#h.k.

Yes!

My favorite multi-chapter Modern AU is Heart of Gold by renowned Kataang author Sweet Avidya Jones. Beware that it holds an R rating and the premise itself isn’t exactly innocent, but this fic gives much, much more than what the summary alone might indicate, with fantastic writing, story, and characterization -- plus the adaptation into modern-day is incredibly creative and fleshed-out. So long as you’re comfortable with the rating, this is a high rec.

avatarwindboy has written lovely pieces as well, including this pg13 two-shot (whose premise I won't spoil): Part 1 and Part 2. These parts can be read separately, but they do take place in the same universe and have an established chronology.

This is another great short of theirs, with a Bookstore AU prompt.

I’d also recommend these one-shots: In a Café, Fearless (previously archived), a Kataang + single parent / teacher AU ficlet (previously archived), and a quick Valentine’s Day outing.

MadameFluffnStuff has written plenty of Kataang content with creative AUs, including modern-day. You can browse their AO3 atla fics here (and from what I’ve seen, I expect all of them are worth the read).

You will also find more Modern AU fics by browsing the archive’s au tag.

Finally, here is an AO3 link -- 17 works show when using the "otp: true" setting + "Alternate Universe - Modern Setting."

Hope this helps!

in truth, long before the day i found my way into your awaiting arms— i had fallen into the habit of making a bed inside of your heart and leaving art on its walls. my only way of loving you into something greater than what i am capable of voicing aloud. this was partly because i was someone enticed by the complexity within the simple and partly because as a writer, you have grown into the habit of epitomizing lovers into your poetry and my love, i wanted you to feel the unequivocal intensity with which an artist falls in love.

honestly? i’m more than a little intoxicated and in awe with your way of existing and how your lips dance with mine. your memory remains ever present in my library of thoughts, and i’ve grown familiar with the fact that sometimes longing is laced with a bittersweet taste, but i’d rather entertain the recent loneliness that’s been hanging itself onto my smile than contemplate whether or not the brilliance of your laugh could melt away my fear of losing you. the wonderful thing about meeting you is just that— i don’t have to contemplate anything because my love, i know my way around your heart with the same confidence that causes the sun to never ask the moon when to rise, it just does. and lately the clouds on my side of the sky look like they’re about to rage the softest kind of war against one another, it was only a few days but rain will never be the same for us. it will more or less be a reminder of a night spent drawing on car windows and turning each other into poetry... do you think that this is love? i know it cannot be anything less. why do we fall in love? why do artists immortalize the very things that make their hearts beat into delicately painted brushstrokes? why do writers spill the reasons for their smiles along the page of a lined notebook? why do humans need to make a statement? maybe because we recognize the possibility that one day it could end. that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? it’s never guaranteed. like the flowers that grow alongside the sidewalk, love can wilt but it can also bloom. so love me or don’t, at this point i’m in too deep to change the course my mind has been running on, right now i don’t want to ponder the idea of whether there exists a last day for us, i simply want to love you. and i don’t know if there is a next life for us to meet again and for me to relearn the softest parts of you. and i don’t know if in some past life your hands engraved the gestures of your love onto my skin. maybe that is why you feel so familiar. we are so alike, in mind, in heart, in soul, and maybe that has to do with our need to create something visceral in order to represent the discombobulation within ourselves. regardless, we are in love. regardless you’ve placed yourself within my daily routine and built a home of ink stained napkins holding all the words we’ve been needing to hear for the longest of time. i’m grateful i no longer have to wonder. so that now whenever the light creeps in and wakes us up from a lonely slumber i only need to open my eyes to find and meet your waiting gaze to know the ways in which you love me and never having to part our lips and wait for sound to tumble out. you are so much more than i know how to love but i am trying, be patient with me? i know that love can be selfish but i only want to be selfless with you. your happiness matters more to me than whether or not i have arms to hold me back to sleep. ultimately, isn’t that what differentiates us from others? to only want to love in the softest ways, and i know sometimes we fall apart more than we succeed, but humans are the epitome of perfect imperfections like a heart falling out of love and chasing after another form of comfort. you have a tendency of asking

me why i am this patient with you. why do i stay? why do i love you with this much tenderness? it stems from having known the ugly parts of people that tend to hide under their beds. and for that, i now prefer to remind you that love is like a painting never complete and continue to place art in the parts of you it doesn’t belong. so if i spend my day painting away each of my thoughts, how many brushstrokes had your smile in mind? too many to count... you do this thing where you bring your face to mine, not to leave more lines of poetry along my lips, but simply so that there is no space between your body and mine. maybe it’s because if we’re this close your thoughts telepathically travel to mine, but i think we already do that anyway. when it’s night and quiet while it’s raining out but i can hear your formulating thoughts from my side of the bed and ask you to tell me what’s on your mind right now? you infallibly make me laugh with your surprise at how i knew. i haven’t yet learned how to perfectly explain myself well, but this i know— i undoubtedly know how your mind works. so as we’re laughing on a swing set on a warm december day, i turned to you and said that i am so happy right now, by your side. rose petal colored cheeks warm from the sun or the radiance of your bubbling laughter, i couldn’t tell which it was— probably the latter. writers and artists, are they a good pair? as good of a pair as bees and flowers, they thrive together.

i know that these warmly tinted days were as soft as they were cruel but this isn’t a goodbye it’s only a see you later that we saved like love letters hidden between the pages of your book and between my journal, to remind us of a love declaring to be felt and to meet again next time. And these are just words of an artist rambling on but i can’t wait until next time.

Drifting, wandering in circles until the present, the minute hand and the second short hand are racing under the bezel. Seems like you have achieved a future that you dreamed of.

Your present days should be happy, feeling carefree – receiving applause, being cheered on, and feeling loved. Your life has jumped through hurdles in this obstacle course.

When did you learn to stop repeating, to stop saying that perplexity in your heart, and be speechless after tied up the feeling of touched? Encountering good beings by fate gets rarer, yet you want them to come to fruition. The more you anxiously seek for the better, things get worse with more mistakes that you made, and almost forgot your most wanted fruit that you planted.

Sing to the song of blissfulness – have tears sink down your eyes and abjection after countless times of disappointments? Melody dissolves your panic, embrace this moment – a picture with no regrets, love is something that makes you feel contented, with a smile, even in sorrow. Heartwarming is not far away – it may bloom in the next second.

How many passersby would pay you visits in a lifetime, or how many, maybe countless, of things that you were frenzied or missed out? You can’t dissuade the world from rotating every second.

It is rare to laugh, to hold your stomach, and to grin. You are tired of climbing to the summit, searching for the answer. Drained your whole life, your heart and soul – just to have a taste of love for a second.

Can you relearn from the start? Can you? Being with the lesson of trialing. Unlock the shackle in your heart – the course becomes wider. You'll encounter more good beings by leaving it to fate – the results will come when they are supposed to. The more you anxiously seek for the better, things will only get worse, and absurd wishes made you planted the wrong seeds for the fruit that you long for.

Sing to the song of blissfulness – have tears sink down your eyes and abjection after countless times of disappointments? Melody dissolves your panic, embrace this moment – a picture with no regrets, love is something that makes you feel contented, with a smile, even in sorrow. Heartwarming is not far away – it may bloom in the next second.

From yearn for nothing, to eager - till you are eager for the entire universe, but in the end, you just wanted to be saved. Devote yourself to possessions – and forget that you and I have nothing to begin with.

Sing to the song of blissfulness – have tears sink down your eyes and abjection after countless times of disappointments? Melody dissolves your panic, embrace this moment – a picture with no regrets, love is something that makes you feel contented, with a smile, even in sorrow. Heartwarming is not far away – it may bloom in the next second.

Imagine that someone that isn't far away can sing it with you.

Yup! It’s called (previously archived) Inopportune Moment, Anon!

Would you wake up from the dream and make another choice, or be a dreamer with boiling blood? Would you let your dreamland collapse, or you would not be fear of death and die supporting it?

When you deal with setbacks... remember… standup and try again... be mettlesome… Even if you are losing by half time – please find a reason to fight back, would you?

There are hundreds, thousands of beliefs in this world -- did you find the one that you wish for? How can we all live the same way – achieve the same results? An inspiration that you cannot tell others – often time it is more exaggerated than reality. You can be different – not the same. Come, climb over the defensive wall – scream all over and shatter the glass ceiling.

Would you leave and make another choice, or stay, persist, and replant the flower of perseverance? Would you retreat from a crisis, or sacrifice everything to fight until the end of the finale?

When you deal with setbacks... remember… standup and try again... be mettlesome … Even if you are losing by half time – please find a reason to fight back, would you?

There are hundreds, thousands of beliefs in this world -- did you find the one that you wish for? How can we all live the same way – achieve the same results? An inspiration that you can’t tell others – often time it is more exaggerated than reality. You can be different – not the same. Come, climb over the defensive wall – scream all over and shatter the glass ceiling.

La la la… la la la… la la la… La la la… la la la… la la la… La la la… la la la… la la la… La la la… la la la… you still have the other half of the battle to fight.

There are hundreds, thousands of beliefs in this world -- did you find the one that you wish for? How can we all live the same way – get the same thing? An inspiration that you can’t tell others – often time it is more exaggerated than reality. You can be different – not the same. Not the same. You can be different. You can be different. You can be different.