong and that’s all that matters.

“More coffee?” The sole waiter nudges Isu’s coffee cup with the jug.

Isu nods. Might as well, if he’s going to be driving for the rest of the day.

He takes a sip and leans back. Rak and Khun are arguing over routes, phones opened to Google Maps and fingers jabbing at the highways. Baam is listening intently to the road talk, slowly pulling the pickles out from his sandwich and setting them in a pile on the edge of his plate, ready for Khun to pick at later.

Isu smiles softly to himself as Rak leans over him to holler at Hatz. He’s glad they cobbled together this trip - it seems the perfect way to end four years of living together before they disperse and are only able to meet on weekends, or worse, every couple of months.

He’ll miss them, of course - if there’s one thing the university did right, it was their random roommate pairings freshman year. Isu’s heard horror stories of roommates going out partying and coming back to puke on rugs, but Baam clicked with him on all sorts of levels, from cleanliness to sleep schedules to taste in films, and it was only natural they applied to continue living together all four years.

And Hatz, despite his deep loathing of Khun during their first month rooming together, quickly warmed up to him too; they were both quiet and studious, were complete night owls and were quite alright with Isu coming to blabber their ears off every once in a while.

(Hatz also strenuously denies this, but after The Physics Lab Incident halfway through the first semester freshman year, Isu is pretty sure Hatz would follow Khun to the ends of the earth and back. And Hatz’s loyalty is hard-earned; he would know.)

Rak was a lucky happenstance in their second year, a constantly sexiled sophomore from across the hallway who more often than not ended up sleeping on their couch. When Isu found out Rak could make a mean beef stew, well? Isu adopted him into their little family straight away.

“What do you guys think?” Khun turns to his left, spearing a pickle off of Baam’s plate. Baam hums his approval and Isu shrugs. He hasn’t really been listening, but he trusts that Khun’s come up with a good route. If anything was weird, Rak and Baam would have pointed it out anyway.

“Doesn’t matter to me where we go,” Hatz says around a full mouth of fries, “As long as we make it to the hotel tonight.”

“Alright then,” Isu says, brushing crumbs off his shirt, “Where has the Great Rak and Khun planned to bring us next?”

“The Museum of Turtles.”

Rak is grinning so broadly Isu can’t help himself - he laughs.

-

The third time Baam meets Khun, it’s for dinner with Hatz and Isu.

They’re crowded around a table heavy with pizza Hatz must have grabbed on the way back from class. It’s somewhat towards the middle of their first semester - Khun and Hatz must be getting pretty close if Hatz has invited him to eat with them. So much for Hatz’s obstinate declaration that he’d never be friends with someone “that stuck-up”.

“-completely winded because as I said, I fell on my fucking back, and the crazy girl goes, “Oh my god, you’re looking up my skirt!” Like, I’m the one you knocked over literally half a second ago and you’re accusing me of looking at your ugly ass?! How fucking ridiculous is that?” Hatz waves his slice of pizza in the air, pepperoni somehow clinging to the cheese by sheer force of will.

Baam winces in sympathy. He’s not sure what he would have done in Hatz’s place. Maybe die.

“Then Khun - bless Khun - leans over from his bench and says- oh man, I think you better tell this part-“

Khun huffs and wipes his mouth. He sets his half-eaten slice back down, eyes sparkling with mirth, and continues, “So I’m quietly working on this stupid Physics lab sheet when I hear this idiot fall flat on his ass behind me and when I turn around to laugh at him-“

There’s something that resembles a protest from Hatz but it’s covered by Isu’s guffaw.

“-his lab partner looks like she’s about to scream bloody murder to the whole class so I lean over and - see, ordinarily I’d just laugh at Hatz and turn back but this was the girl who looks down on Hatz because she saw that his textbook was second-hand, and more importantly, she insulted my earrings once-“

“Your earrings! How dare she!” Isu is cackling even louder.

“Right?” Khun smirks, and Baam thinks his heart skips a beat, “Anyway, I lean over and I go, “Oh, sweetheart, you’ve fallen again,” and Hatz is on the floor looking at me like I’m some kind of fool instead of his damn roommate trying to get him out of trouble, so I have to tack on, “Sorry, my boyfriend is such a klutz, he’s always bumping into things. And don’t worry about him looking anywhere at you, he’s not interested.” The look on both their faces, priceless-“

“Boyfriend!” Isu howls, pounding the table, “Straight-as-an-arrow Hatz! Boyfriend!”

Hatz grins, “Whatever, you idiot, you missed the best part - then Khun says to her, “Not that there’s much to see anyway!” Oh man, her face must have been some seven shades of purple-” This sets all of them off and as their laughter dies down Baam is pretty sure if he laughs anymore his cheeks might just split in half.

But through his bangs he sees Khun looking, looking at him, and he instantly flushes. He reaches for another slice of pizza, just for his hands to have something to do, but he brushes against something cool and sees Khun retracting his own hand. Khun gestures for him to go ahead, eyes fixed on him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, then as an afterthought, “Thanks.”

Khun’s smile is absolutely blinding.

-

Baam hums happily, flicking through photos from the museum exhibit. They were nearly kicked out for being completely obnoxious, yes, but he got the absolute best photos and he knows Isu has more.

“We’re nearly there,” Rak says from where he’s finally wrangled shotgun. Sure enough, Isu turns into the gravel driveway of a small hotel.

Hatz is the first to tumble out of the car, stretching and nearly knocking Baam in the face. It’s been quite a ride from the museum to the hotel, including a boisterous karaoke session, and Baam can’t wait to check in and dump their stuff so they can grab dinner.

“Bad news, y’all,” Isu says, not even ten minutes later. “They have two rooms, but they’re all big beds instead of those individual ones. Hatz and I can take one - we shared beds during sleepovers - but two of y’all have to take a bed and someone has to take the cot.”

Rak, of course, lays claim on the cot instantly. “I kick in my sleep,” he points out, and everyone groans. He does.

Baam nods, but realises with a sinking feeling-

“That leaves Baam with Khun, then,” Isu says, satisfied. He shoots Baam a barely-veiled triumphant look as he hands him a key card and Baam can’t help but flush. This is a terrible, terrible idea, and Isu is a terrible, terrible friend.

He nearly groans in despair when they finally head to the rooms - even with the bed taking up most of the space, it looks barely big enough for two.

Khun clears his throat.

“I can take the floor,” Baam blurts. He doesn’t want to make Khun uncomfortable. With his luck, there’d be some sort of accident in the night and... he’d rather just take the floor and nap in the car tomorrow.

Khun glances sharply at him. “Don’t be silly, you’re going to ache all over tomorrow. We’ll just, you know, set boundaries.”

Baam thinks about the photo Isu once took of him starfishing all over his own bed and clinging to his pillow like a lifeline. Boundaries. “Um,” he says. “Um.”

“Fantastic.” Khun says, already dropping his duffel on one side of the bed.

Fantastic.

--

Khun eventually loses track of the number of times he meets Baam. It seems like he’s always there whenever Isu comes downstairs to go bother Hatz, or whenever Hatz pulls them all outside for dinner.

(Not that Khun minds, of course - Baam is... interesting. Khun refuses to explore why.)

He ends up seeing Baam outside of the dorm too, sometimes waving to each other across the street between classes. It’s not until Hatz pulls all their schedules together to find a time to go cake-shopping for Isu’s birthday that Khun realises they share a lunch time most days.

Baam volunteers to get the cake the day before Isu’s birthday, since Hatz has classes until late. Which doesn’t quite make sense to Khun, since they agreed on hiding the cake from Isu in Hatz’s and Khun’s room anyway, so he makes an executive decision to join him.

He leans against the wall, picking at his nails, until he hears shuffling from inside the classroom. A few minutes later, Baam emerges from his Phonology class,  scarf tucked messily around his neck.

He raises his hand in a half-wave, and waits for Baam to make his way over.

“Heard from Hatz you’re going to pick Isu’s cake out and thought I’d come with,” Khun says in lieu of greeting, and Baam beams at him.

“Great! We can put it in your fridge right after.”

“Exactly why I came,” Khun returns easily, but it seems like the wrong thing to say - the light in Baam’s eyes shutters a little, but before Khun can think about what he said, Baam’s hitched his backpack a little higher and takes the lead out of the linguistics building, waving goodbye at the security guard.

Huh.

He scrambles to catch up, long legs bringing him back up to speed with Baam easily. “I’m thinking chocolate?”

“Isu only ever eats chocolate cake,” Baam informs him, and flashes him a smile. “The only time I ever get to eat a full slice is when I get strawberry or some other fruit flavour.”

“Strawberry? Good taste,” Khun offers, and Baam’s beam returns.

If Khun waits by the exit of Baam’s phonology class the next week just to see that beam again, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

-

Time melts into months, and Khun and Baam’s weekly lunches melt into nearly daily lunches.

Sometimes Khun stops by the linguistics building to wait for Baam to end class; sometimes Baam finds himself waiting outside their agreed-upon dining hall before Khun shows up, waving goodbye to one friend or another.

Khun’s relatively popular, Baam thinks, until Khun corrects him one day with a, “No, it’s just that business majors have to network a lot. I expect we’ll either end up being employed by each other or buying up each other’s businesses ten years down the road.” He laughs at the mildly terrified look on Baam’s face.

Baam tells Khun about the calculus class he’s been forced to take for his math requirement, and Khun gripes about having to take a Physics class to fulfill his science requirements even though he’s a business major. Conversation flows easier than Baam expects, and the more he talks to Khun the smoother it flows.

He learns about how Khun is a business major because he’s expected to take over the family business. He learns about how Khun is interested in a Computer Science minor because he’s convinced the future of the world lies in tech, and Khun learns how Baam might be taking a Psychology minor because he just wants to learn more about the people around him.

Baam learns how Khun talks with his hands, long fingers swirling and jabbing as he maunders around his point. He learns how Khun’s laughs runs from derisive chuckles to laughter as bright as moonlight on icicles. He learns how Khun would rather carry around a hair tie than have to go to the barber’s every two months, and Khun learns, after an incident where his hair tie snaps and he can’t lean forward without getting hair in his soup, that Baam has taken to carrying a spare one around for him.

Baam learns how Khun takes his iced coffee with milk but no sugar, and Khun learns about how Baam’s favourite boba order is lychee green tea. Baam learns about the way Khun doesn’t really believe in dating for fun, not since he watched his sister run away from home with a boy and come back, badly bruised and begging to be loved again as though her family would have ever given up on her the same way that boy did. And Khun learns Baam is a hopeless romantic, and laughs at the way Baam flushes while admitting he believes in love at first sight.

They talk and talk, and as November melts away and Khun introduces Baam to someone as his best friend, Baam grins and feels as though he’s known Khun all his life.

(“It seems as though,” Isu remarks to Hatz one day, “instead of Khun-and-Hatz and Isu-and-Baam, we’ve become Isu-and-Hatz and Khun-and-Baam.”

Hatz throws a pen at his head. “We’ve always been Hatz-and-Isu, you fool. Ever since I saved you on the playground-“

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you swapped the order of our names, you bitch!“)

-

They’re settling in for the night, Hatz and Isu on the bed and Rak on the fold-out cot.

Rak is tapping away on his phone, setting his multitude of alarms for the next morning, but Hatz doesn’t bother. He’s sure Isu will shake him awake somehow.

He wrestles a good amount of blanket away from Isu’s octopus grasp, and gets ready to close his eyes when Isu suddenly says, “We really need an intervention.”

Hatz frowns. Did he take too much blanket?

“About Khun and Baam.”

Oh. Isu kicks all the covers off in his sleep anyway.

“Khun prides himself on how perceptive he is,” Isu is saying, “But it’s really stupid how he hasn’t cottoned on about Baam.”

Rak bursts out laughing. “We’ve has this conversation before, yes.”

“It’s so slow burn it feels like one of those frog-in-hot-water kind of stories, you know? One of them makes a move, but the other thinks it’s just bros being bros, one of them slips up but the other blames it on fucking Mercury in retrograde or whatever-“

Hatz snorts, “Pretty sure neither of them believe in astrology-“

“Point is, they practically orbit around each other and everyone, everyone, sees that but them. I mean, have you seen the way Baam picks food he doesn’t like off of his meals and Khun just straight up swipes it off of his plate, no questions? Who does that? Every time I swipe food from Rak he threatens to kill me-“

“It’s because you swipe the food I like, you stupid turtle-“

“Anyway, I pointed it out to Baam once and you know what he said? You know what he said?” Isu rubs his hand across his face. “He blinked and said he didn’t even notice! He doesn’t even remember when they started doing it! Khun does the exact same thing and you know how he hates people touching his food! I tried picking carrots off of Khun’s plate last month because I know he always sets his carrots aside and he fucking hit me so hard with his fork I bruised!”

Hatz hears the slight whine in Isu’s voice and finds himself suddenly unable to hold bubbles of laughter in. It’s ridiculous, it really is, four years of Khun being the absolute softest for Baam and Baam not noticing, and he hears Rak’s low rumble of laughter from Isu’s other side.

“The worst thing,” Isu says over their laughter, “is that you know Khun’s the type of person to not do anything if it might put his friendships in danger. Bet you he thinks Baam doesn’t like him like that.” That sobers them up pretty quickly.

“And you know what the absolute kicker is?” Isu’s voice is quieter now, as Hatz’s and Rak’s laughter die down. “Baam won’t do anything about it because - and I know this for a fact - the fool thinks the same.”

Rak groans and rolls over. “We really need to do something before everyone moves home, huh.”

“Damn right we do.”

(They don’t manage to figure out any sort of concrete plan before Rak drops asleep, but Hatz and Isu agree in the vaguest sort of way that Something Must Be Done, Even If We Don’t Know What.)

-

When their very first set of finals are over, Isu insists on dragging everyone out for drinks.

They find themselves in a small, dimly-lit pub a short walk away from their dorm, teeming with college students temporarily freed from the shackles and chains of higher education. It’s loud and it feels like there are too many people than there should be on a snowy weekday night, but Isu snags them a table and leaves them there to guard it while he goes to grab their first round.

Khun leans across the table, “How were your finals?”

“Glad they’re over,” Hatz says, unwinding his scarf. “I never want to see a physics formula again. How were yours?”

Khun shrugs. “Same about that physics requirement, I suppose. But we’re taking statistics together next semester, right?”

Baam looks up. “Which professor? I’m taking statistics too.” He’d like to take a class with friends, he thinks, and a small flame blooms in his chest at the thought. Friends.

Cheesy as it is, he’s glad he’s come out of his freshman semester with a group of friends to call his own.

“-Yoo, I think,” Hatz is saying, “The Monday and Wednesday morning one.”

“Neat,” Baam grins. “The three of us can study together then?”

“I leave to get drinks and you’re already plotting to take a class without me?” Isu plops a tray down on their table, sounding more amused than affronted.

“You’re the engineering major,” Hatz points out, but Isu waves him away.

“Enough school talk,” Isu says, and raises an eyebrow. “Let’s talk about more fun things.”

Isu’s idea of fun things, apparently, includes a list of get-to-know-you questions, and he grills each and every one of them as if he’s about to have a final on the details of his friends’ lives.

“-past relationships in three words, go.”

Hatz winces, “She… wanted… fencer?“ Isu groans at Hatz’s poor summary, then gestures for Baam.

“Um,” Baam says. “She… wanted better.” Not technically true, he thinks, but that’s as clean as he can get to describing Rachel without prying open a can of worms he had trouble closing in the first place.

Isu pats his hand in sympathy, “One of those, huh? One of my exes dumped me because he had his sights on something higher too. I’ll go for the other one then… his gay experiment.”

Hatz hisses at that, and drains the rest of his beer. “Deserved every last punch I gave him.”

Isu laughs, light and hollow and carefully wiped of emotion, and the sound, emptier than the thud of Hatz’s glass on the table, rings in Baam’s ears. He’s glad Hatz was there to dole out the hits all those years ago, because tipsy on three whole glasses of beers, he’s ready to go out and start a new fight himself.

Isu gestures for Khun’s turn, but Khun’s eyes are on Baam. His gaze has a sort of scrutinising air, as though he’s trying to figure something out, and Baam feels his scowl disappear and a tremble run under his skin.

“I don’t believe in dating,” Khun says, after a measure of silence, and Baam’s heart gives a soft thud from where it has sunk somewhere near the floor.

He isn’t sure why he’s disappointed; he’s known about it ever since Khun told him about his sister, of course, and he’s not even sure what he’s hoping for - they’re great friends and it’s already more than Baam could ask for. Khun is kind and smart and pays attention to the people around him and he has a sort of determined dedication that Baam has never quite figured out how to instil in himself. And even if Khun was up for dating, Baam thinks, he’d be too many leagues above Baam; just in the time they’ve been sat down, there have been countless looks thrown at their table, soft giggles about the boy with the messy blue ponytail and eyes like sapphires, quiet and not-so-quiet whispers daring each other to go up and talk to him.

None of them have, though. It’s just something about the way Khun’s eyes have never wandered from their table that has kept everyone away.

“-couldn’t press charges against him,” Khun is saying. The napkin between his fingers has been torn to shreds, and Baam wants nothing more than to be able to curl his hand around Khun’s in comfort without the tug in his heart begging for more.

He keeps his hands to himself.

“Well, I thought I was the most miserable story, but fuck,” Isu says, and stands up. “I’m going to get another round.”

He comes back with a tray full of soju bottles, and they end up drinking all the way through Isu’s list of silly questions.

They learn that Hatz would name his hypothetical bunny General McHoppers, and that Khun would rather fight a duck-sized horse than a horse-sized duck. Baam can’t remember if they decided on hot dogs being tacos or sandwiches on their way out of the pub, but somewhere along the way his gloves have been fumbled onto his hands and his beanie jammed onto his head.

Isu has his arm around Hatz, talking a mile a minute about how the flat earth theory could theoretically be true while Hatz is struggling to support his weight. Baam could laugh at the way Isu’s stumbling, but come to think of it, he isn’t so sure about the structural integrity of his own legs.

He feels an arm slide around his waist and a laugh, low and breathy in his ear. He shivers at the sound and the way it feels so achingly close he could just turn and- he decides to blame it on the wind chill.

“You’re a lightweight,” Khun accuses. There’s a ribbon of a laugh in his voice and Baam mutters out a stubborn, “I’m not,” that goes unheeded.

“So when are you coming back?” Khun asks, voice light and conversational. “We can probably do something together before winter break is over and the next semester starts.”

Baam squints at him, as though it will make Khun’s voice amplify through the cotton wool of his brain. “Mm not leaving for break,” he says carefully. “Staying here.”

Maybe taking phonology was a good idea, Baam thinks. Makes his enunciation clearer and all that. Maybe Khun will stop thinking he’s drunk and unhand him.

Khun just snorts, and if anything, his hold on Baam gets tighter. His voice is tinged with amusement as he leans closer, lips brushing Baam’s ear. “You are drunk,” Khun informs him, “and you’re saying all your thoughts out loud.”

Baam flushes and immediately clams up. That’s enough thinking and thoughts for tonight, he decides, and is rewarded with a silver peal of Khun’s laughter.

-

Khun tosses and turns.

There’s no reason why he can’t sleep - the curtains are drawn and Baam’s breathing is even and quiet. He can only imagine the storm coming from Rak just next door.

Khun groans quietly. This is the worst time for his insomnia to act up - they’re planning to go to an amusement park tomorrow and damn if he’s going to be tired through all the fun.

He gropes blindly about until he finds his phone. Isu and Baam sent photos from the museum earlier; he might as well use this time to go through them and save them.

He thumbs through them quickly. Most of them are shots of Rak staring open-mouthed at the exhibits, but there are some silly shots of them looking absolutely ridiculous.

There’s a mirror shot with all of them crouching in front of four huge turtle shells, with Rak standing in the middle, cackling his head off about them finally being “turtles”. Isu’s holding the phone and yelling at them to stop squirming and to please align themselves so they all show up at the correct angle in the mirror or god so help me, my arms are gonna fucking fall off. The photo is slightly blurry with his efforts and Khun can almost hear Hatz’s helpless giggles ringing through the photo.

His thumb stills.

Picture-Baam’s arm is half-raised, fingers coming up to brush away his bangs, and picture-Khun’s arm is slung over his shoulders. PIcture-Baam’s eyes are crinkled up, mid-laugh, smile bright and golden as sunflowers and not quite as radiant as Khun knows it is in real life, but radiant all the same.

And picture-Khun is looking at him, smile soft and head slightly bowed, eyes brimming an emotion Khun does not yet know how to describe.

His thumb swipes to save the photo before he realises it, and there is a flash of an idea about setting it as his wallpaper before he is distracted by a sleepy snuffle. By the light of his phone he sees Baam spread out on his side of the bed, face-down on his pillow.

Khun frowns. There’s no way that’s good for respiration.

He reaches over and gently tugs on the pillow, enough so that Baam has to shifts his head to accommodate for the change but not enough that it wakes him up. He waits until Baam resettles, head tilted and eyelashes brushing his cheek. His mouth is slightly open, lips soft and parted, and Khun is dimly aware of the urge to brush Baam’s hair away from where it is falling across his face.

Beautiful.

The word springs, unbidden, to his mind and he freezes.

Baam. Baam, with the biggest heart of anyone he knows. Baam, with his thoughtful smile and easy laugh and the quiet way in which he lights up the room.

Baam, with the way he finishes Khun’s sentences and laughs at all of Khun’s stupid puns, with the way he understands Khun without either of them having to exchange a word, with the way his loyalty to his friends is fierce and burns with the heat of a thousand suns. Baam, with the way he fits, just right, into Khun’s side, like two hands made to hold.

Baam, with all his kindness and his constancy and his optimism and all of his warmth.

Baam, his best friend.

Khun breathes out shakily, puts his phone down, knots his fingers together, and wills himself to go to sleep.

--

Baam yanks his chair out from his desk. He’s sopping wet and his bangs keep dripping in his eyes and his goddamn bag is soaked and he feels that awful discomfort of clothes sticking to his skin and really, all he wants to do is take a warm shower and curl into his bed and forget this day ever happened.

“Your mood,” Isu remarks from his bed, “seems to be absolutely foul.”

“You think?” Baam snarls.

Isu blinks, then shuts his laptop. “Wanna talk about it?”

Got caught in the rain, he wants to say. Got called out in class to answer a question about the reading I didn’t do. Got leered at by some creep on the street. But everything is stuck on the top of his tongue, dwarfed by a bigger truth threatening to slip out.

Got stood up for lunch by Khun again.

“Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen,” Isu says, voice soft and gaze even softer.

Just like that, Baam feels the angry knot in his chest loosen, gently unwound by the unquestioning kindness in Isu’s voice. He lets his backpack tumble to his chair, then sinks, wet clothes and all, onto the floor.

He opens his mouth, intending to apologise for snapping at Isu, but all that slips out is a sob.

Immediately Isu is on his knees, hugging him tight and cradling Baam’s head. Baam tries to bat him off, tries to say through a nose full of snot, I’m getting your clothes drenched with rainwater, but Isu just swipes Baam’s bangs away from his forehead and hugs him again.

“Go take a warm shower,” Isu says, “I’ll make tea, and you can tell me what happened.”

Baam nods, and Isu herds him off the floor and into their bathroom.

He tries to get his shit together in the shower, and emerges ten minutes later, red-eyed and sniffly-nosed, to Isu’s promised cup of tea. It takes five minutes for him to gloss through the shit-show that was class, then another five for him to meander around the topic of Khun.

Isu leans back, finally. “You were meant to meet Khun for lunch, but he stood you up and you’re upset because it’s the second time this week he’s done it without warning.”

“I mean... yes, but now that you put it like that, it sounds like such a stupid reason to be upset, I sound so stupidly clingy-“ Baam falters.

“Do you know why he didn’t show up?”

Baam looks down at the chip in his mug. It fits the shape of his fingernail exactly, almost as if he could have, at one point, dug his fingernails in so deep he chipped the mug himself.

“Yeah,” Baam says at last, “He was meeting his partner for their marketing project.”

“The marketing genius? The one he’s been nattering on about for the past two weeks?”

Baam swallows the bitter taste in his mouth that really has no reason to be there. There’s an uncomfortable knot in his throat, and he sighs. “The first time, I waited twenty minutes before I called and he picked up and apologised for losing track of time because he was talking to her. Which is fine, you know, we all do it.”

“And this time?”

“Called a couple times but he didn’t even pick up the phone. And it was raining, so I thought he might have been trying to wait out the rain and lost battery or something, or maybe something important popped up, so I ran through the rain to the business building to look for him, but he was just standing in the lobby of the building talking to his project partner and laughing with her and-“ Suddenly there’s a lump in his throat that he can’t speak around, and he falls silent.

It’s so stupid, he thinks. He’s acting like a spoilt child, crying because he doesn’t have someone’s undivided attention. It’s so, so stupid that he thought he had a monopoly on Khun’s time, that he thought he was so important that-

“It sounds,” Isu says carefully, “like you’re upset that he didn’t respect your time, and that he temporarily held time with his project partner in higher regard than time with you. Combined with the rest of your day, it’s understandable that it’d be a last straw.” He’s squinting at Baam, as though he doesn’t expect to be right, as though he expects there to be something more but can’t quite put his finger on what it is.

Baam nods at him anyway, but there’s an unsavoury, wiggling feeling at the bottom of his stomach that laughs at that.

If it wasn’t Khun, you wouldn’t have minded as much, it taunts him. If it was Hatz, you’d have just brushed it off as his scatterbrain and just waited out the rain. But it was something about seeing Khun with that girl that made you so upset you had to run home in the rain, wasn’t it? I think you’re-

“You’re jealous,” Isu says, slight incredulity colouring his tone as he arrives as the same conclusion. He rocks back in his chair slightly, and repeats, “My god, you’re jealous.”

Baam chokes. He briefly considers denying Isu’s scarily accurate mind-reading, but his head is so, so heavy, and there’s a tiny bloom of relief now that the nasty knot in his throat has finally been given a name.

He lets his head hit the table, and his question comes out more like a smothered whine. “How do I make it stop?”

He feels Isu’s fingers tap along the table as he works out the answer to Baam’s question.

“You’re acting like you’ve just got your heart broken,” Isu says, after a while. “I think that should tell you something.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Baam says, protest dulled and muffled. “I’m not.”

Isu remains silent.

“I’m not,” Baam insists. “He’s my best friend.”

He waits for the familiar bloom of pride he gets whenever Khun introduces him to someone as his best friend, but the words ‘best friend’ no longer taste like they used to.

“He’s my best friend,” he says again. As the words leave his mouth, Baam no longer quite knows who it is that he’s insisting to.

(Khun knocks on his door that night to apologise. Baam takes a deep breath and they both ignore his red eyes and pretend nothing ever happened.)

-

Baam shifts. It’s warm under the blanket and really, if someone could turn that fucking alarm off and let him sleep a couple more minutes, it’d be great.

There’s a slight shift behind him, and a small whine comes from the crook of his neck.

Baam freezes, suddenly more awake. There’s a heavy, warm sort of weight around his waist and a cool press against his calves. He doesn’t dare open his eyes to see what they might be.

This can’t be happening, he tells himself, then nearly laughs aloud. Of course it’s a dream, Baam thinks. His unconscious must have lifted something out of all the things he’s never allowed himself to consider, much less daydream about, and stuffed them all into a dream-

Lips brush the back of his neck and Baam’s mind stops working.

He’s sure his heart is thumping loud enough to wake Khun up, but Khun just mumbles against his neck again, whispers of a breath making Baam’s hair stand on end. “The alarm-“

He feels Khun still. Stars burn and burst and civilisations rise and fall in the spaces between Baam’s heartbeats. He can almost hear the cogs in Khun’s brain turning, and he’s so busy trying to keep his heart still and his breathing even that he thinks he imagines the barest press of lips on the back of his neck before Khun pulls away.

He nearly whimpers at the loss of contact, but Khun has already shut off the infernal alarm and is shaking him awake, hand warm against his shoulder.

Khun’s voice is rough with sleep and something else as he tells Baam to get up and get dressed for breakfast. Baam tries not to think about it.

-

Isu is convinced Baam just needs to go out more and meet people that don’t live with him and are not Khun.

Baam disagrees.

He doesn’t understand why Isu is squeezed onto his bed next to him, flicking through Tinder and showing him faces that frankly, look nothing close to Khun’s. “I’m not interested in dating anyone,” Baam mutters for the fourth time.

“You’re not interested in dating anyone that isn’t Khun,” Isu corrects. He swipes left a couple times, then frowns. “How about this one?”

Baam groans, and shoves him lightly. “Get off my bed, Isu, your bed is literally three feet away.”

“You can’t see faces on this screen from three feet away-“

“I don’t want to-“

“Listen, Baam, you want to get over Khun? Go on some dates. Seven billion people on this earth and you think that blue shrimp is The One?”

“I don’t think he’s anything, he’s just my best friend-“ Baam falters under Isu’s withering look. He has to admit that even to himself, his repeated denials have sounded particularly pathetic as of late.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Isu says finally, setting his phone down. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and frankly? It reminds me of the way I used to look at Hatz.”

Baam’s eyes widen. “Hatz?! But-“

Isu waves him away. “Briefly thought I fancied him way back in ninth grade. Had a whole dramatic little crisis about pining after my straight best friend too, it was a nightmare for my mum.”

“And then what happened?” Baam’s voice is smaller than he intends.

Isu snorts, tipping his head back and letting it hit the wall, “Then I went on a date with someone else and realised that I was an absolute fool and Hatz wasn’t all that great, that’s what happened. My mum’s theory is that since there wasn’t anyone else in the picture, my brain went for the only one who would show me affection. Which was really stupid, because something in me already knew that even if Hatz and I were soulmates, we’re in no way relationship material, you know? It just took me a little nudge to better figure out what I wanted in a relationship and realise that Hatz wasn’t it.” He chances a look at Baam, and exhales a shaky laugh, looking back up at the ceiling. “Don’t tell him, though, don’t want to get his ego to get more inflated than it already is.”

Baam looks up at him. He sees how Isu’s biting his lip and avoiding his gaze, and he sees how Isu’s sharing a part of himself that he’s never told anyone, how Isu’s just really and sincerely trying to help. “I’d never.”

And so he agrees. He agrees to let Isu set him up on dates and he agrees to sit down and figure out what it is he wants. Because it can’t be -  and it shouldn’t be - Khun. It can’t be Khun and his smart quips and his messy bangs and the way he smiles at Baam like Baam’s the only thing in his world and the way that makes Baam’s heart skip a beat every time.

(Khun catches him, one day, stumbling out the dorm, running late to a date with some girl named Endorsi? Androssi? “Where you headed? Wanna get dinner?”

“Maybe later,” Baam mumbles, distracted and looking at everywhere else but Khun, “I’m late to a… to a date.”

Then he slips away, like sand between Khun’s fingers, and Khun tells himself for the rest of the day that the hollow feeling in his chest is because his professor only gave him an A- on that marketing project that he and Yuri slaved away over.)

-

“If I have to go on another rollercoaster, I’m going to throw up,” Isu warns the group. He’s bent over heaving, hands on his knees, and his glare just makes Hatz laugh even harder.

Khun chuckles and takes pity on him. “You all go on ahead, I’ll take this one and get us snacks. We’ll meet you at the exit of the next coaster.”

It takes all of two seconds for Hatz and Rak to cheer and haul Baam off to the next one.

“You didn’t want to get on another one too, huh?” Isu whispers conspiratorially, bumping his shoulder against Khun’s.

Khun snorts, “I can handle a couple more-“

“Liar!” Isu sings, and winds his arm around Khun’s shoulders. Khun bats him off, laughing, and they head over to the nearest concession stand.

Isu orders them hotdogs, but the churros in the display case catches Khun’s eye. A vague memory of Baam mentioning churros flashes in Khun’s mind and he makes a quick decision.

“And a churro,” Khun tacks on, then fishes out his wallet.

Isu eyes him. “Hungry?”

Khun shakes his head. “Baam likes churros, he hasn’t had them in a while.”

Isu just looks at him strangely, then turns to collect their orders from the operator.

Khun frowns. Should he have gotten all of them churros? Hatz doesn’t like sugary things, though-

As they walk back, foil-wrapped hotdogs and churro in hand, he hears Isu whistle quietly. He bumps his hip against Khun’s, and nods over to their right. “Look at that guy.”

Khun glances up, trying to keep the mini hotdog-churro mountain in his hand from toppling. The guy in question has short silver hair barely covered by a backwards cap and eyes red as a snake’s. The flimsy white tank top he has on leaves little to the imagination, and from the way he looks positively sculpted, Khun can see why Isu singled him out.

“Right Baam’s type, isn’t he?” Isu says, and Khun nearly drops the churro.

“Baam-“ he splutters, trying to salvage the churro from where it’s clamped in the turn of his wrist. “Baam’s type?”

“Yeah. You think he’s Baam’s type?”

“I don’t know, he’s only ever dated girls-“

“You’re his best friend and you never once asked? Also, he’s only had one girlfriend, but I set him up with all genders-“

“You set him up?!”

“For the whole of freshman spring, you fool, did you never catch on?”

“He’s never mentioned it-“

“That’s because he wasn’t interested in any of them, and I tried my best, mind you-“

“And that’s Baam’s type?” Khun twists slightly to look back at the man.

Isu bites his lip, grinning, and Khun has a strange feeling Isu’s just making it up in his head.

“He isn’t, is he?” Khun says, and ignores the way his heart lifts slightly.

“You’ll just have to ask,” Isu sings, and Khun groans.

Before he can think too much about why he even wants to find out in the first place, they see a brown blur barrelling towards them, and Khun has to take a step back to avoid being ran over by Rak.

Hatz and Baam are slower to head towards them, still talking about the animatronics in their last ride. Isu hands Hatz his hotdog, and Khun is about to tell Baam that hey, the concession stand was selling churros and I remember you mentioned a while ago-

“The animatronics were really cool, Khun, you should have seen it. You would have liked them.” Baam’s eyes are shining, soft muted gold, and Khun finds himself smiling softly back.

“I’ll go with you next time,” Khun promises, and is rewarded with Baam’s breathless beam.

(“Gross,” Hatz mutters, mouth full of mustard. Isu isn’t sure if he’s talking about the way Khun and Baam can’t stop looking at each other or if it’s the obscene amount of mustard he slathered onto Hatz’s hotdog as a joke.)

-

As it turns out, Baam gets along with all the people Isu sets him up with like a house on fire.

Not in the way Isu expects, of course. Baam finds out that Wangnan was forced to do it by his friends too, and they spend an hour commiserating over meddling friends with good intentions before realising they share their sociolinguistics class and move on to commiserating over that too. Ehwa is slightly clumsy with her words, but is completely endearing, and when she admits to Baam that she’s not really looking for a relationship because she’s still hung up over an ex, Baam finds himself equal parts relieved and sympathetic. Urek confesses that his main motive for downloading the app is to convince people to join his school’s flailing LGBTQ club, but it backfires when they realise they attend different colleges. Baam laughs and agrees to attend some of Urek’s club events anyway.

He ends up great friends with all of them, and with the flow and ebb of the semester, ends up spending less time in his dorm than usual.

“Getting popular, huh,” Khun says one day, as Baam taps out a reply to Ehwa that absolutely yes, he‘d love to hear about the new boy she’s been seeing. Baam hums distractedly in response, and sets his phone down when Khun sighs.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time out of the dorm,” Khun tries again.

Baam blinks. “Some of my friends living in different residence halls.”

“You’ve been spending less time with us,” Khun clarifies. Baam wishes he could see Khun’s eyes to figure out what he’s thinking, but Khun’s frowning down at his nails.

“You jealous?” The words slip out of his mouth before he can help it, and he nearly laughs at their irony.

Khun glances sharply at him, full force of a blue stare wiping away Baam’s smile. He’s looking straight at Baam with a seriousness that they’ve never shared in their nearly-two semesters of friendship, and there follows a moment of silence so loud that it echoes in Baam’s ears and with each beat of his heart Baam knows that Isu is wrong, Isu is wrong, Isu is wrong and that there will never be anyone for him but Khun.

Suddenly Khun blinks and he’s pouting, lower lip jutting out in petulance. “So what if I am?”

(When Hatz walks in, he says Baam laughed so loudly he could hear him all the way from the lift.)

-

Rak eyes Baam’s hotdog. He’s long since finished his, but Baam’s been stuck, starry-eyed, on the churro Khun bought for him, and Rak grumbles to himself that if Baam doesn’t get started on that hotdog soon he’ll rip it out of Baam’s hands and inhale it himself.

“Baam? Is that you?”

An unfamiliar man is standing behind them, head cocked to the side and unzipped hoodie barely clinging onto his biceps. Rak winces as Isu grabs his shoulder and whispers, “It’s him!”

Before Rak can ask Isu what he’s talking about, Baam has burst into a smile - “Urek!”

“Baam, baby, I knew it was you!”

Rak blinks. Baby?

He wants to ask Isu about this strange man with silver hair, but everyone’s mouth hangs open as Urek envelopes Baam in a bone-crushing hug and lifts him off the ground.

“Thought I wasn’t going to see you again, not with my club leaving for our trip two days before your finals ended, but I’m so glad to see you, babe-“

Isu issues a faint squeak as Urek plants a loud smack on Baam’s forehead, and clutches Rak’s shoulder even tighter.

Rak turns to Isu. “Explain,” he demands, under his breath.

“I thought he looked familiar when I saw him just now, fuck- I set up him with Baam ages ago, back in freshman spring, I thought nothing came of it since Baam talks about him like he’s just a friend but-“

“But babe?” Rak hisses. Khun isn’t going to like this, he thinks. He’s going to go into one of his infamous sulks and Baam’s going to be the only one who can pull him out of it, and good fucking luck to whoever gets the job of explaining to Baam why Khun was sulking in the first place.

“So you gonna introduce me to your friends, Baam?” The man says, slinging his arm around Baam and smiling genially at everyone. Baam’s smile is so wide it nearly cracks his face in half, and Rak wonders faintly how Khun is faring.

“Everyone, this is Urek, he goes to the college uptown. Urek, these are my best friends Hatz, Isu, Rak and... where’s Khun?”

Rak pauses as everyone turns to look around. He swears Khun was right beside Hatz half a second ago, but there’s absolutely no trace of him now. Half of Rak is relieved that he’s not on the other end of one of Khun’s patented glares, but the other half of him knows Khun well enough that he can smell the Brood building just right round the corner.

He sighs, and gently disentangles Isu’s arm from his. “He mentioned something about needing to run to the washroom, I’ll go see if he’s there.”

Rak waves a friendly goodbye at Urek, and as he walks away to search for a flash of blue hair, he hears a sly, “Oh, Khun? Your Khun?” and Baam’s flustered spluttering.

Ah.

He spots a messy blue flash a little ways down from them, and hurries over before Khun can see him.

“So,” Rak says by way of greeting. He clamps a hand on Khun’s shoulder as Khun turns, blue eyes flashing in surprise, “Our mighty Khun has run away.”

“I’m not running from anything,” Khun mutters, turning away again, “I just... saw this really interesting... thing and came over to look at it.”

“Terribly fascinating, these... uh,” Rak follows Khu’s gaze, “these trash cans.”

“They... they might talk.”

“Talking trash cans.” Rak is unimpressed, and he makes sure to let it into his tone.

He crosses his arms and lets Khun avoid his gaze for a few more seconds. Khun’ll start talking soon, Rak knows - he hates awkwardness, especially when they’re centred around him.

“He’s… he does seem close to Baam, isn’t he?” Khun says, eventually. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off the trash cans, and Rak briefly considers tossing Khun into one.

“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re his best best friend.”

There’s a flash of a wince before Khun’s cool mask is back. “He hasn’t told me anything about that guy.”

Rak waits.

“He’d… he’d tell me if they were dating, wouldn’t he?” Khun’s eyebrows are furrowed. “Why hasn’t he said anything about being someone’s… someone’s babe?”

Khun spits out the last word with so much disgust that Rak nearly laughs. “You’re an idiot,” Rak chooses to say instead.

He waits for Khun to look up before continuing, “You’re an idiot and lest you forget, you're his best friend-“

“Just his best friend-“

“-and what that means is that if he hasn’t told you anything about this guy giving him pet names, it probably isn’t significant enough to him and he hasn’t feel the need to mention it. To you or to any of us. Whoever Urek is, he doesn’t mean anything to Baam other than a friend, and you, of all people, shouldn’t worry that Baam is keeping anything from us. He’s your best friend, Khun. Trust him.”

Khun lowers his head, worrying a fingernail between his teeth. They remain silent for a moment, until Rak finally processes what Khun has said.

“Just his best friend?” Rak tries not to smile too widely. “You looking to be something more, then?”

Khun freezes slightly, then lets out a laugh that is far too cheery. “Course not.”

Rak isn’t as smart or perceptive as Isu is, he knows, but he likes to think that after more than two years of friendship, he can read Khun pretty well too. He kicks lightly at the trash cans, and offers quietly, “I know his friendship is valuable to you - I know all of our friendships are - but I don’t know if you see the way Baam looks at you sometimes. There’s… there’s something different there. There’s something there that Hatz doesn’t have with Isu. And I know you’re afraid of losing him, and you’re afraid taking the chance that one day he might leave you behind but… for what my opinion is worth, I think Baam might be a chance worth taking.”

He watches Khun take one breath, two, three. Khun’s hands are balled up into fists and Rak can see the cogs turning as Khun processes and reprocesses what Rak is presenting to him.

When Khun speaks, his voice is small. “The way Baam looks at me?”

“You’ve been walking around him with your eyes closed, haven’t you - he looks at you the same way you look at him.”

Khun’s mouth opens, as if in denial, and Rak huffs. “He looks at you like if you were to hypothetically be more than best friends with him… he looks at you as if he might like that.”

Khun shuts his mouth. He stays lost in thought for a while, and Rak feels an itch on the back of his neck like someone is watching him. He suddenly remembers the way they have left Baam and Hatz and Isu standing, waiting for them, and curses. “Come on, they’re looking for you. Should I tell them you were jealous that someone called Baam baby or should I tell them you were entranced by talking trash cans?”

Khun flushes and turns to walk away from said trash cans, tossing Rak two fingers.

Rak just cackles.

--

The first snow of sophomore year falls on a Tuesday.

Baam wakes up to a flurry of white outside his window, and as he trudges through the ankle-high slush and the snowflakes that threaten to glue his eyelashes together, he realises he forgot to bring gloves.

Ah, well. He’ll just suffer, then.

His phone buzzes with non-stop texts from Hatz and Isu all throughout his second lecture of the day, and he fumbles to set it on Do Not Disturb when his TA starts glancing over at him.

Best Roommate Ever: snowing!!!! Fencing Champion: snowball fight in the park, 2pm Best Roommate Ever: bring it on bro I’m not scared of you Fencing Champion: yeah, not scared of me keeping my winning streak alive  Alligator Overlord: get ready to get SMUSHED, cowards, the Great Rak is coming Khun: good lord, y’all couldn’t wait until classes were over?

Baam bites back a grin, heart oddly warm, and he finds himself unable to sit still for the remainder of the lecture. He ends up counting down the minutes to the end of class, and as soon as it hits 1.45pm he tosses his notes into his bag and his scarf around his neck.

He is the first one out of the building, and nearly blows by the person leaning by the entrance. The person reaches forward and tugs on his backpack, and Baam turns around, startled, only to come face to face with Khun.

“Woah there,” Khun laughs, arms reaching out to steady him. “In a rush?”

Baam grins in response. “Left my gloves at the dorm, thought I’d go grab them before meeting everyone for the snowball fight. Wanna come with?”

Khun raises an eyebrow, and produces Baam’s gloves from his own pocket and holds them up to Baam.

“Absolute hero,” Baam beams, and he tries to tamp down the wonderful sort of warmth curling out from his heart all the way down to his toes. “How’d you know?”

Khun shrugs. “You always forget your gloves. Thought I’d just let myself in and check if you did.”

He hands Baam his gloves, and wait for him to put them on before they begin the cold and slippery trek to the park.

Isu and Hatz are already there, wrapped in beanies and scarves and long winter coats.

“Get ready to get wrecked, losers!” Isu calls out, waving to them.

“Where’s Rak?”

“Rak’s here,” comes Rak’s voice, somewhere near Baam’s feet. He’s lying on his back, limbs spread out and tongue sticking out. “Mm trying to catch snowflakes.”

Baam just laughs, and helps him up. There are already multiple groups spread across the grass, flinging snowballs at each other with peals of laughter carrying in the wind.

“We’re thinking a three versus two game,” Isu offers, now that Rak is back on his feet. “How do we want to split?”

They decide on rock, paper, scissors, and by some feat of magic (“Manipulation,” Hatz insists), Khun emerges on top.

“You get first pick,” Hatz tells him, “but the other side gets the third person.”

Khun twists to look at Baam. “How’s your aim?”

“Terrible,” Baam answers honestly, and Khun grins with far too much delight.

“Great. I want Baam.”

“No cheating,” Hatz warns. “Just the both of you.”

Khun bumps his shoulder against Baam’s and grins at him, eyes sparkling with mischief, “Always been us, hasn’t it?”

And when Baam laughs, full and delighted, Khun swings, hidden snowball hitting Hatz right between the eyes.

(Baam dreams about us sometimes. He dreams of an us, a universe in which Khun is ice and he is fire, and they burn together in an endless firework instead of melting into a tepid puddle.

He dreams of a Khun that hurtles through space and time, and of a Baam that will rip rifts into the fabric of the universe if it means he can follow wherever Khun goes.

He dreams of a Baam that spins illusions out of thin air in a circus for those without a home, and a Khun that tells the future and flips cards and is the flip side of his card, the way people are in the best sort of love stories.

He dreams of a Khun that wraps his hand around Baam’s and tips their foreheads together in soft moonlight, and of a Baam that is brave enough to rest his head against Khun’s heart, finally brave enough to dance with him to the quiet song that is three o’clock.

He dreams of a Baam that charges into battle, cloaked in red, sword drawn and burning with the rage of a thousand souls, and of a Khun that grits his teeth and charges in right behind him.

He tells Isu about the latest of his strange dreams one day, and Isu just laughs.

“Of course he would,” Isu says, picking up his book again. “Khun looks at you as if he’d follow you around anywhere.”)

-

“Come on, eat faster, we’re gonna miss good spots for the fireworks!”

“What good spots?” Khun snorts. “In case you forget, fireworks are in the sky. Anywhere’s a good spot.”

Rak levels Khun a glare, and brandishes a fry in his face. “Not if the only place left is under an awning and all our views are blocked. Remember junior year?”

Everyone groans at the memory and starts eating slightly faster - they waited for the fireworks to signal the end of the pride parade, but when the fireworks started and they finally clambered outside of the coffee shop they were waiting in, all they could see was the red underbelly of an awning that desperately needed a clean.

“So,” Baam says, “Urek asks if we want to meet his club for lunch tomorrow.”

There is instant reaction around the table - Rak drops a fry on the ground and squawks, and Isu chokes on his soda. Hatz has to thump him hard on the back before Isu inhales, red-faced. He flashes a grin at Baam, “Why don’t you ask Khun?”

Khun looks up from where he is staring daggers at the table, and frowns. Why me? He wants to ask, but Baam has already turned to him, eyes hopeful and fingers poised over his keyboard.

He swallows hard. As much as he doesn’t like Urek (Which doesn’t make sense, by the way, a small voice in his head tells him primly. Urek’s been nothing but friendly to you.) he doesn’t want to be the one to deny Baam anything. “If you want to, sure.”

Hatz huffs in annoyance, and Khun shoots him a look. What’s with all his friends today, he wants to demand. First with Isu joking about Baam’s type, then Rak being uncharacteristically insightful about things Khun doesn’t want to think about, and now Hatz? But he sees an opening to get answers, and he goes in for the kill.

He turns to Baam, and slaps on a smirk. “So he’s your type, huh?”

Baam’s mouth hangs open, a faint blush painting his cheeks. “He’s- what- he-” Baam flaps his hands in Khun’s direction. “What made you think that?”

Khun affects a casual shrug. “Looked like you were pretty pleased to see him.”

“He’s a friend from uptown,” Baam says. “Nothing like my type.”

“And what would that be?” Khun says, then makes the mistake of looking into Baam’s eyes. Like honey, he thinks, dazed, the kind that is sweet and sticky and impossible to ever escape once you’ve fallen in.

He nearly misses Baam’s nonchalant answer, delivered as if he’d rehearsed in his mind a thousand times before. “You know, kind, smart, resourceful. Takes the time to get to know me. Same sense of humour. Always knows what to say. Remembers the small details about me, stuff like that.”

There’s a snort from the other end of the table that sounds suspiciously like sounds a lot like Khun, but the tips of Baam’s ears are red as he breaks eye contact with Khun and he’s pouting so fiercely at Isu that Khun’s mind nearly goes blank at how… how cute it is.

But Rak is growling at them about how if they don’t finish eating in five minutes he’s going to head out to see the fireworks without them, and so Khun’s mind shuts up pretty quickly.

(They manage to find a good spot, of course. Not many awnings in amusement parks.)

The first firework to go up is red, and the crowd oohs and aahs as their video cameras capture the peony bursting into a thousand tiny stars. The next one is a yellow brocade, and as the golden stars fade away, Khun can’t help but think that it doesn’t quite match the golden of Baam’s eyes.

Baam.

He turns to his side, shoulder brushing Baam’s, and is stunned to see Baam already looking at him.

Baam blinks rapidly at having been caught, and Khun can see a small flush making its way up his face in the dim light. Khun’s eyes unconsciously trail down, a small part of his mind wondering, wandering-

Khun finds himself leaning in, and his eyes dart back up to Baam’s, suddenly closer than they’ve ever been. They are full of… hesitance, Khun thinks. Hesitance and a quiet sort of yearning and something that resembles hopefulness that makes Khun’s heart flip in a peculiar sort of way.

He opens his mouth, but under the bursts of the fireworks and the thunder of his own heartbeat, he finds that for the first time in his life he cannot think of anything to say to his best friend.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like this, encased in all the things Khun doesn’t know how to put into words, a frozen bubble of their own, but all too soon the lights are flickering back on in the park and everyone is cheering for the fireworks display. There is a resigned sort of smile on Baam’s face as he raises his hands to join the applause, and Khun notices too late that Baam never pulled away.

“They were beautiful, weren’t they, Khun!” Hatz is saying, and Khun snaps away, shoulders jolting away from Baam’s and mouth fumbling through a yes, of course, of course.

-

When Khun is five, his sister tells him about her first boyfriend. What kind of person do you want to date in ten years, Khun? Khun thinks about it, and tells her, with all the gravity a five-year-old can muster, someone who eats all my carrots so I don’t have to. His sister bursts out laughing, then hauls him onto her lap. My boyfriend is tall and smart and handsome, she says, tickling his sides. Will you be tall and smart and handsome too? But he’s wriggling around too much to answer, answering shrieks of laughter echoing down the hallway.

When Khun is eight, he comes back from school with a backpack full of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and when his mother laughs and asks him who he got them all from, he shrugs. Here and there, he tells her, and he hands her the stack of letters he gets along with them for her perusal. You didn’t open any of them, she says, but he has already wandered off. He ends up stuffing some chocolate into his sister’s jacket pocket, and when she disappears that night he wonders if she ever finds them.

When Khun is ten, his sister comes back home, bruised and empty. She sometimes forgets the motions she needs to go through to love herself again, Khun’s mother tells him, so he needs to love her extra until she remembers. He hears - he can still hear - the quiet, trembling way she tries to rebuild herself and when he climbs into her bed to hug her and pepper her forehead with kisses the same way their mum does, he tells her it’s okay to cry, and he tells himself that he will never let someone consume him the way that monster has consumed her, because even at the age of ten Khun has come to learn that sometimes the wounds that hurt the most are the ones that don’t show scars.

When Khun is fourteen, Novick gets a crush for the first time. He tells Khun all about her after school one day, and Khun nods politely in all the right places while trying to solve a rubix cube. How do you know? Khun asks, hands fiddling with his cube. How do you know you like her? Novick flops over onto his bed and sighs. Can’t get her out of my mind, Novick says. I can’t stop wanting to make her smile.

When Khun is seventeen, Dan applies to the same college his partner does. You’ll regret it, Khun and Novick tell him. Think about what college is best for your education, not who’s going to go there, but Dan just laughs. It’s a reach school anyway, he says. He might not make it in. But he’s test-savvy, and he does, and when it comes down to the decision between Khun’s school and theirs, Dan chooses them. Don’t sacrifice your future for someone you might not even remember down the road, it doesn’t make sense, Novick tells him, and tosses a pen at his head. Love isn’t supposed to make sense anyway, Dan grins, and that’s that.

When Khun is eighteen, he comes back to Dan and Novick for the summer with one name on his tongue. He tells them all about Baam and the way Baam’s eyes sparkle when he’s excited and the way he hates pickles and the way he laughs at all the bad jokes everyone else groans at. He talks about Baam until Novick swipes him on the head and laughs. You talk about him so much it’s insane. You in love, bro? And Khun remembers the flames that burned his sister, the way love ate and ate and ate away at her until she had to build herself again, and he bites his tongue and shakes his head, insistent. I’m not.

When Khun is twenty two, alone in a hotel room crowded with his own thoughts at two am while his best friend lingers outside, he calls Dan and Novick. They hear the worry of fingernail between his teeth, and they ask him what’s wrong, Khun, what’s wrong, and joke about how they’ll help him hide the body. He takes a deep breath, and whispers, I think I’m in love with him.

And just like that, the dam breaks.

He tells them about the way he cannot stop thinking about Baam - the way he has never stopped thinking about Baam since the day they met - and the way he’d do anything to make Baam smile. He tells them about the way Baam’s eyes shine a soft, subdued gold when he’s thoughtful and a fierce, flashing gold when he gets worked up, and the way Khun has tried his best but has never quite figured out if it’s the gold of dusk or dawn. He tells them about the way something inside him aches when Baam looks away, the way Khun’s hands itch to hold his every time they touch.

He tells them about the way Baam eats his carrots (Novick laughs) and the way Baam has a stupid sweet tooth that can only be satisfied with copious amounts of chocolate and the way he walked forty blocks once just to find the sort of chocolate Baam likes because he knew that Baam’s beam at the end of it would be worth it. He tells them about the way Baam looked, under the dim light of the fireworks, the way Baam looked at him, hopeful and yearning and sad all at once, and the way Khun wanted nothing more than to kiss him in that moment. He tells them about what Rak said, about the way Baam looks at him, and the way he looks at Baam and how the past few years suddenly clicked and made sense.

He tells them about the way he’s discovered that Baam has dismantled him, piece by piece, and has diffused through him so thoroughly that everywhere he looks, it just echoes Baam, Baam, Baam, and as a tear rolls down his cheek he tells them about the way it doesn’t make sense, because he’s told himself that nobody is supposed to cut through him like this.

Love isn’t supposed to make sense, Dan says. Now go, go and tell him.

-

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Baam looks up. He watches as Khun emerges from the shadows, hair almost pearlescent in the sharp moonlight. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he looks almost nervous waiting for Baam to allow him to sit.

Baam shifts, and he settles down next to where Baam is sitting on the curb, hugging his legs and chin on his knees. The curb is narrow, and Khun is nearly totally pressed up against Baam by the time he’s fully sat down, adopting the same pose Baam is.

Baam swallows. He feels the warmth of Khun’s leg through his own jeans, and the dangerous brush of Khun’s hand on his.

“Nice night.” Khun comments.

Baam hums in response. It is - the stars have all come out in this dark distance between them and the city, and the only things Baam can hear is the song of the cicadas and the low buzz from the neon sign outside the hotel.

“What brings you outside at 3am?”

Everything, Baam thinks. You. Me. What I want us to be but daren’t ask for.

The way I keep replaying that moment under the fireworks in my head. The way that when I close my eyes, I keep seeing the way you looked at me, keep feeling the brush of your shoulder against mine, but knowing it doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me. The way that even if it did, you’d never act on it, and oh, the way I wish you would.

“Too stuffy,” Baam says instead.

“Me too,” Khun says, and his voice is so close, so close to Baam’s ear that he’s sure if he just turns his head a fraction Khun’s lips will be there. “Too many thoughts for one small room, you know?”

Baam swallows again, and stays still.

“Baam,” Khun murmurs. His voice sounds slightly strangled and all sorts of breathless, and it takes everything in Baam not to shiver in response.

“Baam, look at me, please.”  

And so Baam does, because he never can resist when it is Khun asking. He turns, and he sees the way the moonlight dances between Khun’s eyelashes, the way it brushes Khun’s cheeks and makes him glow, makes him look so ethereal that it makes Baam’s chest hurt.

He sees the way Khun’s eyes are soft and open and willing Baam to understand, but fierce and determined and brilliant all at once. They shine, and Baam’s breath stutters.

He wants to look away, wants to pry himself away from the trainwreck of a memory he knows he’s going to form, the memory he knows will replay in his mind’s eye over and over again when he lays down to sleep at night.

But Khun is beautiful, and Baam cannot take his eyes off of him.

Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

And suddenly Khun is leaning over, hand warm on Baam’s jaw, eyes questioning, pleading, and Baam feels himself melt into Khun, carried by the ache of want he has hauling around by himself the past four years.

Khun tastes like iced coffee, like sunlight glinting off of fresh snow. He tastes like the crackle of lightning, like a multitude of city lights, like the sound of snowballs skimming across a frozen pond. He tastes like Baam has always thought of and more, lips slotting into Baam’s the way he has slotted himself into the space between Baam’s heartbeats, and Baam isn’t sure if he ever wants Khun to pull away.

And when they do break apart, it is with the feeling that everything in the world has snapped into place, brighter, clearer, right.

“I’m sorry it’s taken me this long,” Khun murmurs. “But I’m here now, and I don’t think I ever want to leave.”

====

anyway i just graduated and now i miss my friends and i don’t know what to do with my life what’s up with y’all 

#tower of god #tog #khunbaam #khunbam #vivi writes #what's up folks i haven't written a full fic in close to two years #anyway i'm not posting this on ao3 firstly bc . i don't have an ao3 acc #if anyone could help that would be very helpful #used the morpheme help twice! i'm never going to write 15k words ever again #chopped some too bc i was so scared this wasnt gonna fit in the tumblr character count #catch my old fandom references LOL #but also if you know where the title is from high five ayeeeee jj lin ballad king #除了爱你还能爱谁 is a masterpiece and none of you can tell me otherwise

[aftgficrec]

any fics where neil shows his math or languages skills? or anything in that vibe? love your work btw

Definitely! - A

From previous recs, Neil:

speaks at least eight languages in ‘Doe and Josten: Deductionists’ and works as the Hatford mob family’s translator in ‘Armies’ here

ponders the relationship between music and math in ‘The Calculus of Nocturnes’ here

is a math major in the au ‘Bigger Than A Hexadecimal’ here

trades math-for-English help with Andrew in the high school au ‘tell ourselves a good lie’ here

helps Aaron pass a class in ‘Aaron Minyard Vs. Calculus’ here

is the Teaching Assistant ‘..in one of Aaron’s super difficult math classes’ here

is first to know the answer in math class in ‘Foxhole Tidbits...Chapter 22: Silent, But Snarky’ here

is involved in academia in some fashion in the fics from this ask

is the pro exy player-dad who can help with math homework in ‘Andrew and Neil Family's Adventures’ series (Part 16, ‘Math is hard’) here

Math

Math, Exy and Middle Ground by alex_glasses [Rated T, 7020 Words, Complete, 2020]

Neil is a nerd, Andrew is a professional Exy player. Between coffee, bookstores and Exy, will they find what they want?

Featuring sassy!Neil, amused Andrew and a tired Aaron.

tw: panic attack

Ocean Eyes, Golden Mind by philliam [Rated G, 1917 Words, Complete, 2020]

In which Neil hates his new prescribed glasses until they attract the interest of a certain Andrew Minyard.

Next to You by KatherineF [Not Rated, 10101 Words, Complete, 2020] 

Neil Josten works as a math professor and lives a comfortable life in a neighborhood that happens to house all of his closest friends. He meets Andrew Minyard, the owner of the quaint bookstore down the street, at a barbeque and makes the mistake of agreeing to go to his book club.

Lots of Andrew being an obviously lovesick fool, Neil being oblivious, and their friends loving them unconditionally.

maybe we could by Stjosten [Rated T, 6438 Words, Complete, 2020]

Andrew is just trying to get through his last year of undergrad. He’s overwhelmed with tests, grad school applications, an internship at the county courthouse, and a thesis that he hasn’t even started yet. Everything goes downhill in one fell swoop and obviously it’s all Nicky’s fault.

Or a college au where Andrew is just trying to get his shit together, Nicky constantly invites chaos, and Neil is a candy covered apple that’s far too tempting to ignore and is definitely going to rot Andrew’s teeth out

tw: alcohol

Languages

Neil is good with languages prompt fill by @exyjunkies [Tumblr, 2016]

- prompt Neil has a British accent :)

I’M GONNA DO YOU ONE EVEN BETTER!!!! how about neil being a goddamn annoying linguistic freak and everybody loves/hates him for it aw

what if Neil is like a languages prodigy hc by @aledethanlast [Tumblr, 2016]

Like it was always Just Another Skill for him, not to mention the years kinda blurred together so he never really realized how long it took him to learn German or French.

I keep thinking back to my Neil  + languages post hc by @aledethanlast [Tumblr, 2016]

...frankly, I don’t think I went far enough. I mean, the whole multiple languages thing was mainly use for drama in the books, and the fandom mainly uses it for romance in fic, but have we considered the pure fun of it.

Neil gets a concussion and starts mixing up his languages prompt fill by @ravenvsfox [Tumblr Fic, 2017]

It’s USC’s new “problem player” who does it.

There’s a scrimmage for the ball in the last quarter, and Neil ends up bodychecked into plexiglass head-first. His helmet goes loose and bounces away before he hits the floor.

#fic #neil josten/andrew minyard #aaron minyard & andrew minyard #katelyn/aaron minyard #nicky hemmick & aaron minyard & andrew minyard #universe: canon divergent #universe: post canon #universe: au #au: college/university #au: no exy #au: bookstore #theme: mistaken identities #theme: pro exy #theme: languages/accents #theme: demisexuality #theme: fluff #theme: pining #theme: the foxes #theme: disabilities #theme: fluff & angst #tw: alcohol abuse #tw: panic attack #kevinexyqueen

[five-rivers]

Manuscript

Phic Phight phic phor @phantomroyalty. I'm experimenting with a slightly different Clockwork.  Sort of inspired by those prompts I did late last month.

.

.

.

Once, there were half-ghosts.

Danny knew this, now, drumming his fingers on the hard plastic surface of the binder he'd borrowed from Sam. Written on one cover in purple sharpie was the title 'Voynich Manuscript.' It was, according to Sam, an untranslated 15th century work that had baffled cryptologists and linguists for years and years.

Danny could read it. It had been written by a half-ghost.

At least, that was the claim, and, considering that Danny could read this language he'd never learned, Danny was inclined to agree. He opened the binder again, running his fingers down the printed pictures of the pages. He'd been doing that off and on throughout the evening, ever since Sam had showed it to him, instead of doing his homework.

It was comforting. Strange, but comforting, to know that Vlad had not been the first half-ghost. To know that there were other paths to his future than 'bitter old man,' even if the other visible path was 'weird botanist.' To know that Vlad's issues really were Vlad's issues, and not half-ghost issues.

The book was about ghost plants, what they did, what they were good for, how to find them, and when to harvest them, complete with maps, time tables, and recipes. It was a sort of almanac, almost. A very out of date, almanac, true, and Danny was pretty sure those islands weren't arranged like that, at least not any more, but still...

And it had been written by a half ghost. That, more than anything else, was what kept drawing Danny to the pages. The author had barely mentioned their identity, skimming over their origins in the first couple of pages, but every plant had notes regarding how it affected half-ghosts in particular, every recipe was tuned for the half-ghost anatomy, with side effects listed for humans and ghosts as an afterthought.

Danny slowly leafed through the pages, occasionally pausing when sentences jumped out at him.

This book had been written by a half-ghost. It had been written for half-ghosts.

Once, there had been half-ghosts. Many of them.

What had happened?

There were a limited number of people he could ask. He threw the book into his backpack, shouldered it, turned himself invisible and dropped through the floor. He fell through the kitchen and into the lab, whereupon he slowed his fall to a gradual drift and set himself down lightly on the floor.

His parents were, of course, working in the lab, but they didn't notice Danny. He padded by them, silent, and snagged the remote for the portal doors from the table. After taking a moment to make sure they didn't notice the sudden disappearance of the remote from the table, Danny pressed the button and darted through the still-opening doors.

Safely in the Ghost Zone, Danny released his invisibility, which he still found tiring to use for long periods of time, and went ghost. Ghostly tail streaming behind him, Danny flew to the lair of the only ghost he could be sure had all the answers.

.

The clock tower certainly lived up to the 'tower' part of its name, looming tall above Danny as he approached the front doors. Not that it didn't live up to the 'clock' part. It did. And the surrounding zone kept up the theme with all the gears floating around. It all added to the sense of foreboding about the place.

But what really pulled it off was the faint, persistent ringing sound that hung just on the edge of Danny's hearing, like that of a large bell that had been rung just a moment ago, its sound perpetually fading into imperceptibility but never quite getting there.

The doors opened as Danny raised his hand to knock on them. Danny always at least tried to knock on the doors, because the time he hadn't, he had walked right into them. Clockwork had a weird sense of humor.

"Clockwork?" called Danny, floating into the large main hall and searching the corners.

"Yes, Daniel?" said Clockwork, once again managing to wind up right behind Danny despite Danny's best efforts.

As always, Danny tried to hide how startled he was by turning and smoothing down his ruffled hair.

"Hi," said Danny. Clockwork smiled. "So, uh, I'm guessing you know why I'm here?"

"Yes," drawled Clockwork, circling Danny once, then floating away.

Danny flew after him. "I'm just, well, you understand why I'm curious, right?" asked Danny as they flew into a narrow hallway lined with time mirrors. Each one held an image of a different time, a different age. All the mirrors on the left were of the Ghost Zone, and all the mirrors on the right were of Earth.

"I do."

"So, you know what happened to them, right? All the halfas?"

"Of course," said Clockwork, stopping to face an image of a city that might have been London.

Danny drifted to peer over his shoulder. "Will you tell me? At least, what they were like?" he asked, hopefully.

His blood when cold(er) when Clockwork shifted to look at him. The expression on Clockwork's face was pure trickster mentor.

"Oh, Daniel. You know I like you to find answers like that on your own time."

"Yeah, um, I'll just-"

Clockwork pushed him. Danny tumbled back, farther than the hallway should have allowed. Heck, heck, heck.

He righted himself, hands going to his chest. They seized on something small and round. When had Clockwork managed to slip a time medallion onto him?

After a beat he processed his question and snorted at himself. Clockwork could have put the medallion on him at any time. That was kind of Clockwork's whole thing.

Danny looked around himself. He was still in the Ghost Zone (unless, of course, the Earth's sky had turned green for some reason), but the land beneath him spread out in all directions. There was even a slightly curved horizon.

Directly beneath him was a city. The streets were all covered over with blue cloth awnings, and the buildings sparkled like crystal.

Alright. So, Danny had a couple of choices. One, he could take the medallion off right now, go home, and have to learn whatever lesson Clockwork was trying to teach him the hard(er?) way. Two, he could stick around and (possibly) get the answer to one or more of his questions. Probably a lot of trauma, too, considering he'd asked about why the other half-ghosts were all gone, but he could take the medallion off whenever, provided that no one decided to phase it into his chest.

Were there half-ghosts in the city beneath him?

He wanted, needed to know.

Letting go of the medallion, he flew down diagonally, reaching ground level a good distance outside the city. He didn't know what the etiquette was for entering this city, but starting off at the gates was probably a good idea.

When he reached them, skimming along the purple earth, the gates were wide and open, the tunnel they formed in the wall carved with abstract swirls. There were no guards that Danny could see, and no one was going in or out through the gates, but Danny still proceeded cautiously. Beyond the gates he could hear the noise and bustle of a crowd, and, sure enough, as soon as he got past the first building he found himself in a marketplace.

This was not the first marketplace he'd seen in the Ghost Zone, and it had many familiar features. Unidentifiable glowing plants, glowing potion jars, glowing clothing, glowing powders, things with too many legs being sold as food, a lot of glowing in general, poison-bright colors on otherwise mundane merchandise, things that floated, rugs with kaleidoscoping patterns, etcetera.

The difference was that so many of the shoppers and merchants were human.

No, he corrected himself as he caught one of them changing forms with a pair of bright blue rings, they were halfas.

.

Danny stayed in the market place and listened.

He listened to gossip and haggling and children playing with each other and begging for their parents to buy them this or that. He listened to merchants advertising their wares. He listened to a young man not much older than himself complaining about new powers. No one pointed Danny out as unusual, even when he switched forms a few times.

It was amazing, just seeing half-ghosts live like this. He wished he could talk to them, but although he could understand what they were saying, he had no confidence in his ability to pronounce the words.

It was just so peaceful.

A shape fell through the blue awnings stretched above the marketplace, tearing them and pulling down some of the poles and booths they were attached to. People screeched and shouted. Merchandise escaped. From the epicenter of the wreckage, a man stood, eyes flickering between sea green and toxic glowing orange.

"Lord Dimidius!" shouted one woman. "What has happened?"

The man's face was twisted in pain and fury. "Pariah Dark has declared war on us."

A hush fell over the market. Except for the chickens. Chickens feared neither man, ghost, or god.

"Why? My lord?" asked one of the men, floating forward.

"The Observants," Dimidius said, spitting, "gave him a prophecy that one of us will someday end his rule."

"Then let's make it true!"

"Time out," said Clockwork, putting a hand on Danny's shoulder. The scene froze, chickens and all.

Danny had been right about the trauma.

"Was this," said Danny, "about me fighting him? Did all these people die because I fought him, and the Observants saw that?"

"No," said Clockwork. "Ultimately, Pariah was looking for an excuse. The Observants wanted to give him one. The prophecy, as far as they knew, wasn't true. They made it up. Besides, Pariah doesn't succeed in taking this city for another hundred years, and most of the younger residents were able to flee to the human world."

Danny exhaled. "Really?"

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you would."

Clockwork laughed. "Let's get you home." He opened a portal. "Other than the revelation at the end, did you have a good time?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "I did."

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2020

[romioneficfest]

In Another Universe

Title: In Another Universe

Prompt: Date Night

Tumblr name: 

Rating: T

Brief summary: (Modern-Day University AU) Hermione Granger, brightest young lady her age, completed her PhD in Linguistics at 25. Ron Weasley, a quantum physicist with a penchant for unkempt hair and loose ties… well, he’s getting there. However, Granger has agreed to spend a night out at a pub with him, and he’s going to try his hardest to woo her with what he knows she likes best: intelligence.

Tags: mentions of alcohol, the word “damn”

-

The pub was dim-lit, crowded, and stank of stale beer. Dr. Hermione Granger was horrified: in her impossibly neat, dry-cleaned pencil skirt and button-down, she stuck out like a sore thumb in a place she never thought she’d find herself on a Saturday night. The man across from her seemed right in his element: leaning back in his chair, his tie loose and shirt undone, a shock of unkempt red hair crowning him, it wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d swung his legs and placed his feet on the table.

Smirking at her, as if reveling in her discomfort, he waved a waitress over: “Gerda, dear! Would you please get me some bangers and mash and an IPA?”

Granger’s shock only grew: he was on first-name basis with the personnel? Gerda nodded and turned to Granger, who froze for a second before remembering she was supposed to order: “Yes, ah… I’ll have the fish and chips and a glass of water, please.”

Gerda nodded again, shooting Granger’s companion a wink as she marched toward the kitchen. He winked back before looking to Granger with a teasing smile: “Never took you for such a bore, but then again, you are wearing a pencil skirt to a pub…”

“Can it, Weasley,” Granger hissed. “You begged me to be here.”

“Where else would you be on a Saturday night? Library?” he teased her again, and she flushed. He toned it down: “I’m sorry— I mean, we can leave if you want to…”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Granger huffed, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “It’s good for me to… step out of my comfort zone.”

‘And that’s putting it kindly,’ thought Weasley, taking a sip from the dark brown bottle Gerda had set in front of him. He watched Granger awkwardly sip from her glass and, realizing how uncomfortable she must be, decided to shift the conversation somewhere more familiar. “So, A Winter’s Tale.”

“Excuse me?”

“A Winter’s Tale? Shakespeare? Is that where your name comes from?”

She smiled as she took the glass to her lips again, and her shoulders lost tension. “You’re familiar with it.”

“Well, I did secondary school.”

“Good try, Weasley, but the secondary school curriculum doesn’t usually include A Winter’s Tale in its Shakespeare section.”

Damn it, he thought; leave it to Granger to know the British literature curriculum. “Fine, I Googled it.”

“Well, that’s flattering,” Granger said, raising her eyebrows. “Took time to do your homework.”

“What can I say? When you get a date with the most beautiful PhD in the uni, you’d better know your stuff.”

She blushed again, and Weasley smiled to himself: he’d gotten past the first line of defense. He decided to keep going down the conversational path he knew she’d be comfortable with: “So, working on anything interesting lately?”

Her eyes sparkled, and she finally set her glass back on the table: “God, I’m so glad you asked. As a matter of fact, we’re working on cataloging a set of Celtic scrolls we found a couple months ago— it’s fascinating.” Weasley watched her light up as she talked passionately about her work: she was a wholly different person from the demure, reserved woman who had been sitting across from him just seconds ago. He almost didn’t notice his head resting on his hand as he watched her talk, staring at her, until she cleared her throat: “Am I boring you?”

“God, no, not at all,” he said hurriedly. “All the contrary, actually. Tell me more?”

“I think I’ve talked enough,” laughed Granger, and —Weasley noticed happily— she seemed a lot more open now, relaxed into her chair and smiling genuinely. “Your turn, Weasley. What are physicists up to these days?”

“Well— a lot, actually,” he said, and he felt the familiar flame that took over him whenever he broached the subject of his work. He wasn’t at the top of his field like Granger, and he knew the other physicists often complained about his work ethic, his mess, his lack of discipline. But, in his eyes, that didn’t matter: he felt such a furor when in the lab, chin-deep in what he most loved, that he didn’t know how they could expect him to busy himself with such trivial things like organizing his files. He felt that same ardor blossom in his chest now as he talked to Granger about it (though, as he looked at her turn all of his attention to him, his heart simmered with more than fervor for physics): “A few days ago, a 2016 NASA study from down in the South Pole resurfaced. It’s crazy— they recorded particle behavior that defies all of the earthly laws of physics. They think it may be evidence of a parallel universe, where time runs backward— I mean, it’s crazy, but we can’t help but be intrigued—”

“A parallel universe? Seriously?” Granger cut him off, leaning forward with her elbows on the table and staring intently at him. She seemed genuinely interested— something that greatly delighted Weasley. “How would that even work?”

“Well, there are two big possibilities,” Weasley began. He could tell Granger was accustomed to doing the lecturing, not the other way around, but she seemed to be enjoying it. “The first has to do with the Big Bang: there’s this theory that the universe is always expanding, and when it stops expanding somewhere, a Big Bang occurs and a universe is generated; however, expansion continues in other places, and whenever it stops there, a Big Bang occurs too and another universe pops into existence. I’m fonder of the second possibility myself, honestly…”

“Well, what is it?” Granger urged him, hooked by his explanation, her eyes ablaze with the wild spark she reserved for the parts of her work she liked the most.

“Well, uh—” said Weasley, having to regain his bearings after getting distracted by how excited she seemed. “It’s the 'many worlds’ theory. According to this one, every single possible outcome to every single possible situation (be it whether the Greeks win the Trojan War or whether you decide to brush your teeth tonight) actually happens, it just happens in a separate universe. That means there’s an infinite amount of universes out there.”

“You’re telling me out there is a universe where everything is the same, but I’m wearing red instead of blue?”

“Yep, and there’s also a universe out there where I’ve finally finished my PhD because I’ve stopped pondering silly things like multiverses and learned to clean up a file cabinet instead,” quipped Weasley, and —to his surprised delight— Granger laughed.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?” she told him, and the look in her eyes had changed, softened: she was now looking at him with intent curiosity, as if she was seeing him in a whole new light. “You don’t need a doctorate to know that. I bet all those stuffy physicists are just jealous.”

He couldn’t believe his ears— Hermione Granger, darling of academic convention, bashing the very scientists that embodied everything he thought she valued most. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. He felt his ears burning, a surefire sign he was blushing: “That’s high praise, coming from you.”

“You shouldn’t undermine yourself,” Granger said, swirling around the ice in her glass with a straw. “Like I said, you’re brilliant.” And she liked brilliance, she thought, noticing how flattering that half-undone shirt was on him.

A silence ensued as they both looked at each other, broken only when Gerda set down their plates. Hermione cleared her throat to diffuse the awkwardness of the broken spell, and took to her fish and chips with her fork and knife, attempting to return to casual conversation. “So, Ronald,” she said, startling him —she’d never called him by his first name before—, “tell me: in another universe, did I agree to go out with you sooner?”

“Oh, in more than one,” Weasley said nonchalantly, leaning back into his chair. “No matter the universe, you couldn’t help but be drawn to my magnetic personality and my striking good looks…” She laughed, and he smiled dimly before dropping the joking tone: “But, in all seriousness, Hermione Granger, I think we would’ve met in any universe.”

“Well, according to the 'many worlds’ theory, you do have to account for a universe in which we didn't—”

“Oh, technicalities,” he groaned, “I’m trying to be smooth here. But I’m serious.”

“In any universe?”

“In any universe. Even in one where we go to some barmy wizard school instead of uni and you’re the brightest witch our age and I’m a clumsy git who keeps screwing up whatever he points his wand at.”

She laughed fully now, throwing her head back and flashing him a full smile: “Ronald, that’s ridiculous.”

“But I’m serious,” Weasley said, daring to inch his hand closer to hers. Their fingertips touched, and she looked him straight in the eye. “In another universe, Granger, any universe, you’re the only girl I would’ve wanted to meet.”

#Romione FicFest 2020 #Fic Post #Romione #Ron Weasley #Hermione Granger #Submission #Queue Up for the Dragon #Rated T #cw: #cw: alcohol #Ace safe #not safe for ramadan

[sailorportia]

Femslash February 2020, Day 2

Fandom: Little Witch Academia Pairing: Diana Cavendish/Akko Kagari Prompt: Pining

approx. 1,700 words, rated T

also available on AO3

Summary:   Diana Cavendish is not *pining*, nor is she *yearning* or *mooning.* She simply wants to spend more time with her *friend* Akko. Is that too much to ask?

Tags: Pining, Fluff

It had been a day and a half since Diana had last spoken to Akko. Precisely speaking, it had been thirty-six hours and thirty-four minutes—Diana had been diligent in noting the time at which she had apprehended Akko attempting to steal from the school's pantry yet again. They had exchanged greetings since then, but that hardly counted as a proper conversation. She did the same with teachers. She wanted to talk to Akko.

Diana fiddled with the food on her plate as she gazed across the length of the cafeteria to Akko's table. The energetic girl was shovelling food into her mouth, occasionally stopping to speak animatedly with Lotte and Sucy with her mouth still full. It was shockingly impolite, utterly unbefitting of a student of Luna Nova Academy. So why then did Diana wish so desperately that she were the one Akko was speaking to?

Would it be peculiar if she walked over to Akko's table and struck up a conversation with her? She had no pretext for doing so. It would be rude to interrupt Akko when she was eating and already speaking with her other friends (though it would be nice if she were to do those activities separately). Diana didn't want to make a nuisance of herself, but she didn't want to wait until after classes or, Nine Olde Witches forbid, until tomorrow to talk to Akko...

"She's definitely pining," Hannah said.

"Like an evergreen," Barbara agreed.

Diana's fork scraped against her plate in an ear-grating screech. "Pardon?"

"We were talking about Avery," Hannah said. "She's totally yearning for Amanda."

"It's totally obvious," Barbara said. "The way she's mooning over that delinquent is almost as bad as Hannah."

"Hey! I do no such thing!"

Diana tuned out the sound of her roommate's squabbles to reflect on her own thoughts. She was not pining, nor was she yearning or mooning. That was ridiculous. Admittedly, she was fond of Akko, and her feelings bordered onto that of an infatuation, but whatever she felt for Akko was easily reined in and in no way affected her behaviour. She wasn't some lovesick fool, and she certainly wasn't pouting over not getting to talk to Akko as often as she'd like.

But if that were the case, then why had she been afraid that Hannah and Barbara were talking about her?

Diana pinched the bridge of her nose. She was being foolish. If she wanted Akko's attention, she would simply strike up a conversation with her. There was no point in lingering on those feelings and doing nothing about them.

She quickly finished her lunch and stood up from the table. "If you'll excuse me, girls, I have something I need to attend to." After making a quick detour to put her dirty dishes in their proper place, she made a beeline for the Red Team's table. As she approached, she could hear them talking.

"What do you mean we had homework for Magical Linguistics?" Akko shouted.

"Finnelan said it three times," Sucy said. "Looks like you're going to get detention again."

"Um, you can copy off mine," Lotte offered. "But this is the last time, okay?"

"Lotte! You're a life-saver!" Akko threw her arms around her bespectacled friend.

Diana, only two tables away from them, stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest, almost jumping out of her throat. Tendrils of envy snaked around her body and squeezed tightly—just the way that Akko's arms never did.

She turned around and went back to her own table, hoping that Akko hadn't seen her aborted walk to her table. Hannah and Barbara seemed surprised that she had returned so soon, but one look at her troubled expression was enough to deter questioning.

In all her life Diana had never met anyone as openly affectionate as Akko. Hannah and Barbara were at times just as brazen, but only with each other. Akko was clingy with everyone. Everyone except Diana, it seemed.

As pitiful as she felt for admitting so, it bothered her. It wasn't as if the two of them weren't friends—Akko had insisted upon it. However, Akko still considered her a rival of sorts. Perhaps that explained the gulf between how she acted toward Diana and how she treated her other friends. Ordinarily Diana disliked those who had no regard for the personal space of others, but now she found herself wanting Akko to invade hers.

Akko could very well hug whomever she liked, but that didn't mean Diana didn't feel left out. She had to mentally berate herself after she caught herself keeping a mental tally of how many times she saw Akko hugging someone who wasn't her. Honestly, she ought to be ashamed of herself. She couldn't ask Akko that she be treated as special among her friends, but she found it agonizing that she was being set apart from the others.

She watched despondently as Akko left the cafeteria with her friends. The object of her affections turned around just inside the door and the two of them made eye contact. Akko flashed one of her adorable, goofy grins and waved. Diana looked away in embarrassment, as if she'd been caught doing something disreputable. By the time she recovered enough to look up again, Akko was gone, and she felt all the worse for it.

That settled it. Diana Cavendish was, indeed, pining.

*

Just because Diana acknowledged her own feelings and that she was, in fact, yearning for attention from Akko didn't mean she had any idea what to do about it. Would it seem needy of her if she asked Akko to spend more time with her? Would she be bothering her by asking for a hug? After all, surely Akko had a reason for never hugging her. Was it possible that the two of them weren't as close as Diana thought? The idea was unbearable.

Unsure of what to do, Diana limited herself to unproductive pining. She wanted to be closer to Akko, but the prospect of even physically closing the distance between them was daunting. She kept Akko at arm's length, even as she felt the pain of not being at her side as others were. On one occasion when her crush invited her to join them, Diana stiffly made an excuse to be elsewhere and cursed herself the second she was out of the room. Her feelings were making a complete fool out of her, and she didn't know what to do about it.

Diana hid in her room as much as possible, justifying her cowardice by catching up on some extra-curricular reading. After three days she had accumulated a stack of library books which she only dared to return under the cover of night, lest she unexpectedly run into Akko. She slipped over to the library just before curfew and placed the books on the desk where they belonged. When she turned around, she saw the library's only visitor sitting at one of the tables.

"Akko?" Her voice ratcheted up an octave. "What are you doing here so late?"

Akko grinned. "I'm doodling goatees and devil horns on the witches in the textbooks."

Diana blinked. "I'm going to get Professor Finnelan."

"I'm kidding!" Akko yelped. "I was reading this doorstop about magical theory." She slapped the heavy tome. "I didn't understand something in today's assignment. Um, I still don't, but I'm trying!"

"How diligent of you." Diana felt a powerful urge to sit down with Akko and explain the topic in intimate detail, perhaps feigning exhaustion so she would have an excuse to rest her head on Akko's shoulder... Diana came to her senses. "Make sure you return to your dorm room before curfew." She turned to leave the library before her feelings got the better of her.

"Diana!" The shout was followed by the scraping of a chair against the floor.

"Akko, please. We're in a library. Could you keep your voice—" A pair of arms circled Diana's waist and she shrieked from sheer surprise.

"Keep your voice down," Akko murmured against her shoulder. "We're in a library."

Diana should've been offended that Akko of all people was telling her to be quiet, but her brain had stopped working. "Wh-why are you hugging me?"

"You looked sad! You've been moping for days!"

"I have not been 'moping', nor have I ever 'moped.'"

"Nuh-uh! You look miserable like someone stole your Magical History notes." Akko hugged her tighter. "Tell me what's wrong!"

How could Diana possibly verbalize her thoughts under these circumstances? Admitting her feelings, the source of her dismay, could have unpredictable consequences—she didn't know how Akko would receive them, given the distance Diana perceived between them. She settled on the simpler, incomplete truth. "Why haven't you hugged me before now?"

"Eh? Well, I noticed that you aren't really touchy-feely with anyone, not even Hannah and Barbara, and sometimes you get all wigged out when I get really close to you, so I figured you didn't like hugs." Akko paused. "Uh, should I let go?"

"Most certainly not."

"So that's how it is," Akko giggled. "You were jelly because I wasn't giving you any hugs!"

"I—that's not—" Diana was thankful that Akko couldn't see her face from this angle. "We need to return to our respective dorm rooms imminently."

"Awww, somebody's shy!" Akko gave her another squeeze. "Wait, I have to put my book away. Don't leave without me!" She let go of Diana to take care of her business.

Diana smoothed out her unruffled uniform and willed her face to cool down. By the time Akko made it over to her at the library's entrance, she had recovered her composure. "Shall we?"

"Let's shall!"

Akko walked unusually close to Diana as they made their way through the hallways. "Y'know, if you needed a hug, you could've just asked for one."

"I didn't need a hug." True enough; she wanted a hug, which was much more difficult for her to admit.

"Don't be silly. Everybody needs a hug sometimes. If you don't get enough skinship, your body gets depressed. That's science!" Akko reached over and grabbed Diana's hand. "If you need some love, don't hesitate to ask!"

Diana turned away so that her hair would shield her from view. She gave Akko's hand a gentle squeeze. "I'll keep that in mind."

#little witch academia #lwa #diakko #diana cavendish #akko kagari #fanfiction #my fanfiction #yuri #girls love #femslash #femslash february #FauxGhostsFSF

[perfectzablog]

Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children’s way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It’s not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

“We didn’t really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do,” says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

“It was like, ‘Someone, please help me write my essay!’ ” she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

“I can write it for you,” they tweeted back. “Send us the prompt!”

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“For me, it was just that the work was piling up,” she explains. “As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. … And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it’s just … the pressure.”

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they’re likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

“Technically, I don’t think it’s cheating,” the student says. “Because you’re paying someone to write an essay, which they don’t plagiarize, and they write everything on their own.”

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she’s plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

“That’s just a difficult question to answer,” she says. “I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s kind of like a gray area. It’s maybe on the edge, kind of?”

Besides she adds, she probably won’t use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they’re purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

“Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest,” cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she’s not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

“I have a friend who writes essays and sells them,” says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. “And my other friend buys them. He’s just like, ‘I can’t handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I’ll do the other three.’ It’s a time management thing.”

The war on contract cheating

“It breaks my heart that this is where we’re at,” sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

“Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious,” Finley says. “It’s part of the brave new world for sure.”

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to “Get instant help with your assignment” and imploring them: “Don’t lag behind,” “Join the majority” and “Don’t worry, be happy.”

“They’re very crafty,” says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they’re from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

“I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!” gloats one. “Save your time, and have extra time to party!” advises another.

“It’s very much a seduction,” says Bertram Gallant. “So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world.”

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn’t respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

“Yes, just like the little birdie that’s there to help you in your education,” explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who’s now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a “professional essay writing service for students who can’t even.”

Some students just want some “foundational research” to get started or a little “polish” to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn’t keep her up at night.

“These kids are so time poor,” she says, and they’re “missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they’re studying and writing papers.” Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more “well-rounded.”

“I don’t necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it’s not something that bothers me,” says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. “I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well,” she says.

“This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do,” sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it’s not just about “a few bad apples.”

“Instead, what we have is a lot … of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us,” he says. “We know officially what is right and what’s wrong. But really what’s driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing” or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that “everyone’s doing it.”

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students’ behavior.

“Yes, they’re serious mistakes. They’re egregious mistakes,” says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

“But we’re educational institutions,” she adds. “We’ve got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That’s our responsibility. And that’s better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts.”

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document’s metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin’s vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it’s as simple as looking at the document’s name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like “Order Number 123,” and students have been known to actually submit it that way. “You would be amazed at how frequently that happens,” says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

“Think of it as a writing fingerprint,” Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student’s other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

“At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not,” he says, “and you get it really quickly.”

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school’s academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, “we’ll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we’ll have a very hard few years,” she says. “But then the message will get through to students that we’ve got the tools now to find these things out.” Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was “gibberish” and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn’t pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is “buyer beware.”

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it’s wrong.

“If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won’t win,” she says. “What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can’t wear their glasses because we’re afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?”

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about “creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter” and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

[bisoroblog]

Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children’s way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It’s not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

“We didn’t really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do,” says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

“It was like, ‘Someone, please help me write my essay!’ ” she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

“I can write it for you,” they tweeted back. “Send us the prompt!”

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“For me, it was just that the work was piling up,” she explains. “As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. … And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it’s just … the pressure.”

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they’re likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

“Technically, I don’t think it’s cheating,” the student says. “Because you’re paying someone to write an essay, which they don’t plagiarize, and they write everything on their own.”

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she’s plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

“That’s just a difficult question to answer,” she says. “I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s kind of like a gray area. It’s maybe on the edge, kind of?”

Besides she adds, she probably won’t use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they’re purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

“Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest,” cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she’s not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

“I have a friend who writes essays and sells them,” says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. “And my other friend buys them. He’s just like, ‘I can’t handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I’ll do the other three.’ It’s a time management thing.”

The war on contract cheating

“It breaks my heart that this is where we’re at,” sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

“Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious,” Finley says. “It’s part of the brave new world for sure.”

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to “Get instant help with your assignment” and imploring them: “Don’t lag behind,” “Join the majority” and “Don’t worry, be happy.”

“They’re very crafty,” says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they’re from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

“I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!” gloats one. “Save your time, and have extra time to party!” advises another.

“It’s very much a seduction,” says Bertram Gallant. “So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world.”

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn’t respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

“Yes, just like the little birdie that’s there to help you in your education,” explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who’s now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a “professional essay writing service for students who can’t even.”

Some students just want some “foundational research” to get started or a little “polish” to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn’t keep her up at night.

“These kids are so time poor,” she says, and they’re “missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they’re studying and writing papers.” Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more “well-rounded.”

“I don’t necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it’s not something that bothers me,” says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. “I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well,” she says.

“This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do,” sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it’s not just about “a few bad apples.”

“Instead, what we have is a lot … of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us,” he says. “We know officially what is right and what’s wrong. But really what’s driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing” or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that “everyone’s doing it.”

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students’ behavior.

“Yes, they’re serious mistakes. They’re egregious mistakes,” says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

“But we’re educational institutions,” she adds. “We’ve got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That’s our responsibility. And that’s better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts.”

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document’s metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin’s vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it’s as simple as looking at the document’s name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like “Order Number 123,” and students have been known to actually submit it that way. “You would be amazed at how frequently that happens,” says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

“Think of it as a writing fingerprint,” Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student’s other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

“At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not,” he says, “and you get it really quickly.”

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school’s academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, “we’ll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we’ll have a very hard few years,” she says. “But then the message will get through to students that we’ve got the tools now to find these things out.” Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was “gibberish” and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn’t pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is “buyer beware.”

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it’s wrong.

“If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won’t win,” she says. “What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can’t wear their glasses because we’re afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?”

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about “creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter” and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/

[ablanariwho]

English Medium, Indian Middle Class And The Story Of A Blast Furnace - Part II

Photo Courtesy

Something changed after I joined the school. A lot of things, actually. One day, I was playing with the other children of my building. We were busy chattering in our mother tongue, planning our dolls’ wedding. One of my friend’s fathers, stopped while passing by us. He heard us talking in Bengali. He started scolding his daughter and the other girls. They were all enrolled in English medium convent schools. He scolded them for speaking with me and among each other in our mother tongue, Bengali. He warned that if he found them again speaking with me in Bengali, he would lock them in a dark room. That day he sowed the first seed of discrimination in the minds of innocent children. It took my childhood friends away from me.

Illustration by: Amit Shanklya

School is the most important institution responsible for dividing people on socio-economic inequity. This leads to many unfavourable situations. They affect people's physical safety, mental and intellectual growth and access to opportunities. This problem is born out of new-age socio-economic class differences. Capitalism and industrialization drive this difference in society. Let me share with you my experience of this further. On one hand, I was from a comparatively upper echelon of society. My father was an Engineer and an officer. But most of my co-students in my school came from a so-called lower-middle-class background. I was going to a school, meant for non-officer ranking staff of the company. Another discriminatory thing in an industrial township was the houses we lived in. In industrial townships, the “Type” of the official houses where people lived, instantly identified their social and economic status. It varied according to the hierarchy of professional positions of people.

A mismatch happened in my case. The type of staff quarters where I lived and grew up was a little better or higher in the hierarchy than the type of staff houses most of my classmates lived in. But their houses were not located in my area. Most of the children in my neighbourhood were going to English-medium, convent schools. Going to such schools was perceived as a step towards upwardly mobile social status. My school was looked down upon as it represented the lower strata of the industrial society. But, as I mentioned, very few or almost none of my school classmates lived in my area. So I was living in two worlds - one in my school and one in the area where I lived.

It was a couple of years since we were all going to our respective schools. Once, I was sitting in one corner of the room at a friend’s birthday party in the same building. By then my friends learnt from their parents that I was someone they should avoid interacting with much. I had started feeling that change in their behaviour. But I didn't know why and the child in me was not yet ready to accept the situation. I was trying hard to blend into the gathering, though no one spoke to me. The birthday girl’s father - a fat and stout man in his lungi (a wrap-around dress for men) and bare-bodied, came in the room. He was looking for a place to sit. All the couches in the room were occupied by the guests. He noticed me sitting in one corner. He pointed out at me and said, “You naughty kids. look at her. She goes to a Bengali medium school. If you all speak in English, how would she understand what you are talking about? You all know she can’t speak or understand English. Poor child.” Everybody laughed at the way he said all that. I squirmed inside. I didn't expect what he did next. Once everybody stopped laughing, he said,” But you know what? She is a good child. None of you offered me a seat. But she would let me sit.” Before I could realize it, he came towards me and plopped on my lap. All the children and adults in the room split into loud laughter. I was almost dying out of embarrassment, trying hard to hold my tears. The father of another friend I spoke about at the beginning of this post, would go to another level of mental abuse. One day we were all playing. Though they were speaking in English, I somehow managed to take part in the play with them. All of a sudden they abandoned me and disappeared somewhere when they saw him coming there. I was disheartened and going back home when he caught hold of me and said,” What happened? Aren’t you playing with them?”Before I could say something, he said, “ Oh, I understand. You must be scared of them, right? I know. You can’t speak in English, right?”As I was trying to wriggle out of his mocking, I froze when he did this. It was a very sadistic thing, any adult should do with a child. He suddenly stuck out a false tooth on the tip of his tongue, rolled out his eyes and made a face that almost made my heart stop in my little chest.

This continued whenever he found me alone.

Today, I have learnt to analyse the experience and the trauma it caused me then. The bullying, shaming and ostracising by these adults kill a child's natural confidence. They dent her sense of self-worth by such a message that she was not good enough and acceptable. Such erroneous treatment by adults did injustice not only to me but also to their own children. They rob them of their inherent goodness and authenticity. They pollute it with ideas of discrimination, snobbery, arrogance and pride. All that feed their ego. It is a subject of social conditioning. Much such social conditioning makes a person's ego grow into gigantic proportions.

Much later in life, I understood why the parents behaved like that. Because they had their own unresolved psychological issues and lack of self-awareness. Almost none of them studied in English medium, convent schools. Neither was proficient in speaking English. They must have had experienced discrimination and a sense of inadequacy, inferiority due to lack of this skill. That made them leeching on their children's convent education to compensate for that lack inside them. They attached their identity to it. It boosted their ego. They were super eager to see their children speak in English like a pro. It uplifted their vernacular status to great socio-nautical heights. As if it would para-drop them on the terrace of Buckingham Palace. I was not able to converse in English then. So speaking with me in Bengali looked like a worrisome deterrent for their children. It got them anxious. They warned their children of dire consequences in front of me. The dire consequence was putting them in my school if they failed to do their homework. Or if they were found doing something as obnoxious as speaking in Bengali with me! I started dreading people asking me which school I go to. They would often prompt the names of the two prominent English medium schools in our township when they asked me this. The moment they heard me naming my school, they would find it hard to hide the abrupt change in their expression. It would be a surprise for them. They didn't expect an officer's daughter to go to that school. After an awkward pause, they would try to replace it with the pretence of a nice, approving one. The most ill-mannered among them would not blink an eye and comment,” Oh, that one, where these lowly people’s kids go?” These people even started snubbing my parents. The rest would divert the topic to something safer like weather or ever-escalating market prices. My parents had no idea how my non-English medium, non-convent schooling was playing havoc with my early life. They neither had any past reference point and the knowledge nor the foresight to know that.

But like every sad fairy-tale story, my story of Macaulay’s ghost haunting me, also had a happy ending. Please read the following post to know how I discovered the silver lining in my story of socio-linguistic trauma - known as English Medium.

Click here:

English Medium, Indian Middle Class And The Story Of A Blast Furnace - Part III 

#Education #Child abuse #Bullying #Social shaming #Buckingham Palace #Thomas Babington Macaulay #classism #discrimination #privilege #vernacular languages #influence of schooling #parental guidance #parental neglect #awareness #compassion #acceptance

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Anthony Wilson

  a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. He works in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. His anthology Lifesaving Poems, based on the blog of the same name, is available from Bloodaxe Books. Love for Now, his memoir of cancer, is published by Impress Books. Deck Shoes, a book of prose memoir and criticism, and The Afterlife, his fifth book of poems, are available now from Impress Books and Worple Press.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry

I began writing poems because I was asked to at school. I was thirteen or so. I suppose this happens to a lot of people, but with me, I just carried on. It was homework, over the weekend, on the not very original topic of ‘Black’. My teacher Mr Borton liked what I wrote but scribbled at the bottom of it that I had spoiled quite an original poem with a rather clunky and obvious ending. Part of me thinks I am still trying to impress him. Part of me still thinks that I carried on writing poems to prove to him that future poems would be an improvement. From then on, all the poetry I wrote in my teens and as a young adult was in secret. It took me a very long time to show it to anyone, by which time I was in the final stages of an undergraduate degree at university.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My teachers. The aforementioned Mr Borton, Mrs Hooper and Mr Vickery. I owe them everything. We looked at John Logan’s The Picnic, McGough’s 40 Love, Dulce et Decorum Est, Ted Hughes’s animal poems, Pike and so on. The first Hughes poem I remember seeing was The Retired Colonel. Where I grew up, Northwood, on the very edge of Greater London, seemed full of them. I had even been taught by a few. That poem really knocked me over. I guess what they were doing was presenting to us language that was alive and somehow contemporary. As Seamus Heaney says in one of his essays, this literary but also very natural language began at this point to merge with the more informal poetic speech of my early childhood: hymns and Bible readings in church, my father’s Sunday lunchtime stories about Jennifer and Peter, his father’s terrible jokes at Sunday teatime, the football results on Saturday evenings, pop music and so on. I do think you need both kinds of language to get you going. Heaney, again, his idea of a ‘linguistic hardcore’ on which you build as you start to read and stretch your wings. As you get older, of course, you realise the reading part will never be complete. But the bedrock of your experience, that never vanishes. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had those experiences in my early life, and to have met that amazing set of teachers when I did.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

From the moment I encountered Hughes, McGough, and Dylan Thomas (it was a very male curriculum, I am afraid to say) and the others, all the way up to A level, where I met Sylvia Plath and Hopkins, the presence of older poets has always been a mesmerising factor in what I might call my development. First as a kind of set of rules by which you play, obsessively copying, imitating and following, then as a set of elderly relations you know you have to see each Christmas but about whom you suddenly feel embarrassed. Because by then you have encountered other poets, other voices, other models, and the same cycle of imitation, obsession and rejection begins all over again. I feel as though I have now got to the stage in my life where I am holding a kind of permanent open house to whoever wants to come in. Sometimes I see Ted in the hallway, or cooking a fry up, as Peter Sansom would have it. We nod at each other. Sometimes I find Marie Howe unpacking her suitcases all over the place. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don’t. You never know who is going to turn up. Jaan Kaplinski was round the other day. We sat under the apple tree, then it started raining.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

My writing routine isn’t really one. I do morning pages, a la Julia Cameron, first thing in the morning while the bath runs, a couple of pages of nonsense, then on with the day. I carry a small notebook around with me, into which go lists, prompts, ideas, quotes and yet more lists. I seem to be in quite a list phase at the moment. I write poems and essays and blogs and other bits and pieces -I don’t really know what to call them- at the end of the day, when the emails and the other necessary business of teaching, meeting, visiting students and feeding back to them has been done. This will be in the second golden hour of the day, late afternoon, just before cooking needs to happen and my family come home from their days. I think of it as writing in the cracks, between other things. Ann Sansom once told me that tiredness is a great state to be writing in, as it cuts through your rational, editorial defences. You tend to go for the jugular more.

5. What motivates you to write?

Being a human being.

6. What is your work ethic?

I am really prolific and scandalously lazy at the same time. I sometimes go months without writing a word. Then splurge endlessly for several weeks.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

As I say above, I like to think of myself being on nodding terms with them. Having said that, it has been a long time since Sylvia came round for a cup of tea, not to mention Eliot. I’ve been thinking of having another go at The Four Quartets again recently, perhaps I should? The problem of getting older and losing your first love of poetry, is that you can see the strategies that people use a little more clearly, and that can get repetitive, which can lead to cynicism. When you are young and have not encountered Theodore Roethke before you are just running round the house going Wow, look at this, isn’t that incredible, how did he do that? I liken it to being in a band (which I was, for several years, with my brother). You practise and practise and practise and gig and gig and gig and everything is all about gobbling up every experience that comes your way. Now I am in my dotage, I find I can generate just as much electricity on much less material. A line of Tranströmer here, a phrase of Janet Fisher there.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

The thing is, some of these very early influences, some of whom are dead, feel very alive and ‘today’ to me more than writers who are actually with us. For personal reasons I have come off social media this year. The advantage of this is that I now have much larger headspace than I did previously, and this is good for reading and writing. The disadvantage is that I miss just about everything. I couldn’t tell you who has been shortlisted for this or that prize for the last five years. I am just not interested. I find it inimical to getting any proper work done. I make up for this by paying attention to my team. I think everyone has a team (they might not admit it, but they do), and for me these are people I know personally or have worked with and who still inform my practice. People like Christopher Southgate, what an amazing poet he is. And a great human being, so generous and kind. I am on first name terms with all of them. People I see once a century, like Jean Sprackland or Cliff Yates. They teach me so much. Peter Sansom. I last saw him five years ago, and am still meditating on what he told me each day over breakfast.

9. Why do you write?

I think I have to, really. I don’t think it is a choice. (Except, of course, it is.) I don’t go along with the idea of having something to say. I write to find out what I want to say. For me it is about discovery. Things occur to me which I want to say which I would not have said had I not started writing. William Stafford said that, and he was right.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Read. Everything. And forget about having a ‘career’. ‘You make the thing because you love the thing/ and you love the thing because someone else loved it/ enough to make you love it.’ Thomas Lux.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

My big project at the moment is silence. Staying away from the news (you know what and you know who) enough to collect my thoughts together to be present enough to recognise and become aware of the promptings that might come my way. It is getting increasingly difficult to do this (see what I say above, about social media). Having just published two books I am determined not to spend the next three years moping and worrying about not having a project to work on. To counteract this, I have started several. Not all of them will come through. But that is not the point. The point is to keep going. That is how I judge success.

Anthony Wilson October, 2019

https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/books/the-afterlife/

https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/books/deck-shoes/

https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Anthony Wilson Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.