when you're doing your thing
APR 26, 2026
inkhaven
…you're ice skating. I love watching you skate because it brings out a different side of you. Normally, you're quiet and restrained; I can never quite tell what you're thinking. But on the ice, you're free. You're flying. Your hair flutters around like fairy wings, lifted by the wind made by the slice-slice of your skates. Despite the rules of the rink, you jump like gravity doesn't apply to you, laughing these laughs that are true, clear, and breathless. When you're skating, you own the whole world.
…you're doing math. Wait, that's not quite right. You're teaching math. You're sitting side-by-side with a student, talking. Maybe there's a whiteboard. But there isn't a single shred of condescension, only the peaceful grace of a gardener making their rounds with the watering can. You prune their misunderstandings and clean up the rot in the roots of their knowledge, coaxing out the confusions they were too ashamed to show before. When you're done, you beam with the brightness of the sun. Everyone around you knows that this is your calling. You are so obviously home.
…you're, um, acting? I guess that's what you'd call it. But I think your thing is any kind of performing, anything where you stand before an audience and let your voice ring out. When I watch you do it, it seems like there's some kind of sorcery involved. Both of your feet are rooted deep into the ground, and yet you move with a practiced ease, directing a hundred fleeting shards of attention here, then there. You know when it's time to fade into the shadows, and conversely, when it's time to bloom, and you play with the space you occupy to make it happen. The magic is in the way you shift your weight and the lift in your chest; it's a full-body thing. But still, my favorite part is watching your face. Your eyes sparkle, and you're smiling in a way I've never seen before.
…you're climbing. Well, before that, you're sitting on the fall-breaking pads, analyzing the climb with the full force of your brain and calculating every move down to the tiniest shift of your left big toe. You definitely have a high-fidelity physics engine running in there. But once you get on the wall, you are so embodied, the mental and the physical unified in the goal of going up. Every move is executed with precision, your immense strength straining against the bounds of your control. Despite that, your movements are fluid, following well-worn grooves carved over years of practice. There is nothing mechanical about them. Your focus never breaks, even when you fall; you get up from the pads staring at the point at which you fell, and the gears in your head start turning again. When I see the flash in your eyes and the tilt of your head, I know I'll get to watch you try again.
…you're drawing. You're always drawing — on your lecture notes, your clothes, your mirrors, and more. When I think of you, I think of a Sharpie cap between your teeth, your textbooks strewn to the side, forgotten. You are a mad genius working during the witching hour, and you leave your mark everywhere with a clarity of vision I've never seen in anyone else. To watch you draw is to watch you project something directly from your brain onto the page, and while I know your hand has to be the conduit, I always forget that it's there. I simply see what you see.
…you're singing, most often in your car. It's usually 2010s radio pop or late 1900s K-pop, but anything will do. The notes permeates the air like the smell of rain through an open kitchen window, hanging there for a moment longer than you might expect. Your voice doesn't come out in a lilt, but it's not quite thunderous, either; it only hints at the possibility of thunder. Instead, it is unshakeably steady and tailored exactly to your taste — what does a storm care for the thoughts of the people? When you sing, you simply are. Anyone hearing the notes is simply overhearing your existence, and that is that.