moments of overflowing desire

Requested by @tennant​!

For this tutorial you will need:

Some basic gif-making knowledge (see my last tutorial!)

I’ll be using CC 2017 to do this, but as long as you have the timeline option, this will work for you! 🥰

So, in a sort of part two to my other gif tutorial, (https://luke-patterson.tumblr.com/post/636980573506813952/) this is a slightly more advanced part of gif-making. But I promise it’s easy when you know how!

Assuming you followed the last one, you’ll already know how to make your gifs into a smart object, so we’ll start there!

PART ONE: BLENDING

Drag both of your gifs into the same file. For this to work, your gifs have to be the same number of frames, or at least cropped to the same length in the timeline window, otherwise one will loop before the other, and it will mess up the loop of the gif. (For when we get to the multiple gif part, I recommend having between 60-80 frames, so it stays under tumblr’s 10 MB limit.) As this tutorial uses smart layers, they can both be sharpened as well.

(I made this gif 540 px by 268 px, because I’m going to add more to it later. But we’ll cover that further down in part two!)

Honestly, I find it so much easier to put my colouring on top of both/all the gifs, and then clip individual layers down onto a specific gif, if that one needs more of its own colouring. That way, the extra layers don’t interfere with the other gif(s). It’s so much less confusing visually for me than having lots of groups with their own colourings, and it makes moving the gifs around simpler.

Position them side by side, one on top of the other. Obviously, you can play around with the positioning: this may be easier to do once they are blended, especially as some gifs may be smaller and you need to try them in different places. For example, this is a screenshot of a Lyra/Will set I made in the past, with three blended gifs of different sizes:

Add a layer mask to both of your gifs. You might not need to edit both, but I usually do, as I like to balance how much one gif blends into another! Using the brush tool (set to black, when you’ve clicked on the layer mask), we want the brush to be very big, and very soft.

The bigger the brush, the more seamless the blending will be! By painting parts of the top gif away, the other gif will start to appear underneath. It’s not always necessary, but I usually like to set my top gif to ‘screen’ as well. This helps the gifs merge into one another even more, especially if you have one gif which is darker than the other!

As you can see, by setting it to screen, the top gif has already started to look blended. Then, you can start to paint. As the brush is so big, you might end up painting away too much of the gifs, like so:

I usually go back and forth, switching between black to remove parts of the gif, and white to add it back (always painting on the layer masks). Sometimes, you might need to make the brush slightly smaller, just to fill in tiny gaps.

Another thing you can do is to add a solid black colour underneath all your gifs, just to fill in any spaces. (Sometimes, I do this on top of gifs too, to create spaces where I want blended gifs to go, like in my current header!):

Anyway, back to the original gif. My blended gif is now pretty much how I want it to be, except Lyra is quite far to the left, and Will is taking up a lot of the screen:

So I’m going to see how they look at the start of the gif, to determine how far right I need to move them both to get them mostly in the middle:

And that’s it! Now you can export them [file > export > save for web (legacy)] and you’ll have to change the timing back to 0.05, or use the action I introduced to do this in my last tutorial.

PART TWO: MULTIPLE GIFS

To put more gifs underneath this one I’ve made, I expanded my canvas. Go to image > canvas size. Make sure you click the little ball to the top in the anchor section, so the canvas expands underneath your gif. If you leave it in the centre, it will simply expand from the middle, or the left, right, etc.

Next, we need to remove the black line at the bottom of the gif.

You want to select the space for cropping using the rectangular marquee tool, so in this case, 540 px by 268 px. The tumblr spacing is 4px between each gif in a set, so however many gifs you want, you have to account for 4px less pixels inside your one gif, to give the illusion there are multiple (unless you want them to touch).

For example, (there’s a little maths here: forgive me!) two gifs of equal size, placed side by side, must be 268px in width or length, because (268 x 2) + 4 = 540. (There is one 4px gap in between). For four gifs, it would be (132 x 4) + 12 = 540. (For the three, 4px gaps). For three gifs of equal size, it’s a bit different. These must be 177px, 178px, and 177px, to ensure there is 8px of space left over (two gaps).

Then, make sure the colour white is the primary colour selected on the paint pad (this is vital) and (in this case), the layer mask from before when we blended, is selected. Press ctrl (command on mac), shift, and i to invert your highlighted area (or select > inverse) and then simply delete the excess line, (either using the delete button on windows, or fn + delete on mac, I think!) Then, do this again for the other gif.

And voilà! It’s gone. You can also paint it out (using the black colour as the primary colour to erase), but I would still recommend highlighting the outline of the area you want to erase, using the marquee tool, so that you can paint it out in a straight line, and don’t paint into your gif and erase parts of that by accident.

Now to add in the other gifs! To do this, I use guides, but you can also use lines at a size of 4px, to map out the spaces in between gifs. If you go with lines, just make sure you delete the shapes after. With guides, they are not actually ‘in’ your gif, so you don’t have to remove them before you save. However, guides only work for straight lines, so gifs with other shapes will need to be made using lines, (but I will touch on that at the end!)

I actually have a few psds saved with guides already on, so that I don’t have to draw them out every time. If I was making a set with three gifs in a row, this would be different, but I usually stick to two or four (or three with one big square/rectangle, and two little squares), so this is my most used psd. The guides are set at: 132 px & 136 px, 268 px & 272 px, and 404 px & 408 px, both horizontally and vertically!

I have a red colour underneath just because I find it easier to see the lines between gifs this way - if you do the same, just remember to turn it off before you save your gif, otherwise it will have the colour red instead of mimicking the transparency between gifs.

Now, make a second gif! I decided to have a square in the middle as you can see in the title, and then two rectangles either side.

Then you want to resize it, in this case to 268 px by 268 px, and drag it across into your main file, or go to layer > duplicate layer, and move it that way. Don’t worry, when you move it, it will show the whole gif as if you haven’t cropped it. The reason I crop and resize it beforehand, is so that I can ensure it will be the correct size when I remove the excess parts of the gifs I don’t want, (rather than making it 268px including the black line for example, which would be wrong.)

Then, as before, position the gif where you want it to go, and highlight the area you want to be in the gif. Whilst this is selected, (again ensure white is the primary colour on your paint pad), click the layer mask:

Then the excess around the gif should be gone! (Making a gif of a gif tutorial... meta, lmao.) This way, if you decide you want to change the shape of the gif, or move it slightly, you can just paint parts in and out, or delete the layer mask, move the gif, and reapply it!

You can then sharpen and adjust your colouring to the gif as needed! Next, go ahead and repeat this process for your other gifs. Selecting the area, adding a mask, and sharpening. By the end, you should have something that looks like this:

PART THREE: OTHER SHAPES

If you want to use other shapes (which I haven’t tried myself until now, but I can talk you through some thoughts!) You can use the line tool. So, for example you could make a layer with the lines at 4px, merge it, and then at the end delete it from your gif to leave the gaps transparent:

To make a gif any shape you want, choose a shape (either use the shape tool, or get a png of it), and using a clipping mask. Make sure your gif is above the shape layer, then right-click the gif layer, and select create clipping mask to clip it down:

OR you could use a circle, and then delete the circle to make it look transparent:

The best way to select items which are not rectangular, (so you can’t use the marquee tool), is to use the pen tool. Click around your gif so that it’s got a border of what you want selected. Once you have outlined your gif, right-click and choose make selection:

Then set the feather radius to 0, and then the area you want should be highlighted in the same way as with the marquee tool above, so you can add a layer mask, etc. However, as the pen tool is not always that accurate, there is a little white gap here where it’s not a perfect circle.

A way to overcome this could be to make all the gifs you want, and then simply add one on top with a white 4px border, so it gives the illusion of being transparent! (As I have done above, but save it as white rather than red!)

If I find a better way to do this in the future, I will update this tutorial. I hope this is helpful, and thank you for reading 🥰💖

Kim Jaehwan - Muse

Requested By: anonny~ (“ Hello there! I wanted to send in a request for Jae Hwan! I know he's portrayed as someone who's silly with a crazy laughter most of the time, but I rarely see a fic with him as a serious or deep person, which he totally is! You have to be to write and compose songs, right? So...I'd like to request for composer Jae Hwan who is struggling to finish a song but then meets his muse. Can't wait!!!! ”)

Genre: Fluff

Note: So when I first got this idea I was really anticipating it, because I do agree with the requester that Jaehwan probably has a deep and serious side to him that we don’t often get to see. I liked the idea a lot and this quieter fic came from it. I hope that you all enjoy it and as always, feel free to let me know what you think! ^^

Enjoy~

Because of the situation with tumblr links, please check my bio for links to my masterlist~

- goodnightkisseu’s admin / ashley <3

Jaehwan often wondered what word could pinpoint his current predicament. Struggling? Would that be the correct word? No, that was far too simplistic for what was going on. It was more than that. Overall, he was having a hard time finding the right words to form beautiful lyrics, to put together the proper melodies. It was deeper than struggling. It was more like, he lacked motivation. Things weren’t coming to him like they used to. He knew what this feeling was, and yet he didn’t want to admit to himself what was going on.

He was… uninspired.

Honestly, this was the most terrifying word for songwriters, Jaehwan included. To be uninspired meant that nothing was worth writing. It meant that those magical words couldn’t flow together to form anything exciting. Unfortunately, this was how Jaehwan had been feeling for the last two months. Nothing had felt right. Nothing had that emotion to it. Nothing made him want to keep writing, to keep composing. He was just in a state of being. Of these ideas existing, but not coming to life.

Normally, songwriting came easily to Jaehwan. Others liked to call him a prodigy of his craft, but it was far simpler than that. He enjoyed what he did. There was always something, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, that got his pen moving and his fingers strumming the right notes on his guitar. Everything he saw and felt, could be transformed into a beautiful song. But now, when it mattered most, he was left with nothing. His mind was a blank canvas.

Jaehwan had been sending out demos to every company that came to mind for the past two years. He had to work odd jobs to keep himself afloat while he waited for a call back from someone, and there were times when he had thought of giving up. The wait to get his breakthrough was excruciating, and if he didn’t love writing so much, if he hated his odd jobs, he probably would have called it quits. However, by chance, a demo that he sent out to a smaller company was heard. The company was a young one, only around for about five years, but they already had a handful of well-known artists under their roof. They requested that he compose and write a song for one of their solo artists. If the track that he sent back was to their liking, he would come in and work with the artist to record it, the song guaranteed for the album. If the song did well, they would sign him on to work on a pre-determined number of songs for their other artists. If all of this was well-received, they would extend an offer to him to become an in-house songwriter.

Jaehwan knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime for him. He had never gotten a call back from a company, ever. If he could make this work, he could be on his way. No more working odd end jobs. He could have a secure job doing the thing he loved. So, in no time, he took a look over the contract and asked a pre-law friend to also read over it. When he got the okay, he signed it, and immediately started to work on a new song.

However, this was where disaster struck for the young male. At first, Jaehwan thought he was just having an off day. He thought that maybe his excitement over the deal had just distracted him. It’s hard to write a somber song when you’re through the roof about having your dream job. So he took the day off. Yet, one day became three days, and he soon realized that he was essentially having writer’s block with his music. Jaehwan didn’t really know what to do about it, but with his deadline fast approaching, he knew he had to get something done, something that would ensure him the rest of the contract. If he didn’t, he’d lose his chance and be back to working odd jobs. So he decided to change up his scenery, in hopes that something outside of his apartment would inspire him.

This was how you met Jaehwan.

There was this little shop near Jaehwan’s place. The food there was amazing, but due to its location, it was pretty empty during the day. It wasn’t in a high traffic area, but business was still good enough to keep it afloat. Thus they were usually very busy in the mornings when patrons would come for their coffee and breakfast, and usually around lunch. Every other hour, after the usual rush, it would be quiet, and a great place to focus. This was the place that Jaehwan had decided to venture to when all of his inspiration seemed to leave him. He thought some yummy pastries and coffee could help with his block… and it seemed to be working… kind of. For the first time in a couple of days, he was finally able to scribble something down. Admittedly, they weren’t his best work, but they were ideas for him to pursue.

He was quite happy with them and just as he was about to scribble away at a particular idea, it happened. A torrent of coffee came at him and his notebook, drenching him and the thin pages in the process. Jaehwan was quick to jump to his feet, but as he looked down at his notebook, the pages stained and the ink running, he knew it was a goner. He always knew that this was a downside to working on paper, but he couldn’t help it. There was something about writing his ideas down by hand that just made it seem… real. It appealed to him, but in a moment like this, when all those little budding ideas were gone, ink smeared in with the rich dark caffeinated liquid, he really wished he had done things digitally.

Jaehwan’s shock was quickly replaced by anger as he looked around for the culprit. Given his current state of mind, he was ready to give this clumsy person a stern talking to. It didn’t take him long to spot the offender. You stood there with wide eyes, completely petrified at what you had done. Time seemed to stop as you held the now mostly empty jump in your hands, your eyes seemingly getting even bigger.

You were absolutely mortified at what you had done, and you were quick to break from your initial shock. Jaehwan watched as you apologized profusely. You offered to help him clean up, pay for his dry cleaning and anything else he needed. And though Jaehwan could tell that you meant well, he was still upset. Instead, he decided that he needed to get out of there before he did something he would regret. So all he said was, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to pay me back.” He packed up his things, threw away the sad notebook, and told you to be more careful before leaving you, stunned, in that little shop.

This was the last that Jaehwan had expected to see of you. He didn’t return to the shop for almost two weeks, a bit paranoid that something similar would happen again. He tried going to other eateries to write, or even parks and libraries, but none of it worked. He decided to try that shop by his apartment again, and much to his surprise, you were there. At first, he had tried not to make eye contact, hoping that you had forgotten about that incident, but as soon as your eyes locked with his, you came over to him. You asked if he remembered you, and Jaehwan wanted to say he didn’t. To that day, he was still a bit upset about that accident and he wasn't exactly ready to forgive you. But still, against his better judgment, he told you that he did remember you.

You breathed a sigh of relief as you reached into your bag, pulling out a notebook that looked very similar to the one that had been ruined. Jaehwan eyed it, a bit confused, and this gave you the chance to explain. You told him about how horrible you had felt, and that you knew that your clumsiness was costly. You mentioned how the notebook he had looked important, so you had done your best to find a replacement for it. Embarrassed, you told him that you had come to this coffee shop every day at the same time in hopes that he would be back. “I know it doesn’t make up for everything that was lost, but I hope that you’ll still accept it." He remembered those words and the fact that you couldn't even look at him. Jaehwan could tell that you meant it with the best intentions, and even though he was still a bit upset, he accepted the gift.

And that was how it all started.

This was the start of your relationship with Jaehwan. No, the two of you didn’t instantly become a couple. Truth be told, Jaehwan still harbored some ill feelings towards you at first. But after you handed him the notebook and apologized for the eighteenth time, the two of you sat down to chat. You had decided, which Jaehwan thought was rather bold, to ask about what he did for a living. You had confessed that in the process of pulling his notebook from the trash to figure out the brand, you had admittedly taken a peek at it, and now you were curious.  

Though he was initially wary, he decided to tell you about himself. He told you about how he was a composer, how everything in that destroyed notebook was an idea for a song. The more the two of you talked, the more comfortable Jaehwan got with you, to the point where he felt a bit bad about how angry he had been the first time you met. Slowly, you started to see each other more, and on these chance meetings, he started to open up to you more, even telling you about the contract he had signed. In you, he found someone he could confide in.

You felt the same towards Jaehwan. The more he told you about himself, the more that you opened up to him as well. You told him about your ambitions to be a novelist. How you had been sending out manuscripts to different publishers in hopes that someone would pick up one of your books, much like how Jaehwan sent out demos. The two of you grew close over your love of telling stories and conveying emotions to your audience. You both enjoyed these meetings, and eventually, these get-togethers moved outside of the little shop. Sometimes you would meet up at your apartment, other times at his.

Soon, writing became easy for Jaehwan again.

It was simple to convey a sense of longing for someone when he was longing for you. It wasn’t something that Jaehwan had realized was happening at first. Yet the more time he spent with you, the more he realized that he wanted your relationship to be a bit more. He enjoyed the time when the two of you were together. He felt happy, and that happiness helped him to think positively about his work. However, he was unsure of where he stood with you. Your relationship with each other was as ambiguous as the ones that you wrote about in your novels.

Still, this weird state that the two of you were in did help him to finish and submit his song. Jaehwan was nervous for the days that followed, and you stayed by his side while he waited for the call. When he received it, the company said that they enjoyed the song that he wrote, and would like to continue his contract for five more songs. To make sure that the songs met the quality bar that the company was looking for, they even gave Jaehwan his own production studio in the building. On days when you were free, he would invite you there. One, because he enjoyed your company. Two, because he hoped that one of these times, he would finally be able to confess to you.

“Hey,” he started leaning back against you to get your attention. You were both sitting back to back on some pillows on the floor of his studio. You were typing away on your laptop, penning the next chapter of your newest novel, and Jaehwan was strumming away on his guitar, trying to come up with the melody for his next song.

“Yes?” you asked softly, his sudden weight on you getting your attention. You leaned against him, trying to get comfy again as you turned your head to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye.

“Do you enjoy this?” he asked, his question vague. Jaehwan was having a hard time with his words, and with his mind so concentrated on not screwing up, his fingers now just aimlessly strummed chords. Funnily enough, they were reminiscent of that song he finished because of you.

Your ears perked up at his question, their fingers ceasing to type as you turned to him. “You mean, hanging out like this? I like it a lot. I get so much done when we’re together.”

Jaehwan could feel your eyes on him now and his fingers were still strumming, trying to keep him focused on what was important.  “Yeah, but is that all you like?” he inquired, feeling you shift next to him. Soon, he realized that you had moved away, the lack of support on his back almost making him topple over. But as soon as he regained his balance, he found himself face to face with you, and a pink tint crept across his cheeks. Normally, when the two of you were this close to each other, he would have said something silly, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that today.

Though you were eager to let him continue, Jaehwan seemed to be having a hard time. It was like he couldn’t get the words out. And so, you decided to help him. “I like you,” you admitted, gently resting your forehead against his. You might have jumped the gun a bit, but you knew that if you didn’t say it now, you wouldn’t be able to say it again later.

Relief rushed over Jaehwan at your closeness and your confession. “I like you too,” he told you gently, giving you the softest kiss, hand gently moving into your hair to pull you closer…

A few years later, you found yourself at an award show as Jaehwan’s plus one. Since that night in his studio, your relationship had blossomed quickly. Your little hangouts became actual dates and within that first year together, you moved in with each other. Things had moved fast, there were fights, but they weren’t anything that the two of you didn’t eventually get through. Having each other so close made you both more productive, as strange as that may seem. You managed to get your first book deal the month after you moved in with Jaehwan. You always called him your lucky charm because, after that first book, you were signed on for more.

As much as he was your charm, you were his. His songs and how well they were doing on the charts didn’t go unnoticed by the company he was working for. He became that company’s in-house songwriter, while also getting the opportunity to work with other artists when they reached out. And with how much recognition his work was getting, it was no surprise when he was nominated for a songwriting award, and subsequently won. You couldn’t have been prouder as you clapped and cheered for him while he made his way onto the stage, your longtime boyfriend ready to give the speech that he worked so hard on.

Jaehwan cleared his throat and thanked the necessary people. The company that had taken him in, the lovely artists that had sung his song, as well as the rest of the production team. He thanked his parents for helping him get through school, as well as the teachers that helped him become the songwriter that he was today. Then, the gentlest smile formed on his lips. “There’s one more person I would like to thank tonight. She’s actually the reason why I can stand before you all today. A few years ago, I was struggling to write a song. It was the song that would essentially get me started on this road that I am now. I was having such a hard time that I decided to take myself out of my comfort zone and visit a nearby shop. She was there that day, and,” Jaehwan paused, stifling the smallest chuckle, “she spilled her coffee all over me. That was the moment I met her, and I would never have been able to finish that song if I didn’t meet her on that day. Thank you to my muse and the love of my life.”

Just as those proud words left his lips, Jaehwan caught a glimpse of you in the audience, face beet red that he had told such a story during his acceptance speech. He knew he was going to be reprimanded for it later, but it felt right to tell it. After all, he really wouldn’t be here without you. He wouldn’t be here if he had never met his muse…

Noh Taehyun Soulmate Au

First december upload and first Taehyun~

 • When you turned 13 your soulmate sign finally, finally, came into play after years of you waiting,  • Staring at your friends tattoos/words or sympathising with friends who couldn’t see colour, or knew they where going to lose it,  • You loved what your soulmate key was going to be, but you hated the waiting, impatient from a young age,  • But when you reached 13 you knew, now, whatever you wrote on your skin would turn up on your soulmates,  • You waited for a while first, a bit apprehensive and unsure,  • Although you knew this was fate; that most Soulmate signs where perfectly true, you still slightly doubted how this whole thing could possibly work,  • So you waited, jittery about making a move,  • Until you were sat in a class at school, trying to wrap your head around multi-step quadratics when you look down to your book in dispare, but find notes on your hand being quickly scrawled,  • You don’t understand what the equation they’re doing is, or how your soulmate is seemingly easily breezing through this maths, but you stare in wonder as ink seems to grow from your own skin,  • It hypnotizes you, his letters and numbers short and precises and sprouting from one another in a mesmerising pattern, you trace the appearing ink with a finger,  • Once the writing stops, the urge to write back is overwhelming, you stay back, afraid to make a fool of yourself, make your soulmate hate you, before even meeting them,  • So you bring your own pen to your skin, slowly, carefully drawing a perfect smiley face next to the complete working you, a small thumbs up next to it,  • You watch, anticipating whether they’ve seen it, how they’ll react, will they reply?  • Another, smaller, smiling face appears next to yours, a nod to you that they’ve received your graffiti, but it still makes your heart hammer and a smile stretch wide across your face,  • And that was the blossoming start of a relationship quite different to most,  • Normally, when people with this soulmate key turn 13 they immediately write to each other on their skin,  • Asking names and locations and where to meet, usually meeting up within a week,  • But you’ve never been one to go for the normal route, and it actually takes the two of you a few years to Actually meet, and even that’d be by accident,  •  You’re too shy, always afraid that your soulmate wouldn’t like you, and he must feel the same,  • Because you draw sprawling doodles, intricate and detailed and beautiful with your biro in your spare time, and your soulmate sometimes adds bits on themselves,  • They’re not great at drawing, but you still find it utterly adorable,  • Your skin becomes a canvas for both of you, your different writing and coloured pens lacing together smoothly, and even when you run out of skin you find more space on a different arm, different leg,  • Through the few years they grow more and more artsy and delicate and beautiful, learning how to draw with each other,  • Your parents would scream at you for drawing on yourself but sOuLMaTeS,  • You write notes to each other, hidden,  • You wake up to ‘have a good day’  • 'Good luck on your test today’ after having jotted the date down quickly one night,  • ’ Happy birthday’  • 'Today will be a good day, smile a lot’  • Hidden on your neck or behind your knee or even just in your wrist,  • Lmao u cringy as hell but do you care??? Nope,  • You sometimes ask him for help with maths, equations written on your forearm with multiple question marks, to which he shows you step by step how to complete it,  • Or he writes essay questions, and you write your ideas down to help, or you help to describe covalent bonding in atoms,  • lmao You barely know each other but you bond over how hard school is,  • Sometimes one of you get edgy and ask each other questions and it’s like a huge event okay,  • 'What’s your favourite colour?’  • 'Do you like dogs?’  • (A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION)  •  And then over time you get braver,  • 'What’s your name?’  • 'Do you have and sibling?’  • 'How old are you?’  • Like it actually hurts how slow the two of you go and the stupid questions but you’re fine with the pace, and by the looks of it, Taehyun,  • A name you’re now in love with,

  • Is fine with it as well,  • And not to mention all your friends are completely done with you and how star struck you are with this stranger and how slow you move they just wanna find out WhO iT IS so you can stop being so dreamy and Actually spend some quality time with your soulmate,  • Because despite having to wait a while for your sign, it’s one of the best keys out there, making it very easy for you to find your Soulmate,  • So while you stay at your basic level of sweet, fluffy communication, everyone else is dying for u,  • And you become known at school for your soulmate sign,

 • A whole arm or leg or neck or whatever covered with riots of pattern and drawing and stories told by ink pictures, all perfect and beautiful,  • You’re walking art, and you don’t mind showing other people your Beauty,  • I mean the school probably wouldn’t be pleased but honestly? How can they tell someone to prevent their Soulmate key?  • They cANT,  • So then after a good, what,  3-4 years? You’re going on a volleyball training camp, both the girls and boys team attending a get together regularly held in the next city over with a few selected teams to hone everyone’s skills,  • Rumours of a new school joining this year after defeating a regular in a friendly,  • Which makes everyone excited because?? New opponents to try new skills on???  New people to trade game play tactics with??  • You all volleyball nerds Honestly,  • So to pass the time on the bus ride there you doodle down the length of your leg, after no time at all you see another black line join your doodles, a content smile etching itself onto your face,  • You spend a decent amount of time catching up with everyone from the other teams in person, sharing gossip and new matches you watched and being goofy,  • If you’re new to the meetups the rule is you have to play a match against the second newest so everyone can check you out and whatever first yanno, just a right of passage kind of thing,  • So you settle next to some friends on the floor, ready to analyse everything about the new team,

 • Oh how different the match goes,  • The team walks on and it’s when the whistle goes that you notice it,  • The setter of the new team has black sprawling patterns across his left leg, peaking out from his knee pads and shorts, spiraling down his legs in loops and intertwining vines,  • You watch his set, his throws always a little to the left but nothing uncontrollable,  • This guy was your Taehyun, the guy you seemed to have known forever, however untrue that was,  • The guy that made you grin and left cute messages for you to wake up to, your cute fluffy ball,  • Now stood on a court, legs strong and face serious, except for a smile ghosting the sides of his face,  • Your plan on analysing the team went out the window rip,  • But you watch as his team revolved heavily around him, you watch how his eyes scan the court to decide the next steps, effortlessly leading his team,  • You watch his tell tale signs, how his eyes flicker when he’s going to dump, how he signals to his team who he’s going to pass to next,  • Normally you couldn’t pick any of this up, but the boy with ink appearing across his skin, something he obviously proudly shows the world, who makes your heart race at a glance draws your eyes to even his smallest of motion,  • And you’re not the only one who has noticed, in fact everyone has,  • All of the teams at the meet know you well, one of the gatherings’ longest members and someone who nearly always had ink appearing on their skin for everyone to see,  • So as they watch the game, they also send smiles to you, hitting your back in congratulations or hugging you from the side having matched your legs together,  • In fact the only people not to notice seem to be the new team oops,  • You always thought you’d panic, meeting Taehyun, but even just looking at him brings a peace to your heart and a reassuring warmth,  • So when the game ends, with their lose,  • (but that’s chill because the newbie always always lose their first match DW),  • While you have no idea what to say, you don’t feel panic,  • Everyone disperses to play a few organised matches before dinner and then to the dorms, but you wonder towards the new group with a few others to welcome them to the training camp,  • “Taehyun”  • The name rolls off your tongue smoothly as if it was made only for you as his eyes snap to you, smiling in greeting,  • He’s shook™ for a second, before his eyes drop to look you up and down in questioning, where they stay glued to your legs,  • I mean it sounds really weird but it’s not I swear,  •"Y/N?“  • Your name has never sounded so right, so made for you than in that moment, his dark eyes raising to meet yours in question, you get the pleasure of watching it click in his eyes as his face floods with how you feel,  • He wastes no time in pulling you into a tight hug, hands flat on your back as if checking if you’re there for real,  • You copy him, feeling his warmth, your soulmate, under your palms and everything seems right, in your heart and out, and you don’t know how you lived without this sense of fullness you had before,  • And damn if you guys don’t proceed to be the cutest couple at the camp, if not ever tbh,