#im not like. blaming my past self for it necessarily i planned that with the editing power of IMOVIE in mind thats why it looks Like That | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

12.7% of mobile users access Tumblr.

#im not like. blaming my past self for it necessarily i planned that with the editing power of IMOVIE in mind thats why it looks Like That

idealspawn · 9 months

Text

so the guy im seeing came back from his trip. we met up yesterday. he told me we should stay friends. i guess its okay its just a bit weird. its funny bc i felt so bad about not liking him as much as he seems to like me. so i literally like. trained myself to get used to being real vulnerable w him. and meanwhile he, unknowingly to me, trained himself to get used to the idea of not having me present in his life the same way as i was up until now. its not too bad because it felt weirdly forced to me too at times but its like. i tend to push through that. i think of feelings like waves. i know theyre sometimes still there even when im disconnected to them. not that its like that for everyone but i dont think i believe in like soulmates for a while already. like i dont think youre supposed to feel crazy attraction right away and click right away and be comfortable w everything RIGHT away. that if sth feels wrong it might be that the situation is wrong not the persin as a whole. it just bothers be that he wasnt fully honest from the get-go. like that he said all was well when it wasnt. for me, being truly aware of eachother's raw perspectives is the thing that helps me move on, not trying to save me from hurt by withholding details bc my gut still tells me sth is off despite what he says directly, you know. he said he met up w his ex right before his trip and realized that neither me or his ex is what he wants. and that he shouldve started the convo w that but he was embarrassed. and that he feels like an idiot bc of that. he also kept repeating that he is really uncomfortable w talking abt emotions, that it will send him into a crisis. but if he wont talk abt them... i will go spiralling.. you know.. noone fucking wins. and he said he knows that so he did talk abt his emotions in a way after all after i fried him w questions to tell me abt things. i guess its maybe.. um.. good that he isnt my love interest anymore bc i really need someone who is okay with emotions, like really okay. i asked him to tell me wtf am i supposed to do now bc he has had all this time to think abt it but i havent. he is pretty self-aware. he said he knows it was a dick move to lead me on like that. but i guess i knew his approach to his past relationships so i cant blame him necessarily. its just that i used to be like him, thinking that a moment of disconnection ALWAYS meant that the feelings arent there anymore. which they sometimes arent but also a lot of the times its just a question of the perspective you look at relationships and feelings from. so i assumed he maybe too has changed bc i have changed and you know when i talk abt my past then i talk abt it.. as the past.. idk.. he also will move to brussels in not too long which is a weird ass turn of events. i guess its good he said it now as summer still lasts, i have time to adjust. its just that i literally planned him in my fucking plans already. nothing insane but i kind of assumed he would be in my life for a while more. though he still will be in my life because we will stay friends and stuff but i cant do it the same. like i cant give him as much time of my week. well i can but that wouldnt be us being friends.

7 notes · View notes

kicktwine · 3 years

Text

ask dump (big long)

1) ABDBHTDND YEAH THEY DID UM, they did the ”no THANK you..! etc etc BUT IM WEAK” song too! Wild how that is now. points at them hey I know those guys

2) OHHH….. THIS HITS……….. I like missio sometimes but this is a nice chorus also: Vanitas… yeah I, like, always love music recs. they can be hit or miss but it’s only fair with how much music I find and then immediately go what if I showed everyone

3) how many does he have in there now, eleven? Twelve??? He signed up for one mouse and he got eleven human children or at least nine to ten human children, two young adults, and two regular adults who aren’t going to be helpful—

4) aaaaaaaaa thank you!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

5) MMM I haven’t thought extensively about cowboys for a while… it’s been mostly space up here for now, haha. I like my space murder. But that’s not to say I haven’t given them some fond passing thoughts! Two bros sitting in a river 5 feet apart cos they’re covered in mud and smell awful and one of them is very loudly blaming the other for the plan that involved hiding behind a barn (actually the last thing I wrote in my notes is a mini totally unfinished drabble of hiding in Lea’s bar but the “great hiding place” Lea has is in his floor)

6) gosh I Have to wonder if it’s a case of destiny/universal “the nature of humanity is that every so often someone invents homestuck again” or if we just, like, had common knowledge of the book of prophecies. Or not even the Book, maybe, I have to assume that knowledge/observance of the Foretellers phased out pretty quickly, but prophecies left unfulfilled would linger for generations probably. Or maybe they’re even old stories, a tale of seven masters of the past drawn in to a chess game, or the game based on the old fairytales, or the numbers 7 and 13 are ingrained in local culture … see, because obviously Xehanort implies that this prophecy/old masters stuff ISNT common knowledge, but Eraqus CERTAINLY knows about it and it’s in all the architecture/local myths… ok but then also, if we’re to take the opening chess game as more than just clever symbolic narrative bookends, everyone’s symbols ARE right there. I just kind of registered that’s probably what you were talking about. In which case our questions are still there, how much did the common populace know and how much did eraqus know? Did he like, end up with three apprentices who had very distinct chess symbols as keychains and go uh oh john or what—

hey why’d you do this to me. I’m a tired college student in scala on my sixth response paper about the prophetic legitimacy of foreordained keybearers versus the self-imposed creation of destiny as following common legend and I’m arguing with some guy named Einar about how you can’t just fake a prophetic fulfillment by claiming to be the Crown piece in chess. You can’t just KIN A CHESSPIECE, Einar.

7) ABGDJGD TY..!!! To be honest they also live in my head rent-free! Some of them need to start paying rent because I’m supposed to be in school getting Better at storyboarding—

8) hard same hey thats just bc magnet is uhhhh. The best spell? Aside from mine spells

9) SEE AGAIN I DONT KNOW bc for one Sora obviously isn’t ENTIRELY unique, if he’s able to be diagnosed so quickly, but this “holding your nobody and two to four other people in there” kind of thing probably has never been seen before. But for another, Roxas and Xion have copied a keyblade. Just like — a keyblade? Copied entirely? Wild.

anyways keyblade manifestation is a mystery to me and I’d love to see it explored because what we know the Lore is, is this: they were fashioned after the likeness of the x-blade. They can be bequeathed to others (shown to not necessarily mean that exact keyblade is passed down, probably this means the ability to wield can be bequeathed). They can be WILLFULLY given. They come from the heart, they are not welded out of steel. They are…. questionably sentient, or maybe just sapient, or somehow are picky about who holds them. Side note khwiki is telling me things I Did not know about the whereabouts of Ven’s heart during 358 and also the ability to wield two which requires more than one heart obvi but which is named synch blade??? always question the wiki but these have sources. Anyways. Keychains can swap their forms so they have a Base and Custom Skins mode. There are three kinds, Light (common), Darkness (Michael mouse??? Not his bbs one the rod one which I GUESS is a counterpa Iiiiii am getting off trackaaaaa), and Heart (which I’m guessing is just the x-blade, maybe the gayblade, and the kh1 keyblade of heart??). Um. What was my point here. OH yeah I was just gonna say Bro Wild. This is completely a mystery to me. Does every keykid’s base form keyblade look different, and we were all just given cool keychains? Are there some kids who melded unique keychains? If I were connecting dots wildly and with reckless abandon I’d say yeah and also you cannot just suddenly one day wield one, you HAVE to be bequeathed, but as soon as that happens it sparks the creation of your own personal heart sword. Every keyblade is manifested independently — those wielding a family keyblade have the ability to summon their own, if necessary, but the family sword is taking up that space in their heart and theyd have to get used to making their own. since, it seems, keyblades (summoned) will die and solidify if their bearer dies, but keyblades (unsummoned) will either disappear or summon themselves somewhere else and retain a small piece of your… essence. A legacy keyblade, I feel, would be a little something like feeling every past Avatar and you are the avatar, but you can’t talk to them. They’re there tho. Also I think that having an exceptionally strong heart would be not only a moral requirement for ensuring the keyblade’s duty is upheld, but also a physical requirement! youre carving out a bit of your heart to make room for a sword. Weak hearts should not do that even if they want to.

aye… how was that longer than the scala answer? You got me on tangents again in these essays I

10 (submission from licilou22)

NGDBFDBFSHGDHFDHGDA 😎👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 WHEEZING

#ask #MANY ASKS (10)#well 9 and a submission #anon #kh #oh to be a tired scala graduate student #oh to write thesis papers about keychains #anyways love u alll……. Thank u for asks #…… 💕💕💕👁👄👁#paopubell #rosie-kairi #licilou22 #infernal-fox #metazone

34 notes · View notes

ginnotwist · 2 years

Text

phf spoilers possibly, idk, im just copy pasting thoughts i put on twitter and want to gather my bearings here

some thoughts on fugo and phf

purple haze feedback feels like such a necessary addition to p5........... like u could argue that because its almost entirely fugo development u dont Need it but i think that /bc/ its fugo development that it’s so integral to understanding how passione functions after all is said and done. hell, even before that too

its easily made fugo one of my favorite p5 characters. like not only do you get to see more of him so you know why he is the way he is (fucked up n mad all the time) but it really paints the relationships in gw in a different light.

like, hell, i think most ppl interpret bucci gang to be like a family in those 8 days. and yet, from fugos pov, they were all strangers, even those he knew for the longest time. when it comes down to it, bucciarati wasnt a parental figure in the sense that he provided fugo with some measure of comfort/familiarity, but rather, in the sense that fugo depended on him to tell him what to do, at all times.

in spite of his haughtiness towards the rest and apparent maturity (at least in comparison to his age) it really just...drills into you that he’s a kid. when he talks about not having gotten on the boat bc bruno had told him that he could make the decision himself, and that he wasnt forced to join, it all makes a lot of sense. i feel like looking back to the actual boat scene makes this even more effective; i remember disliking fugo bc i didnt quite understand why he wouldnt join but now im like... Oh.

to come from a rigid upbringing, to nothing, to once again having his every move planned out and then staring at nothing again -- an endless void, with no end in sight, its heartbreaking. like regardless of what he had chosen, he’s helpless

ANYWAY fugo is v interesting because he blames others for his shortcomings and doesn’t necessarily understand why ppl would give themselves for others voluntarily (i.e bruno betraying the boss, narancia and trish) -- but phf is just fugo sitting down and realizing that hey, maybe caring about others is Good™, actually, and that not everything has to boil down to self-preservation, or simply doing what he is told.

when he comes to the conclusion that he and sheila e are the same i Cried bc he finally realizes that in spite of his (gestures) everything it doesnt have to mean that hes beyond help. sometimes the help comes from realizing that he isn’t alone in his anger, his hurt

like all in all realizing his anger is not a bad, alienating thing, that he doesnt need to be Told to weaponize it but rather can control on his own to protect those he (chooses to) cares about *nod nod* its tastey. im proud of him!

also seeing that giorno was aware of this the whole time and was why he set out to have fugo do this whole mission in the first place... we love an emotionally intelligent boss

#methinks #< my new text post analysis tag etc etc whatever #i wanna draw more fugo/phf fanart in general. sheila e my beloved

8 notes · View notes

ranvwoop · 3 years

Note

TALK ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTHCARE I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHY IT'S THERE BUT I WANNA HEAR THE EXPLANATION ALSO THE ONLY HOUSE THAT"S NOT ON FIRE (YET) FOR THE SAME REASON I JUST WANNA SEE THE ANALYSIS:TM: IF U WANT I WANNA SEE IF I GOT IT RIGHT :D

Hi :DDD. Thank u for asking,,,, I have many thoughts. I am sorry in advance. This is one of those things I will put under a readmore because I am into rambling. IT GOT A LOT LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED IM SORRY. Like. a lot. It was 4 pages in google docs because i dont trust tumblr to save my drafts

Okay a lot of my Ranboo thoughts are about the syndicate / boreal trio / peerpressure duo. But you’re probably aware I am a Them enthusiast first and both a dsmp enjoyer and person second. Because. I really like the syndicate. I also don’t have too too many thoughts on the more recent lore past the experiments. Once the in character monologues stopped, so did my brain. I communicate through monologue to monologue communication.

American Healthcare is actually gonna be the main reason why this is so long bc it works Very Much for like three different reasons. One sorta niche and abstracter reason is a stream that was basically never elaborated on back in March, either the day after or very close to the peerpressure Egg confrontation stream. The egg called him a coward (for some reason my brain can Only come up with the “stop saying i look like chicken little. he’s dumb, and a coward, and i am NOT a coward” vine), and he is not a coward, so he decided to make an action plan to bring the server together by acting as a mediator for all parties and try to make sure that everyone is happy, because he’s the only one that can see all sides, or something. This was where he said the big happy family™ line but other than Ranboo Become Dream?? analysis nothing else really happened and everything went along as normal.

(I also always held a little bit of suspicion on this stream actually and thought it might be the influence of the egg, because it says it can give one whatever they want, and ranboo wants to make everyone happy and this was a totally foolproof way of doing that. Sort of in a similar way that BBH is convinced that his plan will totally make Skeppy happy. But also Ranboo is just like that, but this felt a little more on the nose than usual and he did fall into the egg and made his decisions after being egged on by it, buT WE’LL NEVER KNOW, WILL WE?

… also I really wanted to see more egg conflict at the time. Peerpressure rlly got involved in the egg plot for cameos at the banquet and nothing else. I do not blame anyone and respect the ccs for all of their attempts to weave plots together but also. also…. we.. we coulda had so much…)

That was a little off topic from the point, but… he really just thinks he can save the sick… he can see that everyone on the server is unwell and is wrong but, y’know, look inwardly, the unwell is coming from inside the house. And an inherent problem of the way that the server runs. And if this is still lowkey in effect or not (idk man a) ranboo has monologued a lot I simply chose a one off from march to grow emotionally attached to and b) i think that my brain has shut off once ranboo stopped solo lore streams), it would probably go the way that most choosing to change the system from the inside goes. Which is the point of the song and stuff! He will inevitably decide what’s too far, whether he will either admit it’s a choice or just feel that it’s what he has to do. The, uh, dealing with the devil, to be polite.

in conclusion (but we are not close to done here i’m holding you for a bit longer), i think a lot about that stream and i think that shows what he wants to be, at the very least, and continuing down that path would definitely go into being far more trouble than just a noble goal of wanting to help people, from negotiating with corruption (The lobbyists, the Congressmen and lies bit) and that the server can’t really be brought together and saved like that (When things are more and more this way / Sometimes it's like they'd rather die)

THE LESS. vwoop why have you written an unnecessarily long post about one stream in your playlist character analysis reason is both more literal and piece by piece and also Syndicate, My Beloved, you know the drill. We are going line by line because I have a lot of feelings about American Healthcare, apparently.

This also comes back to that everyone on the server is doing Really Badly, all of the time, but mostly his time in L’Manburg. For one, he is pretty complacent in everything and doesn’t really accomplish much in terms of actual change, so like Well people die every day / I wouldn't have it any other way / I just think they should feel good while they are alive. An example of this is Exiled Tommy — who I’d also metaphorically put as the dead man just for funsies, since Tommy’s whole exile thing was one of the first things Ranboo experienced on the server—as he did try to be friends with Tommy and keep him company with his letters, but he still has no power over the actual issue at hand. Just trying to make it a bit more bearable. Similarly is Techno, while Ranboo still participated in the butcher army that was trying to kill him, he helped in the meantime until he “died”.

And then it’s the Realization that participating in the system doesn’t really help much, and the subsequent Everything. It could be getting mad at the whole government system and that he didn’t mean to contribute to the harm, or how he fought with Fundy using hs ideology but not in the way that Ranboo thought. It could also be standing up to his hallucination Dream, in that he doesn’t try this hard to be a good person just to be accused of helping with all of the things that he may or may not have helped with. (That is… a discussion for not right now, I don’t know.) And I think this sort of area is also where it’s like they’d rather die is also relevant, cause Doomsday. Nobody could just set aside their governments and just get along, though Ranboo had his own solution to fighting and things.

And then he joins the Syndicate! And the lyrics of the song are directly Government Bad, because government bad. Canon anarchist, has done things that he’s not proud of as a part of the government. The lines it was the government / … It got louder over the years / Until all that I could hear was flies and all.

But honestly I think in the Syndicate he’s still trying to “save the sick”! Because the Syndicate don’t All fit eye to eye either. He’s the token pacifist, and a vote against violence whenever it comes down to it. Not all anarchists are violent but Techno and Phil will probably react strongly when provoked, due to All the past events, and I live in a world where their trauma and issues get talked about as much as everyone else’s. Since everything is decided by vote it’d probably be split between them and Ranboo + Niki, who is in her healing/no longer resorting to murder arc. He’ll help them negotiate and then everything will Be Okay, ideally.

(Also I just like the idea of Ranboo believing that he is helping the people he’s living with because canonically cc!Ranboo has said he just really cares about his family and the syndicate are included in his family shut up but they also just believe they’re helping him and yes it’s self indulgent. I care them. Particularly Endduo, actually, or whatever they're called, I am not bold enough to think Ranboo looks at Techno and thinks I Can Fix Him, but. Philza Minecraft will one day talk about his feelings. One day.)

There’s also radioduo and beeduo as of recent— really I’m just saying I think that Ranboo constantly has a Need To Help People, believes he can do it, and it will come back to hurt him in the end (except for the Syndicate because I’m in denial. The Syndicate can’t fall out if they never stream together :) ).

THIS CONCLUDES THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE PORTION OF OUR SHOW.

The Only House That’s Not on Fire Yet !! I like this one. This is also blatantly there cause Syndicate. They are the only faction that is not actively falling apart, and this could absolutely be because they never stream together. But I do not care. However we are also going to go through this one piece by piece because we’re nearing 1500 words here and I might as well embarrass myself more. I am writing an incredibly informal essay about Ranboo My _Beloved (i assume his middle name is My, and he’s just one of those people who write his full full name) and this is the third page. If you’re still reading this, I’m sorry. Here we go.

There are lines that just seem like an unwell but recovering person, and I like to sort of think that way about Ranboo in the arctic during the down time. “I feel knotted up today / But in a most exquisite way” and “I feel strangely regular / But honestly I prefer it to / The usual bizarre” are just! He’s just hanging out. He’s doing good. There is the acknowledgement that he’s usually not doing well, and all of the episodes that he’s had in the past, and it’s probably strange to be doing well in the midst of everything, and there’s probably something impending, but now? He’s doing good!

The verses directly after both of those ones are about uncertainty and trust and such, and I feel like that’s not necessarily about just One relationship but all of them. Will cause problems as long as he has an accomplice. He is not confident but he trusts and loves people.

“This suit doesn’t fit me / I made it conterfeitly” I just like to think about Ranboo in his fancy suit, but it’s just a little wrong because he actually has no idea what he’s doing. I also like to think about Ranboo in a cape to fit in with boreal trio and later the syndicate, and emerald duo had matchy blue outfits from the Antarctic Empire… and trying to fit in with them…. or maybe They make him something.. You know. Much to think about.

“Killing me with déjà vu” I think is like. A little less fun, because despite how well things are going, the enderwalk is still not resolved and he had even less answers when I started thinking “this is a ranboo song”. Just as it relates to having a strange sense of reality and stuff, which goes into specifics of enderwalk headcanons, which would make this far longer. Even though I’ve framed it as a negative, there is also the more positive note of “Oh! I just thought of how to change all the hate / Into love with the old switcheroo / Dancing in my déjà vu / You'll be dancing too” which I’d rather explain broken up but I feel like as it’s a full verse it should be together. The first part is connected to my general thoughts of him explained earlier tbh, he’s trying Very Hard to make everyone happy and fix things. And adding the second part to it is just like! He is trying to make sense of everything, and it’s not so scary as time goes by. Since the experiments where he’s been (questionably) trying to be more comfortable and get more answers.

This was very long. I am sorry. I am ending it here and probably not going to do much formatting to make it readable because it is very late o’clock and also this is four pages and 2000 words I am so sorry. But if you read this far then. Uhhh thank. ^v^.

#asks #vwoop.noises #☆graphite☆#Reader. graphite in particular. i am so sorry.#this is. kind of just embarassing actually #if you notice a tone switch at the end its cause i got tired and didnt want to finish this in the morning #and look at my past sins #2k words of analyzing r*nboo in the direction of some internet songs. not. the thing you want to think hard abot that when you wake up #ok i fell asleep looking at the post page. 10/10 #but uh otherwise thank u for asking (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

5 notes · View notes

lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

Text

“she acts like summer and walks like rain”

The power goes out. What are three things that you have taken for granted? I mean, it depends how long it goes out for. I’ve only experienced that for a couple hours at most from what I can recall, so. Although, the worst to me is when it happens for any length of time during the summer because it instantly feels like a sauna in my house and it’s absolutely miserable. D: It happened a few times this past summer during a heat wave with triple digit temps... not fun. But yeah, that’s the only thing that really bothers me from my experience. I just mess around on my phone, play Animal Crossing, read, or just chill with the fam. My dad acts like it’s the end of the world lol like a couple minutes in he’s like, “what are we going to do for food?? I think we might have to get a hotel or something, we can’t stay here with no power.” lol.

Have you ever done the Polar Bear plunge on New Years? I’ve never done it and never would. Nooo thanks. I don’t swim or get into the ocean, lake, or river for one, for two, diving into freezing cold temperatures sounds horrific. It’d probably shock my body and kill me.

Name lyrics that include the word "baby" in them. “Oh baby, you got what I need, but you say I’m just a friend.”

You get to choose your middle name! It must begin with the letter H. Nah.

Have you ever had a Halloween party? Yeah. I had one when I was in like 2nd grade and invited kids from my class over. I had a few smaller, more just like hangouts, with my cousins or friend as well. The most recent was like 4 years ago. I’ve been to more Halloween parties than I’ve thrown, though.

Would you rather have a plant cactus or venus flytrap? A cactus.

Are you better at crosswords or word searches? I love word searches.

Would you rather have a water balloon fight or a paint ball fight? I’ve only had water balloon fights, back when I was a kid. I wouldn’t want to have either one now. Running around and getting hit with stuff just doesn’t sound fun. I don’t have the energy for all that. Also paint ball fights sound especially painful.

Do you like being told what to do? In some cases I might need a little push or can’t decide on something so I’ll sometimes ask someone what I should do. Doesn’t mean I’ll listen, but it can be helpful. I don’t like when someone tells me what to do as a command. I’m super stubborn, so being told to do something just makes me not want to do said thing even more, even if I already planned on doing it.

What would you do if you were attacked by thugs? If I was attacked by anyone I wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot.

Do you have a favorite word? I can never think of one on the spot when asked.

On what circumstances would you break up with someone? If they cheated on me I might, but I can’t say for sure. It would depend on a few things. I’d also like to think I would if there was abuse. I feel like I would, but I’ve never been in that situation and I know it’s not always that simple.

Have you ever been kicked out of a store? No.

What's your worst subject? Math was always my worst subject.

What are 3 things that make you happy? God, my family (including my doggo), and vacations.

“baby, let me be your last first kiss”

Have you ever been pampered? I get my hair done fairly regularly (not so much now... I can blame covid this year, but let’s be real the past few years I started slacking).

Are you going to force your kids to be in activity or let them choose? I don’t want to have kids; however, IF I did, I wouldn’t force them to. I would certainly encourage and support, but it’d be their decision. If they didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t push it. It should be enjoyable for them, not torture.

Do you watch Toddler and Tiaras? Nah, I never got into that.

What was the last band t-shirt you bought? Nirvana.

If someone asked you to go to war today, what would you say? Uh, no???

Are you passionate? I feel like I haven’t been passionate in years. Like, even things I like I don’t get as excited about like I used to. I just feel unmotivated and deflated.

Do you usually get nervous before taking a test? Always. I had major test anxiety.

True or false : Your middle name begins with the letter J False.

Are you more comfortable in public or in your house? Most definitely in my house. This is my safe, comfortable place where I’m not judged. My self-esteem has always been crap, but these past few years it’s been even worse. I’m very self-conscious. I also just don’t like being around a lot of people.

Do you own an old vintage typewriter? No.

Do you hate how dogs bark every time someone comes to your house? No, I want my doggo to do that. She’s not excessive about it, though. And she’s not a little yappy dog that barks when an ant walks by lol. My neighbor’s dogs bark a lot, feels like it goes on forever and it’s annoying.

What's a commercial that you cannot stand? I don’t pay much attention to commercials.

Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper? Dr. Pepper.

Do you say "mate?" like Hello, mate! No.

What makes you rate a survey? I don’t rate them. I decide if I’m going to take a survey by skimming over the first few questions and seeing if they’re of interest to me and if I’ve already done it before (well, at least to see if I’ve done it recently).

“I can’t explain loneliness”

Do you drink Mountain Dew? I haven’t had it in probably like 10 years. I used to love the red and blue one. Oh, and I liked the AMP energy drinks Mountain Dew used to(?) have.

How many weddings have you been to? Three.

When you smile, are you confident? No.

Have you ever not done something because you were afraid of getting in trouble? Yeah.

Was the weather beautiful today? It’s finally been feeling like fall, which I love.

Do you have to have a fan on when you sleep? Yes. During the hot months I have 3 going at all times in my room. I still have 2 of them going even though I’ve been needing a blanket now. I love it, though. If I turned them off I know I’d get warm again. I’d love to have it be cold and need a blanket year round. Would you rather have an orange, red or gray bedroom? Out of those, I guess gray.

Would you ever dye part of your hair blue? No. I dye my hair red and I just want to keep it that color.

Have you ever gone to a private school? My UC is.

Is Finding Nemo a favorite movie of yours? No, but it’s cute.

Does/Did your school have a uniform? My preschool did. Turn on the TV. What channel are you on? It is on, it’s on MTV.

Does your house have security cameras? Yes.

What's your favorite Another Cinderella Story? The one with Hilary Duff.

Does a popsicle sound good right now? No. I’m not a popsicle kind of gal.

“0 of your friends are online - yup, I feel like a loser.”

Do you drink more water or juice? Definitely water. I don’t like juice, so I never drink it.

Sweater weather or tank top weather? Which do you prefer. Tank top weather all the way, no competition. I hate summer. I also don’t wear tank tops.

Do you always carry a purse with you? Not lately. The other day was the first time I had one, well it was my Baby Yoda mini backpack, in several months.

Do you update your Facebook relationship status when it changes? It’s never changed since making my Facebook in 2008 :X Joseph and I had our thing, but it wasn’t an official relationship. If I were to get in a relationship I wouldn’t rush to make it Facebook official cause who cares, like that wouldn’t be my first thought, but I could decide to change it at some point. Ha, maybe I would do it right away cause it’d be so surprising and shocking that I’d have to share it with everyone lmao.

Have you ever kissed a Zachary? Nope.

Do you hate when people try to embarrass you? Uh, being embarrassed certainly isn’t fun... I wouldn’t want someone to purposely try and embarrass me. Do you like in October when a bunch of haunted places open up? I like October for many Halloween-related reasons, but not for ghost walks or haunted houses - those aren’t really my thing. <<< Same, I don’t do all that.

Did you tell someone you loved them today? No.

Do you watch the show Ghost Adventures? I’ve never heard of it before. I’ve heard of Ghost Hunters - my father enjoys that show. <<< Ha, my dad really likes one of those as well; I forget which one. I’ve never gotten into shows like, though.

When it's dark, do you always tell someone to drive safe? No.

Are you love sick? No.

Do you want your own house someday? My family and I do. We’ve only ever rented.

What color are your curtains in your bedroom? Dark blue.

Are you superstitious? I do the knock on wood thing, but I think it’s just habit now.

Is there a cat in the room you're in right now? No, I don’t have a cat.

“it only takes a second to fall in love”

Have you ever read the book The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks? Nope.

Have your parents ever said you're ruining your life by dating someone? No.

Are you excited for anything? I’m looking forward to starting my Christmas shopping.

True or false : It's past 9:22 PM True, it’s 2:43AM.

Do you hate when artist change their music? No, not necessarily. It can be cool to see them try different genres. Does your house have a doorbell? Yep.

Would you ever name your car? *shrug*

What's worse : Two-faced people or fake people? Isn’t that the same thing?

Are you wearing a necklace? No. I haven’t worn a necklace in years.

Have you ever saved someone's life? No. Do you hate when your makeup smears? I always hated how my eyeliner smudged in the corners. I say “hated”, past tense, because I haven’t worn any makeup at all in like 3 years.

Are you good at giving advice? I think I kinda used to be, but not now. I was the one friends always came to. I used to also participate on teen message boards when I was like 12-14 and tried to offer advice and resources to people when I could. Sometimes I IMed with people who needed advice, too. That’s when I knew I wanted to help people in some way and it was in high school when I discovered what psychology/ a psychologist was. I majored and got my BA in it, too... now it’s just collecting dust and I don’t want to purse it anymore....

Have you gotten into any fights within the past week? No.

How often do you go to the kitchen? I don’t know.... probably like a handful of times.

Are you strong? Nope. Not mentally or emotionally, and certainly not physically.

“bring her back to serendipity”

When you choose your golf ball for put-put, what color do you pick? I’ve never played.

Have you ever ate the tip of a pencil? The eraser. No...

When was the last time you wore earrings? I got cute rose gold Minnie Mouse ones for Christmas last year and wore those for a couple months until they started messing with my ears for some reason. It was weird because it was like they were getting sucked into the hole? I’ve never had that happen.

You can dye your hair red or neon green. You pick? I already dye it red.

How many Juliet's do you know? I don’t know any.

What's your current mood? I don’t feel well.

What time is it? 2:55AM. Do you own any colored pants? No.

What color of eye shadow do you wear? I haven’t worn eyeshadow in several years.

Hamburger or steak? Hamburger, definitely. I don’t like steak.

When was the last time you ran through a sprinkler? Not since I was a kid.

Can you do a cartwheel? No.

Do you believe you have the perfect parents? No one is perfect, but my parents are quite amazing.

Do you own any Converse? I still have one pair. I used to have a few.

How tall are you? 5′4.

“Right now, I just wish you were here.”

Would you ever try a workout video? Or have you? Maybe a fun dance one if it involved a lot of arm movements that I could do. Do you like your ice cream in a cup or cone? It’s gotta be a cup or waffle bowl for me cause I take too long to finish my ice cream and it gets super messy otherwise.

Are fireworks your favorite things ever? I like how pretty they are, but I definitely don’t enjoy the sound that they make. <<< Ugh, saaaame. I hate the sound.

Is your cat orange? As I’ve said, I don’t have a cat.

Is anything in the room your in striped? My Adidas have 3 stripes on both sides.

What song do you hear playing? I’m not listening to music.

Have you ever found a four leaf clover? Yeah. Back in elementary school we used to hunt for ‘em on St. Patrick’s Day.

Do you think you've been in love? I believe so. Twice.

Have you ever read Romeo and Juliet? In the 9th grade, we were required to in English class. <<< Yep.

Were you ever in the plays in school? No.

Whose eyes do you have? Pretty sure they’re my own. Haaaa. My eyes are the same color as my mom’s.

When was the last time you bought a pair of new shoes? I haven’t bought my own in a long time. I often get a new pair for my birthday and/or Christmas from my parents, usually my dad. He’s a total shoe guy, so he likes to buy shoes quite a bit for himself and as gifts for my family and I.

How many gray shirts do you have? I don’t know; a few.

Have you ever cried because you missed someone so much? Yes. Especially after the death of loved ones.

Do you hate waiting for things? I’m very impatient. Waiting makes me nervous and anxious.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

4 notes · View notes

gukyi · 6 years

Text

moonlight melody (ii.) | jjk

summary: when your loving best friend playfully pranks you one too many times, you decide that revenge is best served hot, over a period of thirty days, and with a little extra help from the best violinist you know (sorry jimin).

or, the one where during your month-long vacation in italy with your youth orchestra, you realize that vengeance is sweet but fake dating jungkook is sweeter.

{fake dating!au, university orchestra!au, vacation!au}

pairing: jungkook x female reader word count: 25k (still sorry mobile users) genre: fluff, minor angst warnings: more obnoxious slow burn. lots of comparing jungkook to famous italian renaissance artwork. characters being oblivious. the usual in your fake dating lineup. the beautiful image of hoseok wearing bright yellow shorts with green polka dots. a/n: i said a week, i actually meant a week and a day. here she is, folks. this fic is straight up 104 pages in my google doc, what a beast. is this the monster or am i? the world will never know. big thanks to everyone who’s been waiting so patiently for this fic!! you guys are the reason i even finished it. im now going to hole myself up in my room and watch my concert vids. edit (4.16.20): the very wonderful @jtrbluv made this incredible playlist for this fic and i can’t recommend listening to it enough!!!!! please put this on while you read <3

part one | part two (finale)

The first thing that Seokjin says when your train pulls into the Santa Lucia station in Venice is, “if I don’t become an Instagram model and make thousands of dollars off of tea detoxes and teeth-whitening products after this trip, then I don’t want to hear it.”

The first thing that Yoongi says when your train pulls into the Santa Lucia station is, “You have fifty-three followers and all of them are fake accounts you made to follow yourself.”

Seokjin gasps, appalled at such an accusation thrown his way. “How dare you challenge my integrity, my honor, and my dignity.” He asks like a presidential candidate being insulted during a televised public debate. The comparison honestly isn’t that far off.

“You had any of those to begin with?” Jimin mutters under his breath, but it’s loud enough for everyone within a five feet radius of him to hear it. Taehyung chokes back something between a bark of laughter and a snort, and winks when Seokjin turns his head around to glare at him both threateningly and affectionately.

“Okay, second of all, fuck you,” Seokjin spits out, the resolve of the aforementioned presidential candidate shattering. Though, with any hint at how politics is turning out these days, you suppose swears probably aren’t off the table just yet.

Namjoon scrunches up his nose, looking as lost as he always is. “What happened to the first of all?” Seokjin shrugs because it’s incredibly clear that he has no idea where the first part went either.

“Feels like just yesterday we were in Rome,” Taehyung muses to himself, false-nostalgia tainting his tone. He looks thoughtfully up to the sky as if reflecting on past memories.

“It was yesterday,” Hoseok interrupts. “In fact, it was this morning, too.”

“Did. I. Stutter.” Taehyung says sharply without turning his head. Perhaps he would look a little more menacing if he didn’t have this absolutely horrendous sunburn decorating his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, making him look more like a Strawberry Shortcake character than a university student. It doesn’t help that his shirt is almost comically frilly. He looks like he walked right off of a high fashion runway.

You barely notice Jungkook coming up behind you, suitcase and violin in hand. He touches your side to get your attention, and when you turn to him you make no effort to fight the smile that grows on your face. His being always seems to lighten up your mood.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hey,” he replies. “You didn’t hear it from me, but Bang wants to give us this week off to explore Venice on our own,” he whispers, out of earshot of everyone else. You know that the second Jimin is going to hear this he’s going to beat his chest and holler like Tarzan. Jungkook knows better than to speak loudly.

“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief. Even if you are all college students you are, quite frankly, shocked that Bang would give you that much freedom. A whole week all to yourselves? It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but everyone always says to try new things.

“Seriously,” Jungkook confirms with a nod. “I think Bang’s gotten so sick of us that he’s willing to let us loose like animals for a week so he can recover his lost brain cells.”

You hum in agreement, Jungkook’s suspicion probably not that far off. A middle-aged man can only take so much from fifty college students before he is driven off the edge. You don’t blame Bang in the slightest, especially because on your last night in Rome, it took seven of you to convince Taehyung not to sneak into Bang’s room and write the entire Bee Movie script on the complimentary notepad. You are wholly unsurprised that Taehyung still has at least the first 300 words memorized.

“We don’t have any performances here, do we?” You ask Jungkook.

Jungkook shakes his head, purses his lips. “Don’t think so. They start back up in Florence.”

It’s hard to think about Florence, now that you’re here. But Florence is only a week away and then you only have about ten days there before your trip is over, your time is up and you have to board a plane back home. It feels so far away and yet at the same time, you know that it is right at your doorstep.

“Really?” You ask, skeptical. “I’m surprised Bang didn’t schedule any.”

“I will bet you all of my college tuition that Bang organized this trip so he would have this week of peace right in the middle of all the chaos. The eye of the storm.”

“Are we the storm, Jungkook?” You ask even if you already know the answer.

Next to you, it seems that Jimin has convinced Hoseok to play his newest piece out loud, and so Hoseok’s grainy rap blares through his grainy speakers as everyone hoots and hollers. You are pretty sure that Taehyung is doing every outdated dance he can think of to the beat, crying out in enthusiasm at Hoseok’s song. It’s a good song, you’ll admit that much. If this were a movie, then some agent or music producer would coincidentally be walking by, hear Hoseok’s song, and offer him a prestigious record deal right on the spot. Instead, the only passersby are disgruntled tourists who frown as they pass your rambunctious crew, shaking their heads to themselves.

Jungkook nods. “We’re the storm.”

You wish you could say you were shocked.

Bang rounds everybody up at the lobby of the hotel you’re staying at, not necessarily one of those chain lodgings but also not a tiny alleyway of a place. Behind you, you can hear Jimin and Taehyung plotting to steal Seokjin’s clean underwear. Boys are disgusting.

“Okay, everyone,” Bang announces with a clap of his hands, loud like the beat of a snare drum. “As you may already know, I don’t have any performances planned for this week in Venice.”

Small gasps and very loud whispers break out throughout the orchestra. Jungkook reaches down, and for a second you think he’s going to grab your hand, but instead he pinches the side of your shirt and makes you squeak, much to the disruption of everyone else. As the blood rushes to your cheeks you give Jungkook a heavy shove, your upper body strength from all that cello-lifting paying off when he stumbles slightly. Fucker.

“And I am making the slightly-unsettling decision to give you all this week off to do what you please,” Bang continues, and so do the gasps. You can hear the smack of skin that signifies a high five, and turn around to find Jimin wincing slightly as he caresses his reddened palm. Next to him, Taehyung grins, almost proudly. “Nothing is planned save for a couple of small things closer to the end of our stay here in Venice, so you all have until then to do what you wish.” He eyes Taehyung and Jimin suspiciously. “Please don’t make me regret this decision.”

And even if Taehyung and Jimin are orchestral hooligans at best, you know that they’ll keep on Bang’s good side.

Bang ends his announcement there and goes to speak with the hotel staff to check in.

Namjoon clasps his hands together as the seven of you turn to face him, waiting for his next move. “Now that Bang’s not going to be breathing down our necks, I say that we take our time in Venice to go—”

“Sightseeing.”

“Drinking.”

Seokjin and Yoongi glare at each other.

“Uh, I was going to say we go and explore, but alright, I guess,” Namjoon says tentatively. “I think that we should divide up into two groups just to make travel a little easier, though. I don’t think the water taxis outside can handle eight fully-grown college students.”

“Well,” Taehyung interrupts. “Seven fully-grown college students and Yoongi.”

Yoongi tweaks Taehyung’s nipple in retaliation, eliciting something between a hiccup and a squeak from the latter.

“Okay, I call Namjoon,” Jimin announces, latching himself onto Namjoon’s arm. The process feels eerily similar to when you had to pick groups for projects in high school.

“I call Jimin,” Taehyung mimics, and suddenly Namjoon’s got himself an entire conga line on his arm. He sends something of a pained look Yoongi’s way, and you’re pretty sure that it is out of pity that he joins Namjoon’s group, leaving you with Jungkook, Hoseok, and Seokjin.

“Have fun losing all of your brain cells, fuckers,” Seokjin teases. Namjoon’s face, if possible, becomes even more distorted.

“Bold of you to assume I had any of those to begin with,” Taehyung responds cheekily, just the right amount of self-deprecation evident in his voice. “At least we’re not stuck with Mr. and Mrs. Lovebird McLovebirdson.”

“Excuse you?” You say, only mildly offended that Taehyung would tack a name such as that onto you and Jungkook’s relationship or whatever the hell it is that the two of you have going on.

“Leave him, Thumper,” Jungkook says with a fond smile. Taehyung glares at him suspiciously. “He’s just teasing you.”

“You’re the only one allowed to do that,” you say with a pout, making Jungkook poke a pointer finger into your chipmunk cheeks.

“Is that right, Thumper?” He asks with a smirk.

Seokjin huffs out a sigh. He looks about as pained as Namjoon, but for an entirely different reason. With a groan, he asks, “Anyone willing to trade?”

The films that romanticize early mornings in foreign countries and strolls along cobblestone alleys are bold-faced lies, that’s what they are. They are ridden with the sweet, deceitful art of movie-magic and morphed into constructions designed to appeal to the losers in their bedrooms watching them on their shitty Windows laptops. They are anything but the truth.

It is six in the morning when Jeon Soyeon is shaking you awake, and six-thirty in the morning when a certain fake boyfriend is outside your door, a guilty grin on his face.

“Care to explain why I’m up at the ass-crack of dawn, Jungkook?” You ask with a single raised, eyebrow, tapping your foot impatiently with your hand resting on the side of the open door.

“Okay, first of all, the sun rose like, an hour ago, so I don’t wanna hear it,” Jungkook points out. “Second of all, Seokjin and Hoseok said that they’d meet us in San Marco at eight, so I thought we could grab breakfast together.”

“Did you text Soyeon and ask her to wake me up for you?” You continue to interrogate, paying little attention to the plans at hand that Jungkook’s suggested.

Jungkook smiles guiltily. “I wanted to surprise you?” He says it more like it’s a question that he’s asking you rather than something akin to a romantic statement.

You turn your head around to sneer at Soyeon, who is honestly too kind to be blackmailed into doing Jungkook’s dirty work. She’s pretending not to listen to your conversation, whistling loudly to herself as she stares at the corner of your hotel room, acting natural. You know you won’t be getting any direct eye contact from her before you leave for the day, so you exchange the glare on your face for a sigh, looking back to Jungkook. He’s looking as hopeful as ever, though you have a sneaking suspicion he already knows you won’t turn him down.

“Fine,” you relent, rolling your eyes. You grab your mini backpack from where it rests against the television stand/dresser hybrid. “You owe Soyeon a gelato for getting her to do this for you.”

“Believe me, I know,” Jungkook says with a nod, clicking his tongue and sending a finger gun Soyeon’s way. She grins in response, waving wildly to the both of you. At least someone’s getting something out of this ridiculous deal. “Come on, we better go before Bang catches us up this early.”

And this is how you land up at a small Venetian café far from any major tourist sites after stumbling around the slowly-waking city. The tourists aren’t awake yet, the busy streets aren’t filled yet, and it feels sort of like this is your everyday reality: a coffee in the morning on a sidestreet in Venice with your boyfriend. Well. Almost boyfriend. Very close to being a real boyfriend boyfriend. Fake boyfriend.

“You ever crave something disgustingly unhealthy for breakfast?” Jungkook asks as he digs into his breakfast pastry, berry-colored jam leaking from the sides.

“As in?”

“Some healthy, hearty Shin ramen.”

“Don’t tell me you eat that for breakfast,” you say in slightly horror, looking up at Jungkook. Sure, you’ve had your fair share of ramen for meals, but at least you tend you gravitate towards granola bars for most of your morning meals.

Jungkook doesn’t respond, instead choosing to grimace as his answer.

“That is absolutely horrifying,” you tell him.

“It does a fantastic job of waking you up, that I can confirm,” Jungkook tells you, pointing at you with the spoon by his untouched caffé latte. You told Jungkook he could just order a hot chocolate since he hated coffee anyway, but the latte was barely two Euros and Jungkook honestly panicked at the last second. You feel bad, because he’s wasted his money either way, so he might as well do it on something he’ll enjoy.

“If you won’t drink your latte, can I have it?” You ask tentatively, motioning to it. Nothing like a good bit of caffeine in the morning to get you ready for action.

Jungkook nods, almost too enthusiastically, even going so far as to push the saucer towards you, the pattern in the cup swishing with the movement. “Sure, go ahead.”

You take his cup and bring it to your lips, sipping softly as the hot liquid runs down your tongue, stinging your taste buds just the right amount. Your group doesn’t have too much on your itinerary for today, which must be the reason why he’s so resigned, so laid back. Or perhaps that’s just his normal disposition. Regardless, watching Jungkook as he plays around on his phone distracts you enough while you’re drinking to give you an awful foam moustache, much to Jungkook’s enjoyment.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jungkook says as you’re reaching for your napkin. “Let me take a picture of you.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” you mutter to yourself. “Must you?”

Jungkook’s adamant. “Yes. I don’t have a single photo of you on my phone and we’ve just spent the last week and a half in Italy.”

“So the first one has to be of me with a coffee moustache?”

“You look cute!” Jungkook insists.

You scoff. “I beg to differ.”

“The more you talk the more your moustache fades,” Jungkook tells you with a pout. “C’mon, Thumper, please?”

You resign. “Quickly.”

Jungkook silently fist-pumps the air before snapping a photo of your pout. The moment his camera begins to lower you wipe off the remains of your coffee moustache with your finger, sticking it in your mouth to finish the job. You paid money for this thing. Actually, he paid money for this thing. And you’re not going to let it go to waste either way.

“See? Cute,” Jungkook says, shoving his iPhone in your face to reveal your glowing, coffee moustache-laden grin as his lockscreen, visible to anybody who turns on his phone and swipes left to spam his camera roll. You have to admit, even with the unflattering view Jungkook’s knack for photography still shines through. The photo looks much better than anything you could ever do. “You look great, Thumper. Lockscreen-worthy.”

“Can you explain to me where the Thumper came from? I feel like I never got the memo,” you ask, the thought just popping into your head. The nickname is endearing, sure, much more so than something basic like “baby” or “angel” and much less greasy than “darling” or “sweetheart”, but you’re not exactly sure where it came from. Not that you’re complaining.

“When your cheeks puff up,” Jungkook says over a mouthful of pastry, “you look like Thumper from Bambi. You know, the rabbit. The resemblance is, quite frankly, uncanny.”

“You’re saying I look like a cartoon bunny.”

“In a cute way!” Jungkook emphasizes. And then, softly, “You should know by now that I think everything you do is cute, Y/N.” Jungkook says it like he’s discussing the weather, taking another bite of his breakfast.

You pause, parted lips slowly sealing themselves as you sink back in your chair.

You didn’t know that at all.

Piazza San Marco has already begun to overflow with tourists by the time you and Jungkook arrive, seeking out familiar faces. The conversation from earlier is almost entirely forgotten, save for you. Sometimes, in fake relationships, you’re starting to think you prefer it when everything is a lie rather than hearing the truth come out.

Jungkook, on the other hand, is as normal as ever, tugging you with your hand in his own when he spots Seokjin and his bright red baseball cap, worn backwards like a frat boy. You can only hope that he’s got SPF 100 on his face, because the sun already seems to be burning right through the pavement. Hoseok has on his terrible shorts. Maybe you should stare into the sun, go blind just so you don’t have to lay your eyes on those monstrosities. Permanent retina damage doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.

“I cannot believe you are wearing those,” you say when you walk up to them, staring Hoseok’s shorts down. He flaunts them, feeds off of your disgust. They look just as awful now as they did in eighth grade. Not much has really changed since then. Maybe your heights.

“Were you under the impression that I wouldn’t?” Hoseok challenges, posing a valid question. Perhaps Hoseok packed them just to spite you at eleven at night, three hours before you had to go to the airport, but he also definitely fully intended on wearing them, and now, here you are.

You narrow your eyes. “Touché.”

“What are we doing today, Less Important ‘Seok?” Hoseok asks enthusiastically, hands on his hips like a superhero from a cartoon. He turns to Seokjin with a grin on his face like he didn’t just send him a thinly-veiled insult, one that takes Seokjin approximately five seconds to process.

Then Seokjin says, “Excuse me?”

And Hoseok smiles.

“I say we go explore,” Jungkook suggests, adjusting the straps of his backpack. He’s got luggage locks on the damn zippers like the world’s most cautious tourist, but you find the neon green locks quite endearing. Nothing like the fluorescent color of a Sharpie highlighter to deter those pesky pickpockets. “Today’s a great day for all of those Instagram shots you want.”

Seokjin seems to perk up at that idea. “Nice, brand deals here I come,” he says, rubbing his hands together evil-villain-style.

“I could really use some photos for my portfolio,” Jungkook says, sort of like an aside.

“You’re making a portfolio?” You ask him, curious. It’s incredible, that Jungkook has so many projects going on at once, so many talents that he’s already refined, perfected. You can barely walk in a straight line, sober.

“Yeah,” Jungkook tells you softly, hand reaching up to tug on the camera strap around his neck. “To remember the, uh, the trip. It’s very picturesque here.”

Seokjin’s loud voice interrupts the both of you, shifting to see him standing in the center of the piazza with a peace sign by his face. “If it’s so picturesque then why am I not being photographed for my very first sponsorship?” He shouts, motioning to Jungkook’s camera like a CEO standing at the top of a skyscraper, watching down at his minions doing his dirty work. If Seokjin, God forbid, ever became Instagram famous, you know that all of you would end up suffering. He would hold his follower count over your heads for everything.

Jungkook sighs, pressing the silver button on his camera without even bringing it up to eye level to peer into the screen, haphazardly clicking away after making an educated guess as to the lens view. He’s either right on the money or currently taking about ten shots of Seokjin’s knees and nothing else. Either way they are Instagram-worthy.

Seokjin takes absolutely no notice of the fact that Jungkook is half-assing his photos and moves back towards the group after about thirty seconds of random camera-clicking, satisfied. You wonder why Hoseok always has it out for you with his outlandish pranks when you are almost certain that Seokjin is infinitely more gullible than you in every sense of the word. There have been multiple occasions during in which Seokjin has searched for his glasses, only to find out that they were not only on his head, he was also wearing them.

“Okay, the sun is shining, the clouds are gone, it’s only marginally burning temperatures, which means that we are going to avoid every tourist attraction in this city for the entire day,” you declare, clapping your hands together. Nothing sounds truly more awful than marching around a densely-packed part of town with no air conditioning and a million other people with a million other body heats.

“Dude, I’m sweating just standing here,” Hoseok says, taking his grossly-fluorescent visor off of his head and fanning himself with it.

“We could probably alleviate that problem by moving into the side streets, which are shaded,” you say.

Jungkook chuckles, but the lot of you are already moving out of Piazza San Marco, veering towards the nearest side street that you can find, eyes scanning for shade. “Emphasis on the word ‘probably,’” he jokes, an entirely valid statement because even in the shade you can feel the sweat running down your back.

Even without the use of water travel, you manage to find some pretty spectacular places within walking distance. Venice is like playing legato notes in an allegro piece, the kind of city where you hold onto each moment for as long as you can even though your days there are numbered, even though the fast pace of your travel will catch up to you eventually. Bang always reminds the orchestra that you can’t cut legato notes short otherwise they just become mundane, average notes. That’s Venice.

There is no method to your madness, if you could even call it that. Without the pressure to see all of the tourist sites at once, time limits and schedules entirely vacant, you are not walking around Venice so much as you are strolling around Venice, taking in the scenery and landscape without a rush to be anywhere at all.

You would almost imagine that it would be just you and Jungkook together, hand-in-hand as you waltz down the pavement in a gorgeous foreign city, if it weren’t for Hoseok cracking jokes next to you and Seokjin stopping your entire group every block in order to snag another photo. Not that you can really blame him any more, now that you think about it. You’d want to remember as much of this trip as possible too.

“We’re gonna get back to the hotel and I’m gonna plug in my camera and every single photo is going to be Seokjin with a peace sign in front of his face,” Jungkook tells you in mock exasperation, rolling his eyes as Seokjin beckons him over towards a piece of street art that he wants a photo in front of. It’s a very tasteful street art image, an incredibly bright red stack of buildings with a face coming out of it. You laugh at Jungkook’s expense, because that’s what he gets for being a kind, giving, and photographically talented individual.

The two of them prance over to pose in front of the wall as Hoseok and you stay back, hanging around on the opposite side of the street.

“Y/N,” Hoseok says, nudging your side. His voice is soft, muted, meaning that he’s about to tell you something he doesn’t want the other two to know about. “You and Jungkook seem to really enjoy each other’s company.”

You scoff, a little concerned about what direction this conversation is about to go to. “Why wouldn’t we? We’re dating.” Fake dating.

“Well,” Hoseok says hesitantly. “I mean, you’ve barely ever spoken to each other prior to this trip but after you guys got off the plane it just… it seemed like you were happier. You know? Especially this past week in Rome, and now. You just seem really happy.”

“Am I typically unhappy?” You ask with your eyebrows raised.

“No, not like that,” Hoseok says. He lets out a big sigh and keeps his eyes trained on Seokjin and Jungkook, who are still fooling around across the street. “You just seem to really like him. I’m glad.”

You keep silent. For a split second, you feel guilty again, guilty that you’re tricking your best friend into thinking that something so real, so genuine, is a sham.

“I’m glad he’s making you happy,” Hoseok continues, and as bad as it sounds, you want your best friend to shut up and stop talking. Stop saying these things because they make you feel bad and confused and worried all at once. “You deserve someone like Jungkook.” And, as if that isn’t enough, he says, “He looks like he loves you a lot.”

Does he really?

It’s then that Hoseok straightens out his posture and returns to his smiling self as Jungkook and Seokjin make their way over, giggling about something stupid that you didn’t notice. You wonder if Seokjin got some good photos, but then you realize that with Jungkook, they won’t be anything less than perfect.

(Jungkook looks gorgeous when he giggles. His nose scrunches up and his eyes crinkle and he laughs like he doesn’t know how to stop laughing.)

“Ready to go, Thumper?” Jungkook asks, reaching a hand out. You take it without a shadow of a doubt. It’s strange. It’s beginning to feel like it belongs there.

“Where to next?” You ask, facing a crossroads. Each way leads down a different path, one that could lead you somewhere else, but that’s the beauty of it all.

Jungkook grins. “Anywhere.”

You make a vow to yourself that you’ll come back to Italy when you’re rich and famous and can afford to splurge on ten thousand dollar Dior dresses and fast passes to the biggest attractions, but even as a college student with an exponentially increasing amount of student loans and about four dollars and thirty-three cents in your bank account you know that there are some things that you just have to do in Italy.

One of which being a gondola tour.

“You know,” Namjoon says matter-of-factly with his mouth filled with some sort of unnamed pastry with jam, “the gondola tours are 100% not worth your time. You’d do better just walking around yourself.”

The eight of you are gathered at the same café that you and Jungkook found on your first full day here, far from any tourist traps and bustling morning crowds. The old lady who seems to be the only employee speaks very little English, but even though you, a youth orchestra group in which none of you speak Italian, are her only customers at such an early morning hour, she is making a wonderful effort at communicating with you.

Namjoon has already picked up the vernacular of the region. No big deal.

“Okay Mr. I Spent Fifty Euros on the Doge’s Palace,” Hoseok mocks pointedly, drinking his latte with a very unappealing slurp. “Stop being such a hater.”

“In Namjoon’s defense, it’s called the Doge’s Palace,” Taehyung points out.

“Yes, because a hallmark of Venetian Gothic architecture and its rich history have anything to do with a deceased meme from five years ago,” Yoongi deadpans, downing another one of those tiny little espresso shots like it’s nothing. It travels down his esophagus and lights everything on fire along the way and he doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“Doge may be dead in our minds but he will live on in our hearts,” Taehyung preaches.

Namjoon rolls his eyes and turns back to you, the genius who had the idea of an overpriced gondola tour for the four of you in the first place. “They’re overpriced, overrated, and severely underwhelming,” he continues like some politician trying to convince you to join his cause against overpriced gondola tours for the sake of his campaign. Since when did he become the end-all be-all of tour guides? He bought that one travel book on Venice and suddenly he thinks he’s—

“I don’t know, I thought it was a good idea,” Jungkook adds in, swinging an arm over your shoulder as moral support.

Taehyung frowns. “That’s because you’re in love with her, dumbass.”

Jungkook chuckles at that, but you can tell that it’s forced and awkward and uncomfortable from the way his body stiffens beside yours and the way his eyes begin to dart around. He must feel just as guilty as you about this whole arrangement, grimacing at the way everyone thinks he’s in love with you.

(“He looks like he loves you a lot.”)

“Very funny,” Jungkook says with a glare to his best friend.

Taehyung winks.

“Listen, if you guys wanna spend your money that way, be my guest,” Namjoon says, resigning his argument. It’s very clear that his debate skills will only get him so far when he’s trying to utilize them with a group of college youths in a foreign country very recently hopped up on caffeine. “But it’ll be a waste of your money.”

Hoseok scoffs. “We’re in Italy on a school-sponsored trip and we already have thousands of dollars in debt because the American banking system is ass,” he reasons. “What’s a couple more dollars going to do?”

To that, everyone cheers.

The last time you were on a boat, you had accompanied Hoseok’s family on his annual fishing trip during spring break when the both of you were twelve. Against both of your better judgement, you and Hoseok climbed into his father’s kayak to boat around the lake that your lodging rested up against despite the fact that neither of you knew how to kayak. Five minutes later the both of you were held up by your lifejackets as the kayak floated away, unmanned, far out of reach as the both of you tread the freezing cold water. It’s one of your fondest memories.

It’s been six years since you were on a boat and the uneasy, queasy feeling you receive from being on one still hasn’t faded. In fact, it seems to be amplified now that you are surrounded by new friends who haven’t seen you throw up before, unlike Hoseok.

Granted, a gondola is kind of the Venetian dream, when you think about it. The kind of activity that everyone in the movies does whenever they visit Venice, and soft violin music is playing in the background as an unnamed man steers the main character and their love interest and everything is romantic and soft and not at all sweaty and crowded.

This is not a Venetian dream. It’s more like a Venetian reality.

Seokjin and Hoseok have been bickering for the past ten minutes on the correct way to put on a lifejacket when neither of them are wearing theirs correctly, and your fake boyfriend is paying you hardly any attention because his face has been stuck in his camera ever since you boarded. The added cushioning is causing sweat to dribble down your back in droplets, turning the part where your shorts meet your t-shirt into a damp, uncomfortable mess. This kind of sucks and yet, you don’t think you’d rather be anywhere else.

Seokjin sighs, looking towards the back row, where you and Jungkook are sitting. He’s got one arm wrapped around your waist—you feel bad because his hand is most definitely damp from your sweat—and the other is holding his camera up to his eye, snapping as many photos as he can as the boat travels down the water, like he’s going to make some stop-motion animation film. “You guys are so lucky,” he says.

“Us?” You ask, confused.

“When I’m rich and famous I want to bring my significant other here and get a gondola tour and travel the city together, and you guys get to do it even though you are neither rich nor famous,” Seokjin declares, exasperated, envious of whatever the hell you and Jungkook have. “This is like, a prime love location.”

“Yeah, because you’d know anything about love,” Hoseok says with a taunting sneer. “Pretty sure the only girl in your life is your bassoon.”

“Talk about her behind my back all you want, but do not insult Bessy in front of me,” Seokjin says, a hard glare etched on his face. The expression makes Hoseok double over in laughter. You’re almost 100% sure that if it were socially acceptable, Seokjin would sleep with his bassoon every night just to make sure it was warm and protected. You know, like a sentient being. Except it’s a wooden instrument. With keys that can bend very, very easily.

“You and your bassoon can suck my ass,” Hoseok continues just to be unbearable. You know Seokjin isn’t taking what he says to the heart, but it doesn’t stop the older from reaching over to ruffle Hoseok’s hair. You swear you can see droplets of maroon sweat fall from his locks as Seokjin gives them a good shake.

“You guys are some lucky motherfuckers, I hope you know that,” Seokjin says, pointing to the both of you accusingly. He’s got something in between a fond look and a sneer on his face. You know he means nothing but the best.

Jungkook pulls you in for a side hug, your body squishing against the heat of his own for a brief second before he lets go. “What can I say, you’re a catch, Thumper.” He presses a sweat-laden kiss to your cheek, but the touch of his lips on your skin no longer catches you off guard. In fact, it’s almost like you were waiting for the next time he would kiss you. Almost.

“I think I might throw up and not from seasickness,” Hoseok says with the most horrified look on his face.

You turn to Jungkook, only to find him grinning unbearably wide, a sun of a smile on his face as he looks down at you. Looks at you like he’s spent all this money just so he could be in a gondola with you in Venice, not for any of the sights along the way. His camera’s still held up in his hand but he’s no longer clicking away, instead savoring the view right in front of him. You can’t imagine what sort of otherworldly acting skills Jungkook might have if he’s able to see some façade of beauty in your sweaty, heat-stricken body, but you suppose that anything’s a stretch at this point. You’re already head-deep into this fake dating thing. How much further can you go?

“Oh!” Seokjin gasps aloud. “The lighting is perfect here! Quick, Jungkook, take a photo of me!” Immediately the man strikes a perfectly constructed pose, pretending to look off into the unknown distance with his head turned away from the camera, faking a candid photo to the soft sloshing of the water against the boat. Seokjin, quite frankly, looks ridiculous, but you have to admit that the light gives him a sort of heavenly glow. One that will probably translate very well on Instagram.

“He’s right, Thumper,” Jungkook says, bringing his camera up to his eye. “The lighting is perfect.”

And without warning, suddenly Jungkook is turning himself ninety degrees and snapping a photo of you before you can stop him, the fond smile on your face too slow to be erased before the camera click goes off.

“Jungkook!” You hiss.

“What?” He asks defensively. Seokjin’s still posing with his head facing away from the camera, and so he’s been totally bamboozled into thinking that Jungkook is snapping photos of him. Hoseok seems to have noticed this fact, and is trying to muffle his laughter as best as he can without giving it all away. “The lighting really is perfect.”

“I look and feel like a pile of sweat in a plastic bag,” you tell him like it’s obvious that he should have noticed how truly disgusting you look. Even though you are by the water it feels like your body is burning from the inside out as a result of the blazing sun despite the copious amounts of sunscreen you’ve been layering on your body. Your hair is matted down and everything is sticky.

“Drifting through the wind?” Hoseok supplies unhelpfully, making you reach over and smack him.

“You look beautiful,” Jungkook corrects, and he takes another photo, just for good measure. “I don’t have enough photos of you on my camera, Thumper. You’re my girlfriend and I’ve barely been taking pictures of you.”

“So?”

“‘So?’” Jungkook repeats. “Thumper, everything you do deserves to become a memory.”

For the rest of the day tour, Jungkook snaps countless photos of you, ones of you posing and ones of you caught off guard, refusing to stop despite Seokjin’s indignant cries of “I asked first!”. He says it’s because he doesn’t have enough on his camera, because of all the places you’ve been to in Italy thus far this is the one where he wants to remember you most.

You wish you were good at photography. Maybe then this whole fake-dating thing would seem a lot less fake.

When Yoongi suggested drinking as a legitimate activity that the eight of you did together while in Venice, he genuinely wasn’t kidding. Jungkook texts you after another long day of walking around and avoiding tourist sites together, skipping down side streets and eating big cups of gelato, while you’re fresh out of the shower in your room. The rest of the girls are all out, so this is the only time you can secure a nice wash other than a rather unholy two in the morning. You just want to decompress, maybe go out in a little for some bruschetta but nothing else, when you read:

going out tonight gonna crack open a lot of cold ones with all the bois

please come with taehyung really wants to try italian alcohol

And then, because you apparently have no choice when it comes to him:

dropping by ur room to pick u up in twenty minutes

Which leaves you twenty minutes to get dressed, dry your hair, and put on some makeup before Jungkook is knock, knock, knocking at your door. The only reason you’re even putting effort into your appearance for such an excursion is because said excursion is occurring at a time when the sun is not beating down your back, and therefore copious amounts of sweat are no longer a factor. Well. If Taehyung has a club in mind, then maybe copious amounts of sweat will be a factor. But that is a bridge you will burn when you get to it.

You don’t really know what nightclub life will be like in Italy, though you’re fairly certain sleazebags of the male specimen are probably a universal issue. Luckily, you’ve got yourself a very handy dandy fake boyfriend to rescue you should any trouble arise.

To be quite honest, you’re surprised that nobody in your group’s made any effort to legally acquire some booze beforehand. You’d think that they’d take advantage of the lower legal alcohol limit as soon as they set foot in the country, but it doesn’t seem to be very high on their list of priorities. That is, until now.

You have just finished adjusting the collar of your dress when Jungkook knocks on your door, the sound of his fist against the wood reverberating around your entire hotel room like an echo getting farther and farther away.

“No entourage?” You ask, surprised to see him standing alone. You’d been half-expecting him to knock on your door with the entire possy behind him, waiting. He’s been fidgeting, that much you can tell, by the way his hands have been clasped together and his right foot’s unnatural position towards the left one.

“Just me, Thumper,” Jungkook admits guiltily. “Ready to go?” He holds out his hand, warm palm waiting for your softer, rounder fingers to join with his long, slender ones.

“Nothing quite like getting drunk in Venice on a university-sponsored vacation,” you say in lieu of any sort of greeting. You figure that your hand intertwined with his is enough of a hello.

He grins. “If the entire world turns to shit, we can blame Taehyung.”

It seems like a good enough plan to you.

Speaking of the devil himself, you and Jungkook meet him and the rest of the bunch in the lobby. Taehyung’s got sunglasses on the head—even though it’s eight at night—for the aesthetic and a very nice satin shirt you are absolutely positive is going to be going into the garbage after tonight. Not that you have ever had any drunk experiences with any of them besides the occasional thing with Hoseok in high school (you drank together in your bedroom without your parents knowing, how scandalous), and even then it was in the comfort of your own home without much of a risk factor.

“You are going to lose those sunglasses so damn quick, Tae,” Jimin says as you walk out of the hotel, already beginning to scan the streets for the closest bar. He even makes a show of snatching them off Taehyung’s head, wearing them himself just for fun. Taehyung makes grabby hands and says some stupid insult about Jimin’s height as he retrieves them from Jimin’s nose bridge. “Last time you got drunk you lost your Epipen. Who the fuck brings an Epipen out to go drinking?”

Taehyung gasps. “You never know which places might have corn!”

“In their drinks?”

“Is Taehyung allergic to corn? Is that what I’m getting here?” You ask, leaning over to ask into Jungkook’s ear. Not that Taehyung wouldn’t answer you perfectly fine either, you just think he seems rather busy, bickering with Jimin and playing a game of capture the flag with his sunglasses that he’s wearing at night.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods. “But it’s like, just raw corn. The moment you cook it, he’s not allergic to it anymore.”

Not that you’re one to judge allergies or the people who have them, but Taehyung’s allergy is so specific that it fits him perfectly. Like, if nothing else, that is the most Taehyung thing about him. His allergy to raw corn.

“Hey! There’s a bar!” Seokjin shouts as you stumble across a little nook tucked away on one of the Venetian side streets, a wooden sign hanging above the open archway that reads BAR. Not many people are frequenting said joint, mostly because it’s a weekday at eight and literally nobody except people with a lot of free time (i.e. college tourists) go drinking on weekdays at eight.

You don’t rush into the bar per se, but the average speed of the group overall seems to increase before becoming a constant rate of significantly-faster-than-before as everyone gets to the bar, ready to live the dream of being zazzed in a foreign country to the highest degree possible. You know, even if you’ve never gotten drunk with him before, that Taehyung would immediately go up to the bartender and demand the strongest thing they have if the two spoke the same language. Unfortunately, Taehyung’s trapped looking at the chalkboard with fun chalk colors and hoping that his alcoholic beverage translations are accurate.

Not that any of the drinks would have raw corn in them to begin with.

For a particularly bustling city, even on a pretty average day, it surprises you that despite the date and time, there are only a couple of other patrons in the bar. Venice is busy every hour of every day, even if some times are more packed than the others, but your group makes up a hefty majority of the people in here. Rambunctious, boisterous college students who don’t know good alcohol from bad because all alcohol tastes the exact same flavor of instant regret.

Even still, Italians are known for their booze, and that is simply something you cannot escape while here. It doesn’t take much, just a bit of clambering to order, before you can already feel the liquid going to your brain, a haze settling in in your mind that doesn’t seem to be able to dissipate. Not that anyone else in your group is faring any better, because quite frankly, none of you seem to be able to hold down your alcohol well. Besides Namjoon, who is doing remarkably well.

Hoseok is draped over Seokjin’s back, unintelligible moans leaving his lips and fanning out on his shoulder. The heat makes Seokjin drunkenly try to toss ice cubes Hoseok’s way, but his aim is very unsurprisingly terrible. You’re almost positive Seokjin doesn’t have that kind of hand-eye coordination even when sober. Yoongi has struck up a wordless conversation with the bartender and seems to keep receiving drinks upon drinks, but they are very obviously watered down with soda and lime. Jimin is only the slightest bit of a disaster, but it is Taehyung that is slowly jumping off of his rocker.

The alcohol seems to have subdued Jungkook slightly, leaving him in the same mindless fog that you’re in. Neither of you know what’s just happened in the past five minutes but you know that you’re in Venice, and you know that you’re together.

And that’s really all that matters.

Taehyung is in the middle of a recreation of the Bee Movie script yet again, only he is reciting it dramatic monologue-style, meaning he’s about to collapse on the table as part of the theatrics of it all, when Namjoon suggests that you leave and start heading back. It’s late. The time feels like it’s passed too quickly. Jungkook is warm and the alcohol has given him a soft glow. He is gorgeous and you adore him, really adore him, only the slightest bit.

Even if Namjoon is definitely the most sober one out of all of you—something you admire, especially since over the course of the evening he certainly didn’t shy away from the drinks when given—none of you really know where you’re headed. Your cardinal directions have switched and the sun is already far below the horizon so you can’t figure them out. Namjoon’s phone is on three percent. The world is your oyster.

There is nothing quite like the fantasy of stumbling around a romantic, street-light-laden city like Venice while inebriated. Not to the point of any serious harm and certainly not enough to incapacitate you so severely that you’re incapable of any sort of basic function, but enough to have your head spinning and for all of the lights that decorate the streets to bleed together, like a photo out of focus. Enough for the world to seem a little bit happier even if nothing has changed, and even if there has just been a new political campaign designed to ruin the very foundation of democracy.

When in Venice. When life hands you an instrument, it is music that you must play.

Somehow, someway, you get lost. Not that you’re at all surprised by this since it took five minutes to get from the hotel to the bar and you’ve been clambering around Venice for at least fifteen. Somehow the direction your group has vanishes and it is like all hell breaks loose but nothing actually escapes. Jimin and Taehyung are in a constant state of giggles, laughing and laughing and laughing about something that nobody else will find funny. Namjoon has somehow been coerced into giving Yoongi a piggyback ride, and so he trudges along as Yoongi sucks on an ice cube from the plastic cup in his hand, wincing whenever the cold touches the back of his front teeth. Somehow, Seokjin and Hoseok haven’t ripped each other’s heads off and are instead engaged in a very serious game of drunk chopsticks, Hoseok continuously pulling the move where he splits up his one hand into two, just to bother the elder.

Somehow, Jungkook hasn’t let go of your hand. Not since when you left to go down to the lobby a couple of hours ago. This entire time you’ve been connected by a lifeline, your two hands interlocked between your bodies as you sip your margaritas and cocktails and pretend just for a second, that none of this is fabricated. Pretend that just for a little bit, when your brains are clogged and your hearts are beating, that there is no big reveal at the end of this trip to devastate your friends, no messy breakup you have to stage all for the act. That Jungkook can be Jungkook and you can be you and the us, whatever us it is that you have, can just be an us.

Somehow, after another eight minutes of walking (and three of Jimin yodelling) you find yourselves in, of all places, Piazza San Marco. The tourist traps are closed for the night but the view will never die, the sight of such a gorgeous location will forever hold the same beauty. Not that Piazza San Marco was your intended destination, but it certainly is a stunning one. One that even at night, when all of the visitors have gone back to their hotels and only the locals, free to roam as they please, are out for a nighttime stroll, takes your breath away.

“Hey, I recognize this place,” Hoseok points out mindlessly. He won the game of Chopsticks, and now Seokjin wants a rematch.

“Piazza Marco Polo,” Jimin tacks on incorrectly, too busy trying to wrap Taehyung up in his sleeves. So far Taehyung’s shirt is wholly intact and his glasses have made their way from the top of his head to the back of it, hanging off of his ears like a true college student.

“Gorgeous here,” Namjoon comments aloud, only one who can articulate such an admiration for the view while mildly hammered. He’s one of the lucky ones; the alcohol flows in and out of his system at the snap of his fingers. “Even at night. Gorgeous.”

“Imagine living here,” you add on just for some food for thought.

Living in Italy would be as much of a dream as you could imagine. A little apartment in the good side of town, top floor with no elevator or air conditioning. Dark red shutters and a soft breeze that blows through the windows. Street music playing from below, history right at your doorstep. Art museums with the world’s treasures only a fifteen minute walk away. The best cheese, wine, meat in the world, at your fingertips.

And then suddenly the dream changes. You blame it on your drunkenness before you can make out the new image in front of you. You’re still in Italy, still have that apartment in the good side of town with a soft breeze and maroon shutters. But there’s a figure standing by the tiny kitchen island. A violin case by the couch. There are Polaroids decorating the walls, each with scrawled dates underneath them. The figure turns around and it’s Jungkook. Suddenly the image is different, you are in Italy and you have an apartment and you eat the best cheese and drink the best wine and Jungkook is with you every step of the way. Almost like it would feel strange if he wasn’t. Like he belongs here.

There is art, and there is art.

There is art that the world has analyzed, stared right through the cracks in the paint. Art that is revered, honored, with plaques and Wikipedia pages and courses dedicated to them. Art that is meant to be shown off, boasted by museums as if to say “Look what we have”, art meant for the human to look at.

And there is art, art that the world has ignored. Hidden art, shadowed by the things that people recognize, that people know. Art that peeks in through the cracks in the paint and raises its hand softly to say that “I’m here. Don’t forget about me.” Art that is meant to sit in plain sight, right in front of you but never obtrusively. Art that moves with you.

There is Jungkook.

Lost in thought, you turn to find Jungkook sitting down on an empty step, swallowing heavily as his body slowly but surely rids itself of the alcohol. The haze is still there but no longer is it growing. Only settling.

“Hey,” you say softly, finding yourself getting down next to him. Jungkook’s eyes are transfixed on the stars. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not,” Jungkook says, swaying only the slightest bit. You could blame it on the wind if there was any. He keeps his gaze trained on the sky above. Not many stars are visible from here, the city lights keeping them hidden from his view, but you can make out a few. The lucky ones, not shadowed by the weight of human life.

“You are,” you insist, and he doesn’t fight it. “What kind of a fake girlfriend am I supposed to be when my fake boyfriend is drunk?”

Jungkook forces a chuckle before pausing. You don’t really expect him to answer. When you look back down, the rest of your group are charging around Piazza San Marco, so much free space that they don’t know what to do with themselves. If you squint, you think you can see Yoongi and Taehyung sparring. Or at least, Naruto-running towards each other.

“You don’t have to be my fake girlfriend,” Jungkook suddenly blurts out. You turn to him, caught off guard and surprised he even responded to you when you had spoken to him well over thirty seconds ago. “You could… we could—” You don’t understand. What’s he trying to say?

“Jungkook?” You ask, leaning in, hoping that his eyes will meet yours, even just for a second. He sounds like he’s about to spill out his deepest secrets, his darkest fears, to an unsuspecting stranger.

“Oh, God,” Jungkook says before he rushes to his feet and beelines to the nearest public trash can. You gasp to yourself, watching in horror as Jungkook leans over, body rocking back and forth. He doesn’t actually vomit, nothing comes out of his mouth, but it is the sight of such uneasiness that has you truly worried.

“Jungkook!” You should, getting up yourself and jogging over to him. He still has yet to empty any of the contents from his stomach out of his mouth, and as you reach him his body seems to slow, like the whole thing was just a false alarm in the first place. “Jungkook, are you okay?”

Jungkook looks up at you, and even if you are both shrouded in the darkness of the night you can tell that he’s embarrassed. But it’s like his entire demeanor just shifts, a volta in his personality, when he sees you, his shoulders lightening up and a soft grin breaking out onto his face. “Yeah, Thumper,” he says, promises, even as he stands next to a public trash can. You swear someone wolf whistles, but you are hardly paying attention. “I’m okay.”

Venice ends like this: for once, the skies are cloudy. Not that the overcast weather makes the temperature any less boiling, because even if the sun is gone the humidity remains. But the clouds are nice. You’re leaving on a Thursday, when all of the other tourists who are leaving on the weekend are still in the heat of their explorations around the area, desperate to cram in as much as they can in a three-day period.

Venice ends like this: even though you’ve seen Jungkook plenty since then, he hasn’t made a single mention of what happened that night in Piazza San Marco, and you aren’t going to press him on it any further than you did then. What Jungkook said that night was a fragment, pieces of an incomplete sentence that his brain couldn’t add the finishing touches to, not necessarily just because he was drunk but because it didn’t seem like he had the final words to say anyway. Venice ends with what you are certain are memory cards after memory cards of Seokjin and you in Jungkook’s possession. He could never really keep himself from pressing the silver button on his camera.

Venice ends like this: with an unfinished story on a cloudy day.

“Florence, here we come!” Seokjin shouts as everyone is rolling out of the hotel, ready to head to the train to take you all the way down south, the final destination on your trip.

It feels bizarre, calling it the last stop. The final place. Because you still have over a week there, but it’s the last over-a-week you’ll have in Italy, the last several days before you inevitably have to fly back home, a plane ride you are absolutely dreading. Italy is the kind of place that makes you wonder why you didn’t visit sooner. Florence is where all of the lasts will be, last gelato, last museum, last sidestreet. Last performance, last painting. The very last of your relationship with Jungkook, whatever behemoth of a fake relationship it’s turned into.

Time flies so quickly, and yet you feel as though the next week will pass by like molasses. A last week to savor the best and forget the worst. The last week you will have to spend walking around Italy with your hand in Jungkook’s, with him taking an unnecessary amount of photos of you, with him stealing your pasta and you sharing his pizza.

Lots of lasts. Lots of firsts, too. Everything is unfinished but this feels final, no matter what.

“Can’t believe we’ll be home in ten days,” Namjoon says, his words eliciting a grumble from the rest of the group, who refuse to face the truth until it knocks them square in the nose.

“Feels like just yesterday Yoongi destroyed his internal organs by downing multiple shots of espresso,” Taehyung reminisces like Yoongi’s nothing but a memory, a piece of the past.

“I’m right here, fucker,” Yoongi mutters, standing next to him with his flute in his hand.

“Sometimes I can still hear his voice…” Taehyung trails off, purposefully looking in the opposite direction from where the flutist is standing just to bother him more. Yoongi then proceeds to practically knock Taehyung right into Seokjin, who then shoves him back, leaving Taehyung caught in a push-and-shove sandwich as the two go back and forth like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

“Better make the most of this, right?” Jungkook asks to you as you slowly migrate from the hotel, saying goodbye to the staff as you shuffle out with your big suitcases and backpacks and instruments. You’re positive that the hotel employees are thrilled to be rid of you. “Only one place left.”

“So many things that we have to see there,” you say, already dreaming of the gorgeous artwork and the history-rich architecture that’s waiting for you a mere two hours by train away.

“Well,” Jungkook says somewhat haughtily. He can’t hold your hand because his are filled and so are yours, but he can nudge up against you, sticking close to your side, like he’s afraid that if he loses you he’ll never get you back. “We’ll just have to stick together, hmm?”

You think of Venice. And Rome. And the way that Jungkook can see the beauty in everything, the way he can capture it even better than he can view it. The way that with a simple change of degree the whole angle changes, the perspective alters and becomes something brand new but not any less beautiful. You think of Jungkook and you think that, if it’s your last week in Italy, you may as well milk this relationship dry while you still can. Before whatever comes after a fake relationship, be it friendship or that awkward limbo of acquaintances or barely acknowledging each other on the sidewalk. And even if you know that Jungkook is waiting for the day when you break up to come as well, you pray you won’t lose him to distance, to time. Pray, selfishly so, that he’ll stay close to you.

It is people like Jungkook, you recognize, that are people you need to cherish.

On the train, Hoseok and Jungkook play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to claim the seat next to you. What’s funny about this round, however, is the fact that Hoseok puts out scissors three times in a row, making it easy for Jungkook to beat him and secure the spot right beside yours as his home for the next two hours. Hoseok had taken a psychology course in freshman year and his professor taught him the most foolproof way to win at rock-paper-scissors every time and Hoseok disregarded it entirely. Curious.

Jungkook, having very evidently not gotten enough sleep the night before, settles in down next to you before saying, “I’m tired, can I use you as a pillow?” He leaves no space for a response as he places his head in the crook of your neck and his eyes flutter shut.

Florence does not need photos to take your breath away. Florence steals your lungs right from your body, leaving you no room to even try. Cuts off your air supply from the source in order to leave you in a permanent state of awe, like you’ll never get used to a city like this.

Granted, you’re extremely excited just to be here, an enthusiastic puppy getting taken to its new home for the very first time. Not unlike the other two cities you’ve visited thus far, Florence is rich with art, history, culture, and you simply cannot wait until you dive head first into it all. Florence is the type of city that always has you on the edge of your seat, wanting more. A perpetual cliffhanger.

The nicest thing about the city is that everything is within thirty minutes of everything else. At no point in time will you need to hop onto some form of public transportation, whether it be a train, a taxi, a gondola. Nothing is truly off limits in Florence, not when you have so much time to spare. Florence is the city where you are meant to get lost, begin wandering down some side streets and lose your way entirely, because what is the beauty in the destination if you ignore the beauty in the journey?

“I was supposed to be saving my money for textbooks next year but fuck that shit!” Jimin cries out as you head down towards the Arno, making your way right towards Ponte Vecchio. Not that any of you have any intentions of buying jewelry that costs more than a mortgage, but you know that the stores along the main street that takes you there are worth your while. “Thank you illegal PDFs!”

“What the hell are you even going to buy?” Seokjin asks, looking Jimin up and down like a mannequin. “You already own like, one of every single clothing item in existence.”

“I reject this statement,” Jimin declares, but it’s no use. Seokjin’s right. Jimin seems to own everything despite what you know is a lack of funding in his bank account. He must go thrifting a lot. “I’ll figure out a way to spend my money, don’t shame me.”

“Think about it, Seok, how often you gonna get to go shopping in Italy?” Namjoon reasons, the peacemaker within the group.

Seokjin scoffs, as if that’s even a question he’s being asked. “Lots, obviously? Just gotta wait until my Instagram career takes off. Then I’ll be here every summer, bitches!”

Everyone laughs, partly because Seokjin’s enthusiasm is just genuinely amusing and partly because you all know that his Instagram career is going nowhere except the garbage. Things like that only happen to people with connections or people who are rich. Seokjin is neither, though he swears that he has a second cousin who’s a K-pop star. You aren’t necessarily sure if you believe him.

“Have fun melting your goddamn face off,” Jimin comments bitterly. His pointer finger and thumb are pinching the collar of his shirt as he fans it out in the hopes that he’ll cool down what must be burning skin underneath. Jimin’s got a casual dress shirt and shorts on and his sweat stains are quite honestly, record-breaking. You can’t imagine yourself to be any better. Simply walking on the concrete makes your body temperature rise something fierce and unrelenting. “It’s balls hot here.”

“It’s balls hot here everywhere, climate change is real,” Yoongi says snidely, though he isn’t faring much better. “This is what greenhouse gases are doing to our goddamn ecosystem.”

“I’m sorry?” Taehyung asks, and you already know that whatever is about to come out of his mouth is going to earn him some sort of physical response from Yoongi. “Global warming is a hoax created by China to steal American jobs. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Yoongi mutters even if the fondness peeks right through his words.

Fanning yourself as you beeline to the closest shaded part of the sidewalk, where the veranda offers a brief and weak respite from the blazing rays beating down on you, you heave out, “I could go for a water bottle. How about you Jungko—?” You turn to find the boy you thought had been walking right behind you gone, vanished into thin air. You know he couldn’t be far but the crowds on this road seem to be never-ending, and for a split second you’re worried you’ve lost him entirely.

“We lost Jungkook!” You shout to the rest of your friends, who are currently loitering outside a watch store as Jimin and Namjoon take a peek inside. They all shrug in response, none of them feeling any sort of a sense of urgency to find the boy. What if he’s been sucked into a black hole and none of you know because none of you bother to look for him?

“Of course we did!” Hoseok says, shrugging it off like it’s nothing. “He’s probably taking photos in one of the alleys!”

“I’ll go get him!” You shout to them. Hoseok gives you a thumbs up before he caves and walks into the watch store, desperate for any sort of air conditioned haven that he can find, even if not for very long.

Walking against the current of the crowd, your eyes scan the smaller streets that jut out from the main one, searching for the boy with the camera. He must be down one of these, in no scenario would he ever stop in such a busy road to take photos. And then, near the very beginning of the downhill slope, you see a mop of dark hair and a camera.

“Jungkook!” You call, rushing over to him. He’s looking at some smaller works of street art, tiny little drawings on the sides of buildings and walls of political cartoons, lips, stick figures. They look like tattoos on the skin, each with a different meaning, spread out along an arm or a chest or a back. Little drawings that make up a bigger picture. “Jungkook, you disappeared on us!”

“I hate being in the sun,” he tells you, which, valid. You hate it too. Never have you hated that ball of fire in the sky more than this vacation. “And these drawings are amazing. Very quirky, would probably get accepted into a top college.”

“You can’t just vanish like that, you know,” you tell him pointedly. “It’s busy as shit here. We’d lose you. I’d lose you!”

Jungkook places a hand on his heart, feigning appreciation. “Aw, would my girlfriend miss me if I was gone?”

You barely take notice of the way the word “fake” has slipped from his mind.

(Maybe if you pretend it’s not there this time, you can pretend that it was never there to begin with.)

You scoff, rolling your eyes even if his words cause a little grin to break out on your face. Jungkook seems to have this permanent effect on you where, in his presence, you’ll always end up smiling. He’s just a wonderful person. Someone worth smiling for. “No, just don’t wanna be held liable for your disappearance. I’d have to pay your college tuition. Fuck that.”

“Ever the romantic, Thumper,” Jungkook says. His smile reaches his eyes, makes little wrinkles appear at the corners of them. People say wrinkles are bad but wrinkles are proof that you are living your life the right way: filled with laughter and joy. Finding something truly wonderful and being unabashed about your admiration for it. That’s how you’re supposed to live your life. “Say Firenze!”

Yet another classic Jungkook as he catches you off guard, quickly pulling up his camera and snapping a photo before you can object, the familiar click of the camera ringing out throughout the alley. You know what the photo looks like before he can show it to you, know exactly what it’s going to be before seeing it yourself. It’ll be you, standing in front of the conjunction between the alleyway and the main street, the perpendicularly-moving crowd an unfocused blur behind you. It’ll be you, clear as day, with the beginnings of a giggle on your face.

(You. In love with the man behind the camera.)

“That’s going into the portfolio for sure,” Jungkook declares as he quickly scans through his most recent takes. “Some of my finest work, if I do say so myself.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jeon,” you say as a warning, even if you know he’s right. In everything that Jungkook does he is improving, getting one step closer and closer to complete and utmost perfection. Jungkook is the kind of person God created and then realized that they were too close to immaculate, but it was too late, because he was already here. “Come on, we gotta meet up with the rest of them. Pretty sure Jimin’s about to drop all of his money on a watch.”

Jungkook sighs. “Not again.”

This time, when you walk into a clothing store, it isn’t one with articles that cost more than a car. Luckily. Meaning you can comfortably shop without your eyes widening comically when you look at the price tag. It’s another one of those movie fantasies, shopping in a visually, culturally, and historically breathtaking place like Italy. Another one of those silly tourist things you’ll do just for the hell of it.

You’re in the middle of inspecting a button-down shirt, one that is entirely asymmetrical in both its design and its pattern, with horizontal and vertical stripes crashing into each other, when Hoseok comes up to you with the most obscene shorts you have ever seen (save for his awful, awful denim ones). They are a fluorescent canary yellow, the color you would find in a Crayola box for elementary students, and they have bright green polka dots covering them. They’re horrifying, and yet, only Hoseok would ever be able to pull them off.

“What in tarnation,” you say, not so much a question as it is a gasp, eyebrows furrowing instantly as Hoseok holds up the offending article of clothing. It looks more like a very diseased banana than a piece of clothing.

“Aren’t these great?” He asks enthusiastically. “And they’re on sale!”

You wonder why. Maybe if you were back home, at your own shopping mall, you would tell him that he’s about as fashionable as a colorblind giraffe and that it would be a waste of his money, but you’re not back home. You’re in Italy, and if in Italy Hoseok wants to buy what may or may not be the ugliest pair of shorts you’ve ever laid eyes on, then, well, who are you to stop him?

“You know what, Hoseok?” You say, nodding your head in support. He deserves to treat himself, even if his tastes are questionable at best. “You do you.”

“Treat myself, bitch,” Hoseok says confidently, turning to face what you’re browsing through. It’s mindful shopping, not the same kind that you do back home, because you only have one chance to buy something nice. No returns, refunds, or exchanges. “What are you gonna get?”

“I don’t know. Something nice.”

“Way to be specific, Y/N,” Hoseok says sarcastically.

You scoff, accosted. “You have no right to be talking to me about fashion when you have those monstrosities in your hand.”

Hoseok gasps. “How dare you insult these shorts. They are now my pride and joy and I will always wear them around you just to spite you.”

“First of all, fuck you,” you spit out though there is no animosity to your words. Hoseok cackles before prancing off to find some other hideous items in the sale section hidden in the back corner, away from the customer’s view. Not without good reason, of course.

With your best friend gone, frolicking around the store’s lower level, you begin to migrate yourself, eyes scanning the racks and shelves and mannequins for something to catch your eye. For some reason you seem to have become pickier than before, as if the change in location suddenly altered your own taste when it came to shopping, like you’re being stingy because you know you can’t just up and return the items like you could elsewhere.

That is precisely when you feel a figure slide up next to you, placing a soft kiss on your cheek to alert you of his presence.

“Hey, Thumper,” Jungkook says. “What do you think?”

Over his graphic tee, he’s got on a faux leather jacket, a sleek black material that looks much more expensive than it actually is. It fits him extremely well, hugs the biceps he’s gotten from so many years of violin-holding and perhaps a couple years of some devoted weightlifting as well, compliments his flawless figure and small waist. It looks great on him. You find it only a little strange that a store in Italy is selling a high-quality, thick leather jacket in the middle of summer.

“It doesn’t go with your shoes,” you tell him, looking down at the Jesus sandals look he’s sporting.

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Aside from my shoes, what do you think?”

You can’t help but be honest. This relationship has turned you into one hell of a softie. “It looks great on you, Jungkook. Everything does.” It comes out kind of like a sigh, like it’s something he should already know, so why is he bothering asking you? Does he need you to tell him that he’s beautiful too?

“You really think so?” Jungkook asks, looking at you as he takes the jacket off, hanging it over one arm as he flattens it out.

“Well, after Hoseok came up to me with the Satan of shorts, everything in this store seems nicer than it really is,” you joke. Jungkook laughs knowingly, having obviously caught a glimpse of Hoseok and those demons while walking around as well. “But yeah, I’m serious. You should get it.”

“It’s a little expensive,” Jungkook says hesitantly, eyeing the price tag. “I don’t know, maybe it’s not worth it. It’s not even real leather.”

“So? Save a cow and get it,” you tell him. “You shouldn’t be scared of it. We’re in Italy. You’re with your youth orchestra group. I’m here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Words to live by.

Galileo Galilei once said that you must “measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” And you’ve lost count of the amount of times that Jungkook has pulled his hand into yours but you know that he’s kissed you on the cheek five times and you’ve seen him smile about as many times as there are stars in the sky. But what you cannot measure is your relationship with him. There is a contract written on a napkin somewhere but you wonder if he’s accidentally thrown it away while cleaning out his backpack, and you begin to wonder if you even care if he has. Galileo Galilei says that you need to make measurable what is not but you don’t know how you’re supposed to begin counting out your relationship with Jungkook when you yourself don’t even know how to define it. All of these numbers must add up to something but there is an unforeseen variable that you cannot solve for.

Galileo Galilei is a genius, but even still there are some unanswered questions.

On the edge of Florence and north of the Arno river is a smaller, less frequented church than the Duomo in the center called the Basilica de Santa Croce, and it is where Galileo is buried alongside people like Dante, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo. It is the deathbed of legends, of names permanently etched into history as shining stars, forgers of what is now the present. The Basilica de Santa Croce is not only an architectural wonder but it bears the names of some of the world’s most famous writers, philosophers, artists, leaders.

It just so happens to be your tourist stop of the day.

“That’s Dante!” Jimin shouts as you come up to the church, pointing towards the statue to the left of the main doors. Engraved in the stone is his name, Dante Alighieri. “He wrote that one book about hell.”

Namjoon looks as though he’s about to have an aneurysm with Jimin’s very obvious lack of deep and immense respect for not only the book but also the author behind it. You are willing to bet very good money that Namjoon poured out his heart, mind, and soul into the study of the book, whenever he was forced to read it during his mandated schooling. Coughing, he corrects, “He wrote the Divine Comedy, largely considered to be Italy’s greatest literary work, one of which features the poem Inferno. Yes.”

“That’s what I said,” Jimin says pointedly, making Namjoon sigh. You suppose that’s what he gets for easily being the only one in this entire group who’s somehow managed to retain the majority of his brain cells. You are actually quite impressed he hasn’t lost more considering how often he spends time with Taehyung.

“I’m really looking forward to this one,” Jungkook leans in to tell you as Namjoon doles out the tickets. It’s the middle of the day on a weekday and there is absolutely no line to enter, a shocking sight in a bustling tourist center like Florence. “Inferno was my favorite thing that I’ve ever read in all of high school. Knocked out Slaughterhouse-Five for the top spot.”

“Damn, what did Vonnegut ever do to deserve that, huh?” You joke, holding out your ticket for the guard waiting at the door to inspect. He gives a hearty yet stern nod and you and Jungkook walk inside. Ahead of you, Seokjin and Taehyung are already “ooh”-ing their way around the Basilica, much to the chagrin of literally everybody else. Hoseok’s already on his way to shushing them.

Jungkook loses his ability to speak when his eyes catch up with his mouth as he takes in the sight before him. Graves are littered throughout the entire building but shrines have been built into the walls, with messages and statues and marble decorating their designs. The people here deserve to be buried with such high distinction, revered so deeply not only by Italians of hundreds of centuries but by the whole world for their contributions to society, beliefs that have shaped the world as you know it.

You’d think he’d been rendered entirely speechless if it weren’t for the awe-stricken “Wow” to leave his mouth as he stares around the building, unable to focus his eyes all on one spot for there is simply too much to see. He doesn’t know where to turn but he does seem to be drifting towards Michelangelo’s tomb, a move you definitely saw coming considering the past two weeks spent here. Namjoon, Jimin, and Taehyung are busy looking at Machiavelli’s burial site, and a quick glance their way tells you that Namjoon is currently reciting all of Machiavelli’s greatest accomplishments as Jimin and Taehyung dumbly listen in. Hoseok and Yoongi are strolling around without a clear destination in sight, letting the grandeur of the place sink in. Seokjin has striked up a conversation with another group of Korean tourists, a family with two young children. They seem to be getting along incredibly well, and Seokjin even offers to take a photo.

“Never in a million years did I ever think I’d get to be here,” Jungkook tells you as you come up to Michelangelo’s tomb. A bust of the artists rests atop a stone coffin, and next to it, statues. “These women represent Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting,” he informs you, pointing to each respective statue. “His favorite things.”

“That’s—”

“It’s nerdy, I know,” Jungkook jokes, even if he continues to stare. He takes it all in like a breath of fresh air after being locked up for a year, lets it pierce his skin and melt into his bones. “I don’t know, I just think that he’s a genius.”

“It’s not nerdy,” you promise, equally as floored by the sight in front of you as well as beside you. Jungkook speaks like his passions aren’t worth being passionate about, but you think that he’s brilliant. “It’s really fucking cool, actually. The fact that you love this stuff so much, Jungkook. It’s incredible.”

“You think so?”

You nod. Knowledge is beauty and Jungkook is the most beautiful of them all.

Conveniently, right beside the Basilica de Santa Croce, on a road barely a five minute walk away, is a gelato store with an abundance of flavors to choose from. And it just so happens to be next on your list of places to visit, the overwhelming heat of Florence scorching your skin the moment you leave the blissful shade of the church.

On the Via Dei Neri there is a little gelato shop that bears the same name as the street, and when you arrive it is mostly empty, save for a couple of tourists who are seated in the plastic chairs in the corner of the store. Admittedly, the gelato here looks a lot more scrumptious than the thick, artificial flavors of Rome and Venice, beautiful colors and swirls decorating the tubs of the sweet.

“Wow, look!” Hoseok says, smacking your shoulder roughly as he points. “Mango cheesecake! And rice!”

“Rice?” Seokjin overhears, budging in. “Move over. My Asian ass is shaking.”

The one in Rome had over a hundred flavors but every single one of these look more delectable than any of the ones there. You can’t help but ache to taste each and every one, even if you know you’ll only be able to consume one or two before your stomach is filled to the brim.

This time, you are a little more giving with your blackberry and rose gelato, allowing Hoseok a single scoop of each with that tiny plastic spoon of his, letting him divulge into your gelato as you respectfully decline a bit of his own. He’s already attacked the entire surface area of the damn thing, and while mango cheesecake sounds delicious, Hoseok’s saliva, less so.

“It’s your loss,” he tells you over a mouthful of the dessert. He then proceeds to slurp up half of it like an animal starved. Your best friend is, quite frankly, disgusting.

“What’d you get,” Jungkook asks as he plops down heavily into the open seat next to you. You can hear the bone-shattering crash of something and peer under the table to find his phone lying face down on the floor. “Ah, fuck it. It’s already broken.” He shrugs carelessly and makes no move to retrieve his cellular device, much to your anxiety. You don’t know what he’s on but it’s certainly doing wonders for your fine lines.

“Blackberry and rose.”

“Oh, can I have some?” Jungkook asks hopefully. You sigh, resigning yourself to a life of letting all of the people close to you mooch off of your food, and hold out the cone to him. He helps himself to a small scoop of each flavor, humming in appreciation as he pops the whole thing into his mouth. “Mmm,” he says. “A rose by any other name would taste as sweet.”

“Nice wordplay,” you compliment dryly. “Let me have some of yours.”

“It’s mango,” he tells you, scooping some and holding it in front of your lips, ready to feed you. You comply instantly, opening your mouth to let him pop the spoon inside. And then, catching you off guard, he quickly takes a dollop on the tip of his finger and wipes it on your nose, much to your shock.

“Every fucking time we get gelato they’re at it again,” Jimin huffs when he sees the both of you giggling in the corner, retreating to the table where Seokjin and Yoongi sit, clearly trying to avoid looking your way so they don’t vomit up their gelato. “I think we’re gonna have to exile them from our gelato-scapades.”

“You know you don’t have to talk about us like we can’t hear you, right?” Jungkook asks pointedly.

“We know,” Jimin nods. “Go be gross elsewhere. I’m trying to stuff my face into the food of my culture.”

“Gelato is not the food of your culture,” Yoongi says. “We have the same fucking culture.”

“Ah ah ah,” Jimin says, shushing Yoongi with a finger to his lips. Yoongi, in retaliation, licks Jimin’s entire digit, but Jimin doesn’t even flinch. Like it’s normal for his finger to be licked by his friends. “This is rice gelato. Therefore, food of my culture.”

Seokjin, the biggest cone of rice-flavored gelato in his hand, high fives him.

Almost never does Bang receive enough credit for the work he puts into this orchestra. It’s his heart and soul and you are almost positive it’s the only thing he cares about, even if he’s spending the majority of his time sending glares Taehyung’s way. He’s the reason you’re even in Italy in the first place, and he is also the reason that you are currently standing in a line with tickets to enter Florence’s most famous art gallery instead of having to wait around for four hours in the blistering heat just for a spot in line.

“I pray to all of the higher powers above us and perhaps some demons as well just be sure that this place has air conditioning,” Taehyung declares as he attempts to fan himself with his ticket, the floppy piece of paper doing absolutely nothing for his body temperature. Even though you’re standing in the shade, covered by the shadow of the Uffizi, the heat is, quite frankly, still overwhelming.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Seokjin mutters. “The Lord works hard but the sun works harder.”

“Fuck that,” Taehyung grumbles, as if that’s going to do anything to calm the 500% humidity currently permeating the air.

“If you’re going to spend this entire trip complaining about the heat you’ll never be able to actually enjoy it,” Namjoon advises wisely, preferring to keep his obvious distaste for the weather to himself.

“That’s where you’re wrong, good sir,” Taehyung says, shooting Namjoon a finger gun alongside a wink. “I can complain about the heat and enjoy the trip at the same time. I’m a good multitasker.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes. Taehyung’s always been like this.

The Uffizi, ironically enough, is shaped like a gigantic U, where you start at the very top floor of the museum and make your way around and down, slowly traipsing through room after room of stunning artwork, whether it be sculptures, paintings, and everything in between. You find the setup to be much more manageable than some of the other museums you’ve been to in your time as a museum aficionado, the layout easy to navigate and certain exhibits entirely unhidden.

More than once does Jungkook urge you to break away from your tour group and go exploring, and you almost cave in once or twice, but you understand that, between the two of you you are part of that select group of kids in your orchestra that don’t actually give Bang minor headaches, and therefore you should probably stay with your group, for Bang’s sake.

“This city is the birthplace of the Renaissance as we know it, please?” Jungkook asks, tugging on your arm as you enter another room filled entirely with stone sculptures and busts. You actually find his desire to abandon the tour group quite endearing, like he appreciates art so much he wants to explore it, admire it, cherish it in his own time, without having to keep up with the quick pace of the tour guide. It is something so unabashedly Jungkook, an unapologetic want to let the art sink in for himself without the crackly voice of a tour guide speaking into his ear.

“Jungkook, you know we shouldn’t,” you advise him, quite honestly shocked that you have turned into the sole diligent orchestra member between the two of you. Never in a million years could you imagine Jungkook wanting to break the rules and you wanting to follow them considering who you are as individuals and who you hang out with as friends.

“Aw, come on, Thumper, live a little,” he pleads. “Look, we’ve already drifted to the back of the group.”

He motions up ahead of you, where the tour group is currently gathered around a particular sculpture that even Jungkook bears very little interest in. You and Jungkook have strayed behind, and the rest of your friends are closer to the front, too immersed in the tour to notice your absence. Jungkook’s got a gleam in his eye and a wonder decorating his features, like he’s aching to get out and explore as much as he can. One of his hands is held tightly to his camera, the other, in your own. You can’t believe you’re about to do this.

“Fine,” you submit to his desires, not that you seem to mind very much either. You seem to have gotten progressively weaker and weaker to Jungkook’s causes as the trip’s gone on, both a blessing and a curse. “But if we get in trouble, it’s your fault.”

“Yes!” Jungkook cheers. He keeps his eyes trained on Bang, and when the conductor has his back turned to you, he grabs onto you and you quickly shuffle out of sight.

“This is literally such a shitty idea, Jungkook,” you tell him as you enter a different room, filled less with sculptures and more with art from the Gothic, pre-Renaissance periods. “We could get lost.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jungkook says, shrugging off your concerns. “I snagged a map. Look. We’re a couple of rooms away from The Birth of Venus and Primavera.”

“You just wanted to explore this place by yourself,” you say matter-of-factly, sighing as Jungkook tugs you towards another piece of artwork, lined with gold, blue, and red. It portrays a part of the story of Christ, a common muse amongst the artists of the age.

“This is true,” he admits to you, “but I’m not by myself. Look, I’m here with you.”

And maybe he only means that in a literal sense but you take it to heart anyway, allow yourself to fall into this fleeting dream where you and Jungkook are in Italy together, no loud group of friends or youth orchestra to interrupt your plans, where it is just you and him and the city of Florence all to yourselves. Where you can do what you please and take as much time as you need and explore all you want without anybody stopping you. Where you can hold hands and it isn’t just for show and take pictures of each other to preserve in the photo albums of your brain and your heart. A dream where you are in Italy together and there is no contract standing in your way, a bitter reminder that even if the location is real your relationship is not.

“I guess,” you say out loud, more a reminder to yourself than to him that you are together physically and nothing else.

“Come on, Botticelli is a couple of rooms over,” he says quickly, tugging you towards the prize he’s got his eyes trained on, arguably the most famous of the pieces housed in this museum. They’ll have crowds in front of them, for sure, but that’s alright. Jungkook’s tall, and he’ll be able to lift you up in more ways than one.

Though Jungkook does seem to be in a bit of a rush to get to the paintings, he takes his time exploring each room, reading the plaques in earnest and staring as closely as he can at the paintings, analyzing each one like the art student he was meant to be. It’s wondrous, really, the way he falls so deeply into the art in front of him, like a well he’ll never escape from. He looks at each piece like it is just as important as the one next to it, even if they aren’t nearly as famous as others, because to him art is a gift, a treasure that should be preserved, recognized, and celebrated.

As you approach the open doorway to the room containing Botticelli’s work, Jungkook gasps softly beside you, floored even from seeing the work from far away. It’s right there, right in front of him, and it’s as though Jungkook doesn’t really know what to do with himself now.

“Hey, let’s go,” you murmur to him. His feet seem to have given up and he’s rooted firmly in place, like if he takes another step he’ll simply collapse. “Come on, Jungkook. You’re almost there.”

It seems as though he’s in a trance as he follows you along, tugging him closer and closer to the piece. Primavera has less of a crowd in front of it than The Birth of Venus a few meters away, and so you pull him up close, standing right in front of the painting as he stares at it from in front of the glass that protects it.

“Look,” you whisper to him as if he needs the extra instruction. Jungkook can’t help the way his camera immediately comes up, knowing that even if he stares down the painting for another fifteen hours it will never be preserved in his brain the way a photo is.

You don’t know if you’d rather gaze at the artwork or at Jungkook, who is as much of a masterpiece as everything else in this museum is. You elect, just for today, to let your eyes drift to the art, because maybe, selfishly so, you’ll be able to continue looking at Jungkook long after you’ve left Italy. You barely notice the way he leaves your side to get a couple of different angles of the painting, allowing yourself to sink into the art as much as he has. You lack the analytical abilities and artistic prowess that Jungkook possesses at the tips of his fingers but that’s alright because you don’t need either of those to know that this is a piece of artwork worth saving.

“Beautiful,” Jungkook says when he joins back up at your side, your fears of being caught by your tour group long forgotten. You can’t help but wish that he wasn’t talking about the art but instead talking about you, but that is a thought to be shoved into the deep crevices of your mind, far from anything that may leave your mouth.

The crowds mean absolutely nothing when Jungkook lays his eyes on The Birth of Venus, the painting illuminated by a single bulb but otherwise shadowed for safe-keeping purposes. There’s an entire Chinese tour group standing in front of the painting, old ladies whipping out their massive iPads to take a thousand photos from the exact same position as though one of them will turn out better than all of the others.

“This,” Jungkook says when you finally make your way towards the painting. He doesn’t need to elaborate. You know. Italy is a dream for someone like Jungkook, someone who can’t help but fall in love with every new piece of art he comes across. And Jungkook is a dream for someone like you, someone who can’t help but fall in love with—

“Is this what you had dreamed of?” You ask him softly. Jungkook isn’t taking out his camera for this one. He doesn’t need to. This one he’s studied, analyzed, inspected, down to each and every stroke of the brush. Even if Jungkook isn’t an art major he is an artist nonetheless, and a painting as famous as this one is something he doesn’t think he’ll forget. Not in a million years.

“More,” he whispers back, and it feels sort of like a slow motion movie, like the world is stopping but you’ll forever be able to gaze at this painting, like it is the only thing left for your eyes to look at. That’s what this feels like. Jungkook’s grip on your hand has gotten tighter but you don’t mind at all, not when he looks like he’s just seen a supernova burst in front of him. Jungkook’s eyes are permanently decorated with wonder but right now they seem to have something else in them too, like awe, like amazement, like pure beauty is staring him right in the face and he doesn’t know what to do with himself because of it.

“Don’t you want to take a photo?” You ask, nudging his camera. Jungkook’s camera hangs limply from his neck and even if he’s got a hand holding the device he makes no move to do anything about it.

“No,” Jungkook says. “This is the kind of thing I want to remember all to myself.”

Sometimes, you wonder what goes on in that head of his when he sees artwork like this. Artwork so famous, so revered, so breathtaking, that he doesn’t know what to do with himself, how to react other than with an open mouth and an awed expression. But then you realize that the way he feels when he stares at paintings like The Birth of Venus, like The Last Judgement, is the way that you feel when you stare at him. Because even if he doesn’t realize it, he himself is art, the same kind of art that he loves. Art that is worth remembering.

You and Jungkook catch up with your group somewhere along the first floor, near the end of the guided tour. Not that any of them noticed that you were missing in the first place, though Hoseok does send you a wink and a cheeky little smirk when you make a reappearance. And as the tour guide wraps up, pointing out a couple of the last few notable pieces of art, you ask Jungkook how he feels, and he tells you that he never wants to forget this moment, right now, because it is everything he has ever wanted.

The city of Florence is littered with so many art museums, galleries, palaces that it’s hard to catch a break in such a bustling city. Not that you really mind, especially since they give you the evenings off to do your own thing, but it’s easy to recognize that this city is the birthplace of the Renaissance when, with each corner you turn, there is another place to be discovered, art to be found.

Someone who very, very obviously does not mind this whatsoever is Jungkook. In fact, when you spend so much time with him you often times find yourself roped into his expeditions to seek out more paintings, sculptures, churches, architecture, anything that even screams Florentine art to him. Not that it’s something that particularly bothers or inconveniences you. Especially when the rest of your friends are sick of Jungkook’s unyielding desire to art and you are, as his honorary fake girlfriend, are not.

Throughout your week and a bit in Florence you can’t count on both of your hands how many different museums, churches that you’ve explored together. Jungkook’s got a hand on his camera and he doesn’t seem to want to let go, constantly taking photos of the art and the mosaics and the designs and of you, even if you sometimes tell him you look awful and that the art is worth remembering more than you are. Jungkook seems to beg to differ. He says that all the photos are for his portfolio. You imagine that thing must be a mile long at this point considering how many memory cards he’s gone through during this trip.

“I’m hungry,” you whine one day when you’re journeying on your own for a little around lunchtime. You’ve got an arranged tour (courtesy of Bang) for later in the afternoon, a trip to The Academy to see Michelangelo’s David, but right now you’re free to do what you please. Jungkook’s already gotten you to go into the Basilica di San Lorenzo this morning, and your stomach is grumbling.

“Hey, here’s a place,” Jungkook points out as you come up the street to a restaurant in a square-that-is-not-a-square-but-more-like-a-triangle, a place with indoor and outdoor seating. The smell that wafts through the air is enough to have you and Jungkook both asking for a table for two, sitting down by the side of the covered outdoor veranda as you stare down the menus. They’ve got a pasta list the same size as some of the essays you submitted in high school, all of which look as appetizing as the previous.

“This place knows how to treat pasta-lovers well,” Jungkook comments as you pick out your pasta of choice, one with truffle that you know is going to be stinking up your breath for the rest of the day. It’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make for the sake of the meal. “I want to order everything.”

“Slow down there, tiger. We can come back, if you’d like,” you suggest, the implications of another fake date slipping your mind. The question of “What are we?” makes you laugh from how overused it is, but even still, it applies perfectly.

The waitress comes by quickly, taking your orders and swooping up the menus, and you’re left alone listening to the sounds of the street music from several meters away, a father and a son performing in the middle of the square to passersby. It feels peaceful, homey. Like this is where you are meant to be.

“Let me take a photo of you,” Jungkook pleads, already making to get his camera out. “Please?”

Instead of objecting like you normally would, you nod, allowing Jungkook to snap as many pictures as he wants. It’s high time you indulge him, with how much he asks you to. Smiling softly, you grin towards the camera as he snaps away, unable to erase the smile that grows on his face at the sight of you. You wonder if you really are that photogenic, because all of your school IDs say otherwise, quite frankly.

“Okay, now let me take a photo of you,” you demand, making grabby hands over the table towards Jungkook’s camera. Very rarely is Jungkook ever the one in front of the camera, always preferring to be behind it, have his finger clicking away on the silver button, which you find astounding considering how deserving Jungkook is of having his photo taken, deserving to have that luxury just as everyone else.

“What? No way,” Jungkook says, holding his camera near and dear to his heart. “No. I don’t get my photo taken.”

“That’s about to change,” you declare, going so far as to stretch over the table to see if you can loop Jungkook’s camera over his head to snag it for yourself.

“Excuse me?” Jungkook asks indignantly, though he’s making absolutely no move to stop you, already resigning himself to the reality of you snagging a photo of him. You easily pull his camera from him, sitting back down in your seat and holding the camera up to your eye, letting the lens focus in on the man sitting in front of you.

“You heard me,” you tell him. “Smile, Jungkook. A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

With a sigh, Jungkook does. He closes his eyes and grins widely and even through the tiny viewfinder he looks gorgeous, looks like he’s just part of the photo instead of the focus of it. Looks like he belongs here, in Florence, surrounded by the art that he so loves and the food that he craves. He smiles and it reaches the corner of his closed eyes and God, he’s beautiful. You don’t think the camera does him justice, but it sure as hell comes close enough. With a click, you take the photo and lower the camera, hoping that maybe, if he doesn’t hear you, you’ll be able to look at him just a little longer.

“Alright,” you say softly, handing him back his camera. “There. Now you’ll get to remember yourself here, too.”

Maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll remember the girl behind the camera as well.

Michelangelo’s David is the kind of art that you don’t know what to do with yourself when you finally lay eyes on it. The kind of art that renders you not only speechless but your mind blank, an iconic piece of work that is the emblem of an era, an art form in and of itself. That’s what it is. David is the kind of art that holds nothing less than the highest praise possible.

It’s strange, organizing a tour group for a place like the Academy. It’s small, well-known only for its housing of Michelangelo’s famed statue. There’s not very much else to see other than some lesser known pieces, nor is the place suited for massive herds of people at a time. Even still, the building manages to cram in fifty youth orchestra members without too much of a hassle, so you suppose that the capacity is bigger than you thought.

David is, unsurprisingly, the main attraction. He has an entire section of the biggest room all to himself, standing proudly at the end of it. And even peering through the cracks of the doors in the entrance is enough to get Jungkook grinning, aching to see the sculpture for himself. Michelangelo isn’t necessarily Jungkook’s idol but he’s someone Jungkook knows so deeply, so profoundly, that it leaves a heavy impact on him either way.

When you make it inside the main room, Jungkook stops. His breath catches in his throat as he stares up at the sculpture, the five-meter tall man of marble proudly waiting for him at the end. The rest of the group shuffles ahead of him, desperate to get as up close and personal with the statue, but Jungkook refuses. He stays back to admire, looking above all of the people gathered around the glass barrier protecting the sculpture, a perfect view of the Biblical hero. Wordlessly, he pulls out his camera, immediately snapping a photo.

There is so little to say and so much to look at. What you are laying your eyes upon is nothing less than the symbol of an artistic god. Jungkook keeps a firm grip on your hand but says absolutely nothing, instead opting to simply walk up to the sculpture, look at it with his own two eyes, let the sight sink in like he has with so many others. This is a piece of art he wants engraved into his brain, etched permanently into his memory, and it’s easy to understand why.

He says nothing but he doesn’t need to. You can see it in his eyes, the way he gazes at the statue like if he blinks, he’ll forget it entirely. That expression of pure wonderstruckness in his eyes, decorating his face. He’s smiling, though. Like this is where he’s meant to be, nowhere else. He’s smiling and he’s beautiful and David is art but so is Jungkook, in every sense of the word.

It’s strange. It’s like you’ve fallen for Jungkook without even meaning to. Like the napkin on the tray table means nothing anymore.

With two days to go before you have to leave Florence, leave Italy once and for all, things are beginning to wind down. With visits to the major attractions already tucked under your belt and your last performance over last night, Bang seems have lost all motivation to keep his youth orchestra organized and instead has just given the lot of you free reign until you have to meet in the lobby of the hotel the day that you leave. It’s probably a mistake on his part, but you aren’t going to ruin your freedom by admitting that aloud.

Hoseok dragged you out the entire day on the hunt for clothes, leaving Jungkook to his own devices as Taehyung clung to him like a koala bear, citing his newfound girlfriend as reasoning for their lack of physical contact over the past few weeks. Jungkook had repeatedly reminded Taehyung that the two of them have slept in the exact same bed every single night since the beginning of the trip, and Taehyung is no stranger to draping his entire body over his bed buddy for the sake of warmth and comfort.

You and Hoseok and Jungkook and Taehyung reach the lobby of the hotel at roughly the same time, far past normal dinner time for such non-Italians like yourselves. Hoseok’s got about five shopping bags in his hands and looks about ready for a fat nap, but Jungkook and Taehyung are alive as ever.

“Long day, Hobi?” Taehyung asks when he sees your best friend, already collapsing into one of the chairs in the lobby.

“The longest,” Hoseok agrees. “Made all the more long by this one right here.”

“Excuse me!” You cry indignantly. You can’t believe Hoseok would roast you like this in front of your own fake boyfriend and his best friend. How could he do you like this. “I am a morale booster and incredibly fun to be around. Jungkook, vouch for me.”

“She’s fun sometimes,” Jungkook admits nonchalantly, making you sneer at him. Of course.

“Alright, fuck you.”

“You wanna bet?” Jungkook challenges.

“I’m taking Hoseok to the hotel restaurant before the two of you start doing something about the obvious sexual tension in the room. Okay, bye!” Taehyung says quickly, grabbing onto Hoseok’s arm and practically dragging him towards the hotel elevator before either you or Jungkook can stop him. The two of them disappear from your sight faster than you can say Florence, and pretty soon is it just the two of you waiting in the lobby.

“Have you eaten?” Jungkook asks, checking the time. It’s nearly eight o’clock, and the last thing you had was some plum gelato in a gelateria by the Duomo a couple of hours ago. You are, admittedly, a bit hungry.

“Not yet,” you tell him.

“Cool.” Jungkook nods. “Let’s go out.”

And so you and him leave the lobby in search of a nice restaurant to settle down in, perhaps indulge in a spritz since it is your second-to-last night, after all. Not that there’s a shortage of them around, but most of them seem to be filled to the brim with tourists, persistent waiters inviting you inside in the hopes that they’ll be able to gain your custom.

“Was there really some unresolved sexual tension between us in the lobby?” You ask, Taehyung’s words popping back into your head as Jungkook swings your interlocked hands together in between your bodies as you walk. “I didn’t even notice.”

“I don’t know, man, you were the one who said ‘Fuck you’. I didn’t know you wanted to bone that bad,” Jungkook jokes, though the sentences come out of his mouth completely seriously, making you gasp.

“Not like that! My God,” you exclaim in shock, giving Jungkook a shove. “Don’t talk about it like us wanting to bone. That’s so… unsexy.”

Jungkook chuckles. “Would you rather me be sexy about it? Didn’t know you were into exhibitionism, either.”

“You’re unbearable.”

“You love me,” Jungkook teases. It’s weird. Maybe you do.

“That’s debatable,” you warn, especially after the conversation you’ve just had. “Don’t forget about our napkin contract. Nowhere did it have any specifications on any sexual tension, real or not. So I don’t wanna hear it.”

Jungkook nods, lips pursed into a tight line at the mention of the napkin. “Yes, the napkin contract,” he says stiffly. “I had almost forgotten about that.”

That makes two of you.

You eventually stumble upon the same restaurant you had eaten at the day you went to see Michelangelo’s David, the one in the square-that’s-a-triangle. It’s busy, but the sound of Italian drifts through the air and you and Jungkook both know that you’ve found yourselves a restaurant worth visiting a second time, one without obnoxious tourists such as yourselves to ruin the immersion.

The two of you order the exact same things you did the last time you were here, but Jungkook’s left his camera with Taehyung (on accident, of course), meaning no photo opportunities tonight.

“Cheers to our second-to-last night in Italy,” Jungkook says, holding up his orange spritz. You grab your own, clinking his glass.

“Cheers.”

It’s bittersweet. You don’t want to go but you don’t know how much longer you can do this if you stay. Like you’re trying to hold onto something that’s not real in the hopes that maybe, if you grab tight enough, it will be. You know that the feelings, whatever kind of feelings they are, you have for Jungkook are indecipherable at best. Wondering if you’re in love with him or just in love with the feeling or if you’re even in love at all. When you look at Jungkook it’s not necessarily love. No fireworks, no fanfare. It just feels like beauty. Like you’re staring down a sense of euphoria in the face, and it’s him. Peculiar.

Your curfew is at ten o’clock sharp, but you and Jungkook have spent the last two hours lounging at this restaurant, making mindless jokes and tasteful commentary and laughing all the same. You’ll probably miss your curfew, but neither of you seem to mind. It’s gotten quieter at the restaurant now, most of the customers long on their way, but you and Jungkook have stayed. Watched as the sun set and the street lights came on, illuminating the cobblestone roads and alleyways as everyone makes their way back home.

“Do you wanna go?” Jungkook asks. The check has long since been taken but you and Jungkook made no effort to leave when it did. In fact, your waitress even gave the two of you a small glass each of complimentary champagne.

“I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” you whine, the idea of bringing this night to a close so soon incredibly unappealing.

Jungkook shrugs. Grins softly. Holds his warm hand out. “We don’t have to go back to the hotel.”

And this is how you end up strolling the streets of Florence, long after the other tourists have gone back to their places of lodging and only the locals remain, celebrating at bars and making their way back to their own homes. It’s a clear night tonight, not a single cloud covering the navy of the sky. There are hardly any stars visible in a bustling city like Florence, but that’s alright (Jungkook’s eyes are more than enough to keep you satisfied) because the moon is out, a crescent glow alongside the warm yellow of the street lamps.

The feeling is like the first day you put fairy lights up in your room and the sun sets and suddenly everything is romantic and wonderful and cozy all at once, a foreign sensation you are perfectly willing to get used to. That’s what this night feels like. Cozy. Homey. All things that make you wish it wasn’t so soon that you had to go, because you’ll never get something like this again. Something so intimate, so real.

There are only a few street musicians out playing now, most of them having packed up for the night, awaiting the next day to start the process all over again, but there is enough to create a little soundtrack for your stroll, the hazy hum of background music soothing your pounding thoughts. Jungkook doesn’t have his camera but it’s nice to see him without it, nice to see him walking with no purpose in mind, without his beautiful eyes hidden behind the black device in his hands. Without that camera looped around his neck it feels more like an everyday evening stroll rather than an excursion in Italy, like this is something you do normally, a routine that you have. It’s nice. It’s warm. It’s all him, really.

“This is so peaceful,” Jungkook comments as you stumble upon a lone street musician. She’s playing a soft melody on her flute, the soprano sound soothing, music to your ears. You don’t recognize the tune but you don’t need to, not in order to appreciate good music and talented players.

You and Jungkook wait around her for a while, loitering on the other side of the street as the moon reflects off of the silver of her instrument. She seems to notice your presence, smiling to herself as she continues to play. No dancing, this time. No need for it. You and Jungkook can simply sway back and forth the sound, the melody, without needing to break into moves.

When she finishes what you are sure is the fourth or fifth song you’ve hung around for, Jungkook walks up to drop a five Euro bill into the case in front of her, a donation she greatly appreciates. She deserves much more than five Euros, the both of you know as much. Someone as talented as her deserves a spot in an acclaimed orchestra. She’s not playing Top 50 Disney tunes, she’s playing sonatas, chorales, etudes, classics, all from memory. It’s clear she’s been studying the craft for plenty of years. The two of you clap as you leave, continuing to meander down the rest of the street, telling her grazie as you go. She deserves a lot more than this, but it’s all you can offer her right now.

“That was so nice,” Jungkook comments as the two of you wander around. You have no idea where you are, not with all of the stores you had been using as landmarks closed up, blinds drawn and doors locked, but that’s alright. Sometimes you don’t need to know where you’re going, you just need to know that you are going.

“I know,” you agree softly, humming the tune she had left you with. “Bang would like her.”

“I think that the London Symphony Orchestra would like her, quite honestly,” Jungkook compliments, something you absolutely have no choice but to agree with. She made your night.

“This is nice, too,” you add on softly. There’s little energy left in your bodies after such a long day, but just enough for you to continue to wander, no desire to go back to the hotel any time soon.

“This?” Jungkook asks, confused. He doesn’t stop walking but he does turn to look at you, a bewildered expression lacing his features.

“This. Walking around at night with the street lamps. It’s like… seventy degrees and breezy. There aren’t any more tourists. The alleyways are dark but still comforting. I like this. I like being here.”

The “with you” goes unsaid but you hope that Jungkook picks it up anyway, hope that he recognizes all the thoughts in your head you are too afraid to say aloud for fear that they may be lies or worse, that they might come true. Hope that the things left unsaid are said nonetheless, but in a wordless way.

Jungkook hums to himself, turning back to face forward. You don’t know what that means, but you can feel the way his hand on yours gets tighter, afraid to let you go. What’s bizarre is that you’re afraid for him to let you go as well.

There is something about Florence that feels more final than any of the other trips. Like this is the end of the road, the last stop. Because the nagging voice in your brain keeps reminding you, over and over, that you and Jungkook agree to stop with this fucking nonsense, put an end to this fake relationship but this real contract at the end of this vacation, and here you are. When you first wrote that thing down on the airplane napkin the end of your trip in Italy felt light years away but now, now it’s just on the horizon but you think you’d rather never see the sun again.

“I like being here, too,” he says softly, so inaudible that you could barely hear him if it weren’t for the quietness of the world around you.

You eventually become aware of your surroundings when you come across the magnificent Duomo, made all the more enchanting in the moonlight. It’s difficult to miss and even more difficult to not know where you are, other than the center of the city. Your hotel shouldn’t be too far away from here, down one of the side streets that connect to the square where the Duomo rests. Even in near darkness, it is an architectural marvel. The stones aren’t as colorful in the dark but that’s alright because you can still see the different patterns, the different shades of marble as they blend together.

“Hey, look,” Jungkook says, pointing up. There’s a bird flying overhead and it makes the entire scene all the more romantic. “A beautiful end to a beautiful stay in Italy.”

“Speaking of ending things,” you say, the idea popping into your head before you can stop yourself. You know you shouldn’t. Selfishly, you know that if you don’t mention anything then maybe this façade of a relationship can continue far past the end of this trip, but you won’t do that to yourself and more importantly, you won’t do that to him. You’ve fallen in love but it feels more like you’ve fallen in love with the feeling than with the boy. You can’t do that to him. “When are we gonna tell our friends?”

“About what?” Jungkook asks, clueless. Like he’s really forgotten.

“About us, silly,” you say, hoping to keep the tone light in spite of the darkness around you. “We’re finished in a couple days. The least we could do is fess up and come clean.”

“Oh,” Jungkook says, the realization sinking in. The smile that once decorated his face is gone, replaced by something unreadable. “Right. I forgot about that.”

“Yeah,” you say, forcing a laugh. Oh God, it’s getting awkward. It’s getting awkward and tense and stiff and this is exactly what you didn’t want, what you were hoping wouldn’t happen because that means that this fake relationship has become too real. It means that somewhere you had crossed the line between acting and reality but neither of you know when that happened and now you’re too scared to go back. Fuck. “I mean, I’ve always been pretty bad at confessing.”

Jungkook’s silent. He’s thinking. You can tell by the way his mouth sits solemnly on his face, the furrow of his brows. He’s standing in front of the Duomo with you but no longer are your hands intertwined. You can’t remember when they stopped being connected, and more importantly, you can’t remember who did it first. He’s thinking and you’re afraid to find out what about, worried that whatever he says will cause the whole thing to come crashing down like a wrong move in a game of Jenga. That’s what this feels like, now that you think about it. That’s what this whole relationship has felt like. Like a game of Jenga where everything is fine until everything isn’t.

And then, Jungkook pulls you in close, his one hand on your waist and the other around the back of your neck, and he kisses you.

Really kisses you. His warm lips press firmly onto yours and you gasp at the sensation but your body immediately melts into it, a feeling you cannot believe you starved yourself of for so long. He’s always been right there but you’ve never done anything about it until now, and now you don’t know what to do because of that. He really kisses you and it feels like a million years and a split second all at once because holy shit Jeon Jungkook is kissing you and you’re kissing back and then—

“I’m bad at confessing, too,” Jungkook says shyly, out of breath. His eyes are wide, like he can’t believe he’s just done that but it’s too late to take it back.

“Jungkook, what—”

“This whole thing, I don’t want it to end, Thumper,” he tells you. “It’s always been real to me. Fuck the napkin contract. I’ve always wanted to be with you, prank or not. I don’t want it to be over.”

It’s too much. It’s everything you were hoping to hear but your mind can’t seem to process it. Like a tsunami crashing into a pier, and you’re standing on the edge of it hoping that you stay dry but at the same time wishing it takes you with it.

Practically speechless, you say, “Jungkook, I—”

“Please, Y/N,” he begs, but you already feel yourself drifting away, a piece of wood floating out to sea. Your feet are moving faster than your heart but that’s alright because when in doubt, run.

“I can’t, Jungkook,” you say softly. You don’t notice the tears until they’re streaming down your cheeks, warped from your footsteps on the cobblestone as you dash away. “I can’t.”

You don’t turn back around but you don’t need to, not when you know Jungkook will still be there, as heartbroken as ever.

The next day is spent in your hotel bed, and that’s it.

You’re kidding, but you wish it was like that. You snuck into your hotel room far past curfew to a bed and a half of your sleeping roommates and, barely remembering to wipe away your makeup and brush your teeth, climbed into bed sniffling, wishing that the whole thing had just been a memory.

You know that it’s real when you wake up the next morning to find five missed calls and a dozen texts, all from Jungkook. You swipe away each one, letting the notification disappear from your phone, and that’s when you notice your empty room and the knock at your door. Hardly caring about your just-rolled-out-of-bed appearance, you trudge up to the door and find an animated Hoseok behind it, eyes wide and bucket hat a fluorescent highlighter yellow. He’s always had a thing for colors like that.

“Y/N! Ready to—oh my god, are you okay?” He asks.

“I’m fine, Hobi. I just woke up,” you tell him, not wanting to alert him of anything alarming. You’d hate to ruin his vacation with woes of your non-existent, pretend love life. It’d also mean explaining the entire thing to him, and you don’t know if you’re willing to sacrifice yourself like that. Not yet, at least.

“You just woke up?” Hoseok asks, in shock. “It’s noon! You never wake up this late, not even back home! Are you sure everything is okay?” He asks. He’s too good of a friend, too used to your mannerisms and habits. Nothing slips by him, goddamnit.

“Yes, I swear, Hobi,” you say, rubbing your eyes to get the sleep gunk out of them. “What do you want?”

“Well, I was going to ask you if you wanted to come out with me and we could go on a last-minute adventure before we have to leave tomorrow,” Hoseok suggests, an excursion that sounds much-needed considering the overwhelming amount of time spent with Jungkook the past few weeks, only to find yourself starved of his contact. “You could invite Jungkook, if you want. I don’t know what he’s up to…”

“No! No, it’s okay. Jungkook doesn’t need to come along with,” you exclaim, perhaps a bit too loudly for your liking. Hoseok scrunches up his nose in confusion, tilting his head like a bewildered puppy. Quickly, you search for an excuse before he can say anything. “I’ve been spending so much time with him recently. We should just do something together.”

“Alright… whatever you say, I guess.” Hoseok’s still hesitant, rightfully so, but he leaves you be and lets you get ready, camping out on your bed playing the new Harry Potter game on his phone. Last you heard, he was getting ready to duel that “bitch, Merula” in the courtyard. You emerge from your bathroom fifteen minutes later, though you would hardly consider yourself Italy-ready, you look mildly acceptable and hope that you’ve done a good enough job disguising the bags under your eyes, that the puffiness from last night’s crying extravaganza has gone down. It’d be nice if you could just simply go through the rest of the day without having to think of Jungkook but you can already feel yourself worrying about him and what he’s getting up to, what state you left him in last night. You don’t think you can bring yourself to see him again, even if on accident.

Hoseok’s animated self keeps your mind fairly occupied, though. He does a good job of distracting you even if he isn’t trying to, another one of the qualities he possesses that you so envy. He barely takes note of your less-energetic self, much more tired and reserved that normal, chalking it up to vacation fatigue rather than self-inflicted heartbreak. Luckily enough. You’d rather not start out your next conversation with him with, “Hey, remember when I told you Jungkook and I were dating? Well, it was all pretend except I ended up falling for him and now I don’t know what to do with myself, please help?”

“We didn’t get to spend a lot of time at Palazzo Vecchio, let’s go back,” Hoseok suggests, skipping up the street. “There’s that baby David that we didn’t get a very good look at.”

“We saw the real thing, Hobi,” you remind him.

“I know, but this one is just as cool and just as important,” Hoseok insists. “Namjoon told me that Palazzo Vecchio is Florence’s city hall. Isn’t that cool?”

You suppose it is. Though, anything that Hoseok gets excited about is cool in your eyes.

You spend the day out with Hoseok and it lightens your mood extraordinarily, Hoseok’s joy and excitement contagious, getting the best of even you. You knew that you made the right choice when you befriended Hoseok back as children. He always seems to know exactly what he’s doing, without even trying. The sun works hard but Hoseok works much harder.

“Can’t believe this is all over tomorrow,” Hoseok admits as he spreads out in the center of Palazzo Vecchio, happily lying down like a starfish in an aquarium display. You wonder if just the front of his body will get tanned from this, even if he spends only five minutes in the position. You’ll never let him live it down if he returns home from Italy with the front half of his body much darker in color than the back half. He’ll look ridiculous. “Wish we could stay here forever.”

“You and me both,” you admit. You wonder what Jungkook is doing right now, if he’s thinking of you just like you’re thinking of him.

“Feels like just yesterday Yoongi was downing three shots of espresso in quick succession.”

“He did do that yesterday, didn’t he?” You ask. You have this vague memory of him at a cafe somewhere in Florence, ordering either a third or a fourth espresso shot like the absolute heathen he is.

“Wait, let me rephrase that. Feels like just yesterday Yoongi was downing three shots of espresso in quick succession in Rome,” Hoseok emphasizes, making you laugh. He’s right, though. It does feel like just yesterday you were landing at the Rome International Airport and Jungkook was placing a slobbery, wet kiss on your cheek. Feels like just yesterday the two of you confessed your relationship to your friends. Feels like just yesterday you were standing in the Sistine Chapel, staring up at the ceiling together.

And it was just yesterday when all of the memories came crashing down around you, an earthquake striking your mind and leaving it in nothing but a pile of rubble.

“Are you gonna want to come back here? When we’re out of college and paid off our student debt?”

“So, never?” You joke even if the harsh reality permeates your jest. Capitalism can suck your left big toe.

“Okay, true,” Hoseok admits. “But seriously. Are you going to want to come back? When you’re older? Before the rising sea levels suck this entire peninsula under the ocean?”

And you think to yourself that you’d love to, but only if you got to come with a certain someone. Wishful thinking.

Hoseok drops you off at your hotel room after you grab some sandwiches to eat for dinner, and you’re about to close the door and pass out from a long day of walking and an even longer day of thinking, when you spot Seokjin jogging towards you. You think that he’s going for Hoseok but then he stops at your room, sending you a small smile.

“Hey, Y/N,” he says. “Mind if I come in for a second?”

“Come on in,” you invite him inside. Seokjin paces about the little floor space left in your room—Minnie’s ridiculously messy—before taking a seat on the edge of your shared bed with Miyeon and the only surface that isn’t covered in clothes. “What’s up?”

“Have you spoken to Jungkook recently?” Seokjin dives right in. The mention of his name is an arrow to your heart but the abruptness of it all causes alarms to go off in your brain.

“Uh—” you begin, sputtering for an answer that won’t lead to you giving yourself away. “Why do you ask?”

“Because his mood has taken a 180 this past twenty-four hours and I am almost certain it has something to do with you,” he says, but it doesn’t feel like he’s placing blame or pointing his fingers at you. It more just feels like an observation, something he’s picked up on in the past day. You’ll give him credit for that, at least.

“Wow, alright,” you say, hands up in surrender.

“Listen, Y/N,” Seokjin says before running a hand through his hair. It reaches the back of his neck and he tilts his head back, exasperated. “I know that you and Jungkook have had a fake relationship this entire time.”

“What?”

You stumble for a response, stuttering hopelessly even though Seokjin’s very obviously seen through your entire act. Are the two of you that transparent?

“Unlike everybody else, I didn’t have my headphones in when the two of you were discussing the terms of your agreement on the plane. I had very conveniently locked them up in my overhead carry-on and was much too lazy to fish for them,” Seokjin says pointedly, making you groan in despair as you collapse on the bed beside him.

“God, could this vacation get any worse?” You ask to the higher powers above you.

“I didn’t tell anyone, obviously,” Seokjin reminds you. “And quite frankly, I had no idea that it would snowball into this. I thought the two of you were just doing this for laughs and that’s it. You were gonna get everyone real good.”

“That was the plan,” you mumble bitterly.

“You know, Taehyung and I spoke a couple of days ago. About the two of you.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” You ask, grumbling into the pillow you’ve stuffed over your face. If you pray hard enough, maybe the ground will open up and swallow you whole.

“No, I’m rather good at keeping secrets, even if I wasn’t supposed to find out in the first place,” Seokjin says haughtily. “Taehyung told me that he was really proud of Jungkook for stepping up and confessing to you on the flight.”

You suddenly feel very guilty.

“He said that Jungkook had had this huge crush on you for ages beforehand and was just too scared to do anything about it.”

That makes you pop up like a puppet in a box, the pillow coming off your face and straight into your lap as you turn to Seokjin, shocked. “What?”

“He said that Jungkook really deserved somebody like you, because you made him so happy,” Seokjin continues, as if the life-altering revelation that Jeon Jungkook has been harboring this massive crush on you for ages prior to the agreement isn’t enough. “He said he hadn’t seen his best friend this happy in a really long time.”

(“He looks like he loves you a lot.”)

“You’re fucking with me,” you declare, the only feasible explanation at this point. There’s no way this is real. This is just another big prank orchestrated by all of your friends because Seokjin went on blabbing and now they’re getting back at you in the cruelest of ways. There’s no way that this is real.

“I’m not,” Seokjin insists firmly, and there’s a desperate part of your heart that’s aching for it to be true but your brain has the power and it’s telling your heart to move on. “But Jungkook’s been really down lately. I know that maybe you thought that the relationship was fake but it’s obvious that he didn’t.”

“It—I—” you begin, unable to form a coherent sentence. “But I was the one who fell in love with him! How is this even possible?”

Seokjin chuckles, a smile blossoming on his face. “I guess he had already fallen in love with you before this whole thing even begin.”

“I’m so fucking stupid,” you groan to yourself, collapsing back onto the bed and pressing the pillow over yourself, muffling your wails.

“You’re not, Y/N, listen,” he demands, pulling the pillow away from you. You wrestle him for a couple seconds but eventually let him have his way, the heat of the cushion coming off of your face. “Maybe the relationship was pretend on paper but it was rooted in reality. For the both of you. It’s clear that there are some feelings between the two of you. Maybe that’s why we all fell for it. Because it was real. You guys thought you were fooling us but the only people you were tricking were yourselves.”

“When did you get so wise, hmm, Seokjin?” You ask ruefully, unsure as to what to do next. You can’t just go back to Jungkook and ask to call an end to the fake part and but leave the relationship.

“I’m not wise, Y/N,” Seokjin says. “You two just looked like you needed a third party to help out.”

You grin, unbelievably thankful for a man by the name of Kim Seokjin. “I guess so, huh. So, what now?”

“Well, as far as I last heard, Jungkook was hanging around the Duomo. He told Taehyung he wanted to stay back for a little while.”

Your face lights up and your heart starts beating. “Really?” You ask, perhaps a bit too hopeful.

“Yeah,” Seokjin nods. “Go get your man.”

You bolt out the door.

Sure enough, you find Jungkook walking around the edges of the square, headphones in as the sun slowly sets over the horizon. There are still plenty of people out and about, finishing up their meals or just settling into their seats, and the street musicians are alive and active. Jungkook comes to a halt in front of a pair of violinists playing on one of the smoother streets in the area, a small crowd gathering around them.

Quickly, wordlessly, desperately, you dash up to Jungkook before he can slip from your sight and out of your hands forever.

“Jungkook!” You shout, and he can barely hear you over his music but he turns nonetheless, eyes widening when he sees you rushing towards him, already out of breath. You’re in orchestra, not a sports team. “Jungkook, wait!”

He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but he does take a single earbud from his ear, turning to you with furrowed brows and a scrunched-up nose. “Y/N, what—?”

“Jungkook, don’t go,” you say as you catch up to him. Your shout seems to have interrupted the music in the background, both violinists and the crowd around them stopping to watch you. “I don’t want this to be over either.”

“What are you saying—?”

“I’m bad at confessing, too. Really bad. You probably already figured that out,” you joke, chuckling bitterly to yourself. “But when you said that you it’s always been real to you I realized that it’s always been real to me as well. That I don’t want to let you go, not here, not on the plane, and not back home. I want to be with you wherever you go.”

“You’re shitting me,” Jungkook says.

You shake your head, smiling at his disbelief. Like he can’t believe that all of his dreams are coming true. “I’m not. Fuck the napkin contract. That shit’s probably all crumpled up anyway. I want to be with you for real, no faking it, no acting, no games. I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want you.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Thumper?” He asks, coming up to you. His warm hands find purchase on your waist as he pulls you in close, guarding you tightly. You don’t even realize that you’re crying until his thumb comes up to wipe a stray tear away, and you laugh.

“I love you, Jeon Jungkook. For real, this time. No more contracts,” you tell him, gazing up into his eyes.

You have seen Jungkook stare at the most brilliant pieces of art in the world, seen him gaze into his camera to get the perfect shot, seen him glance at his music quickly before launching off into a song he’s memorized, and finally, you can say that you’ve seen Jungkook in love.

“You know what, Thumper?” He asks. “I love you too.”

When you kiss, the entire crowd and the two violinists explode into applause, but you barely take notice of them when Jungkook’s lips are on yours. Maybe Italy’s over but you and him are just beginning.

“Tell me about that portfolio you were making,” you say on the flight home. Everyone’s asleep around you, all but Seokjin wholly unaware that your relationship was even a farce to begin with. You think you’d like to keep it that way. Though maybe, in five years, you’ll come clean. Hopefully by that point, none of them will mind anymore. You’ve pushed the armrest that separates your seats up so you can snuggle up against him, his body temperature all the warmth you need on this frigid airplane.

“Oh, that?” He asks. He pulls up a page on his computer, and suddenly you’re presented with an entire album of pictures of just you, some you recognize and some you didn’t even realize he had taken. “It was this.”

“Are these all of me?” You ask, leaning in close. There must be at least four hundred photos in here and each of them have at least a bit of you in them, whether it be you talking with Hoseok or Namjoon or Yoongi or staring at art without knowing that Jungkook had been behind you, or the ones he’d convinced you to pose for or the ones that he sniped right before you had realized.

“Essentially, yes,” Jungkook admits guiltily, a cherry red tinting his cheeks as he curls in on himself, embarrassed. “I thought that when Italy was over, we’d just go back to being acquaintances or something, and I didn’t want to forget it. So I made this.”

“You have an entire album dedicated to me?” You ask. God, being in a relationship has turned the both of you into fucking softies. “I’m touched. Thank you.” You add onto your gratefulness by pressing a kiss into his cheek, making him blush impossibly harder.

“Yeah, well. I didn’t want to forget anything,” Jungkook says, something you can definitely agree with.

“Well, now you don’t have to,” you promise. “We can make new memories all the time, so you can delete that photo album of me. Or at least turn it into an Italy album rather than just a My Girlfriend album. That’s fucking cheesy as shit.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m never getting rid of this thing. There’s gems like this,” Jungkook says, pulling up a photo of you blowing into a tissue after a particularly hard sneeze in Venice.

You gasp, both endeared and incredibly offended. “Oh my God, I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I hate that I love you.”

“You know what? I’ll take it,” Jungkook says, pulling you in and planting a wet kiss on your cheek, right at the corner of your lips. “I hate that I love you, too.”

“Get a room!” Jimin shouts from next to you, sitting in the seat directly across the aisle from yours. He’s got this disgusted look on his face, but you and Jungkook just grin to yourselves. You have a feeling that you’re never going to get sick of grossing out your friends with your obnoxious public displays of affection.

“Can’t, the bathrooms are too small for what we want to do!” Jungkook calls back, making Jimin dry heave onto the floor beside the two of you before angrily stuffing his headphone back into his ear and hoping that the two of you will just shut the fuck up, for once. “I’m never gonna get sick of doing that.”

“Good.”

“Hey, Thumper, do you want to see all the photos I took of Seokjin? He’s gonna become Instagram famous, but not in the way he wants to because all of these photos are meme-worthy,” Jungkook asks, already clicking around to pull open the album.

“Oh my God, yes. You gotta send all of these to me,” you say, wrapping your body around Jungkook’s left arm as he begins to filter through each photo.

Jungkook’s got the window shade next to him cracked open the slightest bit, the night sky wholly unobtrusive considering the rest of the cabin is dark. You can’t make out the moon but you know that it’s there, somewhere, singing a melody that only the two of you can hear.

⇒ hmu with feedback or just talk to me here!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #bts college au #jungkook college au #w: moonlight melody #THIS FIC IS LITERALLY 51K I KID YOU NOT #I HAVE SLAVED OVER THIS FOR SO LONG #MOONLIGHT MELODY BY RV IS BY FAR THE MOST LISTENED TO SONG ON MY ITUNES #AND FINALLY. SHE IS DONE

2K notes · View notes

macchiatomingi · 5 years

Text

dysnomia.exe (ATEEZ Cyberpunk!AU) Chapter 1

Empathy

You sat quietly on the countertop, feet dangling over the edge. Soft whirring noises followed by the occasional squeak could be heard whenever you moved your head to follow the blond haired man’s figure from the cabinet on the opposite side of the room, back to your body.

“Ah,” he starts, the sound distant to your sensors, “maybe I should oil the gears in your neck.”

“My hearing sensors are also malfunctioning. Perhaps those need to be reevaluated as well.” You suggest. The muffled sound wasn’t annoying, but then again you really didn’t know what something being “annoying” felt like. You just based the word off the descriptors you picked up from Wooyoung and his speech patterns.

“Noted,” the blonde man says, “if it’s anything that I can’t do I’ll call in Yunho or San. Maybe even Jongho...one of them should be able to fix it,” he finished, making his way once again to the cabinet to retrieve the oil that’d be used on your neck.

“My calculations predict that you would be the most reasonable option for fixing my sensors, Seonghwa.” You start, numbers flashing before your eyes in a monotone green, “Statistically speaking, you’ve failed to adequately complete a repair 14.2 percent of the time, compared to Yunho’s 29.5 percent and San’s 15.6 percent.”

“Well, what about Jongho?” He asks, his tone laced with mirth.

“Jongho has failed to adequately complete a repair 32.6 percent of the time,” you begin, combing through data report after data report, “with his primary reason being that he was unaware of the wire placement in my model.”

Seonghwa openly chuckled at that, using a gentle hand to tilt your head to the left. Pushing back the rubber skin covering to reveal metallic gray panels, he unscrewed two of them to expose the gears and wires in your neck. Gingerly dropping around five or six drops of oil, he screws the panels back and places the skin cover back over them before repeating the process on the other side.

You sat motionless as he worked, eyes trained ahead on the cabinet. The front panel was glass, so you could clearly see your reflection in it.

Your skin covering was ripped in some places, exposing either paneling or wire. Parts of your hair were gone, exposing the lighter undertone of what would have been your scalp, and while you couldn’t necessarily feel boredom, you found yourself growing bored with the repetitiveness of your appearance. You’re always around changing scenery, changing clothing styles and hairstyles. Yet you’ve kept the same appearance since you were booted up nine months ago.

Maybe it was time for a change.

“Okay,” Seonghwa starts, readjusting some of the skin coverings on your neck and shoulders, “I’m all done.”

“Thank you.” You reply calmly, pushing yourself off the countertop and onto the floor. The wooden floorboards creaked under your weight, but you paid it no mind as you silently walked out of the room.

Stepping out into the hallway, you scanned the house for Jongho’s heat signature. The boy was always warm, it rose concern until Seonghwa notified you that he’s just...like that.

After a bit of scanning, you find his form curled up in what was most likely a chair. Hues of reds and oranges muddled into the shape of a human. A small whir of excitement sends a wave of electricity through your systems, temporarily causing your vision to glitch. You were definitely mentioning that the Excitement program San created for you was malfunctioning.

Making your way downstairs and into the kitchen, you follow the path until you reach Jongho’s body, contorted into what should be an uncomfortable position, reading a book on botany and medicinal plants. You stand motionless for a while, before opening your mouth to speak.

“Jongho,” you begin, noticing as his eyes leave the book that they were previously focused on to stare at you, “I would like a new physical appearance.”

“Is there anything specific that you want?” His voice was soft, you noted that he was in that position since yesterday, reading book after book of different medicinal plants and their properties. He most likely hadn’t spoken since the previous day, seeing as nobody really bothers him once he gets into one of his reading moods.

“No,” you start, “I give you full control of the design,” you say.

“Okay, I’ll get one started and give it to Hongjoong for him to create it.” He nods, turning his head back to his book.

“Jongho,” you say, gaining his attention one more time, “what is ‘empathy’?” You ask, eyes flashing blue to signal your recorder starting to capture the response.

“Ah...” he starts, setting his book down and repositioning himself so that he’s seated facing you, “empathy is, in a nutshell, being able to understand what another person is dealing with emotionally,” he says as he moves his arm to stretch the muscles in it.

“Why are you asking?”

You think back to the day before when you were accused of being an emotionless pile of junk, and then being told that some people just don’t understand the concept of empathy and that nothing was wrong with you for not understanding it.

“I would like to have the ‘empathy’ program,” you start, “in order to avoid possible future conflicts over my lack of understanding complex human emotions.”

“I’ll talk to San about it.”

“Thank you,” and with that, you exit the kitchen. Claiming a seat on the living room couch and training your eyes on the TV in front of you.

“Another riot has broken out in Nuseoul’s Capital Sector over the leaking of private footage of IDAT’s task force mistreating the cyborg activist Duri Cho,” the anchor starts. One by one the boys come into the room upon hearing the news, “IDAT’s task force is accused of falsely arresting as well as physically and mentally abusing Ms. Cho while she was in Capital custody, resulting in her death,” an angry curse can be heard from behind you.

“Much of the outrage started only after the anonymous, self-proclaimed vigilante group ATZ released a video statement detailing this information, as well as showing clips from what appeared to be security cameras from inside the Capital,” another anchor starts, “the group ATZ have been found to blame for much of the disarray in Nuseoul in the past five years, and with no leads to the identity of those in the group, authorities can do nothing but hope that people realize many of their accusations are false and ignore them.”

An angry scoff comes from behind you, “False? If it weren’t for us Haneul’s family wouldn’t have been able to bury their child,” the voice said, turning to face the source you see Hongjoong glaring at the TV screen. His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Training your eyes back to the TV, you realize that the screen went from the news anchors to IDAT’s President, Moon Hyeonjeong, standing at a podium to deliver a speech. Upon the sight of him, your vision glitches once.

“My dear citizens,” he starts, your vision glitches again. Error messages begin to appear as your systems slow down to accommodate the spam of ERROR and URGENT CARE NEEDED messages.

“I come to you to say that we will defeat the evil of this so-called vigilante group,” he says the word vigilante with such venom that you swear if you had emotions you would wince, “and restore peace to our beautiful state.” he drawls.

Another scoff can be heard, from someone different this time, followed by angry footsteps and a door slamming in the distance, footsteps disperse, and another weight sinks in on the couch next to you.

“Calixte,” the voice starts, your sensors unable to determine who it is due to the random malfunction, “how do you feel?”

“I feel as if,” you start, “as if, if I were able to experience human emotions, upon seeing Moon Hyeonjeong and hearing his speech, I would experience hatred.”

~~~~~~

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS DRONED ON FOR SO LONG IM SO BAD WITH INTRODUCTION CHAPTERS IM SO SORRY!!!! I promise it’ll pick up and start to make more sense in the following chapters ; ; I have this whole thing planned out and like I know vaguely where I want it to go it’s just finding the English to take it there ; ;

I don’t really have an update schedule but !!! I’ll try and update pretty regularly :D

#ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez drabble #ateez imagine #cyberpunk!ateez #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez mingi #ateez yunho #ateez jongho #ateez wooyoung #ateez san #ateez yeosang #dysnomia.exe

41 notes · View notes

caelin-ismycity · 6 years

Note

Please tell us more about Tellius ships

god theres a lot of ships with how many bitches there are in this game- like id have to play through the game some more which i plan on doing anyway to write an essay-ass anthology of all the good shit here but for now i can shoot off my faves

ike/boyd:

yall already know i like myself some elihec and one reason is cause of their lil rivalry/best friend relationship yknow- you can look at those losers romantically or not and it’d still be some Good Shit.

same logic with ike/boyd honestly- especially with there bantering asses in the beginning and generally how boyd tends to think of ike immediately when it comes to finding a sparring partner or just helping him out during their quest with the tri-arrow attack discussed with rolf and oscar.

another scene i found cute was after ike and others disobeyed titania and sought out the bandits alone and when greil is about to rip into ike about disrespecting orders, boyd’s the first one (i think its been awhile since i played that chapter) to step up and take the blame (admitted by him to be pretty out of character which i like to interpret as boyd just being flustered that hes caught caring for ike beyond their competitiveness)

unfortunately, not only is fe9 hard to play legally because of its stupid price, but even if you did sell your soul to buy the game intelligence systems has cursed my household by not allowing ike and boyd to have any support conversations, nor any interactions all together beyond a certain chapter, so ike/boyd is one of the rarest pairs you can like in this series especially considering the most popular ship is ike/soren with the tellius series

ike/ranulf

ike and ranulf meet uhhh god i dont rememebr honestly- but they meet about halfway into the game when ike and co properly become associated with the beast laguz where ranulf, considerably, becomes a reoccurring ally to the greil mercenaries.

couple reasons why i love these two- one being the whole laguz/beorc thing ight (lemme get on that in a sec). i.e., ike is big on joining laguz and beorc together, and ranulf doesnt really seem to mind them (i say ‘doesnt seem to mind them’ because, if i remember right, ranulf has real issues trusting beorc and even tells ike that if he naively trusts people he’ll end up hurt). ergo, id imagine that ike would love to get to know more about the laguz alltogether and ranulf himself (he’s clearly curious considering h is supports with lethe as well). additionally, their C support is fuckin cute as hell with ranulf taking pride in making ike laugh/smile at one of his jokes (which tbh i thought would set the grounds for a lovely af A support but instead i get ranulf calling ike a nitwit for trusting him so easily so thanks intell).

another big moment for me is how ike hardly hesitated to defend ranulf from the other beorcs after he was discovered in that one really racist town (its the one where you get zihark and board nasir’s ship y’all know the one) even if it jeopardized the possibility of them escaping the town quietly (double points for ranulf insisting on ike leaving him alone and ike essentially telling ranulf to fuck off with that shit)

its utter trash that ranulf joins the mercenaries at the very end of the game (maybe chapter 25-26? you get JUST enough chapters to achieve their A support), not to mention he pops in-and-out of the gang’s path to actually talk to ike. but im grateful there’s some content for these two, even if there isn’t as much as i would like

kieren/oscar

again yall know i love that rivalry shit but this time it’s extremely one sided on kieran’s part (oscar more-or-less just dealing with it and not making a fuss about it). but damn if there isn’t potential, especially when you can take kieran’s insistent rivalry as some form of admiration for oscar (not to mention the possibilities of their past with oscar originally working alongside kieran)

double points for kieran’s insistence that oscar come back with him to work as a crimean knight again (obviously more because kieran’s genuinely astonished oscar would willingly work with lowly-payed, unknown, not-pristine mercenaries). you can really just take it as kieran really lowkey missing oscar but being too prideful to admit it

ill also be damned if oscar cooking with kieran/teaching him how to cook wouldnt be the tightest shit to watch; i cant tell if kieran would be too stubborn to let oscar fully mandate what he does, begrudgingly listens to oscar, or is utterly impressed with oscar’s culinary skills and insists that ‘only someone as amazing as his rival would obviously be fit with abilities like that’

kieren/rhys

not exactly phat on my radar but it is cute as hell considering how easily concerned rhys becomes of kieran (and for good reason to the fucker regularly bludgeons himself with an axe and he wrestles bears jesus christ man), so its easy to imagine rhys making the excuse to kind of baby kieran to make sure he isn’t seriously hurt on or off the battlefield to just look/watch him

its also pretty fun to imagine rhys going with kieran when the dumb bitch proudly tells the army he’s about to go bear wrestling and rhys getting to see kieran ;lightly’ clothed to fight a fucking bear

im pretty sure in their A support, rhys tells kieran that if he isn’t more careful then the army’ll lose their most valuable soldier to something as stupid as a self-inflicted axe wound. its obvious that rhys said something along the lines of that (as well as a couple of other things in that support) because he acknowledges kieran’s self importance, but its also cute to imagine that rhys was able to use that fact to his advantage to tell kieran how much he means to himself (bonus points if, alternatively, rhy’s dialogue would follow some shit like ‘I- uh... We can’t lose a soldier as important as you, Kieran.’)

gatrie/shinon

another lowkey one (considering shinon and gatrie are absent for a decent portion of the game post initial chapters), but the one support i did manage to get of them was enough to sell me- cause frankly i find the idea of shinon teasing gatrie about buying them dinner and gatrie just being like “hhrhrum” as he begrudgingly agrees to be endearing; i.e. the sinon mentallity being ‘If you’re going to throw your money at everything, you might as well spend it on something worthwhile’ aka ‘lets just have a nice dinner together instead of you buying some random girl three bouquets of roses’

they also have a pre-planned attack together (albeit quickly mentioned to titania) like cmon they bondin yall they conversin

finally i love how shinon’s taller than gatrie- like this isnt necessarily ship-related i just finally have the opportunity to say it. like shinon could absolutely tease gatrie about it like ‘what did you say you wanted a kiss? ? ? i cant hear you from down there’ and gatrie just playfully punches his arm like ‘bro- dude- cmon please i missed you all day just bend down for two seconds’

i’ve been typing for a while and ive got the attention span of a brick but these are the ships i think of the most. during my second playthrough ill be damned if i dont develop more but feel free to send in more ship shit

#FE9 #snap chats #i finally have the chance to vomit my tellius ships thanks #ive actually been meaning to draw an ike/ranulf pic #mostly cause i got inspired with how ufcking cold its been lately #and you know damn well ike's gonna exploit ranulf's cat form to not only cuddle but be warm as hell

13 notes · View notes

andwhatdostarsdobest · 5 years

Text

28 Question Tag Game:

I was tagged by @tomhollanders2013 , @uglypastels and @sleepwalkingdragon . thank you my loves 💕

1. How tall are you?

5′7

2. What color and style is your hair?

it’s technically all blonde but i wouldn’t blame you for thinking the top is light brown. i have the bottom half dyed like a honey blonde and it comes to about midway down my back (this is short for me). it’s kinda wavy naturally but i always plait it overnight so it’s curly most of the time

3. What color are your eyes?

hazel, more green than brown and i have a dark ring around the outside of my iris, sometimes it looks green, sometimes brown. probably those and my hair are what i get complimented on the most (unless you’re my mum who won’t shut up about my smile)

4. Do you wear glasses? i do, im supposed to wear them all the time cause im blind as hell but whoops

i got new ones in like the summer, so i’ll bless you with a photo

5. Do you wear braces?

no but i did for 2 years at school

6. What is your fashion style?

see my fashion sense is not the same as what i wear, mainly because im self-conscious and ive always thought certain clothes were only made for skinny girls (NOT TRUE). but this year one of the things i want to change is wearing a bigger variety of clothes. but i guess at the moment i wear shirts tucked into skirts and dresses mostly

7. Full name?

Alice (y’all don’t want to know my middle names they’re embarrassing)

8. When were you born?

so long ago lmao (31.01.97)

9. Where are you from and where do you live now?

so i was born in london but i now live in norfolk (english countryside). but i desperately want to move (and hopefully i will soon)

10. What school do you go to?

i graduated uni last year

11. What kind of student are you?

teacher’s pet bro. my worst fear was being shouted at by my teachers. i was always early to every lesson and generally did all my homework (not necessarily the night i got it but ya know). i had to try super hard at school because although im smart ive never been good at exams.i was that kid who started revising for june exams in february. i also didn’t realise i was dyslexic at school so that was a massive struggle for me. i’ve always liked to learn but yeah school was a bit of a struggle. i peaked in primary school (no seriously i was listed as gifted in ps and predicated a* in everything and then when i went to hs and sixth form i underperformed in all my exams- lmao yikes) but i graduated uni with a 2:1 so fuck the education system

12. Do you like school?

hahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahah nah

13. What are your favorite school subjects?

probs english, history, business studies and psychology (not surprising those are the four i took for a-levels)

14. Favorite 📺 Shows?

b99, parks and rec, the office, the good place, luther, jane the virgin, greys anatomy, killing eve, definitely more im forgetting

15. Favorite Movies?

stardust, kingsman, LOTR, about time, indiana jones, crazy rich asians, stand by me, tatbilb, dumplin’, wonder woman (loads more im forgetting)

16: Favorite 📚?

chaos walking trilogy (which is like the only book i had to read for school that i can still tolerate), the night circus, tatbilb, ready player one, the martian, hp series, the selection series, idk again more i cant think of off the top of my head

18: Do you have any regrets?

mainly not being braver and believing in myself more. like its hard to come to terms with the fact that you didn’t truly start living until about 20/21

19: Dream Job?

god pls dont ask me this idk something to do with publishing and editing maybe (i love editing writing so ya know if you need a beta reader just hit me up lmao) also a fantasy job would be a wedding planner lmao, i have a scrapbook where i plan them in my spare time lmao

20: Would you like to get married some day?

either or, im good with getting married or not. tbh what i want is the connection and commitment, for me marriage doesnt have to be an integral part of it but im not closed to the possibility either

21: Would you like to have kids some day?

yes

22: How many?

3 i think

23: Do you like shopping?

nah really a fan ngl, clothes shopping makes me feel uncomfortable

24: What countries have you visited?

not that many tbh, i live in england and ive been to all the other countries in the uk, ive been to france, belgium, majorca and finland (i think that’s it)

25: What is the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?

well i had this reoccurring nightmare as a kid where i was in a house that got invaded and i was murdered. but this is a whole thing okay, like i think it was a past life. i looked it up and there was an actual murder where every detail is the same as my dream and there are other similarities to my actual life and i used to see this man in my room who looks like the killer. anyway its a whole thing and for sure the reason home invasion is one of my all time biggest fears

26: Do you have any enemies?

no that i know of, i try to be nice to everybody and give them no reason to dislike me. if i have an enemy its definitely a one sided thing

27: Do you have any s/o?

i dont but i had a realisation the other day about one of my friends so like dont know what it means yet but ....

28: Do you believe in miracles?

Tagging @thelazypangolin @tomhollandthirst @mysteryavengers @dtftomholland @hey-its-grey

#al talks #tag game

2 notes · View notes

black-out-wonder · 6 years

Text

Still Alive (Virgil Sanders Human!AU One-Shot)

Warnings: Talk of suicide, suicidal thoughts, feelings of worthlessness, mentions of depression and anxiety, mentions of an arugument, self-deprecation

This is basically a vent fic because I had to use the StillAlive.org crisis line the other day because it was really bad for me. It helped me and if you are in a moment of crisis, and you A. Have no one to talk to or B. Can’t or wont talk on the phone for any reason, use this chatline. Stay safe <3

Virgil’s finger froze as he stared blankly at the “Click here to chat” button on the screen. What the hell am I doing? He wondered. The browser page, Still Alive, glared at him through the darkness of his room. The webpage itself was calm and welcoming, telling him to click the button to talk to a volunteer. He found this website through his friend-or ex friend-Logan. He had described it, saying that it was meant for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to people on the phone. It was meant for people who were considering suicide.

Well, you could say that he was having second thoughts about waking up the next morning.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he clicked the button, wincing at the noise of the mouse. A screen loaded, asking him to put in information. He didn’t want to put in all of this information. He didn’t want some random person to know exactly who he was. He was about to click away, giving into his urges when he noticed the “anonymous” checkbox. He released the breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

There were still some questions he needed to answer, but nothing as bad as the first option. Just asking his gender, age, who he lived with, how he found the website, etc. He hesitated before entering the information. If he put all of this in and actually connected, there would be no turning back. Before he could change his mind, he entered the chat.

A message popped up as he was brought to the chat page. They were connecting him to a volunteer. His heart began to race as a few moments passed. What if he wouldn’t get connected? What if the Wifi went out for some reason? Too many what ifs. His eyes trailed over to his dresser, where a bottle of medication sat. His sleep medication. It would be so easy…just like falling asleep…

Suddenly, a soft beep brought him out of his thoughts. “Your volunteer as entered the chat” is said now. In the corner of the screen, it said: “Alex typing” in very small letters. His heart pounded against his chest, his hands growing sweaty and shaky. What would this person say? Was this a real person? What would they say?

Alex: Hello. May I ask for your name?

It was such a simple question, one that shouldn’t have been a problem to answer. The problem was his name. Not many people had it. What if this person knew him? With shaky fingers, he typed out a reply.

Anonymous8902: you can call me V.

Alex typing…

Alex: Okay V. What brings you to Still Alive?

Another question that held way too much weight. What did bring him there exactly? Logan had explained it as a place to talk if you had nowhere else to go. He wasn’t sure if he had mentioned it because he knew Virgil was at risk. He knew that his friends-or past friends-had to suspect something, but they never knew the real extent of it.

Anonymous8902: im not really sure…i was told that this was for people who wanted to die.

The volunteer replied back very quickly.

Alex: V, have you thought about committing suicide?

His first instinct was to lie. He lied to everyone about what he wanted. He would say he was okay, even when he wasn’t. But this was different. He slowly typed his reply.

Anonymous8902: yeah

Alex typing…

Alex: Have you made a plan?

Anonymous8902: not yet. not set in stone.

He nearly had a heart attack when he sent that. Why did he send that? They were going to send the police and he couldn’t let that happen! They would send him to the hospital and ask him too many invading questions. He would have to tell them things, or he would have to lie, which made him even more anxious.

Alex typing…

Alex: So, you do not have a plan at the present time?

Anonymous8902: no

Alex: That’s good. If you would like, we can continue to chat. Your safety is most important.

Anonymous8902: its really not

Alex: It seems you feel like you don’t deserve to be safe.

It was heavy talk time, and Virgil knew it. He didn’t want to spill his heart to some stranger, but at the same time, he did. He wanted to tell this person everything wrong with him. He just wanted to get out of the haze of despair and anxiety that seemed to fill his being.

Anonymous8902: i dont deserve to feel safe. i dont even deserve to live. all i do is hurt people.

The honesty in his statement shocked him. He had never told anyone that before, not even his fr-ex friends.

Alex typing…

Alex: It seems like you feel like you don’t deserve life because you don’t offer anything but pain.

Anonymous8902: i feel that way because its true. everyone says it, so it must be

Alex: You seem to believe what others say about you more than what you think of yourself.

Virgil clenched his jaw at the message. Why did this person have to be so accurate? It would be better if this person wasn’t so spot on about everything.

Anonymous8902: yeah, sounds like me

Alex typing…

Alex: V, was there something that triggered your crisis?

He froze once more. There was a trigger, but it was his fault in the first place. If he would only get over himself, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. All of his stupid negativity and emptiness and…just everything.

Anonymous8902: yeah. i was diagnosed with depression and anxiety a while ago, but i never told my friends. it was a rough day for me, but i was supposed to do something with them. i couldnt even bring myself to call them. it was really important and i skipped it. one of them called me and said that i was a horrible friend.

Alex typing…

Alex: You seem to be blaming yourself for a situation that was completely out of your control.

Anonymous8902: but it was in my control. i couldve told them about it or called and made up a valid excuse! i left them hanging and they were really hurt. this wasnt the first time either

Alex: V, I want you to know that it’s okay to ask for help and having a rough day because of your mental illness is a valid reason. Have you considered telling them about your condition?

Of course, he did. He thought about it every day when he talked to them. Then Roman would flash him a carefree grin, throwing a playful insult his way, or Patton would give him one of his warm hugs, or Logan would overshare on a subject that fascinated him, and he always threw away the idea. Things wouldn’t be the same. They would definitely treat him different like he was delicate.

Anonymous8902: yeah i have, but i dont want things to change

Alex typing…

Alex: What would change?

Anonymous8902: everything. they would see me differently. they liked me for who i am now, why would i want to change that?

Alex: Do you fear that they would turn away from you if they saw your troubles?

He nodded to himself before replying once more.

Anonymous8902: why wouldnt they?

Alex typing…

Alex: There is nothing wrong with letting someone in and talking to them. I know it must hurt to have loved ones turn away. They may be confused by the space between you guys and they are lashing out.

That did make a lot of sense. It was definitely in Roman’s character to lash out when he was confused about something. Why was this person so good at talking to him?

Anonymous8902: but how to i connect with them? i dont even know where to start

Alex typing…

Alex: You could try telling them about your condition and why you weren’t able to go where you needed to. If they are your friends, they will understand. Change is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a natural thing that allows you to grow as a person. Yes, it may seem scary now, but you will be able to look back and be glad that you took the first step.

Virgil could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He hated that this person was so spot on.

Anonymous8902: youre right…i need to tell them…thank you

Alex typing: How are you feeling now?

How was he feeling? He wasn’t feeling great still, but he didn’t seem to be at rock bottom either. He was…drifting.

Anonymous8902: better. a lot better

Alex typing…

Alex: When you disconnect from this chat, what do you plan to do?

Anonymous8902: talk to my friends. im better now. thanks again. im going to go

Alex: I’m glad you’re feeling better. Goodbye!

Anonymous8902: bye

As he exited the browser page, he let out a shuddering breath. He stared at his desktop background for a few moments, soaking in everything. He just told a random stranger his fears and insecurities, and it actually helped. He knew now what he had to do.

He leaned over to grab his phone, dialing the first number that came to mind. He held it to his ear, praying that he would answer. That he would allow him to speak. When he does answer the phone, Virgil closes his eyes.

“Hey, Roman. I am really sorry for not making it today. I really need to tell you something…”

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #virgil sanders fic #virgil sanders angst #suicide #tw #angst #mentions of suicide #sanders sides fanfic #virgil sanders fanfic #virgil #shay writes

227 notes · View notes

aragakisan · 7 years

Text

ARAGAKISAN’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET!

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name: Miyu/Myka/Mint OOC Contact: IM’s, or ask for my discord drop. I sometimes suck at replying to instant messages in time, but I’ll try my best!

Who the heck is my muse anyway:

Shinjiro Aragaki of Persona 3, a founding member of the anti-Shadow group by the name of SEES. A tragic accident involving the then 16-year-old losing control of his Persona and resulting in the death of a single mother caused Shinjiro to leave his team behind one and a half years before the main plot’s timeline and to live in a constant state of self-loathing and guilt over said event, isolating himself from others completely. He initially tries to forget about his trauma, coping in extremely unhealthy ways (both physically and mentally) - though as he is unable to do so, his past catches up with him in the form of a revenge plot and is what eventually leads Shinjiro to an unfortunate fate of either death or a several months long coma, depending on the version of the game.

Points of interest:

1) Despite his scary looks and seemingly tough and intimidating attitude and presence, Shinjiro carries deep down an extremely caring and warm personality, constantly worrying and looking after others. He keeps this trait hidden to his best ability as his desire is to appear strong and reliable, though no matter the effort put into the tough guy act his true nature tends to constantly shine through in various ways regardless. If your muse happens to be in trouble or danger, you may just be able to count on Shinjiro to save the day - or at least take care of the aftermath, as his concern and selfless willingness to help often reaches out to anyone in need (and deserving) of help, not limited to his friends and loved ones.

2) In canon timeline Shinjiro is plagued with feelings of burdening guilt and self-loathing at almost all times due to an accident he cannot stop blaming himself for. This results in distant, standoffish and defensive behavior, pushing or attempting to push others (especially those worried for him) away. Keep this in mind in regards to interacting with my muse in this timeline especially; he won’t share - and if he shares it is hugely dependent on the person and he still won’t share a whole lot. In addition to this, Shinjiro is an introvertby nature and will rarely approach another person unless they are a close friend or in need of help, or otherwise forced to co-operate and interact. He also generally doesn’t talk much.

3) Shinjiro loves two things above others: animals and cooking. Especially dogs will cause the boy to smile and act a lot less on guard than usual (as long as no other people are around to witness it), revealing once again his true, gentle nature. Cooking on the other hand is more than just a hobby for the young man, but instead a passion. Leave it to Shinjiro to cook a meal resembling in its quality something taken straight out of a cookbook, to teach others about the secrets of the craft or to shame you for your eating or cooking habits. Getting him to cook you something may still be somewhat of a difficult task, extremely dependent on the situation as well as the inquirer.

What they’ve been up to recently:

Dependent on the timeline and/or the verse.

In a canon (or P3P’s FeMc route) verse before Shinjiro rejoins the ranks of SEES, Shinjiro will be living most of his days and nights on the streets, wandering around and helping those in trouble or alternatively, taking part in shady deals with a group of criminals by the name of Strega. Shinjiro’s health is in a constantly deteriorating state due to the use of Persona-suppressants (a drug used to seal away or control one’s Persona) that he gets from the group in exchange of these deals, resulting in more or less noticeable symptoms in addition to the strained state of his mental health. In the same verse a little later on Shinjiro will be part of his old team once more, fighting alongside his friends and eradicating Shadows for one full month before his eventual departure - making his time limited and scarce and thus affecting the threads based on this verse in many ways.

This blog will also include verses of anything before the game’s main plot’s timeline, including timelines such as: childhood, pre-SEES (2007), SEES’ first fighting days before Shinjiro’s accident (2007) – as well as anything after the fact before April 2009.

In a post-Nyx verse Shinjiro is a coma survivor, resurfacing from his coma after the events of October 4th sometime in early February, though he is dispatched from the hospital later in April. Shinjiro will no longer be depending on the use of suppressants, his health slowly but surely returning and improving. A chain of events also leads to the boy’s closure regarding his trauma and reconciliation with Ken, resulting in Shinjiro’s resolution, evolved Persona and a gradually improving state of mental health as well - able to finally stop obsessing over his past trauma. He is a returning student of Gekkoukan High, now one grade behind his own age group, working diligently in order to finally graduate high school and through that get his life back in order. This verse is my blog’s MAIN AU, and a lot of interactions deemed impossible or unlikely in the canon verse may or may not be set to happen in this verse. It is also the only verse in which romantic shipping occurs (not counting crushes or something lowkey that isn’t dating, etc). The default version of this verse is somewhat of a “everyone survives” type of an ideal, alternate world in which Nyx is sealed with some additional help, though depending on some details I am willing to RP a version including the protagonist’s death as well. This AU welcomes the male MC as the protagonist as well despite coma route originally being FeMc exclusive, though some details will obviously change.

— Crossovers and other AU-type of deals will be discussed case by case.

Where to find them:

Back alley of Port Island Station

Iwatodai dormitory

Tartarus

Iwatodai Strip Mall, more specifically Hagakure’s

Any given place in Port Island

Gekkoukan High (pre oct 4 2007 & AU only)

Current plans:

1) Redemption. To pay for causing the death of Ken Amada’s mother - in any way the boy in question sees fitting, going as far as to be willing to forfeit his life for the cause.

2) Protect and look after loved ones. Shinjiro keeps a close eye on his friends, worrying and looking after their health, safety and needs to the best of his ability.

3) Getting his “shit together”. AU verse. Finally (even if a year late) graduating high school. Finding a job (preferably cooking related) and a place to stay in. Settling down.Maintaining his health - both mental and physical. Maintaining and improving his relationships. Fulfilling his new resolution by living looking after and watching over the boy whose life he’d once ruined. Honoring his new, second chance at a better life.

4) To fight alongside his friends once more. AU verse. In order to redeem himself for the loss of progress and the trouble he once caused SEES (Akihiko and Mitsuru) with his departure, Shinjiro decides to participate in the activities of the Shadow Operatives later on and for some time. This is also to take full advantage of his new, stronger and now stable Persona, as well as to ensure Amada’s chance at a normal childhood as much as possible by filling in for him whenever needed.

5) To lead a normal life. AU verse. Sometime after his mid twenties, Shinjiro will forfeit all Persona-related fighting once more in order to lead a life free of all things related to Shadows and Persona, to live life as a normal citizen. He may never be able to fully leave Shadow-related things out of his life due to his close ties with other Persona-users, but it is no longer what his life revolves around.

Desired interactions:

1) DEVELOPING ALREADY ESTABLISHED BONDS. Exploring and developing the familial bond between Shinjiro and Akihiko - all timelines included. Exploring and developing the boy’s friendship with Mitsuru, an old friend and teammate. Exploring and developing (and fixing) Shinjiro’s bond with Minako, including a possible romantic relationship first unsuccessfully established in the Portable-timeline prior to October 4 and finally given a second chance in the main AU verse. Developing Shinjiro’s extremely complex relationship with Ken, especially after Ken’s change of heart toward the older male. I also need a Koromaru to RP with, seriously.

2) GETTING TO KNOW THE REST OF SEES. I want more interactions with the rest of SEES too. All of them. From Shinjiro being a “super senpai” (direct quote) to Junpei to the Hierophant being a cooking instructor to Fuuka. I also need to establish relationships with characters like Minato, Yukari and Aigis as the games particularly lack interactions between Shinjiro and these three. At least that’s how I feel like.

3) STREGA. Shinjiro shares a rather interesting, complex and conflicting relationship between Strega. They aren’t friends, but they aren’t necessarily enemies either (that is until Shinjiro decides to rejoin SEES). A lot goes on between them, Shinjiro somewhat trapped in this troubling situation. Where did it all begin, how did they find out about each other? How do they interact outside of their shady business deals and blackmail? How does each Strega member feel about Shinjiro? These are all things I need to know.

4) Interactions with characters from other Persona games can always turn out to be rather interesting, Persona-users or not (and “normal people” in P3′s universe too!). I am also very open to crossovers of any kind. Don’t be afraid to approach me even if our characters have never canonically met each other. OCs are welcome too, as long as I am able to learn enough about them from you to know how to interact at all.

5) Childhood threads, adulthood threads etc. Anything outside of the canon timeline deeply intrigues me and is something I desire to develop and explore.

Offered interactions:

1) FRIENDSHIP, COMPANIONSHIP AND SUPPORT. As is mentioned in my rules, I am not someone very open to romantic shipping as a personal preference of mine: my muse for it is extremely picky. Friendships of any kind are hugely encouraged, however! Even if my muse may not be the easiest to get to know up, close and personal, deep down he is quite kind, friendly and caring and it may not take a whole lot for him to care enough to worry about your muse as well, even if they don’t yet know each other super well. Perhaps our characters could be fighting alongside each other toward a mutual goal? Characters that are already friends or acquaintances with Shinjiro may also be able to explore various types of interactions and situations and further development. Whichever the case, I will rarely (possibly never) turn down a friendship of some sort with my muse. Shinjiro needs friends. He is also the ideal character for a big brother -type of a relationship, which is why I’ll be super hyped to RP friendships with child muses as well.

2) COMPLEX, UNPLEASANT INTERACTIONS. As much as I love tender feelings and friendship and as easy as it is to make Shinjiro care for your muse, it isn’t hard to make him dislike someone either if they end up crossing the Hierophant’s strong, personal values deeply enough. Or perhaps your muse has something against Shinjiro for whatever reason? I want complex and unpleasant situations and relationships that cause deep and conflicting feelings and opinions. Good example of this is Strega, which I mentioned previously, though other characters may be able to develop similar (mutual or not) distaste with Shinjiro as well. Misunderstandings, blackmail or other threats, fighting, enemies, grudges, danger and more - all are situations I’m interested to explore.

3) ANGST. Let’s be real, Shinjiro may just be your go-to muse for some angsty interactions, angsty as is his whole backstory as well as his whole character during the canon timeline. Due to this fact angst from my muse may or may not be guaranteed to happen at least to some degree at some point in time, but it may be easy to explore your own character’s angsty feelings or situation with the help of my muse as well.

4) Any type of plotting and just casual interactions too are extremely welcome! I am super open for pre-established relationships, new verses and AUs. If you have an idea or wish to interact with me, don’t be afraid to send me stuff, to contact me or like my starter calls etc. I am here to write and explore both different kinds of relationships as well as my own muse; his feelings, thoughts, motives and development and I tend to think all interactions contribute to it at least to some degree.

Current open post/s:

Starter call

Anything else?:

Generally a bit slow due to my poor concentration at times, fatigue and awful sleep schedule. Super eager to interact with all kinds of muses though! Still getting into P5 and mapping out my verse for it; I do want to RP with your P5 muse but please be patient - coming up with good ideas is harder and slower when you don’t 100% yet know what you want. Will get done though. Same applies for muses of any other series I may not be familiar with or don’t yet have a verse for and OCs, possibly. I am not chronological with my replies either, but simply answer according to what I have the most muse for at that moment. Thank you for your patience!!

Tagging: Everyone. This post is super useful!

#ooc; power charge #long post -#;save #[ feel free to ignore this even if youre tagged! but.. here is. something ]

35 notes · View notes

spac3tr4sh · 6 years

Text

Disclaimer: This is about the anxiety developing within my sex life and just a way for me to process everything

There are so many things happening within our relationship that is, undoubtedly, resulting in loads of anxiety for me and my boyfriend.

My boyfriends sex life started off super early. He had a lot of bad experiences that eventually led him to believe he was really just a “human vibrator”. He used to always joke and say this early on in our relationship, but thinking back I can see him start to get more and more detached from sex. It was a chore. Something he feels obligated to do.

Me, on the other hand, was very late to the sex game. Confused about myself and overall insecurities led to me exploring my sexuality later than most. I didn’t start having sex until I was 21. I had a few partners between that first time and where I am now, at 24 but all of those people outside of the first person, were one time things. I didn’t actually really get to explore my sexuality until I met my boyfriend. Our relationship began from awkward lust. We actually started off as more of fuck buddies and a relationship developed from that. Sex was basically a tool for us to get to know each other.

Initially, I couldn’t sense any from of detachment. Yeah the sex was awkward in the beginning but we both felt conscious and there. And the more we started to grow and learn each other, the better it became. We were having sex a lot, especially for people who, for a good portion of their relationship didn’t have our own places. We made it work.

With all the being said, for me, sex is extremely important in our relationship. But as of late, we just havent been able to make it work. Because I’m a worrier anyway, right off the bat I blamed myself. Clearly its something im doing wrong. I know my thoughts are irrational so I decided to try to have conversations about our sex life with him but more often than not, it ends with him mad and me crying.

During one of our initial conversations, he made a lot of statements that were a blow to my self-esteem. He basically said that no ones ever wowed him during sex and its pretty much all been vanilla for him. I was just so shocked because I always ask was he satisfied and p much begged for tips to make certain acts better for him but now I just feel kind meh. So from that, I started over exerting myself more. I started getting on top more, I increased the amount of head I was giving him, I’m even working out so I can be as slim as I was when he met me. But the over exertion has led to me feeling like I’m giving more in this relationship than him. I low-key felt that way to begin with (again stemming from my over thinking) but it all felt so blatant. I was giving him all these things but if I wanted something, it didn’t happen. Last time I got head was probably a month ago. Last time he fingered me, two months ago, and he fell asleep during.

During one of our more recent conversations, I reluctantly admitted that I felt like at this point, sex is more about him than me, that it starts and ends with him. Theres no four play to prep me, when he cums, thats the end of sex. Sometimes when we do have sex, it happens so fast, I barely start getting off and then its over. And he never extends anything to help me finish. Part of me is understanding, he gets upset when things pan out that way but Im always feeling so unfinished.

During another conversation, he started to open up more about how his past experiences are catching up to him. Sex just isn’t something he’s into doing because of those memories that are coming back. But he also said that I was the longest relationship he’s ever been in and he’s reached a point where he doesn’t feel like he has to have sex with me to keep me around. This made me happy of course. Im glad he trusts me and feels like we reached a certain milestone. And I also, don't want forget to mention, he's been very reassuring about me and my performance over all.

Trying to initiate sex has been extremely hard but I feel like if I don’t, we would just never have sex. He used to initiate sex just as much as me but now, its all on me. I tried to do non-verbal things but he either was “clueless” or after 20 mins of me rubbing his dick, he’d say he’s not in the mood. So instead of going through that awkward hurdle, I decided to lean on just verbally asking. He doesn’t like this too much either. When I asked him he would like it to be initiated, he says he doesn’t know. This last attempt I made caught me off guard tho. I asked him did he think a certain position would be accomplishable. He said yes so I asked him did he want to try it and he just got extremely upset. He said “so thats your way of trying to have sex???” And just kind of went off, mad at me for asking him in such a way and didn’t want me to touch him at all. He ended up apologizing, said he didn’t know why he reacted that way. But still, just meh.

But all in all, I don’t know how to act or feel. On one hand, I feel like really this is all boiling down to dissatisfaction with me. I feel unsatisfied sexually. On another, I feel selfish. Selfish for making this about me. Selfish for having urges to have sex when I know he is truly being affected by traumatic experiences. I feel selfish for wanting and expecting a certain amount of sex when its obvious his sex drive has decreased. But I also know I shouldn’t feel bad that I want sex. But it all just leaves me at an awkward place. I have no plans on leaving my boyfriend, but sex is important to me. I don’t want to be unsatisfied and grow to resent him. I don’t think me having other sex partners will necessarily help our situation nor do I really have the desire to be sexually intimate with others. I in no way want him to feel obligated to fuck me. Literally everything else in our relationship is great but this and its causing problems for me emotionally, physically, and mentally. I don't know what to do but what I got was that there isn't necessarily anything I can do to help. He more than likely needs some professional help but we don't have money for that. So we are stuck.

#personal #don't reply #or comment #or anything #for me

0 notes

somedaypast-thesunset · 6 years

Text

i constructed this personality. and ts like.. i’m not going to say arrogant because i wouldnt call it that. it’s really like a borderline manipulation? maybe? it’s hard to speak about yourself in such terribly harsh terms. but i think it is manipulative in .. a number of ways. like i definitely control how i could be perceived on a certain level and i’m intelligent enough to follow cues of like how i can “get over” on certain people.

this is very much like my own mother.

and then these people, i “use” them as a way to continually cement whatever delusional beliefs i have in myself at that time. and this is why i prefer to cultivate individual relationships rather than group ones because i can better control perception and beliefs with one person at a time. and this is why its very easy to drop people when my perceptions of myself have shifted. but many of these perceptions are negative - i feel depressed. i want the people around me to feed my depression and if they dont, well they don’t understand or respect how i’m living.

and the thing is - i totally bought into my own bullshit. in these moments, i whole heartedly believe i am a true victim of life and circumstances - maybe i am, who the fuck knows but that is my fucking identity and it needs to be acknowledged.

if one version of my beliefs contradicts another and ive sold them to two different people, those two cannot co exist in my life.

i definitely use sex as a manipulation tool as well but i also have genuine love. like it’s probably sick mental illness love but i really do have love.

im failing in large professional group situations because i cannot control the individual perceptions of me and i am very... sensitive but not necessarily insecure to any perceived negativity towards me and those things ruminate so i try to avoid those people again for that particular reason.

but the thing is i’m not trying to control their perception so they think i’m great. i don’t care about that. i just want them to believe what i think of myself. and i generally think i’m a victim and incapable and traumatized to paralyzation. but again, i believe this. i whole heartedly believe i am this person at this time and it affects me; i’m depressed, suicidal, trapped, isolated etc. and i express these feelings to have them confirmed from others, much like seeking approval, so that cycle can continue and i end up in a complete breakdown, wanting to die and suffocating, reaching out for help that i’m never really going to get.

but this personality is really really really ingrained in order to protect myself. i dont want people to know that this is all just a rouse and i’m just building a weird psychosis against society until my mental barriers of right an wrong break down. i’m nuts. i would never in a millio years show anyone these rwritings because it is a true testament to how bat shit insane i truly am. there are small breaks in between but its soooo up and down.

in january - while being on medication, i had a bit of apathy and some issues with warren which worked themselves out but i still felt isolated which probably had something to do ith “under appreciated” and “being misunderstood”; both pretty big red flags to a negative perception of reality. i had some lingering anger about society. in march i continued to feel isolated and i guess thought living together ould solve the problem because i was happy ith him but also happy about answering to no one.

in april i decided to apply for college; i was sometimes taking the medication i as prescribed but would miss 2 - 3 days before i stopped taking it altogether. still, i felt isolated but also seemed to just be ignorant to how much harm i had caused in the previous three months of dealing ith someone who was living in their own altered reality.

by june i hit a severe depression; i wasnt taking any medication at all and i was severly unhappy with everyone around me. i had to move, i was accepted to college but couldnt bear leaving and starting over again

july i had been prescribed anti depressants that i did not take at all. i was very aggravated and very depressed and felt like he didnt care about it (probably because i was unhappy with everyone for a month)

in august i had a lot of seperation anxiety and frustration with my ‘professional life’ i’m not even sure exactly what it was but i wrote in my notes ‘self delusional’ and underlined it so i feel like i as super delusional about myself or how i was acting and i was beginning to ruminate much more on my trauma.

by september im completely focused on my trauma and shifting the blame and a lot of stress about moving and the whole finding him apartments thing and just an overall disconnect in communication.

in october, i’m now just in rambling self delusions and resentful at him, probably about moving. i am back to being unhappy about society

by november i’m focused on socieety, i feel isolated, i have extreme anxiety and victimizing myself.

this is really rare evidence in my life, written by the most accurate source. i cannot argue with myself. all i can do is look at it and accept it for what it is and i would really rather forget how really not good this is. like lbr, it’s look like had i continued to take the medication even at a super staggered pace i wouldve been 5% better in life. instead i went off of it and went back to severly wanting to die.

so i guess - kudos to myself for being pretty fucking insane and still making it to 28 years old. thats actually really good.

i think im ready to genuinely lose him. not in like a “oh fuck u i hate u” kind of way but that i understand that for what i do want, i’m not mentally well enough to have it from him, someone who has all the right in the world to go live a normal rich life. even crazy, i do deserve someone who loves me and ants to be with me and will also help me. its like my former best friend; i knew she deserved better and i think he deserves a better chance at least.

he told me to write him a list of ways he could help me.

- i want to share a life with someone. you either continue out of pity or by defaullt to ask me to come to your house and participate in your life but you do not understand the weight of “sharing a life”. it means having and planning a future together, to have the expectation that this person will be around and apart of your support system and you might need to accomidate them to do so. right now it’s easy. youre “fulfilling the role” except for any indication of stability or a future. the more time i spend with someone who pretends to share a life with me but doesnt actually commit to a stable future, the more it feeds into my own self hatred, perpetuating the cycle. i would not second guess everything if i truly believed i have a normal legitimate future with you. i wouldnt spend time ruminiating and second guessing and cycling and spiraling into past trauma. to help me is to commit or walk away.

0 notes

Last Seen Blogs

unicornglitterqueeny

Sassy unicorn mlp

catacsus

Catacsus

somnicordia

✩✬✯✰

loveme-tender-loveme-true

maebyshifting

mae