#Hopefully after I finish the game we can have some more interactions together

[electricea]

@ahogedetective sent - "Ah, Ryuji-kun... !" After classes were over for the day, Shuichi had hurriedly tried to find Ryuji before he left. Once he did spot him, he called out to him as he makes a quick jog towards him. "Sorry, do you have a minute? I just wanted to say, Happy Birthday! Sorry, I know you're probably about to meet up with your friends, but I was hoping we could at least hang out for a second? I hope your day has been great. That, and: I wanted to give you gifts, too."

Indicated by the gift bag he was holding. Handing it to Ryuji, inside was a gift card for one of the more expensive ramen restaurants in town, an insulated water bottle with a thunderbolt design on it, and a wooden bracelet with a charm of a skull on it. "I hope you like them... ! As for the gift card, I was not sure if you've tried this particular restaurant before, bug their ramen is really good, so I'm sure you'll love it, too!! Maybe one day we can even eat there together, if not today!" (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RYUJI!!!! ⚡ 💀 🍜)

( Ryuji's Birthday 2023! )

"Shuichi, hey...!" He had paused by the staircase, his phone in one hand as he had been idly scrolling it through it for the last few minutes before deciding to begin his walk home. "Sure, I got a minute, man - what do you want to talk about?" He smiles, always happy to hang out with Shuichi for a while. Brightening at the mention of his birthday, he smiles and nods appreciatively. "Thanks, man! That really means a lot - I hope you've been having a great day too and I can't wait to see the gifts!"

Taking the gift bag gingerly into his hands, he wastes no time in pulling out some of the contents, the water bottle being the first among them. "Man, this is one of those water bottles that keeps your drink cold, right...?! Super cool!" Next out of the bag was the bracelet, which was excitedly put on his wrist, showing it off proudly for several seconds before turning to the gift card, brows lifting slowly as Shuichi explained it. "Well...as it happens, I actually don't have any plans for my birthday today, so why don't we check it out together right now? Use my brand new birthday gift!" He smiles, holding up the gift card proudly.

[yandere-sins]

Before reading: R18+, Mature Content Warning, Violence/Gore Warning, Yandere Warning

Oh, my, look what the wave swept in!

Yet another misplaced human in these wondrous waters, a… poor unfortunate soul, as my sister would say. It hasn’t been that long since another tribe—who was it? The sharks?—had been… blessed with an unusual mate. And now there’s you! How exciting! The orcas are a little temperamental, but I’m sure they’ll treat you lovingly– 

Oh… so you want to leave? Already?

Ambitious, are we? Escape the creatures and get back to land. Well, don’t you look determined? Think you can handle these three strong orcas all by yourself? I’d love to see it. I delight in everything happening around these depths of the ocean, as they are so dark and deep, with barely anything transpiring all day. But as of late, love, freedom, and misery swim hand in hand down here. Intelligence and instincts fight battles that are beyond your little human comprehension. I could not be more pleased with the beautiful bonds that are being woven under the sea.

But I will cheer you on, I promise! I might even have some tips for you, seeing how I’ve been around these sandy lands and great reefs longer than you have!

I don’t think you can trust anyone besides me, really, but you’ll need an ally if you want to get back home. But be careful choosing who you trust. Sometimes you have to take drastic actions to get out of a situation, but there are also times when you need to sit back, stay calm, and let someone else handle it for you. And as badly as I know you want to get out… don’t do anything rash.

These orcas have a fickle disposition, and you wouldn’t want them to decide you’re no fun or tastier than they initially thought. In fact, you don’t want them to think about you at all! Otherwise —ey w—t l— —u ——!

You wake up before the voice can finish. Open your eyes?

Welcome, welcome to Mermay ( & Merjune) 2023!

I think most of you have already understood what will happen, but I thought I'd give a small heads-up about the how, so we're all on the same page:

This will be an interactive story, which means you guys will have to work together to figure out how to continue onwards by choosing the right poll option. Every chapter comes with a decision at the end, and three possible choices. But only one will continue the story while the other two lead to 'Bad Ends' aka not continue the story. Your goal is to escape the three orcas because they won't always like your decision, unfortunately.

I can already tell you that if the majority votes for a Bad End, you'll be able to choose again at the end of it, hopefully picking the right option this time. The story will not stop just because the right option wasn't picked. But who knows? Maybe choosing wrong is actually the better option sometimes (;

To clarify, there are 5 main chapters (the right choices) in total, 10 possible Bad Ends and 1 True End. This is not a video game so there are no secret routes. Nothing will change if you choose certain options after another. Your goal ultimately is to finish this story. But... some interactions and information may or may not be hidden in Bad Ends that could be enjoyable to you as well. (After finishing the main story I'll let you guys pick some other options you would have liked to see if you're interested in that ^-^)

One more exciting thing! I was able to commission a good friend of mine to actually do references for the orcas! We're still working on them but I hope you guys will enjoy some visuals of the new bois ♥

And for good measure: Please read the warnings on the individual posts, as some of the stories contain disturbing content not suited for everyone. Don't read what you don't like.

Thank you for participating and I hope you guys will be able to enjoy the story as much as I do ♥ (If you have questions, please ask away any time! ♥)

[charcoalhawk]

Don’t go where I can’t follow

What scares Tucker the most, after everything, was that he hadn’t even known anything was wrong.

Truce gift for @phan-pheeking-tastic, ended up going with Tucker and Sam finding out Danny is half-ghost in a No-One Knows AU.

This was super fun to do, hope you enjoy!

What scares Tucker the most, after everything, was that he hadn’t even known anything was wrong.

He had thought, with how close he and Danny were, how close they had been, that he would have known if something had happened to him. To his family.

But he hadn’t. Neither had Sam.

When he wakes up that day there’s no dread, no forbording feeling in gut. Heck, Tucker wakes up pretty happy.

It’s the last day of school before winter break, and he and Sam have plans to play as much Doom as possible so they can hopefully beat it before the new year. There’s rumors that anyone who can will be able to access new dlc content that otherwise won’t be available until at least the summer.

Some small part of him is even happy that Danny isn’t in town this week, meaning he and Sam can hang out without things getting awkward.

And Tucker hates thinking like that. Danny was his best friend for a long, long time, but ever since high school started the two of them had slowly drifted apart. Which he does understand, on some level. They’re not five years old anymore playing together on the playground.

But Danny had become so aloof with them, barely interacting with them in class and showing up late to hang out, if he even showed up at all.

And it couldn’t have been because of their new undead neighbors that now haunted the town. After the first like, month, Phantom had proved he was a decent enough ghost that most people didn’t really have to worry about malicious undead any more than they had to worry about overdue homework.

He and Sam have just finished fighting the second to last boss in Doom when there’s a knock on his door. A quick glance at his computer’s clock shows that it isn’t even 11pm yet, so it can’t be his parents telling him to start winding down to go to sleep. It’s also winter break now, so why-?

After a second his Dad’s face peeks through the door, his form backlit by the hallway lights. He thinks he sees his mom too, but after a moment she seems to briefly lay her hand on his father’s shoulder then disappear from view.

“Hey kiddo,” it's hard to tell what his dad is thinking at that moment, and his voice sounds carefully neutral, “are you at a good stopping point for the night? I need to talk with you about something serious.”

He goes to share a glance at Sam but she’s already getting up from her desk.

“Hey Tuck,” Sam’s voice is muffled from her starting to remove her headphones, “I think I’m going to have to call it quits for tonight. My parents just came in and said they need to talk about something important. Hopefully tomorrow we can start planning for the final boss. I’ll text you later, night.”

“Sounds good,” he replies, quickly saving and logging out to the main screen, “night.”

And with that the room is washed in silence. After a second of hesitation his Dad reaches over and flips on the room’s overhead light, moving to sit on the bed across from his gaming set-up.

“Soooo…” Tucker prompts, “what’s up? You said you needed to tell me about something serious?”

His dad doesn’t respond immediately, taking a deep breath before slowly reaching out to rest his hand on Tucker’s shoulder.

“Tucker,” his father looks so sad, “there’s been an accident, a- an attack. Danny’s mom is in a coma.”

———

It takes almost a week to fully find out what happened.

The Fenton’s had been visiting a family friend in Wisconsin, apparently Vlad Masters had gone to college with Danny’s parents, and had invited them all to his mansion for the weekend. It had also been rumored that Mr. Masters had been experiencing some supernatural events that he had wanted Maddie and Jack to help him solve, and with how fanatic the two were around ghosts they had obviously been eager to help in any way they could.

And it had turned out that the rumors had been true, and at least one violent ghost had attacked the mansion the following evening.

Here the details get murky.

Some reports say a single ghost was responsible for the attack, and only the Fenton’s weapons and skill saved everyone from being killed by the vengeful spirit. Others claim it was two ghosts having a territory spat that just so happened to happen in the mansion. Some even claim Phantom drove off the raging ghost and stopped more injuries from occurring.

Number of ghosts aside, the attack had destroyed almost a third of the Masters’ Mansion, and had left most of the staff with injuries from debris or from the ghosts themselves. Danny and Jazz had apparently escaped the worst of it because their parents had gotten them out early on and the two had hidden in the nearby woods until authorities arrived.

Jack had gotten a nasty concussion and broken two ribs fighting off the ghost(s), and Maddie had suffered some kind of mental or physical trauma that left her comatose.

Vlad Masters’ was missing, no one had seen him directly prior to the attack, and afterwards it was like he had just up and vanished.

————

He and Sam stand outside the Fenton house for almost a full minute before Sam seems to find the courage to knock. Two long, followed by two fast and one long, the same combination they’ve all used since they were little kids.

The silence afterwards is thick, and just as Sam is raising her hand to knock again there’s a series of clanking sounds as the locks are undone and the door opens to reveal Jasmine Fenton.

“Oh, hey there,” she gives a small smile, “I’m glad you two are here. Danny is upstairs in his room, we’re all pretty shaken up from what happened, having you two visit should help.”

“How is- how are you holding up?” Tucker asks as they move through the hallway into the living room, a place that’s both so familiar and yet alien, he half expects Danny to be leaning over the staircase inviting them upstairs to his room.

“It’s, I’ve been holding it together,” Jazz says, “I’ll probably be staying here at least until Dad’s ribs are better, luckily all my professors are pretty accommodating and will be letting me attend virtually until I can head back to college. I’m… really scared for my mom, but I trust that she’s getting the best care possible and that she’ll wake up soon.”

Jazz gestures towards the stairs, “Danny’s in his room, call me if you guys need anything. I was actually just about to head over to the Hospital, Dad should be getting discharged today, so we should be back in a few hours.”

With one last smile Jazz heads back the way they came and there’s the sound of the front door opening and closing.

“Should we really be doing this?” Tucker finally breaks the silence, glancing towards the staircase as if Danny will suddenly appear there.

“Honestly I don’t know, but it’s too late to go back now. If we leave Jazz will just ask Danny when she gets back and then we’ll be the assholes who left without saying anything.”

Damn, Tucker hates it when Sam uses logic like that.

“Yeah but it’s just, I don’t think we’ve had a full conversation with him in the past month. It feels wrong to just drop in now when he’s hurting like this.”

“Well it’s not like Dash or Paulina is going to just waltz by and offer to go comfort him,” Sam’s mouth twists into a grimmance, “and Valerie’s probably too busy investigating the attack to try and find the ghosts who did this.”

Tucker can’t argue with that, they really are the closest ones to Danny. Still, it feels wrong to walk up those steps and knock on Danny’s bedroom door like nothing in the past two years has happened.

There’s no immediate answer, but after a second series of knocks there’s the sound of bare feet on hardwood before the door opens slightly, just enough for Danny’s tired blue eyes to peek out.

“Hi,” Danny’s voice is hoarse, “uh, no offense but why are you two here?”

“We uh-,” Tucker shares a glance with Sam, “we wanted to check in on you. I know we aren’t all as close anymore but we wanted to at least see if you were ok in person and see if there was anything we could do.”

That sounded a lot better in his head, but Danny isn’t slamming the door on them, so there’s that. After a moment the door opens fully and he and Sam cautiously walk inside as Danny moves to lean against the far wall.

“I, thanks for coming over?” He seems to almost hug himself, looking anxiously around the room. “I don’t know if your parents put you up to this, or worse Jazz, but you guys don’t need to hang around out of some sense of obligation.”

“We came because we wanted to Danny!” Sam exclaims, “we’re still your friends and, and we care about you! This is obviously traumatizing and we want to help you-“

“You guys don’t understand!” Danny snarls at them. Apparently what Tucker had thought was anxiety was in fact anger.

“You think I’m some scared kid trying to come to terms with an unfortunate accident. Well I’m not!”

Danny’s eyes almost seem to glow in response to his heated words, which doesn’t make any sense. Humans eyes don’t glow, the only thing close to that that Tucker has seen happens when ghosts-

“It was my fault!”

With that last shout there’s a brilliant flash of white, and when Tucker can finally blink the spots out of his vision he finds he can’t quite comprehend what he sees before him.

“I hurt her! I was trying to stop that stupid ghost from hurting my Dad and I ended up almost killing my mom!”

Danny’s too long sweatpants and pullover have been replaced with a glowing hazmat suit, and what’s left standing before them is Phantom, the town’s own ghostly hero. The town’s very young, very dead hero.

“What?”

Sam sounds like she’s just been gut punched, and Tucker doesn’t feel much different.

Everyone in Amity Park knows that Phantom is one of the friendlier ghosts that now haunt them, even dealing with the rowdier ones that try to interfere with day to day human life.

But everyone also agrees that Phantom can be downright terrifying most of the time. The simple fact that he looks all of thirteen makes most residents uncomfortable at best.

Trying to understand that Danny and Phantom are one in the same is almost too much for him, but looking the ghost dead in the eyes now the similarities between the two are overwhelming.

He can see Danny in the way the ghost is hunched like he’s about to collapse onto himself, and he can see Phantom in how his stance is planted and ready to move in a moment's notice.

“It’s-“ and here Phantom's voice breaks, “it’s my fault.”

And with that soft admission the dam finally breaks, and Phantom crumbles to the floor, back heaving as great sobs wrack his body.

In that moment Tucker’s body seems to almost move on to own, moving almost in tandem with Sam to crouch down and envelop Danny in a tight hug.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Sam whispers into Danny’s hair, “I wish you could have told us when this happened so we could have helped. But we know now. We’ll help you however we can, and I’m sure your mom will be better in time.”

Sam sounds so sure of what she’s saying, Tucker can’t even bring himself to speak. Whatever happened to Danny, whatever he’s been doing these past two years, has changed him.

All Tucker can do is tighten his grip, a promise that he hopes he can keep.

[manonamora-if]

February Check-In

From here on out, we should be back on track - IRL be damned (crossing fingers with that). Unless someone throws another wrench...

Anyway, let's not think about the bummer stuff...

Here's to a hopefully "normal" month with stuff actually being checked off a list!

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head over to itch.io!

January Progress

Welp... there wasn't much of a list in the January Check-in, since it was the retrospective, which included the yearly plan. Still, I did make a mini one on itch. Put together we'd get:

Still play more IF and maybe review. ✅

Finish the edits of Harcourt Ch5 ✅ and coding ❌

Fix one of the semi-completed games: ❌either the Egg parser or TRNT (and make it a proper parser)

Complete the Seed/Shuffle-Comp entry✅

Honestly, not bad... The first one, obviously is done and dusted. IFDB says I posted 60+ reviews in January - covering the Short Game Showcase, the ShuffleComp, and the Recipe Jam helped quite a bit. And that also meant... I'm 3rd in the Reviewer ranking! Only 100 more to second place...

MelS and I finally stopped playing ping-pong with the editing of Harcourt (later than we wanted...), and I'm currently sitting down to edit the whole maze. I had hoped to be done by the end of this month, but it wasn't feasible... It was close - I only have half a dozen passages to code, to check it works, and do the formatting. I used to laugh at his complaining of working all the rooms for this maze (because he chose to do that many), but now I'm the one suffering... Don't do mazes... Or don't do 30+-room mazes... (I'm not joking here) Also: If all goes well, March/April should be editing of Chapter 6, June/July coding of Chapter 6 (+ re-edits of previous chapters), August/September beta/edits, October? completed game.

As for the ShuffleComp, I made it realllll close to the deadline. But (not so) strangers in the night was completed just in time! Aaaannnddd, got 1st place in the Use of Songs category! Yay me :D Also submitted to the SeedComp! and the Zach Jam.

As for fixing the parsers.... whomp whomp, didn't manage that.

Buuuutt:

I made another parser! Not Another Sad Meal is a slice-of-life cooking sim of easy difficulty (and clickable elements for help!)

Also made a Zine! CTRL+SHIFT+ZUT+ALORS Lost content meets weird technology. I probably will never make this game, but you can use it as inspiration if you want!

And spent a few days working on a collaborative virtual card for a friend. While that will never be made public (for obvious reasons), You can find the basic interface [here].

Also won kuddos of best puzzle for An Eggcellent Preparation (even though it kinda broken)!

So yeah... not huge updates for projects, but some good progress and a few mini-new games. I'm not expecting people to check those out... But it would be neat if you did!

What’s happening in February?

There's always something happening in the IF world. I don't think I ever find all that happens anyway... but. Here's the ones I know!

The Queer Vampire Game Jam ends in about three weeks. Got a vampire/human story with a LGBT+ cast? Then this is the event for you! (unranked) Also they are doing a fundraising/matching donation with submissions!

Obviously @neointeractives got you covered for Valentine’s with the Smoochie Jam: it’s all about kisses, love and romance (unranked) - Be also on the look out for the next Neo-Interactives mini-jam which is happening mid-March.

The SeedComp! (Sprouting) ends at the end of February. Come transform someone’s idea or asset into a new IF game! See @seedcomp-if for more info ;) (ranked)

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2024 se termine dans un mois! Viendez faire des histoires en français!! <3 (ranked, duh)

The Spring Thing is waiting for your intent to participate until March 1st! After that, the submissions are due in April (also ranked)

Got a cool talk idea regarding Interactive Fiction, narration, or gameplay? Consider submitting a proposal for this year’s Narrascope! They are still looking for people!!!!

Note: @neointeractives will have jams all year long. One a month/or so. And the next Planting Round of @seedcomp-if will start as soon as the results are dropped.

The PLANtm for February

Shortest month, and one busy months in events (I'm at the head of two... what am I DOING WITH MY LIFE....)... So much to do, so little time. But also, ONE EXTRA DAY THIS MONTH! :D

What are we hoping to do this month?

Play more games! Because there are a bunch of jams happening and a backlog of games I'm trying to clear. Also I want to get to that second IFDB spot! (1st won't ever be attainable...)

Finish the Code Ch5 of Harcourt. This is attainable. This is doable. I will finish... because I am already 80% done. MelS is working on Chapter 6 for this month - hoping to have a rough draft for me to check too by the end of the month...

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. This is your month. I swear I am manifesting it hard. This is happening. I will finish you. I'm sorry I've been avoiding you....

Jam Entry number 685470w8698... probably. Maybe do a Queer Vampire/Smoochie Combo. Maybe even a French Comp game?

ALSO: I will probably do an another AMA mid-Feb.

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

New year, new list. A more feasible one, according to January-Me.

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent - this year should be it - for real)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm getting ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)

[brightatmidnight]

The Chaser’s Voyage Starmap for 2024

Hello everyone. Cameron and I are back from our winter break and ready to continue our work on (and hopefully finish up) The Chaser’s Voyage this year. So first, let’s go over what we’ve accomplished last year by looking at the Starmap for the game.

Last year, we revamped the tutorial, we added in a new client type, the aligned cartographer, and we updated client stories to improve randomization and fall more in line with our game’s lore. We also made other client tweaks such as highlighting mentions of factions in the client stories, so that you, the player, can really know which clients are good and which will lead to a horrible death.  Along the way, we made plenty of little updates, including making some UI changes to improve the experience for gamepad users. When we first made this Starmap, we put the biggest obstacles and challenges first, but we didn’t anticipate some unexpected challenges, like prioritizing implementing gamepad support and making a full performance overhaul. Now though, we are happy with how these things have come together and we’re ready to tackle the final parts of The Chaser’s Voyage before launch.

So what are those parts?

They’re the fun little extras that we’ve been dying to get into the game for a long time now. The first is our lore, which takes the form of our Crew Journal. We’ve talked a bit about it before, but to reiterate, it’s pretty much where a bulk of our game universe’s history and character backstories lie. They’ll take the form of various in-universe pieces of media, such as news articles, private messages, or non-voiced character interactions. It’s all extra stuff, but we’ve made a huge effort to ensure that the galaxy you’re flying the Chaser through is a reflection of a consistent world full of other stories to tell or have yet to be told.

With so much lore though, all together it’s the same amount of words as a short novel, one of the first problems we were encountering with the Journal was how it affected the startup loadtime. We actually had all the lore in the game for a while in outdated UI, but since it was inaccessible we removed it for the Early Access builds. Luckily, Cameron seems to have found a promising solution already. At the time of this writing, we are now exploring how we want to present the Crew Journal visually. So, fingers crossed that we’ll be able to get that into an early access build soon.

After that, we’ll only have one more major feature to work on, which is the inclusion of our training mode, the Flight Simulator. This will allow players to create their own scenarios that they can use as practice for the main game. For instance, if pirates chasing you through minefields are always giving you a hard time, you can set the simulator to those same conditions and practice until you master the encounter. You can also adjust your starting health and choose which systems are already damaged upon entering the encounter. The cool thing about implementing this feature is that we already have it in the game, it’s just inaccessible. The reason for that is that is two fold. 1: There are options only intended for our use (to make it easier to capture exactly the footage we want for trailers since so much of our game is determined randomly). And 2: We are planning on overhauling the visuals for the Flight Sim UI, since the ones we have now are fairly bare bones.

After the Flight Sim, it’s a matter of cleaning a few things up, maybe adding some features we didn’t think of at the time, and bug testing before finally launching out of Early Access. Some of these features we’ve already implemented, such as the Voyager+ and Captain+ modes, which lets players play the Ace mode’s encounter randomization on lower difficulties. One of the big things that needs to be cleaned up is our options menu, which is not finalized since we don’t want to set anything in stone while we’re still developing the game and adding new options and setting.

Now, you may have noticed that we also have a “Milestone” between “Phase 1” and “Phase 2”. We wanted to reach a more polished state before we started really using VoxPop’s platform. We are still definitely hoping to collaborate with streamers in order to get the word out there, especially after last year’s updates. Neither Cameron nor I are really into marketing, but we’re determined to do everything we can to make The Chaser’s Voyage succeed.

I have a lot of high hopes for this year. We’re gonna keep working towards making The Chaser’s Voyage really soar and we’re hoping you’ll be with us when this voyage finally takes off!

For more updates on The Chaser’s Voyage, be sure to check back on our blog, follow The Chaser's Voyage and Bright at Midnight on Twitter, or join our Discord! If you wish to play The Chaser’s Voyage, you can buy it while we’re in Early Access on Steam.

- Eos//G

[baileyjane3769]

Original Copy is on Quotev, for a better viewing experience and chapter by chapter reading head on over to my Quotev page @BobbyWolf3769 or click the link here

***

When a game is over and all hidden things have been found, what is there left to do? Move on. That's what you would have liked to have done after finishing the disappointing secret ending of a popular otome game. But when the story is over, and all things were said and done, you find yourself trapped in that very game. Faced with the task to keep everyone alive, can you make it to the end without falling in love?

Long read ahead

Chapter Fifteen

Gym Class Blues

“Wow, L/n-chan, you're even cuter than when I last saw you,” Fuyuhiko joked with that boyish grin he’s famous for. “And here I thought that wasn’t possible.”

You couldn't deny the small butterflies that fluttered in your tummy at his words, but you push that aside as you already know how he is. Though a certain female lead seems to currently be a flaming ball of fire, standing off to the side of you. “Hey, Kaneko-kun, charming as always I see,” you say half sarcastically, unintentionally pouting.

“Ouch, you could sound a little happier to see me. After all, we don’t get these joint gym classes often, isn’t that right Kobayashi-chan?” The flirt asked the fireball named Yuki with a tilt of his head, obviously he was teasing her.

“Hmph! I see you’re inviting yourself into other people’s conversations, as per usual,” Yuki said as she stared at the boy in contempt. “No one called you over, so why don’t you beat it! We have other important matters to deal with besides listening to your nonsense.” She turned her nose up to him.

While the attention was off of you, you took a moment to observe the interaction between the two as they continued to bicker, seemingly ignoring the other four parties present. This whole plan that you developed to get Emi and Suzuki together was created so that you could keep him away from Yuki so that you could hopefully save  his life. More than likely all of your future plans will have the same concept; keep everybody away from Yuki so that Akui won’t want to kill them. Which is proving to be much easier said than done 

Theoretically speaking, the first step to any plan that involved keeping Yuki away from the capture targets would be to not have them meet at all. Can't fall in love if they never actually meet. Suffice to say you failed on that front. All three love interests have already met her, with you being the technical reason for one meeting, and it was only a matter of time before they showed interest in her. Technically you will have the longest time to get them to not be interested in Yuki as their relationship development is a slow process over the full school year, but the longer you leave them alone the harder it will be to make them lose interest in her down the line.

‘I think I'm starting to see why all three of the love interests have some sort of enemies to lovers aspect to them. At the start of each route, there is something about the love interest that Yuki doesn't agree with, but as their relationship progresses she slowly starts to understand them better and feelings start to form. Maybe that’s why Akui didn't do anything to the love interests in their original routes; he thought that there was no way Yuki could fall for someone she is constantly arguing with. And it's not like they ever tried to hurt her like most of the other people he killed, but in the secret ending it seemed like romantic interest was building much faster between all of the love interests. This is probably due to the fact that the player has to purposely keep Yuki from investigating crime scenes. That might be why Akui was actually driven to kill the love interests, and if I'm safe to assume that this world follows the plot of the secret ending then change needs to start now…’

“Hey, Yuki-chan,” you interrupted before she could hurl another insult at Fuyuhiko. Everyone present perked up at the sound of your voice. “I think maybe you should be a little nicer to Kaneko-kun. He's not as bad as you think once you get to know him…” you nervously trail off as you stare down at your gym shoes. ‘Fuyuhiko’s interest in Yuki started with her constant, and a lot of the times harsh, rejections towards him. It was amusing for him to watch at first. If I can get her to be more passive and nice towards him then that might just be step one in my plan to keep him alive.’

 When Yuki didn't immediately reply, and when the silence became too embarrassing to bear, you lifted your head to see why, only to be thoroughly surprised by the almost horrified look on Yuki’s face.

“Oh no, Y/n-chan! Don't tell me that this womanizer got to you too!” she practically yelled, whole body reeling back as if the words you just spoke physically burned her.

“Huh?” you couldn't help but dumbfounded exclaim.

“Oh?” And Fuyuhiko couldn't look any more amused. In one swift motion, he was at your side with an arm around your shoulders. “See, Kobayashi-chan, L/n-chan doesn't think I'm that bad of a person, so you should lighten up a bit,” he taunted with a cheeky smirk, giving your shoulder a light squeeze as added emphasis.

You probably would have gotten embarrassed again if it wasn’t for the fact that, no sooner after he said that, Yuki pulled you away from him while shouting, “What have I told you about personal space! Your degeneracy will taint the pureness of Y/n-chan!”

“Degenera–? I’m nothing but the very definition of a gentleman!” Fuyuhiko barked out completely offended by her statement.

‘This is the exact opposite of what I wanted!’ you bemoaned in your head. You were almost sandwiched between the two as they stared each other down. Yuki with a fiery glare and Fuyuhiko with a look of annoyance despite the smile that was on his face that was twitching with annoyance. ‘Fuyuhiko is one of the more calm of the love interests, but he absolutely hates it when people call him a degenerate or a pervert. He may be a womanizer but there are lines even he won’t cross…’

“Uhm, Yuki-chan, Kaneko-kun; maybe you two should calm down…” Emi nervously commented, trying to remediate the situation, but to you it was like an angel coming to rescue you. “I don’t think this is good for Y/n-chan’s heart…” she commented after taking notice of your distressed form. Commediacly, it was almost like your soul was leaving your body.

‘Thank you, Emi-chan! I almost forgot you and the others were here, you truly are an angel!’

“Hmph,” Yuki flipped her hair while sharply turning away from Fuyuhiko. “For the sake of Y/n-chan, then sure, I’ll behave for now. But I still don’t like him.”

“That’s fine, but please let’s not cause a scene…” Emi couldn’t do much besides sweatdrop at Yuki’s stubbornness. Both you and her couldn’t help but watch with apprehensive smiles as she stomped away to go and complain to Akui about Fuyuhiko.

“Your new friends sure are a boisterous bunch, huh, Nakano-chan?” Suzuki kind heartedly spoke up after being quiet since his arrival.

‘Please don’t think we’re crazy…’ you forelonly thought with an almost exasperated sigh.

“They are, aren’t they? But I think that’s what makes them so much fun to be around,” Emi said with a grin. “They all have been so kind to me, and they’re helping me even though they don’t have to. I couldn’t be more grateful.”

“Oh? I didn’t know you were in need of help. Is there anything that I can do?” Suzuki kindly asked. His sincerity and concern were evident by the look on his face.

“W-well, uhh, I-I mean…” words caught in her throat, Emi became flustered by the sudden question and didn’t know how to respond.

“It’s a girl problem, sorry but we can’t tell you,” you quickly interjected, wrapping your arm around her shoulder and bringing her closer to you. “We already have Akui-kun in our business; we don’t need any more men knowing,” you continued with a matter of fact tone.

“It’s about a boy, isn’t it,” Fuyuhiko knowingly remarked.

‘Right, he’s still here…’

While you could have denied it, crushes were usually seen as secretive and many people would be quick to deny, the more you thought about it the more you figured you could probably use him to your advantage. So “Maybe,” was your simple response.

“Y-Y/n-chan!” Emi exclaimed with her face growing even redder.

“Relax, relax, Emi-chan, I’ve got your back, remember?” you assured her. “Anyways, you all should probably pair up now for the five v. five volleyball matches.”

Having heard the tail end of the conversation, Yuki excitedly walked back over to you. “I want Y/n-chan to be on my team!” she proclaimed happily. While this was a rather endearing display to witness, it appears Yuki overlooked one important factor.

“Um, Yuki-chan, I’m not participating in any of the matches today…” You say trying to let her down gently.

“Eh? But why?” Yuki exclaimed with wide eyes. It was her genuine lack of awareness that led everyone present to just stare at her in bewilderment for a second, wondering if she was actually this dense.

“Her hand is broken, Yuki-chan…” It seems Akui was the one who had to let her know.

It took a second or two for the information to register in her head, and when it did her entire face erupted into flames. “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry, Y/n-chan! Please forgive my inconsideration!” She chanted a mantra of apologies over and over again, bowing deeping each time she did so.

“Don’t worry about it, Yuki-chan. I don’t blame you or anything…” You trailed off as she continued her barrage of repeated bows, sweat dropping at her overly enthused apologies.

When Yuki finally stopped apologizing, she stood up straight, a red color still evident on her face, before she stiffly walked over to Akui and grabbed him by his hand. “Let’s go, Minato-kun. Emi-chan, Suzuki-kun, you two can be a part of our team as well,” she offered as she began to walk away with Akui in tow.

“Oh? It seems you still have a spot open on your team. Mind if I join, Kobayashi-chan?” Fuyuhiko suavely asked.

“Drop dead.”

“Ouch, that wasn’t very nice of you to say. I wonder what L/n-chan would have to say to something like that,” Fuyuhiko further teased with a small smirk.

“Er–” Yuki halted in her steps. She spares a nervous glance over at you as if expecting scolding.

“Well that was a little extreme of you to say, Yuki-chan, so if you’re gonna banter with him then please try to avoid anything violent,” you lightly chastised. ‘Besides, if you go around telling people to die, even if it’s only an exaggeration, I’m afraid that Akui might actually take you seriously…’

Yuki huffed lightly with a pout as she stubbornly agreed. “Okaay…”

“That goes for you too, Kaneko-kun,” you added.

“Hm? Me too?”

You did your best to put on a stern face, but any one else could agree that it was on par with Yuki’s angry pout when it comes to cuteness. “What I really want is for both you and Yuki-chan to get along, and that means you also have to stop picking a fight with her.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll heel. I should probably get going to find my own team now anyways,” Fuyuhiko responded, lifting his hands up in a surrender manner. A little ways over there seemed to be a group of girls standing off to the side as they stared giddily at the notorious flirt. It obviously seems like they wanted to be a part of his team as well as a few other boys who were aware of his decent athletic ability. They were willing to put aside their jealousy in order to have a fighting chance at winning the upcoming volleyball matches. “I’ll see you another time then L/n-chan,” he waved bye as he left.

“The teacher’s calling the teams over now; we should get going too,” Akui pointed out.

“All right, let’s go guys,” Yuki replied as she and Akui started off again.

“A-Ah, right,” Emi stammered, going to follow after Suzuki who had already begun walking away, but you stopped her before she could go far. “Y/n-chan?” she questioned.

“Remember, have confidence in yourself, Emi-chan,” you began. “Self-confidence is practically the most attractive quality a person would have, so if you want Suzuki-kun to notice you then it starts by having confidence in yourself and putting yourself out there,” you continued to explain.

Emi marveled at your own confidence that you displayed. “Okay, I’ll do my best!” she cheered.

“Nakano-chan, are you coming?” It was Suzuki. Looks like he turned around after noticing Emi’s lack or presence.

“Y-Yes! I’m–” she hesitated for a moment, but a quick glance over to you with your reassuring smile allowed her to gain more confidence. “I’m going now, so let’s go, Suzuki-kun!” She happily said before rushing to grab his hand to pull him along with her. “We wouldn’t want to be left behind, ‘kay?”

“Oh, right…” Suzuki replied before being whisked off by Emi.

You watched the two as they made their way back to the rest of your classmates before you dropped your head and released a sigh. ‘Confidence, huh…’ There were only three more days that you could use to try and set Suzuki up with Emi. If you fail, and Suzuki does end up asking Yuki out then he’s as good as dead come Saturday. ‘There’s no room for failure because if I do then what in the world am I going to do to fix it? What’s my plan B? I already put into place the rejection strategy by telling Yuki about Emi’s feelings for Suzuki, so there’s no way she would ever accept his confession. In fact she will probably be very sad for Emi because the boy she likes ended up asking her out. Even so, if Yuki confides with Akui about the situation then who’s to say he won’t want to kill him anyways. I could get him expelled like Makino. No, he’s too much of a good person for me to frame him for anything. So then what would make a good plan B?’

Feeling fatigued despite not having done any strenuous labor, you decide to rest on a nearby bench. ‘Following him around won’t work. The chances of me getting caught are too high, and besides how long will I have to follow him around for anyways? He’s supposed to be dead by Saturday but will Yuki’s rejection change that date? If I was rejected then I’d probably not want to leave my house till the next time I desperately had to, like for school or something, which would mean he wouldn’t be out Saturday night for Akui to kill him. If Saturday passes and he ain’t dead then does that mean I pass regardless of Akui’s murderous intent? Or will his death date be changed to a different day? If that happens then my information will be useless, but maybe if I can get Yuki to confide in me about it then Akui won’t know. But how do I go about that? It’s not like I can replace the years worth of friendship that those two built. Ugh! All this thinking is hurting my brain!’ You reached a hand up and began to massage your temples a bit, trying to relieve yourself of the strengthening headache. ‘It’s not like I can do nothing, I need to try whatever I can to try and keep all these people alive.’

“Are you alright, L/n-chan?” A boy suddenly asked you. A boy whose voice you recognized.

“Huh?” You lifted your head. “Fukumoto-kun?” 

His eyes seemed to widen when they met yours. “You’re crying.”

Realizing that this fact was true, you quickly whipped away the few tears that slipped past you as you hurriedly went to respond. “O-Oh! I’m sorry,” you shifted your body to face away from him. “I’m fine, really, just a headache is all.” ‘Why do all these love interests always find me at my worst?’ “A-Anyways, what brings you here, Fukumoto-kun? Shouldn’t you be playing volleyball with all the others?”

He stared at you for a moment longer before he responded. “I decided to sit out to make the numbers more even. Technically I’m more like the acting waterboy.” He looked like he wanted to say more but was hesitating. Rubbing the nape of his neck he looked away from you and finally decided to say. “I noticed you weren’t looking so good so I decided to check on you. Are you sure you're fine? I could take you to the nurse's office if you're not feeling up for class…”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” you say as you frantically wave your hands to try and dismiss his worries. “I’m honestly fine–ah…” You went to stand up to further emphasize your point, but your body betrayed you. The sudden movement caused your vision to go black for a second and your body to sway slightly.

“Woah, hey!” Akihiko exclaimed using his hands to steady you by placing one on the small of your back and the other holding your forearm. “It’s obvious you're not feeling well, so stop being stubborn and let me take you to the nurse’s office,” his tone was stern as he said this, but you knew it came from a good place.

“Okay…” so you agreed to be taken to the nurses office.

After getting permission from the gym teacher, Akihiko was the one to lead you to the nurses office. Of course Yuki and the others caught wind of this, leading to a mini argument about who should be the one to take you there. Since Akihiko wasn’t participating anyway, it was only rational that he took you. Yuki wanted to tag along anyways, but the teacher was adamant about not letting her or anyone else go with.

“Pardon us,” Akihiko said as he opened the door to the nurses office. “Obara-sensei, I have a classmate who needs to rest here for a while. She started to feel light headed during gym class.”

Sitting casually in her swivel chair was the school nurse of Kibou High School, Obara Jun. She was an elderly woman with graying hair and prominent wrinkles, but there was a clear authoritarian aura around her. You personally met for the first time after Makino attacked you. Apparently you were also taken to her after your fall in the bathroom, but you were unconscious for that meeting.

“Oh, it’s you again…” Obara muttered, looking at you from over her glasses. “I’m sure your doctor has told you to take it slow, yes?”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” you hurriedly responded.

“And have you?” Obara questioned again.

“Uhm, yes? I mean for the most part… I didn’t participate in many gym class activities if that’s what you mean…” you rambled. “Just stretches really…”

“Hmm…” Obara hummed in thought. “Well stretching alone won’t do you any harm, it might even be good for your sore limbs, but stress, anxiety, migraines, and dehydration are more common factors for such a reaction. Then there’s your history of repeated head injury… Hmm.” She turned back around to face her computer. “You may rest there,” she said, pointing over to the bed that rested in the corner. “I’m gonna call your parents about a few things I’m concerned with. Sit tight until I get back,” Obara continued on to say before standing up and began making her way to the door. “Akihiko-kun, make sure she gets there safely, and then you may go.”

“Of course, Obara-sensei.”

Once she left, Akihiko led you to sit down on the white medical bed. Afterwards you subconsciously began to look around the room. “Will you be fine on your own?” Akihiko asked after observing your lazy expression.

“Hm? Yeah, I’ll be fine…” you mumbled absentmindedly. ‘Stress, anxiety, migraines, and dehydration…With all I’m going through it’s no surprise. Maybe I should talk to Mom about seeing a therapist or something. If I can’t talk about the mind numbing notion of being in a video game then I can at least talk out about what happened with Makino,’ you thought to yourself as you continued looking around the nurse’s desk. It was the pen holder that really caught your eye. ‘I remember a boy back in elementary school who broke his arm, and he got everyone in the class to sign it… maybe my new friends here might be interested in signing mine.’ “Hey, Fukumoto-kun,” you suddenly called out to the boy who still remained in the room. That far off look in your eyes worried him more than he would like to admit.

“Y-Yes? What do you need, L/n-san?” He was quick to respond.

“Do you want to sign my cast?” you asked, finally looking lucid enough to look him in the eye. “I’m sure she has a few permanent markers over there you could use…” you trailed off as embarrassment settled in. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked…’

“I just take a marker and write my name, yes?” Akihiko asked, grabbing a marker from the pen holder. “Alright then, where should I sign?”

“O-Oh! Uhm, anywhere’s fine, just don’t make it too big,” you said, perking up a bit. Holding out your cast bound arm, you watched as Akihiko gingerly took your hand and began to write his name in simple calligraphy. He wrote it on the inner side of your cast, so that it was a bit out of sight. Now that you thought about it, if you walked around with only Akihiko’s name written on for a while people might start talking and spreading rumors.

“There, all done,” he concluded as he stood back to his full height. You noted how his ears were red again. “I should probably get back to the field now, feel better soon, alright?”

“Of course,” you say, smiling lightly. “I’ll see you later, ‘kay” The boy only nodded in reply before turning and leaving. Now that he was gone, you took it upon yourself to actually lay fully down. Resting wasn’t too bad an idea. It will allow your body to rest and reset, then maybe you could come up with a backup plan if your main one ends up failing. Closing your eyes, you waited for sleep to overtake you.

“Hey, old hag–” someone bellowed as they slid the sliding door open. The loud interruption spooked you to quickly sit upright, which was a bad idea. The sudden drop in your blood pressure caused you to go light headed again and led you to clutch the sides of your head.

“Ah–” you gasped with your eyes clenched shut. “Oh, hey, Matsumura-kun…” you said while peeking open one eye.

“Er… Hey, L/n-san…”

A/n: Man, did I have fun writing this chapter. I don't really know if the custom of writing on a friends cast is common in Japan, but when I went to Google it there weren't any results on where it started or if it was something that friends did in Japan. I read somewhere that it is a thing that some kids do in some Southeast Asian countries but no one said anything about the origin of it, so for the sake of cute moments I'm gonna make it a thing, at least in my fake town. I have also come to realize that because I'm constantly going back and forth during the writing process of each chapter that when I go to reread and edit I don't have the motivation to do so because I've stared at it for too long. This just means that at some point I'm gonna have to put my story on a brief hiatus so that I can take a break and don't get burned out, so that I can go in an edit it with no problems. I'm not sure when I'll do this, maybe after a few more chapters or something, but you don't have to worry about it being too soon. Anyways, as you might be able to see, the reader's mental and physical health is slowly starting to show the effect of all that's happened to her. Unlike with a lot of stories where the mc doesn't realize or chooses to ignore it, my reader isn't stubborn enough to tough things out when she doesn't have to. She can see that all these things, big and small, are negatively affecting her well being. Now she just has to figure out how to healthily cope without seeming weird or out of character to the people around her. My sister has told me she feels bad for my character, especially because she knows a bit about what I have planned for the future, meanwhile I'm over here typing away while evil laughing as I plan it all out, lol! In my defense though, I know for a fact there are writers out there who give their OCs more trauma than I do. I think I've been rambling enough, so I'll see everyone in the next update. Bye!

Fun-fact #2: The color of the reader's cast, which is like a neon green, is based on the color of a cast that I wore way back in elementary school. Sometime during kindergarten my sister and our friend broken my forearm and wrist when we were messing around with an elliptical bike. I wanted a pink cast but the hospital didn't have that color, so it was a choice between red and green and I chose green for some reason. Unlike the reader who only had her wrist mildly fractured, almost my whole arm was encapsulated in it, but the thing that made me the most sad was that I couldn't climb the monkey bars anymore, lol.

[jazziergin]

Re @coffeeorderwrites

Hey all. I said I would post once Sal had her baby and had time to settle in a bit so this is that post. She's had a beautiful baby girl and had the following message for anyone interested.

Hi friends! It took a minute to get my brain together enough for a message and in the meantime Darren has quite stolen my thunder. I've also had a daughter with a colour as part of her name. At least it's a colour if you're French. Or just fancy. I think my little girl is possibly even more beautiful than their's though, just one mother's opinion 😜

Anyway. Why am I writing a message when I did the equivalent of mysteriously disappearing into the fog never to be seen again? Jas told me that several people got in touch with her about my deactivation and all the nice messages people left which is just so... touching and lovely and overwhelming in a good way. I'm really not used to people caring all that much about what I do and it's just wild to think I affected people in some way even in passing. I am full of love.

The other side of that though was realising that I'd left a certain level of confusion and upset behind and that is quite literally the last thing I want. The love I have for the people in this fandom is enormous and if you're thinking 'she doesn't mean me', I do. I mean you reading this right now.

I wanted to step away for several reasons but imma try and keep this short.

First. I knew even before my daughter was born she was going to need some extra care and attention and, while there are always options, my only option is to be there to help her live the best most amazing life. I dedicated a lot of love and time and energy to fandom and while the love is still there the time and energy is not and probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

Second. I do have a tendency to put my all into everything I do and that puts me on the fast train to burn out. I had so many unanswered asks and undone requests and unfinished wips and unfulfilled promised that I was just starting to feel buried by it. I haven't been unable to write properly for a while and even my ability to create was very impeded by the end.

I did a game that asked what My Thing was and someone said my Thing was not finishing what I start and. Yes they were just being needlessly unpleasant but they also weren't wrong? I feel like I just have nothing left to give to you all and Tumblr was starting to feel like a weight hanging on me rather than something fun to do. I knew that if I just tried to step away the temptation to look at what was happening would always be there. It just not being there any more sounded the best option for me personally and ultimately you gotta look after yourself first my loves, I hope you know that too.

I've left my fics in place because I know one of them was a source of comfort for people that I would never want to take away. I just don't want any more notifications about it I suppose. It seems dramatic in hindsight but to me this is what makes the most sense.

I said I would keep it short so those are the bare essentials. The reason I didn't say goodbye is because I just didn't want any fanfair. I used to joke about it a lot but I truly am allergic to attention. But I am really sorry to anyone that was hurt. My only regret is acting in a way that caused alarm or upset because I met so many special people in this fandom.

If you were my mutual I adore you, if we ever interacted even in tags that goes double. I have so much love for the people here and had a ton of fun with you all and I wish you all well. Hopefully this message can serve as the goodbye I should have given beforehand and if you ever think of me you think of me fondly.

So until we meet again, take it sleazy 💖💖💖

Tagging some people she mentioned may be interested, feel free to ignore though ( her words). Also one of them just said Cat Wife so let me know if you know who that is!

@hippohead @1908jmd @hopefulobjectmiracle @jedthesecretdreamer @backslashdelta @hummels-turn @make-it-klaine @itstruthtime @razzberryhairgel

[izzabeean]

Chapter 12 : You’ve Got A Way

pairing : fushiguro toji x fem!reader

warnings/tags : 18+, alternate universe - office, eventual romance, explicit language.

genre : angst + fluff + smut

word count : 1,841

a/n : hi everyone! I am currently suffering, because I realized we are more than halfway through this series and my mind hasn't fully accepted the fact - tbh I thought it'd be writing this series forever. this has become more of a slow burn than I initially drafted it to be, but let's be real y'all, I'm a sucker for the chemistry that ignites between two people before they get together. so get comfy and enjoy this chapter because the next is going to be a game changer (sorry to tease about it, I'm just excited to write it).

hopefully this will help y'all get through the week (it definitely did for me!) xx

18+ minors dni!!!

masterlist  | << prev | ch. 12 | next >>

The dark room floods Toji in a state of melancholy treachery. Is it safe to assume hiding from the real world is the perfect antidote to the goal that just slipped from his fingers? Or perhaps he should continue to drink his frustration away until his wallet is penny less. He’s always been and always will be a failure.

He shifts in his bed to see a peak of sunlight streaming through the closed curtains. God, his head hurt so much. Even the dimmed rays shoot a sharp pain to his temples – the perfect sign to close his eyes and sleep it off. Or maybe he needs another drink. Who knows. No answer can ever be correct in this state of mind he will forever live in. This is  exactly what he gets for trying to live an honest life. But it wasn't even that honest, since he took the fall for something he never did...

It’s all the same shit day, in and day out, and of course, he was so  stupid  to think that things would be different now. They weren’t. Never would be. He’s only been spared from what could have been worse though.  You  could've made him so much worse. And yet you’re still on his mind even after the last uncomfortable interaction.

He can’t show his face back at the office, could he? Not when the last look you gave him was something between dreadful and disappointing. Though he considers himself to be both of those things, you didn’t even utter a word to him as he left. He’d hope you’d come up with some kind of witty charismatic statement, just anything instead of silence.

But honestly, maybe you were just as weak as he was. Maybe, just maybe your intention to push him to finish that project was just a way to move towards a more notable position in the company. You never actually cared about his success, you were just pushing him to make him more miserable.

And yet, he still wants to see you again.

Things were always cut too short between the two of you and it made Toji just want to be around you more. It was spineless of him, yes. Somehow he didn’t really care. He felt like he was getting to know the woman you truly are and he liked it. A lot in fact.

Is it weird to think you two could have gotten somewhere? Especially since you'd exposed another side of yourself to him. He thought he had you, that you'd be like putty in his hands. And the day he got fired, he really swore that if Kaito didn't interrupt the two of you, something could have happened. Something he's been long awaiting.

The subtle noise of Toji’s phone vibrates in the background. He turns to take a look at who’s name is illuminating the screen. It’s Kong. Frankly, Toji hasn’t even spoken to him since the incident, he’s been ignoring his calls, hoping in time Kong will take the hint. But he’s a lot more stubborn than Toji remembers and he feels himself start to give in.

With a sigh, he leans over to answer the call.

  It didn’t take Toji too much convincing to get out of bed when Kong persuades him with a couple of drinks. So here he is, sitting at the bar, already starting on his first drink. He wasn’t so keen on going to Suki’s in the first place, wanting to stay as far away from his old office as he possibly could. But there’s a part of him that hopes that he will run into you. 

“Fushiguro,” Kong’s voice booms. “Thought you’d never show your face again.”

Toji's eyes snap quickly over to Kong who is standing with his briefcase slung over his shoulder.

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Toji says with a chuckle. He also can't so easily get rid of you constantly racing in his mind as he looks behind Kong wondering if you’d be there. He wished his brain never went there cause that tinge of hope just blossomed into more disappointment.

Toji slams the rest of his drink back, not even taking a beat while Kong takes a seat beside him. He lets out a relieved sigh as the sound of the glass hits the bar, eyes searching for the bartender. 

“You already owe me one,” Toji says before ordering his next drink. 

Kong orders the exact same carefully scanning Toji and Toji can feel his judgment. As he watches the drink being made, his eyes grow hungrier and hungrier by the second, craving the warm embrace of alcohol.

“You ok?” Kong asks taking a newly made drink into his hands, gaze locked onto Toji.

“‘The fuck you talkin’ about?" He dodges the question and picks up the glass swirling it before taking a sip.

"Just pace yourself, ok?" Kong chimes in, the sound of concern wearing in his voice.

"Believe me, I’ve paced myself enough," Toji fires back.

“Just enough until you got yourself fired?” A voice barges into the conversation. 

Toji turns his head to see the person behind the voice who very quietly sits beside him. And to his surprise it’s you. You clear your throat before calling out for the bartender, but you didn’t need to as he was already there. The glimmering look in the bartender's eyes only gazes upon you whilst the rest of the patrons get a neutral stare. You’re a good-looking lady, how could no one look at you in that way? So why is this good-looking lady sitting beside a disappointment?

“You know I’d take you for a liar, but the stunt you pulled is a new look for you,” you continue, eyes forward, not even interested in looking his way.

“Didn’t take you for a stalker type,” Toji interjects, ignoring your comment. “Thought I was the one with that title.”

“Pft, who even comes to a bar so close to the job they got fired from?”

“I actually asked him to meet me here,” Kong interrupts, making his presence known to you. 

Quickly, you snap your head over your eyes darting to Kong first, then to Toji. But your eye contact isn’t long as you seem to be quite embarrassed gazing into the deep emeralds of his soul.

“It’s funny ‘cause I don’t really see you around here,” Toji inquires leaning in closer. “Did ya come lookin’ for someone?”

“Fu– Now aren’t we feeling cocky?” You hiss. “Just for that… I think you owe me a drink.”

“How about you owe me a drink for the hell ya put me through.”

“Excuse me?”

“For making me start a project over when I could’ve just been fired a long time ago.”

“So, you didn’t lie about your indecency?”

Silence stifles between the two, as Kong slowly rises from his chair mumbling that he will be going out for a smoke, noting he didn’t want to be involved in a lovers quarrel. 

Lovers quarrel.

Now isn’t that optimistic thinking, to actually be in a quarrel with the one you love? But this wasn’t  love  . Nah. Toji wasn’t someone to dive into that weak emotion. This was more than just a subsequent plunge to the heart of unrequited intensity. No, this was much more devious than that. A passion that runs through his veins, he can only long for it as the days go by. It’s pleasant and shallow, nothing deep or it will swallow him whole. It had to be  lust . Wanting you so bad that his bones ache, no temporary relief can subside his frustration besides the idea of fucking you silly beneath him. Holding you down with all his strength, just so he can unravel the growing need to expel inside you. 

Like a predator watching his prey, Toji’s eyes dim while a smirk creeps on his lips. “Didn’t realize you’d get so worked up over me.”

“Pft, you’re just drunk,” You snap. 

“Are you  that upset that I got fired?” He leans in closer to you.

“God, you smell like booze.”

“Why don’t you drop the act,” he says. Nonchalant, in fact, as if he’s rehearsed this one hundred times in his head. But he hadn’t. He can feel his heart beating so hard he swears you can hear it. “It’s obvious we are both after the same thing.”

It’s obvious you know what he means. Yet, you still put on a stern look. Where’s the bashfulness he saw written on your face like the other day?  

“And what would that be?” You smirk.

“C’mon, are you going to make me say it?”

You don’t say a word, neither of you is willing to say it, instead, you both continue to gaze into each other's eyes, listening to the ambiance of the bar and the clinking of glasses.

“Fushiguro.” You say, breaking the silence. Anticipation rises in his chest as you lean in closer as if you’re contemplating something. He doesn’t know if he wants to know.

So he answers with a firm kiss on the lips. It’s so deep and longing and fiery that some may have taken notice in the bar of the public display of affection. It was a promiscuous one, a passionate one, and all the stars aligned in that one moment. He didn't think this is all he wanted, of course, he needed more. He needed you. And it had to be now.

But you retract back into your seat, bringing your drink to your lips again and taking a long sip.

Toji says your name. You look at him again, swallowing the drink hard. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” you say.

He pauses. The words seemed to jab at him all at once. It still echoes in his mind and he admits it could be that he’s nearly falling apart, yet he really wants you. So yes, drinking and sleeping all day may not be the ultimate treatment to cure his undeniable curse, but maybe you are.

Getting up from your seat, you throw cash on the bar and don’t say anything more. He finds himself frozen as he watches you walk away and out of the bar.

He frowns, staring at your half-empty glass of alcohol, wondering if he’d read into everything wrong this entire time. He’s never been rejected, so the pit in his stomach makes him feel uneasy about the outcome of his actions.

His eyes seem to wander down the bar stopping at a woman sitting alone finishing up her drink. It’s been a while since he’s got laid and somehow the opportunity tasted a bit sweeter down on his luck. Maybe it wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but as he throws back the rest of the smokey liquor, his eyes fade at the ingestion of what he only hopes can shut the guilt of a one-night stand. He wishes he didn’t have to do this. He wishes he could just continue drinking, but his cock seems to steer him wrong.

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tags: @brumous11 @cosmotoic @slurptheskinoffshiggysfatdick @gojosoath​ @miraes-world​ @almondespresso​​​​

if you wish to be tagged, please comment on the masterpost (I’m sorry if I miss anyone, please send a dm if I do).

[uvobreakmylegs]

The Sixth Floor Game

heavy inspiration from the Elevator Game, as well as the Three Kings Game and a little bit of Silent Hill 3

demon!Shalnark

Warnings: blood, death, kidnapping

The Sixth Floor Game is a ritual that will put you into contact with otherworldly forces and, if done correctly, can take you to a world that exists outside of our own. To play this game, you must follow all of the instructions that have been written below. Take care to remember all of them, as one mistake could result in death.

First you must enter a dark and empty building that has an elevator and only five floors in between the times of 3 and 4 AM. The only items you can bring with you are a fully charged cellphone, an item of sentimental value to you and an offering for the demon.

It is not recommended that you give an offering that bares any resemblance to that of a clown or magician.

When you enter the elevator, you need to ride it up to the 5th floor and leave the offering just outside the elevator doors and then head back down to the 3rd floor. When you reach the 3rd floor, you then need to exit the elevator and use your phone to call the last person in your call history. The game begins when you call that number.

When the line is picked up, you must say “I want to visit the 6th floor”.

Be warned that at this point you may hear strange noises on the other end, as calling the number at this time and place has put you in contact with a demon. It is possible to gauge whether the demon is happy with your offering or not based off the things he may say, if anything at all. Do not hang up on the demon; you will go back up the elevator when he hangs up on you.

There are three possibilities awaiting you when you go back to the 5th floor to see what has happened to your offering.

If the demon doesn't care for your offering but hasn't been upset by it, you will find it in the same place as you left it outside the elevator. You must then collect the offering, go back down to the first floor and leave the building.

If the demon has been offended by your offering, you will find the offering destroyed in some way. Leave the building immediately if you find this, as it means that the demon is angry with you and will try to kill you if you stay too long.

But if the demon likes your offering, there will be no trace of it when you get back up to the 5th floor. If this has happened, you must close the elevator doors and then hit the button for the 5th floor again. This time, instead of the doors opening again, the elevator will begin to move up, taking you to a 6th floor that shouldn't exist.

The amount of time it will take to reach the 6th floor varies from person to person, but it should not take longer than two minutes.

When you reach the 6th floor, you will find yourself in another world. Accounts of what this other world looks like also varies from person to person. Some have said that the floor they entered was run down and wrecked to pieces in some parts. Others have said that the floor didn't look any different from the other floors. Regardless of the state of the floor, the one thing that is consistent is a giant glowing red cross that can be seen if you look outside. You will see nothing else outside aside from the cross.

It is not recommended that you to try to open any windows or try to climb down the building.

You are free to explore this other world until you are ready to leave. It does not matter how long you stay in the other world. When you want to leave you must simply walk back to the elevator and hit the button for the first floor. It is possible that you may come across the offering that you left for the demon earlier while you explore.

Do not take the offering back; it now belongs to the demon.

Reality on the 6th floor can be distorted and you may find yourself becoming confused. If you find yourself entering into such a state, take out the sentimental item you brought and focus on it. It will keep you from losing yourself and allow you to continue as you explore the other world.

Above all else, while exploring the other world, you must never look behind you. Even though the demon may have liked your offering, he also likes trickery and will try to make you turn around to look at him by making noise or by speaking to you. If you look at the demon you will be unable to leave the 6th floor and he will keep you there forever as he has claimed you as his.

It is not recommended that you speak to the demon even if you don't look at him.

Regardless of the outcome of your offering, when you have returned to the 1st floor you must exit the building and you cannot enter the building again for any reason until the time is 6 AM.

If you have upset the demon with your offering, it is not recommended that you try the game again.

There is no reward for playing this game. There is only the experience of leaving this world and venturing to one beyond our own.

This game is dangerous and could result in the death of the player, so please consider the possible outcomes of playing before you decide to do so.

You finished reading aloud the instructions displayed on the sketchy-looking site and looked to your friend Farah, who had her hands clasped together as she looked hopefully at you and the rest of your group who had gathered in her apartment.

“Well?” she asked after a moment, “what do you think?”

“.... Why does a demon have a phone?” you asked.

“Yeah and what phone company does he use?” Cliff asked after you, “or do demons have their own phone companies.”

“You're missing the point!” Farah exclaimed.

“And the point is....?”

“We need to try this!”

There was a collective groan throughout the apartment. The other one in the group, Carmen, rubbed their forehead as they told Farah “you're our friend and we love you, but I don't think any of us want to repeat that time we tried summoning ghosts in a public bathroom.”

“This is nothing like that!” Farah insisted, “it said that we need a building with five floors and an elevator! I promise, there won't be anything gross!”

“Where do we get a building like that?” Carmen asked.

Farah pointed to Cliff.

“You work security overnight at that one office building, right?”

“Do you seriously think I'm going to risk my job for this?” he asked.

“We won't do anything bad! We'll just play a game and leave some stuff on the top floor. If the demon doesn't like it we'll take it with us. It's literally in the rules that we need to clean up after ourselves.”

Farah stopped herself, but you could tell she wanted to continue about getting a chance to visit another world. She loved the supernatural and those kinds of urban legends, but she never wanted to try these things on her own.

Carmen sighed.

“Is anyone else even remotely interested in trying this?” they asked.

Neither you or Cliff said anything at first, and Farah's face began to fall as no one volunteered. Then, when it looked like Carmen was about to speak again, you tentatively raised your hand.

“It might be fun,” you said. At least in terms of memories of 'dumb shit you did when you were younger'.

Farah beamed while Carmen gave you a look that screamed 'I hate you'.

With you willing to give the game a chance, the other two ended up conceding to do the same, and Cliff had been convinced by Farah to let you all in a week from that day when he worked at that particular building. With his shift being 11 PM to 7 the next morning, there would be plenty of time for you to play the game and then let him get back to work. As long as nothing was messed up by the end of it, there would be no harm.

At first you were rather stumped on what to give the demon as an offering. Farah was the same, but she ended up deciding on a horror anthology book from the 1920s. Carmen just got a shirt they had been wanting since they were certain that this ritual wasn't going to work and they wanted to spend the money on something that was useful to them. Cliff went out of his way to get a particularly creepy clown doll. He claimed that he wasn't annoyed by all of this, but you found yourself questioning that statement when he sent a picture of it through the group text. You had no clue where the fuck he had found something that unsettling.

The night you all had settled on was approaching and you still didn't have an offering. It shouldn't have been that hard, and yet you felt like if there was the chance that you were going to run into some otherworldly creature, you didn't want to half-ass it and make it upset. If the supernatural was real it seemed better to try and keep it on your side.

You found yourself browsing a few online forums where people were discussing the game. Unsurprisingly, most said that the ritual didn't work, and the few that claimed that it did had written some uninspired stories about how the demon had told them how they were going to die or when the world was going to end, with at least one mentioning the coming of the Antichrist. When you scrolled down to the end of the page you were pretty bored of all of the comments you read and you were about to exit the page when one particular comment caught your eye:

the demon likes bats

It was buried beneath the comments of others, and nobody had interacted with it. Common sense would tell you that this was just more bullshit, but it just seemed like such a random thing to make up. Nowhere in the instructions had it mentioned bats, and no one else on the forums had said anything about it either. The user who had posted it hadn't interacted with anything else and seemingly just came on to put out that little tidbit. For that reason, you found yourself wondering if their ritual had been successful.

You leaned back in your chair while you considered the information.

Bats, huh?

And then by complete chance the next day, when you were in the mall trying to find something because it the date you'd set for the game was only hours away and you still had nothing, you spotted something through the window of a toy store: a pink stuffed bat plush.

It was rather overpriced, but if that comment was correct, then it should be worth it. If not, at least you got something cute out of it.

Surprisingly it was Carmen and Farah that had been less than impressed by what you had brought.

“I didn't realize you wanted to offend the demon too,” Farah commented bitterly.

“Maybe the demon likes pink,” you responded as you shrugged.

Nothing more was said about it as Cliff opened the front door of the building. In exchange for doing this, he made the rest of you go about the building to turn off all any lights that had been left on which you all grumbled about but agreed was fair enough. By the time you were finished scouring the building, it was 3:13 in the morning.

It had been agreed that Farah would go first, and the rest of you waited in a darker spot of the parking lot while she went in, watching the building to see if you could spot her movements through the windows. You had pulled out your phone, as you were the last person she had called. It would probably be proven pretty fast if this was real or not if she called you and it went through to you, though Carmen had said that they felt it was likely that Farah would probably not call and just say that she had.

You checked to make sure the sentimental object you had brought was in your pocket: a small, stuffed bear keychain that you had gotten as a present from a childhood friend. It was special to you, but you didn't feel like you'd be absolutely devastated if anything happened to it.

Farah came out a few minutes later, carrying her book and looking disappointed.

“It didn't work,” she said as she sighed.

“Did you call?” you asked.

“Yes,” she answered, somewhat indignant. To prove that she had, she pulled out her phone and opened up her call history. It listed her last call as being made to you only a few minutes ago. When you opened up your own call history, it showed that she had called you over an hour ago.

….. Okay. That was weird.

Carmen went next, and it was the same story with them, as they came out a little bit later still holding their shirt. Unlike Farah, they didn't seem too upset.

Cliff went after, holding that creepy clown doll and waving it around a bit as he walked to the elevator.

It was quiet again after that. You, Carmen and Farah waited patiently in the parking lot while the electric lampposts around you hummed. Cliff had been talking earlier so you hadn't noticed it, but it seemed eerily quiet outside. Usually there were bugs or other forms of wildlife at night that would keep things from being silent, but right now there was nothing; only the humming electricity of the lot and the occasional comment from Carmen.

Farah seemed anxious as she looked at the building, her hands playing with the charm on her phone while she waited for any sign of Cliff. The thing with the phone history seemed to convince her this was for real and she seemed nervous about Cliff's offering. Carmen didn't appear to be the same way and seemed more impatient, who'd begun to tap their foot as they waited.

“Did you hear anything when you called?” you asked the both of them. They looked at you, and both shook their heads.

“It was quiet when I called,” Farah said.

“Same here,” said Carmen. Farah smiled at that.

“That means that it's real, right?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Carmen wasn't the best person to be around when they were tired and cranky, and you could see that Farah wasn't trying to take it personally. But looking back to Carmen, you noticed a slight furrow to their brow, and the impatient tapping seemed to have increased. At first glance you would have assumed that they were just really done with this whole thing, but as you kept looking, it seemed less like they were annoyed and more more like they were apprehensive.

“Cliff's taking a while,” they commented.

It was taking Cliff longer than the two of them, you realized, and you were about to try and crack a joke about him making it to the sixth floor when you saw the elevator doors in the lobby slide open, followed by Cliff walking out.

More like storming out, actually.

“What the hell?!” he exclaimed as he shoved open the main doors.

“Don't shout!” Carmen responded, “this is your job that we're not supposed to be doing this at, remember? What're you going to do if someone calls the police on us?”

Cliff ignored them, looking to Farah as he continued “are you serious? You want this stupid thing to be real that badly?!”

He was holding something that he then thrust in front of Farah's face. It was the clown doll that he'd brought.

Or at least, what was left of it.

It looked like it had been stepped on repeatedly, the body broken and the head having been caved in. One of the legs were also missing, you noted.

“You.... You think I did that?” Farah asked.

“Who else!” Cliff yelled.

“I've been here the whole time!” she shrieked back.

“She has,” you added as you felt the need to jump in, “none of us have moved from this spot.”

“Oh fuck off,” he answered, “I needed to return this. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Maybe you shouldn't have gone out of your way to be an asshole,” Farah spat back.

It quickly devolved into an argument between the two, with Carmen pulling you back when you tried to jump in again. It made sense why Cliff was upset, but Farah hadn't done anything.

“.... Should I not go?” you whispered to Carmen after a bit.

“No!” Cliff exclaimed, this time at you, “you should go! Do this stupid thing, and then let me get back to my work!”

“You're not allowed to go back in for the rest of the night,” Farah pointed out.

By that point Cliff was done, and he stormed off to another area in the lot. Carmen motioned for you to go while Farah quietly steamed. It wasn't the first time those two had fought, but the arguments seemed to be getting nastier every time they happened. Best to get this over with so they could be separated and have the time to cool down.

You walked through the darkened lobby of the empty office building, your path illuminated only by the streetlights outside. There was something about darkness and artificial light that somehow made it feel more foreboding, more dangerous. Even though you were an adult there were still thoughts that ran about in your head of creatures that you couldn't see awaiting you in the dark, and those thoughts made you tense a bit. It was such an irrational fear, but one your brain wouldn't let go of. The argument between your friends had only put you more on edge as well.

The elevator doors slid open, the bright blinding lights hurting your eyes for a second before they adjusted to them, and you stepped in the car, pushing the button for the fifth floor.

Fifth floor, leave the offering, then down to third.

There were some bits of Cliff's creepy clown doll that were in front of the elevator when you reached the top floor. It vaguely occurred to you that the instructions said to leave immediately if the offering had been destroyed, but it seemed like Cliff had tried to clean up some. Though that made sense, since he didn't want to leave a mess behind after his shift.

You pushed away some of the leftover bits with your shoe, and carefully placed the bat plush laying on its back in front of the doors.

Down to the third floor, then.

You checked again to make sure that the bear keychain was still in your pocket during the ride down, stepping out when the doors opened after you confirmed that it was.

Now to make the call....

There hadn't been anything saying you needed to wait until the doors closed to begin, but you waited anyway. When the double doors slid shut behind you, you hit the button on your screen to call Farah, the last person on your call history.

It rang twice before the call was picked up. Just as Farah and Carmen had said, it was silent on the other side. You cleared your throat before saying the words that had been instructed.

“I want to visit the sixth floor. Please.”

There was nothing that said you needed to be polite, but you figured it couldn't hurt.

You still didn't hear anything from the other end, and that silence continued for several more seconds. You held the phone close to your ear, straining to hear anything, any sort of indication that someone was on the other line. The “demon” was supposed to hang up first, you remembered, so you were stuck until something happened.

“.... That's actually cute.”

The male voice you heard on the other end was unexpected, but you didn't get a chance to say anything back before the phone call ended.

You stood very still for a few moments.

That.... That hadn't been any of the others who were still outside. Unless they had gone so far as to hide someone out there and have them answer the phone when you called Farah and all of this was just an elaborate prank. But none of them were really the kind of people to do things like that.

Remembering the instructions from the site, you turned back to the elevator and got on when the doors opened, pushing the button for fifth floor once again.

If the demon likes your offering, there will be no trace of it when you get back up to the 5th floor

The ding of the elevator signaled that you were once again at the top floor of the building, and when the doors slid back open and you looked to the spot where you'd left the bat, you found.... Nothing.

That space you had cleared from the broken bits of that doll was empty, the white tiled floor shining in the light that came from the elevator.

….. If this was all just a prank by your friends, you weren't sure if you'd be able to trust them after this.

The doors closed once again, and you took a deep breath before you pushed the fifth floor button.

The elevator began to move up.

There wasn't a sixth floor; you'd double checked that the building only went as high as five.

You told yourself to wait until the doors opened before you jumped to conclusions. You'd need to see this “other world” before you could say for certain that all of this was real.

The website said that it could take up to two minutes, but mere seconds later did the doors slide back open.

Everything looked normal. Just another floor of an office building.

Or it would have looked normal, had it not been for the fact that everything was bathed in a red glow that came from the outside.

Clutching your phone in one hand and the keychain in the other, you took a small, tentative step out of the car, looking to either side of you.

The hallways were empty. Nothing jumped out at you.

Slowly, you walked over to a window.

In the distance stood a glowing red cross.

…. This was real.

This was actually real.

It was almost too much to process for your shock-addled brain, and you had to wonder if anyone else who had been successful had the same reaction as you, to just stare dumbly at the scene before you.

It then occurred to you to get proof for when you went back.

You pulled up the camera on your phone. Or you tried to at least. Of all the times for your phone to act up, it needed to be when you needed to get a picture so people would believe you. The app kept taking forever to pull up before it would close and you repeatedly tapped on the screen as you tried to make it work. Somehow you managed to snap a few pictures of the cross before the camera closed again and you weren't able to open it back up. The lighting and your uncooperative phone made the pictures appear quite blurry, but one would be able to tell what they were looking at. No doubt some people would claim that it was fake, but it was enough to satisfy you.

You checked the time, finding it to be 3:30, if the phone was to be trusted. You wished you had checked before you came up here, but it was a bit too late for that now.

You stepped away from the window and went down one of the halls, looking all around before you remembered that the site said that you shouldn't look behind you. Or was that only when you heard the demon? Regardless, you kept glances behind yourself to a minimum as you made your way through the floor.

Aside from the red light that covered everything, it looked like a normal office floor, filled with different offices and supply closets and nothing that was particularly interesting to you. The one strange thing was that the red cross outside seemed to move along with you, as when you would move to a different room you would still be able to see it clearly outside. You went back to the windows a few times and tried to see if there was anything else outside, but all you found was an endless darkness with no signs of any kind of life or structure. Unsurprisingly there was also no sign of your friends down below, though it would have been hard to see where they were standing outside anyway given the angle.

The red light made you slightly sick after a while, and you tried opening up the flashlight option on your phone. But it refused to turn on. In fact, nothing on your phone was working now, and when you looked at the clock, the time was still 3:30.

Either time was being distorted or your phone wasn't able to function properly. Given how your phone was acting earlier the latter would seem to be the most likely option, but you also weren't sure what the rules of this place were. There was nothing that said that this world was bound to time in the way yours was.

The website had said that you could stay up here for as long as you wanted, right?

You began to see things out of the corner of your eye, little bits of movement in the darkness that dared you to look at them. You did a few times, mentally slapping yourself as you remembered what the instructions had said as you were now desperately trying to remember everything that had been written so you knew what you could and couldn't do. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time as you recalled what the site had said about possibly dying to this game, and at one point you felt so overwhelmed that you thought you were going to throw up. You managed to keep it down, but after that you decided that it was time to leave.

When you started to head back to the elevator was when you felt a headache coming on. It was mild at first, but when you went further along your route to the exit it started to hurt more, turning into a stabbing pain that jammed into your skull.

Had the website mentioned this? You couldn't be sure. Where were you even going again?

You stopped at an open door, leaning against the open door frame to rest. There was movement from inside the room, and without thinking you looked over to it.

The bat you had left on the fifth floor sat in the room in front of a whiteboard. A whiteboard that had been absolutely covered in drawn on hearts and your name repeated over and over.

…. The website hadn't mentioned that.

“Do you think it's a good place for him?”

The voice you heard came from a few feet behind you. The same voice you had heard over the phone.

You needed to get out. Now.

You brushed your hand against your pocket as you tried to stand up straight again, still fighting the pain of the headache when you remembered the little bear keychain.

It will keep you from losing yourself

With that thought in mind you pulled it out and focused on it, and the pain seemed to lessen by a good amount.

“You've got a thing for cute stuff, don't you?”

The voice came from directly behind you this time, like whoever was speaking was staring down over your shoulder as they were practically on top of you.

Don't look don't look don't look

You pushed off of the door frame, the keychain still in hand as you power-walked back down the hall. The headache was still there a little bit but it was nowhere near as debilitating as it had been before.

The voice whined from behind you.

“You're leaving already? You just got here.”

Don't speak. Don't look.

It was following you. You could hear the footsteps that trailed after yours, keeping up with your pace and almost being purposefully loud. Sudden noises accompanied the footsteps, making you jump and urging you to turn around. It was a natural thing to react to sudden sounds like that and you needed to catch yourself a few times from looking behind.

It was trying to keep you here and you didn't want to stay to find out why that was.

You turned several corners and walked down many halls, and the elevator wasn't anywhere in sight. That wasn't right. You had made a mental note of where the location of the elevator approximately was. As much as the headache was still messing with you, you should still be able to make it back. You knew where it was, goddammit.

…. Was it just you, or were these hallways getting longer?

A chuckle came from behind you.

“You didn't think I'd let you go that easy, did you?”

You started to run.

You weren't sure how long you continued like that – time didn't seem to be a thing up here. Around you the halls extended, stretching out and prolonging your time in this hell as you turned corner after corner and you still couldn't find the fucking elevator. The temptation was there to look behind and see how long the halls had become, but the laughter that followed you kept your eyes straight ahead.

Turning another corner, the doors to the elevator came in sight, and you let out a gasp of relief as you ran faster. Just a little bit more and then you'd be free.

…. The elevator seemed to be was moving away from you, messing with you just as the halls had done before.

You could hear him breathing directly in your ear as you ran. Still trying to freak you out, still trying to make you turn around. He hadn't touched you at all, though, and you wondered if there were rules for him that prevented him from doing so.

The attempts to get you to look back at him seemed to be getting desperate. If this thing was getting to a point where even he was desperate, you didn't want to know what the hell he'd do to you if you made the mistake of turning around.

Despite it all the elevator was getting closer. Escape was literally in your grasp-

And then something in the floor shifted that caused your knee to buckle and you were sent flying face down on the flat white tile.

The phone and keychain went flying out of your hands and there was blood in your mouth as you bit your lip. Your head ached again, though you weren't sure if it was because of him or because you'd just landed on the solid floor.

You lay there for a few moments, catching your breath as you tried to compose yourself.

You then became aware of the presence that was standing over you. He was quiet now, but you could feel his eyes burning holes into your back, as if trying to will you to look at him.

Pushing yourself up on shaky arms, you began to crawl forward, your hands searching for the phone and keychain that had gone flying and had vanished into the darkness, the light from outside now much duller than it had been when you'd first arrived.

Don't look don't look don't look

He can't touch you

He can't force you to look back at him

Just keep facing forward and-

A horrifically loud shrieking noise sounded through the hall. It was the loudest thing you had ever heard in your life, the noise so great that you felt the floor vibrating, and your hands immediately went to cover your ears to protect your hearing as best you could.

Don't you dare fucking look back

With your hands still over your ears, you crawled forward on your knees. It was slow and it had gotten so dark that you couldn't see the elevator anymore, but it was still progress. When your knee brushed against your phone you ignored it. Who gave a fuck about proof anymore? You just wanted to get out.

But you were still trying to keep a lookout for the keychain. It had helped before; if you could find it, it would probably make getting out easier.

You put out one hand on the floor as you blindly searched for your sentimental item, your eyes scrunching up in pain as the horrible sound continued.

For a split second your fingers brushed up against something soft.

You grabbed it.

Immediately after the shrieking noise stopped.

For just a moment, there was relief, even though you still had that noise ringing in your ears. But it took only another moment for you to realize that something was wrong.

You hadn't grabbed that bear keychain. It was larger and heavier.

Opening your eyes, you found that you were holding that fucking bat plush.

“Ah. You messed up.”

A hand reached from behind you and grabbed the plush out of your grip. A different hand was placed on your shoulder and you were spun around on the floor.

A fair-skinned man with what looked to be blonde hair stared down at you, one hand still on your shoulder as he waved the bat in front of you.

“You're not supposed to take this back, remember?” he asked as he smiled at you.

“No.... I didn't...” you trailed off.

“But you did, though! You grabbed and picked it up,” he said.

That wasn't possible. You had left that thing behind in that room that felt so far away now. But as you glanced to the side you saw that, to your horror, you were sitting next to that room again, the hearts still visible on the whiteboard. You were barely able to note that it had gotten brighter and that somehow the red lighting seemed less harsh before he was talking to you again.

“So you lost and now you don't get to go back,” he told you.

“No.... You cheated.”

It felt so juvenile to say that out loud, but it was all that could come out of you in your current state.

Strangely though, he didn't deny it.

“Can you blame me?” he asked, “I've never gotten a visitor as charming as yourself. When I heard you on the phone and saw what you left me, I just needed to keep you.”

He looked at the bat plush again and smiled at it as he sat down in front of you.

“Did you just pick this at random, or was it something else?”

You struggled to comprehend the question, and it took you a bit before you were able to blurt out “someone else said you liked bats.”

“So you mean you went to the trouble of looking up what things I liked? That's adorable. I love it!” he exclaimed.

You tried to subtly scoot away from him as he sat in front of you but you were noticed instantly.

“Where do you think you're going?” he asked. The look he gave you was so innocent.

“I-I need to go home. I want to go home,” you insisted.

“That's not an option, remember?” he asked, waving the bat around again.

You shook your head.

“You cheated. I should be allowed to leave because you did that.”

He laughed.

“There's no rule against cheating. As long as I didn't touch you it was fine. Don't be a sore loser.”

“Fuck you.”

You spat out those words in a bout of frustration, trying your best to sound strong, but it probably just made you seem more pathetic.

He only hummed at that, just staring at you for a moment.

It had been getting steadily brighter, the red going away with every passing second and you were able to make out different colors. The purple and teal on his clothes, the shade of blonde his hair was and the blue of his eyes were visible to you for a few moments.

He set the bat plush to the side, and the world began to darken again as red and black took over.

“That's okay,” he said, more to himself than to you, “you're scared and that kind of reaction is normal, so I'm not too mad.”

It was getting harder to see him, but you could see movement about him, things about his body changing. Horns that slowly curled out from his forehead. The tips of his fingers that darkened around long claws that took the place of his fingernails. Large, bat-like wings that unfolded from behind him and spread themselves.

You caught a glimpse of his teeth in the low light, and they looked sharper than they had before.

Panic shot through you as you began to scramble away from him, but your escape attempt was short-lived as something wrapped itself around your legs and pulled you back towards him.

A tail? Oh God that was a tail.

He was on top of you, and he caged you in his arms as he leaned down to whisper in your ear “don't worry, I'll go easy on you this time.”

You tried to push him away, but he ignored it.

“Oh! Before I forget, I should introduce myself shouldn't I? I'm Shalnark. Nice to meet you.”

With that, his lips claimed yours in a searing kiss.

Your friends had been waiting a while.

Farah and Carmen stayed where they had been directly next to the building while Cliff hadn't moved from where he had stormed off to. Farah had been getting upset as she had become convinced that you were being an ass to her as well with how long you were taking. It was all Carmen could do to try and keep her calm.

Because of his distance away and how distracted they were, neither of them noticed the state Cliff was in.

They only noticed when he began to violently cough.

With Farah still slightly bitter from their earlier argument, Carmen was the one to check on him, asking if he was alright as they walked up to him.

Cliff gave no answer as he had begun to cough up blood.

Carmen's hands fumbled when they pulled out their phone to call emergency services, and they yelled at Farah to go inside and get you. The sight of the blood Cliff was coughing up had Farah sprinting towards the building, throwing the front doors open as she made a beeline for the elevator.

Carmen didn't notice it at first when Farah fell to the floor. Only when the ambulance had been confirmed and they looked back to the building to see if the two of you were coming out did they see her body lying limply on the floor.

Ambulances and cop cars arrived eventually, and both Cliff and Farah were declared dead at the scene. The autopsy reports later would declare that they had been poisoned. A thorough search of the building would find no source of where the poison had come from.

Nor did they find anything from you.

Carmen had told them that you were in there, but when they searched they found no trace of you. No personal belongings and nothing to even indicate that you had entered the building. When the search for you grew beyond the confines of the office building, there was still no trace of you. You simply vanished into thin air.

The case would puzzle investigators before they would ultimately put it aside for other cases that needed their attention. It would only gain some traction online when the files were released to the public and certain parties saw that you and your friends had been playing the Sixth Floor Game. For some people it added weight to their beliefs that the game was real and needed to be avoided. For others it was just a coincidence.

Regardless of what they thought, you remained a missing person that would never be seen again, forever immortalized by your unexplained disappearance and an urban legend.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Crimson Ties (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 3

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language Warnings: Typical Vampire shenanigans + mentions of animal death Genre: Hurt + comfort Summary: Time to meet the family! What exactly has Cassandra told her mother? Can Bela convince her family to calm the hell down? We'll find out! Spoiler: there's the start of a cute date afterwards Notes: Once more we visit Bela's private study, which I first described in a chapter of Serenade. Added a few more details this time. PS reader is probably low-key a theater nerd with a hint of a goth phase, just saying. Also this chap is a little short, sorry. Previous Chapters: 1: Stem the Flow, 2: Tangled Strands

3: Rumbling Thunder

Heart racing, you step into the dining room, just behind Bela. Both of you are nervous, but find comfort in each other. Still, what you see upon entering only makes you feel worse. At the head of a large table stands none other than Lady Alcina Dimitrescu. Besides her is her middle daughter, the one who confronted you earlier, who sends you a knowing smirk as you walk in. Lady Dimitrescu, on the other hand, is scowling. Her eyes are squinted in a clear display of disapproval. If not for Bela’s hand squeezing your own, it was likely that you would have fainted from fear.

“I see Cassandra has wasted no time in spreading rumors,” Bela said bitterly. You’re amazed by her ability to stand tall in the face of her family’s tension. Yet there was a part of you that wondered if you were worth the struggle, at least for your soulmate. Thankfully, you are not given much time to ponder the thought. No, you’re being pulled towards the closest side of the tabe, guided next to an ornate seat. Neither Bela nor yourself sit yet, however. “Please, mother, do not be hasty to make your judgement. I promise that-”

“Do not presume to tell me of my own business, daughter. The timing of my judgement is my prerogative, not yours,” Lady Dimitrescu interrupted, staring right at you. A shiver runs down your spine at the eye contact. What did Cassandra say to her? You wonder, struggling to breathe past the lump in your throat. Even Bela becomes visibly nervous at the interaction. “Now… are you certain, without a doubt, that this is your soulmate?” Did she really even have to ask? What were the chances that Bela would save you, one person out of at least a dozen in the cellar, for any other reason? Still, your soulmate straightens up at the attention, and replies as confidently as possible.

“Yes, of course, mother. I would not dare risk your anger for any lesser reason,” Bela assured. Then she gives your hand another soft squeeze, before pulling hers back a little, catching the thread that bound you together with her fingers. Lifting it, she tugs it somewhat absentmindedly. Out of habit you immediately return the action. Unfortunately, those around you would be unable to see the display. For all they knew, the two of you could be faking it, simply attempting to get out of the situation unscathed. Surprisingly though, you see Alcina hesitate. Her left hand twitches as if she was thinking of her own red string. Has she ever met her partner? Did she know the pure joy that her daughter had so recently felt?... Maybe she’d be more sympathetic to your situation if she had.

“We will see if your defiance pans out in time, Bela. For now… Why don’t we hear what your pet has to say about themselves, hmm?” Lady Dimitrescu suggested, giving a somewhat devious smile. Next to you, Bela grimaces, then sends you a pleading look. Alas, you cannot read her mind, and can only guess as to how you’re supposed to respond. Bowing is a sign of respect in virtually all cultures, you think, probably a good place to start.

“It is an immeasurable pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, Lady Dimitrescu,” you said, before giving your full name. Then you rise from your bow, once more making eye contact. Out of the corner of your vision you see Cassandra rolling her eyes. “I know that I am a mere human, and hardly the epitome of a prime specimen. But I am determined to prove my worth, for there is no prize on this earth more grand than being allowed to love Lady Bela. Every ounce of my willpower is prepared to devote myself to this task, entirely, so that I may give Lady Bela the courtship and happiness that she is deserving. It is both an obligation and an honor.” Hopefully your soulmate wouldn’t mind you using the same line twice, at least under these circumstances.

In the seconds that follow, several things happen: One, you see Cassandra frown a little, and refuse to look in your direction. Two, Lady Dimitrescu makes a surprised face, but quickly shifts into an expression of satisfaction. Thirdly, Bela’s hand finds your own again, giving it an incredibly soft squeeze. Last but not least… someone you haven’t seen before enters the room. She has red hair, a green pendant around her neck, and eyes that light up with curiosity when she sees you. If you had to guess, you’d assume that she was another one of Bela’s sisters. Here’s hoping she’s a tad bit friendlier, you think.

“Did I miss anything? Ooh, please tell me we’re having this lovely stranger for breakfast?” She asked, grinning maniacally. So much for being friendlier, you think, figuring that she was being literal. Based on the way Bela tenses up in response, you’re probably right. Before she can protest, however, Lady Dimitrescu clears her throat and speaks.

“Ah, Daniela… This stranger-” she says the word with far less venom than you anticipated, but it is venom nonetheless- “is your dear sister’s soulmate. We will not be draining them of blood. Again. Assuming that they behave themselves. Is that clear?” She asked, staring down at the newcomer. There’s a slight pause, tension still lingering in the air, followed by a sigh of relief from Bela. Much to your surprise, neither Cassandra nor Daniela seem particularly upset by this announcement. In fact, the latter simply shrugs and takes her seat at the table. Next thing you know everyone else is sitting as well, including Bela, who gestures for you to follow suit. “I’ll have one of the servants fetch you some more… appropriate food. Cynthia, my dear?” Soon enough a maiden, perhaps a decade or two older than yourself, hurriedly enters the room. With a bow, she addresses Alcina.

“Yes, Lady Dimitrescu?”

“Have Miss Bouregard make an extra plate of whatever it is you sort eat, and bring it here. We have an… unexpected guest,” Alcina explained. At that, Cynthia glances at you, her eyes briefly widening in surprise. Without another word she turns away, giving another bow before heading away to fulfill her task. Once more you’re the only human in the room. Oddly enough, you manage to feel quite at ease, as if surviving one round was enough to guarantee you’d win the overall game. Well, at the very least you now had a chance. Regardless of what was to come, you were glad for that, for this opportunity to be with your soulmate. At the end of the day… little else mattered to you.

———————————

Much to your relief, the rest of breakfast proceeded smoothly. Conversation was sparse, with most of it being hushed whispers from the other side of the table, but you hardly minded. Normally you would find it rude. Now, you were simply pleased that they weren’t being up front with their hostility. More so, it allowed you and Bela to have your own conversation, which mainly pertained to your plans for the day. Several times during your discussion, a glance elsewhere would show you that Alcina was paying attention. Exactly once you even saw her attempting to hide a smile. A sense of pride had swelled in your chest at the sight.

It has remained there, even until now, as you move into Bela’s private study. One quick survey of the room tells you a thousand things about your soulmate. For starters, it’s clear that she’s musically inclined. There’s a harp in one corner, adjacent to a folded music stand, as well as a small bookshelf dedicated entirely to sheet music. A couple medium sized instrument cases are nearby, but you don’t immediately recognize their shape. Further into the room is a rather old looking desk, slightly worn, yet clearly cared for. Possibly passed down the generations? Next to the desk is a massive window with a couple spare chairs. All across the walls were bookshelves and mementos, including several skulls (at least one of them human). Every book you looked over appeared to be well read, with many bookmarks inside, some held together by tape and prayers.

“This… this is sublime, my darling. I could rest here for a month and hardly finish cherishing half the space!” You said, grinning at your soulmate. She’s equally pleased, seeming a tad relieved as well. Perhaps she had worried you’d be thrown off by the skulls? Wanting to reassure her, you approach that particular shelf, examining them closely. However, you do not touch them, not wanting to risk damaging her collection. “Truly marvellous. Dare I ask where you got these specimens?” It’s a joke, but Bela stiffens nonetheless, making you quickly redact your statement. “My apologies, I meant it as a jest. Though you are welcome to tell me more about them if you so desire! I will listen with rapt attention, I promise.”

“Most of them are gifts from Cassandra. During the summers we hunt, her more so than Daniela or myself. I… dislike wasting anything, and there’s only so much to be done with most bones. They have quite a few ornamental uses, however. Useful for study, as well,” Bela mentioned, smiling softly. Then she moves to stand next to you, carefully reaching to grab one of the skulls. “This was from one of our hounds, actually. I raised her from puppy to adult, took her on every hunt, even let her sleep in my quarters on colder nights. When she got sick I…” A pause, mouth open but unmoving, eyes slipping shut. “I couldn’t bring myself to put her down. Even argued with my mother, night after night, begging for another choice. None came, of course, and in the end even I could not deny her the softest embrace of death… Still, you must think me strange, to keep such a thing as a reminder of her.”

“Not at all, my dear. We all remember, and grieve, in our own ways. I’ve often found myself intrigued by skulls, of all sorts,” you admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck with your hand. “All we are, our minds or mayhap our souls, contained in one hard shell. It’s incredible, and terrifying, all at the same time, to hold one in my hands, or even merely examine one. Oh, what stories these bones could tell, if only they could talk… Though I suppose there are entire fields of science devoted to such a thought…” With that said, you look back at Bela just in time to see her staring fondly at the canine skull. Then she places it back on its perch, dusting her hands off afterwards, taking one last moment to appreciate her collection.

“I’m glad you and I agree on this,” she said softly. Once more she’s looking at you, smiling wide. “Now let’s make memories of our own, to hold in our bones forevermore, yes?”

[fbfh]

I think you've horribly misread the situation [shitty roommate pt 2] - leo x reader

wc: 2.3k

genre: contemporary drama, you're definitly going to get second hand embarrassment, cozy fluff

pairing: leo x reader, attempted isabella x leo

reader: gender neutral, they/them

requested: hell yeah

warnings: mild swearing, roommate tries to steal your man once again, mentions of various mainstream vampire media (twilight, the vampire diaries etc.), brief mention of castlevania (even though i haven't seen it yet lol), breif mention of videogames and assassins creed, very mild delusion (roommate is secretly convinced leo is a vampire that's in love with her), attempted age gap relationship (she's 17 and leo's 19, he shuts that down real fast), very bad poetry

summary: You and Leo are both looking foward to spending a long weekend together, and Leo is determined not to let anything interrupt it, even if it means turning down your roommate's attempts to seduce him in the kitchen.

a/n: absolutley no hate or shade or judgement to anyone who has the same or similar traits as isabella!!!!!! at her core she's annoying because she's the antagonist, not bc of any isolated trait or traits

also she's shitty cause she keeps trying to steal your boyfriend?????

Edit: I forgot to mention before, but this is a college au where you're both still demigods, so you went to camp and on quests and stuff together

This weekend is going to be all about recharging. Recharging from the ridiculous back to back closing and opening shifts at work, recharging from having to redo that stupid project twice because your professor couldn’t decide on a clear way to define the criteria, and recharging from Isabella having her townie friend Regan over almost non stop to “completely shake up her look” as she put it.

Between the constant presence of someone you’d barely consider an acquaintance and Big Time Rush’s self titled album blasting on repeat out of her giant airpod shaped speaker, it’s been harder than usual to get in some effective self care. You have no idea how many more times you can hear the phrase “I’m going for Jade West meets Elena Gilbert, with just a little Buffy Summers” before you lose your fucking mind.

Thankfully, the hard part is almost over. There’s some minor holiday tomorrow on friday, so you and Leo both have a three day weekend ahead of you, which you intend to spend entirely together. You planned ahead, frontloading homework, chores, errands, and everything you could think of to remove anything that isn’t cuddling or playing video games and watching netflix together from your horizon.

This includes going straight from work to the grocery store to stock the fridge and get any snacks you and Leo want. You had texted him a while ago asking for anything he was craving, and head into the store with a concrete list. After a while, you circle around some aisles, avoiding the check out.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” you muse, knowing it’s untrue, but hoping to trigger a memory anyway. You can’t put it off any longer, finally checking out and heading back to your apartment. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t avoiding Isabella just a little.

You know bringing in all these groceries would be way easier with Isabella and possibly Regan’s help, but you just don’t have the social energy to talk to anyone, much less her, right now. By some miracle, you bring everything in yourself, and hope to get it put away before you see Isabella.

You turn to the freezer, putting away the ice cream. When you turn back around, you’re suddenly met face to face with Isabella, who has opened one of the boxes and is picking at a pastry.

“Hey girlie,” she says, elongating the hey.

“Hey,” you reply lethargically, putting the last of the groceries away. She looks at the pastry in her hand like she’s just noticing it.

“Sorry, I can’t help it, I’m italian.” She smiles, endeared by her own behavior. You have no idea what being italian has to do with asking before you open a box of your roommate’s food, but this really isn’t out of character for her. She brings up the fact that she’s half italian more than Lele Pons blames her behavior on being latina.

She’s wearing sweatpants that say chaser on the leg in red and gold varsity font, and a tight tee shirt that says “it’s okay to love them both” with silhouettes of the male love interests from one of the vampire shows she always watches. You collect the plastic bags to put in recycling, and see a piece of paper on the counter.

It reads as follows:

Drowning in my mind

No one hears me cry

Who was I before society

Before society put me in a pink dress

And handed me blonde hair dye

And told me to lose ten pounds or be labeled a freak?

The happiest people cry the most

Let the lyrics be your story

But I’m not like the other skinny blonde pretty girls

I’m

Different

-b.g. xox

You hold back a sigh.

“I think this is yours.” you say, handing it to her.

“Oh, it’s just some of my poetry I left lying around, that’s so embarrassing.”

I know, you think, you do that all the time.

“Did you read it?” She asks, hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Thank god, that would have been so embarrassing. My poetry is something really… deep, and personal to me.”

“Uh huh. Hey, I’m going to be doing a lot of self care this weekend, so-”

“Oh!” she interjects, eerily similar to Phoebe Buffay - you guess she’s been watching friends again - “I wanted to ask… is Leo coming over later?” Her voice is riddled with subtext, the expression on her face a little too invested in your answer.

“Uh, yeah. I told you the other day we’re spending the weekend together…”

She cuts you off again, a sudden, intense look on her face.

“When will he be here?”

You check your phone, scrolling through your recent texts.

“By 7 at the latest.” It’s around 6:40 now.

“Oh my god, I have to change,” she rushes back to her room, presumably digging through her recent additions to her closet.

You’re frozen for a minute after the interaction, left with a furrowed brow and the beginnings of a headache. You blink, then choose to reschedule processing why she feels the need to change for your boyfriend to a more convenient time. That’s enough of that for today. You don’t care what else happens, you’re not talking to anyone besides Leo for at least the rest of the day. You retreat to your room to finally shower and change into something comfy. As you pass by Isabella’s room, you hear her talking to Regan.

“...There’s something almost… supernatural about him.”

You bite back a laugh.

“Do you think he’s a…” Regan begins, ending the sentence with something too quiet to hear, but you’d bet almost any organ she said vampire.

So close. So, so close, and yet… here you are.

Not much later, Leo texts you to let you know he’s here. You read his text, and run out to hug him in the living room before even typing a reply. He picks you up, and spins you around. The embrace is warm and fulfilling and familiar, and you wish it would last forever.

“Hi, Sparky.” you murmur into his neck.

“Estrella…” he says, rocking you back and forth gently and pressing a kiss into your jawline, “I missed you so much.” He punctuates the sentence with another kiss, this one to your lips, and you smile more genuinely than you have all day. You’re about to agree when you remember the good news you’ve been saving to tell him in person.

“Guess what I got on sale for like, half off,” you start, excitedly, continuing at his invested expression, “the Assassin’s Creed bundle I showed you!”

“No way,” he starts, and you nod.

“I’ll go get everything set up, drinks are in the kitchen!” He watches you retreat into your room, disbelieving how he could possibly get someone as perfect as you to fall for him. He’s not going to question his luck. He grabs a couple caffeinated sparkling ices, and meets you in your room, setting down his bag and grabbing some comfy clothes to change into.

As you both get settled in, you fill each other in on all the ridiculous shit you’ve been through this week. You finally conclude the bizarre - yet somehow standard - Isabella escapades.

“So I will be avoiding all contact as much as possible,” you laugh.

“Yeah, no shit,” he agrees, “Consider me your human buffer.” You thank him, hugging him again and pressing a kiss to his lips.

The next couple hours are spent cuddling and finishing season 4 of Castlevania. Both reeling from the season finale, you agree this is a good place to take a break, get some food, and decide what game you should start with. It’s already 10pm, which most people would consider too late for dinner, but you have all weekend to fuck up your sleep schedules.

“Let’s review,” Isabella says, holding up two red lipsticks. She turns to Regan. “Which one?”

“That one,” Regan says, pointing to the one on the left, then turns to her list, and continues. “Here’s what we know; we’ve never seen him eat, and he never seems tired. He’s really smart-”

“Almost too smart,” Isabella adds, selecting black rose dangle earrings from her jewelry. Regan agrees, and continues.

“He’s almost hypnotically attractive, and his smile is a little too dazzling.”

“There’s something… supernatural about him. Like he’s not… all human.”

Regan writes this down.

“Plus he’s always wearing black and red, and those flowy button up shirts? It’s all adding up, Ree. That dream that someone was outside my window, the ring, everything…” She says, referencing the black and red cocktail ring she’d found with her stuff when she’d first moved, “I’m not saying it’s definite, just that… there’s a chance.”

“What about…” Regan says hesitantly, nodding toward your room.

“Please,” she scoffs, “he’s only with them to get close to me, like Damon and Caroline. Edward couldn’t have just approached Bella out of the blue, he had to infiltrate her friend group first, to seem less suspicious. Not to sound mean or anything, but they really don’t seem like the type someone… like him… would choose.” her voice gets dreamy when she mentions him.

In spite of having seen most mainstream vampire media almost as many times as Isabella, Regan still considers her the expert on these things, and decides not to point out that Edward didn’t infiltrate Bella’s friend group. Maybe it comes up in one of the retellings she hasn’t read yet.

“So, what now?”

Isabella sets down her lipstick, and turns to her friend.

“I tell him.”

Regan’s eyes widen.

“You’re going to tell him you know?”

“No… not yet. It’s too soon, we don’t have enough evidence. I’m going to tell him I know he’s in love with me, then once he’s secure in our relationship... we’ll see where it goes.”

She stands up, assessing herself in the mirror. She chose her outfit carefully; short red dress with black roses and black mesh collar, black rose bracelet to match her earrings, snug faux leather jacket, and black stiletto ankle booties with a very skinny heel, the zipper on the outside gold, not silver. She fluffs her wavy hair and turns towards the door. She looks back one more time, holding onto the doorway.

“Wish me luck.”

Leo enters the kitchen, seeing Isabella already there, leaning against the counter seductively. She’s wearing an outfit and jewelry this late at night that makes Leo wonder if she’s going to an emo tea party. He puts the takeout in the microwave. She’s still staring at him.

“Uh… hey.”

She lets out a dainty giggle, looking him up and down.

“... Hi.”

At a loss for words, and really wanting the awkward silence to be over, he continues, “Did you need something?”

“What I need,” she walks closer to him, tracing her finger over his collar, “is you.”

What the fuck?

His brain seems to stall for a moment, and she uses this opportunity to continue.

“I know why you’re here. I know that you’re only using them to get closer to me. I know-”

“Woah-”

“That you’re in love with me.”

Okay, double what the fuck.

She takes his stunned silence as shyness, and steps closer, putting her arms around his shoulders.

“You don’t need to play so coy, I-”

This time she’s the one that gets cut off. He grabs her arms and gently steps away, trying to make it abundantly clear that he’s not into this.

“Woah, okay, slow down. First of all, you’re 17 and I’m turning 20 in a couple months, so that’s a hard no. Second, I don’t know where you got this idea, but I am not dating them to get closer to you. We’ve known each other since we were like, 15, and have been through everything together. I’ve only known you for a couple months. I love them. Probably more than I’ve loved anything ever. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

He doesn’t want to be mean, he really doesn’t, but he can tell from the look on her face that she still thinks this is all part of some game.

“So why don’t I ever see you eat? Why are you so smart, and always up at night? I know what you are.”

He has to physically hold back a laugh. He takes a step back, and places his hands on the counter.

“Isabella, I have adhd. And I’m literally an engineering student. Why wouldn’t I be smart and have a shitty sleep schedule?”

She starts to protest, and he pulls out the reheated take out from the microwave.

“And for the record, I do eat.”

Exiting the kitchen quickly and retreating back to your room, he hands you your food.

“I got the game set up!” you say excitedly.

“Nice!”

You take one look at his face and can tell something happened. He sees this, and continues.

“I just had a very… interesting interaction with Isabella,” before he finishes the sentence, your head is already in your hands. You let out a groan.

“What did she do?” you mutter from behind your hands.

He pulls you into his lap, rubbing your back.

“I’m not totally sure,” you laugh, “but I think she thinks I’m secretly in love with her…” you’re both laughing before he can even finish the sentence.

“No…” you laugh, “no fucking way…”

“Believe me, I put an end to that as soon as it started.”

“Oh, I do.”

He runs his hand over your back, and you’re quiet for a moment.

“You know,” he continues, “I think getting our own place has definitely moved up the priority list.”

You couldn’t agree more.

[allisas]

[ Original Blog Post ]

THE SIMS 4 DREAM HOME DECORATOR GAME PACK

Sul sul! I’m Patina Wainscot*, and I’m thrilled you could join me today for what I’m calling Dream Home Decorator 101. We’re diving deep into the ins and outs of designing for clients because that’s the main thing to remember: it’s all about making your clients happy!

ALL ABOUT CLIENTS

Take it from me: the best designs start with the Sims you’re creating for. I never go into a project without getting to know my clients first—at least, not if I plan to be successful. Back in my early days, I made that mistake a lot. Once, I planned a whole space around the gnome statue in the middle of my client’s living room—come to find out, that Sim was terrified of the gnome and wanted it gone!

Everyone has Preferences, you know? Likes and Dislikes matter when it comes to decorating. So ask questions! Find out their favorite color and music genre and decor style. Ask about the things that inspire them, if they have any hobbies, what their favorite pieces are. Walk them through color swatches and maybe some of the work in your portfolio. Take a few Before pictures for the client, too. After all, the more you know about someone, the easier it is to imagine a space that will truly bring them joy.

Remember to keep it professional, though! (Shower before you arrive. Trust me.) Every interaction impacts your reputation, and if you want to move up to bigger gigs, that matters.

ALL ABOUT RENOVATIONS

Once you’ve gotten a feel for what your client wants, nudge them out the door and turn your attention to the space around you. Sometimes clients want to redo the nursery, or add an in-law unit. I even had a Sim ask for a gym in the basement once. Whatever the task, I’m sure you’re up for it. Simply follow the budget, the client’s preferences, the available tile count, and the client’s actual ask.

(Sidebar: okay, yes, sometimes the requests get a little… weird. It’s your job to do what you can, though. I could share some wild stories, but client-designer confidentiality is a professional courtesy.)

Start with an empty space by selling off the items you can’t use (it’s a good budget tip, too!). Then, it’s all up to you to make your client’s dreams come true.

I personally love this phase of a project. Maybe Sims tend to be a little messy, so why not play around with modular shelving units for innovative storage solutions? Open concept is very in right now, and sectional sofas divide living spaces from the kitchen perfectly while keeping a roomy, airy atmosphere. And speaking of the kitchen, built-in appliances like ovens and stovetops save space too. For kids’ rooms, bunk beds are my go-to. As children grow, it’s easy to change the configuration and add a desk for homework!

My point is, don’t be afraid to play around. Sometimes the unexpected works best, and sometimes you’ll have a tried-and-true solution in mind.

ALL ABOUT REVEALS

Once you finish the work, there’s just one thing left: the reveal! Once you’ve perfected the space, invite the client back to see the results. Personally, this is the moment I live for. That first reaction means the world to me. Whether Sims cry, throw their arms around me, or immediately start daydreaming, I always know when I’ve done a good job, and it’s amazingly fun to show off the Before and After photos.

So many factors go into whether or not a gig is successful. Did you stay within the budget? Build around your client’s preferences? Complete your objective? Were you respectful and fun? Hopefully, the answer to all of these questions is “YES!” Not only does it make your client happy and make you feel good, but it improves your reputation as a decorator. After all, people love to talk about things they love. So make them love their space!

A FEW EXTRA TIPS

Speaking of reputation, the more you get your name out there, the more gigs open up to you. Start with something small like a room remodel; by the time you’ve reached my level, you’ll be redesigning the neighborhood bar! Client referrals make a real difference, but I used to blog and promote myself on social media, too. Now, you can watch me on the home decorator channel!

Every Sim is different. I know, I know, I’ve said that a few times now, but I really mean it! In households with more than one occupant, sometimes it gets tough to balance what they want. Maybe two Sims have different color preferences; if you can’t make both work together, find some common ground to focus on instead. And never assume you know what a client will ask for! I had an adult client ask for a kids’ tent once—turns out, it was for their nephew!

And last but not least, the most important advice I have: just have fun with it. Remember why you chose this path. You’re a dream home maker, after all.

Thank you for coming to my Sims Talk. I’ll catch you on the home decorating channel soon! And don’t forget to follow The Sims Instagram—I have a new series called Spaces With Patina that I’m super excited to share!

The Sims™ 4 Dream Home Decorator Game Pack** arrives on June 1, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. PT in your region on Origin (for Mac and PC), Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®4, and PlayStation®5!

We have a lot planned in the next few weeks as the Summer of Sims kicks into high gear! The launch of Dream Home Decorator is just one bright spot to look forward to, so make sure you’ve got your sunglasses—we’ve absolutely packed the next few weeks!

*Patina is a decorator extraordinaire, but she’s also a Sim, so this has been translated from Simlish. 😉

**REQUIRES THE SIMS 4 (SOLD SEPARATELY) AND ALL GAME UPDATES. FOR PC, SEE MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PACK.

[bees--in-my--bones]

Sunset

Character: Natasha x gn!Reader (please note I did write this with a female reader in mind, so I'm sorry if there are unintentional biases but there were no pronouns or indications of gender at all)

Note: soulmate AU where you can only see color when you look at your soulmate for the first time. i hate to admit it, but i did get this idea from tiktok.

Warnings: canon typical violence, angst, major character death, no happy ending

Word Count: 1,859

A/N: This is my first fic ever! I'm actually really proud of how it turned out and I hope you like it and stick around for more! :)

You had never seen your partner.

It was just protocol. The nature of the missions you two worked, it was safer if you couldn't identify each other.

You had been near her, of course, and heard her voice whispering to you in the train station or over the phone. But you had never once laid eyes on her.

You were an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, and one of Natasha Romanoff's most important and most trusted contacts.

Over the years of working together, you two had become the closest of friends. Fury had no idea that you two were that close, but what Fury didn't know couldn’t hurt him. If it was any pair of spies operating at your level, a close personal relationship would be a problem, but you two were the best in your field, and more than capable of handling it.

It had taken a while for the two of you to talk, really talk, the extent of your interactions being whispered conversations back to back on a set of park benches, or a flash drive set subtly on a table next to an untouched coffee, but one day, probably the best day of your life, you had asked the question and she had answered.

Every phone call with her, you would ask the same question before hanging up.

"How are you doing, Nat?"

And every time, without fail, you would receive the same, gruff, "Fine."

She clearly wasn't one to talk about the touchy-feely stuff. Which was fine by you, you didn't open up often either, most spies you met didn't, but you still gave her that chance, every time.

Until one day, much to your surprise, she responded, "Not great."

It wasn't much, but it was something different. It was an invitation to keep talking. Containing your excitement at the change in conversation, you kept your voice steady. "What's the matter?"

She sighed, the sound crackling faintly over her phone's mic. "I'm back in a place I haven't been in for a long time."

You had no way of knowing exactly where she was- S.H.I.E.L.D took plenty of precautions to be sure of that- but you could make an educated guess. The information you had passed along to her a few days ago had been about a weapons smuggler currently in Russia.

"You know what?" she said, "I don't really want to talk about it. I'll check in with you when the mission's over."

"Natasha, wait!"

Silence from the other line, but she was still on the call.

"Let's just talk. About something else. I think we could both use some casual conversation."

She let out a small chuckle. "Sure, why not? This is a burner phone and I've got time to kill."

It was a bit awkward at first, but you soon fell into a natural conversation. That night you talked about many things. Small things, like favorite foods, and big things, like plans for the future if you ever left S.H.I.E.L.D.

That's when you learned that she couldn't see color.

You weren’t surprised. You couldn’t see color either. It wasn't uncommon for S.H.I.E.L.D to hire people who hadn't met their soulmate. It was a lonely job, and soulmates were a liability.

It was a small moment in your conversation and you continued talking about all sorts of other things late into the night.

Unfortunately, though, all good things must come to an end.

"I'll have to talk to you later, Nat. I've got a big job tomorrow I need to get ready for."

"Goodnight Y/N, and thank you."

"Let's make a habit out of this, okay?"

"Gotcha, Agent."

You smiled and hung up the phone.

From then on, you always lingered on calls. Never quite as long as that first call, but the two of you were quickly becoming each other's closest confidantes.

Soon you began talking in real life, too. You never turned to face each other, never broke that boundary, but you relished the feeling of her shoulder brushing yours as you watched the pigeons in a park.

You called each other before and after every job to check in on each other. You had drop spots outside of Fury's radar where you left each other small gifts. Your life was lonely and cold, but she gave your days warmth and light.

-----

Around a year and a half after your initial conversation, you met in a smokey French cafe, sitting in nearby booths.

“Nat.”

“Agent.”

“Whaddya got for me?”

“No intel on the current mission, but I’ve got news from HQ. Fury’s pulling us from the field.”

You felt your blood run cold. Spywork was dangerous, but it was what you knew. You were good at it. If you were fired, you would be thrown into suburbia with a fake name and fake past- maybe even fake memories, if Fury deemed you untrustworthy- and you would live the rest of your days out in the rat race.

And worst of all, you would live out the rest of your days without Natasha.

“What did we do?” you asked her, putting a massive amount of concentration into keeping your voice from betraying your panic.

“We did good,” she said, a smile in her voice. “We’ve been selected for an elite team to protect the entire world. You and I, Barton, and if we can convince them, Tony Stark, Steve Rodgers, and Bruce Banner.”

“That gamma radiation guy? Do we even know where he disappeared to?”

“We never lost tabs on him.”

You let out a sigh of relief. “You scared me, Nat. I thought Fury had benched us.”

She laughed. “No, we’re still in the game for now. And when Fury gives the word, we’ll head back to New York and hang out like normal people for a change.”

“That would be nice,” you said, your voice quiet.

You heard her move around a bit, then swear. “I have to run," she said. "If I don’t make this drop Fury'll kill me.”

“I’ll talk to you later Nat,” you said. “Hopefully face to face.”

You waited for a response, but heard only silence. You turned and her booth was empty, like she had never been there.

------

"Hey there, Agent," came her warm voice over the receiver. You couldn't help but smile, remembering how cold her voice had been when you had first been partnered together.

"Hey there, Black Widow," you said, using the alias that some younger agents had been whispering behind her back.

“Very funny,” she laughed, “but I’m no Tony Stark. I don’t need a fancy code name.”

“You never know,” you said, your voice still light and teasing. “We should probably both come up with some cool code names for that team Fury was talking about. I think Black Widow suits you.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“No, it means you’re badass. How did your drop go?”

“Good,” she said. “Pretty standard, didn’t run into any problems. How are things on your end?”

“Not bad. I’ve got one thing to finish up this evening, and then I should be good to go. I’ll meet you at the airport at around 5:45 tonight?”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Agent.”

“I’ll be there, Black Widow.”

-----

You snuck around the corner of the warehouse. It was supposed to be one guy. Take him out, take down the whole operation, but apparently, the whole operation was being run out of here. You glanced at your watch. 5:42. Shit. You were gonna miss your flight. A guard passed by, and you froze in place.

You thought he hadn't seen you, but suddenly the sound of his footsteps stopped, then became louder as he ran back towards you, brandishing a weapon. Ducking under him, you grabbed the gun and twisted it away from you, and knocked him over the head with your own pistol.

Suddenly, a loud sound blared over the intercom. Shit. He had sounded the alarm.

You grabbed his gun and made a break for it.

-----

Natasha glanced anxiously at her watch. 5:50.

She glanced around nervously. You hadn’t answered a single one of her calls. She picked up her phone and dialed Nick Fury’s number.

“Fury? Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be getting on a plane, but Y/N isn’t here. Yes, I tried calling. No, Y/N told me 5:45. A good agent is not late, and Y/N is the best agent I know. Where was the mission at? I’m going in. Fury! Tell me now or so help me God... Thank you, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

She snapped her phone shut. You weren’t too far from where she was.

------

Natasha pulled up to a worn down warehouse with boarded on one side with a forest. Truck after truck pulled away from the building, and she grimaced as she realized what had happened. This was not a simple job like you had thought. Whatever operation you had infiltrated was now fleeing after being busted, and they were likely on shoot to kill orders.

Suddenly she saw you figure limping towards the woods, and before she even knew she had moved, she was racing towards you.

-----

Pain tore through you.

Your abdomen was on fire. You had been shot before, but this hurt. You struggled to get to the cover of the woods. Suddenly a firm hand was on you back, arms were cradling you, and lowering you down to the ground.

“Shh, don’t move,” came Natasha’s voice. “They aren’t worried about finding us, they’re too busy running.”

You looked into her face, making eye contact with your long-time partner for the first time ever, and the world exploded in color.

The grass and trees became vibrant with life, and you turned to look at the new world around you. When you turned back to look at Natasha, her eyes were filled with wonder.

“You hair…” you said weakly, your voice trailing off.

“They tell me it’s red,” she said, her voice wavering.

“Red,” you said, relishing the word on your lips, the feeling of knowing what it meant. “Red is my favorite.”

She smiled, but tears trailed down her face. “Shh, don’t talk. Save your energy, we’ll get you somewhere where they can fix you.”

Ignoring her, you shook your head. "I'm not gonna make it."

You reached up your hand to touch her face. She grabbed your hand and pressed it against her cheek. “I’m glad it was you Nat. I love you.”

“I love you too, Y/N”

She pressed a gentle kiss against your lips and cradled you against her chest.

“Look at the sky, Nat,” you said. “It’s beautiful.”

The sun was setting, and the myriad of brilliant colors spread over the horizon.

"As far as ways to go out," you said, "it could have been worse."

Nat said nothing, only held you tighter

The two of you sat like that until Natasha saw the sunset fade to black and white and the tears blurred her vision.

---------------

Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you liked it! @love8loki here's one of the reader death stories I was talking about. thanks for your advice lol

[purpleyellow]

It’s not enough

NCT 24th member / Dream 8th member

Bee’s Masterlist

“The remarkable world of Mark Lee’s mind” or, Mark rethinkgs his entire history with Bee.

a/n: I finished it!! Feel free to share your thoughts with me. Requests are open!💛 this gif is peak devastation 

All Mark could think when Bee first joined the group was “Thank God for Lee Jeno”.

Noticing that while she didn’t know how to express herself in front of them, Jeno was the first to give her a sense of comfort. Mark, after getting nervous for not knowing how to be helpful, told himself that eventually, Bee would get close to him too. He had a year, after all, to become friends and grow a bond with her.

Except that a year doesn’t last that long and little girls don’t come with instructions.

He knows she cried on his last showcase with Dream. But Mark has a feeling she only did so because of the occasion. She was seeing the seven best friends she witnessed together being separated, and that’s a heartbreaking sight when you know how close they are together.

Two years later, Mark realizes that was his big mistake. It wasn’t on purpose but along the way, he isolated the girl from their original friend group, and maybe it’s what caused some sort of distance in between them.

The year following his departure was an eventful one, and the boy grew a lot, experienced a lot, and learned a lot. The best part of everything being that whenever he met with their little friend group, his spot was intact and everything was the same. Except for Bee. Mark would see how she had inevitably built her own place within the dreamies, and it had him feeling weirdly left out even though they were perfectly coexisting.

They went on being coworkers and labeling each other as friends despite the weird lack of bond, until, of course, the whole “crush” fiasco went down. Mark saw himself and the girl going from, no correlation besides being in the same friend group, to suddenly facing a crisis that revolved around her feelings and his lack of knowledge about how she works.

The image he had of her, was built on a shallow level based on how others perceived her. That’s his second mistake. Jeno, and some of his Hyungs, were almost protective over Bee. Renjun and Jaemin treated her like their personal teddy bear. Haechan, Chenle, and to some extent Jisung were not worth going over in his head, because he thought that if he joked around as they did, she would probably get offended.

So there Mark was, trying to work around, this seemingly fragile character, while finding out that she saw him as a friend more than he did to her. And that maybe all the stress he had gone through to make sure she was being “protected” was worthless and seemingly ignored. He was a bit selfish for wanting to do the right thing simply for others to notice him, but that’s how he knew things. That's how he had to build a career for himself, he needed to get recognition from others to do the things he had done. And maybe connecting everything to work was another mistake.

“What’cha thinking about?” Chenle throws his coat on top of Mark’s head after realizing the practice room wasn’t empty. Though the boy was so deep in thought he didn’t realize the idol had arrived until he announced himself.

“Just life” Mark groans while laying back on the ground, his phone left on the floor next to him. The younger boy walked to the side, taking a glance at the screen before smirking.

“And by life, do you mean someone special?” He teases and Mark's hands fly to the device, the notes app open on the words he had mindlessly typed. He knew Chenle didn’t have time to actually read everything, but the title gave away enough. “The little ballerina”

“I’m trying to see things through a different lens” The Canadian spoke looking sideways at him. Gesturing he continued “Yesterday, I tried talking to her back at the van, but to be honest I had no idea what to say. Apparently, there's no good way to approach it, but I kind of feel like there might be”

“Markie, Markie. Don’t overthink anything. What do we do when we have a schedule that we’re not particularly good at?” Chenle placed a hand behind his ear and waited for the boy to say.

“We go ahead and just do it”

“So do just that” The boy snapped, “Between you and me, Yun-hee doesn't know what she wants. At one point she's all certain about 'moving on' or whatever, yet then when you ask her for any details of what she's feeling, she completely ignores you”.

“You asked her about it?” Mark's head snaps up frowning and the boy nods. “What did she say? Does-”

“Did you not listen to what I just say? She brushed me off” Chenle rolls his eyes “But I think she still likes you if that's worth something. Maybe not the way she did back when Haechan dropped the bomb”.

“What do you mean? Like a friend?” He questions confused, decreasing the younger's patience.

“No, Mark. The same way you like her now”.

“Chenle, I already told her, and all of you, that I don't feel like that towards Bee” Mark’s tone gets more serious and the younger groans annoyed.

“You two are so slow, we literally have to put words in your mouth to get things going” Chenle speaks quicker trying to get his point across. “It's really obvious you care about Bee more than you did at the beginning of last year. And okay, let's say you don't have a little thing for her or whatever, but you do want to have some sort of relationship with her, don't you?”

“Yeah, being friends for once would be nice” Mark nods, sarcastically, and gets up from the floor. “I really just want this all to end”

Mark left the room shortly after and being honest with himself, he felt a little light-headed with everything Chenle just told him. Putting most things aside to revisit once he had a clearer mind, the boy decided to put into use the one good advice he could find in the middle of everything. When you have a particularly hard task, you just have to go ahead and do it.

So with that, his plan was built. And by plan, he means to have no prepared speech, and no questions to ask, instead figure out everything after he finally finds a way of talking to her, which has been harder than anticipated.

A couple of days later, while he went down to the sm cafe before it was time to be at the studio, Mark quite literally froze in place at the sight of a certain Stray Kids member standing near a wall.

Waving shyly at him and Renjun, Seungmin waited awkwardly to see if they would come near him.

"Bee shouldn't take much longer" Renjun caught Mark by surprise, as he approached the boy calmly "Her recording session is almost done, but we can show you the studio if you want to wait for her there"

"No, it's fine" Seungmin smiled, though a little intimidated by Mark's frown. "I'll just sit wherever if it takes too long"

"I'm sorry, you two are going out?" The laugh followed by Mark's question was a little nervous, considering he had only seen the boy a few times yet here he was waiting for Bee to be done so they could do... something?

"No, no. Bee's going to meet Moon, I'm just the intermediate" Seungmin tries to joke but Renjun is the only one laughing. Clearing his throat, he explains further "My group was nearby and we're meeting Ateez for dinner so Moon asked if I could come to pick her up"

"Yun-hee is staying over at her dorm" Renjun adds, glaring sideways at the Canadian. "A sleepover or whatever you want to call it" The three fall silent after he's done talking and Mark runs over an explanation as to why he's feeling so frustrated over this conversation.

He and Bee hadn’t properly spoken since the award show shooting. And while forced interactions were the bare minimum, the boy felt as if the distance they kept had triplicated its length. It made him feel odd to see her act normally with everyone, including a boy she hadn’t spoken to for a year. So why couldn’t they be normal as well?

"Well, I'm going ahead and get a coffee. She should be coming anytime, though being late is kind of expected at this point" The comment from Renjun makes Seungmin chuckle and both boys nod to each other. Turning to Mark, he frowns at his wondering expression "You coming?"

"I'm heading up actually, it's my turn on studio 3" He shakes his head and waves at them. The elevator doesn't seem to take much longer to arrive, which Mark thinks might be some weird doing of fate, considering as soon as he makes it to his floor, Bee is walking along the hallway. Or was, because she changes her path the moment she spots him

Acting purely on instinct might not be the smartest thing to do, the boy thinks to himself while chasing her through the building without any idea of what he wants to say once "catching" her. Maybe Kun hiding Bee in his studio and obviously lying to him was a good thing, or at least it gave him another day to think about where he wants to stand with her.

Ironically, a couple of days after, he's in fact standing in front of a door while thinking if he should or not enter and hopefully settle everything. Mark opens the door slowly, analyzing the small room with two chairs in which she's sitting on one.

“Can we talk now?” He waits for her positive to walk inside and Bee does so by simply nodding. Her eyes looked a little tired and uninterested, but the small tremor on her hands told him how present she really was. And just like the first time they met, her nervousness contaminated him, and they just sat inside the small room without looking at each other in silence.

"I, um, have been thinking about everything since that game night" Mark clears his throat and starts speaking towards the floor "And, not that you owe me anything, but I'd just like to know what happened"

Frowning, Bee quickly glances at him "What do you mean, what happened?"

"When did you start, kind of seeing me in that way. And how did it stop, I guess. It just feels like a lot happened that I'm not aware of, and it's making me look back and reconsider some stuff, I'll explain that later, just let me know what I missed"

Bee thought of how she would put things into words and twirled the ring on her finger, taking a deep breath she tried to make herself comfortable on the chair

"It started around when you came back from the SuperM tour. Or maybe before that, I'm not sure” She sighs and picks at her nails “It seemed like that boy I met was gone after you graduated, and you became this even cooler rapper, you became more confident in yourself, literally embodied SM's favorite child. I sort of became stunned, this feels really weird to say, but I couldn't really recognize you"

Mark slowly looks at Bee while she's talking and carefully listens, he feels a little more comfortable not to look away once she raises her head again. Once she stops, he nods turning his chair a little so they're more face to face.

"You feel out of it after you find out I'm still the awkward boy from before" His jokes make her shrug as opposed to the giggle he expected to hear.

"That happened, but also, you did turn me down" Bee bites her lip regretting the word choice "Not that I'm mad, or really hoped for anything, I simply didn't want to push anything or make things too weird. That's why going back to normal was such a huge thing, but it's been a really long time since then and we still don't know how to do that, I guess"

"Maybe it's because we didn't exactly have a normal, at least not the one we're trying to do right now" Mark catches her attention and she gestures for him to keep going "Thinking back to when we first met, we never got close just the two of us. The others were always around, and even then, I can't recall us sticking together or anything. That might be why you thought I was different"

"It makes sense" The girl mumbles tilting her head and frowning. If he was true, that would mean her crush had been based on this picture of him she drew on her head. And while part of it certainly was, Bee also knows that a little percentage came from his actual responsible yet boyish and kind personality she still appreciates to this day.

"I guess it does" Mark nods reading her face "We should probably find a way to work around that. Just get closer in general, I guess. Find out what our dynamic is like without blending in with the rest of the boys and ignoring each other" He speaks hopefully, but Bee fears it might not work again.

"But, what if this is it for us. We didn't naturally become friends, so maybe accountancies it's what we should stick with" She doesn't know if she meant it, or was scared of this whole 'finding out' deal and its consequences. From what she knew, Bee could easily slip back into her feelings for him and end up breaking her face again.

Yet Mark wasn't having it. He'd spent way too much time, especially lately, noticing how she was comfortable with the others, and the nice chemistry they had. He felt left out, not as in ignored, but Bee was sweet, and a little quirky which also made her funny, but still very caring, and he never denied she was pretty. He wanted to know what it’s like to be her friend like the others are. Though this moment might be the first time he questions if a friendship will be enough for him.

"Let's put an effort this time" He shakes his head dismissing her comment "We can stick around in the practice room a little longer now that our schedules mostly match. And you know, hang out together more, no running away or ignoring each other"

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Bee bounces up her leg and thinks a little bit.

"For what it's worth, we can try. We spent a good time in here and it didn't get awkward, so there’s hope" Mark giggles and she follows him "It'll make the teamwork better if you need a greater good to support your decisions"

"Okay" Bee nods making him shyly hold out a fistbump to her. Making up a quick and weird handshake, they laugh together lighting up the mood a little.

"Just a little request" The girl stops Mark as he's getting up "Let's not rush things, you know. Make it more natural than acting like we're forcefully acting as friends"

"Yeah, sure" Mark pats her head opening the door. And to everyone, especially the dreamies’, happiness, they're a little less awkward around each other.

[make-me-imagine]

Yellow Tulips: Sunshine in Your Smile

Valentines Special: Day Five

Day One: Morning Glories Day Two: Blue Salvias Day Three: Sunflowers Day Four: Pink Camellias - Day Five: Violets

Plot: The reader keeps receiving flowers and sweet messages every day from an anonymous source leading up to Valentines Day. But who is sending them?

Choose your own character ending (coming on Valentines Day).

Gender!Neutral Reader x ???

Triggers: None         Words: 2,191

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February 10th

Your morning started out slowly at first as you walked around the tower performing basic duties. It was like many mornings you had before, but this time, you held an air of suspicion. Specifically of every person around you.

You found yourself wondering if every person you passed could be your admirer. Whenever you passed someone you knew, you quickly went through all of your interactions, trying to figure out if it could be them. No one was an obvious fit, but you couldn’t help but wonder, which one of them was it? 

Was it who you desperately hoped it to be? Or someone you could possibly fall for? What if it was someone you could never see yourself loving?

As you walked into Tony’s lab, after having gotten a text asking for your assistance, you eyed the two men in the room. Tony and Bruce. Could it be one of them? Or maybe one of the lab assistant in the next room? You knew some of them...

“Perfect timing Y/n” Bruce greeted you with a smile. 

“What am I perfectly on time for exactly?”

“Don’t worry nothing bad, well, hopefully” Tony said with a smirk and a hint of sarcasm. 

“We need to test the energy output of this sonic weapon” Bruce said pointing to a ball on the table in the middle of the room, being held by machinery. 

“We need to be in the lab measuring it’s frequencies while someone has to be out here to open it and turn it on. The machines aren’t delicate enough to do it, they could damage the core. So we need some steady hands. It should be perfectly safe, the weaponized part of it has been turned off.”

“Well if you say it’s safe, I’ll trust you.” you said while putting on a lab coat. “You said it was a sonic weapon?”

“Yeah,” Tony began “It was picked up on Romanoff and Bartons scouting mission. We think it is used in a similar way to as a flash bang, but instead of sending out light it’s an sonic energy wave that can knock someone out.”

“Hmm, interesting.” you muttered, looking behind you as the lab doors slid open and Vision entered. 

“Good morning” Vision greeted “I heard you were testing the weapon we found?”

“Yeah, wanna watch?” Tony asked as he walked into the observation room.

Vision looked at you, seeing you getting ready to take part “Is it safe?”

“They said it is” you said with a shrug.

After the three went into the observation room, you proceeded to follow Bruce’s instruction as the machines open the ball carefully. Using some tools, you pulled out a small metal tube from the center of the ball, slowly and carefully. 

“That should be the main weaponized core, that is what we want to test the energy field of. This will help tell us how big the weapons range is.”

“Alright” you said as you set it inside a container and closing it, your eyes moved to a small blinking red light that turned on in the center of the ball. 

“Uhh, what’s the red light for?”

“What red light?” Tony asked peering through the window at you. 

“There is a small blinking red light at the center of the weapon.”

You looked up, seeing Bruce and Tony checking the screens and information before they turned to each other “A back up trigger? Maybe a trap?” Bruce said with an air of anxiety.

“A trap?” you and Vision asked in unison, your voices rising in concern. 

Hearing beeping coming from their computers Tony looked up at you in panic “Y/n, get out of the-”

Before he could finish, there was a sudden pulsating shock that seemed to come from the weapon. You felt a sharp pain in your head, then feeling yourself launch backwards before you were taken over by darkness.

- - -

Tony, Bruce and Vision watched as a somewhat visible pulse shot out of the weapon, you were thrown backwards, as the nearby machines blew backwards, and all glass windows in the lab shattered, sending Tony, Bruce and Vision backwards as well.

Quickly staggering to their feet they ran out of the observatory room and towards you, where you were lying on the ground, unconscious. Crouching down around you, they starting calling your name, but you were unresponsive. Bruce and Vision began brushing glass off of you, and checking you for injuries. Tony yelled for the lab assistants who ran in to get the medical team.

A few moments passed before Natasha and Clint ran in followed closely by Steve and Bucky. Making it obvious that the pulse explosion could be heard or felt throughout the tower. 

“What the hell happened?” Steve yelled as they all ran over, seeing you lying on the ground.

“The weapon had an internal switch that triggers a trap if opened up. Why couldn’t we see that on the scans?!” Bruce asked to Tony who was now closing the weapon up, and shutting it down.

“It doesn’t matter right now, we need to get Y/n help” Vision broke in.

- - -

You felt as though a heavy weight was laying over your body as you tried desperately to wake up, your barely conscious thoughts trying to focus on your surroundings. 

Hearing a distant beeping, you tried to focus on it, but your mind switched to focusing on the movement of your arm. But you weren’t moving it. Someone was holding your hand. Who? Where were you? What happened? 

“You’ll be alright Y/n” the voice was faint, barely audible. Whose voice was that? It seemed familiar, but you couldn’t place it for the life of you.

There was pressure on your hand, they were squeezing it. Then here was something else on your knuckles. A touch. A kiss? You tried to wake your mind up, as though you were trying to come up from a deep sleep. But you don’t remember dreaming.

You struggled for a few moments as there was a distant mumbling as whoever it was beside you began to talk again, but you fell into darkness. 

The darkness seemed to last only seconds as you were suddenly able to open your eyes. Though they were heavy, and your vision was blurry. You looked around the room. You were confused, trying to process your surroundings. Where were you? A hospital? No. You were in the tower still. In the medical lab.  Looking out the window you see it’s dark outside. How long had you been out? Hours? Days? 

Looking around the rest of the room, you see the call button lying on the table next to you. You began to reach for it, but your eyes moved to the beautiful vase of yellow tulips on the table as well. You noticed a note perched in the leaves. 

They were here. Was that them before? That you heard, that was holding your hand? You tried to remember the voice, but the memory was too warped, too faded, like a dream you forget as soon as you wake up. Reaching out, you grabbed the note, opening it up immediately. 

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ Yellow Tulips.

Yellow Tulips represent ‘The sunshine in your smile’. Your smile, which I have been so lucky to be graced with multiple times, is pure sunshine. In times of darkness, when you smile, I know that everything will work out in the end. As long as you smile, everything will be well in the world. It is my favorite smile, and I always feel so accomplished when I am the reason it graces your features, and I hope to be the reason for it again and again. 

You must wake up. I wish I could have stopped you from getting hurt. I’m sorry. But please, be okay. So that I can once again see that beautiful smile, and be graced by it’s beautiful sunshine again. So that I am one day, able to tell you all of this in person.  ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

The second part was scribbled in at the bottom, clearly written after you were hurt. You took a moment to think back on what happened. 

You were in the lab, helping Tony and Bruce test a weapon, Vision was observing, and...there was a red light. A trap was triggered. Tony started to yell something but you were thrown off your feet. And now you were here. The weapon must have suddenly gone off. You wondered if they were alright. 

Setting it back in the flowers you pressed the call button, you needed to know if the others were alright. A nurse entered almost immediately, greeting you with a smile “Good, you’re up.”

“Is everyone else okay?” you asked immediately. 

She nodded her head “You were the only one hurt, and you aren’t even really hurt, you were just knocked unconscious. After I do a few tests, you might be able to go back to your room.”

“How long have I been here?” 

“Since this morning, it is the same day.” she answered. You sighed in relief knowing you hadn’t lost days of your time. 

After the nurse performed her tests and the doctor came in, someone you knew. You managed to convince them that you were alright, and after a bit more convincing they let you go.

You took the vase of tulips to your room, and set them in your window before looking back at the note once more , you tried to study the handwriting. It was cramped and written in the small available space at the bottom of the note. But it did seem familiar. If only you had taken time to study the other’s handwriting. Though, why would you? After changing, you left to go find the others. 

Entering into the main room where you would all gather together to hang out or have a small party or game night. You were happy to see almost everyone sitting around the room. 

Wanda saw you come in first, standing up she smiled and made her way over to you quickly “Oh, I’m so glad you are okay!” she wrapped her arms around you in a tight hug. You hugged her back, and let out a small laugh “Yeah, I’m alright.”

The others all moved towards you as well, all hugging you and asking if you felt alright. “Are you sure you should be walking around?” Steve, Thor, and Vision asked all at once. 

“The doctor did plenty of tests. I’m fine. The weapon’s effect does seem to be temporary, and causes no lasting damage.”  You looked at Vision “I’m just glad you three didn’t get hurt as well. Are Tony and Bruce in the lab?” you had noticed almost immediately that they were not in the room. 

Vision nodded his head “Yes, they are doing more tests on the weapon, though, only scans. They feel terrible about what happened. As do I, and I am very glad you are alright.”

You smiled at him before squeezing his arm lightly “Me too Vis. I’m gonna go see them, make sure they know I’m alright.”

As you walked into the lab, you saw the remnants of glass and knocked over machines. Some people were walking around cleaning everything up. The blast took out almost everything in the lab. Looking around, you saw Tony and Bruce at their lab desks, their faces practically pressed into the screens. 

“You guys aren’t gonna blow anything else up are you?” 

Both Tony and Bruce’s heads shot up at your voice, their faces showing their relief upon seeing you. 

“Y/n, thank God you’re alright” Bruce said as he pulled you into a hug when you approached him. 

“Yeah I’m good Bruce. How are you guys?”

Tony approached you “You mean besides the guilt of almost getting you killed?”

You smiled at him before hugging him “I don’t blame you guys, if your scans didn’t see the trap trigger than you guys couldn’t have.” 

“Well, that helps. A little” he said as he moved away giving you a big smile. You could tell he was very relieved you were alright. 

“I hope you guys haven’t been in here since this morning.” you said in a somewhat scolding tone. Tony and Bruce shared a look before looking back at you. You rolled your eyes “Well that’s enough for now. Come to the main room, almost everyone else is there. You guys need a break too. And I’m not asking by the way.” 

Tony and Bruce smirked as they gave in immediately, knowing there was no point in arguing. “Well, then, if you insist” Tony began “With everyone there we can talk about the party.”

“What party?” you asked.

“The Valentines Day party, I always throw one here.” he answered as though it was obvious. 

“Ah, right. That party.”

As you began leaving the lab, Tony wrapped his arm around your shoulders “Oh come on, it’ll be fun. Even for you.”

You met his eyes for a moment as your mind wandered back to your admirer. Would they be there? Would you finally learn who they are? 

xx xx xx xx xx

Sorry for the blunt ending, but this was getting pretty long lol.

Let me know if you want to be tagged in the rest of this!~

[beepboop358]

My Byler theories/predictions for S4

Since s4 is already confirmed to not be the last season, I don’t think Byler will officially get together in s4. I do think that we are definitely going to get a large amount of Byler’s development in s4 though, we just aren’t at the finish line yet. Since Byler has been being developed all through each of the seasons, I think the writers are playing the long game with Mike and Will. I really appreciate a queer romance that is so well developped, especially in something so popular! I think the season will end on a note where it’s understood what Mike has been struggling with, It’s made known that Will is gay, and that Mike has feelings for Will, and Will has feelings for Mike.

My predictions/theories for Byler in s4:

Mike might be acting a little off at school and Dustin is going to notice his odd behavior and ask what’s up

I think Mike will be getting in trouble at school and at home (based on whenever he doesn’t have Will/El around he does stupid things - like graffitti the bathroom wall, plagiarize essays, curse at adults, etc.) I don’t know if Mike knows about Eddie dealing drugs, but he might and he might get drugs from Eddie and do them to cope with everything he is struggling with. His parents might ground him for doing drugs, and forbid him from going to visit the Byers, and then we could get our runaway smalltown boy montage! LOL

Lonnie might come to visit the Byers in California for Will’s birthday. He will probably show up because he thinks they have money now, or he wants to sue Starcourt like he wanted to sue the quarry in s1. Mike will also be there visiting for Will’s birthday. Lonnie will mock Will and make fun of him like he always did, but he will also hate Mike. Lonnie will definitely notice Will and Mike’s dynamics and he will definitely comment about it. He might even call them homophobic slurs like we know he used to do with Will when he was younger. Lonnie will probably make Will cry and Mike upset. Lonnie might possibly “out” him and Mike before they are out and confirm it themselves. Some of the movies on the stranger writers twitter for s4 also hint at this, as well as having the baseball references. There are also hints to Will’s birthday throughout the show: The rainbow happy birthday mug seen in the crazy together scene, the “sorry i forgot your birthday card” in Will’s room from Lonnie, and Joyce’s speech in the shed discussing Will’s 8th birthday and his “rainbow ship”. Jonathan also mentions how Lonnie made him kill a rabbit on his 10th birthday and he cried for a week after, just more hints that if Lonnie shows up for Will’s bday, it’s gonna be bad.

Mike might get Will a watch for his birthday. This would reference the clocks being central to the s4 plot, and “not wanting things to change/turning back the clock” in Hopper’s letter

Will is being homophobically bullied at his new school again, possibly references to Will having HIV/AIDS because the height of the epidemic was in the 80’s and it was very stigmatized

Mike will call Will more than he will call El. Will might be slightly surprised by this, El’s frequent calling will annoy Mike and he might turn off his walkie talkie. (basically the reverse of what Mike said would happen in the s3 ending mileven scene)

Mike and Will will be in the same location for most of the season, like s2. They will not leave each other’s sides for the majority of the time they are together.

S4 Group Predictions:

- El, Will, Mike trio together with Jonathan and Argyle. (we will get some obvious tension between El, Will, and Mike, and Mike will hate Argyle at first)

- Robin, Steve, Erica, Max, Dustin, Lucas, Vickie, Eddie, Nancy

- Joyce, Murray, etc?

- Hopper and the other Russians (Dimitri, etc)

The rift between Mike and El will continue to grow.

When Mike comes to visit, she will notice he seems much more interested in Will.

El will ask why the bullies call Will those things (queer/fairy/gay/homo, probably f slurs too), what it means and if he really is “a queer”.

I don’t know if Will is going to come out to El. They have never interacted before, and I doubt Will trusts her or really likes her much mainly, because of Mike. Unless they get super close during the time not portrayed on screen between s3 and s4, or by being all each other has in California, I don’t know if  he will come out to El. I could see this going either way depending on how their friendship develops. I definitely do not think Will is going to tell El he likes Mike, even if he does confide in her he is gay. I think she will find out eventually but in some other way, probably just from Mike’s behavior towards Will.

El will eventually realize she doesn’t actually love Mike and let go of the ‘romance’ aspect of their bond, but still highly value him as a friend.

Mike might be called homophobic slurs at school as well. Mike will definitely be teased (regardless of his sexuality) because he is in the hellfire club and since satanic panic is sweeping the town, people look at D&D as if it is a satanic game, and he will be teased because of that.

Based on the leaked bts pics, I have a theory a cheerleader, or someone else, might show interest in Mike.  Mike will not reciprocate and she will call him out for it asking why he doesn't like her because “any other guy at this school would” or something like that, maybe even ask “what are you gay or something”. It would certainly be good for Mike’s narrative but idk if it will happen.

Will may confide in Jonathan about his feelings for Mike and the things the bullies say to him at school. Jonathan will be supportive of Will, as will Joyce. I think he will also try to protect Will from Lonnie and they will both defend Will to Lonnie.

I think we need a scene of Mike with his Mom telling him to follow his heart, like who you like, etc. because life is too short to waste it being miserable or something like that. This could be inspired by Mike’s parents seperating, but idk. This could also encourage Mike to initiate more romantic things with Will.

I would love to get a scene of Will confronting Mike for “Joining another party”, after Will said he wouldn’t.

Will and Mike need to discuss what was said in their fight.

I think since Mike's been holding in a lot of turmoil and struggling with his sexuality for so long we might get a small breakdown scene from him, of him telling Will he’s really sorry for how he treated him last summer, and for all the things he said to Will. Mike will profusely apologize and also hint at how he’s confused and been dealing with a lot.

I think Mike will be the first one to break down and confess he has feelings for Will and has been struggling with coming to terms with his sexuality.

Once Will has confirmation Mike is also struggling with his sexuality, Will might come out to him. I would love for him to reference the fight being like “You were right. I don’t like girls.” (from @itsonlystrange ‘s 4x07 byler script it’s so good!) I don't know if Will will confess he likes Mike to his face or not. I don't think it's likely given how shy Will is and how afraid he is of Mike not reciprocating, but who knows.

Mike may initiate a kiss between him and Will - towards the end of the season probably (eyewitness parallel - explained in my byler proof google slides)

I think Mike and Will might write letters to each other, with some love-y connotations. There is a lot of evidence for this in the canon comics of them writing notes to each other, and that cryptic tweet from stranger writers twitter with a blocked out message and the date Will went missing saying it wasn’t about a couple or hopper. Maybe byler related? This tweet may not be a letter but it might be. The most popular theories are that the message is to Will, “love mike”, which I love. https://twitter.com/strangerwriters/status/1184945905973153792?lang=en

Will has a new haircut (bts pics) and Mike will gush over it. Maybe some gay-panicking too hopefully

I think El will be either physically or at least emotionally distant the entire season from the other kids (again following the pattern of even and odd seasons) El needs some personal development this season, since she didn’t get any in s3.

El might confront Mike and ask if he is gay and if he likes Will, which could be El’s motivation to go off on a journey of her own to learn more about her own life. I don’t think it will be a huge fight, but El might make some references to him always lying to her. I think Mike might just kind of try to talk his way out of it at first, but he will eventually break. This might be a two part discussion and Mike doesn’t admit she is right until later. I don’t think it makes sense for El to be heartbroken (explained in my byler proof slides), just slightly annoyed. This is based off of the movie Tootsie which they borrowed the “gift” idea from in s3 already. In the movie, the girlfriend then after receiving the gift asks “Michael” if he is gay.

I really think eventually El will realize it’s okay because she doesn’t love him romantically either, and once she realizes that her own personal development can really begin.

I think we will see a noticeable change in Mike’s demeanor. I think Mike will mainly just be trying to hide that he is gay now. He joined the hellfire club so we know he’s playing d&d again meaning he is reverting back to his true self, not the weird act he put on in s3 trying to be straight and change himself. He is still struggling, but he knows he likes Will. Regardless that doesn’t mean he is going to be super clear about how he feels. He is going to be extremely afraid of opening up and then getting hurt by Will. He will probably do some of his usual ‘lead Will on and then shut it down’ thing. And I really want Will to call him out on this. This could also lead to Mike breaking down in front of Will and confessing. I think we are going to get a lot of 'Mike gay panicking' moments, he's going to be extremely afraid of being found out/suspected.

Byler things I really want to happen that we may get because they would have narrative significance:

I really want flashbacks to those 3 months of summer between the starcourt explosion and the Byers moving, of moments between Mike and Will when they hang out alone together, with some obvious romantic tension. Like where they are super playful and almost kiss, or they are kind of touchy, or something in the realm of that. I think we need a flashback of something that explains Will’s flirty nature at the very end of s3 with Mike, because he doesn't normally act like that. I want noticeable “is something going on with them?” vibes. This could also happen during the thanksgiving/christmas flashbacks.

I hope we get flashbacks of Mike going to the Byers for Thanksgiving, and the Byers coming back to Hawkins for Christmas. Preferably of some Mike and Will moments that hint at Mike’s confusion or how he feels “so alone” without Will, maybe with some “crazy together” references too! I’d also love some tension between the 3 of them, maybe this is when El starts to get suspicious of Mike liking Will.

Hopefully we get some shots of Mike biking past the byers old house and going to look at castle byers and reminiscing.

I’d love to get a flashback of Mike the day the Byers moved away, of him crying or being upset, alone in his room/basement while looking at Will’s drawings or pictures of Will and him together. Mainly to confirm for people that Mike was upset about Will moving, not as much El.

This one does not seem super probable, but it is a very popular theory. Idk if it’s possible because of location logistics, but if they spend enough time together, I’d love for Mike to get to know Robin better, and Will too. Maybe once everyone comes together at the end of the season, she will notice their dynamics and could help guide and inspire them to be themselves. Hey maybe thats for s5 :) But I do think it’s a possibility that Mike may work at the video store with Steve and Robin, and she will pick up on Mike’s behavior and understand, whether she communicates that to him or not.