The sun had drifted low beyond the horizon as the day's festivities ended and Jackson was fast asleep, stretching out underneath a tree where he'd been seeking shelter from the sun. The day had been an excellent success, in Jackson's opinion. Sure there was the brief moment where he'd almost punched some rich man in his smug little face. But if he was being honest, Jackson ended up punching someone more days than not, and he'd almost completely forgotten about it by the time he passed another tent offering free samples of something warm and fishy. Losing his temper was a regular occurrence, but a day full of food that left him with a full belly most certainly was not.
It was that full and warm feeling that had Jackson falling asleep beneath the tree, not thinking or planning ahead for the upcoming night's dangers.
It was a howl that awoke him, startling Jackson back into consciousness and plunging him into the eerie light of the full moon. The scent of the wolves was already hanging heavily in the air and it raised the hairs on the back of Jackson's neck. A low growl from behind him had Jackson shifting instantly, shedding his clothes and darting away from the sound.
Jackson didn't know how long he was chased, didn't know how close the wolves had come to snapping at his heels--didn't want to think about the consequences of what would have happened to him had they managed to sink their teeth into their target. Blessedly, when he wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep going on much longer, Jackson launched himself into a deep crevice between two buildings, scrambling back as far as he could and willing himself to curl into the smallest shape he could.
The wolves snarled and snapped for a while, their paws almost reaching where Jackson cowered but never quite touched him. It took a while for the wolves to lose interest, leaving Jackson alone and shaking in a tight ball of fur until he eventually fell asleep.
CHARACTERS: Self para feat. Bodhi, with mentions of @nazlixertugul.
LOCATION: Bash’s apartment, University Heights
“You’re home late,” Bash called out as the front door slammed shut.
It wasn’t totally unusual for Bodhi to stay out with his friends these days, but he usually texted to let him know where he was. Tonight Bash’s phone had been conspicuously quiet and while he liked to think of himself as the cool, ‘no stress, good times only’ kind of dad who didn’t freak out over his grown-up son having a life, he had to admit he’d been getting a little worried.
“Sorry, I got caught up with the guys.”
He wasn’t moving with the usual lively spring in his step which annoyed their downstairs neighbours so much. There was something cautious in his walk as he joined his father in the kitchen, as though he was approaching a wounded animal. Bash straightened up at once, his brow creasing in concern.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine, it’s just… I need to tell you something.”
Please don’t let it be that he’s knocked someone up.
“I saw someone… at the fair.”
Oh, thank god.
He squinted at Bodhi, unsure of where this was going. “Okay?”
“I think it was my mom.”
Immediately, Bash felt the blood drain from his face. The atmosphere took on an eerie buzzing sound. Bodhi continued to babble, apparently unaware of the panic he’d just sparked in his father.
“I recognised her from those pictures, those ones you showed me from college? And… I mean, at first I thought ‘hey it’s probably just someone who looks like her’, but then Caleb told me she owns the Silk Road restaurant, downtown—his mom knows her or something, I think. Anyway, her name was right, you know? I guess we just got kinda carried away talking about it, so we looked online and…”
He held up his phone. It was open to Nazli’s Instagram, a stunning picture of her all dressed up, and so painfully similar in looks to their son that it made Bash ache a little inside. He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. His pulse had kicked up a notch and his chest felt tight. He knew exactly how this was going to go down before he even opened his mouth.
“Yeah, uh… that’s your mom,” he said after a long beat of silence, confirming it with a short nod.
It wasn’t enough. It so clearly wasn’t enough, but what else was there to say?
Bodhi stared at him for a moment.
“You… you don’t seem surprised.”
God, this was tough. Bash looked down at the counter, willing himself not to screw this up even as the sinking feeling that it was too late for that began to settle in.
“That’s because I’m not,” he said. “Nazli’s, uh, well she’s been in town for a little while now.”
“A little while,” Bodhi echoed, expression unreadable.
“She didn’t know we lived here. Her moving here was a coincidence, I just-”
“Wait, so how long have you known she was here?”
“...A few months.”
“Months?!”
Bash winced. The accusatory tone sent a wave of guilt washing through him. He cursed himself for not having the guts to tell him sooner. “I didn’t know how to tell you! You know… we never really talk about her that much and you were at school when she showed up. I wasn’t sure if you’d wanna know.”
Bodhi threw a look of such scorn his way that Bash had to fight the urge to flee. “That is such crap. We’re not supposed to hide things from each other, dad! Not stuff like this. Obviously, I’d wanna know if my mom showed up out of the blue, what were you gonna do? Hide it from me forever? She’s living here!”
“I know, I know,” he groaned, rubbing his hands down his face. “I should’ve told you when I first ran into her. I just… I didn’t know how, okay? I didn’t even know if she’d be sticking around, then when I did speak to her she said...” Fuck. How did he explain to his son that his mother still wanted nothing to do with him without it sounding awful? “...well, I mean, she was just as surprised as I was. She kind of freaked out a little. Then I freaked out a little.” A lot, but that wasn’t the point. “And after we both stopped freaking out I kept waiting for a good time to tell you and… well, I guess I never really stopped freaking out about it.”
Bodhi folded his arms. Bash hated it when he did that, it made him look far too authoritative for a nineteen-year-old.
“What else have you been hiding?” He demanded.
Well, there was nothing else for it. He was going to have to tell Bodhi the truth, else risk his wrath later if he found out some other way. Bash let out another sigh.
“We’ve been… hanging out,” he said weakly.
There was a long silence. He dared not meet Bodhi’s eye. As long as he’d been alive, not a day had gone by where his son couldn’t see through him like glass. The noise of understanding he made as it all clicked into place was the worst part.
“The person you’ve been sneaking around with,” Bodhi said, flatly. “You’ve been- Jesus, dad. I can’t believe you. I thought you were being weird about it ‘cause you were like… afraid I’d get attached to your new partner or whatever. Not— ugh, fuck this. This is so fucked up.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so surprised that he’d noticed Bash had been seeing someone—he was always the more observant of the two—but he’d been too wrapped up in his own life to realise.
“Fuck this,” Bodhi said, stalking out of the kitchen and grabbing his keys from the bowl. “Just- fuck this.”
Bash scrambled after him, panic rising in his chest. It wasn’t often they fought and when they did it wasn’t ever about anything so serious as this. He’d never seen Bodhi look so angry, let alone angry with him.
“Where are you going?!”
“Out!”
The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Bash staring at the faded wood.
Nunca lo admitiría, pero cuando Hogwarts se iluminó de repente con miles de explosiones, cuando el ruido ensordecedor de esos artefactos voladores acalló todo a su alrededor, Cordelia sintió miedo. Había esperado el ataque, sus padres le habían advertido, y sin embargo se quedó paralizada observando con horror lo que ellos, lo que los muggles, hacían a su escuela, al símbolo de la magia en Gran Bretaña. Antes de poder sentir algo más que angustia y terror, antes de que la furia pudiese instalarse en sus huesos, su padre le estrujó el brazo con fuerza. Y frente a sus ojos ya no estaba el edificio en llamas, ni el cielo cubierto de humo, sino una regia mansión señorial de tonos fríos y cortantes. Su casa, comprendió un segundo después.
Sabía que debía controlarse, claro. Que demostrar que el hecho le había afectado era una señal de debilidad, algo que tanto los Villareal como los Deetz rechazarían con gran firmeza, y que este instante podía ser considerado una prueba.
La rubia entendió que fallaría apenas sintió su propia respiración entrecortada. Pese a estar frente a su hogar, el fuego bailaba detrás de sus párpados, recordando que había tenido otro hogar en su vida, uno infestado de ratas tal vez, pero hogar al fin y al cabo. Y este había sido destruido. La búsqueda de aire era casi fútil, no lograba dar una bocanada y calmar su pecho. Desesperada, con la visión nublada por algo húmedo, Cordelia se aferró a su ancla.
Su padre no le apartó de inmediato como ella inconscientemente esperaba, sino que se quedó inmóvil, una estatua en una tormenta, fría y poco consoladora. Pero ella había aprendido que la falta de rechazo era lo más alto a lo que podía aspirar.
No sabía cuánto había estado en esa posición, era probable que no más de un momento, mas el sonido de una nueva aparición fue lo que puso a Amadeo en movimiento. Apartó a su hija con brusquedad y, por primera vez desde que habían llegado, clavó su inescrutable mirada en la suya.
–Recobra la compostura, contrólate. Ni los sirvientes deben verte en este estado tan… deplorable –escupió, para luego darse la vuelta y unirse a su esposa en la entrada.
Y allí fue cuando la Slytherin comprendió que lo había perdido. Perdió la confianza ciega que tenía en ella, esa seguridad de que su niña sería capaz de realizar lo que ellos ordenasen. Se sintió enfurecer. Había necesitado años para ganársela, años en los que no fue nada más que la Villareal perfecta: feroz, implacable, leal a sus creencias. Y en unos minutos, los no-magos habían conseguido arrebatarle no sólo eso, sino que también Hogwarts.
En ese momento, Cordelia supo que por recobrar la confianza de su padre, y por vengarse de los sucios muggles, estaría dispuesta a cruzar todo límite o frontera impuesto. Haría lo que sea.
Her eyes open due to a surge of pain travelling up her back when she tries rolling over onto her side. She hisses, whines while squinting in an attempt to shield her eyes from the brightness of the light in her hospital room. Even though the closed curtains, the Summer sun is burning into her room. It’s too early in the morning to be awake, but there she is, in pain, stuck in a hospital room while hooked up on IVs and only vaguely aware of her location.
If anything it’s a little miracle that Sooyoung’s managed to stay in the same position for as long as she’s already been. She’s a fussy sleeper, tends to flail about more than the average person. It used to not be surprising for Taeyeon to wake up with Sooyoungs feet on the pillow, without the tall female waking up. Sedation and pain medication were wonderful things for keeping her from going wild in her sleep.
The girl finds herself drifting in and out of sleep, only occasionally speaking to nurses when they enter to bring food or check on her. She doesn’t speak about being uncomfortable, she’s already causing enough trouble by simply taking up a valuable bed space when someone who was in more desperate need of care. Her company is not taking any risks, however, so she’s stuck. Visiting hours are scarce, there’s no special arrangements by the company to get anyone in, so when a few of her members show up, it’s a nice change of scenery. One can only watch so many reruns of news shows, besides, the entertainment news is just constant coverage of her own state, and she really does not need to be reminded of that.
Visiting hours are too short. The girls leave way before she wants them to, but it helps that they’ve been kind enough to bring along her macbook. She needs it for entertainment purposes. She needs it to keep her family updated with silly video calls. And maybe to look at dogs. Probably to pay attention to her dogs.
Sooyoung wakes up after the umpteenth nap of the day, this time because a nurse walks in with a weak attempt at dinner. She eats it because she doesn’t want to deal with the added trouble of having them worrying about her diet, but is quick to disregard the food and reach for her laptop instead. She opens it up, quietly browses around the internet for a while. She opens a chat to her sister, wants her to tweet out something about how she is really not that hurt and how she’s sorry about having to miss a few upcoming schedules when her eyes are met with a bunch of Chinese characters. She only understands parts, but it’s not too hard to decipher the entirety of the message.
Her expression drops and for the first time in a while she’s glad she’s the only one in her room. She knows how to deal with spiteful messages. She’s often considered the ‘useless’ member in her group, she often hears about how SNSD would be just fine without her there. But the comment threads she’s coming across take it too far. She doesn’t understand, fails to even attempt to understand, how someone can go as far as say they’d rather have seen her pass away in the car crash, or at least have seen her paralysed from the waist down. It’s frightening, simply because both of the options were so incredibly close to the truth. Her spine’s injured, if the injury had been just a tad more severe, who knows what would have happened.
Where she normally doesn’t care much for comments like this, the urgency the words give off in regards to the situation mess her up. For the first time in four years, she’s actually scared. She closes the device and lies back against the pillows, hissing quietly at the surge of pain shooting up her back. She stares up at the ceiling for a bit, fingers reaching out to grab her phone. She feels a need to call someone, anyone, but also doesn’t want to bother anyone with the issues. Besides, they’re just mindless threats on the internet, right?
A phone screen lights up, informing her of a text message from her sister. Figured, the older Choi has a skill of texting her whenever she’s feeling some type of way. The message makes it clear that she has seen the comments as well, states how appalled Soojin is because of them. Then, words of encouragement are offered. Sooyoung secretly mumbles a prayer, thanking God for her sister’s connection with her.
The words cheer her up enough for the moment, push her to only work harder to actually make an impact on the world. She would get out of bed and start running around if the pain was only a bit less evident throughout her body. But she makes sure to promise herself ( and with that, the rest of the world ) to try harder, to show that she would actually not be better off dead.
mun note: this selfpara is set in late August of 2011. On the 28th of August of this year, Sooyoung was in a car accident when on her way to a charity event for the blind and visually impaired. The event left her with a fractured tailbone, but Sooyoung is an actual ray of sunshine and was laughing while in the hospital, even if her sister has said that there was a lot of blood and she was worried Sooyoung might actually die. The comments used for the writing of this selfpara were some tweets I remember from the time, they were from Chinese elfs, who were tweeting out how they were upset Sooyoung wasn’t left paralysed from the waist down, or dead, simply because they didn’t care for her and thought she didn’t contribute to SNSD anyway.
This selfpara is but a figment of my imagination, and in no way do I have any proof that this is how Sooyoung reacted upon seeing the tweets. It’s definitely not the first time she’s seen negative comments (she’s been active for four years prior to the incident, I’m certain she’s been confronted with negativity before that), but this event - although not a scandal - seemed more life-changing than just another ‘Sooyoung is so useless, idk why she’s in snsd’-comment. Ok thank you bye ^o^
He fell in love with programming when he was six; doing small and simple coding structure with his father, and dealing with a few programs to run it, Jaehyun saw that numbers and letters suffice the knowledge that he wanted to learn, binary became his second language, digital electronics became his life.
His father was on a business trip back then, his mother was with him and the time came where he needed to be locked inside his room as his caretaker was busy owning the house for her own. Jaehyun back then was so small, and pale, and maybe a little frail for his own good—and the room where he was locked in was being born with a silver spoon didn’t helped with his growth, time told the tale of a man who grew and learned how to fend for himself, and Jaehyun slowly started earning a façade for himself, an identity that he took up until the present.
When he learned about his mother’s accident, he was in Japan, the memory keeps repeating in his head, he was holding a glass of water full of ice, drinking the solace that he found himself in, until that dreadful phone call that turned his life upside down. He took the first flight to Korean back then, his hair a mess, his eyes droopy from the lack of sleep, Jaehyun held his father tight, a hand squeezing his mother’s as she uttered the last words that he never thought she could still decipher in her head, all she needed back then was rest, and it was given to her for a whole lifetime.
Live long, Jaehyun. Take care of your father.
Sadly, his father forgot to take care of him.
A year passed and his father began doing the dealings once again, being a part of the group that he had been born with, Jaehyun knew that at some point, he would have to take over and lead, but since he hasn’t proved himself useful yet, his father takes the responsibility for him—until, that one mistake.
His father never knew what security he had placed over the servers of the computer he often use, Jaehyun protected it with a new private network that he designed himself with an algorithm that he’s sure, he could only dissolve, and yet, and yet he had failed himself again without thinking of how his father could actually dispose of the hard drive without him knowing. He has the program in hand but the files that were inside that old memory drive was enough for their enemies to take charge of it, of all of the things that his family managed to gain over the course of time.
He forgot about it, Jaehyun promised himself not to worry about such petty thing when he knew that the important files were with him anyway, but he forgot the most crucial thing as well, the private network is severely linked to him.
And that’s how it happened.
How he found himself across the floor, with his dog seemingly howling for help as he feels his knee numb from the fall. He heard noises earlier, and he was too late to figure things out by his own, he may be good with computers but he was never a man with a special case in combat fighting, if he were to be placed in another identity, he could be Donatello, always hiding behind a computer screen.
“You’re an intelligent kid, but intelligence doesn’t solve the problems of the world.”
WEEK ONE: A self-introduction of your muse. If your muse were to describe themselves, how would it be? Through an object that represents them, a place they feel like it’s their homes, anything that says a lot about them… Be creative! (minimum of 200 words
WORD COUNT: 373
It was common for people to describe Sophie as the sun. She was radiant, always smiling happily and spreading positive vibes regardless of where she was. She was warm, giving love without expecting anything in return just like the sun that shined on everyone and everything, spreading its warmth and giving hope to those who were having a bad day. The people who compared her to the sun weren't wrong, but the comparison only covered one side of Sophie. If you asked the female idol how she would describe herself through an item, she'd use the ocean rather than the sun.
On good days, where the sun was shining and no wind was to be found, the ocean was calm. It was inviting people to take a swim or just enjoy the scenery, harmonizing with the nature surrounding it. It was peaceful, beautiful to the eye and safe. No one would believe that something as appealing as the scenery in front of them could turn into something dangerous, something wild and chaotic once the sky turned darker and strong wind blew, forming waves that crashed on top of the surface of the water. No one would expect the calm ocean turn into something dangerous, something that could easily endanger the people who were still swimming in it.
It was the reason why Sophie thought that she resembled the ocean. Once she was hit with a wave of sadness, a negative environment or something else that could be the wind to unsettle her calm stance, she'd lose control. She'd turn into a mess, her mind chaotic and not able to properly sort out her feelings. And with one wave hitting the shore, another would follow quickly through the movement of the water in the sea and make her waver even more. It was a dangerous situation, one where it was hard for her to deal with herself and the huge amount of feelings she was going through. A situation that often caused her to be harsh on herself because she’d end up shutting out other people from her life and claim it was done for their safety.
She might be the sun to others, but to herself, she was an ocean, deep and dangerous.
