#RAHHHH FIRST TIME WRITING IN MONTHS

[hoodzgyal]

jason smells like gunpowder and limerence in the mornings. the human embodiment of “too little, too late”.

his scent lingers in your apartment long after he leaves, reminding you of the late night rendezvous, sweet lies, and empty promises from nights before. this has been going on for weeks; him crashing into your sacred space after a night of patrol, infecting the calm air of your home with his presence.

he knows he shouldn’t be doing it. that he should leave you alone before you get too attached. but your softness is like morphine.

the way you speak to him so gently. the way you don’t pity him, yet still care for him. your soft curves in comparison with his hard edges. you are warm and earnest where he is cold and distant. the mere thought of you has him itching for another fix.

he knows that he shouldn’t be doing this; getting such a sweet girl’s hopes up, just to inevitably dash them away. but he can’t help it. he’s an addict.

[irisintheafterglow]

couldn't make it any harder

summary: being in love with dick grayson sucks. dick grayson being in love with you? possibly worse.

cw/tags: reformed playboy!dick grayson, childhood best friends to lovers, angst/fluff with happy ending, reader fell first but he is down BAD, explicit language, absolutely terrible communication on both sides

note: SHOUTOUT DICK GRAYSON FOR GETTING ME THROUGH MY WRITER'S BLOCK RAHHHH also i forgot how much i like writing angst, like even though it pains me to read it is sooooo fun to write angry characters lol. again this was supposed to be shorter but hey at least it's not big ol' one-shot 1k words it's 100 way from being that though

hope you like it :) hello dc enjoyers :) hello dick grayson enjoyers :)

"people like you don't fall for people like me."

there's a pause and everything is still except for the steady rain coming down in sheets. it's the furthest thing from a romantic moment, yet he still looks just as beautiful all the same. the water makes dick's suit glisten, the lightning blue bird in the middle of his chest catching glimmers of flickering streetlight. he looks like a symbol. he looks like a god. and there you were, without an umbrella, something between frustration and pure grief driving your words.

"you don't know that," he replies roughly. it would sting less if you had cursed his entire bloodline for generations to come. "you can't say that." you scoff.

"oh, can't i?" the muscle in his jaw tightens; you want to punch it. why he was angry, you had no idea, but the red in your vision was practically scarlet. "we've known each other our entire lives, grayson. you tell me how many times i've settled for whatever piece of shit comes my way because i've learned my lesson. i've fallen for people like you, however perfect and charming they are, and i know for a fact that they never fall back."

the bouquet of flowers that he'd kept in his fridge all day to bring you after patrol lies forgotten on the sidewalk. it'd been like this since you'd broken up with your last boyfriend four months ago, and your best friend began filling the void that your ex left behind. you didn't start thinking too much of it until dick started looking at you with too much care, a tenderness in his eyes that was setting off every alarm bell in your mind. suddenly, the constant excuses to see you, buy you dinner, clean up your apartment, and all the other times he simply appeared by your side made sense. you finally realize he was pitying you while you were sitting at your kitchen table, watching black clouds roll over the starless sky, and rushing out the door to get some air. he'd caught you walking aimlessly on an empty street, landing in front of you with a dramatic flourish that quickly deflated when he saw the way you were glowering at him.

"really? who, then?" he doesn't raise his voice but he does step close enough to almost be chest-to-chest, emboldened. he was the greatest detective in the city, for fuck's sake, and he's used his skills for his entire life to remember every little detail about you. dick knows everything, down to your shoe size and favorite pair of sheets, so it'd be a new experience for him to learn about one of your crushes that he hadn't already figured out. "what self-righteous, talk-of-the-town playboy did you fall for that made you think you deserve anything less than everything i want to give--"

oh.

the realization hits him right in the abdomen, sharp and present as a bullet.

it's him. he is the reason you think he'd never love you anymore than as a friend.

he can't tell if the moisture on your face is mostly rain or tears; the look on your face is worse than a punch to the stomach. your bottom lip trembles as you look up, close your eyes, and take a breath. yet, when you finally fill in the empty space in the argument, your voice is still helplessly shaky.

"i've been in love with you for my whole life, dick," you sniffle. "i've seen the way people fall at your feet, how you make them seem special and then move on like they were less than the dirt under your boots. you can't blame me for hitting the panic button when god forbid you start making me feel special." the rain starts to lighten. his fingers twitch at his sides, unsure of whether to wipe your tears or take your hands.

"i'm sorry," he murmurs, slowly raising his hand to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing the fresh wave of emotions falling down your face. the world must be ending, you think to yourself. dick grayson is apologizing to you. "i'm sorry i ever made you think i was pitying you."

"do you actually pity me?"

"of course not," he answers without hesitation, his expression hardening into determination. you can't see his eyes behind the whites of his domino mask, but you can feel the intensity of his stare. "everything that i've done for you--been willing to do for you--has been because you deserve it." something softens in your face, your anger replaced by a sad, resolved smile.

"that doesn't change the fact that i've become another notch in your belt." his eyebrows furrow.

"how so?"

"you can add me to that list in your phone of people who fall for you that you don't love back." he shakes his head.

"i can't."

"why not?"

"because i was under the impression that people like you don't fall for people like me," he breathes, his face dipping closer to yours. you allow both of his hands to gently hold your face. "but for the first time, i'm glad to be wrong." before you could reply, his mouth is on yours, slowly, reverently. he kisses you like a promise, his hands slipping to tighten on your hips as if you'd fall through his hands if he let go. "i love you," he whispers in between breaths, over and over and over again. "i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you."

above, the stars finally begin to twinkle.

star divider by @enchanthings :)

[writingsoftarnishedsilver]

Hiii, i adore your sebastian sm and was wondering if you’ve ever written him in a yule ball setting? just sebastian being pissy and jealous about this random ball because he wants to ask the reader but he doesn’t know how to😭

Three Years Late | Sebastian Sallow x Reader

RAHHHH OKAY I WAS SO INSPIRED BY THIS I COULDN'T SLEEP. HAD TO WRITE IT IMMEDIATELY. TYSM FOR THIS!

Words: ~3,200

Tags: Mid-Size Reader, Female MC, No Y/N, No Hogwarts House, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Longing and Pining, Love Confessions, Fluff

Sebastian hated the Yule Ball.

Not in theory, of course. The music was decent, the cider had been spiked, and the enchanted snowfall drifting from the ceiling was beautiful. But none of that mattered. None of it could be appreciated while he stood in the farthest corner of the ballroom watching you laugh at something your date had just whispered in your ear.

Merlin, he hated that guy.

Gresham was his name. Some well-meaning Ravenclaw who wore perfectly pressed dress robes and was top-of-the-class in Arithmancy. Always polite. Always punctual. Always there, hovering beside you in study groups, carrying your books after class. And worst of all, you let him. Smiled at him. Said yes when he’d asked you to the ball.

You said yes.

Meanwhile, Sebastian had yet to figure out how to stop being a complete coward.

You looked incredible. Hair pinned up, dress clinging to every curve in a way that made his throat go dry. He’d never seen you look so radiant and so bloody out of reach.

“I swear to Salazar, you’re going to chip a tooth if you clench your jaw any harder.”” Ominis muttered beside him.

Sebastian didn’t answer. He just kept his eyes on you, smiling, spinning, dancing with someone who wasn’t him.

Anne, standing on Ominis’s other side in a sleek silver dress, arched an eyebrow at her twin. "Stop sulking, Sebastian.”

“I’m not,” he said sharply.

Anne gave him a look like she knew better, because she did. She’d seen that exact look before when they were kids and he got beaten at gobstones or Ominis outdueled him in Defense. The difference now was that this wasn’t about being second best in class. It was about you and the way Sebastian had somehow managed to let you slip through his fingers without even putting up a fight.

“You’ve been brooding since the minute she walked in,” Anne said, crossing her arms. “Honestly, it’s exhausting."

Sebastian didn't hear her, because across the ballroom, Gresham spun you out and reeled you back in like it was nothing. Like he’d earned the right to touch your waist. Like he’d practiced for this.

Sebastian’s grip tightened around his glass.

“I just don’t get it,” he muttered.

Ominis gave a long-suffering sigh. “What don’t you get, exactly? The idea that maybe you should’ve asked her first?”

Sebastian didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Not with his throat tight and his ears roaring with the low thrum of the waltz and the sound of your laughter, distant but unmistakable.

You looked happy. You were happy.

And that made him miserable.

He’d had weeks. Months, even. There’d been a dozen perfect moments he could've asked: lingering after duels, late nights in the Undercroft, your shoulder pressed against his on the couch.

But he hadn’t. Because asking meant admitting the truth, and admitting meant risk.

Sebastian frowned, his voice low, bitter, “What does he have that I don’t?”

Anne smirked. “Do you want the truth, or—?”

“Don’t answer that,” Ominis cut in. “Look. You’ve got two choices here. Keep standing here like a thundercloud with good hair, or do something about it.”

“I can’t do something about it,” Sebastian snapped. “She already said yes to him.”

Anne tilted her head. “Yes, but she keeps looking over here.”

That shut him up.

“...What?”

“She's looked this way at least four times since you started sulking,” Ominis explained like he was commenting on the weather. “And twice during that last dance. Don’t be thick.”

Sebastian didn’t answer. Just stared. You smiling again, eyes crinkling at the corners, your hand brushing Gresham’s sleeve as he said something undoubtedly dull and inoffensive. The bastard probably complimented your handwriting or your essay margins or something equally Ravenclawish. And you looked like you were enjoying it.

Sebastian reached for the nearest tray and grabbed a drink and knocked it back like maybe it could cauterize the godawful feeling blooming in his chest.

Anne made a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh as she watched. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I know that look."

"Relax,” Sebastian muttered.

“Please,” Ominis groaned. “please, do not make a scene."

Sebastian’s jaw ticked. “I’m not going to make a scene. I’m not an idiot.”

But if he had to keep watching you from across the room, he really might combust. Might actually die. Because it wasn’t just jealousy, it was something worse. Something hotter. Something that lived in his chest and in his fingertips and lower.

He’d been a goner since fifth year. Since the day you strolled into Defense Against the Dark Arts with that too-loud laugh, that wicked little smirk, and a wit sharp enough to parry him without a wand. It had been bad even then—he was fifteen, high on hormones and hubris, and already struggling to think straight anytime you smiled too long or touched his arm mid-laugh. There were more than a few shameful nights spent staring at the dorm ceiling, trying very hard not to imagine things he shouldn’t.

But now it was so much worse, because you weren’t a pretty fifth year with a sharp mouth anymore. Now you were a full-grown, impossibly stunning woman, and he was eighteen and half out of his mind because your dress hugged every curve like it was designed for the sole purpose of driving him insane. And maybe it was. Maybe you’d known. Maybe you’d looked in the mirror before coming down to the great hall and thought, yes, this will destroy Sebastian Sallow specifically.

And if so—mission accomplished.

Because you were exactly his type. No, you were the blueprint for his type. Full breasts, thick thighs, wide hips he wanted to get his hands on, and enough fire in your eyes to match his worst moods. He’d kill to bury his face between your—

"Sebastian."

Anne's voice sliced through the haze like a cold wind.

He blinked, yanked out of a fantasy he had absolutely no business entertaining in public, let alone with his sister and best friend standing right there.

"You're blushing," she said flatly.

Sebastian swore under his breath and scrubbed a hand down his face. He needed to get a grip. This was getting ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he could just walk across the ballroom, drag you away from your date, and finally say what he’d been holding in for the better part of three years.

…Except that was exactly what he wanted to do.

And maybe, if you really had been looking his way… if there was even the slightest chance you were waiting for him to do something—

No. He shouldn’t.

But if he didn’t, he was going to spend the entire night thinking about your dress. Your laugh. The soft curve of your waist beneath Gresham’s hand.

“I need air,” he muttered, already setting his glass down and stepping away.

Ominis sighed. “Don’t hex anyone.”

He turned on his heel and strode across the ballroom with the stiff, barely-contained grace of someone trying very hard not to commit a felony.

He managed a few half-hearted nods and smiles as he passed classmates—Poppy waved, Everett said something cheerful he didn’t catch, Natty offered a raise of her glass. He acknowledged them all with the bare minimum of politeness, jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides, pretending he didn’t feel like a live wire in polished shoes.

The music faded as he slipped out into one of the side corridors—a quiet wing strung with garlands and floating candles. He made it halfway down the hall before stopping beneath a tall window, unlatching the old iron lock with too much force.

The pane creaked open, letting in a gust of winter air.

He braced his hands on the stone windowsill and leaned forward, sucking in deep, freezing lungfuls of December night. Snow drifted down in slow spirals beyond the courtyard below, soft and bright against the black sky.

Maybe it would cool him down. Maybe it would snap him out of it.

"...Seb?"

His spine straightened like a bowstring pulled taut. For half a second, he thought he was imagining it. Your voice, soft behind him, just quiet enough to be mistaken for memory.

But then he turned, and there you were.

He shouldn't have been so surprised. You always found him, somehow. Even when he was trying to disappear.

You stood a few paces back, framed by candlelight, your breath fogging in the cold air. Your cheeks were flushed from dancing, curls escaping from your pinned-up hair, and Merlin help him, you were gorgeous.

He looked away before he could drown in it.

“I didn’t think anyone else would be out here,” you said gently, stepping forward. “Needed air.”

Sebastian swallowed hard, gripping the windowsill behind him like a lifeline. “Yeah. Same.”

You nodded, crossing the last few steps between you until you were standing beside him, close enough that he could smell your perfume.

There was a moment of quiet. Comfortable, almost. Or it would’ve been, if not for the static crawling up the back of his neck.

You leaned on the sill beside him, eyes flicking to the snow beyond.

“He’s sweet,” you said after a long silence. “Gresham.”

Sebastian stared straight ahead, jaw tense. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Seems like it.”

“I'm having a nice time. He’s a good dancer.”

His knuckles tightened against the stone. He forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s great."

Silence stretched again. When you spoke, your voice was quieter.

"Why didn't ask anyone? Half the girls in school were lining up for you.”

Sebastian scoffed, eyes still fixed on the snow. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” you said simply. “I heard them talking. In the common room. In class. Even in the bloody library.”

He shook his head, lips twisting. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Does to me.”

That pulled his gaze. You weren’t looking at the snow anymore. You were looking at him, eyes steady and searching.

“I thought…” You hesitated, then shrugged one shoulder, trying for casual. “I thought maybe you were waiting to ask someone in particular.”

Sebastian’s heart pounded in his chest.

“I was.”

You blinked. “Oh.”

“I just—” he paused, exhaled, then met your eyes fully for the first time all night. “I waited too long. And then it was too late.”

Another beat of silence.

"I'm sorry, Seb." You reached out, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. “Whoever she is… she’s an idiot for not going with you."

Sebastian blinked.

You were looking at him with genuine sympathy, eyes soft and earnest, and it took everything in him not to laugh. Or scream.

His jaw clenched. “She’s not an idiot.”

“Well,” you said, stepping back with a small, rueful smile, “she still missed out.”

He bit down on the truth before it could escape his mouth.

Instead, he gave a tight shake of his head. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t.

You were already turning toward the window again, exhaling a little sigh, oblivious to the storm you’d left in your wake.

And then, without thinking, without planning, without the faintest regard for timing or tact, Sebastian blurted:

“It was you.”

You turned, blinking like you hadn’t heard him right. “...What? Me?”

Sebastian laughed, but it wasn’t really a laugh, more like a breath laced with disbelief and something dangerously close to despair.

“Yes. You. Who else do you think I’d be talking about?”

You stared at him, stunned. Completely still, like you weren’t sure you’d heard him right, like the idea hadn’t even occurred to you.

Of course it hadn’t.

You didn’t know. You couldn’t. Not after he’d spent three years burying his feelings beneath sarcasm and smirks and the safety of being your best friend. And god, he’d tried so hard to be content with that. With friendship. With late-night walks to the Astronomy Tower and falling asleep in the Undercroft with your head on his shoulder, your leg draped over his like it meant nothing. Like it didn’t undo him every time.

He’d sat through conversations about your crushes. Snuck you chocolate from the kitchens when you cried about exams or homesickness or the injustice of being partnered with Leander Prewett in Potions. You’d given him your warmth, your loyalty, your everything, and he’d taken it all with a smile, pretending it was enough.

Sebastian pushed off the windowsill, running both hands through his hair before letting them drop uselessly at his sides.

“I’ve been in love with you since fifth year.”

There. He said it.

“You—Merlin, I’ve held your hair back when you were sick. You’ve patched me up after every dumb idea I’ve had. We’ve fought like hell, we’ve made up like nothing ever happened, and somewhere in all of it I forgot how to exist without you."

He stepped closer now, eyes locked to yours.

“We’ve been inseparable. Every spare moment, every late-night run to the kitchens, every time we snuck out just to walk the damn grounds and talk about nothing—I kept thinking, this is it. This is where I say something.”

His voice cracked slightly.

“But I couldn’t. Because what if I said it and everything changed? What if you didn’t feel the same and I ruined the best thing I’ve ever had? So I kept my mouth shut and I told myself being your best friend was enough.”

He stepped forward, now, hands clenched at his sides. "But seeing you tonight, with him... I realized I’m going to lose you anyway. Or at least, it feels like I am. And I can’t do it quietly. I can’t just sit in the corner and smile while someone else gets to touch you like—like he’s allowed.”

His voice cracked on the last word. He didn’t care.

“I should’ve told you a thousand times by now. But I’m telling you now. It’s you. It’s always been you.”

Silence.

The kind that pressed in on his ears and made the hallway feel suddenly too still, like the air had been sucked out of the castle walls.

You were staring at him like he’d grown a second head. Like he’d just rewritten every memory you thought you understood. Three years of friendship. Of knowing each other like second skin. Of shared looks and late nights and every secret you never told anyone else.

And now this.

Sebastian stood perfectly still, barely breathing, bracing for it. The inevitable. The gentle let-down. The you’re my best friend speech. The soft smile and the heartbreaking kindness that would crack him wide open.

He could hear it already. “Seb, I love you, but not like that.” “You mean so much to me, I just never thought of you that way.” “I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

He’d rehearsed it. Lived it a thousand times in his head, because he knew that’s how this would end.

And still, it didn’t stop him from hurting.

He dropped his gaze, suddenly exhausted. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you to know before I watched someone else fall in love with you while I said nothing at all.”

A beat. Two. Then—

"...You’ve been in love with me this whole time?"

He looked up cautiously, afraid to meet your eyes, afraid of what he’d see there. Pity, maybe. Or confusion. Or worst of all, that careful, familiar gentleness that meant you were letting him down easy.

He ran a hand down is face. “Yeah.”

“...And you thought I didn’t feel the same?”

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. “You never said anything,” he muttered at length. “And I figured if you did feel something, you would’ve. You’ve always been braver than me.”

You let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a gasp.

“For fuck’s sake, Sebastian.”

You surged forward before he could respond—hands on his collar, pulling him down—and kissed him.

The world stopped.

You were kissing him. You were kissing him. Not as a joke. Not by accident. Not in a dream.

For real.

It was nothing like the fantasies he’d tortured himself with in the quiet hours of the night. It wasn’t soft or cautious or polished. It was real. Warm and messy and desperate and aching.

And perfect.

A broken sound caught in his throat—half a groan, half a laugh—as he deepened the kiss, one hand sliding up your back, fingers threading into your hair. Your lips parted against his, and that soft sound you made, just the faintest hitch in your breath, lit him up from the inside out.

Merlin, you felt good. You tasted like cider and adrenaline and everything he’d ever wanted.

And the worst part, no the best part, was how familiar it felt. Like this had always been waiting. Like this was the missing thread that finally made the rest of your story make sense.

You broke apart just barely, your nose brushing his, your forehead pressing to his cheek as you caught your breath.

Sebastian’s eyes were wide, stunned, and far too shiny. His heart was doing something reckless inside his chest.

“You kissed me,” he said dumbly. “You—you kissed me.”

You rolled your eyes grinning, and he couldn’t help it, he reached out, touching your face like he was afraid you might vanish. His thumb brushed your cheekbone, then your jaw.

“You... feel the same?” he asked, voice low, awed.

You didn’t even blink. “I've loved you since fifth year, you absolute moron.”

Sebastian let out a choked laugh, relieved and wrecked and filled with something wild and weightless.

“I think I might be hallucinating,” he said breathlessly. “Or worse, this is some sort of cruel, well-crafted illusion from Peeves.”

You laughed, your eyes shining, and you looked at him like he was something precious.

Sebastian Sallow,” you murmured, voice thick, “I've been yours since the day you hexed Leander for making me cry.”

Sebastian remembered that day. Of course he did. Sebastian hadn’t even thought. One second he was watching you storm out of the classroom, the next he had his wand out.

You hadn’t said a word about it then. Just sat beside him at dinner that night like nothing had happened, nudged your shoulder against his, and stolen the pudding off his plate.

He hadn't known what to call the feeling in his chest back then. Now, he did.

“I’d hex him again,” he said quietly. “Twice as hard.”

You smiled, slow and fond. “I know.”

He leaned in again, just enough to press his lips to your forehead.

“So,” you said, muffled into his jacket, “...do we go back to the Ball now?”

“Absolutely not.”

You looked up.

He laughed. “You think I’m letting anyone else near you now?”

You grinned. “Possessive, are we?”

He smirked, leaning down to brush another kiss against your lips. “About you? Always.”

Banner Credit

[platimoonie]

a surprise.

In which, you decide to surprise Fubuki to help him relieve his tension (and yours too)

Pairings; Fubuki Shirou x Reader (inazuma eleven)

Content warning; NSFW, established relationship, use of pet names, no use of y/n, AFAB reader, lingerie, smut smut smut, lmk if I missed something.

Before you read; hi guys!!! ♡ this is my first ever smut and writing something like this so pls be gentle on me </3 feedback is appreciated. ALSO FUBUKI BRAINROT RAHHHH. (El I'm looking at you)

Lately, you've noticed Fubuki has been far too busy. Far too busy for your liking. It's football season, and he has been out of the house for longer periods of time. And when he would come home, you would have dinner, and after kissing you sweetly, he'd pass out beside you on the bed within minutes. Then he'd wake up at 5am the next day, quietly so he wouldn't disturb you, and leave the house after kissing your forehead. This has been going on for the past 4 weeks, and you're getting a little bit too needy.. in more ways than one.

You've tried, and you've really tried a lot to not bother him. It's an important month, with back to back matches for the team he coaches, and you're not blind to the rigorous training required for football. But your patience is running thin. It's not your fault though. Your fingers can hardly satisfy you anymore, not after you know what it means to have sex with Shirou who leaves you a crying, writhing mess and makes you see stars.

♡

And so you make a plan— to surprise him. You know it has been rough for him too.He's often frustrated, wanting his team to be the best one in the prefecture, and it's getting to his head— keeping him tensed most of the time. So you, being the good girlfriend you are, know exactly what to do.

Shirou has a one day-break from any kind of matches or training coming up around the corner. And as the day slowly started approaching, you received the lingerie you had ordered just in time. You opened the package with a slight giggle, your mind already beginning to imagine your beloved's reaction when you surprise him.

♡

"Good morning, handsome." You smile as you wake up Shirou, showering him with at least a hundred kisses all over his face, jaw, and neck. You're happy he's in bed with you till later today, and you're finally getting to wake up with him beside you. A raspy chuckle leaves him, which makes butterflies swarm in your stomach. He closes his eyes and happily accepts the love he is currently being endowed with. "Mmm good morning love." He says as he brushes a strand of stray hair away from your eyes, looking at you with the most adoring eyes that make your cheeks feel warm.

The morning rolls smoothly, and you shower Shirou with all the love that you possibly can, trying to make up for the past few weeks, and your love for him is bursting through the roof. Shirou, on the other hand, is beaming. His droopy eyes seem to be twinkling, his face glowing softly and his heart brimming with warmth and gratitude for you. He's basking in your affection.

During the evening, Shirou leaves for a 20-minute jog and this is the perfect opportunity for you to execute your plan.

"Sweetheart, I'm home." Shirou calls out as he closes the door behind him. He removes his shoes and furrowed his eyebrows a bit when he doesn't receive a response. He felt refreshed, and now, all he wanted to do now was cuddle with you and maybe go out for dinner if you were up for it..

"In here!" You squeaked from your bedroom nervously a few moments later, suddenly feeling all shy with the extremely teasing set you were wearing when you heard Shirou's footsteps in the hall.

Shirou steps in the room, which is illuminated only by soft candlelight. He stops in his steps when his gaze lands on you, and he stands still, dead still. His hands are frozen by his sides, his heartbeat begining to race dangerously, and his eyes widen.

You're slightly nervous because of the lack of reaction, and you put your hands behind your back, your chest heaving softly, "Wanted to surprise you, Shirou, you've been too stressed lately.." You say with a teasing smile as you bite your lip, hoping he's impressed.

He gulps heavily as his eyes trail over your figure. You were clad in the prettiest thing he had ever seen. It was a two piece, lavender in colour, adorned with small net flowers on the sides. Also, it was sheer, leaving nothing to the imagination, and gosh did you look like an angel sent directly from the heavens to bless his eyes. Your tits were perky and standing stiff against the thin material of the clothe, your ass barely covered by the frilly skirt like piece attached to the lacy thong, and Shirou couldn't stop his eyes from hungrily ravaging the sight in front of him.

"Is this.. for me..?" Shirou breathes out, in a dangerously low tone, finally finding his voice as he slowly walks towards you. His head dips into the curve of your neck as he takes in a shuddering breath, filling his senses with your presence, his hands coming to grip your sides in an extremely possessive manner.

"Mmhm. Do you like it?" You whisper in his ear, and his grip tightens on your hips. "Like it? I'm holding myself back from devouring you this instant and taking you right against the wall. So yes, I do like it. God, i love it angel." He says lowly, which makes your stomach clench as you gulp. You catch his lips in a fierce and intense kiss, hooking your arms around his neck, and Shirou's hands travel all over your body, feeling your soft skin and caressing everywhere he can as he kisses you passionately. He slightly buckled his hips forward towards your crotch, and you could feel him even through the layers of his clothing. He's already hard, painfully so, and the action seemed to cause both of you to let out a sigh.

"Please, you can do whatever you wanna. I need you so bad Shirou." You say in a pleading tone, as your hands weave through his soft locks, a string of saliva connecting your lips as you break the kiss for a moment to look into his eyes, which are half-lidded, and heavy with desire. "Aww is my baby needy for me?" He says in a breathy tone, resting his forehead against yours. You nod eagerly, abandoing all shame. It has been far too long since youve had him inside you. "Yes god yes please" You whine out, unable to contain yourself anymore. "I want you on the bed sweetheart. Right now." Shirou whispers in your ear and watches you as you quickly go and lie down on the bed obediently, looking at him with glossy eyes. "Such a good girl for me." He mutters under his breath.

Shirou takes off his shirt, and you shamelessly indulge in his form. His abs are rock hard as a result of his athletic career, his shoulders broad, and his chest is well defined. Despite countless times seeing him like this, the sight never failed to make your heart and your pussy throb. Within seconds his pants and boxers are discarded by the bed.

You squeel lightly when he's suddenly on top of you, almost pouncing on you. His lips attack your collar bones as he kisses, and sucks on your sensitive skin hungrily. He's propped up on top you with one of his forearms resting on the bed beside your head and his other hand comes up to your chest. He plays with the lacey fabric that cover your tits and then pulls it down, his lips are immediately on one of your nipples, licking and sucking greedily, while his free hand plays with the other one, slighly rolling your pebbled end between his nimble fingers. Soft gasps leave your parted lips as your hands tug on his hair. "Aha Shirou fuuuck yes... oh my godddd missed you, missed this soo much" You babble, already beginning to feel like putty in his hands. His hard cock is brushing against your lower body and you feel a pool forming between your legs. "Shirou please can't wait any longer" you whimper, voice slightly high.

"So needy today." He chuckles at your whiny form. You pout, lips shiny with saliva " 's not my fault you've been so busy lately" "I'm so sorry, didn't know my baby was missing my cock so much, yeah?"

You gasp when his dick rubs against your clit as he says that. "No—no I missed you too, your presence, everything I swearrr" you say breathlessly, wanting to desperately prove him you're not just cock-hungry, when in fact,— you where.

Quickly, Shirou pulls off your frilly panties, and slips inside your folds, your wetness making it easy for him. You both groan at the feeling together. You pant and struggle for a moment as Shirou enters deeper into you. You don't think you'll ever get used to his girth and long length as your walls clamp down onto him.

"Fuckk baby..." Shirou throws his head back, beginning to move shallowly as he brings his hand under your thighs and presses them towards your chest. "'M gonna make sure I stuff you all nice— and full— today *thrust* yeah" He groans as he starts snapping his hips wildly. He drags his cock all the way out and pushes it back in aggressively, making you mewl and cry out loud, nails digging into his shoulder. "Don't want my angel feeling empty *thrust*" He continues, as he picks up a faster pace.

The sound of skin smacking against skin fills the room, along with your moans and cries as you repeatedly call out his name. "Shirou— fuck— oh god, don't stop Shirou" A bit of spit drools out from the side of your mouth, as your eyes roll back in pleasure. "Gonna come inside you angel, you'd like that yeah?" Shirou says as he pants, his pace never once slowing down, as he pistons his hips into you.

"Mhm yes! Please! please come inside me." You cry out. "I'm close Shirou, gonna—gonna cum!" "Fuck, cum angel. Come for me, cmon." Shirou groans. "Shirou, Shirou, Shirouuu!" It's so lewd, the way you cry out his name like a mantra, voice finally dying in your throat as you orgasm, and everything goes white for a moment.

Your body feels like it's on fire, a tear pooling at the end of your eye from the pleasure and you wail loudly, as your pussy spasms. Shirou fucks you through your orgasm chasing his own, making you mewl from the movement and he finally feels himself release inside you as he groans loudly. Thick white ropes of cum shoot out into you, making you feel extremely hot, and you both are panting.

You look at Shirou, his lavender hair is sticking to his forehead due to sweating, and his eyes are half lidded. He slowly pulls out with a plop, and you moan lightly, already missing his length. Shirou falls down beside you, his hand draping across your chest, and you turn slightly on your side to face him. He smiles at you, an adoring and love sick smile and you can't help but giggle, still feeling high from the pleasure. "Well that was definitely stress releiving" He says with a chuckle and you grin. You kiss him, and he kisses you back and its so so soft.

What's not soft though, is his cock, which is once again beginning to harden at the sight of your flushed state. You feel him pressed against you, as you glance down. "Again?" You whisper cheekily ."Again." He nods with a suggestive smile.

[vxmpyree]

HELLO first if all I LOVE UR WRITING ... UR NIKTO FICS MAKE ME WANNA SCREAM INTO A PILLOW (/very pos)

ive never requested anything ever so im shy n gonna use anon teehee. ANYWAYS ik you said you write for pretty much anyone but i'm still gonna ask: do you write for keegan? if you do..... could i ask for a sick fic?🙏🙏 or any type of fluff rlly. with a male reader :3 (theres barely any for him 💔) THANK YOU FOR UR SERVICE IN THIS FANDOM BTW RAHHHH🫡🫡🫡💖💖‼️‼️‼️‼️

ofc!! i dont know much about cod ghosts so sorry for any errors. thisll be my first plot fic :)) ♡ not beta read,,

[im the devil - clams casino] [0.7k wc]

when keegan returns from deployment, he finds you ill, and not just with a bit of a sniffle and cough. no, he can hear how your lungs shudder with every breath and feel how your skin is hot to the touch.

being his husband isn’t an easy job. he’s always out for one reason or another. you’ll be at home watching a film together, only for his boss to call and say that they need his help. he’s too much of a workaholic and empath to say no, i’m busy. keegan is always worrying about you, always thinking about the slight pout of your lips when he comes out of his bedroom in uniform again. 

so, seeing you like this doesn’t do any good for his anxiety. 

“you’re burning up,” he mutters, pulling a thermometer out of your mouth. 

the curtains are drawn, letting in only traces of sunlight tinted by the lavender linen. more light would only give you a headache. 

he pulls off his gloves before reaching out to touch you, not wanting to touch you with the same cloth that clutches his rifle. his rough palms move to cup your cheeks, swollen from fever and sweat. you can hardly even keep your eyes open.

“did you eat today?”

he grumbles as you shake your head. you must’ve been too sick to get out of bed, only able to helplessly roll over and try to sleep through hunger pangs. at times like this, he wishes he hadn’t chosen an occupation of aiming sniper rifles and long months of waiting in bushes or on tall buildings. then, he’d be able to take care of you. 

“do you want to eat? we’ve got… hm… soup and crackers. or bread,” he presses.

you shake your head again. you don’t want to eat!

keegan sinks into the edge of the bed and furrows his brow, considering you. he has the air conditioner unit on for your feverish top half, and keeps the sheets over your shivering legs. he’s taken your temperature and wiped you down. he gave you some tylenol, which should’ve gone with a cold glass of water, but you gulped it down before he came back with something to drink.

something is missing. there’s more that he could do for you, but he just can’t put his finger on it. 

when he lifts his head to check on you, keegan finds that you’re already staring at him. he has to stifle a smile. you are what makes him feel at home-- your accepting stares, and the slight curl of your lips. it would’ve been impossible not to wish for something more when you’re so welcoming, so warm. 

you motion with one hand for him to come closer. for a moment, he wants to say no, that his face is still covered in grease and he’s clad in heavy armor. but what’s the use in saying no to a face like yours? before he can even start stripping himself of his gear first, he’s already slipping into the sheets.

there’s the low hum of the air conditioner unit and the occasional car rolling down your quiet street. everything seems so small when he’s here with you, tucked away from the world. all he can think of is the smell of your shampoo and the slow rise and fall of your chest.

"...did you just miss me?” he whispers.

you only smile and watch him silently, looking at the bump in his nose and cheeks starting to droop with age. he’s getting older and so are you. it feels like you two only just settled down. the years have slipped through his fingers like sand. maybe it’s time for him to retire. then, he could spend all the time with you in the world.

keegan leans closer to you, and wonders if he smells like gunpowder and sweat. but he waves his worries away in favor of gathering you in his arms. his palm rubs slow circles into your back, wrinkling your old t-shirt. 

you cough into his chest and furrow your fingers into the back of his heavy jacket. your hands claw helplessly like it’ll ameliorate the itch at the back of your throat or your heavy cough. if he could, he’d do away with this sick spell. he can do things most men can’t, from scaling towering buildings to gutting men, but he can’t fix his poor husband’s fever and runny nose.

he pats your back until you settle down, becoming jelly in his arms. 

will he be sick tomorrow? definitely, but he wouldn’t mind spending a day hidden away with his husband, even if the two of you can only lie in bed and kiss each other’s warm faces.

[akashirl]

HELLO??? YOUR ART IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! DUDE. THAT'S SO AWESOME. I cannot wait to see more selfship content from you, your style is chef's kiss and I wish to know more about ALL OF IT. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR F/O RAHHHH INFODUMP TO ME PLEASE 💪❤️‍🔥

i apologize, this got so much longer than i expected...i didn't prepare any of this. i'm writing in class, so i apologize for it being so sloppy.

| 𝙈𝙄 ♡ 𝙎𝙀𝙄 𝙇𝙊𝙍𝙀 |

okay so i'm still trying to put the lore together (since it was such a long time ago) but i've been doing basketball my whole life, right? when i got to middle school, (my s/i) joined teiko and started attending practices. the first day went by smoothly, i already had experience anyway. but on the second day, i met sei. and let me tell you. it was absolute love at first sight (i can't really describe it since that's really just how i remember it happening). he came up to me and said "i'm seijuro akashi, we'll be teammates from now on." and my head went like "son, you like boys.". i blushed like a madman. he noticed at the time but didn't think much of it. by the time we were really tiny! around the age of 11.

i didn't confess at the time because not only was he FAR beyond my league (i still believe that, honestly. how does he put up with me) and i didn't want to embarrass him (having a guy confess to him). he comes from a wealthy family that puts quite a lot of pressure on him and i knew that so i obviously had to keep it a secret. still, i managed to become his friend over time. midorima figured out that i liked him and confronted me about it (we were around 14 at the time) but i practically begged him to keep it secret. he complied.

(tw mention of ed) anyway, i developed anorexia by the end of my third middle school year and it latched onto me very badly, making me too powerless to play (and my hospitalizations took precious time of my life). i had to stop for two years. it took a huge toll on my life. seijuro was there for me and tried to help, but people who have eating disorders know that the help has to come from the inside - and there's nothing that outsiders can do to help us in our situation. i had to want to get better. at that point, i started isolating myself.

yet, somehow, i was able to finish my first two high school years in rakuzan (my s/i). i missed out on a lot of classes but my grades were good enough for me to pass. but i knew something wasn't right.

a few months ago (it hasn't been a year yet), i found the will in me to recover and slowly, bit by bit, i returned to a stable state. my life took a turn for the better, and i'm very thankful for it. i eventually got to the point of being able to return to basketball, and so i did. i stopped isolating myself, but at that point, i would rarely cross paths with sei, since he was in another class and usually extremely busy.

my first practice went by normally. i realized that it really felt good to get my strength back, and that how much i really loved basketball. but still, something was missing.

and on the second day, i knew what it was. my 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯, standing right under the net, smiling fondly at me. when i saw him, i felt the same spark that i did when we were just little kids. it's an irreplaceable feeling. an extraordinary one.

and then he walked towards me. my first thoughts were "wow, he sure got taller. still shorter than me, though. how cute." obviously, my red face betrayed me. at that point, it was impossible not to tell that i was completely head over heels. that's when he realized it.

the gym was quiet. after a while, he spoke.

"i'm glad that you returned. it was about time."

i felt like sobbing. i really did miss him, more than anything in the world. playing alongside him, receiving his passes...it was the best feeling in the world.

and now, he knew i felt that way. i didn't have to say a word.

practice went by beautifully. even though i was still adapting to the new team's rhythm, i was glad i could keep up with all the new changes. it wasn't too draining - it was just right. and when practice finished, the team kept playing a game amongst themselves and i went to the locker rooms.

𝘩𝘦 had followed me and i hadn't realized it.

once i did turn around and saw him standing there, i asked if everything was okay / if he needed anything. i couldn't brush the tint off my face, though.

and just like that, he went up to me, cupped my face with his hands and brought me down for a kiss.

i was absolutely dumbfounded. i couldn't believe it. my heart was racing like never before. i couldn't even bring myself to kiss him back, due to how fast everything happened - even though it seemed like time had stopped. he pulled away and his eyes met mine. he opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again. i could tell that, as much as it is unlikely, he was struggling to get his words out.

"don't ever scare me like that again."

- ♡ -

and as the days and practice went by, we started hanging out more. i finally had the energy to live my life again...and being alongside sei was everything i could have dreamed of. get yourself a man that matches your freak (basketball insanity).

oh, and we kissed. again and again. everything was in secret, though, his father is a real nuisance; and so are the guys at rakuzan. we can't avoid ruining his reputation like that.

i'm just so happy that we get to cuddle every night. it's the best present in the world.

[aceouttatime]

15 questions for 15 friends

tagged by @korblez! thanks dearie <3

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?: My deadname was my mother's favorite name. My chosen name, Alex, is very similar--I kind of just flip-flopped the gender of it. I also chose my middle name when I was getting it legally changed, and I decided on my father's name.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: Probably about ten months ago. I can't remember, but it's been way more difficult since starting testosterone ~2 years ago.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?: No. Observe: A. I'm as gay as a room of monkeys on nitrous oxide, B. I'm a trans man who does NOT intend on using the uterus he was given, and C. I'm 20. We ain't ready.

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?: Was a cheerleader against my will for 12 years and a gymnast for 10. Those are. Uh. Very uncomfortable activities for a closeted trans man. Also messed up my body (abdominal issues, back issues, joints that crack like bubble wrap), but hey, I have a few cool party tricks to pull out now! I also played basketball for a few years and peewee soccer when I was real little.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?: No. (I am a liar.)

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?: How they hold themselves, i.e., body language like tense shoulders, a puffed-out chest, downcast eyes.

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOUR?: Green! Olive green with a few dots of brown.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?: Depends on my mood. Do I want a think piece? Psychological horror, all the way. Am I sad and need Comfort Content? Happy endings please or I will cry inside.

ANY TALENTS?: I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, given five minutes. I can do a great worm and also flips. I can draw pretty pictures sometimes that usually have gay people or aliens (or both) in them.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?: the USA BAYBEE RAHHHH 🦅🦅🦅 Ohio, specifically. It's mostly corn, highways, and the occasional building here (if you spot any signs of civilization, please let authorities know, as it is a rarity and must be documented for research purposes).

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?: Drawing, reading, writing, skiing, rollerblading, hiking, biking, embroidery, bracelet-making, video gaming, window shopping (poor college student with Spending Anxiety), taking care of my plant children, stopping my roommate's cat from eating plants (she has no survival instinct but is Very Cute), and many more that I can't think of at the moment.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?: One dorm cat (my roommate's, she's a ragdoll mix) named Eda, and two dachshunds (my parents') named Dunkin and Bailey. Dunkin is barely out of his puppy years, and Bailey is Strange and Brick-Shaped.

HOW TALL ARE YOU?: 5'7. 5'8 if my spine is not Fucked-Up that day.

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?: Science, history, and English. Psychology, if that counts (it's what I study in college)!

DREAM JOB?: Clinical psychologist for NASA (basically I'd help research, implement programs for, and monitor the mental wellbeing of personnel). Pipe dream? Yes. More reasonable career path? Clinical psychologist working private practice somewhere nice (and warm and maybe not in the States). -----TLDR; Astronaut therapist.

I'll go ahead and tag (with care, no pressure!): @straypurplebread, @who-is-riley, @swaps55, @daisywalletchains, @sparatus, @thetrashbagswasteland, @whiskynorocks, @notjumpinglamps, @threewhiskeylunch, @westernlarch, @maxiepenguin,

[sombrashe]

Personable

content pure unbridled smut, i just need this man so badly, afab gender neutral reader, hairy javi rahhhh, lots of kissing, established relationship, nipple playing, javi has a fat dick because i said so, unsafe sex

note(s) this specific version is in first-person, but i have a second-person version here | please tell me if any of the spanish is wrong, i used google translate

Snow crunches under my feet as I carefully balance a bowl in my palms. The sun was beginning to set and I couldn't help but worry as neither engineer showed up to get any food. While a common occurrence for Alex I worried when Javi followed her lead. Walking through the town center, I keep my eyes down at the bowl to maintain my balance. After a few antagonizing minutes I see his dome-shaped workshop in the distance.

"Engineer de La Torre?"

I peek into his makeshift shop and find him scribbling down something. The comm’s must still be down with how he mumbles to himself. I take a few steps forward as his hand presses against the headset which compresses his curls. Keeping a decent distance between him to not scare I raise my voice to hopefully grab his attention.

"Hello? Engineer de La Torre?"

This grabs his attention and he turns to face me. His face is twisted in slight annoyance, an emotion he badly attempts to hide. Once he realizes who he’s looking at his pupils dilate as he swats the headphones off him. I close the distance between us and take in his notes.

"Wow, you write so small. How can you read this?"

"It's not that difficult. See, right here, it says communications down."

"Javi, that's scribbles. I couldn't read that even if you put a gun to my head."

He gives me a pointed look over his shoulder and I simply shrug. He takes a moment before turning back around and gesturing vaguely.

"It's shorthand."

I hum and attempt to read a few lines. Some of the words I can pick up without much focus. Unfortunately for me, I take in that it's Spanish and begin struggling to keep up. While I can understand it spoken, reading it is completely different and I haven't had nearly enough tutoring. After a few lines only picking up one or two words I clear my throat. Hoping to change the subject without admitting my failure. Holding the bowl forward I give him a smile so bright Ruth would be jealous.

"Vegetable soup. I was able to snag you one of the last bowls."

He stands and takes the soup from my mitten-clad palms. I wiggle my fingers, stretching out the slight burn that started to seep through the cotton.

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry."

He walks to the other end of the shop to place it down on his overflowing desk. My face falls while his back is turned. Looking down at my feet for a moment I take a breath and fix a look like my stomach isn't in knots and perk up.

"Okay. Well if you get hungry I'm sure it'll taste just as good later."

I fidget and bite my tongue. My voice gives me away. I immediately want to argue, but I remember how much stress he's under. Layton had only been gone a few days and already the work was piling up. Deciding to leave before I try and force some food down his throat, I start to make my exit. A single step towards the door and my lips parting to excuse myself. I don't have time to take another before he grabs my attention. He takes the few steps between us and with lips still parted I make eye contact.

“Comeré después. No hemos tenido un momento a solas desde que llegamos a New Eden. ¿Terminaste por hoy?”

"Yeah."

I didn't have much else to say, just yes. Ever since we met our lives have been nothing if not busy. This meant little time for us which caused a gaping hole in my chest. Moving onto my toes, I close my eyes letting him fill in the gap. Leaning down with momentum our lips crush one another. Chapped lips from the freeze move in sync. The eagerness you both feel ends with bitten and bruised tinted skin. It's been months since we even talked let alone got a chance to touch one another. Slight brushes against one another and the little touches as we passed by each other weren't enough. Breath becomes heavy the longer we stay pressed together. My fingers leisurely remove his beanie, letting it fall to the floor my fingers dip lower and I take the time to play with the ends of the curls resting against the nape of his neck. Tongues press hotly against each other both of us fighting for dominance. Jackets are removed next, puffy protection lies catching cold on the ground. My cheeks heat as breaks are taken to start stripping my articles of clothing one by one. I can feel his eyes boring holes into my flesh as I lean down to pull off my jeans. Turning around to meet the very eyes burning my skin I take in the fact that he followed suit. I could take hours staring at him, his softness mixing with the hardened skin of rebel living makes for an intoxicating concoction. Blinking I press myself tightly against him, chest to chest. Kisses are once again exchanged.

"Javi."

"Hm?"

"It's been too long, kissing is fun and all, but I really need to get laid. Like, now."

He grins against my lips and breaks away. Gathering some papers he moves them off to the side making a space big enough to sit on. Hooking my thumbs against the elastic of my underwear I tug them down my thighs and off my ankles. Dropping them into his seat I hoist myself onto the desk. Spreading my legs slightly I swing my feet waiting.

“Maldición.”

Smiling I wiggle my fingers at him. Closing the distance he leans down and takes a moment to press quick kisses against my exposed neck. Hair brushes against my shoulder as I tilt my head to give him more access. When he pulls away his cock is straining against his plain briefs. Biting my tongue I yank him forwards by the elastic. Pulling them down slightly I free his cock from its constraints. I watch it twitch for a few moments absolutely mesmerized. He is much more unkempt than he was on the train and it suits him. A lot. Like a lot lot. Dragging the tips of my fingers up I run them against the hair that rests grown out against his chest. He watches my face as I glide my fingers up further to trace the hard raised scars covering his face. My pointer finger traces a combination of scars crisscrossing and weaving out and away.

"So, you're gonna fuck me or?"

He gives a genuine laugh and I can't help the smile that tightens my cheeks. He leans down and captures my lips for a simple peck. With one hand he raises my left leg up and around his waist while the other rests against his thigh. He uses his first two fingers to trace down the valley between my breasts, over the pudge of my lower stomach, and finally against the sensitive bud between my thighs. My toes twitch as he rubs my clit, gradually gaining speed. It doesn't take long before I'm more than wet enough to take him.

"Ja-, fuck."

It's been so long and despite the need to see him between my legs, his glasses fogging up as he greedily eats me out, I need his cock more. He seems to get the memo and withdraws his fingers from me. Shifting our bodies he takes hold of his cock. My mouth waters and I have to clamp my lips closed to keep from drooling. Lining his cock to my entrance I use my ankles to lock my legs around his waist and pull him in further.

"Calma mi amor. llegaremos allí."

I know he can't say no to me and it's obvious by the way he soon sinks into me.

"Oh~"

I huff out my chest as he slowly sinks deeper.

"Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre..."

His voice fades out, but his lips continue moving until the prayer is finished. Squeezing down around his cock I wait for him to finish as the painful stretch of his cock morphs into unbridled pleasure. Finally his eyes open and he takes a moment to fix his glasses before shifting his hips. Gasping I dig my nails into the flesh of his wrist. He hisses and attempts to shift away from the pain. Instead, I double down and yank him forward before withdrawing my nails from his sensitive flesh. I place gentle kisses against the crescent marks. Loosening my ankles I allow him the space to move his hips. He wastes no time and pulls back to then slam forward. A high-pitched gasp fills the air as I blink slowly. Keeping his eyes downcast he takes in the sight of his cock disappearing inside of me before coming back glistening.

“Superas al sol en belleza.”

“Javi.”

My voice is soft as I bump my chest against his. He looks up again and messily gropes my tits. It’s up to me to keep us together and I perform arguably well. Making sure we stay lined up as he continues playing with my nipples. I huff as his calloused thumbs brush against my sensitive skin. Shivers are sent from skull to toes as he grinds deeply, hipbone against hipbone. He must have missed this because he can't keep his eyes off his hands. The way he maneuvers has me clenching down with a sharp whine. I can feel myself getting closer and closer. Months of my fingers were nothing compared to the feeling of his cock bumping that soft spongy part deep inside me. Letting out a loud sound I wrap my arms tightly around his neck and pull him close. He buries his head in the side of my neck, his warm breath fans across my shoulder blade. My nails dig into his shoulder blades and he doesn't complain this time. Dragging them up and into his curls I feel my orgasm start to wash over me. Tingling starts in my toes and soon takes over my legs as I squeeze my ankles tighter making it difficult for him to move. He doesn’t seem to mind as he groans while grinding our bodies against each other. Trying desperately to reach his own high he finally succumbs to the pleasure. Cumming he fills me up until I can feel myself leak onto the desk below. A mixture of our essence slicks my thighs. My orgasm soon takes over and I sink my teeth into his shoulder as my body winds tight before suddenly relaxing. He softly speaks and the slight breeze tickles the shell of my ear.

“Dios arriba te amo.”

“¡Cómo te amo!”

Comeré después. No hemos tenido un momento a solas desde que llegamos a New Eden. ¿Terminaste por hoy?: I'll eat after. We haven't had a moment alone since we got to New Eden. You finished for the day?

Maldición: Damn

Calma mi amor. llegaremos allí: Calm down my love. We'll get there.

Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre...: Our Father, that you are in heaven. Hallowed be your name...

Superas al sol en belleza: You surpass the sun in beauty.

Dios arriba te amo: God above I love you

¡Cómo te amo!: I love you so much

banners made by cafekitsune

[starjxsung]

starrrrr 💕💕💕 I missed youuu

school is literally starting up again I'm so over it already 😭 senior year guys let's goo

HEY I TURNED 20??? LIKE IT FEELS WEIRD TO SAY IM TWENTY YEARS OLD NOW. buttt it also just feels the same lmao

but I have bigger things to worry about, like trying to get SKZ tickets when they release the US dates. i just hope I get good seats 😭 honestly I hope I get any seat bc this would be my first time seeing them live IM SO EXCITED... it feels crazy to think that I've been a stay for over two years now... i remember just getting into them as they closed off oddinary era, and my first comeback with them was maxident. it literally feels like a couple months ago, and I feel like time is flying by so fast now, literally every year just goes by quicker and quicker 😭

yk maybe that's a good thing bc my surgery is scheduled (as of now) for October 31st, which I don't remember if I told you the date or not but yeah. I'm glad I could get on the books pretty quick, but it also feels a little too quick, yk?? i just feel like there's so much to think about especially bc I've never had anything remotely like this before... the only time I've had anything down was stitches on my lip when I was like five 😭 (I banged into a clock, don't ask...) but it's kind of overwhelming even for me. but at the same time I still feel a bit iffy about it, I just want to get it done and see if it works.

but yeah anyways I LOVE YOU AND I MISS YOU AND I WANT TO KISS YOU STAR BB!!!! feel free to write an essay for me to read about your life and literally everything you're doing bc I need to distract myself from starting senior year 😔😔

miley says hello and that she loves you 💕💕

MY LOOOOOVEEEEEEE OH MY GOD. IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE. HOW’VE YOU BEEN????

Also HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY???? 20 YEARS OLD!!!!!!! FUCKKKKK THAT’S SUCH A FUN AGE I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT SO MUCH RAHHHH did you do anything to celebrate???? Dinner? Cake?????? HAPPY FRICKIN BIRTHDAYYYYY LIVE IT UP SO HARD 20 IS GOING TO BE AMAZING TO YOU 🎉🫶🎊

Also FELTTTTTT on the skz tickets part oh my god 😭 even just seeing the start of the tour and seeing all the clips has me PANICKING…… like if I don’t get to see Bang Chan solo stage with that shirt off…… hell nah. I can’t believe how fast time is going by too???? Like wym we’re already past ate promotions and the Korean shows are finished????? That doesn’t sound real 😭 TIME ISNT REAL YALL

Also I am SO GLAD you were able to get your surgery on the books!!! I know it seems really scary but at least once you’re finished with all the prepping and everything, it’ll just be like one big long nap and then you’ll be finished 🥹 sending you so much love and good vibes and manifesting the surgery goes smoothly and that you’ll feel so much better after it. I’ll be thinking of you all Halloween!!! I’m so proud of you I promise everything is going to be okay and you’re so strong and capable of getting through it! ❤️

I love you so so so much I hope the start to senior year has been nothing short of amazing!!!! My life has been the boring same usual shit but I’m insanely busy with work (I really should be sleeping rn bc I have a 7am meeting tomorrow lollll) but !!!! I’m excited for fall and everything’s fine! I just need to take the world’s longest nap tbh

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY ANGEL a million hugs and kisses for you as always ALSO THANK U FOR MY DAILY DOSE OF MILEY I LOVE HER SO MUCH…. I offer you a momo in exchange (she loves you too !!!!)

[lorensonebraincell]

okay technically this wasn't the original plot that we had tried to salvage BUT VERY TECHNICALLY. AFTER WHAT? EIGHT MONTHS?? CRYBERPUNK HAS MADE ITS WAY OUT OF THE DUNGEONS OF HELL INTO DAYLIGHT I'M SO PROUD OF YOU BABES

loved the flashback where you and jongho are making brownies and he's in your apron and you're in love with him all over again. only to be brought back to the present where he's a droid in an apron that isn't yours and a person who isn't yours :'((

omg. the morse code. when jongho tapped help. my whole body erupted into goosebumps. YOU AND YOUR WAY OF ENDING EACH SECTION RAHHHH BRAIN GO BRRR

aww when he faints and wakes up in confusion is /jongho/ and first thing he does is squeeze your hand in desperation for comfort PLEASE MY BABY 🥺

damn also the angst - having to turn him into a droid otherwise he'll be killed. but you'd technically be killing him anyway by getting rid of his human side, so is there even a way to truly win? and the fact that you had ran away once already to try to protect him, only to be slapped in the face with droid!jongho being assigned to you :((

OOOH IT'S ALL GOING DOWN. THEY HAD PLANNED FOR YOU TO ESCAPE WITH JONGHO AND THE FACT THAT THERE'S A TRACKER /IN YOU/ OOOHH THE CONFESSION AND KISS BEFORE THEY GET SPLIT UP AND THEN EVERYTHING GOES DARK OOOHH YESS

my jongho STOP DO YOU WANT ME TO CRY BECAUSE I WILL CRY. your desperation to find evidence of jongho and your sisters desperation to try and remember ADJKGHSG MY POOR BATTERED HEART

AWW HAHAH wooyoung waiting with his party hat and all :')) what a cutie pie

oh DAMN droids have existed before and it all went to hell. ofc the government has been trying to hide it this whole time O.O

YOO SHE'S GONNA GAMBLE WITH HER LIFE OMG YOO NOT CHOI SAN BEING THE MAN BEING EXPERIMENTED ON (also wow you really just cannot resist writing about him even if it's a brief cameo can you HAHAHA) droid san kicking ass OFC he was a military dilf in another life 

awww cookie and san's cute lil crush on each other WE NEED A FIC ABOUT YOU x DROID SAN HEHEE

ALSO THE ENDING ??? HELLO??? I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT we get our fluffy moment and we think everything is good and happy BUT OHOHOHO NO THERE IS EVIL WAITING TO RETURN >:))

OKAY BUT ANYWAY CRYBERPUNK HAS FINALLY FINISHED DONE AND DUSTED WE CAN FINALLY SAY GOODBYE LMAOOO PLS NO MORE OF THIS HAHAHAHA

Cyberpunk

housewifekeeper droid!jongho x programmer!reader

futuristic/apocalyptic droid au

genres and warnings: fluff, angst, established relationship, a bit tragic but no tears i hope :) yunho, woo and san cameos, violence warnings, hostage situation, near-death experiences, etc.

word count: 23.7k

synopsis: when you find jongho assigned to be a droid you need to 'fix', it takes everything in your power to pretend that you don't know him, that he isn't the boyfriend you left behind to keep safe. with no idea where you are and being under constant surveillance while trying to find a way to turn jongho back to human, you manage to run away with him only to learn a shocking and sinister truth that makes you regret ever being part of the eden droid project. you must put an end to your mistakes once and for all, and it may cost you a lot.

manager-nim: @eightmakesonebraincell (we call it cryberpunk bc it became the bane of our existence)

“You really think I’m incapable of taking care of myself?” you asked, making a face as you grabbed your bag and slung it over your shoulder. “I’ve been doing just fine so far, Sir.”

“You’ve lost a lot of weight ever since we woke up, so yes, you definitely haven’t been eating well. You can’t keep surviving on instant noodles,” your supervisor, Mr. Han said. “Besides, this is a good chance to test if the droids we’ve programmed can actually perform household tasks.”

“I did not programme droids to make food for us,” you muttered under your breath but you supposed that was the least of your worries right now. “I’m pretty sure you need a housekeeper more than me. A housewife, perhaps. You must miss your wife.”

Mr. Han only smiled in response and you felt annoyed by that. It was as if an unspoken rule had been passed- that no one could talk about their life before they ‘woke up’. You reckoned everyone was just keeping silent until one of them would complain out loud. It hadn’t been that long since that little episode so you figured no one was that desperate right now. 

“It’s the Team Leader’s orders. Nothing I can do about it. Maybe I’ll get a droid next to drive me around- if they’ll allow it. It would be nice to have a look around this empty town and see if we’re the only ones awake while the rest of the world is asleep.”

“I don’t like this,” you pursed your lips, scratching your wrists. Something about all of this was making you anxious. “Just between you and me, are they really sus-”

Mr. Han shushed you with a finger on his lips, his eyes flickering in the direction of the CCTV in the corner of your office. “They’re testing out your droids, miss. You know what they say- a perfect droid should be as good in battle as it is in the kitchen.”

“Wasn’t that supposed to be a joke?” You muttered, deciding to leave it there. “It feels like a big joke. It’s like my droids are being insulted by being placed in the kitchen.”

“You thank the deities there isn’t a war right now,” Mr. Han almost whispered. “When everyone wakes up… there might be. And if there is a war in the future when every nation will possess their own set of droids, when you have to run for your life and are injured… who do you think will take care of you? Not a human, I’ll bet.”

Those words stuck with you during your ride back home. They kept looming over your head while you took a shower and changed into a comfortable set of light blue pyjamas. With a towel hat, you sauntered into the kitchen to make yourself coffee, looking in the fridge for something to snack on and finding nothing.

Perhaps you really did need a housekeeper. A droid- one that wouldn’t complain and would do as told.

And as the doorbell rang after a few minutes, you took your words back when you opened the door to a familiar face. The anxious feeling in your gut finally settled in resignation.

This was what you had been dreading. 

A million thoughts processed in your head in a matter of seconds- maybe you could give the droids a run for your quick decision-making. Because you needed to make a big decision, right now. 

It had to be some sick, twisted joke that Dr. Jin, Head of the Eden Droid Project, was playing with you. There was no way that this wasn’t intentional. Of all the 7 billion people in this world, they chose the one person you had been wishing would never appear in front of you- at least not until you were done wrapping up what you had begun.

Choi Jongho. Your best friend, the person you loved and had to leave for good.

The one person you had done everything in your power to hide from these people, from everyone. Hell, you didn’t even dare think of him ever since everything went downhill lest someone spy on your own thoughts. 

And now he was here, and worse, a droid. A lab rat. His left pupil flickered blue to confirm that.

“I’m CJ, the droid assigned to take care of your personal needs.”

“CJ,” his codename rolled like a foreign language on your tongue, your voice coming out as almost a whimper but you cleared your throat. “CJ. The housewife, eh?”

The droid appeared confused and you, for the first time, loathed programming the droid’s facial expressions to sync with the human emotions. “I’m not quite sure…”

“The assistant,” you let out a short laugh. “I presume you have your identification files and code?”

Jongho said your team’s code out loud before handing you the files and you quickly looked over them. Assigned by your own team- how fucking convenient. You nodded and handed the files back, peeking behind him- looked like he had his personal belongings. “Please, enter and make yourself at home… I guess?”

“There’s another document you need to look at before I enter,” Jongho said almost mechanically, digging out a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and your brows rose in surprise when you saw that it was from Dr. Jin himself. Begrudgingly, you unsealed the letter and read the contents, the smile falling from your face when you were done.

“Alright,” you breathed. “I see how it is. You can enter now… CJ-”

You caught Jongho staring at you almost like he was fully human. Fear gripped your heart in that moment and when he only bowed in response, you stifled the sigh of relief. He stepped inside your apartment, looking around. He was probably scanning every nook and cranny for potential threats. When he was satisfied, he turned to you.

“Is there anything you would like me to do?”

“Tonight… nothing,” you nodded slowly as you thought. “I’ll show you your room and you can uh… rest? You should wake up at 7 tomorrow and prepare a light breakfast for the both of us before accompanying me to the office. That should be your first task.”

“Understood,” he said and you showed him the spare room and he assured you he had his basic personal necessities. You went to your room, the coffee long forgotten at the kitchen counter and you shut the door. 

Make no mistakes.

You turned off the lights and went under the blankets, covering your face like you usually did- and that’s when you let out a shaky exhale and let your emotions take the better of you.

There could only be two reasons why Jongho was here as the droid assigned to you. The first one was pure coincidence- maybe he was just one of the other humans randomly selected by your team. Maybe this was all just bad luck. Maybe this was a slap on your face from the force above, since you dared to play god yourself. 

But another possibility… the one that made more sense, was that they knew. They knew Jongho was someone important from your ‘previous’ life. From before you entered Phase I of the Eden Droid Project- . They must have known and were using that to their advantage, but either way…

Either way, Jongho wasn’t sent to assist you and play housewife. That was all bullshit. He had one purpose, and that was to have you under surveillance. That probably meant that the New Government was aware that you weren’t as loyal as you appeared to be. Perhaps, this was a test of your loyalty, and they were going to confirm it with the task that was detailed in that letter.

Fix CJ.

Two words, yet you understood the message. You were to live with the droid for a certain period of time and fix the only glitch your droids had- that they were too human. All the while, you would definitely be under surveillance by him. Perhaps, the Team Leader thought that giving you the space you needed with your own personal test subject was what you needed to finish debugging the droid. Perhaps, they knew you had been delaying fixing the droids on purpose. Whatever it was, you had no choice now. 

You would have to fix Jongho or else you would be exterminated along with him.

—---------------------

It was almost unsettling waking up to the smell of eggs, butter and bread. For the few seconds that you lay in the bed, you almost thought you were back in your parent’s home and your mom’s voice would call you for breakfast or your sister Cookie would tickle you until you yell at her, but the bed was too soft and the blanket did not smell like the sun. The alarm rang only a few seconds later and on cue, two solid knocks sounded at the door.

“Miss Jeon? Breakfast is ready.”

God, you thought. This was going to be difficult.

You said you’d be out in 10 minutes and forced yourself to walk to the bathroom like every other day. Somehow, your steps felt heavier than the first day you woke up here. The feelings of disorientation and panic then were nothing compared to the anxiety that dissolved in your bones the moment you heard Jongho’s voice.

Whatever you did, you could not slip. You would have to keep on pretending that Jongho was just a stranger, a droid to you. Just a bug that needed fixing, you told yourself as you exited the room and walked towards the kitchen-

“I told you, the pan needs to be tapped in the middle of baking so the top of the brownies crinkle!” Jongho said as he took out the said pan, now with fully baked fudge brownies with a perfect crinkly top and you gasped at how good it looked. “Would you believe me if I say this really is my first try?”

“Looks too good to be a first try,” you admitted. “I’ll give my verdict after I taste these. Who knows? Might find an eggshell in there.”

“Hey, what do you take me for?!” Jongho looked offended and you grinned. He shook his head as he cut a piece for you and put it on your plate. You spotted a faint smile on his face and you dug your fork in the brownie, about to take that bite when he tsk-ed and held your wrist.

“You’ll burn your mouth,” he took the fork from your hand and you pouted. You watched him wait a few seconds, blow on that little bite before feeding it to you himself. Your eyes went wide as soon as you realised how rich the brownies tasted.

“Oh, my god,” you breathed. “Jongho. You’ve just won my entire heart all over again.”

Jongho burst into laughter, looking down and you leaned across the counter to cup his face and make him look at you. “You look at me when you laugh like that, okay?”

“Stop it,” he wriggled away from you, a flustered mess. “Let me taste them.”

“Here,” you took your fork and blew on the new bite before handing it to him. He nodded in satisfaction. “Normally, I wouldn’t contribute to anything that would give you an ego-boost, but this one deserves it. Cookie won’t believe it when she hears about this.”

Jongho smiled once again, continuing to cut the rest of the brownies for later. “What did you mean when you said… that I won your heart again?”

You stifled your smile. “You want to hear it?”

Jongho looked expectantly at you in response. You scanned his figure- his hair messily swept back, flour on his cheeks, rolled sleeves baring his strong arms, and to top it all, your apron on him. Your smile grew wider.

“I fell in love with you all over again.”

“Miss Jeon?” Jongho called, frowning at the way you stood in the middle of the living room, your eyes stuck on the apron that wasn’t yours on the person who wasn’t yours. He wasn’t even the same person anymore.

“Sorry,” you gulped, shaking your head. “Needed a moment to process uh… what I’m seeing right now.”

Jongho didn’t respond and that finally made you move and sit at the table where he set down a mug of coffee. He would have retorted if things were normal and you smiled sadly to yourself at the thought. You heard the clink of the mug and when you saw Jongho pick up his own tray of breakfast and move, you cleared your throat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

“To eat my breakfast and give you privacy while you eat yours?”

This was the time to make things clear- better yet if you were being watched. You put one leg over the other before you said, “Look, I assume you know what you’re here for, CJ. Who are you?”

“A droid that needs a little fixing.”

“And how would I figure out what needs to be fixed if I don’t watch your every move?” You cocked your head. “Does that make you feel unsettled?”

“I do not feel, for I am a droid,” Jongho responded mechanically and you shook your head, urging him to join you. You detected reluctance in his movements and your heart sank a little.

“That’s the thing with you droids,” you almost whispered as if letting him in on a secret. “You forget that you are humans programmed to be droids. Until you possess human nature, you cannot be fixed… that’s what I believe. The superiors think otherwise. What do you think… droid?”

“I…” Jongho frowned again. “I’m just following orders.”

“I know,” you told him and he relaxed a bit. “We’ll need to interact and talk more for me to figure out what exactly needs to be fixed, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. You took a bite of the bread and he mirrored your actions. You ate the rest of your breakfast in silence, finishing together. 

“I will examine your code when we go to the office,” you told Jongho. “You will need to guide me a little. I may have created the blueprint for you droids but I haven’t programmed every single one of you.”

“You can access my code only at the office, by the way,” Jongho said and you set your cup down, almost clenching your jaw as you looked at him. “I’ve been programmed to reveal my code files only in the office.”

“Have you now?” You scoffed internally. “Well, I’ve been programmed to be a lazy bum who works best in the comfort of her home and I’m human, so let’s see how we deal with this… predicament.”

Jongho almost looked curiously at you. You checked the time and told him to meet you outside in 10 minutes. Just before he took your car keys from you and opened the door, you sighed.

“Do you know how to make brownies, CJ?”

—--------------------------

“Don’t you think it’s ironic?” You said, sparing a glance at your supervisor who was examining the code on the shared screen right across from you. “We’re trying to find an error in a human. Being human is the error. How do we override the nature of who the droid really is- completely and irrevocably?”

Mr. Han had heard that quite a lot, and not just from you. Every programmer and developer in this project had asked him this question at least once, and he often found himself wondering the same too. “I’m highlighting this line of code, see what you can do about it.”

You looked back at your screen and clicked your tongue. “Not this one. That’s Dr. Seo.”

“Oh, then I won’t tweak it,” he said, scrolling further. You glanced at Jongho who lay on his front on a stretcher with a cord attached to his back to access the chip and its data inside. He was unconscious which you thought was convenient but every time he came back to consciousness, you were afraid he was going to recognise you, make a mistake and destroy everything you had worked for so far.

How could you tell Jongho to pretend he didn’t know you without telling him?

“You look spent. Shall we call it a day?” Mr. Han caught you staring at the droid’s body.

“Please, yes,” you stretched dramatically, producing cracks and he chuckled at that. “The amount of times I have zoned out today… I think I need a chip inside me that would override my mental stamina at least.”

“Says you,” Mr. Han scoffed. “The child prodigy. The kid that built the foundation of this project.”

Oh, how you regretted that. “Please, you flatter me way too much. I was only one coder with a few hundred others.”

“But you were the youngest and your work is our blueprint. I have every right to flatter you,” he said, his conclusion leaving a sour taste in your mouth. “Dinner at the cafeteria?”

“Why would I? I have my own personal chef now,” you grinned.

“I thought you were against droids doing housework or something.”

“Yeah, well,” you finished shutting down the programme and unplugged Jongho. “This one is quite good at it.”

Jongho was, and it was making you realise a few things- muscle memory. Something you nor any coder so far had considered to be a factor worthy of attention. You noticed that when he made the brownies for you a few days ago and exactly at half-time, he opened the oven to tap the pan against the counter once. 

It took everything in your power to not react to that. To not let your emotions take the better of you and maintain your composure. However, you did ask him if he had accessed some recipes recently before making the brownies and when he denied, you knew then. You knew that this was not only from memory but muscle memory.  

Could this be the reason droids were not perfect? That their muscle memory was ingrained in them to the extent that no programme, no code so far had overridden it? 

Whatever it was, you knew you had to keep this observation to yourself.

As Jongho started to regain consciousness, you maintained a certain distance between you two, glancing around- most of your colleagues had signed off for the day. There were only a few at the far end of the room and then there was Mr. Han who was just leaving for the cafeteria. You locked eyes with the droid and found your hands getting clammy when he started blinking rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes to the light. As soon as he looked at you, you started tapping on the desk lightly, waiting for something while praying for the opposite.

Waiting for him to look at what your fingers were tapping and praying that he wouldn’t recognise it, even if you were doing this to rock his human memory.

However, your prayers were actually answered this time and Jongho straightened as the confusion in his eyes disappeared. “CJ of Team 8.”

“That’s right, welcome back,” you sighed, tossing him his t-shirt and he wore it. It irked you a lot, how the droid was not reacting to having woken up from unconsciousness without clothes on his upper body. Jongho would have been a flustered mess.

This was not Jongho. He looked as different as he felt different.

“We’re done for the day,” you told him when he got up. “Are you feeling okay? Any haziness? Something off?”

“Perfectly fine, Miss,” he confirmed and you nodded. 

“Let’s go, then,” you said. 

Over the past few days, you had made no progress whatsoever with the droid assigned to you. You weren’t sure if people were expecting quick results from you- Mr. Han was monitoring each and every move you made in the office as if you weren’t already being surveilled by the droid itself. You were half certain that Mr. Han was also ordered to keep an eye on you but you’ve always had doubts about that man. His ‘fatherly’ nature was a little too overbearing and demanding at times.

You had no idea how long you were going to keep working on Jongho until he would be deemed ‘unfit’ like the other droids you had failed to save. Failed to fix, actually, but resultantly, they lost their lives. You could not do that to Jongho- perhaps, fixing him as a droid was the only way you could save him, but…

How could you do that to him?

How could you do that to him, you wondered as he set the table and settled down on the chair in front of you, saying his usual ‘enjoy your meal’ before digging in himself. You almost expected him to put a piece of meat in your bowl like he used to do before everything went wrong. You almost expected him to ask you what was wrong when you would zone out just like you were now-

“You’re not eating,” the droid said.

A simple statement, void of emotion, but…

Muscle memory.

Could this be what could really change everything?

“I… I’m just tired,” you said. The truth, but you wished you could tell him what exactly was going on. You put a spoonful in your mouth anyway. 

“You worked overtime today,” Jongho said and you nodded. This droid had a knack for sounding way too human, or maybe you were over analysing everything because it was someone you were familiar with. “Would you like me to make you some tea after dinner?”

“No, thanks. I’ll make my own tea,” you scoffed to yourself. If his muscle memory was really still intact, he would get your tea just right and you were not prepared for that. “Isn’t it ironic, though?”

“What is ironic?”

“Humans have made so many machines for the sole purpose of serving them,” you ate another spoon as you watched Jongho, noticing that he needed a haircut now. “All these machines, and yet they would prefer a human to work in the kitchen.”

“A droid is not a human.”

“A droid is a human,” you corrected, locking eyes with him in challenge. “A machine is something like… that coffee-maker. That microwave,” you pointed. “Something like that, yeah? As long as you have a functioning heart, you are human.”

“Whatever you say, Miss,” Jongho said almost dismissively and you rolled your eyes at his automatic response. 

“I wonder if humans need someone to work in the kitchen for them- for a specific taste that only humans can construct or to keep company or for whatever reason… why would they not send these heartless machines to fight for them? Why would they send humans?”

“A machine can only make so many decisions,” the droid said.

“Yeah, well, they want me to fully turn you into a machine,” you scoffed loudly. Damned be the consequences- if they were watching you, they should pay heed to your words. “What’s the point of you being a human-turned-droid then? We could have built a human shaped machine designed for war from scratch. We could install whatever thinking ability it needs.”

“But it would not think or make decisions like a human does.”

“Well, are you human right now, then?” You wondered and that finally got the droid to shut up. “Because you sure sound like one right now despite insisting that you are a droid.”

“Can’t a droid be both?” Jongho frowned and your eyes twitched in response- you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You searched his face for any signs of recognition but found none.

“I guess that’s why it has to be a human that gets turned into a machine,” you concluded. “A machine wouldn’t have asked me that question.”

Jongho didn’t react to that. He simply finished his meal and waited for you to finish before he cleared the table. You made yourself that cup of tea and looked over your code from today, wondering how you were going to proceed from here. If you were really being watched right now, you somehow needed to let Jongho know that he should not react when he recognises you. How were you going to pull that? 

It was near impossible. And with that thought, you went to your room to prepare for the worst.

You were trapped in a town that wasn’t yours. Just like everyone else here, you had magically woken up in your new house, in your new room and had simply been instructed to follow the orders if you wanted to live- no further explanation. What you had gathered so far though was this whole thing had been planned since decades. The New Government- the group of people from all over the world who were the masterminds behind the Eden Droid Project aimed to create an army of droids and then distribute them among the powerful nations so they could have the ultimate leverage over the less powerful nations and make them submit to them. 

It was evil, it was twisted, and when you first began programming for robots instead of droids that were actually humans, you never would have thought that this was what it was going to come to. You worked with your friends Yunho and Wooyoung- an inseparable trio. As soon as your team sensed something darker, you all decided to leave and you cut ties with your family and friends, moving away without any explanation to attempt to make things right again. Your sister was the only one who had an inkling of what was going on and she had kept your parents calm but Jongho…

He didn’t deserve what you did to him, and now he was here. You were probably going to die by his hands. And maybe… maybe you deserved that.

You prayed your family was unconscious just like the common people who weren’t a part of this. Sometimes, you wondered if you had been fed a lie- sure, the world had progressed a lot but how could 99.9 percent of the world’s population be in a state of unconsciousness as they claimed? How was the world functioning? Machines could only handle so much especially if autorun, and droids couldn’t replace humans even if the world had progressed a lot in the past few decades. You were sure you had been brought to another piece of land and fed this lie so you would cooperate with them. 

Whatever it was, you had no choice but to obey. You were not allowed to question anything. And if you gave up on this project and they killed you, it wouldn’t make a difference because someone else would eventually figure out how to fix the droids. 

As you finished showering and sat down in front of the vanity, wrapped in your bathrobe to dry your hair, you wondered if this environment was created for the coders and programmers specifically so they could produce quick results. You felt like a lab rat and the fact that this might be true was making you nauseous. Just when you were about to settle down in bed, you heard the sound of a dull crash and you went to inspect- it looked like the sound came from the direction of Jongho’s room.

Sure enough, Jongho was picking himself up from the floor, brushing his clothes and when he looked at you, he flinched-

In pain.

You started tapping a single word on your thigh repeatedly, hoping he would understand it- just a simple ‘no’. No to whatever he was thinking, no to whatever he was about to do if he managed to get a few moments of clarity as a human. Jongho’s gaze fixed on your thigh and you asked him if everything was okay, continuing to tap that word.

“I heard a crash- did you trip or something? Are you having motor problems?”

“I…I don’t think so, I…” Jongho exhaled loudly, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as if that could rid him of the ache in his head. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

“Will you let me check if everything is good with you?”

“You can’t access my code here-”

“I actually can, I just haven’t been allowed to,” you told him. He must have known since he didn’t react much. Good, you thought. He was still CJ. “I’ll just have to override the security files… or we could head to the office. It’s going to take the same amount of time.”

“I think I’m fine,” he straightened. “You can check my code in the office in the morning, or right now- whatever you prefer, Miss.”

“Morning it is,” you shrugged, feeling defeated. “Goodnight-”

To your disbelief, Jongho was tapping something on his thigh as well. You did your best to appear nonchalant when he finished tapping a single command. 

“Goodnight, Miss,” he said in his usual flat tone before turning to go back to his room. You took a deep breath before going back to your room and sitting at the edge of the bed as you translated his message.

Help.

—------------------------

You were more suspicious of everyone around you including Jongho now- now more than ever, especially since you just came back to your office after presenting your monthly progress-

Which was little to none, if you had to admit. You did try talking in circles but it never worked in front of the panel.

“You’ve been here for 3 months now, Miss Jeon,” Dr. Seo closed your files detailing your progress and winced as if the lack of your progress physically hurt him. “I can’t tell if you’re being stubborn or if you no longer want to be a part of this. Because there’s no way you haven’t figured it out already.”

“I… I appreciate that you believe in me so much, I really do,” you met eyes with all of your seniors who had seen through every step of your journey especially in the beginning, when things were normal. “But I’m sorry to admit that I really don’t see a future with what we’re trying to achieve. You simply cannot turn a human into a droid and not expect some drawbacks- it’s humans we’re dealing with, not machines.”

“But it has worked brilliantly so far with your help and everyone else’s who has been a part of this team,” Dr. Jin, one of the masterminds behind the Eden Droid Project said. “And I’m sorry but I expected more from you.”

“Has anyone else figured it out yet?” You asked.

“It’s not that we’re comparing you,” his smirk was almost devilish as if he knew exactly what you were hiding. “It’s because we believe you’re the only one who will figure this out. What is the one thing keeping humans from becoming almost the perfect version of droids?”

“Their human nature,” you said.

“What part of it?” He shifted in his chair and you wiped your sweaty hands on your trousers. “Emotions? But you synced them. Is there a fault there, or is it something we haven’t even considered yet?”

You fell silent. They were definitely on to something. 

“Should we have a meeting with the other brilliant coders of this project?” Dr. Seo attempted to break the tension in the air. “Maybe what all our coders need is to interact with each other and exchange ideas.”

You suddenly felt hope- you did consider the possibility that Yunho and Wooyoung were also here, forced to work just like you. If you could just meet them, if you could just see them-

“You know why we haven’t allowed them to meet,” Dr. Jin reprimanded. “I can only allow healthy discussions within the designated teams. Miss Jeon, if you need some help, we will accommodate you as best as we can, but I will have to ask you to be quicker with this. We do not have much time and if we do not come up with a solution first, if another nation beats us to it, we will lose our advantage. Don’t you want to go back home and be with your family?”

And that was it. The last straw. 

You were aware that this was some sort of a race now. Whoever would figure out what was wrong with the droids would have the advantage- they could keep it from other nations. They could use that as a leverage because they would be the ones with an army of droids at their disposal. Droids that could make excellent spies, fighters, doctors, and whatnot. Droids that would be weapons for all the powerful and selfish leaders of this world, to use at their disposal when they terrorise the weaker nations into submission. Sure, this was nothing new- the world was always at war with each other but with droids in the question, it could go very wrong. 

And the fact that they were using your family to bait you? The fact that most of the people here had something to lose if they refused to cooperate? How could you undo all of this? Every day, you cursed yourself for ever being a part of this project, for ever giving them the idea that led to this day, yet beating yourself over it would achieve nothing. You had to take action, soon. You couldn’t let them know that you had the answer already. 

You had to wake Jongho up.

“Everything alright?” Mr. Han asked, having spotted you zoning out in the corner of the office next to the window, glancing at Jongho’s unconscious figure attached to the cords- you hadn’t paid much attention to him today. He approached you and opened a box, revealing an assortment of donuts. You smiled despite yourself, picking a glazed donut.

“I just came back from the monthly report presentation,” you told him and he hummed in understanding. “How did yours go?”

“They reminded me why we’re doing this,” he rolled his eyes and you scoffed. “As if I’ve forgotten.”

“Do you think we can figure it out before someone else does?” You asked casually and he looked at you for a few moments.

“It’s not that I have an insurmountable amount of belief in you,” he began and you relaxed. “You’re only human too, and it’s been tough to be away from what was normal, right?” You nodded and he continued. “But I really do think that you can do this. You just need some time. Should I ask them to allow you to work from home too?”

“I don’t think they will agree, but I appreciate it,” you smiled. “They’re doubtful for the right reasons too, after all.”

Mr. Han shrugged and gave you the box, asking you to share it with CJ when he woke up. “He must be having a hard time.”

“Don’t let the superiors hear that you’re empathising with a droid,” you whispered and he winked at you before he went to his station. You went to yours, hoping the office hours could quickly come to an end before you could unplug Jongho. But…

You needed to access all his code files. “Mr. Han?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I could be granted access to all the code files of this droid? Even if it’s just a preview? I think I should check if some other code is interfering with my code files.”

“Should I make a call?”

“If you can?” You asked and he nodded. You went back to pretending you were actually working and Mr. Han told you that you would know your answer in the morning. 

You hoped they would agree, especially after today’s meeting. If they really thought that you’re the one who should debug the droids, maybe they needed to start trusting you more and stop hiding things.

And when you gain their trust and figure out how to save Jongho…

That’s when you would have to make a decision.

—-------------------------

You were not sure exactly what part of you sitting casually in the living room, watching TV with the smell of your favourite tea filling the room, a donut in your hand, rocked Jongho’s human memory but you watched him faint in front of your eyes and your jaw fell open in shock. You remained still as your own memory flashed in front of your eyes-

“Oh, what a sight,” Jongho shook his head as he entered his living room, finding you already having made home on his couch- a towel on your head and donut in your hand as you watched the TV while you waited for him to come back from the convenience store. Jongho put the groceries on the kitchen counter. “I found your teabags.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much,” you gave him a look of gratitude before turning your attention to the drama. “I would have gone myself but you know how tired I feel after showering- it’s like a sign that my day is over and I should just relax.”

“Yeah, and how convenient for you that your boyfriend is willing to do anything for you, huh?”

“Of course,” you muttered absently, eyes widening at the turn of events playing in the drama. Jongho turned on the kettle and sneaked behind you, planting a kiss on your cheek that caught you by surprise and you looked at him as a smile made its way on your lips. 

“What was that for?”

“For being cute?” He booped your nose before going back to the kitchen and pouring the hot water in the cup. You weren’t interested in the drama anymore- you turned your full attention to him. He hummed an unfamiliar song before bringing the cups to you. 

“Did you leave some donuts for me or are they already long gone?”

“Of course I did,” you pouted. “Kept your favourite ones.”

“Good,” he slung his arm around your shoulders and you snuggled into him, making him laugh when your towel bumped with his face. You spent the next few minutes wrestling him as he tried to get the towel out of the way while you argued that on one condition- that he dry your hair for you. Jongho pouted in response, nothing going his way and you pecked his lips to make amends, handing him his favourite donut and he could only smile in defeat. 

You poked the droid’s thigh with your bare feet- he really was unconscious. You sucked in an annoyed breath- how you wished there were no surveillance cameras in your living room. You moved Jongho’s limbs so he was in a more comfortable position and went back to what you were doing.

Sure, you couldn't do anything about this right now but you sure hoped that whoever was going to give you the pass for accessing Jongho’s code files in your home would see this moment and make his decision afterwards. For now, you finished your donut and tea and as soon as Jongho moved, you sat down on the floor next to him and began tapping on his thigh.

Don’t.

One single word, but perhaps Jongho’s mind was too hazy- his eyes widened in recognition and you subtly shook your head no but it wasn’t enough-

“What are you-”

“Ah, good thing you’re back,” you attempted to sound normal but perhaps your unusually high pitch betrayed you. “What do you think? I should be allowed to access your code files at home now, no?”

It wasn’t CJ- it was Jongho looking at you in confusion, and you were so glad your legs blocked the sight of Jongho linking his hand with yours and squeezing it in confusion, in desperation. You squeezed them back to assure him that you knew, that you could hear him even when he couldn’t speak. That you understood him even when he was not himself. 

“Do you recall what you felt right before fainting?” You asked.

“Uh… confusion. Haziness.”

“All normal- are you feeling alright now? We can call for permission to access your code if you think it’s necessary right now, CJ.” 

“I wouldn’t know,” he muttered and he shut his eyes as if in pain. You immediately unlinked your hands and when he opened his eyes, the blue lens in his left eye flickered-

CJ was back.

The droid immediately started getting up and you followed, straightening your clothes awkwardly. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Miss.”

“Oh, that’s alright. Would you like a donut?”

His brows furrowed in confusion and you went back to your seat, sliding the box towards him. When he opened it they were all half eaten- neatly cut in the middle.

“Sorry. I really had to taste all of the flavours. Kept a whole one for you, though. You might like it.”

You pointed at the chocolate-dipped donut and internally cursed yourself for asking him to join you for donuts. You had kept them to rock his memory but considering the events of today, you didn’t need to do that anyway. He stared at that donut for a long time before he finally picked it up to eat.

And you knew then- whatever happened tonight was enough. Whatever went through Jongho’s head tonight was enough- you didn’t have much time. You needed to save him before the human in him gets lost forever. With that thought, you went to your room.

To prepare for the battle ahead. One that might cost a lot of lives. One that was necessary to fight, to undo the damage you had done to this world.

—--------------------------

“Miss Jeon, I would advise you to drop your gun and talk it out,” Mr. Han’s fatherly tone almost made you put the gun you had been aiming at his direction down on the nearest surface and follow his orders- talk it out.

Except there was nothing to talk about anymore. Everything had gone so very wrong, so very quickly.

“And risk an arrest? Or worse? I’d rather not,” you attempted to scoff but it came out more like a whimper.

“Come on- what did you hear?” Mr. Han never moved the gun aimed for your head- good thing you were both stationed at opposite ends of the room. 

“Oh? Should I have heard something then?” You cocked your head. “What I saw was enough.”

What you saw was the file on his desk regarding the self-destruct code installed in the droids that were assigned to different coders- including Jongho. You weren’t sure if it was a careless mistake or if he left it out on purpose for you to see- maybe it was a mistake since you rarely ever went to his part of the office. But your suspicions were confirmed- they had indeed installed some self-destruct files in Jongho in case someone tried to meddle with his code. So with that anger- with that boiling, seething anger, when you went to find Mr. Han and confront him, you spotted him in the next building through the window talking to none other than Dr. Jin.

You couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was planned. Anger consumed you and within minutes, you were back in your office overriding Jongho’s code files and putting him to sleep and then hacking your building’s system to turn off the CCTVs- just like you had practised so many times in the past few days. They may have the best coders and programmers in this building and you probably had seconds, but…

They had forgotten that you were the pioneer of this damned project. You were what they were against, and you had to surprise them again, just like the first time you did when you were still a stupid teen who thought they did something smart. You attached a USB in the main PC with an auto-run file to keep the system glitching while you unplugged Jongho and hastily put his shirt back on his unconscious body. 

You had a couple of minutes at most- you went to Mr. Han’s desk and grabbed all the files you could and stuffed them in your briefcase, taking out the gun you had slipped past the detectors a few days ago during a system crash episode- pure luck. The gun had been in your car for a while but as soon as you saw the chance, you slipped it into your office, not knowing you’d need it this soon. You weren’t surprised to see that Mr. Han kept a gun of his own- you were simply disappointed.

The lights flickered on and off and you figured the technicians must be having a tough time figuring out exactly what was wrong. You could hear your shallow breaths as you shifted your grip on the gun, the sweat from your palms making it feel slippery. 

“If you think you know what’s happening here, you’re wrong, sweetheart,” Mr. Han shook his head. “I’ve been following orders just like you. I can’t believe you’re being this reckless when you too must have a family waiting for you. Someone they use as leverage against you.”

“Almost everyone is here against their will,” you corrected him. “You’re no different than the rest of them. So go ahead. Go ahead and shoot me, but if you do, you’ll lose everything and everyone you love. Eden cannot debug droids without me- I’m sure of it.”

“I never intended to shoot you,” he sighed, lowering his gun and you frowned. “If we’re not being watched right now… we don’t need to do this.”

“Aim your gun at me either way,” you told him and he obeyed. “Did you know that CJ was going to be assigned to me?”

“I knew a droid was going to be assigned to you, but not the specifics. Is there a problem with CJ?”

“A problem?” You scoffed. “Imagine you were in my shoes and it was your wife that was assigned to you as the droid you needed to fix. How would you feel?”

When Mr. Han paled visibly, you realised he may not have known CJ’s identity after all. “CJ… is he someone you know?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know everything, y/n,” he pleaded. “I’m only following orders and supervising you- though you hardly need that.”

“He’s the person I tried to protect all these years,” you bit your lips as you looked at Jongho’s limp figure on the stretcher. “Can you imagine how I’ve been feeling all along? I have to turn him into a droid or else he’ll be killed.”

“I’m sorry, I really am, y/n,” Mr. Han lowered his gun. “Damned be the consequences. What do you plan to do?”

“I’m going to run away,” you told him, lowering your own gun. “With CJ. He won’t self-destruct for now, I’ve taken care of it.”

“They’ll find you,” Mr. Han said. “There’s no way you can be on the road and not be found. The car must have a tracking device.”

“I took care of that too- all it will take is a click. As for them spotting me… I think I know how to take care of that as well…”

“Of course you do,” Mr. Han laughed in disbelief. “Tell me… you know how to fix the droids, don’t you?”

When you didn’t respond, he nodded. “Tell you what- you can do whatever you want from here, but never, ever fix the droids, okay? You hear me?”

You passed a weak smile in response and he finally approached you, emptying his gun and handing you the extra bullets. “I won’t need them.”

“They’ll punish you for letting me go.”

“You can knock me out- I’ll play dumb for as long as I can,” he grinned. “Besides, I don’t think the cameras caught me entering the office.”

“Can you help me get Jongho in the car first?”

Which was how a few minutes later, you found yourself on the road, a jamming device fixed on the dashboard to make the surveillance cameras glitch whenever you would pass. You sped through the unfamiliar roads but you knew you would need to ditch your car soon- there was no way you could blend in when this was a black SUV with the office plate. You looked around the billboards and the street signs for any clue of your location but they were all blank or painted over. The only guide you had was the map in the car but that turned off as soon as you strayed away from your usual path.

You considered waking Jongho up and asking for help but there was no guarantee he wasn’t going to try something that would cost you both a lot. You decided to keep going forward and look for an abandoned building- it was getting dark and you needed to sort this mess out before you could proceed forward. Sure, you had prepared beforehand- you had everything you needed in the trunk of your car, discreetly putting necessities in the bag day after day since the beginning. From tools to clothes to food, you had everything.

Now you just needed to take care of Jongho- currently sprawled across the backseat, his hands fastened with a cable tie. You had no doubts he could still overpower you but for now, you had to make do with what you had. So when you spotted an empty area of the town with a few warehouses, you decided to take a chance and make home in one of them. You parked your car in the narrow space between two warehouses, deciding to hide it later with the empty tubs lined next to the walls. You searched the car for a physical tracking device and when you found it, you crushed it under your feet- you needed to take the jamming device inside with you so this was necessary. Then you turned off the infotainment system for good and finally sighed in relief.

You had done it- you finally ran away.

Just like you had run away from home two years ago.

You looked at Jongho from the front mirror and recalled the last day you had spent with him and your family- a memory you had kept in your heart as the days following got lonelier and regretful-

“Wonder what’s gotten into her,” your sister, Cookie, whispered to Jongho. “Did you propose to her? Is she showing off her housewife skills? Which are little to none, by the way…”

“Please,” Jongho scoffed. “I think she’s just collectively going to poison us all. She’s still sour about how we ditched her to go hiking last weekend, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, well that would make more sense,” Cookie said. “But it was her fault- I asked but she was too busy with her little codes to process what I said and told me to get out. That’s a no, right?”

“Definitely-”

“I can hear you both, you know,” you said, looking at the two. While at other times, you would have chucked something at them and ensued chaos, this time, you simply smiled at the sigh of your little sister and your boyfriend standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched you arrange everything you had cooked (or bought- they didn’t need to know that) on the trays. When you were finally pleased with the presentation, you asked them to help you take the trays out to the backyard where you were going to have a little party- all of you.

The two obeyed and marched outside singing another song that you didn’t know- Jongho and your sister got along way too well and were usually partnering against you. He probably adored her more than you but your sister was smart and knew she had to be on good terms with him so he could spoil her- and spoil he did. 

Your heart ached at the sight of the two and you prayed they would stay like this forever- happy. Even without you. You hoped they could fill your absence in the house and make your parents feel better.

Jongho’s parents cheered for you when you came out. “This is something your sister usually plans but we’re glad you’re not holed up in your room for once.”

“Thanks, uncle,” you laughed. “Just wanted a little breather.”

“You should have joined us last weekend!” His mom sighed in happiness. “The view was so good and the air so fresh. I think I feel younger ever since I came back.”

“I thought you felt older- you were complaining about your kneecaps- ow!” Jongho earned a smack on the back of his head from you and everyone laughed at that. Your mom patted the space next to her and you took the seat, urging her to try the sandwiches you made. The air filled with the sound of their laughs and you felt warm all over as you looked at each one of them, not saying much but committing this memory to your heart. 

You went to take a walk with Jongho later that night to share a beer and go to the park to sit on the swings and relax. Jongho asked you if everything was okay- he never missed anything.

“Perfectly fine,” you assured him. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget today.”

“Me neither,” he smiled and you clicked your cans before drinking. “You’re a bit different today, y/n. If something is bothering you… you can tell me, you know that, right?”

“I know. I trust you, Jongho,” you looked at him. “You know that you’re the one person I trust the most in this world, right?”

Jongho frowned at the sudden confession but nodded. You continued. “And you know that I love you, right?”

Jongho would have gotten flustered and teased you but tonight, he noticed the sadness in your voice. “What is up with you? What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” you laughed. “Just wanted to tell you this before the night is over.”

Jongho narrowed his eyes but when you didn’t give in, he sighed. 

“I don’t know what the matter is, but I hope you know that I trust you too. And I love you too. You’re not alone. You know that, right?”

“I know,” your smile was genuine. “I know.”

And the fact that you were not alone was what needed to change. In the middle of the night, you packed your necessities and left the note for your sister in her room by her bedside which said that you ran away to protect them and you would return soon, but no one could know. You told her to stay strong for you and help the rest cope. You apologised for the burden you gave her but she knew- she had seen you cry in your room for so many nights. She knew you had done something and the guilt was eating you up. She knew it was related to your job.

You prayed Jongho would remember the conversation you had with him and not blame himself.

Perhaps, he did blame himself. Perhaps he never gave up trying to find you, which was how they found him. Maybe running away wasn’t the best choice since they found Jongho anyway- your eyes welled up with tears at the thought of all the lost time, the years you could have spent with your family. Maybe you would never see them again now. With tears rolling down your cheeks and a blurry vision, you surveyed the area and deciding that it looked safe enough for now, you dragged Jongho inside and propped him on a bench, coughing due to the dust. You took off his shirt again and plugged him to your laptop- there were some things you needed to get done immediately- check if you were being tracked, check if Jongho’s trackers were all blocked now, see if there were any signals nearby- droids or not, and finally-

Find out your coordinates.

—-----------------------------

“We are not in the office.”

“Clearly,” you muttered, hugging yourself tighter with your folded arms as you looked at the droid seated in front of you, unbound this time. The droid scanned the new environment, his eyes lingering at the odd things in front of him- especially at the cord and your laptop, your bags and the packets of snacks sprawled on the table between you.

“This is unauthorised,” Jongho stated. 

“Yes,” you admitted. “What are you programmed to do in case you find yourself in a situation like this?”

“Find my way back. If I cannot, I will have to activate the self-destruct code.”

“Going to be quite an explosion, huh?” You sighed.

“It will be very dangerous for you, yes,” he looked down at his limbs. Was he surprised that he was untied for once? “Why are we here?”

“Are you programmed to find out the reason for your unauthorised absence before you make a decision?”

He wasn’t. You got that from the red flicker in his usually blue lens in the left eye. This was the humane curiosity in him questioning things a droid shouldn’t have cared about. You shifted in your position- you hadn’t really planned this conversation so you would have to tread carefully from here on.

“Jongho,” you locked eyes with him. “What is the next step that you are going to take?”

“I can’t access the server,” Jongho frowned. “My code has been altered.”

“You didn’t ask how I know your name,” you whispered. “Choi Jongho. Don’t you remember me?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” an unrelenting answer from a droid.

“Are you programmed to self-destruct if your identity is found out?” You asked. He shook his head no. “Interesting. That can only mean they sent you to me knowing we had history. Do you remember the last time you saw me?”

“In the office-”

“No, you, Choi Jongho. Not CJ. You,” you insisted and he finally frowned- it was working. “How did you feel to learn that I ran away?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You know,” you told him. “Your memories are just locked away. Deep inside, here,” you tapped your temple. “All you gotta do is dig in and think. Remember when you, CJ, saw me with the donuts? Did it rock a memory of yours?”

When he didn’t respond and continued to stare at you, his lens flickering, you leaned forward. “How did you know how I like my tea?”

That was another odd thing that took place a few days ago. No one could make your tea the way you liked it. Only Jongho knew, and only he could make it perfectly every time. Sometimes you wondered if you simply liked the drink he made because he was the one who made it. 

“I don’t know. I just made it how I learned to-”

“Learned from where?” You asked. “From me. We learned to make it together, Jongho. Two dips, let it sit, add exactly 1/4th spoon of honey and dip thrice. Don’t mix it, let it sit for exactly two minutes before you take the teabag out and mix the honey. How did you know? It’s your muscle memory, Jongho. It’s what makes you human.”

Jongho’s eyes widened just a fraction and you relaxed. You had him now. “We’ve been so close to home all this time, Jongho. I found out where we are- only a few hundred miles away from home, an abandoned town. I thought we were someplace else entirely. I thought only we were the ones awake and the rest of the world was asleep- surely they would have searched for you if not for me, right?” 

He shook his head as if in disbelief of what he was hearing. You sighed. “How did they find you, Jongho? Did they find you… or did you find them?”

“Y/n.”

Even though your name was called in warning, your lips parted in surprise because this wasn’t CJ- this was Jongho who called your name. And goodness, how long had it been since the last time you heard your name roll from his lips? How long had you waited for this moment?

You shifted to get up but he raised a hand in the air, muttering ‘don’t’ and you sat right back down. His eyes twitched in pain and he groaned deeply. “You need to get out of here- leave me here and run.”

“Jongho-”

“You haven’t deactivated any trackers- they know you’re here, they meant for this to happen-”

“What are you talking about?” You whispered, blood rushing to your head and making your vision darken for a moment. 

“They even know what we’re talking about right now,” Jongho cried out and you put a hand on your mouth in sheer horror, sweat taking root in every pore of your body. 

Muscle memory, Jongho. It’s what makes you human.

Oh, how absolutely foolish you had been. Jongho got up and whispered, “They’re near.”

You mirrored his actions but almost fell on the floor due to the dizziness- everything was too much. This is not happening. Nothing made sense anymore- you had deactivated every tracker- how could they have found you-

There was a tracker on you.

How could you have been so incredibly stupid?

Jongho reached you in a hurry, the lens no longer a blue or red but simply transparent, revealing his brown orbs as he grabbed you by the arms and shook you a little. “Come to your senses, y/n. You have to get out of here- I don’t know what they’ll do with us. I’ll stay back and distract them-”

“No,” you cried, feeling nauseous all of a sudden. “I’ve run away once. I won’t run away again.”

“This is not running away,” he smiled a little as if it finally dawned on him that he was here so close to you, he was human and he had you in his arms. His hands were steady as they found your face, tucking your hair behind so lovingly, eyes travelling on every inch of your face.

“Don’t you look at me like it’s the last time,” you whispered. “Don’t you dare leave me, Jongho.”

But perhaps, it wasn’t meant to be. Not this time. You heard the unmistakable sound of vehicles- not one but too many vehicles circling the warehouse. Jongho sighed in defeat yet from the look in his eyes and the smile on his lips, it seemed like he wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here. He cupped your face and leaned in, locking his lips with yours and the tears that had been threatening to spill finally found a reason to. He kissed you surely and soundly, breaking apart to wrap his arms around you, his fingers on your back tapping rhythmically-

Morse code.

“What-”

“Shh,” he urged, tapping again. “Everything will be okay. Don’t forget this moment, alright?”

You nodded and buried your face in his chest- your safe space. “Have you forgiven me for running away?” You asked as the sound of the door being slammed open echoed in the warehouse- so loud yet the sound of his dull heartbeat was louder.

“Oh, we will talk about that. One day,” he assured you. “But for now… I love you, y/n. I hope you remember that.”

“I hope you remember that I love you,” you countered, breaking away just to get a good look at his face, at his messy curls falling on his forehead, at the absolute adoration in his eyes replaced by devastation when the soldiers who came barging in pulled you from him harshly and the last thing you saw was him screaming your name before you felt something slam against your head and the roaring in your ears finally came to a silence. You welcomed the darkness this time.

—-------------------------

“Y/n! Will you please wake up? I need to go to the convenience store and I need some company!”

“Go alone, Cookie” you groaned, “Let me sleep some more.”

“I’ll treat you to fried chicken.”

Now that was something worth opening an eye to take a good look at your little sister. Was she bribing you? Clearly. Was it working?

“Give me 15 minutes,” you said, getting up with a groan and she grinned. “I need to get ready.”

“It’s almost evening so take a jacket, you’ve been out cold for far too long. Thought I’d let you know the day has ended!” Cookie called as she left your room. 

Perhaps, getting up immediately was a mistake- it seemed like all the blood rushed down from your head and you fell back on your bed unceremoniously. You groaned in pain- why were you having the worst headache of your life?

When you felt stable enough to move, you made your way to the toilet and washed your face, noticing a fading bruise on your left temple. Now how did you get that? You reached for your toothbrush-

It was not there. Odd. You did not remember throwing it away- if you did, where was the replacement? Groggily, you made your way back to your room to check the cupboard where you kept your supplies and found no signs of a toothbrush.

“Cookie, what prank are you playing with me now?”

“What do you mean?” She called from her room.

“Where did you hide my toothbrush?”

“Why would I hide your toothbrush?”

“To prank me?” You yelled in frustration. “I won’t go to the store with you if you keep this up.”

You heard the angry pads of her footsteps. “Look, that prank was one time. You were so mad I wouldn’t try it again.”

You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “The smirk on your lips says otherwise.”

“That’s just me finding this funny,” she flipped her hair dramatically as she went back to her room and you sighed deeply, the voice of your mom calling your names in warning stirring something deep inside you.

I will not cry over a missing toothbrush, you told yourself and got ready, wearing a denim jacket over a casual outfit. You went into the living room to drink some water and when you turned-

You almost dropped your glass.

“Can you pour me a little too?” Your mom asked and you found your mouth going dry, nodding subconsciously as you reached for another glass. You watched her drink- why did it look like she had aged a whole lot since you last saw her? Didn’t you just see her last night? Didn’t you spot the grey in her hair, the wrinkles around her eyes ever before?

Or maybe you always saw her but never cared to look. Your mom made a face at you, making you laugh a little as you broke out of your trance. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” you shook your head. “I was just counting your grey hairs.”

“Y/n,” she laughed loudly. “I think this is my sign to book a salon appointment.”

“Yes, mother!” Cookie came in, squeezing her shoulders. “You should get your grey strands dyed a fun colour- like pink.”

“Oh, come on, what will your dad think?”

“I think he’ll like it,” she winked. “We’re going out- be back before curfew!” Cookie grabbed your hand and dragged you out before your mom could say her usual chant- stay safe, don’t do stupid things, don’t fight, and so on. It seemed like forever since you had heard that and a part of you wished you had stayed to hear it.

Before you knew it, you were deep in a heated discussion about school being fun versus school being a bad memory. Of course, for Cookie, everything was fun. It was kind of endearing how she always saw the positive in everything and made sure to enjoy every moment. You, however, were the pessimistic of the two, though you preferred the term ‘realist’. School did have fun moments, yes, but you didn’t have a normal school experience at all- you were always working with the teachers and seniors who could code. While that was the beginning of your career, you didn’t get to interact with people much and they didn’t make an effort when you had some normal moments.

It was a relief then that Jongho was in your class and never made you feel alone, you wondered as you finished the argument with your sister and the food. She was paying the bill- a rare occurrence because ever since you started working at a very young age, you made sure to spoil her (a mistake- the brat learned that she could convince you to get her anything). Cookie turned to smirk in some sense of superiority she felt for having treated you and you let her have that moment, chuckling as you exited.

“Ah, the weather’s nice,” you looked up at the sky- it was too cloudy to see any stars. “I’m craving beer. When will you get old enough for beer?”

“Just a few more months, sis. We’ll see who’s the better drinker out of us.”

“Yeah, I might be bad, but you can’t beat Jong-”

“Oh, would you look at that,” Cookie pointed at a cafe at the end of the street. “I heard they’ve added cookies to their menu. Let’s get some to take home.”

You rolled your eyes. There was a reason you called her Cookie. Before you could protest, she was already speed-walking, her short hair flowing behind her and you struggled to catch up, looking at your surroundings. 

“Yo, wasn’t there a barbeque place here?”

Cookie paused to look at you. “That was like what- two? Three years ago? You should really leave the house more. Being cooped up in your room all day is doing something to your memory, I swear-”

“It’s not that,” you, for once, didn’t argue, telling her to get some for dad too while you decided to wait outside. 

Why did everything feel so… new? Tangible? You looked at your hand, moving it- were you dissociating? Was it that strange realisation that you were real? But it didn’t explain the ache in your heart since the moment you opened your eyes today. And you were glad Cookie was lost in her own thoughts on the short walk back home, giving you time to think. Just like always, you made a tray with cookies and milk and knocked on your parents’ room, entering when they gave the signal.

“Oh, dear,” your dad sighed in happiness. “Just what I wanted.”

“Long day?” You asked, grinning when they took the tray and placed it on the bed.

“Not really, but was just craving something sweet,” he smiled and you scanned his face- again, the sadness in his eyes was something unfamiliar to you.

“Well, enjoy your cookies. My Cookie is waiting for me outside.”

“Always attached at the hip,” your mom shook her head. “I don’t know how they do that when she’s home all day and the little one is rarely ever home.”

You scoffed when they continued that discussion, exiting the room to see Cookie smiling cheekily with the box of cookies open and one glass of milk-

“Cookie.”

“I don’t like milk!” She protested. “You drink milk. I only dip- why do I need a new glass?”

“I don’t like to dip cookies in the milk!” You argued, sitting across from her. “I don’t like the crumbs you leave!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” She pouted. “You won’t drink the leftover milk if I get my own glass?”

“Nope,” you shook your head sternly. “Want me to call Jongho over? He can share with you.”

“And who’s Jongho?” Cookie frowned.

“Oh, please,” you took a bite of the chocolatey goodness. “As if this prank is gonna work on me.”

“No, but seriously, who’s Jongho?” Cookie wriggled her brows. “New imaginary boyfriend?”

“Imaginary?”

“Yes, imaginary. How would you find a boyfriend when you’re home alone- oh, is Jongho a bot?”

You rolled your eyes so hard that you felt an ache. You unlocked your phone to dial his number but found no contact saved. Frowning, you typed his number- did you accidentally delete his contact info? 

“This number does not exist.”

“Strange,” you muttered. “Did Jongho change his number? Did you know about this and decided to prank me because of this?”

“Aren’t you the one pranking me right now?” Cookie actually paused to stare at you. “Who’s Jongho?”

“Choi Jongho? The neighbour kid? Your best friend? Your big brother? My boyfriend? Do I need to say more?” You laughed in disbelief. “Don’t push my buttons by taking it too far.”

“Y/n, are you… are you okay? We don’t know anyone named Jongho. And what do you mean the neighbour’s kid? They never had one- they moved two years ago, don’t you remember?”

Two years. You were hearing this number a lot today. You went to your room to grab a photo of Jongho and slam it on your sister’s face but the grid on your desk only had polaroids of you and your family- no signs of Jongho. Feeling the hair on your neck rise, you unlocked your phone again to find some photos but again, no signs of him. You started sprawling through your drawers, checking your laptops, the pockets of your clothes, your eyes a blurry mess and when you heard the small voice of your sister calling your name, you looked at her.

“Where did you hide the photos? Please tell me, I need to look at him-”

“Y/n, come to your senses,” she sank down on her knees in front of you. “Who are you talking about?”

You glared at her before snatching your hands and marching to her room- you examined the grid on her desk- again, no signs of Jongho. You went through the things on her desk, opening the drawers-

“What are you doing?” Cookie whimpered and you turned to see her crying as well. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with you, tell me.”

This couldn’t be happening. “It’s Jongho, don’t you remember? The one who taught you how to ride a bike? The one who protected you when you were being picked on in elementary school?” Tears rolled down in succession on both your faces- one trying to pick all the pieces that were threatening to disappear and the other trying to make sense of them. “Jongho, the one you called big brother? The milk to your cookie? The jelly to your peanut butter? Don’t you remember?”

“I- I don’t,” Cookie cried harder, sinking to the floor and breathing as if something was consuming her from the inside. 

“My Jongho, Cookie,” you whispered, gripping her desk. “The love of my life. You had a whole document on your computer about all your plans for our wedding- you made that when you were ten,” you laughed and Cookie chuckled as well, crying harder. “How can you forget?”

“I don’t know!” Cookie’s voice was loud in denial. “I don’t know him!” 

“Don’t you remember when I made food for all of you and you teased us about marriage and how I was preparing to be a housewife?” You laughed at the memory, Cookie’s ‘you made food?!’ indicating she was somehow more surprised to hear that. “We had that little party in the garden, his family and ours, remember?”

“That was-” Cookie paused, frowning. “I remember a party in the garden but… there were our neighbours there, yes, but not someone named Jongho- that was two years ago, right?”

Two years.

“Why did we have that party? Why did you make food?” Cookie looked at you, partly horrified as the dreadful realisation made its way to your mind.

“I… we had that party because I was going to run away. I… I ran away- how am I here?” You looked at your hands and then at Cookie. “How am I here?”

“Uh… this is your home?”

Home. You hadn’t stepped inside your home in two years.

It all started coming back to you in a series of chronological events- from that party to you running away from home and living in a studio apartment that Jeong Yunho had arranged for you. The two of you working to undo everything about that damned project that you could-

That damned project.

Droids.

“Oh… oh goodness-” you rushed to the toilet as a wave of nausea overtook you and threw up, groaning as you clutched your hair- Cookie was quick enough to help take care of your hair while you threw up some more, sobbing along. Your sister was also wise enough to shut the door and let you sob a little before urging you to get up and wash your face, helping you clean up. Once you were done and you had downed a glass of water, Cookie took you to her room and made you wrap a blanket around yourself- necessary at this point since you were shivering.

“You need to start making sense now. What’s happening?” 

You looked at your little sister. You hadn't seen her in two whole years, and she had grown so much in that time. She was also an inch taller than you now, you had noticed while walking. “Do you remember what we did yesterday?”

“Of course,” Cookie folded her arms. “You were in your room all day-”

“And the day before?” You asked. “And the day before that?”

Cookie’s brows finally unfurrowed in realisation. “I… I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember the note I gave you two years ago?” You asked. “The one that told you I was running away?” 

When it looked like she was still lost, you sighed deeply, looking around. “If I gave you a note that told you that I was going to run away but you could tell no one that I’m running away for a reason… that I’ll be back and you have to take care of everyone… where would you hide it, knowing you have to pretend you know nothing as well?”

“I don’t know,” Cookie sighed in frustration. “Why don’t I remember?”

“You’ll get your answers,” you got up, running your fingers along her bookshelf. “Where would you hide something like a secret note? Think, Cookie. They couldn’t have searched that deep, they couldn’t have found that.”

Cookie got up, looking around, and almost mechanically, she went for her underwear drawer and despite everything, you laughed. Of course. No one would dare rummage through her private things- but it got better. She had it taped on the inside of a bra.

“I don’t wear this one, so,” Cookie admitted and you shook your head, watching her open the note and read it again and again. “Make it make sense.”

“Where do I start?”

“From the beginning. Tell me everything.”

—------------------------------

Seeing a familiar face after riding a train all day was what finally gave you some strength to believe that things would be alright, and what finally put a smile on your face as you walked to your mentor, partner-in-crime (quite literally) and old friend, Jeong Yunho. When he spread his arms with a sad smile on his face, you didn’t hesitate to hug him, muttering how sorry you were to learn that he went through something quite similar to what you did.

“I’m just glad you’re safe, little one,” he broke the hug to look at you. “Are we sure there’s no tracker on you?”

“None- they put one on here,” you turned your arm to tap your shoulder blade. “Almost like a needle, Yunho. I would have missed it.”

“What did you do with it? If it’s stationary, they would know-”

“I put it on my sister,” you grinned. “And told her to act like me until I’m back.”

“Hoho, look at you,” he scoffed in amusement. “Finally told her everything?”

“Had to,” you sighed. “And this was the one step that I did not want to take, but she suggested that she could hold the tracker for me,” you handed one of your bags to Yunho who opened his car trunk and tossed it inside. When you were seated on his passenger seat, you asked, “How’s your brother?”

“Oh, all good. He forbade me to come back to the office after he saw the state I was in- broken limbs and everything. I don’t know how I managed to run away. Only a few months later and when I tell him you need me? He lends me his car with a threat that I better bring it back unscratched.”

“Damn,” you whistled. “Better keep that promise.”

“What about you, y/n?” He asked. 

“Do you remember how they took me? That part is still a bit blurry.”

“I thought they tailed me and found your apartment, but turns out you were just unlucky and they spotted you when you were going to Wooyoung’s place. They tailed you- I tailed them- it was a mess. Wooyoung and I barely managed to escape and when we opened our eyes, we were tied to chairs.��

“You were tied? Alone? Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “They should have tied my legs better- I walked around with the chair tied to me until I found someone and they helped us.”

“I can’t believe I missed that sight,” you exhaled in disappointment and he shook his head. 

“You should have seen yourself. I thought they killed you or something. What happened after?”

“Well… I woke up in a new world, Yunho. All futuristic with savvy tech and whatnot. It didn’t look like home. I was alone in a luxurious apartment that wasn’t mine, with a set of instructions to follow. Once I got to the office, I learned that all of us who were present had something to do with the Eden Droid Project- or something to contribute. There were coders, engineers, doctors, literally everyone they could find. We couldn’t ask questions, we weren’t allowed to talk other than for work, and we were watched like hawks. We were made to believe that only we were the ones awake while the rest of the world was on pause. Honestly, if there weren’t people like us there, it would have been so much more difficult.”

“Was there someone you knew there?”

“Dr. Seo. Dr. Jin. The big brains behind the Eden Droid Project- you remember them, right?”

“By faces, yes,” he asked you to hand his water bottle and drank a few sips while he drove on the highway. “So… what next?”

“My team- we were all tasked to work together to fix the droids. The droids that I programmed and the codes that Dr. Jin took forcefully from me when we were his interns.”

“He should have waited until we had perfected them,” Yunho scoffed and you mirrored that. 

“So it’s all starting to feel normal, a month passes. I realise I need to somehow run away and expose what they’re doing, but I have literally no idea what my location is and there’s no one to trust. And to make things worse, they have this brilliant idea to assign Jongho to me. They turned him into a droid, Yunho.”

“Oh… crap,” Yunho glanced at you. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” you pursed your lips. “They decided that I needed to monitor a droid closely and figure out what was interfering with his droid mechanisms. They knew who he was and what he meant to me. They must have had a good laugh seeing me pretend I didn’t know him.

“Anyways, he’s not functioning properly as a droid- seeing me triggers him into remembering whatever memories they’ve locked away inside his brain. I can see that he’s suffering, yet I can do nothing about it, even when he tells me to help. I trust the first person who acted like he cared- Mr. Han, my team’s supervisor. He does help me escape but…”

“But it’s all a part of their plan.”

“Bingo,” you sighed. “I run away with his help, take Jongho far away from all of this, block every tracker and finally get Jongho to feel human long enough to speak- and he tells me what this- all of this was a part of their plan. This was like a simulation for me- I was a player in their game and they waited until I won- or thought so. That’s when they got their answer to the question- what was making droids not act like humans?”

“What?”

“The link between their subconscious brain and muscle memory, Yunho. That’s been the key this whole time.”

“Oh. Oh!” Yunho almost stopped his car in excitement. “How did we miss that?”

“There’s a reason they got Jongho to be a player too,” you shook your head. “Did you find any signs of him?”

“Not yet, but I will continue my search tonight,” Yunho said. “Why did they let you go, though?”

“I don’t know,” you sank down in your seat, hugging yourself. “I woke up back in my house and they made it look like I had been there all this time. But… strangely, only I remembered Jongho. They locked away everyone’s memories, wiped any physical signs of him- whatever they could find. Cookie forgot who Jongho was too- she still doesn’t remember but she believes me thanks to the note I gave her before I ran away two years ago.”

“If they knew where you lived during that span of two years, they would have made it look like you were there all along. That might have been more believable for you, and could have worked- but maybe not. Wooyoung and I would have found you anyway.”

“Does he still blame me for what happened two years ago?”

You, Wooyoung and Yunho were teammates in the initial days of the Eden Droid Project. You were their supervisor and leading the project, and Wooyoung always had qualms about what you all did- rightfully so. When everything went wrong, you had an argument and a falling out with him. Yunho tried for a long time to get you two to talk to each other but without success so he let you two be. You and Wooyoung did often share your files as you all were working to expose the project but that was it. 

“He’s forgiven you. He forgave you long ago- he was just being stubborn,” Yunho chuckled. “When he learned you were taken, he’s the one who tried the hardest to find you. Harder than me too.”

“God, he’s so dramatic,” you chuckled. “Do I get to meet him now?”

“Oh, yes,” Yunho grinned. “He’s waiting for you- party hat and all.”

“No way.”

He was. Party hat and all. You couldn’t believe how much he changed- his hair was longer, he looked more mature, but he still had those fierce eyes and lovely smile. He greeted you with a glare but as soon as your smile fell, he laughed and you finally joined, smacking the hat on his head before hugging him.

“I’m just glad to see you’re unscratched- oh, that looks painful.”

“Glad to see you’re in good spirits too,” you touched your temple- the bruise didn’t hurt anymore but it was an ugly shade of green now. “What did I miss?”

“What did we miss?” Wooyoung turned to get the tofu lying on the table.

“Yep- that certainly was no less than a prison,” you laughed, your stomach growling at the sight of the variety of food on the table. “Can we talk while we eat?”

And so, you briefed them of your ‘prison time’ again, connecting the dots with their help- they intended only to get you from the beginning because only you could have solved that mystery of why the droids acted so much like humans- the link between their subconscious memories and muscle memory was too strong. You could lock away a person’s memory, sure, but the subconscious was something you hadn’t messed with yet, and never intended to either. The reason the people of that project could manipulate memories was because of your team too.

When the three of you were interns in the Droid Project, they had told you to code for machines, not humans. That was how you began. Artificial intelligence was nothing new, you were just aiming to take it to the next level. When they told you that you needed to start coding to make droids, they talked about a better world- a world where soldiers could be able to fight better to defend their land. A world where a doctor could hold an insurmountable amount of knowledge and skills. A world where a patient wouldn’t have to feel all of the pain he would be in. A world where, they mused, you could cook anything you like for yourself without having to go through the trouble of thinking if you were capable. It wasn’t such a bad idea to code for that world.

But it was Wooyoung who accidentally heard what the real deal was. And when he told you both, you hacked into several databases to find out what they really intended to do with droids- and oh, the revelation was startling enough to make you all cry. You couldn’t believe that they used teens to make the blueprint for a world where the Elites- the people of power- would be controlling the droids to make the rest of the world submit to them. This world wasn’t their playground, and they shouldn’t play gods- with that message, the three of you ran away.

And now you were here with the consequences of your actions, with no idea if Jongho was okay. You couldn’t sleep for the past two days and when Wooyoung saw you zoning out in front of the fire in the backyard instead of being in bed, he decided to share a beer with you.

“You look like you have an idea but you’re worried how it will play out,” he observed.

“I mean…” you wrapped your shawl tighter around you. “It can’t get any worse, can it?”

“If they still think you’re back at your home, you might have a chance. They’ll be unsuspecting- we just need to hack into their system and get the Panel to listen.”

The Panel being a group of coders and developers who were, at one point, part of the Droid Project but left just like you. Yunho told you that ever since you were taken, they had been quick with contacting world leaders and giving them a sign that something dark was unravelling right under their noses. He didn’t tell you the identity of those people and you didn’t ask- you trusted him enough to take the right steps. He also told you that they were trying to find a way to get Eden’s military to side with them, but there was no guarantee that the military and the government weren’t already working together so if you made a mistake, you’d be doomed.

“We can’t simply sit and try to hack into their system, Wooyoung, while they have Jongho and several other people suffering with chips inside of them. I’ve seen their experimentations fail and lives lost. I cried myself to sleep everyday and the only reason I’m still sane is because I need to put an end to this as soon as possible-”

“Well, you’re not alone,” Wooyoung told you and you took a deep breath. “We’re here. We’re helping you. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

“I do have one idea, but I’m not sure you will agree.”

“If it’s something stupid and you think we won’t agree? You’re probably right and I won’t hear a word about it-”

“About what?” Yunho came outside with his own can of beer. “Was gaming and going to sleep but I heard the chatter.”

“You really should touch the grass once in a while,” you teased. “You can’t spend all your free time in front of screens too.”

“Whatever,” he plopped down on a chair. “Continue, please. Don’t stop on my account.”

“Okay, listen,” you leaned forward, the orange hues of the fire illuminating your face as you spoke. “I need to go and get Jongho back- you both know I can’t simply sit and wait for our hacking attempts to be successful. If they could be hacked, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Right,” Yunho agreed.

“When they found Jongho and me, when we ran away, Jongho gave me a short message- two words. ‘Yunho’ and ‘Strictland’. Strictland must be the name of the town they’ve made home at. What do you know about Strictland?”

“Did he… did he tell you to find me and say Strictland?” Yunho frowned. “Are you sure?”

Wooyoung looked as lost as you and you told him you were sure. You watched Yunho’s expressions change from confusion to realisation. “Do you remember when we first found out about the Droid Project, I talked about how this couldn’t have been the first time that humans have tried to create droids?”

“Maybe?” You shrugged.

“I don’t remember, I don’t think so,” Wooyoung admitted.

“Well, the term ‘droid’ only originated recently. There have been other terms used to define the concept of a human machine- and since, at first, the only reason for such a creation would be to fight wars. So they were called super assassins, X-fighters, and a bunch of other stupid terms. Whenever I tried finding more about their history, I got blocked. I even got a few warnings. I thought it must be some confidential information- it would make sense if the general public doesn’t know that such attempts have been made. But… I did find something that suggested that they did succeed once.”

“They did?” Wooyoung looked at you in disbelief. “Wasn’t this supposed to be the first time?”

“I wouldn’t know? They sure make me feel like I’m the one who came up with this. I know I’m not, but I didn’t think that far back into the past?”

“The current droids, you came up with that,” Yunho corrected. “But whatever version- or versions- existed before… there have been occurrences. One that began in Strictland a few decades ago but there’s no evidence. It is said that everything related to that project was burned, all the evidence erased. It was quite a disaster and they covered it up with a few bombs thrown to call it a ‘terrorist’ attack- the military got involved and there was a major clean-up or something. But the facts never matched, and those who dug enough know that the government has been hiding the real incident.”

“And how did Jongho know?”

“Maybe he heard things? He definitely did. And if he heard my name too… they might be coming after me next,” Yunho concluded.

“Well, that just means I have to proceed with my plan.”

“What plan exactly is that?”

You told them what you were thinking. There was a series of ‘no’ from Wooyoung, ‘absolutely not’ from Yunho, but you made them consider every other option and when the sun started to shine its first rays on the trees, you all agreed that this might be risky, yes, but this was probably the only way you could win.

Fight fire with fire.

—---------------------------------

“You must have finally gone insane.”

You lightly shrugged when you heard that- it was rich coming from Dr. Jin when he was the one who pushed you to this point.

“I mean… it’s been a while…” your finger circled the dramatic red button, itching to press it- Wooyoung’s idea. You told him it was stupid but when he insisted that nothing riles people up than seeing big red warnings, you let him craft this goodness. 

“What do you want, y/n? Why are you here?”

“I thought you’d know,” you finally stood up, brushing your clothes. “You still have something I can’t go back without.”

“Oh, that stupid droid? You came back for that?”

“That is a human very close to me, which you must have known when you decided to turn him into a droid,” you glared at him. “Don’t test my limits, Dr. Jin. You know how short a temper I have.”

And you had proven that in the span of the last few hours. Your genius plan had been to walk to their office in Strictland, which was relatively easy because all the soldiers recognised you and whenever they tried to move from their places, you told them the purpose of the device in your hand. Not a bomb, but better, you told them. You had one of the soldiers drive you to the office and then you sat down on the ground, waiting for Dr. Jin to show up.

In the meantime, you had a messy confrontation with Mr. Han. You told him you had not expected him to cooperate with any of this but he insisted that he was still following orders to keep his family safe. Though you despised him for making a fool out of you, not even giving you a hint of what was happening, you could understand his reasons. Your reasons were the same after all.

“He’s my family, and I would have you bring him to me right this instant.”

“Or what?”

“Or else I press this,” you raised the remote in your hand. “And it sets off a chain reaction. A droid self-destructs– for real this time, no games,” you looked pointedly at Mr. Han. “and if there’s a droid within a 2 mile radius of that droid, it self-destructs, and so on.”

“All we need to do is snatch it from you,” Dr. Jin scoffed.

“Well, unluckily for you, I’m the droid that will be setting off that chain reaction.”

A chorus of gasps sounded and your seniors- the one who had once been your mentors- all gaped at you. Dumbfounded. Confused.

“You wouldn’t,” it was Dr. Seo that spoke. Your first mentor.

“I would, and you know that,” you extended your wrist showing a small opening where the chip was installed. “Do you remember this version of the droids, where you would still be more human than a machine? The one Dr. Jin was so quick to reject? Turns out it’s the better version- doesn’t require all the surgeries and whatnot.”

“That’s a bluff, isn’t it?” Dr. Jin scoffed. “You wouldn’t kill yourself over some droid.”

“Again, that droid is my family, and yes, I would kill myself if that means everyone here in Strictland dies and this cursed project comes to an end,” you glared at him. “To save humanity, a few lives sacrificed won’t be in vain- oh, and if you try to snatch this?” You waved the device in your hand. “This was just for the dramatics. It doesn’t work- I don’t need it to activate self-destruction.”

Dr. Jin’s nostrils flared in anger, the wrinkles on his face deepening as he tried to make a decision. “Any chance for negotiations? Because I won’t simply hand over Jongho to you- you couldn’t hack into him and deactivate his droid functions. We clearly have the upper hand.”

“You do,” you admitted. “And you can continue with whatever the fuck you’re doing in here, but I can do something for you and you can do something for me in return, right?”

“What do you suggest?” Dr. Seo spoke this time. “What can you give us?”

“What you clearly want. I know you haven’t found a way to solve that muscle memory problem yet.”

“But given more time, we could definitely do it,” Dr. Seo shifted on one leg, pushing his glasses up. “Why would we need you for that?”

“Because I’m pretty sure you can’t do this without me- I’m the only programmer in Eden who can accomplish this,” your smirk was devilish. “You needed me when you began this project, and you clearly need me now. It’s a shame I didn’t cooperate, right? Maybe if you hadn’t used Jongho to rile me up, I would have actually solved the problem.”

“But you didn’t know what the problem was in the first place,” Dr. Seo said.

“I didn’t, but come on. I would have found out with any droid had I observed it as closely as I did Jongho. Now… I code to make the link between muscle memory and the subconscious dormant, and you uninstall the chip in Jongho and let me leave in peace. Do we have a deal?”

“What’s the guarantee you won’t try anything once you have Jongho?”

“None,” you admitted. “But if you trust me, I’ll trust you. For old time’s sake? And you know where my family lives anyway- I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything.”

Dr. Jin and Dr. Seo looked at each other, whispering. Mr. Han looked like he wished he was beside you at that moment fighting with you, not fighting against you. You gulped down the anxiety bubbling in your throat- you had bluffed a whole lot just now but you needed them to buy it. Yes, you could self-destruct but there was no way you would simply just go back.

“Alright, I think we can work with that,” Dr. Seo came closer, extending his hand. “For old time’s sake.”

“You should apologise for playing dirty,” you shook his hand but he only scoffed in response. 

“You’ll have to follow some rules here. Protocol,” Dr. Seo explained and you cooperated this time, letting them scan your body for potential threats and then asking for access to your code. You let them see it- Dr. Seo had made this version with you so when he seemed satisfied save for the self-destruct file that you didn’t allow him to access, he decided to let it be for the moment.

“I have a condition too,” you told him. “I’ll work on uninstalling Jongho’s chip first. Once he’s human, I’ll play my part.”

“Okay- I’ll have a programmer work with you.”

Thus initiated the second part of your plan. You had successfully gained access inside their building and so far, their actions had been very predictable. Wooyoung was right about them asking to read your code too. The self-destruct wasn’t a bluff but you had hidden the real code elsewhere because you just knew Dr. Seo would attempt to replicate it if he got one look at it. You were pretty sure he had gone to note down what little he saw.

What he missed, though, while worrying about the new code was that you did not have one but two chips, side by side, inside your wrist. The other, a tiny thing, attached to the main chip. You finally pressed on your wrist to turn it on.

Surveillance through your eyes. The simplest, most basic droid function, installed in each droid as well as you. But you were reporting back to your server- to Yunho and Wooyoung, who were right at the outskirts of the town, who must have detected your signal by now and would be transmitting the live coverage to the Panel. The Panel, where different world leaders, scientists, human rights workers and other brilliant people were present, the group bigger than ever, waiting to see what you would show them.

And the first sight they saw- oh goodness. Rows and rows of humans strapped on to the stretchers lit by a light so bright that they looked blue. One of them was being brought to you- you were pretty sure your whimper was heard by everyone in the Panel.

Jongho did not look good. The signs of his struggle were quite visible on his bare upper body- a big, ugly bruise on the left side of his stomach, a long slash running down his right arm, a twin bruise like yours on his temple. You were never going to forgive these people. 

With newfound fierce determination, you nodded to the person you were to work with- a woman who looked to be in her late thirties with her stern face and slicked back hair. Without saying a word, Jongho was plugged to the screen and his code files secured with multiple passwords were accessed. Then the two of you started working side by side to end every running code in his chip. It must have taken only an hour and then you were done.

“We’ll take him to surgery. You can access whatever you need here while we take the chip out of him.”

“No thanks, I’ll take whatever laptop you have and work from there. He needs to be in front of my eyes.”

“I’ll get back to you,” she said and moved to a corner to convey your message. After getting confirmation, she allowed you to follow her to the medical section of the office. The lights started to dim the further you walked down the hallway, almost to the extent that you thought they were going to surprise you with something unexpected, but a turn to the right and you were suddenly in a familiar setting of a hospital. You were glad it looked normal- all the neon lights used in the offices had rooted some trauma in you for sure.

Unsurprisingly, the waiting room was equipped with all sorts of necessities you would need. The woman simply turned on the systems and plugged in the USBs before instructing you to wait for Dr. Seo. You rolled your eyes- nothing you could do about that, so you resorted to monitoring Jongho, trying to quell the seed of hope in your heart. 

Jongho would be okay. You would make sure of that.

The process of installing the chips in humans was something you had seen a lot- however, uninstalling the chip was rare. You tried not to recall the time when you first tried to save a person- it had backfired and induced a seizure. While you had worked with a lot of programmers to make sure something like that wouldn’t happen again, the people here kept insisting they didn’t need you to work on this because they thought there wouldn’t be a time when they would have to turn droids back into humans. But you were grateful that you and your team had been stubborn enough to at least make it a little better. 

Now it was up to Jongho and his willpower to make it out of there with full health. You weren’t sure what you would do if something happened to him.

While monitoring Jongho, you started working on the one problem that had doomed your life- the link between subconscious and muscle memory. You had Dr. Seo working with you from his office- it was no surprise that he was monitoring your progress and making contributions considering he was one of the brains behind this project and had a lot of medical knowledge to contribute from the years he worked as a neurosurgeon before he started learning programming. 

But since he was watching, that meant you had to do this properly- and you would. You understood that coming here to save Jongho meant you would have to share the knowledge that could change the power dynamics of this world. You could only pray that the Panel would make sure that these people would never get to put your theory into practice, because you couldn’t imagine a world where humans would be programmed to lose the very essence that made them human to fight for people that could only be called monsters. And you prayed your wildcard- getting the military involved- would work.

It had to be the longest three hours of your life. By the time Jongho was out of surgery, his vitals normal, you were almost done but your hands were trembling uncontrollably, your sniffs were getting louder as you tried to control the sobs that threatened to leave your body, because-

You did it. Jongho was okay, Jongho was okay. 

And you may have just doomed all of humanity with your code. You were pretty sure Dr. Seo might be testing your code on some unfortunate human right now. You should have gone with him- but you couldn’t leave Jongho. He needed to be in front of your eyes. You wished you had some means of contacting Yunho and Wooyoung right now- all they needed to do was tell you that you did well and you would be fine. But you didn’t have the means to hear their reassurance so you had to settle for the hope that the Panel was proceeding with the final part of the plan.

A military raid. Eden’s military against the New Government’s soldiers. Eden had never been so divided. 

A notification popped up on your laptop and Dr. Seo confirmed the validity of the code so far and asked you to wrap it up. You took a deep breath.

The last step. The final step you had to take in order to destroy the foundations of the Eden Droid Project, once and for all. 

You told him to give you a minute- you needed to check if Jongho was okay. With that excuse, you got up and went inside the ward to check on your unconscious friend. The surgery wasn’t anything big, no. It was just like removing a piece of shrapnel from your body, the chip relying on signals to send to the neurons. You just had to make sure that Jongho’s body hadn’t adapted to the chip’s presence so much that it couldn’t function without it anymore.

You wiped your face with your sleeves before clutching Jongho’s hand- you needed his strength, every bit of it. With your other hand, you combed his hair so it wouldn’t fall on his eyes. Jongho stirred in his sleep and you whispered his name. He subconsciously squeezed your hand before his eyes fluttered open. He wasn’t surprised- seeing you wake him up was nothing new, though it had been quite a while. He looked around to get his bearings-

“Oh, goodness, what are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too,” you laughed, wiping your eyes again. “How are you feeling? Can you move? Is your vision okay?”

“Never been better,” Jongho groaned as he sat up, exhaling. “I feel tired. That’s new.”

“That means you’re human,” you smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re no longer a droid, Jongho,” you told him, for once pleased with your work. “You’re okay now.”

“But where are we?”

“Still there,” you let go of his hand to squeeze his shoulder, letting it trail down his bicep which was when you started tapping. “You’ll go home soon, I promise.”

“And you?” He asked, “Won’t you come too?”

“I’ll be right behind,” you kissed his forehead, having finished tapping your message on his skin. Jongho squeezed your hand in warning but you shook your head. “I have to wrap things up here, but I promise I’ll be home soon.”

“We go together, or we don’t go at all.”

“Jongho-”

“I won’t leave you behind, not this time,” he shook his head fiercely. “I know you’re strong. But we’ve always worked better together, haven’t we?”

“You’re still recovering though.”

Jongho called your name in warning and you caved in. You told him to make sure to follow your instructions and you made a request to Dr. Seo that you wanted to be there to witness the end of this. Dr. Seo sent an escort who accompanied the two of you to a lab where he was indeed working on an unfortunate young man just like you had suspected. Dr. Seo cast a wary look at Jongho before turning to you.

“You’ve worked brilliantly so far, Miss Jeon. Shall we begin?”

You nodded and asked Jongho to take a seat. You first went to check the man’s vitals, taking note of his label - CS, 005. “He’s one of the first few, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Dr. Seo confirmed, setting up your station. “A volunteer, though he didn’t quite know what he was getting into at that time.”

“Right,” you muttered, swallowing the distaste his words brought. “I’ll start now.”

Feeling sorry for the man who was about to lose the last shreds of humanity in him, perhaps forever, you started typing the codes, Dr. Seo watching from his screen across you. There were just a few lines of command left to type and you cast a quick glance at Jongho who passed a subtle nod. 

He was ready. And so were you. 

You had tapped a message to Jongho- Cookie’s play. A joke that ran in both your families of how Cookie would pretend to be sick whenever she wanted to have her way or skip school. And he was going to do just that. 

Jongho groaned loudly in pain, clutching his head, causing Dr. Seo to stop what he was doing and frown at him in confusion while you asked Jongho if everything was okay, your fingers typing a series of codes that were going to be your salvation now. Jongho fell on his knees and you, feigning panic, got up along with Dr. Seo who was genuinely worried for Jongho’s wellbeing since you had made sure that you weren’t going to give them anything if he wouldn’t make it out alive. You started walking across the room to where Jongho was, the droid CS on your way and you paused just a fraction of a second to slip your chip- the small chip they had missed during inspection- in the port on his back from where he was plugged to the system. 

You rushed to Jongho and asked him if he was okay- he continued to act like his head was going to burst open with pain and just when Dr. Seo took out his phone to call someone, Jongho pounced on him, tackling him to the ground and placing a hand over his mouth. You didn’t wait to see who would win as they started clawing at each other- you ran back to your station to your laptop, glancing once at Dr. Seo’s panicked face before pressing enter and enabling the ‘run’ function.

The guards outside must have heard some commotion and one of them peeked in to check but it was too late- thanks to Dr. Seo being impatient and sceptical, testing your code after every few minutes, it only took a handful of seconds for the code to stop running itself which was when the droid opened its eyes. Dr. Seo finally managed to land a punch on Jongho and get him to let go of him. He rushed towards you but before he could stop the guards, one of them yelled ‘freeze!’ and you raised your hands-

Unplugging the droid in the process.

“What have you done-” Dr. Seo reached for his screen to read the code, consumed by confusion and panic as he read the last lines which must be making no sense to him now-

Because the original code was also in that mini chip you had sneaked in. If this went well, you would owe Yunho your life- and Jongho’s.

“CS, 005, what’s your status?” You whispered just so the droid could hear. 

“Okay,” he confirmed.

“Then get up and protect us from the threat.”

You thought you saw the slightest hint of a smirk on the droid’s face and before you could ponder over it, he rose to full glory, straightening and cracking his neck before asking you to take cover. 

What you saw next was something you were sure you would never forget. There was no way this person wasn’t a skilled fighter before he became a droid because he dodged each bullet with expertise and kicked the gun out of the guard’s hand, catching it mid-air and pointing it at Dr. Seo, creeping towards him and holding him at gunpoint.

“Down on your knees, now,” he commanded and the guard obeyed instantly, backup arriving too late. Nothing they could do now- the Head Coder of this project could lose his life if someone made a wrong move.

“How,” Dr. Seo muttered when he spotted you from the corner of his eye. “I saw the code- there was nothing.”

“It’s just like what you did with Jongho and the other droids,” you finally let out the laugh you had been holding. “I am the master now, and my wish is his command. Isn’t that right, CS?”

He nodded in response and Jongho whistled, thoroughly impressed by you. You took out Dr. Seo’s phone from his pocket, unlocked it and called Dr. Jin.

“Is it done?”

“Uh, you might want to come here, Dr. Jin,” you said innocently. “We may have an emergency.”

You hung up before he could respond and Mr. Han came bursting into the room, freezing when he saw just what was going on.

“Uh, I was going to inform you that there’s been a military raid but it looks like it was planned…”

“Maybe,” you shrugged but you couldn’t keep in the sigh of relief- all hope was not lost after all. The military was on with you in this one- looks like the Panel had played their part well.

Mr. Han, to your surprise, was smiling in satisfaction. “Is it going to be over soon?”

“For you lot, yes,” you narrowed your eyes. “You don’t look too mad about it.”

“I’m not,” he smiled and you tried to figure out just what he was thinking but Dr. Jin appeared, fuming. The old man looked like he was going to have a stroke any second.

“Stand. Down.” He commanded. “Or you’ll face the worst consequences, Miss Jeon.”

“Like what?” You cocked your head. “I could have this droid blow your favourite coder’s brains out, right here. I don’t think it can get worse than that-”

Dr. Jin’s phone rang and when he frowned at his screen, you finally let the little ray of hope you had been harbouring in your heart consume you. Dr. Jin picked up the call and you watched all the blood drain from his face. 

“Ah… It can get worse,” you finally grinned, looking at Jongho who appeared a little lost but squeezed your hand in assurance anyway. “CS, you will continue to hold Dr. Seo as leverage until I give you the signal. Dr. Jin… I think it’s time you sit down and accept your defeat.”

Dr. Jin scoffed and attempted to leave the room but you shared one look with the droid and he knew what to do- with impeccable aim, he fired the gun in his direction, hitting right in the middle of his calf. His painful yell echoed throughout the vicinity and some of the guards pointed the gun in your direction instinctively while some rushed to help the man. You ignored Dr. Seo’s series of curses aimed at you amidst the chaos. Soon, a man in Eden’s staple blue military uniform walked in followed by a group of soldiers, ordering them to start arresting everyone in the building- and to your surprise, he nodded at you. CS finally let go of Dr. Seo only for him to be handcuffed and escorted outside.

“Thank you for coming,” you said as a greeting to Eden’s Military Commander- everyone in the room must have recognised him seeing how they were so willingly cooperating now. “I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“It took me quite some convincing to come, but seeing what’s going on here,” the tall man looked around, “I think it was necessary. If you could be so kind as to guide me through the appropriate measures to be taken regarding the droids?”

“Yes- can you make sure Mr. Choi is escorted safely outside first? He might require some medical attention-”

“Y/n-”

“It’s okay, Jongho,” you assured with a smile. “It’s going to take me a while here, but I’ll be with Yunho and Wooyoung. I’ll be okay.”

Jongho looked at the Commander for permission and he nodded, letting him take you to a side for a little privacy. “I’m anxious, y/n. I don’t want to leave you here-”

“I’m not alone, trust me,” you took both his hands in yours. “I need you to get out of here and get to Cookie, okay? She’s going to be worried sick- she knows everything now.”

“Really?” Jongho shook his head. “What about your parents? My parents- are they okay?”

“They’re all fine,” you told him. “They had a memory blocker but Yunho was going to take care of that before he came here. Everything will be normal when you go back.”

“Not normal. Not if you’re not there,” he said and you laughed at that.

“Jongho, I’m so thankful to you for a number of things. I’ll tell you all about it once we’re back, okay?” You promised. “But I need to take care of all the droids first. You know they can’t keep on living like this anymore. You know that better than anyone.”

Jongho nodded reluctantly and you continued. “You saved me today, Jongho. I’ll thank you for that now. And you need to be safe, at home with our families, so I can work peacefully here, okay? We’ll be in contact- here,” you went to grab a paper and pen to scribble your contact number. “You can call me whenever.”

“Alright,” he finally gave in, bringing you in for a hug and you gladly soaked in every bit of it. You needed that for what was next.

—--------------------------

“You’re burning the toasts, Wooyoung.”

“They need to be just the right amount of brown for this dish to come together,” Wooyoung tsk-ed at your ignorance and you scoffed, looking for someone to back you but apparently everyone’s new favourite sport was to gang up on you now.

“We get that you’ve not been in the kitchen for a while,” Jongho began. “But how did you survive living alone in Strictland?”

“Let me guess. Instant noodles and microwave food,” Cookie shook her head in disappointment when you pursed your lips guiltily. “Mom’s gonna have a stroke if she hears.”

“Shut up,” you muttered though your heart ached at the mention of your mother- two years of not knowing where her daughter was had really aged her. “And you’re laughing, Yunho. As if you’re one to say.”

“Still better than you,” he stuck out his tongue at you and before you could retort, you heard the door open.

“I’ve set everything, what’s taking so long?” San said, going to check on Wooyoung. “Now that looks good.”

“See?” Wooyoung turned to look at you. “Man’s got taste.”

“I think I was better off coding in my room, what say you, Cookie?” You turned to leave but Yunho grabbed your arm and swung you back to your spot, laughing along with Jongho. You noticed Cookie was too busy staring at San who was helping Wooyoung plate the last of the dishes now. You met Jongho’s eyes and you shook your heads- her crush on San was way too obvious. Yunho shook his head, amused, and you all decided to let her have her moment.

It had been about 3 months since the raid in Strictland and since then, you were working on wiping clean any signs of the Droid Project in the land. You, Yunho and Wooyoung had worked day and night for a whole month to turn the hundreds of droids back to normal and then it was the military’s job to get them back to where they belonged. Everyone had unanimously agreed that since you guys were the brains behind this, it was your decision if you wanted to keep the data or delete everything permanently. One look at Yunho and it was decided- you were going to burn everything related to the project. It had almost caused the world to lose its humanity. There should be no signs of it anymore.

Everyone who was a part of the Eden Droid Project was tried in court and imprisoned with heavy sentences of treason, especially those who had collaborated with people from other nations and risked their homeland’s security. These included everyone who willingly cooperated- testimonies were heard, yes, but they didn’t prove to be much valuable. All the military needed was a background check of their activities which attested to their willingness- people like you who had left the project in its early stages and suddenly found themselves back were let go of with non-disclosure agreements. Some were put on probation but it turned out good.

What surprised you was when you were called as a witness for Mr. Han’s testimony. He revealed that he had purposely not blocked your memories of Jongho so you would quickly realise what was going on and do something about this project. Since he had always been a part of this project, it was hard to believe that he had contributed to the downfall of this project but you had to agree- if it weren��t for him, things would have been much, much different. He got the lightest sentence among those who willingly participated in this project and he was grateful that you came on his behalf. You figured you couldn’t be mad at him for too long- he probably did what he did for his family too.

The Panel was sure to not let a whisper of this project out- everything was hushed and treaties were signed. You met with a few of the members who commended your efforts but you didn’t take any credit. You did what you had to. You only asked for one favour- to let you and your friends be. You were never going to play with the idea of droids again- this was enough. You were simply going to work on the last droid- CS- from ‘the headquarters’ which was Yunho and Wooyoung’s home. The Panel agreed- they knew better than to get on your wrong side. If the world came to hear about what happened in Strictland, the establishments would collapse. 

As for San, your new friend… he was CS- the droid. The person you felt the most sorry for. The person you had apologised to at least a hundred times in a span of the past few months because it took you the longest to get his droid functions to hibernate, and once he became somewhat human?

You recalled the look in his eyes that absolutely shattered you- the look of guilt and horror. It was very messy at first, countless arguments as you tried to convince him that you were not a monster (but weren’t you? You created the droids, after all) and that you were so sorry for using him as a weapon and as a shield, and you were sorry for what he had to go through all this time. Sometimes, it looked like you two were getting along but then one night, you had your worst argument- screaming and yelling, tears and anger. Yunho and Wooyoung had been out and they chose the worst (arguable) timing to come back home- with Cookie and Jongho. 

And how Cookie defended you. When she heard the yells, she stormed inside and hugged you and you sobbed into her chest while she sent daggers in the stranger’s direction. And then what she said afterwards was how you got here- to being a group of tightly knit friends.

“My sister has been used, manipulated, held hostage in a simulation and made to code you droids with the threat of her family hanging on her head. She went back to sacrifice herself and everyone including you if that meant the world could be a safer place for the rest of us, so don’t you dare call her a monster. If it weren’t for her, you would have been their first killing machine, do you understand? You should be thanking her for trying to save you- she’s still a fucking droid and refuses to feel tired or sleep until you can!”

“Cookie!” You scolded. “Language!”

“I’m almost 18 now, I’m not a kid anymore,” she glared at you and you felt that stab, having missed two of the most important years of her life. She went back to glaring at San who looked… starstruck? “She didn’t see her family and her boyfriend in 2 years because she was afraid she’d hurt us. Don’t you call her a monster ever again.”

Now? Now you smiled proudly whenever you thought of that night. After Cookie’s outburst, everyone was too surprised to say anything and it was Wooyoung who tried to cut the tension in the air by asking Cookie to take you to his room. Jongho stood gaping at the little kid he had practically raised, muttering, “I did not raise her like this but damn.” And he was right. The boys had a good laugh and San slept over it and realised he may have been acting like an idiot. 

And that idiot was clearly very curious about Cookie, you realised when he opened his birthday present for her to reveal a lilac cardigan- Cookie had very casually pointed at someone’s cardigan in the street calling it cute. You did not expect San to be so observant. 

“Oh, this is lovely,” Cookie ran a hand over the cardigan’s soft fabric. “The colour- I love it, San.”

“Stop shooting daggers at San,” Jongho, who was sitting next to you, whispered, poking your stomach and you swatted his hand away.

“I can’t help it,” you whispered back, eyes still locked in San’s direction. “He’s getting way too chummy with her lately. I don’t approve.”

“You literally told San you love him like, two days ago,” Jongho pointed out and you glared at him.

“That’s because he got me my favourite brownie when I had been working all night long,” you said as if that warranted your admission of love for him. “As a polite servant should. His master is losing sleep trying to get his droidy senses back to human.”

“This droid still possesses his super hearing,” San whispered just for you to hear- you possessed that too. “So maybe shut up.”

“Stop looking at Cookie like that and I’ll shut up,” you countered and Jongho laughed out loud, having put two and two together from what he heard you whisper to San. “Don’t make me activate the master-servant dynamics back.”

“Oh, stop that,” Cookie glared at the two of you and you both immediately pretended to be normal, smiling at her. “Please get along for once. It’s my birthday. Where’s your gift, sis?”

“Uhh,” you looked around, digging in your pocket, “Here.”

A finger-heart. Cookie groaned loudly and everyone laughed as you ran for your life when she got up from her chair. “It’s on the way!” You yelled. “I forgot to order it on time!”

“It better be good or else I’ll have San droid-handle you!”

You stopped running, coincidentally finding yourself behind San’s chair. “You wouldn’t. She wouldn’t, right?”

“Your wish is not my command but her wish,” San pointed at Cookie before looking at you with that smirk you wished to wipe off his face, “very well might be.”

“Oh, I’m going back to code,” you started and San laughed, grabbing your hand before you could go inside and apologising like a true gentleman (he was actually a gentleman, you found). Wooyoung complained that the food was going to get cold if you all kept joking around and you finally gave in, settling between San and Jongho and digging into the feast.

It was heartwarming to have all of them together like this, after everything that you went through. You had never felt more content in your life, and it showed, even though you hadn’t reached the finish line yet. You still had to turn San and yourself back to normal- you had been far too busy erasing all evidence of the Droid Project to worry about yourself. As for San, it was a sensitive line to tread on. You did not want to hasten it and he understood- he was just glad that his droid functions could be controlled at his will. He was content too, having reunited with his family and found another here.

Jongho noticed you smiling to yourself as you walked back home from the convenience store- you had gone to get more drinks but you also volunteered because you wanted to take Jongho along with you. You barely had alone time with him ever since you came back so you made most of the stolen moments. 

“What’s going on in your head?” Jongho teased, elbowing you lightly.

“Nothing. I’m just happy,” you grinned. The simple truth- you were happy. “Wanna take a little break?” You pointed at the empty park with swings and Jongho led you inside, the two of you settling on the swings.

“How are your parents?” You asked Jongho. “Are they still confused about your disappearance?”

“They are, I mean… I told them I went to find you but you’re not back home yet. They wonder why sometimes.”

“When did you guys move?” You asked. “It’s a shame that we won’t be neighbours anymore.”

“I know,” Jongho sighed. “My grandmother was sick two years ago- they wanted to move closer so they could take better care of her. We still own that house so we haven’t ‘fully’ moved away’.”

“Oh, does that mean you can come by sometimes?” You asked but then you remembered. “You have college, though.”

“I could come stay there on the weekends if that means we can spend some time together,” he shrugged and you poked his thigh.

“Just like when your parents went on a trip and I would sneak out in the middle of the night so we could have sleepovers?”

“Good old times,” Jongho laughed. Now that you were getting a good look at him, you noticed how much he had changed in the years you had been gone. He was much broader now, the muscles peeking through his half-sleeve shirt more defined, and-

“You’re staring.”

“You got a haircut,” you said. “I like your hair a bit longer, I think.”

“I’m going to shave my head,” Jongho declared and you laughed loudly. Just like the old times. “This reminds me of the last time we were at a park. On the swings, just like this.”

While you had thanked Jongho for a lot of things ever since you came back- for taking care of Cookie while you were gone, for believing in you and not going out and beyond trying to find you, for making sure your parents knew you were safe wherever you were and this was something you needed to do, for not giving up when he got taken and turned into a droid, and for keeping you safe there… you were still struggling with words needed for an apology. Jongho told you time and time again that he didn’t need your apology, but that didn’t mean you felt less sorry.

“Do you consider it a bad memory?” You asked and Jongho shook his head.

“Never. I was a bit out of it when I learned that you were gone, but one night I came back to the park and recalled our conversation. I told you that you could trust me and you told me that you did. You assured me that you loved me and you knew that you weren’t alone-”

“Jongho-”

“Let me finish,” he smiled gently at you. “If you hadn’t told me all of that… I don’t know what I would have done. I was grateful that you had told me that. It meant that whatever you did was necessary.”

“God, how did I get so lucky?” You looked up at the sky, laughing to keep the sting in your eyes from getting worse. “I think I’ve used maximum luck. It can’t get any better than this.”

“Please,” Jongho smacked your arm, his ears going red and you giggled. Even after all these years, simple confessions like these made him fluster and it was the cutest thing. “I’m just telling you this so you can stop looking at me like you owe me a big fat apology. Not a good look at you, y/n. I like it better when you act like you’re the boss and can do whatever you want.”

“But I am sorry,” you told him and he looked pointedly at you but decided to accept it. Perhaps that would take the weight off your shoulders. “I should have told you more. That’s the only regret I had.”

“Oh, we’re fine anyway, aren’t we?” Jongho said. “We’re all back. Our gang has grown, Cookie is finally sharing drinks with you, we got a new friend-”

“Choi San,” you muttered. “I don’t know how you two get along so well. How all of you do. I think we’re still moments away from going full warrior-mode droid on each other.”

“Oh, that’s because you don’t like how chummy he and Cookie are,” Jongho laughed heartily. “Don’t let her find out. She’s gonna start rebelling.”

“Like, I know they can do whatever they want, I’m not against it at all. I’m probably wary because, well, I’m her sister. Of course I’m going to be. It’s just that… he looks at her the way you look at me. It’s unsettling.”

Jongho raised a brow. “Oh? And how do I look at you?”

“With those big eyes,” you grinned, and when his gaze got softer, you smacked his arm. “Stop!”

“Why?” Jongho pulled you closer, making you rock dangerously on the swing but he was quick to cage your legs between his so you wouldn’t fall over. “How do I look at you? Like I’m in love? Like you’re my everything?”

“You need a drink,” you told him, about to bend to pull one out of the grocery bag but Jongho grabbed your arm instead, making you look at him. “Stop, you’re making me shy!”

Jongho must have been in a dire need of drink because he wasn’t all for such romantic moments- but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a romantic. When he was in the mood, you often found it overwhelming simply because you couldn’t believe he could love you so much. He intertwined his hands with yours, caressing the scar on your wrist below which the chip was embedded. When he looked at you, your gaze was already stuck on his parted lips and he didn’t waste time drawing you in and meeting your lips in a heartfelt kiss. You let your arms travel around his neck mostly for support because you were still worried you would fall off the swing but Jongho had you secure, one hand on your waist and the other on your neck as he deepened the kiss.

It was perfect. It was quiet with only the sound of cicadas carried by the cool breeze, the faint sound of traffic almost dismissable. It was nostalgic and contained longing from all the time you spent apart, the time you lost and wished you could get back. But what made your heart content was that it was still the same. He was still the same, just like you had left him. He still kissed you like he couldn’t have been elsewhere. He still held you like he did the first time- with caution and care, making sure you felt safe. As you continued to kiss, he let go of that caution and let himself get comfortable too, the kiss turning passionate. It was only when you heard the sound of passersby- children- that you broke apart with a little laugh.

“Can we ditch going back to give them the drinks and continue?” You asked and Jongho laughed, kissing you for a few moments more before he let go with a sigh.

“You owe me two years worth of kisses,” Jongho said, getting up and helping you get up next. “You better make up for it.”

“Really?” You took him by surprise as you pulled him for another short kiss. “That’s one less for you now.”

“I’ll take another then,” Jongho kissed you back and when he drew apart, you two burst into a fit of giggles. “Let’s go back.”

The short walk back to the headquarters cut a few more kisses from what you owed him and when you set the drinks on the table, you found everyone looking pointedly at the two of you. “What?”

“What took you so long?” Yunho shook his head, opening the drinks and then pausing mid-air. “Actually… don’t answer that.”

“Oh?” San unintentionally quipped in, looking confused for a moment before he looked around and connected the dots. “Oh.”

“Ew,” Cookie said and everyone burst into laughter, making Jongho hide his face in a corner and you threw a packet of chips at Wooyoung who was laughing the loudest, who proved you wrong instantly by laughing even louder. You couldn’t help but join despite everyone ganging up to tease the two of you. You subconsciously touched your wrist, remembering that you were part droid right now but San caught that, sharing the sentiment-

That even though you were part droid, you had never felt more human. You had never felt more emotional, and perhaps, these moments that became a part of your subconscious had ultimately saved all of you. You made a silent prayer wishing everyone’s subconscious would be filled with such wholesome and happy moments. As long as you had this, you would be okay.

Elsewhere, at the outskirts of Strictland, a man dressed in all-black with a cap was standing anxiously waiting for someone. As soon as he saw a car approach, he clutched his briefcase tighter, worried his attempt at a negotiation would go wrong. The car halted a few feet away and a man in a suit accompanied by another of a much bigger stature drew closer.

“What have you got?”

“A few documents and one chip that I managed to hide before they found me,” the man adjusted his cap. “I have a trial scheduled this week so I thought I’d get this done.”

“And everything is here, in this briefcase?” the man in the suit asked and got a nod. He signalled . “Thank you. Your job here is done.”

Before the man could ask what was next, the one standing in the shadows pulled out a gun and shot that man in the forehead before he could blink. The man in the suit wiped his suit mockingly.

“Get rid of him, and make it quick. We’ve got work to do.”

[lunaviee]

HEY! this is so sudden and so late but i legit did not notice you're also a writing blog, ty for liking bouquet!!!! checked ur pinned for a bit, BANDORI PLAYER..... i love bandori..... in my heart of hearts i love morfonica sm i dont have the band completed tho 💔 anyway woah.... SO NICE TO SEE OTHER BANDORI PLAYERS RAHHHH okay sorry im rambling, i'll stop by your inbox another time!!!

🎐— james

OMG HII😇 okay first things first THAT BOUQUET FIC WAS SO SWEET😞 sae deserves a little kiss just saying!! anyway, YES BANDORI!! personally i think i like roselia the best as a group but saya remains my #1 favorite always i adore her sm🫶but i will be honest here, i haven’t touched bandori in MONTHS😭i have been playing a lot of project sekai though like i’ve been GRINDING THAT GAME

anyways, tysm for dropping a sweet little message in my inbox, your works are adorable and you seem very nice <3 maybe i’ll post some of my sekai/bandori stuff here…

[sublimecatgalaxy]

idk how it’d be done but you’re a genius so some form of spicy enemies-to-lovers type of flirting between Spencer and Reader but in a Christmas setting?? If the Christmas thing is too difficult to place just stick w the flirting bae 💞💞 SO HAPPY SPENCER IS THRIVING ON YOUR BLOG RAHHHH 💃🕺💃🕺💃

man i love your requests. you're the absolute best. i genuinely have no clue how to write enemies to lovers with this man so i wrote more annoyance to lovers LMAO

"You're telling me there's free alcohol out there and you're still stuffing your nose in books?" Spencer sits in front of me, on the ground, littered in a pile of open books that have scribbled writing covering their pages. He looks up at me with a tired look, curls falling in his face as he blows them away, giving me a simple shrug.

"I don't drink." He rolls his eyes at the dramatic groan that leaves me, my arms swinging at my side as I step up to him, ruffling his hair. He squeaks and inches away from my touch, eyes glaring up at me before he references to the books around him with wide eyes, almost saying 'can't you see that I'm busy?'

"Doesn't mean you can't laugh and make fun of those who do. Penelope is fall down drunk, Spence." I giggle, sitting down beside him with a sigh but not before sneaking a glance at Penelope who's clinging to Derek as they dance. "C'mon, it's the Holidays." He just nods and continues to read, nimble fingers skimming against the pages.

It took a month for Penelope and I to convince Hotch to let us hold a family work party here at the office, let alone on Christmas Day. We did everything, ordered the food, decorated, went to the liquor store and spent way too much. But I can already imagine Penelope's disappointment when she sobers up and learns that Spencer didn't participate.

"Trust me, I'd spew one fact about how the Catholics stole holiday traditions from the Pagans and they'd be kicking me out." A frown tugs on his lips and I go to argue with him but quickly realize he's probably right. The rest of the team does have a lack of patience when dealing with Spencer and his fun facts, facts that I could listen to him talk about for hours.

But I think that's just me.

"Well, I think all of your facts are kinda cool." I bump his shoulder with my own, loving the gentle blush that spreads across his cheeks as he sends me a soft smile, eyes flickering back and forth between mine with furrowed brows.

"Are you drunk too?" A tipsy giggle escapes me but I just shake my head, ignoring the obvious buzz that rages through my veins.

"Not too horribly."

"I was going to say, you never compliment me." He scoffs but his implication only offends me and my hand raises to rest over my heart as he rolls his eyes at my feigned offense.

"Maybe if you were nicer to me, I'd compliment you more." I shove him, pulling a cute laugh from him and he finally shuts the book in his lap, turning to me completely with a cocky smile.

"I'm always nice to you. It's not my fault you're always wrong and hate being corrected." My jaw drops at his teasing, not completely prepared for him to be able to dish it as well as I do. Maybe he needs to stop spending so much time with Derek.

"Ouch, see what I mean?" I chuckle, lip jutting out in a pitiful pout. "C'mon, I even put up the Christmas tree and hung all the dreidel cutouts." He smiles softly at my whining, eyes briefly lifting to the conference room ceiling to look at my heartfelt decorations.

"I give your inclusivity credit."

"Can I at least help you with whatever it is you're so caught up in?" I ask, reaching out to take the book from his lap and he immediately protests but I just send him a stern look.

"What would you get out of it?" He asks, brows furrowed cutely.

"Spending time with my most favorite genius is pretty good." His cheeks darken once more, blush climbing down his neck and below his sweater that hugs his torso. "Maybe you'll just have to owe me a dance." It's not the first time I've tried to pull physical intimacy out of him other than the incessant teasing that he throws my way. I've tried to get hugs out of him, high fives (which typically fly with him) and I've even gone as far as inviting him out to the club with Penelope, Morgan and I when we're out of town.

But he always gives me the same answer.

"I don't dance."

"I can be pretty persuasive." His eyes gawk at the hand that reaches out to rest on his thigh, tongue sweeping out to wet his chapped lips. He struggles to catch him breath, chest rising and falling in staggered breaths, wide eyes eventually rising to look at me.

"Are you flirting with me on the Lord's Day?" He asks breathlessly, lips rising in a small smirk and my jaw drops in obvious shock.

"Are you, Spencer Reid, being sarcastic?" I ask, reaching out to slap his chest but he just giggles sweetly, hands pushing my own away. "Wow, I'm almost proud." I snicker, feeling so lucky to have all of his attention for even a brief moment, loving the weight of his eyes as they look over me in my ugly holiday sweater.

"Yeah, well, you rub off on me, I guess." His voice is timid and smile is bashful, lip tucked between his teeth and I smile warmly.

"If Morgan's teaching you to flirt, tell him to keep it up."

"He says I have hidden game that I just 'suck at using'." He chuckles, brows furrowing in subtle confusion but I know that he knows he's attractive and it all chalks up to his intelligence and kind eyes.

"I'd say he's pretty damn right." I chuckle, fingers brushing against his own on the floor between us and I avert my eyes from him, knowing I won't be able to look him in the eyes after my next blatantly inappropriate comment. "Pull out some magic tricks and my panties would be gone."

"Oh my god, stop."

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