#I had four tests at school today and my I needed a break after school. Yeah.

[follineo]

I'm actively trying to figure out how to draw a chibi because why not

She was thrilled with her new cape when she first got it, isn't she cute? :]

I want to do some more of these drawings soon, I loved drawing like this!! Although I realise I still need to practise

Thanks for your attention!

[asahicore]

kiwi and layla - sjy

pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. in which you mistake jake’s backpack for your own, making you each go home with the other’s bag. both of you are too curious for your own good, so you quickly find out that you excel in the subject the other is failing - a mutual tutoring agreement ensues, and it turns into much more than what you had expected. genre. high school au, f2l, lots of fluff and some angst too, f2l, shy reader x outgoing jake warnings. food & swearing, mention of parent death and divorce, kms jokes, jake being stupid but also really cute (lmk if i've missed any!) word count. 26.3k a/n. this is part of the unexpected collab !!! go check out the other fics and caelin thank u for hosting <333 hope u guys like this one, it took me a while but i had so so much fun writing it !!! i love my jakey in here he's a little bit confused but he's got the spirit. @zreamy thanks for being the world's awesomest beta reader and a decent friend ig... 2 baddies wouldnt be the same without you... lifeguard wet body sunghoon coming soon guys dont miss it! as always pls remember how important reblogs and feedback is for us writers!!! it's what keeps us going <3 enjoy!!

listen to the playlist!

This was not your backpack. 

In your defense, it looked so similar to yours - scratch that, it was the exact same as yours - that you couldn’t possibly have been able to tell the difference between the two bags until you’d opened one of them. Just a basic black Eastpak that probably a hundred other kids in your school owned with nothing to tell them apart, because you hadn’t had the mind to add a little something to it and make it recognizable. You hadn’t really needed to - your backpack was always on your back, next to your seat or in your locker. There was no way you might lose it or mistake it with another.

Until today, obviously. Instead of having a chill last class before spring break like every other teacher, your psycho math teacher Mr Choi had decided to give you a major test on this otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. While other students watched a movie or played Kahoot, you were stuck in a cold classroom with algebra questions in front of you. Mr Choi had argued that this would be better than having a test after the holidays and ruining your time off with studying, but a test was a test, and math was math, so you hated the idea anyway. 

To eliminate all cheating possibilities, Mr Choi made his students only take a pencil and eraser with them, leave their bag at the back of the classroom and put their phone in a box he kept on his desk. Plus, with his hawk eyes watching intently, there was no way to sneak answers on a small sheet of paper or even on your palm. 

When the test was over, your brain was so fried and you were so eager to get the hell out of there that you didn’t even notice the two identical black backpacks next to each other, you just grabbed the first one you saw, not even questioning that it might not be yours.

And indeed, yours it was not. From your snooping around, you quickly found out it belonged to one Jake Sim. 

You knew Jake. Although you’d been attending the same school for the past three years, you could probably count the number of times you’d talked on one hand - but you knew him. Or at least, you knew of him. You knew that he was good at STEM subjects and that he was on the soccer team; you knew he was a really sweet guy and was easy to talk to, even for someone shy like you. 

Most importantly, you knew he was friends with Park Sunghoon. This was important because you had liked Park Sunghoon since the moment you’d laid eyes on him - or rather, your whole friend group had. It might’ve sounded extremely odd to others, but you and your friends had a few random people at school you liked to keep tabs on or create backstories for, and Sunghoon, because of his dashing looks that had struck all four of you in your first week of freshman year, was one of your victims. Well, you liked to think of them as characters on a TV show rather than victims, but to each his own. Your other characters included that popular sophomore who already considered herself a celebrity because of her ten thousand followers on TikTok anyway, the French and Spanish teachers you were sure had a thing going on, and that one guy in Yena’s biology class that only showed up every two weeks but always looked stoned (hat guy, Chaewon liked to call him, even you’d never once seen him with a hat on). It was all harmless, really - none of you ever actually went up and talked to them, just discussed them among yourselves.

Perhaps Sunghoon was different, because each of you had had a class with him at some point, so you’d all had at least shared a word with him. You probably hadn’t talked to him more times than you’d talked to Jake, so the information you knew about him was pretty surface-level - he was an ice skater, but everyone knew that, and he was shy like you, which was immediately noticeable. He also had one of the most handsome faces you’d ever seen. But again, everyone who saw him knew that.

You, Yena and Chaewon had debated whether one of you should just go ahead and make a move (Hyewon didn’t participate because she already had a boyfriend, but she was all for approaching the boy). You guessed you could describe what you felt towards Sunghoon as a sort of crush, even if it was one you shared with your friends - you found him cute, and you got nervous when he was around. But you were more the watch-from-afar-and-pine type, so you were satisfied with liking him from a distance. You didn’t think you actually had the guts to strike a conversation with him - that was more Chaewon’s thing.

However, this didn’t mean you weren’t curious about the contents of his best friend’s backpack. Your being shy didn’t mean you weren’t interested in other people’s lives - if anything, you were quite nosy. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but you were just a regular teenage girl, so this was fine, right? After just a few minutes of snooping, you found out Jake Sim wasn’t hiding any big state secrets in his Eastpak, anyway. Just some textbooks, notebooks, and a lot of single sheets of paper. It was pretty messy in there. 

Your idea of him being good at STEM subjects was correct - he kept all of his graded tests in the sleeve pocket of his math notebook, and there was not a single one that had received a note under 95. He even seemed to be doing some extracurricular exercises - there were formulae that were completely unfamiliar to you and that you were sure you hadn’t done in class. You found it slightly insane, but that might have just been because you despised math and wouldn’t understand why someone would want to do more of it than was required of them. 

His English homework was another story. His essays had more red from the teacher’s pen than his own black ink, and from the grades on his reading comprehension tests, you highly doubted he’d actually read any of the assigned books. You weren’t in the same English class but apparently had the same teacher, Ms Park, so you were studying the same thing. You couldn’t help but cringe as you read his answers on a Pride and Prejudice reading test - he seemingly kept mixing the sisters up, assigning actions and character traits to Lydia that clearly belonged to Jane. At least he somewhat got Darcy right, writing that “he’s probably not as bad as he looks,” with no further explanation. 

As you aimlessly flipped through his English notebook, curious about the way he took his notes - or if he even took any - you noticed some scribbles in the margins. Looking closer, some of them were in his handwriting while others were in an unfamiliar one. It looked like some sort of conversation, so you assumed the other writing belonged to his deskmate. You also did this with your friends in classes where the teacher was very strict about no chatting in class.

dude coach said if I fail any of my classes I would be out of the team, you read Jake’s handwriting.

Wait seriously????

yeah and I suck at english so Im scared it might actually happen

You just need to study more bro

bro I DO but this shit is hard

Then find someone to help you

neither of you guys is that good in that subject either tho

Ok ouch but also just find someone else then

bro who

IDK man 

Y/N maybe ? she’s good at English and she’s nice so she might say yes 

there you go about y/n again dude MAYBE you ask HER to teach you some sonnets

Shut up you’re the one who needs help dumbass

whatever isn’t it weird just asking her randomly though like i dont want her to feel like she has to say yes

Lol if she sees your grades she might do it out of pity

fuck u man

You were surprised to see your own name written there - it felt weird knowing that Jake and his friend were talking about you, for some reason. And what if that friend was Sunghoon? You had a hard time believing he not only knew you existed, but thought of you as good at English and nice. You liked to think both of these things were true. 

He was also spot-on about saying you would agree to helping out Jake in those subjects, but what he got wrong was thinking you’d do it out of pity. Clearly, you and Jake were in very similar positions. You didn’t have any sort of club you’d be kicked out of if you failed a class, but it sure as hell wouldn’t look good on your college applications, so you needed to get your math grades up. 

Jake and you both desperately needed something the other person could help with, so you had a feeling he wouldn’t turn down the offer that was brewing in your head.

—

This was not Jake’s backpack.

He noticed it right away - it was much heavier than his own and the straps were tighter around his shoulders than they should be. He looked inside for some clues about who it might belong to, and luckily, the first thing he found was a journal that had Y/N’S DIARY written on the cover page in big, pink letters. 

Unluckily, however, he’d also noticed that you had practically sprinted out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang, and indeed, you were already far gone when he tried looking for you around school. He had to get to soccer practice anyway, so he put the issue to the side for the time being.

When he got home, he had to shower then have dinner, so it wasn’t until 8 p.m. that he remembered he had your backpack. He had meant to text you straightaway about it, and he knew it was wrong to look into someone’s belongings, but he couldn’t help himself, especially when his best friend Sunghoon had liked you for ages. Maybe this was an opportunity to find out more about you.

Your mind-blowing grades in English don’t come as much of a surprise to him, and after reading through your most recent essay, he thought you definitely deserved them. Your essay was on a Shakespeare play he had never heard of - you apparently also had Ms Park for English, and he didn’t know she was doing Shakespeare in class, so he wondered for a second if you were actually crazy enough to read another book and study it. As if 300 pages of Jane Austen weren’t enough as it was. 

What shocked him were your math grades. It was like looking into a fucked-up mirror: while you excelled at English, you sucked at math; while he excelled at math, he sucked at English. You were just as close to failing your math class as he was at failing English.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Sunghoon’s idea hadn’t been so dumb - you could help him out, and he had an actual argument as to why you should, rather than just using pity on you.

As he put your stuff back in your bag, he was reminded of something - your diary. For some reason, the pretty floral pattern on the cover made him feel even worse for opening the journal in the first place, but he did it anyway. Either you’d only just picked up the habit of writing in a diary or you had finished your previous one recently, but this one seemed pretty new, as only about ten pages had been filled with your neat handwriting. Judging from the dates at the top of almost every page, you wrote in there everyday, and Jake only felt even worse that you hadn’t been able to write in it that day.

Still, he flicked to the first page and started reading. And he read and read, unable to take his eyes away from your diary. He thought he wouldn’t have cared much and a page would have satisfied his curiosity, but the way you wrote about the people around you and about yourself fascinated him. Basic high school things like friend drama and annoying teachers actually became interesting through your words. You didn’t use particularly complicated sentences or unheard-of words, on the contrary, you used simple language, and that spoke a lot more to Jake than any of the classics he’d attempted to read for class. 

And then, he saw an all too familiar name in an entry dated from just a few days ago. 

I sat next to Sunghoon today. It was during physics and both of our desk partners were absent, so Mrs Kim made me change seats. She always does this, and I used to wonder whether she hated to see an empty seat or to see a student sitting on their own, but whatever the reason, today, I was just happy about it. This isn’t our first time sitting next to each other in class, but I was still nervous, since I wasn’t expecting it. I hope he couldn’t feel the awkwardness practically oozing off of me or the way I very obviously struggled with the exercises (obviously, anything to do with math is not my forte). We shared my textbook because he’d forgotten his, and he showed me his notes when he saw I couldn’t keep up with Mrs Kim as she told us what to write down. We only exchanged a few words but I was satisfied when class was over. It’s odd, because you’d think someone would want to talk to the person they like and get to know them more, but I don’t feel that with Sunghoon. Maybe it’s because we’re both so introverted, and he seems to have just as hard a time as I do starting conversations, so I’ve sort of accepted our silent fate. I’m fine just continuing to steal glances at him from across the cafeteria. 

After that, there were a few more pages of writing up until yesterday's entry, but it was the only mention of Sunghoon. Jake had apparently been wrong to think that a girl’s diary would be full of rantings about her crush and things along the lines of “omg, he looked at me today”. 

But you had very clearly referred to Sunghoon as the person you liked, and Jake wasn’t going to let that go so easily. This was precious information that he held in his hands now, so he had to figure out how to deal with it properly for your sake as well as his friend’s.

Turns out there was more he could help you with than just algebra.

—

Seeing Jake Sim in a setting other than school was slightly odd, if you were being completely honest. 

You had just been about to text him about the backpack mix-up when you’d received a message from the man himself, asking if you could meet up the next day to exchange them. In response, you’d asked where you should meet, thinking he’d offer either his house or yours, or some halfway point between them, but he surprised you by proposing some café in the center of town. They have good hot chocolate there, he’d said, and that had been enough to convince you. 

And also I have something I want to talk to you about. 

Your stomach had turned at this message - what on Earth could Jake Sim need to discuss with you had been your first thought, and then you realized you also had plans you wanted to share with him. So his idea of going to a café was actually good for you, too.

You’d only been waiting for about five minutes when he appeared at the café, red and panting from seemingly sprinting to his destination. 

“Y/N, I’m sooo sorry,” he immediately said when he saw you waiting. “I was planning to be early, but when I got on the bus I realized I literally forgot your bag, so I had to go back but the next bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes so I just ran the whole way here, and now I’m all sweaty, and I’m late, and I’m really sorry.”

He’d rushed through his sentence and was breathing heavily as he looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer. He seemed so genuinely sorry for such a small thing that after your surprise faded, you started laughing. It was his turn to be surprised, and he immediately stopped talking at the sound of your soft giggles.

“It’s okay, Jake. I haven’t even been waiting five minutes,” you explained, smiling. “Let’s just go in, yeah?”

Jake’s heart did something weird just then, and the feeling was so unfamiliar and confusing that he decided to promptly ignore it. As if in a daze, he stood still for a couple of seconds until the sound of a bell ringing, the one the café had on its doors to signify the entrance or exit of a customer, snapped him out of it. He followed you into the shop, let you order and pay for you both (“I’m the one who took the wrong bag, it’s the least I can do,” you’d said) and sat across from you at a booth in the back.

You gave each other your respective bags back, then started chatting as you sipped on your hot chocolates (Jake had been right - they really were delicious). He was surprisingly easy to talk to, and whether he sensed you were a reserved person or was just naturally talkative, you liked that he both managed to do most of the talking and ask you loads of questions at once. Usually, you wouldn’t have really cared to listen to someone go on and on about their passion for soccer and the recent game that their team had won, but for some reason, you were hooked on Jake’s every word. The way his eyes widened in excitement as he recounted the winning goal he scored, the way the volume of his voice decreased as he filled you in on the team gossip even though no one was listening to your conversation, the way his grin turned into a proud smirk as he mentioned his coach congratulating him - every single one of his actions had you mesmerized. You’d never seen anyone so expressive in their speech, never seen anyone punctuate every sentence with a movement or a facial expression. It was just fun, listening to him.

Even when he didn’t talk, he stayed expressive. He asked you whether you did anything outside of school, and he listened intently as you told him about the theater group you’re in, humming and nodding and laughing at all the right moments. Usually, you wouldn’t have talked about it for more than thirty seconds, afraid to bore others with unnecessary details, but Jake’s reactions and the questions he asked made you actually feel listened to and like what you were talking about was interesting. So you grew more confident and told him what you loved about acting and about theater, about your own gossip (the arrogant actress who got the lead role and thought she was better than everyone else, that one guy who was clearly flirting with three girls at the same time), and you almost couldn’t believe Jake seemed so entertained by your stories. 

“So, you said your group focused on more classic plays, right? Does that mean you’re good at English Lit?”

With his spoon, Jake scooped some whipped cream into his mouth, hoping he was appearing as nonchalant as he was trying to be. He had to make you think he’d deduced that just now and not because he had been snooping through your backpack just the night prior. 

You, however, could not have cared less how he’d figured it out - you were just grateful he had segued into this topic of school and grades, because you’d been wanting to bring it up yourself but had no idea how.

“Um, yeah, actually, it’s my best subject. Math, on the other hand…”

You chuckled as his eyes widened and he leaned in across the table, pointing his spoon at you as he spoke. “See, that’s interesting, because math is my best subject, but I suck at English Lit.”

“Oh, really?” you asked, trying to sound genuinely surprised even though this piece of information was not at all new to you.

“Yeah,” he said, looking back down at his almost-finished drink with a small smile on his face.

“You know-”

“You know-”

You and Jake had spoken at the same time, and your eyes locked for a second before you started laughing. You gestured at him to go on first.

“I actually need pretty urgent help in English. Coach said he’ll put us out of the team if we fail even just one of our courses, and I’m very close to failing that class.” He took a moment to let out a sigh. “So, if you want, we could help each other out. Me with math, and you with English.” 

His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he bit his lip as he looked at you expectantly. You thought he looked far too nervous for such a simple request, expression more like a boy who’d just asked his crush to the prom rather than offering mutual help you both desperately needed. You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your lips - you had never known Jake Sim to be so… cute. But he was waiting for an answer, so you pushed the thought out of your head.

“That’s a great idea, actually,” you replied, as if you hadn’t had the exact same idea. You were just relieved you hadn’t even had to bring it up yourself. “I also really can’t afford to fail math. It would look terrible on college applications.”

Jake let out a long, loud exhale. “God, yeah, college, I hadn’t even thought of that. Even more motivation to get better grades now,” he said with a chuckle.

You chuckled along, then cleared your throat and sat up straighter. You watched with amusement as Jake mirrored your actions and even the fake serious frown in your brows. You presented your hand for him to shake, which he did without hesitation.

“So it’s a deal then. We’ll tutor each other until we’ve gotten our grades up.”

“Deal,” he replied. As you both withdrew your hands, he dropped his serious facade and burst into giggles, a sound you hadn’t expected from the boy but somehow fit him well. You watched his face closely for a second, noticing the curl of his lips and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, before breaking into laughter yourself.

You stayed in the café for another half hour, going over details of where and when you’d meet, of what exactly you needed help with (“Everything,” you’d said, to which Jake had replied “Same”), and just talked some more.

“I’m taking the 53 that way,” Jake said when you exited the café, pointing towards the bus stop.

“Oh, so am I!” you exclaimed.

“Seriously?! What’s your stop?”

And that’s how you and Jake figured out you only lived two bus stops away from each other. 

“That’s so cool! It’ll make it easy to meet up then,” he said, and you hummed in agreement. After a pause, he added: “But if we live so close to each other, how come we didn’t go to the same schools earlier? Aren’t you usually supposed to go to the one in your district?”

“I used to live in another part of town,” you explained. “Then my parents divorced when I was in middle school, and I stayed with my dad because he lived closer to the school I was at, but I moved to my mom’s place for high school.”

“‘Cause she lives closer?”

“Yeah, basically.” There was more to it, but you didn’t think Jake would be particularly interested in your parental issues - although you surprised yourself for even considering telling him. If Jake sensed that you weren’t saying everything, he didn’t push, just swiftly changed the topic as you waited for the bus to come.

When you got home some time later, the first thing you did was open your diary and start writing. It had felt wrong not to write in it even just for a day, so it was a relief to feel the pages between your fingers and the familiar scent of the paper and your perfumed pen. You wrote without thinking too much, simply letting all of your musings out into your diary and freely brushing the tip of your pen across the pages. 

You didn’t ever reread your entries right after writing them, but if you had that day, you might have noticed all you could write about was the boy you’d drank a hot chocolate with.

—

Spring break week passed by far too quickly, and it was on the first Monday back at school that you and Jake met again. He had soccer practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, while you had theater rehearsals on Thursdays and Saturdays, so you’d agreed to meet up every Monday and Wednesday after school. Since his mother worked as the school nurse, she drove him to and from school everyday - so on Monday, you met Jake in front of the nurse’s station, waiting for his mom to wrap things up before she drove you both to their home.

You had been surprised to learn that the kind nurse that never asked too many questions and always let students take a nap if they didn’t feel well was Jake’s mom, but upon reflection, it made sense. Once you knew, it was almost obvious that she had raised him - they shared the same friendliness, the same comforting smile and the same ability to make conversation. The whole ride home, she asked you about yourself and thanked you for agreeing to tutor “our little Jakey,” because “God knows he needs the help.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh when a blush crept on Jake’s face and he looked out the passenger seat window with an embarrassed frown, muttering something like “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

She noticed his reaction and laughed along with you. “I’m just saying, Jakey-poo. It’s good to know to ask for help when you need it,” she cooed, reaching a hand out to ruffle his hair. This only made Jake groan loudly and hide his face in his hands. You didn’t know Jake very well, but this flustered, red-faced side of him was definitely one you liked seeing.

The first thing that greeted you when you reached Jake’s house was a happy welcome home bark.

“You have a dog?!” you exclaimed, unable to reel your excitement in.

“Yeah! This is Layla,” Jake said, giving energetic rubs to the Border Collie that made her whole body shake side-to-side but that she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. 

“Hi, Layla,” you cooed, crouching down to her level to let her sniff you. She decided you were a person worthy of petting her. “She’s so cute!”

“I think she likes you,” Jake said, a grin on his face, as he watched Layla presenting her belly to you and asking for scratches there. “Do you have a dog?”

“We have a Corgi at home. And a cat, too.”

“That must be fun,” Jake chuckled. “Do they get along?”

“Depends. They have a bit of a love-hate relationship.” You looked up at Jake, and it was uncharacteristically quiet as you locked eyes for a couple of seconds. You both looked away at the same time, surprised by the sudden eye contact.

You gave Layla one last rub and lifted yourself up. “Um, should we get started?” 

Jake paused for a second as if he’d forgotten what you were here for in the first place, then started nodding his head quickly. “Right, yeah. Let’s go to my room. Downstairs is just one big room and my mom will probably watch TV or make dinner or something, so it might be distracting…” he explained, lightly scratching the back of his neck. It seemed like he was embarrassed to be bringing you to his room, which you couldn’t help but find endearing.

“Okay, sounds good,” you said with a smile, hoping it’ll reassure him.

You followed him up to his room, ignoring his complaints as you lingered on the framed photos on the wall next to the stairs and giggled at his baby pictures. 

“Do not look at those,” he said with a warning tone that didn’t scare you in the slightest. When you didn’t listen, he grabbed your hand that had been pointing at a photo of baby Jake in the bathtub and forced you to keep walking.

“Why?” you asked, a slight whine to your voice.

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing! I was an ugly baby.”

“What?! You were so cute!”

“Whatever. I’d rather study English than talk about this, and that’s saying something.”

When you looked at Jake, you were surprised to find that he actually seemed upset about this. You weren’t sure what was so wrong with looking at his baby pictures, but the last thing you wanted to do was make him mad, so you stayed quiet and continued your way to his room. Once there, although you were infinitely curious about all the posters, pictures, figurines, trophies, and other small tokens of Jake’s life, you didn’t ask him about any of them, just sat next to him at his desk and opened The Picture of Dorian Grey, the book you had both been studying in Ms Park’s class.

You’d agreed on spending forty-five minutes on English, have a small break, then spend forty-five minutes on Math. It wasn’t a lot, but you both had other homework and things outside of school you needed to do, so you’d decided to start out that way and see if it worked out.

You were glad to see how seriously Jake was taking this - he listened intently to what you said and asked questions when he didn’t understand something. You quickly figured out that what he didn’t like about English Literature was that the answers weren’t as straightforward or as logical as they were in math, and even worse, that multiple answers were possible depending on the reader’s interpretation. 

“It just all feels like a guessing game,” he said, resting the side of his head on one of his palms. “How am I supposed to know what this dude meant? And if it can be analyzed in different ways, how can Ms Park tell me the way I understand it is wrong?”

“It’s all about the way you justify it,” you explained. “You can’t just say whatever. Ms Park will look out for how you use the text to support your answers.” You then went on to pick out a specific part of the book, asking Jake to analyze Dorian’s mindset in that scene. 

“He sounds like he’s going insane,” Jake said flatly when he was done reading, getting a chuckle out of you.

“Exactly. How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, just the words he uses,” Jake replies, shrugging.

“Okay, underline those words,” you instructed gently. Jake sighed, but he complied.

“There.” 

“Good. What can you say about those words?” When Jake just looked at you like a lost puppy, you reformulated your question. “What do they have in common? What type of words are they? Are they common nouns, verbs…”

Jake looked back at the words he’d underlined on the page. “They’re… adjectives?” he said, tone unsure.

“Exactly!”

Jake paused. “So?”

“So now you can say that the author uses many adjectives to convey the gradual loss of sanity of the main character.”

“Oh.”

When you looked at Jake, he wore an expression like the words on the page were finally starting to make sense to him. “That’s the content. You can also look at the structure. See how many punctuation marks there are? Commas, semi-colons, question marks… It’s like he keeps cutting himself off. His thoughts are all over the place.”

Jake nodded slowly. “So, I just need to look out for things like that?”

“Basically, yeah. And the more you practice, the more these things will stand out to you. It actually becomes somewhat repetitive sometimes.”

Jake let out a shaky breath. “That’s actually relieving to hear,” he said with a chuckle.

Thirty minutes passed by like this as you showed Jake ways to make sense of a literary text. When the timer rang, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out wide with a sigh. He put his hands behind his head and let it hang back, and the way your stomach flipped at the sight of his exposed neck and Adam’s apple made you look away immediately. You could barely meet his eyes as he turned his head to look at you, still in that same position, and, with a smirk, asked if you were ready for some snacks. 

You gulped, trying to look as normal as possible. “Uh, yeah, sure!”

Downstairs, Jake presented you with all sorts of snacks - there were so many, you felt like you were in a convenience store. This was worlds away from your ingredient-only household. You opted for some biscuits and a banana while Jake made himself a bowl of cereal. A very distracting ten-minute long argument then ensued about the order of milk and cereal - horrifyingly, Jake poured his milk before his cereal. You thought it was a myth that some people actually did it that way, but Jake very proudly defended his choice. 

“I bet you eat pizza with pineapple on it, too,” you said half-jokingly, only for your joke to punch you right back in the face.

“Duh,” Jake answered.

You could only shake your head in defeat. “Let’s just get back to studying before I murder you.”

“Damn, Y/N,” Jake said, laughing. “That’s harsh.”

“And you’re a freak,” you retorted, a grin blooming on your lips.

“You know, you remind me of my friend Jay,” Jake mused as you walked back up the stairs. “He has so many of these small battles that he just won’t let go of. He got super worked up over an argument about mint chocolate chip ice cream once.”

“Let me guess, you like that ice cream?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s not my favorite, but I’ll have it once in a while.”

“God, Sim, you just get worse and worse.”

You sat back down at his desk and started eating. “I bet you think I’m weird for liking math too, right?”

“That’s the worst offense of them all.” 

Jake’s sudden quietness caught you off guard. When you turned your head to look at him, he was already gazing at you with a smile and a sort of thoughtful glint to his eyes, resting his chin on his palm. It sounded like he was thinking out loud when he spoke next. “Guess we’re perfect opposites of each other. Like two peas in a pod!”

The realization of what he’d said dawned upon him as soon as the words left his mouth. He slowly lifted his head as his eyes widened. “I don’t mean- just, you know, since you’re good at English and I’m good at math, and- you know… I didn’t mean it in a weird way, or anything…”

His eyes kept glancing back and forth between you and his bowl of cereal, as if he was scared of looking directly at you but wanted to check your reaction. 

As a smile grew on your face, you kept your eyes trained on your biscuits so he wouldn’t see your flustered expression. But when you looked at him again, he held your gaze, mouth slightly agape. You didn’t have it in you that he had gotten the idiom completely wrong. “I know, don’t worry.” You chuckled. “We are opposites of each other. You just better be as good at teaching math as I am at teaching English,” you teased.

You watched as a smirk tugged one corner of Jake’s lips up and he raised an eyebrow. “Who said you were good at teaching English?”

You gasped. “You said you understood better now!”

Jake’s smile softened as he giggled. “I’m just teasing. You are a good teacher.”

You sat up straighter at the compliment, a proud smile on your face. “Your turn, Mr Sim. I’m all ears.”

“Right,” he said, mirroring your posture. “Shall we start by going over Mr Choi’s test from last week?” 

Your smile dropped instantly at this. Reluctantly, you fished your graded paper out of your bag. You already knew Mr Choi was a psychopath, but you still didn’t understand where he found the will to grade thirty papers over the weekend. You avoided Jake’s gaze as you handed him your test with a big, red, circled D- at the top.

You cringed as Jake sighed. “At least it’s not an F, right?” he said in what you could tell was an attempt at reassurance but somehow only made you feel worse. He looked over your answers quickly, trying to find what in particular you struggled with. “All right. Let’s start from the beginning, yeah?”

For the next forty-five minutes, Jake went over each test question with you, breaking them down and explaining how to solve them in a way you understood. The words he used were so much clearer than the half-assed explanations you were used to from Mr Choi, and for once, math actually made some sort of sense. Your brain still felt broken after almost an hour of numbers and greek letters, but at least, you felt smarter rather than dumber at the end of it. You had never been more grateful for the sound of a phone alarm than the one signaling tutoring was over. 

“That wasn’t half-bad, right?” Jake asked with a wide grin.

You felt so tired, you could probably pass out right then and there, but Jake looked so proud of himself after you had been able to complete an exercise correctly on your own that you didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Right,” you replied, mirroring his grin. “You’re an okay teacher, I guess.”

He jokingly glared and tutted at you, but you both laughed right after. “I need to walk Layla, so I can walk you home, if you want?” he offered as you started packing your things. His words had an uncertain tone to them, as if he wasn’t sure you’d still want to spend time with him after this - but it only took you a second of thinking to realize you’d rather continue hanging out with him than going home on your own.

“Sure! I need to walk Kiwi too, actually.”

“Your dog’s name is Kiwi?!”

“Yes,” you said, chuckling at his fascinated tone.

“That’s an adorable name.”

“Thanks, I chose it.”

“Oh, then I take it back. Worst name I’ve ever heard for a dog.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed, lightly hitting him on the head with your math notebook, making him raise a hand in self-defense as he laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. Does your cat also have a fruit name?” 

A pause. “Mango,” you mumbled, and he immediately burst into laughter again. You side-eyed him as you zipped up your bag.

“Wow, you have amazing taste in pet names, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you said, laughing along. Then you realized something, and you suddenly stopped laughing, looking up at Jake with wide eyes that made him slightly start to panic. “Oh my God, Jake, are our dogs going to meet?”

“Our dogs are going to meet,” he echoed in a sort of fascinated whisper. You both understood the other - dogs becoming friends was the cutest thing ever.

“Let’s go,” you whispered back excitedly.

When you reached the living room downstairs, you bid Mrs Sim goodbye, then went to the entrance to put your shoes back on. “You two sure get along well,” you heard her say to her son with a suggestive tone. Even though she had dropped the volume of her voice, the door was wide open and there were only a few meters between you, so you’d heard her loud and clear. 

“Geez, Mom,” Jake groaned, seemingly irked by his mom’s insinuation.

“It’s just you’ve never brought a girl home, Jakey-”

“Okay, we’re leaving now! Layla, come!”

You hadn’t even realized how wide you were grinning until Jake saw you tying your shoelaces and grumbled “What are you smiling so hard for.”

“Nothing,” you giggled, and your smile grew as you watched a grin break through his pretend-upset expression.

You sighed contentedly as you stepped outside, letting the crisp early April air hit your face. You tightened your scarf around your neck and buried your hands in your pocket and you and Jake started walking side by side, Layla happily leading the way. The streets were fairly quiet at this time of day, save for the yells of children still playing in their backyards before dinner and a few cars of people coming home late from work.

Only the first five seconds of the walk were silent, until you couldn’t contain yourself anymore. “So, never brought a girl home, huh?” you asked with a teasing smirk.

Jake let out an offended scoff and looked up to the sky as if God could help him out of this one. Sadly, He didn’t, so Jake had to find an answer himself. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

Pouting, Jake spared you a sideway glance. “Because you’re a girl,” he replied, voice lowered to a mumble.

You chuckled at this. “Very astute observation, Jake.”

“No, I- Ugh,” he groaned before laughing along with you. “I don’t need a girl to know how bad I am with- well, with girls.”

“I can help with that,” you said before you really thought about it. “I mean, I’m not a love expert by any means, but I can maybe give, I don’t know, pointers or something if there’s someone you like-”

“There’s no one I like,” Jake quickly cut in. “Um, not right now, at least.”

“O-okay,” you replied, nodding. “That’s fine.” 

“What about you? Do you like anyone?”

As Jake asked the question, he realized he already knew the answer - you liked Sunghoon. How could he forget?! Half of his plan had been to make you get closer to his friend, but he hadn’t even started thinking about that yet. In his defense, he’d come up with that plan three days ago.

Your answer surprised him. “Um, no, me neither. Not right now, at least,” you said, repeating his words with a smile on your face. You locked eyes for a second before looking away at the same time, chuckling.

“Right,” he said. He knew what he had read in your diary, so maybe you were just too shy to admit you had a crush on his friend of all people.

An unexpected awkwardness settled between the two of you, and you more than anything wanted it to go away. Even though it’d only been a few days since you and Jake had started getting to know each other, you already felt comfortable enough to be yourself around him, and it usually took you weeks before reaching that level with anyone. This hadn’t happened since you met Yena and Hyewon at the beginning of high school - they had been friends since middle school, and so had you and Chaewon, and when the four of you met, you had instant chemistry. But maybe it was slightly too early to start talking about crushes with Jake.

For once, you were the one to break the silence - you asked him whether he knew what he wanted to do after school. Basic question, but you were genuinely curious. 

Looking a little bashful, he confessed his dream had always been to be a math teacher and soccer coach at a middle or high school. You told him he already had the talent for it, and when he blushed at your words, you made sure to tease him for it.  

“I’m not sure yet,” you said when he returned the question. “I know I wanna go to college and continue doing English Lit and theater there, but that’s about it.”

“That’s already good enough,” Jake said with a smile. “Still got time to figure out what comes after, right?”

You naturally mirrored his smile - there was something contagious about Jake’s puppyish grin that made it hard not to smile yourself. “Right.”

The three of you reached your house quickly after that. Your mom still hadn’t come home from work, so Kiwi was even more excited than usual for your arrival home. You and Jake watched fondly as your dogs sniffed each other for a few seconds before starting to run around together. The fact that they got along made you really happy, perhaps unreasonably so, and you started bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet as you watched them play. “Our dogs are friends!” you exclaimed excitedly. 

When you turned to look at Jake, he wasn’t watching the dogs like you had been - he was gazing straight at you, eyes soft with something that made your heart skip a beat. You couldn’t look away, and it was only after a few seconds that he seemed to snap out of the sort of daze he was in. He cleared his throat and you finally tore your eyes away from him.

“Let me just- Kiwi! I need to put his leash around him,” you said, speaking quickly to dissipate the weird atmosphere as best as you could. You led Jake down the path you usually took with Kiwi that led to a park in your neighborhood, and you were relieved when normal conversation started again.

Jake insisted on walking you back to your house even though he had left his earlier. He made a whole show of not going until you’d walked inside and closed the door, so you’d rushed to your window to shout his name and wave goodbye at him, which made him laugh.

You turned back to Kiwi when Jake and Layla had turned a corner and you couldn’t watch them anymore. “Are you happy you made a new friend, Kiwi?”

The Corgi barked happily at you in response - probably more at hearing his name than because he understood your question, but still, you liked to think you could communicate with your dog on such a level. You chuckled and took him in your arms. “Me too.”

—

Apparently, you couldn’t even wave to someone in the hallway without being interrogated about it anymore.

“Y/N, did you just say hi to Jake Sim?” Chaewon asked like you’d just insulted her whole family.

It was 10 a.m. on a simple Tuesday morning, the day after Jake and you had studied together for the first time, and you’d just walked past the boy - so of course, you said hi to him. Maybe, your heart started beating slightly faster when you’d noticed him approaching. Maybe, it was nice to be on the receiving end of his friendly grin.

“Yes?” you replied, sentence coming out more like a question.

“Since when do you say hi to Jake Sim?!” 

“Since today, I guess.”

“But why?!” She’d raised her voice so much, you’d gotten strange looks from other students in the hallway. 

“I told you!”

She shook her head slowly at you as if to say, No you didn’t!

You rolled your eyes and sighed. Chaewon and her early onset short-term memory loss. “The backpack thing? And agreeing to tutoring each other? I wrote to the group chat about this!”

“Oh, that! Of course I remember that,” she said, even though you knew she had forgotten about it and remembered it just now. “So, has that started already?”

You reached the classroom for your next class and sat down in your usual seats next to each other, waiting for the teacher to arrive. Busy hallways like these were the perfect place for gossip, because they were loud and nobody paid attention to others’ conversations. “Yeah, yesterday afternoon.”

Chaewon gasped. “And you didn’t tell us?!”

“Will you quiet down? I was going to see and tell you guys today anyway.”

“Okay, so, tell me about it.”

“But-”

“Tell. Me.”

You wouldn’t see Yena and Hyewon until lunch in two hours, and you knew Chaewon didn’t have the patience to wait until then. So you sighed again and obliged, telling her about your afternoon with Jake in every detail you could remember, because she would ask about insignificant things anyway. 

To your surprise, the first thing she said when you were done talking was this: “Y/N, do you like Jake?”

Your mouth opened slightly in shock at the question, but before you could even retort, you started giggling. “No, I don’t,” you said in a way that sounded like you very much did.

“Oh my God! You so do!” Chaewon said, giggling along with you. “You whore, you’ve only talked to him, like, twice,” she joked.

You gasped fake-dramatically and slapped her arm. “Oh please, look at Hyewon and Jaemin, they started dating after a week of talking.”

“Yes, and they’ve been going one year strong, so clearly, you need to ask Jake out and get this over with. You’ll get a boyfriend and a math tutor all-in-one, it’s a perfect deal!”

“Don’t get too carried away, okay? Jake and I are friends. Like you said, we barely know each other right now.”

You meant this - sure, you had had a really good time with Jake both times you saw him, and you were looking forward to your next tutoring session, but you chalked it up to the excitement of making a new friend. Plus, barely last week you felt some sort of way towards his best friend - wouldn’t it be weird to practically transfer your feelings from Sunghoon to Jake?

“Whatever. Yena and Hyewon are gonna freak when I tell them,” Chaewon said excitedly.

You shook your head at your friend but couldn’t keep down the amused grin on your face. “You guys are insane.”

“Oh please, like you’re not the president of our Park Sunghoon fanclub. I can’t believe you’re leaving us for his best friend!”

“Hey, if anything, less competition for you, right?”

Chaewon opened her mouth to say something, but the teacher arrived, starting the lesson before having even put her bag down - Mrs Lee always arrived late but never wasted a second of class when she was in the room. Your friend resorted to sticking her tongue out at you instead, and you chuckled at her childishness as you opened your History notebook. 

—

Jake was a complete, total, utter idiot. His plan had consisted of two things only, and he’d somehow managed to forget one of them, even after talking about it with you, albeit vaguely. It had taken him two weeks and one Park Sunghoon to even remember it.

Between Jake’s soccer practice, Sunghoon’s ice skating practice and Jay’s being away at boarding school, the three friends only had one night every week on which they were all free - Friday night. So, every Friday, they planned some sort of hang out at one of their houses and gamed or watched movies all night.

Kinda like date night, but for bros.

This was one of those bro nights; namely, the one in the second week of you and Jake tutoring each other. The boys had decided to go to the burger joint they like that night and were in the middle of a french fry fight when Sunghoon mentioned your and Jake’s new friendship.

“So, Jake… what’s up with you and Y/N?”

Jake halted in his motions, redirecting to his mouth the fry he was about to throw at Jay. “Nothing’s up with me and Y/N. What makes you say that?”

“Just, you know, you seem like you’ve become actual friends. Talking in the hallways and walking your dogs together and whatnot.”

“Y/N as in Y/N? Sunghoon’s Y/N?” Jay said, halfway through a bite of his cheeseburger.

“She’s not my Y/N-”

“Yes, Y/N as in Y/N, you idiot,” Jake cut in. “And like you said, we’re friends.”

“Is she the girl you posted some BeReals with?” Jay asked, and Jake nodded. “She’s pretty! No wonder Sunghoon likes her so much.”

Sunghoon sighed as he let his head hang low. “God forbid I find a girl cute, because I’ll mention it once, two years ago and you guys make me out to be in love with her.”

“Sunghoon, you act like girls don’t exist, so of course when you not only mention a girl, but describe her as cute, that means you’re in love with her!”

“But I’m not! We were literally having a whole conversation about girls, I happened to see Y/N and her friends from far away, I said she was cute, and now you guys won’t let me live it down. Jay, you weren’t even there!”

“Yeah, but the way Jake told me about the whole thing, it really sounded like you liked her.”

“Why would you trust Jake to relay something like this correctly?!”

Jay paused and tilted his head. “You have a point there.”

“Hey!”

“So you don’t, like… like her, or something?” Sunghoon asked, looking at his friend as he sipped on his Pepsi.

This made Jake stop. Did he like you? Wasn’t the fact that he was considering it sign enough? Surely, if there was nothing there, he would have answered no right away.

But there was no use thinking about it. You liked Sunghoon. And as much as he liked to deny it, Jake knew Sunghoon liked you, too. After two years, there was finally an opportunity for the two of you to get closer - Jake wasn’t about to get in the middle of that. If anything, he should help his friends out. Then, when you and Sunghoon eventually got married, Jake would have the honor of saying it was all thanks to him in his best man’s speech. 

“No, I don’t. Don’t worry, Hoon, I’m not gonna steal your girl away from you.”

“Again, she’s not my girl-”

“Whatever you say. I’ll introduce you guys.”

Even if Sunghoon didn’t think he liked you yet, Jake knew it was just a matter of time - his friend just needed to spend a few hours with you to realize he did. You were pretty, smart, funny, nice, had the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard, got along with dogs, and even though you sometimes had weird opinions, it was always fun, talking to you. It was easy and comfortable. Anyone with taste would fall for you.

Anyone, except for Jake, of course.

—

For the past three weeks, you and Jake had gotten along perfectly, but today, on this bright Tuesday afternoon, you really wanted to strangle him. 

When he’d invited you to come and watch him at soccer practice, you’d been surprised, but happy - usually, you invited people to watch an actual game, not just practice. But you were just glad for the opportunity to spend more time with him. 

Without realizing it, you were giddy with excitement the whole day, counting down the minutes until classes were over and Jake’s practice started. Jake had told you to just head to the bleachers while the players got ready in the locker room, but when you reached said bleachers, someone was already sitting there, looking at something on their phone. You recognized him immediately as Sunghoon. He didn’t notice you right away, so you had time to wipe the surprise off of your face - you hadn’t thought anyone came to watch practice, but Sunghoon was probably here for Jake, just like you. 

“Hey,” you said quietly as you sat down next to him. Even though you were technically still on school property, this was the first time you saw Sunghoon outside of somewhere like a classroom, a hallway or the cafeteria. You weren’t as nervous as you thought you’d be, seeing him unexpectedly like this. 

You chuckled when Sunghoon started at your sudden arrival. “Oh, hey, Y/N,” he said, chuckling too, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.”

“It’s fine,” you said with a smile as you sat down next to him on the bleachers. You didn’t know what sort of distance was appropriate between you two, if you should sit close or far, but you stopped yourself before you could overthink something as trivial as that. Neither of you said anything for a few seconds and you wished practice had started before you got here, so that you’d have something to look at other than an empty field.

You broke the silence before it became too uncomfortable. “So, do you come watch Jake often?”

You’d been fiddling with your hands as you spoke, only turning your head to look at Sunghoon as you awaited his answer. Your eyes didn’t even meet for a fraction of a second before he whipped his head to look at the field, as if unable to look at you and talk at the same time. At least he had a nice side profile for you to look at.

“Um, just on Tuesdays. I have ice skating practice after this, so I come here first, then he comes with me to the rink,” he replied. He glanced at you, lips pressed into a thin line that somewhat resembled a smile and that pushed dimples into his cheeks. You simply hummed in response. 

“What about you, how come you’re here?”

“Jake asked me,” you replied. Sunghoon let out a long “oh” as he nodded, turning his head back towards the field again. You didn’t think you’d ever had such a slow conversation. It was like you and Sunghoon both repeated your words ten times over in your heads before saying them out loud.

“Are you coming to my practice, too?” he asked after another pause.

The question took you aback slightly as you hadn’t even considered it, but it could be fun, seeing Sunghoon practice ice skating. It’d also be fun to hang out with Jake. “If it’s fine with you, then yeah, why not,” you replied, smiling at Sunghoon. He glanced at you again before looking away with a smile, an actual one this time that showed his teeth and made his eyes crinkle.

“Yeah, sure. People usually only come to actual shows, so I like it when someone’s there to watch practice.” Before you could find something to say, the players arrived jogging onto the field, immediately starting their warm-up laps. Some were serious about it and stayed focused as they ran, while others goofed around, running backwards and slapping other players on their butts before sprinting away. Jake, of course, was part of the latter group.

Now that something was actually happening on the field, you and Sunghoon had an excuse not to make conversation anymore. You tried to ignore it, but it was so awkward you wanted to die. You realized now why you were so attracted to people like Jake and Chaewon - without even being aware of it, they brought you out of your shell and made you feel at ease. You wished you could do that on your own, but you were always too scared, so you needed that person who was confident enough showing themselves to you first to make you feel comfortable doing the same. You and Sunghoon, unfortunately, were too similar in that sense to do that for each other. So you just sat there in silence, observing Jake and waving back at him when he caught your gazes.

The ninety minutes of practice didn’t go by in total silence - you asked Sunghoon about some soccer rules you didn’t get, and he shared some anecdotes from his and Jake’s earlier teenage years, including a very entertaining story about a tantrum 9-year-old Jake had thrown when he hadn’t agreed with the red card the referee had given him. You weren’t sure how the topic came up, but at some point, you even shared pictures of your pets. Sunghoon had one of those small crusty white dogs, but you kept your laughter in and cooed over how cute she was. 

But still, most of the time, you were watching Jake. You had never been interested in soccer or any sort of sport that involved balls until now. Somehow, he managed to make flushed cheeks, a heaving chest and hairline beaded with sweat look glorious. In total honesty, you were paying more attention to the player himself than to the sport, to the point that you barely noticed when he scored a goal during their practice match. It was only when Jake started cheering and high-fiving his teammates that you realized what had happened, and you gave him two thumbs up and a wide grin when he looked your and Sunghoon’s way, proudly shouting “Did you see that?!”

The realization hit you like a ton of bricks right there and then. The way your heart swelled as you watched his excited, puppyish grin take over his features was undeniable - you liked Jake. You like liked him. Your gaze continued to follow him as he finished his celebratory lap. If you could’ve seen yourself right then, you’d probably have been embarrassed by your awestruck expression and slightly agape mouth, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Much to your dismay, you realized that Chaewon had seen right through you. You hadn’t wanted to read too much into your feelings, but they had become too obvious to ignore. You hadn’t experienced them yourself since middle school (Choi Soobin had really been a heartbreaker back then), but you’d heard about the telltale signs of a crush too many times not to know about them. It was now clear that the way you felt about Jake and the way you had felt about Sunghoon were worlds apart. Feeling nervous around him and your heart skipping a beat when you made eye contact; wanting to see him smile; laughing at all his jokes, even the bad ones; missing him even though it’d been seconds since you said goodbye, and counting down the days until you saw him again. And, yes, looking at his pictures on social media over and over again. You did all those things, so you knew there was no point in lying to yourself anymore - you liked Jake Sim. 

It didn’t help that he was always kind to you, never making you feel stupid for not understanding something in your tutoring sessions and being patient enough to explain the same thing over and over again. He always paid attention to small things, which never failed to make your heart race, like asking after your aging cat’s condition after you’d told him he had a health check-up over the weekend or stocking up on your favorite snack the week after you’d told him about it. He’d also immediately picked up on your habit of teasing the people you felt comfortable with and you loved how he returned it tenfold. It was as much fun debating with him over nothing and making him shut up with your senseless arguments as it was being rendered speechless when he came up with the perfect retort. 

And of course, there was no denying that Jake was ridiculously attractive. There were times you got so caught up in the way his lips moved as he spoke or the way his fingers looked as he pointed at numbers on the page that your mind completely blanked out and you stopped listening to his words for a few seconds. You didn’t know what to make of his small chuckle and smirk when he noticed your gaze fixated on him, but you knew it wasn’t good for your heart. And let’s not even get started on the fact that sitting so close to him meant you could smell the lingering scent of his cologne every single time.

Even now, with flushed cheeks and hair slicked back with sweat, you want to run onto the field and give him a big smooch on his cheek, telling him you were proud of him for scoring that goal.

But even though you were getting closer and he had offered for you to come watch his practice, you squashed down as best as you could any hope that he might feel the same way about you. Even if he insisted he was bad with girls, Jake was popular at school, and you were sure there were many other girls who had a crush on him - so why would he like you of all people?

Sunghoon’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. “Every time he scores, he acts like it’s the first time he’s ever done it,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at his friend’s over-dramatic antics. The coach was trying to get Jake to calm down so that the game could resume.

“He’s so cute,” you said, voice quiet, before you could stop yourself. But as soon as the words were out, you realized what you’d done, and your eyes doubled in size as you turned to look at Sunghoon. He had whipped his head to look at you, too, and his eyes were just as big as yours. Then, he burst into laughter, and you hoped the Earth would suddenly open beneath your feet and swallow you whole. 

When his surprise had subsided, Sunghoon turned to you again, an incredulous but amused glint in his eyes. “Did you just call Jake cute?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, slightly frowning as you avoided Sunghoon’s gaze. “I just meant, you know, it’s cute how excited he got. I didn’t say he was cute,” you mumbled, knowing you were doing a poor job of defending yourself.

“That’s exactly what you said, though. You said, and I quote, He’s so cute.” You glared at Sunghoon. Who knew he would only become talkative once it came to teasing you about Jake? 

His expression softened slightly when he realized you might actually be upset about this, and he turned his attention back towards the field, smile growing when he found his friend. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

“There’s nothing to be said anyway.”

“Oh? So you don’t mind if I tell Jake that you have the biggest, fattest crush on- hmph!”

You’d cut Sunghoon off by pressing your palm to his mouth, mustering the most menacing look you could to scare him off. “I do not,” you said firmly as you moved your hand away from him.

“Sure, you don’t,” he replied, chuckling. Clearly, your most menacing look wasn’t so menacing.

“I get why Jake’s so annoying now, it’s because he’s friends with you.”

Sunghoon raised an amused eyebrow at this. “He might be annoying, but he’s also cute, right?”

“Shut up!” you shrieked immediately, but you couldn’t stop the grin forcing its way onto your lips.

“Just saying,” Sunghoon said, and you laughed together. Maybe you should’ve been more worried about Jake’s literal best friend finding out you had a crush on him, but you somehow trusted Sunghoon not to blabber about it. Whether because he was nice or because he wanted to watch you struggle with your feelings, you weren’t sure, but at least you felt your secret was safe with him.

You looked back at the field, and just as your eyes found Jake, you saw him turn his head away. Had you seen him just seconds prior, you might have noticed the crease in his eyebrows as he watched you and Sunghoon laugh together. Sunghoon isn’t that funny, he thought, what could you be laughing so hard about?

He didn’t understand the sudden weight in his heart at the sight of you and his friend getting along so well. This was his whole plan after all - force some proximity between you and Sunghoon so that you could talk and hopefully make your feelings clear to each other after some time. Clearly, it was working. So why was it bothering him so much? 

He had to turn his attention back to the game, so he could only ruminate over it for five seconds, but for the remaining thirty minutes, he could barely focus on anything. Whenever he glanced back at you and Sunghoon, you were both looking at him and not talking to each other, and that somehow bothered him even more. 

He used his time in the lockers to get out of the weird mood he was in - whatever was going on between you and Sunghoon, he didn’t want to ruin it by being grumpy. So when he came back out and found the two of you waiting for him at the bus stop, he put on his best smile. 

Having you around made his usual Tuesday afternoon with Sunghoon more fun - after years of friendship, Sunghoon ignored most of his jokes and could tune the sound of his voice out, but you still laughed at everything he said, and his heart swelled with pride every time he made you laugh.

It was only a ten-minute bus ride from the school to the ice rink so you still had twenty minutes to spare before Sunghoon’s lesson started. As always after soccer practice, Jake was famished, so you stopped by a convenience store and got more snacks than you really needed.

You sat next to Sunghoon and across from Jake at a picnic table in front of the ice rink, watching the boy in front of you with fascination as he gorged himself on banana milk and chocolate snacks.

“God, how long has it been since you last ate?” you asked with genuine concern in your voice. Sunghoon followed your gaze towards Jake, only then noticing his friend’s feral behavior as if this was a normal occurrence for them.

“Like three hours,” Jake answered. “I’m starving. So hungry I could eat Sunghoon.”

When he looked up, you were both peering at him with furrowed eyebrows and bewildered expressions on your faces. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you mean that Sunghoon is a horse?” you asked.

Jake mirrored your confused expressions. “What? No, why would I say that?”

“The saying goes, so hungry I could eat a horse, dumbass,” Sunghoon chimed in.

“Why would I eat a horse?” Jake replied, shaking his head and chuckling at you and Sunghoon like you were the ones who had gotten a basic idiom wrong.

“Why would you eat me?” Sunghoon bit back, sounding almost offended.

“It’s just a saying, dude.”

Half-an-hour and two whole packets of biscuits later, you and Jake sat side-by-side on the benches, watching Sunghoon as he did his warm-ups on the ice. This was your first time seeing a professional ice skater and you were transfixed, to say the least. He was just skating across the rink and rolling his arms and neck to get the muscles moving, but it all seemed so effortless and elegant that you couldn’t help but watch with your mouth slightly open, eyes eager to keep up with Sunghoon’s figure.

You were so mesmerized that you had no idea Jake was practically burning holes into the side of your face. Eyes narrowed and nose scrunched in disgust, he couldn’t believe you were enjoying the show in front of you that much. “He’s not even doing anything special right now, you know,” he said, but it only made him realize that when Sunghoon did start doing cool stuff, you’d like it even more.

Your head barely budged in Jake’s direction as you answered him, and your eyes certainly didn’t leave Sunghoon. “Really? It already looks so cool, though.” Jake scoffed, but that still didn’t get your attention, which made him scoff again. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a child whose parent wasn’t paying attention to their drawing. 

“Cooler than me?”

Finally, you look at me, Jake thought, and his frown immediately dissipated into a grin when your eyes met. But judging by the teasing way your lips curled up, he already knew he wasn’t going to like your answer.

“Cooler than you,” you replied before turning your attention back to the rink.

Jake leans back with a pout, opting to glare at his friend instead of you. He tried to put himself in your shoes and figure out what it was about Sunghoon you liked so much that Jake didn’t also have. Devastatingly good looks? Check. Charming smile? Check. Cute dog? Check - Jake more so than Sunghoon. Brains? Okay, both of them lacked this. Good personality? Check - however, you needed months before Sunghoon revealed himself to you, whereas Jake was outgoing and was comfortable even with people he’d just met. 

So why was the bearer of your affection Sunghoon and not Jake?

And why did Jake even care that you liked his friend over him in the first place?

It wasn’t like Jake liked you - he couldn’t like a girl that his best friend liked - so why did this at all matter to him? If anything, the fact that you liked Sunghoon back should’ve been something to rejoice over. It had been, up until now, and Jake couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t figure out this weird sensation that had plagued him in the soccer field and followed him to the ice rink as he watched you watch Sunghoon with amazement.

Jake was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when you detached your eyes from Sunghoon, who was talking to his coach, and tilted your head at him. “Jake?” 

The boy only let out a low hum, still too upset to look at you.

An amused grin made your lips quirk up. “Are you pouting because I said Sunghoon was cooler than you?”

Jake scoffed, turning his head away from you. “No.”

A pause. “So you don’t mind if I go on and on about how elegant and beautiful ice skating is, while running after a ball and kicking it is the basis of the stupidest sport in the world?”

Jake glared at you, but it only made you smile more. “It’s not stupid.”

Despite himself, his pretend angry facade broke apart at the sound of your airy giggles. Jake didn’t think his ears had ever been graced with such a pretty sound before - he slapped himself mentally as soon as that thought crossed his mind. 

His heart did jumps and spins more impressive than Sunghoon’s when you reached a hand out to ruffle his hair, shaking your head at his behavior. For once, he was glad that you turned back to Sunghoon so that you wouldn’t see the bright blush spreading all over his face.

For the next hour, Jake put his weird feelings to the side and watched his friend practice his routine for his upcoming competition. Even he had to admit that Sunghoon looked pretty cool doing what he loved.

You told him you found it all the more impressive because you’d never skated before, so it looked unachievable to you, and an idea immediately formed in Jake’s mind. As soon as Sunghoon’s practice was over, he rushed over to his friend and asked if the two of you could join him on the ice. Sunghoon turned to his coach, who simply shrugged.

“I trust you to look after them,” she said. “Just make sure to be out when the hockey team gets here.”

Before you knew it, Jake was helping you tie up your ice skates (the sight of which made you faint-hearted) and both boys helped you onto the ice rink, each holding onto one of your hands as you tried not to freak out at the feeling of your knees being so wobbly. Sunghoon demonstrated how to move around the ice, and soon enough, you’d gotten the hang of it - but you still made sure to keep Jake at an arm’s length so you could grab onto him every time you lost your balance. Jake stayed by your side, smiling fondly at how excited you looked and cheering you on every time you took a step of your own. Sunghoon, on the other hand, seemed to find it funny to watch from afar and point and laugh every time you stumbled.

After some time, Sunghoon announced he was feeling hungry and decided to go eat some snacks, leaving you and Jake alone in the rink. The wink Sunghoon threw your way when Jake wasn’t looking let you know what his true intentions were, and you couldn’t believe Jake’s best friend had just become your wingman.

“Feeling ready to skate around the rink?” Jake asked. His boyish grin was contagious, and you found yourself matching it even though you were still nervous about moving around too much.

“If you help me,” you answered tentatively, looking at him worriedly as you held out your hand for him to take. The softness of his gaze as he smiled down at you made you want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Of course,” he said, taking your hand in his warm one. Your fingers intertwined as if out of second nature and you thought you finally understood why people said their hands were meant to hold someone else’s.

Being friends with an ice skater for such a long time meant Jake had acquired some skill, too, which is why he could so easily show you how to turn or pick up speed. Whenever you lost your balance, he was always quick enough to make sure you didn’t actually fall, picking you up before your backside could touch the ice. He found your frightened expression every time you thought you would fall absolutely adorable, but your pout and slight frown whenever he teased you were somehow even cuter.

He only let go of your hand after some ten minutes (neither of you had even begun to question Sunghoon’s whereabouts by then) when he came to stand in front of you, a serious expression on his face.

“I think you’re ready, Y/N,” he declared solemnly.

“Ready for…?” you asked, scared of whatever he had in mind.

He leaned in slightly and the sudden proximity took you aback, but he didn’t seem to realize. A mischievous smirk broke through his handsome features. “A race,” he whispered, then skated to one edge of the rink and motioned for you to follow him. Reluctantly, you did.

“First to the other edge has to…” he thought for a second, gazing at the ceiling. You wanted to be mad at him for proposing a race when you’d literally just learned how to skate, but how could you when he looked so cute and giddy, searching for the loser’s penalty? “Buy the other ice cream!”

Your eyes were probably the image of tenderness as you looked at him. “Deal,” you said, wanting to sound as playful as him but voice coming out soft. Since when had you fallen so hard for him?

You held each other’s gazes for a couple more seconds before both turning in front of you, getting ready for your race. Jake counted down from three, and your skating wasn’t so bad at first - until you got too cocky for your own good, trying to go at a pace you clearly couldn’t handle. Before you knew it, your knees betrayed you and you found yourself tripping over, your butt making a loud thump sound as it came into contact with the ice.

On your way down, you’d shrieked Jake’s name, and he was at your side in the blink of an eye, holding your shoulder and looking at you worriedly. The pain was immediate, and for a few seconds, you couldn’t answer him and reassure him that you were fine.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked to race, God Y/N I’m so stupid I’m so sorry are you okay I didn’t want you to get hurt-”

“Jake,” you squeaked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay, calm down,” you said when the pain subsided, managing a smile. “I’ll just have a sore butt tomorrow.” He chuckled at the word ‘butt,’ but you didn’t have it in you to roll his eyes at his childishness.

“Are you sure you’re okay? There’s an infirmary here-”

“I’m sure, Jakey-poo,” you teased, making him lose the concerned expression as he bore an unimpressed one instead.

“I guess you are fine if you can think to call me that. Come on, up!” he said as he stood up, reaching his hands out for you to take. Just as he helped you up, Sunghoon came sprinting and stood at the entrance to the rink.

“Is everything okay? I heard a yell,” he said, slightly out-of-breath with half a biscuit in his mouth. Guess he really was eating this whole time.

You and Jake laughed and shook your head at him, and you reassured him that everything was fine. 

“Good, ‘cause the hockey team’s here and we have to go anyway.”

There was a bus that took Sunghoon directly from the ice rink to his house, but you and Jake had to go back to the school to catch the one you usually took, which meant you had a forty-minute journey in front of you. And yet, Jake’s company made those forty minutes feel like five, and you found yourself disappointed when the bus neared your stop.

“If you want, we can still go walk Kiwi and Layla,” he offered shyly a few minutes before your stop, as if he’d read your mind. 

“I’d love to.” You watched as his small smile bloomed into a wider one.

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, relieved. “I was scared you’d be tired of me after spending the whole afternoon together,” he admitted, looking down at his lap with a bashful expression on his face. It wasn’t often that Jake looked timid like this, but whenever he did, your heart tripled in size.

“I don’t think I could get tired of you.” You were too shy to look him in the eye while you said this, but in your peripheral, you saw his grin get impossibly wider and his eyebrows raise. He bumped your shoulder with his, making the both of you burst into giggles.

You were still smiling long after you’d come home from your walk.

—

Unfortunately for Jake, forcing you and Sunghoon to sit together for ninety minutes hadn’t resulted in the two of you confessing your undying love for the other and getting together - clearly, his plan hadn’t worked very well. But Jake, instead of coming up with another strategy, decided he should just basically do the same thing again and hope it went better this time. 

Bro night had been a tradition for the past three years that the boys only very rarely broke, in cases of illness, filial obligations or important competitions the following day. This wasn’t any one of those cases, but Jake decided bro night must be slightly sacrificed that night - for your and Sunghoon’s sake. Years down the line, he knew you’d thank him.

This was why he tricked you into thinking you had been invited to bro night (you’d heard a lot about it and considered it an honor to be included) when really, he made Jay promise not to show at the cinema so that you and Sunghoon could be alone. The two of them would make up an excuse about not being able to make it on time and show up later at the diner (“If you want to set them up, shouldn’t we also leave them alone after the movie?” Jay had asked Jake over the phone, and Jake had been unable to explain why he didn’t want you to spend the whole night alone with Sunghoon).

“They ditched us,” Sunghoon had said in lieu of a greeting when you found him at the entrance of the cinema. He turned his phone screen towards you, showing you their group chat - Jay had had some sort of meeting at his school that had run late and Jake had to go to the vet suddenly because Layla kept making weird noises.

“Oh no, I hope she’ll be okay,” you said, voice laced with genuine worry.

Sunghoon just sighed. “I’m sure she will.” He knew what his friends were up to - it almost never happened that one of them was unable to make it to bro night, so two at once? They were clearly lying. He would make sure to tell Jake how worried sick you were about his dog’s fake illness later on just so his friend would feel extra guilty.

You had been looking forward to hanging out with Jake and his friends all day, so you were disappointed to know he wouldn’t make it until later. It wasn’t much comfort that the movie they had picked, some recent Marvel release, was one you were not at all interested in, and you couldn’t even obsess over Jake’s presence next to you instead of the movie because he wasn’t there. You’d have to sit with awkward, quiet Sunghoon for God knows how long - at least the cinema wasn’t much of a talking place. 

You declined his kind offer of sharing a big popcorn tub - you didn’t want to risk a cliché reaching-for-popcorn-at-the-same-time moment with Sunghoon, although you’d daydreamed and giggled about it happening with Jake earlier that day. Instead, you sipped grumpily on your Cherry Coke, watching the trailers for upcoming movies and discussing them with Sunghoon. (“I’m so excited for the Barbie movie,” he’d surprised you by saying. Maybe he wasn’t so bad.)

As the lights dimmed, announcing the imminent start of the movie, Sunghoon whispered something that completely changed your mind about Marvel. “It’s so stupid that Jake isn’t here, seriously. He’s been going on and on about going to see this movie since the trailer came out.” Suddenly, you’d never felt the need to pay attention to something more than this. 

Well, in your humble opinion, the film wasn’t anything to write home about. It was a lot of loud action scenes with some funny one-liners that, okay, you chuckled at. And the actors were hot. You could sort of see why Jake would enjoy Marvel movies, although you yourself liked films with more social commentary, such as Mean Girls or Bee Movie. You’d need to make Jake watch Twilight one of these days - you were sure he’d like the soundtrack, if nothing else.

At least, you and Sunghoon have something to talk about during your short walk to the diner. As you enter the restaurant, a familiar voice calling out your name catches you off-guard.

“Chaewon? I thought you didn’t work on Friday nights!” you exclaimed, letting your friend bring you into a hug. You gave her a once-over - she always looked so pretty in her work uniform, white t-shirt dress draping her body perfectly, apron cinching at her waist, and short pigtails under her 50’s style diner hat. If the blush spreading on Sunghoon’s cheeks at her sudden appearance was anything to go by, his thoughts might not have been too far from yours.

She pouted, taking your hands in hers and swaying them between the two of you. “I usually don’t, but Yunjin asked me to trade shifts and she always says yes when I ask her, so I felt bad saying no.” You nodded and she turned to Sunghoon.

“Hi, Sunghoon!”

“H-hi, Chaewon.”

“Where’s Jay and Jake?” she asked, looking behind the two of you. You’d told the group chat about your evening plans and a lot of freaking out had taken place. 

“Should be here any minute,” you sighed, and when she looked at you questioningly, you told her you’d explain later.

She sat you at a four-person booth by the window and brought you drinks (“On the house,” she’d said with a wink, but you weren’t sure this had been allowed by any of her superiors) for you to sip on while you waited for the others. Every time she was free, she came over to your table and gossiped about the customers. You did not miss the way Sunghoon’s face lit up whenever she approached you.

Jake and Jay see you before you see them. Jay, the only one with a driver’s license out of the three, had picked Jake up, and he was parking his car when Jake gasped loudly, making Jay jump. “I’m trying to park, man, can you be calm?”

“What’s she doing here?” Jake exclaimed, completely ignoring his friend.

Jay followed Jake’s gaze, but he wasn’t sure what his friend was going on about. All he saw was you, whom he recognized from pictures only, Sunghoon, and a waitress that seemed overly-friendly. “Who?” he asked.

“Chaewon,” Jake hissed, like her name was a curse. “She’s ruining our plan!”

Jay sighed. “First of all, this is your plan. Second of all, it was ruined from the beginning. And by that, I mean that your plan sucks, Jake.”

Jake clicked his teeth. “Whatever. Let’s just go,” he said, getting out of the car and heading straight for you. He made sure to give Chaewon a pointed look as he sat next to you in the booth, but she just seemed happy that more people had arrived. 

You bumped your knee into his to get his attention. “Hi,” you said with a smile.

He looked at you dumbly for a few seconds before Jay cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi. This is Jay,” he said, tilting his head towards the boy but not taking his eyes off of you. You and Jay exchanged hey’s before Chaewon took your order, quickly giving it to the kitchen and scanning the room to make sure every table had what they needed, then headed back to your table. 

“Is Layla okay?” you asked Jake, worry making your brows furrow.

“Huh?” The sudden mention of his dog took him aback. Why wouldn’t she be okay?

“Layla?” you repeated, tilting your head. “Is she okay? You said you had to go to the vet.”

His eyes widened as he remembered his lie from earlier, and he started nodding frantically. “Oh yeah, yeah, she’s fine, we panicked over nothing,” he said with a nervous giggle. Jake was the worst liar Jay and Sunghoon had ever seen, but you were none the wiser.

“What about you, Jay? How was your school thing?” Sunghoon asked, turning to his friend with a glare and making him choke on his Coke.

“Oh, that was fine too, I guess,” Jay mumbled.

As expected, Jake and Chaewon were experts at leading the conversation, and Jay himself was pretty talkative. They all bounced off of each other naturally, and even Sunghoon knew how to throw in witty remarks now and there. You also participated, but you were more than happy just listening to them and laughing along. You tried not to think too much about how your knee would bump into Jake’s once in a while, or how he seemed to look at you every time he made a joke.

At some point, Chaewon had rushed over to your table, looking right at you with wide eyes and beaming. “Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God, Y/N, hat guy is here!” 

You instantly mirrored her expression. “Where where where?” you asked, lifting your body up to scan around the restaurant.

“Over there in the corner, but be discreet!”

You were not at all discreet as your eyes found said hat guy, noting with satisfaction that he was characteristically hatless, and you burst into laughter. “I can’t believe he’s here!”

“Right? Probably has the munchies or something,” Chaewon said, laughing along.

You only noticed then the perplexed looks all three boys were sending your way. “Who the heck is hat guy?” Jake asked, which only made you and Chaewon laugh harder.

“You wouldn’t get it,” she replied airily, waving Jake off as she made her way to a customer who had called for her. 

The boys turned to you and you shrunk in your seat at their attention. “Just a guy the girls and I find funny,” you explained, shrugging and glancing quickly at Sunghoon. If only he knew about all the times you and the girls had gossiped about him, even though he’d done nothing of importance.

When her shift was over, the first thing Chaewon did was take off her apron, then dragged you to the bathroom, where she drilled you for details about your cinema “date” with Sunghoon. 

“It was not a date, it just ended up being the two of us because the others couldn’t make it,” you insisted, but she wasn’t having it. “There’s nothing to say anyway. We got there, talked a bit, watched the movie, walked here, and that’s it.”

Chaewon sighed, shaking her head as she reapplied her lip gloss. A small smile made its way onto your lips. “I think he’s into someone else anyway.” 

You noticed how her hand faltered for a split second. “Oh yeah? Who?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant, but you knew your friend too well. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” 

Unbeknownst to either of you, the discussion between the boys back at the table was not too different from yours.

“Bro, I’m literally going to kill you,” Sunghoon whisper-yelled even though you were way out of earshot already. “Do you know how awkward that was?”

“Just so you know, I had nothing to do with this,” Jay said. “I told him that putting two socially constipated idiots like you wouldn’t end well, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Y/N’s not an idiot!” Jake immediately reacted.

“And I am?!” Sunghoon retorted.

Jay just rolled his eyes.

“You are, because this is the second time you’re alone together with the girl you like and you can barely make conversation with her.”

“For the last time, I don’t like her, I just called her cute once in freshman year-”

“Same thing!”

“Jake, I don’t know how many times I can tell you the same thing before you get it. I’ve been around Y/N enough to know I don’t like her like that, okay? We’ve had two classes where we sat together for a whole semester, and we’ve worked with other people in group projects. Not to mention, you’ve made me sit through one of your practices with her. She’s nice. She sends me the homework when I miss class. She even laughs at my jokes sometimes. And her dog is super cute. I’m sure we’d be better friends if we both didn’t have crippling shyness, but I don’t like her like that. I just don’t.”

“But how?!”

“What do you mean how? This sorta thing doesn’t have any sort of reasonable answer, you just do or you don’t. I don’t. Clearly, you do.”

Jake heard the last part of Sunghoon’s words, and promptly decided to ignore them. He had to understand this first - he’d figure out his feelings later. “This whole time, I thought you were just downplaying your feelings, ‘cause you’re an awkward asshole who doesn’t do emotions,” he said, eyes tightly shut and holding his head, the confusion making his brain hurt.

“Okay, ouch. But no, I wasn’t. I really don’t know what got into your head.”

“I know what got into his head,” Jay said. Both of his friends looked at him questioningly, so he went on. “When Sunghoon mentioned Y/N, you probably thought she was super cute too, Jake. But because of bro code and whatnot, you didn’t wanna show any interest. And then as you saw her around more, you probably liked her more, but you thought Sunghoon liked her, so you sort of gave him your crush on her instead of dealing with it. You lived vicariously through him, basically. Except you’re an idiot because he doesn’t even like her like that, so you could’ve shot your shot a long time ago already. I don’t know why you didn’t just listen to him, to be honest,” Jay finished, shrugging.

“You also thought he liked her!” Jake retorted.

“That’s besides the point. The point is that you’re stupid.”

“But- but, what about all those times you talked about her? I didn’t make those up!” 

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “The most I ever said about her was something like, Y/N and I both forgot our textbook today, or Y/N brought cookies for the class because it’s her birthday. You were always the one to notice her everywhere and go, There’s your crush, or something.”

Jake sighed, defeated. He could admit Sunghoon was right about something, and he was wrong - but he hated that Jay was also right. Had he really managed to bury his feelings for you all these years just for what he thought was Sunghoon’s sake? Sure, he was a loyal friend, but that felt a little much.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, recoiling from his friends’ expectant gazes and taking a sad bite of his cheeseburger. “It’s not like she likes me back, or anything.” 

He watched in confusion as Sunghoon let out a loud groan, screwing his eyes shut and taking his head in his hands as if it hurt. “This is so frustrating, I’m going to kill myself.”

Jake turned to Jay for some sort of explanation to their friend’s sudden suicidal thoughts, but Jay just looked back at Jake with disgust. “When did you become so dumb? I swear you didn’t use to be like this,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

Jake’s eyes flickered between his two friends in utter dismay. “What?”

“Jake,” Jay started. “Do you really, honestly, genuinely think Y/N doesn’t like you?”

The boy leaned back in his seat with a pout. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Sunghoon’s head whipped up at this. Jake gulped at the intense glare his friend fixed him with - he’d never looked so angry with him, and it made Jake wonder what on Earth he could have said or done that made Sunghoon so upset. “Why?” he asked simply, but the frustration was evident in his voice.

Your diary popped up in Jake’s head. What he had read was clear. Of course, the entry dated from over a month ago now, but why would your feelings have changed since then? Jake sighs deeply, getting ready to reveal to his friends what he’d seen, but then he sees you and Chaewon emerging from the bathroom. “They’re coming back,” he mumbled.

It was Sunghoon and Jay’s turn to sigh. “Just pay attention to her, Jake, okay?” Jay instructed, giving his friend an intent look.

“I already do,” Jake replied, frowning.

“No, really pay attention to her. Then use your pea-sized brain for once in your life, and maybe you’ll realize something.”

A strongly-worded reply was on the tip of Jake’s tongue, but all thoughts of violence and murdering his friend were replaced by images of rainbows and pretty flowers when you smiled at him. He felt like the biggest of idiots for liking you so much and only realizing it now.

“Hi,” he said dumbly as you found your seat next to him again, then stole a french fry from you even though he had many left himself. When you gasped at his audacity, he just giggled.

“Hey!” you exclaimed in protest before stealing a fry back. 

If you hadn’t been so caught up in your little world, you’d have noticed the knowing look your three friends exchanged and their simultaneous eye roll. 

—

The following Monday, you decided to have your tutoring session at your house instead of Jake’s. His mom was away at a convention for the week, so you’d have to take the bus anyway - since your house was two stops earlier, you offered to switch it up for once. Jake had never actually been inside your house and was curious to see what it was like, so he eagerly agreed. 

Kiwi was happy to see him and followed the two of you around the house as you gave Jake a quick tour before going up to your room. When you reached the top landing, you realized that Kiwi was still at the bottom of the stairs and was looking up at you expectantly. “Is she not allowed upstairs?” Jake asked.

“Usually not, but I let her come up when my mom’s not here. Come on Kiwi! It’s okay!”

Kiwi didn’t need to be told twice - she trudged her little body up the stairs, and you couldn’t help but giggle at her adorableness. “She’s so cute,” you cooed, looking at your dog with a huge smile on your face.

“She really is,” Jake agreed, but when you turned your head to face him, he wasn’t looking at Kiwi - he was looking straight at you, a softness in his eyes that made your stomach turn. He snapped out of it when he noticed your round, surprised eyes, and cleared his throat. “So, where’s your room?” he asked, looking around the hallway and avoiding your gaze.

“Over there,” you replied, fighting the smile that tried to make its way to your lips as you headed towards your room, Jake and Kiwi following right behind. 

You told Jake to wait for a second as you went to get a second chair. When you came back, he was standing in front of your shelves, upper body slightly bent forwards to observe all the decorations and framed pictures closer. You placed the chair next to your desk then joined him, answering all the questions he had about the items on your shelves. Who’s this? When was this? Where did you get this? In his defense, you really did have a lot of things - you were trying to get rid of your hoarding habits, but you got attached to every small thing that held some sort of significance. You went to sit at the edge of your bed and just watched him, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

It reminded you of the first time you’d been to his house, how upset he’d seemed when you talked about his baby pictures and how you hadn’t wanted to risk looking at all the stuff in his room. You were also curious about things like that, and you wondered once again what had bothered him so much. The question was burning your tongue - although you were nervous to ask it, not wanting to upset Jake once more, you now knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the type to stay mad for long. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Jake replied, fingers toying with your favorite Littlest Pet Shop figurine you had kept from when you were eight.

“Why didn’t you want me to look at your baby photos that one time?”

Jake paused at your words. He stood up straight and set the figurine back on the shelf. He glanced at you before walking over to your bed and taking a seat next to you, leaning back on his palms while you rested your hands underneath your thighs. 

“You probably noticed I don’t mention my dad, right? Or the fact that he’s never home?” 

You nodded in response. You had noticed it, but you’d never brought the topic up in case it might be sensitive. Jake sighed. “He passed away when I was six.”

You turned your head towards him. To your surprise, his face remained expressionless - you couldn’t detect any sort of sadness or anger in his features, as if he was just reciting a fact. His uncharacteristic numbness upset you even more than any tears could have. 

He met your gaze and gave you a small smile. “I was so young that I only have very vague memories of him, like playing soccer together in the backyard or a trip to the beach with my parents and my brother. I only remember his face and his voice from the photos and videos my mom has shown me.” He sighed again, shifting forwards and resting his hands in his lap, fiddling with his fingers. “So when I see these pictures, they sort of just remind me of what I’ve lost? I really don’t like lingering on them. I sort of just ignore them every time I walk up or down the stairs.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have mentioned them if I’d known-”

Jake is quick to shake his head. “No, no, don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have guessed.” You want to comfort Jake in some way, thank him for telling you something so personal, but you’re not sure what words to use - so, instead, you take one of his hands in yours and bring it to your lap, then cover it with your other one. Your eyes meet for a second - he looks slightly taken aback at first, but then, his eyes drift down to your joined hands, and a small blush spreads on his cheeks.

“I’m- I’m okay, really. Like I said, it happened so long ago that I’m used to not having a dad now. It almost feels like it’s always been that way, which makes it even weirder to think it wasn’t. It’s just… It feels weird to miss someone I barely remember so much, you know?”

You nodded and let out a low hum. “I do know.” Jake tilted his head at you, silently asking you to go on. “It’s different, but I get that feeling of missing something you barely remember. I have these blurry memories of my parents being happy together and the three of us being a happy family, and then all of a sudden it’s hearing arguments from my room and my dad moving out, and they’re asking me, Do you wanna live with mom or dad?”

You watched as Jake moved his hand slightly, intertwining your fingers together and squeezing your hand. “I was older than you were when they divorced, so I guess I have more memories to hold onto, but they hurt more than anything.” You let out a deep sigh. “My dad cheated, so it’s not like I wished my mom had stayed with him, but I was too young to understand what was happening. I just wanted my parents together again.” 

When you lifted your head to look at him, he met your gaze, and his eyes were so soft yet so intense, like he was seeing right into you. Then he chuckled. “Do you ever get jealous of other people’s parents?” he asks, a shy smile playing on his lips.

“All the time,” you admitted with a chuckle, relieved to find out you weren’t the only one. “Yena has been blessed with these like, practically perfect parents that are still in love after twenty years, never argue and have a healthy relationship with all of their kids. I’m so in awe every time I see them.”

“Sunghoon’s parents are like that. I feel terrible, but every time they come to cheer him on at his competitions, I just get so jealous, wishing I also had three people coming to see my games and not just two. And I always feel so silly for feeling that way.”

“You’re not silly for that, Jake,” you said, and the honesty in your voice seemed to take him aback slightly. A grin spread on your lips. “You may be silly for other things, but not for that,” you teased, making him chuckle. “I can be your third person, if you want,” you said softly, lightly bumping your shoulder against his.

His eyes seemed to light up at your words, and your smile couldn’t help but get wider at his reaction - that was, until he raised an eyebrow, almost defiantly. “Yeah? I thought you found soccer boring,” he said with a playful smirk.

“It’s not boring if you’re the one playing,” you replied. A small noise of surprise escaped his throat before he could help it, not expecting you to be so forward, and you both burst into giggles. 

He cleared his throat when you both calmed down and stood up straighter, trying to put on a cool front. “Of course it isn’t.” He turned his head to look out the window, and the sight of the sunlight perfectly hitting his features and turning his dark brown eyes a hazel color almost took your breath away. “It’s really nice out,” he suddenly said. He turned back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “How about we ditch the tutoring for today and go out?”

His eyes drifted down to your lips, watching as a smile tugged at the corners of your own. “I’m in.”

That was how you found yourselves sitting at a bench in the park close to your house, eating ice cream and watching Kiwi and Layla play together. You tried each other’s ice cream, and you regretted your choice of simple vanilla and strawberry as soon as Jake’s mango ice cream touched your tongue. Your eyes widened at the amazing taste - it felt like you had bit into an actual mango. 

“Good, right?” Jake asked, chuckling at your reaction.

“What the heck, yours is so much better than mine,” you mumbled, pouting at the ice cream in your cup like it had personally hurt you.

Jake thought for a second, looking back and forth between your upset expression and his own cup. “Wanna switch?”

Your heart was screaming yes, but your brain was screaming no. You tried your best to appear genuine when you smiled at him. “No, don’t worry about it. I still like mine.” You looked at him as you scooped another spoonful into your mouth as if to prove to him you were happy with your choice, even going so far as to hum in delight.

Jake just chuckled and shook his head at you, taking your cup and giving you his anyway. You were about to protest until he started eating your ice cream, imitating your previous hum. You quietly accepted the exchange, smiling as you tasted the mango ice cream again and trying to ignore the fact that Jake hadn’t switched the spoons with the cups, so you were using his and he was using yours. 

As you ate in silence, occasionally chuckling at your dogs’ antics, Jake stole some glances at you. He wasn’t sure why you looked so much prettier today than all the times he’d seen you before. Or maybe you were just as pretty as you’d always been, and he was just finally letting himself admit it. 

He may have had many friends, but there weren’t many people Jake was truly himself around. He always felt the need to be this friendly, outgoing guy that made it seem like everything was going well in his life, but with you, he felt like it was okay to stop pretending. He felt like it was okay to ask for help, like it was okay to reveal the darker parts of his life.

Now that Jay and Sunghoon had practically forced him to see the truth, Jake didn’t know what to do about his feelings for you. He finally understood why he always looked forward to your tutoring sessions, why he was so excited whenever he walked past you in the hallways, and why he was so bothered about you and Sunghoon getting along.

Sunghoon. Because even if Jake now knew that he liked you, he also knew that you liked someone else. And what was the point of letting himself fall for you even more when there was no happy ending in sight for him? He’d only get hurt in the end.

Just as the thought hit him, you turned to look at him and meet his gaze, a soft smile on your lips. Every time you smiled at him like that, Jake felt like he was watching a movie. Everything happened in slow-motion, with flowers falling around you and violins playing in the background. Jake almost felt sick, knowing he was only the second lead in your romance movie. He was the stupid werewolf and Sunghoon was the vampire that glistened in the sun and got the girl. (You had convinced him to watch Twilight, saying it was a mandatory watch to understand who you were as a person. Of course, Jake had streamed it that same night. The soundtrack was surprisingly good.)

Your voice snapped him out of his downward-spiraling thoughts. “You know, I almost got scared that Sunghoon would appear out of thin air and start hanging out with us.”

Jake tried not to sneer at the mention of his best-friend-turned-number-one-nemesis. “Why? Wouldn’t you like that?” he mumbled, clearly doing a poor job of seeming unaffected.

You frowned, then lowered your head, focusing your gaze on your almost-finished ice cream. “No, I’d rather if it was just the two of us.” Jake’s eyes widened, unsure if he’d heard that correctly or not. But before he could say anything in response, you spoke again. “It’s just, he was there when I came to watch your practice and when I thought we were all going to see a movie together, it was just him and me. You would’ve liked that movie, by the way,” you said, looking up at Jake with a smile.

Jake’s heart swelled. He wasn’t sure what what you were saying all meant, but unconsciously, his lips mirrored yours and he smiled back at you. Until he remembered you didn’t like him, and his smile fell immediately. Obviously, you had no idea what he was thinking, so his sudden stony expression sent alarms ringing through your head.

“It’s not that I don’t like him, or anything,” you said, panicked, and Jake had to keep himself from scoffing, “it’s just that- you know. It’s nice to hang out with you outside of tutoring sessions,” you finished, mumbling. 

Jake had no idea what you were saying, so he stayed quiet, watching as Kiwi and Layla ran around in circles. You liked Sunghoon, so why would you rather hang out with Jake and not him? You weren’t making any sense. 

You, on the other hand, were not liking Jake’s uncharacteristic silence. In hopes of getting his attention, you crossed one leg over the other, shifting on the bench to face him. “Plus, don’t you think he and Chaewon really hit it off the other night? I think that was the most I’ve ever heard him talk,” you said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. To your dismay, it didn’t work. You didn’t know whether he was sulking or genuinely upset - all you knew was you desperately wanted to see a smile on his pretty face again.

“Jakey?” you called out, and your voice sounded so small it hurt his heart. He hummed in response, only glancing at you for a fraction of a second. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied, scooping the last of the ice cream in his mouth. As he tasted the strawberry and vanilla flavors, he couldn’t believe he had given his precious mango ice cream up all for a girl who didn’t even like him back. What a fool.

“I don’t know, you’re all- weird, all of a sudden, for lack of a better word.” You searched for some sort of an answer in his eyes, but he supplied you with none. 

Jake sighed deeply. He could feel the ugly mix of emotions in his belly turning into anger - anger at what exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to lay it on you. “It’s just the heat, it’s making me tired,” he said. Sure, it was warm for a May afternoon, but it wasn’t that hot. But you didn’t want to push it.

“Should we go home?“ you offered, and the worry in your voice made him feel even worse. He just couldn’t understand why you were being so nice to him. He knew you probably just thought you were looking after a friend, but he'd rather you not care about his well-being and leave him be. He didn’t need one more reason to like you - he already had plenty of those. 

He nodded, mustering as convincing a smile as he could. “Sure.” 

The walk home was much quieter than usual. You could feel that Jake was keeping something to himself, and it was killing you; but whatever it was, you wanted him to tell you when he felt ready and not feel forced to. Your hand was aching, desperate to reach out and grab his as you had done before, but you were afraid that would only push him away even further. So you stayed silent most of the time, only commenting on the things around you or speaking a thought out loud when you thought it might make Jake smile. Every time his lips curled up, even ever so slightly, your heart swelled with relief.

Unbeknownst to you, Jake was making up his mind. He knew he needed time away from you to gather his feelings before he could see you as a friend again. 

When you reached your house, Jake waited outside with the dogs as you grabbed his bag he’d left upstairs. You hugged goodbye as always, but this one was different - it lasted a few seconds longer than usual, and you could swear Jake held you tighter than he normally would. It felt like he was saying goodbye for more than just a couple days.

You didn’t understand why it made your heart ache so much.

—

The next day, when you walked past Jake and Sunghoon in the hallway, Jake barely glanced at you and only tilted his head in your general direction instead of his usual wide grin and wave. You were so shocked by his sudden snubbing that you halted in your steps right away, looking behind you at his retreating figure. You locked eyes with Sunghoon, who seemed just as confused as you felt. He shrugged at you before returning to his friend and nudging his arm.

On Wednesday morning, you got a text from Jake that he couldn’t make it to your tutoring session that afternoon because of an extra soccer practice to prepare for their game that weekend, something he had never mentioned before.

Thursday and Friday weren’t very different, and your heart became heavier with every time you walked past each other and he acted like you weren’t even there. You desperately wanted to know what you’d done wrong, why he’d started to reply in one-word sentences instead of his usual voice messages and tons of emojis, but no matter how much you cogitated, you couldn’t figure it out. Even when you asked him how his game had gone, a dry Good stared back at you from your phone screen.

That Saturday, your girlfriends came over. Yena had brought beads and strings to make accessories out of, and the mere sight of them had brought fond memories back to all four of you - during your first sleepover in freshman year, this was the exact activity that had kept you occupied for hours. 

You got started on them immediately, each finding a comfortable spot in your room as soft music played in the background. You lay on your bed while Chaewon and Yena took over the floor and Hyewon sat at your desk.

“I’m gonna make one of those phone accessories,” Yena said excitedly, reaching for the biggest, most colorful beads.

“I’m gonna make couple bracelets for Jaemin and I,” Hyewon said somewhat shyly but beaming. Yena and Chaewon groaned at her words, but they gave you an idea.

“You guys are vomit-inducing,” Yena replied, and if you didn’t know your friend any better, just going off the tone of her voice, you’d have thought she was being serious. Hyewon just rolled her eyes, used to this daily slander she received simply for being in a relationship.

“I’ll make something for my little sister,” Chaewon butted in, and you and Yena simultaneously ‘aww’ed. 

“So it’s aww when Chaewon does it for her sister, and it’s vomit-inducing when I do it for my boyfriend?” Hyewon exclaimed, appalled.

“Little sisters are cute. Boyfriends are gross,” Yena replied matter-of-factly, making you giggle.

“Whatever. You guys are just jealous that you’re dying alone and I’m not. What are you making, Y/N?” she asked before Yena could retort again. The two exchanged a glare as you thought over your answer.

“I’m not saying,” you replied with a giggle. 

“She’s making one for Jake, that evil wench,” Chaewon immediately said, making your eyes widen. Yena gasped dramatically while Hyewon smiled at you.

“How did you know?” you asked Chaewon.

“Just your face. You’re so obvious,” she snickered. 

“You’re a traitor, Y/N!” Yena exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at you, and you hid your face in your hands, muttering an apology. “Wasting time and energy on a boy.”

“Don’t listen to her, Y/N. Whatever it is you make, he’ll be super happy you thought of him. Then he’ll finally ask you out and you’ll live happily ever after, just like me and Jaemin,” Hyewon said with a serene smile on her face. Chaewon and Yena exchanged a look, then faked a gagging sound. “So bitter,” Hyewon muttered, shaking her head at your friends.

“I’m not sure about that,” you sighed. “I just want to be friends again. He’s been ignoring me all week.”

All three snapped their heads up at you. “He’s been ignoring you?” Yena echoed, and you meekly nodded. “Give me his phone number. No, give me his address. I’m going there right now,” she said, already sitting up.

“Gosh, Yena, it’s fine,” you said, gesturing at her to sit back down, laughing at your friend’s seriousness. “I’ll see him on Monday anyway, I can just see how he behaves then.”

Yena didn’t look convinced, but she yielded anyway. “If he hurts you, I swear I’ll give him a stern talking to. And a broken nose.” You laughed as you thanked your friend. 

Hyewon asked for more details about this Jake situation, so you filled your friends in about his mysterious behavior that week. Chaewon had been the only one to see it firsthand, when you’d walked to a class together and Jake had walked past you without saying anything. You told them about his sparse answers to your texts, his lack of response to the TikToks you sent him. He wasn’t even reacting to your BeReals anymore. It was just such a complete switch-up in attitude that you had no idea what to make of it. They tried to come up with reasons for it, but it really didn’t make much sense. It just felt like he suddenly decided to hate you - or maybe you had been interpreting everything wrong, and the two of you had never been friends in the first place. 

“This is so confusing,” Chaewon suddenly said, seeming lost in thought. “I thought for sure that he liked you.”

“Liked… me?” you echoed.

“Yeah. Just the way he was when we were at the diner. He kept looking at you and was always smiling and blushing whenever you talked to him. Also the way Jay and Sunghoon were behaving. Boys are so obvious when their friend likes someone, it’s like they’re trying to fumble it for him. And I mean, anyone with functioning eyes can see that you like him too, so I don’t know why he’s doing this all of a sudden.”

Yena sighed. “Boys are stupid.”

“That, they are,” you agreed, sighing as well and returning your attention to your craft. Maybe a simple gift like this wouldn’t fix what was going on between you and Jake, but you had to at least try. You couldn’t let go of your friendship so easily.

Even though it seemed as though he could.

Nothing changed the next week. On Monday, you woke up to a text that pulled your heart down into your stomach.

jakey-poo i think we should stop tutoring each other for now

For an hour as you ate breakfast and got ready for school, you ruminated over your answer, only to ask him a simple why? in the end.

jakey-poo i’m to busy w soccer practice and other stuff we can start again when exams are near

you oh okay

You felt pathetic, but you had no idea what to say. You couldn’t force him into this, and you definitely couldn’t show up at his house and demand a better explanation. If you were Yena or Chaewon, maybe you could - but you weren’t. You couldn’t even bring yourself to ask him if the two of you could still hang out outside of that, so scared you were for his inevitable rejection.

During the week, you tried to find a time when you could give him your small handmade gift, but Jake wasn’t even looking you in the eyes anymore. The only time you made eye contact with him over those five days was on Wednesday at lunch - as you walked into the cafeteria, you scanned the whole room, unconsciously searching for him. When you did, he was already looking at you - he was close enough for you to see the slight frown in his eyebrows, the lack of the usual glint in his eyes. But as soon as he’d seen you’d found him, he turned away. You only looked away when Chaewon called out your name.

In the few classes you had together, he always slipped away before you could get to him. Him walking past you like he couldn’t even see you broke your heart a little bit more every time, and by Friday, you had completely given up. Your friendship with Jake was over, and you had no idea why, no idea who or what to blame.

Monday and Wednesday afternoons felt empty now that you had gotten used to spending them with him, and you couldn’t even walk Kiwi without missing him. He seemed to miss Jake and Layla too - he’d sometimes tilt his head at you as if asking where your new friends were, and when you got to the park, he’d gloomily stick to you instead of running around like he usually would, especially when Layla was there.

The worst part was at night, when your thoughts kept you up. You’d reread your and Jake’s text conversations, wondering what went so wrong so quickly, warm tears spilling from your eyes out of sadness and tiredness. On those nights, you’d sneak Kiwi up to your room and let him cuddle up to you in your bed. You’d comfort each other that way.

You had no idea that a couple kilometers away, Jake lay in bed sleepless as well, Layla at the edge of his bed and whining in her sleep. You had no idea that missing you had carved a deep hole in his chest.

—

Enough was enough.

It had been days since Layla had last seen Kiwi, and to a young pup like her, that felt like eternity. Lately, Jake hadn’t seemed happy to go on walks with her like he used to, and he barely had any energy to play with her. She also hadn’t seen you in days, and she wondered if that had anything to do with Jake’s recent despondency. 

But thankfully, Layla was a smart girl, so she knew exactly what to do to fix this dire situation. On Friday, she waited for Jake to come back from soccer practice and take her on a walk. As soon as they reached the sidewalk outside of their house, she pulled on her leash in the opposite direction of their usual route. Jake tried pulling her the other way, but she wouldn’t budge.

“We’re going that way, Layla,” Jake said, amused by his dog’s sudden stubbornness. Layla barked back. “Come on!” 

She was really not moving. “We never go that way,” Jake said, sighing. “That way’s the-”

That’s when he realized. Layla wanted to go to the park you went to with Kiwi. “But what if we ran into them?” Jake asked. 

Layla barked again. She wanted to say, That’s exactly why I want to go there, but of course Jake didn’t understand. He sighed again and obliged, letting Layla lead the way. She had a good feeling that she’d finally see her friends again today. 

Jake’s heart started beating faster with every step he took, knowing that you might be out right now, too. When he’d seen you at school, you’d seemed as sad as he was, and he felt terrible for perhaps being the reason behind it - but he didn’t know what else to do. He could either spare your feelings or his. If this was hurting you, he knew you’d move on quickly enough anyway - and when he came to terms with being just friends with you, he’d come back, and everything would be perfect like it used to be. Foolproof plan.

If there was one thing Jake had learned from the tutoring sessions with you, it was that the weather always reflected the protagonist’s inner thoughts. If they were upset, it would be gray and rainy - if they were happy, it would be warm and sunny. Jake glared at the sun, just another reminder that he wasn’t the main character in this story. If he was, it would be thundering and lightning would be striking.

As if his life was a joke, two minutes after Jake and Layla had walked into the park, he saw you. At least you were facing the other direction, so you couldn’t see him, and he could redirect his route to avoid you. But he let himself indulge in the moment for a few seconds. You had laid out a picnic blanket for you and Kiwi and rested on your stomach with your elbows propping you up, reading a book. Kiwi slept peacefully next to you - this dog was the furthest thing from a guard dog Jake had ever seen. You kicked your feet up in the air, flip flops discarded to the side of the blanket. Jake was happy to see you like this, enjoying the warmth of this sunny May afternoon. 

He was about to walk away, but a sudden movement caught his eye. Two school kids started running to you, and before you could even register their presence, one of them snatched your flip flops and they both sprinted away, shrieking with laughter like two little devils. Where the hell were their parents?!

Without thinking, Jake started running after them, and so did Kiwi and Layla. 

“Hey! Come back here!” Jake yelled, hoping in vain that these kids would listen to someone older than them. Kiwi did his best, but his tiny legs didn’t allow for such a chase - Layla, barking loudly at the thieves, was the first to reach them, and she managed to scare them so much, they tripped over their feet. But unlike them, she was well-behaved, so she sat once her job was done and waited for Jake to arrive. 

“What are you two doing? You can’t just steal other people’s things!” he admonished, holding onto his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Both kids were already teary-eyed. “We just wanted to play a prank, we’re sorry!” one of them quickly said, voice shaky.

“It’s not to me you should apologize, but to her,” Jake said, turning around to point in your direction. That’s when he noticed you sitting on your knees, hands covering your face as your shoulders trembled. “You made her cry!” Jake exclaimed, tone much angrier than seconds prior. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the kids by their shoulders and forcing them to keep up with his quick steps.

You didn’t notice their presence in front of you until Jake prompted them. At the sound of the all too familiar voice, you whipped your head up. Jake swore he heard his heart breaking when he saw your red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. You barely heard the kids’ apology, so amazed you were at suddenly seeing Jake.

“We’re sorry for stealing your flip-flops and making you cry,” the first one said.

“Sorry,” repeated the other one, handing you your shoes.

“Oh, right. Thanks, just don’t do it again,” you replied, sniffing as you took back your shoes.

“We won’t!” they replied in unison before running away once more.

Jake stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He watched you stare at your flip flops like you’d never seen them before in your life. “You’re not going to thank me for catching those delinquents?” he asked after a small while, chuckling slightly.

This made you look up at him. He gulped as your eyes met. Then, you burst into sobs again, and Jake started panicking. He crouched down to your level, first holding you by the shoulders then forcing your head out of your hands so he could wipe away your tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“No no no, why are you crying, Y/N?” he asked softly, pulling you into a hug.

You continued crying into his shoulder, ignoring Kiwi and Layla’s confused stares. “You- you- I haven’t seen you in ages!” you exclaimed.

Jake sighed. He didn’t understand why you were crying like this for him, all he knew was that he’d never felt so awful. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whispered into your hair, pulling your shaking body closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

You leaned back to glare at Jake, your bottom lip jutting out in discontent. “Do you even know how much I missed you?”

Jake held your head in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the world. Mouth agape in surprise, he looked at you with sad eyes. “You… you did?”

Your eyebrows creased. “Of course I did!” Another sob rippled through your body, and Jake took you back in his arms, wrapping them around your shoulders and resting his cheek against your hair. 

“I missed you too.”

“Then why did you do this?” you asked, voice breaking.

“Because I didn’t want to get hurt,” Jake whispered back. “But I didn’t think I’d hurt you. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

You leaned back again, but this time, you looked confused rather than angry. His eyes were soft as they scanned your face and as he brushed strands of your hair back behind your ears. “Why would you get hurt?” you asked again, bringing your voice to the same volume as his.

Jake sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if in pain, before opening them again and boring them into yours. “I like you so, so much Y/N. So much so that I don’t know what to do with myself. But I know that you don’t feel the same way, and I was scared that by staying by your side, I’d just fall in love with you even more and get hurt in the end. So I pushed you away because I didn’t know what else to do, but I’m so sorry I- You’re crying again?”

Your fists grabbed at the front of Jake’s t-shirt as sobs raked through your body once more. It was official - Jake was the stupidest person you’d ever met. And you were in love with him.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I like you too, you idiot!” you yelled back. Your tears were probably staining his t-shirt, but you couldn’t care less. He liked you. Jake liked you.

You were too busy crying to see Jake’s eyes slowly widening in disbelief. “You what?!”

Gently, Jake pushed your shoulders back so he could look at you. Even with puffy eyes and a runny nose, you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Pretty like an angel that had graced the Earth with her presence. “You what?” he repeated, just to hear you say it again.

“I like you, Jake. I’m so in love with you it's actually pathetic,” you said with a chuckle, looking down out of shyness. But when you looked back up, Jake’s eyes were going back and forth between yours, the expression on his face like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard but desperately hoped it was true.

As you locked eyes, both of your faces lit up with grins. You burst into laughter together, finding each other’s hands and intertwining your fingers together. Then Jake brought you back into his arms, holding tightly, as if he was scared you might disappear any second. Kiwi and Layla had long walked away to give the two of you some needed privacy.

In each other’s arms, you rocked side to side gently and laughed for no reason other than the incredible fact your feelings were reciprocated. “You stink, you know,” you suddenly said in-between giggles. “You sweat while you ran after those kids.”

“I sweat? You mean I swote, right?” Jake asked a pause.

You leaned back to look at Jake. “Swote?” you echoed, and he nodded. Your umpteenth smile made your cheeks lift. “You have to be kidding-”

“I am,” Jake cut off, mirroring your smile. “I just wanted to make you laugh.”

You gasped and lightly punched his chest before letting your body fall against his again. “You’re so silly,” you said, sighing in bliss at the sound of his giggles.

Then all of a sudden, Jake pulled away and looked at you, almost frightened. “What about Sunghoon?” 

“What about him?” you asked back, confused by Jake’s question.

“I thought you- Didn’t you- you know…”

You tilted your head at Jake, a small grin spreading on your lips again. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you liked him…” Jake mumbled, looking away with a pout.

Before you could stop it, a noise of confusion left your throat. You looked at Jake like he was insane. “I can barely have a conversation with Sunghoon, what made you think I liked him?”

Jake pursed his lips and let a resigned puff of air out of his nose. “I, um- Remember when we mixed our backpacks up?” he asked and you nodded, smiling at the fun memory. “I may have, um, I may have read… your… diary,” he admitted, voice getting quieter with each word. He dared a glance at you - you looked horrified, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And you wrote that you liked Sunghoon,” he finished with a whisper.

It was silent for a few seconds, and Jake was bracing himself for a slap to the face or your screams, until you did the last thing Jake expected you to do - you laughed. You laughed so hard and for so long that he got scared you had gone insane and this was the first part of your mental breakdown before you murdered him in cold blood for having invaded your privacy. He would’ve deserved it, he thought.

“I don’t- oh my God, Jake, I don’t- I don’t like Sunghoon. I never really have, or not in the way you think, I can’t- oh my God,” you explained in between giggles, trying to catch your breath but starting to laugh again every time you managed to compose yourself. Jake tried to laugh along, but he was too confused to do so properly.

“You’re not mad?” Jake asked, eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“No,” you replied, shaking your head and the last giggles out of your throat. “You read it ages ago, and we didn’t even know each other back then, there’s no point in being mad now. It’s just funny - I know exactly why you think I liked Sunghoon, but I didn’t. Not really. And even if I did, those feelings are nothing compared to the ones I have for you now,” you said, beaming. A blush spread on Jake’s cheeks, and you could tell he was trying (and failing) to contain a proud grin.

You explained to Jake the ‘character’ thing you and your friends had going on and that Sunghoon (and hat guy) just happened to be one of them - you watched as Jake narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded, trying to understand this concept that was so foreign to him. 

“You know, it all makes a lot more sense now,” Jake said when you were explaining. “It would’ve been weird for you to like Sunghoon when I was right there.” He smirked down at you as you playfully rolled your eyes. 

“Oh my God!” you suddenly exclaimed, startling Jake in the process. Dramatic as always, he put a hand over his heart and exhaled loudly. “I have something for you. For us, actually.” You reached into your bag and got out the two accessories you’d made for you and Jake. “These are for us to put on our backpacks, so that we don’t confuse them again. They also match.”

Jake’s eyes were fixated on the string of beads as you placed into his palm. “I tried to give it to you over the week, but…” 

A teardrop fell into Jake’s palms, and when you looked at him, you realized he’d started crying. “Jake?” you cooed softly, and he sniffled, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

As a response, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and buried his face in your hair. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I promise you’ll never go a second without my undivided attention from now on,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, and you hummed happily.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

He leaned back, and you were relieved to find the familiar puppyish grin on his lips. You gazed into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and before he could stop himself, he grabbed your head in his hands and pressed a delicate kiss to your forehead. You raised your eyebrows in surprise, but when his face was back in front of yours, your eyes immediately drifted to his lips. They looked soft and plump and pink, and were utterly inviting. Every time you’d started daydreaming about kissing Jake, you’d stopped yourself, not wanting to over-indulge in your fantasies. But was this finally, really happening?

“Y/N?” Jake said quietly. You could swear his face was getting closer.

“Hm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

Your face broke out into a grin. Without warning, you pressed your lips against Jake’s - initially just for a peck, but as soon as you started pulling away, Jake chased after your lips and trapped them into a kiss, a proper one this time. You’d never done this before, so it was naturally somewhat clumsy, but you and Jake were so giddy with excitement that you couldn’t care less. So what if you were smiling so hard, your teeth clashed against his, or you kept bumping noses? You were kissing Jake Sim. 

The second time around, he let you pull away to catch your breath, and you wished you could photograph the sight in front of you - Jake with flushed cheeks, closed eyes and a serene smile on his face. He was so pretty, and now, he was all yours.

When he opens his eyes and finds you looking at him, his smile widens. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Yes,” you echoed, laughing. You pressed your lips to his cheek before burying your face in the crook of his neck.

He hugged you to him and the sweet sound of his giggles filled your ears and your heart. “My girl,” he whispered, before leaning his head back, face to the sky, and screaming it loud enough for the whole park to hear. You tried to shush him, but you couldn’t stop laughing yourself out of sheer excitement. Layla and Kiwi came running back to you, barking happily and trying to lick your faces. 

“I cried so much today, my eyes are gonna be puffy tomorrow morning,” you said between giggles. 

Jake pressed his lips to yours in a chaste kiss. “I’ll make sure you never cry again, Y/N,” he said, and he sounded so genuine, you almost wanted to cry again right then and there.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur - while you and Jake kissed, laughed, talked, and hugged, hours that felt like minutes passed you by. Jake kept on looking at the accessory you made him, poking fun at you for knowing his favorite color even though he’d never mentioned it.

“It was a lucky guess,” you grumbled. “Your room’s walls are that color,” you said, pointing to a particular dark blue bead.

“I love it,” he replied with a kiss to your forehead.

As always, he walks you home - and this time, you can take his hand without any hesitation. Your mom had come home from work while you and Jake were out, and you found her in the kitchen, prepping some veggies for dinner. 

As soon as Jake introduced himself, a flash of revelation struck her and she shot you a knowing smirk. “So you’re Jake,” she said, and the boy glanced at you with amused confusion. “That one over there has been badgering me about you these past few weeks.”

Apparently, you agreeing to be his girlfriend had already gone to his head, because instead of looking surprised at your mom’s words, he slowly turned to you with an arrogant smirk gracing his lips. “Has she?”

Your mom nodded slowly. “Oh, yes.” Then her expression slowly morphed into something else as she remembered your red, puffy eyes from the other evening when you’d told her about what was going on with Jake. She raised her kitchen knife and pointed it straight to him, eyes narrowed. “If you ever hurt my daughter again, I’m putting you in the lasagna, young man.”

Jake gulped, smirk completely wiped off of his face. You just watched in amusement. “I- I won’t,” he stuttered, eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

A wide grin reappeared on your mom’s face as she went back to cutting the vegetables. “Good!” 

Jake looked at you for some sort of explanation, but you simply shrugged. He’d just have to get used to your mom’s crazy. 

“You know, you’re just as handsome as she described,” your mom told Jake with a wink.

“Mom, please!” you exclaimed, cheeks burning with heat. You liked it better when she was threatening your boyfriend with a knife, but he was relieved by the new turn this conversation had taken.

“What else has she said?”

“Oh, you know, just your typical he’s so smart, he’s so cute, he’s so funny-”

“Okay, that’s it!” you cut in before your mom could spill more on you. You ignored Jake’s noises of complaint as you grabbed him by the shoulders and led him towards the door. “I think it’s time for you to go home, no?” 

“Y/N, come on!” Jake whined, giggling. 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner, Jake?” your mom offered, making you stop in your tracks. You stared wide-eyed at her but she just looked at Jake, wearing an inviting smile.

“Sure!” Jake beamed. “I just need to call my mom.”

“Oh, invite her along! I always make enough to feed an army, anyway.”

“Really?” Jake asked, incredulous. Since his brother had left for university, it had always been just he and his mom at the dinner table. The thought of sharing a meal with you and your mom filled his heart with warmth. 

“Yeah!”

Jake smiled giddily as he got his phone out. “Thanks, she’ll be stoked.”

Although you both wanted to help your mom, she urged you to stay outside with the dogs and enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day, insisting she didn’t need any help. So you and Jake spent some time throwing sticks for Kiwi and Layla and giggling at their cuteness. Kiwi quickly got exhausted and came to lie down at your feet, but Layla was tireless. “Your dog, your responsibility,” you said as you sat down next to Kiwi, rubbing his tummy and watching Jake throw the stick over and over again for Layla.

Jake was as relentless as Layla, and every time she ran after the stick, he ran to you and pressed a kiss to another part of your face, making you giggle every time. Once on your forehead, once on your nose, once on your cheek, then the other, and once on your lips.

Then his mom rang the bell, and as your mom opened the door for her, the oddest thing happened - they called out each other’s name and hugged as if they were old friends. You and Jake exchanged a confused look before turning your attention back to them.

“What a coincidence!”

“Right! Such a small world, I can’t believe you’re my daughter’s boyfriend’s mom.”

“Boyfriend? Gosh, has he finally asked her out? I was going crazy seeing him moping around in his room!”

“Mom!” Jake yelled, face already reddening as you burst into laughter.

You joined them inside the house and set the table while your mom finished up dinner. Jake’s mom had brought a bottle of red wine as a gift, so she poured two glasses for her and your mom, but you and Jake stuck to Sprite. 

Apparently, they knew each other from some yoga class they both went to every Sunday - you found out this was the woman your mom often went out for lunch or drinks with. They were so excited to meet each other like this that they talked most of the time, leaving you and Jake to eat your food quietly and giggling every time you made eye contact or your feet touched under the table. 

Just as you were about to take your last bite of lasagna, your phone pinged with a message. Curiously, so did Jake’s. Chaewon had sent a message into the group chat, asking to meet her at work when her shift was done because she was craving an Oreo milkshake.

chae bae y/n u better come ik ur not doing anything better tonight anyway

You scoffed. You were doing something better.

“Shit, today’s Friday! The boys are waiting for me at the diner, I completely forgot,” Jake exclaimed as he read the messages on his phone.

“Language, Jake,” his mom scolded.

“At the diner?” you repeated.

“Yeah, that one we went to last time. Why?” Jake asked when he noticed your surprised expression.

“That’s where Chaewon wants to meet.”

You both turned to your respective moms, silently asking for permission to leave the dinner table.

“Just go,” your mother said with a smile.

“I’ll take Layla home later,” Jake’s mom added.

You thanked them before rushing to get a bag and heading to the bus stop, hoping a bus would come by soon. Twenty minutes later, you were opening the doors of the diner and looking around for your friends, who were nowhere to be found. You were fishing your phone out of your pocket to call Chaewon when a familiar voice caught your and Jake’s attention.

“What are they doing together?” you heard Jay say, followed by loud shushes. You turned your head to find all five of your friends (plus Jaemin) crammed in a booth in the corner that was somewhat hidden from the rest of the restaurant. But they were trying so hard to be discreet that it made their presence even more obvious - they hid their faces with their hands as if that would make them disappear from your view. You and Jake shared a look before chuckling, shaking your head at your friends.

“Whatever, they’ve clearly found us,” Jay sighed and exited the booth, walking towards the two of you.

“Were you guys trying to get us to make up or something?” Jake asked with an amused smile.

“Yeah, we grouped up and planned this whole thing. It was a real team effort.”

“It might’ve worked better if you hadn’t all stayed here, you guys were so obvious,” you chided.

“Tell that to your friends over there! They insisted on watching it unfold,” Jay grumbled, and you looked behind him to see your friends frantically waving at you.

You switched to a bigger booth that could accommodate all seven of you, and as soon as you’d placed your orders, Yena practically pounced on you, demanding an explanation as to how the two of you were already made up.

You turned to look at Jake and smiled at him before answering. “It’s all thanks to Kiwi, really,” you told Yena.

“Kiwi? As in your dog Kiwi?” Chaewon asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Mh-hm.” In your peripheral, you noticed Jake tilting his head at you.

“You mean Layla, right?”

You imitated his head movement. “No, I mean Kiwi.”

“But Layla made me go to the park today. I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for her,” Jake insisted, giving you an are you being serious look that you mirrored.

“I wasn’t going to go outside at all but Kiwi kept bugging me to take him on a walk, that’s why I was in the park in the first place. It’s thanks to Kiwi,” you repeated.

“It’s thanks to Layla,” Jake retorted, playfully narrowing his eyes at you.

“Trouble in paradise,” Jaemin whispered, and Hyewon slapped his arm.

The whole table was silent as you and Jake stared each other down, waiting to see who would cave first. It was like everyone could breathe again when Jake’s face broke out into a grin and he rested his arm behind your shoulders. “Okay, it’s thanks to Kiwi,” he conceded, making you hum in satisfaction. You rested your head on his shoulder and ignored Yena’s groan of disgust at the PDA.

But Jake, as always, wasn’t letting you off the hook so easily. “And Layla.”

—

02.06.202X - 12:18

rodrigo hater y/n i can see you being gross from across the courtyard can u guys not feed each other ur still on school grounds and ur ruining my day have some decency

sweet hyewon you guys are super cute <3  jaemin and i only have the same lunch period once a week i miss him

rodrigo hater ugh wheres chaewon she’d have my back

you hyewon love u yena frigg off you’re not going to like this… i think she’s with sunghoon rodrigo hater WHAT

sweet hyewon omg hahahaha saw it coming cuuuuute

rodrigo hater i hate you all so much you’re all kicked out of my celibacy club

chae bae we weren’t part of it in the first place

rodrigo hater GO AWAY YOU TRAITOR

03.06.202X - 09:15

you jake wake up  wake up wake up please

jake ??? R U okay?

you kiwi keeps whining i think he wants to see layla come over?

jake . did u just wake me up before 10 am on a sunday morning for this

you i made pancakes?

jake i’m going back to sleep

you but i miss you :(

jake running

07.06.202X - 16:39

stink #1 hey

jake no

stink #1 wtf man

jake im busy

stink #1 smooching ur girl?

jake yeah stay mad bro

stink #1 where’s hoon

stink #2 he’s at ice skating practice with me <3 this is chaewon btw

jake AYO????

stink #1 HE GAVE YOU ACCESS TO HIS PHONE???

stink #2 hehehe bye losers

stink #1 oh my god jake this is huge

jake right… our little boy he’s grown so much

stink #1 i’m getting teary eyed anyway i wanted to say i think we should invite the girls to bro night more often it’s always fun with them

jake oh? if u wanna see yena just say so bro

stink #1 fuck u man

jake ur literally so obvious you get 100% more obnoxious when she’s around

stink #1 idc she laughs at my jokes

jake which is proof that there’s something wrong w her anyway i’ll ask my girl about it

stink #1 ew and thx ^^

09.06.202X - 17:03

jakey-poo y/nnnnnn y/n hellloooooo y/n y/n y/n baby :(((( where are u what r u doing i miss you hello y/n my baby darling angel pls answer me layla misses you

you jake sim

jakey-poo HIIIIII

you jay is a genius i’m anime pomodoroing the hell out of this essay it’s working so well i’m almost done with it already

jakey-poo don’t compliment another man ever again i’m going to cry

you but jay’s your friend

jakey-poo i’ll kill him if i have to

you gosh okay jay’s an idiot

jakey-poo hahaha he is ice cream after dinner ???

you duh

31.07.202X - 21:03

jakey-poo i’m waiting for you outside the theater baby we have a lot of talking to do. i can’t believe you kissed someone else in front of me

you jake baby it was just acting <3 you know you’re the only one i really kiss

jakey-poo i know i am so come here and kiss me quick you did so well and you were so pretty on stage and i love you so much  COME QUICK I WANNA KISS YOU

you i’m hurrying i promise but a lot of people are trying to talk to me :(

jakey-poo ofc they are you killed it my baby’s already famous <3

you hehe love you my jakey-poo

jakey-poo STOP IT WITH THAT

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. feedback and reblogs always appreciated!

[songmingisthighs]

how ateez treats your child

group : ateez

pairing : ateez (individual) × single mom!reader

genre : fluff

wc : 3 k

warning : children. children are walking warning signs.

a/n : this cancelled my sleep so there's that </3

buy me coffee ?

hongjoong

The door of your apartment opened and in comes your son squealing happily for you, almost running inside until Hongjoong stopped him to take his shoes off first. As Hongjoong helped him, he was grinning widely at you who walked over to meet them halfway, "Hi mommy!" He called, finally able to rush to give you a huge hug once his shoes were completely off. "Hiya, bud! How was your day with Hongjoong?" Though you asked him, Hongjoong beat him to answering, "We had a great time! Little buddy here mastered the C, D, G, and A chord on the piano!" He boasted as he wrapped his arms around your waist, pecking your lips gently making your son gag before rushing to put his backpack in his room.

You both separated momentarily and you cupped your boyfriend's face, "Seriously Joongie, thank you so much for picking him up from school, I swear I would've done-" Hongjoong stopped your rambling by planting another soft peck on your lips with a chuckle, "Hey, I told you we had a great time. I finally found someone who wouldn't complain sitting in my studio for hours on end and you can't take that away from me," teased, poking fun at the times you complained about him needing a break from his work.

Just as you were about to shower him with more affection, your son returned to push Hongjoong away with all his might. "My turn to hug mommy!" He said after he managed to unlatch Hongjoong from you. Feeling challenged, Hongjoong pulled him away just as he was about to wrap all four of his limbs around you, "No way, I spent the day with you now I want time with my girlfriend." Hongjoong knew how jealous your son can be because he too is a jealous man. So as expected, your son screeched and began to try to get Hongjoong as far away from you as he could. But of course, Hongjoong retaliated, using your son's socks clad feet to carefully push him just enough so he'd slide away from you while you stood there both confused and amused at their shenanigans.

seonghwa

On Saturdays, you'd usually spend the morning catching up with your friends and knowing this, Seonghwa made sure to sleep over on Fridays as often as he could to help care for your daughter (which is crap because he's always at your place anyways). Unbeknownst to you, he and your daughter had bonded beyond your imagination. Not that you were surprised since Seonghwa had spent years taking care of a group filled with 5 year olds, your own 5 year old must've been easy to take care of.

When you came back from your brunch, you were surprised to find Seonghwa and your daughter by the dining table, your daughter standing on a chair and Seonghwa close to her side, looking absolutely serious. They had their arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed, and lips pursed as they stared at the 10 plates of cake in front of them. It was honestly an adorable sight because for some reason, you saw how they looked so similar.

"Am I interrupting something?" You chuckled as you approached them. Seonghwa welcomed you by wrapping an arm around your hip and kissing the side of your head as youe daughter answered, "Hwahwa and I are food testing again! Today's theme is bakery we can't pronounce!" She grinned widely before returning to glare at the cakes. "Aaaaaand why are you guys only staring at these cakes?" You asked with a raised eyebrow. Seonghwa sighed and shook his head, "We can't decide where to start so we're trying to rank them from the prettiest first before actually sampling them," Seonghwa explained. "And it's such a hard decision!" Your daughter groaned and dramatically leaned on Seonghwa for support. Reciprocating, your boyfriend also faked a cry, turning around to let you go in favour of hugging your daughter, "We are stuck in a dilemma!" "Well, whatever you guys decide to do, better do it fast before the ants tries the cakes first," you sighed before retreating to change, leaving your boyfriend and your daughter to go back to... whatever activity they were doing.

yunho

Babysitting was something Yunho didn't expect to do for his girlfriend. Then again, he didn't expect that he'd be dating a single mom. Luckily, you had the most precious daughter that just melt Yunho's whole being and he loves her so much that he didn't consider babysitting as babysitting anymore.

As he was washing the dishes after eating the food he got for him and your daughter, he heard the soft pitter patter of her tiny feet and then he felt soft tugs on his sweatpants. Without abandoning his task, Yunho looked down at the girl with a gentle smile, "Yes, peanut?" She giggled happily, liking the nickname a lot. "Can you teach me how to dance?" She asked, tilting her head to the side like the most adorable puppy ever. Yunho grinned widely because he had always wanted to impart some of his knowledge to someone and the most imparting he had done was turning his little brother to a gaming nerd. After wiping his hands with a rag, Yunho crouched down to the girl's level (as best he could because even when crouching down, the tiny girl only reached his chin), "Okay then, what dance do you wanna learn?"

Your daughter decided that she wanted to learn Bouncy which wasn't even in the list of dances Yunho offered her as he thought it would be too hard for her. But she was adamant, shaking her head so hard that her pigtails almost came loose. But to Yunho's pleasant surprise, the girl was amazing. She picked up the choreography smoothly in 3 tries. Sure, Yunho had to simplify certain parts but she got most of the choreography down. He couldn't help but takw a video of them dancing together and sending it to his groupmates, parents, and even you, captioning it 'look at me and my peanut ♡'.

yeosang

It was a casual day which was rare for both you and Yeosang. Since your life has been so hectic, you decided to stay in with your son who decided he wanted to use the time he had to finish his homework. Yeosang and he had been friendly with each other but they were not close (yet) as they haven't spent much time together nor have they found anything in common. But you were hopeful.

You and Yeosang were cuddled on the couch as the TV played a drama that you and he wanted to watch while your son sat on the floor with his homework spread open on the portable desk. "I'll be right back sweetie," you told Yeosang, patting him on the thigh before walking away to go to the bathroom. At first, Yeosang only paid attention to the tv but from the corner of his eyes, he could see your son looking around for you every so often, lips pouting and hand scratching his head which indicated that he was stuck on his homework. For some reason, Yeosang found it in him to be the first one to make the move, "Hey there buddy, what homework do you got there?" He asked, catching your son by surprise. For a moment, your son could only look back and forth between the homework and Yeosang, hesitating. Yeosang was about to tell him that he didn't have to share when your son grabbed his book and walked over to Yeosang on his knees and dropped the book on Yeosang's lap, "It's math but I don't know how to do this," he said sadly, gesturing to the opened page. Yeosang grinned widely and his chest puffed with pride, "Well, lucky for you, I'm a math wiz! Come on, let's solve this together."

When you came back, you saw Yeosang had situated himself next to your son on his portable desk, teaching him how to solve the equations that he was stuck on and he was conversing with the boy so well. He allowed the boy to try and solve the equation and gently letting him know where he was wrong. They were so immersed that they hadn't realized you returning to your seat as they took a break to play the multiplication game, evem teasing each other when the other took too long to answer.

san

San loved kids and it showed with how he actually volunteered on babysitting your son as you go on a business trip. At first you were worried because your son had never been away from you to be in a place that's not your home. But San convinced you that it was fine, he was fine with spending time with his best bud and if it wasn't for the great bond they had, you wouldn't have been able to leave your baby to tend to your responsibilities.

"Say bye to mommy!" San urged your son who was sitting on his lap wearing his beanie. "Bye mommy! I miss you!" Your son said as he waved his hands to the camera while San did the same, throwing lots of air kisses your way before hanging up. As soon as the call ended, your son went back to watching San played a game. "Is that uncle Yunho?" He asked, reaching forward to point at a character on the screen. San grinned widely and pat the boy on the head gently, "That's right, bud! You're starting to understand the game, don't you?" They spent another hour like that, San playing the game with Yunho, Yeosang, and Jongho as your son ask him questions and eventually even tried a round (to which he died within 30 seconds and San had to hug and reassure him that he'd teach him how to play better and in time, he might be great).

Without realizing, as it was his habit, San started singing random songs that popped into his head. The crisp sound of keyboard and mouse clicking paired with San's honey voice proved to induce sleep in your son as his eyes drooped low and his eyelids fluttered ever so gently before closing. It took a while for San to realize that your son had been quiet, only leaning on his sturdy chest. When he looked down, San almost squaled at just how adorable your son looked sleeping so comfortably; one of his eyes covered by the beanie that had shifted, his mouth agape, and his body completely relaxed comfortably in San's lap. Carefully, San took a selfie of him and your son, changing the picture to his homescreen before shutting the game and bringing the boy who wrapped his arms tightly around San's neck when San lifted him up to the bed so he could sleep soundly. Even then, your son refused to let go of San, holding onto two of San's fingers as he dozed off to dreamland where San soon followed.

mingi

Kids were something Mingi wanted in the future. He knew he wanted to have his own but he knew that he's going to have to learn and practice before actually having one. Which was a predicament considering he's dating someone with a 3 year old daughter. But she's just the most precious thing ever that Mingi pushed his insecurities away to dote on the princess.

Like now, Mingi found himself unable to peel away from your bed where your daughter was napping. He was mesmerized at how adorable she looked with her tiny tiny snores and absolute relaxed expression. "Mingi, baby, you're going to wake her up if you keep staring at her like that," you said, poking your boyfriend on his shoulder for him to simply wave you off, "No I won't, I promise. I'm just trying to understand how she's so absolutely adorable like a tiny tiny marshmallow," he squeaked in utter adoration. You couldn't help but smile and rolled your eyes at how whipped Mingi was for your daughter but you couldn't blame him. "Well, I'm going to go the convenience store because the little princess is going to want her yogurt when she wakes up and we're out. So you try your best to not eat this tiny tiny marshmallow," you teased him before leaving the room and the apartment.

After a while, Mingi felt a little thirsty so he carefully got off the bed and went to the kitchen. He was just taking his first gulp when he heard soft whimpers and sobs coming from your room. Immediately, he put the glass down and rushed to the little girl who was sitting up on the bed, sniffling because she thought she was left alone. When she heard Mingi came in, she immediately reached both hands towards him, asking to be picked up. "Minnie," she whimpered with trembling bottom lip. Without thinking, Mingi scooped the girl up in his arms and started calming her down while she clung on him for dear life. "Don't worry princess, Minnie's here, Minnie's got you," he repeated, smiling to himself when he heard the girl calming down as she nuzzled her face on his shoulder, finally content.

wooyoung

Initially you hesitated dating Wooyoung because you have a daughter. A 4 year old daughter who is your whole life and the very reason you hesitated being in a relationship. But when you found Wooyoung who absolutely adored your daughter, you knew you made the right choice taking the leap.

Usually, the men you date would make you leave your daughter at your friend's or with a babysitter or even with your parents by guilt-tripping or bluntly stating that they didn't feel comfortable with your kid. Not Wooyoung though, not at all. He's the type to want to take your daughter on your dates, even going as far as planning the date around your daughter. You couldn't forget her face when Wooyoung took her to the fox cafe, seeing them both running around the place and somehow blending in with the animals. That day, Wooyoung came home with 137 nee pictures and videos of your daughter going nuts over the animals. Since then, they were insepparable.

"Hi, I'm here to pick up my daughter," you smiled at the receptionist of the daycare who stared at you in confusion. "I-I'm sorry, but someone already came in for your daughter," she said, causing your eyes to bulge out in panic, "What? Who? Why would you let a stranger take my child?" Your voice was getting louder which scared the poor receptionist. "I-I'm sorry ma'am it-it's just that, your daughter called him papa so I-" "Papa? Who-" just as you were about to continue, your eyes saw a very familiar figure holding your daughter in his arms, happily talking. Wooyoung's eyes met yours and he momentarily paused, realizing that he got caught "kidnapping" your daughter. Just as you were about to call for him, Wooyoung grinned widely and pointed at you which caused your daughter to turn in his arms and beamed. "Now, say bye bye to mama!" He teased but your daughter did as she was told anyways, waving at you happily saying bye bye before Wooyoung whisked her away without any care, casually walking out of the daycare as if you weren't frozen in your spot, looking at them leaving just like that.

jongho

Jongho knew what he got himself into when he agreed to date you, knowing full well that you have a son. He didn't really care about whether or not you have a child but he grew very fond of the boy rather quickly. How can he not? The boy seemed to take a liking to Jongho to the point that he idolized the man. Especially Jongho's strength.

The three of you went out for a picnic because it was such a beautiful day and your son remembered Jongho saying that he should be out when the sun is out. As he was helping you take food out, he noticed the boy was doing the same, even taking glances at how Jongho was doing things. It was absolutely adorable. Suddenly, Jongho stood up and reached for a bag to produce a soccer ball. "Hey, bud," he spun and tossed the ball in his hands and you could see your son getting so hyped up, super excited, "Wanna learn how to play soccer?" Jongho asked. Seeing as your son basically had sparkles in his eyes, you could only roll your eyes playfully and shoo them off to play so you could FINALLY set the food up in peace..

They chose a spot not too far, somewhere you can still keep an eye on your son but still relax in the shady area with your book. Jongho and your son were having a blast being active together. The boy was thrilled to have been given personal coaching from the guy he admired most and Jongho was experiencing the joy of mentoring a child who looked up to him as much. "There you go, buddy! That's it!" Jongho cheered when your son managed to kick the ball with a running start. Unfortunately, once the ball was kicked, he tripped and fell on the grass. Just as you were about to rush to him, you saw Jongho rushing at the boy who had tears brimming in his eyes and a quivering bottom lip, frozen on the ground not knowing what to do. Without hesitation, Jongho pulled the boy up and hugged him tightly in his strong arms, "I'm so proud of you, buddy! That was such a good kick!" Jongho was hoping that by reminding him of his achievement, your son wouldn't focus much on his fall which thankfully happened. When your son pulled away from Jongho's hug, he was giggling while wiping the tears away with his arm, nodding shyly. "Do you think you can do that again after we eat something?" Jongho asked as he adjusted the boy before swooping down to grab the ball on the ground and walking towards where you were. You've never seen your son so excited talking about anything to anyone and frankly, you couldn't be more glad that it was Jongho who made him so.

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[babymochibeargyu]

Beauty Gyu(ru)

genre:fluff

wc:3.33k(I know it's long but give it a chance T-T)

Ever since you were little, you would find yourself going through your mother's stash of whatever little makeup she had.

You didn't have to sneak around because she wasn't big into makeup; she only had the basics. And she was cool with you trying it out.

Your mother allowed you to explore whatever you wanted to do. 

She never held you back. 

So as you grew up and started earning money, and applying for part-time jobs, she was very supportive of it. When you got your first salary, the first thing you spent it on was makeup. 

Your best friend Gyu whom you’ve known from high school was no stranger to this. Every time he would meet up with you, you always had makeup on even though he had told you many times that you didn't need it, you looked beautiful with or without it.

But you always said that you wanted to take every opportunity you had to use your makeup since you were still studying and didn't get to do it often.

Your skills over the years got better as you always practiced whenever you could. But you were getting tired of doing makeup on yourself. You asked Gyu whether you could do makeup on him, and begged him even because you knew you would do a good job plus he was already good-looking, but he always refused, saying that it wasn't manly for a man to have makeup on. 

Now that you are in college, you've made more friends. And since he was so adamant about not having makeup on him, you decided to ask your other best friend, Yeonjun, to come over whenever he was free so that he could be your makeup dummy, which he was happy to help you with. 

You met Yeonjun in your first year of college and you guys just sort of clicked. Whatever you wanted to do, he was always on for a new challenge, one of which was being your makeup test subject. Being an only child, he often indulged your requests, treating you like his little sister, and finding it hard to refuse you.

He would even sometimes ask his friends to come with him so that you had more makeup dummies to work with. 

With now being term-break, you had ample time to practice. You'd already arranged for Yeonjun to visit, and you even suggested he bring his friends along for extra practice. 

However, you hadn't informed Gyu about it, deeming it inconsequential since he isn't fond of having makeup applied.

You heard your phone buzz with a notification and went to see who it was. It turned out to be Gyu asking, "What are you up to today?"

'Yeonjun and his friends today are coming over at 1 pm for me to practice putting makeup on.'

'It'll just be you guys in your house?' Gyu texted back. 

'Yeah, mum isn't home today, so I have the whole house to myself with the boys today.'

'Hmm, okay have fun!'

Despite Gyu's seemingly casual reply, he was far from fine. Quickly, he jumped into the shower before heading over to your house. He felt uneasy about leaving his pretty best friend alone with four men in her house without him there.

He had met Yeonjun's friends previously when they were over for their makeup sessions with you. He couldn't help but overhear their comments about your beauty when you weren't around. This made him increasingly wary of them, especially since they were all good-looking.

"ding-dong", you heard your doorbell ring. You saw the time but it wasn't even 1 yet. 

Were they that excited to have their makeup done by you?

To your surprise, when you opened the door, you were greeted with dark brown boba eyes staring right back at you. 

"Gyu? What brings you here?" you asked, surprised to see him so soon after your last meeting.

"I just missed my best friend," he said with a sheepish grin.

"But we saw each other yesterday," you replied, raising an eyebrow at his sudden appearance.

"Yeah, well, a day without seeing you feels like an eternity," he joked, trying to brush off his underlying unease about leaving you alone with Yeonjun and his friends.

"You do realize it's makeup day, right? So it might get a bit boring for you today since I won't have much time to spend with you," you mentioned, feeling a bit apologetic.

Gyu chuckled. "Nah, I'm not worried about that. I'm just here to chill. Maybe I'll catch up on some reading or something," he replied casually, shrugging off any concerns about being bored.

You couldn't help but chuckle at his reply, finding it amusing considering you've never witnessed Gyu with a book in hand throughout your entire friendship.

It seemed like he was more interested in simply being there with you than in finding any actual activity to occupy his time.

Trying to change the subject, Gyu suggested, "Should we grab some food? You haven't eaten yet, right?"

You were about to reply when you had a different idea. "Oh, I was thinking that we can order the food when the rest gets here."

As if they were listening to your conversation, the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of Yeonjun and his friends.

As you were about to head towards the door, Gyu beat you to it and swung it open. The boys had a surprised expression on their faces at first, but they quickly recovered and exchanged bro hugs with Gyu before entering.

You couldn't help but wonder, "When did they get so close?"

Yeonjun and his friends also exchanged hugs with you, reminiscing about the time you spent practicing makeup together, which had brought you all closer.

Gyu forced a smile through gritted teeth, feeling uneasy about other guys touching you. Yet, he reminded himself that you weren't in a relationship, so he had no grounds to feel upset. After all, you weren't his to claim.

"Okay, before we get started with the makeup session, let's fuel up! What's everyone craving for lunch?" you asked, scanning the group.

"Hmm, maybe ramen or pizza?" Yeonjun offered.

"Pizza sounds perfect," Gyu's voice rang out amidst the discussion.

"Great! Pizza it is then. Any objections?" you confirmed, looking around the room.

"Nope, pizza works for me," they all chimed in together, their collective approval sealing the lunch choice.

With the decision made, you quickly grabbed your phone and placed the pizza order, ensuring that everyone's preferences were taken into account.

"Let's get started, shall we? While I work on Taehyunnie's makeup first, you guys can entertain yourselves. Gyu, maybe you can play some video games with them? I've heard they're not bad," you suggested.

Gyu nodded and reached for your Switch, knowing its usual spot since he had been over many times before. With only one Switch available, Gyu generously let Yeonjun and Soobin have the first round while he and Huening watched them play.

But Gyu found it increasingly hard to focus on the game. His attention kept drifting back to you and Taehyun. He couldn't help but notice the tenderness in your actions—the gentle way you brushed Taehyun's hair away from his face, ensuring each touch was delicate as you applied the foundation.

Watching you work, Gyu couldn't ignore the meticulous care you took, avoiding applying too much pressure as you blended the foundation flawlessly into Taehyun's skin. 

It was clear that your attention to detail and nurturing touch went beyond mere professionalism, hinting at a deeper connection between you and Taehyun.

As he continued to observe, Gyu's internal turmoil intensified. He struggled to come to terms with his feelings of jealousy and insecurity, especially considering Taehyun's striking resemblance to your ideal type.

With his big eyes, small face, and chiseled jawline, not to mention his well-defined physique from working out, Taehyun seemed to embody everything you found attractive.

While you couldn't deny that Taehyun checked a lot of boxes on your ideal type list, you couldn't help but feel he was out of your league. With his striking looks, you imagined he probably had countless admirers fawning over him. Consequently, you resigned yourself to the idea that you didn't stand a chance.

"All done. What do you think Taehyunnie? Does it look good?" you asked, hoping for a positive response from Taehyunnie as you awaited his opinion on the finished makeup look.

"Wow, you are good at this. I look so different now, in a good way. You've got the skills to become a makeup artist at this point," Taehyun remarked, clearly impressed by the transformation you had achieved with your expertise.

"Ah, you flatter me too much, but thank you," you replied with a grateful smile. Turning to Taehyun, you added, "Could you help me call Huening? It's his turn now." with that he went to get Heuning. 

"Ah, I'm so excited, Noona! What makeup style are you going to do for me today?" Huening exclaimed eagerly, his eyes shining with anticipation.

"Maybe something that will make you look out of this world, like an angel," you suggested with a playful grin.

"Oh, because you think I'm an angel, Noona?" Huening flirted back, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

You couldn't help but laugh at his playful flirtation, finding it endearing yet slightly surprising. "Yah, what are you trying to do? I'm older than you, you know?" you teased, trying to maintain the dynamic of being the older sister figure while acknowledging his charm.

"Eh, Noona, haven't you heard? Age is just a number," Huening replied with a grin, his tone light and teasing. "If you like me and I like you, then there's no problem, right?"

You were taken aback by his boldness, unsure if he was serious or just playing along. "It's just a joke, Noona. Don't need to show it on your face that you don't like me that way," he quickly added, sensing your surprise.

You chuckled nervously, trying to brush off the unexpected turn in conversation. "Yeah, yeah, just kidding, right? Let's focus on your makeup now," you said, attempting to steer the conversation back to safer territory.

You did your best to push the conversation with Huening out of your mind, unaware that Gyu had overheard the entire exchange.

 As Gyu sat there, feeling increasingly unsettled, he was oblivious to the fact that the other boys were watching his reaction closely. Little did he know, they had already picked up on his feelings for you and had hatched a plan to stir things up even more.

Before Huening went over to you for the makeup session, they had encouraged him to flirt with you, knowing it would likely provoke a reaction from Gyu. It was their way of nudging Gyu to confront his feelings and take action, rather than letting them simmer beneath the surface.

Unaware of the boys' intentions, Gyu felt a surge of anxiety and uncertainty as he grappled with what to do next, his emotions swirling in turmoil. He knew he couldn't ignore his feelings for you any longer, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to confront them either.

As it became Soobin's turn for makeup, Gyu's concern heightened. He couldn't shake the feeling that whenever Soobin was around, your attention gravitated towards him, leaving Gyu feeling sidelined. 

Soobin's innocent appearance, coupled with his tall stature and undeniable good looks, only added to Gyu's uneasiness. 

Despite Soobin's friendly demeanor, Gyu couldn't help but wonder about his true intentions, given the close bond you shared.

Watching as Soobin settled in for his makeup session, Gyu felt a pang of jealousy stir within him. He knew he needed to address his feelings, but the prospect left him feeling both anxious and uncertain. 

As the session progressed, he found himself wrestling with his emotions, unsure of how to navigate the complex dynamics at play.

What pushed him over the edge was when the makeup session with Soobin concluded. Soobin, impressed with the results, requested a photo with you to showcase your makeup skills.

But what got to Gyu was when Soobin playfully asked you to poke his dimple in the photo, suggesting it as evidence of your close friendship in case you made it big.

Seeing this interaction unfold, he felt a surge of jealousy and insecurity wash over him. It was clear to him that Soobin felt comfortable enough to initiate such playful gestures with you,

As he watched from the sidelines, Gyu couldn't shake the feeling that he was being sidelined in your relationship with Soobin.

Before you started on Yeonjun's makeup, he spilled the beans about their plan to make Gyu jealous, you couldn't help but feel a mixture of shock and disbelief. Gyu liked you?

It seemed absurd and surreal to you, something straight out of a teen drama. But as Yeonjun pointed out the unusual behaviors of Heuning and Soobin, you couldn't ignore the nagging suspicion that there might be some truth to his words.

Deciding to follow Yeonjun's suggestion, you put on the happiest laugh you could muster, watching with anticipation as Gyu's reaction unfolded. Sure enough, the door suddenly flung open, revealing Gyu standing there, his expression unreadable.

"Yah, get out, Yeonjun. It's my turn," Gyu said curtly, dismissing Yeonjun with a stern tone.

Feeling a pang of guilt, you glanced at Yeonjun, who offered you a reassuring smile and a knowing look. It was as if he was saying, "It's okay, I told you this would happen."

"Heh, Gyu? Your turn? What are you talking about? I thought you never wanted me to do makeup on you because you said it wasn't manly," you asked Gyu in surprise.

"I changed my mind. After seeing how all the other guys turned out, I thought I should give in to your request," Gyu replied as he sat down in your makeup chair, catching you off guard.

Feeling a mix of shock and curiosity, you began the skin prep on Gyu's flawless complexion, sharing a brief moment of eye contact between you two. Before the silence could grow too awkward, Gyu spoke up.

"So, what was so funny that even with the door closed, I could hear your laugh?" he asked, his tone casual as you started applying foundation.

"Oh, it was just that Yeonjun said something really funny that I couldn't help but laugh," you replied, trying to keep things light.

Gyu's curiosity seemed piqued as he probed further, "Oh... what did he say?"

Caught off guard and unable to come up with a plausible excuse, you hesitated before deciding to tell him the truth—that the boys had suggested he liked you.

Gyu stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening, and you feared you might have said something wrong. "You okay, Gyu?" you asked, now working on his eyeshadow.

Gyu's cheeks began to flush, turning a shade of red that resembled blush. Concerned, you reached out to feel his forehead for signs of fever, but he surprised you by grabbing your hand, causing you to look up at him in surprise.

"They are right..." Gyu's voice was barely above a whisper, his arm covering his mouth as he averted his gaze.

Gyu's admission caught you completely off guard. His words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implications. You felt your heart skip a beat as you tried to process what he had just confessed.

"Honestly, I couldn't stand it when I saw them hug you when they first came here. And the way you were touching their faces when you had to apply makeup... I wanted to be the only person your pretty hands touched, no one else," Gyu confessed, his voice filled with raw honesty.

You were at a loss for words, overwhelmed by the depth of Gyu's emotions. His confession laid bare his feelings for you, and you couldn't ignore the flutter of warmth it ignited in your chest.

As you looked into Gyu's eyes, you saw a mixture of apprehension and hope, silently pleading for understanding and acceptance. And in that moment, you knew that things between you and Gyu would never be the same again.

"How long have you liked me?" you asked Gyu, your voice barely above a whisper as you continued to apply lipstick to his lips.

"From before you asked me whether you could put makeup on me. That's why ever since the first time you asked me whether you could put makeup on me," Gyu confessed, his gaze softening as he looked at you.

You paused, taken aback by his admission. "I denied it, saying that stupid excuse that it isn't manly for men to put on makeup, but I could care less about that," Gyu continued, his tone laced with regret. "I was just afraid that I wouldn't be able to help myself if we were in such close contact, therefore always turning you down when you asked."

As his words sank in, you felt a mix of emotions wash over you—surprise, confusion, and a glimmer of hope. "And yeah, I came over today because I didn't want you to be alone with all the good-looking guys in your house," Gyu admitted, his voice tinged with vulnerability.

His honesty left you speechless, your heart pounding in your chest as you grappled with the realization that Gyu had harbored feelings for you all this time. And as you looked into his eyes, you couldn't deny the spark of something more between you, waiting to be explored.

As you reflected on your feelings for Gyu, a sense of warmth flooded your heart. It was endearing to see how he had been jealous of you, even though you weren't officially together. The truth was, you had never pursued a relationship with anyone else because deep down, you had always hoped that something would blossom between you and Gyu. His presence filled your thoughts, and you couldn't imagine being with anyone else.

Thinking back on the countless moments you had shared with Gyu—playing video games, laughing together, and simply enjoying each other's company—you realized just how much he meant to you. His loudness had become a comforting familiarity, and his absence would leave a void you couldn't bear to fill with anyone else.

With a rush of emotion, you leaned in to kiss Gyu, savoring the strawberry scent of his stained lips. But instead of pulling away, Gyu surprised you by pulling you onto his lap and deepening the kiss.

It was as if he had been waiting for this moment for so long, finally embracing you in his arms, fulfilling a longing he had carried for what felt like an eternity.

And in that moment, as you melted into his embrace, you knew that this was where you were meant to be—wrapped in Gyu's arms, lost in a love that had been waiting to bloom.

As you both pulled away to catch your breath, you couldn't help but notice the smeared lipstick on the side of Gyu's lips.

"I'm never putting this strawberry-scented lipstick on you again. Now I won't be able to eat strawberries without thinking of this moment," you joked, playfully nudging Gyu.

"Aw, just say whenever you want a kiss. My lips are for you anyway," Gyu quipped, puckering his lips in a silly gesture.

You couldn't help but laugh at his playful antics before reaching for a tissue to clean up the smeared lipstick. However, Gyu shook his head, determination evident in his voice.

"I want them to see that I'm yours now," he replied, his words filling you with warmth.

You both stepped out of the room hand in hand, greeted by the cheers of your friends. Yeonjun's triumphant declaration only added to the excitement of the moment.

"Ok, Gyu, can we clean the smeared lipstick now?" you asked with a chuckle, already reaching for a tissue.

"Yes, baby," Gyu replied affectionately, leaning in as you wiped away the lipstick, a smile playing on his lips.

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what did you guys think of this one, please reblog/like and leave some comments below if you enjoyed it hehe. as you can tell by now I really love jealous gyu, cause I can imagine he'd be so clingy gahh. see you guys in the next one my lovelies 🥹🫶🏻🤍

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[chrrywavs]

Cherry Lips 🍒

*ੈ✩‧₊˚𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: You meet with Eddie in the woods, needing to stock up on some much needed ‘materials’ only to find out your a couple dollars short. Eddie being the oh so a generous man that he is makes a suggestion to help his dear friend (and himself) out of this predicament.

ੈ✩‧₊˚𝔚𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: gagging, choking, 18+, aggressive smut, cum play, spit play, tiny perv! Eddie, teasing, degrading, praising, pet names, hair pulling, absolute filth.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝔓𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤: Eddie Munson x fem reader

Pt2 here

╔══ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ══╗

Your tongue stroked a long lick, pressing flat against the throbbing vein running along the underside of his cock.

Eddie pulled you away “Such a little tease aren’t you (y/n)” He said through gritted teeth. He cupped your chin and caressed your bottom lip with the base of his thumb. “play nice” he warned.

You nodded, biting your lip to hide the small smirk that threatened to form. You were feeling a bit rebellious today, ditching school, buying pot from your hot dealer then sucking his dick behind the school in an old van. You weren’t in the mood to play nice. You gave the tip a small daring lick, never breaking eye contact with Eddie before placing a small gentle kiss on the swollen end, squeezing your fist ever so slightly.

“For fucks sake” he cursed. Eddie knotted his fingers into your hair, gripping your locs tightly before snapping his hips forward, forcing himself deep into your mouth.

You gagged at the feeling of his dick abusing your throat.

“This is what you wanted huh? For me to Fuck you like the whore you are?” he grunted.

You tried to distract yourself from the stinging at your eyes and tried to recount what exactly happened that brought you to this exact moment.

༺✯༻

The bell rang bringing you back to reality you looked at the clock 11:55 am. You sighed gathering your books into your arms. Finally lunch time or in your case quitting time. You had one more thing to do before finally being able to go home and sleep while the rest of the kids in Hawkins spent the next miserable four hours wishing to be home.

You pushed past the crowd of students keeping your eyes locked on the bright glass doors at the end of the hall. The taste of freedom getting stronger with every step. Just a few more feet and—

“(Y/l/n) where do you think your headed?” A stern voice called out behind you. “I sure hope You’re not planning on leaving, we have that test today.”

You turned around to see Ms. O’Donnell standing at her doorway with her hand at her hip. You smiled walking towards her “of course not Ms. D I wouldn’t dream of missing it.” You clutched the books tighter against your chest. “just needed to get something from my truck is all, nothing to worry about.” you said with a small shrug.

She stared through the top of her thin rectangular glasses and pressed her lips together humming with skepticism. “Alright…so I should expect to see you later.” she said more as a demand rather then a question.

“Definitely,” you nodded with a small smirk “see you then.” You waved at her turning around and letting out a heavy sigh before continuing your walk.

༺✯༻

You sat at the wooden bench waiting for Eddie to arrive. You picked at a loose thread at your sleeve as you thought about him. You’d seen him today in the halls but you hadn’t seen him for gym.

‘had he ditched?’ You thought to yourself. You began to wonder if he had forgotten about you. ‘I should’ve reminded him when I saw him.’ you thought groaning and throwing your hands over your face.

You couldn’t ever count on him to be on time let alone show up he wasn’t dependent enough. Normally you wouldn’t mind you can always catch him after school but you needed him now, you wouldn’t have time later. you sat in silence for a few more minutes listening to the birds chirping between the trees. Your thin red sweater doing nothing to protect you from the cool breeze that bit at your skin.

Just when you had about enough, finally his playful voice met your ears “(y/n) my favorite customer!” He shouted.

You turned around to look at the tall man jogging towards you, his long wavy hair bouncing along behind him. He was met with a scowl. “took you long enough.” you spat “the hell were you doing?” You rolled your eyes turning back around.

“I had to piss” Eddie shrugged setting his black metallic lunch box down.

You crossed your arms “For fifteen minutes?”

Eddie sat down letting out a heavy sigh. He couldn’t ever really tell a lie to you, you somehow always knew how to bring out the truth from him. Maybe it was the spine chilling stare you’d give him, or the fact that you were eerily smart, either way you creeped him out enough. “Okay you got me…I was half way home already before I remembered about you.” He admitted. “But I’m here now sooo….” He smiled turning his attention to his lunchbox.

“Yeah well you owe me a ‘having to wait for my loser dealer discount.”

“Hey,” Eddie pointed toward you “don’t be greedy.” He scolded. Eddie pulled out the clear bag with the dried substance inside. “So you asked for two and a half ounces…which means you owe me seventy five bucks” he said as he waved the bag around.

You pulled out your black coin purse taking out the roll of cash you had shoved in there earlier this morning and handed it over to Eddie.

“This is all of it?” You asked tossing the bag up and down from your palm testing the weight.

“Yep, all seventy grams. You can weigh it if you want.” He said counting the money.

“S’fine I trust you.” You waved him off.

“Yeah uh…” Eddie paused for a moment looking back up towards you. “This isn’t the full amount.”

“The what?” You questioned.

“This is only sixty, your missing fifteen dollars”

“Nuh-uh, I had eighty in there” you pointed towards the cash. “I was gonna give you a bit more for driving me home last week.” You explained pulling the cash from Eddies hand and counting it yourself.

Sure enough you were fifteen dollars short. you stopped to think. “Crap” you groaned. “I babysat a kid yesterday, she must’ve seen the money and taken some.”

“I can’t give you all of this.” Eddie pulled the bag back “I’m gonna have to take some out.”

“Oh c’mon eddie please? Can you give me like a discount? Just for this one time.” You pleaded.

“I am giving you a discount, I’m giving you the ‘friend discount’ this would’ve been way more!” Eddie argued.

You huffed “please, I need all of it.”

Eddie paused for a moment watching as you dropped your head in defeat. If it were up to him he would’ve given it all to you. you were a loyal customer and one of his closest friends he knew you’d find a way to pay him back, but he needed to give Rick the full percentage. “What do you need all this weed for anyway?” He mumbled toying with the bag.

“My friend got invited to a party downtown, she said if I could buy some from you cause she thinks you like me better then her.”

“She’s not wrong…” Eddie sighed scratching the small stumble at his chin. He stayed quiet for a few moments watching as you bit your lips lost in thought. Your cheeks were a bright pink from the cool air and your hair flew to your side exposing your slim neck. suddenly the cool air wasn’t bothering him as much as the warm feeling in his pants was.

He looked down at the growing bulge scrunching his brows together annoyed at the horrible timing. He looked back up towards you just in time to catch you adjusting your bra strap exposing the black material. He gulped.

He had to admit you were always quite attractive to him, however he never really gave you a second thought. Sure maybe he would take quick meaningless glances down your shirt when you weren’t looking or he would sometimes walk behind you when you wore a tight dress or a short skirt just to get a good view of your behind but they were all harmless acts. To him you two were better off as friends and maybe that was the best decision for the both of you. You couldn’t handle a loose cannon like Eddie. You liked stability and peace. Meanwhile Eddie was the opposite he needed chaos he loved being at the edge of his seat. But that doesn’t mean the two of you couldn’t explore a different level of friendship.

༺✯༻

Maybe it was the way you begged and whined or the way Eddies shirt hugged his torso nicely defining his abs, maybe it was the way the red sweater cut deep down your chest exposing some cleavage or maybe, it was the fact that neither of you hadn’t gotten any action in months. either way, it led the two of you down a path you can never turn back from. A dark sinful dirty path. maybe he should’ve kept driving home and never turned the car around to come back for you.

Eddie gripped your throat tightly holding your head in place as he thrusted into your gaping mouth. Your fingers found there way into your panties spreading your soaked lips apart to relieve the stinging feeling at your cunt. You moaned at your touch sending vibrations throughout eddies cock.

“Fuck (y/n)” He groaned watching you rut your hip’s against your own fingers “Such a slut.” he chuckled out shaking his head in disbelief. “touching yourself to me fucking your pretty little face. You like the taste of my cock, don’t you?” He cooed.

You struggled to nod your head against his hold. Your fingers rubbing small frantic circles on your swollen clit. You’ve always had a thing for Eddie ever since last year when you watched him pop the tires of your ex’s car for cheating on you. That woke up something deep inside you that you’ve been trying to suppress. but now it’s fully unleashed, and you don’t give a damn, at least not now of course.

Eddie pulled himself out, a string of saliva connecting his dick to your mouth. You gasped for air as he slapped the head of his cock against your cheek “M’gonna need to hear you say it sweetheart, be a good girl and tell me how much you like it.” He growled before leaning down to your level and spitting into your mouth. He smeared the mixture of his and your own spit over your face. “Tell me how much you like it.” He repeated pulling you up from your knees.

“L-love it so much baby,” you cooed palming his dick “think I might be addicted.”

Eddies hand trailed up your side stopping at the strap of your bra. He hooked his fingers into the Lacey material and yanked down the strap, your breast slipping out in the process “nice tit” he smirked before taking the skin into his mouth and sucking at your already hard nipple. You bit your lip suppressing the moan fighting to escape. Eddies tongue flicked against the small nub, causing you to involuntarily arch your back towards him.

You tangled your fingers into his hair pulling him closer to you, wrapping a leg around his waist and rubbing yourself up against him desperate for friction of any kind.

Eddie moaned at the warmth radiating from between your legs bitting down on your nipple. “Eddie!” you gasped. He chuckled rolling his hips into yours. His unclothed dick rubbing against your clothed cunt, the thin material being soiled by your dripping pussy.

“So wet your dripping from your little panties baby” he cooed “I wonder who made you so wet?”

“All you Ed’s—ah fuck!—you make me so wet.” you whimpered into his ear before pulling him in for a deep slobbery kiss. Your hand wrapping around his warm cock and squeezing the angry tip.

“Fuck sweetheart,” he huffed into your mouth. “gonna make me cum and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

“Don’t care Ed’s” you whined twisting your fist around his dick. “Make me feel so good already.” You began jerking him off watching through half lidded eyes as his face contoured into one of pleasure.

“T-tell me what you want (y/n), I’ll do it” he panted while rutting his hips against your closed fist.

“I wanna swallow all your cum.,” you whispered “I want you to make me all filthy, please-” before you could finish Eddie slammed his lips into yours once more. His tongue taking full dominance, spit dribbling down both your chins.

You ran your thumb across his tip using the precum as lube. You whined as he bit your bottom lip, the taste of metal flooding your kiss. Nothing but the whimpers coming from both you and Eddie along with the lewd wet sounds of his cock soaking your fist echoed through his van. It was absolutely filthy but you both relished at the sound.

Eddie drew back tugging your swollen lip between his teeth. “Don’t worry (y/n) when I’m done with you no man will ever be able to step close to you, you’ll smell of nothing else but me.” He promised whispering into your ear, you replied with a whimper to cock drunk to say a single word.

before you even realize he’s pushing you back down to your knees. he smirked down at you before thrusting himself back into your mouth, bottoming back out and lunging his hips forward once more, You gagged each time his tip kissed your throat.

At this point Your head sat enclosed between the wall behind you and Eddies hips. The dark bush of his pelvic area tickling your nose each time he thrusted into you. “Fuck I’m gonna cum (y/n)” He grunted pushing his cock deep into your mouth, your throat pulsating around it.

You shook your head trying to take Eddie deeper then he already was. “Look at you taking my cock so well—fuck—such a good girl, my good fucking girl” you moaned at the name the vibrations being to much for Eddie to handle. He pulled himself out jerking himself off at the sight of your swollen cherry lips and flushed face. Your red strained eyes from lack of oxygen could have easily hypnotized anyone.

You leaned over taking one of his balls into your mouth releasing it with a pop “mmm fuck Eddie t’so good” you moaned, batting your lashes up at him and taking the other one whole into your mouth. You hollowed your cheeks, swirling your tongue around the wrinkled skin savoring the salty taste.

“F-fuck! I’m so close—so fucking close!” he said through gritted teeth. You reached your hand to his balls squeezing them “give it to me Eddie please” you whimpered, eyes half lidded as you watched Eddie fuck into his own fist so desperate to reach his end.

Your soft plead was enough to make any man fall to they’re knees. Eddies motions became messy no longer being able to keep the same consistent pace. “Ah Shit!” He hissed slapping his angry red tip against your tongue. You pulled off your bra fully exposing yourself. The cool air biting at your nipples.

“Open your mouth” he panted “m’gonna— fuck!” Eddie cursed coiling forward as His warm sticky liquid squirted sporadically out onto your tongue, your face and some even falling to your heaving chest.

Eddie slowly opened his eyes witnessing the complete mess he made over his friend. “Oh sweetheart” He collected his release from your cheek with his finger “look at the mess we made” he cooed shoving it into your mouth.

You whimpered sucking the white bitter substance clean off his salty skin. “So good (y/n)” Eddie smiled down at you, sending your stomach in flips.

he gripped his sensitive cock spreading his cum everywhere he could even sometimes dipping back into your parted lips for warmth a line of spit always following behind.

“I’m all dirty Eddie” you whined playfully, taking the mixture of spit and cum from your dripping chin and smearing it on your nipple, tugging at the small nub. “Is it my turn to make you all filthy?“ you asked teasingly and cocking your head to it’s side.

Eddies chuckled “Oh fuck yes.” He laid flat on his back pointing towards his face “sit down” He demanded his dick already half hard ready for more.

╚══ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ══╝

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

[lemonyko0]

Test Dummy - jjk

college gives you the perfect fresh start, far, far away from your brother and any of his cock-blocking friends. or so, you thought.

» genre: fluff! best friends brother 👀 college au, little steamy and mentions of s3x.

» word count: 4.1k

Test Dummy - jjk

We’ve all heard about “forbidden love”. We’ve seen all the movies, read all the books, watched all of the predictable tv shows. I mean, what did you think was going to happen, they weren’t going to get together?

And yet, we continue to eat it up, every time, without fail.

“What is your beef with romance? Would you rather it be easy and straight to the point or do you think writers should end every romance in tragedy?” Mina scoffs and laughs at the foot of the bed as she proof-reads my essay. “I just don’t understand your point, y/n.”

I snatch the laptop away from her, “If you’re going to start making comments before you even finish reading it, I’m not going to let you read it at all!”

She laughs and rolls onto her back on my bed, “Fine, whatever, you probably don’t need anyone else to read it anyway, I’m sure it’s great.”

I nod, “You’re right, I don’t, you asked, remember?”

She grins, “Did I?”

I roll my eyes, “Shoo, leave my house.” Her boyfriend had texted her fifteen minutes ago saying he was on his way from her parents house, “why didn’t you invite your new boyfriend again?” I ask, referring to the cellphone in her hand as she slings her coat on and grabs her purse.

Her brows raise and she thinks about her words before speaking, something I most definitely never do, and she reminds me all the time. “Honestly? I knew your brother and his heathens would be back too, and the last thing I want him around is more testosterone.”

She laughs, having previously mentioned this one is the jealous type (which is apparently, something she’s into) and she was correct in assuming my house would look the same it did in high school, Seokjin and his friends all running around the house, being loud, eating all the food, and bothering any other life-forms in the house.

“Yeah you’re right, this place is still a sausage fest. However, I think today only four of seven losers are here. Not sure though, they’ve been quiet the last hour.”

She nods, “Must be eating.”

I shake my head as well, “Food! Oh god I’m totally gonna go crash their party, I’ll walk you out.”

I bid Mina goodbye and sigh in relief as I close the door. Not that I didn’t enjoy Mina’s presence, we’ve been friends for years and despite going to different schools after graduating, we’ve still kept in touch, but entertaining people for that long, is always taxing on my social battery.

Just as Mina and I make a habit out of reuniting during school breaks and holidays, as does Seokjin and his annoying group of friends.

I stroll around the downstairs area of my family home, parents gone somewhere I’m sure they mentioned but I’m sure I ignored, and no boys to be found. “Must be in his room or something.” I mumble to myself, opening the fridge and bending down to grab a soda.

“Actually we’re in the basement dusting off the pool table, hand me one?” I practically jump out of my skin at the sound of another voice in the room, let alone directly behind me. He grins widely, “Hi, pretty.”

I smack his shoulder and shove a drink in his hand before walking past him, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, and furthermore,” I lower my voice and turn to face him, now separated by the kitchen bar, “why the hell are you talking to me like that here? That is beyond off-limits!”

He’s still sporting a shit-eating grin, “You were actually being serious about not telling your family?” I widen my eyes and gesture around us, he scoffs, “Y/N, seriously?”

I sigh, “Jungkook, this is just,” I pause, “too weird to deal with right now.”

He circles the table coolly, still leaving a respectable distance between us, “I vividly remember you saying something different a few months ago, probably when we were in my bed, but oh! Maybe it was yours?” He laughs, as if what he was saying was actually funny, “Sorry, after so many times I just get confused.”

I scan the room again, my face dark red and my hair falling from behind my ears as I aggressively point my finger, “We already talked about this and you promised me Jungkook! Now drop it.”

He takes steps closer until his chest is brushing against my finger and I drop my hand in defiance, “I didn’t agree to be your sneaky-link, I want to be your boyfriend.”

“No.” I state simply, turning to leave the room.

Jungkook quickly grabs onto my arm, “Come on Y/N, just rip the bandaid off, and tell them you’re seeing someone! Better yet, he’s right god damn here to support you! Aren’t you exhausted from this constant tug and pull thing you’ve got going on?”

I pull away from him and very theatrically tell him, “NO.” He sighs dramatically and I scoff, “What on earth do I have to tell anyone? Not only are we not together, but you are also Seokjin’s best friend.”

He throws his head back in annoyance, “I don’t understand-”

“And I will be more than glad to talk you through it, after break.” I stop him right there, tired from repeating the same argument over, and over again.

Before leaving for university, the thought of ever being with one of my brothers delinquent friends sounded appalling. I had to listen to their male nonsense my entire life, being dragged around and made fun of and simultaneously, extremely cock-blocked. Not a single date-night, crush, date to dances, anything. If I wanted one, he’d be scrutinized and scared off. It was impossible, and incredibly annoying.

So imagine my delight, leaving for school knowing I had successfully avoided both my brother, and every single one of his associates.

That is until Jungkook transfers his second year, and didn’t tell anyone where-to until it was too late.

Which I figured, whatever. The likely chance we’ll ever cross paths is slim to none, no problem!

Except he latched onto me like an actual parasite. It had taken him long enough to find the overlap in our schedules, my study time coincided with his! Oh and his gym-time too! And he liked getting coffee around the same time as me as well! Oh and he doesn’t like the treadmills at the gym anymore, and would much rather run at the same time as me, on the same path, and at the same pace.

I questioned his motives from the start, and eventually gave up on pushing him away. I could have worse company, I suppose. And compared to the rest of his and Seokjin’s friend’s, I did know him the best, and disliked him the least.

We actually grew close in a short amount of time and I found myself enjoying his company, although I still struggle to admit it. I tried so hard to clear my life of my brother's shadow looming over me but Jungkook never mentioned it. He actually seemed to pick up on my avoidance, and what I was trying to do by going to a big school and one I knew no one else was attending. He was perfect in the sense that I never had to tell Jungkook what I was thinking, he just, knew. He also knew what to do, and just what I needed.

As one should have expected, you can’t just fling yourself into the dating world head-first and expect everything to work out how you imagined it would. I had no experience! No precursor, no context clues, no cues, and absolutely zero clue that the rules and expectations of college-dating was completely different to those you read about.

I was on the third failed date when Jungkook decided it was time to ask, even though I knew he was hesitant.

It was autumn, the leaves turning cool to warm-tones and trees shedding, I remembered the extra crunch during my morning run with Jungkook. He sat against my bed with a textbook in front of him and a notebook in his lap when he looks up at me on my bed, “How did your date go?”

I hum, looking at him questioningly, knowing damn-well I had never mentioned my dating life to Jungkook. “You know, you won’t shrivel up and die if you ask people for help.”

I begrudgingly chuckle at his comment, “I don’t need to ask for help. Men are just stupid and horny.”

He nods, “I don’t deny that, but, perhaps you’re fishing in the wrong pool.”

I sigh, “I’ve fished from different pools! I did the ‘helpful guy in my maths class’ and the ‘cute guy always in the library’ and even dating apps! And one would think if you just wanted to have sex, you would NOT put ‘looking for a relationship’ in your bio, but I suppose some people just aren’t that logically-inclined?”

He grins and leans his head back against my bed, “actual dating isn’t what half of the guys your age are looking for right now. Sorry to say it, but unless flings are what you’re looking for, first-year guys aren’t going to offer more.” He speaks easily, almost tentatively, as if he was breaking hard news to me. “At least, not this early in the year. But I get your enthusiasm, it’s not like you got out much in school.”

I raise my eyebrows to that, “That’s for damn sure.” We both chuckle, and I sigh annoyed, “It’s just upsetting, like everyone is at a completely different place in their lives than me, I mean, fuck I’ve never so much as made out with someone!” I laugh and he hesitantly laughs after me, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t register at the time, but I continued, because he was listening, and for once I felt comfortable enough to tell someone other than Mina, and I needed that. She wasn’t here anymore, and doing things on my own wasn’t working. “I just, feel so detached and angry.”

He nods, leaving a few moments of silence to ensure I was done before speaking, “I mean, if it bothers you that much and you think it’d help, I will certainly volunteer to be your test dummy.”

I smile before his words really sink in and I look down to him with brows furrowed, he’s grinning with a pained expression, “what do you mean by that Jungkook?”

His eyes widen and he raises his hands in surrender, “I-I strictly mean it in a if-it-would-help sense, just, trying to offer solutions! Sorry, that was weird and wrong.”

He slouches back down and buries himself in his work, and it’s not spoken of again.

Two weeks later, and my morning runs with Jungkook have become a given, and as the leaves turn redder and begin to brown and fall off, I find his presence more and more comforting. I’m not sure exactly when the lines blurred. I wish I could say I was on something. I wasn’t sober, I was lonely, I was just being stupid. But none of it was true. Well, that last bit is partly true, I was stupid, for not seeing what was going on until it was right in front of me.

“Why not you?” I speak aloud, almost as if my thoughts had slipped past the gates in my brain and right out of my mouth.

It catches Jungkook off-guard, my out of context bambling. He was just stretching against a nearby tree after our run, and asked me what coffee shop I was in the mood for. “Why not me, what?”

I stare at him, mouth agape, and I’m sure it takes me much longer than it should have to conjure up a response. I ran through my options, lie, surely. It’s not supposed to go like this.

Or, just tell him. Jungkook had been a more than good friend to me up until then, why not? “Why not you?” I repeat. He doesn’t speak, leaving me to fill in more of the blanks. I catch my breath finally, “You, Jungkook.” I say, he nods, slowly, almost like he was worried or scared. “Why not go on a date, with you?”

He stares at me. Emotionless. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t so much as move the stray hair falling into his eyes from underneath his hoodie. I laugh, “Nevermind, that was stupid of me.”

He stills, before shaking out of it then shaking his head profusely, “No no no no, not stupid.” I raise my brows and he looks me in the eyes, “I mean, are you being serious?”

I nod slowly, “Well, yeah, it makes perfect sense, and you even brought it up, a while ago.”

He hums, “Yeah, I’m sure I did, but, when?”

He asks for a reminder, “When you told me you volunteered to be my ‘test dummy’ for relationships. So why not, show me what it’s like.”

Something told me his reaction was disingenuous, “Oh, yeah, sure.”

He smiled anyway, picking up his bag and water, “Well, in that case, let our first date be a coffee date, on me.” He animatedly looped his arm around mine and walked away from our running trail and towards the nearby shop.

Jungkook was, as expected, a perfect gentleman. And I thought, that was what he was supposed to be. We were doing this whole thing so I could get some experience under my belt with less hassle and pressure, it was perfect.

There was always something, though. A little voice screaming at me that something is wrong and needed to be addressed. But neither of us did. Not when he walked me to my ‘doorstep’ (the front of my building) on our third date and told me, “this is when any good man would likely try to kiss you.” He looked at me, I looked at him and nodded, “the third date?” He nodded, “Yep, of course, only if you’re showing signs you’re interested, and even better if he explicitly asks.”

I nod and smile up at him, both of our hands shoved into our pockets, the wind making the nighttime much chillier. He bites at his bottom lip and shifts his weight from his toes, to his heels, and back and forth, until I say, “so, are you going to ask?”

This stops him, “ask… what?”

I laugh, thinking how stupid of a question, “To kiss me?”

His eyes widen, and then he leans back, shaking his head with a grin, “No no, this isn’t-”

“What, did I do something wrong?”

He quickly shakes his head, “No, nothing, you’re perfect.”

I ignore the way my cheeks flush despite the cold, “Okay then.” I lead on, he looks at his feet. He never tried to leave, he never told me goodnight, offered to kiss me on the cheek, he just did, nothing.

And I simply wasn’t having that.

I leaned up on my toes and pulled my warm hands from my pockets and placed them tentatively on his face, and I kissed him.

It was quick, I had kissed someone before, albeit years ago, and I was not confident at all in my skills. But I was confident in myself. I knew he wanted to kiss me but didn’t think it was right.

I bid him goodbye that night, and life went on just as it always did. From that line crossed, every line there on after became more and more blurred. When exactly “trial dating” became real dating, I’m unsure.

It gave me a perfect excuse as to why I was spending so much time with Jungkook, and why I was enjoying it, until I tried wine for the first time. We both had a decent amount, and I had sex for the first time.

That, still, is one of my largest regrets. I mostly wish we could go back, and do it differently. Or had at least weighed the outcomes of putting me, the guy I liked, and a bottle of wine and zero reference of a tolerance in a romantically-set up room.

From then on, Jungkook and I have argued over what we are, what to do, what we were doing, at all. I had made a bubble. A perfectly constructed, safe space. No one holding me back, judging me, or shadows looming. I was comfortable in my bubble.

That was until break came, and my bubble literally, popped.

I told Jungkook, (I’ll admit, rather coldly) that from the moment we were back in our hometown, none of this had ever happened. “If they ask, we kept up with each other on campus as friends, but that was it.”

He did not take well to this, but what was I supposed to do? Re-introduce one of my brother's closest friends as “my friend I go on dates with and kiss and sleep with every so often but he’s not really my boyfriend I don’t know we haven’t figured it out yet.” ???? Absolutely not. It is too complicated, too fast, too much for my brain to deal with all at once. It is bad enough returning home, and even worse knowing my problems were following me and harassing me in my own kitchen.

Jungkook sighs, having relented, “I don’t know what else to do, y/n.”

I pause for a moment, then shrug, “I’ve told you, i-it’s a hard situation. And any normal guy in your position would most definitely not be invited to my home during holiday, let alone bonding with my entire family and even join us for freaking christmas dinner if he wanted.”

His eyes look past me before nodding solemnly, “I get that, really, I-I’ve kept my distance! I’ve done what you asked, but you’re not even meeting me halfway.”

I put my hands out in front of him, “There is no half-way Jungkook.” I look to the basement door when I hear a voice and the steps creaking, “As of right now, there is nothing to talk about.”

He opens his mouth to complain and I loudly hush him, “Ah! Stop talking.”

He tries speaking again, no doubt further complaints about how unfair I’m being, and thankfully he notices Seokjin seconds before he slings his arm around him with a grin, “Wondered what was taking you so long to grab my coke.”

He laughs it off and Seokjin crosses the kitchen to grab a drink from the fridge, and I turn to leave before he calls out to me, “Yeah?”

“There’s still pizza down there, and we found the missing 4 striped ball.” He points at the basement door with the drink in his hand and chuckles, “Which if I remember correctly, you lost when you practically threw it at me.”

I roll my eyes, “I did not throw it at you, you hid it from me so I couldn’t win, I was beating you so bad you had to cheat.”

He chortles, “Yeah, that may be, but I’m nowhere near the best player anymore, you could easily win even if I cheated.”

I nod, “Yeah I’m sure-”

“Actually, Jungkook beat me twice and Taehyung forfeited, that's why we sent him up here, so we could have our own losers match.” He makes himself laugh even harder, walking back over to Jungkook, “We’re gonna go play mario kart in my old bedroom, you can join us or see if y/n is still the best at pool.” He speaks to Jungkook, but looks at me.

I shake my head, “It’s not that deep-”

“Of course! We have to.” Jungkook says quickly. I narrow my eyes towards him and he grins cockily, “unless you know you’ll already lose.”

I roll my eyes, “Comedic, you’ve always been a sore loser, I refuse for the sake of your ego.”

He scoffs, “Nope. Liar. You know you’re no good anymore and you’ll lose.”

I shake my head, “You’ll say anything to get me to play.”

He leans against the table, “Just one round. And I’ll even offer best of three, when you lose.” He grins cockily and I mock him.

“Whatever. ONE round, that’s it.”

Seokjin claps, “Perfect! Winner can run their victory lap around the house and boasting rights until next year, and loser pays our dinner later.” He pats our backs excitedly before jogging up to his room, Taehyung not far behind him.

Jungkook and I enter the basement, setting up the game and talking shit, as one does. “Who’s breaking?”

He smiles, holding his chosen pool cue, “Ladies first.”

I nod, “Such a gentleman.”

He laughs, “Yeah, that’s what got me into your pants.”

I mess up my shot and berate him. “I have half the mind to come over there and use this forcefully.” I lift up my pool cue and he pretends to be scared.

“Oh no! Please don’t!” I walk over to him, slap his chest and I only get one good (albeit, wimpy, compared to his strength) hit in before he grabs both of my hands and backs me into the pool table. He leans into me, our bodies touching leaving absolutely no room, and he kisses me.

I’m able to forget my surroundings and lose all rationality when he kisses me. He licks at my lips and I let his tongue slide past, soon enough his hands drop the cue, mine long forgotten as his hands slide down my body and he lifts me onto the table.

My hands are split, one tangling his hair and the other feeling his chest. He continues to kiss me fervently, hungrily, like he was touch-starved and in dire need of attention. He pulls me close and rubs against me, showing me how bad he wants me and it takes all the strength I have left to pull away, calling out to him. He ignores me the first time, kissing me in response to his name. I pull away again, “Jungkook.” he hums, busying himself with kissing and biting my neck, “Jungkook, w-we can’t.”

My pleas fall on deaf ears. “Jungkook, please,” my hands tug on his arms that are wrapped around me, “not here.”

He buries his face in my neck and leans into me with an annoyed groan. I let him rest like that for a while, waiting until he lifted his head and looked at me. “I don’t actually want to play pool.”

I chuckle, “Me neither.”

He takes a deep breath and nods, “Okay so let's use this table for a much better purpose.” He leans back into kiss me and I turn away, laughing at his desperate attempt.

“Jungkook, it’s bad enough, what we’re doing, let alone to do it in my house, where Seokjin is literally in, right now.”

He whines, “I don’t care! I will go up there right now and tell him-”

“Tell him what?!” Jungkook stops in his tracks. “Tell him what, Jungkook?” He doesn’t respond. “Exactly. We don’t have a label. I’m not ready to figure this out yet, there’s nothing to tell them now.”

His gaze softens and he steps towards me, his hands resting on my thighs as he draws circles on them, “But we’ll tell them eventually? It won’t be like this, much longer?”

I sigh, scratching his head and looking him in the eyes, “if we become official, if we really work out, then yes, of course. We’ll tell them.”

He kisses me again, barely parting our lips, “Okay, I’ll stop.”

I kiss him back and laugh, “Really? That’s all it took?” He furrows his brows. “Jungkook, I’ve been saying that since the beginning. Albeit, quite meaner.”

He nods, “You were being a megabitch, but I really like you so I didn’t mind.” He presses our noses together and smiles. I push his chest offendedly and he doesn’t move an inch, “You were stressed, worried, and confused, I don’t blame you. I should've been more sympathetic.” I kiss him again and thank him, followed by my own apology for mistreating him. “But there is still something different this time.”

I hum, “Yeah? What.”

He grins, “You acknowledged us being together.”

I roll my eyes, knowing I couldn’t hide the way my cheeks heat while trapped in his arms, “Whatever, stop talking.”

* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚

heyyy thanks for reading! if u liked it check out my masterlist for more :) also!! i am (tentatively) accepting requests! send them in via dm or askbox! hope u have a gorgeous day! - ara <3

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[pb-dot]

Let's meet the Therafter Cast: Lex

Today, I want to talk about the second-most enthusiastic member of our four-person party, Lex Chlebek. Lex is a whispy-looking pale-skinned enby of intederminate age, presumably in their early 30s. Lex dyes their buzzcut hair in various colors, green at the beginning of Thereafter after which getting access to dye becomes somewhat challenging.

Lex' childhood adventure took them to The Magus College, a wizarding school in the renaissance-era fantasy world of Aurol. Their coming was prophechied by the demigod dean of the College, who claimed that a chosen one from a distant world would arrive at the day of his dead to bring judgement. When the nominally immortal wizard was found dead in his chambers, a wild search for this chosen one ensued.

The spell that located and summoned Lex was highly experimental, and there were those that claimed it failed when it conjured up a polish teenager with a potty mouth and no inherent magical skills. Lex wasn't going to take that kind of talk lying down, though, and decided to work extra hard both at solving the murder mystery and learning magic way above their level even if they HAD grown up with magic.

As Lex' mastery of the mystical arts grew, their understanding of the murder case also grew. They discovered that someone at the College had done extensive research into immortality and how to end it, although byzantine bueraucracy and eldritch oddness obfuscated exactly who. It wasn't until Lex learned several spells perfectly suited for breaking and entering and tested them on the college's Archival Tower that they caught the next break. As Lex finally had access to the required documents, one confusing truth became apparent: The one who had been looking into how one could kill an imortal was none other than the Dean himself.

Lex' investigation continues, their bravado replaced by simmering intensity as the people tasked with keeping track of this purported chosen one found themselves losing track of Lex with frightening regularity.

It all came to a head when Lex employed the Animate Minor Object-spell to deliver a message to the faculty. They had untangled the weave of lies around the death of the Dean and would spill the beans in a meeting in the grand hall.

It was here that Lex told everyone that the one who killed the dean was no-one other than the dean himself, but that he did it for a good reason. The one thing an immortal being would need to fear, Lex expounds, would be infection from an Outsider, the beings of void, hunger and insanity that lives in the void between worlds. Outsiders can be tapped as an incredible source of lensing and templating for magical spells, although it does come with considerable risk. One of these risks would be an Outsider escaping confinement and infecting the strongest source of magic it can find. Once it has found a suitable host, the Outsider will start to devour both magic and life force, which with a target like the dean will be a long, painful process in which the host is slowly driven mad. It is therefore a question, Lex surmises, not of who killed the dean, but who among the faculty is reckless and ambitious enough to keep an outsider in a school full of powerful magic users. It is at this point Lex narrowly dodges being disintegrated by a powerful magic blast.

The way Lex tells the story, the remainder was "full of thrills and near-misses but ultimately intellectually unstimulating" as the culprit, Professor Firelance, had panicked and attempted to smash his way out. "My evidence was circumstancial," Lex would complain, "He could at least attempt to deflect blame before he started swinging his magic dick around."

Lex handled the time after their magical adventure better than most. Having learned that even in institutions of the highest, most fantastical learning people are still frequently jerks, and boring about it to boot, Lex decided to get into academia, specifically theoretical physics. Lex' goal was to see whether some of the things they had learned at the Magus College could be applied to the physics of the real world, and if they upset some jerks and provided a more mentally stimulating mileu for people to be jerks in along the way, all the better.

Lex' role in the Heroes of Thereafter is in part to provide technobabble, but also to share part-time shit-stirring duty with Felipe. Lex can be quite cynical, but also very frank, especially on topics considered taboo such as sex and sexuality. Unlike many others with this disposition though, Lex does extend this frankness to their own business, up to and including their own hipocracies and unfounded attention. This uncompromising honesty means that Lex often is a bit of a ticking timebomb for any and all psychosexual hangups the Heroes may develop. If any of the heroes develop a crush on anyone, for example,they only have until Lex finds out and tattles to whoever it is about. It's not a thing done of malice as much as it is driven by Lex' strong preference for truth.

[jinx-blackout-84]

The Shady Kid From The Alleyway

Chapter 1

Tommy-centric SBI TNTduo Benchtrio fic

Dream stans DNI you won't like this one I made hum a manipulative villain.... like IRL

4016 words

TW for mentions of violence, mentions of blood, and cursing

Anything in slashes are in /italics/

Anything in dashes are -bold-

“Motherfucking fuck!”

Tommy saw a spark jump across his hand before he felt it. He snapped his hand away from the piece of metal in his hands that he was trying to install a computer chip in.

He picked it back up, sighing and glancing at the clock.

2:32 AM

His eyes were heavy, threatening to fall closed as he sat in his apartment’s kitchen. Picking up a screwdriver and the computer chip, he went back to fiddling with the metal gauntlet he had been staring at for the better part of four hours.

Does he sleep, or finish the gauntlet?

He weighed the two options in his head before conceding to finish the gauntlet on the grounds that he wouldn’t sleep anyways.

The light above the table reflected into his exhaustion-glassy eyes as he finished installing the microchip, leaving him with only a few pieces left to do. He first checked that a simple code Tubbo had written would work when run through the chip, activating a simple digital motor that would open one of the flasks attached to the gauntlet’s side, which would later be used to store gasoline to help Tubbo, in his words, “make arson more efficient, don’t you want my arson to be efficient, Tommy?”

Tubbo’s ability, the ability to conduct heat and electricity, made setting fires very easy for him even without the gasoline, which Tommy mentioned and was then debated by Tubbo. Do not debate Tubbo.

Tommy called over to the couch where insomniac Tubbo was pretending to sleep while Ranboo watched TV.

“We’re patrolling tomorrow, right?”

“Should be unless you fall off of a roof again. Think you can get that gauntlet done by tomorrow so I can code it?”

“Yeah, I just have to get a few panels screwed in and hook up the other digital motors and we should be good.”

“Awesome, let me know when you finish it up.”

“Yup, by the way, how’s the coding for my boots going?”

“Pretty shit.”

“Bugs?”

“Nope, just some new mechanics I don’t quite understand yet.”

Ranboo, enthralled moments ago by a documentary about art forgery, said, “He threw his computer at the wall earlier and I had to teleport it onto the bed so he wouldn’t break it.”

“I also had an English test today so I don’t want to hear it. That shit is difficult,” Tubbo grumbled.

“No, no, he has a point,” Tommy agreed. English was his worst subject back when he was in school.

Tommy chewed on the inside of his cheek as he hooked up a few wires from one of the motors to the CPU.

He slipped his hand into the gauntlet, flexing his fingers a few times before throwing it at Tubbo, who caught it without looking. Tommy was impressed.

“Try it on to see if it fits,” he said to Tubbo

Tubbo snarked back at him “Nope, it’s three sizes too small.”

Tommy threatened to make the gauntlet fit; and after watching Tubbo try on the gauntlet to make sure it fit, nodded, extremely proud of himself for being the most intelligent person to ever exist.

The stuffy air in the apartment was stale, and since it was not too cold outside, Tommy decided he needed some air, calling out to Tubbo and Ranboo,

“Hey, I’m heading up to the roof”

"Okay, don’t die again, thanks,” Ranboo replied, and Tubbo gave a thumbs-up.

Tommy opened the grimy window and pulled himself out onto the fire escape, which creaked concerningly under his weight. Scaling the rusted metal with expertise gained by years of practice, he finally got his hand over the upper lip of the apartment building’s roof.

The wind was quite harsh, cold against Tommy’s face, but not unwelcome after being at the table working on the gauntlet for so long. As he sat back on his hands, three things happened.

First, Tommy’s hand supporting his weight slid into a puddle and out from under him. Gross. Roof puddle.

Second, Tommy heard a scream from a nearby alleyway.

Third, he fell off the roof, directly into the alley the scream had come from.

“MOTHERFUCKER” He screeched, trying to throw out his hands to use his power.

A sudden gust of wind slowed his fall considerably, but hitting the concrete hurt like a bitch, which he said.

“That hurt like a bitch.”

“Looked like it,” A gruff and oddly robotic voice answered.

Tommy spun around quickly, making eye contact with a towering man. A man with a red cape and pig mask.

“Nope. I think the fuck not. I’m going back to my apartment. Fuck no.” Tommy said with conviction.

Just as he turned to leave, the man’s hand caught his hood, turning him around.

There was something cold under his chin, Tommy realized. Ah, it was a sword. Wonderful.

“You can’t just leave,” the man drawled “How do I know you won’t report me?”

“I promise that you, The Blood God, SBI and syndicate member, highest kill count villain, can handle being reported,” Tommy pointed out, before his brain could tell him to please shut the fuck up.

“You’re pretty mouthy for a hostage.” The Blood God drawled

After a moment of thinking, Tommy added “Please do not stab me. I do not have health insurance.”

“I am probably not going to stab you, just,” The Blood God pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, “need a second to think.”

“Who screamed just now?” Tommy’s shoulders relaxed upon receiving the news that he was not to be stabbed, “was it you? Did you fall off of one of the roofs?”

After saying this, Tommy noticed a massive pool of blood below his feet.

“Oh, never mind,” he said cheerfully.

The Blood God sighed. He did not get paid enough for this. “Look, kid-”

“Fuck you I’m 16”

“-just, I don’t know, let me knock you out.”

“In a dirty alleyway? I cannot afford to be sick right now, bitch, and I probably already have AIDS from standing in this blood so thank you for that.”

Tommy tensed to run out of the alley, not liking his odds if he tried, but liking his odds if he got knocked out less.

“Okay, then just stay here or something. You can't get past me anyways."

"You can't hold me here, that's child abduction," Tommy said matter-of-factly.

He could maybe yell for Tubbo? Maybe Ranboo could teleport him out?

"Ah, well you see, as a criminal, I am hardly concerned about what is or is not a crime." The Bitch God responded.

Ah. The Bitch God had a point, Tommy conceded

Well. Tommy knew more than all men because he was far cooler than them, he decided.

Tommy said this to The Blood God, who looked down at him with disdain. The Blood God then tapped the side of his mask and spoke into it, "Yeah, so I found a kid," he paused, "Yup in the alleyway with me, no I cannot kill him. Yes we are still meeting here."

Tommy watched him, curious, and said, "who are you talking to?"

Okay. Shit. Tommy had to get out of this. How could he get out of this.

"None of your business," The Blood God replies

Tubbo and Ranboo were out of the question because The Blood God had heightened reflexes and would not hesitate to kill Tommy before Ranboo could teleport him out.

“Just tell me," Tommy protested

"You're like a toddler," The Blood God said, pinching his nosebridge.

"I AM NOT, BITCH," Tommy said, defending his honor against The Blood God's deceit.

"FINE I was talking to the rest of the Syndicate," The Blood God replied.

"You said they were coming here. Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes," the Blood God deadpanned.

Tommy hoped that was a joke "well good luck, I am the coolest and biggest man ever."

The Blood God looked over at him, raising his eyebrows and dropping the sword to his side.

Tommy’s posture relaxed the moment the sword was removed from his throat.

He felt the air in his fingers and imagined pulling it all towards him. The air pressure suddenly grew and he shot upwards, flying high enough he could've grabbed the top of the building if he hadn't been pulled back to the ground. Fuck.

Tommy hit the ground for the second time that night, and felt a thud reverberate through his ribs. They were for sure gonna kill him now. Panic clutched Tommy’s chest, though he tried not to let it show.

He heard an impressed whistle behind him.

Turning around, Tommy saw a large pair of wings and shining green eyes. Oh shit. The Raven.

"This the kid?" The man spoke and it had the same robotic sound as the Blood God’s. Voice changers then.

"Yep. Annoying as fuck, too," the Blood God Replied.

"You don’t want to do this" Tommy said, panic in his eyes.

"Ah, I see what you mean, mate, but he's just scared" The Raven replied.

"Oh no, he's very bitchy for a hostage. Give him a minute to get his attitude back." The Blood God said.

Tommy flicked his eyes over The Raven, trying to size him up under the cloak he wore.

And then, Tommy heard a snicker from the entrance of the alleyway.

And holy shit.

Tommy's favorite villain.

Mercury.

Mercury who could make anyone do his bidding with just a word. Who had never been apprehended, who fought with a smoothness Tommy had tried to emulate for years. Holy shit.

Mercury spoke, "so you can fly?"

"Well, sort of," Tommy said.

"What's your mutation?" Mercury asked.

"I can’t just tell you that" Tommy said.

Mercury rolled his eyes. "Well I can make you tell me, what is it?"

"Air pressure control."

The Blood God's eyes widened incrementally and he said, "damn."

"Do you have strong control?" Mercury questioned.

"Usually."

"Damn. That's a strong power." The Blood God said.

"I don't know, I can just jump around and fly a little"

"Then you're not using it right" Zephyrus said.

"Huh? Don't tell me how to use my powers bitch!" Tommy yelled, indignant.

"Oh, there's the attitude," The Blood God said.

Shit. He let his tongue get away from him. Shit he was dead. He got lower to the ground, pulling an exacto knife out of his hoodie pocket. It wasn’t much, but it might work if he was lucky.

Mercury snickered "Is that an Exacto knife?"

The Blood God began to speak "You’re gonna need more than tha-"

The crackle of a radio attached to The Raven's hip cut him off, and all of them fell silent to listen to it

“Hey, you need to get out of there, someone reported you.”

Three faces turned to Tommy.

"How would I report you? I left my phone inside. Plus, I would rather /not/ help the heroes if I have the choice. " He said.

"What do you mean, mate?" The Raven asked.

"They're not as great as everyone says. Even I know that, and I didn't even finish high school," Tommy muttered

"Huh, you an anarchist?" The Blood God asked.

"Not an anarchist, just a hero-anti I guess. I mean I could care less, they protect us in Logstedchire about the same amount as they would if they weren't here. Dosen't matter much if they're around or not," Tommy shrugged.

"Huh," The Raven said.

Mercury spoke into his mask, but there was something different in his voice than when he spoke to Tommy, “Hey Ace, can you figure out who reported us?”

The radio crackled again, “I mean I can try.”

"Well," Mercury said, "that's our cue. Bye kid"

He watched as Zephyrus took off carrying The Blood God, spiraling into the sky. Mercury used some smoke bombs on his belt to cloud the alleyway, gone by the time the smoke dissipated.

Tommy did not want to be in the alleyway. It was full of diseases and blood.

He walked through the entrance to the apartment building, disheveled and tired, and decided to think about that interaction later.

He then walked back through his apartment door, Tubbo's head popping up to look at him.

"Why didn't you come in through the fire escape?" Tubbo asked.

Shit. He needed a good lie.

"Fell off the fuckin roof again," Tommy grumbled.

Ranboo spoke, muffled by the pillow his face was squished into, "called it."

"Why is there blood on your shoes?" Tubbo questioned.

"I dunno man, there was blood in the alleyway." Tommy said.

"You're suspect."

Tommy grumbled some more.

He glamced at the clock

3:31

"I'm going to fuckin bed."

"Not until you shower," Tubbo said, "You have that interview tomorrow"

"Fuckin fine." Tommy replied.

---------

Wilbur tapped his pencil against his notebook as he sat criss-cross in his bed.

He had sheets of paper strewn around him, trying to draft a song he had been writing for awhile, but he couldn't think.

He couldn't seem to focus on the song when every time he blinked he remembered how that kid had looked at him. Something in the kid struck Wilbur as familiar, and he looked at his Mercury mask sitting on his bedside table.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to write new lyrics, knowing it was a fruitless effort.

He walked into the kitchen, seeing the clock sitting in the corner of the kitchen.

4:13 AM

He rubbed his eyes as he grabbed a glass, jumping when he saw a looming figure enter the kitchen. Techno's pink hair looked orange in the low light that shone through the kitchen.

"Couldn't sleep?" Techno asked.

"Couldn't stop thinking about that kid," wilbur replied, filling up his glass with ice cubes.

"Reminded me of you, you know," Technoblade said.

"That's funny. He made me think of you," Wilbur replied

----------

Tommy had not slept. He had laid in bed staring at the roof, which was so familiar by now that he thinks he could point out a new crack or stain instantly.

The room had been quiet, and Tommy's mind had made up for it, turning his interaction with the villains over in his head over and over again.

He eventually dragged himself out of bed, looking to the red numbers on the clock

4:47 AM

Tomorrow was Wednesday. Well, technically it was already Wednesday, but he didn't have to be at the interveiw till 11 AM. Shuffling around the kitchen for a moment, he sat down at the table with a mug of coffee and opened his laptop.

It was old, but it worked well enough as he tried to model some peices for printing on the 3d printer him and Tubbo had built shortly after becoming vigilantes.

He was making a new mask for Ranboo with night and thermal vision and a voice changer. He and Tubbo already had voice changers, but the pieces for thermal and night vision were too expensive for them to all have it, so he gave it to Ranboo, the least likely to break it. Tubbo shouldn't have to code this one much, so maybe if tommy could make it quickly enough Ranboo could have it by Saturday.

He worked on the rims of the goggles, making sure they were proportionate and would fit Ranboo, before sending the file off to the printer to realize.

The clock blinked.

5:34 AM.

Tommy blinked.

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

The carpet in the waiting room had a stain in it, Tommy noticed. The rest of the carpet was an even grey, but the stain was red-brown. Gross.

It was 10:49

He was fiddling with the spacebar on his laptop as he tried to focus back onto a new support tech item he was supposed to be designing was a dart gun that you didn’t have to reload.

His current idea, the darts were stacked into the gun like toothpicks in a toothpick holder. It could probably shoot about five times between reloads. This was unrelated to the fact that Tommy had accidentally stabbed himself with a dart in the middle of a fight and passed out six times to date. He didn’t need help reloading a dart gun. He just thought it would be cool. Yup.

He rubbed his hand over the band-aid under his chin from The Blood God’s blade. He considered the interaction. Why hadn’t the villains killed him? Why did The Blood God say his power was strong? Tommy heard footsteps and snapped his laptop shut. Someone came out of a door to his left his glasses, with odd red and blue lenses, caught on the fluorescent light. His nametag read “Jack.”

The man nodded at him, asking “You Thomas Innit?”

“Yup.”

“Awesome, your interview is this way, follow me.”

Tommy trailed after Jack, tempted to ask about the glasses.

“Hey, why are your glasses like that?” Tommy paused, “not to be rude. Sorry.”

“Nah you’re good mate. It’s part of my power. I can vaguely see people’s emotions based on color, and the glasses help to get rid of it. It’s kind of distracting and feels like an invasion of privacy so I like having them but I don’t have to wear them,” Jack explained.

“Dude that’s fuckin’ awesome,” Tommy replied, faltering. “Am I allowed to say that here?”

“I mean I would avoid saying it in front of Bad but yeah,” Jack said.

“Awesome.”

They came up to a door and Tommy took a deep breath.

“Nervous?” Jack asked kindly.

“Fuckin’ terrified” Tommy replied with a huffed laugh.

“Well, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thanks, big man.”

“Oh, I never said my word meant anything, I’m just an assistant,” Jack smiled.

“Still nice to know I’ve got at least one of you bastards on my side.”

Jack smiled again and walked away.

Tommy pushed open the door.

The first thing he noticed was not the floor-to-ceiling windows or the giant desk.

It was the man’s eyes.

They were a bright green, cold and calculating as they watched the door.

He also noticed how they widened in shock when he saw Tommy.

Tommy looked at his shirt to make sure he didn’t have something on it. He knew it wasn’t a suit or anything fancy but he tried to dress up a little and wore a collared shirt with jeans.

By the time Tommy looked up, the man had regained his composure, and the confidence on his face made Tommy wonder if he had even seen the man’s shock at all.

He walked into the room a bit further.

“Hello, Thomas,” The man spoke, with warmth in his voice as his glare softened into a more laid-back type of playfulness “Please sit. You’re here for the interview, correct?”

Tommy sat, and when he spoke, he did not drawl his words, giving them a crisp lightness, “Yes, I’m glad you could make time to meet with me.”

“My name is Philza and I will be interviewing you for a job as a Tech Department Manager," The man said.

Philza looked at Tommy and spoke, "what makes you qualified for this job, Thomas?"

"I think you can see that for yourself, Big man," Tommy said.

Philza smiled.

"Yes," he picked up Tommy's resume, "I can see you have a degree in Engineering from L'manburg Technology and Mathematics University. by the way, how old were you when you graduated high school?"

"Oh," Tommy paused, "I was fifteen."

This, Tommy knew, was a lie. He had no degree, had never finished high school.

You know, the kind of stuff that happens when you were supposed to be dead.

"Now, these are unusual circumstances because our last technology manager was killed by villains, and we currently have no one on staff that could take over the job.”

Tommy nodded to show he was listening.  Now, I’ve read over your resume, and It’s impressive, I’m not going to lie, especially for a, oh how old were you?”  

“Eighteen, nineteen in a month or so.”  

Philza smiled sharply. “Ah, yes, how could I have forgotten. So, you were emancipated at sixteen, correct?”  

Tommy nodded.

“Yes, I had a rough home life, so I applied for emancipation. I think this job could help.me get my footing.”  

“It’s not an easy process, takes some determination,” 

Philza said, ignoring Tommy’s attempt to change the subject.  

“It’s easier when It’s the only way you’ll make it to eighteen,” Tommy said with false calm, letting some of his Upper L’manburg accent slip, quickly adjusting his voice to have the definitive posh lilt.  

Philza backed down.  

“So,” Philza said, grinning, “Why this job?”  

Tommy leaned back in the chair. He could do interviews now that the questions about his past were over. “Well,” he began “I think I have a fitting skillset and could flourish in this position,” he ignored as his brain made a that’s what she said joke, “I think I could be an asset and I have been working in technology and engineering since I was sixteen. I am responsible and work well in leadership and would love to collaborate with the people here to produce new and innovative designs to improve the-” he faltered for a moment, “the capabilities and influence of heroes,” He finished.   

Boom, Perfect answer, Tommy thought to himself.

 “Huh. Okay then mate,” Philza paused, leveling his eyes to meet Tommy’s again and he felt himself pierced by the viridian gaze.   

Philza continued, “What do you think about heroes, Thomas?”   

Tommy paused.  “Well, they keep the community safe and help to stop villain attacks and are wonderful role models. If I had a better Mutation, I would want to be one, but I just aspire to represent them as much as I can in my day-to-day life,” Tommy lied, talking with his hands like the people in upper L’manburg. “I think they do a great job of showing how we can all come together to prote-”  Philza put a hand up, “Cut the shit”  Tommy balked, “I beg your pardon?”  Philza made eye contact with him

"Your accent is good," Philza said.

"Pardon?" Tommy asked.

"The accent's great, but Upper L'manburg citizens talk with their hands. Yours were in your lap the whole time."

Tommy froze.

"You can cut the shit, mate," Philza said.

“What are you suggesting?” Tommy asked, a threat veiled as politeness.  

“I think you know exactly what I’m suggesting, Thomas,” Philza said evenly, pausing, “I want to know your opinions on heroes. Say what you think not just recite some news article from Upper L’manburg to me.”  

“Well, I am entirely indebted to the heroes of L’manbur-”  

Philza set his hand down on the table, not slamming it, but hard enough to make a noise.

Tommy flinched, watching as Philza stored that information.  

“I said cut the shit.”  

Tommy laughed, letting his accent fall away. “Okay, you want to know what I think of heroes? I think that if they cared about my side of L’manburg, like Logstedchire and theFarlands half as much as they do the center district and Upper district, then L’manburg would be crime free. Instead, I have face-to-face encounters with the villains they’ve sworn as their enemies in alleyways full of blood while they’re off saving some millionaire’s watch so they can put it on the fucking news. I think if they really want vigilantes gone, they should do their goddamn job so teenagers and non-trained citizens in masks don’t have to do it for them. I think I should be able to sleep through the night in my Logstedchire apartment without being woken by fucking gunshots. I think they do it for the money and the fame and spit on anyone who dares question them. That’s what I FUCKING think.”  

Philza looked at him with something Tommy couldn’t decipher.  “We’ll call you to let you know if you got the job,” he said, no tells of any emotion in his voice.  

Fuck. Tommy had needed this job and he had gone and fucked it up.

God fucking damn it.  

Tommy passed Jack on the way out, who gave him a questioning look, and Tommy shook his head slightly.

Jack’s shoulders sagged. He gave him a sad nod and waved as Tommy left.

Tommy waved back, holding back tears. 

[angelasscribbles]

Irreparable Choices

Series: American Girl

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Drake x Riley

Rating: MA

Warnings for this chapter: Mature themes, unplanned/unwanted pregnancy. Abortion discussed

Word Count: 2,710

A/N: This is a follow-up to Home for Christmas, which makes it technically a two-shot, not a one-shot. Full disclosure, I have another chapter written which makes it a three-shot well on its way to being another series. What the fuck is wrong with me, I don't need another series.

While the first one explored Riley and Liam's relationship and the ending of it, this one explores Riley and Drake's. This is complete AU, they are normal people living in north Texas. They grew up together and are now trying to navigate adult life and college, but having a hard time severing those ties.

Special shout out to @karahalloway for prereading this and encouraging me to actually post it.

My other stuff: Master List.

Drake Walker was living his dream.

He had left the bowling alley and gone to work for North Texas Auto Repair after finishing his first year of automotive technology classes at the local community college.

He had just started the last semester of his degree program and already had a solid offer of full-time employment from the owner of the auto shop. The guy had given him the part-time job as an apprentice mechanic as a favor to his father, but the offer of a full-time position as a certified automotive technician had been extended because he was good with cars, reliable, and worked his ass off.

Drake had a plan and so far things were right on track.

The only thing missing was her.

“Hey, kid! Walker!”

Drake looked up from under the hood of a 1972 Dodge Charger at the sound of his name.

His boss gestured toward the bay doors of the auto shop, “You have a visitor.”

Drake’s eyes followed the gesture and his heart skipped a beat. He quickly wiped his hands clean and hurried over to her, “Riley? What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.” She chewed her lip nervously.

“Okay, yeah,” he knew something was wrong because it was the middle of January and she was supposed to be at school in California.

“Hey, Bas!” He called across the bay to his boss, “Mind if I take off early tonight?”

“Sure, kid, just don’t make a habit of it.” Bastien didn’t actually mind. It was only thirty minutes early and Drake had never called in sick, asked for a day off or so much as been late in the nine months he’d worked there.

“I won’t!” Drake called over his shoulder as he ushed Riley from the open-air bay into the heated office, “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, “I need to talk to you in private!”

Drake glanced at the woman behind the counter, “Meg, would it be all right if we used the break room for a little bit?”

“Sure, no one else is going to need it again today. It’s almost closing time.”

“Thank you, you’re the best!” He told her as he pulled Riley down a hallway and through the breakroom door.

He closed the door behind them then turned to Riley in concern, “Okay, what is it? What’s wrong? Spill!”

Riley paced across the room, twisting her hair around a finger as her mind whirled with all the different variations she’d rehearsed inside her head over the last few days. Finally, she simply blurted out, “I’m pregnant!”

He froze as he struggled to process her words, “Are you sure?”

Frustration pinged through her, “I didn’t just drive for two days across four states on a fucking whim, Drake! I’ve taken six tests! I’m sure!”

“I thought you were on the pill!”

“I was! It obviously failed!”

He slid a hand down his face, “Shit…”

“Yeah, shit!” She agreed.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but…is it mine?”

“Yes, Drake, it’s yours! Again, why the fuck else do you think I drove across four states to get to you?”

“Moral support,” he replied instantly, “which I would give either way.”

“I know it’s yours because I had my period right before I came home for Christmas and I haven’t been with anyone else since and-“

He held his hands up in front of him, “Hey, hey, hey! I believe you! You don’t have to convince me!”

“Are you sure? Because-“

“I’m sure!” he asserted, his voice going softer, “I know you wouldn’t lie to me about something like that.”

“Okay, good,” her anger quelled but she was still in panic mode, “because my whole fucking life is falling apart right now and I don’t know what to do!”

“Okay, okay, it’s going to be okay!” He started pacing as he ran a hand through his hair, his mind spinning looking for solutions.

“How? How the fuck is this going to be okay?” her voice trembled.

He stopped pacing and turned to face her, “I can increase my hours here, or get a second job, I could easily go back to the bowling alley! You could move back home and have the baby!”

“Where are we going to live? Your parent’s garage?” she scoffed.

He held a finger up, “First of all, it’s not a garage anymore, it was converted into a second master suite and it has its own entrance so that is a valid option,” he held up another finger, “Second, I’m only living there while I’m in school so I don’t have to work full time, but I could!”

“Working full time would interfere with your schoolwork, I can’t ask you-“

“You’re not asking, I’m telling you that I only live at home to save money, but-“

“Right, because we’re both broke ass college students, what’s your point?”

“My point is, I can take care of you, Riley!” So many different emotions flooded into his chest that he could barely breathe. But nothing in him wanted to run away from this. From her.

“I’m not asking you to take care of me, Drake and I can’t just drop out of school!”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” she glared at him, “Because if I miss a semester, I’ll lose my scholarship, and if I lose my scholarship I lose my only chance to go to college and get a degree, that’s why not!”

“You don’t need it!” his voice rose, “I’m graduating in three months and I have a full-time job waiting for me here making good money!”

“Drake-“

“I mean it, Riley! My starting salary is almost as much as my dad is making now after twenty-five years on the force!”

“I know, Drake but I don’t want to depend on someone else’s salary!” Angry tears stung her eyes, “I want to finish my degree! I want a career of my own! I want to do things, travel, see the world a little before I settle down!”

“You can still do all those things!” He yelled.

“How?” She yelled back.

He stared into the face of the girl that held his heart in her hands, wondering how she seemed to be so oblivious to that fact.

He drew in a deep breath and tried for calm and reasonable as he said, “You can still follow all your dreams, Riley. They’ll just be delayed a little, that’s all! We can get married, have the baby and when you’re ready, you can enroll in a school closer to home.”

“School costs money-“

“I’ll pay for it!” He insisted.

“We’ve never even talked about a future together, Drake! Marriage…kids…. I don’t even know if you want that! Hell, I don’t even know if I want that! And we sure as hell shouldn’t be getting married just because I got knocked up! That’s no basis for a lasting relationship!”

“Lasting relationship?” he stared at her incredulously, “We’ve known each other our whole lives, Riley!”

“Yeah, as neighbors and friends!”

He was angry and shocked, “You think we’re just friends?”

His anger made her unsure, “Yeah, friends with benefits….”

His mouth fell open in disbelief, “Seriously?”

“Seriously what, Drake?” She exploded, “We get together over Christmas or spring break, hang out, get drunk, have sex, then go back to our respective lives! With very little communication in between, I might add! What am I supposed to think we’re doing here?”

All his resolve to remain calm and collected flew right out the window at that complete mischaracterization of their relationship, “It’s not my fault you spent last summer in fucking Europe with that study abroad program! And don’t think I don’t know that Liam was in Italy at the same time as you!”

“What’s your point?” She snapped.

“My point is that Christmas and spring break aren’t the only times that I bother to see you, they’re the only times that I get to see you, Riley, and I look forward to both of them all year long! Or have you forgotten that I drove all the way to fucking California to spend spring break with you last year?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” she relented. Dropping onto the black faux leather couch in the corner of the breakroom she let her head fall into her hands, “I’m just spiraling right now. I know you’re trying to help but we don’t have an actual relationship, Drake. We’re not officially dating, we’ve never discussed a future together and this certainly wasn’t planned!”

His jaw clenched as he considered her words. Nothing she said was untrue. They hadn’t discussed a future together, and they weren’t a couple, but he was in love with her.

Not that he’d ever told her that.

He crossed the room as he spoke, “All of that is true and if you don’t want to have this baby, then I’ll support you but…”

She lifted her head to look at him, “But?”

“But I don’t want you to make a decision without all the facts.” He sat down next to her with a sigh as he skimmed a hand through his hair before confessing, “I’ve never brought up the future or asked you to be official because I’m afraid of the answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…You've been very clear about wanting to be free to immerse yourself in the college experience and all the commensurate shenanigans that entails.”

“That was actually Liam’s idea,” she reminded him with a slight smile.

He bumped his shoulder into hers gently, “Yeah, well, you seem to have fully and enthusiastically embraced the concept.”

A small laugh escaped her, “Thanks in part to you.”

“What?” Surprise pulled through him.

“I was heartbroken when he broke up with me you know.” She shifted so her body was facing his.

“I remember…” he unconsciously turned his body a little more toward her.

She placed a hand on his arm, “You helped me through that! If not for you I’d probably still be sulking about it.”

“Great. I was your rebound guy. I knew it!” He joked.

“Ha ha, but yes, you really were. You made me feel something again.” She dropped her hand from his arm and started to turn away.

He reached out and grabbed her hand in both of his, “I’m glad I was able to be there for you, but that’s the other reason I haven’t brought up the future…”

Her eyes searched his, “What do you mean?”

“I mean…I know you’re not over Liam. I know you two still have unfinished business and I know you’ve been with other guys in California,” he released her hand and looked away as he admitted, “I… I didn’t think you wanted anything official, or to talk about a future with me.”

Riley was stunned, “Are you saying you do?”

He shrugged as he met her eyes quickly then looked away again, “Yes, Riley, I do. But I didn’t want to push you. I want kids someday. This is sooner than expected, and if it was any other girl, I’d probably be freaking out right now, but the idea of raising a baby with you isn’t the worst one in the world.”

She felt an unexpected frisson of jealousy coil around her heart, “But there are other girls.”

He turned his gaze back to her with a disbelieving shake of his head, “That’s the part you want to focus on right now? Yes, there have been other girls! Are you telling me you haven’t slept with anyone at Berkeley?”

Her eyes dropped to her lap. She didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought. But listen,” he put a finger under her chin and tipped her head up, “those girls are friends with benefits. You are so much more to me than that! If you want to have this baby, then I am all in! I’ll do whatever you need me to do to support that, including marrying you and it won’t be just because of the baby. I’ve wanted to marry you since preschool. Remember?”

She laughed as she leaned into him, “You proposed with a ring pop!”

“Damn right I did!” he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, “It was cherry too, my favorite! I gave you my favorite flavor ring pop, Riley. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is!”

She let herself relax into his embrace, “I’m sorry if I’m being a raging bitch but-“

“You’re fine. I get it. It’s a lot to take in.”

“You may be willing to sacrifice your grades and future, but I’m not. I can’t let you do that for me.”

“It wouldn’t be for you, baby, it would be for us!” His grip around her tightened.

The intensity of emotion in his voice both thrilled and terrified her.

She wasn’t ready.

For any of it.

“I’m sorry, Drake,” she whispered, “I can’t.”

He went completely still for a moment, “Are you sure? Have you thought through every consideration?”

“I’ve had nothing but time to think while I drove across the country.”

His head fell back against the wall as relief and disappointment both crashed through him, “Okay.”

“Okay? You don’t hate me for it?” she asked as her fingers fidgeted with the placket of his shirt.

“I could never hate you,” he leaned forward to place a soft kiss on the top of her head, “for any reason.”

“Okay, good,” her voice hitched a little as tears pooled in her eyes, “I’ll make the appointment when I get back to Berkeley.”

He swallowed back his own tears as he stroked her hair, “Okay. Just tell me when and I’ll be there.”

“What?” She pulled away from him startled, “Oh, no, you don’t have to-“

He shook his head as he reached for her and pulled her back into his chest, “Yes, I do! You didn’t get into this situation alone and you’re not going to deal with the repercussions alone, okay?”

Fresh tears flooded her eyes, this time from relief, gratitude, and the overwhelming feeling of being loved when she felt completely unlovable. She nodded her head, “Okay, I’ll let you know.”

“Good.”

They held each other for a while in silence as they each tried to process the enormity of the situation.

When he finally spoke, his voice was light, his tone teasing, “So, did you drive across four states just to tell me that you don’t want to marry me?”

She laughed through her tears, as she looked up at him, “Stop it!”

He smiled sadly as he wiped the wetness from her cheeks, “Come on, Brooks. Let me buy you dinner and get you home. You must be exhausted.”

“I…can’t go home. What will I tell my parents about why I drove all the way here just to turn around and drive back?”

She hadn’t wanted to tell him on the phone. She had needed to see him, needed to confide in the only other person this affected.

“Okay, leave your car here. We’ll pull it around back, no one will see it. You can come home with me. No one ever comes in my room. You’ll get a good night’s sleep and I’ll take you to breakfast before you head back.”

She knew in that moment that she’d been right to come.

He always made everything better. From scraped knees in preschool to beating up her fifth-grade bully to helping her pick up the broken pieces of her heart after graduation.

“That sounds good, Drake. Thank you… for everything.”

“I don’t know what the hell I did except get you into this predicament,” he scoffed, “but you know I always have your back, right?”

“We got into this predicament together,” she corrected him, “But yeah, I do know, so thank you.”

“Come on,” he stood up and held his hand out to her, “the least I can do is feed you.”

The feel of his hand clasped around hers calmed the raging anxiety that had been gnawing at her since she first suspected she might be pregnant.

She followed him out of the breakroom and out of the shop, hand in hand, feeling more at peace than she had in days.

[sarah-crewe]

tagged by my pal @thecrackshiplollipop

1. are you named after anyone? yes, sort of. some of my great-something grandmothers had my names, but it was more that my mom liked them a lot and wanted to name me my name since she was a teenager. we later found out that one of my great-something grandmothers was named sarah mariah (which is my name and my sister’s name).

2. when was the last time you cried? i teared up earlier today when i was reading a post about dads being great and loving their kids.

3. do you have kids? no. i’ve had a lot of childcare jobs, including being a nanny for four years, and i’m still super close to those kids and see them all the time. sometimes their mom wishes me a happy mother’s day, so...

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? never. you think someone would really do that? go on the internet and be sarcastic?

5. what’s the first thing you notice about people? i straight up do not know... i feel like i’m taking in a lot of info when i meet someone new, so maybe it’s just whatever stands out the most about them?

6. what’s your eye color? brown

7. scary movies or happy endings? happy endings. i’m a little bitch and i don’t watch scary movies.

8. any special talents? running into large, solid objects that have been consistently been in the same place for months, years, or even decades of my life.

9. where were you born? maine, born and raised bb

10. what are your hobbies? i like to read a lot, dabble in 45 different crafts/arts, watch educational videos on youtube, partake in semi-dangerous sports, and play pretend with my friends

11. have you any pets? no. i live in a real small apartment that is uncomfortably messy and i would feel too guilty to bring an animal into that. i really love cats though, and want a cat that is legitimately bonded to me, which i’ve never really had. we weren’t at my dad’s house enough for his cats to really get comfy with us, and my mom has always been hella allergic.

12. what sport do you play/have played? i played soccer and basketball as a kid. my dad said i was actually good at soccer when i was little, which i always thought was not true (not afraid of the ball, good coordination, good soccer vision, his words) but i quit both of those when i was in upper elementary because i was focused on gymnastics. i started gymnastics when i was five and did it regularly, up to 5 nights a week, until i was 14. i took up figure skating about a decade ago, but i’ve been on an extended break because of pandemic anxiety. i skateboard occasionally, but i am not good at it.

13. how tall are you? 5'3″ on a good day, lol. can’t believe the doctor told me i was gonna be 6′2″.

14. favorite subject in school? english or art/theatre (in high school). i liked school in general, but i struggled a little bit with science and math in high school: science because i had never learned how to study and was finally being challenged for the first time in my life and math because i accidentally pattern reconditioned myself into a higher placement test score than i ought to have had, putting me in a class where i didn’t have the foundational knowledge needed to succeed. both problems were fixed by the time i was a junior, but the damage had been done to my psyche and i thought i was bad at those topics for a while. english though, loml.

15. dream job? lol my current job (children’s librarian) if it was just the actual job and not the societal bandaid that it’s become... though i would love a four day work week. that would make it perfect.

tagging @jennamacaroni @tarynlatx @knockfivetimes @stellesappho @roarsaidthedinosaur @also-angels @littleoases @seemssostrange

[lifeinmedicine]

On Being an Attending (hey look Ma I made it!)

Somehow, after four years of college, four years of medical school, three years of residency, one year of chief residency, and three long years of fellowship, I have finally made it to this point—I am now an attending!

And I am freaking out.

What I previously thought of as the finish line, I now realize is just the starting line. Yeah, tell that to your 15 years of hard work. But as I sit here on my last day of freedom, ready to start my first real job tomorrow, I have so many conflicting thoughts and emotions.  

First off, I took a glorious two-month break between fellowship and starting my job. Everyone recommends taking some kind of break, given this is the first and likely only time you will have a vacation with no clinical or academic obligations. And though I don’t regret this time off, I also feel like I have forgotten every ounce of pediatric cardiology that was previously cemented in my brain over the last three years. I sometimes catch myself in the shower or while I’m brushing, just rehearsing, “Hi, I’m Dr. Misra, it’s so nice to meet you. What brings you guys in today?” as if I have completely forgotten how to talk to patients. I recently google image searched basic echo views to test myself on something I could do in my sleep, just two months ago.

I know I’m being irrational, and I probably felt this way after every small break I had in the different steps of my medical training, but now my medical knowledge counts more than it ever has, and this insecurity is definitely at the forefront. I hope everything is just muscle memory and I’m sure it will come back to me as I get thrown in different clinical situations. But I do worry that the small nuances I knew about subtle echo and EKG findings are now lost to the abyss of my scattered and nervous brain.

As a senior fellow, you feel like you are the top of the highest totem pole. Junior fellows come to you for advice and help, attendings give you independence and back it up with, “well, you’re going to be an attending in a few months so…” and you feel you have earned the right to speak openly with unbridled confidence about your management decisions and clinical reasoning. By this point, you have become an expert at being a trainee—it is, after all, what you have been doing for almost half your time on Earth.

And now, you are placed in an entirely new role with new responsibilities and all that glorious confidence has vanished. You go from feeling like you are at your prime, to all of a sudden feeling like a newborn babe in this field. Right at the cusp of starting, what feels like, the most important step in your career.

This rapid fall from grace brings me to my next anxiety—I don’t want to look or sound stupid. When I interviewed for this job as a third-year fellow, I was confident in what I knew, what I wanted from a career, and just overall felt confident in myself. I currently no longer feel that way, but I want to do myself and my skills justice as the person they hired, and the potential they saw in me. I know I will need to ask for help throughout my career, and am not afraid to do so, but what if I ask stupid questions that I should clearly know the answer to? The need to impress others is deeply ingrained in me from years of medical training, and the fear of looking or sounding dumb has always been a huge motivation to keep learning and getting better. That may be morally incorrect, and I sincerely hope that as I grow and mature my motivation takes on more genuine and pure reasons, but this is the sad reality of medical trainees. And right now, as I start my career as an attending, that external motivation has never been stronger.

And then there’s the weight of your clinical decision making, and the responsibility you have to your patients and team. The buck stops with you now. Yes, you will always have help and resources, but now your decisions matter, you have the final say in what happens with your patients, and that safety net is gone. What you diagnose, and what you miss, is all on you.

The imposter syndrome is real folks. All of a sudden, I’m supposed to teach and speak with confidence about clinical matters I’ve had limited experience with, and have full assurance in what I am doing even though inside I feel like I’m going to pee my pants. People will look to you, as the attending, for answers and next steps, even though you just graduated, and were looking to others just a few months ago. I know I’ve experienced this imposter syndrome when I become a resident, and again as a fellow, but this time it feels profound and with bigger implications.

I’m sure in the beginning I will over-order clinical tests, over diagnose, and be extremely conservative with my treatment plans, for fear of missing something or messing up. I want desperately to just assume that cool confidence I had in clinic as a senior fellow, seamlessly handling a full patient load independently, reading echos and finishing notes on time, feeling great in my own skin, and portraying that put-together doctor that everyone wants for their kid. I know I will get there eventually—it’s in me, it always has been, and I can do it again—but getting there will take time. There will be the clumsiness with the new EMR, the awkwardness with navigating a new team, and learning the flow of a new clinic and my place within it. Compound that with the mental gymnastics of balancing the weight of new responsibilities, and you have the perfect set up for an anxious but eager young attending who just wants to impress everyone and never make any mistakes. It’s like wearing a neon sign that says, “I promise I am a badass, no you didn’t hire the wrong person. Just give me a second, I’ll get there again.”

But wanting to be perfect is unrealistic and I know it. And no one is expecting perfection from me except me. And all of this is just another growing pain in my journey through medicine. And I’m sure all these anxieties are necessary to being a caring doctor who is always willing to do and be better for their patients. I’m sure everyone who has been in this position has felt this way, and all those in the future will feel it too.  

I’m nervous as hell, but I’m excited too. This is what I’ve always wanted, and there are so many opportunities and adventures that are in my future. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is the first step of many in my career, and to take time to appreciate everything that has led up to this point. I may never be ready for tomorrow, but whatever comes I will fake it till I make it, and keep pushing.

[fakesurprise]

Skipping Hope: first scene

I’d never met a Monday I didn’t like, which might be why the world fell apart Tuesday morning. I came downstairs, not sure how to tell mom and dad I didn’t actually need a job for college

Dad was already up and in a suit and tie: he sleeps less than anyone I know. I could hear mom upstairs in her office fighting with the computer, but she hadn’t yelled for me so it was probably just the normal issues.

“Sannu,” I said, giving Dad a handshake to buy time before figuring out how I’d explain last night to them. He was going to ask what jobs I’m applying for before they left, and I tried not to lie to to my parents.

Dad gave me a puzzled look, his grip loose. “Good morning?”

I let go. “Dad? Is everything okay?” “Everything is fine,” he said, not looking any less puzzled.

I walked over and did a sniff-test, but mom hadn’t replaced his coffee with decaf.

As if my worry has summoned her, Mom came down the stairs in a rush of shoes, a bag slung over her shoulder. “Amari: can you clean up? We have to go: the flight was moved for the conference and the computer crashed when I tried to rebook anything!”

Dad ran upstairs and was down with his briefcase in under four minutes while mom argued with the cab company while handing me a small stack of bills for the week. Dad came down, gave me a normal hug and mom a peck on my cheek before they were out the door, leaving the kitchen looking like aliens had invaded it.

I was halfway through doing dishes when mom came back in, up the stairs and back down as I stared in shock.

“Forgot my phone,” is all she said before the door is slammed and the taxi skidded back onto the road.

I dropped a cup, which hit the ground and rolled against the fridge without breaking.

“What?” I squeaked out, but it’s far too late.

Everyone has weird talents. I have a friend who can tie her shoes without looking, doing it perfectly every time. Dad could guess the time to the nearest five minutes without even needing to look at the sun. And mom never, ever misplaced her keys or phone, to the point that we teased her gently about it and threatened to try and hide them on her. Not that dad or I ever would.

I finished cleaning the kitchen out of reflex, slathering a bagel in butter and headed upstairs as I ate it. Cleaning helped ground me, and mom and dad didn’t exactly object to it.

Their bedroom was neat as always, like they insisted mine should be. Mom’s office was a bit of a mess, but it often is because she wore too many hats at the university and Dad often had his office crammed into a corner of hers when he had to work from home. Nothing weird to it, nothing off in their bedroom.

No smell of drugs.

I knew my parents had met because my mom snuck off to smoke marijuana during a missionary trip. Dad kept her and her friend safe, got them back to their hotel. They’d met properly two days later after she was left stranded in Nigeria and kicked out of the mission after they’d found out her real reasons for joining. They smoked some pot on their anniversary as a remembrance, but that was two months ago. No smell that screamed drugs or anything weird.

I checked the envelope behind my computer desk. Nothing has changed. I had the hundred thousand I’d won last night from Campfire Casino, enough for university and a bit left over. I put it back, as if somehow moving it would do something. Nothing happened. I stood. Breathed. Dad had been off. Mom was busy. I knew my upcoming fees were stressing both of them, but I’d taken care of that. Not smartly, but the slot machines had worked.

Luck had always been my talent: by ten I’d had to stop entering any school raffle because I won them all. It was silly and weird, but no sillier or weirder than how Gorman in grade three had been able to fart entire songs from his butt.

“Okay. Okay.” I shook my head, put my keys in the left pocket of my jeans and went downstairs to water our gardens. Given the weirdness of today, mom hadn’t even left me a list of things to do, but that was always on it. I started making a mental list to check groceries and make sure their flights back would be on time so I’d know when to properly clean the house even as I headed out into the garden, working out a mental map of which plants needed watering first. Most of our back yard was garden, and that I couldn’t just leave for several days or mom would have had my hide. It was the work of a good hour to water all of it but I seldom did it at once.

A noise I hadn’t known was possible came out of me as I opened the back door.

Every flower was dead. The garden was all dead earth and dying flowers like a scene from a horror film. The back wall was devoid of ivy, each planter and pot looking as if locusts had feasted on even the local weeds and mosses. The hedge dad and I had planted six years ago looking like it was the ass-end of winter and not mid-summer.

The sound of the water can hitting cement was moment I realize I dropped it, and somehow water on my sandals made it real. I bolted inside, slamming and locking the street door and yanking the blinds closed after me.

I ran from window to window, checking and locking them. A glance out the living room windows showed that the Mr. Robertson and the Ao family shouting at each other across the road. Every lawn? The whole street? I didn’t know. I was too scared to know. I closed everything I could as if that would be better than my own eyes and was triple-checking the front door even as the landline in mom’s office began to ring so loudly I half-thought it was emergency services.

A giggle escaped me as I pictured baffled police officers calling in old lady gardeners, but the ringing didn’t stop.

I took the stairs two at a time. “Amari. Who is –.”

“Have you been outside?” Ms. Anchor all but screamed in my ear. She’s three doors down, and mom politely called her a study that many papers would love to report on.

I winced. “I saw our garden. Mom and dad are out of town –.”

“My Raymond was right: the government is finally acting! Don’t drink the water! Turn off your TV. They’re controlling us with our phone –.” There is a moment of silence, and then the phone slams down as her body caught up with her thoughts.

I moved to my parents room, opening the door onto their balcony. The six small pots were all dead plants. Beyond that: withered trees, scorched brown lawns. Everyone outside was moving slowly, questions and threats about the HOA giving way to the same confused fear vibrating throgh me. I stepped back, closing the patio and locked it. Yanked the blinds closed.

I sat down on my parents bed, staring at my shaking hands.

No one had called. Mom and dad would have noticed this when leaving, no matter their hurry. Conference or not, mom would have cancelled fights and hunted down the head of the HOA to demand answers about fertilizers in a tone no one would have ignored.

I wiped away tears. The garden had been mom’s pride and our collective joy. I stood, half-hoping to wake up from sleep and pinched my arm to no effect.

“Phone.” I bolted to my bedroom, turning my phone on. The local HOA message board was on fire with messages; three block radius that people knew of, and less terrible on our block. I had no idea what other places must have looked like, and less idea what to send.

A few local twitter hashtags had begun. #gardengate was being used by Eliza, one of mom’s friends.

I began to send her a private message when a stranger stepped into my bedroom.

Tall. I was tall, but this person was tall. Not thin so much as narrow, skin so dark it felt like their shadow was lighter. Long, dark clothing matched that. They didn’t move. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My bones felt cold.

A sweaty hand pressed against my face, and let go a moment later.

I stumbled, staggered two steps and found myself somehow on my feet. Sand. Heat. The sun overhead, dunes around me. The air rich and clear, but I turned as quickly as I could to find a stranger staring at me.

This stranger was a good foot shorter than me, skin librarian-white with pale blond hair and wide grey eyes in a round face. He had on sweats, shoes and a large t-shirt soaking through with sweat as he tried to wipe sweat from his forehead.

“Stupid. Stupid,” he said softly, voice cracking a little. “We need to get away from me.” I stepped back as he moved toward me. “Don’t come closer.”

He stopped. “Please. The desert won’t be safe.” He held out his right hand. “I can get you somewhere safe.”

“I don’t know what is going on. I don’t know what you are. But I can damn well break your nose if you move closer.”

He vanished.

One moment in front of me, the next no one was there. No shift of light. No sound. No weird glow. Just gone.

I fumbled out my phone, turned on the map.

Sudan. I was in the Libyan Desert. Miles from any marker on the map.

I had no idea what roaming fees would be. Less how I’d explain anything to anyone.

I just stood as still as I could and gripped my phone carefully like a talisman I didn’t quite trust.

[sunnyie-eve]

The Angel(Pt.15)

Series: Never Leave You | OBX

Paring: (JJ Maybank x OFC! Rafe Cameron x OFC!)

Word Count: 1994

Warnings: fluff, Luke being an ass

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The next morning Kie, Pope, and Callie were first to wake up getting ready for school while John B and JJ were passed out still. "Callie, wake your boyfriend up." Pope huffs.

"J, get up. If you don't I'm breaking up with you." She tells him so he gets up half asleep still making her laugh. "Where you going? We're going this way." Callie grabs John B who starts walking around.

"I'm starving. I need some pizza." JJ tries to walk away from the door.

"No, you missed breakfast." Pope walks him out as JJ grabbed a slice.

"Come on sleepyheads." Callie helps walk both boys to the van.

As Pope parks at school, JJ goes head first forward making Callie look back at him, "That didn't wake you up?" She gets out going to open the door.

"Let's go. Up and at 'em, boys." Pope gets out of the van so the other two follow to class.

In the first class of the day John B and JJ get mad at Pope and at Callie for not telling them there was a test today.

"I told you we had a test this morning." Pope whispers to them.

"No, you didn't."

"It's literally the first thing he said to you." Callie has Pope's back.

"Can I peek over your shoulder?" JJ leans forward to ask Callie.

"If you get caught it's on you." She tells him so he kisses the back of her head.

"I fucking love you."

After class walking to the next, Mr. Sunn calls the group to give Pope a diary, Denmark's diary, and from this, he learns that the Cross of Santo Domingo was on the Royal Merchant.

The Pogues go to the bonfire, with JJ telling John B that it may be best to give Sarah some space. "That's you. I'm out of here with my baby." JJ gives his beer to Callie to shotgun so she does making him proud of her.

The two end off alone to the side drinking and relaxing as Pope joins them, "Please don't make me feel like a third wheel." He tells them.

"I can't make any promises." JJ holds Callie in his arms as they rock to the music.

"You guys make me sick. How did you, JJ, get an actual girlfriend before me?" Pope laughs at them.

"Because my childhood friend moved back, who had the same feelings towards me."

"Don't worry, Pope. There's a girl out there waiting to meet you. And when you meet her, you will know. Trust me." Callie tells him making him smile.

"Thank you, I'm going to get a drink." He walks off leaving the two alone.

"You do know you're my first girlfriend, right?" JJ turns Callie to face him.

"I figured that. And you're my first boyfriend." She leans up to kiss him so he pulls her closer to him.

JJ walks backwards so he can sit down on a little wall that was the perfect height for them. JJ immediately pulls Callie onto his lap and grips her ass.

"Hey, we're in public." She leans out of the kiss.

"You didn't fight back when I pulled you onto my lap." He kisses the tip of her nose.

She just stares into his eyes smiling, "Do we really need the gold to get married?" She asks him so he smiles bigger.

"It would be nice but no, we don't need the gold. Before Sarah dumped John B, they got married with no gold." He tells her, "So will you marry me, Callie Ivy Warner?" He cups her face.

"Yes, I will marry you." She gives him a sweet kiss so he takes off his necklace putting it on her.

"Until I can get you a ring."

"It's perfect." They smile till they are rudely interrupted by hearing a fight break out so they go jump in before the five leave.

Back at home the group sits around the fire eating, "It's going to be hot, JJ." Callie watches him try to pick up the food. "J..." He tries again burning his fingers more.

"I'm just so hungry." He tries to pick it up again.

"Hey, hey. Somebody is here." John B tells the four.

Kie asks if JJ has the gun making them bicker that he doesn't have it for once. Instead of it being any Kooks it was Renfield appears. With bow hunters in the background, he shows them that he means serious business. So Pope is forced into reluctantly handing over the real key to Renfield.

"Hey, are we keeping us a secret or what?" Callie asks JJ as they lay down together.

"I don't want to tell them just yet. I want to enjoy this to myself for a while."

-

"Another broken couch." John B sighs.

"You gotta sleep there tonight." Pope tells JJ.

"I always sleep there." He tells him as Sarah shows up bickering with John B before she tells them why she's there.

The Pogues learn that the diary states that there is a holy garment within the cross that will heal people from sickness, hence why the gravely ill Carla wants it so badly.

Turns out Denmark painted a map on the wall, which leads to the discovery that Denmark buried the treasure at the foot of the angel. Wheezie explains that Carla showed up last night and they ripped off all the wallpaper with Rafe's help.

Within time, The Pogues stumble across Carla, who is working with Rafe, and her men who find a casket buried beneath the angel oak. Believing that it contains the cross, Carla has them open the casket immediately. To her shock, it only contains a corpse. With Carla and her group leaving in defeat, The Pogues go in for a closer look. Pope realizes that the corpse belongs to Cecilia, Denmark's wife, meaning that the treasure buried at the foot of the angel referred to his dead wife.

JJ notices there is a part of the tree that resembles a section of the painting from the Island Room so he and Callie climb up to it.

"Go for it." JJ tells Callie.

"Excuse me? I went into a storm drain, remember?" Callie looks at him.

"She did go in the storm drain." Pope and Kie say at the same time.

"Yeah. No, I'm gonna do it. It's just..."

"He's scared." Callie whisperers.

"I'm not scared, dude." He tells her.

"I'm a dude now? Wow..." Callie says so JJ sticks his hand in the hold feeling something then plays like something got him. "I hate you, asshole." Callie slaps him as they all got worried.

They find out the cross is at the church so they head off to see the tide came in but this time when they try to go through the side getting stuck. Kie suggests her dad's truck so JJ and Callie go with her while the other three stay with Twinkie.

When they get to the Chateau, JJ runs to go get the winch. Both girls watch him fall so he shouts that he's okay.

"I noticed after the bonfire... you're wearing JJ's necklace he never takes off." Kie turns to face Callie, who was sitting in the backseat.

"Yeah." Callie plays with it.

"What's the special meaning?" Kiara smiles.

"You willing to keep a secret till JJ wants to tell everyone? You can't tell him I told you as well." Callie gives her a look.

"You know us girls can keep secrets from the guys."

"It's basically my wedding ring... Last night at the bonfire he asked me to marry him. He had this whole thing planned out if we got the gold so I said can't we still get married without the gold." Callie makes Kiara's jaw drop.

"Oh, my god! I promise to keep this to myself till he's ready to tell everyone. I'm so happy for y'all. Way more than John B and Sarah before they split up. I always knew if JJ was to marry someone, it would be you." Kie gives her a smile.

When JJ comes back the girls see Luke with him and say no way getting out of the truck. "Just get in the truck." He tells the girls.

"I'm sorry. The Twinkie's drowning right now, JJ." Kie tells him.

"What is the plan? What is this?" Callie asks.

"Listen to me. Listen to me, okay." He grabs both of them, "I need to get into the marina at the Island Club. There's a boat there he can take. You got the sticker on your truck. Twenty minutes, that's all I need." He tells them.

"The Twinkie's gonna be a submarine in 20 minutes." Callie reminds him.

"Just leave him and we can come back." Kie sighs.

"The cops are after him! If I do this now, maybe I will never have to do it again" He gets in the truck.

Kie turns to Callie, "I hate your husband." She sighs before they both get in the truck.

"Scoot over." Callie says not wanting to walk around so Luke moves behind JJ.

As JJ rushes into the store to get a few things for his dad, Luke pisses off the girls. "You're a terrible father, you know that." Callie turns her head to look at Luke.

"Like you don't have one as well?" He looks at her.

"Do you have any idea how special your son is? Like, even a clue?" Kie speaks up now.

"He's a thief is that he is."

"What are you? You're just a wasted local salt who never did shit but get messed up and hustle people. Not exactly impressive." Kie adds.

"You know, you sound just like your mama. She was just like that in high school. Always thought she was better than everybody else. Kook princess." Luke tells her, "The complete opposite of your mom, Pogue princess. Slept around with everyone but landed a shitty Kook." He looks at Callie. "I bet you both are a lot like your mamas. Slumming with the bad boys. You're ungrateful like her and you're picking the worst one to get with." Luke says so Kie elbows him in the face and Callie punches him in the jaw before JJ comes back.

Callie sees Luke eye the knife so she snatches it from the seat, "Don't even think about it or I will stab this thing right into your throat. No noise. No mess." She glares at him. He goes to speak but JJ gets his attention so Callie gives him a smile.

When they get to the place for Luke to leave the girls flip him off so JJ walks him away. "Really threatening him with a knife?" Kie looks back at Callie.

"He was going to go for it because we hit him. He deserves death for what he's done to JJ."

While JJ helps his dad, he gives him shit for giving the girls crap. "Everything I have, you fricking ruin." JJ tells his father.

"I don't try to. Just happens naturally. Plus your pretty friend, Callie is just going to leave you for a fucked up Kook. Her mother left a Pogue for a Kook. Trust me, I know it will happen to you." Luke tells him, "No, Morgan will stay with a Maybank." Luke mumbles but JJ hears.

"What? How close were you with Scarlett?" JJ asks his father.

"My first girlfriend in high school before Anna introduced her to Mike and his friend Will. Bitch left me like I was nothing. Callie will do the same to you for a Kook."

"Callie's not her mother and won't do the same to me like her mother did to you. Is it hard for you to believe someone actually loves me? Callie isn't just some girl, dad. She's my girlfriend, no she's my wife... well going to be my wife legally as soon as we can do it. She chose me over a shitty Kook and my best friend. I know she's the one." JJ stands up to his dad so Luke pulls him into a hug.

Back at the truck Callie and Kie get out walking towards JJ to see him watching his dad take off, "You don't have to worry about him hurting you anymore." Callie wraps her arms around his neck.

"I'm finally free." He squeezes her so the three walk back towards the truck to go help their friends finally.

[inazumaeveryday]

Day 15

At home

Kidou: Good morning, mar.

Sorry to have made you worry about me yesterday… I’m fine now.

…………

Right… We have the tests today.

It’s time for you to show what you’ve learned in your two weeks at Teikoku.

So, how are you feeling about it? Confident you’ll do well?

Option 1

mar: Well, I guess I’ll be alright… probably!

Kidou: That so? Good luck, then.

Option 2

mar: That number one spot will be mine, so watch out!

Kidou: Oh? Then we’ll be rivals today!

Kidou: It’d be problematic if your grades fell while you were staying at the Kidou house, so…

Show me the best you can do.

*

Kidou: Yawn… I didn’t get much sleep last night.

Breakfast

Kidou: I don’t really feel like eating…

Ugh… Even though we have tests today…

Kidou’s room

Kidou: mar, are you sure you didn’t forget anything?

Hm? Where’s my wallet…

Well, that’s embarrassing. I’m the one who forgot something…

In the car

Kidou: …………

Sorry, did you say something? I was thinking, so I didn’t hear you…

Morning practice

Kidou: …………

Haruna…

Doumen: …!

D-did I hear this right? But that was definitely a girl’s name that Kidou-san just said…!

At school

Test (social studies)

Kidou: These history questions are all stuff that I memorized.

Alright, this’ll be a perfect score.

Break

Kidou: That test was pretty easy if you learned the notes by heart. It was pretty much all rote memorization.

Genda: Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for! I’m confident I did great on this one!

Kidou: Hehe. That’s good to hear.

Test (science)

Kidou: Exactly what I was expecting for physics and chemistry.

No problem at all here either.

Break

Kidou: The science test was equal parts memorization and calculations.

I just had to use logic to solve the problems, so it was easy.

Phew…

Test (English)

Kidou: Listening and writing in English is what I’m best at.

Okay, this is easy.

Break

Banjou: Kidou-san, how did you answer the last listening question…?

Kidou: I picked A.

Banjou: Ah, so it was that one…

Test (Japanese)

Kidou: Hm…? This auxiliary verb…

Uugh… The classics are so hard to understand…

Lunch

Kidou: Four tests done, one more to go!

Be careful not to eat too much now, or you’ll have trouble thinking properly later.

Lunch break

Kidou: What is it? You want to check your answers with me?

The results of the tests are announced on the same day here, so there’s no need to do that. You’ll know how you did soon enough.

Test (math)

Kidou: All of these problems were in the workbook.

And… The calculations are all done.

Break

Sakuma: It’s finally over~!

Kidou: Woah, you’re practically glowing.

Sakuma: Yeah!! Well, I’m nowhere near your level, but I’m really confident this time!

Kidou: Yeah? I’m glad.

Class (PE)

Kidou: Ah, feels good to do some shooting after the tests are over.

It’s blowing away all the stress of the tests.

Break

Kidou: We’ll get the results in about an hour.

Teikoku’s grading process is automated, so it takes almost no time.

Test results

Kidou: The results are up.

First, mar’s…

Oh, not bad! You passed.

I made a really simple mistake in Japanese this time, so I scored 497 points in total…

Well, I still ranked first, but…

No, I shouldn’t be thinking like this. That mistake is proof I should be working harder.

Practice

Genda: They’re executing Death Zone a lot more efficiently than before.

Kidou: …………

Genda: Kidou?

Kidou: …Yeah.

Genda: What’s wrong?

Kidou: Ah… Nothing, don’t worry about it.

Do it again!

…………

…I’m going to take a short break. I’m leaving leading practice to you.

Genda: Sure, no problem.

Kidou leaves practice for a moment.

Henmi: Huh? What’s up with Kidou-san?

Narukami: He looks really down… I wonder if he’s feeling sick or something?

Doumen: …Ah!! Maybe it’s…

I heard Kidou-san mumble a girl’s name this morning!! So maybe he’s having love troubles!?

Henmi: No way!? Are we even talking about the same Kidou-san!?

And anyway, we’re forbidden from dating, right? Isn’t it really bad for him if the commander finds out?

Gojou: Kukuku… So it turns out the captain worries over women…

Doumen: You really can’t underestimate Kidou-san~ Even in love, he’s way ahead of us!

Jimon: Hey! Stop gossiping and back to practice, the lot of you!

Kidou is listening in on Anzai’s conversation with Kageyama.

Anzai: Nyeheheh… Our Teikoku’s victory is assured, now.

Giving Fuyukai the boot will only lead to their own disqualification.

…It was truly an act of collective suicide!

Kidou: Fuyukai was fired…? So Raimon doesn’t have a coach anymore…

But the rules… Then Raimon won’t be able to continue participating in the tournament…

Kidou: Urgh…! This was all the commander’s…!

Back to practice

Kidou: Raimon won’t be able to keep participating without Fuyukai…

For him to go to such lengths to prevent Raimon from playing…

Doesn’t the commander believe we can win this ourselves?

In the car

Kidou: Raimon’s coach…

A replacement should be easy enough to find, right…?

At home

Kidou: Ah, right…

Dad’s coming home today…

In the bath

Kidou: Why would you go that far…

Commander…

Dinner

Father: We haven’t had dinner together in a while, haven’t we? I’ve just been swamped with work lately, it’s keeping me so busy.

mar-kun, have you gotten used to the school yet?

Oh, right. I heard you had tests today. How did you do?

Kidou: I got full marks on both English and math.

Father: And Japanese?

Kidou: …97 points.

Father: …Sigh.

Father: Those from the Kidou Zaibatsu must always stand at the top.

Do you understand?

Kidou: …Yes.

Dad, I’ll fulfill my duty to the Kidou family, I promise you that, but…

After my third consecutive victory in the Football Frontier…

Father: I know.

You mean what we discussed about your sister, Haruna, right?

Rest assured. I’ll keep my promise to you.

Besides, winning for three years in a row should be easy for you.

Father: You have nothing to worry about as long as you leave everything to Kageyama-san.

Kidou: …………

Father: Ahh, come to think of it… This is news to you, right, mar-kun?

Yuuto here has a little sister, but they live separately for various reasons.

But not for much longer. We’re planning to have her move in with us next year.

Kidou’s room

Kidou: …………

All we have to do is follow orders. The commander’s orders are absolute…

We keep winning matches as long as we listen to the commander. And we never encounter any problems.

Teikoku stays undefeated. We’re strong enough to win against anyone…!

But…

Is that really how it is…?

…!

Oh, it’s just you, mar…

mar: (He’s acting a little weird…)

Option 1

mar: Are you thinking about your sister?

Kidou: No…

Option 2

mar: Are you thinking about the commander?

Kidou: Yeah… I think I’ve finally figured it out.

Kidou: Up until now, we did what the commander told us, and victory followed.

But wasn’t he the one who set everything up about our matches?

It’s making me start to wonder about a lot of other things…

Like how we’ve only been playing against weak teams in the regional qualifiers, but Raimon, which the commander has been keeping an eye on, faced all the best teams in the tournament.

I don’t know if that kind of thing is even possible… But I can’t help but think the commander could make it happen somehow.

To think that everything we’ve worked for, all of our victories… None of it was real…

Sorry. I just want to be alone right now…

*

Kidou: …………

Sigh…

*

Kidou: …………

I’ll just go to sleep…

At night

Kidou: …………

…our victories were…

[stahfakz]

My Fu$ked up life 26/2/24

Sooo, going back Christmas 2023, I get a call from my mum, except it's my older sister, calling from mums phone saying mums in the hospital and wanted me to pick up her partner, so that they could fuck off for the four days.

Bear in mind, I haven't had a holiday from work since b4 dad passed, over 2 years, and I was really needing 4 days off work to chill out. I didn't get it, I ended up with mum at the hospital everyday, and I ended up having burnout at work about a month later, and had to get senior manager approval to take off 2 days stress leave. But I digress.

Anyway apparently mum started her bs to Caz and caz told kez her partner who told her to take mum to the hospital because Caz a 53 yr old woman, is unable to make decisions on her own.

What they didn't tell me was that they were heading out, and wanted me to take care of mum without asking what my plans were or anything. I was dropping my own kid off at the airport that day. Ugh anyway. So I'm at the hospital, and the drs are telling me they think shes got a UTI or whatever, and awaiting some blood tests, but apparently when they dropped mum off, she was spouting her bs and it;s like FFS, Caz had fucked off and left me to deal with it. Stayed at the hospital for HOURrrrrsss with mum, but no results, I went home after 9pm I was so tired. I go back tot the hospital the next day, they've moved her out of the emergency ward and into a private room, they're still monitoring her, and they've sent the mental health care team to assess her, but cos mums religious, they can't do anything, cos it's 'god' talking to her or whatever.

Anyway, I ended up talking to Brocks mum about the sitcho, cos I know shes worked in aged care. She was really helpful, advised me on how to get aged care assessment done, etc, etc, as the drs would not allow mum to leave just yet.

I called Caz after talking to Brocks mum, and Caz had no fucken clue how to approach the situation, and I wondered why the fuck I even called her, and getting frustrated that she wasn't taking responsibility for her shitty decisions and fucking off, leaving me to deal with her drama so she can have time off work, cos she doesnt have kids, and the last time she had a holiday was 3 months ago, and wow thats so terrible for working for so long without a break.

The next day, the social worker visits mum and gets an aged care assessment referral for mum, and caz is back from her holiday. Because she wasn't around, all the referrals had my contact details, so when the next day, they finally let her out, I got several calls the following days about it all.

Mum missed her aged care assessment appointment, apparently they couldnt make it and had to re-schedule when they called her, but she hasn't heard back since.

I've set it up so that she gets groceries delivered, and sometimes Id go over and clean her house, I took her mower to be fixed, and brock mows her yard sometimes. Anyway, fast forward to today, on my last week of holidays. I pop over last week with milk, cos they didnt have any in her order last time, than I said I'd pop over on monday and pay her bills, etc. So I come over in the morning, wash and hang out her sheets, vacuum the floors, tidy up and mop her floors. Then I suggest she needs new sheets and towels and things, cos she can't see how moldy they are and they need to be thrown out, so i go to Capa and get her a bunch of new stuff all clean, come back and then tell her that she needs to call the aged care people, cos moving forward, I simply won't have the time with work, my own house work, my kid is in their senior years of high school and needs extra support for studies, and driving lessons, etc. Mum says, like always, that shes not going to worry about it, and I'm getting pretty stressed about it, cos she needs someone to clean her house, since Caz never does and I will not haven any more time, I told her I won't be able to come over again for months.

Anyway, I get so stressed, that I go to set this shit up on my laptop, but I can't she has to call them. So I tell her you have to call them now. And she screams at me saying no. So I said whatever and left. Just her yelling at me like that made me realise how fucked my life is. Doesn't matter that she fucking kept me away from dad and the rest of my family for years, I was never allowed to do anything as a kid, watch anything, have boyfriends or do anything, constantly abused psychologically and it's like fuck. Why the fuck do I bother to help my family anymore, who clearly give zero fucks about me.

Like, get a text from my older brother on my birthday saying hey hbd I have no idea where youre living or what you're doing. And its like, bro really? Are you that fucking stupid that you cant remember that I've been living at the same place for 5 years, working at the same place for 6 years.

I'm just over it. Everyone can go fuck themselves.

Fuck me right

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Elton John - Tiny Dancer" on YouTube

I heard the song earlier today it was playing in fisherman's village and he didn't hear it and I was astounded. I think you did hear it he said and he did and I get mad at him and he remembers but really it's about us this song. And everybody's mad and they're saying all sorts of stuff and they think it's Tommy have ships and they should and tons of stuff it's starting to happen how about we need more of it elsewhere so it doesn't stall out all the time and it's backwards but that's how it is totally d and totally dumb showed up from Alice in wonderland and apparently that is going to happen and we think it's before Star Trek the motion picture it gives them a chance I think it does it's it's the groundwork for the or it might be even after I think it's after Harry Potter begins now my husband said this he said that this machine that Mac is building a prototype of that the guy said had a design of and he said that's what it is and it's for skydiving that it's for controlled skydiving and it's for limited flight and flight using flight devices but it's training and it's a military application and we can put it on basis and he started to howl and said why not it's going out there but that's for your guys who really kind of needed for different reasons and you need them to have it for a different reason so he acknowledges that and they might build the wrong and have quidditch or critic competitions and they know the football is and it's the first one. And our son had his hands on it more than once and said it's huge. And here we go this is going to be it okay we're going to have a decent time doing this.

Hera

Zues

You see how they work together and it's important and we see it and it is most important that things get done and we are seeing them get it done mac daddy wants to put these on the basis and we want to build them too we can build them very fast it would take us today he wants to see it done and he ordered for other bases and have people just watch that's what they do on base and feeling pretty good sized like three or four football fields long and two or three football fields wide and it's for a different maneuvers and plays and more and vehicles and all sorts of things now we know that they shouldn't be in there they might break it but that's what they're there for to test and with Matt and it's for doing it without the equipment what's the test how it works in unison and there's more things you can use it for butally it's for insertion teams and it's for skydiving and it's for teams mostly in the tunnels and they don't have training and it's just for you only need wings and your heavenly and they will be used and they'll be used without wings and you'll see the difference and you learn how to use the wings and use them so you can go out of the tunnel and we're going to set up some of these and we're going to set them up real quick and we're going to get a purchase order they said and these guys want the plans and they said how are we going to get the plans from Harry Potter's place get the plans cuz they probably won't let will and Bill release them and so they're going to try and do that and voldemort's going to be there and it's going fast cuz you guys are already in line for a folktale and they see it and I think it's after Harry Potter and they sort of got that and they're in Harry Potter and it's kind of different characters but they're close there's two of them and there are different teams now they're walking around together in the school so they see it and they're going to get it on it and they're going to do it and since about superheroes too you guys can do a nuts down there with the right now you're having a problem in the future so he told them about the bloodbath and they said that's not good and it says close and you think it's each other at first. It's going to be harsh but not that bad. And you fell in your face again damn not all the way this time though if someone was helping you and you got that too I think that's your girl but okay and he started laughing. The next show is actually in New Jersey and it's a restaurant that's in The sopranos and they filmed private already

Thor Freya