#living with cannibals and other women's adventures
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2023 Book Reviews (July to December)
5 stars
- Midwives (Bohjalian, 1997): A midwife is accused of negligence and manslaughter after a woman in her care dies during a home birth. The mother seemingly had a stroke and an emergency C-section was required to save the baby; the question is raised if she was indeed dead when the C-section happened or if the midwife had accidentally killed her, as well if the mother was even healthy enough to be having a home birth far from a hospital. Told from the perspective of the midwife’s teenage daughter.
- Raptor Red (Bakker, 1995): Follows a year in the life of a female Utahraptor, drawing inspiration from various paleontology theories at the time. Think Meerkat Manor but about a raptor and her family. Obviously I loved it.
3 stars
- The Haunting of Maddy Clare (Simone St James, 2012): the ghost stuff was mostly well done. Maddy is angry and hurting and I don't blame her for being so hostile. Didn't like her dialogue, it felt very "Crazy=Dangerous=Monster" in a way that just felt generic horror villain which doesn't sit right knowing that this is a traumatized victim. Sarah and Matthew have a Hallmark-level romance but it isn't even decent Hallmark. Every conversation until the last third features some kind of misunderstanding they don't resolve. First sex scene between the leads is technically okay but the complete lack of communication makes consent feel more dubious (just because Sarah’s inner dialogue is fine with it, doesn’t make Matthew’s lack of even checking in okay, especially in light of their repeated misunderstandings). The post-WWI trauma was pleasantly well-done, physical disabilities in Matthew and Alistair were a more mixed bag.
2 stars
- In the Shadow of the Throne (Kate Sheridan, 2022): I really wanted to like this graphic novel. It’s cute and gay and a teen boy is isekai’d to a fantasy world but there’s not much substance. Not nearly enough time to hit all the plot points so everything feels rushed; dialogue and relationships don’t proceed naturally. Art style is nice at least.
Nonfiction:
- Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares (Landis, 2011): Encyclopedia of horror and horror-adjacent movies that author has seen. He shares his opinions on them but offers little beyond surface analysis.
- Living with Cannibals and Other Women’s Adventures (Michele Slung, 2000): Introduction to various female explorers. Decent intro but each chapter felt like a basic book report on each woman.
- The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Drawing Manga (Sonia Leong, 2023): Good lessons here for anyone interesting in the subject.
- Trans and Autistic (Noah Adams + Bridget Liang, 2020): The experiences of people who are both trans and autistic and how those parts of their identity have afffected their lives. Definitely of interest to me as someone who is definitely one and possibly the other as well.
- A Wolf Called Romeo (Nick Jans, 2014): About a lone wolf in Alaska who was chill with people and really just wanted to play with the local dogs; fair warning the ending made me cry.
- Becoming Nicole (Amy Ellis Nutt, 2015): The life story of transgender actress and activist Nicole Maines.
- Notes from a Sickbed (Tessa Brunton, 2022): a graphic novel about the author’s experiences with chronic fatigue syndrome.
- Little Girls in Pretty Boxes (Joan Ryan, 1995): about the pressure put on young girls and teenagers in competitive gymnastics and iceskating (especially those aiming for the Olympics), and the consequences of that pressure.
#book review#midwives#raptor red#haunting of maddy clare#in the shadow of the throne#monsters in the movies#living with cannibals and other women's adventures#trans and autistic#wolf called romeo#becoming nicole#notes from a sickbed#little girls in pretty boxes
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10 Character/10 Fandoms/10 Tags
Maybe minus the tags. Tagged by the lovely @anosrepasi <3
Astarion Ancunin, Baldur's Gate 3: Is this a fucking surprise at this point? I have spent real life time staring at my office walls being haunted by this man. He's charming. He's repulsive. He's vicious and self serving and ancient and immature and so desperate to be safe after centuries of living on adrenaline that he will do anything to get you on his side. He's a meta exercise in manipulation, marketed as a hedonistic sex symbol to project fantasies on, then coming out with this nuanced presentation of cptsd/sexual trauma that makes you genuinely uncomfortable with your initial judgements of him. He's the poster child for imperfect survivors still being deserving of kindness, and for the difference kindness can make in breaking or continuing the cycle of abuse. He contains multitudes. I don't think the disk horse was ever avoidable with a character like him.
Anthy Himemiya, Revolutionary Girl Utena: speaking of exercises in projection!!!! Maybe I have a type, or a theme, or something. She's the receptacle for everyone else's hopes for her and ideas of what she could be, an actual object to be traded as a prize. She's a princess, she's a damsel, she's a witch, she's whatever you need her to be. Does anyone know what she is beyond that, herself included? There's been so much amazing analysis on Anthy over the years that I'm not sure I have anything important to add at this point.
Tidus, Final Fantasy X: Early blorbo! Maybe even the first blorbo, though Sailor Saturn might offer competition. I was eleven when I finished this game and proceeded to lose my mind over pretty much every single character at one point or another. I picked Tidus for being the main but I think I do love him the most, too-- there's something about the privileged hero learning how to be self-sacrificial that I think was kind of formative for me. Plus he's a big dweeb and his laugh scene still makes me giggle.
Will Graham, NBC Hannibal: accepting the monstrous side of you, cannibalism as a metaphor for love, sweaty, gruesome, and nonsensical dream sequences, empathy disorders as a psychic superpower, etc etc etc. I could not ask for anything more out of a guy.
Nona, The Locked Tomb: So Nona is my favorite of the books so far, and it's in large part thanks to Nona's point of view. Her focus on what's going on with the kids while the rest of the narrative is in this horrible war zone was really poignant for me? People die, life goes on, kids grow up thinking everything they see is normal. I've taken a lot of writing influence from her narration lately. Granted I (like so many of us) have a soft spot for unhinged women, so trying to pick just one character from The Locked Tomb was SO hard.
Nell Crain, The Haunting of Hill House: If only people cared about her half as much while she was alive as they did after she died! Also, being haunted by her own inevitable tragedy while still managing to find something beautiful and worthwhile in the end.
Jade Harley, Homestuck: by and large I pretend not to associate myself with Homestuck anymore, but it did get me back into fandom after a pretty long time away and Jade still holds a soft spot in my heart. Little feral garden child.
Akane Kurashiki, Zero Escape Series: taking the single most insufferable anime trope (to me at least) and turning it on it's head. The extent of her manipulation by the end of 999 still gives me chills, even though I know the ending, and despite it all she never stops being sympathetic. I love her so much.
Midna, Zelda: Twilight Princess: I named my kitty after her so she's gotta be on the list. She is now 17 and arthritic and still has a lot to say. I'm sure she's criticizing my adventuring skills and/or teaching me how to jump like a wolf.
Cole, Dragon Age Inquisition: I named my other kitty after him so he also has to be on the list. He knocked his cat tree into my partner's coffee table last month and now we need a new one.
Not tagging anyone because tagging stresses me out a bit, but if you would like to do this I would LOVE to see top tens of the moment!
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Book Recommendations: For Fans of… The White Lotus
Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins
When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.
Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don’t expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe’s sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace.
But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven’t been completely honest with Lux about their pasts - and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared.
When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive.
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
When Liv and Nora decide to take their families on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. The children - two eleven-year-olds, an eight-year-old, and a six-year-old - love the nonstop buffet and the independence they have at the Kids' Club. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor misfortunes leads the families farther and farther from the ship's safety. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone.
What follows is a riveting, revealing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children, as the once-happy parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their lives.
Mustique Island by Sarah McCoy
It’s January 1972 but the sun is white hot when Willy May Michael’s boat first kisses the dock of Mustique Island. Tucked into the southernmost curve of the Caribbean, Mustique is a private island that has become a haven for the wealthy and privileged. Its owner is the eccentric British playboy Colin Tennant, who is determined to turn this speck of white sand into a luxurious neo-colonial retreat for his rich friends and into a royal court in exile for the Queen’s rebellious sister, Princess Margaret - one where Her Royal Highness can skinny dip, party, and entertain lovers away from the public eye.
Willy May, a former beauty queen from Texas - who is also no stranger to marital scandals - seeks out Mustique for its peaceful isolation. Determined to rebuild her life and her relationships with her two daughters, Hilly, a model, and Joanne, a musician, she constructs a fanciful white beach house across the island from Princess Margaret - and finds herself pulled into the island’s inner circle of aristocrats, rock stars, and hangers-on.
When Willy May’s daughters arrive, they discover that beneath its veneer of decadence, Mustique has a dark side, and like sand caught in the undertow, their mother-daughter story will shift and resettle in ways they never could have imagined.
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Dimple Pennington knew of her half siblings, but she didn't really know them. Five people who don't have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad's gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She's thirty, and her life isn't really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple's life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she's never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce crashing back into her life. And when they're all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
#fiction#mystery#literary fiction#readalikes#white lotus#book recommendations#reading recommendations#book recs#reading recs#TBR pile#tbr#to read#booklr#book tumblr#book blog#library books#library blog
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Animation got Slammed at the Oscars
Other than Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, it seems that animation itself got insulted for being for kids only. Let me correct these celebrities on a few things about animation. Like comics, novels, live action television or film, it's a medium of story telling that isn't for children only!
Here's a few examples . . .
Part of Vivzipop's Hellaverse, a group of imps take on jobs from the damned of Hell to assassinate living humans in the Living World.
Why is this not for children? Well, firstly most of it takes place in Hell. Foul language, heavy sexual innuendos, not to mention blood and gore.
Also, it handles heavy adult topics such as relationships issues, loneliness, self-hate, suicide, nihilism, drug abuse, and infidelity.
The Princess of Hell opens a hotel to redeem damned sinners.
This long awaited series only has a pilot, a MV, and a couple of comics out. Set in the same universe (Hellaverse) as Helluva Boss.
Why isn't this for children? Foul language, heavy sexual innuendos, prostitution, sexual abuse, genocide, drug addiction, the stress of the porn industry, cannibalism, blood and gore. There are sure to be more added to this list when the series finally arrives.
Aging celebrity Bojack Horseman tries to reclaim his place in Hollywood and treads the footfalls of fame.
Where do I start? This series tackles some pretty heavy issues. Let's see . . .
Alcoholism, drug addiction, death, suicide, depression, narcissism, Hollywood politics, assaulting women, trauma, history of child abuse.
If the people bashing animation at the Oscars, I wonder if they would let their children watch Bojack Horseman? Hmm?
The son of a renown superhero finally grows into his powers and follows into his father's footsteps into becoming a hero.
Yep, this is about superheroes, but with a brutal twist as nothing is as it seems in this series.
Blood and gore abound, betrayal, abuse, and everything you wouldn't see in your typical superhero show for kids.
Wow, this must certainly be for children. A caveman and his pet dinosaur exploring the world together and going on adventures . . .if you ignore the rampant blood and gore . . .not to mention the leading character Spear witnesses his wife and children being devoured by dinosaurs, thus experiencing loss and grief.
Morty goes on interdimensional adventures with his grandfather Rick!
Do I even need to say anything? Here we go . . .abuse, nihilism, foul language, sexual content, depression, suicide.
Oh, and let's not forget when Morty was almost sexually assaulted by a jellybean in the men's restroom.
Frank tries to be the man of his dysfunctional family while trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
This gem is chock full of foul language, family dysfunction, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, bullying, sexual harassment, assault, blood and gore, racism, and sexism.
Kinda not for children.
Two sisters are separated by tragedy and come together from opposites sides of a conflict between two factions.
Let's see . . .war, trauma, mental health, betrayal, blood and violence, terrorism, political corruption, and death.
Retsuko works in an office and has hijinks with her co-workers and daily life.
While the art style is cutesy, there's a reason why this show is so relatable for working women. Sexism, work stress, relationship problems, marriage, PTSD, assault, harassment, stalking, and corruption.
There are scenes in the third season that would frighten small children as there is a violent scene where a stalker attempts to assault the leading character.
Princess Bean resists her arrange marriage and runs away with her friends, Elfo, a naïve elf, and Luci, a demon, to have adventures and hijinks.
While created by the same people who created the Simpsons, this is more 'adult' than the Simpsons. Alcoholism, grief, betrayal, blood and gore, evil and good.
Good grief, I could go on and on about the different animated shows meant for adults only. To say animation is for children only is not only ignorant, but downright insulting for Hollywood animators, studios, and independent animations studios.
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“The Book Eaters” by Sunyi Dean
Release Date: August 9th, 2022
Description: Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
Representation: The main character, Devon, is a lesbian. The author is a woman of color.
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 304
TW(s): Misogyny, cannibalism, gore, arranged marriage, fanatical religious elements
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Missing and Empty (An AU)
Warnings: Gore, Murder, Slight Cannibalism.
Okay so, this is an au inspired by a piece of art I saw on instagram but basically it’s America/Nyo!Russia because I love them both very much and it’s very fitting. This is the art piece that inspired this, she has big Nyo!Russia energy.
So basically, when Anya was a teen 16/17, she falls in love with this older woman, like adores her because she’s strong and confidant and defies the rules of a world where women are viewed more like objects than people (literally just like, imagine any time in history, it’s historical-ish). So she absolutely adores this woman and the woman like kind of leads her on. Turns out, the woman is a witch, an evil one, and she loves the way Anya adores her, enjoys the taste of her admiration. So she steals her heart, literally. However, pitying her, she keeps her alive by imbuing Anya with some of her power, leaving her to become a heartless witch.
Without her heart, Anya can still feel things, however everything is turned up to 11, she feels everything much more than she did before but she lacks a moral guide. She remembers the morals she had, understand what they mean for the most part, but it’s hard to keep them because she doesn’t care. And with how she feels things, it’s hard to keep being a good person. If she dislikes someone or something she feels that ten times more than before, leading to her becoming violent or malicious. So, without her heart, she begins to search for a new one, seducing/luring people away only to kill them and attempt to fit their hearts in her chest to replace what she’s lost but they only stay in for a day or two and she ends up eating them for the life energy they provide when her body eventually rejects it.
One day, a young knight/adventurer/something named Alfred catches wind of a witch luring people away and them they’re just not seen again and of course, he can’t let that happen and tracks her down to her cottage buried deep in a dying woods, as if she’s sapping the life out of the place around her to sustain herself and her home which I do think it alive. Kind of a Baba Yaga house situation going on but less moving. Think the door in Howl’s Moving castle that leads to other places. So, he finds her home and sees just this very normals looking woman. Sure, she’s tall and a little freakishly strong but she just looks like a normal lady tending to her garden, but he’s wary and still suspicious. Anya invites him in, insisting he must be rather hungry from his traveling.
Inside, Anya feeds him a delicious meal before they get down to business. She drops her facade of being a normal person and asks him why he’s come. With his suspicions confirmed, Alfred draws his sword, intending to fight and kill her, but Anya easily disarms him with a flick of her wrist. She rounds the table and straddles his lap, seemingly not threatened and unafraid. Wasting not time, Alfred stabs her through the chest with his knife from dinner but it has no effect, she doesn’t have a heart to stab.
Anya laughs, “You’re cute. But you will have to try harder than that. Now, tell me why I should let you live, hm? You’ve come into my home and attempted to kill me with my own cutlery.” She pulls the knife out, tracing the blade covered in her own black blood over his cheek. A threatening gesture that has Alfred’s already panicked heart racing. He has to think, has to come up with some sort of idea. And then he has it, as he stares at the closing wound in her chest. He’s heard of something like this, from Arthur, while he was studying for his degree in the arcane arts. Some witch’s don’t have hearts, often stolen from them by various means and always hidden away from them. So they find means to fill the void.
“I can help you find it. Your heart I mean.” She shows no real reaction to his offer, as if she doesn’t believe him. How could he, just a simple boy compared to her, find her heart. “It’s hidden from you. So you can’t find it. But it’s not hidden from anyone else. I have a friend. He does magic too, he could track it down.” A bead of sweat drips down his temple as she presses the knife harder against his skin and narrows her eyes.
“And why would you do that?”
“Because then I wouldn’t have to kill you.”
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No Harm List Pt.3
Word Count: 12.8K
Summary: You live in a city where crime runs rampant. One day, you save a young boy’s life, not knowing that he is the most powerful crime lord's heir. And you have just been put on the no harm list.
Warnings: Violence, explicit language, angst, brief mentions of cannibalism and human trafficking (like literally just the words are used zero detail),
A/n: Sorry theres no gif or banner! I’m loosing the battle of bandwidth in my house and my computer can’t load any images on such a large post. :( On the bright side Jungkook says: women's rights :D
Jimin sighed as he received the text from Jin asking him to bring a dessert to the impromptu family dinner tonight.
It was his only day off this week and he really wanted to go the full day without getting flour in his hair. He glanced at his clock in disappointment seeing he napped and lazed most of his day away, and decided he would just pick up a box of pastries from Sugar Daddy instead of making something himself.
Dragging himself out of bed, he pulled on a dark pair of jeans and a pale blue button-up that was only slightly rumpled. He had a little time to kill before he needed to leave, so Jimin wandered out to the front of the house to see if Taehyung was home. He wasn’t, but the sight of the still-warm bowl of ramen on the breakfast bar hinted that he may not have left too long ago. He sighed as he dumped the bowl in the sink and started the dishes. His roommate wasn’t inherently messy, neither of them was.
Their apartment was never spotless, but it was clean and comfortable lived in, and that’s how Jimin preferred it.
But since Tae’s promotion as one of Namjoon’s spiders a few months back Jimin found himself picking up after him a bit more since Tae was always being called out of the house at obscure times. Jimin told Teahyung he needed to set boundaries and be willing to tell their leader no on the occasion, he would understand, but Tae was in love with the task. The boy was enthralled with adopting a new persona and sweet-talking information out of unsuspecting targets. He loved being someone else and living a different life for a short time.
Taehyung was an expert at stealth, but he didn’t need it when he could become whoever he wanted in a blink of an eye.
No Taehyung didn’t like to hide in the shadows like the other spiders in Alcor who acted more like flies on the wall, he liked to look his victim in the eye and unravel their secrets with his charm. A true spider trapping his prey in a web before he feeds.
It worried Jimin to no end, he still didn’t know if he preferred him in the dangers of the streets pushing pills, or in the dens of the most dangerous and powerful people in the city risking getting caught in his own web of lies.
Jimin liked to play it safe. He works off most of his debt to Namjoon through working at Sugar Daddy, the bakery Jin opened two years ago. There he maintains a regular job and provides his more specialized services in the back. His other work for BTS kept him off the frontlines less than Taehyung or any of the members really. It was rare for Namjoon to have jobs or missions that called for his skillset, so he was occasionally recruited to a job that requires more numbers and brute force.
Jimin wasn’t a bad fighter or a bad shot by any means; he just didn’t like the violence and preferred taking care of his enemies from a distance instead of risking the lives of the people he loved to put them on the front line. His affinity for chemistry made that possible.
Jimin finished washing the dishes, drying a handful before placing the rest on the drying rack before slipping on his boots and heading downtown. The bakery was within walking distance of his house, and he didn’t feel like dealing with parking, so he opted to leave his car and make the walk to the Den.
He passed through the familiar storefront of Sugar Daddy skipping the long line and heading directly for the back where he gathered an assortment of fruit tarts and small pies into 2 boxes, silently daring Jin and Namjoon to add the expense to his tab before making his way to the Den.
Sugar Daddy’s was on the corner of a growingly popular part of the 7th Ward, the growing storefronts down 28th street (most of which were funded by BTS) filled the air with the power of local business, the vintage buildings paired with their modern interiors was making the area grow into a more Hipster part of town. Which in turn was good for business as more university students began making the commute from campus to buy overpriced artisan soap wrapped in burlap.
A few blocks from the bakery Jimin turned into one of the nicer neighborhoods in the 7th Ward, the grass appeared more vibrant, and the houses grew in size as he made his way down the road until coming to a stop in front of a large Art Deco style house at the end of Gardenia Circle.
The three-story house had two wings and looked far too grand for the street rats that occupied it. The property was one of the family properties Jin inherited from his Uncle when he passed, one of the few relatives that still kept in contact with him. Jin and Namjoon both wanted to sell it feeling it was far too grand for any of BTS’s needs, but Yoongi convinced them to keep it, the property was already paid for they just had to pay the maintenance bills, and the gang was growing exponentially at the time, so it wasn’t unreasonable to believe the gang would grow into it.
The Den has had many forms, but the same concept over the near-decade BTS has been around.
When BTS first formed Namjoon believed in the philosophy that every member of BTS would have somewhere warm to stay each night. The promise that was made when members joined and took the Tattoo was they would always have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs as long as they stayed loyal.
If they ever recruited someone who was in a tough spot they were welcome to stay at the Den while they get back on their feet. It also acted as a safe house for people who might have had their cover blown during jobs and needed somewhere to lay low (although BTS had actual safehouses now, keeping a member with a warrant for their arrest in the same place as their leader was not ideal).
Once the inner circle expanded, the rooms have slowly morphed into ones the members use regularly between jobs or the younger members like Jimin, Tae, and Jungkook lived in and were raised by their crime lord dads. Once the Den was upgraded for the first time it was done so with the intention that each member of the inner circle would have their own room to stay in. Despite having their own apartments by then It was just nice to be together and always have that option. It was also becoming too high a risk to welcome just anyone into the Den.
The second Den was compromised and raided by a rival gang who infiltrated them two years back, Namjoon was still recovering from the betrayal, and the Den was forced to relocate. That's what brought BTS to Gardenia Circle.
BTS has made too many enemies nowadays to trust so easily. But with that growing list comes a growing number of resources at their disposal now. People who need somewhere to hide out after a tough job can easily get a room on the 7th floor of the Bulletproof. A floor where rooms were always reserved for the gang members. They also had a number of safe houses and small apartments at their disposal throughout the city. They even had one on the top floor of the bakery where Jimin worked, although Jimin often used it for other overnight adventures…
Their new home had a security gate and was also decked out in surveillance camera, that Suga or one of his minions were constantly monitoring, They even had two guys running security constantly to keep the Den safe. The large building did not just act as a home to the inner circle, but also a number of resources and savings BTS use for everyday business to keep the gang running.
Despite its larger size the Den still managed to feel homey under Jin’s watch. The interior was completely modernized at this point. Jin and Yoongi saw to its transformation over the years. Taking out nearly all the interior walls that divided the public spaces of the first floor of the house so that the living room, kitchen, and dining room were a seamless area for BTS to be together. Down the hall from the living room lead to the ‘man cave’ area of the house that was best suited for drinking and gaming as well as a door to the garage.The only other doors on the first floor lead to the bathroom and the East wing of the house.
In the west wing there were enough bedrooms for each of the seven members of the inner circle and any unexpected guest. Although Namjoon, Jin, Yoongi, and Jungkook were the only ones who solely resided at the house. The West Wing also held the gym and training area where the guys kept up with their fighting skills. Hoseok once pushed for an onsite shooting range to practice at, but Namjoon insisted on using the facility downtown, claiming it would be too noisy for him to properly get peace and quiet.
The East wing was closed off from the rest of the house and was used strictly for business, Namjoon and Jin studies, and the conference rooms where BTS met with trusted clients. The top floor of the wing was where Yoongi and most of his surveillance crew reported for work.
Upon entering the house Jimin's nose was immediately hit with a flood of spices and savory smells. Jin was in the kitchen stirring at a pan of caramelizing onions. Jimin greeted him and set the pastries on the breakfast bar hands immediately flying to his pockets to check his phone and wallet were still there. It was Alcorn after all where you either rob or get robbed.
“Dinner will be ready in ten,” Jin said in greeting before turning to peek into the box.
“Did you buy these?” he asked, confused.
“They’re from yesterday, couldn’t put them out on the floor,” Jimin lied as he headed for the couch where Jungkook was working on his homework.
“Did you have a good day at school?” he teased ruffling the younger's hair. Jimin still didn’t quite understand how Jungkook could choose to go back into debt with Namjoon in order to go to college, the kid had the chance to cut his ties and walk away before he even graduated high school, taking every job they came across and paying off his bail and any major living cost he accumulated since Namjoon took him in. The boy was brilliant and talented and while like Jimin BTS was the only family Jungkook will have he still wished to see the boy walk away from the life sentence that comes with taking the tattoo when he had the chance.
“Hyung,” he whined slightly before turning to look at him, “stop, I'm not a kid,” he said betting his hands away.
Jimin smiled giving Jungkook a look that said he believed the exact opposite before huffing a laugh, “I guess you aren’t, so what's the verdict on your punishment?” he asked as he reclined on the couch, “Did you get grounded?” he asked with a taunt and Jimin groaned.
“I have to help open the bakery for the next week, and help train the next round of recruits” he grumbled.
Jimin laughed, “You love teaching the newbs how to fight,”
“Yeah but not on Saturday mornings,”
“You also have to do inventory in the warehouse next month,” Namjoon reminded as he came down the stairs,
“Owch inventory, your heartless Joonie” Jimin said with a taunting smile as he got up to help Jin set the table. Jungkook followed wordlessly grabbing seven glasses from the cabinet.
“Well it would be one thing to go prance around the 9th ward like he owns the place, it’s another to sell to a client that’s been blacklisted since before you joined,” Namjoon said with a glare.
“You tried to sell to Sylvia?” Jimin asked in shock. He remembered Jungkook mentioning the idea to him about a month ago, but Jimin thought he finally let it go when Namjoon shut him down.
“He was willing to pay twice what we were selling for,” Jungkook defended.
“The dude’s a cannibal!” Jimin all but shouted in disbelief “And a rapist, and I'm pretty sure he abuses animals” he listed as an afterthought. Sylvia was one of the many monsters in the 9th ward, known for trafficking exotic animals many go there to buy snakes, peacocks, big cats, or what other kinds of odd pet you would need. But he was also known for collecting men and women as well, and the ones he didn’t sell he indulged in himself in a multitude of ways.
“Everyone in Alcorn is terrible, and he was just buying a sedative for whatever shipment of cats he has coming in to keep his employees from getting hurt,” Jungkook said in weak defense
“Yeah but he-”
“Enough talk,” Namjoon said, cutting Jimin off before he could further elaborate on how there was a special place in hell for guys like Sylvia. Namjoon lowered his voice as he watched Teahyung and Yoongi come into the house followed by Hoseok, “you tried to deal with someone on the blacklist, you violated major protocol and almost got killed in the process, you're on probation. But we don’t need the entire gang to know about the mishap, got it.” sending a pointed look to both Jungkook and Jimin.
“Got it,” they both responded and Jungkook had the decency to look a little guilty as Taehyung came into the room.
Quickly the room filled with mindless chatter as the guys all greeted each other before fixing their plates and taking a seat at the round marble dining table.
“So why the emergency meeting, “ Jimin asked bluntly, breaking the silence that overtook the room the moment they got Jin’s cooking in their mouths.
Namjoon looked up at him irritably, “I was going to wait until we finished eating to talk to business,”
“It’s rude to leave people in suspense like that besides were good at multitasking,” Jimin countered with a bratty smile as he stuck his fork in his mouth
“Well I actually have a few interesting jobs that came up over the weekend. I also,” Namjoon sighed as he gathered his thoughts, “wanted to talk about the terms of the newest addition to the No Harm List,”
“What do you mean the terms?” Jungkook asked breaking the short silence that fell over the table, “I figured we just protect her like we do everyone else,”
“Everyone else is two people, Jungkook.” Namjoon “And this is different Lena and Dax are old and keep to themselves. Their livelihood is in that diner by campus. We have them employ a member or two from BTS and they’re set and safe. Your girl is all over the place,” he explained Jungkook didn’t know if he liked or hated the pointed term.
“Whoa whoa hold up, your girl?” Hoseok asked, confused. He heard JK ran into some trouble over the weekend, but he didn’t realize it was bad enough to mean whoever got involved to be added to the No Harm List. “Can someone please catch me up on what’s going on?” He asked as he took in the brace on the younger's arm and healed his black eye.
“Kook decided to go through a stroll down the 9th Ward alone last week, some Black Tips snuck up on him and got the best of him, He was so desperate some college girl had to intervene and save his ass,” Suga grumbled with a teasing smirk.
“Ya know I’m getting real tired of these implications,” Jungkook scoffed, letting his fork fall to his plate with a rattled. “I messed up big time and someone had to help me. That’s my bad, and I’m really ashamed of it. I’m not ashamed of the fact that the person that saved me was a woman, but I’m sure as hell tired of you ass holes acting as I should be.”
Jin beamed proudly at the younger, “You're absolutely right Jungkookie. She’s a hero, and it’s wrong of us to imply otherwise” Jin said, sending a small glare at Yoongi and Namjoon who looked down at their plates, “But her being a woman does complicate things a little more. In a city like this it makes her all the more vulnerable, and even more important we try our best to keep her safe from threats we normally wouldn’t think about. It's important we talk about those things.”
Meanwhile, Hoseok paled as he made the connection between y/n and Jungkook. Jungkook looked at Jin sheepishly and as Hobi took his younger in he saw it, Bambi. Hoseok clenched his jaw and looked over and Jin across the table, who was not meeting his eyes. Jin was the only member who really knew who y/n was staying with him that summer and who y/n was to him. It was Jin’s job to know everything, he had to have connected the dots beforehand and didn’t give Hobi any kind of warning.
“What's there to discuss,” he said roughly, his voice low drawing all eyes his way.
Namjoon hesitated feeling the change in the mood. Hoseok was like a ray of sunshine, so when he was upset you could feel the temperature drop. He shifted in his seat before he spoke confirming Hoseok's suspicion that he too knew who ‘Cinderella’ was
“We need to decide exactly how many resources are we going to expand on her, how involved in her life do we want to get to keep her safe?”
“What do you mean how involved? Isn’t the whole point of this to keep her safe from a distance, were not about to initiate her,” Hoseok snapped.
“There's a bit of a compromising matter,” Suga mumbled all eyes shifted to him, “Y/n was wearing her work polo when she intervened, the Black Tips know where she works, and it doesn't take much to trail her after her shift the idiot walks home from work each night”
“Watch it” both Jungkook and Hoseok snapped in usion looking at each other a little shocked.
Suga continues unphased, “The safest thing to do for this girl is get her fired from her job, but we don’t know her. Jin pulled that she's a college senior. So maybe she's about to get a job, but we have no clue if getting her fired is just going to put her out on the street and in even more danger.”
“She’s going to grad school, she needs that job.” Hoseok blurted
Jungkook looked at him, “You know her?”
“She’s a family friend. She's going to med school and she's going to get out of the west side as soon as she finishes school. She's not getting involved with BTS, it will only hold her back” he grumbled
Everyone stiffed at the unspoken words ‘like BTS holds him back’ Hobi had a chance to get out the west side before his sister died. He even had plans to have his tattoo removed after his sister graduated college. He wanted a better life for both of them.
“So we get her a new job?” Tae offered with a shrug.
“She doesn’t owe us a debt, we can’t just hire her somewhere, we have a system,” Namjoon started.
“You're right, but we do have a debt to her” Jungkook started leaning forward. “Think about it, she compromised the safety of her employment to save me, we offer her new employment. It’s an exchange. Hobi said she's going to be a doctor, she’ll quit the job when she doesn't need it, that can be our way of ensuring her safety while she stays on the Westside. It would be way easier to keep up with her routines. Not to mention if she works in our territory we know no will touch her,” he said proudly with a smile.
Namjoon couldn’t help but smile as well. That business minor may pay off after all.
“The bakery does need a new set of hands since we moved Monica to the new club,” Jimin offered
“Y/n’s next shift is tomorrow, we either get this taken care of before then, or we need someone to be at the store before she goes in incase they’re waiting there to gang up on her,” Hoseok informed
“I can have her boss do it tonight” Yoongi offered taking out his phone,
“Whoa whoa whoa you can't just-” Hobi struggled “How do we get her to work at the bakery”
“Tell her to apply,” Jin said simply
Hobi’s head was near spinning; this was happening too fast. You were too close to the part of his world that he never wanted you to touch. She was going to work at a BTS business, probably befriending Jin and Jimin in the process. Hobi looked at Jimin quickly, the womanizer already smiling at the thought of his cute new co-worker. “You don’t touch her,” he warned.
“She's off-limits to all of you, got it” he pointed his stare at JK who slumped in his chair.
After a few orders of business involving a promising job for Hoseok to take on in the next month, and a round of dessert, Namjoon announced the meeting adjourned, the guys immediately wondered their way to the living room to start a round of video games, an unspoken tradition. “Hobi you want in this round?” Taehyung asked by holding up a controller.
“Nah, I'm going to pass tonight. I have some stuff to do.”
Taehyung shook his head solemnly as if he understood the weight in Hoseok's chest, and he might for all Hoseok knew he felt like the kid was capable of reading minds, before plopping on the couch between Jimin and Suga. Jungkook and Jin were in the kitchen washing up. Namjoon must have already retreated to his study, he’s been slammed since the opening of the club. Hoseok wished the other guys a quick goodnight before heading out. Hoseok made one stop by a nearby Deli picking up a large order of kimchi cheese fries and a 6 pack of apple cider beer before heading straight for your apartment.
You were only mildly surprised when Hoseok showed up unannounced. You told him you had the evening off and that was basically an invitation for him to come over. You were already dressed down in a pair of black sweatpants and a white tank top, your hair in a messy knot atop your head, your bangs pushed out of your face with your glasses frames even though the oils from your hair always streak the lenses.
“I’m not going out tonight,” you answer with your arms crossed, taking the way he was still dressed like a respectable human.
“Good, because I was hoping for a night in,” he said as he held up his offering. Your eyes lit up at the sight of the familiar grocery bag and you assured him in.
“You spoil me,” You said as you walked into your kitchen to grab two forks. Hobi slipped off his shoes before letting himself in the living room to get comfortable. He set the food down on the coffee table, noting that it was already littered with your laptop and a textbook. You must have been studying, you never did stop really. “Your sweats and stuff are in my bedroom in you wanna get comfy,” you offered as you sat cross-legged on the couch. “I’m fine I don’t want to keep you up too late,” he sighed as he unbuttoned his shirt a few notches to better relax.
“Anything good on?” he asked nodding towards the TV that was playing some mindless home improvement channel.
“The Bachelor comes on in 10 minutes, can we make fun of them?” you offered with a smile.
This was your routine watching shitty TV and movies and making fun of it together. Other than marvel movies it was hard for the two of you to watch anything serious because you both talk over everything on the screen. Except for that one time you put on Vampire Diaries as a joke, and you both enjoyed it? You remember last winter being filled with near all-nighters as you were both captivated by the Salvator brothers. Not one of your proudest moments.
You guys got through the intro, munching happily on kimchi fries and placing bets on who was going to cry before the end of the first date before you decided to break the ice.
“So are you going to tell me the real reason you came over?”
Hoseok looked at you confused at the tail end of a fry hanging out his mouth as he struggled to stuff his face. “Wudd ya mmean” he asked through a mouth full. You wrinkled your nose in disgust.
“Kimchi fries and beer, you're trying to make me compliant, and it’s working, so what do you need?” you clarified calling him out on his obvious bribe.
He looked at you guiltily before taking a swig of beer and clearing his throat, “I want you to consider quitting your job,” he said simply.
You froze, not expecting that at all, “If this is about the other night-”
“It’s not just about the other night,” he cut you off “All though yeah that is a big deal, the job is sketchy as hell the hours suck, and it doesn’t even pay that well,”
You don’t know why you felt so defensive, suddenly ready to defend the honor of you convenience store job with a joust to the death, but your felt your face flush as you argued “929 is a good place to work, the owners are nice and understanding about school, the pay doesn't suck it's 50 cents above minimum wage and its close to home. Besides I can’t just not work-”
“I’m not asking you to not work,” Hobi started his voice overly soft the way he does when he tries to calm you down. It only riled you up. “I have a friend who works at this bakery, it’s really nice, they said they’re understaffed right now. The hours are just as nice and they pay $2 above minimum wage plus tips, the atmosphere is nice, and I think you would like it” he said simply.
You tried to swallow down the lump of pride fighting its way up to your throat, You knew he was looking out for you and just wanted the best for you, but your feelings were hurt you felt like your job didn't seem good enough to him. He was always criticizing your choices. Claiming to be looking out for you.
“There’s nothing wrong with my current job, and you know it”
You held his stare but didn’t open his mouth to argue. You could almost see the rusty gears in his stupid head spinning as he tried to think of a response that would rile you up more. The way he was tip-toeing around you and not calling you out for your bullshit excuse set you on edge.
“What aren’t you telling me?” you prompted and you watched the hesitation before he replied
“Y/n, I’m not hiding anything, the job is available I thought it was a good opportunity and-”
“You’re a terrible liar” you cut him off with a scoff as you reached for your beer
“And you’re stupid if you think it’s safe to go back there, y/n they know where you work,” he pleaded
“No, they don’t I told you Ju- Bambi and I got away and hid in the shop if they saw us we would have known,”
“But they saw you in your work polo if they want to go looking for you that would be the first place to start,” he countered, you head your beer to your lips as you froze.
“How did you know I was in uniform,” you asked softly
He spluttered “I didn’t, I’m just assuming you-”
“No, no you seemed confident, you know something, don’t you?” you accused your anger sputtering back to life.
“No I don’t know anything, y/n I swear,”
“Get out, you know I can’t stand liars” you hissed frustrated
“I’m not-” you shot him a withering glare that made him shut his mouth only confirming your suspicion. You watched him with disinterest as he got up leaning toward the table, “leave the beer,” you ordered as you watched his hand go near the six-pack. He only placed a business card on the table, the curly font reading ‘Sugar Daddy.’ You shoveled fries in your mouth in response trying your hardest to convey your petty anger through the action. You listened to him shuffle out the door and heard the click of the lock as he locked it after himself before he was gone. The bastard always looked out for your safety and it made you sick. But still despite your pride what heated your body you felt goosebumps on your arms as the forewarned threat lingered in the back of your mind.
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You checked your watch again nervously as you stood at the edge of the sidewalk outside of Sugar Daddy, you were 25 minutes early, and you always prided yourself on being punctual, but 25 minutes seemed like just a little too long to wait inside the business before your interview. You didn’t want to seem awkward. You told yourself 15 minutes was an appropriately early time to prove your punctuality without seeming like a nuisance. You watched as patrons flitted in and out of the bakery carrying boxes of pastries and fancy looking coffees as you tried to process the past two days.
Two days ago you got a phone call right before leaving your shift from your boss telling you not to come in today and that she had to let you go. You tried to beg her to keep you on staff, saying you were fine with taking fewer hours or even a small cut in wages if that would help, but she insisted there was no other way. The prospect of being unemployed hit you like a truck and your first instinct was to call Hoseok frantic and not knowing what to do. But you reminded yourself after the first ring that you were mad at him. For what exactly? For insulting a job that didn’t want you anymore?
You wondered what you did that could have qualified you for being fired, you always prided yourself on being a good and diligent worker, even getting a small raise after your first year at the shop. You were on the edge of your entire routine changing as you got closer to graduation, and the thought of losing your one constant made you want to unravel.
You knew if you let the phone ring Hoseok would come over immediately to console you saying it was for the best. But you didn’t want to hear what was best for you from him. It took you the entire night of tossing and turning before you decided you would call the bakery the next morning. With the nearing of summer, part-time jobs were being gobbled up by high schoolers, and you didn’t have enough saved up to be unemployed for too long.
You hated the thought of a handout, but at the end of the day, you were qualified for the job and thought yourself more than capable. The owner Seokjin was kind to you over the phone, telling you Hoseok had already put in a good word for you. You ignored the twinge in your heart and made yourself focus on the positive. The atmosphere seemed fun and the promise of early morning hours would work great with your current and future class schedule.
So here you were, in a white button-up and slacks wanting to appear professional for the interview. Contemplating what you would do if this didn’t work out. You tried to ignore the small drop of sweat you felt forming at the back of your neck and running down your back, hoping you weren’t about to sweat through your blouse and decided maybe it was for the best if you just went inside now, in the safety of the air conditioning to maintain your professional appearance. Your makeup was light, some foundation and a light dusting of blush across your cheeks, you kept your eye makeup neutral and decided to go for a lip gloss instead of a colored lipstick, not wanting to have to worry about maintaining the pigment in a setting where you would be doing so much talking.
When you entered the bakery you were hit with the sweet scent of pastries and baking bread mixed with the jolting smell of coffee. Your mouth started watering. The display cabinet by the register was filled with a colorful array of sweet treats, and the far side wall was made up of baskets filled with different loaves of bread people would walk up and choose from. You suddenly thought about backing out of the interview simply so you could maintain your figure which you knew would be at risk when you were surrounded by carbs all day and didn't have an ounce of self-control.
You stood near the wall taking it all in when you saw a handsome man wearing an apron, with a smiling lump of dough with the word ‘Weirdough’ embroidered above it, approach you. He wore a light pink sweater that matched the icing on a number of the pastries with a pair of jeans and converse. He smiled at you and after further evaluation of his broad shoulders and full lips you confirmed that he was the most handsome man you had ever seen.
“You must be y/n” he greeted, taking in your professional attire and the small portfolio you held with a death grip in your hand. You nodded unable to find your voice and his smile grew. “I'm Kim Seokjin, the owner,” he said offering you his hand, you accepted it hoping your hands weren’t as clammy as you felt they were and noticed the patch of ink peeking through the rolled-up sleeve of his forearm, but at this angle, you weren’t able to make out the design.
“Come on to the back and we can have a talk,” he said with a nod of his head before leading the way. You followed him past the counter and into the back where you saw a blond man in the corner kneading dough with a swirl of cinnamon coloring it.
“Do you have any allergies, y/n?” he asked looking over his shoulder as you followed him through the kitchen to what you could only assume to be his office. You shook your head and he sighed with relief, “thank goodness, we make an effort to accommodate all allergies and intolerances in our menu, but it’s a bit harder to escape in the kitchen. I once interviewed someone with a cinnamon allergy, and let's just say that did not go well,” he let out a squeaking laugh and you couldn’t help but smile in return.
“You’re shy for a friend of Hoseok’s although I wouldn’t be surprised if he did all the talking, the only time that man is quiet is when he has a mouthful of food,”
You let out a startled laugh at the slight jab as you closed the office door and helped yourself to the chair across his cluttered desk adjusting the pillow behind you slightly as you settled. The feeling of tension in your shoulders ease and the knots in your stomach loosened as you took in the cozy office. You took in Jin’s warm presence, still looking so casual even when sitting behind a desk in the business he owned and found yourself able to relax around him.
“Not at all it just takes a minute for my social battery to warm up, he’ll be the one telling me to shut up once I get started,” you said with a smile forcing a persona of confidence up your throat.
You learned at a young age you truly could fake it till you make it in most social settings. Making your body language appear more confident than you felt. You just needed a few minutes of observing whoever it was you were meeting, formulating how to match their mood. The right amount of humor in your voice, the right amount of attitude. Many thought you were clever and funnier than you actually were. When really you were just a good listener, making a habit of referencing jokes they already made earlier in the conversation to charm them, and get them talking about themselves more before deciding which side of yourself to show them.
Many could misunderstand your attempt at social survival as you being fake, but you saw it more as adapting to your environment. You never pretended to be someone you weren't; you merely highlighted qualities of yourself that would be most appealing to the setting you were in. Most people do it unintentionally. You were just more aware of it, had to make more of an effort in doing it, to overcome your own anxieties.
Jin grinned as he rolled the sleeves of his sweater back down his arm, you again glimpsed the flash of a tattoo making out a familiar geometric shape. “I understand that completely, I’m the same way,” he offered as he leaned back in his chair. And you felt warm as you realized maybe you wouldn’t have to ride out this interview on false confidence after all. Seokjin seemed to be a kind and understanding man, his warm smile putting you at ease despite the interview setting.
The two of you continued on with the interview asking the usual questions before Jin asked you to detail your previous work experience at 929. Afterward, he gave you a brief overview of what your duties at the bakery would entail; baking, taking care of the cash register, making coffees, and cleaning. You were a little intimidated by the thought of being responsible for preparing food, but he assured you you wouldn’t be left in the kitchen alone until they felt you were comfortable.
“So could you start your training tomorrow afternoon?” he asked as he opened his calendar adjusting the glasses on his nose.
“You want to- I’m hired?” you asked in surprise.
Jin smiled at you warmly, “You seem more than capable, and we are in need of a new set of hands, so if you’re still wanting to work here then yes”
“O-ofcourse, yes thank you, thank you so much,” you said shaking his hand.
Seokjin gave you some paperwork to fill out before excusing himself to go check on a few things. You took in the office now that you had a moment to yourself appreciating the slight messiness to the desk that was covered in stacks of paperwork, and a few sheets sprawled in handwritten notes of what looked to be recipes, but overall the room was clean. The bookshelves behind the desk were filled with cookbooks of all kinds, a few business-related titles, and to your surprise what appeared to be a chemistry book or two on the bottom shelves were also accompanied by a few knick-knacks and Mario figurines all strategically placed and dust-free. Above the door was a small wooden plaque that said “All you knead is Love” underlined by a rolling pin. The room overall felt cozy and homey, but maybe that was just the pillow in your chair with the phrase “Espresso yourself” in loving needlepoint, that was doing the talking.
You gave him your banking information and student citizenship card to document in the system so he could add you to payroll, and within an hour you found yourself walking out of the office with plans to be back at 1 pm tomorrow to start your training.
“Were asking you to come so late because the morning rush is our busiest time, I would hate for you to be overwhelmed,” Seokjin clarified as he walked you out of the front of the store.
“Please take something home with you before you go,” he offered, sliding open one of the pastry cabinet doors. This couldn’t be real. Your luck couldn't be this good. You grinned as you selected a flakey blackberry strudel pastry that was braided in a long rope and covered in sparkling sugar. It was delicious, and then you were ready to make your way out the door.
That is until a familiar face made his way out from the kitchen.
“Hey, boss where did you- oh hello princess what are you doing here?” Jimin purred with a Cheshire smile
“Jimin,” Jin warned softly before turning to you with a customer service smile, genuine, but not as warm as the one he revealed to you before.
“This is Jimin,” Seokjin introduced gesturing at the blond in front of you, “He’s going to be one of your co-workers, he’ll actually be here to help with your training tomorrow.” he introduced “But it seems like you already know each other” he voice ended in a question
Jimin looked you up and down with a smile as he swept his bangs back from his forehead, you shifted your weight from leg to leg feeling so flustered under his gaze that you almost missed the geometric tattoo on his forearm twin to the one Seokjin had on his, “We've crossed paths once or twice, I thought you preferred to go by Ella around these parts?” Jimin asked with a knowing look his voice intensifying with his inflection
“Is that true?” Jin asked his voice laced with concern
You swallowed keeping your eyes on Jimin even as you turned your head to Jin and nodded accepting the protection Jimin offered, “I know my family name isn’t as easy on Alcorn's preferred tongue,” you offered as explanation letting your native accent poke through a bit more to sell your point.
Jin raised an eyebrow but nodded in understanding, “In that case, I’ll put Ella on your name tag if that makes you more comfortable.” And with that you took your cue to go, your head spinning as you made your way down the block pastry still clamped in your hand.
“Do you think the cover name is really necessary?” Jin asked as he made his way to the register reliving Monic for her ten.
“Hoseok said she didn’t want her to be affiliated with BTS after she leaves the Westside, and it’s the name Jungkook gave her the night we met. I figured it would appease both of them.” Jimin offered, “besides you have to admit, it is kinda sweet,” he said with a smile Jin rolled his eyes.
“Jungkook really called her Cinderella, I swear he could romanticize roadkill if you let him think about it for too long,” Jin said with a huff. “At least she managed to get a cute nickname out of it,” he added as an afterthought.
“Cute name for a cute girl” Jimin's smile was a little too predatory for Jin’s taste.
“Yah, get back in the kitchen, what am I paying you for?” the elder ordered with a smack to his shoulder.
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You found yourself standing outside of Sugar Daddy at 12:45p.m. the next day, determined to keep your reputation for punctuality, and smiled at Jin as you came in.
You wore a white blouse with a pair of light jeans and yellow flats for a pop of color. You were still unsure of how formal or casual to dress for work, having a uniform at your last job gave you no point of reference, so you elevated your casual attire by accessorizing with a pair of yellow dangling earrings the same color as your shoes and a matching silk scarf you wrapped around your hair tie, letting the long ends with a pattern of honeycomb and bees fall just short of your ponytail. You felt like the soft color pallet of the outfit would help you match the vibe of the bakery better, but you may have to get more creative with your wardrobe if you made a habit of it since a majority of your closet was black.
“Ella,” Jin greeted as you made your way to the counter hovering as you were unsure of whether or not to join him behind it. “I’m glad you're a little early, I had something come up that afternoon that I can't seem to get out of, so I wanted to take you in the back and get you started in the kitchen before I have to go. Jimin will train you upfront after that,” he explained before bringing you back in the kitchen where Jimin was frosting sugar cookies with seasonally appropriate designs. You didn’t remember artistic talent being part of the job descriptions, so you hope that task was reserved for him.
Jimin gave you a kind but unusually quiet smile as he looked up from his work taking his silent cue to head up to the front. You didn’t know what you expected from him today, but the mild mannerism surprised and confused you a bit. Finding out he was your coworker set your nerves on edge yesterday, you had to face the fact that your adventures from last week may not be something you could put behind you. And the fact that you felt more eagerness than dread was a whole other concern you weren’t ready to unbox just yet.
You wondered exactly what would come from working at a ‘gangster bakery.’
The thought of a gangster bakery was so odd you felt silly for being worried about it. You didn’t feel like you were in danger per se, you recognized the symbol on Jimin and Seokjins forearm as the same one that marked Hoseok’s. If this was his way of bringing you into his world after being closed off for so long you weren’t entirely opposed to it. You knew he loved you and wanted to keep you safe. The thought of Hoseok being connected to the night you met Jungkook simultaneously put you at ease and fed your worries.
It made the unknowns of that night less intimidating. Hoseok being in the same gang as the group of men who know where you live meant he could possibly protect you from them. But the thought of Hoseok being affiliated with that kind of violence also made you so nervous it put your stomach in knots.
You also realized Hoseok knowing them didn’t mean you were safe. It was stupid for you to assume so, but having a job with them and getting to know them better gave you a chance to evaluate your situation a bit better. That's what you were hoping at least.
“Ella?” Jin questioned pulling you from your thoughts. You looked up startled to see you had fixated on the ink on his forearm while your thoughts had run wild.
“I’m sorry what did you say?” you asked flushed and you bit at the skin on your bottom lip.
“I said let’s get you an apron,” he said hold out the gray canvas to you. It was then that you saw he was wearing a different apron from yesterday, today said ‘Donut worry. Be happy.”
You unfolded your apron to find it blank, but lined with pockets at the waistline and two tortoise shelled buttons where the straps connected to the top, and unnecessary but fashionable detail. “Don’t worry, I’ll have your embroidered once we find the right pun,” Jin assured as if it was an actual concern.
Your time in the kitchen went by quickly, after a thorough tour of where all the supplies were he showed you how to navigate the iPad that had all the recipes currently on the menu. The recipes were written out in nice steps that made it near impossible to mess it up. Or so Jin thought until you got in the kitchen.
The first accident happened when you got to the mixer, you were making a classic chocolate chip recipe. The measuring of ingredients went by easily, your time in the labs had served you well. But you had never used such a fancy piece of machinery in the kitchen. You forgot to lock the blender down, so when you pushed the dile to turn it on, putting it at max, butter quickly flew out of the metal bowl and right onto Jin’s cheek. You were both horrified and amused by the shocked sound that ripped through his throat. And had to stifle your laughter as he excused himself to wash up in the bathroom mumbling about being worried about breaking out. He decided that later that night he would write directions for all the equipment in the bakery.
Once the cookies were in the oven you were tasked with preparing some cupcakes so you could practice frosting. Any downtime you thought you would get from the pastries cooking was spent cleaning and weighing out the ingredients to the next thing. Two dozen cookies and a dozen muffins later you were finally faced with your worst fear, the decoration station. The cupcakes had cooled and you were given the task to pile them high with a swirl of frosting, place a strawberry in the pile at just the right angle, and drizzle white chocolate over it artistically. You would rather dissect a frog. After two failed attempts, Jin took pity and decided to show you his technique for a third time, when his alarm went off.
“Ella, I hate to cut us short, but I need to get going, you can head upfront with Jimin if you want.”
You did not want.
But you smiled brightly at him with a cheery ‘of course’ and wished him a good afternoon before heading to the front of the bakery. Behind the counter, Jimin was leaning across the register scrolling through his phone in boredom. He fumbled to put his phone up quickly when he heard you come through the door.
“Gosh you scared me I thought you were Jin,” he sighed as you approached, carefully as you balanced a tray of cupcakes in your arms.
“Sorry to disappoint?” you said hesitantly as you set down the tray on the countertop tugging at the skin on your bottom lip subconsciously as you focused on keeping the tall towers of icing from tipping. .
“How did baking 101 go, I don’t smell anything burning,” he said, making easy conversation before raising an eyebrow at your sloppy decor job.
You sighed, “I’m surprised he hasn't fired me yet” you near groaned as you debated your employment. Jimin laughed.
“Well at least you only got a little flour in your hair,” he teased gesturing toward the near-white strand, “Oh no!” You gasped searching for a reflective surface to assure you were presentable. “Relax it comes with the job, I get flour in all kinds of places,” he amended.
“No one wants to hear about your places,” a deep voice broke startling you. You looked up to see a grinning V standing across from you at the counter, you hadn’t even noticed he was there when you came in.
“Oh, it’s you,” you stated dumbly as you turned to Jimin. Tae tilled his head in an oddly felin gestur his curls shifting atop his head as he took you in.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you too my darling El, got any business?” he smirked as you watched him pluck a strawberry from your cupcake and pop it in his mouth.
“Hey, I was going to sell those,” you snapped ignoring his comment as he reached for another one of the berries.
“No you weren’t,” Taehyung replied simply between chews, “they’re ugly” he said punctuating the point as he ate a third strawberry. You turned to Jimin in hopes of him defending your honor, but he only smiled at you confirming your decorating deficiency.
“Alright, that enough,” you hissed, pulling the tray away from him, he chuckled softly before retreating to his side of the counter space right as Seokjin walked out the kitchen decked out in a full suit. It was at that moment you realized Taehyung was dressed in formal attire as well.
“How do I look Ella?” Jin asked with a confident smile. You started at him wide-eyed glancing quickly at Jimin as you debated the HR policies you read in your hiring contract before settling with a safe “Umm very handsome, sir”
“Oh god you’ll only make it worse,” Jimin groaned right as Jin gave a confident, “I know,” in response.
“We should get going,” Tae said looking over to you with a grin “It was a pleasure seeing you, princess,” he said with a flirtatious wink that you were not at all affected by, before turning to walk out the door. Jin gave a quick goodbye, reminding Jimin to behave before the following suit and getting into a familiar sleek black car parked illegally in front of the shop.
“I guess we should get started then,” Jimin said with a smile, and suddenly you had a whole new set of nerves.
Working the front of the store was a lot easier than the kitchen. You were already experienced with the cash register system they used, only needing to familiarize yourself with their menu and how to specialize orders. The pastries all had description cards in the display cabinet, so it was easy to know what is what as well as describe it to the customers. The only thing you had to learn really was how to make coffee. You weren't a stranger to fancy coffee shops, almost regularly indulging in an overpriced, over-sweetened cup yourself. But Navigating the equipment will take some time for you to get used to. And considering how grumpy customers got in the mornings Jimin took extra time to make sure you had the basics down to prepare you for the morning shift.
"And then you just pour the milk in like this," Jimin said with a smile as he made a flawless heart in the milk once again. It had been a slow afternoon at the shop, ideal for training you, and once he was sure you got the hang of things he decided he could give you a head start on mastering your barista skills, because you were not going near the frosting again if he could help it.
The counter was lined with cups filled with various drinks and failed latte art attempts, and the few customers you have had this afternoon had been delighted with the free coffee that came with their purchase. You and Jimin were also buzzing after drinking one too many of the failed attempts.
"If you ever have time and you want the drink to be really good, mix the syrup in with the milk when you steam it, it may take a little extra cleaning, but it helps the flavor stay consistent throughout the drink," he continues as he demonstrated again on a new cup of milk, you watched the milk slowly darken as the chocolate syrup blended in and became frothy. He poured the milk into a cup of espresso skipping the art in favor of adding whipped cream on top before drizzling it perfectly with chocolate syrup. You gasped as he added a marshmallow on top and lit it on fire with a small torch by the register.
"Ta-da!" he said with a grin, "It has toasted marshmallow syrup in it too. The Fireside it’s one of our more popular drinks. Tell me what you think." he said while offering you the beverage.
You blew out the marshmallow with a quick puff of air before tentatively taking a sip, your taste buds danced in delight, "Oh my gosh this is delicious!" you beamed as you looked at him in amazement. He giggled, ruffling his hair as he thanked you.
"Yeah, I get pretty bored here when it gets slow on nights like this, so I kinda let my creativity run wild. Jin lets me have a specialty menu," he said nodding towards the small chalkboard propped by the register, "and if something in particular becomes a hit then he'll add it to the official menu."
Sugar Daddy was basically an equal parts bakery and coffee shop. The business set itself apart by being specialized in having out of the ordinary pastries and drinks like the Fireside where they lit a marshmallow on fire. To be honest Jimin tried to incorporate fire into the menu as much as possible. He was a bit of a pyromaniac at times.
The bakery had a modern feel despite being fit into an older building off the main street of the 7th ward. It wasn’t overly girlish in that sickening way most trendy bakeries are headed, where they are over saturated with pastel colors and curly font menus that were damn near impossible to read. No, Sugar Daddy had a relaxed and cozy vibe; the red brick walls and hardwood floors were complemented with more industrial decor, like the minimalist wire basket wall filled with bread and bagels to be sold, and the Edison light bulbs that hung over the display cases.
"That's so cool!" you said genuinely impressed by his creativity as you read through the flavors on the list. "Honestly Jimin, some of these pastries are so beautiful they're basically art," you continued as you peeked at the display case again admiring the lavender blossoms painted on the small lavender macaroons.
"You're too kind," he said bashfully and you shook your head as you stole another sip of your coffee, a dollop of whipped cream sticking to your nose in the process. Jimin stepped forward, whipping it with his finger with a swift but gentle flick, fighting the urge to lick his finger as he kept eye contact with you. You looked away shyly, a blush staining your cheek. Off limits. he reminded himself begrudgingly.
"Let's take another go at the register. We don't want you to slip up in the middle of rush hour," he said before turning away and breaking any tension that may have built between you two.
Jimin was a natural flirt, but you made it dangerously easy. He was going to have to keep himself in check as he gets to know you more. You were so enthusiastic about everything he's taught you so far and your personality was sweet enough to give him a cavity even in a bakery. But then you kept surprising him with a snide comment or joke that made him do a double-take, your seemingly innocent eyes suddenly appearing all too knowing. It was your first day and you were already driving him crazy.
For a while he was drilling you again, listing off random orders and making you ring them up on the register as you familiarized yourself with the menu. You were both starting to lose interest, as the streetlight outside came on indicating to Jimin you had a little over an hour until closing, and he was worried you may not see another customer for the evening when the bell chimed and a couple entered the store arm and arm.
"You take this one," he encouraged taking a step back to clean up the coffee equipment. You greeted them cheerfully complimenting the woman on her blouse so effortlessly, Jimin wondered if it came naturally or if you were gunning for tips.
Jimin clicked with you well. There were no awkward pauses or hiccups that normally came with training days. You were confident and capable so much so he almost found it a little intimidating at first, found himself seeming like he was the shy one as he struggled to think about what to show you next. You were making small talk with the couple as you collected the pastry of choice for them out the cabinet, rushing it to a natural end as the bell chimed from another customer entering the store. He could tell you were practiced in customer service, your overall energy was both warm and efficient, and he could hear the slight tone in your adapt depending on who you were interacting with.
“Good evening, what can I get for you, sir,”
“I’ll have a cortado,” Jimin froze as he recognized the familiar voice, looking over his shoulder to see Kim Namjoon standing across from you at the counter.
“Late night?” you asked as you smiled at him sweetly and scrolled through the list of drinks to ring him up.
“I find I’m more productive in the evenings,” Namjoon responded smoothly.
“I say the same thing, but if we’re honest I think I’m just guilty of procrastination,” you joked as you wrote his order on a cup and handed it to Jimin, who tried his best to keep one eye on you and the espresso machine as he made the drink.
“Thank you, Ella,” Namjoon said as he dropped his coins in the tip jar with a rattle, and took his drink from Jimin with a small smile.
“You seem tense,” you said softly as you watch Namjoon take a seat at one of the tables scrolling through his phone.
Jimin blinked quickly before turning to you with a smile, “Not at all princess, but it’s almost time for closing so let me show you how we pack and clean up everything,” he said with a smile. Before he could go further the bell chimed again and to his displeasure saw another one of his brothers enter the shop. Jungkook looked about as shocked to see you as you did, despite having the warning. Jimin forgot he and Namjoon were taking care of a deal tonight and using the storefront as a meeting place.
Jimin watched Namjoon frown as Jungkook walked passed him. A dopey smile forming on the idiot’s face as he strolled up to the counter. You didn’t take your eyes off him as you brushed by Jimin to take his order. Saints, you were both pathetic.
“What can I get you?” you asked your voice shy and small as you reached to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.
“Caramel macchiato,” his articulate brother responded softly.
Jimin watched Jungkook shift he weight as you rang him up searching for something to say before blurting, “I saw you the other day, at the library”
Your smile faltered, “Yaeh, I know the elevator you-”
“Sorry I didn’t say hi, I guess that was pretty weird,” he laughed rubbing the back of his neck nervously
“It was,” you agreed, eyebrows furrowing, and Jimin had to hide his smile with his hand as he watched the younger deflate. You were brutal and Jimin adored it.
“But you can say hi now?” you offered catching your mistake.
Jungkook flushed as a smile broke across his cheeks and gave a soft, “Hey Ella,”
“Hey Jungkook,” you responded as you smiled back at him endearingly and he felt his stomach flutter at the fact that you remembered his name. Jimin wanted to bang his head into a wall at the sight of the middle school romance blooming in his shop. He looked around for inspiration desperate to spoil the moment before your eyes turned into actual hearts.
“Kook,” Namjoons voice almost echoed in the quiet bakery and you both jumped as you handed Jungkook back his card, “Sorry coming,” he called walking over to the elder.
They exchanged words softly, Jungkook plugging a jump drive into Namjoons laptop as Jimin talked you through preparing his drink. By time you were ready to bring the drink to him he was gone, “You can set it on the table.” Namjoon said with a sweet smile flashing two crater deep dimples at you. “Jungkookie is just running something over to a friend he’ll be back soon,” he assured. You flushed and realized you probably looked disappointed by his absence and set the steaming mug on the table, wishing to all gods that Namjoon wouldn't notice how you teasingly wrote ‘Hey :)’ in caramel sauce on top of his drink. Stupid, stupid you hissed to yourself as you returned to a smirking Jimin. What were you doing exactly? Flirting??
Jimin got you started with closing the kitchen, standing the doorway to keep one eye at the front of the shop while directing you on how to wipe down the ovens and prep some of the yeast for tomorrow morning.
At one point Suga came into the shop and chatted with Namjoon, but he didn’t order anything so he kept you in the kitchen deciding you didn’t need to meet the entire household tonight. When you did all that you could while the shop was still open Jimin had you come back to the front to show you how to clean the coffee machines. Namjoon was still at the table in the corner, a small plate of lemon cake half-eaten in front of him as he worked on his computer and Jungkook’s cooling mug across from him untouched.
“El your sleeves are soaked,” Jimin groaned, noticing the dingy white fabric, “here.” he sighed, reaching for your wrist and rolling your sleeve up your forearm. “You’re going to have to make a habit of rolling your sleeve now that you work in a kitchen,” he said as he reached for the other one.
You nodded not really hearing him as your own eyes looked down at his arms. You realized while you established you were probably safe to work here, that you still haven’t gotten any answers about the guys.
“I like your tattoo,” you said, your voice sounding more forced than casual, but Jimin stiffened in response before letting a small smirk crawl across his face, “Yea, you got any?” he asked as he finished and dropped your arm. You shook your head as you shifted uncomfortably, “No, not yet at least, I think they’re super cool though. What does yours mean?” you prompted trying to make yourself seem only slightly interested.
Jimin glanced over his shoulder to Namjoon observing the two of you with a raised brow, and Jimin rolled his eyes. It’s not like BTS was his secret, it was Hoseok’s. “It’s a family crest,” Jimin replied dismissively,
Your brows rose in disbelief, “Really it’s so modern looking, I didn’t realize you and Jin were kin.” you prodded as you returned to wiping down the counter.
Annoyance flashed across his face before he huffed, “We’re very distant cousins, but he’s like a brother to me.”
“Wow you must have a massive family,” you prompted with a smile. And Jimin’s eyes glinted as he saw a way out of your little interrogation. “Very,” he said as he leaned in to whisper, “that's not the only massive thing I have though,”
You immediately turned scarlet stepping away from him, “Jimin,” you hissed scandalized. He smiled cheekily before turning back to the floor, “C’mon nosey let's get back to work.” he prompted. You and Jimin continued cleaning and whipping down the counters before the shop finally closed. Jungkook never came back, and you tried not to look disappointed as you took the cold coffee cup, off the table along with Namjoon’s cake plate. Most of your message sunk to the bottom of the cup in a large sugar lump. You noticed Namjoon still sat at his table working after Jimin flipped the sign, and Jimin saw the curiosity in your eyes as you placed the dishes in the sink.
“He’s the owner,” Jimin offered as explanation.
Confusion wrinkled your brow “I thought Jin was the owner?”
At this Jimin’s eyes turned to crescents as he smiled “He owns Jin.” he said simply before returning to the dishes. Once the dishes were dried and put away Jimin took you to the back to finish cleaning the kitchen and preparing the dough to rise for the morning’s bread.
“It’s getting late, why don’t you head home early,” Jimin offered as you placed reusable cling wrap over another bowl.
“Are you sure, we’re not done?” you asked confused, he nodded with a smile. Feeling tired from the long day you decided to take him up on the offer. You quickly slipped off your apron and gathered your things before leaving the store Jimin locking the door behind you.
You shuffled down the street as you dug in your bag to grab your pepper spray, while this area was lit much better than your old job, you still were taking a maximum precaution on your walk home.
“Y/n?”
You squealed in shock as you whirled swinging your purse at your attacker. Jungkook didn’t seem affected at the bag met his arm with a loud smack, but he looked at you sheepishly as he apologized. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just going to offer to walk you home”
“Gosh, Jungkook I could have hurt you what were you thinking sneaking up on me like that,” Jungkook laughed as he started walking with you, “No you couldn’t have, I barely felt that,” he teased bumping you slightly with a solid shoulder.
“Don’t tempt me to try again, I’ll make sure you feel it next time,” you threatened lightly. He grinned cheekily at you
“I could teach you, ya know?” he offered and you raised a brow for him to elaborate, “How to fight- defend yourself I mean, you held your own the other night, but it’s important that people like you know how to defend themselves properly in a city like this,”
You scoffed, “First things first, I believe it was you who got jumped the other night, and I saved your ass” you reminded
“You did a great job of distracting them, so I could take control of the situation,” he corrected. You ignored him.
“Secondly, what do you mean people like me?” you asked a flush already creeping up your cheeks. Is it a compliment to be told that your pretty enough to be kidnapped? You made a mental note to reevaluate you standards of what is and isn’t a compliment in the shower later.
“People who walk home from work at night,” Jungkook clarified and your face fell as you realized he wasn’t flirting with you. He was being a sensible and nice guy.
“Thanks, but I think I can handle my own,” you said your voice flat, and Jungkook wondered what he said wrong this time.
“Oh, c’mon I can teach you the good ole’ one, two,” he insisted punching his fist through the air for emphasis.
It was at that moment you caught sight of the trapezoid design on his forearm two. You don't know why you were surprised, You reached grabbed his arm gently pulling it to get a better look, the inner doctor in you trying not to lust after the thick veins protruding from his arm. You should ask him if he donates blood often. “What does it mean exactly,” you asked catching him off guard.
“The family symbol” you elaborated as you traced the pad of your finger softly around each side. Jungkook tried to contain the shiver that ran through him but had no way of stopping the way he felt his heart swell at your question. You knew. Hoseok or Jimin must have told you. But you knew he was in a gang and you weren’t repulsed by it, you saw it for what it was, a family. You were even willing to let him walk you home. He smiled brightly as he responded,
“They’re doors,” he said simply, “One open inwards one open outwards, it’s supposed to mean you’re never alone, there’s always somewhere for you to go when you're part of the family, The symbol is a promise that you’ll take care of each other.”
You angled your head as you saw the doors and smiled softly, “So what’s the family name,” you asked still trying to wrap your head around how a Park, Kim, and Jung could all be kin. Their grandparent must have been busy,
“BTS?” Jungkook asked confused “Oh it stands for-” Jungkook stopped as he saw the way your face fell.
“BTS as in the gang?” you asked and he tried to not dwell on the waiver in your voice.
“So you didn’t know,” Jungkook said realizing his mistake.
“Well I figured, I mean I always assumed Hoseok was apart of something, but when I asked Jimin he said it was a family crest and then you had that beautiful explanation and I thought. I thought for a second that maybe,” your face turned red as you got flustered, “Maybe someone would be honest with me for once, but no I work at a gangster bakery.” You huffed your mouth set into a firm pout as you continue your rant, “ Which is the most absurd thing, by the way, you guys should really re-evaluate your business tactics. Open a dive bar or something cool” you said starting to pick up your pace as you grew frantic or furious. Jungkook couldn’t really tell.
“Y/n, please I’m sorry I thought you knew,” Jungkook pleased
And you laughed humorously, “I should have I’m so stupid I really thought-” Jungkook struggled to understand you as you continued to mumble to yourself angrily your mouth in a firm pout as you turned around to head in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?” Jungkook was jogging to keep up with you as you were on the border of full-on sprinting.
“To talk to my best friend, I wanna know if he’s capable of telling the truth” you hissed and Jungkook slowed as you turned on the road of Hoseok’s apartment complex.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man” he huffed, pressing his hands to his ears in despair. He tailed you slightly just to make sure you got there safe before quickly sending a warning text to Hobi. Though he wasn’t sure anything could properly prepare the man for you.
You stomped of the flight of stairs in Hoseok’s building, banging on the door to warn him before you dug through your purse for your keys.
“Y/n?” Hoseok asked confused as he opened the door, you shoved right past him near hysteric with anger, “Let’s talk,” you snapped as you made your way into the living room.
“Y/n, what the hell is going on?” he demanded taking in your disheveled state.
“I was just wondering now that I got fired from my job and work at your gangster bakery how long until I get my own cute little tattoo,” you said with a saccharine smile. Hoseok’s stomach dropped, “I can explain.” he started.
“I bet you can,” you snapped before your eyes watered your emotions quickly getting the best of you, “Hobi, I don’t wanna be mad I just wanna know the truth.” you pleaded voice wavering. And that was the truth, you felt like you could care less if he was in a gang. It was Alcorn, you had to be in a gang to survive if you weren’t rich. The only reason you hadn’t joined one yourself was because you were an international student and no one cared about you, but even that hadn’t kept you out of it. You and Daewon almost joined Black Pink, a notorious girl gang at your university during a drunken mishap your freshman year.
Upon seeing your eyes water and your lip tremble Hoseok instantly wished you would scream at him. He didn’t want to hurt you. He didn’t mean for it to go this far. For you two to get so close after his sister's death, or for him to lie to you for so long. He told himself he kept you out of it for your safety, but really it was just too easy for him to live two lives, for you to look at him like he wasn’t a murderer and for him to pretend for a few hours that he wasn’t. He sighed sitting on the couch and you plopped down next to him and waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts.
“I guess it’s best to start at the very beginning which was when I was around 16,” he started.
A/N: Whew this is the longest thing I’ve written (so far). And I’m super stoked to see what everyone thinks! I had a personal deadline to post before the end of the month bc I’m working 40 hours a week and taking online classes, but I got hit by a truckload of insperation and have felt so beyond flattered by the comments that I started writing during my lunch break and shot this bad booy out and plotted out possibly nine chapters?? So stay tuned y’all we’re in for a long ride. As always thank you for reading! Please comment if you feel led they really help me out!!! <3
pt.4
#bts fic#bts fanfic#bts gang au#bts mafia au#btsghostie#gangster jungkook#gangaster taehyung#ganster jimin#gangster yoongi#gangster seokjin#baker seokjin#baker jimin#bakery au#drug dealer teahyung#bts mature#jungkook x reader#namjin#gangster jhope#gangster v#gangster syga#gangster rm#crime lord namjoon#jungkook au#bts college au#angst#bts angst#bts fluff#bangtan#no harm list#crazy4myself fic
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The Exam
→ [1/7] of the Society Series
→ summary: Three societies. Two dead lovers. One test. In a world that prioritizes intelligence and the ability to regurgitate textbook information, will you choose love and poverty or splendor and solitude?
→ pairing/rating: taehyung x reader | PG-15
→ genre: 99.9% angst, 0.1% fluff (if you squint) | dystopian!au & utopian!au
→ warnings: profanity, death, mentions of tuberculosis and leptospirosis, blood, extreme poverty, extremely brief mention of cannibalism and overdosing, undiagnosed depression and mild anxiety, brief mentions of the afterlife and physical violence, this shit ain’t happy pple
→ wordcount: 21.4k
There's a strange stench that permeates the air in the city of Dystopia.
It is the odor of death. The dark, muddy soil reeks of decaying bodies, of rotting rats and excretions. Deteriorating child flesh even has its own distinct smell, but you've become so used to it, you don't really mind it as much anymore.
Every day is a festival for the unusually large rats that inhabit the city. With their matted-fur and worm-tails, the rodents feast on decomposing human bodies, ripping apart the dark, putrid meat and leaving dried blood splattered on the barely-paved streets.
Bodies are everywhere.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if a fallen child is dead or asleep in the towering masses of waste. There are too many orphans wandering lost on the streets with no bed or home to conceal them in warmth. There are too many people who never know when their next meal will be, or if there will be clean water to drink for the day. Hell, most of the huts in the dystopian city are on the very verge of crumbling down.
You're lucky.
Your home has semi-working electricity and plumbing. But every now and then, the lights will refuse to turn on and the pipes will leak—or even burst if it was a bad day.
Most citizens of Dystopia, however, roam the streets, homeless, until death finally whisks them away. Nobody knows what happens after death. But everybody knows it is better than Dystopia.
This place, this Dystopia, was home for your childhood memories. Shamefully enough, it was also your birthplace. But you don't live there anymore, thank goodness. You live in Purgatory now, a smaller city with slightly more opportunities and fewer rats.
But Purgatory isn't that much different from Dystopia either. Death still hangs over the heads of the weak, ready to take their hands and lead them away when the time comes. Purgatory is a wild place full of children and teenagers from ages ten to eighteen. They're there for one sole purpose: education. Rigorous education that may come with the price of death.
It's how the whole damn system works.
Every Dystopian-born must suffer ten years of life in that hellhole; if they are still alive by then, they are relocated to Purgatory where "equal opportunities" are given to all with mercy. At least, that's what the authority claims. Really, you see it more as a ruthless competition. It's not "equal opportunities" or whatever bullcrap the government was trying to sell to the people. You see it as a game of sharks and minnows—a game of exceptionally robust predators and abnormally frail prey.
Annually, every student who is eighteen in Purgatory is required to take an exam. An exam that determines their entire future.
Every year, the highest-scoring students—or student—are whisked away by the government with silk draped around their hunched shoulders, layers of soft mink coats keeping their frayed bodies warm and their dirty tresses bathed with the richest, fragrance oils. Then they are granted access to Utopia.
Utopia, the city of the rich. They breathe expensive air there, bathe in priceless tea and wear extortionate silks and furs. They deserve it. Because they're the most intelligent people in all three cities of Atna. At least, that's what the government says.
It is merciless when they throw every other eighteen-year-old who 'failed' the Exam in the city of Dystopia. You'd think they'd spare their precious Utopian-borns—the children of the men and women who proved their intelligence by reigning over every other student in Purgatory. But they don't. The Utopian-borns are dumped into Dystopia as well. Into a foreign place where the air is dead, baths are infrequent and clothing is for the greatly fortunate.
Yet that's rare. Most often, Utopian students always tie for the highest-score and are taken back to their luxurious birthplace. It's too advantageous for them. It's unfair. Unreasonable. They train from their birth until the last second before they leave the warmth of their Utopian homes for the Exam. Of course, they would score the highest.
One year, out of the hundreds of eighteen-year-olds who took the Exam, twenty-three of them made it back to Utopia. All Utopian-borns.
Still, a handful of Utopians are tossed into the slums—they are a disgrace to all of Atna for they had the advantage and didn't take it.
You've seen those sad individuals your whole childhood. They were the ones who weren't used to horrifying conditions. Consequently, they were always the last to eat and first to die.
When you were the adventurous age of nine, you and your best friend Jimin would sit outside the shabby, repulsive place that you called home and would watch the Utopian-borns straggling across the streets.
They wailed and begged as their eyes reflected one sole emotion: fear.
"I bet she's Utopian-born," Jimin huffs as he points at a girl frantically cramming her mouth full of scraggly weeds that had somehow sprouted from the fetid grounds. Both of you silently watch as her bloody fingernails pierce madly through the mud, uprooting the plants with surprising success. "Doesn't she know those are poisonous?"
You shrug, staring blankly at the girl. "No, she's not Utopian-born. Doesn't look over eighteen. Maybe she doesn't want to take the Exam." Taking Jimin's hand into yours, you sigh, "I bet he's Utopian-born, though." Your small finger points at a young man huddled up against a pile of rubbish, completely naked and rocking back and forth, as if that action would save him from the wraths of Dystopia. He had stripped off his tattered clothes and had unskillfully attempted to wrap them around himself to combat the harsh weather. A simple but deadly mistake.
A Dystopian-born would know better.
"He's going to die," Jimin says, cocking his head. "Let's go help him." He starts to tug you towards the unclothed man but you forcefully pull your friend back, eyebrows twisting downwards into a deep frown.
"Leave him." Your cold eyes stare right past the Utopian-born, gazing at the bright neon poster behind him. It reads Utopia, a wondrous place for deserving people.
And below is an image of a gorgeous, healthily plump woman in a spotless, white bikini, skin sparkling and well-tanned and her hands immaculately manicured. Her hair is loose, glossy and looks like it smells of flowering spring roses. She's holding a gleaming bottle of fizzing golden liquid in one hand and a handsome man's hand in the other. The man smiles brightly, revealing a row of pearlescent teeth as he boasts shiny, black sunglasses and wears a watch made of dazzling rubies and diamonds.
Behind the couple is a house—actually, a mansion made of polished glass with luscious trees decorating the purlieu and the pool filled with glimmering water tinted a light shade of azure. The sky is cerulean blue, and the clouds resemble cotton candy.
Everything speaks perfection.
These identical posters are littered everywhere across Dystopia. It is a painful reminder for the Atnatians who have failed the Exam—even more so agonizing for the Utopians who had been banished from their previous home.
The propaganda posters are the only clean, resplendent objects in the slums. But personally, you think they're revolting.
Your unsympathetic eyes trail back to the naked man. You take another glance at the stupid government propaganda poster behind him before you squeeze Jimin's hand. "Yeah, let's leave him," you repeat.
The pick-the-Utopian-born-from-the-crowd game abruptly halts soon after when Jimin comes over to your small hut one day, crying profusely, his tears leaving clean streaks on his dirt-covered face.
"He's dead!" he cries, fat droplets of tears dribbling down to his chin.
You frown in confusion, eyebrows knitting into a small frown. With the mortality rate of Dystopia, your best friend could either be talking about your neighbor from the next hut over or the other fifty bodies left dead and abandoned on the streets. "Who's dead, Jiminie?"
"T-That Utopian-born," Jimin whimpers, dirty hand reaching up to wipe away the tears obscuring his vision. Although there were many Utopian-borns roaming around Dystopia, you had a clear idea of who he was talking about. "The rats... they—"
You grab his filthy hand before it reaches his eyes. "Don't rub your eyes, remember?"
Jimin nods dejectedly, his head dropping low as his tears dripped to the floor, leaving wet puddles of brown dirt. "Sorry, Y/N, I forgot..." He sniffles, which didn't help the snot that was leaking out of his soot-covered nose. "But the rats..." he trails off, hand reaching up again to wipe away his tears. But he pauses, thinks better of it and tries to blink them away instead.
You nod, knowingly. "And it's not the first time you've seen that happen, Jiminie. Don't cry..."
Your friend whimpers, kicking the wet dirt beneath his feet. "But if we had helped him... The rats wouldn't have eaten right through his guts! They wouldn't have bitten him to pieces or drunk his blood!" he wails. You are silent, never great at solacing. "If we had helped him..."
Time is running out for both of you. You'd soon be relocated to Purgatory and you know Jimin is starting to get anxious for the both of you. He would cry in fear and grief for every dead corpse on the street, bite his nails hard enough to draw blood even though you would tell him not to, and try to help all the suffering Utopian-borns, despite your avid protests.
Jimin had always been too soft-minded, too kind. Death frightened him.
But you weren't afraid of death. Never have been. Never will be.
You are fucking terrified of death. It is the only occurrence that will keep you from scoring the highest, and as a seventeen-year-old, the Exam was looming closer than ever. You couldn't die now. Not after all the years of rigorous studying. You'd skipped nights of sleep, countless meals to get to this position.
To you, Purgatory would always be a second Utopia; for one, the conditions are immensely better than that of Dystopia, maggots no longer crawling in your food and clothes not as battered and ravaged by irritable rats or insects. This city is your one chance where you can prove yourself deserving to live in Utopia—to confirm that you can outlast, out-study and outsmart everyone in your year.
You eat, sleep and breathe your studies, something only a few students can manage to do. One of the only things that keep you motivated to wake up at the crack of dawn and open up a dusty book is the fact that no one's ever secured a perfect score on the Exam.
But you know you'll be the first.
You'll be the first and only person to obtain a perfect score. And thus you will be the only eighteen-year-old going to Utopia in your year.
It is a fantasy. A dream. A goal. But you thirst to achieve it.
In fact, you haven't left the library in weeks. You've practically been glued onto the same hard, wooden chair for what seemed like days now. You have also never ceased to flip the pages of your colossal textbooks. You're quite happy to say that the other students aren't studying as hard as you—most of them have given up by now.
Logically, it makes sense to surrender to the Exam.
Although you're given eight whole years to study in Purgatory, most students use that time to stuff themselves full of savory victuals, sleep in cots instead of in fetid mud and live without the shadow of death appended to their feet. Obviously, the conditions aren't as astounding as Utopia, but anything's better than the slums of Atna. It isn't worth it, they say. It isn't worth the eight years of miserable studying, only to be beaten by someone better (there's always someone better) and thrown into Dystopia without ever being able to live. But 'surrender' isn't in your vast vocabulary.
As much as you hate cheesy platitudes, you're in it (ahem, forcibly) to win it. Besides, your competition is dropping like flies on a scorching hot day. You suspect it's from that nasty tuberculosis that's been going around for a while.
There's only a year left before the Exam now. It's such little time for you to finish reading everything in that library, and such little time alike for the other students to live their last year to the very fullest in Purgatory, the downgrade of Utopia but the upgrade of Dystopia.
But especially for you, a year definitely isn't enough. You're just a tad bit off schedule—you were supposed to finish reading and memorizing everything in the library last year so you'd have two good years to review. Now you only have one.
It adds on to the multitudes of problems that no one truly knows what's on the Exam. They say anything in the grand library is fair game, but besides that, you don't know much. And because of that, you and what's left of your competitors have been reading everything in the library from novels to textbooks to published theses.
As a matter of fact, you're just one book and a page shy from reading everything in the damned library. Your eyes bore into the paper overlaid with equations and one too many graphs, forcing your brain to memorize every detail, every print and word. You know you shouldn't frown when you study. Someone you'd once loved had told you an unpretty, permanent crease would be etched on your forehead—but now you can't help it—frowning helps you concentrate.
Especially now. The library is usually dead silent except for the soft crinkles of paper as students flip the pages of their reading materials, yet you swear at least half of the students in the room have tuberculosis. There's heavy coughing every ten seconds, the infected splattering crimson blood on the thin, worn-out pages of the textbooks. And that's how the disease has been spreading.
They're going to die before the Exam. You swear they are—how pathetic of them to spend the last days of their lives cramming study material in their heads.
You don't care much for the infected, as long as they keep their distance from you. You don't know what you'll do if you catch the disease as well. But in your mind, nothing is worse than the mortality rates of Dystopia. At least no one in Purgatory dies from famine.
Still, there are never adequate treatments or vaccines and you can recall at least ten people who you haven't seen since tuberculosis first broke out. Not that you care, though. In the end, you're just glad you're not one of the diseased. You've always had a strong immune system, anyway.
You let out a soft sigh, feeling the urge to rub your dry, tiresome eyes but thinking better of it. Shutting the heavy textbook with a gentle thud, you place both hands on the wooden table, steadying yourself. You slowly close your eyes, relishing in the comfort of the darkness—you haven't slept in nearly three days, haven't left your seat to eat either. Your empty water canteen stares back at you, begging for it to be refilled. You swallow, your throat feeling unbearably scratchy, but you don't succumb to its desperate demand.
Now you only have one more book to read. Just one more and you'll be done. You'll treat yourself to an actual meal and a few hours of sleep (not too much because you still need time for review). With the Exam inching closer every minute, every second, you really don't have time to waste.
Water will have to wait for later.
Besides, you know for a fact that the last book you have to read isn't too long—just a hundred pages or so. You slowly open your eyes, vision slightly blurry as you force yourself to stand. Immediately, your legs threaten to give out and you have to stagger forward to use the dated bookshelves to steady yourself.
Step by step, you carry your barely responsive body to the special corner in the library that you haven't touched in the seven years you've lived in Purgatory. The unfamiliar, gray, tattered book catches your eye and you continue to wobble closer and closer to it. Family Studies, it should say.
Quite the ironic book to read about in a world where families are ripped apart by the government and their indecent tactics. But it's not like you have a choice. You need to get to Utopia—you've made promises...
You may be broken on the inside and out, but you won't let yourself break a promise.
Wearily, you force yourself to lift up your shaking arm to touch the book's spine. But you gasp, nearly jumping back with the little energy you have as your cold hand comes in contact with something warm.
Flesh, you finally register in your head. I've touched flesh.
Your head jerks up rather painfully, leaving your eyes struggling to adjust to the sight in front of you. A boy. A tall boy. His figure towers over you, and he frowns deeply, eyes bloodshot as he looks you up and down. In one hand he clutches a frayed brown blanket draped comfortably over his shoulders and the other stubbornly grasps the book—your book.
But you don't acquiesce, glaring at him as you tug the book closer to you. The boy glances your way tiredly, no emotion displayed on his malnourished, sculpted face. "Excuse me," he croaks, tugging the book closer to himself.
"Excuse you." Your voice comes out much raspier than you had expected, making you instantly regret opening your mouth to speak. But the desire to have the last book in your hands is far greater: "I need that." You pull the book back.
The boy scoffs—even that comes out as a dry cough that makes you flinch back just a bit. "I need it too."
You hate the parched feeling tickling the back of your throat, and you let out a little scream of frustration before instinct gets the better of you. You quickly slap the boy's hand, taking advantage of his surprise as an opportunity to snatch the book from the shelf. Once the book is safely cradled in your arms, you turn to the boy and give him the side-eye. "Well, I need it more."
With that, you attempt to hobble away with the best of your ability, but you fail when the boy grabs the back of your threadbare shirt, stopping you from moving any further. "Please."
He sounds so desperate, voice dripping with misery—something you were once so familiar with. His hands shake, grasping the fabric... You hate yourself for turning around to see his forlorn face. His eyes are full of suffering, of so much pain—that too is so familiar to you."Please..." he whispers again as his grip loosens on your shirt.
You're silent. It hurts. It physically pains you that the only human interaction you've had in months, maybe years, reminds you so much of him.
"Pleaseeee!!" Jimin drags out, a burst of giggles leaving his throat as he tugs excitedly at your arm. "Please! Let's go, let's go!"
You grumble, begrudgingly dragging your feet as Jimin pulls you towards unfamiliar territory. "I'm not hungry," you whine. "Can we just stay in the dorms?"
"We've got eight years to stay in the dorms, Y/N. Eight! Please? Just a few minutes in the cafeteria? I heard they serve actual food! Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to snag some snacks!" Jimin exclaims, his cheeks tinged pink with elation.
"Where did you hear that from?" you mumble in protest before giving in to Jimin's persistence.
"The ones who failed," he answers lightheartedly. "I've been asking around."
"Oh."
You can't really say much more. There's nothing more to say.
The cafeteria is larger than at least ten Dystopian huts combined; there are rows and rows of rusty lunch tables and a long, metal countertop with a few baskets of bread on top. You and Jimin manage to salvage some before the rats get to it. You force yourself to ignore the angry squeaking and chattering around your bare feet.
The slices of white bread are only slightly moldy, which already makes it better than anything one can forage from your birthplace. You take each bite slowly, chewing steadily to keep the flavor on your tongue just a little while longer. But all too soon, it's gone. Though you'd denied it earlier, you are definitely hungry. Maybe even starving.
You look up to see Jimin swinging his feet back and forth, his hands grasping the side of the old bench, keeping his body balanced. He notices your eyes on him and looks at you, giving you a small smile. You smile back.
"This is already better than Dystopia, isn't it?" he says, small hand tentatively moving towards yours to encompass it. You nod your head in agreement. "We have eight years..." You nod again. "Then we'll be able to go back home."
You don't hesitate, a faint smile appearing on your lips. "Of course."
"Not dead, yet, huh?" you sigh, facing the boy next to you, scrutinizing his every movement. When he doesn't answer right away, you slam the textbook down in the middle of the table to get his attention—and to spite him, of course.
The boy scoffs as he glares at you through the tired slits of his eyes. Any sense of the weakness he had shown from practically begging you to share the book with him yesterday is gone. The feebleness might've been just an act—a sly trick to get you to help him. "Sorry but I plan on going to Utopia as well. That, we have in common," the boy bites right back. "Our only difference is that I'll actually make it there."
You blow air through your nose, prying open the previous book titled Family Studies and muttering death threats under your breath. You clear your throat before you speak again. "Yeah, right. Please shut up before I regret sharing my textbook with you."
"For your information, that's not exactly yours," the boy snorts. "It's the government's. And you've seen the shit that happens when you mess with them."
There's a sadder undertone to his voice that you pick up immediately. He sounds cocky but ruined at the same time—you would know because that's the façade that you had put up for yourself for years now. You can't stop yourself from asking the question that falls from your lips quite easily: "Why? Someone you know messed with them?"
The boy averts his eyes from you, looking down at his feet covered up in tattered shoes. "More like someone I knew." He shrugs, turning his head up so that his dark eyes pierce through yours. "But it doesn't really matter anymore."
Something stings inside. You wish you could say the same.
"It's only been a week," you giggle, watching Jimin stuff his face full of soup made of mystery miscellaneous ingredients. "Shouldn't you have gotten used to having enough food by now?"
Jimin pauses his vehement eating to give you a 'duh' look. "Silly, I'm going to store all the food now when I can. You know, before we have to go back. When's the last time Dystopia had meal times, anyway?"
"Never, of course," you laugh. The rats or some other pesky rodents chatter right along with you. But they only sound as if they are wryly laughing with you and Jimin. A bit embittered, you kick your feet in an attempt to shoo the rats away—or at least shut them up. "Too bad this place still has rats."
Jimin nods. "I've seen some of them around our food too." He makes a disgusted face. "Think about it. What if this mystery soup is made of rat droppings and piss?"
"Oh shut up. Don't be like that," you sniffle, turning up your nose in complete distaste. "That's disgusting."
"I'm only joking," Jimin chuckles, taking another spoonful of his soup, exaggerating the action and making you mock-gag in repugnance.
As annoying as he sometimes is, having Jimin around is something you always have been thankful for. It was everything to have a friend be by your side. You've seen what happens when people are left alone for too long. They go bat-shit crazy. Completely bonkers.
Being tossed back to Dystopia is inevitable; neither of you was going to stop it. Yet even just your best friend's presence is your very own incentive to wake up the next day with a hopeful smile on your lips. He matters so much to you.
"Let's have the time of our lives in Purgatory," he'd told you over and over again. So much so that you can still hear his voice today, tainted with hope and faith. "Then we can go back to Dystopia together."
You grit your teeth, catching your lip between them and biting so hard you taste blood. The strong taste of iron drives you to focus. You furrow your brows, staring at the pages of the textbook and reading thoroughly, mulling over every word in your head with careful precision. When your eyes reach the end of the page, you're just about to look up and ask the boy if he's done reading, but he's one step ahead of you.
The boy flips the page over and smiles at you smugly. You frown at him disdainfully, but without another word, you concentrate on the content once more. Until—
"Taehyung."
You sigh, reluctantly looking up at the boy. "What?"
"Taehyung. My name's Taehyung," he says. "Just thought you ought to know. There are 98 pages left in this book, so I just thought it'd be better to introduce ourselves. We'll be sitting together for a while."
You squint your eyes at him, pondering over his words. But he does make quite a good point. You suppose you and the boy—Taehyung—had gotten off on the wrong foot. Although he was kind of a cocky asshole, you guess it wouldn't hurt to at least tell him your name.
"Fine," you say, upturning your nose. "I'm Y/N."
"Cool." Taehyung grins. For a guy who's been living in unkempt conditions for several years, his teeth look pretty near to goddamn perfection. It's a little irritating if you do say so for yourself.
You're about to pick up where you last left off in the textbook when Taehyung scoots closer to you. You lean away, frowning at him as you shoot him a 'what the fuck are you doing' look.
He seems oblivious to your stone-cold glare. "Sooo, Y/N," he says. "What's making you study this hard?" he asks. "I thought I was the only crazy one here." He laughs wryly. When he sees that you're ignoring him and still reading from the damned book, he huffs and slams it shut.
"What the fuck, Taehyung," you spit out, jerking your head towards him. "Can't I study in peace?"
"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to ignore?" he counters.
"Give me the book back."
"No." He grins, pushing the book away from you as he crosses his legs confidently, leaning back in his chair. "Answer the question. Please," he adds hastily. "C'mon. If we stay cooped up reading all day, we'll die before even getting to live in Utopia."
You let out a frustrated groan, but he's right in a way. You should take study breaks now and then—possibly to keep your sanity. "What's making me study so hard? Fine," you huff. "We all have our mad-person reasons. Happy?" But upon Taehyung's disappointed look at your vague answer, you let out a deep sigh. "And I made promises I don't want to break," you elaborate reluctantly.
"Promises?" Taehyung says. "Interesting... You look like you've been through some rough shit."
You scoff. "Me? Says you. You're Dystopian-born too, right?"
"I'm that obvious, am I?" He grins. "It's true though. I've seen bad shit in Dystopia."
"Yeah, well, I've seen the worst shit right here in Purgatory," you mutter. "So I think I win."
"Oh?"
You ignore him. "Give me back my book," you demand.
"First of all, it's not your book," Taehyung laughs. "And secondly, worst shit in Purgatory? Must be an interesting story behind that. Do tell."
"No."
Taehyung huffs as he leans back even further in his chair. "So you've lost someone you love, then."
You freeze. How did he—
Biting your lip again, you contemplate whether to answer. Finally, you let out a small, "Yeah. Two, actually."
"Damn, two?" Taehyung gawks. "Wow. Um, I'm sorry. You weren't kidding about the bad shit you've seen here."
"I really wasn't." Now you're definitely not in the mood to study. Not when Taehyung, single-handedly, in just a few minutes, reminded you of them. "It's dumb, but I use them and the promises we made together as an incentive to study. That's my mad-person reason," you confess.
Why does it feel better to tell someone else about yourself?
"That's not dumb," Taehyung offers, his eyes mirroring your own sadness in them. "It's good to have someone you love to be your incentive." He pushes the textbook back towards you. "Sorry for pestering you. You can study now if you want."
You nod curtly as you quickly open the book to the page you had left off. It seems that Taehyung does have the smallest bit of sympathy in him. You suppose he's not a completely horrible person (as you had thought before).
Sighing, you try to read through the sentences on the page, but you find yourself reading the same phrase over and over again. Damn. Your stomach flips and you begin to feel a little queasy as melancholy washes over your head. Shit. Now you really can't concentrate.
"You're, okay, right, Jiminie?" you beg, frown lines appearing on your forehead as you take both of the sick boy's hands in yours, watching his tense face relax ever-so-slightly from your soft touch.
"It's probably just something I ate. I'll be fine!" he manages to answer enthusiastically. "I'll throw it all up by tomorrow and you'll see me stronger than ever!"
He was wrong.
As the long days rolled by, he got sicker and sicker. Most of your week was spent in Jimin's room. It became a daily routine to watch him throw up whatever you suggested he eat. It became a reoccurring attempt for you to try to calm his sweltering fever. Every day you were more exhausted than the last. And so was he.
You were losing hope, but you tried not to show it. You knew he was dying, but neither of you mentioned it. You were losing your best friend and you couldn't do anything about it.
No one cared either. Everybody turned a blind eye to the ten-year-old boy suffering in overwhelming pain. They either had been preoccupied with studying or didn't want to catch whatever Jimin had. To them, Jimin, your light and life source was nothing but another body to be tossed in the graveyard at the end of the day.
And just like that, he passed away.
You can still recall the misery reflecting in his eyes, his quiet whimpers, his delusional words. You can still remember him. Quite clearly, too. He didn't know who you were the last few minutes before he blinked half-way and never woke up again. The moment you knew he was dead, you'd cried, clinging to his body and letting out the sorrow, the weakness, that you had hidden from him when he was alive.
To the ten-year-old you, his death was a mystery.
But it was leptospirosis. You know that now, after years of flipping the pages of those medical textbooks. It was a rare disease from animals, but mostly rats. Those damn rats. You wish you can kill them all.
"Those fucking rats!" Taehyung slams his fist hard on the wooden table, immediately stopping the persistent chattering of the damned rodents. "I swear to god, they're one of the worst things about Purgatory, other than the goddamn Exam itself!"
You nod in silent agreement, sighing as you play with the leftover crumbs of your breakfast. "I'd even argue that they're the worst things to ever exist. Besides the Exam."
No matter how annoyingly vocal Taehyung is about his pure hatred for rats, it feels good to have someone to talk to while eating your breakfast. You haven't had company in years.
Taehyung lets a smile loose, a boxy grin that has some sort of weird way of making you feel calm. It's impossible to believe that he's supposed to be your competition when both of you have developed a friendship over the past several days. It wasn't easy for Taehyung to befriend you—especially since you've shut out every other person in your life since... since Yoongi. But he was persistent, and you admired that about him. So slowly, very slowly, you began to open up to the boy.
You told him about Jimin, and you have to admit, it felt fucking fantastic to have someone else mourn for Jimin—to have someone else besides you who didn't ignore his death. And now you're just beginning to tell him about Yoongi upon his stubborn urging.
"You should continue," Taehyung says. "You were telling me about your preteen boyfriend?" he asks with his mouth full of bread—his words are just barely discernible and you crinkle your nose in disgust.
"Gross. Haven't you read those etiquette books? Thought they would've taught you a thing or two about not talking with your mouth full," you huff. "And don't call him my preteen boyfriend. That sounds wrong. Not to mention... it takes away so much of the meaning of my relationship with him."
"Okay, okay, sorry," Taehyung says, but chewed up bread crumbs escape his mouth and land on the metal lunch table. You make a face. "But," Taehyung continues, paying no mind to your disgust, "at the end of the day, I just wanna know if all Utopian-borns are bastards or not."
You roll your eyes. "Oh, c'mon. Do you really think I'd love a bastard?"
"Well, you're quite unpredictable, dear," Taehyung swallows his food (thankfully) before he laughs. "You thought you were going to study alone for the rest of your time here. But look at you, with me, sharing a textbook."
"You better not tell me shit like 'you didn't know love when you were ten,' Taehyung," you say as menacingly as you can. "I'm not gonna tolerate shit talk. And besides, Yoongi was definitely not a bastard. He—" you pause abruptly. "Ah, shit," you say, trying to blink away the tears that had suddenly sprung upon your eyes. Your fingers grip the hem of your shirt and you clear your throat before you continue. "He died so he didn't have to deal with bastards."
"Oh, shit," Taehyung breathes when he realizes you're close to crying. "I'm sorry... You don't have to tell me about him if it's gonna make you feel bad. I was joking about the whole Utopian-born-bastard thing anyway."
"No, I want to tell you," you say. "I need to tell someone. I can't just pent these things up inside of me, Taehyung. Don't you know? I'm using you as my personal rant-listener." You grin at him, though your tears roll down your cheeks.
Taehyung looks confused at your juxtaposition of tears and happy grin. "Okay then," he says. "If you're really sure." He frowns, tilting his head. "I just don't get the part when you said he died so he didn't have to deal with bastards. He can't choose when he dies or not—"
"Oh, yes he can," you cut him off. "Think about it," you say as more tears trip down your face. Taehyung gives you a perplexed look, his confused eyes meeting your sad ones. You sigh. "You can choose when you want to die sometimes," you whisper in a shaky voice. "Intentional death."
You've lost your appetite ever since Jimin passed away. But you come to the cafeteria every day to pay tribute to your best friend, who had announced one too many times when he was alive that the cafeteria was his favorite place in the whole world. So you sit down by yourself on the lunch tables, staring at the bread but never reaching out to take it.
Without Jimin, your world is drained of color. Life loses its meaning. There is no point. You were supposed to go back to Dystopia as adults—together. That had been your one wish. Your only wish. And now it couldn't happen. Not when Jimin's not with you anymore.
Large men in spotless white suits had dragged his limp body off of the small cot as you were begging, wailing on the side. You asked them to bury him, to give him a proper memorial. But they ignored you, pushed you away to the side. They didn't even have the decency to respect him, to cover him up with a blanket or sheet. You had to watch his clothes collect dirt and his face drag in the mud as they pulled him by the legs.
Even after they'd yelled at you, you'd watched, followed them as they flung his body into a deep pit reeking of death.
They burn the bodies in the pit every Sunday; then the week starts fresh with an empty abyss for the dead.
You want to jump in the pit after Jimin. Maybe you can conveniently dump your body in the hole a few minutes before they set fire to it—maybe you can be with Jimin that way.
It feels like a knife in your heart when you think about his last few delusional words. He'd told you fitfully, in a full sweat, that he was in so much pain, but he'd rather be in pain than die. He was afraid of death.
You aren't. You are in so much pain, you want to die, unlike him. Ten years of life is enough, you decide. Whatever is waiting for you after death has to be better than what you are living in right now.
So you plan it out. You wait until Sunday, until five minutes before they're supposed to come to burn the pit of bodies. You're going to jump in. Find Jimin. Burn to death with him. Simple.
Not so simple.
You stand exactly three feet from the pit (you measured it yourself, with your own feet), thinking it would be better to have a running start of some sort. But your feet are frozen as well as your mind is. You just can't seem to get yourself to move. You've pictured yourself jumping into the pit at least a hundred times before, so you can't help to wonder why you can't seem to do it now.
It frustrates you. Your mind tells you to run, to jump, but your legs are glued to the ground.
"Gonna jump?"
You nearly lose your balance at the sudden voice that comes from behind you. You quickly whirl around to see a lanky boy with tousled black hair. He's leaning against the exterior of the common building, staring at you with cold, judgmental eyes. He's taller, bigger than you, so you discern that he must be one of those older kids. You scowl at him. "And what if I did jump?" you retort.
"Wouldn't recommend it, kid," the boy says. He laughs coldly. "First of all, they're not going to burn that shit for several hours. Do you really want to lay around rotting bodies before you die?"
"What if I don't care?" you answer defiantly, crossing your arms.
"What are you? Dumb?" The boy scoffs, leaving his place against the wall and starting to walk towards you as he casually stuffs his hands into his pants pockets. "Get out of here," he says menacingly, eyes narrowing and mouth set stern. "And don't come back."
You admit you're slightly scared, but you don't back down. "No." You glare. "I don't want to."
The boy laughs, shrugging. "It's always the dumb Dystopian-borns. You can't be more than ten-years-old. What's got you so suicidal, huh?"
You narrow your eyes. "I'm not dumb!"
"Hm... Prove it... idiot."
You fume, face turning bright red as you stomp your feet. "Shut up! Leave me alone!"
The boy laughs. "I will if you get out of my sight."
Angry tears slip from your eyes as you grip your fists tight. "I don't want to! I-I want to die! My best friend's down there. And I'm going to be with him!" you yell as snot runs down your nose and your cheeks are wet with hot tears. You feel pathetic. But you need to get your point across to this mean, older boy who isn't leaving you alone. "You can't make me leave!"
There's an uncomfortable silence that follows, yet you stand your ground and glare at him. But to your surprise, the boy lets out a small sigh and begins to walk up to you. He crouches down to your level and he wipes your tears (and embarrassingly a bit of your snot) with the sleeve of his frayed (but obviously high-end) sweater. "It's okay kid," he says. Before you know it, he's pulling you into a tight hug. "Stop crying, hm? It'll be all right, kid."
Nobody's ever hugged you like that before. Not even Jimin—because he knows how much you don't like physical affection. But you needed his hug; it was long overdue.
You hiccup, crying out the rest of your tears as the boy holds you into his arms. It takes you a few minutes to calm down, and when you finally pull away from the boy, you notice that your shirt is slightly wet as well. And not from your tears, but from his. You look up to see the boy's back turned on you, hiding his face from your view.
"Let's go get something to eat, kid," he says, and you can hear just the hint of tears behind his voice. And when he sniffles, it confirms everything.
Cocking your head in curiosity, you begin to follow him—
"Wait, wait!" Taehyung interrupts. "Before you go on any further, you need to address the elephant in the room, Y/N. Why the fuck is he crying?"
"Yeah, well, I didn't know then either," you say. "It's complicated. I mean, I only found out the reason way later. If you'd just let me continue—"
"Oh, sorry. Continue, then."
"Yes, thank you—"
"Wait, lemme interrupt just one more time," Taehyung interjects again. "Just one last question." You groan, but you nod, telling him you're all ears. "Exactly how much older is he than you?"
You sigh. "He was three years older."
Taehyung sucks in a deep breath. "Right... He's, uh, dead. But damn. You were into a Utopian-born that was older? You really broke all the boundaries."
You shrug. "I guess I always didn't really give a fuck about societal norms or whatever the shit people call it."
"And yet you're conforming to the largest societal norm in Atna by studying for the Exam," Taehyung points out. "Times have changed."
You smile sadly, shaking your head. "I'm only doing this for Yoongi. He made me promise... So, here I am, trying to fulfill his wishes. Will you let me continue now?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Anyways..."
Yoongi watches you devour the bread, but you're too hungry to care about his incessant staring.
"You should slow down," he says. "We don't want you to choke to death or anything—" he pauses, eyes turning wide before he mutters a "Shit, I gave her a fucking idea."
"I heard that," you say.
Yoongi visibly pales.
"It's okay," you assure him, setting down a loaf of bread to stare right back at the boy. "I feel better now. I don't think I've eaten for days."
"Damn," Yoongi mutters under his breath. "What kind of best friend was he for you to be this distraught over his death?"
"Distraught?" you say, blinking blankly at him.
He sighs, "Right, right, you're only ten. Distraught means sad. Upset. Depressed. All those fun words."
"Oh," you murmur. "Jimin was everything to me," you say shyly. "He promised me that we were going to go back to Dystopia! Then we could share a house and live together as adults..." you trail off, losing yourself in the figments of your wildest imaginations. "We were supposed to have so much fun in Purgatory..."
Yoongi cocks his head. "Kid, I think you liked him."
You frown at this strange comment, crinkling your nose. "Of course I liked him, he was my best friend."
"No, kid. You like liked him. Maybe you loved him. I don't know," Yoongi says, shrugging. "Think about it. Wait no, don't. Forget about him. Don't make yourself sad. Talk to me. What do you wanna do? Wanna go to my room? I have some stuff back from home there. You can play with them if you want."
You squint your eyes at the boy, staring at him suspiciously. "Why are you trying to be nice...?"
"Nice?" Yoongi scoffs. "I'm just, uh, I'm just trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need anymore. I'm definitely not being nice. So you better follow me 'cause I don't want a lot of things."
You don't buy his lie, but maybe that's a good thing. In your eyes, this boy is, indeed, nice and he's trying to help you take your mind off of Jimin. He even prevented you from leaping off the ledge and falling to your own death. You hope he sticks around.
And stick around he did.
Yoongi is bossy, straight-forward and frankly rude sometimes, things that Jimin totally wasn't. But he is also generous, thoughtful and emotional (on a good day), and that's all you needed to stick by his side.
He is so generous that in the first week that you met him, he gave you nearly a closet-worth's supply of thick sweaters and jackets for the upcoming winter. In that same way, he is thoughtful. You took the clothes gratefully, never once having held such expensive material before in your life.
On late nights when you slept over in his room, he always asked if you could tell him stories of your childhood. And you'd gladly oblige. That's when he got emotional. Though you never see him cry, you always hear it when you tell your stories. Yoongi tries to hide his emotions to the best of his ability, but frankly, he's a loud crier, so you hear him every time. But you let him think he's good at hiding his tears for the sake that he's your friend.
One day, though, you come down with some sort of throat sickness, and Yoongi practically orders you not to speak for the next 24 hours. He had his own medicine cabinet in which his rich parents gifted him before their only son was shipped off to Purgatory from their grand mansion. So you were getting the best treatment anyone in Purgatory could get.
Yoongi even offered to tell you stories that night. To repay you for being an amazing storyteller.
"I've always wanted to hear about Utopia," you croak despite having a painful burn in your throat. "I hate that place. But I want to know more about it."
"Stop talking so much," Yoongi sighs. "Do you want to get better or not?" When you're silent, (having passed his rhetorical question test in which the correct answer was to stay quiet) he smiles to himself and continues. "I hate Utopia too. It's not as great as it seems. You know that every Utopian-born is a slave to education? I think the moment I was born, I got tossed in tutoring. From six in the morning to eleven at night I was tutored. Seven days a week, no breaks. It's probably illegal, but my parents had a lot of copies of the books in the library in Purgatory. They made me get a head start on everything. After a while, you start to think about what the whole point of education is...
"My parents always told me that I was only suffering in my younger years—that I'd only have to suffer until I'm eighteen and if I scored well on the Exam, I'd be able to come back home safely and have the time of my life in Utopia. But I just didn't want to become a slave to education," Yoongi says. "I was sick of it. Sure, I'm privileged. Sure, I had everything I wanted growing up, but I didn't have one thing you Dystopians have—freedom.
"When you're studying all day every day, you don't get a lot of chances to make friends," Yoongi says. "I grew up with adults breathing down my neck and telling me to memorize useless facts. That was the closest thing to friends I ever got. I'm not sure if every Utopian-born is forced to live like this, but I can damn well infer it. Anyways, my parents aren't here now, so I can do whatever the fuck I want."
You laugh. "You don't want to go back home?" you say in your sick, gravelly voice
"I'm just tired, Y/N. I'm tired of everything," Yoongi exhales. "You'll understand when you're older."
"You're only three years older than me, though," you pout. "Do three years change that much?"
"Yes," Yoongi replies as a matter-of-fact-way. "I don't even want to take this stupid fucking test. But I also don't want to rot in Dystopia—no offense. I know I won't last there."
"Yeah, you won't last," you tell him with a giggle.
He huffs. "That's real comforting, Y/N."
"I know," you rasp. "Please tell me about Utopia, now. Are the skies really that blue? And does everyone have a pool? What do you eat there? Do you get your own room??" The last question throws you in a coughing fit, and Yoongi looks at you worriedly. He waits until you stop before he continues.
"It was always blue outside, yeah," he says, slowly, carefully as if he was taking his time to form his words to match his visualizations. "Sometimes we had scheduled rainy days for the private gardens and stuff," he says nostalgically. "I think I had about three pools in my home in Utopia, but I’m not sure if other families had them too. You know, I didn't get around much. Always stuck inside and studying." He sighs. "At least the food there was good. Way better than the crap we're forced to eat here. Barbecue ribs with generous amounts of sauce, slow-cooked potatoes in a bonfire, roasted lamb chops, fresh fruits and vegetables picked up from the nearby food-growing facilities... Caviar, licorice, cotton candy, chocolate, cakes, pudding... And if I ever ate bread, it was with fresh strawberry jam and smooth almond butter."
You don't understand half of the stuff he's saying, but whatever it is, it sounds delicious.
"I could talk about the great food there forever," Yoongi says. "The only thing I miss about Utopia is the food... It's really lonely there. I had my sleeping chamber, my pool room and my study room, but I was always in there alone. Whatever. Do you want to hear more?"
You nod. "Yoongi?"
"Yeah?"
"You cried when I first met you. Why?"
Yoongi visibly stiffens. Knowing him you expect Yoongi to wave off your question or ignore you altogether, but to your surprise, he doesn't.
"You made me feel bad," he confesses bluntly.
"Me??"
"It was just so strange for me to see someone else get upset over a friend..." he trails off. "You were going to die for him. You were going to leap into a pit because you loved your friend that much. You couldn't bear to think of a life without him. So you were going to die with him. And that just..."
"It was stupid, I know," you pout. "You don't have to say it again."
"It was stupid, yeah," Yoongi agrees. "And I'm saying it again because I can. But at the same time, it hurt me. You know, I made up my mind to jump that day too."
"You did??"
"Yeah and imagine my surprise and annoyance when I see some ten-year-old Dystopian-born in my way," Yoongi sniffles. "Pissed me off."
You huff. "Well—"
"And I was still pissed off at you until you told me you were going to do it to be with your friend," Yoongi says. "Do you know why I was going to do it?" You shake your head no. "Because I'm selfish and I didn't like my life and I didn't want to continue living in this hellhole by myself. Because I wanted to give up. And also because I didn't have a purpose to wake up to another day, but that's just one part of a plethora of other reasons. They were all selfish. It made me just... feel something when I saw you. And you were just willing to die for someone who wasn't yourself. Even though that's fucking stupid, it made me realize how I've never really lived before. And maybe you were the key to my first friendship? I don't know."
"Wow," you mutter.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Yes, well, no? My throat's hurting again, Yoongi," you whine. "You told me to stop talking minutes ago."
"Oh, well, in that case, just go to sleep," he says. "You'll feel better in the morning."
"Thanks," you whisper against your cotton pillow. You snuggle in your cot below Yoongi's bed and let out a small sigh. "You're not that selfish, Yoongi," you say.
And you mean it. Yoongi's shown you nothing but generosity. He's shown you that he's caring when he tries to be. Even though he's unbelievably bossy sometimes, he does it for your own good. His quiet demeanor is a façade to the overwhelming emotions inside, and you can see right through it.
Yoongi doesn't answer for the longest time, so you wrap your arms arm yourself to preserve warmth and fall asleep. You wake up the next morning with an extra layer of blanket on top of you.
Taehyung begins to tap his feet on the ground restlessly, consequently making your chair shake underneath you. You try to ignore it for minutes, but the constant shaking is making it hard for you to concentrate on the textbook sitting between the two of you.
"Taehyung," you say.
"Hm?" he asks, his eyes boring into the pages of the book. "What?"
"Can you stop?"
"Stop what?"
"You're shaking my chair."
"Oh," Taehyung says. He finally looks up from his reading and makes eye contact with you. "Sorry," he apologizes hastily. "I didn't mean to do it... I just got nervous. This book is just... It's weird. I mean, when was the last time we put emphasis on family?"
"Never, of course," you say. "I barely even remember what my parents look like."
"Really?" Taehyung's eyes are large as he stares you down with curiosity mixed with just the slightest bit of pity. "Do you miss them?"
"No."
"What? Really?" Taehyung gasps. "You really don't care at all?"
"They're not prominent figures in my life," you say. "It was always Jimin. And then when Jimin died, it was Yoongi..." you trail off. "I do regret not being close to my family. I don't think I said goodbye when I had to leave to Purgatory."
"God, well, that's harsh."
"I know. What about you? Were you close with your family?"
"Oh, very," Taehyung replies. "I had three older brothers and one younger sister. My sister and two brothers didn't make it out in the world. So in theory I only had one older sibling."
"I'm sorry," you say.
"It's fine. It was in Dystopia. Too many people die so the deaths start to become irrelevant," Taehyung shrugs. "I miss them, though. My brother's dead now, but I miss my parents."
"Dead?"
"He tried to start a revolt in Purgatory eleven years ago," Taehyung says. He frowns, shaking his head in disbelief. "I didn't think he was that dumb to actually go through with the rebellion. It was a man-slaughter, by the way. Everyone in his year was killed."
"Everyone?" you say. "Even to me, that sounds severe."
"Yeah, well, it was easier for them. Assumed that everyone in that year was a rebel. And rebels deserve to die, apparently," Taehyung says. He grits his teeth, fisting his hands in slow-coming anger. "You do know why they have the fucking Exam, right?"
"To choose which people are worthy of being in Utopia?"
"That's part of the reason," Taehyung says. He leans into you so suddenly that you gasp quietly. "The government does it to weed out the feeble-minded ones. Haven't you heard rumors? In a few years, they might just exterminate Dystopia and Purgatory altogether. There aren't enough resources to keep everyone alive," he whispers with urgency, and you can feel his hot breath on your cheeks. "So they're trying to grow a stable society with highly intelligent individuals. They want to get rid of the excess. The unworthy. They do it by hosting the Exam."
He looks satisfied at your rather shocked face and decides to give you some space, leaning away and taking away the warmth on your face.
"They're going to get rid of Dystopia?" you whisper. "And Purgatory? That's not fair to the people living there. They're gonna close off Utopia forever? That's bullshit."
"It's rumored." Taehyung shrugs.
"Is that why you're studying so hard to go?" you say, cocking a curious brow at him. "To avenge your brother?"
"Maybe," Taehyung grins. "I mean, I'll see what I can do."
"You shouldn't," you tell him with a frown. "They're gonna kill our whole year because of you."
Taehyung raises an eyebrow at you. "You know what they're doing is wrong," he says. "Don't you want to right the wrong?"
"No," you say. "I don't. I'm not going to risk my life or any other lives to fix this stupid system. The only fool-proof way to beat them is to beat the Exam—by that, I mean get a perfect score. Think about it. It's a huge middle finger to the government. Imagine if only one person out of hundreds gets to go to Utopia for scoring the highest, and, you know, assuming that only one person gets a perfect score because it's that unheard of. If that keeps up year after year, Utopia will die. They'll be underpopulated. The government will realize the system is flawed with time."
"That would take years and years. And a lot of assumptions to make," Taehyung scoffs. "You're talking about one person from every fucking year having the will and intelligence to score perfectly. Statistically impossible."
"So what?" you say. "You think a bloody revolution will solve everything?"
"A bloody revolution would obviously take less time than what you're thinking of," Taehyung says. "There are people fucking dying out there. There are people eating dead bodies. One bloody revolt can do a lot for the future."
"It won't do a lot for the present, though," you argue.
Taehyung sighs. "You know what? I'm sorry we even fucking got into this damned conversation. Whatever. Let's just finish up the book."
You clench your teeth but you don't say anything, merely nodding to show your agreement.
For the next thirteen hours, it is completely silent. After the small argument, neither you nor Taehyung feels the need to speak to the other. There is obvious tension and awkwardness between the two of you—like it had been in the beginning. You try to ignore it, immersing yourself into the contents of family studies, no matter how tedious you found it. Night rolls around and both of you end up skipping dinner.
Breakfast the next day is skipped as well.
By the time lunch comes, you and Taehyung have finished reading and reviewing the last book in the whole library. He slams the textbook shut and slides it across the table. The sound isn't as jarring as you expect it to be. So you just blink your dry eyes and try to steady yourself to prepare to stand up from your seat. Maybe you should leave Taehyung alone for a while... Maybe he doesn't want to talk to you anymore. And maybe you shouldn't hang around him... He could get you killed. He could rope you around in his master plan that his older brother had left with loose ends. You don't want to die; you don't even want to think of the possibility of death.
The only way you can beat the goddamn Exam is to be the only person to score 100 percent. And you're going to accomplish that. For years you've set your mind on this one single goal. Sacrificed food, water and sleep for it. You're not going to let it slip from your hands this easily—not when you're this close to it.
You wobble away from the chair, never looking back at Taehyung as you try to walk away from the table.
"Wait."
His tired voice echoes in the nearly empty library and it rings in your ears. You stop walking but you don't turn around.
"What, Taehyung?" you say through gritted teeth. Though you try to hide the slight waver in your voice that would indicate your exhaustiveness, it shows quite obviously.
"Let's grab lunch together. Please," he says—no, pleads.
God, he must know how much that word affects me. He knows about Jimin, so it probably wasn't so hard to use that knowledge to his own advantage.
After contemplating for what seemed like minutes, you finally turn around to face Taehyung. It surprises you when you meet his eyes almost immediately.
"You didn't finish telling me about Yoongi," he says. "I hate cliffhangers."
It occurs to you that both of you are too proud to apologize over an argument; in fact, this was Taehyung's way of apologizing to you without uttering the words, 'I'm sorry.' Your apology would be something similar.
You nod. "C'mon," you say. "Let's go to the cafeteria."
For two whole years, you were the happiest you've ever been with Yoongi. He made you almost forget about Jimin, but you made sure you honored your dead best friend by visiting the pit every now and then. It had been the last place you'd seen him.
Yoongi likes to come with you when you go to the pit. He's been getting anxious these days when you're not by his side.
Actually, you notice that he's been acting a bit strange. In the past few months, he began lecturing you about famous inventors and world leaders. He taught you the locations and capitals of countries you didn't know existed. He's been telling you the events of history as if he'd lived through them himself. The most annoying part was when he tried to make a damn math problem out of everything.
You only assumed that the pent-up knowledge inside his head was finally getting to him and he had to let it out to someone before he exploded. So you went along with it. And you suppose that sometimes, the lessons Yoongi taught you were enjoyable.
Until it got to the point that he began to quiz you on the material you learned from him.
You groan, eyes fluttering open to greet the morning sunlight that floods through the faded curtains in Yoongi's room. You had a rough night with a bad dream. You've never been this glad to finally wake up from your sleep.
Aside from the sunlight, you're also greeted by Yoongi's loud voice the moment he catches you awake. "Capital of Senegal?" he demands, pointing at you as if you had just committed a crime.
You squint your eyes at him, frowning as you stifle a yawn. You're still cranky from having a bad dream (that you can't remember now that you've woken up), so without so much of the slightest blink of an eye, you tell him to "Please, stop."
Yoongi snorts. "No, seriously," he says. "What's the capital of Senegal?"
"I dunno," you lie even though there's no way in hell that you don't know at this point in time because Yoongi's been making you memorize the world capitals for weeks now. But frustration starts to bubble up inside of you. You thought Yoongi would know a thing or two about maintaining personal space. Making you answer stupid geography questions the moment you wake up for six days in a row was downright mean and he deserves to hear a mouthful from you. "Yoongi what the hell is up with you?" you huff. "What does the capital of Senegal have to do with anything??"
"It's Dakar!" Yoongi yells, throwing up his hands. "Fucking Dakar, Y/N! Is that so hard to remember?"
"Why does it even matter?!" you yell back at him.
"I'm trying to help you!" Yoongi shouts. "I'm helping you learn, goddammit!"
"Why would I have to learn??" you say absolutely confused out of your mind. "You know how much you hated being stuck in tutoring. Well, I hate it too!"
"Oh, shit," Yoongi curses, collapsing on his bed with his hands buried in his face. He realizes that you'd just made an extremely valid point, and it puts him to shame. "I was just trying to help..."
"What? Help me pass the Exam?" you snort half-jokingly. "Yoongi, I want to go back to my home, Dystopia, with you."
"No, Y/N," Yoongi says. "I'm not going to Dystopia."
"Then wha—"
"I've been thinking, Y/N," Yoongi cuts you off, patting the spot next to him for you to sit. You do, rubbing your eyes and trying to tame your bed hair as you wait for him to continue. "I've been thinking a lot..." Yoongi says, "about the future. I've thought about every scenario in my head, and I don't think I'll ever be content."
"Aren't you happy with me, here?" you say. "I thought we were having fun..."
"Sooner or later, Y/N, I'll have to take the Exam," Yoongi says. "I'll fail, as expected. I'll be tossed into Dystopia and I'll have to wait until you come back home. But I'll most likely die in less than a year so you'll never actually get to see me again."
"Don't say that!" you shriek. "Don't even—"
"I'm obviously not going to make it in Dystopia. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and waking up in this dingy room in Purgatory every day disgusts me. Think about how horrible it'd be for me in Dystopia when I can't even stand it here. Then the only solution left is for me to go back to Utopia," Yoongi explains. "And that's not going to happen because I don't intend on learning new material anymore. I'm not a scholar. Was forced to be, but never wanted to be. I give up."
"You're giving up??"
"I'm giving up."
"But Yoongi..." you breathe but no further words come out of your mouth. You don't want to put words in his mouth, but you're scared of what he's thinking of doing to himself in the future. Yet you don't have the guts to ask him about his plan out loud.
"I know, Y/N," Yoongi sighs. "But I'm not bringing you down with me."
"What??"
"You're going to Utopia, Y/N," Yoongi says. He's so nonchalant with an atrocious statement that you wonder if he has a concussion. But when he's staring at you so intently, you realize with a heavy heart that he's dead serious.
"It's too late, Yoongi," you protest. "I would never beat the Utopian-borns... I'm already two years behind the game, and if you factor in the time the Utopian-borns have studied, I'm twelve years behind!"
"It's not too late," he argues. "Think about it. Utopian-borns like me—unless they're batshit crazy—aren't trying as hard anymore. Their parents aren't there to supervise them, and they're probably insanely cocky about how much they already know."
"What's your point?"
"You can easily beat them with willpower," Yoongi says. "And I already tried teaching you some stuff that I remembered too—whether you were paying attention is solely on you, though."
You huff. "I was paying attention," you say. "And that's impossible. I'm not a genius, Yoongi. Intelligence is genetic. You told me so yourself."
"I did," Yoongi admits, "but it doesn't matter how innately intelligent you are. What really matters is willpower. And I have none. But you have a lot. I'm just saying, Y/N. Utopia... it's not really a life for me. I don't really give a shit about education and being intelligent. I don't really give a shit about anything. But I think Utopia is a life for you. It's a life you deserve."
"I can't just accept what you're telling me, Yoongi," you say.
"Yes you can," he says. "I want to leave soon, you know. I don't want to distract you from your studies... And besides, Purgatory's food fucking sucks. I bet they have better food in the afterlife."
The afterlife. It's then when it truly dawns on you of the atrocity that your friend would commit to himself.
"You can't just kill yourself," you scoff, twisting your body towards Yoongi in complete bewilderment. "What about me? I never agreed to any of this!"
"You've wanted to go to Utopia the moment I started to tell you about it," Yoongi says. "You think I wouldn't know? I'm helping you get there."
"But I don't want to be alone!" You sniffle, chin pointing to the ceiling so the tears that are starting to well in your eyes dry away. But it's no use. The more you think about being abandoned again, another person you genuinely cared for leaving you into the afterlife... it makes you feel broken.
"Well, I don't really want to live," Yoongi says. "We're all selfish. It's human nature."
"I thought you cared about me!" Your voice rises two octaves. "We were supposed to spend the rest of your time in Purgatory together! You can't just leave early because you feel like it! What am I going to do without you??" You're sobbing now, the tears running down your face in fat droplets that blur your vision.
"Hey..." Yoongi murmurs. "Y/N..." He gives you some space to cry, to let out the worst of your emotions. Then he encompasses you in a warm hug in which your face is up against the soft material of his sweater and he pats your back comfortably. "You'll get over me."
"I won't," you whimper. "That's a promise."
"C'mon don't waste a precious promise on that," he whispers.
"I will so waste a stupid precious promise on that," you whisper back. You hate him for doing this to you. For telling you that he was going to leave you so you knew what was coming—now you were dreading the moment he was going to abandon you instead of relishing in his presence, his embrace, his warmth.
For hours, the two of you bask in complete silence. You've calmed yourself down to the point that the tears roll down your face sporadically, but not in steady streams anymore. Yoongi runs his fingers through your hair, an act that he only does to ensure you that everything will be all right. It's rare that the two of you are ever this close in proximity, and you want to cherish this moment before he's gone. But curiosity pulls at the strings inside you and you just have to ask—
"W-When are you going to do it?"
"Hm?"
"When are you going to commit suicide?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
You pull away from Yoongi, scowling at him. "Why not?"
"You'll try to put a stop to it," he says. "I need to get through with this, Y/N. You can't change my mind."
"I want to say I hate you, but now I feel like I need to be nice to you," you confess, running a hand through your hair in confusion.
Yoongi smiles, shaking his head. "Act normally." He hesitantly reaches out for your hand, and when you give it to him, he holds it perfectly—not too tightly nor not too loosely. "Just promise me one thing." When you don't answer, he turns to you, squeezing your intertwined hands for emphasis. "Get to the top for me, will you?"
"I can't promise tha—"
"And please don't frown when you study. You're gonna get a permanent crease on your forehead."
"Fuck, Y/N," Taehyung chokes, blinking away a tear that was starting to become too heavy for his eyes. "That's it? You let him just... leave you like that?"
"I feel like I should've put up a bigger fight too," you admit, playing with what's left of the bread crumbs on the lunch table. "I should've helped him. Nursed him back into a healthy mental state. But what did I know? I was fucking twelve then. I didn't know shit about mental health or psychology."
"You know now at least," Taehyung offers.
"I'd rather not know," you say. "Now that I know that I could've helped him... it just feels worse." You let out a deep sigh that takes the heavy weight off of your chest. "He overdosed about four days later. They found him before I did... And since then, I've been alone, studying my ass off."
"I can't help but admire your determination," Taehyung says. "You honestly can't beat human willpower. Yoongi's right."
You smile, shrugging nonchalantly. "I just want to keep my promise with him... And maybe I want to live in glory for the rest of my life, but who am I to blame? Everybody wants that life."
"Everybody deserves that life," Taehyung says. "No one should have to go through near-death experiences to get to it."
"Life's never fair," you say. "Deal with it."
Taehyung snorts. "I know. I'm trying." He pauses, placing a pensive hand on his chin and looking off into the distance as if he were thinking hard about something. "Hey, you know, the best way to retain information is to repeat it out loud or teach it to others."
"That's exactly what Yoongi made me do," you say. "All those random quiz questions throughout the day... I didn't appreciate it then, but I'd sure appreciate it now."
"Then we can be study buddies," Taehyung declares. "We'll quiz each other. We have about a year left before the Exam. We'll review every concept in the whole damn library together. Two heads work better than one!"
"Aren't we supposed to be competitors?" you say. "I'm looking to get a perfect score, Taehyung," you grin. "If you can't keep up with my rigorous schedule, you shouldn't even be proposing this plan to me."
"Oh yeah?" Taehyung cocks an eyebrow as he grins right back at you, revealing his perfect teeth and boxy smile. "Bring it on, Y/N."
Bring it on? Oh, you'll bring it on, all right. Taehyung won't even know what hit him.
Having someone else to study with you doubles your competitiveness, which is a feat in it of itself because you are definitely more competitive than at least one hundred of your peers combined.
Every day, you've been trying to wake up earlier than Taehyung to get to the library first. The only problem is, he's been doing the same as well. You thought you had him beat when you sauntered into the library at 4 a.m. feeling quite refreshed after an hour night's sleep, but it turned out that Taehyung never even left the library. He'd grinned at you, practically staring into your soul with bloodshot eyes and croaking, "I win!" so victoriously that you really had to accept his triumph over you.
But when the two of you start to play a little game of who-can-stay-awake-for-longer, Taehyung has to put a stop to the madness when you start to mumble jumbled sentences in Latin after he asks if you need some water.
You and Taehyung look out for each other almost by habit at this point. It's become a routine for you to wake the other up if you were the first to awake. Now morning trips to the library are done together, and you have to admit it feels much better to be able to walk side by side next to someone who is willing to babble his head off to wake you up a bit more.
Dinner is skipped Mondays through Fridays to make extra time for review. On Saturdays, you and Taehyung indulge in the full three meals that Purgatory has to offer while also finishing up your studies. But Sunday, Sunday is the holy grail of the week. No studying, no library, just you and Taehyung taking some time off (for once).
Surprisingly, you'd come up with Special Sundays, after Taehyung had a huge mental breakdown over plumb-forgetting how to graph polar curves on one typical Saturday night. And the special day has stayed since. Neither of you wants to get rid of something that is the only non-study related activity of the week.
Most Special Sundays are spent in either Taehyung's room or your room. Taehyung prefers your room because you have extra blankets that Yoongi left for you, and as winter comes by, any additional coverage is very much appreciated.
This Sunday, however, you managed to convince Taehyung to hang out in his room—only because his mattress is softer than yours and you've been getting bad back and neck pains these days.
"By the time I'm twenty, I'll be suffering from a fucking herniated disc," you tell Taehyung as you groan, shifting your position on his bed for what seems like the hundredth time. "I feel so fucking stuffy. Like I need to crack my back but I can't. Don't even get me started on my fucking neck."
"By the time you're twenty, you'll be in Utopia and the special doctors will be all over you to treat Atna's very own princess," Taehyung snorts. "They'd do anything to keep the perfect scoring girl alive and well."
"Princess my ass," you laugh. "I'd like to wish. How's the cot, by the way? Kinda feel bad about making you sleep there while I take your bed."
Taehyung shrugs. "I don't mind. I honestly don't even feel a difference," he says without skipping a beat. "And we don't want your back messing up your chances. On the day of the Exam, it'd be worse to have your body betray you than your mind."
"I'd literally fucking cry if my stupid back is still like this before the Exam, Taehyung," you say. "All these years I spent with my nose buried in a book... Only to fail because my body couldn't handle it."
"That's the worst," Taehyung sighs. "But if you stretch every day, it might get better. Honestly, we need to start taking care of ourselves better. We need to reserve time to rest... to take our minds off of studying. Even if it's only one day per week."
"Yeah," you agree. "You know what's fucking sad though? We're still talking about the stupid Exam even now. It never escapes our heads."
"We're slaves to the system," Taehyung bitterly murmurs. "What do you expect?"
"That's true," you say, wincing as you try to shift your position on the bed again. "I don't expect much at this point. Not from the people who've turned the library into a battlefield and the students into soldiers."
"The Exam is the war," Taehyung says. "Losing the war means death, mostly. I see no difference."
"We are so depressing," you sigh. "But it's all true."
"I know," Taehyung says. He turns over on his side to look up at you on his bed. "You ever think about the worst-case scenario?"
"You mean like... we don't make it to Utopia?"
"We?" Taehyung smiles. "So you think we'd get perfect scores together? What happened to being competitors?"
"Oh, shut up," you snort. "We're a team. I thought it was obvious. And I am not talking about not making it to Utopia. We are not going to self-sabotage months before the fucking Exam."
"You're just going to ignore the chances? You're going to ignore the chance of failure?"
"Yes!" you say, turning on your side to face Taehyung. "Of course I am. Do you really want to lie here talking about failure? We shouldn't even plant the thought of that in our heads right now. It's all about victory. We're the smartest, most capable people in our year, so if we don't get to Utopia, no one will. Understand?"
Taehyung belts out a laugh that has you frowning. "Your confidence deserves a gold medal sometimes," he says. "I do understand you..." he continues, "but only to a certain extent."
You scoff, "Oh, come on, Taehyung. What happened to the cocky bastard I met months ago??"
"That was such a mask behind the real me, Y/N," Taehyung laughs. "I thought you knew that by now. I'm fucking terrified of failure and even the slightest thought about failing makes me want to crawl in a hole and just... vanish."
"I swear to god, Tae, if you talk about vanishing like that again, I'll seriously make you want to vanish," you threaten him with the most menacing voice you can muster up. "We're already victors to this stupid game, winners of the war. Don't you dare think otherwise."
Taehyung smiles, eyes twinkling when he realizes you'd called him by his special nickname (that he kept trying to get you to call him) for the first time. "I'll try not to," he says. "But I'm not making any promises."
"Well, that's still good enough for me."
Four months until the Exam.
You're both physically (your back pains are gone) and mentally (you've always been) ready. But your friend is another story. As more days pass, the more anxious Taehyung begins to feel. He's never able to sleep, so he steals a couple of library books back to his room every night to read while everyone else is salvaging every hour of shut-eye they can get.
His insecurities are catching up to him. And you've always been quite loud-mouthed and confident, so you don't understand him very well. Yet, you're a team, and you do not leave team members stranded.
Motivational pep talks are not really your thing, but they have become your thing these past few days. You walk Taehyung to his room from the library every night, telling him that he had nothing to worry about—that he was going to do superbly well on the Exam. Sometimes, you feel like you're repeating the same phrase over and over again to him, but Taehyung reassures you that whatever you say helps him calm down.
But the mental breakdowns are becoming more and more frequent. Taehyung can't seem to sit still for ten minutes without starting to shake his leg and vibrate the whole table. He has to stop reviewing the Exam material to catch his breath, wipe away his tears and relax the tensed muscles on his face.
You let him take his time. You're always there for him to lean on, to help him catch up on the study time that he missed. And he's forever grateful to you.
"I don't think anyone's been this understanding of me," Taehyung sniffles as you pat his back comfortingly as he blows his nose on a scratchy napkin you handed him before. "Back home, my brother used to tell me to man up when I started to have my panic attacks. He was always the mentally stronger one of us."
"That wasn't very nice of him to say that," you remark. "It's normal to feel uneasy, especially at a time like this. The Exam is four months away... Not too close but not too far either..."
"God. I wish I wasn't so anxious all the time," Taehyung sighs, crumpling up his tissue and pocketing it. "I wish I was like you. Not afraid of losing... Not afraid of failing... Just so confident all the time."
"You can be like me," you say. "Just stop worrying so much."
"Easier said than done," Taehyung scoffs. "You're going to Utopia for sure. There's literally no doubt, Y/N."
"You're coming with me," you argue. "Not to avenge your brother's death or whatever. But just to enjoy the wealthy living since we both deserve it at this point."
"I'm not a charismatic leader," Taehyung shrugs. "I would've never been able to help start a revolt like him. I'd really like to go with you to Utopia... If we both got in, do you think we'd keep in touch?"
"Of course!" you exclaim. "We kept each other company in the loneliest of times. Have you seen anyone else in our year who's serious about taking the Exam making friends now? Everyone's too busy thinking about competition."
"What did I say?" Taehyung grins. "Teamwork works, and two heads are definitely better than one."
"Very true," you smile. "Remember when we fought for that book? The very first time we met?"
"How could I forget?" Taehyung laughs. "I thought you were going to murder me with that look of yours, honestly."
"Oh, wow. I'm not that scary, am I?"
"Oh, yes you are," Taehyung argues. "Do you know how hard it was for me to literally act tough in front of you in the beginning? So you wouldn't take me as some kind of wimp?"
"You acted tough for me?" you giggle, resting your hand on your cheek as your elbow sits on the table. You stare at Taehyung with an amused look on your face. "So you're just actually a big ol' softie?"
"W-Well, I wouldn't call myself a softie per se," Taehyung blushes. "I'm just uh..." he trails off. "Damn, Y/N. You put me under the spotlight."
You shrug, grinning as you watch Taehyung squirm under your intense gaze. Maybe you're a little mean, but making him blush is pretty funny. Teasing him is even funnier.
"It wouldn't be the first time. And definitely not the last," you say with a mischievous grin playing on your lips. Taehyung huffs, but his face looks much more relaxed than it had been several minutes ago—even the redness of his eyes are slowly fading away. He looks much better. He looks ready. "Hey, wanna go back to where we left off now?" you say. "If you're feeling better?"
"Yeah, sure," Taehyung smiles. "Thanks."
Goddamn. His smile is insanely contagious. It must be those perfect teeth and that boxy smile.
"No problem," you manage to murmur, feeling yourself start to blush thinking of Taehyung's immaculate smile. "Um," you hesitate, "yeah, so as I was saying before about Einstein's theory of relativity..."
Three months.
Something fishy is going on here. The closer the Exam looms over your head, the more you expected yourself to become miserable—stressed about the last-minute study material you could've forgotten over the years. Yet you find yourself rather relaxed.
It occurs to you, however, that you're only this relaxed because you have to be—for Taehyung. One of the two of you has to show strength to help the other. Pretending to be so strong-headed and confident (even when you fell into the familiar pit of self-doubt), helped you actually become confident in your knowledge and predestined success. There's really nothing to worry about, you tell yourself and Taehyung. If it's not the two of us, then it can't be anyone else.
The more you comfort Taehyung, the more he opens up to you, and the more you open up to him. Your friendships in the past have always been a little lopsided—with Jimin, you constantly comforted him, cared for him, and with Yoongi, he had been the one to take care of you. For once in your life, you had a relationship in which you both gave and took; Taehyung is your balance. The in-between of Jimin and Yoongi.
The platonic relationship with Jimin is mirrored in your relationship with Taehyung, but sometimes blush creeps up your cheeks when Taehyung teases you back or when your hands graze each other. So maybe you're not completely platonic with him.
And maybe you're just missing someone to love.
"Do you think we'd be happier if we just... never studied for the Exam?" Taehyung whispers to you as you lie side by side on your bed. The midnight moon is bright enough to illuminate just a sliver of Taehyung's face as he stares at the ceiling of your room pensively. "We would be hanging out... never going to the library... Making friends..."
You hum thoughtfully. "I don't know," you say. "I guess maybe we would be happier—just for the eight years we're in Purgatory, anyway."
"That's right," Taehyung says. "That's a good point, actually. I feel like what we're doing right now is right. We're suffering now to make gains later. And..." he trails off. "And... um, if we don't make it, at least we'll know that we tried."
You nod. "Yeah, I guess. It would be better than being tossed back into Dystopia and wondering for the rest of our lives what would've happened if we did study for the Exam."
"Exactly," Taehyung says. "I think it's crazy that we only have three months left," Taehyung says. "But weirdly... I feel less stressed than before. Maybe your optimistic preachings are getting to my head," he laughs quietly, nudging your shoulder playfully.
"Me? Optimistic?" you snort. "That's the first."
"It's true," Taehyung muses. "My anxiety isn't as bad as before, and I'm pretty sure you had a part to play in that."
"In three months, you won't have any anxiety ever again," you reassure him. "You won't even need to hear me babble on about optimism and self-confidence."
"And we'll be having the time of our lives in Utopia," Taehyung breathes.
You smile to yourself, nodding silently. The two of you let the silence consume you, letting Taehyung's last words echo in your head; it's a good way to end the conversation—on a positive note. A lasting note of hope and faith.
It's then when you feel something warm on your hand. It takes you a moment to realize it's flesh. It takes another moment for you to realize it's Taehyung's hand. When you don't flinch away, he quietly almost hesitantly encompasses your hand in his. Delicately, your fingers intertwine and lock perfectly together.
Immediately, your cheeks heat up but you refuse to speak about it. Reassurance floods through you as the two of you lay side by side in the comforting darkness of your room with your hands held tightly together.
And neither of you speak until the sun peeks out from the horizon to paint the skies with another morning, another day. You don't need to talk to Taehyung to know he's thinking the same thing as you.
We'll have the time of our lives in Utopia.
Two months.
The last-minute crammers crowd the library so much that there is a line to enter it. You and Taehyung found a very effective way to battle the sudden influx of students, though. Every day, the two of you enter the library as early as three in the morning (to ensure that little to nobody was there) and take six to seven books with you, hiding them under your jackets and sweaters.
Studying in your rooms is much better.
There are less judgmental eyes, fewer chances of catching a stupid cold that's been making its way through the younger kids in Purgatory and you and Taehyung can lounge on the beds when you get tired of sitting straight.
Two months to the Exam is shockingly close, so close that your back pains have been plaguing you once more. Taehyung tells you to stop slouching when you sit, but you find it hard to sit straight and read the tiny text of the textbooks. So you end up ignoring him.
But on some days, it hurts for you to turn your body, your back aching to the extremity that you started believing one uncalculated movement could leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life. It's on those days that you wish you listened to Taehyung earlier. You push on though, too stubborn to admit to Taehyung that he's right and too impatient to try to fix your pain at such an urgent time.
Except you're not too good at hiding your discomfort and Taehyung catches onto you.
"We should take a break," he says, closing an astrophysics textbook and practically tossing it over his head.
When you hear the loud thump of it hitting against the wall, you gasp. "Tae! You can't just throw the fucking book. We're not even supposed to have these in our rooms!"
"Maybe that was a bad idea," Taehyung says, fidgeting his hands. "A little too late now, though, isn't it?" He shrugs. "We need a break."
"I'm fine! I swear!" you say. "We'll study for a few more hours."
"Your back's killing you, isn't it?"
You scoff. "N-No!"
"You stuttered."
You groan, wincing quietly as you try to sit up straight. "I'm not gonna die because of this. I think I can keep going."
"If you don't fix that now, you probably won't be able to sit down for four hours to take the Exam," Taehyung tells you. He takes your book and throws it over his head, making you grimace when it thuds against the wall. "I'm gonna loosen your back muscles!" he declares.
"What are you gonna do? Step on my back and make it crack?" you snort. When you see that Taehyung actually looks like he's contemplating it, you quickly say, "Please don't."
"Don't worry. I'll try not to make it hurt," Taehyung grins. You look at him so threateningly that he has to raise both of his hands defensively. "Oh, c'mon! I'm trying to help."
You give him a nervous look. "So what? You're gonna give me a massage?"
"It'll help!" Taehyung says. "Just get all comfy and lay flat on the bed. Stomach on the covers, please."
The mere thought of his hands roaming on your back makes your face heat up. God, this is going to be intimate. Maybe that's why Taehyung suggested it... and maybe that's why you're actually complying with him.
Hesitantly, you situate yourself on the bed, laying your face on your arms. "Just my back," you tell him.
"Yeah, of course," he says. "I have credentials, technically."
"Oh?"
"I found a magazine about it," Taehyung says. "So I'm very much qualified."
"Oh god."
You hear Taehyung rustle behind you and you try to twist your body to see what he's doing but your back prevents you from moving. In frustration, you ask, "What are you doing?"
"Rolling up my sleeves and staring at your back. Why?"
"Why the fuck are you staring at my back?"
"I was trying to figure out where it hurts," he answers, "but I guess I could've just asked you instead."
You snort. "God, Tae. It honestly hurts everywhere. But especially around the shoulder blade area."
You can just imagine Taehyung nodding professionally, with his sleeves rolled up and his hair slicked back to prevent stray strands from poking at his eyes.
"Okay, I'm gonna put pressure there," he says. "Deep breath out..."
You obey him, closing your eyes and blowing air out of your lips, simultaneously relaxing your body. The moment you feel his hands on your back, goosebumps checker your arms. No one's ever been this close to you; no one's bothered to be this intimate with you.
"Feel good?" Taehyung asks.
He sounds closer to you than you expected him to be, and your breath hitches quietly. "Y-Yeah," you stutter. "A little lower."
Taehyung listens, rubbing your sore back with such care and calculated pressure that you have to bite your lip from letting rather embarrassing sounds from escaping your mouth. You don't realize how tense your body was until Taehyung calls you out. "You're so tense, Y/N," he remarks, his hands dealing with the clumped muscles on your back. "Try to relax."
You're red-faced, unable to admit to him that if you do as he says, you might just let out a moan and it'll really be game over then. You are not going to embarrass yourself in front of him because Taehyung would never let you live that down. And if you're really going to spend your days in Utopia with him, you'd rather not let him have any memories he can use to tease you.
"I am relaxing," you lie through your teeth. But when Taehyung gets to a particularly sensitive part on your back, you hiss through your teeth. "Ow..."
Taehyung immediately stops his ministrations. "Do you want me to stop for a second?" he asks with so much worry laced into his voice that you almost feel guilty for making him question himself.
"No!" you exclaim. "I mean, no. I'm fine. I guess my back was much worse than I thought..."
Taehyung laughs. "Well, if I do this for you occasionally and you stretch every day, you'll be in good condition again."
"Thanks," you mutter. "Really, Tae, I mean it."
You can just imagine the boy grinning ear to ear behind you. Though you expected him to say something cocky or silly, you received silence in response. "Tae?" Gritting your teeth, you try turning over on your back, which was easier than expected—Taehyung's massage had already done wonders.
With a little oof, you flip over to finally get a good look at Taehyung. "Cat got your tongue??" you tease him, raising an eyebrow and gazing at his rather blank face.
"No... no," he answers right away. "For a second I thought..." he trails off. His handsome face morphs into a look of worry, of nervousness.
"You thought...?"
"I thought I..." he trails off again, much to your impatience.
"Oh, come on, Tae," you sigh. "Spit it out!"
The boy grins, shaking his head. "For a second, I thought I heard you moan, Y/N. Enjoying yourself a little too much, aren't we?"
Okay, you had not expected that. The color quickly drains from your face and your mouth drops open rather unflatteringly. You sputter to think of an excuse, any excuse that would whisk you away from the embarrassment consuming you at this moment.
"I'm just kidding," Taehyung says as he nearly falls over in a fit of laughter. "You should see your face!"
"That's not funny!" you yell, sitting up on your elbows and glaring at the laughing boy.
"No, it was definitely funny," he says, grabbing your hand and helping you sit up. The action brings heat to your cheeks and you have to look away. "Oh, c'mon," Taehyung whines, "learn some humor, Y/N."
He must mistake your embarrassment as anger. You'll play along.
"You can literally shut up," you huff.
"Damn, you're not very scary when you pretend you're mad," Taehyung says, grinning mischievously at you.
"I am not pretending!"
"You're still holding my hand, Y/N," he teases.
Oh shit. He's right. That's the second time that's happened in one month. Is it strange to seek physical comfort? Or is it strange to feel so comfortable with Taehyung? "I-I," you stutter embarrassingly, unsure if you can even finish your own sentence when Taehyung interrupts you.
"It's okay, Y/N," he says. "I don't mind holding your hand."
You gape at him in shock—so much so that you're sure you don't look too attractive at the moment with your mouth hanging open and your eyes bulging.
Taehyung tightens his grip on your hand as he tugs you closer to him. His eyes sparkle with something you recognize as mirth, which is funny to see in a student's eyes just two months before the Exam.
Hm. You like the way his warm hand encompasses yours, and you adore the way he stares into your eyes as if he knows you and cares for you.
Before you know it, you're breathing out a rapid, "I don't mind holding your hand either."
You didn't know it was possible for Taehyung to grin even wider but sometimes even you're wrong.
One month.
This is the official crunch time. The time when existing contenders of the Exam become vicious and violent to ward off competition. The time when those who never cared for the Exam begin to host parties to live their best and lasting moments in glee. The time when some cocky Utopians begin to study—they think they're so above everyone else that they only need one month to prepare.
But you and Taehyung relish together in the time left in Purgatory together. You'll see him again in Utopia, but Purgatory is the place where you met him and got to know him. It's special, no matter how much you hate the dingy library and cramped dorms. It's special because, without the given situations, you would've never even met Taehyung. You would've spent the last year in Purgatory alone, haunted by the thoughts of Jimin and Yoongi. You couldn't have survived. Or maybe you could've. But Taehyung's helping you survive with a huge smile on your face. And happiness has never been so close to your fingertips.
Your hands are intertwined with his larger ones as the two of you stand against the wall of the building, staring into the empty pit of the dark abyss.
At this point, you're not quite sure where you stand with Taehyung, but you don't care as long as he's here to comfort you every day and you're there to hold his hand.
The cozy wool of Yoongi's sweater keeps you warm in the brisk night air as does Taehyung's presence right next to you. You look out at the pit, and for once, your stomach does not sink with misery. Paying your respects to the dead loved ones has never been this peaceful before.
"Do you think they're watching over you?" Taehyung whispers, judging you softly as he gazes up at the sky dotted with nighttime stars. "Maybe they're wishing you the best on the Exam."
"I actually have no idea..." you say, looking up at the sky with Taehyung and squeezing his hands. "But I miss them."
"You'll reunite with them one day," Taehyung tells you.
"Yeah," you say, "I definitely will."
"In the meantime, I bet Jimin's having the best time eating good meals and getting good sleep on a comfy bed..." Taehyung trails off as he looks at you. "And I hope Yoongi found his happiness by now."
You nod to yourself. "Me too, Tae."
"Only a month left, Y/N," he answers. "And strangely, this is the most peaceful I've been in my whole life."
When you look up, you find that Taehyung's already staring right back at you. A small smile stretches across your cracked lips. "Trust me, it'll be even more peaceful on the day that we're finally admitted into Utopia. We're in this together, right?"
"Definitely," Taehyung says. "I'm not nervous anymore. Not since you convinced me that I don't have to be afraid."
"Still gonna start a violent revolution?" you whisper. "Follow in your brother's footsteps?"
"Not now, not ever," he answers. "The system works. Why would I bother changing it when the people who truly deserve it are going to Utopia? I'm not brave enough to revolt... And I'm not putting you at risk for my dead brother."
"Thank you... Tae, that means a lot," you say. "Do you ever think there will be another revolution, though?"
"There are always revolutions," he replies. "There will always be more revolutions. Not everyone can always be completely satisfied with the authority's actions. It is what it is. Even if I have to take the brunt of it."
"You won't," you tell him. "We'll be long gone in Utopia before that happens."
"Y/N..." Taehyung mutters. He turns you around to face him, studying your features before pulling you in for an embrace. "I know you don't like it when I talk about this... but," he pauses, unsure. Yet he takes your silence as the cue to continue on. "In the case that we are separated after the Exam... In the case that something goes wrong... we... we should just continue on with our lives."
"And ignore whatever separated us?" you murmur against his shoulder. "We won't have to worry about that though. I told you not to worry. We're going to Utopia."
"I'm saying, just in case," Taehyung whispers. His hands run through your hair as he rests his chin on your shoulder. "But I'm sure you're right. We'll be in Utopia in no time."
You hum, basking in the warmth of Taehyung's arms. "Of course."
One week.
The library is swarming with teenagers in your year, desperately fighting over books and arguing over facts. It's funny only because you and Taehyung had once been in that state of animosity. It seems such a long time ago, though.
You and Taehyung lounge about in your room, reiterating textbook information out loud to each other over and over again so the material is ingrained in your memories. After a while, it occurs to both of you that you know too well about every book in the whole library. It's no use regurgitating the same information repeatedly when you already know it. So the two of you spend more and more time talking about your futures.
"Do you think they'll let me work as a family counselor when we get to Utopia?" Taehyung asks as he tosses another textbook against the door to your room.
You laugh when he hits the target on the door and shrug. "I don't know, honestly. Do you think they even have family counseling there?"
"You're right," Taehyung scoffs, shaking his head. "We know so little about the place we want to be in so badly."
"Maybe the more we know of it, the less we'll want to be in it," you say. "It's like that thing... that saying..."
"Ignorance is bliss?"
"Yeah, that," you say. "I'm sure we'll have good things to do in Utopia, though. Whether there is a family counselor position or not."
"But I guess we'll have to find out in a week."
One day.
You feel sudden unrest in the air. People are biting their fingernails so hard, they bleed. Others are pulling out their hairs. Some are picking at their scabs.
You and Taehyung hold each other the whole day, whispering little facts here and there to ensure complete memorization. You would be lying if you said you weren't the slightest bit nervous. Yes, you're intelligent, yes, you deserve to be in Utopia and yes, you've been diligent for years... but Taehyung's right. There are some scenarios that might just happen.
Maybe you and Taehyung earn perfect scores along with six others. Or maybe you and Taehyung earn the same scores as fifteen others. Or maybe you and Taehyung don't earn the same scores at all, leaving you separated forever.
You try not to dwell on the negativities too much. After all, it's no use to think of such thoughts anyways, they'll only distract you while taking the most important test of all time. Positive thoughts, only.
Tomorrow will be the very last day in Purgatory. For four hours, you and the hundreds of other students in your year will take a life-changing test. The Exam results will be kept confidential for a painstaking two hours after the final student finishes the Exam. Then men in white suits will whisk away the highest-scoring ones without another word. You will know when you didn't score the highest. Because the men in white will not give you a second look. They will walk past you like you are the scum of the earth. You've seen it happen; you've seen how much that can break someone.
You swear that you will not be broken. You will be the victor who is escorted out with the men in white. You will be accepted into a wealthy society. You promised Yoongi. And Jimin would've wanted to see you like this.
Most of all, you and Taehyung are in this together.
You visit the pit with him in the dead of the night one last time. There are already a few dead bodies piled up in the dark abyss and the stench of death protrudes up your nose quite uncomfortably, but you manage to ignore it. This will be the last time that you will see the last place you saw Jimin and Yoongi. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, so confident about acing the Exam with another man you see your future with.
When you close your eyes, you can imagine your ten-year-old self standing at the edge of the pit, contemplating jumping to be with Jimin. You can see Yoongi scoffing at your stupidity before taking you into his arms and reassuring you. You can see your ten-year-old self crying. You can see a younger version of Yoongi crying. And every year after Yoongi's death, you've visited the pit by yourself. Until this year. Until you met Taehyung. And now you're not so alone anymore.
"Are you tired?" Taehyung asks, placing a warm hand on your cheek.
Your eyes flutter open immediately and you shake your head. "No, I was just thinking. I don't think I'm going to miss this place, but I'm going to miss the memories I made here." You fist the fabric of your sweater—Yoongi's old sweater, which is surprisingly still pretty large around your frail, petite frame. "It's too bad I don't really have a token of remembrance with Jimin..."
"He was all of your childhood," Taehyung soothes you. "I'm pretty sure you don't forget your childhood best friends."
"That's true..." you sigh. "God, I really don't want to forget anything that happened in my life. I need to remember all of this," you gesture towards you and Taehyung. "So we can recall it in the future."
"You'll remember us for sure," he says. "How can you forget? When you'll see me every day, pestering you for the rest of your life?" Taehyung teases, poking at your cheek playfully.
You roll your eyes. "Fun."
"Damn right," he coos, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "We deserve the fun."
"I know," you say, smiling at his unfiltered flirtiness. "C'mon," you tell him, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the building, "we should sleep early today."
"Good idea," Taehyung giggles. "To getting perfect scores tomorrow!" he yells to the sky, his eyes squeezed shut as he dwells in the last few euphoric moments of being in the fresh, night air before being tugged into the dorms by you.
Your heart flutters when he grins widely at you, revealing his row of pearly whites. Damn. You used to hate those too-perfect teeth, but now you love them as much as you... god, as much as you might love him.
To getting perfect scores tomorrow indeed.
One hour.
One hour before the Exam, everyone is lined up to enter their own private room, which is barely a room at all from what you've heard. The space is hardly enough to fit a desk, but it's decorated with bright fluorescent lights and spotlessly white walls. Apparently, it looks more like a mental asylum than an Exam room.
Some may be sensitive to such a small, suffocating place, but you don't really mind. As long as the information is in your head and you don't come down with amnesia in the middle of the Exam, you're fine. You're more than fine. You're going to win this thing—with Taehyung of course.
You and Taehyung hold each other's hands, strangely not as nervous as the jittery teens around you. It's strange for the two of you to be in silence for so long, but it seems fitting in such a loud environment. You probably couldn't hear each other even if you did speak.
There are peers who are already crying. Those who are missing because they jumped into the pit the night before. Those who are physically unwell and have failed to take care of their bodies. Those who look confident on the outside but their eyes brim with fear and uncertainty. And then there is you and Taehyung—radiating confidence.
Taehyung squeezes your hand when the men in white come into the halls, starting to drag the students away by random to shove them into the private Exam rooms. The process takes forever, according to the others, given that there are hundreds of students and hundreds of small rooms.
"It's hilarious how they haven't come up with a more efficient system," you whisper to Taehyung, shaking your head in disdain. "You'd think after taking away the smartest people in Atna that they'd somehow make this process less time-consuming. But they didn't."
"What?" Taehyung whispers back, looking confused as he sees you talking but he can't hear a single word.
"It's hilarious how—" you stop yourself, "NEVER MIND," you say, raising your voice. He wouldn't be able to hear you even if you did yell. And you weren't going to risk a sore throat before the Exam.
Taehyung nods at you, squeezing your hand. The two of you are reduced back into a state of silence as you watch your peers being taken away before you. The men in white are getting closer and closer, and for the first time, you're nervous. You've waited six years for this moment. Four hours are going to decide your future.
Taehyung must sense the tenseness building up in your shoulders because he places his hands on them, wordlessly telling you to relax. You thought in the last moments, you'd be comforting him, but you suppose it's the other way around.
The tables have turned.
The two of you are closer to the men in white than ever. Both of you are going to be whisked away any second now. Taehyung turns you to face him and hands you a tiny ball of paper, grinning.
He mouths something that you do not hear over the incessant roar of students, but you can make out exactly what he says. 'I'll see you in Utopia.'
The small amount of pressure on your shoulders is immediately lifted. 'I'll see you in Utopia,' you mouth back, tightly clenching your fist around the tiny ball of paper he had given you. He gives you a bright, reassuring smile before a man in white takes him away. You watch him leave, mirroring his smile and letting out a deep breath.
When a man in white finally whisks you away into your cramped Exam room, you can't help but feel reinvigorated. Even if your desk is shaky and your chair squeaks when you shift in it, you're absolutely hung up on the fact that you need to finish the Exam as quickly and carefully as possible to read whatever Taehyung had written on the small piece of paper.
The countdown commences, the camera in the room zooms in and out to check if you were keeping your integrity... the Exam booklet sits in front of you.
God, you're so ready.
Confidence surges through your body. You're going to make it out alive. You're sure of it.
Well, that wasn't so bad at all.
You don't want to brag, but the Exam was a piece of cake. The questions were never about understanding the material—instead, they focused on the specifics. The stuff you couldn't common-sense your way out of. The stuff that you either knew or didn't know. But you're a strong memorizer so the questions—even the oddly specific ones—were easy.
The men in white already took your Exam booklet away to score it. Now you're forbidden to leave the testing room for two hours while they grade it. But it's boring in here.
Your neck is a bit sore from looking down at the paper and your fingers ache from gripping your pencil. Maybe once you get to Utopia, Taehyung can give you one of his insanely therapeutic massages?
There's nothing really to do in the room except stare at the camera that's still watching you or counting the number of cracks on your desk. You contemplate for a short while whether to open the note Taehyung had handed you, but you don't want to risk an accusation of dishonesty.
If you're accused, you're likely to never be seen again.
So you make use of your time and doze off. After taking the Exam, you realize that there's no doubt you scored extremely well (you might've even gotten a perfect score!) and all the nervousness you had over the past several years (which wasn't that much) have vanished into thin air. You're confident enough to sleep.
In your dreams, you see Jimin, Yoongi and Taehyung. The four of you are best friends in a world that looks like Utopia but isn't. There is no Exam that determines your whole future. There is no Purgatory, no Dystopia... No horrible education system. No rats... No pit... It's a utopian world that's better than the Utopia that you know today.
And you're only woken from your heavenly dream when there's a knock on your door. It opens before you can stay anything and a man in white gestures for you to walk out of the room. Rubbing your eyes and shaking away your drowsiness, you obey him. The man closes the door once you are out of the room.
Left and right of you, there are hundreds of students standing outside of their rooms. The tension, the nervousness in the long hallway could be sliced with a knife. But you don't contribute to the sea of worries. You lean against the door, waiting for you to be whisked away, waiting to meet Taehyung at the end of the hallway. Waiting to be driven away in some grandeur vehicle.
You wait for only two people to be taken away. Or maybe there are others who scored a perfect score? No matter. At this point, you only care if you and Taehyung made it.
Everyone holds their breaths as the men in white start to walk through the halls. You see Taehyung ahead of you, already giving you a silly look and smiling confidently at you. You breathe a huge sigh of relief before turning your head to watch the men in white.
So far, they haven't taken anyone from their stance in front of their Exam rooms. Your heart beats loudly in your chest when they come closer and closer to you. God, they must've passed at least two hundred people to get to me. And still no high-scorer.
You and Taehyung have an enormous chance now.
You hold your breath as the men in white come closer and closer.
Any minute now...
You grit your teeth, tensing your shoulders when they're so nearby, if you reached out to them, you could touch their white suits. Your ears ring, drowning out the cries of the students who were standing behind you and were left stranded by the men in white.
Closer and closer and closer...
Your nails dig into your skin.
Closer...
You nearly scream in victory when a man in white stops straight in front of you. He nods in your direction and then places a hand on the small of your back to escort you away.
You can feel the burning eyes of jealousy digging daggers on your back as you begin to walk. But you can't help feeling like royalty. This is the moment you've been waiting for. You've been selected. You've scored the highest. You're going to be Utopian.
Taehyung catches your eye and gives you a huge thumbs up from afar. You're grinning from ear to ear as you begin to approach him. As soon as a man in white officially deems that he is coming with you, you're going to proudly hold his hand and walk through the hallway like you owned all of Purgatory. You're going to spend the proudest moment of your life with him by your side. Knowing that you made it through with him. And then you're going to read his note in the vehicle, on the way to Utopia. You have it all planned out in your head. It's going to be wonderf—
Wait.
The man in white who is escorting you is not slowing down, and the other men around you aren't looking to stop either. Wait.
You're going to pass Taehyung at this rate. Wait a fucking minute.
You suddenly break out in cold sweat as you and the men come closer and closer to Taehyung.
There's no way.
He had to have done extremely well. He has to come with me.
Taehyung looks a bit taken aback as well. His eyes reflect fear and the worry lines pressed on his forehead indicate no less than that.
You don't lose eye contact with him as the men continue to escort you down the hallway.
"Taehyung," you murmur when you're directly next to him. "Taehyung!" you yell. Your voice echoes eerily across the corridor.
"Y/N!" Taehyung yells back.
He's behind you now. The men won't let you stop walking.
"Taehyung!" you scream again, trying to turn around to look at him. "Tae!"
"Don't turn around, miss," the man escorting you speaks gruffly.
"There's been a mistake!" you cry. "Tae-Taehyung is supposed to be with me! Taehyung!"
"Don't make this difficult," the man answered. The hand on your back suddenly seems threatening.
"Y/N!!" Taehyung shouts again. His eyes brim with tears and he sinks to his knees.
"Get up!" someone yells at him. "Stand up, boy!"
"Y/N!" He ignores the command, sobbing with his hands reaching out for you and eyes pleading for safety, for your comfort.
You twist your body around, shaking off the grasps of your escort as you yell his name so loudly that your voice echoes across the vast expanse of the hallway.
"Behave," your escort grunts with gritted teeth as he tugs you away, gesturing the other men in white to block your view from Taehyung.
Tears stream down your face as you beg the men in white to let you see Taehyung one last time. They don't budge. It's not until you hear the beatings and Taehyung's agonizing screams that you try to kick the men's shins and escape. But they catch you, hoist you up and carry you away.
You thrash, scream, "Please don't hurt him!" but the screams, grunts and kicks never stop. You always thought your walk down this hallway would be glorious—the glory only lasted for a few minutes. You were supposed to walk down here hand in hand with Taehyung. Now Taehyung might be dead for disobeying orders.
You were supposed to be draped in silk and mink coats. You were supposed to be spritzed with sweet fragrances and treated like a princess. But everyone—even your peers—look at you with what you recognize as pity. Or maybe even disgust.
They must think you're crazy for not being thankful for being a high-scorer on the Exam. Some would kill to be in your place right now.
You hadn't expected—after your eight years in Purgatory—for your journey here to end like this. You're embarrassingly carried across the shoulder of the man in white, forced to dangle over him like a dead animal. You can feel the scrutinizing gazes of your peers. The ones who didn't get chosen.
It strikes you that you're alone now.
No more Jimin. No more Yoongi... And no more Taehyung.
You squeeze your eyes shut, praying for another person who scored the same as you. Maybe you'll find a new friend? Maybe you won't be alone again.
But the hallway ends and opens up to a door and you're still the only person the men in white have escorted. Your heart sinks. You're alone.
They shove you in a shiny black vehicle where the inside is air-conditioned and smells of roses. There are unfamiliar snacks in elaborate wrappings and ice-cold fizzy drinks around you—all for you—but you aren't hungry. The tears won't stop.
Were the riches and wealth worth the loneliness that will consume you for years to come?
You are a legend. A model figure. A genius.
The first to ever score 100% on the Exam. You're dragged from here to there, paid by the richest of Utopians to tutor their young children before they're sent off to Purgatory.
Frankly, you're upset at the lavishness of Utopia. There is always more to eat—so much so that one-fourths of every meal goes into the trash. The people here put ice cubes in their water to cool it. In Dystopia, there was never enough to eat and water was scarce. Purgatory never had a diverse array of food, and water was always lukewarm.
You're not sure if you belong here.
You miss Taehyung more than ever these days. Your new home is far too large for one person. You feel empty, cold inside. Even basking in the sunlight shining through your gold-rimmed window isn't enough to warm you. You tug the sleeves of Yoongi's sweater over your hands. Even after all these years in Utopia, you can't get accustomed to the fancy, frilly clothes here. You like Yoongi's old, frayed sweaters much better. And it's your only token of remembrance of him. You feel like you did him well because after all, you kept your promise. But Yoongi was wrong about one thing: the life of a Utopian did not suit you.
You can't help but think back to the days of Dystopia—of you and Jimin. Taehyung's right, you never really forget your childhood best friend. You've written down all of your memories about Jimin in a black leather-bound journal, which you keep out in the open by the window sill. On harder days, you like to read through the entries to refresh your memories and recall the stories that make you laugh or tear up with nostalgia.
The magnificent garden outside your home looks empty despite the plethora of flowers and colorful vines that sprout and bloom across the expanse of the healthy, verdant grass. Sighing, you clutch the silver locket resting between your collarbones. You've been wearing the necklace ever since the day you were first admitted into Utopia.
Inside the locket is a neatly folded up note. The piece of paper is old and crinkled and it has obviously been ripped out from a textbook called Family Studies. Taehyung's writing is etched onto it in black ink. You've read over the note so many times that you know exactly what it says by heart.
Y/N,
I was saving this to tell you in Utopia, but I can't wait for that day, even if it's tomorrow. I need to tell you now that I love you. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for dealing with me. Thank you for calming me down.
You're welcome for those back massages. You're welcome for listening to your stories about Jimin and Yoongi. You're welcome for being by your side. I do it so much because I hate seeing you lonely.
Utopia will be great, Y/N. I think we'll live a great life there, don't you think?
I just want to say that if anything happens, we need to continue on with our lives. Because whatever the Exam decides, we deserve the results.
Nevertheless, I'll see you in Utopia, Y/N~
You tear up every time you open up your locket and study Taehyung's handwriting and his last words to you. Of course, you love him too. And it kills you that you don’t even know whether he's alive.
How cruel it is to live in such a wealthy place but feel worse than you had been in Dystopia and Purgatory.
The Exam is a curse. There is no way you could've beaten it, but you'd very much rather be hauled back into Dystopia with someone you care about than being stuck in this fast-paced, artificial world with no one but yourself.
It dawns on you horrifyingly. You did not beat the Exam. You did not win. You survived it.
And for the rest of your life, you must suffer the casualties.
—masterpost
—masterlist
#ficswithluv#btswritersnet#btswriterscollective#bangtanfairygarden#bangtanidx#tae#taehyung#kim taehyung#taehyung imagine#taehyung fanfic#taehyung fanfiction#bts#bts fanfiction#the exam#this story kinda hurts lmao#i was reading it over yesterday and damn it hurts yikes#some of the details are important to remember for the secOnd part of the series (:
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CRL: Ed Gein
Trigger Warning: Murder, Grave Digging, Suggested/implied mutilation of bodies & disturbing images.
The disturbing images are linked at the bottom of the post.
Edward Theodore Gein (Ed Gein), was born to Augusta Wilhelmine Gein and George Phillip, on 08/27/1906 in La Crosse Wisconsin US. As Ed was growing up, he was a target for bullies due to the fact that he was undeveloped in terms of social skills; however he did well in terms of academics. One thing that his teachers noticed during Elementary school, he had strange mannerisms such as busting out in laughter, and it is said that he had his own internal monologue. One possible reason that he had this, was because his mother abused Ed when he tried to make friends.
His mother, Augusta Wilhelmine Gein raised Ed and Henry (Ed’s brother) Gein in a secluded farmhouse, whilst living there she would read them the Bible, and would also preach that the world was inherently evil. When Ed was 38 years of age, they were working on the farm there was a fire that got out of hand. After the fire was put under control by Ed Gein, he reported his brother missing. Later when a Search and Rescue party was put together, Ed lead them straight to his brother’s dead body. It was speculated that Ed was the one that killed his brother, however he was never charged with his death as there was not enough evidence to support their theory.
In December 1945, his mother died from a series of strokes. After this, he boarded up all the rooms that his mother frequented when she was alive, this included her bedroom. The places that were boarded up, remained clean while the parts that he lived in became un-kept, as he was not concerned about the up-keep of the house. Whilst he was living on the farm, he became interested in death-cult magazines and Nazi-Cannibal Adventure stories.
During the fall of 1957, store owner Bernice Worden, went missing. Her son, Frank who was the Deputy Sheriff went to go see his mother and then realized that the cash register was open, and there were bloodstains on the floor of the store. Whilst interviewing suspects, they found out that Gein had visited the store the previous night, and then he said that he would be back in the morning to get some antifreeze. When they investigated it, they found that the last known purchase was made by Gein for a gallon of antifreeze. Due to this fact, they arrested Gein, and this then enabled them to search the farm.
When the police searched Gein’s property, they found: 4 noses, whole human bones, and fragments, 9 masks of human skin, bowls made from skulls, skulls placed on the bedposts, 10 female heads with the tops sawn off and a lampshade made from the face of a person. They found Bernice Worden’s body; she had been decapitated; her head was hung in a burlap sack while her heart hung in a plastic bag near the stove. The rest of her body had been strung upside down and gutted like a dear. They also found the remains of Mary Hogan, dismembered in the same way as Worden.
When Gein was interviewed, they found that he had made about 40 visits to 3 local graveyards to get recently buried bodies; they had all been middle-aged women that resembled his mother. It was reported that he wanted a sex change and so he wanted to create a “woman suit” so that he could pretend to be a female.
Even though there were remains of both Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, and the remains of around 9 other women; he was only charged with the murder of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. He was not charged with his brothers’ death or the remains of 9 other women.
Gein pleaded not guilty for the reason of insanity and that he was then declared unfit to stand trial. After this, he was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane; this is where he was then diagnosed with schizophrenia.
This is not my post, it is someone else. Including linking to the post, I will also be linking the original poster’s Tumblr.
LINK TO IMAGES
LINK TO TUMBLR
Sources
Ed Gein | Criminal Minds Wiki | Fandom
Edward Gein
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These Horrifying ‘Human Zoos’ Delighted American Audiences at The Turn of the 20th Century
“‘Specimens’ were acquired from Africa, Asia, and the Americas by deceptive human traffickers”
Image: A group of Philippine “Head-Hunters” on display at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. (Jessie Tarbox Beals/Missouri Historical Society)
More than 20 million people attended the 1904 World’s Fair. They came to St. Louis to see electricity for the first time, to hear the first telephone, and to witness around 3,000 “savages” from Africa, Asia, and the Americas living in “displays” that resembled their native villages. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Western world was desperate to see the “savage,” “primitive” peoples described by explorers and adventurers scouting out new lands for colonial exploitation. To feed the frenzy, thousands of indigenous individuals from Africa, Asia, and the Americas were brought to the United States and Europe, often under dubious circumstances, to be put on display in a quasi-captive life in “human zoos.”
These indigenous men, women, and children were brought to the fair to perform their “backwards,” “primitive” culture for eager American masses who could leave feeling a renewed sense of racial superiority. Due to poor record-keeping, backroom dealing, and the huge number of colonial governments involved, it’s impossible to know the exact number of those who participated in “human zoos,” but it’s not small. In his 1908 autobiography, Carl Hagenbeck, a human rarities agent, bragged that during a ten-year period, he — alone — brought more than 900 indigenous people to the U.S. and Europe for exhibition.
At the fair, the indigenous people on display faced a number of challenges over the eight long months of their stay. African tribal members were required to wear traditional clothing intended for the equatorial heat, even in freezing December temperatures, and Filipino villagers were made to perform a seasonal dog-eating ritual over and over to shock the audience. A lack of drinking water and appalling sanitary conditions led to rampant dysentery and other illnesses. Two “performers” died on the fairgrounds that season, Filipinos whose bodies still reside at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. Others, including kindergartners from Arizona’s Pima Indian tribe, were shipped home at the first sign of sickness — what happened after their return was not the fair’s concern.
In most cases, there were no bars to keep those in human zoos from escaping, but the vast majority, especially those brought from foreign continents, had nowhere else to go. Set up in mock “ethnic villages,” indigenous people were asked to perform typical daily tasks, show off “primitive” skills like making stone tools, and pantomime rituals. In some shows, indigenous performers engaged in fake battles or tests of strength.
Human rarities agents, the men who acquired human “specimens” for circuses, expositions, and other events in the West, were essential middlemen feeding this popular form of entertainment. Some agents were religious men who had begun their work as missionaries, or early anthropologists who lived in and studied distant communities. Others were entrepreneurs who sought to capitalize on the public’s desire to gawk and objectify. All, to some degree, were human traffickers.
Human zoos were most prevalent between the 1870s and World War I, but the practice began soon after the invention of the modern circus in London in the 1770s. By the 1830s and ’40s, there was an increasing “preoccupation with man being placed in a threatening position,” Fred Dahlinger Jr., curator of circus history at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, told Timeline. Like the inclusion of rare beasts from foreign lands, human zoos and other displays of indigenous peoples offered audiences a hierarchical narrative of race where the West triumphed over “uncivilized” cultures. Lion tamers overpowered big cats — and white men wrangled dark-skinned, “primitive” people who could be labeled as cannibals or vicious savages to clueless Americans encountering them for the first time.
Hagenbeck, as well as Barnum & Bailey Circus recruiter Robert A. Cunningham, anthropologist Frederick Starr, and, perhaps most famously, South Carolina minister turned trafficker Samuel Phillips Verner, created lucrative careers trafficking in “savages” for human zoos.
Despite questionable practices, however, not all of the men and women who performed in human zoos and traveling shows were coerced. Some participated willingly, even zealously, in theatrical and cultural performances. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, for example, provided Lakota Sioux activists like Chief Sitting Bull and Luther Standing Bear with the opportunity to appeal directly to American and European audiences regarding the oppression of their communities. The introductions to world leaders and international acclaim that Standing Bear achieved in his travels with Buffalo Bill eventually led to his participation in the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which emphasized Indian self-determination over the plundering and assimilation of Indian lands and communities advocated by the 1887 Dawes Act.
Imagine having to appeal to the moral sense of your oppressor by letting them see you in a zoo-like setting because they wouldn't understand otherwise.
#history#american history#western history#indigenousness#people of color#poc#oppression#disenfranchisement#racism#antiblackness#antibrownness#white supremacy#whiteness#white culture
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Hello! I’d love to know more about your OC species specifically! Everything about their planet, it’s economy, and its biomes? Religion/spirituality? Gender/general societal LGBTQ+ things? Education systems? Guiding values? Diet? And most importantly, what is the weirdest thing about humans to them? :P
Thank you!
Ohhhohohoho yes this I love this
Orileans (for reference I’m using the Standard Orilean language that was established after first contact, but is not widely used on Orlei)
Orlei, at the time ds9 takes place, is a bit of a mess. There’s a drought/dust bowl on the western side (region of K’Tax) and a civil war in the Southeast region of K’thane. Famine is widespread due to the drought and K’thane blockades. The president of K’thane (where Nah’Lei grew up) is not a very good dude, and this war has been going on for like sixty years, starting with the current presidents father in power. Nah’Lei had been a diplomat for the K’thix Separatists (the rebel group trying to break away from K’thane) long before she was in the Federation. Basically, K’thix is a region that was taken over by K’thane hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and now they’re rebelling to get their land back.
Mostly, Orlei is a desert planet, with scattered forests and only 45% of the planet covered in water. That’s why the spikes were developed, to deter swooping predators.
As for religion, there are many different ones, as for any planet, but the most widespread is a polytheistic religion that worships various gods of harvest and hunt. There are certain spike adornments that indicate religious affiliation, as well as some non-religious ones that have appeared more recently and are HIGHLY debated by religious authorities and politicians.
Despite the fact they each have their own language, they value connection with each other HIGHLY. Usually, each person’s first language is mostly made up from the combination of their parents' languages, and as relationships progress, they make their own languages as well!
There are four genders! One with a role much like human women, one reserved for high religious figures (whose word literally translates in most languages to “one of the rain”), farmers and their children, and one another that is very similar to human women but with a more religious presentation. They don’t correspond with sex, and they’re very caste-based. And there are certain taboos in marriage (1 and 3 weren’t legally allowed to marry until only around a hundred years ago)
There is a role of person that just travels and learns! Most children’s education consists of five parts (basic baby socialization, elementary school, high school, a three to ten year university period, and a year or two of traveling), but many kids of the richest families decide to become wanderers (who travel, learn, make art, and spend their whole lives exploring the nature of knowledge and the self)
They can’t cover up the place where the bony spike meets their shoulder or else they risk “contact infection” where the seam of skin gets a bunch of cysts and causes extreme pain. This often conflicts with starfleet dress codes and Nah’Lei (one of the only Orileans in the fleet) is in the sick bay with them a LOT. Because of this, a lot of their shirts are open shoulder or wrap around.
Pop culture is also really fun! There are an insane amount of music genres (some varying by the smallest things) and I won’t even try to explain them all because even I have no idea how to actually categorize them. There is a standard writing system (and since joining the federation, a standard speaking system was created for speaking with aliens) and literature consists of mainly adventure novels very akin to Lord of the Rings.
Weirdest thing about humans to them: either the smooth shoulders or the fact that they sleep for eight hours a night. Orileans don’t need as much sleep, but if they don’t go into the deep, almost death-like state that they need for at least an hour they’ll be very cranky (much like humans when they’re sleep deprived) and it’s pretty difficult to go into that state when stressed. Nah’Lei hasn’t had a full hour since she joined starfleet.
Katrians
I honestly don’t have a lot of information for them. They’re a fairly new species for me, but I do like exploring how the destruction of their planet affected them culturally.
A lot of Katrians struggle with identity issues. They are constantly living under others’ governments and among others’ people with very little political representation wherever they choose to live.
The main religion is like Catholicism in that they pray to something like Saints. Really, they worship the “enlightened” which is a group of artists and scientists that really existed and brought about a Golden Age of Katria.
The smaller religion (the one Lierza and her family are a part of) is considered an evil, unenlightened cult by those who worship the Enlightened and have been persecuted throughout Katrian history. They actually have two goddesses who are in love and created Katria and its surrounding star system. They pray by planting, actually! Gardens are kinda like shrines and seeds are considered the children of the goddesses.
A lot of major cities on Kronos and Earth have “little Katria” regions where a lot of Katrians (usually of the same religion/ethnic group) congregate.
Weirdest thing about humans to them: How easy their bones are to break. Katrian bones are like fucking steel and if one breaks it’s basically fatal.
That’s about it I have for them so far, but I’ll let you know if I think about anything else!
Hysarai
First and foremost, cannibalism is considered an honorable way to treat a body. In times of famine or war, Hysari will eat dead bodies and bury the remaining shell.
They’re very mechanically curious, and had a period of EXTREMELY rapid scientific progression, developing warp speed and making first contact only about one hundred years after developing electricity. They made first contact with Andorians, who are only about a star system over.
Interestingly enough, the Hysarai never developed religion. Their pattern of evolution was just sort of known by everyone and they just... never had one.
In starfleet, they usually go into engineering. Their silk is a fantastic adhesive and they can get into places some others can’t. That, combined with the value placed on machines and tech, they make incredibly engineers.
They only have two basic sexes, but are fluid about gender. Otherwise, they’re pretty matriarchal, with mothers being some of the most valued.
They also really like jazz because their main prey sounds a lot like trumpets. They mostly eat other bugs (usually just raw with seasoning or very lightly cooked).
Their planet is a jungle planet and there is so much oxygen that a human will probably immediately die on it. It’s largely populated by arthropods, with only ten or so species of mammals. They also had a lot of cities spring up after the rapid period of mechanical development.
Weirdest thing about humans to them: they eat plants. Who eats plants?? and they DON’T eat their fallen comrade’s dead bodies?
If you have anything else you want to know shoot me an ask or a DM!
#ocs#original aliens#orileans#hysarai#katrians#long post#thank you so much for sending me this :')#also sorry for the wait!#big-gay-bird
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Put On Your Raincoats #23 | Jungle Blue (Tobalina, 1978)
These days, as I spend much of my time trawling through Letterboxd, one of the things that will get me interested in a movie is an eye-catching poster. Plenty of ill-advised viewing decisions have been made by yours truly on the strength of a striking poster or cover art. You would think by now I would at least weigh the plot synopsis or the talent involved, but truth be told, sometimes the poster wins. (Nobody's perfect.) Carlos Tobalina's Jungle Blue has a great one. (I should clarify that you won't find this on Letterboxd, at least until they change their dumbassed "no porno" policy.) Lots of scantily clad women scattered throughout a jungle background. (And a couple of dudes, because we have to hit a ratio. Nobody's perfect.) Scrawled across the top in (mostly) capital letters: "WARNING!! THE JUNGLE IS HOT and WET and IT BRINGS OUT THE BEAST IN YOU!" ("And" is in lowercase both times. Nobody's perfect.) And smack dab in the middle: a grinning gorilla, cradling a shapely nude woman and pointing a banana (not a euphemism) at her. As the bottom right corner says, "Truly, the ball of the wild!" Look, you put a gorilla front and centre on your poster, I'm left with no choice but to watch your movie. Either I'll be treated to a real gorilla or a guy in a gorilla suit, which offers a baseline of entertainment value. There's no way this won't be eighty-odd minutes well spent.
The movie delivers what it promises with its opening shot. A man in a gorilla suit, in flagrante delicto. Yeah, that's right. The gorilla's gettin' it on with a good looking lady. Now, if the entire movie were about this gorilla getting into various shenanigans, this would be a 10/10 movie. Alas, there are other things that happen. Like how the main character, played by Nina Fause, going to the Peruvian jungle to find some priceless jewels and poisoning a bunch of other people in the process. You know Nina is evil because she says in the narration that she plans to do exactly that, which would have been a lot funnier if she said it out loud. Credit to the movie, it looks like they actually did go down to Peru and shoot there, which gives it some power, as Werner Herzog once said, through the "voodoo of location." The condescension in the narration lends it some semblance of commentary similar to the cannibal films popular during the same era, although this is thankfully much more palatable than those.
The movie is also about her scheme to get it on with a legendary immortal man who lives in the jungle and whose only friends are animals. One of these animals is the aforementioned gorilla. Now, you're probably going to point out that gorillas are not native to South America, and you'd be right. Credit to the movie, it definitely knows this, and explains that the gorilla escaped from the circus. There are also chimpanzees and baboons and some other animals which are also not native to South America. The movie does not explain their presence, but it does cut to shots of them, and their genitals, during the sex scenes. Now, I try to approach movies with respect for their original context, and this movie's original context would have been in a porno theatre while a bunch of creepy guys in raincoats jack off in the dark. Did these men time their motions in between the cuts? Did they wait it out until the animals were nowhere near the action? Or did they just power ahead, accepting that the monkeys are inescapable and that maybe that's what they're into now? These are the questions that occurred to me during the movie. It's worth noting that the gorilla suit man gets an extended sex scene later in the movie, perhaps to cater to the audience's evolving tastes.
In between this, we cut to scenes in a hotel with a bunch of people in an orgy. Among the participants are Fause and a few other recognizable faces, like Annette Haven and Candida Royalle. Now, I've seen the former in a few things and I've quite liked her. She's a good actress and quite easy on the eyes, and seeing her name in the credits definitely enticed me. Alas, if you watch this for her, you'll be disappointed as you don't even get a very good look at her. Annette is in the corner, riding away, with nary clear shot of her face. You don't get a good look at Candida either, although you do see that the guy fucking her is wearing a lot of rings, which seems ill-advised in this situation. (I suppose, like Charles Grodin admitted in an interview with David Letterman, that he doesn't know where to put his valuables during such scenes.) The orgy is shot with no real rhythm or shape, the camera drifting in and out of unmotivated and poorly chosen close-ups. Given how much of the film's runtime is devoted to these scenes, I suspect Tobalina either had a bunch of orgy footage that he didn't have a movie for or ran out of money shooting in Peru and needed something cheap to fill up the runtime.
There is one other thing about these scenes that bugged me. Now, I don't lead a terribly interesting personal life. Which is to say, I've never been in an orgy, and am certainly in no position to opine on proper orgy etiquette. But I do think if you're going to host a gathering, you should put some effort into making everyone feel welcome. In this orgy, there are an odd number of participants. Now, you'd think this wouldn't be an issue, but alas, everyone pairs off except this poor schmuck, he's left all by himself to jack off in the corner. When he asks who he's supposed to do it with, they tell him another girl is coming. Again, I am in no way speaking with any authority here, but it seems to defeat the purpose of group sex for everyone to pair off and leave an odd man out. Some of these people could have easily rearranged themselves to facilitate a threesome. Or even a foursome. Or why not a whole daisy chain arrangement? Might have made this scene feel less shapeless.
It's hard to call this a good movie, but for eighty or so minutes, I had a passable time. I have a weakness for jungle adventures, having suffered through enough cannibal movies to eke out those drops of real jungle atmosphere, and as I mentioned above, this is a much easier watch than those. And while I'd hesitate to call Nina Fause a good actress, she's at least easy on the eyes and I didn't mind her line readings. And what can I say, it delivers what the poster promises.
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Grimmtober Day 31: The Robber Bridegroom
One of them noticed a gold ring on the murdered girl's little finger. Because it did not come off easily, he took an ax and chopped the finger off, but it flew into the air and over the barrel, falling right into the bride's lap.
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A spooky one to celebrate the last day of Grimmtober! Content warnings for women in peril, cannibalism, murder, mutilation, and gore. This is a story of ATU type 955, and it is told like this:
Once there was a miller who had a beautiful daughter of marriageable age. He decided he would get her married to the first suitable groom who passed by. Soon there came a wealthy man who seemed of good sorts, and the betrothal was set. However, the man left the young bride with a deep sense of unease which she could not place.
At first, all was well, as they stayed apart, but eventually, the bridegroom asked the woman why she wouldn't visit him though they had been betrothed for several months. First, she tried to say that she did not know where he lived, but he told her he lived in the middle of the forest.
This only strengthened her unease, and she tried to excuse herself by saying she wouldn't know how to find it. But the Bridegroom said that he'd leave a trail of ashes for her to follow. Unable to put it off anymore, she agreed.
The time came for the young bride to visit the house, and she set off into the forest with a pocket full of peas and lentils, dropping one along the path as she walked. Eventually, she came across a lonely old house and she was filled with an even greater sense of dread.
As she entered a bird in a cage in the corner of the first room warned her away, telling her that she was in a murderer's house. She ignored the warning and ventured forth. Every room she passed was empty. Finally, she came to the cellar, where she found an old woman tending to a cauldron.
The old woman told her that this was a house of cabalistic robbers, of which her bridegroom was the leader, who were certain to have her killed and eaten if she married into the household. The old woman hid her away behind a large cask of wine and promised that she would help her escape that night, for she too was looking for a way to leave the house.
No sooner had she done this, than the door opened and the band of robbers returned, carrying a struggling young woman. They made her drink three glasses of wine, red, white, and yellow, and she fell down dead. They then stripped the body of jewels and finery, chopped her up, and cooked her to eat.
As they ate, one of the robbers noticed a gold ring on a finger of the body. It was not easy to remove, so he took an axe and chopped off the finger. But the finger flew into the air and landed in the lap of the bride behind the cask. The robbers searched the room but were unable to find the finger. Just as they were to check behind the cask, the old woman convinced them to give up the search, as the finger wasn't likely to run away in the night.
The woman then drugged the robbers' wine, and once they were all asleep, she and the young bride snuck away. The trail of ashes was destroyed, but the peas and lentils had sprouted enough for them to find their way out of the forest. The girl ran home and told her father everything.
On the day of the wedding, the bridegroom and his gang arrived, along with a large number of other guests, as the miller had invited all of his friends and relatives. At the wedding feast, each was asked to tell a story, and the bride sat through it all in silence. Then the groom urged her to tell a story of her own, so she told the story of her adventure in the robbers' house - but she framed it as though it was something she experienced in the dream.
After each sentence she spoke, the robber tried to say that it was only a dream, but then she mentioned the finger with the golden ring and pulled out the same finger as evidence. The robber went pale and tried to run away, but he and his band were caught by the rest of the wedding guests and turned over to the courts. He and his entire band were executed for their crimes.
How's that for a Halloween tale?! This was first published in Children's and Household Tales, though I can't imagine reading it to any child today. It certainly makes for a grim bedtime story (pun fully intended).
I was originally going to do Bluebeard for today's tale, which was in the original Grimm's fairytales. However, the Grimms took their version of the story out of subsequent printings as they felt it belonged more to the French storytelling tradition. It's really hard to find their version online - most of the ones I found are just Perrault's tale attributed to the Grimms - and it looks like you may only be able to read it if you're lucky enough to find it in print. The Jack Zipes translation is supposed to be quite good. I did find this cool blog post comparing the two though if you are interested.
The Robber Bridegroom has a lot of similarities to Bluebeard and other ATU 312 tales. However, it isn't the "sin" of curiosity (The blog I linked has a good point to make about that in the Grimm version vs the Perrault version of Bluebeard) that gets the girl in trouble. She finds herself in danger because she ignores her gut feeling and more explicit warnings. At the same time, it is her quick wit, and, importantly, the help of the old lady - another woman in a similar situation as the bride.
Looking at folklore and fairy tales through a feminist lens can be tricky. Many stories either fall into a "Woman as a prize/prop/victim" category or exist in a sort of grey area in terms of agency. Part of this is because of the tropey nature of the tales - you're literally working with archetypes and stock characters. In most cases, unless the character is the protagonist, they're not going to be particularly fleshed out. So it's no real coincidence that the Grimm stories that give the most agency to women are usually the ones where the women are the protagonists (this one, Seven Ravens, and even to an extent the original Cinderella for example).
There's also the time period to take into account. Most folk/fairy tales were meant to educate as much as they were meant to entertain. Your protagonists should have traits that you want your children to emulate. So the view of femininity and the woman's role in society at the time will play a part in how women are portrayed in folktales. (There are a lot of papers out there that explain it better than me). Looking at it from a modern lens, I see this as a story about a girl who got bad vibes about her finance, was proven right on further investigation, and managed to bring him to justice with the help of another victim of his abuse. What did it represent to women in the 19th century?
On a lighter note: I can't end the month of Grimmtober without my usual PSA for today's shitty parent - our buddy the miller. Would it kill you to do a background check on your future son-in-law? Rich dude comes up to your door, no background or history, lives in a spooky house in the woods with a bunch of friends, no apparent job to speak of, and you're like "yeah seems legit"? Maybe a house call, or asking around if anyone knows the dude, anything before marrying off your only child. YIKES, my man. Big Yikes.
Further Reading:
The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre - Jack Zipes
Women Who Open Doors: Bluebeard and Horror - Chloe N. Clark
Not So Very Blue, after All: Resisting the Temptation to Correct Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard - Nicholas Ruddick
Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths And Stories Of The Wild Woman Archetype - Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Bluebeard's Female Helper: The Ambiguous Role of the Strange Old Woman in the Grimms' "Castle of Murder" and "The Robber Bridegroom." - Daniela Hempen
Fractured fairy tales: German women authors and the Grimm tradition - Janine Blackwell
"Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale - Marcia R. Lieberman
#the brothers grimm#grimmtober#grimm's fairy tales#artober2020#artober#fairy tales#the robber bridegroom#shiv's art#tw: gore#tw: mutilation#tw: blood#tw: cannibalism#tw: women in dangerous situations#tw: murder
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The Raven and the Reindeer Review
The Raven and the Reindeer is the November-December Mythtake book club read. I haven’t taken part in this book club before, but The Snow Queen, on which this book is based, is one of my favorite fairytales, so I decided to go along for the ride. The rough storyline is that two best friends, Gerta and Kay, live next door to each other, but Kay has a shard of cold, enchanted glass from a magical mirror embedded in his heart, which primes him to be susceptible to temptation from the Snow Queen. Kay follows the Snow Queen to her palace, and the community gives him up for dead, but Gerta is certain she can save him. She completes a hero’s journey style adventure to get Kay back from the Snow Queen and encounters various eccentric characters and challenges, including a talking raven. This review contains “spoilers” for the original story — don’t @ me, you have had 176 years to read it.
In preparation for reading this book, I reread The Snow Queen story in my Amazon Classics edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. I think this is edition is either done by a different translator or is an abridged version, because The Snow Queen story and others in the collection were missing details that I remember from my well-loved edition that is currently residing in my parents’ garage in California. For example, the witch Gerta encounters at the beginning of her journey shrinks the rose bushes in her garden back into the ground, so that Gerta will not remember her quest to find her friend Kay, or that the rose bushes grow back, watered by Gerta’s tears when she cries about not being able to remember something important.
Similarly, the Robber Maiden character does not “tickle” Gerta with her knife, nor are there snowflake soldiers guarding the Snow Queen’s palace. The snowflake soldiers are my favorite detail from the story, and I am very sad they were not included in either this edition of Andersen’s stories or The Raven and the Reindeer. Where are the snowflake soldiers??? Bring these bad boys back.
Kingfisher takes several liberties with her retelling and the story is better for it. Gerta still believes that Kay is her soulmate, but also engages in a female-female romance somewhere along the way. The talking raven makes an appearance as well (duh, it’s in the title), and in this version, helps Gerta shape-shift. Exciting.
By expanding the parameters of the original story, Kingfisher can give the characters more depth and development. For example, in this version, Gerta thinks critically about her relationship with Kay, and how he displays toxic behavior (because of the evil glass in his heart, definitely not because of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy).
This makes Gerta reevaluate why she wants to save him in the first place, and if that will be worth it for her (and him). When they eventually do come back together, they will have a lot to talk through for their relationship going forward.
Kay is the only male character in the entire book, and he is a very passive character, so the narrative is female-driven. The exploration of old women is also a big part of the story and shows the different paths ahead for Gerta herself as she ages. The first witch she comes across (the one with, or rather without, the rosebushes) is obsessed with holding onto her relationship with Gerta and preventing her from leaving, much the way Gerta views her relationship with Kay.
Next on her adventure, Gerta meets a storyteller who agrees to help her in exchange for her story, so she can entertain her community. Gerta relays her adventure so far but warns that it is so bizarre that no one will believe it. The storyteller assures her it does not matter; that people are less interested in facts as much as feelings.
“No one wants true stories. They want stories with truth dusted over them, like sugar on a bun.”
Gerta’s entire motivation for her trek to the Snow Queen’s palace is her feelings for Kay, without regard for the realities of their relationship, including how Kay does not appreciate her as much as she deserves.
The next woman she encounters is the Robber Maidens grandmother, a grumpy woman who brags about her cannibalism like a totally normal person.
“Stop it,” said Janna, annoyed. “You ate a man once fifty years ago, and you relive it like it was your glory days.” “Everybody should eat somebody once,” said Nan. “Changes your mind about a lot of things. Aaha!”
Gerta views Nan as a “bad” person — possibly because of the cannibalism thing? Who can say — and projects her fears about her own future onto Nan. Gerta is worried she will grow to be lonely and embittered like Nan if she does not find her #soulmate Kay.
The last old woman Gerta encounters is Livli, a woman living presumably near or north of the Arctic Circle, whose secret knowledge of magic helps Gerta shapeshift. Livli is a morally neutral character who shows Gerta how to be self-reliant without being embittered, and by facilitating her literal shape-shifting, helps her “shape-shift” from childhood to adulthood. After this, Gerta can finally be comfortable with herself.
The addition of the characters of the otters who pull the Snow Queens sleigh was charming. It was almost enough to displace my displeasure about losing the snowflake soldiers…almost. The otter herd was cute and funny and was both an interesting obstacle, and eventually a helping influence. The portrayal of the otters as a single entity with many bodies enriched the “herd” vibe and enhanced the surreal comedy. Otters also sound very cute and I would love to have an otter herd as pets and travel everywhere by sleigh. Maybe “Snow Queen” is my dream job? Highly doubt I will be promoted in this economy, though.
To conclude, T Kingfisher’s acknowledgments section is possibly the best I have ever seen. I snort-laughed at the “Hans Christian Andersen was a weird dude,” opener. In continues
“Hans Christian Andersen. Wow. His idea of a happy ending is that everybody dies attended by angels (or if you are very very fortunate, in church with your feet cut off)…I have not the least doubt in the world that he would be utterly horrified at what I have done to the Snow Queen.”
LOL. I was delighted.
#the raven and the reindeer#the snow queen#t kingfisher#hans christen anderson#fairytale#fairytale retelling#mythtakereads#mythtakebookclub#book#books#books and libraries#books and writing#retelling#booklr#book review#book rec
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THE DIFERENT CYCLES OF NOSTALGIA FILTER
Most of the nostalgia towards the past is based on Nostalgia Filter. The good stuff is remembered and the bad stuff ignored, forgotten or not even taken in account. When it's about a time period Two Decades Behind people will be nostalgic for it because they experienced it themselves, but from the viewpoint of a child or a teenager, when they didn't have to worry about all the adult stuff that depresses them nowadays, because the grownups took care of all that: taxes, work, bills, tragic news events,... If the nostalgia is about a time period people didn't directly experience themselves the romanticism is even more rampant. People will base their rosy posy image of that time period on stuff they have seen and read in books, comic strips, cartoons, TV series, films, old photos and/or fond memories of older family members. Usually they aren't aware that many things they now take for granted didn't always exist back then or were still considered highly controversial.
The glories of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome where the cradle of philosophy and science started, everyone is able to enlist in the army (well, if you weren't a woman or a slave, of course) and see the world while doing so. You can go and enjoy watching Olympic Games, a play in the theater or watch exciting gladiator battles in the arena, philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Virgil are respected as pillars of their societies, and people were opened to sex and LGBT as opposed to the close-minded Christians in later centuries. Not taken in account: class systems, people dying early of diseases we nowadays have proper treatment for, slavery, democracy only for rich upperclass males citizens, bloody battles, Roman military service had to be fulfilled several years! before you could retire and start a civilian life, women having no rights, not even allowed to watch sporting games, xenophobia was so prevalent that would make modern prejudices and bigotry look tame, scientific contributions were more based on superstitions and empirical and weren't always based on logic (see Plato's and Aristotle's works), pederasty was the only accepted form of homosexuality and it was punishable if a relationship did not fit in those criteria (also it was only tolerated in some city and states), Roman sexuality was still arguably patriarchal and not all sexual taboo was acceptable (ie. a wealthy man get away with his slaves while married women were expected to be faithful, oral sex was considered shameful).
The thousand years of Chinese dynasties up until Republic was the time where people dressed in beautiful colorful haifu with good etiquette and manners, scholars were appreciated, education was valued as opposed during the Cultural Revolution, the Tang Dynasty was the golden age of prosperity and where women has more rights than any other periods. Not taken in account: the Confucians were oppressive against the lower social classes, the caste system, education systems were corrupted with many scholars and students were promoted based on bribes rather than actual skills, women were still considered inferior in the Tang Dynasty, the royal court were so deadly and decadent that would make the place in wuxia media look tame, slavery, the rebellions and civil wars (ie. The Three Kingdoms, An Lushan Rebellion, Taiping Rebellion) that were very common that cost million of lives that went unheard of and resulted in many famine and diseases that led to cannibalism, footbinding was practiced since the Song Dynasty, xenophobia was prevalent including against their sister countries like Japan and Korea.
The Middle Ages are usually romanticized as a glorious past with chivalrous knights fighting for the honor of beautiful princesses, proving their worth in tournaments, stuffing themselves at royal buffets with the kind old king, and defending castles against malevolent invaders. Not taken in account: The Plague, wars, mercenaries and soldiers plundering farms and villages, filthy streets, people dying at a young age because of insufficient knowledge of diseases, the injustice of the feudal system, monarchs and the Catholic Church being oppressive towards people with other viewpoints, high illiteracy, people executed and tortured for audience's pleasure and often without anything resembling a fair trial, women considered being lesser in status than men, famine whenever harvests failed... Ironically, the part that was arguably good, the Byzantine Empire (with its extremely high literacy and such luxuries as running water) is usually overlooked or completely ignored.
The Renaissance and The Enlightenment are the time when society finally got out of the bleak, primitive and God fearing Dark Middle Ages and gained wisdom by discovering a lot of stuff. Kings and queens never looked more magnificent. Artists and sculptors painted the finest works and humanists, philosophers and Protestants learned humanity to think for themselves. You could enjoy a Shakespeare play, listen to baroque classical music or have a swashbuckling duel. Not taken in account: A lot of new thought and discoveries in the field of science were very slowly adapted into society. Mostly because a lot of royals, religious authorities and other government officials suppressed these "dangerous" new ideas. Compared to those "primitive" Middle Ages more people have been hanged or burned on the stake for their beliefs and/or on the assumption that they were witches during the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s than in the centuries before! The Reformation and Counter-Reformation divided Europe and caused many casualties. All the great books and art works created during this era were only enjoyed or experienced by the very rich. Wars still ravaged Europe, colonization exploited other continents, slavery became a real industry and absolutism made the monarchy and nobility so powerful and decadent that they didn't care about the lower classes. Duels weren't glorious at all, just a matter of killing off your opponent.
The Golden Age of Piracy is one big adventure where you could go on a boat trip with pirates and have fun attacking other ships, taking gold and bury or search for treasure on some Deserted Island. Men were real men with a Badass Beard and cool looking eye patches, hooks for hands and wooden legs. Not taken in account: scurvy, people forced to do what their captain told them, your ship being attacked by other ships and losing, keelhauling, loot just being spent instead of buried, anti-piracy laws could get you arrested and hanged, storms could destroy your ship, all the cool looking eye patches, hooks for hands and wooden legs were just practical solutions for grievous injuries suffered during fights, and the fact that most of the Caribbean economy was reliant on the slave trade. There were also plenty of brutal attacks on helpless villages, indigenous communities, plantations, civilian ships, and even colonial settlements. In addition to helping themselves to everything that wasn't tied down, pirates would also torture, murder, enslave, and/or rape men, women, and children indiscriminately just for their own sick pleasure.
America's Wild West is a fun era where you could roam the prairie on a horse, visit saloons and shoot outlaws and Indians. Not taken in account: slavery was not abolished until deep in the 19th century and still going on in many colonies or remote place in the American South, cowboys took care of cattle and didn't engage in gun fights, gun violence was just as illegal as it is nowadays and could get you arrested by local sheriffs, outlaws could actually remain on the loose for several years, Native Americans being massacred by white settlers and armies, black people having no basic human rights, The Ku Klux Klan was a respected organization...)
The mid-to-late 19th century and early 20th century were a classy time period where everybody was impeccably dressed and had good manners. You could take a coach ride or (later on) test the "horseless carriage", read some of the greatest novels in history, listen to the first records or even the great Caruso in person, admire the wonders of electricity and enjoy a world still untouched by modern industry. Life in the colonies was even more fun because you so many countries were still unexplored territory and the ideal place for adventure. Not taken in account: Victorian values were dominant, women couldn't vote, poor people couldn't vote, industrialization didn't have any health, safety or ethical rules to obey, child labor was rampant, workers had no rights, factories were very harmful to people's health and the environment, city rivers were open sewers, upper class had all the advantages upon the lower class, people could be sent to the poor house when they couldn't pay their debts, many novels were just pulp (think of it as the 19th century version of Internet) and music was strictly symphonic, the first automobiles were as dangerous as electricity, colonization was great for white Europeans but not as much for the oppressed native populations of Africa and Asia, animals were still hunted down as trophies, people who looked different were exploited in freak shows and circuses for spectators to Come to Gawk.
The Interbellum (1920s and 1930s): Between the two world wars, life was great. Everybody went to night clubs and/or revue theaters where they could enjoy great jazz music, girls and comedians. Movie theaters were a great place to be, because fantastic cinematic masterpieces were made. On the radio you could great music and serials, and newspapers published the best and most engaging comic strips ever printed. Not taken in account: From 1920 until 1933 alcohol was prohibited in the USA, so having an alcoholic drink was impossible without getting arrested or dying because of bad homemade brew. Crime was able to organize itself in a way that will probably never get untangled again. Many people got murdered in gangster violence. Jazz music was initially seen as "barbaric" just because it was made by blacks, and it had to be adapted to symphonic music to make it well-known. Hollywood in its early years was subject to more scandals than ever since, leading to a industry-wide censorship that lasted until the 1960s. The Great Depression between 1929 and 1940 caused major unemployment and poverty in many civilized countries, also forcing quite some people to start a life in crime. The "Dust Bowl" generated a desertification of the Midwest. Germany was particularly struck hard, because the country was still paying huge war debts to other countries, causing mass poverty and the ideal atmosphere for Nazism to gain voters. Many countries during this time period suffered under either Nazism, Fascism or Communism. From 1933 on Jewish, homosexual, Romani and left wing people were already persecuted in Nazi Germany, at the same time disagreeing in anything with Stalin meant a one-way ticket to Siberia. War was already brewing in Europe and the Far East, when Japan invaded China and South East Asia. Many countries were still colonies, which wasn't a great deal for the natives there. Afro-Americans were still second class citizens and the Ku Klux Klan was still quite powerful in many political circles.
The '40s and World War II, the time where the entire world was united against a common evil foe and soldiers could still fight a just cause. Everybody worked together to defeat the Nazis or Japanese, while enjoying great Hollywood films and jazz and big band records on the radio. Not taken in account: Not everyone was united against the Axis. Numerous people (even Lindbergh and Ford) didn't consider Nazism or Fascism anything bad or felt their country should stay neutral in the war. During the occupations many people on both sides were arrested, deported, and/or murdered. People couldn't trust anyone, because your neighbor might be a Nazi collaborator or a spy who would turn you in to the authorities. The Nazis banned American and English music and films in Europe, so you could get in big trouble if you tried. Also, you know, there was a big war on. Millions of young soldiers were drafted and died on the battlefield, cities were bombed and occupied by enemy armies, you could die any day, shortages were rife.
The '50s: The last truly great time period in history. Music, films, politicians were nice, clean and decent. There was a general optimistic feeling about the future, exemplified in sunny fashions, interiors and technology. The youth enjoyed some great rock 'n' roll on their transistor radios and the early TV shows show how happy and pleased everybody was. Not taken in account: the Cold War, the Red Scare, anti-communist witch hunts, the Korean War, the French Indochina War, many European countries tried violently oppressing the inevitable independence of their colonies, Afro-Americans were still second-rate citizens in the USA and had to fight for human rights, homosexuals were forced to keep their sexual identity silent in many countries, the traditional role of women as housewives was still encouraged in many Western countries, a lot of music in the hit parade was still the bland, square, formulaic and sappy crooner music popular since the 20s, adults were scared of early rock 'n' roll and actually did everything to suppress the youth from listening to it and becoming teenage delinquents, the TV shows and films of that decade were so escapist that they ignored every controversial element.
The '60s and The '70s, a great time when everybody was a beatnik or a hippie and enjoyed fantastic rock music, marijuana, LSD and free love. People chased bad guys with their own hands with cool funk and disco music playing in the background. The young demonstrated for more democratic rights and everything changed for the better. Not taken in account: the older generation looked down upon hippies, the Vietnam War cost many lives, The Cuba Missile Crisis nearly caused a nuclear war between the USA and USSR, Afro-Americans still had to fight for civil rights, just like today there were just as much idealistic but naïve demonstrators who merely wasted time smoking pot instead of actually doing something, drug casualties were just as rampant back then as they are today, people took the law on their hands because of the alarming crime rates, not helped by the extreme corruption of police forces, psychedelic rock, funk and disco are now confined to sit in the shadow of both rock-and-roll and modern pop music, to the point that for decades, these were considered as the most cheesy genres created by man, [[not all demonstrators were pacifistic in their approach and it's an open question whether everything actually changed for the better.
The '80s: Oh yes. A great decade for pop culture after the sordid '70s and before everything went to the gutter in the '90s: Everybody felt a bright future coming along, as demonstrated by good TV shows, groundbreaking technology, computers and videogames, colorful clothing, simple yet catchy pop music and finally a TV channel that showed your favorite bands 24/7. The Cold War came to an end, the Berlin Wall and Apartheid fell. Not taken in account: The early 1980s had many people fear the Cold War wasn't going to end well. The Latin American debt crisis. President Reagan wanted more nuclear missiles in Europe, envisioned the Star Wars defense system and the "Evil Empire" speech reflected the "Red Scare" at a time "the Bomb" was still making everybody nervous. The Cold War, Berlin Wall and Apartheid did fall, but only near the end of the decade. Unemployment and economic crisis were a huge problem in many Western countries in the early years of the decade and the high speculation led to a bubble which fatigued in 1987 and burst in 1989. AIDS caused many victims because governments were slow to inform the general public on this disease as most people at first dismissed as just a problem for blacks, gays and drug users. TV shows and movies were extremely escapist and PCs and video games were prohibitively expensive. MTV did bring music videos on TV, but the downside was that how a pop star looked and danced became more important than the music, which was now created by computers, becoming increasingly sappy and repetitive as samples became the norm, becoming a disadvantage for those who still wanted to use actual instruments, chords and tunes. Metal and rap were seen as crime-mongering and even "satanic" as a whole. Also drugs went artificial during this time, turning Florida into a Crapsaccharine World. The nuclear power plant explosion in Chernobyl caused another major fear among people about the dangers of nuclear power.
The '90s and The Aughts: Dude. The Cold War has ended, and though some pesky Arabs (and some nutcases in the West) will try to blow people up and some Central European countries will be at each other's throats, there is peace at last! Outsourcing has lifted the West from the heavy load of manual work for good and turn to technology, and anyways, isn't the Internet wonderful? Society and culture are now free to break all imposed boundaries: Music has become more authentic with the arrival of rap, hip-hop, grunge and pop-punk. TV and movies now address modern issues instead of being stuck in those stodgy 50s and 60s. Politicians at last agree on stuff and generally get along. Whatever. Not taken in account: While a couple of years in the late 1990s were quite peaceful, the years before were marked by the extremely chaotic rearrangement of the former Warsaw Pact nations and the decade after was dominated by the Iraq War and memories of 9/11. The "technological revolution" ultimately never became the boon it was supposed to be: Economically, the exodus of manufacturing jobs forced the middle class to live on debt, which would give way to an economic meltdown by the end of the 2000s while privacy would gradually become a major source of concern as personal data became readily accessible. During the 1990s, the Internet was very expensive and was the province of businessmen and geeks while during the following decade, online downloads and chatrooms became incendiary topics. Grunge and "gangsta rap" were better known at their peak for the demise of several of their stars than for the music while hip-hop and pop-punk would be regarded in retrospective as trashy as the bubblegum pop that dominated the late 90s. By increasingly appealing to the trendy set, TV and film became increasingly shallow. While ideological differences became a thing of the past, politics became more self-serving and conflicts became pettier. As a result, people began to feel a sense of disconnection, which eventually led to the rise of strongly ideological populist movements.
SOURCE:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe
EXTRA: IN THE DISTANT YEAR OF 2045.
The New '10s and New '20s : Remember that meme? Do you have a Harriet doll? I need her to complet my My Little Poney: Friendship is Magic and Equestria Girls collection. Do you want to exchange her for my Fluttershy doll? Oh, do you like Lady Gaga? Her music was so deep. “Oppan Gangnam style. Gangnam style. Op, op, op, op oppan Gangnam style. Gangnam style. Op, op, op, op oppan Gangnam style. Eh sexy lady. Op, op, op, op oppan Gangnam style. Ehh sexy lady, oh, oh. Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh”. Oh, i love your funko pop of Baby Groot! “ Gotta get that. Gotta get that. Gotta get that. Gotta get that that that. Boom boom boom (Gotta get that). Boom boom boom (Gotta get that). Boom boom boom (Gotta get that). Boom boom boom. (Gotta get that) Boom boom boom. That boom boom boom. That boom boom boom. Boom boom boom”. Avengers Assemble!
Not taken in account: The Syrian refugee crisis. The burning of the Amazon jungle. Donald Trump as the american president. Jair Bolsonaro as the brazilian president. The Covid-19 Pandemic. Navy oil in the beachs of the brazilian north east. The Brazilian Cinematheque getting closed. Height of murders of LGBTQ in Brazil. Disney monopolizing the american TV an Movie Industry.
@theroguefeminist @ardenrosegarden @witches-ofcolor @mademoiselle-princesse @butterflyslinky @anghraine @notangryenough @musicalhell @rollingthunder06 @graf-edel-weiss @princesssarisa @culturalrebel @irreplaceable-ecstasyy @im-captain-basch @iphisquandary @jonpertwee
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Belonging
For @wxntersouljapods. The reader is a stowaway who gets caught by the crew. Jack allows them to stay, but gives them the offer to leave and make a life for themselves somewhere else.
@bonjour-frens @tesserphantom @ilikebritsandbands
~3100 words
~~~~~~~
Your breathing sounded too loud in your ears. Footsteps echoed in the open room, and gruff voices filled most of the space. They couldn't hear you. They didn't know you were there.
You heard someone pull the top off of a barrel. Your eyes were open, but useless; everything was pitch black to you. You hoped your barrel was far enough in the back that nobody would check it. All these men were looking for was a snack or a drink, right?
You were willing to bet that pirates didn't routinely check through their food stores. What should have been a barrel full of dried meat did not, in fact, contain any. It contained live meat, and that live meat was you. You knew how hungry sailors could get at sea, and hoped that if you were found, they wouldn't opt for cannibalism.
You were a stowaway. Running away from an abusive household and an empty life in Tortuga, you'd stashed yourself on the most promising ship. It was a huge but graceful vessel with black sails and made of dark wood. You figured that none of your family would follow you onto a ship with such a reputation.
You knew the ship well; it stopped in Tortuga every few months, restocking its provisions and entertaining the men on board. You had a feeling it could suck any other city dry of rum.
All the poor children went out to watch it dock and depart. Dark legends surrounded the vessel. Supposedly, it had been captained by ghosts once. Some said it still was. There was a rumor that it had been recovered from the depths by means of witchcraft after having been burned. The tales ranged from horrifying to ridiculous.
You were more than willing to lead a more exciting life, one away from home. You loved stories of adventure, and now you were finally in one. Admittedly, it was less action-packed than you figured your first adventure would be. In all truth, it was a little scary.
Every night, when no light entered the hull, you slipped out of your barrel with nothing to see by. You opened other barrels, feeling around inside them for what they held. You took as much food as you thought you'd need the next day. Then, you returned to your crate, trying to find a comfortable position.
The days were boring. You had nothing to do, and you couldn't move. It was hard enough to live in a small house, but when confined to a barrel, life was dismal.
You passed your time by sleeping. It was the only thing you could do besides worrying incessantly, and at least you couldn't feel your discomfort while asleep.
The dull thud of another barrel top being shoved to the floor reminded you that you weren't alone. The shuffling of feet was, inch by inch, getting closer. If the pirates got any nearer, you feared they would find you. You didn't want to know what would happen if they did.
You'd played the scenario out in your head a hundred times. Your brain came up with all sorts of awful things that could happen to you. You could be killed, or raped, or strung up from a mast and left to swing upside down from your ankles. All were unsavory options.
You held your breath. Someone was standing right next to you, and you imagined them reaching out to take the lid off your barrel. You could practically see it. You tried convincing yourself that he was faced in the other direction. It didn't work; fear won out.
You sat completely still for a few minutes while the men talked amongst themselves. You sent out silent prayers, but could hardly concentrate over the fear gripping your chest.
Just as you were convincing yourself to relax, light blinded you. You blinked up into the daylight. Shocked faces stared down at you. There were two men hovering over your barrel, and both of them looked confused. Realization dawned on one of their faces.
"A stowaway!" He said softly.
Your neck craned up at an odd angle to look at them. Fear flooded your chest; you recalled everything you'd heard about this ship and wondered what tortures the crew had in mind for a young girl.
Now, there were more people looking at you. You felt like some horror in a curiosity shop. You desperately wanted to escape their gaze, but you were stuck in the middle of them all. You couldn't run; a ship wasn't that big. They'd find you again eventually.
"Would you like some help out?" The man's voice was strangely soft. Bending to look at the source, you noticed that it wasn't a man at all. A dark skinned woman stood over you, a floppy hat obscuring her face. She held a hand out to you which you gratefully accepted.
Standing in the barrel, you took a look at the people around you. They were certainly an odd mix, but contrary to everything you had been told, they didn't seem frightening in the least.
One of them stood no higher than your chest. He looked up at you with squinty eyes. Another man, an older gentleman with a grey beard, stared at her without making a sound. There was the woman, too, who stood with a hand on her hip and lips downturned in a way that said she was slightly inconvenienced.
Your feelings of dread were slowly dissipating. The three pirates didn't look like they had the slightest idea what to do with you. You all spent a good while staring at each other, waiting for someone to talk.
When you moved to step out of the barrel, they let you. You stretched, and they watched, staying quiet the whole time.
Finally, the girl spoke. "We should take her on deck."
This seemed like a satisfactory conclusion, because the short man awkwardly took your arm. There was no force behind his touch; it was like he was deciding whether or not you were a prisoner.
You were escorted up to the deck. At first, nobody noticed you. Slowly, heads turned, and expressions changed from neutral to confused as the crew noticed that you were a stranger.
A man in a turban stepped up to you. "Who is this girl?" He asked.
The others shrugged, letting you introduce yourself. "I'm Y/N," you said in a little voice.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm…running away from home."
There was a moment's pause. "Someone should get Jack," said the man in the turban.
"I'm not doing it." This was the woman, and she looked disgusted. "I'm not dealing with him."
There were murmurs of agreement as people avoided the task. More people were staring at you now, making you feel uncomfortable. Whoever this 'Jack' was, he must be terrifying. The entire crew didn't want to fetch him.
"Gibbs!" Someone called. "Go fetch Jack."
A bewildered looking man with mutton chops gazed out over the crowd. His mouth moved as if he was going to speak, but he turned and headed off towards the back of the ship.
"Who's Jack?" You asked timidly.
"Our captain," said the woman. "Though a lot of good that does us." Her voice dropped with sarcasm. "Right now, he's asleep and horribly hungover. That's why nobody wants to deal with him. He can be a real pain in the ass."
"Oh." You thought the captain was supposed to be the terror of the Caribbean seas.
"I'm Anamaria." She stuck out her hand, and you took it. "That's Marty," she pointed at the short man, "and that's Mr. Cotton. He's mute; his parrot talks for him."
You didn't know what to say. You'd already told them your name. It was a peculiar group of people. None of them seemed normal in the slightest. It definitely didn't seem like the crew of horrors you'd heard about.
Instead of speaking, you nodded. You were a little dazed that nobody had harmed you. These people seemed…friendly, almost.
Motion up ahead caught your attention. A man was staggering about, a bottle still in hand. "Who dares wake me?" He hollered.
He definitely wasn't what you'd been expecting. People always talked about captains as if they were big-bellied, loud, cruel men who liked to prey on young girls. This didn't seem to be the case.
This man was lean with a wiry build. His voice was loud, but only because he was shouting. You suspected the alcohol wasn't helping the back of his throat. He didn't look cruel; you'd have to find that out for yourself. As for the part about preying on women, you hoped you wouldn't have to discover it the hard way.
Judging by the unimpressed looks from the crew, he didn't have any of the rumored traits. He staggered closer and almost fell over. When he'd gotten near enough, you could see how hard he was squinting at your face.
"And who," he slurred, "is thissss…thiss wench?" He held onto each 's' like a hissing snake.
"A stowaway." Anamaria announced.
"A stowa-stow-st… why are you on my ship, lassie?" He turned his attention toward you.
"Running away from home, Captain."
He looked thoughtful. "I'm going back to bed. I'll deal with it when I wake up." With a nod, he stumbled away.
~~~~~
You occupied yourself by sitting on a barrel near the rail of the ship You watched the crew at work, the rolling ocean, and the door of the captain's cabin. You were wary of when he'd come back out. You were dreading the encounter, really. After all, he had the final say on what to do with you, and he could have you dumped into the ocean. Or stranded on an island. Or used as target practice.
Your imagination was at it again. Really, you wished it would leave you alone. It was no use thinking up disastrous situations. You wouldn't know the verdict until he gave it to you himself.
The hours wore on into late afternoon. Most of the crew had introduced themselves. They were the least intimidating bunch of people you'd ever met.
"What about all the rumors I've heard?" You asked Anamaria. "About this ship?"
"All true, every last one of them. However, they're outdated. The ship has changed both captain and crew since then."
"And now?"
"Now, we sail, searching for mystical items Jack wants to find. We talk with witches. We get into trouble with island tribes. We're the bane of the government because we're a minor nuisance that always slips away from them. Jack is good at avoiding conflict."
"So, you're mainly just adventurers who call themselves pirates?"
"We are pirates," she said defensively.
"It doesn't sound like you do much pillaging to me."
She paused, looking frustrated. "We don't."
Just then, Jack stepped out of his cabin. He was more steady on his feet, and he scanned the deck for you. Finding you, he sauntered over, looking you up and down with dark eyes.
"The stowaway. Does she have a name?" He gave you a pointed look.
"Y/N." You introduced yourself for what felt like the thousandth time that morning.
"Y/N." He repeated the name a few times, rolling it around on his tongue as if to get used to it. It made you a bit uncomfortable. He was…eccentric. That you could tell already. "It's a good name," he said.
"Thank you?"
"What use can you make of yourself on board my ship?"
"What?" You'd never even been on a ship before. You couldn't possibly be of any help.
"Can you cook? Can you clean? If you can't tell," here, he leaned in a little, wiggling his fingers in your face, "I'm not exactly working with a full crew. It puts some strain on things."
"Oh." You hadn't thought of that. "I can do both of those things, actually."
"Wonderful. I'll put you to work right away." He nodded, leaving you to Anamaria's instructions.
The days wore on. Not only were people nice, but they were helpful, showing you where things were and how to do certain tasks. They complimented your cooking, saying you could work miracles with the food. It was, after all, dry and preserved. Ships could only carry nonperishable foods. They were never any good.
You felt generally accepted by the crew. They didn't sneer, or make fun of you, or ignore you. You were included in all activities.
Jack often stood at the helm, providing directions with his compass. He was such an odd man, you didn't see how he could ever be accepted as a captain. It was only when you listened to the stories about him that you understood.
Jack took the crew on great adventures. Even if they didn't end in profit, the crew had a good time, and memories were made.
A few days in, Jack invited you to dinner in his cabin. There were sniggers from all the crew members, but you accepted his invitation despite your embarrassment.
Jack hadn't been able to decide what direction to sail in for days. You thought it curious. Didn't he know where he was going?
"I hope this dinner clears up his mind," Anamaria shouted. "I don't want to be stuck drifting aimlessly for too long."
There were scoffs, and multiple odd looks, but you tried not to pay attention. Your mind was wandering to what the dinner would be like. You didn't know what to expect. Jack was so strange, anything could happen.
You felt bad for a lack of fresh clothes. You'd worn the same outfit for days on end, and you figured you smelled awful. You pulled at your hair to no avail. Clearly, it would have to stay messy.
You slipped into his cabin that evening. He let you in with a slight bow, which you found amusing. There was no need to feign propriety around a Tortuga girl.
He sat you down at a small table that had been drug to the center of the room. Other unidentifiable objects had been shoved against the walls to make room. You sat on a rickety stool that was missing a leg. The ship suffered from a lack of working objects.
The dinner wasn't comprised of anything special. It seemed that Jack ate no better than his crew. He did, however, pull out a nice looking bottle of wine.
"Do you plan on getting me drunk?" You asked.
"It does make the food taste better," he said.
You smiled. You couldn't fathom why Jack had invited you to dinner. You were afraid he was going to drop you off at the next port, and he was telling you it was your time to leave.
Instead, he asked about your life before running away. "You said you were running away." He absentmindedly tapped his bread against the table, checking for bugs. "What from?"
You didn't know how to answer the question. "People," you said.
"The authorities?" Now, he looked rather interested.
"No." You shifted uncomfortably on the stool, which creaked under you. "From my family."
In the time you had spent on the ship, not once had Jack looked serious. Now, he was sobered and grim. He nodded. "Sometimes we aren't meant to live at home."
You wondered at that. It was possible that you truly weren't. What, you asked yourself, had Jack been through that he would know the feeling?
"We won't be making port for a while. Tortuga is our usual stop, and I doubt you want to get off there."
You shook your head. You definitely didn't want to end up back in Tortuga. "Where will we stop?"
"I make no promises, love. But I suspect somewhere in Spain."
Spain sounded exciting. The people from home told stories about Spain. "What for?" You asked. There were so many things to see in the world, you realized.
"They say the Holy Grail lies there."
"What do you need that for?"
His eyes flashed with desire. "Immortality."
"Sounds lonely," you said.
"What do you mean?" His nose twitched.
"You'd always be losing people."
"I'd find some new ones."
"I don't think that's how it works." You certainly didn't want to outlive your friends. Not that you had any, really, but you'd make some.
He cleared his throat. "My point is: will you be leaving us or no, savvy?"
You considered. You liked the crew, and work wasn't too bad, considering you were given the necessary but easy and menial tasks. "I don't know. I'll make up my mind when we arrive, I suppose."
"Fair."
"The crew tells me about all the adventures you've taken them on." You looked at your empty plate, flushing. "I've always wanted to go on adventures. I might stay, just for that. Am I on one now, do you think?"
He hummed his assent. "And I could take you on lots more, love. Lots more." He leaned in a little, tilting your chin up with a finger.
It took all your self-control not to squeak. He was certainly close, and the smirk on his face wasn't helping your embarrassment.
The night continued. You chatted idly. You didn't get drunk, but you were pleasantly flushed by the time you decided to leave.
You turned to go, but Jack set a hand on your shoulder. His expression was serious again, and you tensed. "Family isn't always the people who share your name. Family cares." He gazed into your eyes, unblinking. "We can be your family. This crew."
"The captain, too?"
"Him too, love."
You smiled weakly. "Thank you." You pressed a light kiss to his cheek. You took a moment to gauge his reaction, hoping you hadn't overstepped your place.
He turned red, but a smile tugged at his lips. Gently, he cupped the back of your head with a hand, the other resting just below your chin. He smelled- and tasted- like wine when he gave you a slow kiss.
"Goodnight, Y/N," he murmured against your lips.
"Goodnight, Jack." It was more of a sigh than actual speech.
Jack decided which direction to travel the next day, but that didn't keep him from asking you to dinner again. And again. After all, he couldn't direct the ship while distracted.
You decided to stay. The adventure was appealing, but there were other things, too. You belonged somewhere. You weren't about to give it up.
#potc#pirates of the caribbean#jack sparrow#jack sparrow x reader#captain jack sparrow#writing#fanfic#requests#request#drabble#x reader
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