#and to make it better i'm posting it at noon on a wednesday so it will get less than 20 notes
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Exyblr Dashboard Simulator based on what I personally see on sportsblr:
10/?
🏳️🌈 gay4stickball follow
People truly underestimate exyblr's ability to create a whole ass human out of nothing. you give us their place of origin, their position, their size, and maybe one fact about their life and BOOM a whole ass human.
🧜♀️ sapphicexy
Why is this so truuuuuuue 😭
🌞 blonde-jeremy-knox
jean moreau? im pretty sure no one has ever even heard him SPEAK but we know:
he's french. he's tall. he's a backliner. he doesn't talk to the press. he's perfect court but transferred from EAU to USC (which is literally the hugest change possible)
bing bang BOOM he is bitchy but quiet (probably raises his eyebrow in disdain a lot), a sturdy presence that is a little unsure of his place in the world but hides it behind bitchy comments who always strives to be better on and off the court.
💃fox-me-up follow
and he's gay
🌞 blonde-jeremy-knox
and he's gay
678 notes
🧚 goalie-stan
call me matt boyd the way i look at dan wilds like she hung the moon and stars
#god......Dan please.....end my suffering......
109 notes
👸🏻 kevindazed follow
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#it ain't happening sweetheart SHE'S NEVER GONNA TOP YOU
243 notes
🙈 ittybittyminny follow
do you ever want to squidge someone's cheeks SO BAD but you know they'd murder you for even thinking it
🦚 dilf-wymack
is this about andrew minyard
🙈 ittybittyminny follow
isn't everything
#just assume everything i say is about andrew minyard
1,002 notes
✍️ exy-fic-rec
icarus once flew
Fandom: Exy RPF
Pairing: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard
Rating: E
Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Friends With Benefits
Word count: 59k
Summary: He'd done this before with teammates, and it hadn't affected anything; there was no reason this should be any different, so it wasn't different. But here on the bathroom floor, hugging his knees to his chest, Kevin could admit to himself that it was different than anything he'd done with teammates in the past.
It was different, because none of those teammates were Andrew.
#kevin day #andrew minyard #0203 #kandrew #psu #palmetto #psu foxes #explicit #exy rpf #fic rec #explicit #friends with benefits #angst #hurt/comfort
201 notes
🐋 sexyexy
ran into jeremy knox on campus and that girl was literally bouncing on his toes, what the fuck kinda -
#hated it btw #way too depressed for her rn
25 notes
🤳 badexyimagines
Imaaaaagine....... it's your first date with riko moriyama. He takes you to red lobster, you're allergic to lobster but he orders it for you anyway. You die
#exy #imagine #riko moriyama #esu #once again this is a JOKE
56 notes
#all for the game#aftg#the sunshine court#tsc#kevin day#jeremy knox#jean moreau#andrew minyard#matt boyd#dan wilds#kandrew#exyblr#unreality#where's that anon who told me to stop making these#this one's for u#and to make it better i'm posting it at noon on a wednesday so it will get less than 20 notes#2 homies that find these amusing come and get yall juice
96 notes
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FAIR AND SQUARE › lhs
SYNOPSIS › one thing about life— it's unpredictable. for example, you made a note to yourself about not associating too much with heeseung for your own peace of mind, letting him stay as the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, except one thing leads to another and you find yourself face to face with the said man with your feelings all over the place. a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition, let the game begin.
WORD COUNT › 20.2k
GENRE › academic rivals / friends to lovers, mutual pinning because they're just competitive and oblivious ft in denial, fem reader, quite the 'he fell first but she fell harder' thing eye guess . . .
WARNINGS › mentions drinking, sheds light on family issues ( mostly on the reader's side ) bruise and injury, slightest of angst, arguments, suggestive ( fourth section, towards the end ) profanities, let me know if you spot more
PLAYLIST › tune in for a better experience
NOTE › i love this fic with all my heart and lungs, even more. anyway, i'm sorry to academic rivals fans, this doesn't have academic blood and gore, as quoted by my dear mai. SPEAKING OF MAI EVERYONE THANK @maiverie FOR BETAREADING THIS FIC!!!!!! im not lying when i say i wouldn't have finished writing this yesterday if it wasn't for her, like thank u for ur super helpful review that got my brain juices flowing :< luv u fr. ALSO both heeseung and reader are taking post grad course so of course, they're aged up ( no ages specified ) have fun reading.
I. BANE OF EXISTENCE
one thing about life— it’s unpredictable.
for example, you’re in the library writing and reading papers on the topic you love, the one that you’re supposed to enjoy and the one that will become the reason behind your earnings in the near future, but here you are, sitting with a headache and a cup of coffee on the side. who knew the subject you've liked since grade one will betray you and become the potential bane of your existence? not you, surely enough. wednesday noons are for basketball matches, which explains why the library and hallways are quieter and emptier than usual. even the teachers make time for the tournaments off their busy schedules, it’s understandable— your university is known for having one of the best sports teams in the league, and the basketball team being the defending champions does nothing but fuel the pride of students and staffs as if they’re the ones on the court, trying to get the ball in the basket.
you wouldn’t say you don’t like being a part of the crowd because you’ve been to the badminton tournaments and know that watching matches is as interesting as playing, if not more. you just don’t have the time to attend any. with assignments piling up and exams ‘round the corner, you’d rather spend your last two months of the semester studying instead of yelling at the bleachers. you can always get the recordings if you ever feel like watching one, as for the results, the word goes around faster in your department than anywhere else, all because of one of the students being on the team.
you try focusing, you really do, but your cup is just as empty as your brain and your phone is going up with notifications. you don’t see the point of miyeon spamming the gc with updates on the match when everyone in the group, except you, is with her, watching and cheering alongside. muting is a choice which you choose not to do, and the reason is between you and god, to be honest. long story short, it’s the lack of motivation clogging your thought process and the realisation that your friends are out there enjoying themselves unlike you is blocking any means of logical thinking. a day or two spent not studying wouldn’t make you fail the classes, and even if the guilt is pooling inside, you pack your stuff and walk out of the library, making your way to the indoor basketball court.
the screams grow louder as you approach, each step reminding you that you still can go back as you choose to ignore it. exams can wait, you tell yourself, a day to myself can’t. your mother would tell you to take breaks and go out instead of studying all day, but being on top is an addiction. it’s no good, you wish other students would believe you, it’s a struggle, on the top, at the bottom, everywhere. you expect to turn a few heads as soon as you walk inside, which doesn’t happen, but you expected it. you don’t watch matches, this could easily be your third or fourth one, and the first basketball match, to be more specific. once you realise that everyone is busy watching the plays instead of noticing who comes and goes from the court, you make your way up to the one friend you manage to spot amidst the crowd— sung hanbin. indoor bleachers feel more compact than the outdoor ones. you've been to the football match last semester, courtesy of miyeon, and everything being outdoors really helps with the crowd and noise.
“didn’t expect to see you here,” hanbin stands next to you, offering you a sip or two from his drink, which you politely refuse, eyes fixed on the court as if it was the home they’ve been searching for. “i thought you hate heeseung,” it isn’t until he takes his name that your gaze averts to heeseung. you don’t even know why hanbin would outright assume you’re here for heeseung. in fact, that man’s name didn’t even cross your mind until he was mentioned.
“hate is a big word, ‘bin,” your words are more of a whisper laced with hesitation, as if you aren’t sure of what you’re saying. hate, actually, is a very big and heavy word. despite its constant usage with your friends, you realise the weight it holds and the impact it has. hate and dislike— they’re different and yet similar enough to be used synonymously at times. not by you, of course, you have a clear distinction between the two, and as of now, you don’t know if what you feel for heeseung is a mere dislike or pure hatred. “i just don’t like him,”
when he successfully shoots a three-pointer, you come to the decision that you definitely don’t hate him. heeseung is, more or less, the typical all-rounder straight-A student, the jack of all trades and fortunately enough, the master of all as well. he's the student teachers use as an example, the son parents wish for, the boyfriend people wished they had. lee heeseung is many things, and one of those is being the reason why you have the second highest score in your department instead of the first position, unlike how it used to be two semesters ago.
heeseung transferred departments about thirty weeks ago, from chemistry to bioinformatics. it had been surprising on your side because not many opted for bioinformatics until they were certain of their goal. the course in itself is vast, like an ocean of several different fields and each and every one of them opens a door to a different outcome. bioinformatics isn’t something students picked overnight just because it had the vacancy and they didn’t like their initially chosen courses. as fun as the subject sounds, it demands consistency and time, something that heeseung lacks. you had seen him attend classes the first few weeks regularly, and then the ghost of him started sitting on the empty seat that belongs to him. skipping classes, arriving late, delayed submission of a couple of projects— you knew he wasn’t here to stay. it was to pass time, or whatever, you couldn’t care, didn’t care, not until he started acing the tests, practically dethroning you from your infamous ‘perfect all kill’ title that you had for getting nothing less than a perfect score, most of the time, give and take a few here and there.
you still get good scores, amazing even, full score in theory and the same in practicals. it’s going well in lab manuals and project works but heeseung seems to get a perfect score in those too, something you started missing ever since he came into the picture. perhaps, it was something in the way he phrased his essays— you hoped it was. rumour has it that heeseung used to be a literature student, which could explain his outstanding english skills and his eloquent way of speaking. you even looked up his debate videos on youtube only to find more evidence on how skilled he is in public speaking.
but above all, heeseung is, actually, just a really damn annoying student, quite literally the bane of your existence. he’s always set on stealing people’s spotlight during lessons, with you being the people, obviously, always answering questions with information that’s unrelated and probably even unnecessary. and for the shortest time, you even considered taking him off your ‘things i hate’ list because you were no different in highschool. when you’re the top student, it becomes a habit to talk about things as if you know them in your bones and impress teachers. hell, you even had rivals in highschool, although none of them got on your nerves the way heeseung does. basically, he has no reason to call you by weird names everytime you both pass each other in the hallways, or remind you that he’s the top student. ‘this is the vice-captain of the basketball team and the best student of the biotechnology department, lee heeseung, informing you on the up—’ seriously, no one wants to hear him introduce himself like that when you’re around. you’re pretty sure it’s engraved inside your brain with the amount of times he repeats it everyday. minjeong even says that heeseung is becoming more and more like sunghoon, and you would not know how or why because you didn’t attend highschool with sunghoon, unlike her.
the court flares up with cheers when heeseung goes for a dunk which ultimately leads to their team winning the match, and you reach the conclusion that maybe you don’t hate heeseung but actually want to bang his head against the walls. your eyes follow him around the court, analysing his conduct during the match, the way he communicates so effortlessly with teammates using hand signs or quick phrases, the way he holds the team together when the ball is with him, despite not being the captain. heeseung might be the most unbearable person you’ve met so far, he’s actually just fine when his target is not you. you’re sure any other player is doing just as good but nothing comes close to how you see heeseung. it’s different, the light he is in, it’s unique, incredible, and inexplicably addictive. heeseung juggles between classes and basketball, you remember sunghoon talking about his part-time job when you passed by their lockers the other day. he doesn’t have it easy, you don’t either, but you had those all perfect kills by spending hours in your study while heeseung does better than you while winning matches, making money.
it doesn’t take you long to realise that what you have for him could be dislike with a hint of jealousy, and you wonder if all the people would react the same way once they know who heeseung really is— a devil behind an angelic face, one who deliberately likes ruining things for you, as if his life depends on it. you still remember the day he personally texted you the wrong syllabus for a test, claiming that it had been updated and the professor had asked him to notify everyone. ‘and as you know, i have not been added in the group chat yet so i’m texting everyone personally,’ he had lied ever so smoothly as if his words consist of nothing but truth, as if lies are something he hasn’t even heard of. kudos to you for studying the original and correct syllabi beforehand, you still aced the test, if heeseung scoring the first rank is overlooked.
you’re dragged back from your thoughts to the reality when a boy bumps into you while hurrying down to the players, hoping to get noticed. half of the students act like the team is actually a boy-band, you can see them on the front page of every single edition of university magazine. usually, you prefer waiting for the crowd to disperse before taking your leave from wherever you are, but a sudden reminder about the tests over text from your professor gives you a reason to leave early, all to make sure you could catch up to heeseung. you rush your way out of the bleachers once the teams start leaving the court, eyes fixed on heeseung to take a note of the direction he leaves. hanbin gives you a confused look before the words find their way out of his mouth. “where are you going?”
“basketball shower room,” and your words could give him, and the other people who might’ve heard you, a wrong idea but you couldn’t care less. the goal was to see heeseung before he leaves the campus, which was highly likely because no one has it in them to attend four hours of classes after an exhausting match, not even heeseung, no matter how amazing he is.
you make your way through the ocean of people, bumping into a few in the process as you make your way to the club room. a silent profanity leaves your mouth once you realise that the club room entrance might be filled with fangirls and boys, left and right, and the thought of shuffling your way out of the crowd to meet heeseung makes you reconsider your actions. heeseung might be a star student but isn’t amazing enough for you to step out of your comfort zone and do things to see him.
“well, this is surprising,” your voice manages to turn his head towards the door. “thought you’d be busy with your fangirls, lee,” and it is surprising indeed because the hallways are unexpectedly empty with only a few people around. you would say they learnt to give the players their space after a game but that would be a lie considering the embarrassing history of students when it comes to people on the sports team.
“they’re probably busy with jake,” heeseung responds with a smile, and even though he turns to his locker just as quickly, you could see the smile dancing on the corner of his lips.
jake is rather a new player, a junior to be specific, and jay personally spent days waiting outside the physics department to get the guy on the basketball team. explains why he’s popular amidst students, he’s talented, good at studies— seriously, you wouldn’t understand how these people manage academics with sports. you couldn’t, and even if you managed to, you would end up passing out every few days. “does it suck to lose your fan-following to a newbie?”
“not really. i still have you here,” heeseung wouldn’t call it ‘losing’ his fan-following because he’s using jake as bait to escape the crowd of students as quickly as possible. a junior has to make sacrifices, in this case it’s to save heeseung by sacrificing himself to the public. although, saying that he still has you looking for him even though a hundred others aren’t makes him feel better about himself. “no but seriously, what did you come here for?”
“oh, it’s for the test on friday,” you pull out your phone, opening the group chat with the professor and the students who took the same course. it’s laughable how the universe put you in the exact same situation twice, although with the tables turned this time, and it takes everything in you to not tell him a made-up, wrong syllabi, and do what is rational. “the syllabi was extended up to chapter fourteen, till page three-ninety-seven. they sent it in the group chat this morning but i’m sure you hardly have time even to think about something else except basketball,”
you’ve known heeseung for two semesters but that’s for the people to say. the truth is, you don’t know him outside what he shows to everyone else. you see him come and go, spot him around the bar with his friends on weekends you pass by it. you know he skips classes and asks students for notes. it’s not necessarily from you, though you’d prefer if he would ask you since you’re the best student in the whole department, after him, as much as you hate to admit it. on some days, you see him in the library, earphones plugged in. if you manage to sneak a glance or two, you’d catch him watching the match recordings and taking notes, you wouldn’t know what notes someone could take from matches. in short, you don’t know heeseung more than how everyone knows him. coming to the shower rooms and notifying him about the test might just be a discreet attempt at striking up more conversations with him, but also, you’re just fine with him being the academic rival slash classmate that he is.
“yeah, semi-finals,” heeseung shuts his locker close, a sigh falling off his lips just like the water drops falling on his shoulder from the tips of his hair, after a shower. “doesn’t help that they’re at the same time as the quarterly assessments. thank you for telling me even though it means you’ll end up losing the first position to me once again,” and of course, the heeseung you know wouldn’t waste an opportunity to strike up a competition. it would be a lie if you claim to hate it because despite the sour look on your face, a part of you loves these little academic races with him. heeseung makes you strive to do better, he’s like the driving force you lacked which made college a whole lot better. after all, where’s the fun in getting a perfect score with the bare minimum effort, without some challenges knocking at your door?
“what can i do, i’m all about fair play,” there’s a subtle shade behind your words, reckoning to the multiple incidents of him ruining things for you. this could take a really nasty turn if you were to resort to his ways, except you won’t because you’re better than him. “good luck, and we’ll see who loses the first position to whom,”
heeseung wipes his hair before switching to texting on his phone, the smile still adorning his face like a jewel. you assume it’s the delight from winning a match, it’s obvious. his eyes couldn’t help but sparkle at every little achievement, always looking forward to something more, something challenging, that’s lee heeseung for you— someone who knows he has an easier way around things but would deliberately walk down another path and test his limits. shocking how it took you one basketball match to see the passion he has for things he’s interested in, that he’s more than a sport jock or a straight nerd, he’s more than someone who takes courses to pass time, more than someone who is just a show-off.
“heeseung,” the dislike, the hatred, the envy, it might all be a lie. “well played today,” because in the end, there’s a minimal possibility that you’re leaving the room with nothing but the slightest of admiration for the guy who is nothing but an obstacle between you and that first position in upcoming finals in two months.
and it would be a lie too to claim that your words didn’t catch heeseung by surprise.
II. RIVALRY, FEELINGS, ETCETERA.
it has been a little over one day since heeseung’s conversation with you outside the shower rooms, twenty-seven hours to be exact. twenty-seven hours of him hearing the same last words over and over again, twenty-seven hours of him failing all and any attempts at straight thinking and twenty-seven hours of him not thinking about anything except you. all of it ends up in three hours of practice and not one good shot from heeseung. the sighs and snickers from teammates fill the court every few seconds— truthfully, they never leave. heeseung is simply too lost to pay attention to them.
“heeseung, you good?” a pat on shoulder from jake and the words following soon after manage to pull him out of his spiral of thought, even if it’s for a brief second.
“he’s not, won’t be anytime soon,” sunghoon replies as if the answer was on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be revealed. “yn came to watch the last match, after all,” there’s a smirk on sunghoon’s face, heeseung can tell it in the intonation of his words.
jay pauses just seconds before going for a layup, joining the conversation. “wait, she did?”
“yep, saw her standing next to that hanbin guy or something,”
“mate, you cannot be acting like this over a girl and that too, four days before finals,” this conversation, as a whole, is beyond jake’s comprehension. a part of the reason could be because he joined the team late, thus missing out on a huge chunk of internal jokes and gossip and goes amidst the players. and no amount of reasons can convince him into thinking that it’s fine to act out-of-character before important matches just because your crush showed up at one of your matches.
“she’s not just some random girl. she never attends matches, but she came to watch my match,” heeseung clarifies as if the reasons behind his antics are valid and acceptable. “you wouldn’t know how i feel right now,”
“you’re on cloud nine, we know, your crush gave you the attention you’ve been lacking but trust me, she would ignore you just as efficiently if she sees you perform like this,”
“she’s not a crush,” and despite it being a well known fact amongst the basketball team that heeseung has a thing or two for you, he always refuses to accept it. one can say it’s the pride thing. you barely even talk to him unless it’s about studies, and your conversations are mostly along the lines of who outdoes whom in tests and assessments. moreover, everyone knows heeseung is the reason why you’re the second best student in the department— as much as you hate to admit it, again— because he transferred and flipped your world, probably even dribbled around with it like a basketball. a word goes around every few days about you glaring at him in class, which is not true, you’re instead focusing your eyes on something in an attempt to think. he just happens to sit right in front of you and be the object of focus. heeseung might as well believe that you hate him, even though yesterday’s conversation was far from how people talk when they hate each other, and his assumptions could account for the constant words of denial that fall off his lips.
jay snickers before landing a hook successfully. “yeah, and i’m a pigeon,”
“oh, shut it, jay,” heeseung turns to look at the other boy. “she’s just someone i admire. have you read her essays? her papers? god, we’re a year away from graduation but she’s already writing mind-blowing papers, one of them was even published in the monthly issue of some magazine. she’s already on her best performance and still tries to do better, always down to guide juniors with lab work and also is on the research team for the paediatrics department at asan medical centre. all this, and she studies all day. if i were her, i’d pass out. i can’t go a day without entering the court,”
“and he says he doesn’t have a crush oh her,” sunghoon rolls his eyes, it’s like if he heard another line of excuses from heeseung, he could see the back of his skull and have a look at hs big, fat brain.
“because i don’t? you guys never had someone you admired so much that they practically became your role model despite being in the same year?” unlike other things that heeseung does, calling you his role model has a reason. first, it can give him a reason to talk to you. heeseung is almost convinced that you hate him, and if this persists, it would get harder and harder for him to approach you, but with the lie— half lie— of you being his role model and so wonderful that he couldn’t help but admire you from afar while trying to overcome his social anxiety gives him a reason to talk to you. plus, it sounds plausible, he doesn’t understand why his brother says it’s bound to fail.
the second reason and more to do with his friend group. no one in his friend circle is capable of keeping a secret— jay ends up spilling tea unconsciously, jake tells one person who he trust and that person turns out to be the most untrustworthy person ever, beomgyu, well he’s on the team but telling him would be like standing on a stage and announcing to the whole campus, and sunghoon, he’s the mother, he cannot digest food without disclosing secrets. even if it’s common knowledge that heeseung has a tiny crush on you, denying it in front of the whole campus everytime one of them brings it up helps him with his reputation and fortunately, ends up keeping it a secret. besides, he’d rather have people tease him for calling you his role model than having a crush on you.
“i surely don’t have someone i admire to the point i read all their papers and know each and everything they’ve volunteered for,” jay argues back, set on proving his point. “tell me what am i gonna do knowing that she’s on the paediatrics research team?”
“i think this is the most i’ve known about yn ever since classes started and that too, because of heeseung,” beomgyu chuckles, earning a side eye from heeseung in the process.
“enough, let’s get back to practice,” heeseung intervenes in an attempt to change the topic. he does not want his closest friends making fun of him for liking someone— it’s supposed to be human nature to have a crush.
“you get back to practice because you’re the only one fucking up because of your silly little crush. i’m done, jay, call me when we’re having a practice match because i need to attend theology or my professor would write me up,” taehyun passes the ball to sunghoon, the latter yelping in surprise at the sudden yet successful catch.
“i don’t have a crush—”
“of course, let’s get you back to practice,” jake cuts heeseung off mid sentence, moving back to take his position as sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung, who, as expected, misses the catch due to lack of concentration.
it’s going to be a long day for the team.
.
.
.
“a little birdie told me you went to see heeseung in the shower rooms?” are the words you hear as soon as your classes are dismissed, miyeon walking up to you and hanbin discussing the set of questions your professor distributed just a few minutes ago.
“i didn’t go into the shower rooms, i was outside, near the lockers,” and there’s a difference. to be in the shower room implies you were there in the shower, which definitely gives rise to several wrong ideas of different levels. specifically, you didn’t even enter the locker room. you were outside, leaning against the door, watching heeseung as he walked freshly out of the shower, a towel around his neck, you both strike up a small talk. yeah, that was the scene, not with you in the shower and whatever miyeon’s imagination leads to after that.
“so you did go!” she claps her hands together as if it’s a celebratory occasion, turning her head to look at the boy next to you. “what were you saying about yn not having a crush, habin?”
“it’s not a crush, miyeon,” and it’s true— heeseung is not a crush. he’s a classmate, a rival, an over-qualified and impossibly competitive student, someone you would want to take your time to study. “what, i can’t even go to tell a classmate about the updated syllabus for a test now? i would’ve done that for anyone, not just heeseung,”
hanbin sighs, packing his bag. “sure, but he’s in the groupchat. he could’ve checked it himself,”
“um, i doubt that,” you’re preparing a powerpoint in your head, multiple slides on why you needed to do what you did. “he’s busy with basketball and i know how he gets when the matches are around the corner. don’t you remember how he skipped two weeks of classes straight because of matches last semester? and it’s the finals this time, i don’t think he even opens texts about anything that’s not basketball. i mean, he responded to my messages six days later because he was busy with practice,”
you say it like you’ve known heeseung for a decade and have been through the ups and downs with him. you wouldn’t care about who does what in the classes, if it’s a paper plane flying right over you, landing just second to the first row of seats or if it’s someone being brave enough and playing music during lectures. biology, in your opinion, is a subject for those who are serious about doing something unique while staying in the academic field. you don’t encounter troublemakers often, once a blue moon if the heavens make a mistake. on other days, it’s quieter than a library, emptier than cemeteries at night.
to think your life as a biotechnology major got interesting after heeseung switched majors is astonishing and equally debatable.
“i don’t see why i should remember all that about ‘just a classmate’ but thanks for telling,” and before you know it, hanbin and miyeon are out of the class, on their way to wherever their next stop is. seriously, they’re having it easier than you. they go to games, movies, drink on weekends— something you haven’t had a taste on ever since the year started. somewhere, you could be blamed for your hectic schedules. studies, lab work, and thesis, they suffice for all the stress a student in post graduation studies can handle. volunteering and writing papers is on you, things wouldn’t have been arduous if you had decided to move slowly, one step at a time. sometimes, the hunger for more leaves you starving— quite literally.
you spend an hour or so in the classroom along with a few other students, going through the same old routine of yours— watch videos, take notes, transfer them to your document in your own words and make it sound as innovative and convincing as possible. heeseung would be better at this than you. you’re exhausted to the point that accepting your defeat to him doesn’t even faze you anymore. he used to be a literature student, had english as a side course as an undergrad, he’s bound to be better than making essays sound they came right out of shakespeare's drafts, phrases and metaphors that would put fitzgerald to shame.
you didn’t care about what went down in your classes until heeseung came along. call it craziness or the weird impression you have of students in your field, heeseung is far from the typical biotechnology student aiming for a postgraduate degree. he skips classes, plays basketball as if studies are a side business, and yet still manages to ace every test like an all-rounder. he shouldn’t even be in classroom, he should be in the labs, being the most important subject of studies. there are days you think of him as a social experiment— how quickly can a robot piss off a straight-A student with its impeccable skills— of course, the subjects wouldn’t know it’s a robot but you do, you’re almost convinced he is one. there’s no way he’s the top student with the amount of effort he puts in. one would claim that he studies after classes, at home slash dorms, but you can bet your life he doesn’t. there have been numerous instances when you’ve spotted him in the background of someone’s picture at a bar. he’s always with people, he has a humongous friend group, god knows how someone can live like that. at first, you were convinced he isn’t real, as worrisome as it sounds, and if he is real then he needs to be studied.
which leads to what you’re doing right now— making your way to the basketball court. you don’t know how or why you’re doing it. you started with your studies, ended up thinking about heeseung, and now you’re on your way to the basketball court. although, it’s not half a bad idea, now that you think about it once again.
your mind goes all the way back to when you watched him play for the first time, which was just a day ago actually. you don’t know anything about basketball, you don’t know much about heeseung either, but there’s one thing you’re sure of— heeseung is class and heeseung on the court, they’re different. you’ve noticed the way he clicks his pen relentlessly out of nervousness when he can’t solve a question, the way his back tenses up for a fraction of a second as soon as he’s asked to explain something. you’ve seen the hints of fear in his eyes when he asked you for notes last semester just three days before exams, scared that he would fail. heeseung isn’t sure of a lot of things and basketball isn’t one of those.
“you’re not practising?” you ask him when you swim out of your thoughts, watching him climb up the bleachers and sit next to you. the court seems much better when it’s empty, free from the loud cheers of spectators, but that could be just you.
“i was, as you see, but i saw you up here and thought it was time for a break,” you could see his teammates shake heads at him in disappointment, proceeding to continue with their practice. “what’s up?”
you don’t respond to him and instead, take your time watching the others practise their shots. you watch the way one of them, who you think is taehyun, goes for a dunk, credits to hanbin for telling you names for a few shots. next to you, heeseung shouts out a tip or two for the boy for him to have an easier and effective approach at the said move. heeseung is good at dunks, you’ve heard it from students, you’ve seen it in the last match as well. just one shot was enough to tell you how good he is at it, it’s like basketball flows in his veins, like he can close his eyes and still manage to get a basket.
your eyes ghost up the court and shift to him— there’s a content smile on his face, a relaxed posture as if there’s nothing for him to worry about. he takes a sip from his energy drink, you wonder if he, or anyone from the team, even gets time to have their meals. the expression on his face, it’s something you’ve never seen on him during lessons. it takes you back to the match, how he looked on court a day before, certain of every move he made, every step, every breath, without doubts, no second thoughts. you’ve done enough lab projects with heeseung to know how his hands shake when he’s preparing a slide or extracting a sample from a centrifuge, afraid that one wrong move and he would mess up the efforts of everyone in the group. that hesitation is nowhere to be seen on the court, gone like it has never existed. as if lee heeseung, the star student and player, has never had an encounter with nervousness and hesitation in his life. there’s a thin line between studies and sport for him, you finally realise it after much consideration. maybe, you’re going beyond your boundaries and making assumptions about a guy you barely know, even if you would never voice all these thoughts to him, you think you know the reason why there’s a different him on the stage when the ball is in hands.
“how did you realise that you like basketball? you know, like it enough to devote so much of your time and have it alongside studies?” because even if biotech is something he’s studying and wants to make a career in, you guess that it’s just a source of satisfaction. in your eyes, through your perception, basketball is what makes him truly happy.
you don’t know why someone wouldn’t pick satisfaction over happiness, especially when it’s coming with its hands full of opportunities to grab that bag.
“eh, i don’t have a sob story about it, if that is what you’re hoping for,” he chugs down the contents of the can before crushing it to the slightest, eyes squinting at the opposite wall before they move back to meet yours. “i never had to sit and think about basketball and studies, you know, as in how am i going to manage both of them. it just happened. i started playing basketball in middle school and it has been with me ever since,”
heeseung’s side of the story is simple— a mediocre guy who was introduced to sports by his older brother and now, it’s one of the most important things in his life. middle school heeseung preferred staying in and playing video games instead of going out. in fact, middle school heeseung resembles you in all the ways that make him different from you right now. he has been good at learning and remembering things, he takes liking to things quicker than others do. basketball was like for him— easy, quick, fun, like a way to release all the stress after a long day at school. in heeseung’s story, there isn’t a main character who helped him choose the path he’s walking right now. instead, all he had was his family who introduced him to the various aspects and opportunities, and he simply ended up joining hands with the ones he liked, deciding to not let it go before the dead end.
“i want to have that passion for things,” a soft laughter falls off your lips, it’s an attempt to make your sob story look less pitiful. “i used to paint and play piano— but painting, mostly, was really good at it. i learnt how to draw before i learnt how to tie my shoelaces. i couldn’t go a day without painting, but then highschool happened, i had pressure to do well, expectations from friends and family, had a dream outside painting, and now, i haven’t painted in years,”
unlike heeseung, art started as more than just a side business to you. it’s not something you were introduced to in the middle of your life but rather is something you grew up with. you can blame or credit your mother for making paintings and having them in almost every corner of your house. it’s one of the reasons why at five years old you were beyond fascinated at all the patterns and colours. no one would’ve guessed that science would manage to sweep you off your feet right from the first grade, given the way your hands danced a duet to their own melody along with a paintbrush, as if each stroke has a conscious life of its own. no one would’ve guessed that your mother would tell you to stop painting and focus on studies, neither would they have known that she would become the reason why you no longer feel the same way about art. as stated before, life is unpredictable— because no one would’ve guessed that sitting here on the bleachers with heeseung and sharing a piece of your life would water the seeds of doubts in your heart, the ones that bloom at the sight of him.
he thinks your story is sad— with all due respect, without sarcasm, of course. it’s the best he can say. “i think it’s more of a ‘connection’ thing. you think you’ve lost the connection but you simply need to pickup a canvas and some colours to relink, if you get me,” because heeseung has had somewhat of a same experience, with music, and sitting front of a piano to play one of sibelius’ symphonies after senior year highschool finals was all it took him to find his lost interest in music. even though it’s nothing more than just a hobby, even if it's just something he considers as a way to pass time, heeseung knows how it feels to let go of something that is an integral part of one’s life.
“it has always been about timing, heeseung,” you shake your head, trying to prove him wrong using your own arguments. “you think i haven’t tried painting again? i still have art supplies stacked up in my cupboard. it’s all about timing. when you like something, you only get a few chances to make sure it stays with you for a lifetime. how many people do you know who have given up on their hobbies because they claim to have lost interest? the thing is, the interest is still there, it’s the inability and fear of not being able to do it again. if you timing is off, no matter how much you try, things won’t work, and what you love will end up becoming a closed chapter of your life,”
a pause. he sits still, eyes admiring your face while his mind is busy replaying your words in the back of his head. heeseung wonders how valid they are when it comes to people. he likes you, despite the constant denial which is only for show, by the way. it doesn’t take a scientist to read him. reading him isn’t even close to rocket science, he doesn’t understand how you haven’t caught up even after being incredibly smart. he has seen you hang out with hanbin— heeseung hates that guy, by the way. there’s no solid logic, it’s just that hanbin seems to be around you all the time and heeseung thinks of him as a leech sucking blood off its host. heeseung would never admit but it’s just his jealousy playing tricks on him, and even though it doesn’t look like you have any romantic feelings towards that guy, it would be fucking embarrassing for heeseung lose you to a guy who isn’t even half as qualified as him. ( yes, he is judging characters based on academic qualifications, no heeseung wouldn’t explain why )
“i like you,” and so, he lets his feelings win for once, deciding to let his heart take control instead, closing doors to any room for rational thinking like it never existed. “you said it was about timing, about trying hard enough and having only a few chances, perhaps, just one bullet, and i’m shooting my shot right now. i don’t want to remember you as a closed chapter of my life,”
it would be such a waste of chemistry if you end up becoming just a closed chapter of his life. heeseung has done his research, more like reading tons of books and watching hundreds of movies to understand the potential that two academic rivals have. no one knows this, not even his closest friends, but heeseung’s favourite genre might simply be enemies to lovers and living that trope doesn’t sound as bad when it’s with you. he has spent hours thinking about the number of productive library dates you could have, working on projects together and brainstorming about the next biggest revolution in the RDT world, changing the public’s outlook at genetics forever. it sounds stupid and makes him sound even stupider, even as a lost cause, but heeseung doesn’t care. in his mind, it’s the best date someone could have. to live and become successful together, it sounds like a perfect plan to him.
truthfully, you have always been a part of heeseung’s future, near or distant. he always always pictures you in his life, standing next to him during graduation, bidding goodbyes at farewell, exchanging shy greetings at reunions ten years later while reminiscing about everything he did to irritate you, that would sound embarrassing a decade later. your presence will always be significant to him, he just hopes to remember you as something more than just a rival, just a classmate he never really got to know, just a person he spent his two years hating upon, just a crush he didn’t get to confess to.
the catch— heeseung has already started picturing his future and you are not even sure of your present— and while he is looking at you for an answer, you’re lost inside your head, looking for words to articulate.
heeseung is someone you planned to stay away from for the rest of your university life. him stepping into your life already costs you a lot, namely: dropping in ranks and losing your infamous title. his actions cost you the time you could use to study, which is actually upon you because you can simply ignore him instead of spending hours on thinking about his hows, whens and whats. heeseung was supposed to be the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, but beyond rivalry, feelings, etcetera. you knew the way you felt about him, even though you couldn’t be as certain as him, or even to claim you see him the same way he feels about you.
turns out, heeseung has always been sure of certain things in his life.
“heeseung, i’m—”
“not sure? busy? stressed? i know you have a lot of things going on right now. take your time, study for the finals, finish your papers, sort out your own issues and then come back to me. i’ll be waiting,” it’s like he’s not only good at studying but also at reading minds, because heeseung seems to have guessed a part of exactly what you’ve been thinking. call it timing, jay calls him to get back to practice just a few seconds later— a perfect excuse to leave. “looks like my break is over,”
you sit speechless, watching him walk away like an opportunity that just walked out of your hand. it feels like a slight defeat, like a test you failed when you could've scored better, if not a full score. it's funny because this wasn't a competition, you weren't rejected, more like you rejected him, but it still feels like he has the upper hand. it's funny and equally annoying because heeseung is supposed to be nothing more than just a nobody, somebody you aren't even supposed to spare two thoughts on, but here you are sitting with the guy with your feelings all over the place.
“heeseung,” you stand up, your voice making him turn to look at you, both of you ignoring the sight of his teammates standing motionless in their positions, too stunned at your voice reverberating in the almost empty court. “let’s do this: if you manage to stand first in the finals, i’ll date you,”
a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition. his lips morph into a smirk, the ones he'd pass you before tests, an open challenge offered directly to you. “and if i don’t?”
and you mirror the same smirk back at him, you weren't going to back off simply because it's about the person you possibly have a crush on. “i become just a closed chapter of your life,”
let the game begin.
III. LIAR AND THE LOVER
despite heeseung’s sudden confession, you’re doing quite well, taking it better than expected. you had your moment of confusion back when the words of proposal fell off his lips— anyone would. after all, it’s lee heeseung we’re talking about. you can only imagine the saddened faces of his fangirls once they hear about him confessing to you.
“jay told me you made a bet with heeseung?” hanbin’s question catches your attention as soon as he steps into the cafe, managing to turn a few heads towards you in the process.
“you know jay?”
he sits next to you, pulling out his laptop in a hurry. you can guess it’s because of his essay that’s due before six in the evening, one he could’ve written last night instead of getting wasted at his friend’s birthday gathering. “we share history, also, that’s not the answer to my question,”
“it’s not a bet, ‘bin,” your words aren’t half wrong. “just a silly game, y’know? i didn’t even expect him to agree,” frankly, even you don’t know why or how you came up with such a bizarre idea in broad daylight. usually, people get bouts of excitement or embarrassment while confessing or being confessed to, but in your case, you jumped over the fence and made a proposal that you have only seen in fiction.
“nah, no way you’re setting up your whole love life for failure and calling it a silly game,” the disappointment is evident in hanbin’s voice as his fingers danced over his keyboard, typing with a speed that could leave the trains behind. well, people tend to get like that when you have an assignment due and the deadline is just a few hours to go. you guess that he’s too busy to even listen to your reasoning, which is appreciated considering you have no reasoning as for why you did what you did.
“you made a bet with heeseung,” you turn your head around, making the boy next to you do the same in the process. it’s miyeon— you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. your actions have consequences, as always, and one of them is dealing with her non-stop interrogation as if you’re the prime suspect for some gruesome crime and every question answered wrong opens gates to capital punishment. sometimes, you wonder why she didn’t go with studying law instead.
“how do you know?”
“everyone knows, yn. it’s all they’ve been talking about,” she sighs, sitting opposite to you while taking a look at hanbin’s laptop. “even the football fanatics are talking about attending the game, god, hanbin we better hurry that day or we’re not getting a seat,” you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. miyeon might not be the most social person, but she definitely is the most updated. nothing escapes her, every tiny incident reaches her ears one way or another, and if not, then she just finds out about it using her sources, given you don’t know about her sources. it’s one of the reasons why you’re almost convinced that she runs a shady side business alongside her career in bioengineering.
you take a sharp breath, going through the bunch of papers arranged in your file. “it’s not that serious. he confessed to me and i said i’d date him if he manages to secure the first position in the finals as well,”
“you did that knowing he hasn’t been studying because of games while you’re studying like your life depends on it? there’s no way he’s going to be first, and everything aside, it was a wrong fucking move to play with his feelings,” play with his feelings— a pause, you don’t like how it sounds. you’re not playing with his feelings, that’s far from what you’re doing. it’s a game, a competition, new to your friends but you and heeseung have always been familiar with it. there’s an unspoken rule to test each other’s limits. the last time you and heeseung did something like this, it resulted with you writing ‘lee heeseung is smarter than ln yn,’ in bold on a sheet of paper and putting it on the notice board for the whole campus to see. in your eyes, it's history repeating itself yet again. sure, there is something else at stake, but the rules are the same, and you don’t know why your friends are acting like you’ve done something terribly unethical.
“no one’s playing with his feelings, miyeon, and i know for a fact he’s making time to study for finals,” you clarify your side, slight annoyance evident in your voice. “besides, it doesn’t matter. it’s not like this is serious, i only did this to buy time to figure out my feelings while the game gives me a reason to study and not get distracted. you know how i get when i lose focus,”
that could be the reasoning behind your actions, of course. even while sitting in a cafe with your friends and having a conversation that is about to make your blood boil, you’re thinking of heeseung in the back of your head. his words play over and over again like a broken record player, the image of him on court or studying pops up in your mind every now and then. obsession is a disease and you have it bad. it’s crazy to be thinking about someone so much without being absolutely floored for them.
“so you’ll date him despite the outcome?” hanbin drags you out of the well of your thoughts, a question that leaves miyeon flabbergasted.
“if i manage to figure out my feelings then of course,” a chuckle falls off your lips. “i’m telling you guys, it’s not that serious. i’m sure he knows it too,” and you’re really confident about this— it usually never ends on a good note.
“and if he doesn’t? what if it’s serious for him? yn, you never know how one thing might affect someone, and feelings are not something to gamble on. you should’ve told him you need some time to think instead of giving him a false hope or whatsoever,” it’s now that you start having second thoughts. the next two hours go by amidst silence, a few small talks blooming here and there, but dissolving just as quickly within the ticking clock of deadlines for assignments and exams.
it doesn’t take a scientist to know when miyeon is upset, for she isn’t the best at masking her emotions. through the sneaky glances at her that you’ve stolen over time, you can tell she’d rather spend the evening in silence than talk to you, which is a challenge with herself because she’s really talkative. it takes two to sing a duet, two to play and game, two people to make a relationship work. heeseung and you— the two of you are enough to make decisions for yourselves, decide what’s right and wrong and, something about miyeon questioning your choices doesn’t sit right with you.
too many cooks spoil the broth, it’s the principle of your life, the words you’ve been following to this date. it was your decision to have a few friends instead of a fifty— quality over quantity, as one might call it— and there has never been a moment when you regretted having a handful of people to call friends. instead of consulting too many people about your major in university, you simply went with what your parents and homeroom teacher suggested. life has been good so far. the more the better is something that isn’t applicable in your case. instead of telling everyone about your dilemma regarding heeseung, you decided to keep it to yourself, eventually opening up to heeseung when the time comes. you’re doing just fine on your own, it doesn’t make sense to you why a third person’s opinion is making you doubt your decision making abilities that you’ve been so proud of.
this is not a gamble, you tell yourself, it’s a fair play. you gave him options, he made the choice, it’s consensual. you didn’t force him into this game, he didn’t pressure you to respond, it’s a harmless competition that’s bound to have a positive outcome. you even spend a good fifteen minutes wondering if you should go back to heeseung and take it all back in case he finds it insensitive to put his feelings on the line. doing it in person seemed impossible so you resorted to texts, typing and deleting your message before giving up altogether. in your head, this was an okay decision. a sweet confession, a person with unsure feelings, a harmless competition.
you hope it doesn’t backfire ten times worse.
.
.
.
three days later, you find yourself on the way to basketball club rooms once again. you checked the court, it was empty, and your only option was to check the club slash locker rooms if you wanted to see heeseung. okay, first things first, you don’t miss him— maybe a little, but it’s because you miss hearing his weird ass answers in class even though they’re right. heeseung just has an unique approach to things, in other words he simply knows how to buy time and go in detail about things he’s an expert at to impress the professors. however, that doesn’t seem to be the case for him because he has approached you six times in the past three days, asking if you’re free to hangout.
you like to think he misses you or that his requests were because he wanted to make sure you don’t study and lose to him, either could be true. knowing heeseung, he’s capable of going both ways. whatever may be the reason, you turned him down all six times, and it’s not because you have something against him— of course, you don’t. that’s common knowledge by now— your reason for not hanging out with him is studies, as expected of you honestly. the bet aside, you had way too many chapters to learn before exams and all heeseung ever does is take up your headspace everytime you sit down with your books spread open. avoiding him in thoughts wasn’t possible so avoiding him in person was your last straw.
which leads to the present : you rushing to heeseung, again, not because you miss him but because you need his help, though one of the reasons could be that you feel bad for turning him down six times. you can hear muffled laughter from a distance as you approach the club rooms, a bang against one of the lockers, a loud profanity that follows afterwards. their humour is beyond your level of understanding.
“heese— oh, um—” you greet and turn away just as quickly when you realise that one of them is shirtless. it’s obviously heeseung, you can’t mistake his face for someone else. and you’re guessing he’s the last one to come out of shower because everyone else is dressed, maybe he’s someone who likes to take his time showering— you seriously need to stop thinking before your imagination goes bonkers. “sorry, can you come outside for a second when you’re ready?”
another round of laughter follows, more like teasing remarks because you can swear you heard a few of them refer to you as his girlfriend, and it gets you a little flustered, you won’t lie. you even hear one of them yell ‘ooh, get it, heeseung,’ as heeseung walks out, fixing his t-shirt, responding back with his middle finger up at whoever made the comment.
“hi,” his voice isn’t much louder than a whisper, eyes fluttering between you, the floor, and his teammates who pretend to not look when you peek inside. there’s a soft smile on his face— it’s cute, you think, and then rethink what you just thought. heeseung is, well, not cute— usually. he’s good-looking, handsome, hot, sexy, even, since you’re on the topic of finding adverbs that suit heeseung. cute is rarely one of them, you don’t think you’ve seen him as flustered as he is right now— rubbing his nape, a tint of pink on his cheeks, avoiding eye-contact— that’s far from the heeseung you’ve been seeing for past two semesters.
“hi, can you send me the pdf of the extra set of questions that prof sent last week? i think i accidentally deleted it while clearing up my storage,” you get straight to the point, trying not to waste much of your precious time. “i could’ve texted you but figured you’d be too busy with practice to check messages,” you remember what happened last time; he took six days to reply to your texts. you’re quite a patient person otherwise but in this case, you’re in dire need of questions to practise for tomorrow’s mock.
“ah, sure, give me a minute,” and he pulls out his phone, scrolling through an ocean of files and documents to look for the one you need. you do think he’s gorgeous though, it’s a well known fact that he’s stunning, but you think this look of heeseung surpasses the other ones quite easily— hairs wet after shower, partially covering his forehead, a white t-shirt that’s slightly wet near the shoulders because of the water dripping down— you wish he’d at least dry his hair before catching a cold. “actually, i would have replied to your texts if you had— oh, yes, there you go. do you want me to email it to you or…?”
“oh, just texts would be fine, thank you,”
“done,” a pause, you feel his eyes on you as you go through the pdf to take a brief look at the contents. “do you want to go for a walk? or are you getting back to studies?” at this point, you’re sure that question is a way to tease you about your obsession with studies. heeseung may think you’re overdoing it because you want to win, but it’s no more than the normal amount of hours you spend studying. he never paid you any attention to care about that.
“no, i’m done for today, actually,” and that’s a big fat lie considering you were planning to solve some questions and revise two chapters before leaving the campus, but it’s fine. you feel bad for rejecting him six times either way.
never in your life did you imagine that you’d be going on a walk with heeseung. it’s nothing serious, you just didn’t think there would be a day where you two would have normal people conversation while doing normal people activities instead of trying to disparage each other based on grades and academic performances. to think about it now, heeseung isn’t half bad, it was all in your head. it’s not like you had vile assumptions about him, you did find him annoying and way too prideful— anyone like him would be, actually, and heeseung is still quite humble about his achievements because if it was someone else, they sure would have made it everyone’s problem.
actually, heeseung is insufferable as well. you remember your first encounter with him, first and so far, the worst— in the laboratory. you and heeseung sat next to each other and when the professor asked him to briefly explain his experiment, you realised it’s oddly similar to yours. you had accused him of cheating, like any sane person would, which led to him getting two scores less than a perfect. he only lost one score because of you, actually, and that too because you were professor’s favourite and heeseung was new to the department. the other score, you don’t know where he missed, but that incident led to heeseung deleting your powerpoint thirty minutes before your presentation, which led you stealing his notes and selling it some junior through an undercover twitter account, which led to the professor asking you to help him with notes before exams, and everything ultimately led to the realisation that heeseung is actually quite decent if you behave with decency as well. the give and take is serious for him, because he gave you notes and so, you had to take his offer of going on a walk. even though it seemed like you had a choice, a part of you knew it was a mirage. you would’ve ended up on a walk with heeseung one way or another.
“i come here whenever i’m tired or just not feeling well,” he says and you wake up from your daydream of memories you shared with heeseung. the way he phrases his words makes it sound like he has brought you to one of his most secret locations, one that no one knows except taehyun, probably, considering they’re close friends, but in reality, it’s the playground you pass by every single day on your way from your apartment to university.
“oh, are you okay? are you nervous for tomorrow’s match?” you continue, deciding you shouldn’t ruin his favourite place for him. honestly, no one would’ve guessed that lee heeseung would come to a children’s park on bad days.
“actually, this walk was for you, you looked like you’d pass out if you spent another hour in front of books,” and you’re done, standing speechless with your eyes wide open at his words that he says with a victorious smile on his face. “you should start taking breaks, yn. it’s not a bad thing to go home earlier when you’re tired,”
he’s right, oh, you know he’s absolutely right about everything he just said, from passing out to going home. a part of him probably even feels glad to have you out on his little walk with him, you’re getting your well deserved rest, thanks to him. heeseung might even ask if he can walk you home considering you’re ‘done for today,’ which is very thoughtful of him— but what does this make you? a liar? miyeon was right, you’re gambling, even though it’s not that serious. so far, you’ve lied about being done with your studies and the bet you made with heeseung because at this point, it’s more like a prank, except it’s not funny and that it might end up with him getting upset with you because tomorrow is basketball tournament’s finals and you’re here wasting his time, all because you lied.
a liar and a lover, on a date at children’s park— match made in theatre club, you’d say.
“are you sure this is not your way to manipulate into not studying and losing to you, just so you can date me?” you try to play it cool, knowing very well that it can be one of his tricks or whatsoever. after all, it’s the same heeseung who made you trip in front of your class just three days after being transferred.
“i was being genuine but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” of course, it doesn’t. he gets to win, after all. “can i walk you home?” just as you had guessed.
“i would love to go home but my bag is still in the library,” you had considered taking it with you, actually, but dismissed the thought once you realised you had to come back to the library and continue with your studies. albeit, you’re not studying, that’s on you for lying into oblivion and giving into his requests.
once again, you two are back to walking, this time back to the university campus. it’s nice, having a walk with heeseung, it’s sweet, slow, comforting, like slow music flowing around and engulfing you in its arms. the unsaid words are weighing on your shoulders, you can feel the pressure, but it’s not awkward. above the busy hustle of the city and blaring horns, it’s a quiet world with heeseung, it’s nice, like a warm hug after a long day. you didn’t think you had it in yourself to spend a minute next to him without overthinking and possibly starting a banter. you didn’t think heeseung had it in him either, to make a walk feel so close to home.
“so, how are you coping knowing you’re going to lose once again?” and, it’s back again. everything is a hoax actually— his looks? a trap. his smile? a trap. it’s all a facade because once he opens his mouth, nothing but horseshit comes out of it.
“very well, in fact, because i know i’m the one getting that first spot this time,” call it overconfidence but you really do think you’ll get your title back this time. you’ve been studying well and hard enough, solving questions and going through every extra set of notes and exercises your professor sent. although, you would claim to beat heeseung had you been prepared or not because it’s fun messing with him.
“i’d rather have you show some mercy, in that case,” before you know it, you’re already standing in front of the library. “academic defeat and a heartbreak, it already sounds painful. i hope you go easy on me,” it’s sarcastic, of course, all these saccharine words of confessions made you forget how he is under the layers of smiles and winks that adorn his face. a session full of silence follows, the comforting tranquillity morphing into something tensed as he steps closer, your breath getting caught up in your throat as your mind dysfunctions— it’s the effect he has.
“heeseung,” you put a finger on his lips— the only thing between him and you, the only thing helping you stay sane and composed at the moment, because only you know the struggle of pulling yourself together while standing inches away from heeseung as he grabs your wrist and plants a soft kiss on your finger before removing it from his lips.
“why, that’s unfair. you get to see me anytime you want while i have to wait because you’re busy studying, you even get to see me shirtless, and i can’t even get a kiss?” and you hate the look in his eyes, you hate how close he is standing and how it makes your heart go crazy. this isn’t even the beginning and you hate how you feel like you’ve already lost, and you hate how confident he is with every breath he breathes against your lips. “just kidding, see you tomorrow,”
and you hate how this is where you realise that you’ve fallen deep, and you’ve fallen hard.
IV. PLANET TO A SUN
heeseung has been thinking about the walk for an hour and twenty-seven minutes— actually more, ever since the moment he got home last night, but that is how long he has been practising for, eyes on the ball but mind revolving around you like a planet to a sun. you had texted him about a rule this morning— no kissing before finals. actually no kissing before we start dating, lee— your exact words. they have been holding him back from thinking straight, even made him practise an apology while looking in the mirror if in case his actions offended you in any way. lost in thought, heeseung manages to get another shot in. that’s twenty-third in a row ever since he stepped on the court, which is unbelievable, even for him.
“is it just me or did heeseung’s performance improve overnight?” jake looks up at jay, fastening his shoelace, a chuckle escaping his lips that goes unnoticed.
the latter offers a hand to jake, helping him stand as they share a laugh before jay passes him the ball. “well, of course it will. he has to impress his girlfriend today at finals,”
“she’s not my girlfriend,” heeseung grunts almost as if hearing you and the word girlfriend in the same sentences cuts ten years from his lifespan. he knows it doesn’t, he’d kill to call you his’. the reason behind his edgy behaviour is your text and the weird rule you’ve inserted in an already weird bet— it’s not like he minds it, the bet, obviously. heeseung definitely minds not getting to kiss you for the next few weeks.
“yet,” jay clarifies, emphasising enough for the world to understand that his words are supposed to be in italics. “she will be if you score more than her in finals, which i don’t think is possible because unlike you, she has been studying all day everyday. i don’t know how she’s still alive,” and jay isn’t half bad student himself. juniors in business have his name residing on the tips of their tongues. he simply thinks you’re a freak for being in no clubs and not participating in anything that doesn’t involve studying.
“she’s the top student for a reason,” jake adds.
“i am the top student,” and hearing his friends call you the top students hurts heeseung’s ego a little bit. crushes aside, you’re his rival before his girlfriend, and you’re not even his girlfriend. you’re basically just a rival. “also, it’s not hard to study all day if you’re used to it,”
and jay scoffs in disbelief. “right, you would know something about it, lee i can’t go a day without playing basketball heeseung,”
“hey, everyone,” your voice reverberating in the court is what stops heeseung from responding to jay with a snarky remark. “just wanted to wish you all goodluck. i really hope you guys win the tournament or else, it’s going to be hard for heeseung to deal with two loses after i beat him in finals as well,”
heeseung rolls his eyes in disbelief, you hear taehyun exclaim that he has been team yn since the very first day, a claim that few others proceed to back up, especially sunghoon, with his own lore of how he prays everyday for you to win the bet with heeseung. you’re honoured to receive such support, to some extent. a part of you still wishes for the whole thing to be a secret restricted to just heeseung and you but again, it was your fault for placing bets in court, in front of the entirety of the basketball team to witness, even their coach.
“you’re a little too confident, don’t you think so?” he smirks, taking a few steps towards you with the ball supported between his arms and torso. “let me know where you’d like to go for our first date,” and it turns out heeseung is just as confident about winning the bet as you, perhaps even more. you are not surprised, being defending champions does that to people, or so you believe.
“mhm, let’s have you score a date first, lee,” you would have loved to talk more but decide to bid your goodbyes as soon as hanbin’s message pops up on your phone, the little scowl on heeseung’s face going unnoticed the moment he sees his name on your phone screen. heeseung would never in his wildest dream confess to being jealous— it doesn’t even make sense for him to be jealous of hanbin because he confessed to you, and you seem to like him back. his worries are pointless just like the useless art projects his art teacher used to assign in middle school.
your fingers dance on the keyboard of your phone as you reply to hanbin, the subtle taps synchronous with your steps with you rushing across the quadrangle, taking the nearest flight of stairs to the library. you wanted to spend the day at your apartment since classes are suspended for the rest of the day on account of the match. however, hanbin managed to convince you into coming to the library to help him with a few assignments here and there. you’re not opposed to studying on days-off, in fact you think it’s better since you get all twenty-four hours to yourself instead of investing any of it in classes. the match gave you an excuse to call in for a break, or an excuse to take your time choosing the outfits as if you’re the main character on such a big day.
the librarian gestures to you to slow down the moment you almost avoid slipping on the tiled floor, in the process of holding the door frame to stop yourself, an embarrassed apology makes its way from you to her as you spot hanbin in the further corner with his airpods plugged in. your first instinct is to scare him from behind but the thought leaves your mind as soon as you remember that you’re in a library, and getting kicked out on a day that has been treating you well so far doesn’t sound so smart.
so, you settle with approaching normal, instead of pulling random stunts, pulling out the chair opposite to him quietly to not make any sounds, mumbling a soft ‘hi’ as he takes out one of his airpods. “where’s miyeon?”
“sick, she’s skipping today’s match as well,” hanbin replies, eyes fixed on the notes he's copying from the laptop to loose sheets of paper, before looking up at you with another question on the tip of his tongue. “are you two still not talking?”
“we did, none of us brought up what happened that day, though,” you shrug as if it doesn't bother you anymore, as if you don't want it to bother you more than it already does.
miyeon and you have known each other since university, she was a senior in undergrad course who was forced by financial circumstances to skip one academic year, thus rejoining in third year along with you and hanbin. seeing her was less frequent while she was still a senior, although you're not sure if you've spent more than three days away from her ever since postgrad school started. a heavy tension masks all your conversations with her, over texts or in person, and even though you're trying to act like the small talks with her don't hurt you, a part of you is starting to miss the best friend you used to talk to all night, about wasted matters and sharing useless gossip.
silence fills in for the lack of words between you and hanbin and you allow it to do so, deciding not to disturb the decorum of the library anymore. you scroll through your phone mindlessly, there’s nothing to look at except people going crazy about the evening's match. you even manage to stumble upon a thread of arguments featuring students of your university and the one the team is going against. it’s all empty threats, seriously, ‘kys’ and ‘ur mom’s in my bed’ aren’t even insults at this point. they’re funny, sometimes, but you’ll never understand why or how they ended up being insults. ( honestly, you don’t see the potential )
“are you serious about heeseung?” a crack in the ice, hanbin's question catches you off guard, with a number of questions running back and forth in your mind before you settle with the one to respond with in return.
you blink in confusion. “i guess so, why?”
“nothing, it’s just i never expected it to be him, y’know, considering your history,” you think it's unavoidable, questions along these lines, they would've been asked sooner or later. truthfully, even you didn't expect yourself to fall for heeseung.
your history, what even is there to call history except blood and war? both you and heeseung have been up each other's neck from the moment your gazes collided. it sounds like a stupid beef between highschool students, almost embarrassing now that you both are nearing post graduation. with all the days that you’ve spent thinking about ways to get on his nerves, or worse— ruin his projects, it wasn’t just you who resorted to ruining each other’s hard work— no one would have known you and heeseung would ever end up on this note, with him chasing you and you pinning for him, all under the blankets of a silly bet.
“well, as i always say, hanbin, life is unpredictable,” there’s a smile dancing on your lips, a dazzling hint of factuality in your eyes. “besides, he’s a nice guy behind all the annoying things he does. i think he's pretty serious about me, or us, too,”
hanbin has noticed the way you smile at your phone. it doesn’t always happen, only when you’re talking with miyeon or a few friends from highschool, now heeseung ranks up on that list as well. he’d be lying if the uneasiness doesn’t bother him, it’s bound to surface when he remembers all the nights you spent complaining about heeseung. actually, the rant session included hanbin, you and miyeon, but she would rather go to sleep than listen to you complain like a child for hours on roll, leaving you and hanbin driving the conversation. he has lost count of the amount of times you’ve ended up crying in the process, or the amount of times he has hung up on you only to show up at your place late at night to make sure you’re doing okay, and the nights you two have spent watching movies and falling asleep on the couch, followed by the mornings gone by with miyeon being salty over the fact that none of you invited her to your impromptu nightover.
the thought of heeseung confessing to you still surprises hanbin, it’s one of the things he deemed as impossible since forever. and he can go, warn heeseung about hurting you, dropping all sorts of threats at the boy. hanbin can go on for hours about how he would make heeseung’s life a living hell if he ever broke your heart. he can prove the righteous friend that he is, but at the end of day, he would always be the third person between you and heeseung. hanbin can only assume so much about you two, not even sure if all of it is right. he can only wish so much for you to have eyes for someone else.
and so, all he does is shoot a smile at you. “i hope he is,”
.
.
.
the only time you step out of the library is exactly three hours and thirty three minutes later, to sprint towards the basketball knowing that you absolutely cannot afford losing seats in the first two rows. fortunately, or unfortunately enough, you’re not the only student going crazy about the game. you can swear at least a dozen came out of the library right after you, even though all of them may not attend the game.
you’re already running late— well, still twenty minutes early but that doesn’t give you much time to meet the team and secure the front row seats. and meeting the team is an excuse, let’s be honest. you want to meet heeseung, have a quick private talk, kiss him good luck, you don’t know; you wouldn’t. your head is in a mess, behind you hanbin is yelling for you to slow down as you run down the stairs. half of you is worrying about seats and the other half is wording her sentences out for you to say when you meet heeseung, and the team. you can wish them all the luck in the world, after all, it’s the university team and you would love to see them win. the whole craze about sports doesn’t feel real and worth the hype but things start coming full circle when you’re the one watching. slowly, as one would expect, but you are starting to understand why everyone goes bonkers during tournament season.
“damn, slow down,” hanbin huffs, grabbing your arm for you to slow down. “it’s not like they wouldn’t start without you,”
“that’s the problem. what if they start without me?” but your legs wouldn’t rest before arriving at the court. you know your words sound funny, painting you as if the result of today’s match depends on you. it feels crazy to be this excited about a mere basketball match, nonetheless you know it’s not the match you’re actually looking forward to. “besides, i’m more worried about seats,”
“i asked hao to save two for us. he’s friends with heeseung, i think he will do that much for his friend’s girlfriend or whatsoever,” you see him roll his eyes at his own words, proceeding to slide his hands into yours before continuing on your way to the venue, this time a little slower.
you have heard about hao from hanbin and miyeon a few times. he’s pursuing a masters in music, wants to teach violin professionally according to hanbin. miyeon has even attended one of his recitals last autumn, something from sibelius, if you remember correctly. he is popular, and you see the depths of his popularity as soon as you spot him on the bleachers, surrounded by people left and right, one of them trying to grab a seat next to him before he points at you and hanbin, and the crowd goes mild, ultimately dissolves as the players step in.
“i didn’t know heeseung had a girlfriend,” you don’t know what you were expecting, perhaps a few words of greetings, hi’s and hello’s since you two are meeting for the first time. anything, except that question.
“believe me, i didn’t either,” and why even is heeseung going around telling everyone that you’re his girlfriend?
the court breaks into cheers as soon as the game commences and yet, it feels a little quite. perhaps, it’s miyeon’s absence getting to you. had it been her next to you instead of hanbin and hao— who are busy amongst themselves by the way, talking about anything but the match— she would’ve been eating snacks non-stop, giving you a little talk on every player, like a resume. it’s take her fifteen minutes to give you summaries on players from each team, their achievements, girlfriends and probably even mothers, who knows. although, you haven’t attend many games with miyeon to pinpoint every good and bad thing about her impromptu presentation, her unofficial commentary helped you sit throughout the match. it feels incomplete without her, not just the game but days in general. it’s definitely her absence making your surroundings feel quieter.
so, long story short, you don’t have a clue of what’s happening. well, you do, a little. you know what a dunk and a three pointer is besides the names of players on your university team, but that basically sums up your knowledge about basketball. all sorts of voices are mingling in the air but you’re busy following the ball around the court with your gaze, occasionally cursing and clapping when the team misses a close basket or scores a comparatively difficult basket. the tension between the two teams keeps rising as the game continues. you notice sunghoon groan in disappointment as one of the players from the opposite team gets in a banked shot from the wings, scoring two points for the team. a part of the crowd goes quieter at jay’s failed attempt to save the score for his team, beomgyu patting on jay’s back while muttering something along the lines of ‘good job.’ involuntarily, your eyes travel to heeseung, whose expression stiffens at the sight of the scoreboard displaying a two-point lag.
a time out call follows as the players move back to their respective ends, and it physically hurts you to see the difference in atmosphere between the two teams, or the frowns on the faces of players on your university team. for a second, you even consider walking down to them as they gather around the coach, grabbing water bottles and towels while nodding at the coach’s words between heavy breaths. you catch jake looking in your direction for a brief second, a smile makes its way to your lips before he responds with one as well, proceeding to nudge heeseung’s arm and pointing in your direction. his actions are left with no response— it hurts a little, although you are aware that anything else falls after winning the match on his priority list— and they get back on the court as the game resumes.
“they need to catch up soon,” hanbin mutters, taking a look at the clock. and even if it’s just a two point difference, you’re starting to understand why it creates a huge gap. it’s almost like scores on a test. going from eighty-three to ninety then hundred is easier than going from ninety-eight to hundred. greater differences are easier to overcome; for you have so many rooms for improvisation and thus, so many chances at closing the gap. the closer you are to a perfect score, the narrower are the chances and it’s almost impossible to pin-point and work on every single weakness of yours within those two points. you’re pretty sure your words would hardly make sense to anyone else, but nonetheless you understand why everyone on the court looks more attentive, probably like meerkats on the lookout for preys and predators.
much to your disappointment, the play continues with the rivals dominating the court, giving low to zero chances for the opposition to get their hands on the balls. you even see a few of them trying to provoke heeseung, the latter trying his best to not react but you’re afraid he would start throwing punches if another one of the players passed by him with his middle finger up heeseung’s face. one of them, who you assume is the captain judging from the way he has been directing his team, goes in for a hook, immediately getting blocked by taehyun as the court bursts into loud cheers once again.
“that was a little too far for a hook,” hao comments, and you nod as if you understand his words and know exactly how a hook is supposed to be. you didn’t even know about a hook until now, and you’re still not sure what it is since all the shots look almost the same to you.
from that second onwards, it felt as if the control transferred to heeseung’s teams as they transition quickly from defence to offence, making quick passes and running the court, practically catching the opposite team off guard. jay passes the ball to jake, who takes a leap from half court, driving towards the unguarded basket. a quick layup using the backboard, as you hear hanbin name the shot, and basically everyone runs to jake for scoring two points for the team as the scoreboards displays a sour tie. it’s a seemingly easy match after that, especially when the players look like they’re back into the game. sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung who goes for another layup and fails, much to his despair, before going in for a dunk and scoring yet another basket for the team, leading it by two points. you see him passing a cocky smirk at the player from before as jake pats him in the back with heeseung almost stumbling in the process.
heeseung shoots you a wink before focusing on sunghoon’s words as they get back into position, and even amidst the butterflies you got by his recent actions, you don’t miss the way he stretches his fingers, ring-finger specifically, pointing something about the movements to jay before getting his focus back to the game; and you just hope it isn’t what you’re thinking it is.
it’s a slow game after that, no points scored, four fouls with two of them back to back, one by each team respectively. the frustration increases on the court, evident in each step taken by the players, groans and sighs fill the atmosphere and get louder than the cheers that have gone quieter once again. it isn’t until a few minutes later that all the players run to the front court as soon as they see an opportunity for a fast break with taehyun taking the lead, passing the ball to jay just a few seconds after, who passes it to heeseung— and call it the lack of efficiency or bad timing, heeseung bumps into one of the players from opposite team, an uneven balance, and falls directly on his right knee, as one of the opposite players throws the ball off-bounds to stop the play.
the medics take him to the benches, bringing ice packs and everything else before escorting him inside. you considered following him inside before hanbin tells you that the officials aren’t letting anyone meet him, probably until they receive updates of his situations. you bite the inside of your cheeks in nervousness, palms sweating as if you’re about to appear for an exam you weren’t informed about until five minutes ago, or maybe it’s even worse. the murmurs from the crowd or the group of girls behind you, to be more specific, do nothing but make you feel more anxious. zhang hao, being a sports medicine student, tries to give you an insight on heeseung’s injury, telling you that even if he fell directly on his knee and it could result in a patella fracture, or perhaps just dislocation— words that compel you to yell at him to shut up before he ensures that heeseung will be fine. hanbin does that for you, noticing your slightly panicked state, telling hao to talk about anything but anatomy of how badly a simple injury can affect a player, and when sunghoon and taehyun return to the officials with an update on heeseung and a pale face, you knew you had to run to your heeseung as if it’s the end of the world.
“heeseung,” you breathe out, stepping aside to let the nurse from the infirmary leave before you walk closer to him. the awkwardness between you and other players, namely jay, jake and beomgyu, besides the coach, rings all the bells to remind you that coming here was probably a bad idea. well, of course, you like heeseung and are worried for him, but the tension in the air makes you feel like you showed up uninvited. “are you okay?”
you ask nonetheless, voice close to a whisper, as you stand at a distance, looking at the bruise on his knee. the smell of antiseptic spray fills your lungs, nose scrunching at the way you could almost taste the diclofenac at the back of your mouth.
“not really,” he inhales sharply, exhaling a reply once everyone left, knowing they had a game to get back to. “look at you, are you worried for me?”
“i’m regretting coming here now,” liar. and then you let the silence carry the conversation with itself for the next few minutes. you don’t know what to say— what can you say? all you do is sit next to him, hands brushing against his as his winces at the slightest touch. heeseung opened his mouth to say something before dismissing his words with a heavy sigh the very next moment. you almost hold his hand— almost, thinking of holding it ever so carefully as if it’s glass with thousands of cracks, and then you’d kiss it ever so delicately, you did it— almost, but then, it’s just you getting upset over the fact that he played even after hurting his hand.
“so, they’re benching you,” you say in an attempt to strike a conversation, a little conflicted with your choice of words, wondering if he even wants to hear about something related to the match at the moment.
“of course,” he says it like a matter of fact, a fact whose impact doesn’t seem to touch him. “please tell me they have jeno substituting for me. i’ve barely been getting updates in the group chat,” the least he expected was for one of the substitute players to keep him updated about the game through texts, and heeseung planned to get back to the court until you showed up, taking a seat next to him on the benches in the locker room. you don’t understand why they didn’t take him to the infirmary, and decided to think it’s because locker rooms are closer and if there’s anything heeseung should not be doing right now, it’s moving his injured leg.
you shrug. “i don’t know, i’ll ask hanbin,”
“thanks,” and even though heeseung isn’t really fond of your friend for reasons that are widely known, at least amidst his friend group, he really hopes hanbin is of some use.
it’s quiet now. you can hear faint cheers buried in the layers of walls and rooms that stand between the court and the locker room, a few muffled footsteps filling up any spaces left in the air, here and there. you assume it’s his fans trying to check up on him, as annoying as it sounds to you for you’d rather have this moment with him all to yourself. you hear him sigh heavily once every few minutes, trying to ball his injured fingers up in a fist to allow the slightest of moments and ensure healthy circulation, a soft hiss leaving his lips at the sensation of striking pain shooting up his nerves. unlike heeseung, your attention shifts to his injured knee with a faint chill running down your spine as you look at his bruise, which now looks more bluish than it was when you had arrived, signifying the possibly alarming amount of blood that has now clotted in the tissues.
“you can cry,” nudge him with your shoulders and heeseung directs you to the most disgusted face in return. “what? it’s the finals and you’re injured so you won’t be able to play today. any normal person would sob their eyes out,”
“i’m not a kid, yn,” he nudges back, a chuckle slipping off his lips.
“trying to act all cool but you’re probably going to cry yourself to sleep for days, or even weeks,” he holds out his hand for you to hold it as you stand up, an action you give into without opposition, intertwining your fingers with his. there’s a smug smile on your face and he sees it as well, although only you know the way your heart is somersaulting at the way your hands fit his’ like pieces of a puzzle. “i know what you are, heeseung,”
he scoffs at your words, hands still entwined, a lovesick glow in his eyes— it’s your first time seeing this side of him, you’re glad to be one of the people to see it. silence has never felt so comfortable to you. the distant noise from court feels like it rushed on its way to you and heeseung, and stopped at the doors, as if you two are beyond its reach. you might never say it to him, but everything seemingly ceases to exist when you’re with him, and the world feels timeless. it’s embarrassing, cringe, and it’s making your heart beat faster with the way he looks at you. “you need to shut up,”
“make me?” a quick response, one that was supposed to be a joke, a joke which was supposed to be accompanied by laughter and brushed off as another baseless comment, but another second passes as you continue to look into his eyes, and you realise you’re actually considering it— leaning in towards him while giving his hand a light tug to pull him towards you the slightest, your other hand cupping his face as your gaze ghosts up his eyes and settles on his lips. when it comes to him, rationality is out of the window and your lips are on his’ planting the softest kiss at the corner of his mouth before pulling away like nothing ever happened.
a pause; you could hear the silence ringing in your years, eyes fixed over him as if you’re spilling all your secrets to him, waiting for him to take a hint. “what even happened to the ‘no kissing before finals’ rule?’”
and you realise you had actually forgotten about it, for better and never for the worse, because as you said and as he repeated, it’s all about timing. empty locker rooms, quiet hallways with not a soul around, your hand in his, his eyes on you— the timing couldn’t be better, and you know better than messing up and letting heeseung become just a closed chapter of your life. “yeah, i could care less about that,”
there are a lot of things you could care less about, like the cold metal that stings against your back as he pushes you against the lockers, or the fact that anyone could walk in, any minute; you don’t care, don’t know. his lips are on yours and his hands are on your waist, it feels euphoric the way his lips move in synchrony with yours, fitting like puzzle pieces. heeseung tugs you closer by your waist, a faint gasp escaping your mouth that dissolves immediately into your breaths mingling together. it’s intoxicating and is making you go insane, the way he manages to sweep you off your feet with the smallest of actions and simplest of words— from the very first day.
heeseung was right, and you as well, it’s all about timing. from the day you first looked at him in a seminar, to the day he switched to biotech— you plan on asking him why because so far, all your guesses seem implausible— down to the day he confessed, leading up to this moment with you pressing against the lockers and his lips against against yours. heeseung sighs softly, cupping your cheeks and tilting your head to deepen the kiss, and you could feel the heat of his breath against your lips when you pull away just when it was about to get better, avoiding his lips when he leans in to chase yours barely a millisecond later. your eyes shift down to his hand, one that has been injured during the game, and you proceed to hold it carefully, brushing your lips over the bruise lightly before adorning it with feathery kisses as his other hand travels down to your waist once again, pulling you closer. “you should go easy on yourself,”
you whisper the exact same words he had told you a day ago, traversing your eyes back towards him while your gazes have a conversation so foreign, as if it’s only for the silence to understand. and it’s quite literally just the two of you basking in silence as he rests his head against the crook of your neck, planting a few kisses here and there before pulling you even closer, as if you were going to disappear any second. “i think, i’m in love with you,”
and timing be damned— because heeseung confesses to you once again, and then he’s kissing you once again, slowly, sweetly, in love, and timing doesn’t even matter because every second feels right with him. with the same air of delighted indifference he comes to know well in the gleam of your touch and the curl of your lips, you simply kiss him back as if to say, hate to admit, but i’m in love with you too. and timing really be damned because you hear loud rounds of cheers as you feel his shoulders stiffen. a slight disconnection between you and heeseung makes you wonder if he’s thinking about the results of the game, which is inevitable, but this is about you and him, and nothing else. you hear the notifications from his phone go off, hinting that the match is probably over, and you pull him into another kiss, another round of selfishness guised as an outlet for him to forget about the game, another round of messy make outs, tasting the freedom of ignorance.
and then you don’t hear from heeseung again.
V. OBJECT OF ALL DESIRES
days without heeseung feel like they’re forty-eight hours long.
you think it’s a disease or some sort of withdrawal syndrome. this isn’t your first time without him, in fact, you used to do just fine without him in your life until you let him in. at this point, it isn’t even about not being able to see him— heeseung has been absent for almost seven days. you even asked jay about him to see if he has been in contact with any of his teammates but much to your disappointment, he disappeared off the face of earth like he never existed. taehyun has constantly been reminding you to not fret too much, knowing that heeseung gets a little dramatic after losing matches. you can take his word, obviously, a friend from highschool would know heeseung better than a girl who started talking to him normally barely weeks ago, although you couldn’t help but worry about him as seconds passed like water dripping down the tap, disturbing the silence.
you know how losses feel— like a part of you has been taken out and you’re left to bleed. it’s worse when it’s about something you’ve loved all your life. you’ve walked next to losses, hand in hand. when you know you’ve lost something while having it in the palms of your hands the whole time, the feeling eats you inside. you wonder if heeseung is feeling the same way you think he is, even if he didn’t show it a week ago when you had met him in the clubroom, the feeling starts to sink in when you’re alone amidst the ghosts of nobodies. even though he was smiling and acting like the little shit he is, you felt anger and regret in the way he kissed you. there was a sense of numbness dripping down his fingertips in the way they brushed against your cheeks, cupping your face. you could’ve been a sweet escape— it hurts to admit that the emotions weren’t possibly real, but you couldn’t blame him.
losing a match, to put it in your words, meant failing in a test; and losing because of an injury, it’s like skipping a test you prepared for, because of fever. except tests can be rescheduled for students who missed— a luxury heeseung, as a basketball player, cannot enjoy. even you couldn’t believe your eyes when the students on the forum started talking about the lost match, all sorts of comments going around, though none targeted at heeseung, fortunately. yet, your first instinct was to dial his number— out of reach, the first thing you hear on the other side of the line, and all you’ve been hearing for days now.
you had considered cutting ties with him, not literally, but as in stopping to chase him as if he’s the oxygen you inspire. you could’ve showed up at miyeon’s place with apologies, her favourite snacks and a brief explanation of why you did what you did, and everything that has happened as the consequences of your own actions. with weekends approaching, you could’ve planned a two-day trip with her and hanbin before the winter snow made it hard to commute— just anything to get your mind off heeseung, since apparently, you weren’t on his mind either. albeit, you end up doing nothing, no trips, no plans to see miyeon, it’s just you and your bruised heart with soju on the side. your mind is way too cluttered with thoughts about heeseung to focus on studying and at the same time, it’s way too empty to try doing anything else.
so, you simply venture down the hallways, drowning in all kinds of thoughts, good and bad. you can use the time to study but concentration has been far out of your reach ever since the match, or ever since he went underground, to be more specific. the impromptu make out session was probably his last straw— it makes sense. you kissed someone who had been walked out of a match because of an injury instead of consoling them. you let your feelings get the best of you, making everything about yourself yet again. you won’t be surprised if heeseung decides to ghost you for the rest of his life after that; or maybe, that’s not possible since you see a familiar figure sitting in the outdoor basketball court, spinning the ball with it’s axis on the ground in a directionless manner.
“heeseung?” you notice his back tense at the sound of you calling his name, head down low as if he’s responding with an exasperated sigh. “where the hell have you been? i’ve been trying to reach you— heck, even your friends haven’t heard a word from you in days,”
“not now, yn, leave me alone,” and an exasperated sigh is what it was.
“look, i know—”
“just, what part of leaving me alone do you not understand?” you try to speak but heeseung cuts you off just as efficiently as he does other things, with annoyance heavily evident in his words. had it not been heeseung, you would’ve left already, for you have more important things to tend to, and you’re certainly not interested in matters you’re not supposed to be included in, if only it wasn’t heeseung, and if only you weren’t crazily worried for him.
“oh, i understand it clearly, every part, actually, and i also understand that you’re upset and leaving you alone would certainly not be the best move considering the way you went MIA for a week,” and you understand his impulses about disappearing into thin air, wishing the ground eats him up or for the walls to cave in till he’s entombed in them, but a person as smart as him should know taking out helps better than thinking about wanting to vanish. “we can sit and have a talk if you stop being such an asshole about it. i’m down to listen to—”
“fine, what do you want to hear about?” he cuts you off in annoyances, the ball rolls down to a distance like your heart when you see the unfamiliar emotion in his eyes. “you were right. i went home and have been crying myself to sleep. i haven’t been eating well either. i skipped five out of nine mocks and barely passed the four i gave, let’s add that too. is that enough?”
you don’t like the way he puts it, as if it’s supposed to make you feel better. maybe about the bet, maybe, since he’s supposed to rank above you in finals to get around dating you, and maybe watching him lose is supposed to offer you some sort of relief— seriously, what you’re feeling right now is far from that. guilt, anger, shame, you’re not unfamiliar with those emotions. they eat you inside and it’s not because you’ve met with defeat, it’s because of falling off all the expectations people had, giving them another reason to point fingers and laugh. you could be really over-reacting, but if you didn’t have your parents telling you it’s going to be fine every time you didn’t do well on tests, you don’t know where you would’ve been right now. and you think you can play a part of the same for heeseung, if not all.
you sit next to him, nose scrunching at the sight of dust on the cement laid with cracks. that’s what you get with an outdoor court no longer in use. you can see little plantlets germinating from the soil, emerging through the cracks, the rusted ring catches your eye. heeseung huffs as you settle next to him, wondering exactly how long the court has been unused for, considering its lack of maintenance. “let’s date,”
and your words are not what you were planning to say or what should be said in this situation, but they still manage to extract a response from him. “don’t play with me,”
“i’m not, in fact, that is what i’ve been wanting to say to you for days. of course, this isn’t the best timing, but i don’t know what else to say,” you pause in what feels like embarrassment. too bad, his crush is not good at conversations. sometimes you end up nodding and blinking for five minutes straight before saying anything, after a person opens up to you with tears and blood. “and, i’m not going to tell you to stop acting like a child or whatever because the team lost such an important match and somewhere, you’re blaming yourself for it, which you shouldn’t, by the way. all i need to say is that you still have the next year to make up for what you’ve lost now,”
second chances come with higher expectations from people along with words that end up making one feel worse about their situation. you’ve already heard a few students talk about how heeseung should’ve been more ‘careful’— as if it was his choice to get injured and lose the match. you know it wasn’t going to be easy, especially with his injury that probably requires him out of the court for weeks, but you hope that amidst whatever he’s feeling, between self-loath and regret, heeseung manages to find himself once again.
“actually, i’m planning to drop out of the team next year and focus on studies. my parents were already against me playing basketball during postgrad, i’m finally starting to notice why,” basketball could’ve been his entire career if heeseung’s grandmother had not wished for him to go into the medical field. seeing the insides of a person makes him want to empty his bowel from the mouth so biotechnology was his next option. heeseung thought having two hands would give him the benefit of managing basketball and academics together, unlike how his parents had wished for, but his recent mock scores and lack of time devoted to studies is making him question his choices. “and what the hell were you on about dating, by the way?”
you’re half immersed in your own thoughts until heeseung directs the question at you— brows furrowed, confusion shadowing his face— you realise it’s your turn to do the talking. “oh, you know, dating. i think we should start dating already, it’s quite inevitable after that day in the clubroom,”
it is evitable, really, but you’re down bad— with all due respect.
you haven’t been okay ever since you realised that you like heeseung, and you’ve been trying to act normal about it, attempting to not lose your cool-hard-to-get-girl composure— miyeon’s words, and they make you cringe— while the thought of him is eating your brain slowly and gradually, making you go insane. if you were to narrate from where you opened and closed the door at, it would be a slippery slope, you don’t know how someone ends up falling for the person they despise. the yn from a month or two ago would be knowing, you can see her shrugging and getting back to her books, saying see saw it coming. ( it’s miyeon’s fault for making you even think about having a mind blowing chemistry with heeseung ) the you from two semesters ago, when he first transferred, would hate you and call you a traitor, might even write whore on a mirror while looking at it because you fold at the sight of hot, smart and sporty men who are perfect at everything, even at ruining someone’s life, like he’s ruining yours; and the yn from highschool, you see her squealing on the floor because oh, what a fan of enemies to lovers she was— heeseung wouldn’t even have been in the current picture if your highschool crush slash rival liked you back. the current you, well, she’s a goner, and in denial that she’s a goner. too much pride does something to a person, especially when you’re an over-scorer and an academic weapon. you’ve lost all your abilities of letting your guard down even once, refusing to give up and accept defeat, no matter how tortuous it is on the inside.
the current you is more like a victorian man looking at ankles for the very first time.
“and the bet? what happened to it?” he chuckles, of course, anyone would, considering the way you’ve lost after placing the bet with utmost confidence slash overconfidence. see, it never ends well, anything, with overconfidence, it doesn’t end well, never have and never will. and you, you don’t learn, sitting with the very well known fact that if you were given the chance, you would place the bet with him again.
“ah, i didn’t mean to do that, honestly. i was confused when you confessed, it was so sudden, i didn’t know how to respond. the bet was the best i could come up with,” miyeon was right, you could’ve used something along the lines of ‘i need some time,’ that day instead of pulling out a bet right out of your ass, and now you don’t know how to save face. at least the fact that heeseung confessed first makes you feel a little better about yourself. “c’mon, i know you love challenges. i was just trying to see if it gets you turned on or something,”
and heeseung scoffs in disbelief, eyeing you at your choice of words. “yeah, i feel very turned on knowing my crush dragged me into a bet that i’ve been working so hard for and she wasn’t even serious about it,”
“working hard? from what i saw, the only thing you worked hard for was basketball,” you raise your brows, a taunting intonation in your voice. a part of you regrets the choice of words, knowing that basketball is seemingly quite a sensitive topic to bring up at the moment. albeit, the slight fear evaporates off when he laughs and dismisses your words and nothings.
he leans a little closer, hands touching yours. “you never know what i’m up to at home,”
a pause; you look in his eyes and then at his lips, he mirrors your actions with a smirk on his face. you guess that there’s a second meaning to his words, not sure what, but the look in his eyes tells you something about it. “i think we should get back to when you were talking mental and i was talking you down,”
and you could grab his face and kiss him with no one around, on the unmaintained basketball court for the grey and cloudy skies to see. you could run your hands through his hairs and tell him how crazy he makes you while planting kisses down his neck. you can kiss him till both of your lungs are begging for oxygen, and that's when you'd tell him how he makes you feel— breathless and drowning, a little insane every time you see him flirting with someone that's not you. you can kiss him till the sun goes down and evening takes over, it doesn't matter if you're outside for the world to see. you would've kissed him if heeseung hadn't leaned back, looking at the ball lying stray at a distance.
“by the way, i’d love to date you,” he smiles at the infinite horizon before looking at you, as if waiting for a response already known.
“yeah, i figured that,” you try to play it cool as if you’re all knowing. it’s partially true, he did confess to you first. “let’s make another bet: no kissing before finals, and the one who ends up giving in first has to buy dinner,” you come up with yet another bet, your voice hinting the enthusiasm for no apparent reason.
heeseung squints at you, a little conflicted, quite unsure of your words. it sounds like a moment of deja vu, hopefully on a better note this time ‘round. “that’s not even valid, we made out not even a week ago,”
“let bygones be bygones, hee,” he likes the sound of the little nickname you've given him, unlike bygones, the word you use to refer to your very first kiss with him as if it's an unfortunate memory. “it’s decided then, no kissing before finals and the loser has to buy dinner, and i won’t be satisfied with anything less than a five star meal,”
you squint, index finger pointing at him, a challenging composure. another chuckle from him makes it’s way to you, lips curling into a faint smile. it takes you all the way back to the day you placed your first bet with him, with head empty and no logic, for the entirety of the basketball team to see, hear, and talk about it as if it’s supposed to be on the headlines of the national newspaper. your eyes spark up in anticipation, wondering if the two of you are down for another bet, one that doesn’t proceed towards failure, hopefully.
“the last time you did something like this, you ended up running back to me and asking me to date you,” he scoffs softly, side-eyeing you with a mocking gaze, quite ready to pull out the receipts if you ever deny his words. you hate how correct he is, all the time, actually, and you hate how you don’t have words to argue back.
lee heeseung, a nobody to you till he switched to your department, just some student who was there to pass time until he started ranking above you on tests and flipped your whole world upside down. you tried to not think about him and failed every time— still beats you why. you’ve never let distractions get the best of you, but heeseung, perhaps he’s more than just a distraction, or maybe he isn’t a distraction at all. he’s like a plant in your garden that you could care less about— should care less about, it’s growing without harming your plants, but it’s creeping against a wall with pretty flowers for show, and before you know it, it’s demanding for all your attention that you offer without second thoughts, unwillingly at first.
he’s the bane of your existence and object of all your desires, to put it simply and make it sound cliché. you’ve had your moments trying to run away from him, get him out of your head, annoy him to the point he’d prefer flying to the other side of the globe, or that could be you too, anywhere, far from him. but life, for the thousandth time, is unpredictable. when was the last time something worked out exactly how you had planned— can’t remember, obviously, just like the way you don’t remember when heeseung started occupying a corner of your brain, popping in and out at random times and disrupting your thought process. the more you tried to ignore him, the further he housed in your head, the deeper in your heart, closer, within your reach, as if for you to grab his hands and let him enter your side of the world.
and so, you kiss him again, pulling him towards you with the collars of his jacket. you feel him smile, a triumphant smile, as expected from someone who is used to winning. you don't think you can say you've lost, not at the way he cups your cheeks and tilts his head to deepen the kiss just moments before you pull away. “i always run back to you, don’t i?”
and you're a child infatuated with their favourite sport, a painter falling in love with strokes, a pianist dancing to the melody of rachmaninoff, a student addicted to getting a perfect score, a player addicted to winning. you trace back to things you like, you always run back to heeseung,
and you always would.
TEN MINUTES LATER :
heeseung plants a soft peck on your lips. “dinner’s on you,”
“fuck!”
#—approved.#@ : fas.#k-labels#kflixnet#enhypen#enhypen imagines#enhypen scenarios#enhypen fic#enhypen fanfic#enhypen fluff#enhypen angst#lee heeseung#heeseung#heeseung imagines#heeseung scenarios#heeseung fic#heeseung fanfic#heeseung x reader#heeseung x y/n#enhypen x reader#enhypen x y/n#heeseung fluff#heeseung angst#kpop fic#kpop fanfic#kpop scenarios#kpop imagines#lee heeseung x reader#lee heeseung x y/n
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tue … wednesday,
gif warning on this one!
i was gonna post this last night but apparently i am now the type of person who gets extreme digestive distress from indian food :-( so i was too distracted by my agonies. much better today, and i feel like i had a worse reaction a few weeks ago from indian food, so maybe it's something that will get better with time like everything else ...
listening: so my brother spontaneously bought us tickets to see st vincent in [redacted] while we're on vacation...i haven't listened to her in ages but i was like sure why not...her new album dropped on the 26th and it's SO good. i'm kinda obsessed and very excited to see her live now. it's a good album. listen to it.
listened/watched the wtyp on five over ones, and started the more recent one on the camp fire.
reading: continuing 'how to read poetry like a professor'. yum. poetry.
watching: once again, dunmeshi (my boyf keeps asking "when is best girl showing up" (izutsumi) and i finally was able to be like "i think next episode"), more asobi asobase. insane show. the voice actors are masters of their craft, truly. good lord.
playing: fallow.
making: some stuff came out of the kiln that i actually like!
the cave painting mugs!!! i made One fatal error - i put a 'satin' topper over the outside assuming it would be matte. it. kinda isn't? kinda is? made these weird "jizzy" (instructor's words, not mine, lol) streaks. thankfully it isn't too noticeable and they came out really good otherwise. the hardest part has been photographing them, the designs go all the way around and choosing a favorite is so hard...i made a gif to try and capture it all lol, and i really love the little handprints on the handles. these will go in their own post in the next few days so i can tag the inspiring artist :)
i also threw some new ones to make more! i do think in the future i will be handbuilding them though. i just really don't like throwing red clay for some reason. maybe i just need to practice more i dunno. i've since trimmed and put handles on these but i forgor to take a photo.
citrus juicer! it works!! it came out a little more Orange than i anticipated, the only downsides are manually scooping out the seeds, and also that it can kinda only handle one fruit at a time, but man, whatever, it's so cute.
mug/teacup that i tried a new underglaze technique on, where i put the flowers on the greenware and then use liquid latex to cover them to just slather the thing in the bg color: works well, i did this for the mug from last week too! my mistake with this one was putting that same jizzy satin overglaze on the flowers and it made them weird and blurry. it's cute otherwise though.
some stuff going in the kiln for bisque: fun texture bowl and a little trinket dish that i underglazed some cherry blossom trees on, inspired by something a friend in class did!
in terms of new things, today is actually the last day of class for me til i get back in july, so i will be trimming a pot and plate that i made last week but will otherwise just work on things i already have! the goal is just to leave things in a place where no extra clay work needs to be done; things can be left as greenware til i get back.
i also made some little watercolor palettes! for some reason the last one i made i didn't carve out material, i just sort of pressed in, and this made the whole thing a little wonky, so i'm hoping these will lay flat because i carved material out
eating: nothing of crazy note. made deb smittenkitchen's soy glazed chicken again because it whips ass.
misc: wough...fucked up day......butter chicken for dinner knocked me for a major loop last night and i wasn't able to sleep til like 1:30am from the Agonies, woke up to feed the cats and then went right back to bed...didn't get up til noon...but now i feel loads better so i might try to do some light exercise this afternoon before pottery, otherwise sleeping tonight is gonna be a nightmare lol. the goal for the afternoon is to submit my last thing for classes (takehome exam, it's not bad i just have to finish it up, and then i officially finished my masters degree (!!!)) and then do a little more for my meeting tomorrow morning. this time next week my brother will be here with me, and that following weekend we drive home together, so everything is about to happen very fast! i'm not gonna be home for as long this summer, and won't just be rotting in my room the whole time, so hopefully things will go much more smoothly mental health wise. fingers crossed! things are looking up! :)
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I didn't want to do anything over the weekend because I was tired. I'm sorry for not posting as much but I just wasn't in the mood to scroll through tumblr or spend hours writing. Honestly I just wanted to play video games because I don't get time to do stuff like that during the week usually. I wanted to continue watching the show I started last Sunday but I didn't end up doing that. I talked to my grandma on the phone for a while yesterday but that almost always makes me depressed because she is so unhappy and I wish I could do more for her. I wish I had the energy to clean but I felt like death but that's nothing new. I don't know if my room will ever be clean again at this rate. I have a hard time living my life mostly in one room. I'm starting to think I need a storage unit for all the shit I'm not using. I really miss having my own walk in closet. Eventually I will get my shit together.
I'm not a fan of Mondays and it was a long day as usual. I was supposed to only have 28 cases but then I had 3 add-ons throughout the day. I had 3 rooms going for a while so that wasn't super fun.
I was trying so hard to be in a good mood. Apparently I wasn't trying hard enough because I had multiple people ask why I was in a bad mood. That just made it worse.
The morning team lead asked me that shortly after he spent like 10 minutes giving me a lecture about training the lady that works at night. He was lecturing me while I was still setting up for the day and he can't keep it short whenever he has a conversation with anyone. I had a lot to do and I was scrambling before he even started to talk to me. He was trying to tell me I needed to come in later on Wednesday and Thursday so I could train but I know that's not going to be necessary because it's not going to take me very long to show her what I need her to do. That's not his decision to make and it will also make it more stressful for me in the morning. He has to repeat himself and talk to me like I don't know how to train people. I had to take a class to do that and I'm still a preceptor even though I don't do it that often anymore because I don't have a ton of patience left for that but it's justified. Unfortunately I had some very bad trainees in the past but that's a long story. I suppose there have been a lot of good ones too so I can't complain too much. Anyway, he and I have been getting along better recently but he still drives me crazy sometimes. I think he scared the 2 new people away with his antics. He loves to talk about how he is against everything being "politically correct". Whenever I hear people say that, it makes me think that they think it should be ok to be a disrespectful asshole without facing any consequences. It pisses me off and I have to bite my tongue a lot.
I was annoyed at lunch because I just wanted to eat and have 30 minutes by myself but that didn't happen. I wanted to sit and eat in the cafeteria because it's a lot easier than trying to eat in the locker room. It was great until that creepy guy showed up and sat down across from me. His shift didn't even start until noon so I don't understand why he showed up so early. He left me alone for a while but he has been trying to talk to me more again and flirt with me in an indirect way so he doesn't get in trouble. He can't seem to take a hint. He also bought me and a couple other single girls chocolate for valentines day. It was weird and of course he didn't get enough for everyone else. Unfortunately he still works up in my department sometimes even though he was supposed to start working in the basement full time in January. I made it a point to let management know that he makes me uncomfortable but nothing has changed. They aren't going to do anything about it unless he does something really bad I guess. I know he has a bad temper and I'm afraid he is going to snap sometime. It makes me uneasy and I need to try harder to stay away from him. I guess I have to start eating lunch in the locker room or in the stairwell again.
I didn't get to leave until 6:30 because I had to wait for the last 2 cases to get done and I had to train. I have a pile of stuff on my station that I'm going to have to sterilize in the morning because I didn't have time to do that. I'm not looking forward to that but I need to stop thinking about work now.
I didn't realize that my next appointment is on a Wednesday again. I'm lucky that I actually have enough PTO this time so I requested the 20th and the 21st off. Hopefully that will get approved.
I was looking forward to sleeping in a little bit Friday morning but that's not going to happen because I have a dentist appointment. I forgot about it. I don't know why I always make such early appointments but I guess it's nice to get it out of the way so I don't worry about it the whole day.
I don't want to do anything right now. It's hard to move. I have to get up and feed the cats soon. I don't think I want to eat dinner tonight because I had too much for lunch and it made me feel gross. I feel like I gained weight over the weekend but I was stress eating so that makes sense. I also didn't go grocery shopping so I don't have much food left. I need to try to relax now and hopefully I can fall asleep at a decent time.
Thanks to everyone that tried to cheer me up today. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow!!! :) 💖💖💖
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regarding the shipping game
hey y'all, thank you so much for the birthday wishes and for playing my lil game :) i love reading your descriptions and making personalized hcs for you, it's so fun! i have about four more to get through, and ik i said the game would end midnight july 12, but i forgot to specify what time zone i'm in ajsfh so i'll be extending the game until noon july 12 eastern standard time.
again, i'll try to get through them quickly, but tbh i've been very busy and not getting a lot of rest and i'm feeling quite ill because of it. so p much there isn't gonna be any new posts tonight, and idk if i'll get any out tomorrow either. i just need to focus on resting and feeling better first, but wednesday for sure expect a new post or two,,, or three hehehe
thank you guys for all your support and for understanding! love y'all mwah mwah <3
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9.27.23 Wednesday
9:13 am
Still having windblow....
I'm out of budget but I need these... From the past 16 years since this windblow came into my life, I never had have success on my own... I always feel defeated....
9:15 am
I'm so thankful that I got the job in Iqor or being on a call center industry again... But the stress it gave me is really hellish....I always feel defeated... But I swallow my pride....I finished B.S. Biology in one of the prestigious universities here in the Philippines but I felt low but I needed money and job,angels... I was never happy until I saw Miles/ dread-locks guy....
I badly need money and job so I have to go back next month... If I'm gonna be rewaved, I wanna be with Miles on his wave in 469...
Why is it hellish? First all the calls are on theme or well-planned or having a conspiracy of what future you will have... But of course you need to use your own shield and sword to protect yourself and battle your customer over the phone...
It is just weird that you have to keep on doing the metrics... Everything must learn and master as time goes by... But there are some arrogant mentors that they are expecting that you will memorize all the loose ends and loophole of each customer's cases... Plus, learning the keyboard again and posting everything on the tracker after that 2 minutes wrap-up or rest, after each call...
Again, learning to flow on different accents and different ways of their delivery of words. Need time to familiarize their other counterparts in USA that you can't access your google.... No choice but to ask or try to listen triple times and try to comprehend the situation of the customer.
I also saw my step-dad on my biological mother, he used to work in an office and he tried to get a job in call center... Like what I said call center is the quickest way to land on if you need a quick money but still tight... It is like eat and work and eat and work, living a lil but still not enough but in a way surviving.... My step-dad got sick and you can really see the stress on him... On and off he got sick while working in call center....
My brother next to me also work in call center the same thing he got sick on and off coz of stress...
I feel super intimidated in call center... But in a way thankful... They can make your emotion up and down... If you don't go down to your superior your will be kicked out right away... You need to call them "boss" or bow down...
The nature of job it is not easy most specially if you are not on computer generation category... It feels like a grade 1 that you have to be on grade 6 in a lil while...
But last time, time that I met Miles after the shift... I learned that life and relationship are not based on this fucking call center job or it will never based on the metrics that you got... It gave you this psychological effect that if you didn't do good on your job being a customer service,you can't get a fucking relationship. Again, it is a skills but it will take time or there is a conspiracy that everything is fated in call center. Who will get promoter, who will be having detractors or me thankful always on the passive or neutral platform.
It is better to be DJ in a way... Listening to radio now...
But there is still an emotion in me that, why other people can do and why I can't... The actual answer learning everything as time goes by not overnight...
But how did other people got their challenger bonus of 100k or more???
I'm just happy and thankful that call center got a free unlimited tissues and I started to worry last Monday why are we out of tissues? Things that I observed..
If you got a supervisor call it will be a big deal on you, a negative issue, right away....It is somehow degrading in my part... But I have to swallow my pride...
11:08 noon
Uncle Jun will not really help me on food... I'm out of budget...
I should be resting and he is still not washing the floor mats.... My salary is just small....This Uncle DD is not yet giving the fundings here...
3:28 pm
Oopppss... I just realized I had have guardian angels and somehow a back-up on something...
Still, sick...Fever and headache... Congested Nose... Still,having windblow ...
5:16 pm
I'm burning and thinking of money...
Thinking of Miles as well...
5:29 pm
Still have windblow...
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5:38 pm
If you have a clean conscience, you don't have to worry... Still,thinking of money... Where am I? Pure soul will have a pure good karma...
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6:25 pm
Uncle Jun brought some food and biscuits just this dinner... We will just eat once a day angels, at dinner only... Out of budget...
Whew! Though there is a diet method of eating once a day and drinking more healthy fluids like water or electrolyte.
Tomorrow will buy lemon for the water jug here...
8:38 pm
Here it is angels and my windblow...
The one meal diet plan per day is called "intermittent fasting" in general has proven to be an effective weight-loss method. The typical weight loss is 7 to 11 pounds over 10 weeks. ( google ).
OMAD diet, however, is different. OMAD stands for One Meal a Day; the idea is to fast for 23 hours straight and then consume one large meal in a 60-minute window. The OMAD diet is proposed to be a weight loss method as well as a way to tackle chronic disease and other health issues. ( google ).
Though, not my ideal thing in life Angels... I wanna eat and exercise... I still want the healthy lifestyle where you can eat and sweat-out...
8:49 pm
I love the songs of xxxtentacion...
I still wanna go to sand dunes and get a botox and whatever... I wanna a collagen and I need a retinol serum? Whew!
I need to save money but how?
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8:58 pm
It is sad???
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9:05 pm
I know you so well, so well... I know you somewhere...
I need growth angels... I need money and I need to keep that job! I feel bitterish and self-pitying...
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11:16 pm
I feel bitterish... I really wanna have sex and I'm losing my xfactor... I feel fat, ugly and wrinkled...
I want Miles to be sensitive enough... I feel bitterish...
Still, have windblow...
I still wanna be rewaved on Mile's group... Hmm... I hate being defeated...
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diary14
9/18-19/2023
so sleepyyyyy.
i've done 3 more songs, not the 5 i would have preferred but i did figure out a way to make everything easier on myself, and i got a few new "guitar" sounds out of today too. so it's been a long day, like yesterday, since about noon i've been at it, i took a longer break today but i didn't cook or eat, i just spent time with my gf, we're always around eachother, or i guess not so much since she's started work/school (same thing for her cuz grad student) but i digress.
so i'm up to 8, but, really, the 5 yesterday will need to be worked on more too. but i think i'm deciding that what i'm going to do is a single pass, and then come back and listen, and figure everything out like that, less obsessive, hopefully by nailing out the process more i'll get stuff that's overall fine, with few shocking or strange bits, and more just issues of levels. getting the drums standardized again is going to go a long way in that i think. when i say again, it's because they already were, but they were sort of sloppy, same sounds, some minor eqing, i handled the drums by letting them clip and eat whatever they needed to eat up to sound right. they were always super fucking loud. now they are less so. so i got compression and eqing on the kick and snare.
and it sounds good. the song i just did with this has a kick that's a bit too loud, there's an extra snare that's sort of not there that i need to bring out, and yeah, it's all coming up a lot better this way. there's a lot of surgical stuff i get stuck on but if i just go about mixing like this maybe that won't have to happen. very exciting stuff.
i know this is taking its toll on me, i'm sad that i'm basically not writing or even listening to music right now, i have now thrown 4 days into what feels like a minor tragedy, but i will at least get some songs that sound nicer i think.
the nicer sound is kind of really gonna go a long way in helping get things feeling right too, i think the kind of associations i'm going for might become more obvious. super-rainbow-puke freakouts, dandyist hardcore, you know, that kind of thing, it is a thing, i think.
right now though i've been so without like, relaxing, i'm listening to a record i haven't listened to in a while, oval - wohnton. people don't talk about this one as often as they should, there's a song here that the alien9 ost stole too, basically, no one talks about that either. the song woisdiestadt? is sampled and looped for a song. i thought for the longest time the person who made the ost was just a genius, but it was actually oval. they're a genius for knowing to steal that though.
i'd listen to this record all the time in my early semesters at college, this and tujiko noriko's make me hard. make me hard has been with me since highschool, it's a really incredible record, it's fucked up how that, orchid, have a nice life, and salem, sort of propelled me into wanting to make music. there's a ton of other stuff too. there really was a lot of post-hardcore. i've been sat here figuring out how to make uncanny and strange synth guitar replicas of the things guitars do in certain kinds of post-hardcore. isn't that fucked up.
a funny thing about oval is he'd draw on cds with sharpie and stuff, get the fucked up glitchy rips and work with those as samples, among other kinds of fuckery/glitch stuff. i got a bunch of really awesome cds from a goodwill once, like real nice stuff to keep in your collection, cocteau twins holv and an aphex twin cd single for come to daddy, as well as the 2nd placebo album, and instead of keeping them i did that. i think at the time i thought about punk rock, and said, fuck it. i don't regret it. i still think punk rock, and say fuck it, at least about some things.
wednesday is errands day again, not looking forward to that + continuing to deal with this mess, but who knows, it could be one of the good ones. i know this is taking some kind of toll cuz in the shower i just closed my eyes and started seeing things, and with my eyes open i saw distant and inexplicable phantoms of silver/blue light, a streetlight gone wrong maybe, hovering. it wasn't a hallucination i think it's just something that happens after looking at eq curves all day and quibbling over .5 db differences in some places.
i did barely eat today, and my stomach kinda hurts. i drank some tea with boba in it, that my gf brought home, it was hers but i steal, because i am cool. actually she let me so didn't steal i'm a good person.
i did try to practice vocals today too, just lightly i guess, because i should stay in practice daily w/ this stuff.
i am terrified, right now, and every day i guess now, that i'm going to hear these new versions, and hate them. but i don't think i will. and if i do, i can fix them again, and it's not so bad. but god the thought scares me so bad. it's so early in a new process, how do i know i'm actually right about this. but you go asking for second opinions, a lot of people just want to say what you've done is good, because it probably is basically, but it maybe sounds wrong to me, i want it to be right. that's nebulous but i want it to be what i want, i think, earnestly, i'm getting there, and maybe at worst, this doubt is a passing anxiety that i'm going to fuck up 23 songs. but fuck it. i put my voice on them, that fucks them up enough.
i don't think they're getting any worse, checking on a couple. like i thought, tiny adjustments can be made, and i'll make them eventually, but it feels reassuring i guess to check, it also feels super obsessive and like i can't stop myself and i have to stop myself, if i want to not go crazy.
i don't wanna go crazy and gosh it's getting so hard to type and my eyes are heavy and stuff but there's more to say maybe.
i got some lyrics out. some short thing, new shouty sccreachy idea. it's funny to add more to my plate but it feels kinda good, i should figure out how to recognize sentences that are good for noisecore outburst things, and just do that. save them, maybe, too, for the future.
and soon i want to start on the album art, i want to get to a place where i feel okay with starting, and i want to get an actually okay picture of me to use on it, that's gonna be a thing where i need to find a place to pose and have a way to have the camera held up high, and good enough lighting conditions, oh my god everything is so difficult and i make everything so hard for myself for no reason but maybe when this is all over i will be so happy that this just adds to the payoff. i hope so.
the bright side is that all these songs that don't have vocals on them yet, this seems like it might make it easier to get all that placed, since i have some headroom and things are like, being mixed instead of left to battle in some hell of clipping and limiting.
say hello to the roses in this photo i took a year ago when i was living with my cousin and aunt in a strange neighborhood of houses that all looked the same and say goodbye to me. i'm gonna to try and relax some more i guess, before getting ready to sleep for another day of supermusichell.
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2023-02-08
This week's take-aways from the Office Hours Discord session. I'm sure I forgot/missed some. Please help fill in the details if you can. TY.
I've been doing these for 2 months now so I have some perspective about how goals and practices seem to have evolved in that time and I'll add a brief note about those observations at the end.
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Midjourney, Discord, or this FB group in any official capacity. I do this because many people can't attend the weekly Office Hours via Discord on Wednesdays at noon Pacific. You can find listen to them on the MJ Discord server in the voice channel called "Main Stage".
You're welcome.
1. Wider aspect ratios are available 1:1 - 2:1 and everything in between like 16:9.
2. Every time there is an update it will change the aesthetics to some degree. The more specific your prompts the less they will be affected by small changes in the aesthetic style.
3. NIJI is getting an update soon to fix bugs
4. At this point team is leaning towards conserving energy and pushing towards the v5 model. v4 is not as sharp as it should be and they can’t figure out why but v5 doesn’t have that problem so it makes sense to focus on v5.
Initial images for v5 look really good but they don't know yet how well it will hold up or what fixes might be necessary. They expect testing to be 3-6 weeks.
The images coming out of v5 look so much better and have such higher resolution that he's confident that most people will be happy with them without upscaling.
They are planning to include upscaling but it gets very expensive once the images are already that high rez. He thinks upscaling may only be needed in the case of printing large images. He did not get specific about DPI or anything like that but he seemed very excited about v5 image quality.
v5 will not be the version that improves text generation (text within an image like a title or a logo) we will possibly see that in v6.
v5 will have much better hand generation. It still won’t be perfect but you should notice a huge difference. They expect hands and bodies to improve with every version.
5. Better language stuff (in terms of MJ understanding your text prompt) will probably come in v6. A better knowledge base overall will probably be v7.
Focus now is in turning out one major feature or improvement per update instead of trying cram a bunch of features into one massive update.
6. Working on a new rating system. The launch party for v5 will be an online rating party. You will all be invited whenever it happens.
7. They are continuing to work out how to adjust payment tiers. he mentioned a lot of idea but it seemed very stream of consciousness. His main goals are to improve the $10.00 tier and to somehow create a free tier that doesn't bankrupt the company.
He also mentioned that the only reason they can afford the GPUs to train v5 is because of people paying at the $30.00 and $60.00 tiers so he's very thankful that so many are doing so, and making it possible for him to do this work.
8. Magazine is coming. Don’t worry they won’t randomly send it to you. You have to ask for it. First one is free. You will get a DM asking if you want it once it is ready to ship.
9. They are thinking about planning a souped up daily theme. He did not elaborate but I like soup.
10. They are getting a lot more AI people hired "which is great". They are playing with some real -time stuff (artist's tools). Inpainting and outpainting are still very much on the board.
11. Still working on search functions but it will be fast once we get it.
12. Still need LOTS more front-end people. Send an email to careers @ Midjourney.com
13. He is thinking about an API for individuals but not one designed for corporate professional use.
14. "AI images are like flowers and the users are like bees the flowers are trying to attract with their beauty"
Here's my take-away from 2 months worth of take-aways.
A. The goal posts are more concrete and (to me) seem more realistic. back in December he was talking about having a new update every month and expressed optimism that v5 would be released before the end of December.
I'm actually comforted by these more conservative projections for when updates will happen and what they will contain. It bodes better for the company as a whole imo. Things take time.
2. There is a commitment to customer service and building the community and the main obstacle to improving those areas is the sheer scale involved. David mentioned today that they are specifically choosing not to market MJ because he doesn't think they could handle the influx.
They really want to provide a free tier, community resources, and a better user experience overall but the fact that there are over 10 million of us complicates how to do that.
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Surviving Ian - drawbacks and inner thoughts
You know whats bad? I drafted this post weeks ago. Right after the storm hit us (my first real hurricane btw) I had imagined all the things I was going to say and made and outline only for it all to disappear. How crappy is that.
Oh well.
So first things first, If you are reading this, that means I'M ALIVE.
Sorry for all the haters out there that wish I were dead. Better luck next time.
So, My first time.... in a hurricane.
It was really interesting. I didn't realize how much rain was coming from just the storm alone. They projected it to hit land on Wednesday, but in reality, the band or extended arm of the storm was already casting its effect the night before around 5:00PM.
It nonstop rained from light to heavy for i think close to four days. Wednesday around noon, everything shut down. I had my supplies I needed, but I needed small snacks that I couldn't get the night before due to work. So I drove around while it was still some what calm and got what I needed.
I think I ended up watching an anime till I got too tired to watch and went to bed. That was about 2:00AM Thursday. I tried to calm my mind and make a distraction of everything. Alas, dreams of flooding and my weak windows rattling from the winds made it feel like they were going to shatter at any moment and water would surround me as I lay in my recliner.
Then, the most alarming thing happened. Silence. No noice from my fan, no sounds from the kitchen where the refrigerator's compressor would kick on and off to let you know you're food was still cold. The power had shut off. And it would stay off till later that afternoon. Thankfully we had a generator for such an emergency.
Thankfully, by the time everything was over, we had very little damage. Unfortunately for those along the coast and in Ft Myers. They lost everything. In my sarcastic self-defense, (which is my coping mechanism) the only thing I could think of was "At least the beaches will finally be clean from being an ashtray for smokers."
But yes. I survived.
This has definitely given me new insight as to the damages of storms and being prepared for survival.
Through it all, I was able to realize that there are some many things that you could lose in a moment, and, in reality, it doesn't matter what happens to it. The only thing that matters is your faith in a situation.
This and my own personal issues with family, has caused me to further my writings and develop more for characters.
That's my update for now. Let me know if anyone is interested in hearing more about ideas, writings, or any "Side quests" going on.
Till then, ......
#ian#hurricane#hurricane ian#storm#mind storm#mental health#writing#creative writing#story ideas#survival#loveyourself#self love#self confidence#self care
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...
I feel like I should have hide that "Just kidding" on my last comic a bit better, because only one person freaked out. Not like I wanted to scare them...
I don't even know what I wanted to do. First idea was just to abound all my media for 11 days (till 15 April and you know why) and then come back, Like it should have been fun, you know no more creation for Error's birthday and then WHOHUUU I'm back at Ink's! And i mean anyway I would have spent all these days just drawing comms, you know? Almost nothing interesting, but... When I said that streams and your support is my only motivation I really mean it.
It's getting harder and harder to be with each day... And it's really serious i think. I felt that bad only last year ant the beginning of the summer. There was a lot of pressure and also noone knew how that all thing with virus will be and all that studying... And now I really don't know is that the same thing or I'm pushing myself too hard, or something else or everything in the same time. It wasn't so bad even at that day/week when i cried every day, when parents didn't accepted my decision. Because than was the reason. Because then I could cry out all the pain. Now I just really can't cry it out and at the same time I feel like every silly and small thing could be the last braking me into crying mess.
I just want to feel save
i just want to feel calm
I feel really vulnerable and weak and I really want some love and care. I... don't hate myself. Yet. I'm really trying not to slip off into that pit of self hating. Atleast I know how to get out of it, I've been here, i have enough sanity to survive there. But do i have enough sanity to survive now?
I live in emptiness, I have no plans. Like... Man if you would ask me what I will do at next Wednesday, I would answer "I don't know?? If I would survive till that day, than I will tell you". I know only what will happen tomorrow probably - I will wake up. Stream comms till I'm tired. Then talk with my friends and probably while talking will sketch something for my soul or friends. That's all. That's all my life. I don't have a day after tomorrow, i can't see it, i can't even think about it. Will I be even alive at that point??
Yes I am asking that horrible question to myself even tho I still holding to a thought that I will never do that to myself. To my friends and family. To you. And also believing in reincarnation makes that pointless. I will start all that all over and struggle with same problems so what's the point?
But still... It's so so hard.
It's so hard, that I can't even leave that vent message in drafts like I always do. Yeah I kinda have a scheme "write that down if in the morning you will forget - good. If still feeling bad - post it" But... yeah.
I'm rotting inside. And I am so sorry you are forced to see that. I am sorry.
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hi, it's the milky way again
it's been a while since i've dropped something in your mailbox
i've now finished the school year and the grades and reports are coming in tomorrow or the day after. i'm kinda scared of them because i know they dropped a lot since last year but i'm pretty sure i passed most if not all of my courses so i think it'll be fine.
i started working a summer job a week ago and i'll be working the next week too. it's mostly because i need the money so i can replace my broken phone but also because we had to do some kind of job/workplace experience thing because of our school (that was voluntary though because of covid). the job pays really well so i might also get a new binder with the money since the one i have now is falling apart. on the other hand, working 8 hours a day for five days straight has really taken all of my energy and i can't listen to music while working which makes it a lot harder. the last week i've mostly been coming home in the evening, maybe eating something and going straight to bed.
(also i got my period last thursday and i hate hate hate it so much it makes everything so much worse even without the dysphoria it's just so messy and annoying to deal with)
a week ago i finally jumped over my shadow and talked to my mom but it was a huge disappointment. i'm pretty sure i couldn't get my point across in a way she'd understand and she kinda just admitted not being able to help after saying a bunch of things that really hurt. i removed myself from the situation by "going to bed" aka going to my room, locking my door and crying myself to sleep. i was just really pissed off and talking to her was kinda my last resort for when i realized i couldn't help myself anymore.
anyway, the day after that was monday (when i started working) and me, running on barely any sleep because the night before was a disaster, had to somehow survive work and i'm pretty sure i ignored or snapped at a lot of people that day which i feel kinda bad for.
on wednesday after work i talked to my mom again because i was pissed off and couldn't let it sit. she said the same kind of bs she had used on sunday and we got nowhere, since then i've probably been a lot less friendly to her but i'm just not ready to give up so much energy for her.
her favorite arguments we're things like "but others have it a lot worse" (which is a mindset i've worked on getting away from for quite a while) (also my mom was referring only to my grades with this but little does she know that the only reason why my grades aren't dropping that badly is because no matter how bad i got mentally, i yeeted stuff like self-care before school because school had always been structured and mostly clear while life in general was just. not.)
other arguments she used were "just get off your phone and set a timer for 45 minutes and concentrate on what you wanna get done" and "just pull yourself together, it's not that hard" (those were about me saying that i struggle with starting tasks and getting shit done)
lastly she also said that my expectations are just way too high and that if i didn't expect only the best from myself (this was about grades too) i wouldn't get so disappointed if i didn't get that great grade i was hoping for. and like, she's not wrong but if you've only ever been good at one thing in your entire life and you were really good at it, then you'd just expect nothing but the best from yourself because you know reaching that isn't impossible.
and she ended it with "what do you expect me to do?" and "i can't help you" and i realized later that i just should've said that she should help me get someone that *can* help me, like a therapist or something.
anyway, i'm proud of myself for finding a summer job and finally talking to my mom and not so proud of my grades and the fact that i can't seem to get the point across to my mom
thank you for creating this safe space for people like us, i wish you a happier time than the one i'm having :')
milky way here :|
got the reports and grades and stuff yesterday and i'm just :| about it. like, yea i know i'm still somewhere at the top of the class and that i'm more than one and a half grades better than some others in my class but i'm still upset about my grade in maths for example but my parents laughed/chuckled at me when i was upset and that really hurt
and afterwards my mom said something along the lines of "yes you're allowed to be stressed but because of your good grades you don't have the right to complain about being stressed" which is absolute bs and i still don't understand how having good grades disqualifies one from complaining and i'm sure as hell not gonna ask her
i just wanna scream in her face but i'm pretty sure she'd slap me if i did that
i'm almost done with my summer job and since monday noon i had the chance to work in a different part of the factory which is a lot less uncomfy to be in because it has AC and since it's not in the lab itself, i don't have to wear a hair net, an overall, steel-toed boots and rubber gloves.
today i set myself a few goals for the summer break and for the next school year and i really hope i can get through with those because it'd make future-me extremely happy
have a great great time :D
and PS: since tumblr has been eating a lot of notifs lately i missed a lot of your posts and i tried filtering by the milky way anon tag but only one post showed up. i'm not sure what's up with that tho
Hi again! Don’t worry, I got you. Here’s a link to all the asks you’ve sent up to this point: first, second, third. All of them are tagged, but the tumblr search engine isn’t exactly known for its accuracy. I use the tumblr original post finder site for this stuff, but I just realised by looking for your asks that the site takes capital letters into account, so the ones that were tagged with a capital M in Milky weren’t showing. They all do show now that I changed the M to lowercase. So I’ll have to try to be more consistent with that from now on 😅
On to your asks. First off, congrats on finishing your course! And I really hope you can replace your phone and your binder :D sorry about getting your period, though, that really sucks :(
I think the conversation with your mom that Sunday is the one discussed on the third ask I linked. I'm really sorry the same thing happened on Wednesday. It's not your fault you can't get across to her—she's the one who should be open to helping you and offering possible (actual) solutions to the problems you're bringing up to her, and not you who should spell out every single thing she can do to help you. You're not being unclear to her—she's being obtuse and refusing to listen.
You're not meant to know how to just "pull yourself together", and you're absolutely right that your grades not dropping all the way doesn't mean you're not struggling, and you still deserve help so you don't have to jeopardise your mental health for your grades. And while she's right you don't deserve to be so hard on yourself or to expect perfection from yourself, that's also something that you deserve professional help with. Again, you're not meant to know how to just turn off those emotions and thought processes.
*hugs* sorry your math grade wasn't as high as you'd hoped. It's okay to be upset and disappointed by that, and I'm so sorry they laughed at you. You do have every right to express your emotions, and you're not being unfair to anyone else for being unhappy with your own grades. I often feel the same! I get really good grades (as I think I've already said), and I also often feel disappointed when a grade isn't as high as I'd hoped. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way. I'm really glad you know what your mom says is bs, because it really is. It's no wonder you feel like screaming in her face—she sounds incredibly frustrating, exhausting and invalidating to deal with. You deserve so much better than this 😔
I'm so glad you're proud of yourself! I'm really proud of you too for everything you've accomplished despite her being so unhelpful and invalidating, and I really hope you're enjoying the rest of your summer holidays and you can reach your goals! And if the occasion arises and you do end up using the "you can help me find someone who can help me" line, I hope it goes better. But if not, again, please know this is an issue of her refusing to listen, and not of you being unclear about what you need.
Sending a huge virtual hug ❤️
#ask#neglectful mother#Abusive mother#milky way anon#Covid mention#emotional neglect tw#Dysphoria mention#abusive parents#Toxic parents#Ableism tw#Dysphoria tw#Milky way anon
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I'm distressed a lot of the time but then I remember that I can come on here and see something new a couple times a day (whether it's art, an answered ask, a playlist, or just some thoughts/facts about ABT) and everything feels a bit better. 💕 That can make a big difference for me, so thank you. 🥰❤️
I’m so glad the blog still brings you happiness even in the wake of the demo (:
Here’s the schedule, actually, in case you were curious: (And keep in mind, I’m on Pacific Standard Time so that’s the times that are listed)
Queue posts twice a day, at 8am and 4pm. Reblogs are art, fic, memes (about ABT specifically), and asks.
New posts - supplemental content - every Wednesday at 12pm noon. Still unsure how long I’ll be able to keep up with that LOL.
In terms of asks, anything that requires a longer answer, either lore, character asks, or questions about the logistics of the game, etc. go into the queue. Things that can or need to be answered quickly get posted right away. (Saying thank you to compliments, bug reports, etc.)
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BACKSTORY and FITNESS PROGRAM
BACKSTORY:
I have always struggled with my weight. I was never overweight to a point where I would have troubles with my health but it did limit some of my abilities and it lowered my self-esteem. I was really overweight as a child but then my rapid growth caused me to look slimmer than before and I was only round. Basically I was and still pretty much am skinny fat.
About two years ago I decided I wanted to become skinnier, so I started working out more. I realized now that being skinny is far from my goal and I truly want to be healthy and have a strong body but working out did give me solid foundation on which I explored my interests in sports, which I never liked before. I found the ones I actually enjoyed and the ones I did not enjoy quite that much. I started losing some fat. But then I became lazy and the fat came back.
This repeated itself many times throughout those two years. I slowly realized my biggest problem were my eating habits. I was really picky when it came to food and I always chose the wrong one. I also binged, then ate very little for a while and binged again. I even contributed to the weight gain with drinking smaller amounts of water than I should have and my sleeping schedule was all over the place. I realized only working out won't do that much. At least not for me.
I slowly started incorporating better foods into my diet and changing up my lifestyle but I never committed enough to see it through until the end and obtain obvious results. I was also very confused where and how to start, because there is so much information out there about what is right and wrong. The main problem was that I didn't give any program I created for myself time so that I could actually see results and see if it works.
RIGHT NOW:
Now I want to stick to my plan for longer than one or two months at a time. I want to achieve results that will last and work on my confidence too. I am currently 173 cm tall (which is roughly 5,8 feet) and I weigh 65 kg (roughly 143 pounds). Though I am tall I feel like I am quite heavy since I do not have that much muscle mass so the lbs are higher than I wish they would be, because of fat. I have stubborn belly fat while I'm not really visibly round in any other areas of my body as much. Of course you cannot spot reduce (I will write about that in one of my future posts too) so I will have to lower my body fat percentage and gain a lot of muscle mass in general to see the belly fat disappearing too, since I am striving for a stronger not skinnier body.
Right now I'm in a good place, though I still have many things to focus on to perfect my daily routine. I've been working since the start of the year (6th January, 2020) and lost 4,5kg (roughly 10 pounds) in five weeks. I constructed a workout and diet plan for me as well as I could, since I haven't got that much control over a lot of things going on in my life because I'm still in school and have work to focus on besides my fitness goals, though I am trying to make them a bigger priority in my life.
Some people said that this program seemed a bit challenging for a beginner when they took a first look at it. That's why I wrote a short paragraph in which I spoke about my work out habits above. They are not that bad and I tend to work out quite a lot so I’m not in such a bad shape - food will be a bigger issue for me. If the program seems though for you and you do your workouts completely differently, I encourage you to continue doing it your way. The same goes for if you think it is too easy. I designed this the way I did, because I know what I am capable of right now and what I would like to be capable of in the future.
MY PROGRAM:
Duration: 8 months (until the end of August)
Goal: Build strength and muscle mass, achieve a flatter belly and leaner physique, gain confidence, build better habits
Workouts:
I've tried many workouts on the internet already and I decided to follow some good fitness channels on Youtube and follow their work out videos, since I don’t have time to go to an actual gym. I will link them in some future posts. I made a weekly workout schedule too.
On Mondays I do half an hour to an hour of yoga targeting my core (abs), on Tuesdays I do body weight exercises targeting the legs and the glutes, on Wednesday I have another day of body weight exercises targeting the abs and on Fridays I have weightlifting to strengthen my arms and back.
I also have one active rest day every week when I am allowed to do nothing or just some light cardio. That is Thursday for me, because I arrive home late (around 7 p.m.) and it's the day that is the most tiring for me in the whole week.
On weekends I have one scheduled full body workout on Saturdays. I usually do pilates or some HIIT workouts. On Sundays I can take a day of if I feel like it, because I don't want to push myself over the edge but if I feel alright I do an hour of cardio.
Speaking of cardio, it is one of my favourite workout categories because I love to run, dance, hike, swim… and these are all workouts that fall into the category. I try to do cardio at least three times a week even if it isn’t scheduled (just because I actually enjoy doing it) but if the weather is nice I take a walk everyday anyway, since I like some peace to think and be alone.
Through the week I work out at around 6 p.m. and on the weekends in the morning or at least before noon.
Dieting:
For me it is really hard to meal prep since I am in high school and I have a lot of my meals prepared for me by other people. I evaluated my eating habits and realized I consume too much sugar and carbs and my diet lacks fiber. I can’t completely follow a low-carb diet but I will be aiming towards consuming less carbs and try to eat food which is low in sugar and high in protein and fiber.
I also challenged myself to eliminate all sugar I could from my diet for at least 40 days but I can happily say that I'm already on day 45 (I started on the 6th of January) – I decided to just continue with it and try to reach 70 days. I planned it for a long time and I can say I am quite satisfied with the outcome. I've tried including a lot of healthy foods, vegetables and high protein foods and minimize foods with a lot of carbs but there are days when I just don't have the option to eat anything but something high in carbs or not as healthy as I would wish it would be.
If you want to, I will definitely write a post about what I eat in a week after I test it out, see how effective it is and perfect it completely.
I have already tried intermittent fasting (will be explained in future posts) in the past once and it worked miracles for me. I felt more energized, way less bloated and I felt better in general. I will incorporate it into my diet again I decided to do a 16:8 ratio – I eat in a time frame of 8 hours. That equals 16 hours of fasting where I don't consume any food I just drink a cup of green tea in the morning.
Drink:
I used to drink very small amounts of water throughout the day but I carry my water bottle with me everywhere I go now and I try to drink as much as possible. These are my main rules for drinking:
-drink 2 water bottles of water a day
-one cup of green tea in the morning (or lemonade)
-don't drink milk in the evening
Sleep:
I try to go to sleep before 11 pm and get up around 6 or 7 am. For me it is pretty hard, because I am a night owl, but I do try, since I see a big difference in my energy and ability to work efficiently throughout the day.
…
That is how I designed my workout and diet program. All details will be specified in further chapters since it is still a bit rough around the edges (especially the diet part), but I cannot meal prep since it is really hard for me to prepare my own food.
I thought I should explain what and how I'm doing everything, since I will be writing about it. This is a basic overview and I didn't really go into detail. If you want me to be more precise, especially about my eating habits and how I'm trying to change them, I will make a post about it. This is just my story and my program. I can't guarantee any of these things would work for you or your body but maybe you will get any idea or find some useful information. You now know my story and my goals.
I always struggled with my self-esteem and body image but I am on the path to changing everything and I want to share the lessons I'm learning and my story with you. I hope it motivates you and you can see you are not alone. You should also remember that even though my measurements and fitness goals don't match yours and you maybe see different numbers than me, you aren't working any less hard or doing anything wrong nor should you be discouraged. We are all on our individual journeys and you have the exact same chance of reaching your goals as I do or anyone else reading this blog.
Whenever I start doubting myself I just avert my thoughts somewhere else because I am positive we all can do this. Remember to love yourself no matter your weight. We are all beautiful and what we are doing and the changes we're making are only to better ourselves physically and mentally but our weight or appearance doesn't define us nor does it define our worth.
Thank you for joining me on this journey!
-M
#health#healthy eating#healthy recipes#fitness#fitwomen#fitbody#fit#lose weight#goals2020#body goals
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Hey!!! It's finally letting me post my year in review!!! 😄✌️🍿
💌 I posted 1,130 times in 2022
💌 That's 373 more posts than 2021!
375 posts created 🎨 (33%)
755 posts reblogged 🔄 (67%)
Blogs I reblogged the most 😎:
@fluffbyday-smutbynight
@sweetoothgirl
@kettykika78
@discordantwords
@inevitably-johnlocked
🔖I tagged 1,002 of my posts in 2022
Only 11% of my posts had no tags 😵
#johnlock - 413 posts 💕
#sherlock - 332 posts 🙃
#bbc sherlock - 238 posts ☕️
#helloliriels - 200 posts 🎨
#ask games - 142 posts ✨️
#liri answers - 121 posts ☺️
#sherlock holmes - 105 posts 🔎
#john watson - 99 posts 🩺
#fake fic titles - 95 posts ✍️
#2022 year of the crack fic - 70 posts 🥳
🔖Longest Tag: 129 characters
#ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
(Rofl)
My Top Posts in 2022:
✨️#5
HELLO FANDOM NEWSLETTER 《 JUN 2022 》
I've decided to begin a monthly newsletter to list happenings in the fandom, now thru Jan (*cough* *cough* copyright), because honestly ... there's a lot going on!! P.S. This newsletter will be inclusive of everything SHERLOCK (not only BBC!):
🎡 JUNE is PRIDE MONTH! Share QUEER positivity and love! I'll be re-blogging works from my first crash course in the fandom! (#I am pridelocked by @ohlooktheresabee 🐝 xoxo) I am not posting a challenge this year, but I know there are several!! I'm following all of you instead! Tag me anytime!
🎡 RUPERT GRAVES BIRTHDAY PROJECT! Annual event for charity, culminating June 30th 🥳🎉! Last year was The Trevor Project! Not sure what charity it is yet 2022? Follow & tags on social media to find out! #rupert graves birthday project // @rupertgravesbirthdayproject //
🎡 HOLMESTICE (A Holmsian Solstice) Going on NOW! A BUNCH of prompt requests came in! Make one!? Fulfill one! (or three? 😄) No limits! More than one gift is welcome per prompt. All for fun, and all for love! Open gifting this round (no assignments - see what inspires!). #holmestice // @holmestice
🎡FANDOM TRUMPS HATE gifts will be posting by various creators throughout the year! Just saw posts by @totallysilvergirl and @khorazir recently! Be sure to follow // #fandom trumps hate // @fandomtrumpshate // (also seen as #fandomtrumpshate // #fth2022 //
The Game is On:
🎡 THREE PATCH PODCAST // Listen to their latest episode! #132: Queerantine a Pride episode! Queer media has grown by leaps and bounds during the pandemic. Join them as they talk about favorite new things to watch, listen, or read! // #three patch podcast // @threepatchpodcast //
🎡 I HEAR OF SHERLOCK EVERYWHERE podcast featured on Spotify hosts all kinds of Sherlock topics from ACD Canon and pastiche to popular Media versions. I've barely dipped my toes in so far ... so I can't guarantee the content! Listener advisory.
🎡 A BETTER STORY rebs of TJLC Explained is back (YouTube) with a 7 part series - to go over everything that happened and why and how we can regain a sense of understanding from it. Well worth a view! And SO much packed into every episode!!! Also FROM A DROP OF WATER a fanfic by @victorianpining with a 'what could have been' fix. So much love 💜 for sharing both of these with us!!! #a better story // #tjlc explained
🎡 SHERLOCKIAN WATCHALONG Every sun & wed! @nixxie-pic and @finalproblem hosting! #the giant chat of sumatra of you want to follow and hop in any week! Noon PST Sundays, 5:30pm PST Wednesdays
Favorite Things:
#BRITPICKING BY @7-percent 🦢 #JOHNLOCKLOVELETTERS by @cupidford 💘 and SHERLOCK #PODFIXX by @podfixx 🎧 !!!
235 notes - Posted June 4, 2022
✨️#4
I think Sherlockians should take a new tack. No more demanding the Johnlock we're still due. I need to know more about the REAL sister.
WHAT ABOUT HARRY?!
I demand answers.
238 notes - Posted February 23, 2022
✨️#3
Together We Crack It! 💋
Been writing away for the '2022 Year of the Crack Fic' challenge? Afraid you might have missed it??! There's still time! Give it a crack!
Crack the code! Find your wacky, wild side! Add your masterpiece to the AO3 collection '2022_Crack_Fix' or post on Tumblr and tag me before Dec 32nd! Any length, any rating. WiP allowed as long as it starts getting cracky before Jan 1st. Wanna read some good crack to get in the mood?? Check out our current entries HERE 📚 🤩 Let's fill those inboxes with laughter!
255 notes - Posted October 18, 2022
✨️#2
We're going back to our roots, with a plethora of ACD Holmes discussions in September! As always, please feel free to INTERACT with, SHARE & TAG this post if you have news to add to the fandom! Updates on Saturdays!!
The Game is On
⭐ HOLMESTICE (WINTER 2022)
The winter Holmestice event kicks off in Sep-Dec to share prompts and gifts within the sherlock fandom! This is inclusive of ALL sherlock adaptations!! What is Holmestice? This is a fan run event, huge thank you to the mods who put in work to make this happen!!! This EVeNt iS A GO!! Follow & Tag: @holmestice // #holmestice // #holmestice 2022
⭐ COTTAGECORE SHERLOCK GAME
Play a retired Sherlock Holmes who just wants to put together the ultimate picnic for Watson - the only problem is that pesky mysteries keep getting in the way! New game in production, check it out! Follow & Tag: @cottagecoresherlock // #cottagecore // #retirementlock
⭐ CANON HOLMES DISCUSSION GROUP
Hello fans of Sherlock Holmes! @iwantthatbelstaffanditsoccupant has created a NEW page for the online group to discuss “Canon Holmes”, and to read through the orig stories in sequence! Check out the post for more details! Follow & Tag: (NEW PAGE!) @bohemiansoulscanondiscussion // #canon holmes // #acd holmes
⭐ DOYLE ESTATE
Friendly reminder that the Doyle Estate can kindly get wrecked come January 2023. Imagine the Winnie the Pooh ‘Blood & Honey’ lashback (teehee), and then multiply it 10x!! If people thought the Sherlock fandom was insufferable before … ??? *wicked grin*⭐ Doyle copyright COUNTDOWN ... oh yeah! ⭐ Days since last HAITUS began ... (eheh) 😭
⭐ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ⭐ Originally published 56 short stories in The Strand magazine & 4 printed novels including the Sherlock Holmes character!
⭐ Fans ⭐ Have created over 426+ pastiche Sherlock Holmes books; 250+ film adaptations; 7 radio programs; 25+ video games; and over 113,200+ Works on AO3 (not to mention the Wattpad, FanFiction.net and other fan spaces!)
Sherlock Holmes is widely considered to be the first modern fandom, creating some of the first fan fiction as early as 1897!
So don't be surprised if your knowledge of Sherlock is more fanon than canon! 😎
See the full post
267 notes - Posted September 3, 2022
...............................
My ✨️#1 ✨️post of 2022
What If I'm Not (Continued ...)
In confessing to Sherlock why he's not o.k., John thinks he will push away the one person he loves and cares about most ...
For how could such a confession not?
See the full post
285 notes - Posted June 7, 2022
(Makes me so happy this is my #1 post of the year!!! @fluffbyday-smutbynight !)
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
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Teacher!Tony wrong number au - Part 4
I'm super excited to post this chapter for two reasons. Firstly, because I'm introducing a few familiar characters and a sort of new one. Secondly, because this chapter got so long that I decided to break it into two. I hope it works for you all, let me know, I’m grateful for every feedback. 🙂
(part 1, part 2, part 3)
After that torturous lesson on Monday, Tony decides that he won’t text Peter Parker again. It’s no more than a bullet point in the list of reckless things Tony swore to avoid from Monday on, yet it still feels important to point out. Tony’s a teacher and Peter’s a student. Their relationship ought to be defined by their roles and even those three times they texted was enough to blur the lines and mess them up. That is, if Peter’s behaviour was anything to go by Monday afternoon. And even if the boy is all right, Tony won't forget anytime soon the disturbing reaction he had to the situation. What situation that was exactly, he doesn’t know, and he isn’t too keen on labelling it, either. Giving it a name would only make it real and that is the last thing Tony needs.
Tuesday morning Tony catches himself keeping an eye out for Peter Parker wherever he goes. It’s almost as if he’s afraid of meeting the boy. Or is it that he’s eager to? Well, Tony most certainly isn’t afraid of the boy. His own reaction, however, is an entirely different story. As for wanting to see Peter, yes, he might wish to, but only to make sure again that the boy is all right. It’s only reasonable, wanting reassurance. Helping him, if he needs to. His motivations are completely respectable, Tony thinks – then feels his stomach drop when he mistakes a sophomore for Peter.
By lunchtime he loses count of how many times he told himself to get a grip. He knows that he will meet Peter eventually and some part of him is confident that it will be all right. Things will go back to normal in no time. Peter will have gotten a confidence boost and Tony will have proved to be able to stay at the rational side of things all by himself. Everything is going to be fine. That is, if he finally comes to his senses and starts treating the situation as he should. Like it never happened. Like it should never have happened. Not with that twitch in his chest, that feels frighteningly like regret, every time he remembers his resolution.
He sees Peter again on Wednesday morning. They exchange the small smile and polite nod Tony expected the first time and it’s alarming how effortless it is. A part of him tells himself to be happy about it, but that part also does everything to ignore the rush of adrenaline and the fluttering of his stomach accompanying that smile. And the disquieting suspicion of what it all might mean.
By Thursday night, Tony feels more exhausted than ever before during his teaching carrier. He desperately needs to get it off his chest. He pours himself a whisky, sits on the sofa and looks Jarvis deep in the eyes.
“I’m in trouble,” he begins. The dog tilts his head with a soft whine.
“Yep, it’s not good,” he sighs. Then he realises what he just said and hurries to add, “but it’s not bad either. I’m just blowing it out of proportion.” His firm voice makes the dachshund put his head down on his feet timidly.
“I enjoyed texting him, yeah, but who wouldn’t?” Tony pleads, waving his glass dangerously in the air. “He’s one of those new generation kids who grew up online. Of course, he’s funny and easy-going. And me? Okay, let’s not start with that,” he allows when the dachshund covers his eyes with a paw. “The point is, that nothing wrong happened. And nothing will happen. I just need to calm the fuck down,” he finishes, burying his face into his hands. “Ugh. Why can’t I just… Shit!”
Prompted by Tony’s strangled voice, Jarvis hops onto the sofa and nudges his thigh with a small paw.
“It’s all right, buddy,” he says, sitting up. “Well, it’s not, not yet, but we’re here to figure it out, aren’t we?”
Tony finishes his drink and refills before he speaks again.
“And so, what if I find him interesting? He is an interesting boy,” Tony insists. The dog whines again. “Yes, okay. I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I notice him before? Do I only find him interesting because we texted? Because we did something forbidden? God, I’m fucked up. But okay, let’s say I do. I feel this, this attraction – strictly in a physical sense. As in relating to physics, not, not the other thing. Yeah... But, but it doesn’t mean that I have to act on it. That’s what makes us human, isn’t it, J?”
“I wouldn’t know, boss, but my Talking to Himself protocol has just been activated” says another voice with a soft British accent.
“Hey there, mother hen. I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to your four-legged cover-up,” Tony quips back at the AI.
“You programmed this protocol to ignore entities that are unable to answer in any known human languages,” J.A.R.V.I.S. informs him.
“Oh, but look at him, he’s all ears. And he was being most supportive, didn’t you listen?” Tony chides, petting the dachshund's head gently.
“I did listen, and about what you sa…,” J.A.R.V.I.S. begins, but Tony interrupts him.
“I didn’t upload my painfully earned self-knowledge into your archives for you to just throw it back at me.”
“So how can I help?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asks, sounding more concerned, than offended.
“How about you make me a hot bath?”
“Right away, boss.”
“That went well, wouldn’t you say?” Tony whispers conspiratorially to Jarvis, as he scratches behind his ears. “I just hope it goes well with Peter tomorrow, too.”
Surprisingly, it does. The hot bath and the unusually peaceful sleep seem to have made a difference, because Friday morning Tony feels calmer than he had in days. He tries to whoosh away the idea that this newfound serenity might have more to do with finally seeing Peter again, than successful coping. But even if it is so, he can’t wish away his emotions. He just has to keep it together for a short time, a few weeks maybe, certainly not more than three and then his life would become safely uneventful once more. It already looks promising. During the lesson, Tony’s in a much more reasonable state of mind than last time and Peter looks at him again.
Tony he knows himself too well to relax, though, despite feeling relieved on his way home for the week-end. Believing that it’s all behind him just because one lesson went well is… tempting. And that’s exactly what makes him wary. Tony is aware, even if he doesn’t feel them at the moment, that some of the messy, irrational and absolutely inappropriate emotions he’s been dealing with all week linger on.
As a consequence, Tony has the most irregular weekend in a long time – well, none more so, than the last one when he texted a student, but he doesn’t count that one. Instead of staying in his workshop, he spends almost all of Saturday in Central Park with Jarvis. He watches skaters, talks to a nice paintress, feeds the ducks and walks more than he thinks advisable in the chilly weather. It works reasonably well. Even though Peter pops into his mind at least a hundred times during the day, Tony at least doesn’t spend his evening fighting off more thoughts of the boy. He barely finishes feeding Jarvis before he collapses onto the sofa, fast asleep.
When Tony wakes up a little before noon he’s both grateful for only having to come up with half a day’s worth of distractions and annoyed at himself for that thought. After walking Jarvis, he grades a few freshmen’s homework, but stops when he almost falls asleep. Later in the afternoon, after spending a miserable hour trying to concentrate on lesson plans, Tony turns his TV on and in a desperate attempt at distraction, selects the superhero movie with the most handsome men running around in tight suits. It doesn’t help. Getting slightly aroused by all the action and sexiness and at the same time wondering who Peter Parker’s favourite character is… Well it’s as far from making things better as it can be.
When turning in unusually early for the third night in a row, Tony resolves not to make any more resolutions. His attempts at dealing with the situation seem to have yielded mixed results. Results, he feels unable to untangle at the moment. So, Tony decides to just go about thing as usual – or at least as close to usual as he can manage – and see what happens.
What does happen the next day, however, is nothing he prepared for. Thankfully three nights of long, uninterrupted sleep gives him enough presence of mind to avoid making a scene, but at the end of the period Tony can barely wait until the last student leaves the classroom before he takes out his phone and texts Peter.
Aaand stay tuned for part 5 which is almost ready and coming soon 😉
Notes: Yes, Tony has J.A.R.V.I.S., the AI and his reasons for keeping it a secret – hence Jarvis, the dog, who looks like the one in the pic below. (And of course, you’ll find out what those reasons are, if you stick with me for a bit longer.)
Thanks for reading and special thanks if you share your thoughts on this chapter with me 🙂
Edit 10-02-2019: Part5
#starker#teacher!tony#wrong number au#part 4#dog photo not mine#the dog isn't mine either#a reluctant writes
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I'm one of the fortunate ones in this whole situation. My mom had a friend that had power when ours went out. We lived in Kentucky for a few years so my mom knew to keep the faucets dripping. When the friend's water went out, our power came back on. My mom stocks up on water bottles religiously because she doesn't like the taste of the tap water here. She gave the friend some water and we went back home. Our pipes are fine, our car is fine, and now all we have to deal with is the Boil Order and our water coming on and going off again.
The first day (Sunday) wasn't too bad. My mom had planned ahead and all was good. She saw the forecast and refused to let me outside to touch the snow. She figured we'd be snowed in for a while and bought a bunch of food so we wouldn't have to leave. The car was completely iced over and it was so cool. I hadn't seen so much snow since I lived in Kentucky, and I was about four or five at the time. My mom had wanted to do some last minute errands to get some more water and an ice scraper. We broke ice off the windows and mirrors, and we got to play in the snow. I found great joy in punching the ice to see it crack, though it was super cool when it just slid off in a large sheet. The doors were completely frozen shut, so we had to let the car heat up a bit. Then we did all except the left back window (because no one sits there) and left. We bought a glass tile remover and used that because they don't sell ice scrapers here, and we went back home, car mostly free of ice. That night, the power flickered, but we figured it would be fine in the morning.
It wasn't.
The next day (Monday) was pretty bad. The power didn't come on, and it was freezing. We all ate a freezing bowl of cereal and took a look at the situation. We had two flashlights, and my mom knew she wouldn't be able to handle the darkness. The only problem was....our fireplace is wood burning. So, she had us bundle up and break the ice off the car (again) and use a dust pan (from a broom) to shovel a path to the car so we wouldn't track any in the house. The snow was about half an inch deeper than it was on Sunday. It was much colder on Monday than it was on Sunday too. My fingers couldn't handle the cold, and my sister and I rotating to shovel the path was horribly inefficient, so we only got about half way before my mom told us to stop because we were going too slow. Initially, I had wanted to scrape ice on the windows, but, since we don't have gloves, my hands were having a hard time gripping the scraper, eventually I begged to switch places with my mom because I hadn't even managed to pluck a single piece of ice off after a minute or so of fumbling. It didn't help. My hands were red and freezing and I'd spent only five minutes outside. I couldn't handle the dust pan very well either, and I wanted to break down and cry in frustration. I rotated with my sister, running hot water over my hands so I could feel them every time we did so. My mom saw how slow I was going and asked if I wanted to freeze, my response was "I'm going this slow because I am freezing." She had finished surprisingly quickly and we all got into the car, giving up on making a path. The roads were more dangerous than they were on Sunday, simply because there was more snow. Eventually, we managed to make it to Walmart. They had no logs. No cold food. No flashlights. So my mom bought about twelve candles. Walmart's gas station was closed, so we went to the Sam's gas station and got stuck. We struggled for about five minutes before a family came over and helped push us out of the snow. My mom was irritated that they wouldn't let her pump gas at the pump she was already at, ignoring the fact that the snow was too deep in that area to even move, and I was the only one that said thank you, but at least we were out. When we got home, my mom placed two candles in each bathroom and placed the rest around the living room/kitchen/dining room area (yes they are all one single room). We used the flames to warm our hands, and I passed out for a good four and a half hours, only waking up because I was overheating in my hoodie. I woke up at about six and my mom asked me to start the car so we could have somewhere warm to sit and eat. Thirty-ish minutes later we were in the car, warm, munching on chips and lunch meat. We were having issues with the internet, so entertainment was hard to come by and it was extremely boring, but at least we were warm. We stayed in the car from seven to eleven and went to sleep cold. The internet was very choppy, so all i have are these tweets, all made on the same day, even if two of them didn't post until the next day. I don't have tweets from any other days, except today, sorry.
The next day (Tuesday) was bad. We were freezing, and my mom had booked us a hotel, knowing that we couldn't stay without heat for too long, especially considering the fact that we didn't have wood and candles could only supply so much heat. We packed up immediately after waking up, leaving around noon to go to the hotel, even though check in wasn't until three. My dad was nagging us, trying to get us to make the two hour drive to San Antonio to stay with him, which was definitely a "No" considering the state of the roads. We told him we were staying at a hotel, I told him which one, and he called them for us. They were overbooked. My mom was not pleased, and, after double checking, tried to find a solution that wouldn't force her to drive two hours to my dad's apartment. All the hotels in the nearest cities were booked. So my mom called her friends and luckily one of them had power and water, and two extra rooms, and she lived five minutes away from the hotel parking lot (though the actual trip was about double that because of the snow). We all decided to stay in one room, because it kept that one room warmer and we didn't want to impose. We went back to the apartment to get a cot, because Miss Sabina had an air mattress, and we got all settled in. The room had carpets, but the pets weren't allowed in, so we were fine. I have a severe allergy to most animals that aren't reptiles or amphibians, fur and feathers are real bad, and Miss Sabina had two cats and a dog. It was fine though. Maybe half an hour after settling in, my mom got a call, the hotel had a booking canceled and offered us the room. We didn't want to go through the trouble of getting everything back in the car, so we declined it. My mom set up her computer to do school work (even though she works from home, the set up is so convoluted that she'd rather use her PTO than have to try taking it apart and setting it up again), and we were all set. The cage thing we put the cot on was really uncomfortable, so I ended up putting the thin cot on the floor, because even though my hips jutting into the ground was uncomfortable, being able to feel all the metal supports of the other thing was way worse. We went to sleep, warm.
The next day (Wednesday), my mom got an email that the apartment complex had shut off the water, but all was fine in Miss Sabina's house. I did learn that we only own one salt truck and only the bridges were salted. We don't own any plows, and the people on the budget committee(i think that's what it's called) don't want to allocate any money to plows or salt trucks because this storm was apparently just a fluke. Miss Sabina works with the city btw.
The next day (Thursday), Miss Sabina's power started flickering, but it was fine. I was apparently on my period, I didn't realize it because I always get a brownish discharge after it ends and theoughout most of the year, even though it's usually in lesser amounts and usually doesn't have drops of red. I definitely noticed when my pants and underwear were stained a dark red the morning of Thursday. It was inconvenient. That would've put me on my period for a straight eleven days. It was annoying.
The next day (Friday), the water was shut off in Miss Sabina's house. We checked our apartment, because finally the roads weren't completely covered in snow, and the water was still off, but the power was back. Twelfth day on my period.
Today (Saturday), we packed up and left Miss Sabina's house. Our water comes and goes, but my mom managed to buy a pack of bottled water that'll last us a while if I control how much water I drink (I usually drink a lot). I took advantage of the water being back and managed to finally take a poo, because one does not poop in another persons house, not when you're me, anyway. My stomach feels better now, and maybe I'll actually manage to eat something more than half a serving. I'm glad the heat's back, even if the boil order is going to be annoying, and the lack of water, but we're doing fine compared to many other people. My dad's fine, my brother and grandparents haven't called, and my best friend lives in Nevada and is unaffected. Thirteenth day on my period.
I'm so happy I was this lucky, but I'm definitely not getting caught dead in this situation again. When I graduate, I don't care if the northern states are better prepared for this, I'm going to hoard everything to make sure I'm not blindsided by this again. And maybe I'll invest in mittens.
I would like to say "fuck you" to both Ted Cruz and my period, because I was so happy to have a lighter period than usual, and it went and fucked up by extending to two weeks (at least) instead of lasting the normal miserably heavy four days.
#texas winter storm#winter storm#how i survived the texas winter storm 2021#2021 winter storm#texas#my story#winter storm 2021
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