#cadence-based writing

[calamitys-child]

Something something the curtains are blue or whatever but underappreciated media analysis phenomenon is when someone else reads something you wrote and points out the blue curtains that you hadn't even noticed yourself hanging up while you built it. Like fuck they sure are I genuinely hadn't noticed I just flung em up I was concentrating on the carpet. Hey that shade of blue goes nice with the carpet huh. I should get more decor in that colour. Does this make sense to anyone

[good--merits-accumulated]

i fear i am endlessly predictable (writing new dps au which is once again fantasy with Arthurian elements)

[mephisto-reporting]

Hearbreak Anniversary with Zayne

Summary: It was your anniversary with Zayne. One year of togetherness. But what if he does not show up when you expect him to? What if he was spending it with MC? Pairing: Non MC! Reader x Zayne Note: MC in this fic goes by the name Lina (my name... so if you are angry, you can be angry at me :3). This oneshot was based on this request. I will write this for the other LADS men too. Also I don't think any of these men would ever be the type to actually willlingly forget it. Especially Zayne. So I had to adapt the request a bit. Content Warning: injuries, panic, insecurities, self worth issues, Zayne POV

Rafayel version | Zayne version | Sylus version | Caleb Version

Zayne’s apartment smelled like him—clean, crisp, and faintly of the eucalyptus-scented candles he kept on the shelves. You sat on the edge of his couch, smoothing the fabric of your dress down your thighs, nerves making your fingers tremble slightly. The dim light of the chandelier cast a soft glow over the room, illuminating the carefully planned surprise you had for him —flowers, his favorite treats, elegant scarves, and jackets you had spent weeks picking out. The final touch was the flexible weekend getaway tickets, somewhere warm and far from the sterility of hospital walls. A place where he could finally rest.

You had gone all out for tonight. The garden-themed restaurant was supposed to be the perfect setting—a quiet, intimate place where vines curled around twinkling fairy lights, and the soft scent of fresh blooms would fill the air. And you had dressed accordingly with something elegant, something that made you feel beautiful for him. The deep navy-blue dress you wore clung to your form just right, the intricate lace details at the sleeves soft against your skin. You had taken your time getting ready, styling your hair to perfection, slipping on a pair of delicate earrings he once admired absentmindedly. A spritz of white jasmine perfume, the one he once said reminded him of spring mornings. You wanted to look like someone worthy of being by his side. You wanted to be beautiful for him, for the man who had somehow, impossibly, fallen for you.

Because, truth be told, there were times you weren’t sure you were.

you still didn’t understand how this happened—how Zayne, the prodigy, the man who could save lives with his hands and mind, had chosen you. He was brilliant, disciplined, and deeply compassionate. And you? You were just… you. Ordinary in comparison. He never made you feel small, never belittled you, but standing beside him you felt you were just lucky to be there. His world was one of brilliance, filled with extraordinary people—Lina, the fearless Deepspace Hunter; his late friend Caleb, a DAA pilot whose loss still lingered in hushed conversations; his esteemed mentors and fellow doctors who spoke in a language you could only ever grasp at the edges. Compared to them, compared to him, you felt so small.

But tonight, none of that mattered. Tonight, was supposed to be about the two of you.

You had fallen for him in the quietest of ways—through the gentle cadence of his voice, through the moments he noticed things others didn’t. How he’d pull a chair out for you before you could do it yourself, how he’d check the temperature of your tea so you wouldn’t burn your tongue, how he’d listen, really listen, to your ramblings even after a 48-hour shift. He had nestled himself into your heart without you even realizing it.

And tonight, he had insisted he wanted to be with you, even with the chaos of the hospital weighing on his shoulders.

The call came two hours before your reservation. You already knew what he was going to say the moment you saw his name flash on your screen.

“Hey, sweetheart…” Zayne’s voice was warm, familiar, but there was an edge of exhaustion to it. “I’m so sorry. I can’t make it tonight.”

Your heart sank, but you swallowed it down, forcing your voice to remain even. “It’s okay, Zayne. I know you’re busy.”

“It's been a long shift, and the surgeries…”

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll cancel the reservation. Take some breaks and rest, okay? You sound tired…”

“I am fine, sweetheart. I’ll make it up to you,” he promised. “I swear.”

"It’s fine, Zayne." you whispered, even if it wasn’t. “We’ll just celebrate it another day. No big deal.” Even though it felt like one at the moment.

Still, you weren’t upset. Not really. You understood. You always understood.

You hung up and exhaled slowly, pressing your palms against your lap. It wasn’t his fault. He was working back-to-back shifts, saving lives, doing what he was meant to do. And yet, you couldn’t quite keep the disappointment from settling in your chest.

You exhaled slowly, stripping away the dress you had so eagerly put on just hours ago. You slip into into one of Zayne’s oversized sweaters instead, the one that still smelled like him, the sleeves swallowing your hands. You wear leggings underneath and slip on your shoes. You took your time packing the gifts back into the car, moving slowly, as if dragging out the moment would make it hurt less. Maybe when he was finally done, you could pick him up from the hospital. At least you’d get to see him and surprise him. This was what occupied your time for the next three to four hours.

Once everything was back in the car, you plopped yourself on his plush but ergonomic couch. You scrolled through your phone while waiting, mindlessly tapping through social media, until one post stopped you cold.

Lina’s story.

A picture of her sitting across from Zayne in a small restaurant outside Akso hospital, the caption lighthearted:

When you have to drag out your doctor because he won’t follow his own advice about resting. (-_-)

Zayne looked amused in the photo, tired but still composed, his lips slightly curved in a small, rare smile. He looked… content. His gaze focused on her as if she had just said something ridiculous.

Your fingers trembled as you stared at the screen.

It was stupid. It was so stupid to feel like this. Lina was his childhood best friend. She had never given you a reason to be insecure, and yet, the sting of it hit you like a slow, creeping ache. He had time to go out for a meal with her. He had time to smile like that, even after canceling on you. You knew you were being irrational, that he had only stepped out for a quick bite in his busy shift, yet you felt betrayed.

Tears pricked at your eyes before you could stop them. You wiped them away quickly, but they kept falling, silent at first, then turning into quiet, shuddering sobs. You felt pathetic. Childish. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. You knew he wasn’t. But it hurt anyway. Because you would have taken anything—just a few moments, even just a simple meal at that tiny restaurant, if it meant spending time with him today.

It hurt in a way that made your chest feel tight, made the lump in your throat impossible to swallow. The sting of it crept under your skin like a wound you hadn’t realized was open, raw and aching. The disappointment bled into something uglier, something heavier. Why, after everything, did it feel like you were always on the sidelines of his life? No, Zayne never made you feel that way. It was your own spiraling thoughts.

A loud sob choked its way out, your hands gripping the fabric of his sweater as if that would somehow ground you. You wanted to hate yourself for crying over something so petty. He was saving lives. He was exhausted. He didn’t mean to hurt you.

But it hurt.

You needed to go home. You needed to collect yourself before the ugly thoughts swallowed you whole. You stood up, tears streaming down your face, as the weight of it all seemed too much to bear. You didn’t want to sit here anymore. You didn’t want to wait. You needed to go home, to clear your head, to get away from the overwhelming sense of inadequacy.

You sniffled, grabbing your keys and heading out. The highway would be the fastest route home—less traffic, a straight shot. You rerouted, pressing your foot on the accelerator, trying to breathe through the tightness in your chest. You wiped at your tears quickly, trying to focus on the road.

The road stretched out before you, a wide expanse of concrete and asphalt that felt like it would swallow you whole. The tears wouldn’t stop, and you wiped them away, trying to steady your hands on the wheel, trying to focus on the road ahead. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that you understood, that you were rational about his work. The reality of it, the empty seat next to you, the disappointment of seeing Zayne happy in a photo with someone else, it all felt too much.

And then—

Headlights. Too close. Too fast.

A car jumped the signal, trying to merge into the highway.

You slammed the breaks, the scream of tires against pavement rang in your ears.

The impact was instant. A violent, sickening jolt that sent your body forward, the seatbelt snapping against your chest, the airbag exploding in front of you. The windshield cracked, splintering into a spiderweb of broken glass. Your vision blurred, the world spinning.

Pain.

Your chest burned, lungs straining to catch a breath. Your limbs felt heavy. You reached for the seatbelt, your fingers fumbling, but it was jammed.

Fuck.

Your head lulled forward, resting against the deflated airbag. Your head was heavy, your thoughts slipping away like sand through your fingers. The distant wail of sirens reached your ears, but they felt so far away.

Your vision swam, the edges darkening.

I hope the other person is alright.

The thought barely had time to settle before everything faded into black.

ZAYNE'S POV

The fluorescent lights of the hospital buzzed faintly, casting an artificial glow over the chaos of the emergency room. The air was thick with the scent of antiseptic and the undercurrent of blood—familiar, almost routine, yet tonight it gnawed at Zayne's nerves in a way he couldn't quite shake. He hadn’t left since he stepped through those doors, yet somehow, the guilt weighing on him had nothing to do with the lives he saved today. It was you.

He was tired. God, was he tired. His body screamed for rest, his temples throbbed from the strain of back-to-back shifts, but the hospital was understaffed, and there was no room for exhaustion when lives were at stake. As a cardiologist, his expertise lay in the intricate mechanics of the human heart, but duty demanded flexibility—especially in the ER. Cardiologists weren’t meant to be dealing with blunt force trauma and lacerations, but tonight, none of that mattered. They needed doctors. He was a doctor. So, he worked.

Even through the fatigue, his mind kept drifting back to you. He could still hear your voice from the call earlier, soft and understanding despite the disappointment laced beneath it. You didn’t deserve this. You had every right to be upset, to be frustrated that he had broken his promise, yet you didn’t even complain. That hurt more than if you had yelled at him

God, he loved you. And he hated himself for testing that patience again and again.

His hand tightened around the pen he was holding. He had plans—plans to make it up to you. The necklace in his office drawer, nestled in a velvet box, had been meant for tonight. Something small, perhaps, compared to everything you did, but a token of his devotion nonetheless. He could still salvage this. Maybe he could call you later, ask if you were still awake—

His device beeped, pulling him back to the present.

MVA on the highway. ETA: 5 minutes.

Multi-vehicle accident. Paramedics on site, victims en route.

Zayne exhaled sharply, shifting into work mode. He stepped into the ER just as the first stretcher was wheeled in. The radio chatter from their comms filled the space.

"Female, mid-to-late twenties, restrained driver, T-bone collision from a vehicle that ran a red light. Airbag deployment, but impact trauma to the chest from seatbelt. BP slightly low, likely from pain response. Tachycardic at 112. GCS is 14. Possible wrist fracture, mild concussion. No signs of internal bleeding from the ultrasound, but needs further imaging to rule out any complications."

He nodded briskly, slipping into the detached, clinical efficiency that had been drilled into him for years. It was only as he stepped forward, pulling the curtain aside, that his breath caught in his throat.

His world stopped.

There, on the hospital bed, was you.

Lying on the hospital bed, your hair disheveled, your skin pale against the stark white sheets. His breath lodged in his throat, the world narrowing to a pinpoint focus on the rise and fall of your chest. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. There was dried blood at your temple, your lower lip swollen where you must have bitten down upon impact. The sight of the IV line in your arm, the faint bruises forming along your collarbone—he couldn’t breathe.

No. No. No. No. No.

"Dr. Zayne…" Yvonne’s voice cut in, sharp and urgent. A warning. He was frozen. This wasn't just a patient. This was you.

He blinked, his hands suddenly trembling as he reached for his gloves. Breathe. He had to focus. Had to push past the sheer, gut-wrenching fear threatening to paralyze him.

This is her. She was waiting for me. She—

"Dr. Zayne!!" Yvonne pressed, handing him the updated chart. "She needs you."

That snapped him out of it.

The moment his hands touched you, they were steady again. His voice was even as he examined you, the motions automatic, controlled. He checked your pupils, gently palpated your ribs to assess for fractures. He was a doctor. He was your doctor right now. He had to move. Focusing, he reached for his stethoscope, pressing it against your chest to listen for abnormalities. The rhythm of your heart was steady, but your breathing was just slightly labored—likely from the seatbelt trauma.

"You’re going to be fine." he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

You were stable.

"Her left shoulder—check for AC joint separation," he murmured, voice steadier than he felt. "Get a CT to rule out any internal injuries. And…" He swallowed. “Get me images from the crash site.” He needed to see how bad the collison was. He had to.

The hours blurred. He monitored your scans, adjusted your IV, checked your vitals more times than necessary. Each time his eyes drifted to you; his chest ached. He had seen the accident reports—your car, your windshield shattered, the crumpled hood. And the contents scattered across the scene…

You had planned everything.

For him.

And he wasn’t there.

Zayne clenched his jaw. Flowers were scattered, crushed against the upholstery. The pastries you must have picked out for him were ruined; their boxes torn open from the force of the crash. And gifts. There were so many gifts. He hadn’t even known you had planned all this.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

You had so much waiting for him. And where had he been? At a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, eating with Lina because she forced him to take a break. He had been smiling in that photo while you were—

God.

He ran a hand down his face, exhaling shakily as he sat by your bedside. He should have been with you. If he had just—

The monitor beeped steadily, a quiet reminder that you were alive.

Now, he sat beside you, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, fingers curled into his palms to keep them from shaking.

"Wake up, sweetheart." he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "Please, just wake up."

And for once, Zayne—brilliant, composed, always in control—felt utterly powerless.

The beep of the heart monitor was steady, rhythmic, but Zayne found himself gripping the edge of his chair every time you stirred, waiting for that moment when your eyes would finally open. His body was stiff from staying in the same position for hours, but he didn’t dare move. He didn’t want to miss it.

Then, a small shift in your breathing. A twitch of your fingers.

Zayne leaned forward just as your lashes fluttered, your eyes cracking open, only to squeeze shut again at the harsh fluorescent lights. You groaned softly, shifting against the sheets. Instinctively, you tried to sit up.

"Hey—stay put," Zayne said immediately, pressing a hand against your shoulder to keep you down. His touch was gentle but firm, his fingers warm even against the hospital gown. "Don’t move too much yet."

Your body resisted for a moment, muscles tensing as if you wanted to argue, but the disorientation dulled your fight. Your gaze finally settled on him, hazy with the remnants of sleep and confusion.

Then you frowned.

“…You look tired,” you murmured, your voice soft, still groggy. “How long have you been here?”

Zayne’s heart clenched so tightly it hurt. Even now, even when you were the one lying in a hospital bed, barely recovered from an accident, your first thoughts were about him.

His throat felt tight, but he exhaled sharply, forcing himself to speak. “You should look at yourself first, sweetheart.”

Your gaze flickered down, taking in the IV in your arm, the bruises along your wrist, the faint soreness that no doubt ached across your body. Zayne exhaled sharply and reached out, his fingertips tracing the side of your face before cupping your cheek fully. His thumb brushed lightly against your skin, as if grounding himself with the warmth of you. His eyes were moist, though no tears fell.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low, raw in a way that stripped away every layer of his usual composure.

You parted your lips, breath hitching as if you were about to reassure him—to do what you always did, to let him off the hook, to tell him it wasn’t his fault.

But he didn’t let you.

“No,” he cut in firmly, shaking his head. “Not this time. This is the one time you shouldn’t be so understanding.” His jaw clenched, something bitter twisting in his expression. “I should have been there. We should have been celebrating our relationship. End of discussion.”

Silence settled between you.

After a beat, he exhaled, running a hand through his hair before looking at you again. “Why didn’t you demand my time?” His voice was quieter now, tinged with regret. “You had every right to.”

You hesitated, glancing away. “…I didn’t want to bother you.” Your fingers twisted into the hospital blanket, grip tightening slightly. “You’re important, Zayne. You save lives. I didn’t want to pull you away from that.”

Something in him snapped.

He let out a sharp breath, then reached for your hand, gently prying your fingers from the blanket. His grip was warm, grounding.

“Shh… And you think you’re not?” he murmured, shaking his head. “Don’t ever say that again.” His gaze bore into yours, unwavering. “You are important to me.”

"You’re important to me," he repeated, voice steady but almost desperate. "Just like my work makes demands of me, you are more than entitled to make demands of me, too."

Your eyes searched his, uncertainty flickering beneath the lingering haze of exhaustion. But Zayne’s gaze didn’t waver.

"I know I should have been there," he said again, quieter this time. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second before brushing a thumb over the edge of your jaw, tilting your face slightly. “When I saw you on this bed when I entered the ER… pale, unconscious… I haven’t felt fear like that before," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "Not in all my years of doing this. Not like that."

You didn’t say anything, but your hand came up slowly, resting over his.

He closed his eyes briefly, exhaling.

This—this was what he almost lost.

His jaw clenched, then loosened as he exhaled. “I don’t want to ever feel it again.”

Another pause.

Zayne inhaled deeply, steadying himself. His hand still cupped your cheek, his thumb tracing absentminded circles against your skin, as if reassuring himself that you were still here. That you were warm. That he hadn’t lost you.

“I know I say I’m sorry a lot… and it probably has lost meaning to you.” he murmured; his voice rough with emotion. His lips pressed into a thin line, as if struggling to put his feelings into something more tangible. “I should have been there. And I will be. Every step of the way until you’re fully recovered and after....”

His eyes flickered downward, scanning you like the doctor he was, but this was different. This wasn’t just clinical analysis—this was personal. "You got lucky," he admitted, exhaling through his nose. "Blunt force trauma to the ribs, a mild concussion, and a broken wrist. Some lacerations on your arm and leg, but nothing deep enough to require surgical intervention. The worst was the head trauma, but the scans came back clear. No bleeding, no swelling. That’s the only reason I’m not having a complete breakdown right now…" His fingers ghosted over your arm, careful not to apply pressure. "Nothing life-threatening or with lasting consequences. But still… you shouldn’t have had to go through that alone." His jaw tensed. "Not when you have me."

You gave him a small, tired smile at that, and something inside him twisted.

He pulled back slightly, just enough to reach into his pocket, his fingers closing around the small velvet box. He’d gone to his office to clock off for the day to be beside you when he picked it up from his drawer. The very box he wanted to give you today. The one that was supposed to be given in a far more joyful setting. This was supposed to be today. A night spent celebrating the two of you—not this. Not hospital beds and IV drips and the hollow fear that had nearly swallowed him whole.

But none of that mattered now.

What mattered was that you were here. And this… this was still yours.

His throat felt thick as he flipped it open, revealing the necklace inside—a delicate silver chain holding a white jasmine pendant, smooth and polished, its petals carved with intricate detail. And behind it, barely visible, were his initials.

His fingers trembled just slightly as he took it out.

"I was supposed to give this to you today," he admitted, voice lower now, almost guilty. "Before all of this. Before I let my own priorities get in the way of what really mattered." He glanced up at you, and for the first time in a long time, he looked vulnerable. "I don’t want you to ever think that you come second. Because you don’t. You never have."

Gently, he reached around your neck, his touch featherlight as he fastened the clasp. The cool metal of the pendant settled just above your collarbone, resting against your skin. His fingertips lingered there, just briefly.

Then he let out a slow breath, tilting your chin up just slightly with his knuckles. His mind still reeled with everything that had happened, with everything he should have done differently.

"I love you," he said, and this time there was no hesitation, no wry smirk to mask his emotions, no half-hearted deflection. Just honesty, raw and unguarded. "Even when I do a crappy job at showing it." He didn’t need you to say it back—he just needed you to know.

For a moment, silence stretched between you. Then, his lips quirked, just slightly, into something softer. "And since I’m apparently on mandatory bedside duty, I hope you’re ready to be completely spoiled. I’m talking fresh coffee, extra pillows, a ridiculous number of medical advices—"

A small, breathy laugh escaped you, and Zayne felt something in his chest loosen at the sound. Then, slowly, you lifted a hand, brushing your fingertips over the pendant before reaching up to cup his cheek.

Zayne leaned into your touch instinctively, exhaling softly. He smiled, finally, pressing his forehead lightly against yours. "Yeah," he murmured. "We’ll be just fine. I've got you sweetheart... I'll always be here for you."

AN: reblogs, feedback and opinions are appreciated!

Rafayel version | Zayne version | Sylus version | Caleb Version

Taglist: @cordidy, @natimiles @leighsartworks216 @notisekais @raining4food @fallthelong @pomegranatepip @juliuscaesarsstabbedback @krystallevine @lemurianmaster @nenggie @loverindeepspace @sinsodom

[mooshroomnymph]

Mlpoc! Their name Valentine Knot and they're a matchmaker pony! They're apprenticing under Princess Cadence and help ponies find their soulmates! They run a stationary shop and love writing love poems!

((This oc is based off an old mlp I made when I was a tween, I got back into Mlp again and redesigned them!))

Valentines Parents!! The silly ass nonbinary family lol !! +Valentines siblings!!

Ruby is a jewelry maker and crafts wearable art. Theyre very artsy. Chuma practices sun based spiritual medicinal healing, especially growing plants and uses the earth (dirt, water, sand) for their practices!

They help with finding materials for Ruby to use for their jewelry! This goes for dyes, homemade flower beads, etc!

[moonysbookshelves]

The Cadence of Part-Time Poets

The Cadence of Part-Time Poets by @motswolo

Have been working on this 10 volume set for the past few months now, and they are finally complete. My Magnum Opus. I have peaked and probably depleted all of my brain power.

Thank you to @motswolo for writing such a beautiful story. My brain chemistry has been favourably altered. Will forever flinch when I hear Queen, The Beatles or Bob Dylan. Love to you from western Canada (west coast best coast lets gooooo).

I also posted a TikTok Reel of these since posts here are limited and I love the insides as much as the covers, so if you wanna see between the pages, here’s that.

Also thank you @avisbindery for letting me scream and cry in your DMs while I read the fic. May you get some uninterrupted sleep now LOLLL.

Going to write a whole essay below about the ideas and details because uhhh I wanna yap bit!

So for starters, I wanted to make these binds look like magazines because of the epilogue where (spoiler) Tonya sees Remus in a copy of New Musical Express. But of course this fic is long, so I was like, what if I do multiple volumes? This very quickly spiralled into me painstakingly (finding publication-accurate fonts almost sent me to an early grave) recreating 10 different music-focused magazines from the 70s and 80s from scratch (thank you to Photoshop, Affinity, Procreate and Canva). Each volume features a unique cover, along with stylized typesets to match that display the songs for each chapter but in different designs. And then I went a little crazy and made a 45 sleeve and a cassette too, to really set the scene when I took the photos lol

While the covers display the dates pertaining to the contents of that particular volume (Sept 1975 for volume one, for example) I was thinking about what the magazines would say if they were really published when Marauders are traipsing about being spectacular and famous in the future. I sprinkled in details from the fic itself and fanon-ed it a bit, but that was the general inspiration :-) Tried to keep the photos used either faceless/obscured, or to use the fancasts on Mots’ Cadence master post. I also tried to use period-accurate photos but didn’t always succeed, so settled for photos of 4 member bands where I had to :”) But the general intent with the facelessness was that they could be implied to be Marauders. If you squint? lol. Just pretend. Pls.

Volume One: Based upon The Record Song Book. This magazine went on to inspire the typesets, since it publishes lyrics and such. The cover images are of Spacey Jane and David Thewlis.

Volume Two: Based on ZigZag, specifically the issue from July 1978 featuring Siouxie and the Banshees just because I thought it looked sick as fuck. I re-drew the abstract shapes and such in procreate. The cover images are The Clash and a young Gary Oldman. Lord he was foiiine.

Volume Three: Based on Trouser Press, November 1980. The cover images are a young Metallica, and my personal fav fan cast for James, Reiky De Valk. The film negatives are from a Bruce Springsteen tour, 1976.

Volume Four: Based on Gay Times (November 1984), a queer magazine from the UK because this volume contains Wolfstars first kiss hehe. Also hence Somebody To Love plastered all over the covers. The Front cover is Inhaler. The “4A” on this one is of course the boys’ dorm number, but I made the A the lambda symbol as this was a pride symbol in the 70s after Stonewall.

Volume Five: Based on Melody Maker. Front image is Alex Turner. All of the text on this one is pulled directly from the fic. The scene where they all drop acid and James jumps off the roof Almost Famous style had me hootin’ and hollerin’… until Tomny showed up hahaha :”)

Volume Six: Based on IT (International Times, Aug 1971). Front image for this one is Joy Division, and the back features Jane Asher for Lily

Volume Seven: Based on Record Mirror, June 1976. Front image is John Taylor of Duran Duran. Yum.

Volume Eight: Based on Rolling Stone. More vibes than anything for this one, but the quote still makes me laugh.  Front image is of Matt Hitt. Can you tell I photoshopped a cell phone out of this one? IDK. This photo just screamed ‘Remus’ to me so I had to use it. The back image is an old cigarette ad, but the photo is taken in Shepherd’s Bush.

Volume Nine: Based on Fusion magazine. Front image for this one is once again Inhaler. Oops. Back cover is our gals. Images are Jodie Foster as Cherry, Brenda Sykes as Mary, and Goldie Hawn as Lottie.

Volume Ten: Based on New Musical Express. You know why :”) These are all victims of fanon, but this one especially. I wanted it to be NME instead of the re-invented logos I’d been doing for all the rest, as I wanted it to look like the magazine the Sister gives to Tonya. I referred to an issue of NME from October 1979 for this and layered in fic references where it made sense to. The cover image for this one is (I think) Cigarettes After Sex. This issue also contains all of the B-Side chapters, and the Marauders song lyrics too just for fun :)

Slasher Chick: This is just my take on what Sybill’s zine could’ve looked like. Prob way off but I just wanted to have fun with this one since I had no cover to reference lol. The zine contains her little write-up and the interview, lifted straight from the fic :")

ok yap sesh over byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee lmfaooooo

[rynwritesstuff]

How Bad Do You Want Me? - Kylo Ren x ResistancePilot!Reader

Kylo Ren x ResistancePilot!Reader

Warnings: NSFW (PIV Sex, unprotected sex, crying during sex lol), Banter, sassy Kylo Ren, sassy Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Summary: Before Kylo Ren was Kylo Ren, he was a padawan with you. Before you were a Resistance Pilot, you were a padawan with Kylo Ren. Now, several years later, you've found yourself in the clutches of the First Order, and, of course, Kylo himself.

A/N: May the Fourth be with you! I decided to celebrate my lifelong love for this series by writing some smut lol, as one does. In case you missed it, I created a sideblog (@rainbow-gelpen) so if you wanna see some non-writing shenanigans from me, head on over there for some fun. Otherwise, enjoy the oneshot <3

The room is cold, that is the first thing you note as you come to your senses. When you open your eyes, everything begins to come together in choppy, drawn-out scenes. 

The village, full and dark. The people, afraid and yelling. 

Lor San Tekka, with his small smirk.

Kylo Ren, lightsaber in hand. 

You startle at the image of him and jerk against the restraints on the interrogation chair. You look around the room. No Stormtroopers are in-sight, and you know immediately that this must be intentional. Stormtroopers are so small-minded, so easily manipulated . . . And, after all, Kylo Ren knows that you are a Force-user. 

Yes, he knows you could have Forced your way through Stormtroopers and escaped out of the base with, most likely, very little effort. Your fists clench at the knowledge, already beginning to feel angry with him. You wonder briefly, foolishly, if generals and officers will be sent in soon to try and force the information out of you. And then, you remember who you are dealing with. 

Kylo Ren will want to get it out of you himself. As, of course, a testament to the fact that he simply can. As proof that he knew you once and knows you still. If you know a person long ago – knew every part of them – that does not necessarily fade with time, does it? Perhaps bits and pieces go, but not whole parts. Kylo Ren is still Ben Solo. Ben Solo is still Kylo Ren. 

You stare at the door, willing it to open, daring it to open. You can feel his energy. It is getting closer. He’s so angry, so sad. You can sense it. Gods, you feel sick knowing just how infected he is. You wonder now, just as you have wondered everyday since he burned down the Temple you once shared, if there was ever anything to be done for him, and if you could have been the one to save him from himself. 

You shake your head. He didn’t want saving, he wanted power, and power is what he received. If it meant losing you, he didn’t care, did he?

. . . Did he?

Footsteps come pounding towards you. You still recognize the cadence even after all this time, after all these changes. You know who it is, and you set your eyes on the door again. The durasteel door slides open with a soft hiss, and there he is. Your jaw clenches, standing tall as the door slams down shut again. Kylo stands there for a moment. 

“It is really you,” he says. You glare at him. Anger swells in your chest, that very same anger that you carried with you all that time ago as you watched the Jedi Temple burn down. You remember looking for him, clawing through pieces of wreckage as you searched and called for him. And then there it was, his hand on your shoulder, and you can still remember how the relief felt when it coursed through you.

And yes, you can still remember the betrayal you felt when you realized what he had done. 

You hate that he still has this hold over you, this grip on your heart, your mind. Has nothing changed? Has time not cast its spell? Here he is in his dark clothes – a leather tunic, leather trousers, boots, a cape, a mask, gloves – and still a part of you feels like it has finally come home. 

“I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on-board,” Kylo speaks again. You don’t stop glaring. If this is the last thing you’ll ever do, you won’t go down easily. You’ll fight him, you’ll shame him, you’ll combat every remark. You owe him nothing, he owes you everything. 

You could have killed him, afterall. After you’d seen exactly what he had done to the Temple, to your fellow Padawans. People were yelling for you to stop him, to trap him, and you . . . Just let him go. You wonder sometimes, even now, how everything may have played out if you had sliced his leg or stalled him or whipped out your own lightsaber. 

There could be peace across the galaxy today if you had not loved him more than the future of your fellow civilians. 

He looks so strong, so powerful. You remember when he was younger, when his muscles weren’t quite so large and his shoulders weren’t so broad. You wonder what he looks like. Is he scarred? Mutilated beyond recognition? Is that why he wears this mask?

“You’re a coward,” you snarl suddenly, unable to stop yourself. Kylo crouches. You can sense the peculiar look on his face from beneath the mask. “Hiding behind a mask. You don’t even have the guts to look at me with your eyes . . . Do you?”

Hesitation. You sense it from him. How odd. 

Then, his hands are lifting and settling at the sides of the mask. He presses buttons at the side, and it hisses as the facepiece unlocks and lifts. Kylo pulls the mask off as he stands once more. He sets it aside, then looks upon you. 

Oh. 

Oh.

This is the face of someone worth losing everything over.

His eyes are angry. His brows are thick. His nose is prominent, his lips are plush. Moles and freckles dot his pale skin. His hair is longer now than it was years ago, but still wavy. Still curled at the ends. It takes everything in you not to let the emotions swell. Perhaps this will prove to be more difficult than you thought. 

Kylo steps forward, and you don’t dare look away. 

“I know the old man gave it to you,” Kylo says. “The map. Tell me where it is.”

You shake your head. 

“You of all people should know that I’m not that easy,” you tell him. The corner of his mouth twitches. You remember the summer you spent with him, drunk in love under the bright stars. Oh, the smiles he’d give you. This is nothing in comparison. 

“Don’t make me fight for it,” Kylo says. He steps forward again. “We both know I’m stronger. I can take whatever I want.”

Your faces are so close. Your hands are clenched into fists, still. You are aching to touch him, to feel his skin against yours. You look at him and wonder how exactly he plans to take this information from you. The truth is that the map is far away from here by now, and on its way to the Resistance with your BB unit. 

You have nothing for him. Even if he finds out about the droid, Kylo and his people will never beat it to the base. Perhaps you are to die tonight at the hands of Kylo Ren. What a heroic way to go. What a beautiful last face to see. 

Kylo brings a large, gloved hand up to the side of your face, not touching you but nearly doing so. The Force hums, then. You grunt as you throw up your mental walls, fighting to keep him out. 

“You don’t h-have to do this,” you breathe softly, straining against the pain. Kylo says nothing, instead pushing harder. You look away from him, and because you do this, you miss the way his bottom lip quivers briefly. He feels it – everything you’ve carried with you all this time.

“You’re so angry,” he says quietly, almost to himself. You shake your head. 

“I-I’ve been captured by your s-slaves,” you quip.

“No,” comes his firm voice. “You’re angry because of what I did at the Temple. Even now, it’s in here.”

“You sound surprised,” you grunt, glaring at him again. His eyes meet yours. “I loved you.”

“You loved what I stood for.”

“I. Loved. You,” you snarl. You shake against the restraints. “Let me out of this wretched thing, face me properly. Or are you too afraid of what I can do?”

Kylo pulls out of your mind. Your chest rises and falls rapidly as he stares at you momentarily. Then, he reaches forward and undoes the cuffs of the interrogation chair. You lunge at him immediately, shoving him so hard that he stumbles back.

You raise your hand to smack him, and he catches your wrists in both of his hands. You knee him in the crotch instead. Kylo grunts, then spins you around and pins you against the wall with his entire firm body pressed against yours. You struggle. 

“Get off of me.”

“I told you you were angry,” Kylo says, as if to prove a point.

“Get off.”

“Where is the map?”

“I don’t know.”

Kylo adjusts your wrists so that he’s holding them both in one hand, then brings his other hand up to rest on your throat. Your breath catches. 

“Where . . . is it?”

“I don’t know,” You say again, softly this time. Kylo hums, and you feel the energy shifting. Your heart begins to pound. Kylo’s body is hot against yours. You tip your head back to rest against his shoulder. An olive branch. A dove. An offer. His hand slides down from your throat to your left breast. You nearly moan at the feeling – how long have you waited for this? How many nights have you laid awake thinking of this exact scenario? Wondering how how hands would feel on your chest, on your hips, on your–

“You want this,” Kylo says as he squeezes your breast. You sigh. 

“I never said I didn’t,” you remark. He leans forward and presses his face against your shoulder, then inhales your scent deeply. 

“If you’re gonna take me, then do it,” you say breathily. 

“Have you no patience?”

“Clearly not,” you tell him. You feel his erection pressing against you, and you chuckle. “Clearly you don’t, either.”

Kylo turns you around so that he can look at you. You reach up to touch him, running your hand along his cheek. He seems to lean into your touch, and this brings you an odd sense of satisfaction. He still wants you, still wants this.

“Take all this shit off,” you tell him firmly, tugging at his tunic. He says your name, and you shake your head. “I don’t care. Take it off. If you’re gonna kill me over this map, I want to see you one last time.”

You’ve always held your head high, but the truth is that Kylo Ren has haunted you from the moment he left the Temple, lightsaber in-hand. Life is . . . Life is a waiting game now. Wondering how much time you have left, how much time you’ve wasted. But now, here? You know how it could end, and Kylo Ren is taking off his cape and his tunic and his undershirt, and you surge forward to grab a handful of his hair and kiss him. 

He gasps against your lips but you only press against him harder. The Force seems to hum around the two of you. Two powerhouses together only means ultimate power, and as Kylo pulls your body forward and yanks at your clothes, you begin to realize that perhaps you should have joined him all those years ago. 

It certainly would’ve made life much easier for you.

Kylo shreds your shirt and throws its remnants aside before reaching around to unclip your undergarment. You let him. He kisses you again, and you feel it again – The Force’s strong presence. 

You lean back against the wall, and Kylo tugs down your pants eagerly, lips parted and cheeks flushed. What an incredible privilege it is to see him in this way again. You wonder how long it has been for him.

You run your hands along his strong arms – which are much larger than they were the last time you had him like this – and then meet his eyes. 

“Please,” you breathe. Kylo nods, reaching down to pull his erection free from his trousers. 

“I know,” he says. The emotion from earlier, you feel it finally. Tears fill your eyes as you part your legs for him, bringing one of them up to hook around his hip. Kylo holds the side of your face as a tear escapes you. 

You cling to him, wrapping your arms around him in an attempt to bring yourself even closer yet. He enters you, and you moan as he fills you up. Your grip on him tightens. You’ve missed this – you’ve needed it for Gods know how long. Kylo begins to piston his hips, fucking into you, and you groan as he holds you up against the wall. 

“Fuck,” he grunts. You moan. 

“Faster,” you sob, holding onto his hair, his shoulder. “F-Faster.”

“I’m trying,” Kylo says, rocking his hips back and forth. You sigh as he pleases you. His cock feels magical, like something that was made for you and only for you. You imagine Kylo at brothels and inns with random women, and it makes you hate him. How dare he be with anyone but you. How dare he even consider it.

“Tell me again,” Kylo says. “W-What you said earlier.”

You moan, mind foggy with lust. 

“Which thing?” you ask. 

“You know.”

You ponder for a moment, then it clicks. You moan. 

“I loved you,” you breathe, a lump in your throat. “I did. I-I swear it.”

Kylo nods, his eyes meeting yours. 

“I know,” he breathes. You yank on his hair. 

“I hate you, now.”

“I know that, too.”

Your chest is hot and filled with unsaid words of affection. Kylo isn’t ready for them, you know that. He may never be. He’s so angry, so full of hate. You can hardly believe he’s doing this with you at all. How will he be when it is over? What will he do to you?

“I hate you for leaving me,” you breathe. Your orgasm is swelling within you, and you know that Kylo is close, too. 

“You should have joined me,” Kylo says. You cry out. 

“Shut up,” you tell him. He says your name as if it’s a prayer. You shake your head. “Don’t. Don’t. Just make me cum.”

Kylo nods. For once, he has nothing to say, nothing to add. He knows that your time – yours and his – has passed. Destinies have been selected for each of you on opposite sides of this war, and when he is finished with this, he will have to act as if none of it meant anything at all. You’re so angry with him, and he’s so loyal to Snoke – none of it would ever work even if you tried.

But at least you have this. At least you have now.

“I’m close,” Kylo breathes. You nod.

“Me, too,” you say. He pounds into you once, twice, three more times, and he’s moaning your name against your shoulder. You groan at the sound of it. You revel in it, in his desperation, his neediness. You shall never have it again. 

He fills you up just like he used to, and you sigh softly as you reach your own peak. His gloved hand travels down to rub your throbbing clit, and when he does, you moan and buck your hips. 

“F-Fuck . . .” you sigh. Kylo takes you through it, and when it’s all over, he pulls out slowly. You lower your leg and reach for your pants. Kylo takes a small step back, looking at you momentarily before redressing. You let out a soft, shaky breath as you do the same. 

Kylo looks at you once he’s fully clothed, watching you finish getting dressed. 

“Tell me where the map is so I can let you go,” he says. You look at him as you tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear. Your heart breaks in your chest. His does, too. You both know that this is not the ending that you wanted. 

“I can’t,” you say. He says your name. You shake your head. “I made promises, Kylo.” Feeling weak and foolish, Kylo rebinds you to the interrogation chair. You don’t fight him. He opens his mouth to speak, then reaches for his mask and leaves without another word.

Tagging my Star Wars-loving besties: @mrs-gucci @safarigirlsp @babbushka

(Dividers by saradika-graphics)

rynwritesstuff, 2025

[bruisedboys]

Never listen to aggressiv anons, your garbage is really good garbage.

If you’re feeling up to it I’m always in a remus mood, you’re so good at writing him as confident and don’t get me wrong it always makes me swoon, but i was wondering if the roles were switched and remus was the shy one for a change🥰

hi lovely thank youuu for your request!! I’m very nervous cos this is the first proper thing I’ve written in like forever… if it’s bad don’t tell me 🙉

shy!remus x fem!reader

Remus can’t figure out why you like him. He’s awkward, and weird, and too tall, and he’s got two very handsome, much less shy, best friends, plus a lot of other friends (much cooler than him), whom he assumed you’d go for before him. He was mistaken. You’re all over him.

He watches as you approach the table where he, James, Sirius, and a few other friends have set up base for the night. It’s loud in the pub, busy and warm, but you’re moving towards him like he’s the only person here.

“Remus! Hello,” You say happily, coming to a halt in front of him. You don’t offer a hello to anyone else, though Remus chalks it down to the fact they’re all busy talking, or drinking, and he’s been sitting there at the edge of the group quite in his own world.

He blinks up at you. You look lovely. You always do, but you’ve put your hair up in a way he’s never seen you do before. Remus thinks it makes your shoulders look really nice, then realises that’s a totally weird thing to think.

“Hi,” he manages. He’s shy, but he’s not usually this shy. It’s just, you’re beautiful, and he’s got a huge crush on you, and you seem almost equally endeared with him. It’s a little absurd, in his opinion.

You give him a once over, eyes raking from his face to his knees and back up again. It’s quick enough that he shouldn’t catch it, but he does, and then blushes so hard he’s sure you could cook an egg on his face.

“You look nice,” you say breezily. Your eyes zero in on his hair. “Did you cut your hair?”

Remus blinks. “I— yeah, I did,” he says, a little stunned. He hadn’t expected you to notice. It’s not much shorter than it was before, and no one other than Sirius noticed it, and that’s ’cos Sirius is a hair freak.

He’s suddenly self conscious of it. His hand moves to the back of his head, tugging at the hair there. “S’it look bad?” He asks you.

You shake your head vigorously. “No, what? It looks good,” you say, like it’s obvious.

You reach out and run your hands through his freshly cut hair, fingers pushing against his scalp. Remus’ heart goes wild and his stomach does that thing where he suddenly almost feels nauseous, but in a good way.

“I like this length on you,” you say, giving his hair a gentle tug. There’s a sort of lilting cadence to your tone that Remus has come to learn indicates you’re flirting. It sure works. Remus feels like he’s been lit on fire, heat licking up his neck and settling at the tips of his ears.

“Thank you,” he says, almost choking on the words.

You grin. You must know what you’re doing to him, he can see it in your eyes. He figures the permanent blush on his face doesn’t help.

“You’re welcome,” you say back, dropping your hand from his hair. You give his shoulder a squeeze and it’s like jolts of electricity go through his arm. “Move over? I want to sit next to you, handsome.”

Remus goes a bit blind. He obliges, much too happy to do whatever you want, shuffling across the bench to make room for you. You slide in next to him, somehow too close but not close enough, and start chatting to him animatedly about your day.

Remus tries to listen, he really does, but it gets a bit difficult when your hand finds his knee under the table. Your sweet perfume washes over him, your thumb rubs the knee of his jeans, and all he can think about is how much he’d really, really, like to kiss you.

Sirius catches his eye from across the table and smirks. He’s in for a long night.

[tayrae515imagines]

loml (Love/Loss of my life)

Requested: Kinda? Prompted in comments but got a request from @reader-bookling123 (I changed the ending a bit as it fit better)

like I need my angst of them being so in love but reader being the first to die in the fire and johnny just finds her corpse before he kicks the bucket like five minutes later and like these two were sweethearts like so in love

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR WE WERE LIARS. Death, profanity, hints to racism towards a character (Not from reader). Some descriptions of bodily harm and death.

Pairing: Johnny Sinclair Dennis x Reader

Playlist: Old Money - Lana Del Rey, loml-Taylor Swift, I Know The End - Phoebe Bridgers, Cowboy Like Me - Taylor Swift, Lost At Sea - Rob Grant & Lana Del Rey

Authors note: I read the book and loved it but that was years ago so this is based mostly on the prime show. I usually write a female reader but left it vague this time. Since there is so little Johnny fics I wanted to be inclusive. Also, the show made Johnny canonically into men so I didn’t want to take from that. As always, leave comments and thoughts. I’d love to hear feedback.

I'm sure I have run on sentences, too much detail, etc. But I am not a professional writer and rusty af. I loved how this turned out so ignore any grammar error!!

“We were young and shivering and ancient and alive” - E. Lockhart

The waves rippled under the boat as sea spray splashed your skin. The destination of your summer adventure coming into view like it always did. Sturdy and sure. Making a statement to the surrounding town.

Beechwood.

From the outside looking in, it was magical. A real life fairytale filled with sea salt, sunscreen, fudge, and brilliant smiles. The height of luxury and privilege. A king, a queen, three perfect princesses and their heirs. Two outsiders that were welcomed into the kingdom with open arms, how charitable of the king. A loyal staff and the two golden guard dogs keeping chaos at bay while causing their own mischief.

But looks weren’t always the truth. You knew this first hand after all your summers on Beechwood. Luxury was often accompanied by greed and jealously. Some not so subtle racism and a lack of basic human decency. The true colors always eventually came out dimming the once bright joys of summer on Beechwood. The older you got, the more clear it became.

It wasn’t a fairytale anymore.

Being friends with a Sinclair had its perks, of course. You couldn’t deny that at times, you felt like you were so lucky. Being pampered on a beautiful beach, not wanting for anything. Mirren Sinclair, your best friend had been taking you to the island every summer since you were both eight. You were an official member of the liars now.

Cadence, Gat, Mirren, Johnny and you. The way it was always meant to be.

Really, your favorite thing about summer fell to her cousin Johnny Sinclair Dennis. Bounce, effort, and snark. Salt, swagger, and reckless abandon...he got your heart racing. You’d been hopelessly in love with Johnny since before you could even really comprehended what love was. His loud voice, messy blonde hair, and wide blue eyes. Johnny made you feel light..like everything good was possible. If heaven was real, you were in it with him on this island filled with privilege. Damn the fairytale.

Once the boat hit the dock, you were running into his waiting arms and everything felt right again. Letters, calls and FaceTimes weren’t enough. But for the next couple months he was here and this was real. You and Johnny.

“There you are! Fuck I missed you baby!” Johnny held you tight and spun you as your legs wrapped around his waist. "I missed you too Johnny, I always miss you." Johnny smiled and pressed a kiss to your temple, holding you close and he carried you to your secret spot on the island. Where you two could exist in some peace.

Johnny had been off for a few days. He still gave you his bright grins but they didn't meet his eyes. It was tonight while you two watched the sun setting over the vast sea, that you decided you had enough. "Johnny, what's wrong?"

Your question caught him off guard, his eyes blinked a few times before he turned to you. "I'm great baby." He throws out that damn grin at you again.

"You're a bad liar" You mumbled.

A dramatic gasp fell from Johnny's lips. "First of all, I take that very seriously! How dare my own partner say that to me. It's like a knife to the heart!" He put a hand over his chest and fell back into the grass.

You couldn't help but giggle at his dramatics. "Alright fine, I will take it back if you tell me the truth. I know you Johnny Sinclair Dennis, something is bugging you." You lean over and kiss his nose. "Tell me."

Johnny sighed, his playful demeanor falling. "I don't think I'm a good person."

At his words, you sit up straight. "Johnny? What are you talking about?"

"I did something bad..back at school that I didn't tell you about." He looked over at you, seeing the understanding on your face, he counited. Telling you in details what he did. A tear ran down his face and you reached up to wipe it away.

"You did a bad thing Johnny, that doesn't make you a bad person."

"Sometimes I just..see red. I don't want to be like my dad."

"You aren't your father Johnny."

"Well I'm not Harris Sinclair either. I'm the shitty thing in between." He tugged at his hair.

"Johnny.." you frowned and took his hands. "Listen to me. You did a bad thing, I won't pretend you didn't. But you are not a bad person. You're the person who dove into the ocean during a thunder storm to save your younger brother, almost dying to do so I might add. You are the person that always picks up Mirren when she feels self conscious and you are the person who has always, always had my back. You may not be perfectly good, but you're still good. I need you to understand that. Life has set you up to feel like this but we can change it, I want to change that." You pet his cheek gently, looking into his eyes. "I love you. I love you so much I can't focus when you're around. It's like this constant ache and fullness because I am consumed by you. I love you." You lean your head on his, your eyes welling with tears.

"Fuck" Johnny let out a tear filled laugh. "You've always been better with words than me. I don't know what I did to deserve you but I'm thanking the universe all the time."

A smile spread over your face as you leaned in, kissing Johnny softly but trying to show all your love through the kiss. Johnny kissed back, his hand tangling in your hair as he deepened the kiss. He pulled you on top of his body and broke the kiss so you could both get air. "I'm going to marry you one day."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yup! We are going to have at least three little kids running around."

"Okay, can they have your hair? Those messy blonde curls would be so cute on our hypothetical children."

"Course sweetheart." Her grinned and tenderly pet your cheek. "Anything for you."

You rested your head on his chest, a smile on your face as the night drifted on. You both slept outside that night, tangled in each others arms.

But if you send for me, you know I'll come And if you call for me, you know I'll run I'll run to you, I'll run to you I'll run, run, run I'll come to you, I'll come to you I'll come, come, come

The song lyrics played softly from the small radio you two had on the coffee table. Your cheek pressed to Johnny's chest as he swayed you around the living room of Red Gate. Gat was in town with Cadence while Mirren snuck off with Ebon, leaving you and Johnny some free time. It was moments like this where he was softer, more relaxed.

"I like this song." Johnny mumbled softly, his chin resting on your head. "Reminds me of us."

Smiling, you look up. "That's so cute Johnny."

"Oh shut up." He chuckled and pinched your cheek softly. "I got you something."

"A present? I love presents."

"Oh I know babe. You'll really like this one." He let you go softly to get the small box sitting on the end table. "Hand please"

Giggling, you hold out your hand to your boyfriend. Johnny took it and pressed a kiss to your knuckles as he slid a dainty gold band with a blue stone onto your ring finger, you couldn't help but notice how the stone matched his eyes.

"It's not an engagement ring but it's a promise. You're it for me. I want everyone to know it."

"Oh Johnny...I love it." You tear up softly.

"Forever baby." He smiled and cupped your cheeks.

"Forever."

The smoke filled the stairwell quickly, heat rolling up your spine. Coughing, you tried to make your way up to the attic. "Johnny!"

How did you get into this mess? What the hell had you all been thinking? Oh, that's right, drunk emotionally charged seventeen year old's. It had been a bad family dinner. Gat was gone, you could tell you weren't wanted there but nothing was as bad as listening to the moms fight. To make matters even worse, Harris had fallen and the moms went to the hospital with him.

Gat showed up and now the liars were alone.

Liars forever.

Liars forever.

Liars forever.

Liars forever.

Fuck it...liars forever.

The plan seemed so easy at first. Get in, burn it down, get out. But the flames rose fast. Maybe it was too much kindlin? Too much accelerant? And shit, you forgot about the gas line.

"Johnny!" You yelled again, knees weakening as you made your way up the stairs. Walking, let alone breathing was becoming too much effort and the smoke was so thick. Maybe if you just rested your eyes for a moment...

"Y/N!" Johnny yelled as he raced down the stairs, smoke so thick he could barley see. He lost his balance and landed on the ground with a loud thud. "Fuck!" Johnny pushed himself up onto his knees, ready to run again but froze when he saw you through the smoke. You were unmoving and your chest wasn't rising, the love of his life was-"NO!'

Johnny moved fast, crawling his way to you and pulled your too still body into his arms. "No, no, no! Baby please..please open those pretty eyes. Come on, open them for me." He held your face in his hands, his tears rolling onto your cheeks. A cough ripped from him as he saw flames rising up the stairs. "I'm sorry baby..I'm so fucking sorry." He leaned his head into your neck, sobbing against your skin. He would stay with you, forever. "You are the love of my life. We'll go together. I love you..I love you..I love you."

Forever...

Johnny sat on the kitchen counter of Red Gate, watching his mom pack as summer ended.

"Oh, you're still here." Carrie said softly, holding a hand over her heart.

"I don't think I can leave.."

"Are you alone?" Carrie frowned and walked towards her son, reaching out like she could touch him but she knew she couldn't.

"No, I'm not alone." Johnny smiled genuinely, his eyes flickering to yours as you leaned on another counter.

You winked at Johnny and made yourself comfortable. Carrie couldn't see you, but you knew she knew you were there.

"I should have known." She smiled softly and said her goodbye to Johnny before leaving Beechwood.

Summer was ending for most but not you. Here with Johnny it was summer forever and you intended on enjoying it. You had both suffered enough.

Johnny walked to you, pulling you against his chest. "You're a hot ghost."

You let out a genuine laugh. "Why thank you my super hot ghost boyfriend."

"Nah baby, we are husband and wife now. Been through too much to just be your boyfriend. So, I'm your super hot ghost husband."

Laughing, you lean your head on his. "I love you."

"I love you too." Johnny said softly and kissed you. Everything stilled.

This was never the ending you wanted. It wasn't the future you had planned. You never thought forever would become so literal. But with Johnny at your side..you'd make it work.

He was your happy ending, the one person that made you feel light. The laughter, the smiles, the happiness. It was all him. Adventures never ended, the love only grew, and maybe in some twisted way this was a happy ending. You had Johnny, that was all that really mattered.

Our field of dreams engulfed in fire Your arson's match, your somber eyes And I'll still see it until I die You're the loss of my life...

TAGLIST:

@stressfullywatchingf1 @reader-bookling123

[midnight-shadow-cafe]

May i request tf 141 x beatboxer!reader please. Like reader can mimic perfect gun sounds nd stuff

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdMw6cyo/

Callsign: Mimic

Pairing: Poly 141 x Beatboxer!Reader

Warnings: Slow burn, polyamory, tension, fluff, pining, team bonding, romantic confession, mentions of combat, canon-typical violence (brief), soft moments, reader has beatboxing/audio mimicry talents

Author's Note: Thank you for this request—it was so fun to write such a unique, sound-based reader! I love the idea of someone whose talents are completely unorthodox but earn the respect and love of such dangerous men. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: The team knew from day one that your voice could command a battlefield—but none of them expected to fall for the rhythm behind it. You're their heartbeat. Their chaos. Their Mimic.

Masterlist

MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+

The first time you mimicked gunfire on base, you almost got yourself shot.

It was an idle afternoon in the forward camp, and boredom had chewed through discipline like rust. You were crouched by a crate, half-tuned comms in your ear, mouth pulsing out crisp, rapid-fire percussion.

Rat-tat-tat. Ping. Helicopter blades. Boots on concrete. A click—then a flashbang whistle.

Suddenly: a body slammed into you.

"Contact!" Kyle shouted, rifle raised before you could blink.

"Gaz, hold fire!" John Price’s voice barked across the open space.

You were on your back, heart hammering, blinking up at a squad that looked like they'd just sprinted through hell.

Kyle hovered over you, eyes wild. "Mimic?! What the hell?"

You raised both hands, voice dry. "Sorry. Sound check."

Johnny stepped into view, eyes flicking from you to the space around you. "That was you? Thought a whole squad was breeching."

Simon Riley crouched next to you, expression unreadable under the mask. He said nothing, but his eyes flicked down to your lips—the source of the chaos.

"Impressive," he muttered. Then stood, offering a gloved hand.

You took it.

And from that day forward, they started listening. Closely.

——

They learned quickly that your mouth could do more than make music. You were dangerously precise. On missions, you could mimic a mag reload, distract enemies with phantom steps, or fake distant gunfire to trigger ambushes.

Kyle once laughed, shaking his head after you tricked an entire patrol into leaving their post.

"You’re like... audio warfare."

You grinned. "All part of the symphony."

But the mission wasn’t the only place you made noise.

Off-duty, you filled silence like it was second nature. You beatboxed while organizing gear, sang softly over static-filled radios, and drummed on your thighs when stuck on watch.

You made music from war.

And the boys? They started orbiting you like satellites.

Kyle was the first to admit he liked it. "Kinda miss it when you’re quiet, you know?" he’d say, elbow brushing yours during gear checks.

Johnny started requesting sounds like a kid asking for bedtime stories. "Do a heartbeat monitor. No wait—do Ghost’s boots! No wait, do Price when he’s mad."

Simon never requested anything—but you noticed the way he’d always find his way to you when you practiced alone, arms folded, silent as death but always there.

And Price? He watched you like a man trying not to be captivated. He’d lean against the wall as you performed for the squad, cigar unlit, lips tugged into the smallest smile.

"Bloody witchcraft," he’d murmur after every set.

You liked the way they looked at you. Like you were something special.

Because to them—you were.

——

The mission went sideways.

Intel was bad. Your team got split during an ambush inside a rusting train yard, visibility cut by fog and smoke grenades. Radios were jammed.

You were alone in a shipping container, heart in your throat, tracking the distant echo of boots and gunfire.

So you did the only thing you could.

You let your heartbeat set the tempo.

Then the guns.

Then the boots.

Then their boots. You knew their cadence.

Pop-pop-pop. Frag bounce. Radio ping. Soap’s laugh. Ghost’s reload. Price’s breath. Kyle’s footwork.

You stitched them together in perfect rhythm—like a flare in sound form.

And they heard it.

One by one, the boys peeled through the fog. First Kyle, barreling in with a grin like sunlight through smoke. Then Johnny, cursing and laughing all at once. Simon emerged next, silent but storm-eyed. And last was John Price, jaw tight with worry, who yanked you into his arms like he forgot he wasn’t supposed to need anyone.

"You little genius," he muttered. "You called us in with a fucking beat."

You laughed into his shoulder, breathless and shaking. "Couldn’t exactly send a text."

——

After that, something changed.

You’d sit down for breakfast and find Kyle had brewed your favorite tea without asking.

Johnny would lean on your shoulder mid-movie, head heavy and warm.

Simon left his sketchpad on your bunk once—inside was a penciled waveform. Your waveform. Your sound.

And Price... started ending meetings with a glance your way, a soft, "Mimic? Walk with me."

One night, you beatboxed a lullaby over base speakers, not knowing Price had had a nightmare. The next morning, he placed his dog tags in your hand and whispered, "Means I trust you."

Your heart thudded like a kick drum.

You trusted them, too.

——

It happened during downtime. The stars were sharp above the desert, and the squad sat around a small fire in camp chairs, sipping coffee laced with whiskey.

You were drumming your fingers against your knee when Kyle leaned in. "Can I ask something?"

"Sure."

"Are you… with any of us?"

The fire crackled. Johnny’s head perked up. Simon stilled. Price looked at you over the rim of his mug.

You blinked. "What?"

Kyle cleared his throat. "It’s just—we all… We care about you. Not just as squadmates. It’s more than that."

Johnny nodded. "It’s like, when you’re not around, something’s missing. I can’t stand it."

Simon spoke next, quiet and steady. "It’s not about sex. It’s… comfort. Warmth. A piece of peace."

And Price. John Price. He said it without a trace of doubt:

"You’re our rhythm. Our center. We’ve all fallen for you, love. Just wanted to know if you felt it too."

Your mouth went dry.

But then, the words tumbled out—unsteady, raw, real.

"I’ve been falling since the first time you all listened. Really listened. Like I wasn’t just noise."

You looked at each of them in turn—at Kyle’s hopeful smile, Johnny’s vulnerable grin, Simon’s steady gaze, John’s soft, battle-worn eyes.

"I want all of you," you said.

The silence was shattered by Johnny tackling you backward into the sand with a yell of pure joy.

"You’re ours, then," Kyle whispered against your hair.

Simon touched your hand like it was precious.

And Price… bent down and kissed your forehead like a vow.

Now, you fall asleep tangled in four different kinds of warmth.

Kyle always curls around your back, hand over your stomach.

Johnny throws a leg over yours, breathing soft.

Simon anchors you at your side, unmoving but always there.

And John? He rises early, but before he does, he brushes his lips to your temple and whispers:

"Sing us home, Mimic."

And so you do.

Every day.

Every mission.

Every beat of your heart belongs to them.

And theirs, to you.

Hope you enjoyed! Please consider liking and reposting! -Midnight💜

[mariacallous]

On a blustery spring Thursday, just after midterms, I went out for noodles with Alex and Eugene, two undergraduates at New York University, to talk about how they use artificial intelligence in their schoolwork. When I first met Alex, last year, he was interested in a career in the arts, and he devoted a lot of his free time to photo shoots with his friends. But he had recently decided on a more practical path: he wanted to become a C.P.A. His Thursdays were busy, and he had forty-five minutes until a study session for an accounting class. He stowed his skateboard under a bench in the restaurant and shook his laptop out of his bag, connecting to the internet before we sat down.

Alex has wavy hair and speaks with the chill, singsong cadence of someone who has spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. He and Eugene scanned the menu, and Alex said that they should get clear broth, rather than spicy, “so we can both lock in our skin care.” Weeks earlier, when I’d messaged Alex, he had said that everyone he knew used ChatGPT in some fashion, but that he used it only for organizing his notes. In person, he admitted that this wasn’t remotely accurate. “Any type of writing in life, I use A.I.,” he said. He relied on Claude for research, DeepSeek for reasoning and explanation, and Gemini for image generation. ChatGPT served more general needs. “I need A.I. to text girls,” he joked, imagining an A.I.-enhanced version of Hinge. I asked if he had used A.I. when setting up our meeting. He laughed, and then replied, “Honestly, yeah. I’m not tryin’ to type all that. Could you tell?”

OpenAI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Six days later, Sam Altman, the C.E.O., announced that it had reached a million users. Large language models like ChatGPT don’t “think” in the human sense—when you ask ChatGPT a question, it draws from the data sets it has been trained on and builds an answer based on predictable word patterns. Companies had experimented with A.I.-driven chatbots for years, but most sputtered upon release; Microsoft’s 2016 experiment with a bot named Tay was shut down after sixteen hours because it began spouting racist rhetoric and denying the Holocaust. But ChatGPT seemed different. It could hold a conversation and break complex ideas down into easy-to-follow steps. Within a month, Google’s management, fearful that A.I. would have an impact on its search-engine business, declared a “code red.”

Among educators, an even greater panic arose. It was too deep into the school term to implement a coherent policy for what seemed like a homework killer: in seconds, ChatGPT could collect and summarize research and draft a full essay. Many large campuses tried to regulate ChatGPT and its eventual competitors, mostly in vain. I asked Alex to show me an example of an A.I.-produced paper. Eugene wanted to see it, too. He used a different A.I. app to help with computations for his business classes, but he had never gotten the hang of using it for writing. “I got you,” Alex told him. (All the students I spoke with are identified by pseudonyms.)

He opened Claude on his laptop. I noticed a chat that mentioned abolition. “We had to read Robert Wedderburn for a class,” he explained, referring to the nineteenth-century Jamaican abolitionist. “But, obviously, I wasn’t tryin’ to read that.” He had prompted Claude for a summary, but it was too long for him to read in the ten minutes he had before class started. He told me, “I said, ‘Turn it into concise bullet points.’ ” He then transcribed Claude’s points in his notebook, since his professor ran a screen-free classroom.

Alex searched until he found a paper for an art-history class, about a museum exhibition. He had gone to the show, taken photographs of the images and the accompanying wall text, and then uploaded them to Claude, asking it to generate a paper according to the professor’s instructions. “I’m trying to do the least work possible, because this is a class I’m not hella fucking with,” he said. After skimming the essay, he felt that the A.I. hadn’t sufficiently addressed the professor’s questions, so he refined the prompt and told it to try again. In the end, Alex’s submission received the equivalent of an A-minus. He said that he had a basic grasp of the paper’s argument, but that if the professor had asked him for specifics he’d have been “so fucked.” I read the paper over Alex’s shoulder; it was a solid imitation of how an undergraduate might describe a set of images. If this had been 2007, I wouldn’t have made much of its generic tone, or of the precise, box-ticking quality of its critical observations.

Eugene, serious and somewhat solemn, had been listening with bemusement. “I would not cut and paste like he did, because I’m a lot more paranoid,” he said. He’s a couple of years younger than Alex and was in high school when ChatGPT was released. At the time, he experimented with A.I. for essays but noticed that it made easily noticed errors. “This passed the A.I. detector?” he asked Alex.

When ChatGPT launched, instructors adopted various measures to insure that students’ work was their own. These included requiring them to share time-stamped version histories of their Google documents, and designing written assignments that had to be completed in person, over multiple sessions. But most detective work occurs after submission. Services like GPTZero, Copyleaks, and Originality.ai analyze the structure and syntax of a piece of writing and assess the likelihood that it was produced by a machine. Alex said that his art-history professor was “hella old,” and therefore probably didn’t know about such programs. We fed the paper into a few different A.I.-detection websites. One said there was a twenty-eight-per-cent chance that the paper was A.I.-generated; another put the odds at sixty-one per cent. “That’s better than I expected,” Eugene said.

I asked if he thought what his friend had done was cheating, and Alex interrupted: “Of course. Are you fucking kidding me?”

As we looked at Alex’s laptop, I noticed that he had recently asked ChatGPT whether it was O.K. to go running in Nike Dunks. He had concluded that ChatGPT made for the best confidant. He consulted it as one might a therapist, asking for tips on dating and on how to stay motivated during dark times. His ChatGPT sidebar was an index of the highs and lows of being a young person. He admitted to me and Eugene that he’d used ChatGPT to draft his application to N.Y.U.—our lunch might never have happened had it not been for A.I. “I guess it’s really dishonest, but, fuck it, I’m here,” he said.

“It’s cheating, but I don’t think it’s, like, cheating,” Eugene said. He saw Alex’s art-history essay as a victimless crime. He was just fulfilling requirements, not training to become a literary scholar.

Alex had to rush off to his study session. I told Eugene that our conversation had made me wonder about my function as a professor. He asked if I taught English, and I nodded.

“Mm, O.K.,” he said, and laughed. “So you’re, like, majorly affected.”

I teach at a small liberal-arts college, and I often joke that a student is more likely to hand in a big paper a year late (as recently happened) than to take a dishonorable shortcut. My classes are small and intimate, driven by processes and pedagogical modes, like letting awkward silences linger, that are difficult to scale. As a result, I have always had a vague sense that my students are learning something, even when it is hard to quantify. In the past, if I was worried that a paper had been plagiarized, I would enter a few phrases from it into a search engine and call it due diligence. But I recently began noticing that some students’ writing seemed out of synch with how they expressed themselves in the classroom. One essay felt stitched together from two minds—half of it was polished and rote, the other intimate and unfiltered. Having never articulated a policy for A.I., I took the easy way out. The student had had enough shame to write half of the essay, and I focussed my feedback on improving that part.

It’s easy to get hung up on stories of academic dishonesty. Late last year, in a survey of college and university leaders, fifty-nine per cent reported an increase in cheating, a figure that feels conservative when you talk to students. A.I. has returned us to the question of what the point of higher education is. Until we’re eighteen, we go to school because we have to, studying the Second World War and reducing fractions while undergoing a process of socialization. We’re essentially learning how to follow rules. College, however, is a choice, and it has always involved the tacit agreement that students will fulfill a set of tasks, sometimes pertaining to subjects they find pointless or impractical, and then receive some kind of credential. But even for the most mercenary of students, the pursuit of a grade or a diploma has come with an ancillary benefit. You’re being taught how to do something difficult, and maybe, along the way, you come to appreciate the process of learning. But the arrival of A.I. means that you can now bypass the process, and the difficulty, altogether.

There are no reliable figures for how many American students use A.I., just stories about how everyone is doing it. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey of students between the ages of thirteen and seventeen suggests that a quarter of teens currently use ChatGPT for schoolwork, double the figure from 2023. OpenAI recently released a report claiming that one in three college students uses its products. There’s good reason to believe that these are low estimates. If you grew up Googling everything or using Grammarly to give your prose a professional gloss, it isn’t far-fetched to regard A.I. as just another productivity tool. “I see it as no different from Google,” Eugene said. “I use it for the same kind of purpose.”

Being a student is about testing boundaries and staying one step ahead of the rules. While administrators and educators have been debating new definitions for cheating and discussing the mechanics of surveillance, students have been embracing the possibilities of A.I. A few months after the release of ChatGPT, a Harvard undergraduate got approval to conduct an experiment in which it wrote papers that had been assigned in seven courses. The A.I. skated by with a 3.57 G.P.A., a little below the school’s average. Upstart companies introduced products that specialized in “humanizing” A.I.-generated writing, and TikTok influencers began coaching their audiences on how to avoid detection.

Unable to keep pace, academic administrations largely stopped trying to control students’ use of artificial intelligence and adopted an attitude of hopeful resignation, encouraging teachers to explore the practical, pedagogical applications of A.I. In certain fields, this wasn’t a huge stretch. Studies show that A.I. is particularly effective in helping non-native speakers acclimate to college-level writing in English. In some STEM classes, using generative A.I. as a tool is acceptable. Alex and Eugene told me that their accounting professor encouraged them to take advantage of free offers on new A.I. products available only to undergraduates, as companies competed for student loyalty throughout the spring. In May, OpenAI announced ChatGPT Edu, a product specifically marketed for educational use, after schools including Oxford University, Arizona State University, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business experimented with incorporating A.I. into their curricula. This month, the company detailed plans to integrate ChatGPT into every dimension of campus life, with students receiving “personalized” A.I. accounts to accompany them throughout their years in college.

But for English departments, and for college writing in general, the arrival of A.I. has been more vexed. Why bother teaching writing now? The future of the midterm essay may be a quaint worry compared with larger questions about the ramifications of artificial intelligence, such as its effect on the environment, or the automation of jobs. And yet has there ever been a time in human history when writing was so important to the average person? E-mails, texts, social-media posts, angry missives in comments sections, customer-service chats—let alone one’s actual work. The way we write shapes our thinking. We process the world through the composition of text dozens of times a day, in what the literary scholar Deborah Brandt calls our era of “mass writing.” It’s possible that the ability to write original and interesting sentences will become only more important in a future where everyone has access to the same A.I. assistants.

Corey Robin, a writer and a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, read the early stories about ChatGPT with skepticism. Then his daughter, a sophomore in high school at the time, used it to produce an essay that was about as good as those his undergraduates wrote after a semester of work. He decided to stop assigning take-home essays. For the first time in his thirty years of teaching, he administered in-class exams.

Robin told me he finds many of the steps that universities have taken to combat A.I. essays to be “hand-holding that’s not leading people anywhere.” He has become a believer in the passage-identification blue-book exam, in which students name and contextualize excerpts of what they’ve read for class. “Know the text and write about it intelligently,” he said. “That was a way of honoring their autonomy without being a cop.”

His daughter, who is now a senior, complains that her teachers rarely assign full books. And Robin has noticed that college students are more comfortable with excerpts than with entire articles, and prefer short stories to novels. “I don’t get the sense they have the kind of literary or cultural mastery that used to be the assumption upon which we assigned papers,” he said. One study, published last year, found that fifty-eight per cent of students at two Midwestern universities had so much trouble interpreting the opening paragraphs of “Bleak House,” by Charles Dickens, that “they would not be able to read the novel on their own.” And these were English majors.

The return to pen and paper has been a common response to A.I. among professors, with sales of blue books rising significantly at certain universities in the past two years. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, grew dispirited after some students submitted what he suspected was A.I.-generated work for an assignment on how the school’s honor code should view A.I.-generated work. He, too, has decided to return to blue books, and is pondering the logistics of oral exams. “Maybe we go all the way back to 450 B.C.,” he told me.

But other professors have renewed their emphasis on getting students to see the value of process. Dan Melzer, the director of the first-year composition program at the University of California, Davis, recalled that “everyone was in a panic” when ChatGPT first hit. Melzer’s job is to think about how writing functions across the curriculum so that all students, from prospective scientists to future lawyers, get a chance to hone their prose. Consequently, he has an accommodating view of how norms around communication have changed, especially in the internet age. He was sympathetic to kids who viewed some of their assignments as dull and mechanical and turned to ChatGPT to expedite the process. He called the five-paragraph essay—the classic “hamburger” structure, consisting of an introduction, three supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion—“outdated,” having descended from élitist traditions.

Melzer believes that some students loathe writing because of how it’s been taught, particularly in the past twenty-five years. The No Child Left Behind Act, from 2002, instituted standards-based reforms across all public schools, resulting in generations of students being taught to write according to rigid testing rubrics. As one teacher wrote in the Washington Post in 2013, students excelled when they mastered a form of “bad writing.” Melzer has designed workshops that treat writing as a deliberative, iterative process involving drafting, feedback (from peers and also from ChatGPT), and revision.

“If you assign a generic essay topic and don’t engage in any process, and you just collect it a month later, it’s almost like you’re creating an environment tailored to crime,” he said. “You’re encouraging crime in your community!”

I found Melzer’s pedagogical approach inspiring; I instantly felt bad for routinely breaking my class into small groups so that they could “workshop” their essays, as though the meaning of this verb were intuitively clear. But, as a student, I’d have found Melzer’s focus on process tedious—it requires a measure of faith that all the work will pay off in the end. Writing is hard, regardless of whether it’s a five-paragraph essay or a haiku, and it’s natural, especially when you’re a college student, to want to avoid hard work—this is why classes like Melzer’s are compulsory. “You can imagine that students really want to be there,” he joked.

College is all about opportunity costs. One way of viewing A.I. is as an intervention in how people choose to spend their time. In the early nineteen-sixties, college students spent an estimated twenty-four hours a week on schoolwork. Today, that figure is about fifteen, a sign, to critics of contemporary higher education, that young people are beneficiaries of grade inflation—in a survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson, nearly eighty per cent of the class of 2024 reported a G.P.A. of 3.7 or higher—and lack the diligence of their forebears. I don’t know how many hours I spent on schoolwork in the late nineties, when I was in college, but I recall feeling that there was never enough time. I suspect that, even if today’s students spend less time studying, they don’t feel significantly less stressed. It’s the nature of campus life that everyone assimilates into a culture of busyness, and a lot of that anxiety has been shifted to extracurricular or pre-professional pursuits. A dean at Harvard remarked that students feel compelled to find distinction outside the classroom because they are largely indistinguishable within it.

Eddie, a sociology major at Long Beach State, is older than most of his classmates. He graduated high school in 2010, and worked full time while attending a community college. “I’ve gone through a lot to be at school,” he told me. “I want to learn as much as I can.” ChatGPT, which his therapist recommended to him, was ubiquitous at Long Beach even before the California State University system, which Long Beach is a part of, announced a partnership with OpenAI, giving its four hundred and sixty thousand students access to ChatGPT Edu. “I was a little suspicious of how convenient it was,” Eddie said. “It seemed to know a lot, in a way that seemed so human.”

He told me that he used A.I. “as a brainstorm” but never for writing itself. “I limit myself, for sure.” Eddie works for Los Angeles County, and he was talking to me during a break. He admitted that, when he was pressed for time, he would sometimes use ChatGPT for quizzes. “I don’t know if I’m telling myself a lie,” he said. “I’ve given myself opportunities to do things ethically, but if I’m rushing to work I don’t feel bad about that,” particularly for courses outside his major.

I recognized Eddie’s conflict. I’ve used ChatGPT a handful of times, and on one occasion it accomplished a scheduling task so quickly that I began to understand the intoxication of hyper-efficiency. I’ve felt the need to stop myself from indulging in idle queries. Almost all the students I interviewed in the past few months described the same trajectory: from using A.I. to assist with organizing their thoughts to off-loading their thinking altogether. For some, it became something akin to social media, constantly open in the corner of the screen, a portal for distraction. This wasn’t like paying someone to write a paper for you—there was no social friction, no aura of illicit activity. Nor did it feel like sharing notes, or like passing off what you’d read in CliffsNotes or SparkNotes as your own analysis. There was no real time to reflect on questions of originality or honesty—the student basically became a project manager. And for students who use it the way Eddie did, as a kind of sounding board, there’s no clear threshold where the work ceases to be an original piece of thinking. In April, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, released a report drawn from a million anonymized student conversations with its chatbots. It suggested that more than half of user interactions could be classified as “collaborative,” involving a dialogue between student and A.I. (Presumably, the rest of the interactions were more extractive.)

May, a sophomore at Georgetown, was initially resistant to using ChatGPT. “I don’t know if it was an ethics thing,” she said. “I just thought I could do the assignment better, and it wasn’t worth the time being saved.” But she began using it to proofread her essays, and then to generate cover letters, and now she uses it for “pretty much all” her classes. “I don’t think it’s made me a worse writer,” she said. “It’s perhaps made me a less patient writer. I used to spend hours writing essays, nitpicking over my wording, really thinking about how to phrase things.” College had made her reflect on her experience at an extremely competitive high school, where she had received top grades but retained very little knowledge. As a result, she was the rare student who found college somewhat relaxed. ChatGPT helped her breeze through busywork and deepen her engagement with the courses she felt passionate about. “I was trying to think, Where’s all this time going?” she said. I had never envied a college student until she told me the answer: “I sleep more now.”

Harry Stecopoulos oversees the University of Iowa’s English department, which has more than eight hundred majors. On the first day of his introductory course, he asks students to write by hand a two-hundred-word analysis of the opening paragraph of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” There are always a few grumbles, and students have occasionally walked out. “I like the exercise as a tone-setter, because it stresses their writing,” he told me.

The return of blue-book exams might disadvantage students who were encouraged to master typing at a young age. Once you’ve grown accustomed to the smooth rhythms of typing, reverting to a pen and paper can feel stifling. But neuroscientists have found that the “embodied experience” of writing by hand taps into parts of the brain that typing does not. Being able to write one way—even if it’s more efficient—doesn’t make the other way obsolete. There’s something lofty about Stecopoulos’s opening-day exercise. But there’s another reason for it: the handwritten paragraph also begins a paper trail, attesting to voice and style, that a teaching assistant can consult if a suspicious paper is submitted.

Kevin, a third-year student at Syracuse University, recalled that, on the first day of a class, the professor had asked everyone to compose some thoughts by hand. “That brought a smile to my face,” Kevin said. “The other kids are scratching their necks and sweating, and I’m, like, This is kind of nice.”

Kevin had worked as a teaching assistant for a mandatory course that first-year students take to acclimate to campus life. Writing assignments involved basic questions about students’ backgrounds, he told me, but they often used A.I. anyway. “I was very disturbed,” he said. He occasionally uses A.I. to help with translations for his advanced Arabic course, but he’s come to look down on those who rely heavily on it. “They almost forget that they have the ability to think,” he said. Like many former holdouts, Kevin felt that his judicious use of A.I. was more defensible than his peers’ use of it.

As ChatGPT begins to sound more human, will we reconsider what it means to sound like ourselves? Kevin and some of his friends pride themselves on having an ear attuned to A.I.-generated text. The hallmarks, he said, include a preponderance of em dashes and a voice that feels blandly objective. An acquaintance had run an essay that she had written herself through a detector, because she worried that she was starting to phrase things like ChatGPT did. He read her essay: “I realized, like, It does kind of sound like ChatGPT. It was freaking me out a little bit.”

A particularly disarming aspect of ChatGPT is that, if you point out a mistake, it communicates in the backpedalling tone of a contrite student. (“Apologies for the earlier confusion. . . .”) Its mistakes are often referred to as hallucinations, a description that seems to anthropomorphize A.I., conjuring a vision of a sleep-deprived assistant. Some professors told me that they had students fact-check ChatGPT’s work, as a way of discussing the importance of original research and of showing the machine’s fallibility. Hallucination rates have grown worse for most A.I.s, with no single reason for the increase. As a researcher told the Times, “We still don’t know how these models work exactly.”

But many students claim to be unbothered by A.I.’s mistakes. They appear nonchalant about the question of achievement, and even dissociated from their work, since it is only notionally theirs. Joseph, a Division I athlete at a Big Ten school, told me that he saw no issue with using ChatGPT for his classes, but he did make one exception: he wanted to experience his African-literature course “authentically,” because it involved his heritage. Alex, the N.Y.U. student, said that if one of his A.I. papers received a subpar grade his disappointment would be focussed on the fact that he’d spent twenty dollars on his subscription. August, a sophomore at Columbia studying computer science, told me about a class where she was required to compose a short lecture on a topic of her choosing. “It was a class where everyone was guaranteed an A, so I just put it in and I maybe edited like two words and submitted it,” she said. Her professor identified her essay as exemplary work, and she was asked to read from it to a class of two hundred students. “I was a little nervous,” she said. But then she realized, “If they don’t like it, it wasn’t me who wrote it, you know?”

Kevin, by contrast, desired a more general kind of moral distinction. I asked if he would be bothered to receive a lower grade on an essay than a classmate who’d used ChatGPT. “Part of me is able to compartmentalize and not be pissed about it,” he said. “I developed myself as a human. I can have a superiority complex about it. I learned more.” He smiled. But then he continued, “Part of me can also be, like, This is so unfair. I would have loved to hang out with my friends more. What did I gain? I made my life harder for all that time.”

In my conversations, just as college students invariably thought of ChatGPT as merely another tool, people older than forty focussed on its effects, drawing a comparison to G.P.S. and the erosion of our relationship to space. The London cabdrivers rigorously trained in “the knowledge” famously developed abnormally large posterior hippocampi, the part of the brain crucial for long-term memory and spatial awareness. And yet, in the end, most people would probably rather have swifter travel than sharper memories. What is worth preserving, and what do we feel comfortable off-loading in the name of efficiency?

What if we take seriously the idea that A.I. assistance can accelerate learning—that students today are arriving at their destinations faster? In 2023, researchers at Harvard introduced a self-paced A.I. tutor in a popular physics course. Students who used the A.I. tutor reported higher levels of engagement and motivation and did better on a test than those who were learning from a professor. May, the Georgetown student, told me that she often has ChatGPT produce extra practice questions when she’s studying for a test. Could A.I. be here not to destroy education but to revolutionize it? Barry Lam teaches in the philosophy department at the University of California, Riverside, and hosts a popular podcast, Hi-Phi Nation, which applies philosophical modes of inquiry to everyday topics. He began wondering what it would mean for A.I. to actually be a productivity tool. He spoke to me from the podcast studio he built in his shed. “Now students are able to generate in thirty seconds what used to take me a week,” he said. He compared education to carpentry, one of his many hobbies. Could you skip to using power tools without learning how to saw by hand? If students were learning things faster, then it stood to reason that Lam could assign them “something very hard.” He wanted to test this theory, so for final exams he gave his undergraduates a Ph.D.-level question involving denotative language and the German logician Gottlob Frege which was, frankly, beyond me.

“They fucking failed it miserably,” he said. He adjusted his grading curve accordingly.

Lam doesn’t find the use of A.I. morally indefensible. “It’s not plagiarism in the cut-and-paste sense,” he argued, because there’s technically no original version. Rather, he finds it a potential waste of everyone’s time. At the start of the semester, he has told students, “If you’re gonna just turn in a paper that’s ChatGPT-generated, then I will grade all your work by ChatGPT and we can all go to the beach.”

Nobody gets into teaching because he loves grading papers. I talked to one professor who rhapsodized about how much more his students were learning now that he’d replaced essays with short exams. I asked if he missed marking up essays. He laughed and said, “No comment.” An undergraduate at Northeastern University recently accused a professor of using A.I. to create course materials; she filed a formal complaint with the school, requesting a refund for some of her tuition. The dustup laid bare the tension between why many people go to college and why professors teach. Students are raised to understand achievement as something discrete and measurable, but when they arrive at college there are people like me, imploring them to wrestle with difficulty and abstraction. Worse yet, they are told that grades don’t matter as much as they did when they were trying to get into college—only, by this point, students are wired to find the most efficient path possible to good marks.

As the craft of writing is degraded by A.I., original writing has become a valuable resource for training language models. Earlier this year, a company called Catalyst Research Alliance advertised “academic speech data and student papers” from two research studies run in the late nineties and mid-two-thousands at the University of Michigan. The school asked the company to halt its work—the data was available for free to academics anyway—and a university spokesperson said that student data “was not and has never been for sale.” But the situation did lead many people to wonder whether institutions would begin viewing original student work as a potential revenue stream.

According to a recent study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, human intellect has declined since 2012. An assessment of tens of thousands of adults in nearly thirty countries showed an over-all decade-long drop in test scores for math and for reading comprehension. Andreas Schleicher, the director for education and skills at the O.E.C.D., hypothesized that the way we consume information today—often through short social-media posts—has something to do with the decline in literacy. (One of Europe’s top performers in the assessment was Estonia, which recently announced that it will bring A.I. to some high-school students in the next few years, sidelining written essays and rote homework exercises in favor of self-directed learning and oral exams.)

Lam, the philosophy professor, used to be a colleague of mine, and for a brief time we were also neighbors. I’d occasionally look out the window and see him building a fence, or gardening. He’s an avid amateur cook, guitarist, and carpenter, and he remains convinced that there is value to learning how to do things the annoying, old-fashioned, and—as he puts it—“artisanal” way. He told me that his wife, Shanna Andrawis, who has been a high-school teacher since 2008, frequently disagreed with his cavalier methods for dealing with large learning models. Andrawis argues that dishonesty has always been an issue. “We are trying to mass educate,” she said, meaning there’s less room to be precious about the pedagogical process. “I don’t have conversations with students about ‘artisanal’ writing. But I have conversations with them about our relationship. Respect me enough to give me your authentic voice, even if you don’t think it’s that great. It’s O.K. I want to meet you where you’re at.”

Ultimately, Andrawis was less fearful of ChatGPT than of the broader conditions of being young these days. Her students have grown increasingly introverted, staring at their phones with little desire to “practice getting over that awkwardness” that defines teen life, as she put it. A.I. might contribute to this deterioration, but it isn’t solely to blame. It’s “a little cherry on top of an already really bad ice-cream sundae,” she said.

When the school year began, my feelings about ChatGPT were somewhere between disappointment and disdain, focussed mainly on students. But, as the weeks went by, my sense of what should be done and who was at fault grew hazier. Eliminating core requirements, rethinking G.P.A., teaching A.I. skepticism—none of the potential fixes could turn back the preconditions of American youth. Professors can reconceive of the classroom, but there is only so much we control. I lacked faith that educational institutions would ever regard new technologies as anything but inevitable. Colleges and universities, many of which had tried to curb A.I. use just a few semesters ago, rushed to partner with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, deeming a product that didn’t exist four years ago essential to the future of school.

Except for a year spent bumming around my home town, I’ve basically been on a campus for the past thirty years. Students these days view college as consumers, in ways that never would have occurred to me when I was their age. They’ve grown up at a time when society values high-speed takes, not the slow deliberation of critical thinking. Although I’ve empathized with my students’ various mini-dramas, I rarely project myself into their lives. I notice them noticing one another, and I let the mysteries of their lives go. Their pressures are so different from the ones I felt as a student. Although I envy their metabolisms, I would not wish for their sense of horizons.

Education, particularly in the humanities, rests on a belief that, alongside the practical things students might retain, some arcane idea mentioned in passing might take root in their mind, blossoming years in the future. A.I. allows any of us to feel like an expert, but it is risk, doubt, and failure that make us human. I often tell my students that this is the last time in their lives that someone will have to read something they write, so they might as well tell me what they actually think.

Despite all the current hysteria around students cheating, they aren’t the ones to blame. They did not lobby for the introduction of laptops when they were in elementary school, and it’s not their fault that they had to go to school on Zoom during the pandemic. They didn’t create the A.I. tools, nor were they at the forefront of hyping technological innovation. They were just early adopters, trying to outwit the system at a time when doing so has never been so easy. And they have no more control than the rest of us. Perhaps they sense this powerlessness even more acutely than I do. One moment, they are being told to learn to code; the next, it turns out employers are looking for the kind of “soft skills” one might learn as an English or a philosophy major. In February, a labor report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that computer-science majors had a higher unemployment rate than ethnic-studies majors did—the result, some believed, of A.I. automating entry-level coding jobs.

None of the students I spoke with seemed lazy or passive. Alex and Eugene, the N.Y.U. students, worked hard—but part of their effort went to editing out anything in their college experiences that felt extraneous. They were radically resourceful.

When classes were over and students were moving into their summer housing, I e-mailed with Alex, who was settling in in the East Village. He’d just finished his finals, and estimated that he’d spent between thirty minutes and an hour composing two papers for his humanities classes. Without the assistance of Claude, it might have taken him around eight or nine hours. “I didn’t retain anything,” he wrote. “I couldn’t tell you the thesis for either paper hahhahaha.” He received an A-minus and a B-plus. 

[miifu666]

Suklha’s Language 📝 🪲

its a language that so far only Suklha understand, from her own explanation. its a language that depends on her vocal chords, a few clicks and syllable can result in different paragraph of meaning depending on the frequency used. Most beings couldn't hear a difference, its like a frequency hearing test for them thats based on different Hz. either you hear a single tone or nothing at all, while Suklha has a more advanced hearing due to her sensitive antenna. Hearing the undertones with each clicks, hisses, gurgles and warbles.

Her language sounds distorted, like an unusual amount of clicks and skittering, its both a horrifying foreign cadence and etherial. one that irks your curiosity when you hear it. mind not thinking straight while you try to figure out the source.

In Suklha's eyes, every being is "Deaf" while humans are both "Deaf and Blind"

if Suklha has a whole community and not just the lonewolf of her species. they probably see other beings as permanently illiterate and partially blind. heck, i feel like they would be a secluded species. Disfavoring the off-chance their words are being translated into earthly language would only bastardize the meanings behind it. there are so many things thatt couldn't be conveyed through mere english, mandarin, or whatever languages the earth has.

Each stroke, the pressure applied by the pen, the paper quality, shapes and other microscopic factor matters, they all account to different meanings when translated, depending on how it looks like or the level of detail is added into it.

In her Pregnant AU, Baby Chime is born with the language. Making her and Suklha as the only two members of their Species. Since the gods and most holy beings are considered “Deaf” by Suklha. This means they could create sounds in various frequency, Baby Chime has to wear a wool coat and ear muffs in case Wukong would bring her to his meetings. Wools are suitable for absorbing sounds and the hood hides her sensitive antennas.

Going into heaven without it is like being in the middle of a southeast traditional market, where everything is noisy and whispers all around you. A baby couldn’t handle that much stimulation unfortunately.

Q : Has Suklha ever tried teaching others?

yes she has, made a whole research on it actually. whenever she explains it, somehow her "students" always dissociate or dosed off. some even express excessive distress despite how patient she is. throughout her many years of doing this, no one has suceeded. or even stay focused through the whole lesson.

Q : Any side effects on long exposure to the language?

none so far, it sounds like animal noises to humans and the gods. in writing, no one considered to understand it. even if they do, their interest lose quickly than the norm or in other cases, they "forgot"

Taglist : @phoenixeclipse-lmkau @skymoral @tuskstudioart @whatisev04 @forge-the-idiot @masterqueso @monkieshad0w @lilchickie @mehiwilldoitlater @missrosiesworld @sleepingdramaqueen @epochal-oracle

[defmaybe]

Mistake

NewJeans' Kim Minji (Angst) & NMIXX's Oh Haewon (Smut) x Male Reader

15.4k words

Some discussions of suicide

A/N: A few things before going in:

This is essentially an unedited, raw first draft. Expect an insane amount of errors and self-indulgent metaphors.

It's also unfinished in parts.

Still, I do genuinely hope that you enjoy this!

Thanks to Tyler and and Summer for putting me on the right track of being a writer!

Big inspirations from Caps' Departure, Nichu's Where Our Blue Is, Ddeun's Our Love Language is Sex, and Challengers

—

Prologue

—

Mistake all the time, You’re my mistake all the time, yeah

Mistake all the time, I’m your mistake all the time, yeah

—

You realized that you’ve never possessed the creative calibre as much as a writer should’ve had. Perhaps it’s appropriate that you’ve never pursued it as your major career. You read all these stories, and you knew that you just can’t come up with these plots. You don’t know how to do character developments, hell, you can barely write dialogues. The way people talk in real life remains a mystery to you. So, it’s probably for the best that you’re in engineering.

Though, it just takes a mistake to change it all. Many stories start with a catastrophe, a turning point, or something that puts the protagonist on their journey. So, here you are, you have a story right in front of you, so should it be transformed into something commendable? award-worthy? a selfish portrayal of what’s supposed to be just a passage of life? The goal of it doesn’t really matter much (though some recognition would be nice); you just had to write it out.

—

You don’t know how much time you have for this. Everyone has been telling you it should be long enough for the forgiveness to be ready, but you’ve also been wondering whether, if that day comes, it would be too long that the cadence won’t strike you as pristine as before.

Though, it hadn’t stopped you from fantasizing how this encounter would play out. You’d say something witty with a chuckle, and she’d smile back, or even better, a laugh. Both of you would see the separation as some childish actions of the past. The two of you would go back to where you were: grief-stricken, exhausted, scared high school students. 

The sunlight would force you to retreat to some cafe during the afternoon, letting you two trade stories between the gaps. And as the sun sets, you’d sit beside her in some park, laid back a bit, hands on the grass to offer some balance. She’d do the same. Then your hearts would slowly be reconnected with each other, hoping to reclaim solace missing in the separation, as if you are the only two people on earth.

Firstly though, those events would have to be triggered by your words. And despite thousands of days of you trying to perfect every syllable, they just conveniently stuck in your throat. This isn’t what you’ve been readying yourself for. Awestruck and powerless is an understatement, and no tests have ever made you feel so drowned in your gargantuan number of thoughts.

You cannot say a word to her, and there may not be any second chance for this.

You are her mistake, and you’ll always be.

–

One: About You

–

There was something ‘bout you that now I can’t remember

It’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender

And I miss you on a train, I miss you in the morning

I never know what to think about

–

I like you

What

I like you! Like do you wanna go out on a date?

(Seen)

It isn’t the longest silence you’ll experience with her, let alone with someone else, fourteen years on earth won’t give much of an insight to you, but it’s enough for you to know what she’s going to say next.

I’m sorry

Regret in her words bled through the pixels. 

But I just see you as a friend

Being on text messages takes out the awkwardness a bit, but that doesn’t help transform the dagger, really.

Kim Min-Ji, your entire relationship was based on this encounter, and that three-week phase of some bullet crush upon entering a new school preceding this. You were charmed by a girl’s look, and then no one can compete with that.

You had found her face appealing, then you fantasized your whole life with her. One thing led to another, and you were head over heels for her in just a week. 

Nowhere that you haven’t gone with her in your head: a date at an American diner—drinking milkshakes, a trip to the theater—watching some schlocky romance and cringing when the couple on the screen are kissing each other, and the most ambitious one: marriage, she’s smiling, everyone you’ve ever known is surrounding you, cheering as you are leaning in for a kiss.

Too bad you didn’t have a backup plan if it failed.

Consequences of the rejection had you decompressing every, single, thing you’ve been admiring about her to your friends, yeah, the same ones. You treated that as if it was the end of the world. 

It was quite a phase, and you inevitably got closer to those people. They were slowly fading away eventually, one by one, but at least, at that moment, you felt like there’s someone listening to you.

While the dagger stuck, you kept eluding her, avoiding eye contact as you were walking past each other. You had to let her know you were hurt. God, that shit looked so damn petty in retrospect.

It was a month later when the heartbreak dissipated, and both of you decided that the next three years cannot be spent evading each other. (To be honest, it’s mostly just for you to stop being weird.) A nod was all it took, and that probably was a lot better than having her as a girlfriend.

–

She wants you to live on your life, separately

Being on text messages (and having it delivered through a friend) takes out the cruelty a bit, but that doesn’t help transform the dagger, really.

It started with just some petty acts, a crude joke. Then, just over a month later, you deleted every single picture of her, almost five years of them. It wasn’t a hard thing to do when you were so deep in melancholy, just a few minutes after a friend brought the breakup message to you. 

You thought you had to block her everywhere. But with every step taken to create some distance from her, those actions just, somehow, create unending echoes tormenting you.

Why

You really wanted to fix this; you really fucking did. You’ve never wanted it to end, even when you sent some faux, response-seeking farewell messages after days of waiting for her confirmation of how she felt, just to have her come and reply about the exam she was having just a few minutes later.

Are you gonna send something to her again if you know?

But even with her crying emojis, you were relentless with your replies. I fucking hate you still echoes to this day. It shaped how you see yourself: a selfish, yet codependent, self-indulgent, unlovable person. Even with the apology texts you sent a few weeks later (which she never saw), those four words were tattooed on you.

I won’t

You wished you could, but this answer seemed to be the way to satisfy her.

Think about it

Like all those years

What have you done to her

It was supposed to end with your first apology text, when she called herself an asshole over it. Then, you became one yourself. It turned out that reading only the preview message doesn’t give you the full picture, so you paid the price just a month later. You replied to that, then you waited. And with how God made you so insecure, you thought she wanted it to end after a week you took to reply.

You had problems.

It’ll all be okay

Someday

Looking at your friend’s text, you sighed, knowing that you can only let fate and time lead you to it.

–

You were nothing more than a friend. She sure loved you, just not in the way one would perceive as romantic. There were kind words, there was thoughtful advice, there were chatting deep into a lot of nights. 

Any form of physical contact though, you brought it up in some conversations (which one eventually being the spark that burned it all), were always quickly suppressed by her. So, there you were, having her as a friend, and the bar for where your future girlfriends should be.

hey

need some advice rn

uh huh

there’s this guy

send me his pic

alright wait a sec

[photo]

my god

what

okay yeah I know why he’s a big deal

fuck auto caps on I again

fuck

just turn it off in the settings lol

thanks

[Replied to: okay yeah I know why he’s a big deal] ikr

[Replied to: thanks] no prob

so

how is it with him

As it was flourishing, there were times that you wished for it to be as easy as a kiss and a happily ever after, with how well-gelled you’ve always been together. But the distance between you is just too much. 

You can’t conveniently visit her on every other weekend, while she really didn’t want to close the distance from being a close friend (or as you would think to yourself later: “our love may not coincide at the same time”). So, there you were, you became each other’s advisor for those times you’ve had.

–

All of what you saw as confidential: all the vibrations of your heart, all the tears running down your cheeks when alone, all the ties you cut and formed, as any teenager would do, was at last, delivered to your parents, at the age you didn’t think it was possible for such change. 

You didn’t expect that your parents would take it well, with how you’ve withheld everything for the last half decade, reducing every answer to their questions into a binary set consisting of yes and no. But as they’ve always been, they didn’t leave you in the dark.

You pleaded guilty to all of it – how you were wretched inside. How she became so much to you, how you took everything she says as an oath, how her jokes lit up a smile on your face every time, and how they still haunt you, to this day, keeps you from initiating any new, proper relationship with someone. 

They kept coming back, even if you thought time would slowly fade them away. The minor details, yes, but the bigger ones are still having free shots on you every now and then.

The first few months were difficult. Bed seemed to be the best place you could’ve been, lying down, your fingers sliding reels after reels for god knows how long. Though, it hits you, years of being alone, walling people out was detrimental to you. It starts with some small repairs: story replies to disconnected peers, dates with your close friends, more exposure to your family. 

You seek connections, desperately, to fill up the hole she once occupied. You took too many side jobs aside from the grueling university classes, and to be honest, you did meet a lot of new people in the next semester, even more than you did in the last two or three years here.

The space though, five years of freestyle carving put it into this twisted, incomprehensible, harrowing state in which all the adjectives in the world aren’t enough to define the shape of its former owner. How every fibre of your existence was tied to her was, as seen from outside, sad. 

Sure, it’s not wrong to let someone into your life, but with this extent – thousands of words to pry out a response - it just reeks codependency in retrospect.

It took some time, and a bunch of people, to cover up the space. You never quite make it like it was; there’s always a hole somewhere, and you can still see the footprints she left on you through it.

How you tell people close to you, most of the time, is that there was a fight - one you started. Then you were being a bitch for too long, and by the time you returned, she put you out of the picture. You added some bits of how you were dependent on her for your heartaches, how you treated her like shit for years, how you sent waves of messages that she didn’t reply because she was busy, how you said you hated her, only to retract and regret it a few days later, then it all ended.

It could be some way of unearthing emotional vulnerability under that “cold” façade - as often pointed out by your friends, which you deflected as crippling social anxiety. You thought people would trust you more if you decided to tell them how you succumbed to those inner demons. It works most of the time.

You told them that you cried to some K-pop song that you can only understand like two lines. 

You told them how you tried to recover the photos with some external program not a week later. 

You told them, with an otherworldly consistency, that it’s your fault, never hers. 

You told them you’d send something a year later, as an apology, to return to where you once were.

You told them that you might crumble again if the response is anything but a warm embrace.

Your taped-up heart remained intact when the day came, having your friends around and such after a year of reconstruction, and you surrendered to the fact that you really can’t do much more than a guilt-ridden text. But it’s not easy at all to watch “Sent just now” become “yesterday”, then “last week”, then “last month” slowly unfold. Then you knew that your strength just cannot handle this; cadence can’t exist with a single note.

It took you back to that day, when the future was just this black, unbounded, silent yet serene space. Times where every knife suddenly became alluring, heights weren't what you were afraid of anymore, the next trip to a pharmacist might be a deathtrap.

This eternal apathy: it was tempting to give in to it – to just leave all of these behind. Yet, you weren’t so sure to give yourself such an ending. People won’t like it, or do they? A lot of stories saw their main characters to their ends, no matter which way it would be. And to be fair, a lot of them became cult classics. You weren’t so sure which would be the right ending for yours.

–

Two: Now That We Don’t Talk

–

You grew your hair long, you got new icons

And from the outside, it looks like you’re trying lives on

–

One advice you took from your therapist is to keep journaling your emotions, each day. And even with the poor self-discipline, whether in a book or a journal, you carved your grimaces, laughters, and tears into words. But perhaps that became too customary. And as time passes, you find the storyteller side of yours magnetized outwards. So, there you were, in front of your old laptop, nibbling on the dagger.

–

Your plane landed in Tokyo mere hours ago. It was a few days after your sophomore year finals. You were paying for your inability to sleep with the shaking cabin, and it was just nine (Tokyo Standard Time) in the morning. Your eyes went dry, and you can feel the irregular beats of your heart. The sleeping pills from your psychiatrist can’t handle the excitement of getting on a plane, especially if it’s to Tokyo.

It’s cold, spring cold. Snow is nowhere to be seen, but your tropical genes are already shaken with a small breeze. You excused yourself from your family for some minutes outside the airport, to get some air for alertness.

The train would depart in an hour, but with the risk-averse nature of your parents, you had only 20 minutes to snap a few photos around Narita. You quickly pace yourself against the crowd, to the outside. You strode through the arrivals terminal, before reaching the automated door, finally catching the air. And it’s cold, spring cold.

It was cloudy, yet the sun was bright enough to deflect your vision away from the matter of protecting it. You pick up your camera to snap a few photos, testing the recipes you had looked up from home. And god, wasn’t Japan so pretty?

But maybe it’s the wind, maybe it’s the temperature, maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, you’re drawn to her, again. It was just over a month ago since the incident. Yet miles away from your parents’ car, when Minji had her dagger delivered through your phone, and as the distance grew, you realized that it’s poisoned.

Should I check my block-list?

It echoes, even if you had no reason to do it. And you gave in, under that spring air: cold, dry, unrelenting, merciless.

You took a seat by a slanted cream walkway outside. A man was sitting across from you. He looked up, before going back onto his phone, nonchalant to your presence, and it’s like you could complain about it.

And immediately, you take out your phone, so eager to check your blocked accounts.

She changed her profile picture into something that you can’t even make sense of: her. Even under the face of the drawn character, you could feel her radiate through your screen. Locals and tourists are still marching towards their destination, either into the city, or a plane, unbeknownst to your internal collapse. It’s probably the way your face is always the same - concealing the tears so well - cheerful or devastated.

She moved on from you: her old persona shed, bio rewritten, era changed. Yet there you were, at least a sea away, crumbled into pieces.

Perhaps it was time for you to shed a new shell.

–

“Minji will be here too!” One of your friends said.

It was the first time you had a sleepover at your friends’ apartment. Alcohols were, of course, involved. A bit of drunk chatting with your friends and walking around helped with the university-induced depression, which you, then freshman, naively dismissed as a normal thing. Then, you heard she would come for some lunch before you go back to the mundane routine you got yourself into.

“Heyyyyy.” You shouted into the room as soon as the apartment’s door was closed. She was sitting on the sofa in the middle of your friends’ studio-sized room.

“Hey!” She seemed to look different from her high school days, crimson on her lips, longer eyelashes, paler cheeks. She wears makeup now, and you wouldn’t lie that it took you by surprise - how beautiful she was. It may have been contributed to the fact that you had just six hours of sleep the night before, but she was gorgeous that day, breathtaking even.

“God, I miss you so much.” You said, sitting down beside her on the couch, while looking over the screen of her ancient phone.

“Awww, thanks babe.” Minji blew you a kiss, irony, to which you happily caught. 

“Long trip?” You asked, knowing how far she is from the city.

“Hour and a half.” She murmured.

“Sorry about that.” You chuckled, laying your back on the couch. It’s a display of your insufferable narcissism as usual, a humble smugness.

Your friends were too busy on their phones, waiting for a member to finish his shower before taking a trip into the city.

“No need, I’m here to see you.” Minji beams.

“Thanks, Minji.”

Not that you haven’t seen love blooming in front of you before, it’s just that you can’t grow the petals to display your stern sentiment. It has been, to say the least, difficult for you to express any tinge of compassion.

–

“ROMEO TAKE ME SOMEWHERE WE CAN BE ALONE, I’LL BE WAITING ALL THERE’S LEFT TO DO IS RUN.”

It’s only the two of you screaming between the other guys in the karaoke room. Even if it’s Taylor fucking Swift, she still seems to be threaded just between you two.

“YOU’LL BE THE PRINCE AND I’LL BE THE PRINCESS, IT’S A LOVE STORY BABY JUST SAY YES.”

You were pointing to each other, with others baffled by how enthusiastic you were.

Both of you kept going like wannabe singers until the end.

“WE WERE BOTH YOUNG, WHEN I FIRST SAWWWWW YOU.”

And the song ends, leaving only you two sharing the only spotlights in the room.

“Minji, fuck, god, that was great,” you panted, trying to catch your breath after screaming Love Story.

“You should thank me for listening to only English songs,” she scoffs, smiling at you.

You attempted to make a cute face, sarcastically. “Thanks, Miss Kim.”

“It’s my job to listen to Taylor Swift for you.” She bowed and smiled.

It’s always the irony-infused conversations, but deep down, you know you could trust her, at least once you do. So many of your problems were solved by her. Just tell them directly, just do this, just do that. And if you didn’t even want to, she’d take your place to show how competent in the field she is, just for you.

As your friends continue with the songs you two can’t capture the lyrics, you slid yourself towards her. “So, how’s the med school?”

She finds the words to answer the completed question for a while. Your other friends are still screaming their lungs out. “It… fucking sucks, yeah, it beat my ass back to high school.” She’d frowned at her script.

“I guess so, I shouldn’t have asked, even. We should talk about light things instead, I’m sor—”

“Don’t be.” Minji cut you off. “It’s fine, I needed a place to vent, anyway.”

The mood, again, swung into glee along with the background. “Oh, so what, Miss Kim, you’re going to use me as your personal venting tool now?”

As if you predicted your future.

“I might, if it doesn’t get better.” She’d snickered at her own comment.

Your expression softens to sympathy. “Well, I’m here. Miss Kim, Go ahead.”

“Really? We can chat about this later, to be fair” She negotiated your offer, not wanting to ruin the mood.

You pondered for a moment, as the song came to an end. “I suppose so, wanna pick the song?”

Minji smiled. “Sure.”

It was these small moments that you kept digging up, even if it is surrounded by smiles and laughs. I wasn’t kind enough to her. I said the wrong things. I was selfish. And it slowly grew into something far more sinister. I am a bad person.

–

“Okay, I’ll post this and tag you all.”

After the group selfie, it was time for you to go back to your regular depression-inducing activities at university.

“I have to get going now. I have class tomorrow morning.” Slightly annoyed by the time restraint, it’s evening now.

“Don’t forget to tag me~” Minji would speak out, playfully, a façade for the fear of being excluded.

“What if I do?” You pointed a finger to your chin.

“I’ll block you, that’s what I’d do”

“Aww, I’d be so sad.” You sarcastically pouted, before giving a farewell, “Bye, babe. Bye, everyone.”, waving.

“See ya.”

That was the last time you’d see her face.

Upon reelings, you can only recall the words as a vague, half-hearted goodbye. Oh how you felt so secure with her back then you just gave some shitty farewell, unbeknownst to how it would stick with you as her final image of you – the fact that has been gripping you tightly ever since.

–

Maybe, in a way, it is to broadcast the insides of your heart to the world. It’s always been what you do best. You found yourself sitting down in front of your laptop, pondering on the word choices. You were walking on a minefield of words, avoiding repetitions that would make your readers groan at such occurrences.

It could’ve been easy - the one who left was the villain, and the one who found you is the typical manic pixie dream girl any man would want. You would boast it when you meet her again, saying something along the lines of “I won the breakup.”, or “Guess who’s crying now.”. It’s quippy, snarky, made-ready, and gives some sense of revenge to the readers, and to you.

It’s not hard to give in to the waning under the half-lit moon; the vengeance is too alluring. Still, perhaps it was that single, small spot in the dark sky - the one that keeps on flickering a signal. And it was decrypted into the ending you didn’t want, acceptance, even if the creeping clouds are slowly curtaining the sky. The star keeps on flickering, to guide you.

And you followed it. The piece didn’t get as much recognition as you’d like, as the grudges were, even if partly, let go, and only mentioned as your thorns. Yet, that day, those spikes were shed, for a new shell to form to protect you from your own hatred.

–

Three: Feels Like

–

Met you at the right time

This is what it feels like

–

You were told that it’s going to be some kind of joint committee between universities. And so, as one of the chosen, you are here, in such rare occasions of being in a suit. It’s tiring - you just got off from your senior project, internship is approaching in a week, right after the Christmas holidays. Yet, being given a few activity hours from your university isn’t a bad offer at the time.

Some classical music you’ve never bothered to look their names up were sent through speakers; they probably couldn’t afford a real band. The grandiose, dimly blue-tinted-lit hall was occupied by hundreds of representatives. Waiters were walking back and forth to corporate demands for the food and drinks. The sounds from all kinds of conversations are lighting this ball up. It’s, from a whim, lively for now.

As always, you felt out of place here. You’ve never been the type that would slot into a conversation with ease. Every word you say might be interpreted as an insult, a showboating of your dull wit. So, silence seemed to be the best choice here. You can’t have people see you as some lowly, dense, out-of-place ordinary guy.

You kept checking your watch, anxiously, it should have been eleven when you were to leave, and time gets slower on purpose. Words around you were slowly, but surely on its way to push you to your edge. There were a couple of people from your university too, just that they were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they are in the toilet? Maybe they can talk to strangers? Maybe they don’t want to be around you?

With every second ticked, an uneasy feeling crept up your body with confidence, eager to take control. Your eyes were stuck to your phone, with right thumb swiping short videos after another. Each one elicited a dopamine shot to keep the shadows at bay, but it could do just that. You know this stuff is going to shave off your attention span bit by bit, but not faltering in front of everyone now just matters more.

Until-

“Sorry.” A stark, yet tender voice shook you, despite its message. You expected someone to come take you into their company, but it’s still a long way to go to get rid of this shell.

You turned your head back until she’s in your vision. A short-haired woman stood before you, around your age; her lips formed a weak grin. Her left hand was holding an empty plate, though with a few hints of red velvet’s frosting on it. “Can I have some more cake?”

Her right hand was in her blazer pocket.

You realized you had been standing in front of the cake stand for the last fifteen minutes. Fuck, this is embarrassing. You immediately moved away from the front table. What if I was seen as some fucker guarding all those cakes?

“What’s with that face?” 

“Uh—uh—” Being heavy in your thoughts can sometimes send some erratic, unwanted instructions to your facial features. This Fuck, this is embarrassing ordered the classic eyebrow squints, and a slight mouth frown.

“Are you seriously getting mad because I told you to move a bit?”

Ok, ok, shit, what the fuck is happening now. You were lost, failed to come up with a response. Those doe eyes were sure to be flammable with how you can feel trickles of sweat on your forehead now. First, you were all by yourself in what’s supposed to be a networking opportunity, and then this. This is how you are going to be viewed by these people now, an entitled, selfish asshole. A real chance pulled away from a single mistimed expr—

She pulled you back with her contagious simper. “I’m sorry. I was j—” She broke into another chain of laughter; there’s no reservation in those, like at all. “I was just fucking with you.” She put her right hand to cover her gaping mouth, while swaying her upper half back and forth like it was the funniest shit she has ever pulled. 

You may have just felt the largest absolute emotional slope in your life - it doesn’t really matter in terms of good or bad, just closest to being a straight line. You let out a shaken sigh, then, without knowing, you can’t help but start laughing with her in unison.

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect you to be s–so anxious about that.” The hilarity subsided, as she was starting to regain her composure.

You replied with some remnants of the previous guffawing. “It’s fi—ha, ha, it’s fine.” Still taking in what’s just happened.

You finally got a proper look at her. And on that exact night you first met, she wore a gray blazer, perfectly compatible with her decent height, just a few inches shorter than you – did she get it tailored? The navy wide-leg pants she had on her really gave her this “young and rising executive” look. Her short hair was a bit messy, probably from all the walking and talking she had while finishing that poor red velvet cake. 

Her nose was supposed to be the part that had you gawked, with how its bridge was flawlessly sculpted while still fitting with every other part on her face. And with the crimson lipstick on her plump lips, those features alone, perhaps, had Aphrodite working overtime. 

Then, just a bit above those, her hazel eyes, the ones that will have you gladly trapped in it for hours. The sunsets you will be sharing is going to be reflected in her eyes, as you bring your face closer to hers, to realize that she’ll be the person you can, and want to spend the rest of your life with.

(We still need to come back to the first night though. You haven’t gotten much more of her personality than that joke.)

“So, aren’t you going out and talking to someone?” She asked, her right hand using the cake server to pick up the lone chocolate one in the center of the table.

“Well, uh, it’s kinda hard to explain” You gestured your hands into an “I don’t know” pose, moving them up and down a little to imitate a weighing scale, as if you know what’s on both sides.

She puts on her curious face, staring straight into your eyes, trying to pry out an answer. “Try me”

You tried to hit back with your straight face, ready to not give in to her request, but to no avail. Her stare was getting even more intimidating. God, that gaze is strong.

“Fine.” You replied, as she giggled with her victory.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” She furrowed her eyebrows. She really looks like a confused bear with that face.

“Never have the courage to do it.”

“Well, you look like you have enough to talk to me.” She cuts the chocolate cake with her fork, before putting the piece into her mouth.

“That’s because you’re the one initiating.”

“Oka—“ She tried to reply with a stuffed mouth, but the content was still too big. She chewed it a bit more with her right hand covering her mouth, the other putting a stop sign on you. “Okay? And am I wrong for doing that?”

“No! I—“ Her right hand moved to her waist; she was burning you with her eyes, cheeks still moving. It is important that you don’t say the wrong words here. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome~” She twisted the last syllable into a melody, before letting out a cute giggle. “I’m Haewon by the way. And sorry for fucking with you a little too much.” She offered a handshake, which you reluctantly accepted. 

You suspected that there’s something weird with her then, with how chatty she was with you. Who would be going around, talking like this to other people?

It turned out a few years later that you’re the weird one.

“Aren’t you supposed to have some friends with you?” Haewon continues her pressing on you.

Shrugged, “Yeah, but I lost them like an hour ago, so—", as you fanned your eyes around for the umpteenth time of the night. The crowd rumbled, but still no sight of your peers. “I really have nowhere to go.”

Haewon kept switching her gaze between you and the crowd, as if to make more topics and banters out of it.

“You wanna join?” Haewon finally locked you within her sight; her thumb pointed away, into the uncertainty of the crowd.

“Uh—" 

It’s one of the few times you picked the right choice, even if it was clear as day.

“Let’s go then”

Joy gleamed her face, “Great, follow me”

Along with Haewon, you walked with her into the crowd. You bumped into some people who are apathetic to your action, and some even give you an understanding look, unbothered by your mistakes. The classical music blaring around seems to calm everyone down.

You’d finally reached a group of similarly-dressed students. “Welcome back Haewon, what took you so long?” One of them muttered out.

“Him.” Haewon replied, while looking at you and beams a smile.

–

Four: Cutie

–

Woke up in your orbit

Now where do I start?

–

Eighth wonder of the world: how the fuck can you secure a date with the royalty, Oh Hae-Won. You were aware – made known by her friends teasing you during a few group dates, knowing how Haewon has been spending a lot of time on her phone lately, too often with a grin on her face. 

“Hey” Haewon appears behind you in a sudden, voices in your head are now scattered.

A little shocked, “Hey”.

White tee, brown, modern crossbody bag on her shoulder, light navy jeans, hair a little shorter from that day, topped wi—

“Haiyah!” Haewon calls out, snapping you out of your trance. “You’re doing that again, aren’t you.”

“Doing what?” You replied, hoping she didn’t notice your pondering, borderline ogling on her choice of garments.

“Thinking.” She taps her head lightly. “Like you were being hypnotized or something.”

Rebuttal, “No, I wasn’t?”, and your eyebrows are marred.

“Yes, you were. And the first time I met you was also like this; you were lost in your head, and staring at me like you were trying to gauge something out of me.” She retorts with an arrogant chuckle.

“Alright, alright, fine, I’m a daydreamer, and what’s the problem with that?” You deflect the guilt. Shit, what the fuck did I say?

“Well—" Haewon nibbles her chin while finding the word. “People don’t really like being stared at, you know.”

“Yeah, that’s a fair point, my bad.” The people pleaser inside you got the better of the debater.

“Hey, look, let me give you some advice.” Determination sparks in her eyes, her hands holding on to the string. “Don’t think, just—do it, or feel it, you know.” You aren’t quite sure how to play along with her words. “The reason I’m here today is because I see something in you, and I’m sure you see something under this pretty face.”

And it’s true, Haewon sparks a sense of an adventurer inside you, even if they’re through internet lines. She brings up quite a number of places in the city you’ve never even heard the name of, and thinking of the list is, to say the least, nauseating. But under the boulder, your determination to match her venturesome nature isn’t crushed after all.

“You’re speaking like one of those life coaches, you know.” You sarcastically reply with a chuckle.

“It’s called encouragement, get used to it.” She nicks your shoulder softly. “Shall we start the walk?”

“Sure.”

–

You two stride along the road, catching the sight of other sightseers, both local and foreign. Graffitis are etched into the walls by your sides, interspersed with numerous coffee shops aimed to lure gen z customers with their furnishings. And one seems to work on you guys, because you now have an iced thai tea, while Haewon has a matcha latte, also iced.

“So.” You cut the silence, taking a sip of your content. “Are you here often?” It’s one of the more “talky” questions you can think of right now. Your head slightly turns towards her; your eyes during the rest (more than half actually) of the work to catch her in the bullseye of your vision.

“This is just my second time, to be honest.” She replies, drinking her matcha. “And I love how these buildings look; they probably look gorgeous on your camera, don't they?”

“It’s a good substitute for my Tokyo needs.” You scoff, scanning over the old houses around you.

“Oh yeah, those photos did look breathtaking, I can see why.” She brings up the photos from over a year ago, letting out a tiny smile in the process. “I’ve been to Osaka once actually.”

Surprised, “Osaka? How come you haven’t told me this already?”, she has never brought it up during the six months you’ve known each other.

“I can’t describe it as well as you, really.” Haewon looks down, still strolling at the same pace as before. “Plus, it was just for a project. We didn’t have much time for sightseeing.” She mutters out, eyes fixated on the ground.

“I think it would be fun, please?” A chortle escapes you, thinking it would let her know your enthusiasm.

It’s quite a clear day for a rainy season - hints of white clouds here and there, but never enough to rage against your first date. You two remain at a distance, still, leaving a gap between your shadows.

“No, no, you even laughed at the idea of it, I won’t tell you that.” She calls you out, whimpering as the sentence ends.

The next thirty seconds go by in silence, the two of you keep glancing at each other, evading contact at any signals. People pass you by as you walk, widening the distance between the tip of your fingers. Guilt, fear, uncerta–

“I won’t laugh again, I promise.” You give her an assurance, and that’s the best you can do.

“Really?” She looks up at you, catching your honest compassion.

“If it’s funny, I might.” You chuckle. “But I’m sure it was a good experience for you.”

“Thanks.” You lit up a grin on her face, as she’s getting all excited to tell you about her adventure.

“So, this was like three years ago, back when I had just finished my freshman year, it was a subway surveying thing.” Haewon starts her tale, with you two turning left, now walking to the river. “I went with a group of people, and it was mostly lecturing around the tracks, really.” She chuckles. “So we had just the evening for ourselves for like, a week.”

“We went to a firework festival on the first day. God, it was so fucking crowded, but the sparking lights looked spectacular. They did the color work well.” As she tells the story, you can’t help but get immersed in the words. There’s clarity in the way she recounts it, greatly assisted with how often she says “flickering”, “cold”, “bright”, “exhausting”, “overwhelming”, and much, much more.

“The wagyu just melted in my mouth.”

“The system was confusing, to be honest, like a spider’s web, but they helped me with that a lot.”

“Yeah, it was fucking cold, and I brought so many shorts because I underestimated late spring Osaka.”

You two walk past some more old buildings and a few more cafes, with her story as the melody. It sweeps your leg like a damn good movie. How vivid the atmosphere she’s enamoring you in, how she’s so enthusiastic in her reminiscence, and how she grins and narrows her eyes upon any mention of food.

After a while, the river is finally in your view, as she’s getting through her final day at Marble Beach.

“I pulled a friend I made there to see the beach with me, and he said that it changed his life.” She laughs. “It was beautiful, you really should see it.”

A soft smile escapes you. “Well, I kinda get him, really.” You two finally reach the cement barrier, heighting just on your hips. It’s not too short that Haewon would have to throw a life ring to you, yet not too tall to obstruct your river view, enough for you to rest your arms on it as if you’re posing.

“Yeah, the Odaiba Beach, right? I saw the photos, once you mentioned that.”

[More dialogue]

–

“How far is your stop?”

“Four stations.”

“Wow, I’m on six, then interchange to another four.” She sighs at the daunting route, knowing she’d be alone.

The carriage slightly shakes as it takes a small turn. Sight of people are only a few; both of you are holding onto a pole in the middle. You’re gathering all the willpower to keep your weak hand from falling onto hers.

Haewon is looking out the window in the same direction as you, eyes examining the view outside - nocturne. “Have you ever gotten bored of this?” She asks, turning her sight to face you still looking out along.

You ponder for a moment. “It looks pretty at night.”

“That’s true, but it’s not the question.” She replies. “And the way you talk is strange, you know that? Especially with how you answer questions”

“Probably from watching a lot of movies, I guess.” You deflect.

“See? You did it again!” She points at you, unbeknownst to the inadvertently closing distance between your hands on the pole. “It’s not a peeve or anything, really, but I see that you always answer yes-no questions with a reason, not directly yes or no.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve got this complaint a bit often. I have to say the same thing twice, or even thrice to a lot of people.” You reply.

“They probably expect a yes or no, perhaps?” Haewon ends the playful nudge with a chuckle. “I don’t mind though; I can catch your words.”

You can only smile in response. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to do that for a while.” You laugh, in a volume that wouldn’t make it echo inside the whole train.

“Woah, getting daring just being with me for a day? I’m having a good influence on you~” Haewon playfully takes a jab.

“You’ll have a lot of influ–” You pause. “That’s the same joke, yeah, that’s the same joke, I’m not saying it.”

She laughs, not quite as contained as yours, attracting a few looks onto you. “Yeah, I’ll see my schedule first.” Her laughter would dissolve into a smile. “I think I can sort out a few things for us.”

Us. You can melt right here and now. The way she says it so easily is just too attractive. What does she think of me? Are we a thing now? Should I kiss her?

“U—Us?” You stutter out, mind flayed.

Haewon is locked onto her calendar. “Yeah, I know I’m not that good at planning but—” She meets your eyes. “Oh.”

[You are blushing and there’s going to be a kiss at the end of this chapter.]

–

Five: Party Police

–

You don’t have to leave

You can just stay here with me

Forget all the party police

We can find comfort in debauchery

= = =

The sound of the air conditioner fills the room, emulsified with your anticipation, forming a perfect cadence. The air between you is a mixture of both minty breaths you insisted the two of you to take a spearmint candy, the gender-neutral-honey-scented body wash both of you used in separate shower sessions, and the summer breeze air purifier Haewon bought from your first trip to the convenience store together.

You two are inside her room, sitting on the queen-sized bed, hands clutched between the hole your tangled legs make.

Haewon’s lips are slightly parted, as if their owner is about to make out a sound, yet the whirring fan blows any of her half-thought intentions away. And instinctually, to which you realized a few blinks later, yours are also making their own gap, and the whirring fan blows any of your half-thought intentions away.

“I—" Haewon would be the first to stabilize her frequency, ever so mildly fluctuated by your proximity. “I love you.” She can only confirm it in a whisper, barely vibrating the dormant air around you.

Yet, it seeps in, perhaps by the sincere nature in her voice. Haewon has never looked this fragile before, and your next move can actually ignite her neurons with blue flame this time.

“I—I love you t—too.” Flushed, presto heart rhythm, you muttered out these simple words. Resting air now shook with the expressions.

You’ve kissed her many times before, the end of the first date, the middle of the second date, the start of the third date, then a full on make out session during one of The Academy’s International Film nominees, with an unknowing crowd in the theater (it helps that the movie is quite a rare action triumph, so that the wet smooches of your lips are buried under clips after clips being unloaded, and the bullet cases clanking on the floor). Though, never once has it ended with her uncontrollably uttering fucks or shits, or even deity names neither above nor under you.

Haewon starts to lean closer to you, wholeheartedly knowing that this won’t be a normal kiss. Her head tilts so acutely, barely deviated from the axis. The small, deep hum from her throat is unexpected, with her eyelids closed and all. Yet, who are you to say no to her proclamation of love.

The expectations are high, yours, hers, on this kiss to capture much more than your lips. It’s both of your first times after all. And with the contact, you can’t help but match her tone in lovestruck. Hands are still stationed, too afraid to take this further, until they aren’t yours that touches a face first. Haewon fondles your cheeks with both of her hands as the kiss ensues, persuading you to reciprocate, and you do.

Fervor rises along the ticks of all the clocks, Haewon pierces the gap you opened with her tongue, invading your mouth. You gasp in shock, signaling her to break off from the session.

“Shit, are you okay?” Haewon’s eyes enlarged, her breathing still out of rhythm.

Giggling, “No, no, no, just a little shocked, let’s continue”, as you initiate the action this time, hands holding her cheeks, tongue sweeping the insides of her mouth.

Again, fervor rises along the ticks of all the clocks, the sound of the kiss becomes the only thing you can hear now. It’s wet, a little salty, albeit ardent, and rapturous. 

And with an unknown source of bravery, your hand traverses down from her cheeks, grazing her neck. Haewon hums a minim into your throat as your fingers hit the ridge of her chest. And through the fabric, you give her left mound a squeeze, eliciting another two-beat note from her. Tender, addictive are the first few words as your fingers sink into the cloth, and the desire arises.

Your voice, muffled through the kiss, and raspy in hunger, asks such a bold question. “Fuck, God, Haewon, may I suck on them?”

Haewon would hum another note into your mouth, before unlatching from the torrid endeavor. “Make me moan, and don’t use your teeth.” She commands.

It’s all instinctual now, don’t think, just feel echoes. You playfully push Haewon onto the bed, eyes focus on your targets. The rhythm of her ragged breaths now takes over the room.

You run your hands down her luscious curves, feeling every hill and hollow on the fabric, before hitting an edge. ”May I?” As you grab the hem of her shirt, so eager to expose her.

”Of course, babe”

Permission granted, you swiftly pull the edge of her garment up, with her putting her arms up for easy exposure. The stream of the sight of her somewhat toned midriff, perky chest, and collarbones runs through your eyes, and it’s almost too heavy to take it in. “Fuck.” And you can only give a profanity for it.

“I know, right?” She responds, chuckling.

Magnetized, and sudden, your lips latch onto her left, brown peak, coating her breast with your saliva. She complies with your action under you, letting out a symphony whenever your mouth is right at the top of her areola, right before leaving, then swallowing it again. 

The buds, excited, erect under your touch. This seems to go on for minutes. You keep switching between her left and right mounds, one hand kneading the mound that isn’t currently savored, with the other traversing her upper body, marking every square inch as yours. You won’t get bored of this easily, especially with her moaning this loud.

“More, baby, more” Haewon pleads. Her hands start to push your head onto her erect nipples now.

If you’re going to be honest, it tastes just like any other part of a human body: skin, with some honey aroma after the shower. Perhaps it’s desire, perhaps it’s ardor, or perhaps it’s love, maybe all of them together, you were drawn to them. Her writhing cries only fuel the attraction further, and the force you use with your lips.

Until–

“Fuck, fuck–, yeah.” She whines. “That–That’s good, but I want more now, baby.” Haewon mutters in the same pitch as her moans, unable to retain her usual deep tone. “You seem to– love my tits– a lot, don’t you.” Her talking is constantly cut short to make ways for the ragged breaths.

“Twenty-one years of drought, babe” You chuckle, turning your head to face hers, chin hovering above her hard nubs.

“You wanna use your mouth or your dick, huh?” Slightly annoyed, yet excited, and perhaps too lecherous that she comes off as a horny cutie joke bear. “I gotta cum first, or at the same time with you, isn’t it” She seems to be aware of how your body works, and she’s right. You don’t wanna risk being unable to get yourself up again within five minutes, while she waits, unattended.

”Damn, babe, you’ve come prepared.”

”No?, I’m gonna come with you here!” She lets out another laughter, breaking the lustful mood a bit. God, she just can’t go a minute without making a joke. Her pursuit in digging any giggles out just kills you every time, even if that means the problems were hardly addressed, tingling a small part of you on the occurrences.

You sink into the glee with her. “Oh fu— fuck off babe.” But this lustful tryst just drives you into a whirlpool right now. You quickly dispose of your shorts (why the fuck would you guys even wear clothes if you’re just going to fuck after???), freeing your delirious digit.

“God.” Haewon stares at your erect cock in awe, twitching, a glint of concern in her eyes. You wouldn’t say that it’s exactly big, but it’s enough to make her gulp. “Do I have to take all of this?”

“I’ll push slowly.” You replied, panting from the brimming anticipation.

Without a word, Haewon yanks her shorts away. Another stream of her eden, thighs, and the full lower body strikes you. And Haewon is now bare in front of you, glowing, despite her cheap light hanging above. You want to cherish this moment forever, freeze it in time, or at least just slow down a bit. Oh Hae-Won trusts you enough to expose herself, fully, in front of you. And you aren’t sure which gesture can compare to this as her proclamation of love (maybe a marriage proposal, but let’s not get into that yet).

“I thought you’d do it slower”

“All that foreplay got me so fucking turned on, babe, plus, I’m not on the shy side.”

“The nipple sucking?”

“Yeah, that meal you just had. Also, take off that shirt, I wanna feel all of you.”

Ordered, you hastily get rid of the last piece of garment, tossing it into the void, following your shorts. Both of you are now fully naked, only the cold, compressed air is your barrier now.

“Good, now come here” She says with a wink, provocative, commanding, yet so greedy. Haewon is resting on her back, with her elbows lifting her abdomen just a little from the bedsheet, enough to face you without much eye movement, smiling with desire. She bends her left leg a little, and it drives you crazy. 

Fuck, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, perhaps ranked among the gods: Hera, Artemis, Athena, Hestia, and Haewon’s victory is a certainty. She can even go bar for bar against Aphrodite, her own creator, under this cheap room lamp. And you can’t just wait to be tied to this lady with her deity-defying charm with such an intimate act.

“You want my cock that bad, Miss Oh?” You slowly, to make it a tease, slide your knees against the bedsheet towards Haewon, getting closer to her, inch by inch. Haewon opens her leg, giving you permission and space to be in her proximity. Her eden is now in view, glistened with arousal. 

“There’s just this thing, ma’am, that I wanna take a sample of first.” Playfulness is attached in your message. She’s still on her elbows, heads slightly tilted at your defiance, as if you also have a god-challenging act in your pocket as well. And with some more inspection, it’s apparent that Haewon isn’t a firm believer in having cleanly-shaved hair, and somehow, this kind of nature just drives you into a frenzy.

“And what is it, mister?” Haewon asks, still with seduction, eyes locking on yours.

“You.” And without another word, you dive face first onto her wet, needy sex. Your nose is pressed against her mound, pubic hair brushes against it, but the “distraction” never succeeds in repelling you away. Further, it feeds the ferocity inside you to take in her scent, with a deep breath. With the sight alone, you thought you reached your limit, yet, spellbound under her musk, a hint of sweat, the honey-scented body wash, and her mildly tart aroma from the inside sends you into a literal mind break, like a morning coffee. Haewon is fucking addictive, and you can’t go a single day without her smell.

“She s–smells good, doesn’t s–she?” Her voice starts to quiver again, as your nose tickles her hair.

Meanwhile, your tongue, with a mind of its own, is lapping up her nectar, savoring the salty, tangy taste of her canal. Her sensitive nub, the one you’re sure it’s clitoris, is now stuck in your philtrum. Every swipe just grazes it, eliciting squeals from her.

“F–fuck.” Haewon cries out, starting to get lost in her immediate pleasure, “Ah.”, and your enthusiasm. “Just f-five minutes babe.”

Mouth busy in a sinful act, you hum an affirmative note out. Her vagina is now coated with your saliva, mixed with her lubricant. And with each time you pull yourself out, there’s sometimes a string of the cocktail connecting your lips to her sex - a thread between you and her.

At first, it’s a savoring session of her taste, for you, but as her wailing grows louder, you can only be curious about the limit. And without hesitation, you give her clitoris a brush - the same way you suck her nipple. As your lips contact, delicate, her moans would reach such a forte to the point you’re quite sure that everyone in the dorm would be able to hear.

Conspiring her frustration, “Want a few more, babe?”, you retreat your ministrations to her pale thighs, making a few marks here and there, robbing the pleasure that was once hers.

“Fuck you.” Haewon groans out. “Please, keep eating my pussy, please.”

You bring your fingers into play, caressing her inner trunks. And, with instinct, you slip yourself under her ass. Your eyes are still locking on her wet hole, and she seems to gush out streams of honey now. “Y–You are f–fucking insuf–” She moans out as you relentlessly withholding the release she deserves.

“Can’t hear with my hands under your ass, babe” It’s as if something possessed you into a womanizer, a shot of complacency.

Haewon would be able to muster up her remaining inhibition to define you with an adjective. “I–Insufferable.”

“That’s a little mean.” Your hands give her firm butt a squeeze, feeling the soft flesh. This is probably how Indiana Jones felt when he got his hand on the golden idol: like an ascendant. “Considering how soft your ass is.” You lick just beside the spot, motioning parallel to the pink labia.

Haewon groans in frustration, climax stolen by a thief. “Sh–shut the fuck up and put that tongue to use!” In forte, all the pent up energy can crush you into bits and pieces in minutes, while you are still drawing circles around your supposed target, pushing her to the edge of wrath, right before it turns into destruction. “FUCK!”

You are actually scared of her now, and perhaps the complaints of her neighbors about some tenant bossing a guest around in the nocturne. So, complying, you put your tongue to use, taking another sample of the mixture, tasting her and yourself again.

“Good boy, yeah, like that.” She whimpered out, being put back en route to paradise.

Constant pace, don’t go too fast. You tell yourself an advice you’ve read somewhere years ago, and you do as it says. You try to keep the speed the same, but it’s starting to get harder as Haewon decides that she needs something to hold on to, which is, unfortunately, your head. I once had a guy go too fast when I told him I’m gonna cum, and that was the ride down, my mood died completely. A comment you’ve seen somewhere pops up.

Your jaw can never get tired, if it is to devour her into ecstasy. But the force pressed upon your head is starting to be a double-edged sword to her, a place to hold on to, and the act that might close the golden gate.

The five minutes she gave earlier might come into use.

“B—babe.” You cry out between licks, voice muffled. “I wanna use my cock now.”

Haewon lets go of the grip she has in your hair locks, as she looks down from her lying position. “Really?” Expectations running high, she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Alright.” She thwarts her arm along the bed for a little while, a little lost, until she catches her colorful spot-covered pillow. And without any word, you help Haewon lift her hips up to insert the fluffy object below, bringing her puckered hole into your focus.

Tranced, “Can I taste it?” the words fell out without any restrictions.

“Don’t fucking kiss me again if you do; I don’t wanna taste my asshole.” Haewon commands, trying to regain her composure. “Maybe another day.”

You whine out. “Ugh, fine.” Before getting on your knees for the main event.

You use her spread thighs as a handle while aiming with your eyes. You line up your twitching digit on the center, resting it on her now-swollen clit. And a small whimper from Haewon would reach your ear, fueling your fire.

“You want this inside you, huh?” You tease, sliding your shaft against her core from the outside, glazing yourself with her honey resting on the nub.

“Fuck… yeah, I—I want it inside.” Haewon chokes out at your heavenly connection; her attempt at putting any façade is crumbling.

Slowly, your rod still above her center, you traverse your hands up her immaculate legs, onto her stomach. Her breaths are now short, out of any earlier rhythm, as your touch starts to overwhelm her senses. “F—fuck.” You’d only move upwards, creeping up her beautiful chest, until they are up for your hands to conquer. She’s yours now.

Now, you have her tits as a grip, ever so carefully fondling them while slowly juggling the movements: your hands squeezing, your hip thrusting, and your upper body leaning in to see her giving in closer and closer. It’s all there, eyes fluttering, lips shaking, loud moaning, and her whole firm frame writhing under you.

You aren’t going in for a kiss, really, but she forces you nonetheless. Hands gripping the sides of your head, Haewon would scream from the overstimulation, all restricted in your mouths, into you, letting out any control she has left.

“Babe.” You mutter out. And even slightly distorted by fervor, she’d break off from the locks under your voice.

Mouth agape, she looks into your eyes, using the final bit of her inhibition to predict your next words. “You can put it in, baby.” And you can only smile.

You guide your rod down to her engine, but neither of you has ever been more ready to ignite the moans. Your left hand has her thigh on the same side as a handle.

Wet, indeed, she welcomes you. The excessive preparation gives easy access, and you become the same groaning lump as she was, swallowed by rapture. In the wake of bliss, you tilt your head down until the sight of your disappearing cock is in the frame, inch by inch. 

The insides of her tighten when you reach halfway, and you can feel your tip grazing a rough patch. “Fuck!” Haewon’s body tenses up, and she lets out a higher note than usual. You also pitch a sound lower than hers, but also noticeably higher than your regular octave.

You slowly bury yourself up to the hilt, now able to let go of your flesh. Haewon stutters a moan out when your patch makes contact with her. 

“S–Seems like you can handle all of me, babe.” Your voice is quivering, without any movement to your body. You keep yourself whole with her.

Haewon can only whimper in response. 

“I-I’ll start fucking you now.” You say as you start to grind your hips back. Haewon nods, giving you the right to control the pace.

Your cock, at an agonizing speed, comes back into view. You can feel the muscles inside gripping you and how the rough patch grazes the top of your digit, evoking staccatos from her. God, anyone would kill to be in your position right now.

And at the halfway point, it’s where you push back in again, still carefully. Haewon surrenders any power she has now, with her g-spot being pleasured by another person for the first time. The suffocating squeeze she has on you persists, sending waves of pleasure around your dick.

It becomes a loop: retreat and thrust, retreat and thrust, and you finally find your rhythm. It’s ecstatic - the way her flesh embraces you. You repay her accommodation with a little angling, aiming for the sensitive patch in the second step. Both of you are lost now, blinded by the passionate endeavor you’re engaging in.

Haewon’s brain can only register euphoria, howling as your tip brushes against the g-spot. And you are no better, bucking hips back and forth, chasing your release while huffing out such notes you could hit before the existence of your Adam’s apple. The only concern now is that your roller coaster would reach its peak before hers.

“Hey, I t–think I’m gonna c–cum now.” Haewon’s words came out tattered, divided by exaltations in her groans. It's a heaven’s message, as you can also feel your climax close by.

Keep your pace; don’t go faster.

You make no attempt to go rougher with your drilling; she’s already a blushing, wailing mess under Allegro Vivace. You can also feel a knot starting to form inside of you, begging to be untangled. “M–Me too, babe.”

Haewon’s moans become even louder than the oral session minutes ago; her orgasm is close by. You can feel the way her vagina contracts around your movements, and you aren’t far from it, either.

Two lost souls search for intimacy, and they eventually find each other. And the mistakes they’ve made don't matter anymore. The people they’ve passed through, either able to find solace or dissonance, have become nothing more than a plot device to drive them forward, for them to meet. And even if the future remains clouded, it’s just them at this exact moment, becoming each other’s sanctuary.

“FUCK!” Haewon cries out. As her hip convulses, bending your digit slightly. She pulls her legs back, feet touching her pale ass before they go up in the air. Haewon cums, violent, ferocious, cathartic. Her whole body tenses up; her tits are shaking. Her walls tighten around you, begging to milk every upcoming drop of you until dry. 

You take in the view but can only register a few words to describe how you feel right now: fuck, and god. She screams from the top of her lungs to accommodate such pleasure. And isn’t it a symphony that’s so pleasing to hear, knowing that they are products of your doings?

Haewon’s breathing starts to slow down, but seeing how she becomes undone beneath, you quicken your thrusts to chase the high you’re anticipating. “Fuck!” Under sensitivity, Haewon squeals.

“Do you want me to slow down, babe? I can still cum no matter the pace.” With care, you ask.

“I–I wanna t–try.” Her syllables come out in stutters, “Keep going.”,  as your length rams into her cunt even faster than before her high.

You keep your fast, lively tempo, and that seems to be the right choice. You can play the melody faster, yet you already fail to register all the fucks and shits, Haewon mutters out while being pounded. You’re guided by your intuition at this point. It builds up inside your stomach, calling to be broken free. You feel your legs wobbling like jello, and your awareness of whether there’s any left, opposite Haewon’s, has left your body already.

And with a single, final thrust, “FUCK!” you bend yourself down to capture her lips, screeching all the satisfaction from your high into her mouth. Spurts of cum released into her welcoming cunt, while you basically buried yourself inside her, twitching under orgasm. Haewon moans into your mouth at each of your vibrations. Lustful, your tongues are swirling inside each other’s mouth, tasting each other as much as you can.

Thick cum is still discharged into her, painting her insides with white. And slowly, you start to slide down from the precipice. Your cock still twitches inside her cunt; the remaining cum only dribbles out from the hardness now. The kiss remains magnetic; you two are too hungry for each other. You can only taste the mint candy from earlier.

Finally, it breaks, a string of saliva connects your lips together, as both of you are bathed in the afterglow. Haewon’s face is drenched from her own sweat, panting, and smiling. “I love you.” She mouths, trying to make sense of her heart rhythm, soft breaths touching your face.

You’re still panting, attempting to take in her words. Even if they’re the same as from the beginning, when the clothes are still barriers between you, it sears you this time. A lock has been solved, yet you are still questioning the contents inside the box.

Then, you realize that it’s your heart, “I love you too, babe.”, and it can explode right here. Love floods, lust flows, binding you two together, in the vast sea of possibilities.

Haewon smiles before pulling you into another kiss. This one is much less passionate than the ones preceding, but it’s, nonetheless, affectionate. The way she captures your lips is too confident for you to be unsure about the attachment she gives you, and that might be the first time in your life that you’re so certain of someone else’s love, and her name is Oh Hae-Won.

Exhausted and spent, you let yourself fall onto her side, looking up. Your left arm is resting on her collarbones. “Fuck.” Your vocabulary seems to shrink under ecstasy as the cadence rings too loud for you to think properly.

“That was fun.” Haewon scoffs, before turning her bare frame towards you, head resting on her hand. “We should do this more often.”

“Should? I’m fucking you everywhere, babe.” You reaffirm with a simper.

“Shit.” Haewon chuckles before seeming to remember something. She quickly gets up from the bed. “I’ll go pissing first. It’s this–”

“UTI. Yeah, I’ve read about it.” You cut her off to show off your knowledge of sex education. “Can we cuddle after?” You plead, attempting to make a cute face.

“Sure.” She laughs, pointing at you. “If you don’t mind having your back getting a bit wet.”, and you can only smile back at her. Haewon would saunter out to her bathroom with a slight limp, managing to sway her reddened cheeks. Fuck. 

And despite the low light, you can see drops of your cum, dribbling a shine down her legs. “Are you going to clean th–”

“No.” She winks before disappearing into the bathroom, leaving a trail of nectar in her path.

You bite your lip in another rise of your arousal.

–

You hear the sound of tap water running from inside the bathroom before the lock clicks. Haewon appears in front of your eyes again, still naked.

“I kept the promise.” She says.

Immediately, still on her bed, you press your vision down her body. Her pussy remains glistened with your white cum, mixed with her tangy lubricant. Perhaps your saliva is also blended into the liquid.

“God, Haewon.” Again, your mind goes blank. “It has been just five minutes. I really can’t do that.”

Haewon chuckles, swaying her alluring hips closer to you. “I know.” Before she pounces you on the bed, staining the sheets with your fluids. Haewon prints a few kisses here and there, usually in the proximity of your lips and neck. And, in disbelief, you watch over her body to see that the five-minute gap is enough for your cock to be ready again.

“Fuck.”

Haewon’s glance follows yours to your erection.

“Another round, babe?”

–

Six: Just Another Girl

–

Now why can’t I sleep at night?

And why don’t the moon look right?

–

Sunlight peeks through the gap in your curtains, casting on the blanket that’s covering any visual hints of last night’s debauchery. Her arms retain their restrictive nature, an environment you’d enthusiastically enlist for. Her fingers barely interlocking on your heart, feeling the thrumming lullaby she holds on to like the greatest hits.

Her chest is pressed against your back, and the fact that you notice this (and how you savored their peaks last night with such unbeatable hunger) only entices your morning wood to last longer than it should’ve. You snuggle into her embrace further, establishing yourself as hers and pressing yourself into her perky breasts even harder, wanting to feel every inch of them.

“Hmm?” Haewon finally wakes up, fading her tightness wrapped around you.

Slightly panicked, you grab her escaping hand onto your warm skin. “Hey.” And you greeted her.

Haewon chuckles. “Oh, this boy needs a hug, huh?”

You close your eyes and hum in agreement, since her embrace becomes another gesture you’ve grown to love now, even if it was discovered just a few minutes ago.

“How was last night, my baby boy?” She questioned you with a tiny simper.

You can only chuckle along. “Cathartic, babe, but I’m not doing the whole mommy thing right now.”

Haewon laughs. “Okay, fine, I’ll ask you properly later, though.”

The cuddle went on for minutes. You are unwilling to let her go after such intimacy you had. After a while, you notice the scar on your chest. This may be the time you show her, but you need bravery. And you’re not sure if love could muster it up.

[A paragraph demonstrating Haewon’s good influence on you and how you’ve influenced her]

“I wanna tell you something, with us being this bare and such.” You gathered a little courage to speak up, adamantly attempting to show her your so-called scar. 

Haewon would let out a tiny chuckle at your cheap joke. “Unload them to me, babe.” She lets out another tiny chuckle, resting her head on a makeshift stand of her fist. You can’t help but join along with her.

“Oh my god, fuck you.” You said, along with a laugh.

“You just did.” 

“Okay, okay, I’ll start now, don't distract me this ti—" You let out a small giggle, as she’s still soaked in her own hilarity. “It’s like seven years of story; trust me, it’s more fun than you’d think.”

“Seven years? Is it like, a long-term heartbreak or something, and what’s with you making everything into a story, catastrophic or not.” Haewon asks.

“Well—” You contemplate - whether to spoil the ending for her or not, but she can probably guess by the way you purposefully hold out the information in lieu of instantly answering. “Seven years ago, in late April, I just started high school.”

You can see the late morning sunlight reflected in her eyes, single-minded on your tale.

“You want me to close the curtains first?” You direct your thumb toward the gap.

“No need, plus, you look better with the light.” She smiles, sincerity can be felt from it, maybe it’s the way the light drapes on your right half of her face.

“Thanks, babe, okay, where was I— Yeah, seven years ago, late April, high school.”

–

“And then I met you.”

“You know that you’re the asshole in this one, right?” Haewon hits you with such a question.

Certainty of a weeping eluded, “Fuck, not even a single tear?”

“Wow, this lack of self-awareness is concerning, babe, and this is out of love.” She scoffs. “You’re the bad guy here.”

“Look, I’ve been telling myself about the same statement since that day, so yeah, Haewon, I’m aware that I’m the asshole in this story.”

“Were you hurt by it or something?” Haewon asks with genuine curiosity, she caught the sadness in your tone, yet unable to make sense of it. Her head remains resting on her fist, albeit making a ninety degrees apart from you.

“I— yeah, I know it was my fault, but—“ You avert her gaze, staring at the blanket covering her midriff. “It was five years, almost. And it still hurts sometimes whenever I see something that reminds me of her.”

Haewon would give you a blank expression; her next words are unpredictable.

“I kinda— get the idea? You can’t deal with college life, so she becomes a–no, the source for you to vent shit. And one day, it became too much, with that fight making it wor–no, apparent.” It’s nothing short of incredible that she gets all of it within the first iteration and gives you the much-needed feedback (even if you’ve already considered this possibility). 

“And she wants you to get better. She didn’t think she could be the person you could rely on anymore. This is how I see it.” With ease, Haewon recounts the most plausible explanation, the one you’ve been avoiding accepting.

“Yeah, it’s…” You resist the urge to argue with her point, realizing that such emotional manipulation cannot work. Perhaps the amount of self-awareness poured in just doesn’t work anymore. “You’re right.”

“There’re some points that I… kinda understand you? Like the whole being insecure stuff, but all of this is just a shitshow, babe. You even write a fic about it.” A tiny simper leaves her mouth.

“Spielberg made a film about his parent’s divorce; Taylor Swift has, well…”

“Steven’s was like… sixty years? And I think Taylor can be an asshole, to be honest, aside from All Too Well.” Haewon replied without a delay.

“Agree to disagree.” You can only sigh afterward, and maybe it’s the way your breath taps on her chest more heavily than it should or the way you avert the eye contact you’ve been maintaining.

“Hey, are you okay?” Her doe eyes hints concern, while the fingers lightly caress your cheek.

Destined, your tears well up just a little, but enough for you to detect and hold back. “Kinda.”

Haewon lets out a sigh, the back of her free fingers still fondling your cheek. “I’m sure you’ve changed.”

“It's been more than two years now.” Your lips quiver. “B–But telling you here, it’s just…”

Like the first time with your therapist, like the first time you tell your colleagues, your tears are always on the hinge as the story ends.

“I know I can’t fix it - this whole weird love-hate relationship of yours.” She finally sits up. “But I know you aren’t the person you were.” Your cheeks are suddenly cupped by both of her hands. “And as long as you… try to be better, I’ll be with you.” Haewon ends her speech with a caring look.

Nothing in her deliverance is poetry-worthy; they’re basic quotes you’d find in the self-help books. Though, the words not coming from some self-centered guy melts the cynic inside you, and that’s when tears start to fall.

“I also know that it hurts, even if you’re the one who’s wrong.” She softly cheers up.

Through the sobs, “Y–You’re quite di–direct, babe.” You try to wipe the tears off your watering eyes.

She lets out a sympathetic titter. “I’m not the best at this, sorry.”

“I-It’s fine. Thanks for being here.” You succumb to the lamentation, crying your heart out, as Haewon embraces you. Maybe it’s the way you’re naked on someone else’s bed, maybe it’s the way her chest presses up against your chin, or perhaps it’s the way she puts her leg over yours as if she’s using a side pillow, but you’ve never felt more vulnerable in your life. And you’re probably being engulfed by it under the right person.

–

Epilogue: Keeping Tabs

–

I wish I never met you.

You are the worst thing that I’m still

Keeping tabs on for some stupid reason.

–

“It’s quite a lot of stations, babe. Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah–”

It was your birthday two days ago. How old are you now, twenty-five? Three years after graduation, you rejected a job offer from Japan because you didn't want to leave your girlfriend. Not that it was a wrong choice, since the number of fights, sex, and after-fight, angry, heated sex between you and Haewon sits on the average rate. 

Further, not having to buy a plane ticket every time you want to see your parents, or your friends is definitely a plus. Just a few hours after the plane landed in Narita, you want to break Japan’s immigration law. God, those streets are miles better than what you have at home.

It seems that trying to reach Odaiba Beach from Meguro Sky Garden takes an hour, plus walking. Sure, it’s ninety minutes to sunset, but you can feel doubts in her voice and your own. It’s the few final days, and all of your words hyping this exact place up only make her feral.

“Maybe we can make it if we start walking now, instead of like– arguing over this.”

Haewon shoots you a glare. “This trip would go to waste if we can’t make it before sunset.” And she takes a step towards you, pointing at your chest. The sun still casts a long shadow of her on the ground.

“Waste?” You arch your eyebrows. “Says the one who spent a whole fucking day at Shinjuku to sweep Uniqlo’s stocks.”

The wind blows over the metal fence, assorted colors of leaves swirling around you.

Her eyes remain fixated on you, before giving an apologetic expression. “Yeah that’s fair. It’s a bit of a quickfire for me on that.” 

You snap a photo of her before replying. “Those cardigans are cheaper here anyway, don’t worry.”

She reaches for your camera, X-E4, examining the image of her, and smiles. “Let’s go.” Before leading you, handheld, to the elevator down from the garden.

–

“God.”

“It seems like we’re here at the right time” You speak, before taking another photo of Haewon, showered under the orange of the setting sun.

Haewon is left speechless at the sight in front of her: Rainbow Bridge, salmon sky from the sunset, tinged with clouds, some purple, red, orange. You think it’s probably from some kind of refraction. People aren’t scarce, but to say that there’s a crowd is an overstatement. It’s pretty much the same as in your memory from five years ago. How are the people in my photos doing now?

Similar to the last time, when the breakup was just over a month, you take in the view. It’s just that you aren’t basked in melancholy anymore. Sure, you’re still keeping tabs on her every few months, but it’s nothing more than a blocklist check. You aren’t ready to face Minji, really, and not seeing each other again would be a kind gesture by the gods. However, the hate etched into your wrists isn’t quite as visible anymore.

Still, you can’t play down her impact on your life. In spite of the indirect nature of the teachings, you learned how to love and what to do with one.

“I’ll be back, babe. I’ll see if I can swim to the bridge from here.” Haewon speaks out, like the first encounter, snapping you out of your trance.

Shook, “I’ll wait here; make sure not to get swept into the sea.”, and you joke, smiling.

“See ya.” Haewon grins back, gesturing a goodbye, before stepping out towards the water.

–

[A few paragraphs leading up to the encounter with Minji again; yeah, it’s a little anticlimactic for you to see this in your first read, sorry]

You failed to say a word to her, and there may not be any second chance for this.

It’s funny, miles away from where you’ve feared most. No soul in the world would’ve expected this. 

The sun continues on its path, too busy rushing to make its predetermined setting time, ergo apathetic to the colors it casts onto the sky and the way Minji is elegantly bathed by it. Her features are frozen, you alike, mouth slightly ajar. Waves crashing onto the sand keep filling in the silence between you, each encouraging your heart to push out a syllable you’re choking. There’s no battle on who would give in to snapping back into reality first since the argument on the encounter being a dream is too plausible.

Though less often as time goes on, Minji has been your recurring nocturnal figure. Occasionally, she appears as the one who has disregarded your cries during those final days – unresponsive, cold, unaware of your collapse. If not, it’s you and her enamored in what you’ve always wanted her to see, conversing like high school students again. Either way, you usually classify the world surrounding you as nightmares after the alarms are off, almost always with tears welling and ragged breaths, as if her presence alone is enough to give vitality to your nights.

But if this is a lucid dream, both of you would’ve laughed by now, under the Odaiba Beach sunset. Memories are washed away into the sea, making way for you to run along the shoreline, free from any grievances. You wouldn’t go as far as saying that it could’ve been her on the flight here with you, even if the potential of it touches you in more than one way.

The bewilderment of meeting her in where’s supposed to be your sanctuary hasn’t faded one bit. It clouds the fact that she has preserved her high ponytail. She grips her denim jacket ever so tightly while slightly parting aside from the center, revealing a pitch-black turtleneck shirt beneath. The brown string crossing her body is holding her likely expensive handbag resting on the side of her hips. All of these are topped with beige, all-creased pants, undercut with sneakers of the same color, or not, you don’t seem to care anymore.

Voice notes and texts are woven into a tapestry, the one you and she cut as your paths diverged. Yet, your threads, somehow, have been remaining set to interlock with each other again after all this time. The track was divided into a parallel, just with a sea of hatred, sometimes reflecting a spark of care.

It’s still clear as day, the way she left you blind, likely without remorse, any glimmer of hope was eradicated with blocks on social media. The way you tell the version of your story enough times for you to find the median and average spot where people would start to cry. And not that you were left unshaken with each iteration; you just stop before giving in to the sorrow hanging off the edge of your tear ducts. And at one point, it became another tale, a cult classic to you.

Still, this is no place and time to assert your wounds anymore. It’s Tokyo, and five years have passed. Getting one over her shouldn’t matter anymore, you know that. What’s left to achieve in triumph is just plunging the dagger into yourself once more, revisiting how shaken you have been without her for all these years. And three, you’re the one on the wrong side.

Plus, it’s not so awful that she left, even if it casts you in a state of bereft in the first few months. You deleted her photos, and both of you blocked each other. You learned to collect yourself up again, shredding what was once shared while coming to terms with the ones rooted in the essence of you, learning to let them be shared with others. The cadence doesn’t entirely sound like it was, yet it’s what you’ve accepted as days pass.

You still hate her; it’s a known fact. I fucking hate you rings true to this day - a half-thought during a fire burned into your wrists, calling out to be crossed off. Guilt, shame, and self-loathing have been rooting off it, yet you can’t bleed the source out.

In the shadows that the sun cast, you feel a twitch in the corner of your mouth - the determination to conceal any hints of glee at her presence is trying to keep itself afloat. Another gulp in your throat only delays the inevitable; your cheek is trembling from an unknown feeling. It’s teasing the brim. It’s tasting the uncertainty. It’s towering over your hatred. And it brings the nocturnal summer wind that embraced you on the first day at high school, the day she picked up her name tag when everything was in the right place.

“Kim Min-Ji.” Your teacher called as she stood up to pick up her name tag.

“I like you.”

And it flows through you–

“Him? Not really.”

“God, you suck at badminton.” You did “outscore” her by quite a margin (twenty-one to six).

–all the words you’ve said–

“I’ll probably be a doctor. You haven’t chosen yours yet?”

–all the words she has said–

“I think she’s the one.” (She wasn’t.)

“These early mornings are killing me.” Her high school project was killing her.

“Yeah, I can’t be bothered with all this studying. I’ll probably make some nice portfolio and pray.”

–all the dreams drawn together–

“If someone wants to enter here, they can just look at these pics and follow the instructions. It might not be for everyone, I guess. I still wish I could help them, though.”

“I really fucked up a lot during quarantine, like my mental state was dwindling.”

“Now I’m going to be a tired doctor all my life.” She scoffs, downplaying her success.

“This place is filled with rich people.”

–all the struggles vented–

“God, I look so pretty in this.” The red lipstick looks good on her; you wish you knew the exact shade.

“We need to recreate this photo; you stand here.”

“See ya.” She said, not knowing it would be the last time you would see each other face to face.

“Really fucking drunk right nowww, just wanna say you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, like definitely top five, haha.” It was a drunk text in a bar under the blaring music.

–all the love proclaimed–

“I’ll probably have to study another year. You’re still invited to my graduation, though. We’d be like twenty-six by then, right?” 

“I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have done that, too.”

“I fucking hate you.” The line that became a part of you ever since.

–and the ending.

“Don’t message me anymore; just go live your life separately. Have a pleasant life.”

Are you sure to delete 525 photos permanently?

This action cannot be undone.

Delete Permanently

It’s as if someone made a supercut of you two.

It's excruciating, the way it seeps through your brain, the same one that hung you to be ravaged by the abyss. A wave of serotonin washes over your face, sheathed within the Tokyo Bay’s serenity. And a smile forms, over five years of her name being a crucifixion. It’s you breaking the cadence, and you can only beg her to accept it.

Alas, you have never been in the position to ask for anything. You’ve always been the convict in the sad songs supposed to bury you under their alphabets, robbing the sorrow you meant to drown into. You are her mistake, one that she’s likely so enthusiastic to cross off in her diary.

Yet, under the setting sun, in such a foreign place, and after years of it, maybe she forgets, maybe she forgives, or perhaps she doesn’t care about it. But if even it is written in the sand of Odaiba Beach, it would also be etched on the same wound you see on your pulse, that Kim Min-Ji reciprocates your smile, with a chuckle even, back bent forward the same way you remember to accommodate such elation.

And free from conviction, you are. It’s not the late-night, thumbs-on-keyboard kind of relationship anymore, neither being two free spirits against the world; it’s two people, unshackled from grudges. It’s the closure in the same veins of La La Land, a tapestry of love remains, despite the zeroes and ones translated as blocks, plus the frontal lobe chemicals interpreted as detestations. There has always been a part of you that cares - under the miles of self-loathing from guilt and the despise entrenched in you.

As cued, the setting sun is refracted in the drop of tear grazing your left cheek. She seems fine, even if she’s drowned in her droplets, thirty, forty, or fifty—you aren’t sure anymore—meters away from the idyllic waves. It won’t be the same, and it can never be. Years of walling each other out only dims any remaining glimmer. But here you are, under the Tokyo sun, laughing and crying on such an unfortunate encounter.

You aren’t fourteen again. It doesn’t feel like the first day or the first words of you two. It’s two grief-stricken adults with a shared past. Both cannot hold on to their grudges, though, just you being an asshole for having them.

You aren’t her mistake after all, and she’s not your mistake anymore.

And it’s not witty, but it would suffice.

“Hey.”

—

“That was her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it? I see that you guys were kinda smiling.”

You ponder for a moment, a little too long before Haewon would ask again.

“It ends well, right?”

“I suppose so.”

—

I need to get over you.

—

[yan-lorkai]

Hello! :) I just really love all of your works for Hellsing and an idea popped into my mind. Could you write an Alucard x darling!Reader where Integra sends them on a mission to Brazil in disguise as a newlyweds on their honeymoon? I'm just sooo obsessed with his Riocard look, I thought it would be so fun to imagine! <3

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: To be honest I get you anon. He is so handsome in his RioCard form, with his little glass full of blood and wearing that suit 🤭💕💕. @marieisaghost

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Warnings: Yandere content, reader is unsettled by Alucard but both of them keep flirting with one another lol, mention of killing, gn!reader

"Lulu, you travel a lot, don't you?" You turn your face to stare at him, gorgeous smile already on his lips as soon as that little nickname left you. "What is it like in Brazil? How are the people?"

He thought about. Ancient as he was, Alucard was present to see or hear about all major events from humanity. And later on, to visit those same countries, as you two are doing now - hunting for a potentially dangerous vampire who climbed the stairs to the success, he was so important now, so powerful but Integra had her way of getting you and Alucard into one of his big parties.

After a few seconds pondering, Alucard glanced at his glass full of blood, long, dark hair hiding his eyes from you as he chuckled.

"The air smells like golden hour and the birds sing so loud, as if they wish for you to sing among them. The Brazilians are like fairies, if you will, as they can't lie but contour whatever promise they made with polite words and jokes. And the common folk are very affectionate." He sipped from his glass, little trinket of blood running down his lower lip before he could lick it. You laughed at that. "And their words sounds like a gentle song, so familiar yet so distante you can't quite remember where you have heard it."

The gentle hum of the plane's engines filled the cabin, the dim lighting casting soft shadows against the sleek leather seats. You sat beside Alucard, watching the clouds drift by through the small window. A moment goes by before you answer him.

"Quiet poetical, don't you think?" You mused, imagining the country based on his description. "Well, I'm looking forward to see it. We will be able to sightsee after the mission is done, right?"

Alucard turned his head slowly, he was still sipping from his glass, sometimes just shaking it to see the red liquid sway gently. His crimson eyes glimmered with amusement, lips curling into a slow, knowing smile. He always found your mortal, innocent optimism endearing — if not a bit naive. But he never discouraged it outright. No, he enjoyed watching you dangle the idea of freedom, without realizing he was the one holding the string.

He was the one who chose you for this role. So beautiful and all his, pretending to be his cute little spouse.

“Sightseeing?” Alucard repeated, his voice low, filled with the silky cadence you knew too well. He leaned back further into his seat, fingers steepled together as if considering your words. “That all depends. If the mission goes well and... if you behave, darling.”

You shifted uncomfortably, pretending to be preoccupied with the view outside. Sometimes Alucard took his jokes too far, the line between truth and joke unclear.

“Well, I just thought… if we’re pretending to be newlyweds, we might as well enjoy the facade a little more!” You explained your point of view, trying to sound casual. “A little sightseeing wouldn’t hurt. Husband.”

Alucard’s chuckle was soft but dark, a sound that sent a shiver down your spine. It was a beautiful sound yet terrifying in other circumstances. “Oh, you’ve been enjoying this facade more than you admit, darling” He teased, his eyes narrowing as he studied you. “Playing the role of my beloved spouse… It suits you.”

His words were laced with a possessiveness that you couldn’t ignore. You swallowed hard, your heart pounding as you tried to maintain composure under his piercing gaze. Alucard thrived on your uncertainty — on the way you balanced between curiosity and frustration in equal measures. He loved seeing you struggle. You knew that. He was an asshole like that sometimes.

“Maybe,” You replied softly, your voice barely above a whisper and your face heating up. Ultimately it was better to let him have this little win or he'll pout and throw a tantrum the entire time. “But it’s hard to keep up the act sometimes, you’re very convincing. I fear I won't be as convincing as you are.”

Alucard’s smile widened, a dark, predatory gleam flickering in his eyes. He leaned toward you, his cold fingers brushing against your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw with a delicate yet possessive touch. He seemed like he wanted to say something, a secret passing through his eyes, black long hair hiding his face like a curtain, and then he pulled back.

“Rest now, my love,” Alucard said, his voice softer as he reclined back in his seat but the command was clear. "We still have a few hours until we get there. And perhaps, I’ll indulge you with that sightseeing you’re so fond. There's so very interesting places that are open at night.”

You rolled your eyes. "Aye aye captain."

Yoou reached out, your hand sliding around his arm and tugging him toward you. His eyes widened slightly, not in surprise but in curiosity. You didn’t say a word, there was no need. All that mattered was the closeness, the warmth, even if it came from the cold embrace of a vampire. Without a word, you rested your head against his arm, and he allowed you to whatever you wanted, his lips curling into a soft smirk as he watched you for a few seconds.

/⁠～⁠♡

The private plane had landed hours ago, and the sun now hung low on the horizon, casting the hotel room in a warm, golden glow. You stood in front of the full-length mirror, adjusting the fabric of your outfit, a carefully chosen disguise for the next phase of the mission. The luxurious suite you were in felt almost too extravagant, too different from what you were used but trying to argument with Alucard was near impossível. And he wanted to stay at the most expensive place just for the sake of it.

Greedy vampire, you thought, he wouldn't even be able to sleep. After all, he's used to sleep at morning and you, as a Hellsing soldier, is more than used to sleep in whatever you can lie on during night. Extravagance was not your style.

Behind you, Alucard moved with quiet grace, his eyes fixed on you in the mirror. He had already shed his coat, his shirt untucked slightly, looking every bit the devilish rogue he was. He stepped closer, slipping a gloved hand around your waist, guiding you as you fumbled with the buttons on your collar.

"Let me," He asked, his voice low and smooth, as he brushed your hands away and began fastening the buttons for you. His fingers worked skillfully, but his touch lingered a bit too long. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, though a small smile tugged at your lips.

"You know, I can dress myself," You teased him, raising an eyebrow at him through the mirror.

"Of course you can," Alucard replied with a smirk, not missing a beat. "But why would I miss the chance to enjoy this view?" His hands slid up to adjust the collar, his eyes flickering with amusement.

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head. "You’re impossible, you know that?"

Alucard chuckled softly, his breath warm against your neck as he leaned in just a bit closer. "I’m many things, love. Impossible is only one of them." He finished with the last button, his hands lingering on your shoulders, fingers tracing the fabric as though he couldn’t help but touch you. You turned slightly to face him, a playful glint in your eyes.

"So husband, what's the plan?" You teased him, emphasizing the word, adjusting your sleeves as he watched you with that ever-present intensity. "Or you're just want to take care of everything alone while I stay helpless by your side, like a damsel?."

Alucard raised an eyebrow, his lips curling into a smirk. "Playing the damsel role certainly is fun but not safe. Besides it's counterproductive. I'II catch our target while you search his office for those documents."

You nodded, trying to think of ways to enter the target's office, but the warmth in Alucard's eyes made it impossible. His thumb traced small circles against your waist, and though you hated to admit it, his presence was comforting in moments like these, when the mission loomed large and the stakes were high. He knew how you soothe your worries and fears with just a few gestures.

"Focus, Alucard," You said, but your voice lacked any real conviction.

"I am focused," He replied smoothly, his lips dangerously close to yours. "Just… not on the mission right now."

You felt your heartbeat quicken, and before you could stop yourself, you leaned into him just a little, your fingers brushing the fabric of his shirt. "You’re incorrigible."

His eyes gleamed as he leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, his voice a low, teasing purr. "And you love it."

You laughed softly, shaking your head again as you turned back toward the mirror. "You’re lucky you’re helping with this mission. Otherwise, I’d leave you to flirt with yourself.

Alucard chuckled, stepping back slightly, though his hand never left your waist. "Oh, I can flirt with myself just fine. But it’s much more fun with you."

You met his gaze in the mirror, your reflection showing the playful tension between you two. Despite everything, the danger, the complexity of your relationship, moments like this felt oddly natural. Easy, even.

"Fine," you said, adjusting the last piece of your outfit and putting your weapons in their proper places. "After this mission and you taking me to sightsee, you should really take me on a date, Alucard. I wouldn't say no."

Alucard’s smirk softened into a more genuine smile as he pressed a kiss to your temple, his hand squeezing your waist lightly. "Whatever you want, darling. But until then…" His eyes sparkled mischievously. "We make quite the team, don’t we?"

You couldn’t argue with that. Despite the chaos, despite the danger, there was something undeniably magnetic about being at his side. Even if he drove you crazy half the time and acted strange sometimes.

"Yeah," You said with a sigh, a smile tugging at your lips. "We do."

The night air was crisp as you stepped out of the grand hotel, the city’s lights reflecting off the polished black limousine waiting at the curb. The distant hum of life in the city created a soft backdrop of noise, but here, in front of the sleek vehicle, everything felt quieter, more intimate. Alucard, as always, had his hand lightly resting on your lower back as he guided you toward the car.

“After you, love,” He said smoothly, his voice laced with amusement as he opened the door for you. His crimson eyes gleamed under the streetlights, and even in the dim evening, he looked effortlessly sharp in his tailored suit, dark and dangerously handsome.

You gave him a playful smirk before slipping into the limousine’s spacious interior. The leather seats were cool against your skin as you settled in, and a faint, luxurious scent lingered in the air. Alucard followed, closing the door behind him as he took the seat beside you.

As the driver began pulling away from the curb, the city lights blurred past the tinted windows, creating a dreamlike atmosphere. Alucard stretched his arm along the back of the seat, his fingers lightly brushing against your shoulder in a way that felt casual yet intentional.

“Excited?” hHe asked, his voice low and teasing as his eyes flickered to yours. “Or is it nerves I sense?”

You glanced at him, rolling your eyes slightly. “Excited isn’t the word I’d use. This is a mission, remember? Focus, Alucard.”

He chuckled, his hand sliding down to lightly squeeze your shoulder. “I’m always focused. It’s you who seems to be on edge, dragul meu.” His voice was a playful murmur, but there was that undercurrent of seriousness you knew all too well. He thrived in these high-stakes situations, while you, well, you preferred a little less danger and a little more simplicity.

You preferred a better plan, you preferred having more allies. Yet, you had to make it do with just Alucard by your side. Either way, you knew he wouldn't let you hurt yourself.

“I’m not on edge,” You retorted lightly, turning to face him fully. “I’m just thinking about the plan. We’re supposed to be subtle, blend in, gather intel. You remember the whole ‘don’t draw attention to ourselves’ part, right?”

Alucard’s lips curled into that familiar, devilish smirk. “Subtlety isn’t always the most fun, but I suppose I can behave for one night.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Of course, if things get boring, I might have to… stir the pot a little.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I prefer the term ‘charming,’” He corrected you, eyes gleaming mischievously.

The limousine cruised through the city, the lights outside glowing brighter as you approached the heart of the bustling nightlife. The party you were heading to was in one of the city’s most elite venues — a towering glass building that loomed in the distance, sparkling against the night sky. The event was exclusive, crawling with high-society types, all hiding secrets beneath their polished exteriors. You and Alucard were here to uncover one of those secrets.

As the limousine neared the grand entrance, you adjusted your clothes, making sure everything was in place. Alucard watched you with an almost predatory gleam in his eyes, though there was a softness in the way his gaze lingered.

“You look stunning,” He murmured, his voice softer now, devoid of the usual teasing edge. “They won’t know what hit them.”

You met his eyes, feeling a flutter in your chest despite yourself. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”

He smirked, leaning in just a bit closer. “Just ‘not so bad?’ I think I deserve more credit than that.”

You nudged him lightly with your elbow. “Let’s just get through this without any chaos, alright? Then I’ll give you all the credit you want.”

The limousine came to a smooth stop in front of the towering venue, the driver stepping out to open the door for you both. Alucard was out first, offering his hand to help you out, his grip firm but gentle. As you stepped out onto the red carpet, the flashes of cameras and the murmurs of the crowd were already starting.

He pulled you close, his arm slipping around your waist as you both made your way toward the entrance. You could feel the weight of his presence beside you, commanding and magnetic.

“We’ll be the perfect couple tonight,” Alucard whispered into your ear as you ascended the stairs, his breath warm against your skin. “Just follow my lead.”

You glanced up at him, your lips curving into a small smile. “I’m used to that by now.”

With that, you both stepped through the grand doors into the glittering party, where the real game was about to begin.

[emmylksblog]

I'M SORRY // PEDRI GONZÁLEZ

summary: pedri gets mad at you for being bad at holding you temper back at a formal dinner with the team.

genre: angst, comfort at the end

based on this request

warnings: some swearing

a/n: had so much fun writing this, specially cuz i don’t imagine pedri being mad hehe but i did my best, enjoy mad pedri! 🤭

It had been a long night. There had been a dinner with the team, and everyone was allowed to bring their partner. Usually, you got along with everyone, but tonight was an exception. It all spiraled because of a tense exchange, a fight that shouldn’t have happened, but did. You and Berta didn’t normally have problems, but maybe it was the drinks, or maybe it was the way she looked at you with that smug disdain. One glare led to a word, one word to another, and suddenly you were being pulled apart by your boyfriends while others watched with wide eyes and half-raised phones. Neither of you cared in that moment if anyone had recorded it.

As soon as you stepped inside the apartment, Pedri was already on edge. The kitchen lights were low, casting a warm, dim glow over the countertops and the dark wood cabinets. You had barely taken off your coat before he turned to face you.

"You don’t get it, and you’re not going to," you snapped, pacing across the tiled floor, arms moving wildly as you tried to explain. Your chest rose and fell fast, the adrenaline still running through you. You weren’t sure how long you'd been arguing, but you were already exhausted. So was Pedri. The spark in his eyes, that intensity he always had when defending a point, was gone. All that remained now was the weight of frustration and disbelief in his tired brown eyes, eyes that normally softened you.

"You know Fermín and I just want peace between everyone," he said, leaning both arms on the kitchen island like it was the only thing holding him up. His voice held that familiar Canarian cadence, thick with disappointment. "He’s not just my teammate, he’s my friend, more than that. And then you two pull that crap tonight? I thought we were past this kind of drama. I thought we were grownups."

He stood in that posture guys do when they think they’re right, like they own the moral high ground and there’s no more discussion to be had. It fueled your anger even more. You clenched your jaw, your words picking up speed as you fired back.

"I see where this is going. You think this was all my fault. You’re acting like she wasn’t involved at all, like I imagined everything she said and did," you snapped, arms crossed as your voice broke with frustration. "I told you days ago something was off with her. But no, it was just ‘women being dramatic,’ right? That was your take. You talked to Fermin and decided I was the villain in this."

You scoffed, pulling your expression into a mix of disbelief and pain, brows raised and lips pressed together. Then you turned away from him, arms tight against your body, your back straight and rigid. You didn’t know how much longer you could hold yourself together. Your chest was tight, your eyes stung. The lump in your throat was rising fast.

Pedri didn’t see any of that. He was too caught up in being right. He stepped closer, hands finding your waist to spin you gently toward him.

"Don’t play the victim now," he said, louder than before. His breath came quick and heavy. "You should’ve just ignored her. Do you know what could happen if someone posts that video? You’ll get hate for it. People won’t care about context. You think I want that for you? I’m trying to understand, but God, you’re making it hard."

You pulled away from him completely, eyes glassy as you shouted back, "That’s not even the point! The issue isn’t what happened, it’s that you’re not even listening to me! You didn’t wait to hear my side! After three years together, this is what I get? I didn’t expect this from you, Pedro."

His name came out sharp, like a slap in the face, and the moment it did, something broke in him. You never called him Pedro unless things were really bad. He froze as he watched your tears finally fall, streaking down your cheeks in silence.

"Amor…," Pedri lifted a hand instinctively but stopped, unsure if he had the right to touch you now. Your hands were covering your face, shielding the tears, shielding the shame, shielding everything. You flinched from his hand when it got close, and that was the final blow. You didn’t want him near you.

He followed after you when you turned on your heels, your heels literally, the echo of them on the floor loud as you climbed the stairs. "Amor, come on, are you really going to do this? Let’s talk now, please," he begged, catching your wrist on the stairs, his voice quieter, raw.

You didn’t look at him when you replied, sniffling, tired. "Pedro, I’m done. Let me sleep in peace, at least. My feet are killing me."

You pulled your arm away and continued up without another word. "Don’t even think about following me," you added, knowing him too well. He stopped in place, halfway up the stairs, frozen.

He sat down right there and dropped his head into both hands. He had fucked up. Bad. He couldn’t remember the last time you called him Pedro, but every time you did, it meant the same thing, you were hurt beyond what words could fix.

"Shit," he muttered, dragging himself back downstairs. He went to the bathroom, peeling off his suit and stepping into the shower like that would fix anything, like it would cleanse the guilt. It didn’t. It only reminded him of how much worse this could get.

"Fuck," he cursed again, realizing he’d forgotten to bring clean clothes. His options were to put back on the sweaty suit or take the risk of creeping upstairs and hoping you hadn’t locked him out of your room. Part of him felt like he deserved to be locked out.

He climbed the stairs slowly, a towel wrapped around his waist, hand gripping it tightly as he crept through the hall. But when he reached the door, his heart sank. You had already left out a change of clothes for him in the hallway, a shirt, shorts, even boxers. It meant you didn’t want him inside. It meant you couldn’t bear to be near him.

His throat closed. Were you two really on the edge of breaking up? Just the thought of it sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the air on his damp skin.

He got dressed right there, mind spinning in circles. He had to fix this. He couldn’t go to sleep without trying. With trembling hands, he knocked on the bedroom door, softly, like he was afraid it would shatter under his touch.

"Bebé, it’s me, Pedri," he said, his voice cracking at the end. When there was no answer, he pressed his ear to the door, and then he heard it, quiet sobs, muffled but unmistakable. His heart split open.

"I’m sorry, amor. I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I don’t deserve you. Please open the door. I can’t do this, not like this," he whispered, forehead and palms resting against the wood. His voice was shaking. He waited. Nothing.

Eventually, accepting defeat, he backed away. No more tears. No more noise. He dragged himself to the couch and curled up there, pulling the throw blanket over himself with trembling hands. You had never, ever slept apart. Every fight had ended in the same bed, even if back-to-back. But this? This was something else.

He stared at the ceiling for hours, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. The silence around him felt sharp, like it could cut.

And upstairs, you weren’t doing any better. Your skin was cold despite the blanket. You couldn’t get warm without his arms around you, without his whispered “Goodnight, bebé.” You couldn’t sleep without him.

The thought that this might be your last night under the same roof terrified you. You had scrubbed off your makeup, changed clothes, but none of it mattered. You couldn’t stop crying. You kept asking yourself, did I fail him? Did I act like someone he couldn’t love anymore? Did I ruin this?

You turned again, then again. Nothing worked. It was impossible to sleep with a mind so loud, a heart so heavy.

You reached for your phone and lit up the screen: 3:18 AM.

Now or never. You had to fix this.

Your body froze the moment you were just a few steps away from him, the man who had once been, and still very much was, the love of your life. Now more than ever, you were sure of it. What scared you was the possibility that he wasn’t. That maybe it wasn’t as clear for him anymore.

With your fists clenched tightly, your nails digging painfully into your palms as if it could somehow ground the anxiety swirling inside you, you rounded the edge of the couch to see if Pedri was asleep.

He wasn’t. You found him lying on his back, one arm draped over his face.

“Pedri…” you whispered, finally forcing your voice to come out, hoarse and unsure.

He wasn’t sleeping. The second he heard your voice, he sat up quickly. You hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, so the only glow came from the windows, moonlight slicing through the dark living room in quiet streaks.

“My love, I’m so sorry,” he said, already walking toward you.

In the process, his pinky toe slammed directly into the edge of the coffee table with a loud crack.

“¡Agh, joder!” he cried out, gripping his foot dramatically.

You couldn’t help it, you laughed. A real, sudden laugh that bubbled out of your chest and echoed softly through the still room. It felt ridiculous and raw and strangely comforting.

When he didn’t laugh with you, you turned toward the switch and flipped on the lights. “Pedro, are you okay?”

You knelt beside him as he sat on the floor clutching his foot, wincing.

“If you keep calling me ‘Pedro’ like that, I think my heart’s gonna give out before my toe does,” he joked, managing a smirk as your lips curled into a smile.

He took that as permission to keep going.

“I know I messed up tonight,” he said, quieter now. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice. That didn’t help anything, and I hate that I made you feel small. I’m ready to take responsibility for all of it. But please know, I love you. I still love you so much. And I’m not giving up on us. I’m ready to fight for what we have. If you still want that too.”

He looked at you with that expression you knew too well, hopeful, a little scared, completely open. He was silently begging you to still believe in what you had, to still believe in him.

That’s when you broke. Tears welled up and spilled down your cheeks without warning.

“Hey, no, no, bebé, don’t cry, I’m sorry,” he whispered urgently, cupping your face in his hands, wiping away the tears with his thumbs. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch for a week? I’ll do it. I’ll wash the dishes and the laundry and your makeup brushes if I have to. Just don’t shut me out.”

You shook your head, and for a terrifying second, his breath caught like you were about to say goodbye.

But then you spoke.

“No… I’m sorry too. It was all my fault. I don’t even know what I was thinking,” you said through your tears, your voice trembling. “And I still love you. If that means anything.”

His whole body melted.

“It means everything,” he said, pulling you into his arms so tightly it felt like he was trying to fuse the pieces of you back together with his own warmth.

You buried your face in his neck and stayed there as long as you needed. His hand cradled the back of your head, his heartbeat thudding solid and steady against your chest.

“Let’s be okay again,” you whispered.

“We are,” he promised, kissing your forehead softly. “We already are.”

[witchingwithscissors]

Agathario AU | based on a post by @incorrectquotesmcu : “fucking commit to it.” ft. a sharp-tongued principal, a hot coach who won’t stop flirting, one kid with a bunny, and a coffee spill that ruins everything just right.

Monday.

There are mornings that fade into the rhythm of the school year. This wasn’t one of them.

Dr. Agatha Harkness turned the corner outside the Counseling office and walked directly into the beginning of a distraction she would spend the next several weeks pretending wasn’t happening.

A yelp.

The screech of sneakers on high-gloss tile. A cardboard drink tray skidding across the waxed hallway. One iced coffee launched upward, its plastic lid popping off like a cork.

Caramel splashed over Agatha’s forearm and across the top of her neatly stacked discipline reports.

“Oh my God—shit—sorry, I—didn’t see the floor was wet, there wasn’t a sign—was there a sign?”

Agatha blinked down at the mess, the sensation of cold sweetness soaking into her sleeve. The voice belonged to a woman already crouched at her feet, sleeves rolled back, trying to blot the spill with the edge of her own sweatshirt. It was pointless.

Agatha lowered herself slowly. “There was a sign.”

The woman looked up.

Dark curls frayed loose from a bun. Deep brown eyes, warm and wide. A lanyard swung forward as she shifted her weight, brushing against Agatha’s wrist. Vidal, Rio – PE / Girls Basketball.

Agatha knew who she was now. She also knew she needed to stand up before this turned into something else entirely.

The woman stood first. “Coach Vidal. First day.” She extended a hand.

Agatha took it. The shake was firm and unguarded, fingers still cool from the iced drink.

Touch #1.

The contact wasn’t supposed to linger—but it did.

“Dr. Harkness,” she replied. “Principal.”

Rio looked mortified, though her smile came through anyway—like it always wanted to. “I swear I’m better with spatial awareness when I’m not holding caffeine.”

Agatha stepped back. She didn’t smile, but her voice softened. “Then I expect the rosters reprinted before second period. No lamination required.”

“Copy that.” Rio saluted her with a dripping straw. “And for the record—I really am better in the gym.”

Agatha walked away, resisting the urge to look back. But she could still feel the ghost of Rio’s palm against hers. Still smell the faint trace of vanilla and sweat that clung to her collar even after she closed her office door.

Tuesday.

Faculty meeting. 7:55 a.m. The library conference pit always made everyone look grayer under its flickering bulbs. Agatha stood in front of a screen and worked through policy updates with clipped efficiency. The staff knew her cadence by now—new hires would learn.

Halfway through her restorative discipline section, a hand rose from the third row.

Rio.

“Would you ever consider tardy reflection sheets before automatic detention?” she asked. “Students write down why they were late and what they’d need to fix it. It helped when I taught 7th and 8th. Some of them are carrying a lot before 9 a.m.”

She wasn’t interrupting. She was… adding.

Agatha paused. “Submit a draft.”

Rio nodded, then sat back, rolling her pen between two fingers. Her hair was still damp from early practice—Agatha clocked it before she could stop herself.

After the meeting, most teachers drifted toward bagels. Rio lingered near the back of the room.

“Peace offering,” she said, handing Agatha a reprinted folder.

The lamination was uneven. A bubble formed near the spine. Agatha ran a thumb over it, not sure why the imperfection made her chest ache.

“Thank you,” she said. “You weren’t out of line. Reflection is a good idea.”

Rio looked briefly startled. Then pleased. “You’re the first principal who hasn’t brushed me off mid-sentence.”

“I only do that when staff say something foolish,” Agatha replied. She meant it to land crisp—but it came out warm. Too warm.

Their fingers brushed again.

Touch #2.

Agatha pulled back, pulse sharp beneath her collar. Her office still smelled faintly of sweet milk from the coffee spill, and now—now it smelled like Rio.

She closed her door five minutes early and sat with the laminated folder in her lap.

Wednesday.

In the lounge between lunch blocks, Agatha passed Rio sitting on the floor with three kindergarteners playing a cooperative beanbag toss game. She was barefoot—again—and laughing so easily Agatha had to look away.

Later, Rio passed her in the hallway, hoodie zipped halfway, cheeks flushed from 8th-grade dodgeball.

“Did the blazer make it through the cleaners?” she asked.

Agatha kept walking but allowed, “Mostly. Unlike my dignity.”

Rio grinned, easy and unbothered. “I owe you a splash-free coffee.”

Agatha paused. One breath. Then: “I don’t drink coffee.”

But it didn’t sound like a no.

Friday.

The fundraiser was bedlam wrapped in raffle tickets and frosting. K–8 families filled the gym: balloon animals, bake sale tables, a noisy pop-a-shot competition run by Rio, who had somehow charmed every third grader into lining up twice.

Agatha’s son, Nicky, six and wild-haired, clung to her hand with his beloved stuffed rabbit squashed against his chest. The thing had been through the wash a hundred times—its ears were permanently lopsided.

He tugged at Agatha’s wrist. “That’s her, Mama! The tall one! She helped me make three baskets!”

Agatha raised an eyebrow. “Coach Vidal?”

“She fixed Bun’s ear, too.”

Wanda—ex-wife, ER pediatrician, observant as ever—arrived a few minutes later. “You’re smiling,” she said, dryly.

“It’s the event,” Agatha replied.

“Mmhmm.” Wanda glanced across the room. “That the coach?”

“Yes.”

“She’s pretty.”

Agatha gave her a sharp look. Wanda smirked and took Nicky’s hand.

Later, as Agatha tallied silent auction forms, Rio passed close behind her—close enough to brush fingertips against hers while handing her a stray entry slip.

Touch #3.

Not deliberate. Not not deliberate.

“Your son’s a menace,” Rio said softly. “And smart.”

Agatha nodded, but her voice caught. “He’s fond of you.”

“I’m fond of him, too.”

Their eyes held for a second too long.

Rio’s voice dropped further. “You’ve been on your feet all night. There’s a caramel rabbit at the bake sale with your name on it. I stashed one under the table.”

Agatha didn’t answer. But an hour later, she left the gym with a small white paper bag tucked inside her blazer pocket.

The house was quiet. Nicky was asleep with the rabbit tucked under his chin. Agatha stood in the kitchen, glass of wine untouched on the counter, reading and re-reading a text that had just come in.

Coach Rio Vidal: Hope you made it out alive. Pretty sure I’ve got frosting in my hair.

She typed back. 

Agatha: Thank you for helping. Nicky wouldn’t stop talking about you.

She almost added: You looked good tonight…

She deleted it. Instead she wrote: He liked the rabbit thing. That meant something to him.

Rio’s reply came five minutes later.

Coach Rio Vidal: Bun is my new best friend.

Followed by a photo of the rabbit tucked inside her hoodie pocket, looking vaguely smug.

Agatha smiled, closed her phone, and stared out the dark kitchen window.

She had no plan for what came next. Only that her skin still remembered where their fingers had touched. And her son had laughed harder that day than he had in weeks.

Across town, Rio lay flat on her back in a too-warm apartment, hair still wet from a rushed shower, hoodie bunched under her spine. She had a dozen half-written messages in her Notes app. She wasn’t usually careful like this.

Agatha was sharp, elegant, and clearly trying not to notice her.

But Rio did notice her.

How she rarely smiled but always watched. How she spoke quietly but carried weight in every word. How she touched her son’s shoulder like it was holy.

She typed.

Rio: I like talking to you. Maybe you could show me around sometime?

Then deleted it.

Eventually, she sent just what felt safer.

Rio: Tell Nicky I’ll bring him a practice jersey. If he promises not to beat me in a free throw contest.

She hit send. Then rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, feeling warmth rise and settle behind her ribs.

She was definitely in trouble.

But she hadn’t wanted something in a long time.

And Agatha Harkness was worth wanting.

Monday.

Rio started leaving her office door slightly open.

Just enough to be inviting. Not enough to be obvious.

Agatha didn’t acknowledge it. But she noticed. She always did. The PE office was across from hers, nestled behind the gym’s east stairwell. Technically convenient. Emotionally treacherous.

By Wednesday, Agatha began walking that hallway more often.

She told herself it was about morning supervision. But every time she passed and caught the sound of Rio’s low voice behind the door—soft music, a laugh, the scratch of a pen—something unspooled low in her chest.

She never paused. But she started walking slower.

Tuesday.

Mid-morning. Warm for early spring. The blacktop smelled like chalk dust and sun.

Agatha stepped outside with her coffee. K–2 was at recess. Nicky ran past her, stuffed rabbit clutched in one hand, yelling about a spaceship. Somewhere nearby, jump ropes slapped pavement.

Rio crouched beside a second grader, showing her how to catch a kickball.

She stood when she saw Agatha, brushing gravel from her palms. Her shirt clung to her back from coaching drills. A faint pink flush crept up her neck beneath the messy bun. There was a smear of purple paint on her forearm.

“Didn’t expect to see you off-campus,” Rio teased gently.

Agatha raised a brow. “This is still campus.”

“Barely.” Rio stretched her arms over her head. Agatha looked away too fast.

“Nice turnout for recess,” Agatha said.

“Hard to compete with bunnies and beanbags,” Rio replied, nodding toward a small group drawing rabbits in chalk near the fence.

Nicky was among them.

“He’s good at basketball,” Rio said. “Stubborn about it.”

“I can’t imagine where he gets that,” Agatha murmured.

Rio turned. Their eyes held for a beat. A little too long.

Then Rio reached into her back pocket. “Reflection sheet draft.”

She held it out.

Agatha took it, and their fingers met.

Touch #4.

The paper crinkled between them. Agatha felt the callus on Rio’s index finger, the soft skin along her knuckle.

She let go too quickly and told herself it was professional.

Wednesday.

The staff room was overfull. Agatha arrived last. Only open seat? Next to Rio.

Rio didn’t move. She didn’t say anything, either—just shifted her water bottle to give Agatha more room.

Agatha sat, posture precise. She opened her salad. Ate without speaking.

Rio bit into an apple. The scent of it—tart and sweet—brushed the edge of Agatha’s awareness. It was unbearable, how good it smelled. How close she was.

“You always look like you’re solving a puzzle,” Rio said finally.

“I usually am.”

“Big one?”

Agatha didn’t answer.

Rio smiled faintly, then softened. “You’re not easy to read. I think that’s why I like talking to you.”

Agatha froze, fork mid-air.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said, voice low.

“Why?” Rio’s tone stayed quiet. Not teasing. Just wondering.

“Because I’m your boss.”

Rio looked down. “Right.”

She folded her apple core into her napkin. For the first time, she didn’t meet Agatha’s eyes.

Agatha stood to leave. She hesitated. Reached to steady her chair—and her hand brushed Rio’s shoulder.

Touch #5.

Rio’s body stilled. The contact lingered half a second longer than it should have.

Agatha let go and walked out without looking back.

Thursday.

That morning, there was a chocolate bunny on Agatha’s desk.

Wrapped in gold foil. No note.

She didn’t need one.

At 3:07 p.m., she passed Rio in the hallway and said only, “Thank you.”

Rio blinked. “For what?”

Agatha fought a smile. “It had caramel.”

Rio’s eyes sparkled. “You seem like a caramel person.”

“Is that an insult?”

“Uh, no. It’s a compliment. Chocolate people are emotionally avoidant.”

Agatha didn’t say anything, but she walked away with warmth in her throat she couldn’t quite swallow.

The next morning, another bunny appeared—this one with dark chocolate and raspberry. It was their thing now. She’d never admit it, but she looked forward to it.

After practice, Agatha stopped by the gym.

Nicky sat on the bleachers, rabbit on his lap. He wasn’t talking. He was watching.

Rio was coaching the 6–8 girls—running layup drills, calling encouragement, laughing when someone missed wildly and blamed the ball.

Agatha leaned against the doorframe. She couldn’t hear what Rio was saying, but her gestures were expressive—gentle corrections, soft claps, a fist bump with a nervous sixth grader.

Nicky turned to Agatha and whispered, “She’s nice to everyone.”

“She is,” Agatha said.

“I like when she laughs.”

“Me too.”

The words came out before she could stop them.

Nicky tilted his head. “Do you like her like her?”

Agatha blinked. “That’s a complicated question.”

He hugged his rabbit. “You smile more when she’s here.”

Agatha felt it like a slow exhale. “You’ve been watching me too closely.”

“Only a little,” he said. “She watches you too.”

Friday.

It was raining lightly by dismissal. Agatha stood outside under the covered walkway, waiting for the last wave of carpool.

Rio approached from the staff parking lot, hoodie up, curls clinging damp to her cheekbones.

They stood in the quiet, just the sound of water tapping against metal.

“You walk in the rain?” Agatha asked.

“Better than traffic.”

Agatha exhaled through her nose. “You’re reckless.”

Rio stepped closer. “You’re careful enough for both of us.”

It wasn’t flirtation. It was truth.

Agatha looked at her. Really looked.

Her mouth. Her eyes. The drop of water on her collarbone.

Rio didn’t move—but she didn’t step back either.

Agatha shifted. One inch closer. Another.

Then her phone buzzed.

She flinched.

Rio took a breath. The moment folded in on itself.

Agatha looked away. “I have to go.”

Rio nodded. “Of course.”

But as Agatha walked off, she heard Rio’s voice—low, certain.

“I wouldn’t have kissed you. Not unless you wanted me to.”

Agatha’s throat tightened.

She didn’t look back.

But she did want.

She just wasn’t ready to want out loud.

That night, she found a drawing in her bag. A rabbit in a gym jersey. Labeled “BunBun Coach.”

Nicky’s handwriting. Crayon.

Agatha sat on the floor of the kitchen, her knees drawn to her chest, and held the drawing in both hands.

She’d gone so long without feeling wanted by someone who didn’t need her.

And now—here it was. Quiet. Consistent. Sweet as caramel.

Monday.

Agatha had started leaving the seat next to her open during staff meetings.

Not on purpose. But she noticed when Rio sat there. And she noticed—more carefully—when she didn’t.

This time, Rio arrived late, her curls still damp from early drills, hoodie sleeves pushed to her elbows. She slid into the seat just as Agatha closed her laptop.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“You’re fine,” Agatha said without looking.

But her pulse betrayed her.

They didn’t talk during the meeting. But when it ended, Rio stayed seated. So did Agatha. Just long enough for it to be noticed.

Just short of giving it away.

Tuesday.

It was a nothing moment. A hallway crossing near the gym between fifth period and sixth. Rio leaned against the wall beside the drinking fountain, hair tied up, cheeks pink from effort. She was talking softly with a sixth grader who looked ready to cry.

Agatha paused at a distance.

She didn’t interrupt. Just watched.

Rio crouched to the student’s eye level, said something that made the girl nod and wipe her face, and gave her a small fist bump.

The girl walked off.

Rio stood slowly. Caught Agatha’s gaze across the hall.

Agatha didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

But she held Rio’s gaze a second too long.

And she didn’t look away when Rio smiled.

Wednesday.

They were alone in the gym after a board meeting ran late. Rio was cleaning up stray cones and water bottles. Agatha had lingered, notebook in hand, the only sound the soft creak of sneakers on hardwood.

“Do you ever get tired of it?” Rio asked.

Agatha looked up. “Of what?”

“Being the one who has to know everything. Solve everything.”

Agatha paused.

Rio sat on the edge of the bleachers, cradling a ball in her hands. “You always look like you’re bracing for impact.”

Agatha stood still for a moment. Then: “That’s not entirely wrong.”

Rio rolled the ball between her palms. “I used to fake injuries to avoid scrimmage. Not because I couldn’t play. Just… I was tired of pretending I liked who I was supposed to be.”

Agatha crossed the court. Stopped a few feet away. “And now?”

Rio looked up. “Now I’d rather be underestimated and honest than impressive and empty.”

Agatha swallowed hard. “I don’t think you’re either.”

There was silence. The kind that didn’t demand to be filled.

Then Agatha sat beside her. Close—but not touching.

They shared the silence. And something in it felt warm.

Friday.

It happened in the hallway near the side entrance. The one no students used. The one that always smelled like lemon wax and felt too quiet.

They had walked there together after a late fire drill review. The air was cool. Rio’s hoodie sleeves were pushed up. Agatha’s blazer hung unbuttoned.

Rio reached for the door.

Agatha touched her wrist.

Touch #6.

Rio stilled. Turned slowly.

Their eyes met.

It was barely anything—just a flicker. A moment folding in on itself.

Agatha said, “I shouldn’t.”

Rio said, “Then don’t.”

But neither of them moved.

Then Rio stepped in—not bold, not timid. Just close. Close enough that Agatha could smell citrus shampoo, could hear her breath catch.

Agatha didn’t think.

She just leaned.

And then they were kissing.

It wasn’t perfect—angled too quickly, breath uneven—but it was real. It was heat curling between ribs. It was the sensation of falling into something she’d already been halfway inside for weeks.

Rio cupped her face, not to hold her in place—just to feel her.

Agatha broke the kiss first.

Not because she wanted to.

But because she had to.

She stepped back like it cost her.

Rio didn’t chase. Her voice was steady. “You okay?”

Agatha nodded.

Lied.

That might, Agatha sat in the dark of her kitchen, Nicky asleep upstairs.

She hadn’t told anyone.

But the kiss was still there.

Pressed into her mouth. Her throat. Her ribs.

She hadn’t kissed anyone in years. Not since the divorce. Not since she stopped hoping someone would want all of her—the mother, the principal, the complicated woman behind all that control.

And Rio had wanted her.

Not despite all that.

Because of it.

Which was exactly why it scared her senseless.

Saturday.

Nicky crawled into her bed before sunrise, rabbit tucked under one arm.

He yawned against her side.

“Coach Rio’s nice,” he mumbled.

Agatha ran a hand through his hair. “She is.”

“She likes you,” he said.

Agatha closed her eyes.

“She likes you like you,” he added sleepily.

Agatha didn’t speak.

Not for a long time.

Thursday.

Agatha had started letting it show.

She didn’t pull her hand away when Rio’s fingers brushed hers during dismissal. She stopped pretending her smiles were for students when they weren’t. And she started carrying a chocolate heart in her coat pocket like it meant something. Because it did.

She still hadn’t said the word girlfriend. But she’d stopped pretending she wasn’t thinking about it.

Rio didn’t ask for more. But she noticed the shift.

She noticed everything.

Friday.

Rio drove them north to the coast—somewhere outside Westview, where no one knew who Agatha Harkness was or what she was afraid of becoming.

They ate shrimp tacos on a candlelit patio, drank two glasses of wine each, and argued playfully over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. Rio said yes. Agatha said obviously not.

There was lightness between them—uncomplicated, real.

But Agatha kept feeling the weight of everything unspoken.

The boardwalk was cool beneath their bare feet. The wind carried the smell of salt and warm sugar. They passed a carousel, quiet now. A couple kissed beside it, tucked into their own world.

Rio’s hand brushed Agatha’s once.

Then again.

But didn’t stay.

Agatha stopped walking.

Rio turned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

And then she saw Agatha’s face.

Still. Focused. But cracked wide open.

“You keep pulling away,” Agatha said, voice low and trembling. “Like you’re doing me a favor.”

“I just didn’t want to put pressure on you,” Rio said carefully. “Not when you’ve come so far.”

Agatha stepped forward.

“I’m not scared of pressure,” she said. “I’m scared of wanting something I might lose. I’m scared of how much I feel when you’re close.”

Her throat closed around the next words.

“I’ve spent years pretending I was fine being alone. And then you show up and I start… cooking again. Laughing at lunch. Remembering how it feels to want someone.”

Her voice cracked now—honest and breaking.

“So if you’re going to keep touching me like you mean it—”

Her fingers closed around Rio’s hand.

“—then fucking commit to it.”

Rio stared at her. Breathless.

Then, quietly she smiles. “You think I haven’t wanted you since I spilled coffee in the hallway?”

That was all it took.

Agatha leaned in at the same time Rio did.

The kiss wasn’t neat. It was slightly off-center, a little too fast—like they both forgot what it meant to hold back.

But it was good. Real. Deep.

Agatha’s hand curled around Rio’s like it had that first week in the hallway. This time, she didn’t let go.

Halfway through, Rio pulled back just enough to breathe. Her forehead rested against Agatha’s. “I never stopped thinking about that coffee spill.”

Agatha smiled. “You spilled it.”

Rio grinned. “Exactly.”

They kissed again. Slower. Warmer. And when it ended, they stood there silently, listening to the ocean and the echo of their hearts.

Later, in the passenger seat of Rio’s car, Agatha pulled something from her blazer pocket.

A crinkled foil heart.

She dropped it onto Rio’s lap.

Rio looked down. Then back at her.

“I kept it,” Agatha said softly. “The first one you gave me.”

Rio closed her fingers around it. “I’m keeping this one.”

Monday.

They walked into school together.

Agatha carried her coffee in one hand. Rio’s arm brushed hers.

A seventh grader looked up. Whispered. Giggled.

Agatha reached up and gently tucked a stray curl behind Rio’s ear.

“You have lipstick on your neck,” she said, low enough to be private. Then she kissed the spot just below Rio’s jaw—soft, quick, certain.

The student blinked.

Agatha smiled. “Morning.”

After school and over apples and cheddar slices, Nicky looked up and asked, “So… is Coach Rio your girlfriend now?”

Agatha nodded. “Yes. She is.”

Nicky reached into his backpack. Pulled out a foil-wrapped bunny.

“I saved it,” he said. “You can give it to her.”

Agatha took it, heart tight.

“You don’t have to tell her it was mine,” Nicky added, grinning. “But she’ll know.”

Then, quietly, “You used to only make eggs. Now you make waffles again.”

“You started doing nice things again.”

Agatha didn’t answer.

Tuesday.

Agatha didn’t flinch when Rio stepped into her office without knocking.

She looked up from her desk, hair loose, glasses slipping, and smiled before she realized she was doing it.

“You’re not bracing anymore,” Rio said softly, a smile curling at her mouth.

Agatha set down her pen. “You noticed.”

Rio shrugged. “I’ve been looking at you for a while.”

Agatha leaned back in her chair and said, without deflection: “I like when you do.”

Rio stayed leaning against the doorway, casual, but her gaze was full.

“You want dinner Friday?”

Agatha nodded. “And breakfast Saturday.”

Monday.

Agatha emailed HR.

In a relationship with Coach Vidal. No supervisory connection. I’ll recuse from evaluations if needed.

She copied all parties needed and moved on with her day.

When she told Rio that night, Rio said nothing at first—just stepped into her space and pressed a hand to Agatha’s waist.

“You’re making a place for me,” she said, forehead against Agatha’s cheek.

Agatha closed her eyes. “You were already here.”

Friday.

Wanda met them at the market after work—her and Rio, hands full of oranges, and Nicky skipping ahead with BunBun slung over his shoulder like a soldier.

She eyed them both. “You’re holding hands in public now.”

Agatha didn’t let go.

“I’m proud of you,” Wanda said, voice low but firm. “Not because of her. Because you look… happy.”

“I am,” Agatha said.

Wanda looked between them and said, “Want me to take Nicky next weekend?”

Agatha blinked. “Seriously?”

“You two deserve a night where you get to be women, not just moms and educators.”

Rio grinned. “She really is a good ex.”

Agatha gave Wanda a small, sincere smile. “Thank you.”

Wanda touched her arm once, brief. “Just be kind to each other.”

Agatha didn’t cook. She ordered Thai food and changed into leggings and one of Rio’s old college basketball hoodies.

Rio kissed her on the mouth before the food arrived.

“I’ve thought about tonight in so many ways,” she said simply. “I want you.”

Agatha exhaled, shaky and warm. “Then take me seriously.”

“I already do,” Rio whispered. “I have since week three.”

Agatha pulled Rio to her, kissed her again—deeper, longer.

Their delivery driver knocking broke them apart. Agatha grabbed the food, slightly flushed and hungry for something not in the white takeout bag. They ate on the floor with reality TV murmuring in the background. Later, they curled into each other on the couch, Rio’s hand over Agatha’s heart like it had always been meant to rest there.

Saturday.

The next morning, Agatha poured two mugs of tea. Left Rio’s on the nightstand without waking her.

She padded down the hall, barefoot, robe dragging, and found Nicky in the kitchen smearing cream cheese on half a bagel.

“Is she staying for breakfast?” he asked.

“She’s still asleep.”

Nicky nodded. “You smile more when she’s here.”

Agatha kissed the top of his head. “She makes it easier.”

Sunday. 

They didn’t make an announcement.

But Agatha started saying “we” when Rio wasn’t in the room. She brought her to a school event. She slipped her a piece of chocolate during a meeting. She reached for her hand in the parking lot and didn’t care who saw.

Rio started keeping a hair tie in the bathroom drawer. Left one of her college hoodies on the hook behind the bedroom door. Made waffles or omelettes or oatmeal with Nicky on Saturdays like it had always been part of the plan.

One evening, after they’d eaten and Nicky had fallen asleep between them on the couch, Agatha looked at Rio in the low light and said, “You’re not just someone I want. You’re someone I trust.”

Rio leaned in, pressed a kiss beneath her jaw.

“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m still here.”

Agatha’s office door was open.

Rio stepped inside without asking, hair wind-tossed from recess, clipboard tucked under one arm.

“You busy?” she asked.

“No.”

Rio stepped closer.

Agatha stood.

She cupped Rio’s jaw with one hand and kissed her once—gently, like a question.

Rio kissed back like an answer.

They pulled apart slowly.

“I love you,” Rio said, finally. Without armor. Without performance. Just truth.

Agatha didn’t speak for a moment. Then she smiled—full and warm.

Rio tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Say it back when you’re ready.”

Agatha kissed her again.

The hallway bustled just outside. Papers shuffled. A student laughed.

But inside the room, everything was still.

The door stayed open.

It was late July, and the heat had settled thick over Westview, the kind that made everything feel like it was moving underwater. School had been out for a few weeks. The lawn was already half-browned. The pool in Agatha’s backyard was filled with Nicky’s inflatable animals, one of Rio’s sports bras, and a towel that had no business being that damp.

Agatha sat in a lounge chair, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, the condensation from her margarita dripping down her wrist. She had a paperback open in her lap but hadn’t turned the page in twenty minutes.

Rio walked past—still damp from her shower, bikini top swapped for a tank she hadn’t worn in years, low on the sides, scandalous in all the right ways.

Agatha watched her move toward the patio with the lazy satisfaction of someone who now had the freedom to stare. “You wore that to distract me.”

Rio didn’t even look up. “I wore it because your kid used my last clean shirt as a cape.”

“He’s a genius.”

“That’s what I said.”

Nicky was gone for the night—Wanda had picked him up with movie snacks and no agenda. Agatha had offered a list of acceptable bedtimes. Wanda had ignored her.

It was quiet now. The house was golden with dusk and half-silence. Music played low on Rio’s phone in the kitchen—something rhythmic, slow. The kind of background hum that suggested dancing or kissing or both.

Agatha found Rio folding towels in the bedroom like it wasn’t the hottest day of the year. She leaned in the doorway and watched her, bare-legged and barefoot, hair still wet down the back of her tank.

“You doing laundry?”

Rio looked up. “Is that rhetorical?”

Agatha crossed the room. Slid her arms around Rio’s waist. “You’re ruining my fantasy.”

“Oh?” Rio said, letting her hand rest just above Agatha’s hip. “And what’s your fantasy?”

“Something a little more horizontal.”

Rio laughed, deep and soft. “That can be arranged.”

They moved slowly. No rush, no choreography—just warmth and skin and familiarity. Agatha’s swimsuit peeled off like a second skin. Rio’s hands were steady, reverent. They kissed like they had time.

Outside, the sky faded purple. A sprinkler clicked on two houses over. The sheets smelled like lemon detergent and salt.

Rio shifted under her, just enough to glance down.

“You love me,” she said.

Agatha’s voice was quiet, but sure: “I do.”

Rio kissed her forehead.

“You make it easy,” Agatha added, then looked up. “Even when you’re not.”

Rio grinned. “Say that again when I bring up the new staff dress code.”

“Babe” Agatha murmured, already leaning in, “no school in the bedroom.”

She kissed her again—slow, deep, unapologetic.

And this time, Rio didn’t argue. Just wrapped her arms around her and pulled her closer.

Later would come. There’d be policies and practice schedules and morning traffic and new routines. There would be school and snacks and scraped knees and evaluations.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the bed was warm.

And love, finally, had nothing left to hide.

[abeautifullittlefoooool]

My beloved ghost and her

summary: summary: your daughter, whom you birthed and raised after her father's death, starts seeming too familiar with him (based off this ask!!! and this ask!!! and inspired by this ask!!! and a part 2 to not a lot, just forever)

pairing: Johnny Sinclair x reader

contains/warnings: ghost!Johnny, kind of teen dad!Johnny (which I have MANY other thoughts about), use of y/n, not proofread by anyone but me, all the I'm no expert writer disclaimers

a/n: I don't know how proud am I of this but I really hope you guys like it 😭😭😭 cry count (featuring a nose bleed and a mental breakdown) while writing this: IIII I

"Double lines means..." Johnny trailed off as the word fell from your mouth quietly.

"Pregnant" you mumbled to yourself.

He felt his face move through a million different expressions. Eyebrows furrowed together, lip pulled up, jaw slack, lips tugged down, eyebrows raised, nose flared, jaw clenched. He didn't know how he felt. Mad, shocked, excited, upset, hopeful, scared, proud, reckless. He stared at the test. He'd always been so conscious not to get you pregnant. His mother would kill him. It'd be a disgrace. But everyone accepted this one fine. Welcoming it even. It was good? for you now.

"Why are you in a mood?" Gat questioned as his eyes tracked Johnny walking back with an attitude before slumping down into the couch.

"y/n won't let me touch her baby bump. She complains about feeling cold whenever I even go near it," Johnny complained with a pout. Mirren rolled her eyes. "I also heard her joke about me not finding her attractive anymore which is complete bullshit! She's adorable and glowing-"

"Adorable and glowing isn't attractive," Mirren pointed out, causing Johnny to roll his eyes.

"Yeah, attractive implies sexual attraction," Gat spelled out.

"Hey, if I could, I would. Know that," Johnny grumbled, sliding further back into the couch. Mirren dry retched.

"She's having your baby and you're upset because you can't have sex?"

"Yes! Have you ever considered this is really awful for me?! I may as well be in hell!" Johnny whined, making both of the other liars roll their eyes. The silence is a hint to stop talking but Johnny couldn't help himself. "Her boobs have gotten bigg-"

"Johnny!" Mirren scolded.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed, hands up in a mock surrender.

Johnny watched as you walked back into Red Gate with a baby. Your baby. His baby. Katarina. She was adorable. He was certain nothing was more beautiful. He stayed up all night just watching her sleep.

"Dude, come help me prank Gat. I've had this planned for like a week and I need your help," Mirren whined, trying to tug Johnny out of the chair he sat in by his arm.

"No? Yesterday was y/n's due date and you knew I'd be occupied their first night back. I can't see how you thought I'd be available right now," he reasoned, looking back to Katy and Mirren rolled her eyes before looking over to the sleeping baby too.

"Spring baby. From her 'bounce' father," Mirren noted and Johnny nodded. He was petrified. He was 16. He couldn't be a dad. But he was certain he loved her beyond words. "I've got to admit, she's really cute," Mirren commented and Johnny lit up at the opportunity to gush.

"I know! I said that! y/n and I made an adorable kid," Johnny endearingly preened.

"uh-uh. y/n made a cute kid, you just finished," Mirren corrected, shaking off disgust at the thought.

"Alright, can we not speak about the technicalities of my daughters conception beside her sleeping self?" Johnny asked and Mirren nodded.

"Agreed."

"Cady," Gat uttered at the sight of her, a bit winded by her presence.

"Hey," Cadence greeted them all with distance in her voice.

"Shit," Johnny muttered as he gets up, breathless that she's acknowledging them.

"Cady!" Mirren exclaimed, hugging her tight. "We missed you."

"Then why didn't you call?" She questioned, pulling back and they go quiet.

"Let's not linger on the past, what is there to catch her up on?" Mirren asked, looking between Gat and Johnny.

"I'm a dad! I'm not as present as y/n would like me to be but I'm here, she knows that...it's complicated but her name's Katarina, we call her Katy, she's the cutest thing ever, and you know I don't really think that about babies," Johnny rambled on, leading Cadence back to the houses.

"Yeah! Kat is the cutest! Totally Johnny's daughter," Mirren agrees, jumping along in her platform converse as they walk. Just when Cadence's eyes landed on you, Johnny realised the time.

"Shit! Is it 2? Katy's due to be fed. I need to get that ready for y/n... you go up to her!" Johnny told Cadence, jogging backwards before running off to Red Gate.

"I'm just going to make sure everything's locked up and we'll meet you down at the dock," Carrie said, leaving Ed and Will to carry the bags down. You were heading back to New York for an event of Cadence's. Katy got an invite too. Specially signed by her favourite, Aunty Cady. You were upstairs, changing Katy, when Carrie passed through the house to find you. She reached the bottom of the stairs, about to ascend them.

"You guys going?" Johnny asked, grabbing Carrie's attention. She turned around and nodded with a hum. "Can I come?" Johnny questioned half-jokingly. Carrie lightly chuckled.

"I don't know, can you?" she inquired, leaning against the staircase railing.

"I want to," Johnny replied, voice cracking at the idea of being alone again. And, well, he wasn't alone, but Mirren and Gat were little comfort when he wanted you. Or Katy. It was so close to Cady, no wonder she was her favourite. "Can ghosts move places, mom?"

"I don't know, Johnny, you tell me," she mellowly responded. She had made peace with it. That's where she'd come to.

"I don't know, mom. I uh I don't know a lot and it's scary and I don't like being scared. Dying was scary enough. And you can't die twice, I know that, but now I'm stuck in an existential worry about y/n and Katy and it sucks, it really sucks-" Johnny rambled, voices cracks and hands fidgeting.

"Johnny, Johnny-" Carrie attempted to slow him down.

"And I think a part of me knew y/n was pregnant, like I didn't but I felt something and I still agreed to it and I still did that stupid fucking plan-" He continued, voice raising as he spiralled more and more.

"Johnny! We've had this conversation before! Can we not today?" Carrie near shouted. Johnny was taken aback. They could never have conversations when he wanted them, could they? Always later or tomorrow or when we get home and then it never happens and nothing good comes from it.

"What if something happens?" Johnny questioned. You'd lived 16 years in New York. It wasn't like you didn't know your way around. But you had Katy this time.

"They'll be okay" Carrie assured him.

"And if they're not?" Johnny further pressed. Blake Beaumont was in New York. Millions of people were in New York. Not just some formerly racist old man, recovered opiate addict, art dealer, desperate housewife, some tweens, and 2 dogs.

"They won't not" Carrie said, putting forward all her conviction. She knew this would never end. "Johnny, them being here, a place you float around, doesn't protect them any more. Even if there were a situation where they could get hurt here, what could you do? Nothing. But watch."

"But they can't get hurt here" Johnny retorts. He knew he couldn't actually do anything. But he felt better being there. And, it was Beechwood! What bad could happen on Beechwood?

"You did."

"I was an idiot. y/n isn't and I hope Katy got her genes on that."

Silence fills the room. It suffocates them both and Johnny can't deal with another round of that.

"Can ghosts move places?" he asked again.

"You should try to make peace-"

"Can ghosts move places, mom?," he begged, desperate for a yes. She sighed.

"You could try. Because she's getting better. And she won't move on, God no, but she'll move off Beechwood. Go back to school maybe. Kat will grow up-"

"And I never will. I know."

"Who are you talking to?" you asked, Katy on your hip. Carrie jumped in place, startled before looking up to you descending the stairs.

"There you are, oh I was just- um-" Carrie fumbled her words, not knowing how to explain. She knew you couldn't see him. Johnny had accepted that fact. He'd learnt to have fun with it. Smile plastered on Johnny's face as he saw Katy. He could never be upset around her. Katy extended her arm and twisted her open palm towards behind Carrie. He blew a bunch of kisses back, making Katy giggle.

"You're not on anything, are you?" you jokingly asked Carrie as you put back down Katy's arm, and she half heartedly swatted your shoulder, making the corners of your mouth tug up.

"Let's get going you 2," she said, patting your back in a way to guide you out. You stepped out the door, Katy looking behind you. Johnny left behind.

"Gat! Mirren!" Johnny shouted, running to them.

"What?" they both asked.

"Katy said her first word while they were away!" he near squealed with excitement and they jumped up.

"Really?" Gat questioned and Johnny nodded excessively.

"What was it?" Mirren inquired.

"Dada," Johnny answered, clearly proud about it. Mirren rolled her eyes at his smugness.

"y/n cried?" she questioned.

"Oh yeah," Johnny agreed.

"And Carrie gasped her Carrie gasp I bet," Gat added, making them all smirk.

"Dada is also the easiest word to say," Mirren mentioned. Johnny glared at her. "What? yes, it's sweet but-"

"You're being such a buzzkill, Mirren, why can't you just be happy for the guy?" Gat questioned and Mirren groaned.

"God! can't I mention a fact?" Mirren exclaimed.

Having a kid at 16 already wasn't a good look. You couldn't be uneducated too. Since living on Beechwood, you'd get your schoolwork sent to you in the mail that you'd retrieve on Mondays in town. You do your schoolwork in New Clairmont for the wifi, open booklet beside your laptop, and go for a walk or play with the Goldens with Katy for a break before finishing up for the day. Will had the same. Ed and Carrie helped out of course, but you felt so guilty acknowledging you needed help. Your second school year with a baby was exhausting you. Not only was Katy becoming a toddler, but it was your last grade. Katy wasn't a burden, you didn't want it to come off that way, but she'd been up all night fussing in pain with her molars coming in, you had an exam, you were tired. You'd come back to Carrie and Will watching a movie, Katy on her uncle Will's lap. Will adored her. It was incredibly sweet.

"Will, you can go play, bud, I can take care of Kat," you told him as you entered Red Gate's living room. He could see how tired you were by your face and tone. It was similar to how your demeanour was when you were sick. That's how Will referred to you being depressed. It made sense that way.

"Are you sure?" he checked, seeing you clearly needed a nap rather than to be taking care of Kat.

"She's my daughter, Will, my job, not yours, go play," you assured him, gesturing your head towards the door and he nodded, getting up before placing Kat back on the warm spot on the couch where he just sat. You scooped her up, resting her on your hip but she wiggled, clearly wanting to move around so you pulled out her play pen. With Carrie's help, you got it up and she retrieved her toys. You sat back on the couch, closing your eyes for just a second, just to rest them, and passed out asleep. Carrie walked back in to Johnny laying a blanket over you.

"Mom! hey! can you making something up for Katy? She'll play, then want to eat, then sleep and since she didn't sleep much last night, I'm assuming that will be soon," Johnny explained to Carrie, who just smiled.

"And you said you weren't a present father," Carrie responded jokingly, putting Katy's toys down with her in her pen. Johnny lightly chuckled. He felt a lot of guilt about that. He didn't like not being physically there. He wanted to hug you without you shivering. He wanted to hold Katy. He knew fathers complained about it but he wanted at least the ability to have his toddler hanging off him. "On it," she said, heading to the kitchen. Johnny followed, still keeping an eye on you and Kat around the corner. "She isn't mad at you, Johnny," Carrie informed him. She could feel it hovering over her, weighing on her back. The conjuring of one of his depressing spirals. They wrang her out every time.

"I know," he replied, nodding. "I'm mad at myself, mom. I shouldn't have-" words failed him as his eyes watered.

"She isn't," Carrie repeated, not in the mood to have another discussion like this but it wasn't really her choice now, was it?

"She was at one point, remember?" Johnny recalled, hopping up to sit on the countertop as Carrie moved around. Carrie nodded. "You washed my sweatshirt, and she had a breakdown about it. She was sobbing in our room. And Will came around to check on her. She shouted in front of Will. That's when I knew I'd forever fucked her up..." Johnny recalled, voice distant, staring down at the ground as he fidgeted with his hands.

"You didn't fuck her up-" Carrie attempted to console him. He didn't mess you up. His death did.

"She screamed "Of course I had to love the fucking idiot. All he had to do was get out, run, it's not that fucking hard, yet he didn't. Why? I don't know. Was me on the outside not enough incitive?" and went on to talk about how worthless she was and I couldn't listen anymore so went up to Gat and Mirren and Will was alone listening to that and I just failed them all, mom," Johnny recounted, his voice cracking and eyes full of tears. He couldn't hold it in. "She had plans and dreams, involving me too, and now she's an exhausted mother at 17-"

"She's happy, Johnny," Carrie insisted.

"Because she loves Katy, not because this was her goal," Johnny retorted. He couldn't bare with the fact that not only did he die on you, but he also left you a single mother.

"Without Katy, she'd be dead, Johnny. Or in a unit," Carrie told him. "She loves Katy, and she loves you, and she loves Katy because of you. I don't want you pitying her still. She's a strong girl." She didn't help you through all she did for Johnny to demean how far you'd come.

"I know-"

"You are letting your own fears taint y/n's life. She's happy, Johnny. Not what she planned, but still happy," Carrie said, shutting down Johnny's spiral. She knew it came from a good place of care and love, but he had to make peace with how things were. He moved back to the couch. He dropped down next to you. Katy looked up to her upset dad, confused by his expression. She extended her arms, making grabbing hands for him. She didn't get he wasn't there.

"Katy wants to be picked up," Johny called out to Carrie.

"Yeah, by you," she replied, coming back in with apple sauce in a small bowl for when Katy wanted it.

"You know I can't," he stated.

"Well aware," she said, sitting back down opposite to him.

"So?" he questioned, wondering what she was thinking.

"So tell her you can't, Johnny" Carrie suggested.

"I don't want to tell her "no, I can't pick you up." I can't be the dead and bad parent," Johnny wallowed, resting a hand on your leg. Carrie sighed. He looked over you, curled up sleeping on your side. "She loves her so much. She's such a good mom."

"Johnny..." Carrie trailed off in a sympathetic tone.

"What this time?!" Johnny snapped, knee jerk reaction to Carrie's trailed off Johnny's. He didn't like raising his voice around Katy. He knew it wasn't good.

"Johnny?!" Carrie exclaimed, baffled by his attitude.

"Johnny!" Katy copied. Both their heads snapped to Katy, wide eyed. You stirred awake.

"Wha about Johnny?" you mumbled, rubbing your eyes and moving your leg away from the cold draft. Johnny rolled his eyes at you moving away from his touch yet again.

"Katy just said Johnny," Carrie announced. You blinked further awake and looked to her. You realised you passed out asleep but that wasn't the issue at hand. You pull the blanket off you and kneel down with her.

"Baby, did you say Johnny?" you asked her, voice soft, trying to get her to copy.

"Johnny!" Katy spat out again. You looked to Carrie in awe before wrapping your arms around her. Johnny gave her 2 thumbs up and a "nice one" expression with pursed lips that made Katy giggle.

A baby giggling at nothing was as old as time. It meant nil and was cute so you brushed it off with your warm smile at Katarina's laugh. You were so used to everyone coddling you. From your psychotic break to being a teen mother, everyone around you did everything for you. So a prepared bottle all ready on the counter for you to feed Katarina wasn't something to question. Katarina pointing to the photo of Johnny and recognising him as daddy made sense. You'd been showing her such since she was born. Saying dada and daddy and even picking up Johnny's name was all part of speech development.

You were going back to New York for your graduation. You made it out alive. Cadence was all but recovered. No longer having seizures, therapy 3 times every week going down to once every 3 weeks, keeping Gat's good word in her mouth, Mirren's attention to detail, Johnny's spirit. And, of course, you kept his kid. Since saying her first word, dada, and second word, Johnny, she'd learnt more. Names including: mama (you), daddy (Johnny), mommy (you again), Nan (Carrie), Pop (Ed), Aunty Cady (Cadence), Will (Will), Grap (her attempt at great grandpa. Harris), Libby (Liberty), Bonnie (Bonnie), Beth (not entirely wrong, but it was just a lisp. Bess), Penny (Penny). And she had favourites. "Want Aunty!" she'd demand and a toddler didn't like hearing "No, she's away right now." "Will!" she'd squeal, running the best a 2 year old could run over to him. Will kept his promise. He was the best, most amazing uncle ever. Even as a preteen boy. "Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop" she'd repeat in a tune, moving her body or just head in beat, till she got what she wanted, Ed's attention.

You stood outside with Ed and Will, Katy on your hip as you waited for Carrie to lock up.

"Ready to go, missy?" Ed asks her, twirling one of her pigtails around his finger. She fusses about him playing with her hair, he stops, then she nods.

"Yea!" she answers.

"How long are you guys away this time?" Johnny asks as Carrie locks up the living room window, making her jump.

"Uhh, 2 weeks, why?" Carrie answers. He nods, looking at Katy out the window.

"She going too?" he asks, knowing the answer but not liking it anymore.

"Yes, Katy is coming, Johnny, why would we leave her here?" Carrie retorts. He shrugs.

"I don't know, maybe I'd like to take care of my own kid," he mumbles.

"You can't-"

"I know that! Thanks!" Johnny sarcastically responds. Carrie sighs.

"What's wrong?" she inquires.

"She's getting better. She's forgetting me," Johnny says and Carrie's brows furrow.

"She is not forgetting you," Carrie corrects.

"No, she is, and-"

"Jonathan!" Carrie snaps. Johnny's stunned into silent, staring at his mother. She breathes in deeply than exhales. "Johnny, she has accepted your loss. That doesn't mean she's forgotten you. She has your healthy, beautiful, just like you daughter on her hip, that's honoring, not forgetting. We are leaving for her graduation. She's graduating! and to think her mother and I were worried she wouldn't make it to 17. The loss doesn't affect her any less, she's just grown around it inside her, making it look smaller." Johnny nods quietly, looking down at his feet.

"Can you give her a graduation present for me?" he asks.

"Of course, what would you want to get her?" Carrie inquires.

"In my room back in New York, in the shoebox under my bed, just give her the box," Johnny instructs her and Carrie nods. With a quick farewell, she's heading out.

"Everything locked up?" Ed questions, to which Carrie nods with a hum, locking up the door.

"Say it, say it," Johnny whispered, pointing between you and Katy from the window before waving, encouraging her.

"Bye, daddy! later!" Kat farewelled and your eyes widened. You look to Ed. Ed looks to Carrie, who seems to be glaring back at empty space. Johnny raises his hands in a mock surrender again, shit eating grin on his face. Kat looked to your face, so close to hers, and giggled at your reaction.

"I swear to god this kid is all Johnny," you said, adjusting her on your hip before continuing out, referring to her instinctual love and need to mess with you just like Johnny did. They all chuckled.

You graduated. You walked across the stage and Katy called out "mommy!" making some giggle and your heart warm. Your eyes were glassy as you shook your principal's hand and he gave you a reassuring smile almost like Bess' that night. Your nostrils flared as you sucked in more air to not cry, and like that, you were off. The thing Carrie was so depressingly sure you'd never do, alongside Johnny, happened. All in 30 seconds.

Carrie used so much gel in Katy's hair that morning it was obvious she was only used to sons. You washed Katy's hair in the bath as she splashed around. A rubber tennis ball bobbing atop the water surface as you massaged the shampoo into her scalp. She loved water. She was adorable holding her nose, her cheeks inflated like balloons with her held breath.

You're drying Katy's hair with a towel, her standing on the chair in front of your vanity mirror, giggling at the feeling and you playing peek-a-boo with her in the mirror, when Carrie knocks to enter.

"Come in!" you call out, lifting Katy off the chair and placing her on the bed as Carrie opens the door, smiling at little Katy.

"Hi, I was going through Johnny's room and thought you'd like this, like a graduation present," Carrie tells you, handing you a shoebox. You wanted to be the one to go through Johnny's things. But it had been 2 years, so you let it slide. You take it and sit down, shoebox in your lap. You open it. A tennis ball and a piece of paper ripped out of a notebook lie inside. You pick up the tennis ball, holding it in your hand as you read.

future Johnny 3/26/13

Miss Quinn asked us to write a letter to our future selves as part of a time capsule project. So I just wanted to tell you about this girl who I'm pretty sure should be our wife by the time you're reading this.

Me and Jackson were practicing on the courts and we started messing around and I ended up hitting this ball outside of the courts and it hit her on the head. I went to get it back and she was really pretty. I guess I never noticed before but y/n y/l/n is really pretty.

Im thinking a wedding on beechwood. and 2 kids. a boy and a girl. for sure mike for a boy. mikes are cool. i dont know about girl names. cady and mirren are the only girls i like, besides of course y/n but shes a new addition, so maybe something like that. Jackson would call me cringe for this but I know my future. Not my fault he doesn't know his.

from now Johnny

"Can you take Katy for a second?" you ask Carrie through tears that were choking you out, gesturing her direction out, not wanting to cry in front of her. Carrie nods, picking her up and heading out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"Let's go to Pop!" you hear Carrie tell Katy as they walk down the hall.

The ink blurring from your tears dripping onto the page, you put it aside and rest your head in your hands, elbows propped up on your knees and sob. "should be our wife" "wedding on beechwood" "2 kids" "something like that." "I know my future." and he kept the tennis ball he hit you with! The thing that made you first talk. 5 years ago. And he hasn't been present for the last 2. But Katy has. You sit back up, sniffling the snot back up your nose as you look at the tennis ball, cradling it with both hands. You hold it to your heart as you look up.

"You sick fuck," you express half heartedly, chuckle taking the end of your words as your lips pull into a smile. It was sad he wasn't here. That his future self didn't exist. That you didn't get that wedding on Beechwood. But you got a Katy. Close enough to Cady. And you were happy. At peace with it. Johnny smiles next to you. You were so tired, it may be a hallucination but you look to him.

"You're doing amazing," he tells you. You nod.

You tell Carrie about it the next morning over breakfast, passing it off as part of your dream your brain is misremembering as earlier. Her reaction caught you off guard.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," you joked before she looked up behind you. Johnny stretching with a yawn as he entered the kitchen. You snapped around at the sound of the awe before your expression dropped. There it was. Again.

"What's for breakfast?" he asked, leaning his forearms on the bench. Your attention darted between where he stood at the end of the counter and Carrie across from you.

"You see him too?" you inquired, brows furrowed.

"So ghosts can move places?" Carrie lightheartedly questions. Johnny nods.

"When their unfinished business at the place they're tied to is over, yeah," he answers.

"Are we on drugs?" you ask with full sincerity. Carrie chuckles.

"Why are you shocked? ohhh, forgot. you've probably never seen a ghost this hot before," Johnny jokes.

"She's never seen a ghost at all, Johnny," Carrie states.

"I know! I'm joking!" Johnny defends.

"Yeah, I'm on drugs, what did you put in the food?" you question Carrie.

"No, y/n, listen, Johnny and Mirren and Gat and Rosemary are ghosts. They've been ghosts," she tries to explain. You were ever closed off to the idea of ghosts but this didn't seem real.

"Aunt Rosemary! it was cool to finally meet her," Johnny notes. "She is still like 11 though."

"How- Wha-?" you struggle to comprehend. "Wait, so how does any of this work?" you question, utterly baffled by this revelation.

"It's something to do with Beechwood. I don't fully understand-"

"Me either," Johnny chimes in.

"But you're not crazy. Johnny's been here. If anything, he's crazy you haven't been able to see him for so long," Carrie explains.

"Katy has," Johnny mentions, and it starts to make sense. The made bottles, the daddys, the waving, the farewells. He was there. He was always there. He never left you.

"SO YOUVE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME!?" you ask, hands planted on the counter as you stand.

"YES!" he answers.