#opalwrites

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

It's our special Sooyoung's day 🎉 so to celebrate:

After 'after,' after 'we'll sort it out when you come back'---Yoo Joonghyuk comes back. He doesn't have a job. His accounts are all inactive.

Even before he'd left, Han Sooyoung isn't really sure where he'd been sleeping—sometimes she'd wondered if he had ever left the industrial complex, but she hadn't cared enough to ask. Yoo Joonghyuk was a big boy; he could sort out his living situation by himself. But then he comes back, and Kim Dokja wakes up, and suddenly everyone's talking about that house Kim Dokja'd mentioned idly in the way all of them had known meant it was something he really, truly wanted.

Han Sooyoung doesn't care about where Yoo Joonghyuk sleeps, but the kids do, and That Guy probably will too, once the meds start wearing off. So she asks, casually, after visiting hours are over and they're heading back to her car, "Where are you planning on staying after this?"

He doesn't answer her at first. When she glances over—surreptitiously, lashes lowered, casual—he looks a little surprised.

"Why are you asking?"

"Weeell," she wheedles. "You know."

"I don't."

Can't he just play along!?

Han Sooyoung coughs. "It's just in case. You know. If someone asks about all of us living together, say no alright? I need some space. It's way too chaotic when all of us are under one roof."

Feeling that familiar craving hit as her embarassment climbs, she pats her pockets. Yoo Joonghyuk thrusts a lemon candy in her direction. She unwraps it and pops it into her mouth with a muffled thanks that he ignores.

"I spoke with Mia about getting a place closer to her school," he says slowly.

Han Sooyoung snorts. "With what money? Did you stash aside some coins in an investment account before you left or something? They don't take any of that stuff anymore, you know that right? It's all about the Unified Won or whatever..." She trails off. Yoo Joonghyuk has that look on her face. The one where he looks totally uncomfortable but he's going to do something he doesn't want to do anyway.

He opens his mouth.

"No."

"You haven't even heard what I'm going to say."

"I don't need to hear it." She claps her hands over her ears. "In fact I can't hear it. I'm deaf. La la la la la."

Yoo Joonghyuk speaks over the sound of her protests. "Han Sooyoung, let us stay in your apartment."

This is why she never asked this freeloader anything before!!!!

-> If you are also a yoohan fan, consider joining the discord server :D

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 괴담에 떨어져도 출근을 해야 하는구나 - 백덕수 | Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story I Still Have to Go to Work - Baek Deoksoo Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Agent Choi & Kim Soleum & Ryu Jaekwan, Eun Haje & Kim Soleum & Lee Jaheon & Park Minseong Characters: Kim Soleum, Eun Haje, Park Minseong, Lee Jaheon, Agent Choi (Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story), Ryu Jaekwan Additional Tags: Dismemberment, Haunted Houses, Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Summary:

Two intersecting ghost stories. The world of paintings parallels itself.

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: 무한 회귀자인데 썰 푼다 | I'm an Infinite Regressor But I've Got Stories to Tell - Sinnoa Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Undertaker (I'm an Infinite Regressor But I've Got Stories to Tell) Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

In the middle of an otherwise uninhabited and hostile environment, the wayward traveller finds a mountain lodge where they can shelter from the elements and rest their weary souls.

This is a story about one such place.

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

Sending a prompt for Hellena + uhhhh [scrolls through a prompt list] "You're never going to be the same after this" 👀

RUBS HANDS TOGETHER. ok so there were a couple of ideas that immediately came to mind (The Divorce key among them) but this one was very fun

When she first hears them say it (off-hand, as if it were something she should have seen coming) she thinks they're joking. It isn't until her mother looks at her, expecting her to be happy—to be grateful—that she realises no one here is kidding themselves aside from her.

"You can't be serious," she says. Her voice wavers, thin and uncertain. "Bastian?"

"We've all seen the way you look at him, dear," her mother says. "You needn't hide your feelings with us."

"How could you possibly think I have feelings for him? We're friends!"

Her mother tuts disapprovingly. "Don't play coy, Hellena. Earl Kostas' station is far above ours. The fact that His Grace, the Duke, even entertained this suit is incredible enough."

"And Bastian?" Hellena hears herself ask, "He—He also entertained this? He agreed?"

Her father clicks his tongue. "Does that even bear asking, girl? You're not a child anymore, Hellena. You need to act like it. The wedding will be next year, if His Grace permits it."

Her mother leans forward and draws Hellena's hands into her own. Tears have gathered at the corners of her eyes. "My dear girl," she says wistfully. "Your whole life will change once you marry the Earl of Kostas."

Hellena can feel herself trembling, but she won't let herself fall apart here. She can't let them see the despair coiling in her gut. She forces herself to smile, to nod and agree, and asks to be excused. Her parents, exchanging looks of relief, allow her to leave.

Hellena runs away that night.

A deal with a wagoner gets her part of the way out of her father's territory. She sheds her life as the fourth daughter of a provincial baron one sale at a time, trading frills and jewels for much more travel-hardy apparel. Hellena's never been one to stand out in a crowd but by the time she's made it to the capital, her own parents likely wouldn't recognise her. Still, when Bastian bursts through the door of her inn room, he calls her name right away.

"I got your letter," he says, "I came as soon as I could."

Hellena's holding a dagger, has been since she'd heard him coming up the stairs. She doesn't drop it, even though she knows it's practically useless against him. It's a warning to stay back, and one that he heeds.

"Did you know?" she demands.

Bastian doesn't even give her the courtesy of blinking. "I didn't."

He sounds tired, but then, he always does nowadays. She doesn't let herself soften.

"Did you know?"

"I swear. I didn't know. I wouldn't have let them—"

She feels a laugh rip itself from her throat. "Don't lie to me. We both know you would."

Now, Bastian steps closer. "On my life. Hellena, I would not do this to you."

The blade clatters to the ground. She presses her hands to her head.

"Okay," she begins. Takes one ragged breath then another. Drops her hands. Tries again. "Okay. What do I do, Bas? I can't go back there."

"Then don't. Get as far away from here as you can. I brought some cash with me. Once you find someplace you think is safe, write to me again and I'll arrange for more funds to be sent."

"I'm not living off you."

"You know it's fine—"

"It's not."

"I'm trying to help you," Bastian says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just let me do that, Hellena."

Hellena lifts her chin. "Don't patronise me, Bas. I've had enough of that already."

He opens his mouth to interject, but she barrels on.

"Whatever you give me, I'll repay. On fair terms to you, even. I'll set up shop, do… I don't know, some kind of merchant business."

"With what contacts?"

"That's for me to figure out."

"And if you fail?"

"Then we reassess at a set date. But I won't fail. Bastian, you and I both know that I'm not some spoiled eighteen year-old brat venturing out into the world for the first time. I can do this."

He looks at her then. Really, truly looks at her, one transmigrator to another. Sighs.

"Your cousin's going to kill me if he finds out I helped you do this," he mutters.

"But he won't find out, right Bas?"

His shoulders slump. "I won't tell anyone I saw you," he swears.

"Good, 'cause I'll kill you if you do," she promises sweetly. "If I have to get married to you, because of you, I will literally murder you in your sleep. Now, I've got this idea about a guild…"

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

If anyone had asked Hellena, she would have told them that it's not like she personally went out of her way to piss off some of the most powerful people in Fantasy Japan.

The journey from the port in Hansburg to Akitsushima had taken several months, and as the days had turned to weeks, then dragged on even longer, the spite roiling in Hellena's stomach had burned itself away. By the time they'd docked at Yesso, Hellena had been tired and heartsick enough that she'd thought perhaps she would never return to Stalia (a place she had and would refuse to call home for many more years to come). So, certainly, she hadn't set out to make enemies.

She imposes herself upon Akitsushima. The traders at the port are familiar with her crew, used to outsiders and all too happy to take their coin. The further inland she goes, the more she draws attention; a single white woman accompanied only by her translator is a strange sight, even in this world that has some of the sharpest edges of reality sanded away.

She'd always thought she'd make this trip with Al, but now she wonders if he would have been even more miserable after realising how different he had become. With his pale blond hair, his eyes, his height—would the stares he'd undoubtedly attract only serve as a terrible reminder that he could never again be Yuuya? The thought makes her quietly sad and then angry, and it makes it her reckless. She drives harder bargains than she might've, otherwise, and isn't until after she's stepped on toes by securing suppliers she didn't know not to touch that she realises she'd fucked up somewhere along the way.

Shō is one of several assassins to come after her, but he's the only one who tries to seduce her first. She lets him into her bed out of curiousity, wondering if he'll slit her throat while she sleeps, then is bemused to wake the next morning and the next. By the time she eventually gets around to asking if he's still planning on killing her, she believes him when he swears he won't, even after she tells him she won't haunt him if he does. She'd prefer to haunt Al, honestly, to keep him company the way they'd promised each other when they'd married, and Shō laughs when she says this. He understands, in a way no one else ever has, and when he finally meets Al, she thinks he gets it.

Al gets Shō, too, even when no one else does. She could cry for it, for the lack of judgment in this when every other person thinks the worst of her for it, thinks the worst of Al when it's not his fault, when she's the one that's always wanted something he couldn't give. It's not Al's fault there's a hole inside Hellena that's been there ever since she was Vivienne. It's not Bastian's fault either, or even Lysander's, and she has to drag those words out from inside her before she can explain why there's nothing in her that remembers what forgiveness feels like. It's no one's fault but Hellena's that everything came crashing down all at once, that the hunger inside her spilled out and she destroyed everything good she created. She'd thought they were just as ugly as her and dragged them all down with her.

The kids had never deserved this. Cecil shouldn't have had to step in when she ran away. Nia should be in school. Fuck, Al should have been left a hero, instead of his name being dragged through the mud because of her. Hellena could have left it well alone. Should have let them believe that they'd all been brought in isolation.

Shō laughs when she tells him this, too. He didn't ask and yet she finds the words spilling from her lips. At first, hesitantly, like the curve of her hands around his, then more assuredly, in the dark where she can't see his face, murmured into the spaces between their bodies. She finds herself telling him more than she'd ever planned, more than she's told anyone except Al or Bastian. The nature of Hellena's relationships has always been like this—all-encompassing and obsessive. She hands herself over to the people she shouldn't love at the barest sign that they might reciprocate, if only so that other more dangerous confessions don't spill out of her treacherous mouth.

He tells her she's overthinking things. He tells her that he loves her, even when he doesn't, and it's a nice enough fiction that she closes her eyes to it. He tells her she can't blame herself for the choices other people make. She knows that he gives up everything when he sails to Stalia with her but can't stomach the thought of telling him to stay.

Shō's voice is dry when he says that she couldn't make a cat do a single thing it didn't want to.

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

Hellena regrets it as soon as the words come out of her mouth. She doesn't actually mean it. She'd just asked him to leave with her, surely he understands that now, more than ever, she needs him to be with her. Forget everyone else, she needs him.

But Al just wears the same expression he always does, inscrutable and unmoved in the face of her emotion.

"Alright," he says, scratching the back of his head. "Why don't we get divorced?"

She still has the contract, of course. She keeps every single piece of paper she's ever signed—both on and off guild business—but this one in particular couldn't be seen by anyone else. They sit in her office. The contracts lie between them.

"We don't need to do this," Al tells her, brow furrowed. "We're just going to do what we agreed on to begin with."

"Read it again," Hellena says flatly. "You agreed to do this."

"Oh. Huh, so that was in there too?" He laughs a little as he says it.

Hellena's fingers clench by her side and she forces them to flatten. This is Al. Him saying that doesn't mean he forgot. He wouldn't. He's trying to get her to smile, the way he always so easily does. She can't be angry at him for that.

(She is.)

"Start at line 2," she says, instead.

"Hellena," Al begins.

She doesn't want to hear whatever is going to come out of his mouth next. "Start at line 2."

In the end, they go through every single line of their agreement. Al wasn't incorrect—they both knew what they'd agreed to, when they first got into this—but Hellena knows how he is. It's for his benefit, not hers, that she insists. He tries multiple times to tell her that he'll give her some property or another, objecting each time she shuts him down that 'they'd agreed on half'.

Hellena steamrolls right past him. He settles down by the time they're onto the third page, lips pressed in a mulish frown. Finally, when they've finished signing off on everything, Al shifts in his seat a little.

"What," she asks flatly.

"It's just..." His frown deepens. "Uh. Are you mad at me?"

She doesn't let herself react. "Why would I be mad at you?"

Al looks at her, eyes searching her face like he's trying to find the smallest sign of weakness. Brittle as she feels, Hellena's confident in her poker face. She stands and neatens her skirt.

"Thank you for your time, Earl ◾️◾️◾️. Please see yourself out."

He flinches when she uses his last name. She knew he would. That was the point, and yet she regrets it later, when she's alone in the berth she'd booked. The ship is alive with activity outside, but her cramped cabin feels almost vast with emptiness. She'd always thought that she'd make this trip with Al—it's not like she has any attachment to Japan—and yet, here she is solo travelling to the RoFan version of it. She wonders how much it'll be like the real thing. The main characters had never been there, and there had only been a few references to the "Eastern Continent" from what she could recall. Would it be just some generic "ye olde Asia"? Would it be drawn from some magical stock image template bank? Or, once she got past a certain point, would it just be an empty, blank void?

No one in the guild had any idea how this whole thing worked, but it always seemed like Hellena was the only one who remembered that this world was inside a novel.

Well. No. Now she knew that for certain.

The remembrance of that particular conversation brings with it a taste of bitterness and the low, furious burn that lingers in her gut. Fuck Bastian, and Lysander too. If she ever sees either of them again, she's not responsible for what she does to them.

As if summoned by the thought, there's a rap on her door.

"You've got to be kidding me," she hisses through her teeth. "Again?"

When she yanks the door open, the envelope is thrust towards her without even a greeting.

"Thanks," Hellena says wearily.

"Came in with the resupply, so it got here even faster than we did," the sailor says, looking vaguely impressed. "You've got one determined cousin, miss."

"He's something all right," Hellena replies, forcing a smile. It fades as soon as the door closes, and she tosses the envelope into the fireplace.

If nothing else, at least Lysander's letters are good for kindling.

[lxstcinderella-blog]

💫 for sungjae and yuen

send me a 💫 and i’ll set my music player on random. i’ll then pick my favourite line from the song that comes on, and write a drabble based on it.

daylight by 5 seconds of summer (🎧 )

 favorite line: “now I’m not happy unless, I’m close enough to you”

Hope you like it!

Sungjae & Yuen were hosting a get-together to celebrate a friend’s birthday and as the party began winding down so did they people. Around the room, people spoke and joked around while others lazed around after a drinking to much. Sungjae sat on the couch next to Daeun watching Yuen speak with her boyfriend. “You like him, don’t you?” He was so stunned by her observation that all he shook his head with a scoff before laughing nervously. “No! He’s my best friend. Where’s your brother, by the way?” Sungaje asked standing up but before he could get away the small woman pulled him back to the back by his arm. 

“Don’t change the subject!” She exclaimed with a chuckle. Sungjae searched the crowd for a sign of Changsun hoping the male could save him from his sister’s curiosity. He sighed, shaking his head before turning to smile at her. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?” As she shook her head, he laughed softly before sighing. “I like him…but he doesn’t feel the same way.” He stated glancing over to were Yuen was and smiled when their eyes met.  “It doesn’t look that way to me.” Daeun stated with a smile. “He’s straight.” He’d been around Yuen long enough not to doubt it. “I guess I’m okay with that. I’m happy just being by side… He’s my best friend.” 

[demonlikejudgeoffire]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 괴담에 떨어져도 출근을 해야 하는구나 - 백덕수 | Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story I Still Have to Go to Work - Baek Deoksoo Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Kim Soleum Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Darkness, Ghosts, Horror, Near Drowning Summary:

Kim Soleum's cleaning shift goes poorly.