#Learning Korean Marathon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eoieopda · 11 months

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meet me at the bar (ksj)

You're supposed to be staring down the barrel of the last — and most important — examination of your life, but you only have eyes for your study buddy.

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x AFAB!Reader Type: One Shot | Fluff w/ Smut | 18+ — Minors DNI Word Count: 7.5k AU: Law school, study-buddies, best friends to lovers, highly educated idiots in love CW: Bad jokes, Latin, fingering (v), unprotected sex (p in v), Seokjinnie hits it from the back. A/N: My inaugural Seokjin smut is dedicated to my donsaeng-in-law (see what I did there?) @yoongiphoria, who is now embarking on this stupid, stupid gatekeeping journey IRL. Best of luck, my lil love. I'll be waiting for you on the other side of the war! MJ FIGHTING ~ Big ups to my other lil love, M, for beta reading 💕 I posted an epilogue drabble on 7/26/23. Also: This is written based on my experience in the American legal (educational) system. I was, frankly, too lazy to study up on South Korean law for a fanfic, lol. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors will be blocked, on sight. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

You are not spiraling.

You are a paragon of health and wellness, you tell yourself as you gulp down a mug of coffee that is still far too hot, like you’ll die without it.

More bitter than the taste on your tongue is the realization that you might die with it — your third cup in fewer hours. As far as you can tell, though, it’s a win-win situation: You’ll either generate enough anxious energy to finalize your property law flashcards, or you’ll drop dead before you have to review them.

And you won’t have to take that exam…

And you won’t have to pay off your student debt…

Besides, you figure, the stomach ulcer you’re likely inflicting on yourself will be infinitely less painful than dragging your under-caffeinated corpse through yet another day of studying. Another eight, consecutive hours spent forcing forgotten subjects back into your maxed-out brain.

It’s worth it, you repeat to yourself, though this gauntlet has turned out to be a full-time job that steals, rather than pays. You can faint on top of the finish line, so long as some part of you crosses it.

You should be used to it by now, running a marathon at a dead sprint. That’s all you’ve ever done — push yourself. You attended your first day of preschool and never stopped, never took a breath. Through elementary, middle, and high school; then for four years of university. Going, going, going.

Stumbling through that eighteenth lap around the track, you kept going because — well, being a student was all you’d ever been. That’s your toxic trait, you’ve since discovered. Your concept of self is rooted exclusively within the context of a classroom.

You didn’t know it at the time, but your decision to take the Law School Admission Test — or the HellSAT, as you’ve come to call it — might have been the start of a quarter-life crisis. But you didn’t stop there. No, you took that score and ran with it. Slapped it onto every application as a desperate plea for acceptance.

When you received your admission letter, you were a bright-eyed twenty-two-year-old with a bachelor’s degree and a vaguely defined dream.

Call it naïveté or call it gravitas, there wasn’t a doubt in your smooth little brain that law school was the logical next step to take. That being intelligent and hard-working made you well-equipped for the challenge that came with pursuing a Juris Doctor. After all, you’d spent nineteen years delaying gratification — what difference would three more make?

Within the first hour of your orientation, you — a professional student — had already learned something new: You were a masochist and, frankly, somewhat of an idiot.

Thankfully, you weren’t alone.

Sitting — dissociating, more like — at a nearby table was a lanky boy you’d first noticed on your tour of the law building. His glassy-eyed stare was aimed somewhere in the middle-distance, and even though his slightly agape mouth said nothing, it communicated everything. He was the only other person in that atrium who looked the way you felt: scared shitless and riddled with buyer’s remorse. A can crushed under the boot of self-doubt.

It was the first time you and your wobbly knees went running in his direction, but it wouldn’t be the last.

He was so deep in a daze at that moment that he didn’t notice the way you threw yourself into the open chair next to him, didn’t look up at the scrape of wooden legs against the granite floor beneath them. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you announced your presence with words, however.

It was less of an introduction — the way people in a society tend to greet each other for the first time, ever — and more of a twister. Words whipped through the air at a dangerously high velocity, no syllable ending before you started on the next. Just one breath, a few consonants, and a pair of dark eyebrows shooting up to cower behind his bangs.

“Was — was that Korean?” He asked when you finally ran out of wind.

Judging by the way his wide eyes softened, you knew he wasn’t making fun of you. You’d simply scrambled his brain so thoroughly that you’d transcended the known limits of language.

More of a question than an answer, you peeped, “I think so. Maybe?” You wavered with a sigh. “I’m no longer confident that I know any of the things I thought I knew, though. So, um, don’t quote me on that.”

“You’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t catch enough of whatever that was —” He gestured vaguely. “— To even attempt to quote you.”

Within seconds and without knowing, he’d disarmed the bomb ticking away in your gut. He must’ve sensed it, too, because his face lit up so completely that you had to look away. One glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows confirmed that the sun hadn’t reappeared at that time of night.

That rush of warmth you felt then — that absolutely insane brightness — was powered exclusively by the grin taking up the entirety of his face. If that megawatt smile alone hadn’t rerouted your oncoming anxiety attack, the distinct, squeaking laugh that erupted out of his chest would’ve done the job.

You doubled over, either under the weight of your own giggling or with the relief you felt in finding someone equally lost. Eyes swimming with mirth, you wiped wetness from your cheekbone and snorted. “Was that a windshield wiper?”

“No, that was embarrassing.”

The tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks went some dizzy shade of pink.

He rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck with one hand and held the other out to shake yours.

“And I’m Kim Seokjin.”

Now, when the door of your apartment flies open without warning, it’s that same savior standing on your threshold. That designation may be melodramatic, but if that brown paper bag contains what you suspect it does, it’s deserved.

Seokjin, patron saint of breakfast sandwiches, flops down on the couch that stretches along the opposite side of your coffee table. From where you sit on the floor — hunched over your notes like a hobgoblin — you reach out your expectant arms and make grabby hands in the space between you.

You see mischief flash in his eyes, but only for a second. In the next, he’s pretending like he doesn’t see you; doesn’t hear your petulant little whines. He extends long legs out over the cushions, clutches the bag to his chest, and lets his head roll back to rest on the couch’s arm.

“Wanna know what I did today instead of practice essays?” He asks, eyes unfocused on the ceiling above.

All you actually want is whatever that smell is. You can’t stop staring at the bag of food in his hands. If you try hard enough, maybe you can summon some sort of psychic energy, make it levitate towards you.

He doesn’t wait for your response. “The math.”

“Huh?”

You frown; and as you do, you reluctantly shift your gaze from Seokjin’s hands to his face. He isn’t looking your way, but you can tell he’s grimacing based solely on the way his jaw twitches. It’s a miracle he hasn’t ground his teeth to dust over the past three years, given how often he makes that face.

In an attempt to ease the tension in his posture, you tease, “Didn’t we go to law school because we can’t do math?”

He cracks an unwilling smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless. Without turning his head, he extends his arm out in your direction. In the split second it takes for yours to spring forward like a snake, that blessed bag dangles; the scent of sausage, egg, and cheese wafts through the air and restores your will to live. Clutching your prize, halfway to feral, you tear into it without hesitation.

As you bite off more than you can chew, Seokjin prepares his rant with a sigh, “So, consider this.”

“Mmphf,” you advise through a mouthful of greasy bliss.

“Bar exam prep takes eight weeks, right? If we’re only counting business days, that’s forty — forty days, for a minimum of eight hours each.”

He becomes more restless, the more he talks. Heated, he sits bolt upright and turns wild-eyed to you.

Oh, he’s gone full-tilt insane.

“Three-hundred-and-twenty hours, then. And if you think about that in terms of our clerk wages —” He slaps his hands down on his thighs for emphasis. “— at 2,625 won per hour —”

Then, he points to you, as if the increasing volume of his voice wasn’t already holding you hostage.

“— we’ve sacrificed nearly two million won in income, just by studying for this fucking test.”

You swallow down the last bite of your sandwich, which you downright hoovered while Seokjin took the path of most resistance. After clearing your throat, your interjection overlaps with his next point:

“Seokjinnie, why didn’t you just double our monthly —”

“That’s after we paid ninety million in tuition, hundreds of thousands on study materials and registration fees —”

You cut him off. “Is this your way of asking me to Venmo you for breakfast?”

He freezes, caught fully off-guard. Shocked eyes widen like you’re the ridiculous one. “Of course not!”

He waves you off like his thoughtful gesture is no big deal. Then, like he’s tired himself out, he sinks back onto your couch. From his back, he grumbles with crossed arms, “‘M just sayin’ that I’m tired of this shit.”

You can’t help but giggle at the pathetic pout working down the corners of his mouth. “Felt,” you agree, though it feels a little bit like a lie.

Truth be told, you feel more awake now than you did ten minutes ago, and you can’t attribute it to the coffee — not when the evidence so clearly indicates otherwise.

Over the course of three years, you’ve built up quite the case against yourself. You’ve made the following findings of fact:

Whenever he pops up, Seokjin brings your mood up with him. Even now, as he marinates in anguish on your couch, his presence gives you a reason not to beat yourself unconscious with the four-kilogram prep book that sits beside you on the rug. Makes you hate your circumstances a little less, if only because you share them with him.

And, for a rapidly deflating balloon, you have to concede that Seokjin looks stunning this morning.

Unlike you and your day-three hair, he somehow had the energy to wash his. The mid-sections of some strands are still damp; the parts that aren’t frame his face in fluffy waves. His shampoo is something fruity mixed with something crisp — grapefruit and mint, maybe? — and it floods your senses, causing question marks to replace any coherent thoughts you might otherwise have. You’d be lying again if you said you didn’t want to find out for sure how soft those tresses really are.

The verdict?

Well, the jury’s still out, but you know you’re guilty.

If being down this bad for your best friend isn’t a criminal offense, it should be.

You shake your head to clear it. To smother the flame licking up the inside of your belly, you grab the certified mood killer off the coffee table and hold it up in front of you. Surely, the cure for a sexual tension headache is an eight-centimeter stack of color-coded, neon index cards covered in information you shouldn’t need to memorize in the first place.

“Exam’s in one week,” you say with a shiver.

Seokjin rolls onto his side to look forlornly at you. You are not looking at his bare hip bone, which appears where the hem of his shirt shifts from the waistband of his joggers. Nope.

You continue the search for the point you’re trying to make. “I can barely spell mortgage, let alone explain what the fuck to do with one.”

“Don’t think I know what land even is at this point,” he sighs. Dejected, he lets his arm go limp. It spills off the edge of the cushion and dangles until his knuckles brush against the rug. “What is this property you speak of?”

Biting back a grin is impossible, so you press your lips together instead. Just like that — just by Seokjin being Seokjin — the hellscape you willingly walked into gets a little brighter. Maybe, you think, you can do this.

You look down for a moment to shuffle up the cards you spent the better part of two days preparing. As you stare down at the staggering amount of knowledge you might be tested on, you can feel the crease returning between your eyebrows. Your grimace is back, too, like a reflex.

If you make it through this experience without premature wrinkles, you’ll be shocked.

There’s shifting on the couch ahead, but you don’t look up until Seokjin breezes, “From this angle, it almost looks like you’re smiling.”

His arm is no longer dangling off the edge of the couch. His entire upper body is. Knees now hinged over the backrest for balance, he’s upside-down and smirking impishly at you.

He has to know you’re in love with him, right? How could he expect you not to be?

You clear your throat and arch a single eyebrow as a challenge. “What is the rule against perpetuities, Seokjinnie?”

Like you, he can recite it in full at a machine-gun rate of fire. It’s been beaten so far into your heads that you might utter it on your deathbeds, with your last gasping breaths.

“No interest in land is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest,” he responds with a smug smile. “Easy.”

It’s your turn to smirk.

“Great. Now, what does any of that mean?”

Without missing a beat, he fires back, “Does anyone know?”

“Absolutely not. Next question!”

Having had the same day, every day, for seven weeks straight, Seokjin is struggling. He’s spent hundreds of hours on the same routine, feeling beaten down and burnt out, all the while. It goes like this:

Every morning, he wakes up and goes for a run in a feeble attempt to feel something other than dread. After that, he eats a lackluster breakfast, and then he promptly chains himself to his desk. When he finally gives himself permission to get up again, it’s dark out; and he’s too brain dead to check the hundred or so notifications that amassed on his phone during his fugue state.

Scratch that. There’s one person he responds to, no matter what. As far as everyone else is concerned, though, he’s a ghost.

Today is the first day out of the last fifty-five where Seokjin doesn’t feel like his brain is being hydraulically pressed. For the first time in too long, he fell into an old routine; one he’s missed. It started with a shower — and honestly, that was overdue — then, he swung by the café he’s frequented over the past three years. There, he made his usual order.

One iced americano, and one sausage-egg-and-cheese croissant with extra hot sauce.

Before he walked back up the block, he downed the former, but he didn’t touch the latter. The latter wasn’t for him, anyways. None of the breakfast sandwiches he ever stops for are.

The subsequent hours looked semi-similar to the three-hundred-and-twenty he’s already devoted to studying. Well, sort of. To be clear, the subject matter still sucks, and he’s still angry that he has to touch it at all, but he isn’t waiting for the sweet release of death in the same way he has been all summer.

This might have something to do with the fact that, for the first time in nearly sixty days, he’s not on his own.

More than that, he’s with you.

Having switched away from covenants, easements, and servitudes, he feels a slightly less stupid. Contract law is a little more straightforward and a little less caked in colonialism. Unfortunately, after six hours of burning all his brain cells on shit like liens, Seokjin has begun his descent into madness.

The worms are digging in, he can’t focus, and neither of you can stop — fucking — laughing.

“I’ll give you a hint,” you giggle, shifting in your spot on the neighboring cushion. You give his knee a pat that feels a tiny bit patronizing, but that makes his pulse race, nonetheless. “It’s a Latin term.”

He snorts so loudly that you do a double-take, just to make sure it wasn’t a sneeze. You both stare at one another for a beat, then comes the eruption.

“It’s all Latin!” He roars.

To muffle the way he’s wheezing, Seokjin slaps his hands over his face. It’s already tear-stained from his abject failure to keep his shit together. At least he can attempt to hide how red he knows it is.

Your laugh comes straight from your belly. You double over completely when his comes out in squeaks, hand reaching out to squeeze his forearm. It used to bother him, the sound he made when he truly loses it, but it doesn’t any more.

How could it, when it makes you cling to him like that?

Wiping at your cheeks, you take a deep breath, then sigh, “Does it help if I give you the translation?”

He doubts it because you just pinched your bottom lip between your teeth, and now, his mind is blank.

Really, it’s a fucking miracle he graduated at all with you around. You and that face you make when you concentrate have always made it impossible for him to do so. It’s why he wasn’t paying attention in class when this shit was taught in the first place, he realizes now.

To cool himself down, Seokjin grabs the Camelbak bottle off the coffee table, realizes too late it’s yours and not his — oh, well — and shoves the straw into his mouth. He nods once, firmly, and sucks in as much water as he can.

It all sprays back out of his mouth when you say:

“Naked promise.”

He had always wondered what his life would look like if it ever flashed before his eyes. Now, he knows. It’s not a montage of his finest moments, the most recent of which would not have made the cut. All he sees is you, wide-eyed, glancing between him and the wet spot that’s now soaking through your sweatshirt.

You press your lips together, probably to keep from laughing in his face. It’s a valiant effort on your part and a kind gesture, but honestly, he doesn’t deserve it. His fingers twitch as he clutches the bottle, wanting nothing more than to dump the remaining water on his face. He embarrasses himself more often than not, but this stings his cheeks like a sunburn.

“I am —” he raises his hands, flustered, “So sorry. I don’t remember waking up in a sitcom this morning, but I, uhhh, clearly did.”

When you stand up, you’re grinning. And not in that scary way you do when you’re about to retaliate for some prank he’s pulled. No, that look on your face is genuine amusement.

Thank god.

You shrug as you cross your arms over your torso and grip the hem of your sweatshirt with both hands. “All good, Seokjinnie,” you laugh. “This needed to be washed, anyway. You see that coffee stain?”

No.

No, he does not see that coffee stain because the tank top underneath your sweatshirt is clinging to the wet spot as you tug the top layer up your stomach. He feels bad for staring — really, he does — but fuck, your skin looks soft. Like, so soft that he has to grip his water bottle to keep a grip on himself.

Eventually, your tank top separates from your sweatshirt. It falls back down to where it belongs, to Seokjin’s dismay, and the sweatshirt keeps going.

“Nudum pactum,” you remind him as you pull the drenched hoodie over your head. Playfully, you toss it at him. It smacks against his chest, splays out over his lap.

Once more with feeling: thank god.

You sink back down beside him on the couch, and he can’t help but notice that you’re the tiniest bit closer than you were before. It’s innocent, just your bare knee bumping his shin as you re-cross your legs. Still, it leaves his tingling through the fabric of his joggers when you don’t move away.

The silence surges as it settles, crinkling like static in his ears. He almost doesn’t hear you when you ask him again: “What’s it mean?”

Uhhhh.

“It means —”

Unfortunately for him, the water he just forcibly ejected from his mouth didn’t help him. His throat is dry now, and he sounds strangled, he’s sure. The way you’re watching him so intently doesn’t help one fucking bit, either.

Are you doing that on purpose?

You nudge him physically this time, knuckles connecting gently and playfully with his leg. He wonders if you can hear his heart hammering against the wall of his chest in all of this quiet. You might, he figures, especially when you tuck your hair behind your ear.

Instinctively, his eyes flick down to the length of your neck. Without a curtain of hair in the way, it’s even more exposed skin that he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with. Making matters worse for him, you tilt your head to the side expectantly. His breath catches when he tears his gaze away, back up, and sees the way you’re looking at him now.

You are absolutely — without a goddamn doubt — doing this on purpose.

If that’s the game you want to play, Seokjin can play it, too. He turns away from you to set the bottle back down on the coaster he took it from. As he does, he finally answers your question — the nonchalance he’s faking even sounds convincing.

“It’s an unenforceable promise,” he replies casually. “One with insufficient consideration.”

He rights himself in his seat, stretches a bit further backwards until he’s resting comfortably against the arm of the couch. You hide it well, but there’s a hint of a pout on your lips when you clock the newfound distance.

Check, he smirks to himself, your move.

A flash of pink slips out. Your tongue wetting those lips before you prompt him more quietly than before, “And consideration is…?”

He slips up, makes the mistake of noticing the rise and fall of your chest as you take measured breaths. So, he sees, you’re buzzing with anticipation, too. He wonders if it’s him that’s having that effect on you, or the circumstances.

For all he knows, it could be pent up steam that you need to release. Stress weighing down your body that you want to get off.

Fuck, he wants to get you off.

He swallows thickly. “Can’t get something for nothing. There has to be an exchange, otherwise it’s meaningless.”

You say nothing, so he keeps talking.

“Quid pro quo, essentially,” Seokjin adds. He chuckles slightly when he realizes. “See? Told you. It’s all fucking Latin.”

The corner of your mouth twitches at his joke, but you don’t make a sound. The hand that previously pushed against his leg inches closer, just barely. It’s such a small shift that you don’t seem to realize that you’re moving it.

Maybe you feel that pull, too; the one he’s been fighting since you barged into his life without warning.

Maybe the consideration has been there from the start; a promise for a promise. I’ll jump if you do. Because it’s always been that way, hasn’t it? Since orientation.

Pulling all-nighters in the library, developing matching caffeine dependencies, getting sick too often from the strain of it all.

You and him.

Laughing quietly in the back of lectures, cold sweats through cold calls, bitching about unpaid internships while you spend indisposable income at the bar down the block without acknowledging the irony.

There are only two real differences between this night and that first one, he notes.

Now, Seokjin isn’t questioning every decision he’s ever made that led him to this point. He’s not scared shitless, not really. Not when you’re around.

You cut through the silence with a sigh that’s barely more than an exhale, so breathy that your voice dissipates as soon as it hits the air.

“Seokjin.”

He could probably hear a pin if you dropped one — can hear everything you don’t say. It’s all packed tight inside that utterance of his name like gunpowder, locked and loaded.

So, who shoots first?

You shift again. Now, when you speak, it’s deliberate and in a language he can parse.

“Tell me you want me, too.”

Bang!

His body answers for him, pushes off from where he leans until he can get his knees underneath him. He’s waited three years to kiss you, but he can delay gratification for the brief time it takes to overtake you. Pinned with his palms bearing weight on either side of your head, you wind up caged in and breathless beneath him. His right knee occupies the space between your spread thighs.

Again, it’s a miracle he’s made it this far with you around.

He hums, beyond pleased with the position he finds himself in. “Maybe. Tell me if I got the answer right.”

“Oh my god.” You toss your head back to the extent that you can, which admittedly isn’t far. Your frustration rolls off you in waves, heat palpable. “I’ll kill you, I swear.”

“Sounds admissible to me,” he teases further. He flexes an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an exception to the prohibition of hearsay evidence? Speaks to motive, I think.”

Seokjin has no idea why he’s riling himself up like this. If he could shut up — just this once — he could be kissing you by now. You seem to be aware of that fact, too, because you grip his shirt so desperately, one right move might tear it.

You huff out a laugh despite the circumstances, “This friendship is over, by the way, in case that’s not clear.”

That tiny smile on your face spreads to his. Not over, he knows, just modified. Amplified, finally. Knowing that, he continues to push his luck.

“Can I make one more joke?”

“So over!” You emphasize with a wail.

He takes a second to center himself before hitting you with award-winning drama, sincerity dipped in the kind of humor he never misses out on with you:

“You have adversely possessed my heart.”

Your jaw drops at how stupid that line was, but you reign it in just in time for his lips to crash into yours.

It almost knocks the wind out of him, the way the pieces fall with force into place. They slot together easily, just like you do. With fingers clinging, the weight of his body molding overtop of yours.

You kiss him until he forgets what life tasted like without your tongue licking into him, your little moans melting in his mouth — until you break apart, gasping for air. Panting, you ask, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting on you?”

He doesn’t, no, not at all. Thankfully, you take his stunned silence for what it’s worth. After relinquishing your grip on his shirt, you bring your hands up to cup his face gently in your palms.

With you touching him like this, he has no option but to stare down at you. Bit redundant, he thinks, since his focus has always been locked right here, right on you, by choice. Given that, it’s a little funny that he managed to miss every signal you’ve apparently sent him. But really, it doesn’t necessarily surprise him to hear that he’s even dumber than he thought.

You kiss him slowly this time, briefly, before nipping affectionately at his bottom lip. It drives him exactly as crazy as you want it to; makes his cock twitch inside his joggers, makes his brain foggy with a potent combination of fondness and filth.

Do you have any idea how many times he’s thought about this? He’s genuinely wondering because even he doesn’t know. He’s lost count of all the times he’s watched you nibble on your own lip and wished it was his instead. A million or more, if he has to guess.

Seeming to sense the way you've scrambled his brain, you nudge the tip of his nose with yours and giggle.

Seokjin can’t help but grin. “What’s so funny?”

“Thought of a good one,” you answer. Your smirk does his head in. The contrasting, goofy wiggle of your eyebrows squeezes his heart. “Better than yours, I think.”

He kisses you quick and hums, “Oh?”

You nod.

The suspense is killing him. So is the way your clothed cunt grinds ever so slightly against his thigh.

Fuck.

He wants you, he wants you, he wants you.

“You gonna make me come, Seokjin, or do I have to wait for you to file a subpoena?”

You may have to seek a refund for the prep course you paid for.

For as long as you can remember, you’ve learned best through application. You could read the same chapter, over and over, and not absorb a word. The same was true with lectures, even more so when they’re pre-recorded rambles by the weirdest adjunct professors known to man. Sure, you may eventually memorize concepts this way, but they don’t sink in deeply enough to stay. You can’t use them in any way that helps you.

To no one’s surprise, no part of your civil procedure lecture sticks until it falls into your lap.

Strike that.

Until Seokjin loses his balance in trying to take his pants off, and falls onto your floor with a yelp.

A moment or two passes while you stare at each other in shock, but that dissolves quickly. And so do both of you, right into another fit of laughter that makes your shoulders shake. Then, you jump to your feet and hold your hands out to him.

Seokjin accepts them, though he doesn’t rely on them at all when he stands back up. He seems more than content just to hold onto you, whether or not he needs you to keep him steady. You have no complaints, for once in your life.

Shaking his head, he chuckles, “Venue change?”

“I think —” You hum and kiss the column of his throat. He swallows hard enough that you feel his Adam’s apple bob against your lips. So sensitive. “This is what they call forum non conveniens.”

He’s having none of that, and you don’t necessarily blame him. As it turns out, the shoe isn’t terribly comfortable when it’s on the other foot.

You’re lifted without warning, bent over his shoulder, and hauled off in the direction of your bedroom before you can even squeak in protest. You drop like a bag of dirt — albeit a beloved bag of dirt — onto your mattress once he reaches it; his lips are on yours to swallow the gasp before it can leave your mouth.

As eager as his mouth are his hands, roaming down the curve of your waist and over your hips. With fistfuls of the pajama shorts you hadn’t bothered to change out of, his head dips down under your jaw. The warmth of his breath is quickly replaced by that of his tongue, flicking a short, languid line along your neck.

“Want you so fucking bad,” he breathes. A shiver shoots straight down your spine and you keen, head crashing gracelessly back against the pillows. “Just like this.”

And he means it — you can feel how true it is with him settled between your spread legs. He presses his hips forward to meet your clothed cunt, cock teasing you through four goddamn layers’ worth of fabric.

His lips flutter against your earlobe just seconds before his teeth graze your flesh. He continues, voice vibrating through his chest to yours, “All the time.”

You outright whimper when he grinds against you a second time. Halfway to crazy, you knot your fingers in his hair and wrap your legs around his back in a silent plea for friction. So hungry for him that it aches.

“Seokjin, need — oh, god.”

You lose your train of thought the second his hand slides into the gap between your bodies. Long fingers slip below the waistband of your shorts and panties, too. He doesn’t stop there. Not with fingertips whispering over the mound of your cunt, not until he finds you wet and wanting.

So wet that you can hear it when the pad of his index finger runs along your slit.

His mouth curves against your neck, prompting you to shift your head on the pillow. You tilt your neck just enough to meet his eyes.

To your surprise, he’s not smirking. Not even close. If anything, he looks awestruck. Like he’s finally realizing what he does to you, how your body reacts to him. From the looks of it, that discovery is flipping his whole damn world upside down.

For once, Seokjin doesn’t crack a joke and neither do you. It’s quiet, save for your tiny gasping breaths and the ripple of his fingertip swirling over your clit. Even the moan building in your chest gets the memo. It disappears somewhere in your throat when — fucking finally — that middle finger penetrates you.

And god, he sounds so wrecked when he finally speaks.

“Tried to imagine it a thousand times, you know,” he murmurs.

You clench around his finger as it curls upwards, shiver when he starts to stroke the sensitive spot along your front wall. His thumb picks up where his middle finger left off, pressing against your clit in a way that makes you mewl.

Seokjin only stops talking to kiss you deep and leave you dizzy. It’s too brief. If asked, you’d never be able to quantify what amount of time is enough, but you know that wasn’t, so you pout.

Ignoring your little whines, he continues with a hum, “How perfect you’d feel, if I ever got this lucky.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

You laugh as you say it, but you’re dead serious: “If you keep talking to me like that, you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

Marry me, why don’t you? Beautiful bastard.

“Threat or promise?”

He adds a second finger; and suddenly, you’re not laughing anymore. No, the strangled sound you make while you grind against his palm isn’t funny at all, but you can’t care about that now. Your focus is stuck on remembering how to breathe. In, out. On the stars blinking behind your eyelids when they give up and flutter shut.

He works you open for him like he’s already attuned, like it’s the fiftieth time he’s finger-fucked you and not the very first. And, quite frankly, it’s embarrassing how little time it takes for him to pull you apart at the seams.

No one has ever made you cum with such little effort. You’re scared to learn what it’s like when he tries.

You catch the triumphant gleam in his eye in the split second before you bury your face in the crook of his neck. He’s earned it, you suppose, so you’ll let him relish the personal record he’s managed to set on his first time out. You might even let him brag about it, so long as he continues to make you tremble like this.

“Shit,” he chuckles low near your ear.

If he sounds muffled, it’s because you’re still waiting for your system to reboot. He knows this, knows how fucking sensitive you are, and slides his fingers out of you as slowly as possible. Still, those aftershocks throttle you; the unintentional stimulation makes you jolt.

“Yes,” you nod helplessly, squeezing your eyes and jaw shut simultaneously. “Shit is right. Perfect analysis, no notes.”

A chaste kiss is placed on your temple. It’s petal soft and subak sweet, but it functions like a defibrillator. Within a split second, he’s revived you. Eyes now open again, you exhume your face from where you buried it and blink up at him. Warm brown eyes light up when you reappear.

He’s so fucking beautiful that you almost want to avert your eyes. Key word: almost. You’ll drink in the sight of him until you drown, you think.

Seokjin looks concerned. With a shy smile, he checks in: “You okay? We can stop right now if you’re not.”

You don’t know who they are, but you know that they don’t make them like him anymore. Which is a fucking bummer for the rest of the world — just not for you. This one is all yours.

“You quitting on me, Kim?” You let your knee fall inwards to nudge his side, and you pretend not to notice how boneless you still feel. “Didn’t wait all this time to tap out early, did you?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, nonetheless. His warm palm massages the outside of your thigh affectionately, if only for a moment. Then, he pats his fingertips against the same spot. “Shorts off, champ.”

You follow his instructions and move to shimmy out of them, but not before snorting, “Champ?”

“Fine. Old sport?” He offers with a shit-eating grin. Your shirt smacks him in the face once you peel it off and chuck it at him. He pouts. “Hey!”

“Thanks, I hate it.”

He tugs his shirt over his head, launches it over his shoulder without looking. Your unabashed stare immediately clocks the slight hint of his abdominal muscles. Lean, but not sharply contoured in a way that looks painful to touch. Soft. Perfect, even.

What lab were you engineered in?

“For someone with so many opinions, you don’t offer many suggestions.” He shoots you a pointed look while he unties the knot at his waistband drawstring. “What’s your proposal?”

You’d love to bite back at him. Really, you would, but he pulls his boxers down alongside his joggers, and every meaningful thought you’ve ever had goes flying out the fucking window. All that’s left is I want you, I want you, I want you.

Automatically, you reach out with a tentative hand, craving nothing more than to feel his velvet length in your hand. To your surprise, he stops you. He catches your hand in his, lifts it to his lips, and brushes a kiss over your knuckles.

“Rain check, baby,” Seokjin smiles against your skin. There it is. That’s the one. “Need to fuck you, posthaste, or I’ll simply pass away.”

You open your mouth to comment; he breezes right past you. He points to the mattress, then to the wall to your left. “On your side, love.”

That works, too.

“Face away from me.”

Never in your life have you moved so fast, all but throwing yourself down where he told you to. As you land with a slight bounce, you mouth to yourself, Posthaste? Nerd.

A second slips by, then Seokjin slips into the space behind you. His lips tickle the back of your neck when he kisses the base of it, causing you to gasp yet again. Maybe that’s just how you breathe when he’s around — like you don’t know how.

His hand drifts down the length of your side, passing over the doughy flesh of your ass. He gives it a squeeze for good measure — because of course he does — but he doesn’t linger, not now.

That hand continues until you feel his fingertips scratch affectionately at the back of your right thigh. He doesn’t need to ask; you lift your leg, allowing your knee to hinge overtop of his hand. Now that his hands are occupied, you offer yours to assist.

This time, he doesn’t stop you when you wrap your fingers around his length. And fuck, there’s so much of it. Part of you wants to ask where the hell he thinks he’s going to fit all of it, but you’re not a quitter, so you keep your mouth shut.

Seokjin shivers under your touch, breath catching in his throat so blatantly that you can hear it right behind your ear.

“Hmmm,” you tease, squeezing the crown gently as you circle your wrist. “Does that work for you, champ?”

His forehead drops against your shoulder. The groan you force out of him is twice as long as necessary, followed by an unwilling laugh. “You’re right, okay? You’re fucking right. It’s awful. Just so fucking bad.”

Your thumb swipes over his leaking tip, smearing the bead of pre-cum waiting for you there. You’re relentless. “Sure you don’t like old sport better? Huh, buddy?”

“Baby,” he warns. There isn’t much heat to it, but it burns white hot in your core anyway.

The stretch of his cock does, too, when you finally stop fucking with him and start letting him fuck you. The breath he holds as he enters you slowly is let out in a shuddered groan when he bottoms out. Perfectly full and fully incapable of teasing him further, you simply melt back against his chest.

He’s careful to start, testing the waters and refusing to push you too far, too fast. You want more, though, you always have. Greedy, you rock your hips back against him to force him deeper into your weeping hole. He takes the hint, fingertips pressing bruises into the underside of your knee as he picks up his pace — and you’re far too blissed to care.

He pistons into you eagerly, deliberate. His hips clap against the flesh of your ass, but the sting of it all can’t compete with the way he splits you open. Makes you reach back to cling to any part of him you can get your hands on, claim whatever you find for keeps. Buried to the hilt, and somehow, he’s still not close enough.

You’re close, if your fluttering walls have anything to say about it. You’re babbling, too, so lost in pleasure that you can only repeat — over and over — how fucking perfect he is. How perfect for you he is.

Seokjin peppers kisses down the curve of your shoulder as he thrusts. It’s the only real indication you have that he’s at a loss for words, too; that he’s compensating for the quiet. He kisses you with an open mouth, teeth grazing the space he finds, leaves a mess on your sweat-slicked skin.

“Fuck,” he grunts. You mewl. “Can’t stop thinking about —”

“Just like that, please.”

“— how many times I could’ve —”

You wail, “Shit, Seokjin, don’t stop. I’m so close.”

The staccato strokes will be the death of you, you’re sure of it. Thankfully, he doesn’t stop. Not when he kisses the back of your neck again, and not when he murmurs directly in your ear, “— had you like this, if I’d said something years ago.”

Please, please, please.

It’s all you can say, again and again, as if he isn’t already giving you everything you want before you even ask for it. Responding to every movement you make, fucking into you with precision so that each vein of his cock brings friction where you crave it. Fucking you through your orgasm when it catches you in a riptide and sends you reeling.

“That’s it, baby.” His voice is soothing despite the recklessness of his thrusts. “So good for me. So fucking good.”

You’re still gushing when he snaps his hips forward and stills, cock twitching as he lets himself go inside of you. Still trembling when his head droops forward to nuzzle against your shoulder blade, and when you feel his breathing begin to slow in tandem with yours.

Once he pulls himself out of you, a few moments pass in fucked-out silence. It’s comfortable, if you ignore the mess between your thighs — and you do, for now. Your brain is too busy to waste time on that.

You’re exhausted and bordering on delirious when you say it, but that doesn’t make it any less true:

“I might love you, probably.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. He doesn’t move either, which makes you wonder if he’s fallen asleep with his face smushed into your bare back. But you feel the tiniest exhale through his nose; the kind of laugh you get from him when he’s too tired to be any louder.

His reply is muffled, lips still pressed against your skin, but you hear it perfectly.

For the record, he probably loves you, too.

Epilogue, posted 7/26/23.

final a/n: i have a follow-up drabble planned for these two! stay tuned 🥰

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justforbooks · 5 days

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Haruki Murakami

The acclaimed Japanese author’s deceptively simple writing combines fantasy and reality in stories of everything from missing cats to dystopian histories via fantasy thrillers and meditations on love.

Japan’s bestselling living novelist Haruki Murakami started writing aged 30 and became a literary sensation in 1987 when his fifth novel Norwegian Wood was published. His mixture of realistic and dreamlike narratives has earned him a dedicated fanbase, and his name is often floated as a contender for the Nobel prize in literature. If you’re new to him, or want to re-read his greatest hits, here are some places to start.

The entry point

Murakami’s novels can be crudely separated into two categories: the fantastic and the realist – although many fall somewhere in between. Published in 1987, Norwegian Wood lacks the otherworldly strangeness that has come to characterise much of Murakami’s most popular work. Instead the novel is a deceptively simple reminiscence of young love. Landing on a German runway, narrator Toru Watanabe hears the titular Beatles song and is transported back to his college days and turbulent love affairs with two different women. Nostalgic and sweet, Norwegian Wood is Murakami’s most accessible novel, and the book that transformed the author into a literary superstar in Japan.

If you only read one

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is peak Murakami, and features many of the things the author is known for (Mysterious women! Vanished cats! Phone sex! Spaghetti!). Unemployed thirtysomething Toru Okada is looking for his missing cat and missing wife when he sleepwalks into a wild goose-chase of increasingly bizarre events. “The best way to think about reality,” he declares, is “to get as far away from it as possible.” Part detective story, part nightmarish Alice in Wonderland, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle becomes a story about Japanese history, bizarre mysteries and red herrings. Abstract, infuriating and very funny, it is Murakami at his most beguiling.

If you’re in a rush

If you want to make a critically acclaimed film, adapt a Murakami short story. The South Korean thriller Burning took Murakami’s story Barn Burning as its foundations, while, more recently, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi won an Academy Award for his adaptation of Drive My Car. Some of Murakami’s finest storytelling can be found in his microcosmic worlds. Sleep, published in the New Yorker in 1992 and included in the short story collection The Elephant Vanishes, was the first time Murakami wrote from the perspective of a woman and the result is stunning. The story offers a character study of a devoted wife who is suffering from a sleeplessness that is not quite insomnia. Murakami frequently – and justifiably – receives criticism for how he writes female characters, but Sleep is a brilliant story that uses the liminality of the night to evoke the unease of being a woman in a patriarchal society.

The memoir

Murakami’s biography could be the backstory for one of his protagonists. The author was running a jazz club, turned 30, and quit to become a novelist. The rest is bestseller history. Murakami’s slim memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, offers an insight into his diligent creative practice. “Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day,” he explains. Only seriously taking to running in his 30s, Murakami reflects on the comparisons between marathon-running and writing , and demystifies the author’s practice as regimented routine, endurance training and occasionally injury inducing.

It’s worth persevering with

Across three volumes and over a thousand pages, 1Q84 is Murakami’s most ambitious novel to date, encompassing cults, assassins, parallel realities, two moons and creatures that emerge from the mouth of a dead goat. Following twin story threads of fated lovers, Murakami’s epic is set in a version of 1984 that slips between the familiar and unfamiliar. While 1Q84 is certainly sprawling, it’s structured like a maze with the occasional trick mirror and trap door. It was bemoaned by some critics as a disappointment when first published in 2011 and its length may be intimidating to the casual Murakami reader, but descend into 1Q84’s world and you’ll be treated to a page-turning thriller, a tender love story, a pulpy mystery and a meditation on the metaphysical mysteries of a world not dissimilar to our own.

The one that deserves more attention

After its publication in English in 2001, Sputnik Sweetheart left the orbit of Murakami’s more popular works. It’s a shame because the novel offers a refreshing variation of the author’s most predictable trope: women vanishing. Narrated through the eyes of a typical Murakami narrator (male, pining, passive), at the heart of Sputnik Sweetheart is a lesbian romance between Sumire, a wannabe Jack Kerouac, and Miu, an older, refined wine importer. Lusting after Miu, Sumire begins to shed her bohemian exterior, transforming herself to become Miu’s chic personal assistant. The unequal romance soon develops into self-obliteration as Sumire seems fated to be forever Miu’s sputnik – orbiting her from the isolation of space – before she disappears. Sputnik Sweetheart’s yearning romanticism is as tender as it is uncomfortable.

The masterpiece

Departing from his typical thirtysomething, whisky-drinking, jazz-listening protagonists, Kafka on the Shore is narrated by 15-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura. Fleeing his violent, dead father after receiving an Oedipal prophecy, Kafka finds refuge working in a small coastal town’s library. Alternating with Kafka’s tale is Satoru Nakata’s, an older man who lost his childhood memories at the end of the second world war, but instead gained the ability to converse with cats. Nakata is forced on the run after he crosses paths with a sinister cat-catcher who goes by the name Johnnie Walker. Both characters embark on vision quests, with one foot in everyday Japan and the other in a magical undercurrent that delivers the characters to each other. Murakami has said that the urgency behind his stories is “missing and searching and finding”. Kafka on the Shore eludes genre pigeonholing, and instead exemplifies its author’s ability to map a dreamscape labyrinth, one with its own strange poetic justice.

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kaiso-woo · 6 months

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It's a Sign

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　

-> Masterlist

PART 3 of my ‘Stay Series’ - a long hypothesised journey of a relationship between Bang Chan and Reader.

WC: 3.5k | Synopsis: It’s been a few months since you and Chris have been in a long-distance relationship, and now you’re visiting him in Korea for an upcoming concert. Just some playful moments with Stray Kids, and also your first kiss with Chris :)

Notes: FLUFF, Second Person Narration, Skz Fluent in English, Idol!Chan, CaféOwner!Reader, Fem!Reader

Here for a reading marathon? Head right back to the start!

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　

Overall ‘Stay Series’ Synopsis: Bang Chan experiences the suic!des of Stays, so when you lot choose to die, he dies right along with you. Reader is the “antidote” to this condition - NOT MENTIONED IN THIS PARTICULAR FIC

PART 3

!!Casual reminder this is entirely fictitious - Chris/Christopher in my work does not represent the actual Bang Chan - this is purely my imagination and nothing more - this goes for all other SKZ-Members too!!

–

(A/N: When the dialogue is in script format, it's meant to represent text messages.)

Chris: “babe, I’m sorry I can’t pick you up”

You: “it’s okay!”

Chris: “I’m really sorry, you know that right?”

You: “Chris it’s okay, I know you are”

Chris: “A manager’s coming to get you” Chris: “They’re nice I promise” Chris: “you aren’t mad are you?”

You: “CHRISTOPHER BAHNG” You: “IT’S OKAY” You: “why would I ask you to pick me up???” You: “you’re literally famous” You: “you can’t just be seen picking up some girl at the airport”

Chris: “I know I know” Chris: “I just feel bad” Chris: “And you’re not just ‘some girl’”

You: “Don’t feel bad”

Chris: “But it’s your first time in Koreaaaaaaa”

You: “Yes it is baby, I’ll see you soon”

Chris: “But I could be seeing you at the airport” Chris: “I’m sorry :(”

You: “Chris” You: “It’s” You: “OKAY”

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose, letting your phone fall into your lap. Your plane is about to land, and it’s time you buckled up. You understood perfectly well that he wouldn’t be able to do these kinds of things for you. He has a schedule to work around, and he couldn’t just be seen dating someone. That’d make things difficult for him. You had been hesitant to visit him in Korea for a long time, but he was insistent on getting you over to him. You had your café to worry about, and potential dating scandals popping up.

Ashley had graduated now, and she was perfectly happy to become the acting owner of the Café. She had proved herself a long time ago, and she was more than capable of handling the café herself. She was even welcome to use your apartment during the period in which you weren’t there.

It was a little chilly in the airport, and as you stood there, waiting for your luggage to roll around on the conveyor belt, you wished you had worn a jacket. Your phone pinged with a message: Chan had sent you a picture of the person picking you up.

Chris: “Send me a pic of you so I can give it to the manager”

You: “Just send one you already have”

Chris: “Don't have one of what you look like right now”

You: “Fineeeeee”

After some time, you’re nestled safely in the passenger seat of a car, the manager talking with you in broken English. Despite the language barrier, it didn’t feel overly awkward, and the manager was super polite, if a little nosy. You had found the motivation to learn a little Korean too, which helped a lot.

–

The lounge room was cosy, and you greeted everyone who walked past you with a nervous nod of your head. You hadn’t considered whether the other JYP trainees and idols would know of your existence. You wondered dimly if they were smiling at you out of pure grace, or if they genuinely thought you welcome here. It wasn’t until a girl who looked about the same age as you plonked down on the couch beside you that you grasped the full situation.

“You’re Chan’s girlfriend, aren’t you?” she asks with wide eyes, hands placed gently on her knees. “Ah… yeah,” you smile nervously, unsure what to do. “Wow, you must be so nervous. That’s brave of you to come here,' she continues, sounding genuine. “Mmh, well he really wanted me to visit… but I’m worried about any scandals or-” “It’s okay! Everyone here knows, and Chan’s really careful, he won’t let anything happen to you,” she grins, getting up to grab a drink from the fridge.

“Ah- ah really? Everyone knows?” you laugh, gratefully accepting the drink she hands you with a tilt of your head. “Of course!” she plonks back onto the couch with a sigh, “He fought with JYP about you.” “Oh,” your heart sinks faster than you ever thought possible, and your grip tightens around the bottle in your hands. “Oh no. Don’t feel bad about it. It was quite admirable,” she smiled comfortingly, carefully placing a hand on your shoulder, “He must care for you a lot, to fight that hard for you.”

You’re about to respond, when the sound of loud shouting and raucous chatter is heard outside the room. The girl removes her hand from your shoulder and rolls her eyes, “That’ll be them. Loud as ever.” You grin at each other, and your excitement grows as the noise intensifies. Suddenly, the backs of Jisung, Felix, Changbin, Jeongin and Hyunjin appear, blocking the doorway. “No no, don’t let him in!” “Is she even in there?” “Yeah she’s there, I saw.” “Stop him!”

The girl beside you starts laughing, covering her mouth with glee, and you can only shake your head in amusement. They let Minho and Seungmin slip past, who yell your name when they see you. Seungmin aggressively waves, and Minho bounds up to you, sitting down next you with ease.

“Yah!” You fail to contain your laughter when you hear Chris yelling from down the hallway, “What’re you doing?!” The chaos intensifies in front of the door as the Stray Kids members jostle with each other to try and form a more solid wall. Seungmin joins the fray, standing behind them and stretching his arms and legs out wide.

Minho suddenly grabs your wrist, “Hide, hide.” You stare at him in confusion, so he forcefully pulls you up from the couch and drags you over to one of the storage cupboards. “You want me to-” “YES HURRY UP!!” he demands. You giggle and busy yourself with trying to fit into the cramped cupboard, standing as straight as you can so Minho can shut the door on you.

“Yahhhhh…. don’t make me force my way through.” You can hear Chris yell, and the noise of the Stray Kids members only intensifies. “You can’t have her to yourself!” “Can I teach her our choreo?” “She should come to rehearsals with us!” The comment from Seungmin, louder than the rest, makes you audibly snort with laughter. “You can’t force your way through! You’re too old man!”

The laughter after this makes your heart swell. You’ve missed the sound of all of them laughing, and their relentless bullying. “Oi!” Chris yells, and if possible, everything sounds more chaotic. “Move! Move!” “Seungmin you’re dead, oh no.” “He looks mad- out of the way!!” “GO GO- I DON’T WANNA DIEEEEEE!” Eventually, Chris seems to make it into the lounge room, only after the Stray Kids members have scattered this way and that. “Suhee???”

Ah… so that’s her name. “Your girl’s nice, Chan. She’s really cute.” You swear, there will never be a quiet day around Stray Kids. “Chan Chan! Suhee’s tryna steal your girl!” “Suhee thinks she’s cuteeee, oh you’ve got competition now!!” The sudden silence creates an image in your mind, and you have a gut feeling that Chris has swivelled around and raised his hand, feinting a threatening slap.

“Minho hid her,” Suhee laughs, “She’s in the cupboard.” “Where? This one?” his voice sounds closer now, and your heart slams into your chest. The anticipation building, you clamp your hand over your mouth, careful not to breathe too loudly.

When the cupboard finally swings open, breathing loudly no longer becomes an issue when your breath is knocked out of your lungs. They must have just come from a dance rehearsal. Chris has sweat glistening on his forehead, and his hair is thoroughly ruffled.

“Hi,” he whispers in tiny, a small smile on his face, eyes shimmering with happiness. “Hi,” you whisper back with a little wave. “You’re right Suhee, she is cute,” Chris states, before snatching at your clothes and pulling you into a rough hug.

Immediately you’re engulfed in his scent - his perfume mixed with his sweat - and you nuzzle your nose into his clothes with a sigh. Chris has his own nose buried in your hair, and his arms around your waist squeeze you the tightest he ever has. You’re home.

“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much. How was the flight? Are you tired? Did you get here okay? Do you need food, water? Anything?” he’s asking you too many questions that you can’t even process them all, so instead you pull away from him and smile, “I’m fine Chris.”

Carefully, you move to wipe the sweat from his forehead with your sleeve, but he jerks his head away from you. “Don’t do that, don’t dirty your sweater.”

Impatiently, you grab his chin to pull his head back and you successfully wipe his forehead. Chris is staring at you in shock, his arms loosening around your waist. “That wasn’t very cute,” Felix hums, and Suhee pushes herself off the couch. “Nice meeting you!” she calls, then disappears from the lounge room. “That wasn’t very cute at… all,” Hyunjin repeats, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “That was sexy,” Jeongin pipes up from over by the fridge. He’s busy looking for something to eat and doesn’t notice the surprised look on everyone else’s face.

Jisung suddenly throws himself onto the couch, lying on his stomach, his feet swinging in the air. He rests his chin on his hands like a pretty princess and contributes his 10c in the most British accent ever possible, “That’s a bit spicy.”

Chris grabs the nearest pillow and flings it at him. "Hey! How come you didn’t throw a pillow at Jeongin?!” “Favouritism!” “Maknae on top! OhwoooOH!” “He’s corrupt!”

Again, there will never be a quiet day around Stray Kids.

–

It’s been a few days, and the Kids have managed to drag you over to one of their dress rehearsals. They have a concert the following week, another reason for why Chris was eager for you to visit. They’re messing around and being chaotic as usual. Some getting their makeup done, others warming up their vocals in random corners of the room, some checking out the laid-out snacks with curiosity.

You’re standing with your back up against the wall, happily munching on an ice cream while you watch them. Chris waddles over to you with his own ice cream in his hand and stands right in front of you, blocking your vision.

“You okay?” he asks with wide puppy eyes, “Are you bored?” “Nothing’s ever boring around you guys,” you grin, nibbling on more of your ice cream. Chris’ eyes flicker down to your lips, watching as you eat. “Are you okay?” you ask him, eyes momentarily flickering over to the food table, where Changbin has finally picked out a snack. “Everything’s okay when you’re here,” Chris throws back at you with a grin. A faint blush dusts your features, and Chris’ grin only widens. “You’re insufferable,” You hiss, pushing his chest playfully. “Only for you~”

Hyunjin has decided to pick a fight with Changbin, and they’re both now arguing over the snack in Changbin’s hands. “I picked it up first!” “I don’t care, that’s my favourite.” “There are more!” “Can you see more? Are there more? I must be blind… oh wait… THERE’S NONE THERE! THAT’S THE ONLY ONE!” “Hmmm, maybe… I’ll give it to you if you give me a kiss.” “What?!” “On the cheek. Hm? Hm?” Hyunjin laughs, and then out of nowhere, lunges forwards to try and wrestle the snack out of Changbin’s hands.

All of this is happening somewhere in the background by the way. It’s happening, but you can barely hear it (surprisingly). After Chris being an unrelenting flirt, you’ve found yourself completely drowned in his eyes, trying to memorise every speckle, every slight shade of brown you can see. He’s holding his ice cream in one of his hands, and with the other, is carefully trying to fix the stray strands of your hair, biting his bottom lip in concentration (which you can’t help but notice).

As Changbin and Hyunjin wrestle for the snack, wreaking havoc in the dressing room, they circle around and around. Eventually, they’re positioned right behind Chris, and the laughter of the rest of the Stray Kids members causes you to look around in curiosity, finally drawing your attention away from Chris. Not him though, he’s still watching you fondly, so used to the noise of the Kids that he’s able to simply tune them out.

After a particularly hard shove, Changbin rocks back into Chris, shoving him forwards. Instinctively, Chris’ arms rocket out to brace himself on the wall, caging you between them, your faces centimetres apart. You fail to contain a little gasp of shock, and swallow nervously. Chris’ eyes are wide and he’s breathing heavily, his warm breath tickling your skin, causing your heart to thump loudly, blood rushing to your cheeks.

Changbin and Hyunjin are apologising to their leader, but again, you barely hear them. The room falls suddenly silent, and your skin prickles with the realisation that everyone’s eyes have turned towards the pair of you; the staff and the Kids are watching with bated breath. And still, Chris doesn’t move. He seems to be frozen, and so are you. His eyes flicker to your lips again, bright pink thanks to the cold of the ice cream, and his mouth parts slightly, agonising over something. Then he inhales sharply and withdraws himself from you, “You okay?” he mumbles, but you’re still standing there like a deer caught in headlights. His entire face has gone pink, but you can see he’s trying to control his embarrassment.

He chuckles, grabs your wrist, and forces your ice cream up to your mouth, “Eat,” then turns away to finish off his own ice cream and have the finishing touches added to his outfit. “Have they kissed yet?” Jisung whispers from over by one of the mirrors, asking anyone who can hear him. “They can hear you, you know,” Felix deadpans, and Jisung shrugs, “Genuine question.”

Chris sighs, fiddling with his earring by the dressing table, his back turned to you. Finally, you take another bite out of your ice cream, carefully slipping your phone out of your pocket to busy yourself with something else.

You haven’t yet. But you almost did. So that was something. Thanks Bin. Thanks Hyunjin.

–

This morning, you’ve gone out to get some food for lunch. The Stray Kids members had left the dorm earlier for a final rehearsal, leaving you by yourself to roam. You’re suddenly craving hot pot, so after a quick search on your phone, begin the short walk to the nearest place that does it. The sun is warm on your face as you stroll with your hands deep in your pockets.

You’re to fly back home in a couple of days after their concert tomorrow, and you’re dreading the moment, but right now, you’re content to breathe in the fresh air, wistfully thinking about the new memories you’ve just created with Chris and his Kids. They did in fact, try to teach you some choreography, and you had a blast being yelled at by Minho, and then almost being reduced to tears of joy when everyone started yelling at Chris, who had tried to defend you.

Your mind even drifts back to that moment, so close. Maybe if you had just found the courage you could have pecked him on the lips, or the cheek, or anywhere really. Anywhere would have been good if you had been thinking straight. You’re so lost in thought that your surroundings are beginning to blur slightly, not paying attention much to where you’re going.

Across the street, Chris pauses, his eyes catching on a person he finds awfully familiar. It’s you, absently walking towards a destination unbeknownst to him. His face cracks into a grin and his heart rate increases, excited to run into you by chance. They’ve just finished up with rehearsal, and he was headed off for a bite to eat as well by himself, savouring his alone time.

He’s loved having you here, loved every second of it – cherished your smiles, and your laughter with the boys, ingrained the pattern of your eyes in his mind, relished in the warmth of your hugs. He’s craved your attention when you’re occupied with the members, missed your presence when he’s sleeping by himself in his room (you had taken up residence on a mattress in the lounge room).

He'd almost, almost kissed you. Tempted to. Desperately wanted to press his mouth to yours in that moment and finally satisfy his curiosity. Would it be soft? Would he melt into a puddle on the floor? Or would an unknown desire creep up on him and urge him to take more, be greedy. All just for you.

He physically shivers, and after a quick check for cars, dashes across the road to halt you in your tracks.

He yells your name eagerly, trying to get your attention before you walk too far.

Your head snaps up at the sound calling, but for some reason your body continues to walk. You’re so shocked at the sight of Chris scampering over to you that with a loud whack, you walk face first into a street sign. You stumble back in pain, manage to trip on your own leg, and fall to the ground with a thud.

Chris is laughing before he even reaches you, a stupid grin plastered on his face. You glare up at him, pouting and rubbing your forehead. “Are- baby are you okay?” he wheezes, offering you a hand. You grumble and swat his hand away, standing up yourself. Your stubborn antics cause him to laugh even more; he leans over and grabs your shoulders for support. “How did you manage to-”

“It’s not funny!” you yell at him, but before you know it, you’re a laughing mess too. There’s something about seeing him all giggly, so carefree, that soothes your soul. You’re now competing with a bruise on your head, the warmth of embarrassment flooding your face, and struggling to breathe. Chris tilts his head up to look at you, his hands still gripping your shoulders tightly.

His grin fades when he notices the sparkle in your eyes, the pure joy emanating from you. Slowly, he stands properly and a hand shifts to caress your right cheek. His eyes can’t seem to rest on a particular spot. They’re roving from your eyes to his hand on your face, to your lips and back again. You lean into his touch and smile, trying to read his solemn expression. His cheeks are red from laughter, hair ruffled and curly after rehearsals. Then your eyes drift down to stare at his plush lips, and you know you’re lost. You’re gone. You’re his. If only…

“I… I’m going to give you five seconds to slap me,” he whispers, his thumb caressing your cheek lightly. You blink at him in confusion, “Why would I-”

Chris steps closer, closing the gap between you, and leans down, eyes fluttering shut. The kiss is soft, hesitant, but also filled with tender care, as though the kiss alone could convey everything you mean to him.

When he finally pulls away, he lingers a second longer, his nose rubbing yours before stepping back completely. “What-” you stutter, hand zooming up to your lips in surprise. “Five…” he begins, looking like a pure gentleman with his hands clasped neatly behind his back, “Four…”

“Chris what- you can’t just- did you just-” “Three…” You stand there with your mouth wide open, trying to process. Chris takes a step back towards you, a small smile gracing his features. “Two…” “What-”

“One…” he grabs your chin gently and angles your head up. Your eyes are wide with surprise, and by this point you’ve stopped breathing again. “You didn’t slap me…” he whispers, eyes trailing down to your lips again.

It’s you this time who initiates it, grabbing at his shirt to pull him into you, teetering on your tiptoes. Chris’ other hand snakes around your waist, resting comfortably there to support you. Finally, you pull away a little breathlessly, stunned by your own actions.

“Wait- why do you-” you peck him on the lips again, “Why do you taste like-” Chris grins at you, then offers a final longer lasting kiss. “You taste like watermelon?” “S’probably the lip balm Hyunjin bought me. I think it’s got rockmelon in it too,” he chuckles, before reaching down to link your hand with his, “Where are we eating babe?”

He’s beginning to walk you in the direction you were going before but stops when you don’t respond. His smile causes your stomach to swoop, and he shakes your hand to ground you back to reality. “Jagi. Where are we eating?” he asks again. “Hot… hot pot…” you murmur, “Why is that so you?”

“Hm?” he asks, dragging you along again, obviously knowing the area better than you do and immediately understanding where to go. “Rockmelon and watermelon.” “Is it?” he hums, eyes twinkling in adoration.

“Yeah… I’ll have to thank Hyunjin later…” you link your arm with his and snuggle closer, a warmth spreading from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. Chris places a loving kiss on your head, “Order whatever you want, I’m paying.” “No. No you’re not I am.” “We’re not arguing over this.” “Then at least let me pay for myself.” “No.” “Let me pay for myself!” “Absolutely not. Never.” “Chris.” “It’s called a fucking date. I pay for you.” You roll your eyes and shove him gently, “Ashley is such a bad influence on you.” “Nahnah, remember she took the words right out of my mouth.” Chris grins, winking cheekily at you.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　

-> PART 4 -> Masterlist

A/N: Yay! Milestone Event 3 Check!

Feedback is always appreciated, negative and positive alike. I apologise for any editing errors, I’m forever learning.

Until next read! - Kaisowoo

#bang chan fluff #bang chan fic #stray kids #skz #bang chan #bang chan x reader #bang chan fanfic #bang chan imagines #christopher bang #christopher chan bang #stray kids fanfic #stray kids x reader

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seaspraycd · 2 months

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mason gooding, bisexual, cismale + he+his, class mage «—◦—→ well met, ronan harris! the godling born child of poseidon. it’s been 28 years and now they have answered the song in their veins. can he change the course of history with his practicality, courage, and observational skills? or will their fickleness, emotionally-distanced tendencies, or indecision hinder them? only time will tell before this godling’s name is sung into myth and legend!

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄. ronan harris 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐒. ro 𝐀𝐆𝐄. 28 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 & 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒. cis male & he / him 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. demisexual demiromantic 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒. demigod ( son of poseidon ) 𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. marine biologist

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑. black 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒. brown 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. 5'10 / 155.68 cm 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃. athletic 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐒. none 𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐒. none 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. double hoops on his right ear & daith piercing on his left 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌. mason gooding

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓. neutral good 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒. practical, courageous, and observative 𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒. fickle, distant, and indecisive 𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐒. eating sushi, reading re-translated classics, people watching, and collecting shells

𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐃

𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋. resolved but sensitive 𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋. enhanced condition to being a demigod 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐀𝐒. burning to death 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. 20/20 𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃. right 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐔𝐒𝐄. microdoses on mushrooms 𝐀𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐇𝐎𝐋 𝐔𝐒𝐄. sometimes 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐓. very protein-rich pescatarian.

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒. poseidon ( biological father ) , commander wilson harris and leila harris nee jones ( parents, deceased ) 𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. candis, dante, and giselle ( biological siblings ) 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒. none 𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍. bachelor's of science in marine biology from university of florida. 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒. can hold his breath for eight minutes, running a marathon, solving the new york times crossword puzzle in pen, and has an insane recipe for green bean casserole.

𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘

born at marine core base hawaii to commander wilson harris and leila harris, the middle child to the navy couple who often moved every few years as wilson's station rose. ever since ronan could remember, he was obsessed with fish of all shapes and sizes. ronan was often rewarded with books or trips to the aquarium where he would be mesmerized by how beautiful, curious, and whimsical the different types of fish were and the other aquatic friends who lived there. growing up, they moved to okinawa, italy, greece, and korea sticking with the other navy brats as they were quickly forced to learn enough to survive. this forced ronan from a young age to learn language and he was a polyglot by the time he was eight, having japanese, korean, and english conversationally under his belt. greek and italian came a little bit later. ronan hadn't identified his upbringing as traumatic but it sure was tough. there were expectations that just differed from some of the others being the son of a commander and he needed to be immaculate at all times, never embarrassing the unit. luckily for ronan, his elder siblings were pretty radical so it made him look that much more compliant. he tried his best not to make too many waves and focused on schooling, learning, and exploring culture wherever he went. the young boy grew into a teenager and was friendly enough, a bit on the quiet side as he preferred fish to people and loved to sit nestled into a book versus being out in the world. it was at sixteen that his father made it a personal choice to teach his son the value of exercise and lifting weights, something that helped stimulate ro's mind with clarity until this day. at eighteen, he would finally leave for the university of miami to study marine biology. ronan had an incredible four years learning and working with dolphins at the dolphin research center, where he really figured himself out wholly and did far too many things a sheltered boy should've learned during his youth but he was shameless and young. at twenty-two, he found himself tapped on the shoulder to move to alaska to study the reproductive habits of salmon and fishing migration with the university of alaska, where he focused on his research building a small community of others where he played board games with, dabbled in microdosing, participated in the crossfit games, marathoned, broken up with and lived an overall quiet but active life. he loved the quiet but always wished for something a bit more — well, life knocked hard.

#ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ 𝔯𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔫 𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔦𝔰 › about.#godlingintros

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inkkayyy · 1 year

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[ ᴄᴀꜱᴇ 143 ]

> there is a fire in your heart. learn to love the way the flames lick at your chest and warm your soul.

"Case 143" is a song recorded by South Korean boy band Stray Kids. It appears as the first track on their seventh extended play (EP) Maxident, released as the lead single on October 7, 2022, through JYP Entertainment. Written by 3Racha and fellow member Kang Sunny. "Case 143" is an electro-hop and pop track, likening the confusion one feels when falling in love to an unsolved "case", referencing the number 143, a code for "I love you".

“Why the fuck did I decide to write a love song! Is it always this difficult?” She whined to Kevin, who just poked her side in an attempt to silence her, amusment visable on his face.

“Most people don’t produce the track with it’s subject.” She just whined again and buried her face in the cushions of his couch. It stunk like men's deodorant and Sunhee hated that her first though was that Chan’s cologne smelt better.

[ sunhee’s song book ] [ sunhee’s masterlist ]

( wc; 6.3k) (format; english in italics)

cw: mentions of illegal street racing and driving activities, general talk of disregard for road rules.

[ ꜱᴛᴜᴅɪᴏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ]

As stray Kids’ first real love song, case 143 stands out in their discography as rather significant.

It was never even supposed to be released, not really. The song that would eventually become Case 143, was originally an outlet for Sunhee, thumbed out on old faithful guitar with a slow steady beat, that later became the pre-chorus with a slightly more sharp and base-lined chorus that was kept for the final version.

‘One-four-three’ as it was originally titled, had been an expression of confusion- a way to filter her emotions out and consider them in different terms other than the horrid spiral in her head and the messy words in her notebooks.

She’d recorded it purely to replay at a later date and reassess her bubbling and rather constricting feelings for a certain leader. Of course that hadn’t happened because ‘Noeasy’ had crashed into everyone’s life with two months of promotions followed immediately by ‘Christmas EveL’.

So there wasn’t exactly much breathing room and Sunhee had all but ignored the song, accepted her painfully sappy emotions for one Christoper Bang and gotten on with other projects- notably for their next EP ‘Maniac’.

And when time rolled around for another one of those day-long production marathons, with 3RACHA piecing together songs from notes apps and messily scrawled poems, it wasn’t really an option- at least in Sunhee’s mind. With the concept due within the week, including an outlined title track and b-side too, she’d pointedly ignored the two minutes of fully written song on her google drive and just focused on the other tracks they’d decided on.

‘Superboard’ was already set, guide recorded and everything, but it was a bit too repetitive for the Stray Kids style of title track. Similarly, Jisung’s donated ‘Chill’ wasn’t as powerful and direct as their usual vibe so it had unanimously been elected as their B-side.

Being self produced idols was an outcome of both talent and stubbornness. Because they were stuck, no title track and a kidnapped Sunhee held hostage in their studio for help because they were too stubborn to ask any of the actual JYPE producers or songwriters for assistance.

3RACHA had pilfered the box of Sunhee’s old notebooks in the dorm- namely the ones that hadn’t been milked dry for the sheer amount of songs in both Noeasy and Maniac, some dated from early 2020 and others as recent as that day.

Sacrificing her notebooks was an old habit, she was used to being so completely transparent with her boys that the idea of a secret hiding in her writing didn’t even occur. Then Han fucking Jisung crashed the party.

He had one of her older notebooks- well not old, but dated back at least a year, he’s flicking between two pages, frowning as he closed it- one finger still wedged inside to keep track of the page. “Sunhee-noona, have you ever been in love?”

She hadn't been looking at him, focused on her phone instead, sprawled across the couch, legs over where Changbin had been seated before he and Chan had left to replenish their water bottles at the idol lounge. But Jisung certainly had her attention now. “I’m sorry?”

“I cannot explain this reaction, maybe I should just say it, One-four-three, code for, I love you.”

The line had mostly been forgotten by her, but hearing it made her startle up right- wide eyed and screenshot worthy if there had been cameras. Jisung seemed pleased though. “There’s more- ‘Walking next to you but I'm falling, I'm falling deeper, I'm drawn to you, You're pulling me deeper and deeper, I try to get out but I can't stop’. Wah! Sunhee-noona, these are so soft and mushy!”

Jisung was a teaser, everyone knew he liked to poke fun but he always saw right through her lyrics. Always. She cursed the fact it was Jisung who had found that particular notebook.

He skipped his way across the small studio and perched himself atop her shins- as if they weren’t even there, squishing them into the leather couch cushions in a way that made Sunhee screw her face up in annoyance. Jisung was close- very close. He’d cornered her and there was no escaping.

“So who's got you writing love songs?” He asked as if her world wasn’t ending and it wasn’t his fault.

Sunhee tried to ignore him, indignantly sinking further into the couch and returning her attention to her phone. “Nothing much- just been watching a lot of romance dramas lately.”

“You hate romance dramas.” He countered.

“Doesn't mean Seungmin and I don’t sit down to mock them.”

He shuffled further into her space, perched right on her lap, hands planted on her shoulders as he leaned in, inspecting every inch of her face. Sunhee was a shit liar- and he knew as much. “You’re lying.”

“Is it Changbin-hyung?” He’d posed looking far too serious for what Sunhee thought was a frankly ridiculous question.

“No- god!” Her shout sends him back a few inches, sitting up straight and blinking at the sudden nose input. Changbin and her were thick as thieves, best friends even to those wanting to label it. The thought of dating him was just so wrong.

“Minho?” She screwed her face up at that, dating Minho sounded like a nightmare, that man had more love for his cats than any human being. “Jisung what is wrong with you today, I swear-”

Jisung’s eyebrow scrunch together as he blinked at the wall, thinking. Then he looked back down at her curiously, studying her expression- one of discontent and faux calm, Sunhee leaned back, breathing a bit faster than she’d preferred. “What about Chan-hyung?”

“What? No. Why would you-” She had almost stuttered, almost, but not quite. To Sunhee’s credit though, her words weren’t what gave her away.

A scoff of disbelief tumbled from Jisung’s lips, soon turning to fits of giggles as he fell back to the other side of the couch in shock- socked toes poking against her stomach as his feet kicked with laughter. “Your ears are red- oh my god you're in love with Chan-hyung!”

“No I’m not!” She defied, but by that point, her cheeks were heating up to- something so rarely seen from her that it gave away just how embarrassed she was. Which of course Jisung knew, the shit eating grin on his face telling of his arrogance. Jisung knew.

“Oh, you so are!”

And Sunhee was up, seating herself atop him and clutching his face between her hands. His legs jolted in alarm but she forced her knees in to keep him still, one either side of his rib cage as he froze from the glare she fixed him with. Jisung’s wide eyes were filled with nothing short of surprise- and maybe just a twinge of fear.

“Han Jisung I swear to god, if you say anything I will kill you.” She had all but growled in his face, tone low and threatening. He nodded with haste, hand curling her wrists and loosening them just slightly- she complied but still held his face so he’d keep looking at her as she added: “Minho will help me hide your body no matter how much he loves you.”

“I promise. Not a word noona.” She sighed, relaxing and swinging her leg over so instead of straddling his torso in an attempted strangling, she was seated on the couch normally, well almost, legs across his lap and arse slipping between his torso and the coche’s back as Jisung pouted at her. “Can we use the lyrics though? Please!”

“No.” Her answer was firm, Sunhee having mastered the art of saying ‘no’ to Han Jisung long ago. He, on the other hand, hadn’t learnt how to take ‘no’.

“Why not? I’ll even say I wrote it- please! It would be so good in a song! We haven’t done a love song yet.”

“It’s already in a song Sung-ah.” She patted his shoulder, opening her google drive to dive into the sorted files and dig the recording out- because if there was one thing Jisung could respect it was music (and there was no way to get him to lay off until his curiosity was satiated). He sat himself up, hands behind him as he leaned into her space.

“Really? Can I listen?” She hummed at his words, turning the volume up on her phone a few notches and flipping it upside down, holding the speakers in between their ears.

It’s hard to hear because she’d been barricaded in her room- back when the tiny rooms had been shared between three people, playing with her amp on the lowest volume and singing the lyrics off her notebook, not having memorised them. Really the acoustics were horrid, but Jisung seemed enamoured enough.

“Is that like a punk rock inspired chorus- wait let me listen again.” He snatched the phone from her hands, bumping their heads together lightly in the process. Sunhee frowned then butted them a bit harder in retaliation, which earned not even a glance as he dragged the progress bar back fifteen seconds.

“Imagine that but like, pitched right down. You have to let us use it- please, please, please! He whined, practically shaking her. “Chan-hyung will never even know!”

“What won’t I know?” Speaking of Chan, he was in the doorway.

Bottle of water in hand, furrowed brows and wrangled discontent curling in his stomach, he had his eyes and confused- if not disapproving, gaze set on Sunhee. Who was in Jisung’s lap. She would have jumped from the surprise (and horror that he may have figured out what they were discussing), if Jisung had not latched onto her, arms around her waist and pulled her impossibly closer. The squeeze dragged a cough from her lips as her hands struggled to find purchase, sliding around Jisung’s shoulders as he settled his chin on her collar.

“Sunhee-noona has a really great song and she doesn’t want to share.” He pouted at the leader who was watching Sunhee struggle to release herself (Jisung was strong now and it wasn’t fair).

“She doesn't have to share if she doesn’t want to,” He replied, drooping the water bottles into their mini fridge that had a shameful amount of monster energy drinks stored in it already. Then with a pointed look at her annoyed expression, said, “But If it’s because she thinks it’s bad I hope she knows that her standards for self production are too high.”

Changbin picked her phone up from where it sat discarded on the couch cushion beside Jisung’s leg, the audio file still open, holding it up questionably, an eyebrow raised with a silent proposition. Sunhee sighed and resigned herself to her death via-Jisung-suffocation. A short sharp nod was all Changbin needed to hit play, turning the volume to full as the muffled sound of guitar chords and her singing poured out.

Sunhee found the production process to be a special kind of torture.

Chan of all people had not been as helpful with his input as he usually would be, continuously going quiet and being snappy about the whole thing.

At first she thought he was snippy because it wasn’t his track. Him and the other 3RACHA boys had extended it, adding a more electronic introduction as well as a heavy beat break in the middle to account for Changbin and Jisung’s rap.

But Chan wasn’t that petty, sure he’s usually the one behind their title tracks in terms of music but he had never been temperamental about Sunhee’s involvement in their production process before.

It gets to the point where she reviews the tracks with Jisung at the dorms to avoid the thick headedness Chan had about the now remanded [Case 143].

Which for some reason makes Chan even more cranky. (There was a significant amount of jealousy involved- he found it unbelievably infuriating that Sunhee had seemingly dropped out of the studio, instead spending extended periods of time with Jisung. Changbin takes the brunt of chan’s grumpiness and tires his absolute best- in very unsuccessful attempts, to simply work on their now approved title track).

So as Chan stewed in bitterness, hauled up in his studio, Sunhee continued to potter away at lyrics.

Her didn’t really amount to anything that could contribute to [Case 143] and ended up being filtered down the production pipeline a few weeks later and turned into [Give Me Your TMI] (a song about not understanding what the fuck someone was thinking- “purely a coincidence” as she would repeatedly tell Jisung).

However the avoidance Sunhee suddenly demonstrated went far from unnoticed and the other members were pushy in their attempts to remedy it. Especially Minho, ever the go-getter. But he failed to remember just how good at thinking on her feet Sunhee was. “You know, I think Chan could use some extra practice, think you could you help him this afternoon?”

Sunny, without missing a beat, “Nuh uh. I promised Sunwoo I would help him with King Lear, but Hyunjin isn’t busy. He can help Chan.”

It’s one of those things where she always has an excuse and the members were starting to think she was just lying (even though she was horrible at that) but everytime she actually followed through with whatever she’d claimed filled up her schedule. It made them wonder- was Sunhee always this busy and they never noticed?

Nope. She just has an army of people willing to drop everything and spend time with her.

Chan missed the dance revision, could she help? Sorry, Kevin and her are going to a pottery class- one he was happy to attend despite her ulterior motives, which he laughed about and flicked clay slip at her for. (and when she followed him back to the dorm so they could have dinner she may have lamented about the horrid awkwardness her song had created- to which Kevin was no help resolving).

Could she come to the studio and revise some lyrics with 3RACHA? Sorry Jisung- the vocal instructor wanted to talk about her upcoming ‘SKZ player’ drop. But she’d be happy to discuss it later if he dropped by her dorm.

Chan was stuck with the baseline and the others couldn't help? Whoops! She’d promised to go out to dinner with Yeosang, it had been a while since they’d gotten to catch up. Send her the track and she’d give it a listen, but she couldn’t stop by the studio- sorry!

And if that one in particular upsets Chan more than the others, Changbin wouldn’t mention anything about it. (The Jealousy was evolving past their own members it seemed- the prospect of Sunhee liking another person enough to write a love song didn’t sit right with him for whatever reason that no one could guess. Definitely not.)

She functioned for about a week like that before caving and shuffling into the studio one night when she knew it was only Chan there, slumping onto the couch behind him while he nodded along with his headphones- failing to notice her.

He caught her reflection in the display screen though, and turned to greet Sunhee. Before a word could leave his lips she was already talking. “Take out the headphones. Play it for me.”

“It’s not done yet, I’m still messing with the baseline.” But Chan (as grumpy, snappy and jealous as he may be) could never say no to her. So the audio jack is left empty and she stared at a spot on the ceiling as she thought it through.

They’d changed some of the lyrics- with her input of course (Jisung had been texting her at random intervals with revised verses and lines)- made it more direct in true Stray Kids fashion, adding the case file element to style it like an investigation in to love- which was why it had been originally created, an irony to which only Sunhee would know.

The two of them work with minimal talking- just as they always had, focusing on the music and only speaking when they had something to contribute.

And when her generosity of letting Chan suffer in his own perfectionism ran out she dragged him by the hood of his jumper to a nearby restaurant that was open late, collecting the takeaway she’d ordered on her phone. She handed him one box and they ate while they walked, an attempt to stop a discussion about the past week of avoidance.

“I’m sorry.” Chan murmured through a mouthful of chicken.

Sunhee hummed. “I know. Me too.”

And then they're back to normal. She joined 3RACHA for their production sessions and helped them fish out lines from her notebooks to match.

A noticeable mention being a whole page with the tiny words, “hold you this tight. I’m never letting go.” and if Chan recognises the words he’d murmured to her on Jeju Island while messing around in the pool, he doesn't let on.

[ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ ]

*using MV timestamps,

[ 0:12-0:17 ] Sunhee has the first line, an opening shot of her peeking through the boarded up door, short hair fluffed up as she growled out the line, ‘A new case, an unforgettable case- I'm falling for your fatal attraction.’

[ 0:28-0:31 ] The flaming room that is featured for all but three seconds features Sunhee and Minho hidden in the background pretending to box each other.

[ 0:35-0:38 ] When the first shot of them as police officers, a line split between Chan and Sunhee, ( The uncontrollable emotion You’re on my mind, I never feel alright, Numerous emotions collide, what’s going on. ) It’s safe to say there’s a few fans that go crazy over seeing her with long hair for the first time in a few years.

[ 0:55 ] The transition shows her with the signature dual peace signs she’s notorious for (that Stay make fun of her for not having any other poses)

[ 1:18- 1:22 ] Shots of Sunhee drifting in the police car? That one fed the fandom for a while.

[ 1:39-1:42 ] It would be criminal to not let her sing some of the lines that had featured in her original version so Sunhee takes the second pre chorus- English lines driving Stays crazy when her thick aussie accent shone through.

[ 1:09-1:12 ] In the background of Chan's little alphabet solo, Sunhee can be seen tripping over and face planting - I wonder why the camera angle changed at that moment? (certainly not because the main focus of the shot had lost all concentration)

[ 1:47-1:48 ] Fans find it extremely amusing that police officer Changbin, when faced with the tiny pipi monsters, attempts to use Sunhee as a human shield, hiding behind her.

[ 2:18-2:22 ] Sunhee’s lovey-dovey look past the camera may have been inspired by a certain leader goofing off camera annoying their maknae, but no one had to know that.

[ 2:40-2:45 ] Sunhee and Seungmin centre choreography is insane as they share the chorus with fast footwork and on point facial expressions.

[ 3:05-3:08 ] Her voice blended seamlessly with Chan’s was a point of praise by critics, the octave step up between the line prior highlighting the refrain.

[ 3:10-3:20 ] Sunhee’s adlibs in the final chorus are on point, (which she insists on performing live every time they do the performance)

[ 3:27-3:30 ] they all stroll out, having seamlessly escaped the digital world, her arm slung over Minho’s as they smile to each other and walk past the camera.

[ ᴍᴠ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ ]

The fact they had four days of scheduled filming is enough for all them members to whine and complain- even Minho, who was the most ‘suck it up’ amongst them seemed discontent with their calendar.

The aesthetics though? Amazing.

Day one sees them on a rooftop for the morning, dressed in what Sunhee had taken to calling their ‘sailor gear’ - half of them had sailor hats, although she was lucky enough to be blessed with a beret instead- even if it came with a strip of black leather buckled around her neck like a glorified collar- but she liked the choker, even if it fell hidden behind her hair for most shots.The sailor outfit however, did come with a skirt, a nice flowy black one that fell a few inches above her knee. It was a change from the usual pants that she was given but Sunhee found that she enjoyed the freedom. That was until the weather got involved.

Her skirt kept flicking up in the wind, cue Sunhee angrily sitting at every possible opportunity to stop flashing the entire crew her bike pants. Just finished the choreography? Sunhee’s on the floor. Review break? She’d already dropped the ground, sitting on the edge of her skirt and growing at the passing wind.

Shooting for photo cards is difficult, the wind making it near impossible to keep her hair out of her face- the stylist didn’t want to put product in because they were planning on dying the bleached highlights pink over lunch.

Jeongin waddled over to take pictures for her instagram update that would probably never happen- amongst all the boys Sunhee preferred to post pictures of them together instead of her selfies, much to Stay’s frustration.

Day one lunch was a source of amusement for the members, Sunhee struggling to eat her tteokbokki and not jostle the strips of hair coated in hot pink dye and foils- there were far too many images that come from it she fears will resurface around her birthday. Changbin: Sunhee your face is going to get stuck if you keep scowling. Sunhee: I’ll sue you for the damages then.

Felix had taken to calling her Merliah Summers- as in the barbie character.

After a good hour her hair was washed and blowdried, puffed up all fluffy to make her look cute- matching the heart jeans and little red and white jacket as well as the glitter stars they’ve dotted along her cheeks.

The second film location of the day was some weird prison-yard type thing with flowers growing through the fences.

Armed with balloons, the ‘heart skz’ are told to run up and down the camera shot, like they were crazily in love- jumping screaming, the lot. It’s an odd instruction but they fulfil it.

Minho was having the time of his life with a heart tube, whacking all the members. He tries to smack Sunhee but she side-steps and jabbed her index finger into his waist instead, making him jolt and yelp in surprise. Minho: Chan-hyung, I’m being bullied. Chan: It's probably deserved.

The shipping yard might have been Sunhee’s favourite filming location though- mainly because of the car.

When she was having her hair extensions clipped in, for her police SKZ concept, she’d overheard it.

Then the director informed them that they would be getting stunt drivers to do skids and drifts, she’s immediately trying to convince them to let her do at least one.

Sunhee: Please! I learnt how to do them at a propper track and everything! (technically not a lie, she had, just six years ago) Director: It’s dangerous Sunhee-shi, Sunhee: What if I just do a small one? Imagine how cool the shot would be.

Maybe it was because they also had Sunhee drive race cars in their God’s menu MV to extreme degrees of success, but the directors were persuaded by her persistence that it would be a banger shot. They had her talk to the stunt driver they had brought in, and he ran it through three times first, ripping in the clutch to drift around a corner that the directors had marked out. They did it twice more with her in the car.

Their producer, the lovely man that he was, gave Sunhee thirty minutes at the end of shooting to get the drift right. She got it in 17. (who said her time spent slightly not-quite-legally drifting and doing burnouts in Australia wouldn’t come in handy for her career).

Safe to say that the shot of Sunhee, drifting around a corner with steeled expression and hand white knuckled on a steering wheel is used in a lot of edits online- from making the ‘stay in your lane’ joke, to the ‘exit 12’ meme format. Oh and thirst edits, but those pop up whenever new footage of her driving is released- apparently she’s a hot driver?

Day two was the police station set- one Sunhee loved bounding around and looking at all the detailed props- the case files even had writing in them! Profiles on all the ‘heart skz’ members! (hers said something about doe-eyes, which had made her blink at Felix and ask if she had big eyes. “No, you’re just very good at looking guilty.”)

Filming was spent tripping and falling over- trying to escape the heart monsters or whatever they were to be edited in during post-production. Sunhee was definitely going to have a bruised tailbone from falling on her arse so much.

The missions for the MV behind, because there were always missions, was to ‘Send STAY, a "143" signal with 1 spoon of uniqueness and 43 spoons of affection’

Needless to say they were expecting Aegyo, which no matter how many times she did it, Sunhee still couldn’t wrap her head around it. Sure she could pout and whine occasionally- but Changbin’s level of Aegyo? Yeah, she could never commit to it that much.

Minho dragged her into the camera frame between him and Chan, it being their turn for missions- Hyunjin and Changbin having done their’s on day one.

“We have to show our love. To Stay.” Chan’s short choppy sentences that have become an essential part of one of the characters he takes on while filming from time to time (the other essential element being his iconic phrase ‘I’m five’).

He demonstrates his spoonful of uniqueness and 43 spoonfuls of love in typical Chan fashion, by using sign language.

Minho attempts to justify his decision to give Stay ‘his fist’ by claiming it’s the same size as a human heart, but he can’t give them his heart, now can he?

He instead settles for punching Sunhee.

It takes a second to think of her way to complete the mission without aegyo- which is always a last resort for her. She settled for proposing. With a handcuff.

“Stay, I love you. Would you do me the honour of being chained to me for the rest of our lives?” She knelt, the pink heart shaped cuff looped around her right wrist, the other cuff held out to the camera on her left.

Minho cuffed the second cuff around the desk edge, leaving a frowning Sunhee trying to unlock them. Chan is no help and simply laughed as he waved the costume designers over to ask about keys. “Aish, our little heart thief has been locked up. Can’t escape the consequences of being such a charming neoguli.”

It’s a joke on her SKZOO character, sun-guli, a raccoon that fans had nicknamed as a ‘heart thief'. Sunhee stuck her tongue out at him.

Eventually she’s freed by the costume designers who thankfully, hadn't thrown out the keys for all the toy handcuffs they’d bought (they’d learnt their lesson after the debacle of the ‘Vernon’ MV shooting when the cuffs had locked up and they had to use pliers to free some of the members). The lady who freed her laughed good-heartedly about it, being happy they had the foresight to leave all the keys in a little plastic bag for safe keeping. “Honestly though, we thought it would be Han-ssi who needed freeing.”

After doing a few choreography run thoughts - to which the only major mistake was when Sunhee tripped over a slightly too far left shoe belonging to Jeongin and stacked it (landing on her bruised collarbone, again).

They change sets and are given the task of running along the set, there’s a few takes before they’re ushered away to change outfits. Their ‘heart skz’ personas come with the task of marching in a line. Which is significantly harder than one may have thought.

Sunhee led the charge, along the top half of the set, that’s about four or five metres high and atop a greenscreen block- one more block half the height, positioned in the centre to make it easier to climb up and down.

The first attempt is a miserable breakup letter to their renowned synchronisation- not even managing to get the left-foot and right-hand motion correct, let alone the timing.

The second not faring much better as they lose the plot halfway though. Ever the budding genius, Seungmin suggests that they all just march on the spot until it comes time to move, to save themselves having to try and join and sync up with everyone else part way through.

Cue changbin pretending to push Sunhee off the platform and forgetting his own strength and actually making her lose her balance. Lucking the ever observant Hyunjin caught her arm and stopped her tumbling off the edge. It’s good natured, they laugh. Changbin looks like a kicked puppy until she trips him later on and gives him a shit eating grin. “Pay back, Bin-ah. What goes around comes around.”

Minho’s jump was a highly anticipated event that took shockingly few attempts for success.

He jumped down the greenscreen blocks seamlessly, not even afraid, and it made Sunhee smile knowing how far he’s come with his fear of heights. That doesn’t mean she’s above teasing. “Wow, Lee Know-ssi!”

The director mirrors her cheers and gives him far too many compliments to handle as they watch Minho’s ears turn a vibrant shade of red.

Minho: Shut it Sunny Sunny: But what if I want to give our star actor the compliments he deserves? Minho: Go give the maknae love instead. He’s pouting. Sunny: But Minho-ssi, you’d be such a great drama lead. Minho, unamused: really? Sunny: Yeah, In one of those ones where the boy is an arse to pretty girls. Minho, with his fists raised: You wanna go?

Day three sees them in both new outfits and on a new set.

The mix of gold and black matching surprisingly well with the set’s car crash of fluffy pink fabric mountains and pompoms.

Sunhee’s own outfit is mostly black leather, golden dragon design crawling up the left sleeve of her jacket and maticking stickers lining the boots she’d been given. All in all, not bad. Except for the blue contacts, those irritated her- actually spooked her everytime she caught her own reflection with blue eyes. Creepy.

They were instructed to look like love sick puppies, and positioned around the set by the director. Sunhee hangs upside down on one of the smaller mounds of fluff. She laughs and giggles, screwing her eyes shut with the most dumbstruck and in love expression manageable.

The directors tell her good job and Sunhee opens her eyes, glancing to the side of the camera and seeing Chan making faces at Minho, a stupid smile on his face as he poked his tongue out. Honestly, the sigh that left her lips, content smile taking over and utter bonelessness that took over her body for a few seconds as she took in the sight of his smile- the real, propper, one- was unexpected. What was even less expected was the director's shout. “Nice Sunny-ssi! That’s perfect!”

She startled and glanced back at the camera, feeling a little bit like an idiot for getting distracted. A warmth speed across her cheeks, just slightly- not enough for anyone to notice, but enough for her to press the palms of her hands to her cheeks to chase it off.

They move on to running into thick plastic- apparently it’s supposed to mimic the screen and their escape from the digital world, which will be led by Minho, their star actor as Sunhee doesn't fail to remind him.

The plastic panel was small, maybe two metres in width, which meant they had to stick pretty close together to all be in frame, overlapping limbs, some people crouching to give more level to the shot.

Sunhee knelt slightly between Chan and Jisung, and when they charged at the screen she cursed herself for taking comfort in the way Chan pressed against her back, hand on one side of her face and breath fanning against the skin of her neck. He placed the hand on her shoulder before letting it fall, trailing down her back as they stepped away from the screen, annoyingly kind and gentle- so much for this song helping her work though the emotions. If anything it was just making her mushier.

Their choreography goes pretty well, only having to reshoot the segment twice,

Photo cards are shot for the new outfits and Sunhee’s blinding grin is a direct result of Jeongin tripping over in the background, sprawling out and just laying there for a few moments, pout very visible. He caught her laughing though and quickly sat up, bolting towards her. He tackled her onto the mountain of plush fabric and fake furs with relentless squeezes to her waist, every jolt making her giggle.

Jeongin was dragged over to complete his own mission and she leaves him with the parting advice, “don’t let minho cuff you to a desk.”

Back at the police station set- now heart-ified (after Sunhee is subjected to them clipping extensions into her hair again) the break while the crew establish camera framing is spent trying to hit the ceiling- or well the fake ceiling.

It’s mostly her and Chan (Because if there is a low hanging sign or doorway he just has to smack it. It’s like an unspoken rule of Christopher Bang) but everyone gives it a shot- no one succeeding, Hyunjin gets pretty close but everyone blamed that on his natural height advantage- even if their height spectrum was differentiated by all of 12 centimetres.

Felix’s inability to catch the heat plush is immensely amusing- more than it should have been.

Felix: Sunny stop laughing! Sunny: But it just goes flying every time! Felix: This is mean. It’s not my fault I was born with small hands!

The appearance of Peter Han and subsequent re-naming of ‘Real Hwang’ is also amusing, because she liked listening to them speak with the most chaotic of accents, Influences from Australian thanks to the three natives, American from all the media they consumed and British from the classes taught in schools.

Day four is another new set- and it’s everything she’d ever dreamed of.

As a long time Stephen king fan and horror enthusiast, when the MV director told them there was carpet from the shining- what had already been a visual metaphor within the film (the outer hexagon- the hotel, keeping the inner hexagon- the evil, trapped.) Sunhee couldn’t contain her bubbling excitement- meaning she pestered all the members with her ‘The Shining’ knowledge and praised the ground their MV director walked on.

Their ‘star actor’ as Sunhee had taken to calling him, demonstrating to Felix how to look love-struck is a meme format waiting to happen.

Then there’s the chicken/can I be your boyfriend scene, which is rather impressive (Even if Hyunjin keeps laughing and is sentenced to stand silent in the corner).

Sunny: I think you might have some competition. Minho: You mean Yongbok? *scoffs* No way. Sunny, teasing: I thought you hated being our acting star? Minho: …

In retaliation he chases her around the flaming room as Hynjin ran his lines a few times over, throwing fake punches and boxing each other.

The hallway is cramped but they do a few takes of choreography in it- for the introduction.

And they conclude with Sunhee saying the opening line through a bashed in section of door, Minho charging in like a maniac to peek through. The final slate means a nice sleep in the next day- as promised by staff for their excessive filming schedule.

[ ᴀɴ ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ]

Sunhee left in the most comfortable clothes she’d worn in over 24 hours, a nice baggy hoodie to fight the autumn chill and straight cut jeans that were loose enough for her to curl her legs up as they drove home.

Her and Minho ran their dorm- keeping the youngest three in check. But that night was not one that required any sort of ’keeping in check’. They just ordered takeout from a restaurant down the street, ate in silence and passed out in various places around the dorm. Minho maked it back to his bed, so did Seungmin, but Jeongin passed out on the couch and Felix, who followed Sunhee back to her room babbling about some post he’d see on instagram ended up clocking out half draped across Sunhee on her mattress.

She tucked him tighter against her side, pulling out her phone to record the noise of his snoring- that was more often than not soft, but significantly louder when tired. She sent it though to bubble, it’s not loud enough to be embarrassing, but she knows Stay will find it cute.

Audio message attached Sunny: can you guys hear lixie snoring? Sunny: it was a big day. Sunny: he fell straight asleep.

Surprisingly, the daunting prospect of a love song, one that would be released in just a few weeks, had not been as terrifying as she’d thought it would be. Actually, it had been fun.

A film set with cool details like typed out case files and references to ‘The Shining’, fun and bright backdrops and the rare ability to goof off and joke on camera, something not often granted with their more serious tracks.

There was a kind of closure almost, listening to the track, working it through with others and having someone there to poke fun and tease when her ‘lovesick eyes’ got too much. And Jisung discovering who the song had been written about wasn’t as world-ending as she originally believed.

Maybe she wasn’t ready to confess, to ‘send her code’ as they’d so simply put it. But maybe it didn’t weigh her down as much as it did previously.

#9th member of stray kids #skz 9th member #skz female oc #skz addition #stray kids 9th member #stray kids oc #kpop addition #kpop oc #kpop female addition #stray kids female member #skz female addition #skz female member #kang sunhee skz #Sunhee’s Song Book #sunhee's maxident era

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dreamer-hangugeo · 1 year

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𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫: V-다 보니 ✏️𝐔𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 This expression is used to indicate that the speaker learned something new after doing some action or behavior continuously from some time in the past, or that a certain situation has occurred as a result of that behavior. E.g. 한국에 와서 김치를 먹다 보니 이제는 김치 없으면 밥을 못 먹어요. (After eating kimchi frequently in Korea, I can't eat rice without kimchi now.) ✏️ 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 (1) 다 of -다 보니 is the shortened form of -다가, which refers to something occurring in the middle of a continuous action, and -보니 is the shortened form of the combination of the verb 보다 và -(으)니까, which refers to a discovery or result. Therefore, the form -다가 보니까 and -다 보니까 can be used with the same meaning. E.g. 일하다 보니 어느새 오후 7시가 넘었더라고요. = 일하다가 보니까 어느새 오후 7시가 넘었더라고요. = 일하다 보니까 어느새 오후 7시가 넘었더라고요. (While I keep working, I just realize that it was over 7pm.) (2) When adjective or 이다 comes before -다 보니, the preceding clause indicates the reason or cause of the event or action in the following clause. E.g. Noun + 이다: 대통령은 한 나라의 대표이다 보니 경호하는 사람들이 많을 수밖에 없어요. (Since the president is the representative of a country, it is unavoidable that he or she will be heavily guarded by many people.) Adjective: 그 일이 워낙 중요하다 보니 혼자 결정할 수 없었어요. (Because it was in fact an important matter, I couldn't decide by myself.) (3) The grammar -다 보니 can be combined with the grammar -게 되다 or - 아/어지다 to express that after doing something repeatedly/continuously, you become or in a certain state as the result. E.g. - V-다 보니 V- 게 되다 저는 열심히 공부하다 보니 한국어를 잘하게 됐어요. (I studied hard and ended up being able to speak Korean well) - V-다 보니 Adj - 아/어지다 매일 공원에서 운동하다 보니 건강해졌어요. (As I worked out at the park every day, my health was gotten better.) (4) -다 보니 is that it is used to indicate repeated and continuing behaviors, hence, it is often used with adverbs of repetition such as 계속 (continuously), 꾸준히 (steadily), 항상 (always), 자주 (often), 매일 (every day)… (5) Please note that as the result was already completed, the following clause must be in past or present tenses. ✏️ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Attach -다 보니to the root of a verb in the present tense. Verb + -다 보니: 가다 → 가다 보니 먹다→ 먹다 보니 살다 → 살다 보니 ✏️ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬 1. 집이 엉망이구나. - 혼자 살다 보니 집 정리를 잘 안 하게 돼요. (This house is a mess. - While living alone, I can't clean up often.) 2. 민아 씨는 지성 씨를 싫어하지 않았어요? - 처음엔 싫어했는데 매일 같이 일하다 보니 앤디 씨의 좋은 점이 보이더라고요. (Mina, don't you dislike Jisung? - I didn't like him at first, but after working with him together every day, I have come to see his good points.) 3. 마라톤이 힘들지 않아요? - 힘들지만 계속 달리다 보니 적응이 되었어요. (Isn't it hard to run a marathon? - It's hard, but because I kept running, I got used to it.) 4. 왜 직장을 그만뒀어요? - 너무 오래 같은 일을 하다 보니 지겨워져서 다른 일을 해 보려고요. (Why did you quit your job? I've been doing the same thing for so long that I'm tired of it, so I'm going to try something else.) 5. 경제 신문을 매일 읽다 보니 자연스럽게 경제에 대해 잘 알게 되었어요. (As I read the economics newspaper every day, I naturally got to know about the economy well.)

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lgchiro · 10 months

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plotting call for event !!

first off, i am very slow at writing, so i apologize for the replies sitting in my drafts right now. ty for being patient with me. 😭 and please like this post if you want to work something out for the mission !!

for TRAINEE MISSION 014: despite loving to travel, hiro hasn't been to half the destinations on the cruise, so he is stoked for the trip. he is especially looking forward to telling people about his home country and maybe helping some people get around who aren't as good with japanese. more than one thread can be per challenge, and plot points/ideas are under the read more:

SPECIALIZED WORKSHOPS

Intro to J-Pop part 1 (and 2?) - @lgcakio Korean Calligraphy, Voice Acting, Traditional Tea Ceremony

VACATION TIME

showing people around any of the cities in japan and helping them be better at communicating in japanese

KAGOSHIMA: Kagoshima Aquarium — learn fun facts about fishies with Hiro! @lgckyungsoo

NAGASAKI: Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum — learn what "good art" really is from Hiro! (he doesn't actually have tons of art history education, per say, but he's certainly a snob for fine art.)

SHANGHAI (PART 1): Yu Garden (Yuyuan), Zhujiajao Ancient Town.

SHANGHAI (PART 2): follow an overeager and energetic Hiro as he tries to ride every single ride at Disney. @lgcshion

ISHIGAKI ISLAND: Tamatorizaki Observatory & Yaeyama Palm Tree Grove.

HUALIEN: Nanbin Park, Qixingtan Beach

KAOHSIUNG: 85 Sky Tower, Kahsiung Museum of Fine Arts

FREE TIME / OTHER ACTIVITES

DAY 3: platonic snuggle time during the Studio Ghibli marathon

FREE TIME: laser tag, pools and sundecks, rock climbing wall, mini golf course, jogging track, tennis court

#⋆　┊　〔　OOC !　〕#⋆　┊　〔　PLOTTING CALL !　〕

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minimalist-language-learning · 1 year

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Too serious or not serious enough?

Do some people take language learning too serious or not serious enough?

I've seen comments where language learners criticize others for being "too hardcore", "too obsessive" or "too serious". At the same time there are "serious" language learners who criticize others for being "not efficient", "lazy" or "not serious enough", because they prefer to learn at their own pace, take breaks or like to learn several languages instead of focusing on one language to reach a native-like level as fast as possible.

People also argue a lot about whose achievements are more impressive: The one who learned several languages to a level at where they can use the language comfortably (not perfect but they can use their language skills the way they want). Or the one who reached a native-like level in one language within a few years (especially if it's a language that is considered (from a westeners perspective) as very difficult and exotic, like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, ... ).

Does it really matter, if others are impressed?

Sometimes I have the impression, that some people learn a language to impress. Maybe it's not their only motivation, but it seems like the "coolness factor" is important to them. They treat language learning like a sport or competition. This may be the reason why many people criticize some "serious language learners" for being "arrogant" and for "looking down on others".

On the other hand, some "serious language learners" make fun of casual language learners who like to learn several languages. Because they speak one or two of them fluently (good but not native-level), for example, but the level of the other languages is not very high. In their opinion, it's pointless to do something without becoming really good in a short amount of time. They don't want to learn a language for 10 years until they reach a high level — they want to be really good as fast as possible. Dabbling in different languages seems to be a waste of time in their opinion.

So, who is right? Which path is better?

Comparing casual joggers with marathon runners

When I see how fiercely both sides defend their way of learning and criticize each other for being too serious or not serious enough, I think that they are not aware that everyone has different goals and a different personality. Not everyone can learn a language "hardcore" without burning out. But what is too hardcore for one person may be ok for another person.

There are people who like to work hard and feel great if they make fast progress. They would hate it to learn a language casually because they would feel like they are wasting their time. They want to make progress. They want to compete. This is what drives them forward. This is not necessarily a negative thing, as long as it doesn't turn into obsessive and unhealthy behavior. It's just how they are.

People who treat language learning more like a hobby and not like a sport, on the other hand, have other goals and priorities than the "serious learners". Maybe they are interested in many languages and cultures. They may be completely satisfied to reach a level at where they can communicate with their friends or neighbors who are native speakers of their target languages. They are not afraid to make mistakes. There's no necessity to speak exactly like a native. They don't want to impress. Or they watch movies in their target languages once or twice a week — just for fun, not to reach the next level. They just want to have a good time. That's also absolutely fine!

Comparing the learning style of people with different goals is like comparing someone who jogs for fun with someone who is training for a marathon. One person just wants to feel good, the other person wants to win. Both goals are valid. If you want to win a marathon, it doesn't make sense to do what the casual jogger does (and vice versa), of course.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter which path you choose, as long as you are satisfied and spend your time in a way you really enjoy. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious and working towards your goal, as long as it doesn't turn into obsessive and unhealthy behavior. It's also okay, if you learn different languages just for fun without reaching a high level. You don't have to impress anyone. If you feel good and enjoy what you are doing, you do it right.

Please note that just because a certain learning style is not right for you doesn't mean that it's wrong for everyone. Other people may have other goals and priorities than you. This influences their learning style. There's no reason to criticize other people for their "too hardcore" or "too inefficient" learning styles. Their way to learn a language is probably right for them.

#languagelearning #langblr #language community

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boosqoowoo · 10 months

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beenzino - if i die tomorrow (english lyrics translation)

오늘 밤이 만약 내게 주어진 if this night were given to me

돛대와 같다면 what should i do with this? if it were like a mast, what should i do with this? *a mast is an old word for a pole or rod, commonly used when referring to a flag at half-mast, where it is lowered down the flagpole to show respect for someone who died **mast is also Korean slang for the last cigarette in the pack

mmmm maybe

지나온 나날들을 시원하게 훑겠지 i will skim through the days that passed cooly

스물 여섯 컷의 흑백 film a black and white film with twenty-six cuts *this album, 24:26, is his stories from during the time when was 24 to 26 years old

내 머릿속의 스케치 a sketch in my head

원하든 말든 메모리들이 memories whether i want it or not

비 오듯 쏟아지겠지 will pour down like rain

엄마의 피에 젖어 태어나고 내가 처음 배웠던 언어 i was born covered in my mother's blood and learned my first language

부터 낯선 나라 위에 떨어져 별 다른 노력 없이 배웠던 영어 and then, learnt English in a foreign country without much struggles *he moved to New Zealand at around 10 years old with his father, and then his parents divorced 3 years later, and his mother remarried

나의 아버지에 대한 혐오와 나의 새 아버지에 대한 나의 존경 hatred for my father and my respect for my stepfather

갑자기 떠오른 표현, life's like 오렌지색의 터널 the phrase that suddenly comes to mind, 'life's like an orange-colored tunnel*' *"my thoughts are that a tunnel is dark while you drive through it. one needs to keep driving to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. the process of life itself is represented by this tunnel. i used the color orange because tunnel lights are orange” - beenzino

if i die tomorrow if i die die die

고개를 45도 기울여 tilt my head 45 degrees* *to smoke

담배 연기와 함께 품은 기억력 memories covered with cigarette smoke

추억을 소리처럼 키우면 if i grow memories as if they were sound

눈을 감아도 보오이는 theater a theater i can see even with my eyes closed

시간은 유연하게 휘어져 time bends flexibly

과거로 스프링처럼 이어져 and continues like a spring towards the past

아주 작고 작았던 미니어쳐 a very small miniature

시절을 떠올리는 건 껌처럼 쉬워져 remembering those times becomes as easy as chewing gum

빨주노초 물감을 덜어, 하얀색 종이 위를 총처럼 겨눴던 pouring out red, orange, yellow, green paint and aiming like a gun at white paper

어린 화가의 경력은 뜬금없게도 힙합에 눈이 멀어 the career of a young painter is surprisingly blinded by hip-hop *Beenzino was studying art in university before he debut as a rapper

멈춰버렸지만 전혀 두렵지 않았어 although I stopped, I wasn't afraid

cuz i didn't give a fuck about 남의 시선 cuz i didn't give a fuck about other people's gazes

cuz life is like 나 홀로 걸어가는 터널 cuz life is like a tunnel where I walk alone

if i die tomorrow

내게도 마지막 호흡이 주어지겠지 i will also be given my last breath… right?

마라톤이 끝나면 끈이 끊어지듯이 like a marathon that ends when the finish line is crossed

당연시 여겼던 아침 아홉 시의 해와 the sun at 9 am that i took for granted as well as the

음악에 몰두하던 밤들로부터 fade out fade out from nights where i was immersed in music

말보로와 함께 탄, 내 20대의 생활 my life in my twenties, spent with Malboro* cigarettes *a popular brand of cigarette (also the brand Beenzino smokes)

내 생에 마지막 여자와의 애정의 행각 my final romantic encounter with the last lady of my life

책상 위에 놓인 1800원 짜리 펜과 the 1,800 won pen on my desk

내가 세상에 내놓은 내 노래가 가진 색깔 the colors of my songs that i released to the world

까지 모두 다 다시는 못 볼 것 같아 i feel like i won't be able to see any of it again

삶이란 게 좀 지겹긴 해도 좋은 건가 봐 although life can be a bit tiring, i guess it's still good

엄마, don't worry bout me ma mom, don't worry about me ma

엄마 입장에서 아들의 죽음은 도둑 같겠지만 from a mother's perspective, her son's death must be like a robbery but *a thief steals what is precious to you, in this case the most precious being to his mom is him

i'll be always in your heart, 영원히 i'll always be in your heart, forever

i'll be always in your heart, 할머니 i'll always be in your heart, grandma

you don't have to miss me, 난 이 노래 안에 있으니까 you don't have to miss me because I am in this song

나의 목소리를 잊지마 don't forget my voice

if i die tomorrow

#beenzino #24:26 #khh #english trans #eng trans #english lyrics #eng lyrics

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iguessitsjustme · 1 year

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All The Liquors - Ep 3 &4 Drunk Thoughts

Not nearly drunk enough yet but time waits for no man so let’s get going. I’ll get drunker as I watch. Under the cut for length:

-Oh yeah his armmmm. I’d be working with one arm. I’ve done it before. It’s not easy but it can be done.

-My apartment is very loud right now…well neighbors and the street are loud and I do not know how to process that and the show at the same time. This is gonna be slow going.

-I want very spicy Korean food and I still want to try soju. Someone come over and we can order Korean food and soju and have a BL marathon.

-Oooooh these colors. They’re in red and blue. I cannot stop thinking about this now. Does @respectthepetty have any thoughts on this. I will have to search them out as soon as I’m done.

–Don’t listen in on someone’s phone call like that. My guy that’s creepy. I love you but that’s an invasion of the all too important bubble.

-This dude just helping our chef boy. This is cute. Kind of. Something about this scenario is nagging at me but I can’t figure out what it is.

-Why is everyone so damn invested in this restaurant serving alcohol?

-Oh chef boy is impressed with our alcoholic’s food knowledge. Why was it not an issue that he offered alcohol though? What’s happening.

-This show would go much different if that one character did not injure his arm.

-I like this song. It’s pretty and it’s calming and I feel so relaxed. I want to listen to it and write essays and pretend like I’m a college student again.

-This show would make a lot more sense if we had any insight as to why chef boy was so insistent on no alcohol. Then maybe the barriers that our alcoholic boy are breaking down would make sense and seeing it happen real time wouldn’t be confusing.

-Now the song reminds me of playing mario. Very fitting for this March 10.

-Unrelated to anything but man oh man I wish I could burp.

-Why the fuck do I need to see someone on the toilet in every show I watch? Can I not be spared even once.

–Oh he fell again. He should stop that.

-Still digging the music in this show. Fuck yeah. This song can get it

-I think I am drunker than I think I am

-I am now on episode 4. I need to plug in my laptop but I am scared I will fall off of my seat if I reach down for it. Pray for me.

-Starts off with our alcoholic falling again. He should stop that. How is he not the one that’s been injured.

-Is it a BL if they don’t end up on swings? Actually a lot of them don’t end up on swings. But there is definitely a good number that end up on swings.

-The swing ropes are red and green. What could that mean??? I’m not good with colors. Especially not while drunk and not even trying tbh.

-Ki Hoon. His name is Ki Hoon. I should learn that. Chef boy is Ki Hoon.

-Who cleaned those clams?

-Han Ji Yoo. That’s the alcoholic’s name. I should learn that too. Ji Yoo.

-I should drink water.

-Why is this boss a dick and downplaying Ji Yoo’s abilities? “I’m not sure he’ll be much help.” Bruh that’s not how you manage.

-HOW DID HE FALL YET AGAIN. Get this boy some work shoes pronto. He should be wearing appropriate shoes in the kitchen.

-The sexual tension while covered in clam juice is a bit much for me.

-I am fine until I try to move and then I am suddenly reminded that I am drunk.

-Where are the rest of their ingredients? My dudes cooked a meal with just carrots and onions.

-Why won’t this boy drink? I need ANSWERS.

-THAT WAS FAST MY DUDE. You’re ready to just abandon your beliefs and just start drinking? Is it your beliefs your abandoning? I don’t even know because I have no context for your alcohol apprehension. WHICH IS VALID. I just don’t know whyyyyy. It seems like it should be a bigger deal that you’re drinking than this show is making it.

-Oh my god the hiccups. I am now accepting thoughts and prayers.

-There was no hesitation to him drinking that. My god.

-IS HE DRUNK ALREADY? AFTER JUST THAT? My god I thought *I* was a lightweight.

-He must have a severe alcohol intolerance. But that doesn’t explain why he won’t serve it.

-I know the hidden meaning of asking someone if they want ramen. Even when I’m drunk. There was a double meaning there my dudes. Now stare intensely into each other’s eyes.

-Actually obsessed with the ending song and I WILL be listening to it on a loop don’t worry about it. [god I hope I can find it]

#all the liquors #all the liquors the series #all the liquors bl #it seems like we have all now been trained by respectthepetty to notice when people are in red and blue #excellent and wonderful #even drunk i'm noticing colors more than i ever did before

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hermioneismyrealname · 1 year

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Tomorrow (20221215) I have day one of my finals. It's maths.

Mood? Sleepy. Haven't slept in 2 days.

Reason? The last 6 hours I got, I woke up from a dream clawing at my arm and neck because I thought I was 8 again and what happened to me was happening again. SO SLEEP CAN GO FUCK ITSELF!

But after 11 am tomorrow, I will chugg 750ml of black coffee and sleep for 12 hours and start the marathon for biology (20221219), physics (20221221) and chemistry (20221222). Coffee stops me from dreaming.

Preparation? Maths can go to hell.

I've studied and I'm gonna study some more but once the paper is in front of me, the war begins against my brain as I try and pry the knowledge out from the anxiety filled trenches of my frontal lobe.

My body? My chest hurts like fuck.

I keep forgetting to breathe while I'm studying I don't know why. Also doesnt help that my glasses broke and I can't see shit so I'm hunched over my desk like a prawn and have my legs folded cause I'm gay af and can't sit on a chair straight by law.

Emotions? Currently numb.

I know this is going to change when I sit down in the exam hall. I'm just mentally drained. My sources of dopamine that I allow myself is this hellsite (affectionate), some one-shot fluff fics, writing drabbles and learning languages.

My goal? Do my best.

Imma be honest. I feel OK about what I know and I know I can do it, it's just my brain being an ass about it. That sack of flesh tells me to break my ankles for the heck of it, why should I listen to it?

Outcome? To feel proud enough so I don't feel guilty.

I feel guilty a lot. Survivors guilt and mommy issues. I overwork to overachive. I lay down on my bed and feel guilty i havent done enough when i just finished a 6 hour study session. Do more, my brain yells at me. So if I can come out of this like I did what I could, feeling less guilty, I'll be happy.

What do I want to do for the holidays?

Exam first and then think about holidays. But

I want to watch

Between Us (2022) ep 6 and 7

My 12 percent

Not me

Romantic Killer

Blood C

I spit on your grave

Goblin

Maybe rewatch Banana Fish

Space balls

I want to write

My drabbles

That Vegaspete fanfic I've been planning for a while now

That Sapphic story skeleton (idea struck me and I want to post it to *gags**barf**spits* wattpad

Begin copywriting because I'm a broke college student

I want to read

A curse so Dark and Lonely

And like the cycle of the year, we begin again (because it's my Christmas tradition)

Art of war

Maybe the wicked king, idk

I want to play

Minecraft

Potion craft: alchemy simulator

I want to learn languages

Japanese

Thai

Russian

Korean

Welsh

Latin

I want to random research

Anything

And then fritz case

I want to sleep.

I want to practice my forms in self defense. (Im probably shit by now)

I want to go rock climbing.

I want to go for a walk.

I want to talk to my friends and my crush that I've been ignoring for my exams, but like face to face, and give them a big ol hug even though I give really awkward hugs.

I want to eat broccoli and bread.

Didn't I mention sleep?

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klqrambles · 2 years

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orchid, cactus, jasmine, aloe vera, papyrus :-)

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

Oh jeez uh, I'm not sure how to answer this one so I'll go with one that I could never get tired of! It's actually one I've never talked about called A Flying Butterfly (나는 나비) by a band called Yb. It's like my go to song for karaoke, it has both a korean and english version iirc and it's one I've cherished since my childhood. I love that song to death ^^

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

Funny enough, but I've been actually forcibly brushing up on my Korean so I can speak it better than my usual Korenglish I use with my parents. And all because I want to translate those silly little musicals...

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

Can I just put the whole warrior cats series here? I loved it in elementary/middle school but I can't see myself ever reading a warriors book ever again lol

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

Lying on someone's (that isn't my mom) legs during an at home movie marathon

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

Ok I got Border from the Nijinsky musical LMAO I love how dramatic it is! Really is a genius being a bitch about not being the only genius in the room. The most musically nice temper tantrum I've heard in a while

#klq answers

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sweetswesf · 1 year

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Check In

What I Did

Cooked 2 recipes from my new cook book

Online shopped…responsibly…I think…

Wished friends Merry Christmas

Finally watched an episode of Rick & Morty

Wayans Bros. marathon

Washed dishes for a whole 2 hours

Hit my head HARD AGAIN on the bottom of my main kitchen cabinet

What I Learned

One can return to exercising 2 days to a week after a concussion

Feeling

Annoyed that I keep running into things in my small ass apartment…I get paranoid that I am creating real damage, but I have to stop crisis thinking

Takeaways

I’m becoming more accepting of the fact that I celebrate my holidays solo…I didn’t have a crying fit this year at the fact that only my grandmother reached out to check in on me

I have to be less paranoid

I’m so glad I saw the post for the free therapy sessions I am taking advantage of

I really want to move to New York, get the job I want, look the way I want, be more faithful, be a better engineer, have a better sense of worth and appreciation…I will get there, I just need to focus…

How I Got Myself Out of a Rut

Bought some new snacks to try

Ate out at a Korean restaraunt…hesitated, because I need to save money, but I wanted it and felt like I deserved it

Wayans Bros

Cartoon Network livestream

Goals Completed

Found a therapist

Stopped listening to people worried about their own circumstances and remembering God works on his own time and that I am in no rush...

Got back on the ball

Being kinder to myself and stopping guilting myself if my energy isn't always on 100%

Goals After Today

Strengthen my relationship with God

Understand the main concepts I need to from Interview Cake, AlgoExpert, etc. in 6 months, NOT less than 3

Drop my body fat percentage to Marion Jones, Michaela Cole, or Jade Cargill levels

Consistently fight urge to fill up my time with social media/YouTube

Fully forgive my family & build a great relationship with them

Be more confident & faithful

250 steps/hour & 10k steps/daily consistently

Drink more than 64oz a day consistently

Go on a date with a guy I actually like who actually likes me too

Learn more about my gym crush & get him to ask for my number

Get a house similar to that one in Spain

Update my personal app

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nutellarchives · 2 years

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My K-Dramas of June - August (First Half) part 1

As June marked the last month of my classes for the term, I grabbed the opportunity to marathon K-Drama as much as I can. With that goal in mind, I was able to finish 7 K-dramas and would like to give my thoughts with the following. This might be a spoiler full review-ish so disclaimer for that.

p.s. if you haven't watched all of the drama on the list, I recommend just scrolling past that title you haven't watch yet and go back to this blog post when you're already done!

p.p.s. Trigger warning too, I have watched some K-dramas that might be sensitive for others, please read with caution.

Tomorrow

The first K-drama I've watched last June was Tomorrow. I watched this in a whim because even though I have a lot to watch on my K-drama list, I am only comfortable watching K-dramas on mobile, so Netflix and Viu. It was newly released during the time I've decided to watch it and I've heard good things about it so I gave it a go without any information or a tiny bit of synopsis (just watching it blindly ehe). First few episodes and I'm already hooked! Since I am really interested into concepts where it's not part of my culture aka something new (e.g. Afterlife, Reincarnation, Grim Reapers etc.). Learning things about the East-Asian culture has always been a fascinating thing to me and I wanted to learn more.

This drama also touched one of the taboo topics in Korea, which is suicide. It is a very heavy topic to portray in media but I do think that they were able to nail it and was able to convey a message regarding suicide and how to overcome it.

The cast dynamics is one of the factors that made me continue to watch, although everyone is new to me, as I haven't watched any dramas that they starred in, I was able to enjoy their performance and how they are able to pull off each character.

What made me add this drama to my favorites list is how things were connected, how the character's attitudes and perception towards suicide is based on their experiences from their past lives and how the story intertwined with the character's pasts. I especially liked how Ryeon and Joong-gil were lovers in their past lives (even though this drama is not romance heavy, I still manage to get kilig during the time we're they were still together).

One thing that felt short for me is the lack of depth and focus on Junwoong's past life. I do think that him being in a comma for months in the present is a sad thing and I won't question that but regarding his past life, I feel like the integration of that is something that wasn't thought very well. I've expected Junwoong's past life to be more meaningful as he was one of the main leads. But I guess it won't really make sense if he is connected with the other lead's past lives as he just accidentally got into the squad. I honestly wish there was more to it but I'm gonna just accept that he did great things in the past and be contented with that.

A Korean Odyssey

After watching Tomorrow, I immediately started watching A Korean Odyssey. It is a fantasy, lil comedy, romance, horror-ish, star-crossed lovers K-drama. This drama has been added to my list for a bit, maybe a year ago, because of that short preview from Netflix and that intrigued me because of well... it's a bit of a jumpscare so I was curious. (If you have watched that preview video, you know what I mean plus I watched that like 10pm so it scared the sh** out of me)

All I can say is that this drama deserves more recognition. It's a good balance between the good stuff and the tragic happenings and it is also accompanied by a comedic relief which somewhat gave a light tone. It is romance heavy and when I say romance heavy I meant that kind of romance . The cast are all so good in portraying their characters and they aren't that forgettable. The actors really nailed their roles and it also added to the cohesiveness of the drama as a whole.

After watching this K-Drama, I have found another actor to look out for, which is Lee SeungGi. He is actually a household name in the Korean Media Industry and I have heard of him many times, due to the famous My Girlfriend is a Gumiho and him being able to sing, but this is the first time I've actually watched a drama that he is the main character. Given I've really liked his acting here, I've added him to my favorite actors list! which btw is non existent but let's pretend it does Because of that admiration of his performance, I did watched another K-drama that he starred in in this list.

I recommend this drama if you are looking for a binge-worthy fantasy with comedy, horror-ish and also tragedy on the side. However though, I'd say the ending is a bit unfortunate. It suggests a season 2 but 5 years after it's release, I doubt that there will be a season 2 unless...

Two Cops

While watching Tomorrow, I also watched this drama with a friend; Two Cops! I'd say its a fun watch, generic but still worth the time.

It's about a police and a con artist that got into an accident and then the con artist possessed the body of the police. Sounds scary? It's not under a horror genre though. The purpose of the unexplainable possession is to uncover the truth that lies between the two leads and the other characters related to them. This follows a similar structure of intertwined lives as they have crossed paths once just like tomorrow minus the past lives as this one is from childhood to adulthood.

It's my first time watching Jo Jungsuk even after the famous hospital playlist which btw I haven't watched yet. I like the duality in his role here and his performance is convincing. He has the serious side and the goofy side which I enjoyed watching. It's also fun to see Hyeri here as I haven't watched her in a while after dropping Reply 1988 please don't come after me, a lot has enjoyed that drama but during the time that I've watched it.. I just didn't feel it. She's still the goofy and fun Hyeri that I've watched in Reply 1988 though, which is not really bad but nostalgic. As for Seonho, I did watch this drama because of him. My friend was a super fan of this guy, we call this oppa (and our other oppas) samcheon, due to having 10+ age gap between us and our favorite actors, and I've decided to binge Seonho dramas with her to let the lady enjoy and as for me I wanted to see more of his acting.

This drama is okay though, not something that made my mind blown or something. As I've mentioned, it's generic but still worth watching especially to Seonho fans. Though I can say that I'm quite disappointed that Seonho had a lil less screen time compared to Jungsuk but nonetheless they both carried the show well.

Mouse

Here is another Lee SeungGi drama as promised, (from that A Korean Odyssey post). Mouse. After watching A Korean Odyssey and enjoyed SeungGi's performance, I followed it up with another one of his dramas.

Mouse is a thriller, mystery, twisty and dark drama about psychopaths and whether or not they are born not made. This drama focuses on discovering the Psychopath gene, due to Korea's advancing technology, a Doctor was able to detect a gene that is present among Psychopaths to fetuses. It is an interesting concept but as the disclaimer in every start of the episode, it is a work of fiction, so Psychopath gene ain't real hopefully.

I'd say throughout the whole 20 episodes that I've endured, it was interesting rather than enjoyable. Giving you a grave warning that this drama isn't for the light-hearted, it's always about murder and killings, since the story focuses on Serial Killers.

Aside from the serial killings and psychopaths, Of course it focuses on a handful of characters and let's the viewers know their inner conflicts and struggles. There's no room of certainty in this drama as every episode ends with a question.

After a few episodes, I thought that this drama would overthrow my favorite K-drama of all time which is Law School but after the second half, it didn't. I had high expectations with it but after answers were revealed, it felt confusing and overwhelming as for the first 14 eps, they left me with questions and suddenly they bombarded some answers which it was too much for me to comprehend. Adding to that, there were too many characters to focus on, though the main focus would be the two main leads, there were other side characters that are also related to the story line that were also given too much stress and that made the experience dense. I'd say 16 episodes would be sufficient as the duration of 20 eps felt dragging but alright I guess they need that many episodes for the narrative.

Overall, if you are ready for a heavy drama with killings involved, I recommend this. It will make you question whether what's shown is the whole picture or details were left out. Kudos to the actors, I can really feel their stress and conflicts.

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That would conclude the first part of this post. I decided that 7 dramas in one post might give a cognitive overload so stay tuned for the second part!

Thanks for making this far, it's a long post but I hope you find it interesting (or I hope it makes sense hehe).

Click here for part 2.

- ella

#tomorrow #a korean odyssey #two cops #mouse #k-drama #tomorrow kdrama #two cops kdrama #mouse kdrama #lee seunggi #kim seonho #jo jungsuk #hyeri #rowon #kim hee sun #mbc tomorrow

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