#I’LL HEAR THAT NAME IN HIS VOICE FOR APPROXIMATELY HALF A SECOND!!!!

[inawearyworld]

currently sitting in rehearsal for a midsummer night’s dream (i’m playing helena) and just remembered that there’s a point where bottom is singing about various songbirds, including the wren with little quill

meaning that when i go to london and see the rsc’s production in a little over a month-

[starshipsofstarlord]

Sebastian convincing you to have another baby...

Pairing | Sebastian Stan x reader

Summary | Seb wants another baby, but he still has to convince you into wanting the same thing.

Warnings | smut, breeding kink, fluff, oral sex (fem receiving), unprotected sex, mentions of birth control, creampie, swearing, cockwarming

Requested ✖️

Y/e/d/n = Your eldest daughter’s name

Y/d/n = your daughters name

Y/s/n = your son’s name

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

The idea of pregnancy gave you many things to think about, the gruelling and simultaneously tiresome journey had been one hell of a rollercoaster. The countless times (approximately two) that you had endured the swelling of your feet, and the divine hunger for the strangest combinations of food, had left you with three beautiful children.

First you had birthed a little girl, that sparked a new light behind your husband’s eyes, and reinvented his world. She was the princess he adored, and the one that you loved to watch Disney movies with, even if she insisted on Frozen every singular time.

And then, after her, you had a pair of perfect twins. They brought sound and restlessness to the household, after your daughter demanding that she wanted a sibling. Deep down, you had wanted more at the time too, but now, you felt as though your life goal was fulfilled.

Your family was everything that you had ever wanted, it felt as though you had been taken off an idealistic screen and transferred into reality. And if that had happened, you wouldn’t be one to complain, for all your greatest wishes had come true.

But if you were to ask your husband, he would make it very clear that he wanted more little devils running around the house. There was a joke that Evans and Mackie had with you every time that they saw you on set, clothed in a tight catsuit to fit your role. They would act amazed at the appearance of you not bearing one of Sebastian’s gorgeous children, their false shock earning laughs from your various co stars.

It wasn’t the fact that you weren’t open to the idea of another child to grow within your womb, however, it was more out of fear. You were well aware that you had been blessed with the birth of your lovely twins, though you were scared that you would endure the premise of double labour again, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of pain that you were willing to experience for a second time.

Being practically split in half once was bad enough, but twice, one instance straight after the other was bound to be the worst torture that a mother could be provided with. As you stirred your evening cuppa, watching as your kids were all huddled playing a board game after their dinner, two arms found placement around your waist, lightly tugging you back into a strong chest.

“Look at our babies.” Your husband mumbled into the crown at the back of your head, his fingertips rolling circles beneath your shirt. “Aren’t they the sweetest?” He asked, pressing a delicate kiss upon the back of your neck. The feeling of his stubble making your body shake wantonly, but you withheld from making sounds, not wanting to draw the attention of your children.

“When they’re quiet.” You agreed, watching as your eldest helped the twins with beating her. “They’re the most important people in my life, and then, it’s my annoying husband, who cannot stop trying to get in my pants for five minutes.”

“That’s called love; your husband loves you.” Sebastian stated, nibbling on your ear lobe as you ushered a sound of approval, clutching onto his hand that was firmly planted on your side, as his tongue traced the shell of your ear. “And I’m sure he’d love to show you how much, if you stop being mean to him.”

“Mean?” You laughed, taking a sip of your drink before spinning in his arms, allowing him to push you flush against the counter. “I can show him mean.” Biting your lip, you traced the seam of his sweats, that appeared to be all that he was currently wearing, brushing your hands up and against his well attended to torso. “But later.”

Seb groaned, leaning his head back, as he moved closer to you, pushing his thigh between your legs, glancing over your shoulder at the kids. “We could put them to bed right now, and then go to our room, then, you can show me how much of a horrible wife you are.”

“As much as I love that idea bubs, the twins need to be bathed, and you have to help your daughter with her math homework.” Leaning forwards, you pressed a kiss on his bicep, moving out from the entrapment of his arms, and lightly patting his ass.

“You know I was joking about you being mean, but now I’m seeing some truth behind my earlier words.” Sebastian plodded away, and towards the open living space, plopping down on the sofa, as he watched his offspring on the floor, smiling at their kindness to one another, though he was sure that tomorrow would be another story.

With one last look, you headed upstairs, going to the main bathroom, and began to slowly the run the tap. During the time you allowed it to run, you grabbed some pyjamas for your babies, as well as a couple of towels and flannels. By the time you had returned to the bathroom, and put everything down ready, the tub was half filled. And so you stopped the stream, putting in a tad of cold water before descending down the stairs.

“Honey, help y/e/d/n with her school work, I’m gonna get these two trouble makers ready for bed.” Your husband nodded as he pursed his lips, trying to ignore how you leant down to pick the twins up, pretending as through the top of your breast had not been caught by his eyes.

And with that, you got the kids cleaned and ready for the following day, meeting Seb at the doorway of y/d/n’s and y/s/n’s room, giving them each a kiss on the forehead before tucking them in for bed.

As you were walking towards your own room, Sebastian lifted you from behind, carrying you the rest of the way. “You can’t keep it in your pants, can you Mr Stan?” You laughed as he dropped you upon your double bed, him instantly kneeling at the end of it to peel your shirt off.

He trailed kisses along your legs, humming from the much desired contact, as his blue eyes flickered up at you. “That’s your fault, you deprive me.” He muttered against your skin, reaching his fingertips up higher to grasp at the sides of your underwear, pulling the material down.

Your husband blew hot air upon your pussy, grinning to himself as it instinctively clenched around nothing. As he moved closer, he breathed in your scent, rubbing the tip of his nose along your clit, before diving in to feast, sneaking his tongue through your slit, instantly prodding at your entrance, causing your head to wind back, and your hand grasp his hair.

“We should have another.” He mumbled against you, and you were almost too delirious to complain, although a light groan emitted from you, as you fought with yourself whether to let him continue eating you out and not respond, or do the responsible, adult thing, and speak about it.

With much resilience, you pulled his head away, licking your lips at his slick stained chin away, tugging him to be laid beside you. “Is that really want you want Seb?” You asked, biting your lip, wanting to hear his thoughts in hopes that it would relax you for the possibility of you bearing more of his children.

“Of course it is draga.” He answered, his icy pools making your own freeze, he cupped your chin, bringing your lips to his own, placing a few pecks upon your lips, before continuing. “I know that you’re nervous, but I will look after you every step of the way, like I have done both times before. Anyways, I feel like directors take a kick out of challenging themselves with making their actresses appear not pregnant, look at both you and Scar through the years.”

You nodded, understanding that your career wouldn’t take the brunt of things. “I want another but... I’m scared. Just, what if I have two again?” You rambled with your hands, and he clasped them between his own, pausing your panicked hand signals, and rubbing his nose against each set of your knuckles.

“The chances of that aren’t very high my love. But if it happens, then maybe this time you’ll let us call them Wanda and Pietro...” his words earned him a light eye roll and a tender hit on his shoulder, as he rolled on top of you, causing you to squeal. “Remember, don’t wake the kids.”

“Kinda hard when I can feel how hard you are.” You retorted, moaning as he began to suck at the spot on your neck that made your knees shake, his hands drifting beneath your shirt, as he began to raise the material up your torso, and over your breasts. You whipped the material over your head, discarding it as his attention turned to your boobs. “I’ll never get tired of these.”

He hummed, before leaning down, taking a rosey pebble to be captured within his mouth, sucking on it as his fingers fiddled with the other. “Seb, I just need you in me.” You prodded his hips with the heels of your feet, pleased when he leaned back, pulling down his sweats, so that his erection bobbed upwards, the head already leaking precum.

“You want a baby that bad?” He asked in a brisk voice, clambering back onto your awaiting body once again, grasping his base with his heavy hand, dragging his tip to circle around your clit. “Want me to fill you up, so that you grow nice and full with my baby.”

A furrow made its way onto your brow, as you held onto his biceps, lightly rolling your hips up against his leaking head. “Honey.” He paused his movements, staring carefully down at you, reading your expression. “I’m still on birth control.” You informed him, watching as his eyelashes fluttered, and he pressed down unto you again.

“A little practise never hurt gorgeous.” Sebastian spoke, slipping his cock into your entrance, sinking into you as you moaned out his name. “Fuck, so tight, even after three kids.” He groaned, putting his hands either side of your head, as he began to thrust in and out of your pussy, breathing heavily through his nose.

“So big.” Your hands grasped at his naked back, casting down to grasp his ass, causing him to suddenly buck deeper into you, emitting another series of moans out of you. “Love your cock.”

“Yeah?” The romanian smugly asked, his lips drifting up the tip of your nose, before running them back down to your own, biting onto your upper lip, as one hand continued to brace his weight above, and the other moved down to fondle with your clit, causing you to tighten around him, your eyelids blinking repeatedly. “You love my fat cock inside of you, about to pump you full of my cum?”

“Yes Seb, love it.” Your eyes screwed shut, tears slipping out the corner of your eyes, as he made his administrations harder, hitting his hips languidly against your own. “Love it so so so mu- ah - ch.”

“Cum angel. Coat my cock, pretty girl.” You complied, reaching your high, as your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer as your essence pooled around him. “Want me to make you round with my babe, want me to make you full of my cum?”

“I do, I do, I do.” You squealed, your breath hitching as he stilled for a minute, filling you with seed. “Fuck.” You breathed, your chest rising and falling, as he remained in your for a moment, before pulling out, but you stopped him, clasping his back with your sweaty hands. “Stay.”

“Okay.” Seb said tiredly, his skin flushed as he rolled over, so that you were laid on his chest, your head falling to below his chin. “So beautiful, you know that?”

“Mmh.” You hummed, drawing circles upon his skin. “I’ll come off my birth control tomorrow, then, we don’t have to just practice.” He leant down to press a long kiss upon your lips, sneaking his tongue through their natural seam, gently sucking on your own.

“That sounds more than good to me darling.” He stroked down your back with his talented fingers, pulling you closer again. You felt his dick twitch within you as he felt both of your mixed juices trailed down his balls, that huffed from the sensation.

[jaehyunhour]

34+35 ⭑ JOHNNY SUH

⭑ GENRE: fluff, smut

⭑ MEMBERS: fem!reader x johnny (mentions of jaemin and jeno)

⭑ DETAILS: yet another college!au, frat boy boyfriend johnny

⭑ WARNINGS: slight exhibitionism, mention of the word daddy, 69, oral [both f & m receiving], unprotected sex, lil bit of spanking

⭑ WC: 4,031

⭑ SUMMARY: as you're nearing finals week, you and johnny decide to help each other destress a bit.

⭑ AUTHORS NOTE: this is basically porn with little plot and is purely self indulgent, enjoy my babies <33

You straddle Johnny’s lap, hands placed on his cheeks as your lips connect with his. Your skirt rides up with each subtle thrust of his hips, his hands gripping onto your thighs tightly. It’s the middle of midterm season and you’ve booked a study room in the library to do work, but it quickly escalated as Johnny’s fingers trailed from your knee up to the wet patch on your underwear as you were trying to make flashcards for your Physics class. His hands reach up to grip onto your hips as his tongue slips into your mouth, fingers digging into your bones and forcing you to grind down against him and moan against his mouth.

“You might think I’m crazy, but you know what I’ve been craving lately?” You say, pulling back and tilting your head as Johnny’s lips trail down to your collarbones. He sucks the skin into his mouth, nibbling lightly and your mouth opens in a breathy moan. “To put it quite plainly—” you start, but are cut off by the doorknob jiggling. You groan, pulling yourself up off of Johnny and heading towards the door. You pull it open, not even bothering fixing your askew skirt or messy hair. You’re met with a group of boys you recognize from one of your classes and you flash a smile. 

“Can I help you?” You say in a sing-song voice.

“I-uh, we booked the study room starting at 2 and it’s already 2:15,” one of them says quietly.

“Oh! Sorry about that, we got a bit carried away,” you turn around to look at Johnny and fix your skirt. The boys push the door open a bit more, peeking into the room and Johnny throws his head back and lets out a sigh. He zips his pants back up, buckling his belt before picking his backpack up off the ground and slinging it over his shoulder. You bend down to pick your backpack up, flashing both Johnny and the group of boys the way your wet panties are sticking to you. Johnny feels his dick stir in his pants and he quickly grabs you by the hand and drags you out of the library.

Once outside, you grip Johnny’s hand tightly as you aimlessly walk around campus enjoying his presence. He walks slowly, enjoying the uncommon quiet of the school and the feeling of your hand in his. “So what was that about you craving something lately, princess?”

Your cheeks heat up at his words. Despite it only being approximately seven minutes since you were grinding on Johnny in one of the private study rooms of the library, you had already forgotten about what you had said. Truth be told, in the moment you were thinking of the last time you had sex with Johnny, the feeling of him filling you making you feel warm and content.

“I don’t wanna say, someone could leave one of these buildings and hear us…”

“C’mon, princess, don’t get shy on me now. You were about 3 minutes away from riding me in the middle of that study room and now you don’t want to admit that you just want me to fill you with my cum?” He tsks.

“Oh my god, baby, stop,” You blush and hit his arm playfully. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Hmmm, well we have a chapter meeting tonight that’s supposed to last for a few hours and I have to study for some exams.”

“That’s not the answer I wanted and you know that,” you say with a slight pout on your face.

Johnny’s hand slips out of yours and he lets out a laugh. His hand then comes up to your face, gripping your jaw tightly and effectively wiping the pout off your face. He slips his thumb into your mouth, and your tongue swirls around it instinctively before closing your lips around it and sucking on it. “What did you want me to say, baby? That I am going to do you all night? Hm? Fuck you till the daylight?”

You nod eagerly and he pulls his thumb out of your mouth, wiping it clean on your cheek and you whine.

“How bout you come over tonight after the chapter meeting and we can watch a couple of movies instead of studying for finals? We haven’t had any alone time in a couple weeks… I’ll even keep the suit on for you,” Johnny suggests.

“Fine, but I should get home now then so I can rest before I get over there. We’re not watching aaaaany movies tonight,” you respond.

“Let me walk you to your car.” He slips his hand back into yours, pulling you towards the student parking lot quickly. Once at your car, he presses your back into the drivers side door and leans in to press a kiss to your lips.

You grab onto his hand and push it between your thighs and underneath your skirt. “Are you sure you don’t want to come into the backseat with me for a few minutes?” You bat your eyelashes at him and Johnny sucks in a breath as he pushes your underwear to the side and feels how wet you are. He rubs tight circles onto your clit and you let out a whine that echoes in the parking lot. He turns you around, pressing you harder into the car door and pushing his crotch against your ass. 

“Ten minutes, max.”

“Yes, sir,” you say, unlocking the doors and crawling into the back, but not without a harsh spank landing on your ass.

“You really can’t keep it in your pants, huh?”

“Only because you’re a dream come true.”

Back at your apartment, you begin packing your bag for your overnight at the frat house. Johnny invited you over for movies, but after not having spent any alone time with him in nearly three weeks you know there is absolutely no way you’re going to be watching anything. After packing your bag with fresh underwear, your phone charger, and a couple of other things, you change into a fresh pair of comfy pajamas before getting into bed. You lay in bed in the dark, eyes closed and sinking into your bed.

Your roommate comes home a few minutes later, raising an eyebrow as she walks past your room and sees you laying in the dark but obviously not asleep.

“What are you doing?” She asks.

“Saving up my energy,” you respond. “I’ve got a long night ahead of me.”

“Are you pulling an all-nighter for midterms?”

“Nope. Going to the Sigma Chi house after their chapter meeting.”

“And you’re planning to fuck the entire house or what?”

“Just Johnny, duh. Although I wouldn’t mind getting some of the others in bed… Have you seen the new recruits? They’re absolutely delectable. There’s these two boys named Jeno and Jaemin, they’re best friends and my god are they pretty. I keep asking Johnny if we could invite at least one of them the next time we do stuff but he always says no.”

She fake sighs. “Your life is so hard. Have fun tonight, hope you can walk tomorrow.”

“Actually, my goal is to not be able to walk for the rest of the week. Rest of the month if I’m lucky.”

The drive from your apartment to the frat house is short. You park your car on the street in front of the house, not bothering to let Johnny know you’ve arrived. When you walk up to the house, overnight bag in hand, and knock on the door, you’re met with Johnny’s bright smile and it forces one onto your own face. You look him up and down; he’s still wearing the suit he’s required to wear for his chapter meetings, and it fits him perfectly in all the right places. You pull your bottom lip between your teeth as you take in his appearance. He lets out a laugh as he sees your eyes raking his body and he grabs your hand before pulling you into the house.

The inside of the Sigma Chi Frat house isn’t really what you’d expect from a bunch of frat boys. It’s fully furnished, neat, and most importantly: clean. Upon first glance, you wouldn’t think that around ten different boys all live here together — but then you walk into the kitchen to see they have a beer pong table in place of a dining table with a bunch of folding chairs around it, and realize that only a bunch of boys could live here. Johnny pulls you into the living room, sitting down on the couch and pulling you on top of him as he presses play on the movie he was watching. 

You straddle his hips, making sure to grind down on him as you press an array of kisses onto his neck. His hands hold onto your hips tightly, helping you move as his eyes are focused on the TV behind you. He’s not actually paying attention to the movie anymore, but he loves to make you work for the things you want. He loves the way you get needier and needier with the lack of attention he gives you, the way your hips speed up against him, and the way you whine against his neck. You pull away from Johnny, scooting back to put some space in between your crotch and his, letting your hand unbutton his dress slacks and pull the zipper down. Your hand slips into his boxers, pulling his half-hardened dick out and he lets out a hiss when the air hits him.

“Right here, princess? Where anyone could see?” Johnny asks, raising an eyebrow as your hand begins to move up and down slowly on his hardening length. 

You nod, his dick now fully hard in your hand, and you drop your head to his, forehead to forehead, lips ghosting over his. “Yeah, why? You got a problem with that?” Your hand moves faster and Johnny throws his head back onto the couch with a groan. His hands fall from your hips to the couch, and he grips the cushions tightly as you continue your movements. His hips buck up every time your hand comes all the way up, thumb wiping across his tip, and you can tell he’s going to burst any minute. Johnny lets out a shaky breath, willing himself to calm down before he cums all over himself in the middle of the living room.

His hand shoots out to grab onto your wrist as he feels himself seconds away from his orgasm, and he pants as he tries to recollect himself. You tighten your grip on the base of his dick and he lets out another groan. Before Johnny can say anything, though, you hear someone coming down the stairs and within seconds are met with Jaemin. 

“Y/N! I didn’t know you were coming over,” Jaemin says excitedly, standing still at the bottom of the staircase and flashing you a smile.

The couch shields your lower half, and you smile back, continuing to move your hand discreetly over the length of Johnny’s dick, forcing him to bite his bottom lip to stop any noises from escaping. “Jaeminnnnn,” you coo. “I didn’t know you were home! I figured you would be out studying with Jeno.”

“Well, we were going to go to the library to study but figured we should just stay here instead. At least here we don’t have to put any pants on.”

“Riiiight,” you say. You focus your attention onto Johnny’s tip, moving your hand unbelievably fast, his head falling onto your chest. “If I had known you and Jeno were home, I would’ve invited you two to come watch a movie with us.” With your other hand, you grab onto the hair on the nape of Johnny’s neck, tugging his head back and giving him a mischievous smile. “Johnny, you should’ve told me that Jeno and Jaemin were staying in tonight. You’re so mean.”

“Yeah, hyung! So mean,” Jaemin echoes, walking into the kitchen without another glance at you. 

Johnny gives you a dirty look to which you can only giggle at. You slip out of his lap, your hand never stopping its movements, and slide in between his thighs, head meeting his crotch and tongue coming out to kitten lick the tip of his dick.

“You are such a tease,” Johnny says, hand holding the back of your head and bringing you closer to his aching dick. You laugh, opening your mouth and sticking your tongue out. Within seconds Johnny is finishing right onto your face, most landing in your mouth but a little bit getting on your cheek, and he lets out a loud groan as he finishes. His fingers collect what landed on your face, pushing it into your mouth and you swallow before sticking your tongue back out to show him everything is gone.

Johnny doesn’t even allow himself a moment to calm down from the mind-blowing orgasm you’ve just given him. Instead, he quickly tucks himself back into his dress slacks and pulls you up off the ground. He grabs your overnight bag from the floor and heads straight to his bedroom, you trailing right behind him.

Just like the rest of the home, Johnny’s room is not what you would expect from a frat boy. His bed is neatly made, there are movie posters all over the walls, and he keeps everything on his desk organized. All of his dirty clothes are in the hamper in his closet, where they should be, and he has all of his shirts and sweaters in his closet organized by color.

Once inside the room, you crawl onto the bed and get on your back, watching as Johnny takes his suit tie off and hangs it on the outside knob of his door before slamming the door shut. He peels his blazer off, putting it back onto a hanger and into his closet where appropriate. He untucks his shirt, unbuttoning it one button at a time and you slip your hand into your underwear, fingers circling your clit lightly as you watch Johnny undress. A soft moan escapes your lips when you put pressure, toes curling at the much needed attention on your clit and Johnny laughs at the sound. He pulls his pants off, setting them on top of his dresser, then saunters over to the bed.

You spread your legs as soon as Johnny reaches the edge of the bed, leaving enough room for him to crawl in-between. Within seconds, Johnny’s hand is replacing yours in your underwear as his lips attach to yours. Your lips move in sync, tongues coming out to play with each other, and you peel your shorts and underwear down and kick them off to give Johnny more room to move. He collects your slick on his fingers, inserting two fingers into you without warning, a surprised moan getting caught in his mouth.

His fingers move in and out slowly, lips moving to suck on the skin of your neck and leave red and purple marks in its wake. You tilt your head to the side to give him more room, bucking your hips up as a silent plea to get Johnny to move faster, which he does. He drives his fingers into you quickly, thumb circling at your clit and your jaw hangs open, letting out every moan that bubbles in your throat. He pulls away from your neck for a moment, allowing you to remove your shirt before he bends down and sucks one of your nipples into his mouth. He sucks harshly on your nipple, fingers moving even faster in and out of you and your orgasm starts bubbling in your stomach. He lets the nipple go with a pop and then moves onto the other one, all the while curling his fingers to hit your g-spot and tightening the circles on your clit.

“F-fuck, Johnny—” you say, letting out a shaky breath. “I’m so close, sososo close.” Your hips buck up in an attempt to get just the tiniest bit more of pressure that will push you over the edge, but Johnny pulls his fingers away from you as soon as he feels you beginning to clench around his fingers and you whine loudly.

“What was that for?” You say with a pout, kicking your feet and on the brink of throwing a tiny tantrum. Johnny laughs, bringing his fingers up to your face and forcing them into your mouth. You lick his fingers clean, sucking on them lightly and he smiles at you before pressing a kiss onto your nose.

“Good girl,” Johnny says in a low voice. “Don’t worry, princess, you’ll get to cum. I want to try something with you, though.”

He pulls his fingers out of your mouth, wiping them on the bedsheets and brings you in for a deep kiss. When he pulls away, you raise an eyebrow at him and he pets your head softly. “You want to try something new?”

Johnny nods. “You wanna 69?”

You let out a tiny gasp at his bluntness, but feel yourself clench around nothing at the thought. He laughs at your reaction, grinding his hips into yours and you can feel just how hard he is through his boxers. After thinking it over for a moment, you nod and Johnny gets into position, lying on his back and pushing his boxers all the way down. You get on top of his body, positioning your head just above Johnny’s dick, letting a trail of spit fall from your mouth and onto his tip. He groans at the feeling, hands gripping onto your hips and pulling your wet heat right to his face.

You wrap your lips around Johnny’s tip, hollowing your cheeks and sucking on it tightly. Johnny lets out a loud fuck, pulling your hips all the way down and licking a stripe from your clit to your entrance. The tip of his tongue pokes at your entrance and you begin to bob your head, slowly moving up and down and stroking what you can’t fit in your mouth with your hand.

He sucks your clit between his lips quickly and harshly, forcing you to moan around his dick. His tongue licks at your clit in quick strokes and you grind down onto him, chasing your orgasm from earlier. You pull your mouth off of his dick, using your spit as lube so you can stroke him quickly and resting your head on his thigh. You press your lips to the skin of his thigh, sucking the skin into your mouth to ease the sound of the moans coming out of your mouth. One of Johnny’s hands leaves your hip, two fingers slipping right into your wet heat as his mouth continues to abuse your clit. You bite onto his thigh, forcing Johnny to groan against your clit, and within seconds you’re falling apart around his fingers, clenching tightly as your hips stutter against his face and legs begin to tremble.

You release the skin of his thigh from your mouth, hand still stroking his dick so slowly he can barely feel it, panting as Johnny licks you through your orgasm. The sound of Johnny’s lips moving against you and tongue slurping forces a blush to rise on your cheek. the thought of someone walking past his room and hearing him eat you out coming into mind. Once you’re satisfied, you pull your hips away from him, thighs shaking violently as you try to hold yourself up over his body.

“You taste like candy,” Johnny says, licking his lips and delivering a harsh spank to your ass. “Do you think you can take another, babygirl?”

You nod, flopping onto the bed beside him and flashing a smile at him. “Are you even going to last?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to fuck you ’till the daylight, baby.” He steps off the bed, grabbing you by the ankles and pulling you to the edge of the bed. “Flip over, princess.”

“Yes, daddy,” you say jokingly, flipping over and pushing onto your hands and knees.

“Don’t say that,” Johnny says, pressing his tip against your hole. He pushes into you slowly and a moan gets caught in your throat at the feeling of his long, hard length sinking into you. You clench around him once he bottoms out and slaps your ass again.

“Why? You don’t like it?” You pause for a second. “Daddy?”

Johnny wastes no time, grabbing onto your hips and quickly thrusting in and out of you like his life depends on it. Your head falls onto the bed, your mouth hanging open and letting out a moan every time Johnny bottoms out and fills you completely. You start moving back, meeting each of Johnny’s thrusts as his hand travels from your hip, up your back, and digs into your hair. He pulls your hair, forcing your body up and off the bed and you let out a surprised scream at the feeling of Johnny tugging on your hair as his hips hit your g-spot repeatedly.

“You’re so fucking nasty,” Johnny says through groans as he thrusts into you harshly. The sound of skin slapping against skin is heard in the entire room, his bed frame hitting the wall with every thrust. “Jaemin and Jeno are right next door and here you are, letting them know how good you’re getting fucked. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

You shake your head ‘no’ as best as you can with Johnny still pulling your hair tightly, eyes rolling into the back of your head at the mention of the younger boys. You clench around Johnny, and his hips falter for just a second before he’s back to his almost inhumane pace.

“J-johnny, I’m so close,” you say, clenching around him again. Johnny lets go of your hair, your upper body falling back down onto the bed, and his fingers move to rub your clit as he seemingly begins to thrust faster. 

“Come on, babygirl. Call out to them, give Jeno and Jaemin something to jerk off to tonight,” Johnny says, drilling into you and rubbing your clit harshly. 

You shake your head as you feel yourself getting closer and closer to the edge. “I c-can’t, Johnny, I can’t.”

“Do it or I’m not letting you cum,” Johnny says, pinching your clit between his fingers, pushing you even closer to the edge. He angles his hips, tip perfectly hitting your spot and within seconds, you’re tumbling over the edge with a cry.

“F-fuck, Jaem-Jeno-o-Johnny, feels so good,” you babble, clenching tightly around Johnny’s dick as he continues to thrust, letting you ride out your orgasm. The feeling of you clenching around Johnny is enough to push him over the edge. He bottoms out, pulling your hips flush against his as he finishes in thick white ropes, filling you to the brim. You fall onto the bed, Johnny’s softening dick slipping out of you, and he crouches down to be level with your crotch. He watches as his cum begins to seep out of you, two of his fingers instinctively pushing it back into you.

“Too much,” you whine. Johnny laughs, pulling his fingers out and wiping them on the sheets. He slips into bed, pulling your body close to his. Your head rests on his bare chest, legs tangling with his as his arms wrap around you. He moves your hair out of your face, pressing a kiss to your forehead before letting out a satisfied sigh and sinking further into the bed. You close your eyes, snuggling into his side.

“I’m just going to take a quick nap,” you say.

“Quick nap? Baby, it’s nearly midnight, just go to sleep.”

“Nuh-uh. You said we’re going ‘till the daylight. Give me like 30 minutes and I’ll be good to go again.”

“You’re insane,” Johnny says with a laugh, his dick stirring at the thought of going for another around.

“You love it, though.”

“You got me there.”

[gukyi]

if i told you | jjk

summary: in order to pay for university, jeon jungkook decides to market his most valuable asset to the wealthy socialites of campus: himself. donning a suit and tie, tousled hair, and glasses (to look smarter), he becomes every rich daughter’s dream: the perfect boyfriend to bring to balls, dinners, and business gatherings. all while you watch from the sidelines, only able to dream of having that much money to buy yourself what you really want: him.

{friends to lovers!au, college!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst, we’ve got it all folks word count: 22k warnings: slightly underage alcohol consumption, mention of words that could be spoken on an crime documentary series but nothing graphic, ravioli-stealing, idiots to lovers, as per usual a/n: finally! here is the long awaited jungkook fic that i have literally been slaving over since the beginning of january. was this fic supposed to be 10k? yes. did i somehow end up writing 22k anyway? of course! in any case, please enjoy my absolute baby who i love and cherish!

check out the post-script drabble here!

Jeon Jungkook loses his job at the university call center on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year. 

You know this because on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 2:07PM, seven minutes after he normally starts his job at the university call center. 

He’s lucky that you’re the only one who doesn’t have class in the 2PM hour. 

“Y/N!” He shouts through the thin wooden door, his voice probably echoing down the thin hallway of your apartment complex. 

You open it before the second knock—you only rush to the door to get him to shut the fuck up, and not because you’re excited to see him, you swear—to see him standing on the other side, XXL university hoodie draped over his figure, down to his mid-thigh, baggy hood pulled over his head like a sad college-aged Star Wars character. He looks exactly like a jaded sophomore year college student would. He is beautiful. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the call center right now?” You ask in lieu of a normal “hello” or even a “what the fuck are you doing here, it’s 2PM”. Jungkook does not wait for you to invite him inside your apartment, immediately kicks off his shoes by the entrance and tugs on your apartment slippers that are a size-and-a-half too small for his feet, and marches over to your shared fridge to fish through the tupperware containers with your name written on Post-it notes for a mid-afternoon snack. 

Jungkook waits until he’s got an entire piece of frozen supersized ravioli shoved into his mouth before he responds. “I was fired,” he says over a mouthful of pasta and cheese.

“What?” You ask, eyes widening as Jungkook shuffles through your kitchen drawers for a fork, which means that the first piece of ravioli that he ate he did so with his bare ass hands. Like a heathen. Like a ravioli-craving twenty-year-old heathen. 

“I was fired,” Jungkook repeats. He stares at the microwave resting on your kitchen counter for a good ten seconds before he continues to eat the cold, unheated pasta. Every time he’s in your apartment (which is frequently), he tells you how it’s a fire, water, and explosive hazard to have your microwave on the counter like that. As if there is any other place in your apartment for it to go. Maybe out on the tiny balcony you have that overlooks the busiest street on campus. 

“Care to offer an explanation as to why?” You ask, coming up next to him. Jungkook is nearly finished with your tupperware of ravioli, and normally you’d shout at him for it, but seeing as he was just fired from his only source of income as a money-starved college student, you’ll cut him some slack. Just a little. 

“You remember that old, angry alumnus that told me that asking for donations in order to benefit low-income-slash-first generation students was selfish and rude of me, and that I wouldn’t be in college if it weren’t for what his generation accomplished?” Jungkook asks. 

You remember that vividly. Jungkook spent an approximate two hours and thirty-seven minutes on FaceTime with you ranting about this one “old man bitch” who he had to speak to during his day at work, all while you did your economics problem set to the sweet, mellifluous sound of Jungkook’s shrill shrieks. 

“The one you lost your temper at and shouted at for being ungrateful and elitist?” You ask pointedly. You have a feeling you already know where this conversation is going. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes. He finishes the ravioli (goddamnit, now you’re going to have to find something else to eat for dinner at 11PM tonight) and turns around to place it in the sink. For once, it is not piled high with dishes from up to a week ago, so Jungkook even squirts a bit of Dawn onto a sponge and washes the plastic container for you. “Well, as it turns out, telling an old racist elitist that he’s old, racist, and elitist does not go down well with my boss.”

“Why does that not surprise me,” you muse. Jungkook sighs, walking over to where you’re taking it easy on the couch. “Oh no,” you say, eyes widening as he grins, plotting something. “Do not, Jungkook. Jungkook, do not!”

He jumps, catapulting himself onto the couch and landing on top of you with a thud. You let out a groan as the weight of his body hits you, foreheads nearly knocking into each other. Jungkook is a good foot-and-a-half too long for this dinky leather couch that’s always sort of smelled, feet and ankles hanging off the opposing arm rest just so he can nuzzle his face into the crook of your shoulder like he always does. You hate when he does this. Hate when he jumps onto the couch while you’re casually reclining just so he can collapse on top of you. Hate the feeling of his body resting against yours, soft breathes against the skin of your neck. Hate how it always makes you want more, how it will never be enough. 

“Have you been working out?” You mumble against the fabric of his t-shirt. “You’re more muscle-y than usual.”

“I added weights to my routine,” Jungkook tells you mindlessly. If your roommates walked into your apartment right now and saw the both of you on the couch, you’d never hear the end of it. “Taehyung said it would make me more swole.”

“As if you need to be any more buff,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Jungkook’s the most athletic person you’ve ever met in your entire life. He could probably pick up your dinky couch with you sitting on it without batting an eyelash. Even Superman would tremble at the sight of him. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jungkook mutters into your skin. “God, what the fuck am I gonna do now? I need money to pay for everything in my life and my one source of income is now totally invalid because an old guy got what he deserved.”

“Are there any work-study positions still available?” You ask, hand reaching up to stroke at his hair, smoothing it down. Jungkook’s preferred cuddling position is big spoon, but he still demands that he be coddled as though he were the little spoon. 

“No,” Jungkook says with a huff, “they’ve all been snagged by try-hard freshmen who need money like me.”

“I distinctly recall you being a try-hard freshman who also needed money,” you tell him. “That’s why you applied to work at the call center, isn’t it?”

Jungkook sits up, the weight of his figure crushing your legs as he rests on top of them. If you stayed like this forever, you’d probably lose feeling in your lower body, but you’d also get to stay with Jungkook forever, which is a trade-off you would genuinely consider. “Yeah, but the call center hires everybody. You just need to be like… decent at communication. And I’m pretty decent at communication.”

“You never text me back,” you tell him pointedly. 

“That’s because I prefer showing up unannounced at your apartment or other places you frequent,” Jungkook reminds you excitedly. He’ll never let you forget about the time you were wrapping up a small seminar with your history professor and Jungkook burst through the doors with a whole thing of carrots and hummus because you had texted him that you were hungry. You could not look your history professor in the eye for the rest of the semester. “I’d say that’s pretty decent communication.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure out another way to market your decent communication skills to get another job,” you tell him. “Have you considered the boba place on Oak? You could get me employee discounts.”

Jungkook leans over just to pinch at your cheek, fingers gripping onto your face and pulling like a grandmother. “You just want me for my money.”

“You’re my best friend, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him. “Of course I do.”

This is what Jeon Jungkook’s obligatory university Facebook group introduction post read:

Hi, I’m Jungkook and I’m thinking of majoring in visual studies or computer science (really different lol I know)! I played soccer in high school but don’t think I’ll be continuing in college because I was pretty bad at it. I’m looking for a roommate and I’d really like to live in New East House, but anything works for me as long as it has a bed. Hit me up if you think we’d made a good match, but I like talking with everyone lol. 

I’m really into music and can play the guitar, drums, and piano. I like listening to all types of music (yes, even country which slaps kinda hard sometimes) but my favorites are The 1975, Frank Ocean, Troye Sivan, and Khalid. Will bop to Justin Bieber on occasion as well. 

I play Ultimate and am really interested in joining the club team here so hit me up and we can practice sometime because my skills are a little rusty. I also do a little skateboarding but I am definitely not a skater. 

Hit me up if you think we can be friends lol I’m excited to meet you all!

It was accompanied by several pictures, a couple of which are selfies at that anime girl angle, one of him with his friends at prom all doing that Frat Boy pose, and a couple of him with his family. To an outsider doing a very quick glance, it pretty much reads the same as a rather extensive dating profile. 

The truth of it all is, as you were scrolling through the hundreds of obligatory university Facebook group introduction posts in search of a freshman year roommate, you stumbled upon Jungkook’s intro post and you thought this: No. Way.

The moment you laid eyes on his first above-the-head angle selfie, you knew that it would be unlikely that you and Jeon Jungkook’s paths would ever cross. He played guitar and did Ultimate Frisbee, and you wanted to audition for your university’s symphony orchestra. He was beautiful but in that sort of college frat boy who can crush you at beer pong kind of way. Craziest of all, he was a computer science major, and you were walking in as an undecided humanities concentration. 

Impossible. There was no way the two of you would ever meet, and you accepted that right off that bat. At a school your size, you would go through these four years not knowing a majority of your class. Jeon Jungkook was just one of the casualties. 

On the very first day of orientation, Jeon Jungkook comes up to you on the sidewalk, wearing a white t-shirt, a backwards baseball cap, and shorts, and asks you if you’re here for orientation as well? He’s lost. 

Jeon Jungkook is the type of guy you imagine getting eaten up by any girl who meets him almost immediately. He’s charming and endearing the same way a baby deer is, but has no problem wearing clothes that remind you of how fit he is. He is, for lack of a better term, extremely good looking. 

“Yeah,” you had said on the sidewalk, squinting to look up at him since the sun was in your eyes. “I’m heading to the auditorium right now. Wanna walk with me?”

“Okay, sure,” Jungkook had replied, smiling with all of his teeth. Even in the sweaty summer heat, he looked even nicer in person. “Thanks, by the way. I’m Jungkook. What’s your name?”

You knew that already. How could you have forgotten? 

You had grinned up at him. The universe has always worked in mysterious ways. “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

When Jungkook doesn’t know what to do, he stress eats. Most often, you are the single witness to this action, which has literally no effect on his body mass whatsoever since he immediately burns off every calorie (and then some) at his next gym session. 

That is precisely why you are sitting in the second-best dining hall on campus eating a pretty measly salad and french fries, while Jungkook returns from the serve-yourself cafeteria with his sixth plate of food. Next to you is your mutual friend Chaewon, a filthy rich international student from Korea who is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met. 

“I think I’ve called every cafe, bubble tea shop, clothing store, and paid internship within a five-mile radius of this place and nothing,” Jungkook says with a sigh, keeping Chaewon updated with his job-search antics. It’s been several days since he was fired, and while being keenly cognizant of your bank account isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when it means that Jungkook refuses to leave campus because he is in hyper-saving mode, it sort of rustles your jimmies. 

“Have you tried babysitting?” Chaewon supplies helpfully. 

You laugh aloud at the mere thought of Jungkook stuck in some middle-aged parent’s house with their toddler for hours on a night where he could be living it up on campus. Jeon Jungkook? A babysitter?

“Wow, what the heck is wrong with me being a babysitter?” Jungkook questions, offended. 

“First of all, you don’t even let me beat you in Mario Kart on your Switch and I am your best friend. If you ended up gaming with a four-year-old boy, your over-competitiveness would take over you and you’d crush the poor kid and his spirit,” you remind him pointedly. Not to mention the fact that the man cannot cook to save his life, and you can’t even entrust him with microwave dinners because of his irrational fear of modern oven technology. 

Jungkook pouts. He knows you’re right. 

“It’s not like you were going to look into babysitting, anyway,” you say with a shove, nudging his shoulder with your own. 

Jungkook sighs, and despite all of the shit you give him on a daily basis (part of the responsibility of being his best friend), you do genuinely feel bad for him. Even if his job at the call center wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating nor morally rewarding, he didn’t absolutely hate it and he made a pretty decent earning off of it. He unzips his backpack and fumbles for his laptop, opening it up to reveal a Google Chrome window with approximately thirty-seven tabs open of places to work on and around campus. Meanwhile, Chaewon’s phone buzzes on the table, and she heaves out a great, exasperated exhale before picking up and immediately launching off into incredibly speedy Korean. 

“If only the bubble tea place was hiring,” you lament, kissing goodbye all of the free bubble tea you had been dreaming about if Jungkook got hired. 

“I’m glad I don’t work at the bubble tea place,” Jungkook tells you with his eyebrows raised, “otherwise I’d have to see you every day!” 

“You already see me every day!” You should back, but it’s not like Jungkook doesn’t know that already. He’s the one always barging into your apartment or sitting down next to you in the library when you’re trying to study. 

“But maybe you should try drinking less bubble tea, otherwise you’re gonna blow up like a tapioca pearl like that one girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Jungkook warns, pinching your cheek as if to make your face round like a tapioca bubble. 

“I can think of nothing I’d want more than to be a tapioca pearl for the rest of my life,” you state simply. It would be much less stressful than to be a college student. 

“If you were a tapioca pearl, I’d eat you!” Jungkook says, and you, out of the security of both your head and your heart, choose not to think too much into it. 

As Jungkook teases you about your slight obsession with bubble tea, Chaewon finally puts the phone down after what very well was several minutes of angry Korean. She lets out this deep, long sigh, like all of the pent-up rage within her is exiting through her exhale. 

“You good, Chae?” You ask her, a little concerned. Even after knowing her since the beginning of your freshman year, you’ve never once seen her get mad, though she looks pretty close to it now. 

“Yeah,” she says, exasperated. “My mom is having this stupid company ball here and she really, really wants me to attend.” It is obvious that Chaewon does not, in fact, want to attend. You’ve seen Chaewon nearly every day for over a year, and you’ve never even seen her wear a pantsuit. You couldn’t imagine her joy at having to dress up in a ballgown. 

“But fancy free food,” you point out. Even if she does have to be trapped in a penthouse ballroom with her parents’ stuffy business friends, the catering company will probably be god-tier. 

Chaewon pretty much bangs her head on the dining hall table. 

“Wow, I didn’t know someone could hate catered food so much,” you say, a little alarmed. 

“It’s not that,” Chaewon says, rubbing her forehead. The pasta on the plate in front of her has remained untouched for nearly ten minutes now. You wonder if she’s even hungry anymore. “My mom wants me to bring a plus-one.”

Your eyes widen. An excuse to dress nice and eat good food? Hell yeah. 

“And it can’t be you, Y/N, it has to be a date,” Chaewon says. It’s pretty obvious she’s not interested in dating whatsoever, no matter the gender of the object of her affection. You pout. Damn. “My mom said, ‘he can be whoever you want!’ but that means that he has to be an attractive Korean guy who’s got a future job in finance.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jungkook says over a mouthful of broccoli. 

“You will?” Chaewon asks. Jungkook just single-handedly saved Chaewon from a night of unbearable business talk with a boy she doesn’t know and cannot relate to. 

You scoff. “You’re just a regular Korean dude, Jungkook,” you tell him. 

Jungkook pouts, bottom lip turned out. “You don’t think I’m attractive?”

You refuse to answer that question. You’re afraid of what you might say if you open your mouth. 

“Seriously, you’d do that for me?” Chaewon turns to Jungkook with platonic stars in her eyes. 

Jungkook shrugs. “Sure. I’ve got a suit. I’ll ask my friend Jimin for a crash course in finance before the thing. When is it?”

And just like that, you and Jungkook’s weekly Friday Mario Kart night gets a rain check. 

 Jeon Jungkook is the sole best decision of your life. 

And it’s funny and twisted and wonderful, because he is the one thing you had failed to account for in your life. He stands there on the sidewalk in the blazing sun, black baseball cap nestled safely onto his dark brown hair, and in the split second it takes for him to open his mouth and say hello, everything changes. 

But no longer is the image you conjure in your mind when you think of him a picture of him on that very first day of orientation, lost and excited all at once. It is of him barging into your apartment and eating all of your leftover ravioli. It’s him laying on your dinky couch like it belongs to him, surfing through all of the Netflix shows available and eventually just settling on old Gilmore Girls episodes like he always does. It’s him standing in your closet to judge your latest clothing purchases and take back any items that you’ve stolen from him over the years. 

It’s imagining him not as a guest but as a permanent fixture in your home, in the place that makes you feel safest. Because that’s who Jungkook is, now. He is that place. He stands in your apartment rattling off a list of why microwaves are a severely underestimated killer, and it takes every inch of your being not to ask him to stay. To spend night after night cuddling on the couch, or make a home-cooked meal together on a Sunday evening, or get lost underneath the sheets on your bed.

Jungkook stands in your apartment like he belongs there. And only in your wildest dreams could you ever imagine that coming true.

Such is the case of that Friday night, when he’s supposed to accompany Chaewon to her terrible, awful, brain-melting parents’ business gala. You haven’t seen him all day, too busy with your club meetings to make time for him after your classes are finished for the week. College is never-ending in that horrible, unstoppable way. 

It’s nearing two in the morning when you hear the knock on your door. Two of your roommates are at a rush event for their sorority, and the other sleeps through your smoke alarm on a regular basis, so you are tasked with the job of opening the door. 

On the other side is Jungkook, as he frequently is. 

Your heart practically freezes in place, like his eyes have shot right through it. Instead of his usual baggy outfit and a bucket hat, he’s standing outside of your apartment in a crisp navy suit (complete with a pocket square), rings lining his fingers and hair tousled in that effortlessly-styled kind of way. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a young, successful CEO. Like the love of your whole fucking life. 

Coughing to distract from the fact that you’re practically drooling, you say, “Wow, you clean up nicely.”

Jungkook looks down at himself, almost as if he had forgotten he’s wearing a full suit entirely. “The pocket square is Jimin’s,” he explains, “but yeah. I didn’t want to let Chaewon down by not dressing up to code.”

He’s got remnants of makeup left on his face, having faded and smudged throughout the night. There’s a bit of black underneath his eyes from the liner, a smoldering effect that makes the dark brown of his irises even deeper. “You look tired,” you comment. “Why are you here, why don’t you go home, Jungkook? Get some sleep.”

Jungkook shrugs, looking over your shoulder to see if his arrival has woken up any of your roommates. “Your place was closer,” he says like it’s nothing. 

Like it doesn’t make your breath catch in your throat, stop in its tracks. He spends an evening dressed up in a stuffy suit and tie surrounded by old businessmen and their preppy daughters with whom he has nothing in common, and when it’s nearly two in the morning and he can finally relax, he drives to your place instead of his own. Like it means nothing. As if it means anything at all. 

Jungkook runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, and even knotted and messy it still looks flawless. “If I’m bothering you, just let me know. I know it’s late.”

It’s so hard to say no to him. 

“Just come inside already before you wake up the neighbors,” you tell him, sighing to pretend like it’s a minor inconvenience. And even running on barely any sleep with makeup smudged underneath his eyes, Jungkook grins as you let him inside your apartment, caving in, just like you always do. 

The first thing he does when he’s inside is take off his fancy loafers and peel off his suit jacket, resting it against the back of the couch. You fumble around in the kitchen for the kettle, instinctively starting to make two cups of tea. Routine. 

Looking up, you watch as Jungkook loosens his tie and takes it off, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his white dress shirt. By the counter, you turn your back to him so he doesn’t see you mentally combust. It’s impossible that he doesn’t already know what he does to you. 

The kettle finishes boiling the moment Jungkook settles onto your couch. He keeps the television off so he doesn’t wake your roommates, and scrolls on his phone with his knees tucked underneath his chin. Thirty seconds later, you’re joining him, handing him the cup of tea before sitting down next to him, severely underdressed in comparison. 

“Did you at least have fun tonight?” You ask. 

“The food totally slapped,” Jungkook tells you. “Chaewon’s parents really pulled out all the stops.”

“So I’ve heard,” you muse. 

“We spent most of the time lounging by the catering table and distracting each other by making up stories about all of the rich people there.” Jungkook laughs. 

“Please tell me you didn’t embarrass yourself, though,” you say. Perhaps Jungkook could withstand a few blows to his ego, but Chaewon’s future pretty much depends on her impressing her parents and their comrades. 

“No!” Jungkook tells you defensively. “Jimin told me everything I needed to know, but all of Chaewon’s friends and their filthy rich CEO parents thought I was so handsome that I didn’t even need to speak.”

You roll your eyes. Of course Jungkook wouldn’t give up the chance to remind you of his hellishly good looks. 

“You just stood there, looking pretty?” You ask. Not as if he doesn’t do that already. 

“You think I’m pretty?” Jungkook teases, a greasy smile sent your way, like he doesn’t know the answer anyway. 

You huff. “Dressed up like this? Anyone would.”

“Chaewon said I was like her fake trophy husband,” Jungkook jokes. “She did all of the schmoozing. It’s not like I could have contributed anything anyway. Unless everyone wants to hear about C++.”

“Ooh, I love it when you talk all tech to me,” you tease, nudging him with your arm. “So sexy, keep talking.”

He laughs. “If we keep talking about Python I might get a little too excited.” He wiggles his eyebrows just for good measure and you giggle, holding onto this moment for dear life as you let it etch itself into your brain permanently. Times like these, you know you can’t forget, saving them for a rainy day thirty years down the line when you’re in love with someone that’s not Jungkook. When you look out the window and think about what might have been, if only things back in college had been a little bit different. 

Jungkook’s phone buzzes on the table. He’s got two notifications, one from Instagram of Chaewon tagging him in a post, and another from Venmo. 

“Fuckin’ damnit,” Jungkook swears, letting his phone drop on the couch cushion. 

“What?” You ask, turning to look at him. 

“Chaewon just Venmo’ed me a hundred dollars,” Jungkook says with a sigh. And it’s not one of those times when you see your bank account balance go up and get happy because yay, money!, it’s when your friend pays you anything over what they actually owe you out of the goodness of your heart, and you refuse to accept it. 

“She did?” You ask, eyes widening. A hundred dollars? That’s more than Jungkook would make in three shifts at the call center. 

“‘Thanks for bailing me out tonight. You definitely deserve more than 100 but then you’d be mad at me. But please don’t be mad at me!’” Jungkook reads off his phone. “I just stood there looking like eye candy. I didn’t do a thing to help her, what the heck?”

You pull out your own phone to check Chaewon’s latest post. 

It’s a picture of them together in the skyscraper penthouse the gala was held in, Jungkook looking dapper in his suit with a glass of champagne in his hand, and Chaewon in a dress worth more than a semester’s tuition throwing up a peace sign like the trendy Asian she is. They look like a K-drama couple. Like two celebrities basking in their fame and wealth. 

Shoutout to my one and only Jeon Jungkook for being my fake date tonight! Thanks to your good looks and charming personality for impressing all of my parents’ rich friends and their daughters. Love you 3000 💕

“Wow, whoever took this picture of the both of you knows their shit,” you say, impressed. You had always thought it impossible for Jungkook to look better in pictures than in real life, but this photo is coming rather close. If you were any more shameless, you’d ask Chaewon if she has any more photos of him. Just him, preferably. 

It’s not as if she doesn’t know about your gargantuan crush on him anyway. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good in a photo in my life,” Jungkook says with a laugh. Impossible. He yawns, placing his empty mug on the little end table next to the couch. 

“You should set it as your profile picture,” you suggest, leaning your head on him and pretending like this is normal. He yawns again, stretching out as he rests his body against yours. “Hey, we should go to sleep. Unless you want to go home?”

Jungkook groans, snuggling in closer. “No, your bed is big enough for the two of us.”

And who are you to resist?

You wake up to the sound of a phone buzzing furiously on your bedside table. You crack open one eye just a sliver to see who the culprit is and immediately eradicate it, when the sun filtering through your Venetian blinds hits your cornea. You groan, shutting your eyes once more as you smack your hand around to get it to shut off. 

The movement, however, causes the bedsheets to shift beside you, and when you turn, you find Jungkook nestled up tightly beneath your duvet, an arm stretched over your side as he hums in his sleep. 

You’re best friends. 

This is normal. 

(The feeling of your heart beating out of its chest has become rather normal, as well.)

He’s wearing a raggedy old t-shirt of yours that has always been too big on you but fits him just perfectly and a pair of joggers that he keeps at your place “just in case”. Just in case he stays the night. Just in case you ever need them. Selfishly, you will yourself to fall back asleep, shutting your eyes tightly and pretending that maybe, if you never wake up, this moment will freeze in time, locking the two of you together for eternity. 

He mumbles to himself in his sleep, a murmur of nothing as he shifts over slightly, hand dragging up your side. 

God. 

Next to you, the phone begins to buzz erratically again, and wide-awake, you look over to realize that it’s Jungkook’s, and that it’s Chaewon on the other end. 

This is at least the second time she’s called, which means that, despite how tempting it is, you probably shouldn’t silence his phone and go back to lying in bed with Jungkook and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. 

Sighing, you pick up. 

“Jungkook!” Chaewon shouts on the other side. For a brief moment you wonder why on earth she’s so energetic so early, but it’s less that and more the fact that you are overwhelmingly lethargic rather late in the day. “All of my friends said you looked really good in those photos I posted of us. Do you think you’re free next Wednesday night? Seunghee wants you to accompany her to a double date her parents are forcing her to go on!”

“Chaewon—”

“Oh, Y/N! How’s it going?”

“I just woke up,” you mumble quietly as Jungkook stirs beside you. 

“Of course you did,” Chaewon says, and you can see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the line. “Wait, why do you have Jungkook’s phone if you just woke up? Oh my God, don’t tell me—”

“Shh!” You hiss into the phone. Jungkook is slowly beginning to wake up, and you can only pray that he isn’t listening in to the conversation between you and Chaewon. “No, we did not. He got back after your thing and we promptly passed out in my bed, fully clothed,” you whisper loudly. 

“Jungkook went to your place last night? He was so tired, I thought he was going straight back to his. We even got dropped off outside my apartment.”

What? Chaewon and Jungkook live within a three-minute walk of each other. Your apartment is ten minutes away from both of them. 

“You did?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Who’s that?” 

You turn around to see Jungkook lying on his back, head resting on a nearly-deflated pillow of yours as he looks up at you, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair is mussed, some parts styled and stiff with hair gel, and some parts tangled and unkempt. He looks like he’s been lying in that position for a while, hand resting behind his head as he gazes up at you. 

“It’s Chaewon,” you tell him softly as she laughs on the other end. “She just called your phone. Are you free next Wednesday?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook, still half-asleep. “When?”

“Next Wednesday,” you repeat, a hand on the phone like it’s going to do anything to stop Chaewon from listening to you two. “Chaewon says she has a friend who wants you to accompany her to a double date she’s been set up to go on by her parents.”

“Mmmrph,” Jungkook mumbles. It’s clear he hasn’t even thought about his plans for the rest of the day, let alone next Wednesday. 

“He’s not available right now,” you say into the phone. Chaewon snorts. 

“Fine,” Chaewon says with a sigh. “Can you pass the message on when you guys are done pretending that you aren’t fucking behind my back?”

You suck in a breath. “Chaewon!” You hiss. “We are not—” you quickly turn back to Jungkook, who, by the looks of his hooded eyes and bewildered expression, isn’t listening in, “—fucking!” You whisper. “You know we’re not!”

Chaewon laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Call me later, Y/N, we should grab ice cream or something.” She hangs up. 

“Who was that?” Jungkook asks sleepily, eyes still half-lidded as he sits up in your bed, soft skin, brown hair, pouted lips amongst a sea of white, bundled up in your thick duvet as if sitting on a cloud. 

“Chaewon,” you tell him. 

“Oh, why was she calling?”

“She wanted to ask if you were free next Wednesday.”

“To do what?”

Maybe you were worried about Jungkook listening in to Chaewon grill you about your relationship (or serious lack thereof) for nothing. 

“She has a friend who wants you to go on a parent-mandated double date, trophy boyfriend style,” you explain. Jungkook groans. 

“Pretending to know business is mentally, physically, and morally draining. It feels like I’m selling my soul to capitalism,” he says with a sigh, collapsing back against the mattress. “I just wanna stay here forever. It’s so cozy.”

“Come on, Kook,” you say, tugging the duvet off of him to reveal the rest of his body. He curls into himself at the exposure, refusing to budge. “You’ve encroached on my apartment long enough.”

“Y/N,” Jungkook whines, drawing out your name for good measure. “Noooooooo.” He reaches out to cling onto your wrist, which means that if you want him out of your bed, you’ll have to drag him out.

“Jungkook, you’re swole, you know I can’t tug you out of my bed,” you say with a pout. He knows every trick in the book to use against you, and worst of all, he knows you’re weak to all of them. 

“Good,” Jungkook says with a loopy smile, pulling you back onto the bed like it’s nothing. You yelp as you come crashing on top of him, your body bumping into his as he wraps his arms around you and flops back onto your bed. You laugh and shout at the feeling as Jungkook cuddles up in the warmth of the sheets, pulling you in tightly to his body. “It’s so warm here, let’s stay like this forever.”

“What about food?”

“You keep a stash of Clif bars under your bed, we’ll eat those,” Jungkook suggests. 

You attempt to wriggle out of his grip, hoping to escape before he holds you long enough to get addicted, hooked on the feeling of his arms around you, his body against yours. But Jungkook is nothing if not persistent and clingy, and he wraps his arms tightly around your torso like a koala, warm and soft. “Come on, Jungkook. It’s nearly noon. Let’s be productive today.”

“Gross.”

“Let’s not sit in bed all day.”

“Grosser. Let’s just stay in your bed all day and pretend that we don’t have any real responsibilities.”

“Given that we’re in college, that may be slightly difficult.”

“Fuck that, your GPA doesn’t matter anyway. Unless you have plans on going to grad school?” He asks with an eyebrow raise, turning to look at you. 

“No way, I’m not paying for another four years of this shit,” you immediately declare. Let the capitalist system of higher education extort another two to four years worth of tuition out of you for the same degree? Absolutely not. 

“Then why move?” Jungkook says with a grin. 

“Because,” you say, stumbling for a real answer. 

“Not good enough.” He grins cheekily. “I vote to stay in bed.”

“I vote to do my readings, your CS homework, and get back to Chaewon about Wednesday.”

“God,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “What’s Wednesday?”

“Oh my God, you need to call Chaewon. Right now. Before you ask me what you have on Wednesday one more time after losing all of your brain cells lounging around in my personal bed and refusing to leave,” you say, eyes wide as you worm your way out of his grip, dusting yourself off and heading to your closet. 

“Noooooooo,” Jungkook says, reaching out a desperate hand. “Y/N, come back.”

“Call Chaewon. Call her!” You order, fishing around in your closet for some fresh clothes. You’ve been wearing the same one since Thursday night. You are disgusting. 

Jungkook groans but obeys, picking up his phone and pressing her contact. “Hey Chae, it’s Jungkook. Listen, I’m literally going to Venmo you back what you paid me because you? Literally didn’t need to pay me at all? And I’m actually mad at you for it? Wait, what do you mean am I up to getting paid on Wednesday—”

The phone call presents the perfect opportunity for you to dash out of your bedroom and into the bathroom, where you splash yourself with cold tap water like a model in a face wash commercial (who already has perfect skin, so why does she need this new face wash, seriously?) to clear your head. It’s been a weird twelve hours. Even weirder knowing that across the hall, Jungkook is sitting in your room, on your bed, in your clothes, under your bed sheets. Knowing that maybe, in another universe, on another timeline, you would be in the exact same positions, only everything would be different. 

You wash your face, hoping to wake yourself up. Convince your mind that the past twelve hours have been nothing but a dream, and that when you walk back into your room, Jungkook will have vanished. Or he would have never been there in the first place. 

You leave the bathroom and return to your bedroom to see Jungkook tugging on his suit jacket, wearing the same clothes he had on when he knocked on your door at 2AM last night. He’s still on the phone, wrapping up the conversation with Chaewon. 

“Yeah, yeah, tell her that I’m down. She can just text me, give her my number. I’m happy to do this for you and your friends, Chae. Plus, she’s gonna pay me and I feel less bad about it because it’s a service and she’s not a close friend like you are. Yeah, it’s all good,” he looks up to see you standing at the door, leaning against the frame. “Yeah, Y/N just got back so I’m gonna go. Maybe we can grab dinner or something tonight? Cool. Bye.”

“Dinner without me?” You ask with a pout. 

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. “You’re always invited.”

“Have you figured out what’s going on on Wednesday?” You tease him as you walk him to the door. 

“Chaewon has a friend, Soojin, who wants me to accompany her on a parent-mandated double date with a business partner’s daughter,” Jungkook explains. “Apparently all of Chaewon’s friends realized I make a pretty good fake trophy boyfriend.”

You rub his shoulder. He’d make a great real boyfriend too. Not that you think about that all of the time, or anything. “Gonna put that on your resume, big guy?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiles. “Dinner tonight? We can go to the ramen place you really like.”

“Sure thing, is Chaewon coming?”

“If she wants to. Otherwise, it’ll just be us.”

“Sounds good,” you tell him. “See you then.”

“Hopefully before,” Jungkook says. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night, by the way.”

“Anytime,” you say. Maybe one day, it’ll be true. 

Next Wednesday, there’s a knock on your door at midnight. 

Who else could it be?

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. And then it was supposed to be just a two-time thing. And before you knew it, Jungkook’s number and his services were circling through the ring of wealthy international students, jumping from phone to phone as people crammed to get him to accompany them on their next double date, next business gala, next ballroom dance. 

You had always had a feeling that his charming, charismatic personality would eventually draw everybody towards him, so electric and magnetic that you couldn’t help but want to know him, make friends with him, be close to him. From the moment you saw his Facebook introduction post, you knew it was only a matter of time before everyone on campus knew his name.

[October 17th, 4:12PM] You: do u want to get dinner tonight

Jungkook: would love to but have to go to kim family business dinner with dahyun sorry :(

You: ok next time then!

[October 23rd, 1:03PM]

You: yo what r u doing You: i have so many readings to do rip You: do u wanna come to greene w me and study

Jungkook: heejin is taking me shopping for a fancy suit for her family’s event tomorrow i can’t :/ Jungkook: but i am going to get macaroons for u at the mall so we can see each other later!

You: yummm sure thing!

[October 30th, 9:58AM]

You: hey ik you’re asleep rn but we are still on for tomorrow right? 🎃 You: can’t let our one (1) year long halloween tradition of buying last-minute candy and watching the nightmare before christmas together die

[October 30th, 11:13PM]

Jungkook: omg i just saw this now im so sorry Jungkook: uh yeonjoo wants me to go to her sister’s halloween party tm so idk if i can make it this year

[October 31st, 2:02AM]

You: ok You: thanks for telling me

It’s no fun watching The Nightmare Before Christmas by yourself, you realize this Halloween. All of your roommates are out frequenting one of the hundreds of parties being thrown on campus tonight, and although you’d normally be up for getting drunk and dropping it low, you just aren’t in the Halloween spirit this year. Wonder why. 

Armed with the knowledge that your roommates probably won’t be back until three or four in the morning, you shut your laptop and decide to go to bed early. Early being midnight, but it’s early for you and that’s all that really matters. 

You don’t know why you’re being such a stick in the mud this Halloween. It’s always been one of your favorite holidays, never one to pass up free candy nor the option to dress up, but this one has been particularly lame. You don’t have a costume, your local drugstore is out of mini Skittles packets, and you don’t have someone to spend it with. 

Realistically, you have no reason to be sad that Jungkook isn’t available tonight. It’s not as if spending Halloween together is some ancient tradition from birth that binds the two of you together. You did it for the first time as freshmen, and you were foolishly hoping to do the same thing as sophomores. It’s not a tradition if it only happened once. 

You look in the bathroom mirror, stained with nail polish and dry shampoo and old skincare, and you sigh. Jungkook has every right to prioritize his current and only source of income over a night spent lounging on the couch doing nothing. It’s not as if you haven’t seen your best friend in over a month and this was the only night you both had free. Jungkook drops by after every single event he goes on. Every single one. He stands outside your door dressed in a fancy suit, or a silk button down, leather shoes and expensive jewelry bought for him by the girls he goes out with.

No matter the time, he knocks on your door and says hello, steals a cup of tea and a bit of your heart along with it, before bouncing out of your living room and off to his own apartment. He doesn’t stay the night anymore, doesn’t worm his way underneath your duvet and refuse to move until morning comes. It’s hard to tell if you’re grateful about it or not. 

Sluggishly, you peel off your clothes and wash your face, changing into some old sweatpants from the tenth grade and a t-shirt with an embarrassingly large hole in the armpit. This Halloween, you are dressing up as a lonely college student who is going to bed early on Halloween night because she has nothing better to do!

There’s a knock on your door. 

Your first instinct is to freeze up. When there’s another knock, your second instinct is to grab the closest object to you (which happens to be your water bottle) for self-defense. 

And then, you hear,

“You’re not watching The Nightmare before Christmas without me, are you?”

To spare yourself the shame, you won’t say that you practically leapt out of bed the moment you heard his voice. You calmly removed the covers, and casually walked to the front door. That is what you did. 

When you open it, Jungkook is standing behind it, grinning, wearing the greasiest police officer outfit you’ve ever seen in your entire life. This flew at a marketing company’s heir’s Halloween party? He’s even got what looks to be a fully-loaded water gun in his holster. 

“Don’t tell me this is what you wore to some fancy-shmancy Halloween party,” you say disapprovingly, eyebrows raised as you look him up and down and pretend that you aren’t just ogling his figure. 

“It was fine, Yeonjoo’s sister just graduated college. If anything, she was more okay with it than Yeonjoo was,” Jungkook says with a shrug. You don’t even need to let him in at this point, just watch as he tugs off his shoes and steps inside your apartment like it belongs to him. 

“What was Yeonjoo dressed as?”

“Princess Leia. We made for a very mismatched pair,” Jungkook says, chuckling to himself. “Ooh, did you guys get new tea?”

“You can have some if you want,” you tell him, shutting the door as he eagerly pulls out a box of teabags, turning on the electric kettle on the counter. “I think it’s Wild Berry Hibiscus.”

“Sounds good already,” Jungkook says, and he lets out a sigh that sounds so exhausted, so tired and aching, as he leans back against the countertop, head resting on the cupboards above it. 

“You could have gone home, you know,” you tell him. Even from the couch you can see the droop in his shoulders, the bags under his eyes. He’s been going out several times every week for the past month, and he still has a truckload of CS assignments on top. He spends precious hours schmoozing with wealthy businessmen and women, shaking people’s hands and posing for pictures in the fanciest clothes he owns and then some. The selfish part of you wants him to stay. The part that loves him knows it would be better if he went home. “You still can.”

“No,” Jungkook insists, shaking his head. “We have a tradition to uphold, don’t we?”

Even though The Nightmare Before Christmas is seventy-six minutes long, the night ends long before that. You haven’t even reached “This Is Halloween” before you feel a head hit your shoulder, and crane your neck to find Jungkook having fallen fast asleep beside you, half-full cup of Wild Berry Hibiscus next to the laptop in front of you. He’s still wearing his stupid police officer costume, the navy blue uniform tight against his body. His lips are parted ever so softly, eyelashes fluttering as little non-sounds exit his mouth, hints, whispers of snores. 

He hasn’t slept over since the first time. You’re not sure if you want the trend to continue, or if you just want to be a little bit selfish tonight, greedy, taking and taking and taking. He’s so beautiful like this, so innocent and gentle and soft. It would be such a shame if you had to wake him. 

And so, gingerly, you rest your head against his own, breathe in the quiet little sounds that leave his parted lips, memorize the feeling. It’s not the first time Jungkook’s accidentally fallen asleep on you, but there is something about this moment, sitting on your couch a few minutes past midnight, as the rest of the world celebrates around you, that is so intimate. Like here, in your apartment, you and Jungkook have your own little bubble, tucked away in a corner of the universe far from the noise of the rest of the world. And it’s here that you wish you could stay forever, for once never wanting the feeling to end. Wanting time to freeze in its very steps, the clocks stop and the orbit halts, and it is just you and Jungkook, forever. Like characters in a movie, on pause for eternity.

The moment ends when Jungkook shifts beside you before eventually coming to, slowly opening his eyes as he turns to look at you. You smile at him, dazed and tired, as he sits up properly, staring down at your half-opened laptop and the half-full cup of tea next to it. 

“Thought you’d end up sleeping here again tonight,” you joke, even though it isn’t really a joke. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside you, in the crevices between your bones and the dark corner of your heart, you had hoped that he would stay. 

“Oh, did I fall asleep?” Jungkook asks, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. It’s nearly two-thirty in the morning. 

“Just for a bit. I didn’t want to wake you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to head back to your apartment or anything,” you tell him. 

Jungkook nearly jumps up off the couch at that, like he’s got springs in his shoes. Suddenly he’s wide awake, brown eyes blown open as he scrambles to gather his belongings, taking the cup of tea and quickly dumping it out in your sink. 

“Hey, don’t you want that?” You ask. 

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll come by some other time and have some, it was really good, I just fell asleep while drinking it,” Jungkook sputters, words moving a mile a minute as he tugs on his heavy black officer boots, scuffed at the tips from wear and tear. It’s as if he’s desperate to leave. Like your apartment has somehow offended him. Or worse, you. 

“If you want to stay, Jungkook, you can,” you tell him, standing up to run to the door before he pulls the damn thing off his hinges with how fast he’s moving. “I don’t mind. My bed is big enough for the both of us.”

“No, I should—I should get going. My… plants need watering. Right now. I totally forgot.”

It’s not a completely bullshit excuse. Jungkook has a fair few pothos amongst his other worldly apartment belongings, hanging from his ceiling or potted in old mugs and janky shoes. But it’s still a pretty bullshit excuse. It’s dark. Jungkook waters his plants every Sunday, and it’s Friday. It’s obvious he wants to get the hell out of your apartment for whatever reason. 

All you can do is hope and pray that it isn’t you who’s driving him away. 

“Oh—okay,” you tell him, opening the door as he furiously laces up his other boot. 

“Thanks for doing this. Next Halloween will be more fun, I swear. I won’t fall asleep on you. Or anything.”

“Okay, see you soon, then?” You ask, searching for a clue, a hint, anything that will tell you that it’s not you, that he hasn’t found you out yet. That you can still be friends, be best friends, because even if you want to kiss him, hold his hand, roll around in bed with him, loving him from afar is good enough. 

“Yes, yes, definitely. Dinner? Uh… sometime this week? I’ll text you. I have to go. Plants. See you!”

He dashes down the hallway. 

And you end your Halloween the same way you started it. Alone. 

Jungkook ran out of your apartment the other day like it was infested with cockroaches. Or the Black Plague. Or your microwave had just beeped. It was as if simply being inside it was going to scar him for life. 

Maybe your apartment is cursed. Jungkook does believe in ghosts. That’s another reason as to why he fears the microwave. Tiny ghosts could be living inside the microwave chamber and you’d never know. But Jungkook knows better. He knows that they’re there. 

“He just… ran out?” Chaewon asks, clearly bewildered. The two of you have been working on the first floor of the library all day, obviously doing everything in your power to not actually complete any of your assignments. 

“Yeah, something about his plants.” You sigh. 

Chaewon narrows her eyes, the same way she does when she’s plotting something. “Interesting.”

“What?” You ask, nudging her to see if you can worm a less mysterious response out of her. 

“Nothing,” Chaewon says with a nonchalant shrug. She clearly has something to say. 

“What?” You repeat forcefully. Chaewon doesn’t get to go all cryptic on you just because Jungkook ran out of your apartment like it had set fire. 

“I know I’ve only known you guys for, like, a year and a bit now, but you two have the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen,” Chaewon comments like it’s nobody’s business when it is, in fact, specifically two people’s business. 

You scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just…” She pauses, thinking. In the silence, she begins to pack up her belongings, shoving her laptop into her bag and gathering up the small pile of candy wrappers slowly amassing in front of her. “I’ve never seen two best friends have a relationship quite like yours.”

“Thanks?”

“What are you doing for dinner? I’m eating with Yoonji, but you’re welcome to join if you want,” Chaewon offers. Even though you have no idea who Yoonji is, Chaewon would never exclude you from eating with them.

“I’m getting Korean food with Jungkook, but thanks for the offer,” you say, only to be greeted with Chaewon rolling her eyes. He said he’d meet us outside?”

Sure enough, when you head out of the glass doors at the front of the library, Jungkook is waiting dutifully on a bench close by, headphones in as he nods his head and taps his feet to the beat of the music, lost in his own world. He doesn’t even realize that you’ve left the library until you’re two feet in front of him, when he recognizes your beat-up white sneakers and looks up at you in glee, eyes crinkled into crescents. 

“Ready to go?” You ask happily. Your stomach has been rumbling ever since Jungkook suggested you go out to eat this morning. 

“Hell yeah I am,” Jungkook says, putting his earbuds away as he stands up. “You coming, Chae?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m eating with a friend.” There’s nudge against your shoulder, and when you turn to face her, she winks. “But you two enjoy yourselves! Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Before you can publicly berate her for being so goddamn obvious, she’s rotating 180 degrees on her heel and speed-walking in the opposite direction, zooming off so you don’t get the chance. 

“I feel like we haven’t seen each other in ages,” you comment mindlessly. Twenty-four hours away from Jungkook feels like a lifetime and a half. Forty-eight is a light year. 

“I’ve been busy,” Jungkook says vaguely, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Doing what, going out to fancy restaurants and galas?” You half-tease. It’s sad but true—Jungkook spends his nights living a life you could only dream of. And all of these rituals you share, from studying in the library until three in the morning to crashing at his place and taking naps on separate couches, get put on the backburner. 

“Hey, it’s hard work pretending to be rich,” Jungkook pouts. “Besides, the craziest thing about going to those things is that rich Korean people don’t serve Korean food at their fancy gatherings. They serve shit like caviar.”

“Is that why you’re so desperate to get Korean?” You ask pointedly. 

“Yes,” Jungkook emphasizes. “Man, I just want some tteokbokki.”

“Then we’ll go and eat all of the tteokbokki you can dream of,” you promise. You round the street corner and on the edge of the main road and an alleyway sits a tiny Korean restaurant the size of a bedroom, no more than six cramped tables inside. It’s run by a family who passes it down through each generation, dependent on the starving college students nearby to keep it alive. 

It’s Jungkook’s favorite place. The owner gives him a discount every time he sees him. 

(It’s impossible not to fall in love with Jungkook. Impossible to not be drawn to his presence, his personality. Like moths to a flame, you can’t help but come closer.)

“Ah, Jungkook!” The old man behind the counter greets as the bell above the entrance rings. “Sit! Sit!” He points to your favorite table, a round one in the far left corner that’s right next to the biggest window. “Usual?”

“Tteokbokki, too, please!” Jungkook shouts. The man gives you both a thumbs up and heads back into the kitchen. 

“It’s been a while since we came here,” Jungkook notices. You both usually eat lunch on campus and Jungkook has been largely unavailable for dinner. 

“Almost sounds like you missed it,” you poke fun. 

“God, I missed it so much,” Jungkook exclaims, tilting his head back in exasperation. “I didn’t realize that it would be so much work to get dressed up in a suit and look hot.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a drag.” You frown. Jungkook needs to put in literally zero effort to look hot. Sitting across from him in this tiny Korean restaurant as he wears nothing but a massive hoodie and black joggers, he looks hot. When he wakes up in your bed in a raggedy t-shirt, he looks hot. When you catch him at three in the morning in the library after eighteen straight hours of studying, he looks hot. 

Jungkook sits there and radiates light. Radiates warmth and joy and beauty. Laughter and hope. He’s the college version of a Disney prince. Perfectly imperfect and completely out of your reach. 

“I wish I could take you with me, you might enjoy it,” Jungkook sighs. “Plus, I have literally never seen you wear something fancier than business casual. Imagine you in a ballgown!”

“In your dreams, Jeon,” you rebuke. “Free catered food sounds nice but having to mingle with the 1% does not.”

“Touché,” Jungkook concedes. “I don’t know how Chaewon does it.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“Indeed.”

Jungkook pours you a cup of water from the pitcher that the old man dropped off, and then pours one for himself. “Chaewon said that I did well, though.”

Not surprising. Jungkook excels at everything he does. 

“Of course you did, you sexy beast,” you chide. 

“She said I’d make a good boyfriend.”

You choke on your water as the man’s son brings out your food, and you desperately attempt to avoid eye contact as you sputter and cough into a napkin, gaze pointed away from both a surprised waiter and a concerned Jungkook, who awkwardly thanks the man and leans over to pat your back. 

“You good?” He asks, brows furrowed. 

Coughing, you say, “I’m okay, I’m okay. It just—it went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.” Jungkook doesn’t buy it, and the little coughs escaping your throat don’t do much to corroborate your claim. “Seriously, Jungkook. I’m okay. It’s just water.”

“You looked like you were on the verge of death,” Jungkook frowns. 

“That’s just my face,” you fire back. “Just keep talking about what you were saying earlier. What was it?”

“Being a good boyfriend,” Jungkook says, and with no water near your lips to distract you this time, your mind bears the full force of his words, weighing down on your shoulders like a calculus textbook. 

It’s not as if you aren’t already aware that Jungkook would be the best boyfriend in the entire world, bar none. Not as if you don’t sit in bed and dream of a parallel universe, a life other than the one you’re living in right now, where Jungkook is lovely and wonderful and yours. He knocks on your door at a random hour in the afternoon with Chinese takeout from the local restaurant. He remembers your homework assignments when you forget them. He sits in bed with you and judges the Instagrams of the guys on the latest Bachelorette season. It’s as if he was already yours.

“Believe me,” you scoff. “The people know how great of a boyfriend you are.” 

“It’s fake, though,” Jungkook reminds you. “It’s only for a night. An evening, really.”

“Better than nothing,” you sigh. “If only I had enough money to rent myself a fake boyfriend for a night.”

“If only your parents were the CEOs of a multibillion dollar cooperation,” Jungkook adds on. 

“Truth,” you say, and you and Jungkook toast to that. Toast to knowing that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Toast to knowing that some of those people can get for themselves something you can only imagine in your wildest dreams—a night with Jungkook. More than just a night. A night spent dressed up in your fanciest clothes, arms wrapped tightly around each other. A night spent as a couple, rather than you and Jungkook. 

Toast to knowing that even if you’ll never get to have him like that, you get to have him like this, and you’d rather it be like this than nothing at all. 

“You don’t need to rent a fake boyfriend for a night, Y/N,” Jungkook tells you once you’ve downed the water in your glasses (stay hydrated!). “You shouldn’t feel pressured to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.”

You don’t understand, you sigh. I’d give anything to spend time with you. 

Jungkook pays. He says that he’s made more money accompanying wealthy socialites—even ones that don’t go to your school, because word gets around—than he would in a month’s worth of shifts at the call center. He says he’s never looking back. He’s probably not going to give up the gig for a while, either. 

“Just because you have cash now doesn’t mean you get a free pass to pay for everything we do together,” you warn. You’ve always split the price of meals, split the price birthday cakes for your friends. In the beginning of freshman year, Jungkook ate a quarter of a bag of goldfish you had and paid you fifty-three cents to account for his consumption, which you immediately sent back to him. You still fight over it, finding surreptitious ways to incorporate it into the Venmo payments you make to each other. 

“I’m rich, I can do whatever I want with my money,” Jungkook proclaims. “And if that means treating my best friend to a meal, then that means I’m gonna treat her to a meal.”

“That’s very rude of you,” you tell him pointedly. “Zero out of ten, worst best friend in the entire world. Will not accept my Venmo payments.”

Walking down the sidewalk, side by side, Jungkook wraps an arm around you and pulls you in for a side hug as you come to a stop at a traffic light. “You always do so much for me and Chaewon. You deserve to be treated once in a while, Y/N.”

“Why, ‘cause I go out to CVS at ten at night to get you Nyquil after you catch the common cold from some sweaty guy at the gym?” 

“That,” Jungkook nods, conceding, “and also because you’re one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. The people who know you are lucky to get to say your name.”

If only Jungkook knew that he was the exact same. It’s an honor to know him. It’s a blessing to love him. 

“What fancy clothes do you own?” Chaewon’s lying on your bed, scrolling mindlessly on her phone. 

“I don’t know,” you respond, brows furrowing. You get up from your desk chair to start fishing through your closet,  “I have, like, some business casual stuff.”

“How about a dress?”

You whip around suspiciously, eyeing Chaewon as she lounges around in your room and acts like she isn’t plotting something nefarious. “Don’t you think you could tell me what you’re trying to convince me to do before you ask me if I have the appropriate clothing?” 

Even lying on her back, Chaewon still manages to roll her eyes, sitting up to meet your gaze. “There’s a gala tonight to celebrate some big business deal being closed and I want you to come with me,” she says like it’s a chore, exasperated. 

“Me?” You frown. “Why not Jungkook?”

“He said he had some thing to do for some other girl,” Chaewon says. The topic clearly is not at the forefront of her mind. It’s a little too obvious that it’s at the forefront of yours. “Besides, I was given no date restrictions and you deserve to have a little fun tonight. It’s a Friday!”

“I just want to stay in bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you tell her. 

“You’re already out of bed,” Chaewon points out unhelpfully. 

“Well, then I want to get into bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you rephrase. 

Chaewon pouts. “Noooo, please? It’ll be fun, I swear,” Chaewon pleads.  “It’s a huge party and hundreds of people are going to be there. Everybody gets to bring a plus one. You won’t be the only person who doesn’t know anything about business and has to cling onto their date in order to survive.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes me want to go so much,” you deadpan. 

“Seriously, Y/N. When was the last time you went out on a Friday?”

A while ago. You and Jungkook started having Mario Kart nights on Friday in the middle of your freshman year after you both came to the conclusion that every frat party smells, sounds, and tastes like the same fifty shades of college regret. You haven’t gone out since. 

“Not that long ago,” you lie. It’s been months.

“Yeah, right,” Chaewon scoffs. “Don’t think I don’t see your Bitmoji on the SnapMap sitting in your damn apartment on a Friday at 11PM,” she scolds.

“I’m gonna turn off my location,” you declare. You’ve had enough of Snapchat exposing you and your location. People can live in mystery about your whereabouts from now on. They don’t need to know. Chaewon certainly does not. 

“No excuses, you’re coming with me to the gala! You must have something to wear in that closet of yours, don’t you?” She slides off of your bed with a thud and joins you as you stand in front of your clothes. None of them scream fancy. None of them even whisper it. You stand back as she shuffles through your clothes, hangers squeaking as she shoves them along the rail. Chaewon tears through your clothing faster than you skim through your economics readings. “Aha! What do we have here?”

She whips out a dress from the very back of your closet, right behind the blazer you never wear because you’d rather be caught dead than in business attire. It’s old—you don’t think you’ve worn it since the beginning of your freshman year when you thought you actually had to dress up for parties. Needless to say, you dry-cleaned it the following Monday and never wore it again. You don’t even recall bringing it to college this year. 

“This is perfect!” Chaewon cries. “Really says ‘I can fucking dress myself’, don’t you think?”

“Are you implying that I can’t dress myself?” 

“You should definitely wear this,” Chaewon decides, dodging the question. “Gucci and Louis Vuitton are overrated, anyway.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I.” Chaewon thrusts the dress towards you.

Chaewon shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.” 

Three hours later finds you one makeup and hair session later, standing in the lobby of a magnificent skyscraper wearing a dress that maybe could have done without the cup of frozen yogurt that you ate before you arrived. Now you remember why you haven’t really worn it since the beginning of last year. Has it shrunk?

“I feel like a loser, Chaewon,” you hiss as she bats her eyelashes and gets directed to the private elevator that will lead you both to the top floor. “A money-less, jobless loser.”

“At least you’re honest, Y/N,” Chaewon whispers back as you step into the elevator. Despite being nearly an hour and a half late (“Fashionably so!” Chaewon exclaims.) you are crowded into the back corner, several other couples stepping inside to join you, all of them wearing clothes that cost more than your tuition for all four years of college, combined. “That’s better than most of the people here.”

Nothing separates the rich from the poor like morality. 

When the elevator doors open, you and Chaewon are the last group to step out, milling about in the corner until the path is free. And when you turn your gaze away from her, you realize just why Jungkook’s so keen on going to events like these, why he never turns down an offer when it lights up his phone screen. 

In movies, rich people flaunt their wealth so extravagantly that it almost looks fake. From gigantic ice sculptures to ten-feet-tall chocolate fountains, entire orchestras and dresses worth thousands of dollars, it makes you wonder if rich people really do see those items as necessities when throwing a party. They rent out entire European castles and the press publicizes every one of their actions. To you, it looks contrived, unrealistic. Even if rich people have enough money to sustain the bottom 99% for hundreds of years, how could they spend their money on nonsense like this?

As it turns out, the ice sculptures and chocolate fountains are only half of the story.

At this gala, the hosts have spared no expense. The entire penthouse is made purely of glass, from the ceiling, to the floor, to the walls in between, giving you an absolutely breathtaking view of the city lights dozens of feet below you, of the stars millions of light years away. It’s as if you’re standing in a bubble, frozen in time, the world sparkling and twinkling and shimmering around you. You didn’t even know a place like this existed on Earth. The price to book it must be astronomical. The view, even more so. 

“Holy fuck,” you murmur, mouth dropping open at the sight. It’s a movie come to life. It’s a picture straight out of a fairytale. 

“Pretty sweet, right?” Chaewon says, clearly proud of herself for convincing you to join her. “The Parks and the Ohs really felt like celebrating.”

“No shit,” you say, dumbfounded. Chaewon wraps her arm around yours and leads you out of the elevator, her poise and grace akin to that of a princess. She’s been to this place before. She could do this in her sleep. 

“Pictures first, then we eat, and then we mingle,” Chaewon instructs, and you nod diligently. She’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this night unscathed. Without her, you don’t know what you’d do. 

On the average day of an average life of an average person, pictures means getting a stranger to take a single pic on your shitty iPhone at your worst angle, which you will begrudgingly post to your Instagram later after extensive editing. 

But this is not your average day, and these are not average lives of not average people. Pictures means professional photographers with entire setups, standing with their cameras held up to their eyes, poised and ready for the next shot. It means couples, one by one, stepping in front of a gorgeous backdrop and posing, over and over, as five photographers at once cram to get their best angle, the cleanest photo. 

You don’t know how to pose for photos. You barely remember what the proper formatting is for your essays, depending on the citation structure. And yet, Chaewon is ushering you over in front of the photographers, immediately striking one of her classic, perfect poses as you flail about, trying to figure out what to do with your hands. 

“Just relax,” Chaewon advises. Even standing beside you, she can see you panicking in her periphery. “And smile. You’re beautiful, so show them that.”

Eventually, as the photographers switch positions to get different angles, you stop worrying about your hands, stop worrying about your bag, your feet, your head tilt, and just grin. You may not have millions of dollars to your name, but it’s a Friday night and you’re living the life of a billionaire with no responsibilities. You deserve to live a little. 

When the next group comes up, Chaewon nudges you out of the way and whispers to one of the photographers, who nods dutifully in response. Wrapping her arm around yours once more, she guides you to the massive catering setup, tables and tables lined with delicacies from every country you could imagine. And of course, a gargantuan chocolate fountain in the middle of it all. 

Your stomach rumbles. Clearly, the frozen yogurt was not enough to hold you off. Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been eating college dining hall food for weeks now, and are probably going to throw up if you have to have dry beef one more time. 

“If you want to, you should try the caviar. It’s delicious. Avoid the eggplant, it tastes like foot, but the brussel sprouts are delicious. Kimchi’s good, too. Classic,” Chaewon instructs as you walk around the tables, placing servings the size of quarters onto your plate just so you can have a taste of everything. Chaewon sticks to some ribs, pan-seared salmon, and a vegetable so expensive you’ve never even heard of it before. 

“Im Chaewon, is that you?”

“Mrs. Kim!”

A strange older woman comes up to the two of you as you’re dishing up, and Chaewon’s face immediately lights up. The woman goes in for a hug, a barely-touching pat of the shoulders and hands. Over her shoulder, you watch as Chaewon rolls her eyes and pulls a face. 

“How are you, dear? You look so grown up,” Mrs. Kim says. You watch as the light slowly fades from Chaewon’s eyes with each second that passes. 

“I’m very well, Mrs. Kim. Did you get your hair done? It makes you look so youthful.” Chaewon’s a master. She glares at you when Mrs. Kim isn’t looking, raising her eyebrows as if to say learn, young padawan. This is how it’s done. They go on for a couple minutes, showering fake compliments on each other as you slowly begin to eat. You scrunch your nose up. Chaewon’s right. The eggplant does taste like foot. 

“And who is this?” Mrs. Kim asks, turning her focus onto you. You look up like a deer in headlights, a brussel sprout puffing your cheek. You were not meant to mingle and eat at the same time. 

“This is one of my closest friends, Y/N,” Chaewon introduces for you. You nod your hello, chewing the brussel sprout in the most nondescript manner possible in an effort to save whatever is left of your dignity. “She’s pre-law.”

You are not pre-law.

“Oh, how wonderful! You must have a lot you want to accomplish in life,” Mrs. Kim says. God, you couldn’t care less about how Mrs. Kim feels about you.

“Yes, definitely,” you say awkwardly. 

“We really must be going, Mrs. Kim. My parents will want me to make sure I do my rounds,” Chaewon says, a hand on your arm as she makes to get you both the fuck out of there. 

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Kim concedes, sending you and Chaewon one final goodbye before moving on to find her next victim. 

When she leaves, Chaewon seems to let out the biggest exhale of her life. “Holy fucking shit, I thought she’d never leave,” she exclaims, grabbing a flute of champagne and downing it in a single go. “She’s an associate of my father’s, so she’s always trying to kiss my damn ass. Like, sorry that you need to brown-nose your boss and his daughter just so you bribe your idiot son’s way into college.”

“You like mingling, I take?” You joke. 

“Just murder me.”

“Have any tips?”

“Flex as hard as possible without actually flexing. Try to speak to people your age because they are usually more bearable than people older than you. The best conversationalists are anybody under the age of ten,” Chaewon tells you. She picks up another glass of Prosecco. “Want some champagne?” 

“You have it,” you tell her. “I think you need it more than I do.”

Chaewon shrugs. Not as if they’re running out any time soon. She gulps it down and places it on the tray of one of the caterers as they whiz by her. 

The rest of the night passes by in the same way the beginning of it did. Chaewon drags you around the penthouse, talking with her father’s business partners and associates and their sons and daughters and husbands and wives for no more than two minutes each before moving on. She’s got her technique down pat. Greet, compliment, shade, flex, compliment, say goodbye. It’s foolproof, because you immediately notice that everyone else in the room has adopted the same approach. 

Business gatherings like these are just one big game of who can be the most-liked and the least-liked at the same time. And the answer: everybody, all at once. 

Halfway through the evening, Chaewon collapses against the back wall, totally unafraid of the possibility of the glass giving out behind her. She doesn’t care. If it breaks, it breaks. 

“Tired?”

“I just need a break,” Chaewon declares. “Because everyone in here is so fucking fake, and you’re the only one I can talk to without wanting to rip out my eardrums.”

“I’m honored,” you say sarcastically. 

“When I say you’re the only honest one here, I mean it,” Chaewon says. You lean back against the wall next to her, looking out into a sea of people in fancy clothes with fancy food and fancy friends. “Look at all these people, Y/N. All these fucking people, and you’re the only one who’s true.”

And then, you spot him. 

He’s far away, standing in a group of people you don’t recognize, a hand on the small of another girl’s back. He’s wearing a navy blue suit, tight-fitting and tailored, a silver watch sparkling on his wrist as he adjusts his sleeves. One of the other young men in the group says something funny, and he tilts his head back to laugh, chuckling as the girl beside him curls into his arms. 

You suppose it would have been ignorant of you to assume Jungkook was elsewhere on a night like this, at a gathering where everybody who knows anybody is here. 

Jungkook must not know you’re here. He mustn't, otherwise he would have come over to find you. You must have entered at different times, spent the night wandering around different parts of the penthouse. Clinging onto Chaewon’s arms, you must have avoided his gaze, and he, yours. 

Chaewon hasn’t spotted him either. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better, if you’re the only one stuck with the knowledge that he’s here tonight. Chaewon would pity you. Other people would ask you how you knew such a worldly, experienced man like him. And you would spend the night wallowing in sadness, wondering why it’s never you that gets to spend the night next to him. 

From this distance, you can see Jungkook perfectly. The light from the moon shines down on him like a goddamn spotlight, catching the sparkling on his wrist, leaving a silver gleam in his slicked back hair. You watch as he laughs, smiles, talks, grins and beams and socializes. Of course he’s here. Of course. He’s so good at this, so good at being real and genuine and happy. 

Chaewon says the only person in the room who is true is you, but how can that be? How can that be when Jungkook, the most honest, wonderful, real person you know, is standing in front of you? You aren’t honest. You aren’t true and real and whole. You stand on the sidelines, a wallflower in a room of daisies and roses, and pine from afar. Watch as he pretends to date a girl that’s not you, wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her cheek, and you act like everything is alright. 

It sucks, being trapped like this for fear of him seeing you. You know that would be worse—if he saw you standing alone and decided to take matters into his own hands. Seeing him up close in a penthouse like this, a movie set, shimmering and sparkling, it would be worse. Jungkook pulls the girl beside him in close to his side, smiling as he listens to someone else speak. She’s the perfect height in those heels, just tall enough to rest her head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder. You imagine them walking into the room together, hand in hand. Imagine them posing for the pictures like a real couple, a pair of celebrities. 

You suppose you have no reason to be jealous of her, of him, of what they have. Jealousy is when resenting someone for having something that you once had. You never had a life like that with Jungkook. You’ll never have a life like that with him. Never get dressed up to go out, never get to be his date to an event. Never get pictures taken of you as a couple, never feed each other candies and strawberries dipped in chocolate. You can’t be jealous of her. You were never in the running to begin with. 

“Ready to get back out there?” Chaewon asks, placing a firm hand on your shoulder. 

A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne flutes, offering it to the both of you. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Chaewon tells you as she takes a glass for herself. 

You sigh, casting another glance over at Jungkook. He and his date are moving around now, joining another social circle on the opposite side of the penthouse. He looks so at ease, so comfortable. He belongs there, in the middle of it all, talking and laughing and grinning. And you? You belong back at home, underneath your duvet covers playing a game of Mario Kart. Not here. 

You shake your head. You could use a drink or two in this state. “I’d love one, actually. Thank you.”

That night, you stay at Chaewon’s place. 

“You’ve been acting weird.”

“Hello to you, as well,” you say with a scowl as Chaewon sits down across from you at the local ramen place. 

“Listen,” Chaewon begins, “I’ve been thinking. You need to confess to Jungkook.”

You nearly spit out the complimentary water you were served. “Excuse me?”

“You need to. You’ve been acting weird and that’s the only thing that’s going to fix it,” Chaewon declares. 

“What do you mean I’ve been ‘acting weird’? Care to explain?” You ask, offended. You haven’t been acting weird. Well, that weird. Maybe a little weird.

“Jungkook told me you haven’t seen each other for the last eight days,” Chaewon points out. Eight days? It’s more like seven and a half. Not that you’ve been counting, or anything. 

“So? We’re busy people,” you defend. It’s a good enough excuse. You’re sophomores in college. You have classes. Clubs. You have to meal prep. 

“So? You guys are best friends. You make time to see each other at three in the fucking morning if you haven’t seen each other yet that day. And you haven’t seen each other for eight whole days? What’s wrong with you?” Chaewon demands. 

“Nothing! What the heck, I invite you out to a best friend ramen date and you just blaspheme all over me like this?” You accuse. This is not how you imagined today to be going. This isn’t how you imagined this week to be going. “Besides, it’s only been seven and a half days. He’s over-exaggerating.”

“Seven and a—holy fuck, you are literally the worst. Can you just stop resisting? If you tell him, everything will be fine and go back to the way things were,” Chaewon says, blinking, flabbergasted. 

“No, they will not,” you hiss. “Everything will change if I tell him. We’re best friends, Chae. Imagine if I told you that I loved you. What would you do?”

“I’d love you back, that’s what!” Chaewon tells you. “You deserve to be loved back, Y/N. Nothing would change between us. I already love you. You’re one of my most favorite people ever. I would never regret something if it was with you.”

“It’s different with him, though,” you try to explain. You don’t know why—you just know that it is. The way you’re friends with Chaewon and the way you’re friends with Jungkook are entirely separate. You love Chaewon. You’re not in love with Chaewon. 

“Is it? How?” Chaewon says. 

“I don’t know, I just—it’s different with him.” There’s no way to describe it. Jungkook appeared in your life and it was as if everything just clicked into place. There isn’t a single thing in your life that makes more sense to you than Jungkook. “It’s always been different with him. With you, I—I knew that we would become really close friends once we started talking a lot more in the beginning of freshman year. But with him—I don’t know. From the moment I met him, I knew that I would fall in love with him. When he said hello to me, I was fucked. There’s never been any hope for me, Chae. I just have to live like this forever.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes. “No, you don’t. You don’t even see what the fuck is right in front of you.”

“You?”

“God, I’m friends with idiots. Literal idiots. How you guys have made it through nearly a year and a half of college is beyond me,” Chaewon says to nobody in particular. “Seriously, tell me, Y/N. What do you think will happen if you tell him? Just out of curiosity.”

“I don’t know—” you pause. A lot of things. He tells you he just wants to stay friends. He rejects you because he’s not interested that way and you can’t really be friends anymore because it’s weird now. He’s already interested in somebody else. He’s already dating somebody else and you never even knew. He’s not looking for a relationship right now. Things get awkward because you confessed to your best friend that you’re in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same. You end up never speaking to each other. You never see each other. You go through the rest of university seeing each other on the Green by chance and not knowing what to do. You graduate and move on with your lives. And suddenly, he’s just a past friend you used to have. No longer a part of your life. No longer given the chance to. “He rejects me. We never speak again and have to avoid each other at all costs. He lets me down easy and I feel like a total loser for having confessed in the first place. There’s a lot.”

“Jesus, Y/N. Aren’t you forgetting a possibility?” Chaewon says, eyebrows raised high. 

“I’m omitting a lot of them,” you tell her. Including the one where, in the next three years, you end up in a hellish dystopian wasteland and you have to band together to survive but it’s awkward and terrible because you love him still and he doesn’t feel the same, never has and never will, and now you have to fight off zombies and a corrupt autocratic government all while dealing with your own goddamn feelings. That may be the most unbearable one of them all. 

“How about the one where he actually feels the same?”

“Too unrealistic,” you tell Chaewon. It’s the truth. Why else would Jungkook be traipsing around with beautiful, rich, worldly girls on his nights off? He does it for the money, sure, but he likes it. He loves the experience, loves living that sort of life. You’d never be able to provide that for him. “You know that’s never going to happen, Chae. We’re just friends.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, he thinks that we’re just friends. And I’m not gonna fuck everything up by telling him that I’ve been madly in love with him for the past year and a half.” You can think of nothing worse. 

“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe he thinks that the two of you are just friends because you refuse to actually show him how you feel?” Chaewon asks pointedly, eyebrows raised in disapproval. She looks about ready to walk out of the restaurant. “You never do things to give him a reason to think otherwise.”

“Why would I?” 

When your ramen arrives, Chaewon takes a deep breath, downs the rest of her glass of water, and moves on. It’s clear that if she thinks about this any more, her head will explode. 

Nothing’s ever going to change between you and Jungkook. You knew, when you first met him, that it was always going to hurt like this. That loving him was something you had to sacrifice to stay close to him. He lights up every fucking room he walks into, and it’s all you can do not to sit there and bask in his warmth. You would rather catch a single one of his rays than be in the darkness. And if being friends with him means that friends is all you’ll ever be, then so be it. You’re lucky to have him like this. Why take the plunge? 

“Just—” Chaewon says as you begin to pull apart the noodles in your own bowl. “I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now. And you deserve to be happy, Y/N. You deprive yourself of all of these wonderful things, and I just want you to know that you deserve every single one of them. But telling him? That’s something that even I know would make you the happiest. You shouldn’t live like this, Y/N. You have no idea what you’re missing out on if you do.”

The streak of not seeing Jungkook ends the next day, when you come back from an evening grocery store run to find him standing outside your door, hand about to knock on the wood. He’s all dressed up again, button-down and slacks, hair styled and parted, and you watch as he takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s waiting for the best time to knock. 

“Jungkook?”

He practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of your voice, nearly tripping over his own feet as he lays his eyes on you. 

“Oh, Y/N!” He exclaims. “I was just about to see if you were home.”

“You could have just texted, you know,” you say jokingly, joining him at the front door as you fumble for your keys. 

“I wanted to surprise you,” Jungkook admits sheepishly. 

“Well, make it up to me by helping me unpack these,” you demand, kicking the door open as you reach down to grab your reusable canvas bags filled with groceries. Immediately, Jungkook is leaning down to grab all of them for you, hauling them inside like they weigh nothing. You stare as he heads over to your kitchen without breaking a sweat, biceps clenching as he lifts the groceries up onto the counter. 

“What’d you get?” Jungkook asks, slowly beginning to take out the groceries. He’s in your apartment so often that he’s memorized where all of your food goes, from the correct shelf in the fridge for produce to the proper cabinet for cereal. 

“Just like… groceries. I saw a box of peppermint chocolate bars that I thought you might like, they’re in there somewhere,” you say mindlessly, pointing to a random canvas bag. Immediately, Jungkook abandons his putting-away-groceries duty to fish through each of the bags, hunting for the box of goodies. “And I got some cheap Trader Joe’s wine. You know. Just for emergencies.”

“Trader Joe’s wine and peppermint chocolate bars,” Jungkook comments, nodding in approval. He finally finds the box and tears it open sideways. “Sounds like a perfect dessert if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What, did you eat already?” You ask, busting out the wine and a couple of mugs, because you don’t own any wine glasses. Nothing says cultured like drinking seven-dollar wine out of mugs with kitschy sayings like “don’t talk to me until this is empty” or “coffee is my first love” written on them. 

Jungkook shrugs. He grabs the box and heads over to your couch, already kicking back and relaxing. “Yeah, I went to some restaurant for another double date,” Jungkook says. “It was one of those places where everything is so expensive but the portions are the size of my fist. Of your fist.”

“You sound hungry,” you note, filling up the mugs and joining him. “And mad.”

“I’m getting reimbursed for the money I spent tonight, so I suppose I could be angrier. But I’m starving. Let’s finish this entire box of chocolates and do nothing else.”

“Your words, not mine,” you say, although his proposal sounds more than appealing to you. 

You turn the television on for some background noise, switching to a channel showing old reruns of unsolved serial killer cases, because nothing sets the mood better than the words “then, slowly, he took the knife with which he killed her and began to slice away at her body”. Jungkook doesn’t seem to pay the television any attention, though, instead focused entirely on the chocolate in front of him, calling his name. 

He takes an enormous bite out of one before moaning far too sexually for your liking, tossing his head back in bliss. “Oh my God.”

“Good?”

Jungkook moans again in response.

“Please don’t orgasm on this couch. Who knows what other bodily fluids were on here before we bought it,” you ask calmly. 

“I’d say that’s nasty, but you guys did cover this with one of those couch covers, so it’s not like my body is coming into contact with other people’s body stains,” Jungkook reasons. The couch cover is the single best purchase you’ve made this entire year. Possibly your entire life. “But they’re delicious. You made a good purchase.”

“I thought you would like them,” you say. “You’re the only person I know who actually likes the combination of mint and chocolate.”

“People who say that it tastes like toothpaste are brushing their teeth with the wrong kind of toothpaste,” he tells you pointedly. “I don’t understand. This is God’s combination. It’s perfect.”

“As long as you love it, that’s all that matters,” you tell him with a pat on his back, breaking off a square of the chocolate bar for yourself. It is pretty good, even if mint chocolate ice cream does sometimes taste like toothpaste. But you’d never tell Jungkook that, of course. 

Jungkook takes a swig of the wine, picking up the mug and gulping down about half of it, the wine bitter on his tongue. “Goes great with this wine, too,” he jokes. You take a sip yourself. It’s… not very good. Actually, rather sticky. No wonder it was only seven dollars. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know it tastes like ass,” you tell him honestly. To be fair, you and Jungkook have both had worse. Compared to the shit served at frat parties, this may as well be beautifully-aged Malbec. 

“It only tastes a little bit like ass,” Jungkook compromises. “But it doesn’t not taste like ass.”

“Let’s finish it now so we don’t have to have any more of it later,” you decide. “You’ve probably had some of the best alcohol in your life this semester.”

Jungkook thinks back, tilting his head to the side as he begins to recall all of the instances in the past few months when he’s had anything to drink. “Soju’s still my favorite. But yeah, I’d say I’ve had wine that probably costs more than my textbooks for this semester if I hadn’t pirated them all.”

“The beauty of being a CS student,” you muse. 

“You know it,” he says, holding his half-empty mug out as a toast to himself. “But seriously, even if this Trader Joe’s wine literally tasted like garbage, it would still be better than all of that other shit.”

You turn to him, skeptical. Even the single night you spent with Chaewon, in a penthouse amongst the stars, drinking champagne and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, was more than you could ever dream of. You woke up the next day on an air mattress in her bedroom and wanted nothing more than to go back to basking in the luxury, desperate for another taste. It was addicting. How could Jungkook ever prefer what he has right now to what he had last night? 

“Really? Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” you tell him. You can take it. Jungkook has every reason to prefer the fancy meals, the penthouses, the suits and ties to your janky little apartment and old clothes from high school. The two aren’t at all on the same level. They’re not even in the same goddamn game. If you could drop everything to have what Chaewon has, what the other girls and boys who pay for Jungkook’s company have, you would. 

“I’m not,” Jungkook tells you seriously. “I mean it. I would rather sit in your room, hunched over your tiny Switch because you lost the HDMI cord to plug it into the television, playing Mario Kart than out there, pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“But it was fun in the beginning, wasn’t it? Getting to be rich without the moral ambiguity that comes along with being part of the upper class?” You ask. It must have been. Jungkook looked so happy when he first started doing these gigs, coming back to your apartment in a state of bliss, a little tipsy from the expensive champagne and steak. He’d knock on your door and tell you all about the night, from how older businessmen handed him their cards and offered him jobs, to the hundreds of ice cream flavors you could only ever dream of eating. Everything seemed so wonderful to him.

Jungkook shrugs, pouring himself more wine. “Yeah, I guess, but it gets so old after a while. Like, no wonder Chaewon was so desperate for me to go with her that first time. It sucks the damn life out of you. You walk around and mingle and pretend that you’re the greatest person on Earth, talking about yourself and kissing up to the other people for an entire night. Honestly, sometimes it’s worse than my CS homework. And I hate that shit.”

“Chaewon mentioned that the eggplant usually tastes like foot,” you add. Jungkook nods in agreement. 

“Yeah, it does. She warned me about it the first night and I, like a fool, tried it because I usually like eggplant. And it still tasted like foot. Never again,” Jungkook says, shivering at the mere thought of it. It’s funny, actually, because you did the exact same thing. “But the food is like, the one thing I pretty much don’t have the right to complain about. It’s delicious and usually free.”

“But I hope that you’re having fun,” you tell him honestly, because you do. When you’re sitting in your room, eating two different pints of Ben & Jerry’s, you hope that Jungkook, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, is enjoying himself more than you are. Because he deserves it. You never want there to be a time when he’s sad, when he’s unhappy or bored. Jungkook deserves to live the happiest version of life he possibly can. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I do,” Jungkook says. There’s a second half to that sentence. “I do—it’s just that… It's so fake, you know? I feel like such a goddamn actor when I’m there. I get to live this extravagant lifestyle for a few hours but in return I don’t even know who I’m looking at when I look in the mirror.”

Oh?

“Like, I pretend to be this business student, when I’m not. I pretend to have millions of dollars to my name, when I don’t. I hold hands and pose for pictures with people Chaewon is vaguely familiar with and nothing, literally nothing, feels real. I don’t know.” Jungkook takes another swig from the mug. “Even the relationships I have when I’m there are fake.”

“Do you hate it that much, then?” You ask him. If it’s so awful and terrible, then why does he keep doing it? Keep dressing up and going out, holding hands with and wrapping his arm around them?

“No,” Jungkook says, sighing as he leans back into the couch. “I don’t hate it. I just—I wish I had something real afterwards to come back home to.”

Real? Like what? Like you? You aren’t real. You sit next to your best friend and pretend that everything is fine. That nothing hurts. You’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since you laid eyes on him, and you’re doing everything in your power to make sure that he’s the only one that doesn’t know. 

“That’s why I’m always coming back to your apartment afterwards,” Jungkook says. He chuckles, but it isn’t his usual laugh. It sounds forced, contrived and fake. Jaded. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it almost immediately. Then, he breathes, long and slow. Thinks. The silence is almost unbearable. Waiting to hear what he has to say, even more so. “You’re the most genuine person I know. What we share—it’s real.”

Tonight is the least lonely you’ve felt in a long time. 

Even though Jungkook has something tonight, you aren’t aching to be by his side, desperate to spend more time with him. He told you that he was really looking forward to this one, that it wasn’t going to be some stuffy gala or blind double date. He said something about going to karaoke with the girl and her friends, singing Britney Spears songs and taking shots of soju for hours on end, screaming his voice hoarse. And even if you aren’t there with him, you’re happy because you know that he’s happy, that he’s genuinely enjoying himself. 

So, you aren’t that lonely. 

Content with the state of your life as it is, you take the night off, ready to prepare yourself for a weekend that will almost certainly consist entirely of just work. Chaewon’s voice echoes in your mind (“I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now,” she had told you), but it’s different now. Because you are happy. You are happy, because Jungkook’s happy. The two of you see each other just as frequently as you used to. He texts you about his terrible CS homework and the Shiba Inu he just saw being walked across campus. It’s all gone back to the way it used to be. That’s what you had wanted. 

You were prepared for this. You knew that it would eventually boil down to this, down to whether or not you could take Jungkook not knowing how you feel any longer. But right now, you don’t care. Jungkook not knowing has always been a part of your friendship. The love you hold for him, in the spaces between your bones and deep in the cracks of your heart, that has always been there. You see it, hear it, feel it, whenever you’re with him. Even when you’re not with him, it will remind you, appear in the silence, the emptiness. It will always make itself known, because it’s become a part of you. From the moment you met him, it had settled into your heart.

Staring out of the window by your living room, overlooking the ugliest parking garage on campus, you sigh. You can’t see the stars from here, not even in the dead of night, but that’s alright. There is something so peaceful about the navy blue sky. About how mysterious and unknown it is. It calms you. You put on a movie that you’ve genuinely been wanting to watch for a while, sit down in your bed, amongst your duvet and sheets, pillows and plushies, and enjoy yourself, for once. It’s a good night. 

And then, much like most aspects of your terribly convoluted, over-complicated and confusing life, it all comes crashing down. 

There’s a faint thud from outside, a soft little non-noise that you assume is coming from the street. Not wanting to interrupt your movie—she’s just about to confess, holy shit—you ignore it. It’ll go away eventually. 

Then another thud. You pause, leaning towards your window to see if you can figure out the source. Silence. You’re just about to press play, when you hear it again. And again. It gets louder and louder, making up in volume what it lacks in rhythm and order, until you realize it’s someone knocking on your door. And not just knocking casually. It’s as if someone is shoving their whole body into it, shoulders and chest and feet hitting the wood as they bang on it. 

“Y/N?”

Oh, God.

Pushing off your duvet, you tug on your slippers and wipe away the crust around your eyes as you rush towards the door. You know who’s on the other side. You’re not sure if answering it is the better or worse option. 

You’ve always had an uncanny ability to pick the latter. 

When you open the door, Jungkook, in a fancy sweater pulled over a white button down and black jeans that could almost pass for dressy slacks, is standing on the other side. 

Correction: he’s sort of standing on the other side. He nearly topples over when you pull open the door, having clearly been leaning on it, and you barely have time to reach your arms out to catch him. 

“Oh! Y/N!” Jungkook exclaims, as if he’s surprised to see you inside your own apartment. “I was hoping to see you.”

“I figured,” you tell him, laughing. You guide him inside, and even in his state he remembers to tug off his clean white sneakers, kicking them towards the shoe rack. “It’s so late, Jungkook, you should go home.” 

“No,” Jungkook whines. “I wanted to see you. I missed you.”

“We saw each other this morning, Jungkook. And this afternoon, right before you went out,” you remind him. The words go in one ear and out the other, and he pulls you in close to him, wrapping his arms around you as he presses his body against yours in a sweaty hug. His grip is tight around you as he rests his head on your shoulder, breathing you in as if you’d been gone for years. Slowly, after a few seconds, you pull away from him, a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at you through his too-long bangs, hanging over his eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong? I’m right here, don’t worry. I never left.”

“I had a lot to drink tonight,” Jungkook tells you, blinking rapidly. “Like, a lot. They just kept ordering soju and I just kept drinking it. It was really good. Have you had strawberry soju? It’s delicious.”

“I might have had it once or twice,” you fib, not able to recall having it one way or another. “Come on, sit down,” you point him towards the couch, but he refuses, clinging onto you even as you make your way towards the kitchen. “Jungkook, please, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“But I missed you,” Jungkook repeats. “I missed you a lot. I thought about you the entire time I was there.”

You can’t say you didn’t do the same. 

“Next time we’ll do something together then, hey? Something really fun, like going to an arcade or bowling,” you promise him with a pat on his shoulder. “But you need to drink some water, JK. Can you please sit down?”

“No, I want to be with you,” Jungkook says like it’s nothing. Like the feeling of him wrapped around you like this, holding onto you and telling you that he misses you, that he thinks about you, doesn’t mean anything. You don’t think your heart has beaten since you opened the door to see him standing on the other side. 

(You don’t think it’s beaten since you met him. Since he came up to you on the pavement, asking you for directions. Since you told him your name, and he told you his.)

“Ah, fine, just be careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” you concede, because it’s so easy to let him have his way, so easy to say yes to him. You manage to grab an empty water bottle and fill it up with what’s left in your Brita, too lazy to refill it after it’s left bone dry. Slowly, you make your way to your bedroom, out of view of the central living space, where your roommates could burst through the door at any moment and see you taking care of your drunk best friend on the sofa. 

Slowly, you settle on your bed, sitting off of the edge of it as you cajole him into drinking some water, whispering soft nothings to make sure he finishes the whole thing. 

“Does your head hurt or anything?” You ask him, already looking around for the stash of Advil you usually keep on your nightstand.

“No, no, I’m fine, Y/N, seriously,” he promises, even if you can see the glazed-over look in his eyes, the way his sweaty bangs stick to his forehead. “You’re too nice, you know? Always treating me when I show up at your place. Even when you don’t invite me.”

“You know I never mind seeing you,” you tell him. “You can come over whenever you want. I’m always here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jungkook says with a pout, and it makes you furrow your brows. When have you not been? Jungkook’s been going out to events ever since the beginning of the semester, and without fail, you’ve always been waiting for him at home, knowing he’ll turn up one way or another. Except, there was— “That one time a couple of weeks ago, I went to this crazy big gala with Eunha, there were so many people there, and I came back home afterwards and knocked on your door, and your roommates said they hadn’t seen you all day. Where were you that day?”

He had come? You didn’t know if he would. 

(Or maybe, you did. You knew he would show up at your door once he got back from that night, and selfishly, not wanting to see him after the fact, the leftover version of him, the part he leaves behind when he goes out. You knew he would be there and you couldn’t bear the thought of being the second girl he spends the night with. The other option. Maybe, you’ve known all along that you’ll never quite stack up to the girls he goes out with, and that sometimes, when you see him all dressed up while you’re in your hoodie and sweats, it reminds you is nothing more than a casual friendship.)

“I must have been out late with Chaewon that day, I’m sorry,” you apologize, letting him rest his head on your shoulder. “I didn’t know you would come.”

“I always come after my events. You know that.”

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to,” you correct. 

“I’d never forget about you,” Jungkook says, the alcohol erasing his filter. Making him honest. “I really missed you, that day. I had been waiting the entire night to see you.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” you promise, and this one is for real. 

“You know, today?” Jungkook says, pulling his head back so he can get a good look at you, your eyes meeting his own. “Today, I was so sad on my way here. It was so terrible, because I was drunk and sad and I missed you.”

“You were sad? What happened?” You ask, leaning in. Jungkook? Sad? Who would do such a thing to him? Who would erase the smile on his face, his crescent eyes, and replace them with tears? 

“This girl and I, she was a lot of fun. We sang a couple duets together and we were pretty good,” he hiccups, “kept winning. It was fun. She and I talked for a long time. I definitely liked her the most out of all of the girls I’ve gone out with. Besides Chaewon, of course.”

“What happened? Did she do something you didn’t want? You know you can tell me, Jungkook,” you ask, a hand on his arm. 

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was fun and I was drunk. We were on our way back in the Lyft when she leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed her back, and it was kind of nice. I haven’t really kissed someone like that in a while,” Jungkook tells you. And even though you’re hearing these words from him, hearing how he had all of this fun with a girl who isn’t you, how he kissed her in the backseat of a car, you rally, blinking away the tears you can feel forming in your eyes. It’s none of your business, you tell yourself. You and Jungkook aren’t together. You don’t get to feel bad about him kissing someone else. 

“Did you like it?” You ask, each word a pin in your chest. 

“It was pretty nice,” Jungkook admits. “We, uh, we made out a bit in the back of the car until we got to her place. And then we got out of the car and she asked me if I wanted to go back with her, to her room. And—and I almost said yes.” Jungkook looks about ready to combust. At his side, his fists are clenched so hard you’re worried he’ll pop a vein. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” you tell him, looking him in the eyes so he knows that you don’t mind, that he can tell you these things without worry. Jungkook may be the love of your life, but he’s your best friend, first. He’s always been, before anything else, your best friend. 

“But there is!” Jungkook cries, standing up in anguish. “There is, Y/N, you don’t understand! I almost had sex with her!”

“You’re allowed to, Jungkook!” You assure him, standing up to reach out to him. 

“No, Y/N, you don’t get it,” he tells you coldly, pulling his hand away. “Why aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry that I nearly had sex with her?”

“No, what the fuck, Jungkook, why would I be mad?” You shout back at him. “You can do whatever you want with your body, it’s not my job to police it! I’m your friend, not your mom!”

“But don’t you want to be more, Y/N?” He rounds on you. “Don’t you want to be the one kissing me, fucking me? Why aren’t you jealous?”

“Were you trying to make me jealous, Jungkook? Is that what you were trying to do? You wanted to get a reaction out of me because my best friend nearly fucked someone else and then didn’t? What the fuck, Jungkook? What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to tell me you fucking love me back!”

“Jungkook, what—”

Jungkook, eyes dark and furious, pushes you against your closet door as your lips part, feeling the breath get knocked out of your lungs. He’s so close. He’s right there, you can see him, watch as he looms over you, hands clenched in your hoodie as he presses you against the wall. And then, wordlessly, he’s leaning down, crashing your mouths together. 

Suddenly, your heart starts. You gasp into the kiss, the feeling of his mouth on top of yours. It’s fervent, hot and angry and passionate, his body against your own as your hands reach out to press against his head. You seize up at the feeling, almost as if in shock, before melting into his touch, leaning into him, desperate. You can feel his breath mixing in with your own, feel the way his chapped lips meet your overly-moisturized ones, feel how his hands drift from where they’re bunched up in the front of your hoodie to your waist, your hips, your thighs. Jungkook kisses ruthlessly, kisses like he’s trying to prove a point. Holds onto you like he’s afraid to let go. 

When you part, gasping for air, Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, blinking. 

“Jungkook, you’re drunk—” you tell him firmly, refusing to let get your hopes up if what you have in front of you is really just an intoxicated best friend. Your heart is beating miles a minute, about ready to thump right out of you, chest heaving and mouth agape. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Jungkook argues back. “Even when I’m sober I love you. Don’t tell me I’m confused because I’m drunk.”

“You show up at my place at one in the morning, tell me about how you made out with some other girl and almost slept with her just to get me angry, kiss me, and tell me not to tell you you’re confused?” You demand. “Jungkook, I’ve never been more confused in my life than right now, can you please just—”

“I love you, Y/N,” Jungkook says, and even though he’s angry, red in the face and sweaty, when he says it, it’s soft. It’s a whisper, a murmur. He says it not to convince you, but so you know. “I’ve been in love with you for so goddamn long, ever since I fucking met you. And I thought you might like me back but you never did anything about it, and so neither did I.”

“You need to go home, Jungkook,” you tell him, hiccuping. When you blink, you feel the warm tears streaming down your face. You hadn’t even noticed them. “You can’t just come into my apartment and tell me shit like that. How do you think it makes me feel?”

“Do you feel the same, Y/N?” Jungkook asks, looking you in the eyes. He’s angry, that’s for sure, but even underneath, you can see the desperation, see how he’s just waiting for an answer. 

“Go home, Jungkook. Please. Let’s talk about this when you aren’t drunk, okay? I’m confused and I need to clear my head,” you plead, pushing him towards the door. “Please, okay? Be safe, too. I’ll call Chaewon to give you a ride,” you tell him, grabbing your phone. 

Jungkook puts a hand on your wrist. “I’ll be okay, Y/N. I just… Please, tell me. Did that kiss mean anything to you?”

“Yes, it did, but Jungkook, I can’t—”

“It meant something to me, too,” he tells you firmly, lets the words sink into the air around you.  He heads for the door, pulling on his shoes. He looks so sad. “Good night, Y/N.”

You place a hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Jungkook.”

It’s barely nine in the morning the next day when a knock wakes you up. It’s soft at first, one every couple of seconds, before it gets progressively louder. Slowly, you get out of bed, trying to tame your hair as you rub the sleep from your eyes. 

“Y/N’s in her room. Is that for her? That’s so cute. Yeah, she’s probably awake. You can just knock.” It’s your roommate. 

You scramble to make your bed, pouring some water from the water bottle by your nightstand into your hand and splashing your face, wiping it away with an old t-shirt as you run towards the door, pulling it open just in time. 

On the other side is a much more tired, much less drunk Jungkook, one hand raised and about to knock, the other holding a bouquet of daisies. 

“Hey,” he says shyly, mouth breaking into a smile the moment he sees you. 

“Hey,” you say back. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, head hurts like hell, though,” Jungkook says. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, s-sure, of course,” you say, stepping aside to let him into your bedroom. 

“These are for you.” Jungkook holds out the bouquet towards you, wrapped up neatly in cellophane and tied at the stems with a bow. “So you don’t have to keep Febreze-ing your room all of the time.”

“They’re beautiful, Jungkook,” you tell him, grinning as you take them from his hands. Today feels different from yesterday. It feels lighter, fresher. New. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I—” He pauses, taking a second to think, “I meant what I said, yesterday. Maybe not all of it, but. Most of it, yeah. I meant it.”

“Why did you try to make me jealous, Jungkook?” You ask him. “Why did you think that would work?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook admits. “I shouldn’t have, and I fucked up. I just got so… so tired of waiting to see if you’d ever come around. I just wanted you to tell me. And then I guess I got so fed up that I told you instead.”

You place the bouquet on your dresser before walking towards him, reaching a hand out. “Yeah, that was a pretty big asshole move of you,” you chide, grinning to yourself. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighs. 

“But I’m happy you’re here,” you tell him. “And happy that you meant what you said. Maybe it could have been said in a less angry way, but hearing it made me happy.”

“I’m happy that you’re happy.” Jungkook grins. “You’re my favorite person, Y/N.”

“When you asked me, yesterday, if that kiss meant anything to me? And I said it did?” You begin, Jungkook nodding in front of you. He’s positively beaming. “It still does. I want to do that every day, Jungkook. Every hour. Every single second for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“You do?” Jungkook asks. 

“I love you, Jeon Jungkook. From day one, it’s always been you.” You smile, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Feels like you’re fucking flying. Like you’re weightless. 

“I love you, too, Y/N. I never want to be away from your side,” he declares, and like a cheesy, rom-com movie, like the shitty novels you used to read in eighth grade, he pulls you in close and presses a kiss against your lips. Wraps his arms around your waist as he holds you tight, kisses you in the middle of your bedroom, in your hoodie and sweatpants, a bouquet of daisies on your dresser. He kisses you because he can, because for every second of every day for the rest of your goddamn life, he can kiss you, over and over and over. 

“We owe Chaewon an apology,” you tell him when you’re parted, sitting on your bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms. 

“Hell yeah we do,” Jungkook agrees. “She’s been on my ass for ages about telling you.”

“Mine too.”

“She’s such a great best friend,” Jungkook comments. “Knew all this time that her two friends were madly in love with each other and didn’t say a damn word to either of us. That’s loyalty.”

“We should do something for her, to make up for it all,” you suggest. 

“You know,” Jungkook says, grinning, “I know this guy who made bank this semester by going on fake dates with a bunch of really rich girls. Maybe he could help.”

“I know him, too,” you joke. “He’s the love of my fucking life.”

Jeon Jungkook quits his job on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 7:18PM, eighteen minutes after he normally heads out on one of his many dates. 

“Y/N!” He shouts, banging wildly on your door. You rush over to open it, letting the pasta water on the stove boil over and sizzle on the heat. He’s barely gotten in a second knock when you turn the doorknob to reveal your smiling boyfriend in his oversized hoodie.

“Don’t tell me you’re blowing someone off for me,” you say, inviting him inside. He places a kiss on your cheek on the way in, taking off his shoes and coat as you rush over to take care of the pasta.

“Me? Blowing someone off? Never,” Jungkook says, mock offended. “I actually quit the dating thing, this afternoon. A girl asked if I was free and I said that I wasn’t, because I have to go home to my girlfriend making me a meal. Don’t you love the sound of that?” He asks, pleased with himself.

“You quit? I thought you liked doing that stuff,” you say, using the spaghetti fork to move around the linguine. “Hope you’re cool with boring old pasta for your meal tonight. You could have had caviar if you hadn’t quit.”

“I don’t care, it smells so good,” Jungkook tells you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he stands behind you, watching you cook from over your shoulder. “Look at you, being all domestic and shit. It’s very cute.”

“Stop rubbing in the fact that you’re the better cook, I get it. Pasta is all I got right now.” You pout, turning down the heat as you move to pour yourselves two cups of tea. Jungkook follows you the entire way to the kettle, grip on your waist never faltering. “You can keep going on those dates, you know. I don’t mind. I get to see you in a suit when you get back, and then I get to take it off of you. It’s a win-win.”

Jungkook pinches your waist in response. “If you have a thing for suits, you can just tell me, you know. I won’t be mad.”

You turn around to whack him with the spaghetti fork. “I do not!”

“Alright, Y/N, guess I won’t wear a suit next time you call me at two in the morning—”

“I never said you couldn’t,” you interrupt, making Jungkook laugh. 

“You’re so cute, Y/N,” Jungkook coos as you begin to dish up the pasta, making sure to add peas because Jungkook loves peas with his spaghetti. “But I quit because I have enough money to sustain me for the rest of the semester. I’ll work over break and get a new job next semester when the new work-study positions open. Don’t worry about me,” he assures you. 

“But didn’t you like going out and everything? Getting dressed up and drinking fancy champagne?” You ask, setting the plates down at your dinky kitchen table, a single scented candle lit in the center. 

Jungkook thinks about it for a split second, and then he shakes his head. “Nah. I like hanging out with my girlfriend more.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” you reason with a grin. 

Jungkook laughs, leaning over the table to plop a kiss on your lips. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Yeah, you pea-eating loser,” you chide, “I love you too.”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

[wesimpforxiao]

Say My Name and I’ll Be There: 6.1

Twenty-four hours, thirty minutes, ten seconds and counting.  Xiao continued to pace outside of Dawn Winery in complete silence.  He still hadn't heard a single word from you, and he had stayed awake all night.  Not really a sacrifice since he pulled all-nighters frequently, but his hopes were crushed when his long night was filled with nothing but silence.

Inside, Aether approached Diluc rather quickly with Paimon in tow.  "How would you like to kill Fatui?"

"I beg your pardon?"  Diluc set his glass of grape juice on his desk.  He had been busy with mapping the next wine delivery route when they suddenly barged through his doors.  He kind of wished they had the kindness to knock, but the desperate glints in their eyes caught him off guard.

"We said, how would you like to kill the Fatui?" Paimon crossed her arms.

"We need to infiltrate Snezhnaya.  They took her."

"'Her?'"  Diluc raised a brow, already annoyed by the vagueness of their requests.

"Ugh, the same girl from yesterday! Who earned her cryo vision!  She was taken last night at your tavern! Didn't you see us all run out?"  Paimon's brows furrowed impatiently.

"We need to infiltrate Snezhnaya," Aether repeated and took a step forward.  "We can't do it without you on our team."

"Hold on," Diluc waved a hand to silence them.  "We can't just infiltrate a foreign country.  There are laws and regulations you have to--"

"That's why we came to you!" Paimon yelled.  "If anyone can get us in there, it's you and your underground connections!"

"You hate the Fatui more than anything," Aether continued.  "Will you help us?"

Diluc thought for a moment while he traced the rim of his glass with his index finger.  "We can't recklessly barge into enemy territory.  I'll see what intel I can gather.  Wait here."

Xiao burst through the doors almost as if he had seen a ghost--actually, that would be an inaccurate metaphor since he's quite experienced with the spirits of the dead.  No matter.  He burst through the doors as pale as a sheet.  "I hear her."

..................................................

You glared at the third plate of food that sat upon the stool Childe left in your cell.  You had refused to eat the prior two meals while he was in the cell with you.  He had your cuffs unlocked so you could eat, but you refused to move from your place against the wall.  Cooked fish, some sort of vegetable, and white rice.  They were treating you well.  You were needed alive and healthy, after all, but you weren't hungry.  And since Childe had finally left you alone, well, that gave you the chance to talk to the only person you could.

Xiao.  Xiao! The thought of startling him brought a thin smile to your lips.  I wonder if I scared you...I'm safe--well, as safe as I can be at the moment.  I miss you... Your smile faded.  But I  cannot call for you.  It's too dangerous; I'm sure they already have a way to capture you.  Now that I know you're always listening, it's nice to talk like this.  Less lonely.  

Something clinked against the outer cell door, and it opened.  Childe and one of the harbingers you saw yesterday entered.  The latter held a strange white-and-gray mask that obscured everything besides part of his right cheek and lips.  His bluish-white hair almost seemed to brighten the small room from how light it was.

"It's a sign of disrespect if you refuse to eat the food provided for you," Childe commented once he saw that your plate was yet again untouched.  "We're treating you with more hospitality than our prisoners, after all."

"This is still imprisonment.  Screw off," you brought your knees to your chest as if your legs served to protect you from their stares.

"Ah, yes," the other harbinger picked the plate up and placed it at your feet.  "My test subject needs to eat.  I suggest you do it by your own will before I see to it myself."  

"You might want to listen to him."  Childe was warning you, but not out of consideration for you.

"Go to hell!" You threw the plate at the new harbinger since he was closest, and covered his tidy suit in food.  The white rice mostly clung to the fabric.  Thank the archons that your shoulder was healed and your arm could be put to good use now.

"Listen here, you little--"  The man grabbed you by the collar and lifted you like you weighed nothing until your feet dangled above the ground.  "I don't have the patience of the Tsaritsa's war dog.  I do things quite differently, and you are under my jurisdiction now.  See to it that you follow my orders to the tee, or I can make things very unpleasant here on out."  He dropped you to the floor and exited the cell.

Childe gave you a look of 'I told you so' as he followed suite.

...............................................

What day is it? Your hazy mind stared at the opposite wall.  You lazily traced figure-eights over your tattered jeans.  Approximately twenty-one meals were served--and wasted-- so maybe it was day seven?  A full week of sitting in this barren room?

A few days of no nutrition were of no consequence to you; you were a light eater anyway.  But by day five you were beginning to get dizzy from your voluntary starvation.  You slept most of the day.  The slightest of movements made the world spin around you.  Thoughts of giving in and digging into the meals crossed your mind several times.

I will not falter.  They will not get what they need from me.  I'll starve before they can have me, you gave yourself the pep talk over and over again.  The hours that were filled with zero social interaction drove you mad; you'd either talk to yourself, or to Xiao, who you only hoped could still hear you and maybe even reply in his own mind.  It was a shame the conversation couldn't go both ways.

"I miss you," you murmured a breath.  "If I get out of this, would you like to go eat almond tofu with me?"

Childe entered quietly, and knelt in front of you after giving your full plate the side-eye.  "This little hunger strike of yours needs to stop.  You need to eat."  You didn't answer, and he let out a small sigh.  "Il Dottore finished his set-up this morning.  I'm sure he'll be ready to take you from under my watch by tomorrow at the latest."  He sat down now, and examined you carefully.  

I didn't think we'd break her this quickly,  he thought.  Such a stubborn personality reduced to this pathetic heap of a woman.  A slim smile spread across his lips when he realized how much he loved watching you break under the pressure.

"Leave," you breathed.

"You're smarter than I thought, you know."  Childe placed his chin on the hand that was propped up on his leg.  "If you really thought he had a chance at defeating us, you would have called for Xiao by now.  You've isolated yourself from the only person that caught your eye."

That's what you think, you scoffed.  I've been talking to him this whole damn time.

"Or have you been praying to him?"  Childe's eyes narrowed and the grin on his lips only widened.  The small glance you sent him validated his question.  "You're telling me that this great and mighty adeptus has heard your suffering, and has yet to do a single thing about it?  Are you really sure he's reliable? Oh, ojou-chan," he clicked his tongue and shook his head at you.  "He won't neglect his duties to protect Liyue to come save you."

"You don't know him like I do," a bit of fighting spirit entered your hoarse voice, and your eyes began to glow.

"Oh, but I do.  An ancient yaksha that's at least half the age of Morax himself, falling in love with a human girl?  Is that what you're expecting from him?"  The words cut deeper than his blade had cut through your shoulder.  "You really believe such a hardened soul could learn to love in as quickly as a single human lifetime?  Ojou-chan, open your eyes.  He does not care for you, and he couldn't even if he tried.  Look around you, ojou-chan.  You're still here, in this dark cell, and he's where?  In Mondstat? Liyue?  He doesn't seem to care all too much about you."

"That's because I told him to stay away," you growled, eyes shining brighter.  You curled your fists and prepared to strike him if he had the audacity to continue spewing nonsense.  "You know, you have your entire life to be a jerk.  Why don't you take today off?"

"Even if he did save you, there's no future with him.  You will continue to chase after the illusion of love with him for the rest of your life, only to die alone with your youth wasted.  Even if you escaped, you would be on the run for your entire life, hiding away from the preying eyes of the Fatui.  Is that worth an escape, if you can no longer truly live?

"You're better off working with us, following Dottore's orders, and gaining the trust of the Tsaritsa.  You can make a life for yourself here if you decide to survive.  But out there," he pointed toward the cell door.  "Out there, you will not live."

"You know, your ass must be pretty jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth!"  You yelled as he exited the cell.  Your plate collided with the door right as it closed.  Hot tears stained your cheeks once you were left alone.

He's only trying to break you into submission, you soothed yourself as you hugged your legs.  They felt thinner than usual.  He's just trying to break me.  But why do his words...make me feel so upset?  You buried your face into your knees.  Maybe he's right.

......................................................

"So the guard schedules all overlap? There's no way in?"  Paimon looked over the scattered notes on Diluc's table.  Most of them held ineligible scribbles on them, and she furrowed her brows because of it.

"This was all you were able to gather in a week?"  Aether pulled at his hair and sighed heavily.

"Not many are willing to oppose the Fatui," said Diluc.  "It took all my resources to get this much.  We don't know the interior layout of the castle other than the main exits and entrances.  But I did manage to find us a caravan that leaves at dawn tomorrow."

"Finally!"  Paimon huffed.  "Something useful!"

"I am sorry I haven't been of use to you all," Zhongli bowed his head in a sincere apology.  "It has been years since I've last seen Snezhnaya and the cryo archon."  You meant a great deal to the group, and Zhongli probably took your abduction the hardest since he could not intervene with the Tsaritsa and her plans.

"At least we finally have enough of a foundation to squeeze out a plan!"

"Have you heard from her at all today, Xia--?"  Aether interrupted himself.  "Are...you okay?"

All eyes turned to antisocial yaksha that stood at the back of the room.  It was a small thing the traveler had noticed, but it was significant enough that it totally contradicted everything Xiao was.

He was crying.

First,  you asked to eat with him when this was all over.  Then an overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness flooded his mind like a tsunami.  A single tear rolled down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away.  A tear?

"Stay out of my way," he disappeared from the room and manifested outside.  What was this unfamiliar clenching in his chest?  This clenching in his throat?  The way his hands tingled and his eyes stung?  The afternoon sun seemed to worsen it.

"Xiao," a deep voice spoke behind him, and he turned to face it.  Zhongli placed a large hand on the yaksha's head and closed his eyes for a moment.  When he released his grip, he too, felt the same pain in his chest.  

"She's in pain," the yaksha murmured.  "Every day she grows weaker.  Her strength, it...diminishes."  While it was a blessing to know you were alive, it was also a curse.  He could hear the uncertainty in your voice when you prayed, and the way you hesitate to speak to him each passing day.  The centuries of hardened walls blocking the yaksha from emotion grew weaker the more you did.

"Your bond has grown," the archon explained the physical and mental phenomena Xiao was being put through.  "You feel her emotions, just as she feels yours."

"Rid me of them," Xiao ordered.  "I have no need for the emotions of a human."

"She is no longer the only one that holds human emotions.  You care for her deeply, do you not?"  No answer. Blank stare. "I'm certain you've contemplated and understood my words in Qingce Village by now."  Zhongli's eyes followed the ascending path of two cranes flying overhead.  "You wish to rescue her, even though Liyue requires your protection?  You're worried I won't grant your request?"

"...Yes."

"Worry no longer; it is granted.  But be warned, Guardian Yaksha, emotions cannot be permanently ignored.  They will rise to the forefront sooner or later,"  his gaze returned to Xiao's.  "You best be sure to share them before they fall on the ears of an early grave."

[eirikaanemo]

My Celebrity Childhood Friend

Warnings: minor character death, sad feels

Venti x GN!Reader

2k Words

Many years ago, when you were eight years old, you had two very close friends. Their names were Venti and Himmel. The three of you did everything together. You were very close. All of you thought your friendship would be forever and that you would always be close. But, unfortunately, that's not what happened.

One day you and Venti received the news that Himmel had passed away. It was really difficult for both of you to accept the reality of his death, grieve, and move on with your lives. In the end, you couldn’t even help each other. Spending time together only reminded you of how Himmel wasn’t there anymore.

Eventually Venti just couldn’t take it anymore. So his family moved out. Losing Himmel had hurt, but losing Venti too reopened the almost healing wound in your heart. He didn’t even say goodbye because he thought he’d chicken out if he did. And so there you were, friendless, hurt, and feeling very, very alone.

Your only solace was in practicing the piano. The three of you had all been learning instruments and playing together before. The idea was to become a band of sorts together and play music professionally. Himmel played violin, Venti played guitar, and you played piano. Playing the piano was all you had left of them, so you continued playing and practicing it.

Years pass and you move on as much as you can. You make new friends and try new things. Piano is still important to you but you do new things now too. But even with all of this, there’s a part of you that left with Venti and Himmel. The hurt in your heart is no longer a gaping wound. Yet the pain has never truly gone away.

Then one day you hear a familiar voice on the radio. That voice and guitar combo sounded very familiar. It was a good song and you enjoyed listening to it, but you just couldn’t get the feeling of familiarity out of your mind. However, once the radio host introduced the song, you immediately understood. “And that was Soaring Bird by The Bard. Venti really did himself proud on this one…,” they continued, but you were no longer listening.

Venti was on the radio! What could this mean? You hurriedly took out your phone and ran a search. There he was, Venti, also known as The Bard, is a singer/songwriter who rose to fame after a stint on a television talent show a couple months ago. Well, what do you know? Your childhood friend has followed your childhood dream.

Part of you feels left behind, but you accepted that had happened years ago. So instead you decided to be supportive! Suddenly you have a new favorite singer and you just have to have all his albums. Physical copies, so you can display them. Your bedroom walls are covered with posters.

You now have more The Bard themed t-shirts than you have regular shirts. There’s a concert of his you can go to? You’re there. You promote him with everyone you know. If you hadn’t converted your friends to the truth of Venti supremacy they probably would have gotten sick of your antics by now. Instead they’re almost as invested as you are.

When he finally releases a new album you are thrilled. It’s been almost a year since he released his last one and you’ve been starving for new content. You are first in line to the store to buy the album and listen to it as soon as possible. Track one through four are fantastic and you enjoy them a lot! But then track five starts to play.

It’s more melancholy and nostalgic than other songs he has written. And then you hear the words. The words touch your heart, soothing and healing some of the pain that has remained. At the end he takes a moment to dedicate it to his childhood friend, to you. Not by name, but you know what he means by “my old childhood friend”. You’re tearing up.

I’m sorry I was too blind to see

That you were suffering as much as me

You were left behind, I was moving on

And you were left to carry on

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair

That I chose to just leave you there

We’re not really close now, are we

But I just want to say I’m sorry

You listened to it over and over again, crying in your room. Maybe it was stupid but that was something you didn’t even know you’ve been wanting to hear for years. Knowing that he felt bad about leaving you behind and hearing an apology from him meant the world to you.

And it just so happens that the song he dedicated to you is your friends’ new favorite song. If they didn’t know about your history with him before, then they sure know now. You’re still struggling to not cry every time it plays. Sure, maybe some of your dirty laundry was now being aired all around the world. But that wasn’t important.

What was important was that your heart was finally able to heal. You were truly able to feel happy again, for the first time since you were eight years old. Life had color again. There was more of a bounce to your step. Your friends noticed that your smiles even seemed more real now.

So when you learned that Venti would be doing an album signing event, you just knew you had to go. And you knew just which album you wanted to have signed. Now all you could think about was getting the album signed. How would he react to seeing you again? Would he recognize you? You really hope he does. It would really hurt if he doesn’t.

All of a sudden you’re now worrying if this is a good idea at all. Your friends managed to convince you to go, but you were really close to not going at all. And even now that you’re here at the signing you’re half considering running away. But instead you steel your courage and get in line.

You try not to think about it as the line slowly creeps forward. Making small talk with those around you in line might help, but you’re too nervous to even try social interaction. You’re twentieth in line, then tenth, then fifth, then second. Now it’s your turn and you approach the table he’s sitting at to sign the albums.

He’s wearing a white button up shirt, green slacks, and a green beanie with a flower on it. He’s dyed the tips of his braids teal and wears some light makeup to bring out the color of his eyes. You suddenly feel very underdressed as you anxiously walk up and hand him the album.

“Hi Venti,” you say softly. “It’s good to see you again.” He looks up sharply and freezes for a second, wide eyed. “Oh my gosh!” He exclaims, jumping up out of his seat. “It’s so good to see you again! It’s been so long!” You smile, feeling more comfortable and sure of yourself now that you know he recognizes you.

Someone behind him clears their throat and sits back down. “I can’t really talk right now,” he admits, sheepishly. “We don’t want to hold up the line, but hold on a sec.” He opens the album and scribbles something on the inside of the opaque cover. “That’s my number,” he whispers quietly to you. “Text me later, okay? I’ll get back to you when I can.”

You nod and move on, only realizing he didn’t actually sign the case until you were down the hall from where he was signing. Laughing a little, you sit down on a bench and pull out your phone. That was such a Venti-like thing for him to do. Sometimes he would get so excited that he’d forget what he was supposed to be doing.

Opening your texting app, you typed in his number and sent him a message.

You: Hi! Is this the right number? I’m the one you wrote song number five about.

It took a couple hours for him to reply. Which is very understandable considering how he was probably signing albums for a while.

Venti: Yes! This is the right number! It’s so good to hear from you again :)

Venti: And I’m so glad you heard that song

Venti: I really am sorry about leaving like that

You: I won’t lie and say that it’s fine, because it really hurt that you left like that

You: But I really appreciate your song that you wrote for me. I cry every time I hear it

Venti: Oh no! I didn’t mean to make you sad :(

You: Happy tears, Venti. They’re all happy tears

Venti: Oh, okay, that’s good :)

Venti: Want to come eat lunch with the staff and me?

Venti: They’re all really curious about you

Venti: The mysterious childhood friend I wrote a whole song about

You: Sure! How do I find you?

Venti: You don’t! Where are you? I’ll send someone to pick you up ;)

You send him your location and wait around for someone to come pick you up. After a while a nicely dressed woman approaches you and gestures for you to follow her. She leads you to a car and drives you to a restaurant. A waiter takes you to one of the closed off rooms for group events.

Approximately two seconds after the door is closed, you are hug tackled to the floor. Venti cheerfully cheers your name right into your ear. You grumble good naturedly and swat at him until he laughs and gets off you. He offers his hand, you take it, and he helps you stand up. Some chuckles from the staff tell me they’re just as amused as he is by the situation.

This sets the tone for your lunch. It’s lighthearted and you have a great time getting to know each other again. He introduces the staff and they admit they’ve been curious about his childhood friend he wrote a song about. You enjoy eating lunch with them a lot, and all of you are disappointed when you have to go.

You continue to chat as long as you can while preparing to leave. As you’re gathering your stuff to go, you come across the album that he never actually signed. “Oh yeah,” you laugh. “Venti, you never actually signed my album!”

“Whoops! I’ll sign that right now.” He declares. “Though I must admit that I feel a little awkward signing stuff for you.” Finishing writing with a flourish, he hands the album back to you. “But I guess I better get used to it,” he continues. “You better bring the rest of the albums next time!”

Your smile is so bright that he has to squint for a moment.. “I’m looking forward to it already.” You say. “See you later?” He beams right back. “Yep! I’ll let you know the next time we can meet up!”

The grin stays on your face all the way home.

You meet up whenever you can after that, though your schedules don’t always match up enough to allow it. Video calls are common when he goes on tour. It’s like the two of you never split. And eventually your friendship becomes something more.

“Hey, could I ask you a question?” Venti asks you over a video call one night. He’s acting a little funny, nervous with a dash of hope and excitement. “Would you like to go out with me sometimes? Like a date?” You chuckle, amused. “Venti, you’re on tour right now. It’s not like we could go out to dinner or something.”

“You’re right that we can’t go out to dinner together, but we could eat at the same time over a video call! I’ll even call and order food for you or something!” Venti plans. “Sure,” you agree. “I think I’d like that.” He pumps his fist in the air. “Yes!” He shouts. “I’m gonna make this the best long-distance date ever!”

And so he does.

[seasonschange-butpeopledont]

Everyday Heroes

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x F!Reader

Warnings: A few curse words, an explosion, implied injury, depressed reader, minor character death, grief, and a bit of pining

Word Count: 3,364

Author’s Note: This got out of hand and apparently I only know how to write hopeless pining. Do we agree that Marcus gives off Clark Kent vibes or am I alone in this?

Summary: The three times you discovered Marcus Moreno was a hero. 

Taglist Form - Masterlist

When you’d left the house that morning, the heels you wore had seemed like a great idea. 

You were headed in for your first day at your new job and you wanted to make a good impression by wearing what you perceived to be your most professional outfit. You’d made it to the coffee shop down the street from your apartment with minimal difficulty, though you were certain to have blisters on your feet by the end of the day. Thankfully, your receptionist position meant that you would spend the majority of your day more or less chained to the front desk, answering phones, taking messages, scheduling appointments, and greeting visitors. 

You didn’t know much about Vil-Tech. You’d googled them before your first interview, of course- you weren’t a total idiot and you’d never dare show up unprepared, especially when you needed this job so badly- but your search had yielded only a few results. Most of what you’d found had been articles from the newspaper. The researchers at the lab had, apparently, recently had some success in clean energy technology. Protons, neutrons, particle accelerators, electromagnetic fields… You knew nothing about it, really, but it sounded impressive. And clean energy had to be good, right? When they’d hired you, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal that you knew next to nothing about the company itself. They were only looking for a receptionist, after all, not a scientist. If they’d wanted you to know exactly what was going on in the floors above you, you were sure that they would have let you know. 

With your coffee in hand, you made your way towards the Vil-Tech building. All in all, it seemed like the universe was on your side this morning. You’d woken up early enough to make yourself look decent. Your favorite barista had made your coffee just the way you liked it, and it even looked like you would be early for work. 

And then it all seemed to happen in slow motion. 

The upper half of your body was already moving forward, even as the heel of your shoe remained firmly wedged in the sidewalk crack. You felt the coffee sloshing around in the stainless steel travel mug in your hands, threatening to douse your crisp white blouse in the steaming beverage. You blindly threw your hand out in front of you, bracing yourself to hit the concrete and thinking to yourself that this was just one of those days when this might as well happen. 

But the harsh impact you’d prepared yourself for never came. 

It had taken you a moment to process that someone had caught you. Someone with impeccable reflexes, it seemed, as not only had they rescued you from taking a humiliating fall in the middle of a busy sidewalk, but they also managed to save your coffee without spilling a drop. To say that you were impressed by the feat was an understatement.

But when you looked up at your savior, you were damn near speechless. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, his dark eyes finding yours from beneath his black-framed glasses. And, other than the approximately thirty-seven heart attacks you’d had in the span of 2.5 seconds only moments before, you found yourself nodding in confirmation. 

“I’m fine. I… Thank you,” You breathed out, a warm, tingly feeling spreading out from your chest and right down to your toes. Gods, he had the most beautiful eyes you’d ever seen. He appeared to be somewhere in his mid-forties, and wore a leather jacket with his slacks and tie, a combination you’d never quite seen before, but decided suited him quite well. 

“Are you sure? You look a little dizzy,” He noted. His arm was still around your waist, and you were grateful for it, because you didn’t quite trust the integrity of your knees at the moment.

After a few moments, which had exceeded the socially acceptable amount of time to moon over a stranger while clutching their remarkably toned biceps for dear life by a long-shot, your brain finally seemed to catch up to the rest of you, and promptly flooded your thoughts with embarrassment. You released your death-grip on his arms immediately, trying to maintain your dignity as you yanked your heel from the concrete crevice in a distinctly unladylike manor. All the while, the handsome stranger remained right there, dutifully holding your coffee and trying his best to hide the amusement in his eyes with a polite smile. 

Taking a deep breath and smoothing out your outfit, you nodded at him once again. “I’m fine,” You said in what you hoped was your most composed voice. He promptly handed you your coffee, and you swore you felt electricity when his fingers brushed against yours. 

“Glad to hear it,” He remarked, “That would have been a nasty fall.” 

“Nice save, Clark,” You joked, attempting your most charming smile. Were you flirting? Could you even consider this flirting?

“Clark?” He repeated, his eyebrows raised in curiosity. 

“You know, Clark Kent… with the glasses and... lightning-fast reflexes… saving me from an incredibly embarrassing moment?” You explained weakly. It wasn’t as if you’d never spoken to an attractive man before, but it seemed that the universe was decidedly not on your side this morning after all.

“Superman?” Another smile found its way to his face. He seemed flattered by your comment. “My daughter loves those comics.” At the mention of his daughter, your eyes quickly darted down to his left hand. There was no wedding ring there, but it was clear that there had been one there in the past. 

“Well, your daughter has excellent taste. And we could all use a few more heroes in our lives, right?” You sighed wistfully, before adding, “Thank you, by the way.” 

“It was no big deal,” He assured you. “I’m always happy to help a pretty lady in need.” 

You laughed quietly at the last part, finding the cheesiness of it adorable. You weren’t quite sure why you were still lingering on the street corner, except that you couldn’t quite bring yourself to walk away just yet. He seemed equally as reluctant to part from you, both of you grinning shyly at one another as you soaked in the meet-cute moment. Right up until his eyes fell to the ID badge clipped to your bag, that is. 

“Is that a Vil-Tech badge?”

There was a hint of disappointment in his tone that you couldn’t quite assign a cause for. It wasn’t the question you were expecting. You’d expected him to ask your name, or maybe offer you his, but you could practically see the gears turning in his head by now, so you humored him.

“Yep,” You confirmed. “It's my first day. I’m just a receptionist, though…” 

He nodded slowly, his eyebrows pinching together. He didn’t even try to hide his frown. What was it about Vil-Tech that seemed to bother him so much?

“I’m really sorry, but I’m running late for work,” He said finally, nodding in the direction you had just come from. He turned his attention back to you, his eyes staring into yours as he spoke with the utmost seriousness. “Good luck on your first day, and… Look after yourself, okay? Vil-Tech might not be what you think it is.” 

And with that, he brushed past you, seemingly in quite a hurry as he disappeared into the crowd and left you standing there, disappointment sinking deep into your bones. 

You didn’t even get his name. 

***

You didn’t see him again for a month. 

Not that you often thought about him or his dreamy eyes and ridiculously charming smile or his strong arms around your waist. And definitely not that you sometimes idly wondered where he was and how his day was going while you were grocery shopping or stuck at the laundromat. 

Okay, maybe you did. 

Maybe you went to that same coffee shop every week day, hoping that you might bump into him again. 

And maybe you sometimes imagined those eyes staring into yours and arms around you in situations where you weren’t making a complete fool of yourself. 

You felt silly for being that girl. The one who falls hopelessly in love with strangers you pass on the streets, with anyone who thinks that anyone who so much as holds the door open for you could be your true love. You were a grown up, for goodness sake. You weren’t supposed to believe in that kind of thing anymore. 

But it was those ridiculous daydreams you found yourself caught up in when a team of Heroics stormed into Vil-Tech on a Tuesday afternoon. 

“I apologize, sir, but Dr. Pershing is out of the office today…” You sighed, listening to the supplier ramble on and on about the importance of Dr. Pershing returning his call. You had already scribbled the message down, along with his name and phone number. “Yes, I’ll be sure to give him the message.” It was difficult to hide the exasperation in your tone. 

“That’s what you said the last time,” The man snapped. “Pershing didn’t return my calls for a week. I don’t know why they can’t hire someone who knows how to take a message properly. God knows they’ve got the money for it.” 

You tapped the tip of your pen against the notepad on your desk, feeling a lump beginning to form in your throat. “I apologize, Mr. Wells. I’ll make sure that Dr. Pershing gets your message as soon as he returns.” 

“You’d better,” He grumbled, before the line went dead. 

You let out a slow breath, easing yourself back from the edge of tears. It had been like this all morning. The scientists in the building were off at a conference for the week, leaving you behind to copy down messages and field angry phone calls. 

Stan, the elderly security guard, if you could call him that, offered you a sympathetic smile from his post by the door. You returned it weakly.

Closing your eyes, you tried to think of something else. Brown eyes, charming smile, strong arms. You repeated it like a mantra. Electricity. The feeling of safety. That warm, fluttering feeling in your stomach, and a rush of calm. 

When you opened your eyes again, you found Stan staring slack-jawed as the Heroics sprinted into the building, announcing to you, Stan, and the maintenance staff that you all needed to clear the building immediately. They offered no explanation for their frantic demands, but when a guy in spandex and a cape tells you to go, you go. You were sure that, whatever it was, you’d be able to catch the reason for the strange event on the news later that evening. You’d watched them destroy city hall enough times from the comfort of your living room to be sure that you wanted out of this building as soon as possible. 

But, given that this was your first call-the-Heroics-level emergency, it seems that your idea of immediacy was a bit different from theirs. In the time that it had taken you to grab your jacket, shove your laptop in your purse, and sling the bag over your shoulder, you had already been tackled to the ground by some idiot in a tactical vest. 

You don’t remember much about the explosion. 

You’d later learn that Vil-Tech Labs dealt in more than just technological innovation. The research they’d been conducting while locked away in the uppermost floors of the building, all of that gibberish involving the off-site particle accelerator you’d read about, was both sinister and invaluable. Rather than letting the Heroics get their hands on their files to uncover their plans and stop them from being set in motion, they’d decided to set off an explosion in their own goddamn building. And thanks to that ‘idiot in a tactical vest’, you were one of the only survivors. 

But in the meantime, while you were lying on your back in the middle of the lobby feeling like you’d been hit by a train, you were clueless about the nefarious action of the company you’d spent the last month working for. The only thing you could seem to focus on was the pain in your head from where you’d smacked it against the tile flooring, and the weight of the fully grown man on top of you that was currently restricting your breathing. 

You must have hit your head even harder than you thought, because there was no way in hell the man who’d been starring in all of your daydreams for months was here, now, on top of you, with katanas strapped to his back. You refused to accept that as a reality. Would he even remember you? Why would he? Apparently, the man you’d developed a  stupid little crush on was a superhero. He probably helped people all of the time and you were just another-

“What the fuck?” You finally hissed, gasping for air. The air was smokey and it stung your eyes and nose when you inhaled. 

His breathing hitched slightly when you looked up at him, the look of fear clear on your face. “You okay?” He asked, still hovering above you as he pushed himself up on his elbows, careful to avoid the shattered glass that now seemed to cover every flat surface in sight. 

“I’m… reasonably certain I’m not dead,” You replied, an edge of panic in your voice, which was a bit shakier than you would have liked. “What’s happening? I don’t- I don’t understand- Where is Stan-” You coughed, your lungs burning. 

You idly wondered how long you had before the building started to collapse, its structural integrity surely compromised by the explosion. Of all the ways you could die, being buried alive was up there with the ones you dreaded the most. Your growing panic must have been obvious. 

“Hey, calm down,” He reassured you. “I’m going to get you out of here. You’re going to be just fine.” 

The room was still spinning when you felt yourself being scooped up into his arms, the edges of your vision growing more and more fuzzy with each breath you took. 

“We have got to stop meeting like this, Clark” You murmured. You swear you feel, rather than hear, a laugh rumble in his chest just before the world goes dark. Maybe he did remember you after all. 

***

It’s only a little more than a week later, long after you’ve woken up in the hospital and been discharged, that you find yourself sitting in the coffee shop down the street. It’s a Thursday morning, and you’re staring blankly into your vanilla latte. 

You aren’t sure why you’re up so early. The doctors had ordered you to take it easy, and it’s not like you had a job to go to anymore. You could have slept in, made your own coffee at home, and stayed curled up on your couch watching Netflix and hiding from the rest of the world like you had been for the past week. You felt horrible that you’d been associated with a place like Vil-Tech. You should have known that something was off about the place, but you’d never realized it, never bothered to look into anything when things seemed off. You felt so stupid for it now. Were you just as bad as the rest of them? Sure, all you’d done was answer phones for them, but…

Stan, your only friend at Vil-Tech, the kind man who had shared half of his sandwich at lunch with you more times than you could count and always had a smile for you when he greeted you in the mornings, had never made it out of the building. You supposed that you should consider yourself lucky that the Heroics had saved you, but the loss of your friend and the knowledge that Vil-Tech was certainly not what you thought it was, had shaken you. 

You’d felt different when you woke up this morning. Like, maybe, leaving your apartment and getting some fresh air wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Your favorite barista had smiled sympathetically when you walked through the doors. You must have looked as bad as you felt. Considering you hadn’t showered since you’d gotten home from the hospital, you were sure that you were quite a sight. 

“Good morning!” She greeted, mustering up her cheeriest demeanor for you. “The usual, right?”

You nodded, not quite making eye contact as you handed her your card to pay. She quickly waved you off. 

“It’s on the house today, hon. And I insist that you take this chocolate chip muffin. I’ll make you feel better.” 

Your heart ached at her kindness, the act almost forcing tears in your eyes once again. That was the thing that you realized over the past few days. The Heroics were great, but there were plenty of everyday heroes out there as well. Sometimes it was Ashely the Barista, who scribbles a smiley face and a compliment on your cup on the mornings that seem particularly rough. Sometimes it was Stan the Security Guard, who offers to teach you sudoku on your lunch breaks. And sometimes it was a stranger you passed on the street, who catches you when you fall. 

You sat down at a table in the corner of the coffee shop, your vanilla latte and chocolate chip muffin sat out in front of you, untouched for the moment. You didn’t usually sit down to have your coffee, but you had nowhere to be today, and you were finding that you appreciated not being alone for a while. 

You heard the bells above the door jingle, signaling that a new customer had entered the shop. You looked up to see a man with dark hair and a familiar leather jacket walking towards the barista to place his order. You listened closely as he gave his name for his order, though you’d heard it plenty of times on the news this week. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips for the first time in over a week.

Marcus Moreno, your own personal Superman. 

You hadn’t meant to stare, but it was undeniably strange to see the man who had saved you not once, but twice, doing something as mundane as making his morning coffee run. After he paid, he turned towards the groupings of tables and chairs, searching for a place to sit while he waited for his drink to be ready. When his eyes landed on you, you raised your hand in a small wave. You were nervous about how he’d react to seeing you here. You had no doubt that he recognized you this time.

You weren’t exactly sure what the protocol was for meeting a real-life superhero again after they had saved your life. Were you supposed to pretend not to know each other? Should you have paid for his coffee? Did you make a public declaration to name your first born child after him?

To your surprise, he simply smiled back at you with the most heart-stopping, breathtaking smile you’d ever seen in your life, and returned your wave. It was as simple as that, you thought. Marcus Moreno, the superhero with katanas at this back and a team of Heroics at his side, the closest thing to Superman you’d ever met, was impressive. But Marcus Moreno, the helpful man with a kind, beautiful smile and warm, friendly eyes, whose mere existence had never failed to cheer you up? He was magnificent. An everyday hero, indeed. 

He made this way through the crowd and over to your table, gesturing to the seat across from you as if to ask for your permission to sit down. You nodded, feeling a sense of warmth blossoming in your chest. The same way you’d felt when you saw him for the first time. The same feeling that you’d been dreaming about for months. 

Hope, you realized. 

“Hi,” He greeted. “I, uh, I never caught your name. I’m Marcus Moreno.” 

As you gave him your name, you decided that maybe you could start by just saying thank you. 

General Taglist: @theravenreads @marshmallowtraver @computeringturtle @adikaofmandalore @pascalisthepunkest

Marcus Moreno Taglist: @xjaywritesx​

[lucyintheskywithxanax]

Lionheart

Pairing: Cordelia Goode x Fem Reader

Request: “i can’t breathe” with cordelia?? “

A/N: so this prompt screamed ‘panic attack’ but GUESS WHAT?? I cannot write about panic attacks without having one myself so bear with me. This story was inspired by the scene in Apocalypse when Cordelia tells Michael she’s ready to help him if he’ll let her. Thank you anon for the request, and have a good time reading. x

Word count: ~ 5 500

Warnings: panic, anxiety, more or less accidental attempt at murder (idk what to call it)

You opened the door to the little antique shop and walked in with a happy spring in your step. The place was dimly lit and smelt of nag shampa. All kinds of objects were displayed on shelves nailed to the walls. In the middle of the room, more objects – colourful candles, statues carved in rosewood or kingwood or stone, dusty porcelain plates with a rim of gold – were randomly piled on top of each other or on small tables.

The shop had opened a few days ago and its window had drawn your eye. You were on your way back to Robichaux’s, where you had lived for the past five years. Life at the Academy was blissful. You had found yourself, finally embracing your being a witch; and then a few months later you had found love, and with it a new kind of happiness. Contentment you had read about in books but never thought could happen to you. Love had ripped fear and hatred off the world and painted it in softer colours: pink, yellow, brown, colours that reminded you of Cordelia. The constant weight in your heart had changed: it did not drag you down anymore, but supported you. It was not fear and loneliness you carried, but warmth and curiosity.

In the shop the woman behind the counter was scrutinizing you with attention. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue that reminded you of ocean depths. She wore a beautiful, intricate brooch in the form of a tree with the words ‘Anna Morgana’ – her name, probably – engraved on the trunk. A single red rose drooped in a vase on the counter in front of her.

You did not notice the strange look – half fear, half anger – that flashed on her face as you walked up to her.

“I know you”, the woman said as a greeting. “You’re one of the girls from Robichaux’s Academy.”

You beamed at her.

“I’m here to buy a gift for my Supreme,” you informed her happily.

Here it was again, that strange look, and this time you did notice it, but you didn’t think anything of it. The mention of witches – especially powerful ones – still made most people uncomfortable.

“Birthday?” the woman asked.

For a second you considered lying. Cordelia was adamant that you tell no one about your relationship, for she didn’t want the girls at the Academy to think she favoured you over them. But it wasn’t exactly a secret. Cordelia’s face had always been open, and you weren’t particularly good at hiding the joy that spread over your own every time your eyes met hers, every time someone mentioned her, every time the thought of her crossed your mind. Anyone who had spent more than five minutes with you and Cordelia knew you were in love. Most people were too polite to tell either of you how bad you were at hiding your feelings – except Madison, who seemed to think there was no greater joy in the world than to criticize “Foxxy” in front of you so that she could laugh at whatever new insult your “poor unimaginative brain” would come up with. But you didn’t mind Madison. She was a friend – an extremely annoying, unreliable friend, but a friend still. Movie nights with her were the best.

“Random act of kindness,” you told the woman, trying to keep your voice as neutral as possible. “She works so hard for us,” you couldn’t help but add.

The woman curled up her lips and ran one hand through her dark, thick, curly hair. The bracelets that hang off her wrist jingled.

“Well, I could let you look around, but it would take hours. And I think I’ve got just the thing you need. Simple, but beautiful. Not too showy, elegant.”

She went through one of her drawers and drew out a small rectangular box. It contained a necklace – a thin silver chain, a curved bail, a round-shaped moonstone with a blue sheen in the middle. Your heart jumped at the sight. It was perfect for Cordelia.

“And look here!” the woman went on, her voice rising almost to a squeal. You were so lost in thoughts of Cordelia and how beautiful that necklace would look on her, that you did not notice the sudden shaking of the woman’s hands as she drew out another box. “I’ve got another one, exactly the same! So you can match.”

“I’ll take them both,” you beamed.

The woman looked incredibly nervous. She gave you a tight smile as you fumbled in your bag for your wallet.

“I like it,” you said, nodding to the rose in an attempt to help her relax. “Very Beauty and the Beast.”

You paid for the necklaces, then clasped one of them around your neck and stared at your reflection in a small mirror perched on top of a pile. Your fingers gingerly touched the stone. You flashed a grin at your reflection, then sang out “Goodbye!” to the woman. She didn’t say it back.

It was a beautiful spring day, the sun splayed out low in the sky, the air crisp, the branches of the trees overloaded with blooming flowers, but you didn’t linger. Your heart and mind were filled with Cordelia. She had been more tired than usual those past few days, what with the arrival of half a dozen new girls who were very young and very scared of their powers. And she had been bugged by a “weird, tingling feeling”, as she had confided to you two days ago, late in the evening, her head resting on your lap and your hand running through her hair: “I think a new witch might be in town. And I think she doesn’t know who she is. I can feel her confusion, her fear.” You had dropped a kiss on her forehead, offered to run her a bath, but she had let out a tired groan and sat up, rubbing her eyes as if she had a headache, and said she still had paperwork to go through.

It worried you, sometimes, how hard she worked. Too many nights you had had to drag her out of her office and tuck her in and kiss her until her faint protests had turned into sleepy giggles. You and Zoe and Queenie had offered, multiple times, to take over some of her classes, and she had relented after several refusals. As it had turned out, you were quite possibly one of the worst teachers on the planet. Cordelia had attended your first class, wanting to make sure she was not entrusting her girls to an incompetent fool – for the rest of that day you had been unable to meet her eyes, your face red with shame. When in the evening she had finally managed to corner you in an empty room she had burst into uncontrollable laughter, peppering your face with kisses, pausing to try and whisper an apology when she noticed the outraged look on your face. The word “sorry” did not make it out past the first syllable before she was doubled up with laughter, tears running down her flushed cheeks. So it had been decided that you should help Cordelia with daily matters and paperwork, and let Queenie and Zoe do the teaching.

The Academy was very quiet when you reached it, as most of the classes weren’t over yet. You did some cleaning in the kitchen, made yourself some tea, then decided to take a nap. There was approximately thirty minutes left before classes would end and Cordelia would take her usual evening break before dinner.

You ran up the stairs to your room, changed into more comfortable clothes, tip-toed to Cordelia’s room to steal one of her pillows, tip-toed back to your own room, and collapsed on your bed. Your fingers played with the chain of your new necklace, a goofy smile spreading over your face as you thought about the moment you would offer Cordelia her gift. Surely matching necklaces would not be too obvious. Friends did things like that all the time. You were sure to be teased by Madison, though. You lay on your right side, clutching Cordelia’s pillow against your chest and burying your face in it, and closed your eyes. You were not feeling particularly tired, but sleep soon overtook you.

You woke up a few minutes later with a jolt. Your heart was pounding in your ears and your chest was incredibly tight. You remembered when you were in junior high and a brute who kept bullying you because you were “too weird” had unceremoniously thrown you to the ground and decided it would be fun to sit on your chest. The boy was twice your size. He had laid both his hands on your shoulders, pressing your back into the cement, breathed in your face and flashed a cruel smile at you as he shifted his weigh to crush you. “I can’t breathe,” you had managed to get out, your hands coming up to smack weakly at his arms, “get off, I can’t –“

Now the feeling was exactly the same. There was a heavy weight pressing down on your chest as if a demon were sitting on it.

You abruptly sat up, panic shooting through your veins. Instinctively you reached out for Cordelia, for warmth and protection – your hand landed on the cold sheet.

You managed to hiss in a breath, desperately patting the mattress, your other hand coming up to press against your chest. Your arms were shaking. And the sitting position didn’t help. Your chest still felt like it was being crushed.

You threw back the cover, made to stand up, fell back on the bed as the room around you started to spin. Your ears were ringing and you could hear terrifying noises like that of a monster’s rough, raspy breathing in horror movies – your breathing, you realized in terror.

You had to get up. You had to get up and call for help before – on shaky legs you stumbled out of your room and into the empty corridor, leaning against the wall for support, and croaked out: “Delia,” but it was too weak, too low, the words flopped at your feet. The corridor was spinning so fast you could no longer tell where the ceiling was. Cold sweat coated your skin as you took a few steps forward, calling again, “Delia,” a pitiful sound, barely above a whisper.

Your gaze fell on the railing of the stairs. So close, just a few more steps – so far away, too far away.

You wheezed out a breath, tried to inhale. There was no air left in the corridor. Your hand closed around the collar of your shirt. You tried to call out, tripped on nothing, and passed out.  

**

The first think you noticed when you came to was a hum of worried voices. Your head hurt too much for you to even consider opening your eyes. So you focused on the voices, tried to separate one from the others.  

“Step back, Millie, step back! Girls, give her some space!”

This voice was too panicky for your liking. It made your heart speed up. But there was something familiar about this voice, something comforting, so when it faded back among the others you groaned, straining to focus on it again.

“Ooh shit, she’s alive,” said another voice, young and jaded.

“Y/N?” The panicked voice again, louder, clearer. Something hot on your face. You let out another groan. “Y/N, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me.”

Now, that you would not do. You were pretty sure if you let the light in your skull would crack.

“Y/N, please.” The voice broke, and something in your heart broke with it. “Please, please sweetheart, come back to me.”

The thing in your heart that had broken kicked and ordered you to obey. There was no way, your heart screamed, no way you would lie here and do nothing to comfort her when she sounded that terrified.

Your eyes fluttered open. A blurry shape was leaning over you, golden on the edges, with two dark spots in the middle.

“Hey,” the voice called shakily, “that’s it, that’s it, you’re doing so good, look at me. Look at me.”

“Delia.” Her name escaped your lips before you had time to think it.

She was very pale, and her face was wet with tears, but she let out a relieved laugh when your eyes met hers.

“Delia,” you repeated, frowning in confusion as you took her state in.

You were lying on your back in the middle of a corridor, surrounded by a group of students. You spotted Madison, leaning against the wall next to Cordelia, staring down at you with interest and just a hint of amusement. “What…”

Your face crumpled as memories flooded you. Your right hand flew up to your chest and you gasped in a breath, fear rushing up to clench at your heart.

Cordelia cupped your face, stroking her thumbs over your cheeks.

“Shh, shh, you’re alright,” she whispered as more tears rolled down her own cheeks.

You bit your lip on a sob, raised your hand to wipe away her tears. Cordelia chuckled and kissed your palm.

“What happened?” you hiccupped between two sobs.

Madison held out something in front of her. Your heart skipped a beat.

“The necklace,” you stammered. “Oh my God, the – Delia I was about to –“

Cordelia shushed you again, leaning forward as if to kiss you before she checked herself. Madison rolled her eyes.

“Please, we’re not stupid, or blind,” Madison said, but you spoke over her, your breath coming out too fast as panic threatened to overwhelm you again: “Delia I was about to offer you the same necklace I was about – “

“Hey hey hey, Y/N, it’s alright, love, it’s alright.” Cordelia slipped one arm around your waist and pulled you up to her. You buried your face in her neck, breathing her in, letting her familiar scent and warmth wrap around you like a blanket. She gently ran her fingers through your hair, supporting you with her other arm.  

“How did you find me?” you whispered into her chest.

“I heard you,” she answered, her voice barely louder than yours. “I heard you calling in my head.”

You closed your eyes, confused, angry, and most of all afraid. Afraid of what would have happened if Cordelia had not rushed to you. Afraid of what would have happened if you had offered her the necklace and she had – you wrapped your arms around her, holding her tight, planting a kiss on her chest as you gulped back tears. You were trembling in her arms, your heart beating too fast, feeling like you couldn’t breathe again as images of an unresponsive Cordelia flashed in your mind, asleep but with her chest not moving, her heart not beating, a small moonstone shining pale blue on her skin that was as white as a corpse’s.

Before you knew it you were sobbing again, hanging on to Cordelia for dear life as she whispered words of comfort in your ear and stroke your back in a circling motion. You didn’t hear Madison ordering the girls to scatter, didn’t hear their confused footsteps, barely registered Cordelia pulling you up to your feet and guiding you back to your room. Gently she tucked you in bed, brushed your hair off your face, ran a hand up and down your arm as she wiped your tears with the other. You mumbled something, incoherent and sad, and she lay down by your side and wrapped you up in her arms safely. You pressed your ear to her chest, let the sound of her heartbeat lull you as you counted in your head, one, two, three, on the fourth beat a fond “I love you” murmured by Cordelia with a kiss on your head.

**

You had rarely seen Cordelia as mad as she was the day after when you explained to her where you had bought the necklaces. Anger burst from her like a snake opening its mouth to sink its fangs into flesh. Cordelia always looked powerful. Now she looked terrifying.

You stammered out short, anxious answers to her questions, instinctively leaning away from her. She noticed, and that seemed to make her angrier still.

She stormed out of the house and you stood nervously waiting for her on the porch. New Orleans would hold a funeral in a day or two. A corpse would be found but no clues as to its murderer would ever be discovered. Anna Morgana would be buried under the eyes of a curious crowd, camera flashes reflecting off her coffin.

You nervously shifted your weight on your feet, your eyes scanning the street in front of you, your teeth sinking into your lower lip. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed, and then Cordelia walked through the gate to the Academy. But she wasn’t alone.

Your heart did something weird. It jumped up your throat in fear, then swelled with warmth and pride and love. Anna Morgana was walking by Cordelia’s side, clutching a small backpack to her chest, her eyes avoiding you. She looked younger, somehow, and even though she was only a few inches shorter than Cordelia her body was like that of a child next to your Supreme.

Cordelia stopped in front of you, squinting in the sun. You tried to scowl at her, but the nervous grin you had been holding back crept up your face and your eyes lit up with love and adoration for this woman.

“Of fucking course,” you said.

Cordelia shrugged.

“What?” She cocked her head to the side, watching you. There was a hint of nervousness in her eyes as she studied your reaction. You reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “She needed help. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for your action,” she added, shooting Anna Morgana a cold, hard glance.

As it turned out, Cordelia’s intuition had been right: there was a new witch in town, and she was confused and lost. Anna Morgana must have known, deep down, that she was a witch, but the thought was so terrifying, so utterly unacceptable that when she saw you in her shop, when she heard you mention the Supreme, she freaked out. Her magic seemed to be powerful: all she did was wish that the necklaces would harm their owners, and she had quite succeeded.

Anna Morgana kept working at her shop, but she also started attending classes at the Academy. She profusely apologized to you and to Cordelia, bought you countless gifts, did all kinds of nice things for you, adamant that she right her wrong. She had a lovely personality, and quickly became part of the coven.

You knew she had been confused and terrified of who she was; you knew what fear was capable of doing to even the best of people. But you couldn’t help it: every time your eyes fell on Anna Morgana, every time you heard her voice, something in you awoke that you could not control and that had the terrible, pungent smell of panic. It grew in you like a seed, taking root in your stomach, spreading its branches into your chest to wrap around your heart and squeeze, tight.

You could tell it was hard for Cordelia, too. You had never heard her snap at any of her girls but Madison, and now Anna Morgana was added to the list, especially in the first few days of her settling in at the Academy. There often was an edge to Cordelia’s voice when she spoke to her, a flash of anger in her eyes, her arm extending protectively in front of you whenever Anna Morgana entered the room you were in. But Cordelia’s heart was endlessly kind, and she was brave, and believed people could change when given the opportunity to. Soon her attitude towards Anna Morgana softened. And Anna Morgana, like all the other girls in Cordelia’s care, opened up like a flower and blossomed and started healing.

And you felt trapped in a corner. Guilt about not being able to move on and forgive gnawed at you like a dog gnaws on a bone and doesn’t let go. Guilt about not being able to be the brave person Cordelia deserved. And the fear that would clench your heart every time someone would so much as mention Anna Morgana, grew so strong and invasive you were sure it had settled permanently in you like a new organ your body had grown. This organ was ill and worked poorly. It kept you up all night, made you fidgety. The faintest of noises – someone coughing in the room next door, footsteps in your back – boomed in your ears like the detonation of a gun and made you jump.

It became hard to focus on daily tasks. You isolated yourself from the other girls, saying you had too much to do for spare time. You snapped at one of the younger girls, once, for no good reason at all. And then you isolated yourself from Cordelia. You pretended to be too tired to wait up for her on the nights she worked till late. You avoided her at lunchtime, hiding in your room with whatever food your stomach could hold.

That week was particularly busy for Cordelia. She had to fly halfway across the country to bring back a new girl who was too panicked to leave her room. When she came back she had barely slept for three days and did not allow herself to rest until she had gone through the paperwork you had neglected to deal with. She nearly collapsed into your arms that night, and you gently tucked her in and dropped a quick, distracted kiss on her forehead before you all but ran to your own room. You thought you heard Anna Morgana’s voice in the corridor, which nearly drove you crazy with fear and had you mutter a protection spell behind your locked door. You whispered one for Cordelia, too, just in case.

You thought, you really did, that you could carry on living in a constant state of fear.

You woke up one night and everything around you was dark. Terror shot through you as something suddenly pressed all of its weight upon your chest and dear Lord, you could not breathe. You sat bolt upright, gasping for air, your shaking hands coming up to your chest to try and get rid of the necklace, but all you could feel was skin, hot, clammy skin, so you clawed at it desperately but the pressure would not go. It would not let you breathe. So you tried to spring out of the bed, wheezing now, your legs tangling up in the cover, but something closed around your arm to hold you back.

“Let go!” you screamed – and it was angry, it was an order, but above all it was terrified.

“Y/N what – “

You tried to hit whatever was holding you back, but it seemed you had lost your bearings for your hand only slammed air. And then there was light, and you realized it was Cordelia, only Cordelia, sitting up with her eyes wide with fear and worry, and there was nothing, no necklace around your neck.

You had one leg still on the bed, the other dangling out, and your nails had clawed so hard at your chest that the skin was red and scratched.

“Y/N are you alright? What happened?”

You ran a shaky hand through your hair, avoiding Cordelia’s eyes. Her hand that was holding your arm slid up to your shoulder to pull you towards her, but you resisted, trying to blink back the tears that were burning your eyes, humiliation and fear battling to take possession of your brain.

“Hey,” Cordelia called, her voice gentler now. You felt the mattress dip as she moved closer to you. Her warmth pressed against you. “Sweetheart, talk to me.”

“It was nothing.” Your voice was too small. You closed your eyes and squeezed them tight. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Cordelia let out a sigh. Gingerly, she pulled you back into bed. This time, you let her. But you were still too terrified to lie down, so you sat with your back against the headboard, one hand still pressed against your chest, your breathing still too fast, too shallow. Cordelia hummed, rested one hand on your thigh.  

“Bad dream?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

You shook your head. Your throat was too tight.

“I woke up and I couldn’t – “ you croaked, tears spilling down your cheeks, your chin trembling as you let out a sob.

“You couldn’t breathe,” Cordelia finished for you. You met her gaze, her eyes so big and brown and shining with tears but so brave, and so kind, and so forgiving.

“I’m so sorry,” you sobbed, hiding your face in your hands. Suddenly it was all too much, the fear, the guilt, the anger that had plagued you for the past few days washing over you like water released from a dam and threatening to carry you away in its force. Your body shook and caved in; but Cordelia’s arms met you, and held you tight.

It took a while for you to calm down. When you eventually did, you lay limp and spent with your body sagging into Cordelia’s. She stroked your back in a circling motion, as she always did when you needed to be comforted.  

“I’m sorry,” you repeated in a breath.

“Don’t apologise. I’m the only one to blame. I should – “ Her voice faltered, and you felt her swallow hard. Automatically your hand came up to stroke her cheek in comfort. “I’ve been too busy to even notice you were struggling.”

“I can’t –“ You closed your eyes, clutching at Cordelia’s nightdress. “My brain can’t seem to stop associating Anna with danger.” You paused, swallowed hard. “She could have killed me. She could have killed you.”

“I know.“ Cordelia inhaled deeply and dropped a kiss on your head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice wavering. “I can’t kick her out. She hasn’t done anything wrong since she’s been with us, and she has no home, nowhere else to go. She’s just coming to terms with her powers. I don’t…” She shook her head, bit her lip and pulled away to look into your eyes. Hers were big and watery and desperate. “I don’t know what to do,” she finished in a breath.

Something in her eyes, something in that confession – the helplessness, perhaps, that was so unlike her – made your heart roar in protest. You thought you could take a lot of things in this world, but this seemed to draw the line: there was no way on Earth, Heaven or Hell you’d be the one to paint that look on Cordelia’s face – your brave, kind, sunlit Cordelia.

You cupped her face, and when you next spoke your voice surprised you both. It was firm and confident and coated in a newfound determination that chased the demons out of the room. “You don’t have to do anything. You’re right, we can’t kick her out.” You tried for a smile. “So I’ll get a grip on myself and get over this.”

You tried to stop avoiding Anna Morgana. You sat next to her at breakfast, initiated a conversation at lunch, laughed at a joke she said at dinner. It sounded and looked too fake, but at least it was a first. You felt too nauseous to sleep that night, so you stayed up in the living room to watch movies. A little after midnight Cordelia joined you, carrying a blanket and two pillows. She snuggled up to you without a word, rested her head on your shoulder and made some sleepy comments about the movie. You fell asleep within the next half hour, lulled by Cordelia’s soft breathing.

The following days were scary, and some too hard when you felt like giving up and fleeing the city. Anxiety couldn’t be reasoned with. But Cordelia seemed to be everywhere with you, lingering in a corner of the room where you and Anna Morgana had a conversation, handing you a cup of coffee in the kitchen when you and Anna Morgana said good-morning, resting a hand soothingly on the small of your back when one time you considered wrapping your own hands around Anna Morgana’s neck and choke her for revenge.

On a Friday afternoon two weeks later, you and Anna Morgana went to get tattoos together. She held your hand during the entire session. Later that day as you met Cordelia in a corridor (dressed in one of her beautiful long floral dresses, stealing all the lights and colours from the sunset), you waved your arm in front of her face with a giddy smile and she gently grabbed your hand, flashing you a grin. The look on her face grew from amused to surprised to moved. When her eyes met yours, they were shining with love and tears.

“A lion’s heart,” you said softly, smiling down at the tattoo on your wrist, then back up at her. “It’s the meaning of your name, it’s what you have, it’s what you gave me.”

Cordelia bit her lip, gave a teary laugh and kissed you passionately in full view of everyone (she freaked out about it later, of course, and held an emergency meeting with the older girls during which Madison lost her cool and cried out, “surprise, bitch, everyone fucking knew”).

**

On the first day of summer you were awakened by a soft knock on your door.

You groaned, pressed your face closer to Cordelia’s chest as she stirred. Her skin was warm and soft and smelled like safety. You planted a lazy kiss between her breasts.

Another knock, louder. You opened your eyes groggily, and were met with the sight of pale skin, freckles sprayed over the swell of Cordelia’s breasts, a strand of blond hair curling just below her collarbone. Your mouth watered and something excited fizzed in your stomach.

“Your room,” Cordelia grumbled sleepily as another knock sounded.

You considered ignoring the goddamn intruder to worship your Supreme instead, but Cordelia – ever the responsible one – poked your knee with hers. You lifted your head, meaning to scowl, but her eyes were closed, a lazy smirk spreading all over her beautiful, messy morning face.

With a groan you got up, your legs heavy with sleep. You snorted as Cordelia mumbled, “Being the Supreme means I get to have nice boobs,” – because of course she knew exactly what was in your mind.

You opened the door with a rough “What?”

Anna Morgana flashed you a shy smile. She was dressed in a black lace blouse, black pleated skirt, and her hair was braided with pink flowers and sunkissed by the early rays slipping through the window.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said with another shy smile. “I thought you’d be up by now.”

Her gaze slid sideways and stared at something behind you. You pulled the door closer to you.

“I thought you’d be alone,” Anna Morgana went on. Her eyes met yours, amused. You tried to glare, but a smile betrayed you.

“I come bearing a gift,” Anna Morgana announced. She extended both her hands. In the middle of them sat a small rectangular box that looked way too familiar. Something unpleasant rose in your chest. You glanced up at Anna Morgana worriedly, but she nodded encouragement.

“Come on, open it.”

You’d rather not. You’d really, really rather not. Why was it suddenly too hard to breathe? For a second you were about to slam the door in Anna Morgana’s face. But then from behind you came the sound of ruffling sheet, of a warm body stretching in a lazy summer morning light, the sun bright and shining and still going strong, still welcoming every new day.

With a shaky hand you opened the box and lifted up the thin, delicate moonstone necklace. Your heart was pounding, and the room was too hot.

“It matches the colour of your eyes,” you heard Anna Morgana say. “And this one won’t try to strangle you.”

“It’s beautiful,” came Cordelia’s voice. One of her arms slipped around your waist and drew you close to her. Your body relaxed. You glanced up at her for courage, like plants stretch towards the sun for life.

You managed to offer Anna Morgana a smile. “Thank you,” you said, your fingers closing around the necklace.

Cordelia’s fingers playfully tickled your hip and your thigh bumped hers in retaliation, just as something in your chest you had not really known was there loosened and took flight and disappeared out of the window to melt in the summer heat.

[mamahersh]

The Road to Hell (is Paved with Good Intentions)

“Season 8 was well underway, and the server’s first conflict is bubbling just under the surface. But BDoubleO can’t worry about that right now because he has an Etho to find so they can work on the Horse Course together. However when Xisuma calls a surprise server meeting on behalf of EvilXisuma, BDubs gets his answers about where Etho’s been in the worst way possible.”

(CW: angst, blood, gore) <--- later chapters, this one’s clean.

Welcome to my first attempt at Ethoslab angst! I wanted an nHo-centric fic with a heavy dose of Etho angst. I have nowhere else to post this, and fair warning I am terrible at characterizations, so everyone will probably be a bit OOC to some extent; but for sure EvilX will be very OOC in how evil he is in this one. The Rating for the later chapters is a solid M, so be warned about that. If y’all have suggestions or feedback, feel free to come and say hi! P.S. I got my inspiration for this fic from this fic over here! Give them some love too.

Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7

Chapter 1 (below the cut)

BDoubleO was worried. 

Now, it wasn’t often he worried, particularly about Etho. Especially after the shenanigans from Season 5 with the nHo, and their many years of collaboration after that, he was well aware that Etho had a habit of disappearing for weeks on end. Even when he was supposed to be helping with a bit of collaboration work like the Horse Course, he was infamous for suddenly disappearing for a week, and coming back acting like nothing had happened. But even still, Etho usually left a note, or told someone about where he was going so they at least knew when to approximately expect him to show back up. This time though, Etho hadn’t even left Iskall a note, and so far this season he had made sure to at least leave a note for Iskall since they were sharing a base. (BDoubleO had asked Iskall 3 days after the last time he had seen Etho to ask if he knew where Etho was. Iskall didn’t know, though he had seen him 2 days previously puttering around their shared base as normal.) He had asked around the other Hermits, seeing if anyone had heard anything. The only one that had seen anything was Beef, who had said he had seen Etho lurking on the edges of his territory heading toward the top of BDubs’ mountain with a spyglass about a day and a half ago. Doc had mentioned that while he hadn’t seen Etho recently, he had heard that Etho had been busy in talks with Xisuma and Evil Xisuma over something. However, when BDubs questioned Xisuma, he said he hadn’t seen Etho since the last major server meeting. (It was always disconcerting when Hermits’ stories didn’t match up, as that usually meant there were shenanigans afoot. But BDubs couldn’t figure out why there would be shenanigans afoot, because this was just Etho.)

A whinny from Lulu beneath him startled BDubs out of his worries. Looking around he realized that they were already staring up at Xisuma’s lighthouse and general base area. Why were they there you might ask? (A theoretical from a theoretical, truly meta of him, aha) WELL, Xisuma had sent out a message to the server that everyone should come and gather at his base for an important something. BDubs was confused, and very concerned, that Xisuma was insisting on the meeting being in person. After all, any news could be dispensed through the Server messages, and all their bases were known, so boards could be placed at bases for Hermits to see as they came in and out. Meeting in person was never technically necessary, though it made it generally easier to talk with each other since they didn’t have to type everything out. The point stood however, that unless it was an emergency, Xisuma never called a general Hermit assembly outside of their regularly scheduled monthly meetings. 

Looking around, BDubs was able to see that Beef was already there, along with most of the Boatem Crew, and surprisingly enough, the Horsehead Farms guys were there as well. Of course, Doc was on his way, and last he heard, the Big Eye crew was following up behind him since they both had been busy when the announcement had gone out. The rest of the server would be on their way because of how far out they were. (Part of BDubs wondered if those who were coming in later were the lucky ones. The rest of him wondered why he was so filled with anxiety and so certain this meeting was only going to be terrible.) Deciding nothing good would come of dwelling on the negatives, he made his way over to where Beef (who was looking more unrecognizable by the day as the alien contamination overtook him) was standing alone, seemingly keeping his eye out for someone or something.

“Hey Beef!” BDubs called out, smiling and waving as he approached. Beef looked over at the sudden shouting of his name, and instantly relaxed as he saw BDubs approaching. “Hey BDubs!” he called back, something alien layered under his normal voice. (It spoke of void and distant stars, though Tango had recently been saying it reminded him more of sulfur and brimstone). “You know anything about why Xisuma’s called this meetup?” asked Beef before BDubs could ask the question himself.

“Not a clue,” BDubs replied, allowing his concern to show through as he stood ill-at-ease beside his friend. “He just announced he had something he wanted to show or talk to us about I guess, though I can’t imagine what it could be about.” Well, BDubs had a guess or two, but none of them were generally pleasant topics of conversation, outside of some surprise announcement for the next server update to 1.18.

“Darn, I was hoping you would have heard something…” said Beef, his own unease easy to read. BDubs shrugged, looking around at the other groups of players standing outside the Lighthouse. It looked like even in the short time they had been greeting each other, the other Big Eyed Crew had arrived on his tailwind. An awkward pause settled between the two of them, both having been so tied up in their own shenanigans to really know what the other had been up to. BDubs debated bringing up the obvious, but it seemed like one of those things you don’t necessarily bring up. But then again… 

“Yo Beef,” said BDubs, turning to look at Beef again. Beef startled out of his momentary reverie. “You’ve been looking pretty, uh… green recently. How’s that been treating you?”

For a moment Beef looked almost confused, before he seemed to connect the dots and snorted. “Oh yeah, it’s been treating me great, as you can see.” They both chuckled a bit at his sarcasm before he continued. “But in all seriousness, I hadn’t really been noticing it. I mean, I definitely notice that people have been giving me a wider berth this season, which hasn’t been great for business since I have a great idea for selling specialty cat food I can make on my alien ship. I haven’t personally noticed too many changes outside my appearance thus far however.” After a moment Beef said, “So how about you? How have Keralis and Tango been treating you this season?”

BDubs chuckled. “Would you believe it if I told you it’s been going great? I have a mountain already, and we have a small bay town we’re building up to serve as a shopping district for our Big Eye Crew. Plus, we got Tango to actually make his eyes big, so it’s a win all around! Though I’ve been noticing more Derpcoin sneaking into our shops…” 

“Hey now, what’s wrong with Derpcoin?!” exclaimed Beef, looking vaguely offended. BDubs was startled by this, completely not expecting such an outburst from Beef of all people.

“I mean, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it, it’s just I have no idea what the conversion rate is on the stuff, so I don’t know what people are paying in my shop for the items they’re buying,” replied BDubs. “Plus, there’s nowhere to use it.”

“But there is a place to use it! You could use it at EX’s Evil Emporium. Plus, with more people signing up for Derpcoin, it seems like a lucrative market to sell in,” countered Beef, a strange gleam in his eyes. “EX was nice enough to give me an in into his Derpcoin shopping district, so I’ll have a storefront through the Evil Emporium.” 

"Evil Emporium huh?" BDubs made a considering noise. "Heard a little bit about it back when EX was doing a little sales pitch in our neck of the woods. Seems pretty fishy to me, but if you think it's a trustworthy establishment, I'll definitely give it a second look."

"Attention everyone!" called out Xisuma, suddenly standing in the center of the gathered Hermits. "Your attention please!" BDubs looked over to where X was waving everyone over. He noticed that X seemed abnormally forward, though that could be attributed to his paranoia. Afterall, X wasn’t one to cause problems! Sure he had been trying to get people on board with this Evil Emporium thing pretty hard, but X couldn’t hurt a fly even on a good day, so BDubs wondered if this wasn’t about Derpcoin.

He had been hearing from the other Big-Eyed crew that tensions between Boatem and the Derpcoin empire had been slowly escalating over the last week or so. Plus he had been hearing about more of the unaffiliated Hermits beginning to create close ties with EX’s brand, embracing Derpcoin as their main currency even! On the other hand, he’d been hearing from some of the Boatem people about how they were getting sick and tired of finding Derpcoin in their shops, and seemingly some people were beginning to refuse to pay for items with diamonds… There was a mess brewing for sure in the background this season, it just seemed like an issue that could wait till the next monthly meeting is all.

With a jolt, BDubs was brought back to the present as Doc bumped him in the shoulder. “How are you doing BDubs? Looking pretty lost in thought there, big guy.” 

“Well, doing pretty good if you must ask!” BDubs puffed up with the compliment on his height, despite knowing it was more than likely meant in a sarcastic manner. Between Doc and Etho, BDubs never really could catch a break. “You just get here then?”

Doc let out a rumbly hum in agreement. “Yesss, though I have no idea why Xisuma called the meeting. Know anything?”

BDubs and Beef both shook their heads. “We’re in the dark as much as you are, it seems,” replied Beef, moving towards the other Hermits to try and get their little group to walk and talk.

“I have a theory though!” continued BDubs, leaning in to act somewhat more conspiratorially. Doc leaned in a bit more than he needed to, getting a friendly bump on the head from Beef. “See, I’m sure you’ve both heard a bit more than I have about Boatem vs the Evil Emporium. I think things might be heating up enough between the two that X might be forced to intervene soon.” BDubs rubbed the back of his neck. “Admittedly, it still seems like the kind of thing that he would bring up in the monthly meeting instead of an impromptu meeting like this.”

“Looks like we don’t have to wait long to find out in any case.” Beef gestured at the surrounding Hermits and Xisuma himself still standing at the center looking official as usual. (Though BDubs thought he looked a little dazed, but he shoved the thought aside.)

“Thank you everyone for taking time out for this meeting!” called out Xisuma, his face still disconcertingly empty. “I’ve called you together today because EX had a stream he wanted us all to watch, and I agree it is most imperative we all watch it together.”

BDubs did not like the sound of this one bit. “What’s the stream about?” called Joe from the opposite side of the crowd.

“Yeah, why’s it so important we all have to watch it?” asked Cleo from beside him. BDubs realized that those two had had to travel across the entire continent to come to the meeting, and Joe was still renouncing wings, so taking long trips was a distinct hassle. At the very least, it was far more time consuming than everyone else’s trips had been, minus potentially XB and Hypno’s trip.

Xisuma seemed to stand there taking it silently, which was not necessarily outside of the usual, but his response certainly was. “With that out of the way, I’ll get the screen set up, and then we can watch EX’s stream!” ‘That was strange,’ thought BDubs as he looked around the circle of bewildered Hermits. Normally X would try to answer questions, or at least let them know things precisely before he did them. It was incredibly out of character that he would just ignore Joe and Cleo like that… Particularly Joe and Cleo if BDubs was to be brutally honest. Those three had been closer than three peas in a pod since Season 2, and Joe and X had known each other pretty well since almost the start of Season 1. To have those two brushed off by Xisuma struck a wrong chord.

BDubs was pulled back to the present as Xisuma rapidly typed into his communicator, and a holographic screen projected just beyond the circle of Hermits behind where Cub was standing. Almost as one, the Hermits turned to look at it, curiosity overpowering any potential feelings of lingering confusion and discomfort.

Xisuma’s expression was blank as the large screen buzzed to life in front of them. However, BDubs’ watched as he seemed to come back to himself just as the static on the screen cleared and the assembled hermits gasped in disbelief and horror.

‘Well,’ thought BDubs to himself, dread rising like a wave about to swallow him whole. ‘Now we know where Etho went.’ For there on the screen, looking the worst BDubs had ever seen him, was a restrained Etho beside a seemingly gleeful EvilXisuma.

[five-rivers]

Snow and Song Chapter 5

About five seconds after Danny registered the huge crowd of people gathered in the park (and why were they there?  Had there been some kind of event he forgot about?), it began to snow.   Danny looked around himself in alarm.  He was often insensitive to temperature changes (and a few other things, according to his sister), but it wasn’t nearly cold enough snow.  It was September.

He looked up.  There weren’t even any clouds.  

A snowflake, perfect and crystalline, stuck to his eyelash.  

Alright.  When something weird and unnatural started to happen in Amity Park, usually there was a ghost involved.  All Danny had to do was find the ghost causing it to… snow…

Oh.  Right. He was a ghost that could make snow.  

He was an idiot.  He hadn’t even noticed his core activating.  His cheeks flushed with cold.  This was so embarrassing.

Wincing, he looked back down at the crowd.  Only about a tenth of the people had phones in their hands, winking camera lenses pointed up at him, but that was more than enough.  He felt entirely too visible.  

… Which he could fix because he was a ghost, darn it, something that he kept forgetting about tonight.  Berating himself, he adjusted his visibility down to zero and flew away.  

Almost at once, all the birds took off, the sound of wings obscuring whatever the humans down below were saying.  

Danny didn’t stop until he got home, trailing snow all the while.  He was not looking forward to tomorrow, but for tonight, maybe, he could forget what had happened.  

He went human, phased off his clothes, laid down on his bed, closed his eyes, and started to-

“Maddie!” shouted Jack.  “The ghost-kid is on TV again!  He’s in the park!”

“Oh, good!  Go start up the GAV!  This time, we’ll catch him!  I’ll be with you in a minute!”

Danny let out the breath he had been holding since his dad startled him from his doze in a long sigh.  He resigned himself to being woken up at least once more that night.

.

.

.

The first rays of sunlight filtering through Danny’s window brought with them something that would have chilled Danny to the core if his core weren’t naturally frosty.  

Music.  

He peeled his eyes open slowly, grudgingly, because it was still September, and sunrise was still quite a bit before the time he had to get up in the morning.  Hoping he was hallucinating, he trudged over to the window and pulled back the curtains.

Ah, yes.  He hadn’t quite expected to find a bunch of cultists standing outside his house with a boombox, playing back a rather scratchy version of Tale as Old as Time, but, somehow, he was unsurprised to do so.  What exactly were they attempting to accomplish here?

One of the younger (about six years old) cultists waved up at him.  Resigned, Danny waved back, then let the curtain fall back down.  

He rubbed his eyes.  Normal teenagers didn’t have to deal with cults that worshiped them as a god.  Even that dude from Nazareth was a full adult before he got hit with the heavy stuff.  

(Yeah, because it wasn’t at all a sign of megalomania, mental instability, or good old-fashioned insanity to compare himself to that guy.)

(He didn’t want a cult, darn it.)

What did they want, anyway?

He got dressed and started downstairs.  To his horror (but again, not surprise) he heard more music emanating from the kitchen.  

“What are you guys doing?” Danny asked.  

“Oh, morning, Danno!” boomed Jack.

“Shh, shh,” said Maddie.  “We need to go over that last part again.  There are pancakes on the stove, sweetie.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Thanks. But, really, what are you doing?”

“Analyzing the sound patterns of Phantom’s voice!” said Jack.  “We missed it before, but he must have a low-level mind control power!  Just like that Rockstar ghost!”

“Sneaky post-human ectoplasm glob,” muttered Maddie. “That’s how he’s got so many people on his side.  He’s brainwashing them.  But don’t worry, sweetie.  As soon as we figure out how he’s doing it, we’ll be working on a cure!”

“Well,” said Danny, trying not to sound bitter. They had made him pancakes. “That’s news to me.”

.

.

.

Danny stepped out of the house and sighed in the general direction of the cult.  

As always, acknowledging them in any way shape or form proved to be a mistake.  They rushed at him.  

“Daniel Fenton,” intoned today’s leader, a man wearing robes colored in an approximation of Phantom’s suit.  His beard was… interesting.

“What?” asked Danny.  If only there was a way to skip through awkward conversations like this, like there was in video games.  But, no, life was like one, huge, un-skippable cutscene.  Tragic.

“Last night, our Lord Phantom gave us a message. A message, and a divine task.”

Danny was pretty sure he’d remember that.  “What task?” he asked, resigned.

“To spread his word through song!  And you, his prophet, his chosen, his blessed consort, shall reveal his intent upon the stage of the Casper High School Musical!”

“I’m begging you, call it anything but that.”

“We will do anything to make the Casper High School Musical go well!  We are at your command!”

“Please stop picketing my house and harassing me on the way to school.”

“We have fine members of our choir here to audition for you!  Please take word of their worthiness to our Lord Phantom.”

Several of the cultists began to sing.

“Danny!” called Jazz from the driveway.  “Stop feeding the cultists, or we’re going to be late for school!”

.

.

.

“So,” said Sam.  “The Ghost Watch feed blew up last night.”

“I know,” said Danny.  “I feel so stupid.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” said Tucker.  “But we really do have to put some time aside to test whether or not you really do have a pied piper ability.”

“I made it snow while I was singing,” said Danny.

“Ah.  We’ll have to look into that, too,” said Tucker, making a note on his PDA.  “Who wants to bet that the ‘Phan Club’ will try to incorporate last nights performance into the play somehow?”

“That’s not funny,” said Danny, closing his locker. “Guys, what if I accidently mind control the audience?  Or start a snowstorm inside?  The cultists are already on top of this.  They were outside my house this morning.”

“Again?” said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, again.”

“What did they want?”

“They seem to think that there’s going to be some kind of revelation in the play,” said Danny.  He caught the look in Sam’s eye.  “Sam.  No.”

“Sam, yes.”

“Cults are not a toy,” cautioned Danny.  

“Not the way you’re using them, they aren’t.”

“Seriously, Sam.  No matter how much you want to change the world, do not use a cult to do it. It never goes well.”

“Christianity started off as a cult.”

“And would you say that went well?  I’m asking you this as a Christian.”

“Are you a Christian?” asked Tucker. “I’ve never seen you in a church. Can you go in a church? Have we tested that?”

“I—What?  I’m not a demon, Tucker.  I went to church, uh…  Last Easter. I can totally go in a church.”

“You had to think of that for an awfully long time.”

“What about a synagogue?” asked Sam.  “Or a mosque?”

“I don’t know.  But you’d think that if I could go into a church, that’d mean I could go into the other ones.”

“But what if you couldn’t?” asked Sam.  “Would that mean that religion is more right than the others?”

“Or more wrong,” said Tucker, “since Danny is a good guy.”                                                                  

“I—” started Danny.

“PHANTOM!” screamed Wes from down the hall, interrupting whatever revelation Danny could potentially have had.

“Oh, great,” said Danny.  “I’m not Phantom, Weston!”

“Kids,” said Miss Lyn, poking her head into the hallway.  “Please don’t shout in the halls.  Class is about to start.”

“I have proof, this time!” crowed Wes.  “I have video.”

“Oh, no,” said Danny, with perfectly flat affect. “Are you here to harass me with yet another badly photoshopped, grainy, vertically filmed, twenty-second clip of me ‘transforming’ into Phantom like some kind of anime heroine?”

Wes reared back, face coloring and nostrils flaring.  

Danny would feel worse about what he had said, if half the videos in Wes’s last ‘Fenton is Phantom’ presentation hadn’t been exactly that.  Tucker had made several of them and stealthily dropped them in various chat rooms for Wes to find, as something halfway between a joke and an exercise in misdirection.  

As soon as Wes had included one of those in his presentation, it was doomed to be a laughingstock.  Again, Danny almost felt bad.  

“No!” said Wes.  He puffed his chest out.  “From Ghost Watch!”

“Uh huh.”

“I kind of feel like we’d be hearing about it from more than just you,” said Sam.  

“Yeah,” agreed Tucker.  “If the news decided Danny was Phantom’s dead twin or whatever, you’d think some of his groupies would be swarming.”  He pointed at a pair of Phan Club members who were having a sedate conversation near the water fountain.  “Where are the groupies, Wes?”

“Did you not learn your lesson from the beauty pageant?” asked Sam.  “Or Egypt?”

“I don’t know, didn’t you learn yours from Desiree?”

“Who’s learning what from Desiree?  Because you should ask her for a better naming sense.  I mean, you just copied.  Lame.”

“You’re talking to me about copying?  You vegans are the copiers!  Vegetable burgers, tofurkey, where does it end?”

“With the abolition of the cruelty of MEAT!”

At this point, most people would have started edging away from Sam and Tucker’s patented and infamous meat vs. veggies argument.  However, Wes had long since proven himself to be of sterner stuff, and Danny wanted to hear what he was on about.

“Guys,” he said, “guys, it’s not working.  He’s still here.”

Sam and Tucker turned back towards Wes.  “Bummer,” said Sam.  

“Yeah, Wes, why do you have to be such a bummer?” asked Tucker.  

“Let him speak,” said Danny, magnanimously, twirling his hand.  

Wes glowered.  “Well, now I don’t want to,” he said, mulishly.  

“Come on, Wes, what’s the video, don’t leave us in suspense!”

Wes attempted to glower harder but failed.  Grudgingly, he held up his phone, which did, indeed, play a video from Ghost Watch.  Danny watched himself singing for several long seconds before returning his gaze to Wes.

“I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove.”

“The song, you idiot!  It’s from Beauty and the Beast!  And I know the drama club gave you that music.”

“A movie that thousands of thousands of people have watched and know the music for?”

“That doesn’t matter!  You’re the only one who has any reason to sing it.”

“You mean, other than everyone else in the drama club?” asked Sam, bored.  

“Or anyone who likes Disney?” said Tucker.  

Wes opened his mouth to make some kind of riposte.

The warning bell rang.  

He closed his mouth.  “I’m watching you, Fenton!”

“You and everyone else,” muttered Danny as Wes retreated down the hallway, pointing at him.  

Why was everyone around him so ridiculous?

.

.

.

“We’re doing Snow White, not Beauty and the Beast!” howled Razor, baring his teeth at the hapless Phan Club member that had suggested adding ‘Tale as Old as Time’ to the song list.

“If you guys had taken that bet, I’d have so much money right now,” said Tucker.  

“Students, please,” said Mr. Lancer.  “We can’t have any actual copyrighted music in our play. Not without paying for it.  And I’m not negotiating with Disney.”  He looked into the distance.  “Not again.  Never again.”

Danny did not want to know the story behind that, but nevertheless, he had to ask… “Are you okay, Mr. Lancer?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Lancer.  “Thank you for asking.  In any case, my lovely drama students!  Today, we are going to do our first round of auditions!”

“But, sir, we haven’t finished the script, yet!” protested Mikey.

“Right you are!” said Mr. Lancer.  “But I have found that things go more smoothly when we have people already in the main roles.  There’s less… outright sabotage and script jockeying.”

“What does that even mean?” whispered Samhain (aka Kevin) loudly.  

“People trying to change the script to fit a certain person so that person gets the role,” said Paulina.  “Or exclude a certain person.  Which I would never do, Mr. Lancer.”

The covetous glare shot in Danny’s direction indicated that Paulina’s words might have been less than truthful.  

Mr. Lancer chuckled.  “I didn’t think you would, Miss Sanchez!”  He began writing on his whiteboard.  “Now, we already have our Prince Snow White, our Princess Charming, and our Evil Queen.”  He nodded at Paulina as he wrote the roles on the board.  “Now, we need our seven dwarves—”

“Ghosts!”

“Excuse me, yes, ghosts.  Thank you, Mr. Baxter.  Our Huntsman—”

“Or woman!”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Thunder,” said Mr. Lancer. “Huntsman, or Huntswoman.  And… Let’s see…  Snow White’s parents, for the prologue, Princess Charming’s retinue, and… I think that’s it.  Alright, let’s start with the ghosts.”

“Shouldn’t they have names?” asked Mia.  

“Well, sure,” said Mr. Lancer.  “But we can’t use the Disney names.  You’ll have to come up with your own.”

“Phantom!” screamed Paulina.

“Here we go,” said Danny, burying his head in his hands.  

“You want to bet that we’re going to wind up with your whole rogue’s gallery?” asked Tucker.  

“If you need money, Tucker,” said Sam, “you just have to ask.  Rates on my loans are very reasonable.”

“Isn’t usury against your religion?” asked Tucker.

“Nope,” said Sam.  “Not at all.”

“I am incredibly against this development,” said Danny.  “The cults are going to have a field day.”

“Ember!  Ember! Ember!”  Chanted the punk goth crowd, which had split off from the larger goth subgroup.

“I am somehow even more against this development,” muttered Danny.  “Mr. Lancer! I don’t think it’s a good idea to include a ghost who gets power from people saying her name!”

“Shut up, Fentonnage, what do you know about ghosts?”

“My parents study them.  I know a lot.  More than I ever even—”

Danny narrowly dodged the workbook Dash flung at him.

“Mr. Baxter!” scolded Mr. Lancer.  

Sadly, when everything shook out, Danny did not get his way.  One of the seven ghosts was named Ember and was going to be played by Star.  Because why not?

“At least the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady aren’t on the list,” said Sam.  

“But ‘Hamlet, father of Hamlet,’ is,” said Danny.  “Why does that bother me more than Ember?”

“Because you hate Shakespeare?”

“No, I don’t,” protested Danny.  “Shakespeare is a perfectly nice person.  I just don’t like how his writing is taught in schools.”

“You’re going to break Mr. Lancer’s heart saying stuff like that,” said Tucker.  

“He wrote love poems to boys.  Why do they skim over that?”

“Excellent point, Mr. Fenton!” exclaimed Mr. Lancer, who had somehow materialized behind them.  “Shakespeare was definitely bisexual.  I wi—”  The teacher stopped.  “Nope, can’t use that word.  It would be nice if the state let me teach it like that.  Along with the crossdressing.  School board won’t let me.”  He shook his head.  “Dale Baxter. Someday, someday he’ll lose an election. Eventually.”  He took a deep breath.  “Next time we meet, we’ll be doing auditions, okay?  I want you all to think about what parts you would like! And, Miss Gray, I’d like to have a word with you about your role in our production, alright?”

[ehovocrown]

Ground Zero

Author: ehovocrown

Pairing: Alpha Team (Special Ops) Captain Byun Baekhyun x Air Force Lieutenant Reader

Genre: Special Forces!AU, Angst

Warnings: Cursing, slight sexual content, violence, mention and use of combat weapons

Author’s Note: Hi there! this is the first one shot that i’m posting on this account, it’s been collecting dust on my notes app so i thought maybe it finally deserves to see the light of day. :’)

Word Count: 2,017 words

—

Smoke bombs & gunshots were his norm, weaving through the constant precipitation of bullets as he fought every waking day for freedom, honour, and protection. Meanwhile for her? The skies were her territory, unlike him who was totally grounded on soil, she was the captain of the skies. Flying, fighting, and pursuing freedom in the air. But there was one thing that they had in common, and it was that every waking day was a fight for survival.

—

[Spring 2017 - D-1 to special ops]

“Operation failed. Our troops and allies are all dead. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO FOCUS?!” Captain of the Special Ops Unit Byun Baekhyun’s booming voice resonated through the warehouse, frustration and anger clearly evident in his features.

“I’m sorry Captain!” The youngest soldier replied, earning him multiple sighs of exasperation from his team followed by a whirling sound and sudden gasps.

A knife, flying ever so closely by their captain’s head only to impale itself on the wooden panel behind him.

“Get your fucking boy scouts together Byun! Or maybe go the fuck home.” Captain Kim called out, snickering as he turned to the group of laughing soldiers behind him.

Baekhyun scoffed, turning around to pluck the combat knife from the panel. “If he keeps doing shit like this I might have to rebel again.” And with that he whirled the combat knife back towards its original owner, making sure with exact precision that it would end up on the wall between the laughing captain’s legs, right in between where it would hurt.

The snickering was definitely put to a halt, and both teams suddenly found their captains heading toward’s each other, hands balled into fists and ready to salvage their own pride.

But the fight never came, because just as they were about to deliver their first hit, Baekhyun felt the cold barrel of a glock against his temple.

“Break time’s over boys. Looks like the regiment has been going too easy on you for your troops to be playing around like this.”

The captain turned slightly towards his aggressor, only to lay his eyes on a lady, his lady, in her Air Force uniform, long hair cascading past her shoulders making it impossible for him to see her rank, or her name patch.

“Easy, do you even know how to use that?” Baekhyun taunted as he motioned towards the gun that was still pointed at him, the lieutenant raised a brow, smirking at the captain’s obvious arrogance.

“Looks like playtime is over for you, Byun.” The other long forgotten captain spoke, snickering once again at the sight of Byun Baekhyun who was currently at the mercy of the Air force pilot.

Captain Kim’s glory moments didn’t last long though, because his snarky remark earned him a kick from Y/N who clearly had both him and Baekhyun at her mercy.

The kick landed behind his knees, causing him to fall to the pavement, pride clearly shattered to pieces, ironically the same one that he was trying so hard to salvage just a few minutes ago.

“Play time is over for you too, take your squad back to your quarters or you will receive word on disciplinary orders tonight.” Y/N spoke simply, and Captain Kim wasted no time in leaving.

On the other hand though, the coldness of the barrel did nothing to aid Byun Baekhyun’s pride, deciding that he too was tired of being held hostage, the captain moved swiftly to snatch the gun from the lieutenant in front of him.

First, a grab on her wrist.

Second, his hand overpowering hers.

Third, a quick snatch of the weapon from her delicate hands.

And fourth? Turning the tables so that her back was now pressed against his chest, his arm keeping her restrained while his other hand dismantled the gun in front of her face.

“Do not, play with me like that ever again.” His voice was deep and hoarse as he whispered against her ear, “understood?”

Y/N simply rolled her eyes, scoffing at the captain’s sentiments.

“As if. Did I hurt your pride Captain? Angry because you didn’t get to dig your fist into your opponents smug face?” Her tone had the captain smirking in no time, turning to his men to subtly signal them their dismissal.

He watched them leave, now relieved that the eyes that were watching him and Y/N were gone.

“Lieutenant, i think you’d be falling for me in no time once you see me in combat.”

The lieutenant only scoffed, turning to face her lover the moment he released his hold on her.

“I think you’re wrong Captain.” She whispered, arms wrapping around his waist and her words ghosting against his lips due to their close proximity.

Personal space was now a foreign concept and neither one of them were willing to let go, not when they are so grateful that the both of them were able to see each other again.

“And why is that?” The captain hummed against his lover’s lips, his heart feeling fully content in her presence.

“Because, there will never be anything attractive about seeing you get hurt.”

Baekhyun only shrugged in reply, deciding that he has been patient long enough he took her lips into his, pressing a passionate kiss that dripped of longing and worry that his heart was unable to suppress as his lover went on her mission approximately 5 nights ago.

Her return felt like heaven to him, and he knew just as well as she did that this was the consequence of falling in love in the force. But neither one of them were willing to give up what they had, even if that meant living in a state of anxiety when one of them would get deployed.

———————-

Back in the captain’s quarters that night they found themselves tangled in sheets, bodies speaking not with a language of words but with passionate kisses and thrusts, of fingers that were intertwined so tightly that both their knuckles turned white, and of heavy breathing as their names escaped each others lips in pleasure.

For Baekhyun? Hearing his name on Y/N’s lips was his revival. In every day that he was deployed to the field he felt like half of him was already in the grave not knowing whether he would even make it out alive.

But here with her, with every passionate kiss, every loving and lustful touch, every mark that he left on the canvas that was her body, and as his name escaped her in sighs of pleasure, he knew that he was fully alive. He knew that his heart had every reason to keep on beating.

But for the lieutenant?, For Y/N, Baekhyun was her grounding force, her safe haven. He was home, and the captain of the sky barely made it home today but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

And as she embraced being on the receiving end of the captain’s every kiss, and every touch and everything else in between, she held on to him, flipping them over so that she could return the favour.

Her every touch left goosebumps on the captain’s skin, kissing the scar on his temple, down to the one on his chest, and the other on his hip. And with every passing second that she spent straddling him, she poured all her love onto him in ways that he could also feel.

And with a climax that ran through them more intensely than the wages of war, they both prayed to the heavens to not take this love away from them. Not when each other was the only form of sanity left for them to hold on to.

——————-

[Spring 2017 - Special Ops d-day]

“Promise me you’ll fight.” Y/N whispered as she worked on buttoning up the captain’s uniform.

“Promise me that you will do everything in your power to stay alive.” She placed his dog tag over his head watching as it landed on his chest.

“Promise me, that i will see you again and not just your tag being handed over.” The lieutenant stepped back, eyes still trained on the dog tag around her lover’s neck.

R.O.K. ARMY

Byun, Baekhyun

- 050692

Blood Type: O

“Captain Byun Baekhyun, promise me that you will come home.” And she raised her arm in a formal salute with utmost respect overflowing despite the tears that fell relentlessly down her face, and the Captain did the same.

And as they stood in his quarters with a silence that was as deafening as the aftermath of an exploded grenade, Byun Baekhyun spoke. Not with with words but with a kiss that conveyed everything that he wanted to say to the lieutenant who stood before him, I love you, until my heart stops beating, and maybe even then I’ll love you.

_________________

[5 years later]

“Mommy these flowers are pretty!” the little boy smiled as he eyed the bunch of roses in his hands. The roses that resembled the scar that sat on his father’s temple, and the same scar that sat on his.

“They really are, aren’t they Raiden?” Y/N smiled at the boy who was walking beside her, kneeling down so she could face the little boy better. “Should we give them to daddy?”

The little boy flashed a toothy smile as he nodded, never letting go of his mother’s hand.

“Mommy, where did i get this necklace?” The little boy asked in curiosity as he examined the silver tags around his neck.

Y/N smiled at her son, eyes welling with tears as she watched her little boy try and read the letters on the tags.

“Rai, you know that Daddy was a very brave man right?”

“Yes mommy!” Raiden smiled, to him Byun Baekhyun was a hero, like the avengers as he would like to call it.

“Well Rai, daddy used to wear that necklace whenever he would fight bad guys.”

“-Then why do I have it now?” the boy tilted his head, confusion evident on his innocent face. And in that moment it was as if the former lieutenant’s heart broke all over again, and as she suppressed the tears that were threatening to spill she looked at the picture of her lover. One that sat behind the glass window next to an empty urn that held nothing but an engraving of his name.

“When daddy had to fight for the last time, he asked uncle Sehun to give it to mommy.”

“-but why mommy?”

Y/N fell silent, how could she possibly explain to her little boy that it was because his father was not supposed to be identified incase he was killed on enemy grounds? How was she supposed to say that his father surrendered his tags because he knew that the operation was a suicide mission? How was she supposed to explain, that until the very end his father gave it his everything, but it wasn’t enough for him to be able to come home, and so he left his tags for the woman that he was no longer going to be able to come home to. His way of saying, I’m sorry, but i will always be here, and you will always be my home.

Taking a deep breath, the former lieutenant gathered her thoughts, “because daddy wanted you to remember him Raiden, that’s his way of saying that he will always be with you.”

The little boy nodded again, eyes still scanning the tags he wore before noticing the same ones that hung around his mother’s neck.

Examining both his father’s and mother’s necklaces, Raiden looked on with curiosity, “what does it say mommy?”

Y/N took both tags in her hand for her son to see.

R.O.K. ARMY

Byun, Baekhyun

- 050692

Blood Type: O

R.O.K. AIR FORCE

Y/L/N, Y/N

- 080514

Blood Type: _

“This is daddy’s name, and this is mommy’s name.” Y/N explained, and the little boy smiled with pride. Then she flipped the tags over, a new engraving, one that she had made shortly after Raiden came into her world.

To our son Raiden Byun, we will love you even after our hearts stop beating.

— end.

[tenspontaneite]

Across Shared Skin (Chapter 3/?)

“Callum,” the assassin repeated, and it was wholly obvious that he knew what that meant. “Oh, Rayla. What have you done?”

(Chapter length: 2.2k. ao3 link)

Alternate summary 1: hey. Hey, psst, Rayla, I hear you like TRAUMATIC EVENTS. I’ve got some TRAUMATIC EVENTS for you here, you want some? ….no? TOO BAD.

See end notes for alternate summary 2.

---

The meeting with the lead assassin went like this:

Rayla went out onto the battlements and called for someone named Runaan. An elf appeared on the crenelated wall, looking far taller and more threatening than Rayla seemed now. He had a bow, and – suddenly, Callum had a terrible feeling about this.

Her ‘uncle’, one of the ones who’d taken her in, the one who trained her…hadn’t she said that he was an archer? And she thought this elf here might want to kill her human soulmate for her own good? Was that something any assassin leader might do? Or…

Or, was this man family to her?

Family or not, he didn’t seem impressed by her initial attempts to call the mission off. So Rayla called Callum out of hiding. By name.

He was tense when he emerged, and tense when he saw the elf’s eyes fix on him with a dawning, angry understanding. “Callum,” the assassin repeated, and it was wholly obvious that he knew what that meant. “Oh, Rayla. What have you done?”

She set her jaw stubbornly, stepping in front of them. “We can’t choose how we meet our soulmates. And that’s a good thing now, because what I’ve seen-“ She turned her face to Callum, a silent request. He exhaled, and gestured Ezran out of the doorway.

The sight of the egg left Rayla’s not-uncle momentarily speechless. But, as she’d predicted, it still wasn’t enough. “We bound ourselves,” he said to her, severely, face hard. “There is only one way to release. The mission comes first, Rayla, do you understand?”

She exhaled, and unsheathed her weapons. She exchanged one more glance with Callum, then turned to her commander with a battle-ready stance. “No,” she said, quiet and resolute. “Peace comes first. This is so much more important than the mission.” She lifted her chin. “If you want to kill Ezran – or the king – you’ll have to go through me first.”

A snarl twisted the man’s face. “Then you will die here,” he pronounced grimly, and lunged at her.

The sheer speed of that initial clash left Callum reeling. He could hardly see anything but blurs of metal, blurs of limbs. Suddenly, he had no idea how he was supposed to help. How could he shoot a spell at one of them when both of them were moving that fast? Cursing, he pushed Ezran and the egg back into cover.

A pause in the combat: “Callum! Ezran! Go!” Rayla shouted at them, and then whirled around to dodge a sword-blow that might have impaled her. Where had the swords even come from? Hadn’t there been a bow a second ago?

Callum pushed Ezran gently back. “Go hide in that passageway, Ez.” He said, lowly. “Don’t say anything. Don’t move. I’ll…we’ll come get you when this is over.”

His brother’s eyes were wide and afraid. His arms tightened around the egg. “Don’t get hurt,” he pleaded. “Be careful.”

“I will. Now move.” He watched out of the corner of his eyes, afraid to look away from the furious conflict of his soulmate and her guardian, and only relaxed when he couldn’t see Ezran anymore. Slowly, he exhaled. He held the primal stone tightly and waited for an opening.

It came when the moon rose. As soon as the first rays of moonlight lifted over the battlements, as soon as they fell on the elves’ skin – they stilled suddenly, blade-to-blade, eyes going to the moon. In the second afterwards, they were transformed to shadow, dark and flickering against the sky. “I’ll give you one more chance to stop this, Rayla.” The assassin’s voice was tight. “See sense. You’re better than this.”

Callum knew Rayla well enough to know what her response would be to that. He didn’t give her a chance to speak it, knowing that the moment she did, they’d be moving again, and he’d have no chance of doing anything to help.

Fulminis was the fastest spell he had. The only one that might be fast enough. He drew the rune, spoke it, and let it loose.

The elf’s eyes flew to him at the first hint of electricity, and then – impossibly – he dodged it. It was lightning and he dodged it. For the first time, cold terror gripped him by the throat, and he believed all of the many, many stories he’d heard and read about Moonshadow elves.

He didn’t have much time to regret his action, because the elf had already changed target. He flipped over Rayla and headed straight for Callum, shadow-dark face contorted with fury. Panicking, he tried to draw the rune again, lifting the primal stone up as if it were a shield – Rayla cried out and lunged after her guardian-

In the space of a second, there was a sword at his throat. He felt it there, sharp and ruthlessly cold. He stared into phosphorescent blue eyes and knew with certainty that he was about to die.

And then Rayla closed her arm around the elf’s neck and pulled him back.

There was a sting of pain at his throat. A sear of considerably greater pain at his hand, clutched around the primal stone, the sword dragging through his flesh as its wielder was dragged back. It was some combination of the injury and the shock that loosened his fingers. Rayla bore her guardian to the ground, struggling to keep him in a choke-hold; the primal stone fell from a bloody hand.

He tried to snatch it up with his other hand. He wasn’t quick enough. It shattered on the battlements with a crash of magic that nearly sent all of them flying.

“Callum!” That was Ezran, shouting out at him from the doorway behind them. He’d not left after all. Callum’s fear and anger were enough to finally break him out of the shock of pain, and he whirled to hold up his bloody hand.

“Stay back, Ez!” He stared wildly back at Rayla, locked in desperate melee with her own guardian; she’d taken the opening and had brought him to the ground. One of his swords had been wrested away, the other was trapped beneath her foot. She had an arm in a vicious choke-hold around his neck while he struggled – she flinched every time his elbows hit home in her side, flinched at every well-aimed blow, but refused to let go.

And then the storm screamed itself into being around them.

It was so sudden. Just a few traces of wind, and then all at once there was a cyclone spinning into the sky, erupting around the castle with the all the rage of an unleashed god. Callum staggered, struggling to stay upright, and the winds instantly slammed Rayla and the assassin against the crenelated walls. Both of them swore, still struggling against each other.

“You must – let go,“ snarled the elf, voice hoarse past the chokehold. Callum could see what he meant; without either of them having arms free to hold onto anything, they might both be swept from the battlements within seconds. The wind already seemed to be clutching at them, wresting them ever-so-slightly from the ground.

Callum was grabbing for the wall himself when he saw the indecision flicker through Rayla’s eyes. The was a split-second of terrible resignation passing over her face; a glance out to the howling air beyond the wall. She exhaled, uttered “I’m sorry,” and then flung her guardian over the edge. He wasn’t in a position to resist her. For all that he was obviously deadly, she seemed stronger, and she’d been choking him for half a minute already.

The elf’s fingers scrabbled at the edge of the wall, and then he fell.

Rayla made an awful noise as she watched it, then gritted her teeth and reclaimed her weapons, panting with distress. In moments they’d shifted to some new form, pick-shaped, held at the ready as she struggled through the vicious winds to Callum’s side. “Come on,” she shouted, barely audible over the shriek of the cyclone. “We need to go!”

Numbly, he let her pull him into the shelter of the doorway, where Ezran was waiting anxiously with the egg. “Callum, your hand!” his brother exclaimed, and for the first time, he saw that it was dripping blood as they moved. Rayla collapsed against the wall as soon as they were out of the wind, hair still whipping around in the gusts billowing down the hallway. She stared out behind her for a moment, eyes fixed on where her guardian had fallen. Her skin was terribly pale.

“It doesn’t feel that bad.” Callum said, weakly, though he could already tell that his glove was ruined.

“You’re bleeding.” Ezran’s voice was almost indignant.

That seemed to snap Rayla out of her turmoil; she whirled around and knelt down beside him, reaching for his wrist. “I felt it,” she said tightly, and – suddenly, he realised that it was his left hand, that the pain was definitely in the approximate region of their soulmark- “I don’t know how bad it is, though.” She very carefully did not try to remove his glove. He thought he knew why.

Ezran didn’t have any such reservations. He set the egg down and pulled the glove off, making an unhappy noise at the sight of it: a long slice curving across the back of Callum’s hand, just under the knuckles; it brushed the edge of the soulmark. Rayla inspected it, face tight.

“It doesn’t look deep.” She said, after a moment. “You got lucky.” She pulled a roll of bandage out from her jacket. It was only a small thing, probably an emergency supply, but she set to work with it quickly…still being very, very careful to avoid touching the skin at the back of his hand.

“Are you bleeding too?” He wondered, thoughts so scrambled from the confusion and the pain that he didn’t even know what to ask first. “Did it get the mark?”

She lifted her gauntlet and wiped away a little blood. “Yours, not mine, I think.” She exhaled, and once more, looked out at the crenelated wall in the middle of the howling storm.

He looked with her. “…Is he dead?” He asked, uneasy, and she flinched. Her hands tightened into fists.

“The fall wouldn’t have killed him,” she said, tightly. “He still had a sword. He’d have used it to score the cliffside, slow himself down. But…” A harsh, unhappy puff of breath. “There’s rapids at the bottom of that cliff. And in this storm…”

A short grim silence hung between them. Callum didn’t even know what to say to the idea that Rayla might have killed her own family to – to protect him, them, the Dragon Prince….

Then: “Where did the storm come from?” Ezran wondered, staring out at the rising fury of it outside the doorway, so loud it was hard to hear themselves speak. There was a strange calmness building here, though. A clear spot, right in the centre. Like a walled-off circle of refuge against the winds.

Callum’s gut twisted. “Primal stone.” He said, shortly. “I – dropped it, when my hand got cut. It broke.” So much for that avenue of defence.

“Oh.” Abruptly, in that strange calm spot, it was much easier to hear his voice. Callum’s ears popped with an unfamiliar feeling of pressure, and a hint of an oncoming headache. “…What are we supposed to do now?”

“We have to get out, somehow.” Callum exhaled. “If the assassins won’t stop – if we can’t get to the king-“ And they certainly couldn’t, in these conditions- “then we need to leave. Carry the egg back to Xadia ourselves.”

“There’s no way any of us are going anywhere in this storm.” Rayla said, uncompromisingly, and he couldn’t doubt her.

“We could lay low in the secret passages for a while?” He suggested, half-heartedly, and then-

-a flash of colour in his periphery.

He turned and stared. “Is the egg supposed to do that?”

All of them followed his gaze and went still. Because the egg was glowing, and not just like it had been all along – it was shining, burning with incandescent colours like light through a prism, pulsing so virulently it hurt to look at. And then, straight through the open doorway, a bolt of lightning seemed to be sucked into it from nowhere. It was absolutely silent, without even a thunderclap to herald it, just-

“It’s a storm-dragon egg.” Rayla said, faintly, and scrambled back and away. “Maybe the storm’s affecting it somehow?”

Ezran stared for a long, long moment. A moment long enough to accommodate the absorption of two more spontaneously-generated lightning-bolts into the shell. “…Yeah, I think so,” he said, slowly. “But…in a good way?” He furrowed his brow. “Help me roll him out closer to the door?”

Callum looked at Rayla. She looked back. Helplessly, he shrugged, and she seemed to share the sentiment. For lack of any better response, they shifted the egg closer to the doorway to see what would happen.

 ---

 What happened was this:

The damn thing hatched.

 ---

End chapter.

Notes:

Alternate chapter summary 2: in which I live up to my brand by traumatising one character and injuring the hand of another.

Did I say we were pitching canon off of a mountain?? WELL THAT’S NOT THE ONLY THING, BABY. *slaps roof of Runaan* this man can fit so much misfortune.

Also, rip primal stone. I WONDER HOW THIS WILL AFFECT CALLUM’S MAGE PLOTLINE.

(also, a note to my most persistent readers: I have to say, writing a scene where the mc has a sword to his throat and about-to-die vibes followed by hand injury gave me some very distinct nostalgia)

[hanatiny]

Love, just maybe

requested by anon: Hi! Can you please write a Yeosang fic where he's in a wheelchair and a caretaker is hired to look after him and he falls in love with her? Thank you!!

a/n: in case anyone spots any medical inaccuracies and/or language I shouldn’t be using, please let me know so I can fix that!! thank u, enjoy <3

pairing: Yeosang x caretaker!f!reader

genre: fluff, very slight angst

word count: 2453

warnings: non-idol AU, mentions of disability and wheelchairs, mentions of driving, mentions of car crashes, brief mentions of food, Wooyoung unintentionally becomes the wingman of the year with someone else’s help lol

-----

You were not the slightest bit sure of how to feel about the situation, tapping your fingers against your steering wheel anxiously while you impatiently waited for traffic to clear up.

A man by the name of Jung Wooyoung had contacted you earlier this week, explaining that his friend Yeosang was in need of a caretaker but stubbornly refused to look into hiring one himself.

You had taken the “offer” without much thinking (it was more of a desperate request although Wooyoung would never admit this), especially since Yeosang was supposedly around your age and it’d make bonding with him easier, but now that you sat here in your car you weren’t all that confident anymore.

It seemed you weren’t allowed to dwell on this any longer, however, since you finally saw traffic clear up and were able to continue your way to your destination, namely Yeosang’s house.

You glanced at your duffle bag on the passenger seat, mentally checking if you’ve got everything - since you were a live-in caretaker, it meant you’d be staying for a while - more precisely, until your client decided they no longer required or wanted your assistance. It didn’t take you much longer to pull into the driveway of Yeosang’s house, which turned out to be a small townhouse in the outskirts of the city.

You climbed out of your car after taking a deep breath to calm your nerves

To your surprise, you found an abundance of flowers blooming in the frontyard. You also spotted a set of swings a little further back, curious to find out the reasoning for the presence of both of these things since you knew Yeosang had been a wheelchair user for quite some time and most likely didn’t take care of his garden or constructed those swings himself.

You weren’t any less startled when you rang the doorbell, only for a little girl who you assumed to be around 11 years old to open the door and greet you with a bright smile, “Hi there, ma’am! Are you here to visit uncle Sang?”

You quirked a brow at the words ‘uncle Sang,’ crouching down to be eye level with the girl before nodding at her, “Something like that, yeah. Could you go and get him for me?”

“Mhm! Just give me a minute~” She giggled as she ran off back into the house, returning shortly after with Yeosang following behind her. He was pretty good-looking, you had to admit. His messy blonde hair framed his face perfectly, and you wondered if it was as fluffy as it looked-

“Miss?” It was the girl’s voice that broke you out of your thoughts, her head tilted to the side inquisitively as she looked at you, “Are you okay?”

“Hm~? Yeah I’m fine, don’t worry.” You gave her a smile to reassure her, one she promptly reciprocated before turning to Yeosang when he gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s getting late, Minji.” He spoke softly, “You should get home, I bet your little brother and your parents wanna hear all about what we did today~”

She whined as he playfully ruffled her hair, nodding at him in understanding, “Fine~ See you tomorrow, uncle Sang! Bye bye, nice lady~!”

You found it adorable how she addressed you before she gave both you and Yeosang each a small hug before skipping off, presumably back to her own house.

Yeosang watched her with a smile until neither of you could see her anymore, the male clearing his throat awkwardly while his eyes inspected the bag in your hand.

He motioned you to follow him after another beat as he carefully pushed his wheelchair backwards and further into the house, stepping inside and closing the door behind yourself afterwards.

“I know why you’re here, since Wooyoung can’t keep his mouth shut,” Yeosang finally spoke, and it was as if the weight of your nervousness physically dropped from your shoulders, “and I imagine that you know why I’m not all too pleased about it.”

There was no disdain whatsoever towards you in his tone, only exasperation about the fact that his best friend had gone against his wishes.

He took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing, “As I’m sure you’re aware, I dislike having other people do things for me. I grew up being independent from others so this... circumstance isn’t exactly a fortunate one. If you can prove within, let’s say... a week that you genuinely care for more than the money that’s in it for you for doing this, I’ll let you stay even longer.”

It was a fair agreement - if Yeosang was to have a caretaker despite being highly apprehensive about the idea, the least he could make clear is that he didn’t want anyone who’d do a half-assed job and only pretend to care about him.

“We’ve got a deal.” You stated firmly in response, placing your bag on the floor next to you and extending a hand for the blonde to shake. He appeared to hesitate for a split second before shaking your hand with a nod, and you could’ve sworn you his lips twitch into the faintest bit of a smile.

“Lovely. Since I know you’ll need the knowledge, I figured I should tell you where all the rooms are.” He gestured for you to follow, watching him manage to turn himself around before picking up your bag again and letting him lead the way for you.

It was a pretty spacious living space for a single person, though given the circumstances, you weren’t particularly surprised about it.

“Let’s see... My bedroom is down the hall, and so is my bathroom. Minji’s room, the guest room you’ll be staying in and the guest bathroom are upstairs. And the kitchen, living room and dining room are, as you can surely tell, all connected.”

“Got it.”

Yeosang cleared his throat, and you subconsciously straightened your posture a little. “Now,” he said, “you should know that I tend to go to sleep really early, so I suppose this is what I will go ahead and do now. You can explore a little more if you want, but you should get rest as well since you officially start working tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you won’t need my help tonight...?” You inquired tentatively, not wanting to overstep any kind of boundary, and Yeosang seemed hesitant to answer before nodding firmly. “Thank you... but I’ll manage.” He finally said, “Good night, Y/n.”

You shouldn’t have been as stunned by his use of your name as you were, yet there you stood, watching him make his way down the hallway before disappearing into his bedroom. You turned on your heel, deciding that exploring could wait in favor of making yourself at home in ‘your’ room.

You skipped up the stairs, your bag swung over your shoulder, and were quick to find the bedroom you’d be staying in. Minji’s room was decorated overly cutely, while yours looked... lived in. You made a mental note to make sure to ask Yeosang about this.

And sure enough, prove yourself like he challenged you to do was exactly what you did.

Finding out the time Yeosang would usually wake up, you made it your goal to always get up before him to cook a healthy breakfast for him and prepare clothes for him to wear. He was initially reluctant to let you help with the latter, although it didn’t take him long to admit that he both needed and appreciated your assistance with things he wasn’t able to do by himself. Yeosang blushed profusely whenever he asked you to help him in bathroom, be it to empty his bladder or to wash himself, but he did catch himself warming up to you faster than he’d like anyone to know.

He admired the care you put into helping him even with arguably straining tasks like changing positions into a chair, for example, even though he was capable of doing so with minimal help. He took to either reading or playing the violin whenever you left the house to run errands like grocery shopping, and he couldn’t help but let his mind drift to you.

He had once been so distracted by his own thoughts that you had caught him playing a gentle piece on his instrument of choice, and he mentally scolded himself for the rest of that day for allowing it to come to such an embarrassment.

You, however, were absolutely endeared. Both by the fact that he was able to play an instrument as beautiful as the violin, and by the observation you’ve made that he seemed to have quite a big soft spot for Minji.

Speaking of the young girl, you grew closer to her as well - she even began calling you “aunt Y/n” after a few visits, and you could’ve sworn that her cuteness had melted you right where you stood.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Yeosang either, and it had him constantly repeating the two words in his head. He refused to admit it aloud, but he knew that what had his mind racing was the thought of a possible relationship with you that’d go beyond simply caring for him.

Similarly, you found yourself thinking about what it might actually be like to care for a child together with the blonde but snapped out of it before you allowed yourself to take your thoughts to a level that exceeded the professional one you should’ve been keeping it at.

It was Yeosang who finally broke the splintering ice between the two of you after approximately three and a half weeks of you living with him while you two were sitting on the terrace that overlooked his garden, enjoying a comfortable evening together, and you couldn’t help but tense a little from his words, “You know,” he began, “I feel like you deserve some answers to the questions I know you have but are too hesitant to ask.”

You felt your cheeks warm, he couldn’t have been any more correct with his observation.

“Let’s see - your room looked so... used, if you will, because it’s the room Wooyoung previously stayed in before he was forced to move away for work and consequently hired you to take care of me. As for Minji, her parents are away a lot so that’s why she comes over almost every day. Wooyoung and her parents constructed those swings for her when she started visiting me more frequently, and Minji’s friends are the ones taking care of the garden together with her. Y’know, since I can’t for obvious reasons.”

You nodded thoughtfully in response, somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of information you were being given but still grateful for Yeosang’s willingness to be this open with you.

“It’s been almost a year since the accident that caused me to be as I am now, in a wheelchair and codependent due to paraplegia. I will be honest, I neither know nor care to find out why that other guy rammed my car with his... I just know that we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation if he didn’t and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for putting me in this situation, in this dilemma of being unable to move or even just feel my lower half.”

“That’s understandable... I can only imagine how much it ruined your life, not to mention the emotional trauma that must’ve come with the accident.” You replied softly, trying to be careful with your words as Yeosang nodded in agreement, “Yeah, I haven’t sat in a car again ever since it happened. And I don’t really like talking about it, admittedly...”

You tilted your head at him in question while he trailed off, “I don’t mean to offend, but if that’s the case... Why are you telling me?”

“I can’t blame you for being confused about it, and I’ll be happy to explain my reasoning behind this. Truth is, I like you. In a more than ‘you care for me so I act nice around you’ way, in a... ‘I want to get closer to you’ kind of way.”

You couldn’t help but quirk an eyebrow at Yeosang’s roundabout way of confessing to you, “Are you saying... you have a crush on me?”

“I- well, yeah. That’s what I’m trying to say.” Yeosang nodded shyly at your tentative question, a hum sounding in your throat in response before he continued, nervously fidgeting with his hands a little. “Listen, I just... I think I could fall in love with you. I want to ask you to permanently move in with me, because I most definitely will never get sick of you. Of course you don’t have to accept, if you don’t want to or just don’t feel the same way...”

He trailed off, not even realizing how distracted he was by the way the light of the setting sun illuminated your face until he heard you giggle softly. Yeosang blushed when he noticed that you had, rather boldly, moved your chair closer to him and were now stroking his hair absentmindedly. He found it pathetic how easily the simple gesture flustered him, not dwelling on it any longer while you spoke, “It’s funny that you bring this up, honestly... Because I happen to feel the exact same way. And maybe, just maybe, I could also see myself falling in love with you in the future. With all of you.”

“All of me?” Yeosang echoed tentatively, “Are you sure..?”

You nodded a little more enthusiastically than intended, although that was presently the least of your concerns, “I’m sure. What kind of person would I be if I rejected you purely because of something that’s out of your control?”

Yeosang felt a grin tug at his lips at the double meaning of your statement, although he found himself fumbling a little over his words. “Touché. So... what now? Is this the part where I ask you to be my girlfriend?”

“It is, and it’s also the part where I answer that question with a ‘yes’~”

Yeosang beamed at you, truly delighted that you were willing to give him a chance to be yours. Little did you know though that, as the two of you continued to talk until late in the night about everything under the sun, there was a certain young girl watching you both from where she sat at her window in the neighboring house with a small dreamy sigh before suddenly jumping up and making a run for it down the stairs.

“Mom, can you give me the phone for a sec? I wanna tell uncle Woo that my matchmaking plan worked~!”

----- Taglist:

@atinykitty @cometoceantrenches @ddeonghwva @galaxteez​ @latte-fairytaekwoon @little-precious-baby @multidreams-and-desires @nightqueennyx @serialee @twancingyunhoe @vocalyunho

Network tag: @8makes1teamnet​

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Gavin’s R&S - NW Project (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains spoilers from an R&S (NW计划) which has not been released in EN 🍒

Heavy angst warning... T-T

To follow along with the narrator: here

[ Chapter One ]

The NW Project - “New Weapons Project” in full. This project was first put forward 20 years ago. 

Even though I’m the main person in charge of this project, the person who raised this project wasn’t me. Neither was it an outstanding scientist. Instead, it was this man in front of me.

Patiently, I finish reading the agreement in my hand, which spans dozens of pages. Before putting my pen to the page, I lift my head to look at him. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

The man looks straight into my eyes. Without a hint of retreating or wavering, his tone is calm as he responds, “I’ll take complete responsibility for the consequences.”

“You aren’t afraid of permanent infamy?”

“This is our only chance. Exchanging the lowest cost for peace experienced by the most number of people. Black Swan doesn’t leave us any choice.”

I fall silent, but the man doesn’t give me an opportunity to probe further.

“This is the second time I’ve made this decision.” He continues speaking calmly. “Ever since the first step was taken, there has been no room for backing out in this matter.”

I pinch the pen with force, the weight in my hands a little difficult to bear for a moment. I take a deep breath, finally signing my own name on the paper, underneath the name already written on it.

I’m very clear that we have no room for retreating. We have to move forward!

After signing, the man hands me an archive envelope. “This is the first experimental subject this time round.”

I open the archive envelope directly. When I see the name written on the materials, I lift my head to look at him in shock. Before I can speak, he responds. “There’s nothing wrong with the materials.”

“Right now, he’s the most suitable candidate.”

“But-” I continue finding it difficult to believe.

“You can return to make preparations. He’ll be here soon, and the NW Project can officially begin.” There’s absolutely no change in his expression. He’s so calm that it’s as though he’s talking about someone who is insignificant. But the tenseness of his body faintly reveals his inner perturbation. 

I suppress the shock in my heart, not adding anything else.

Returning to the office, I open the file once again, reading it seriously--

Gavin, 24 years old, Evol ability is wind control. His Evol was awakened at 17 years old. During the tests two years ago, his ability levels were determined to be of the highest rank.

In the attached photograph, a young man wearing the white Special Task Force uniform is facing the camera. His eyes have a knife-life fierceness and a trace of unruliness. Even when separated by the photograph, they bring with them a certain sense of oppression.

This is a resolute person - that’s what I conclude. But when he undergoes the modification in this project, whether it’s successful or not, would he be able to remain as resolute?

I’m unable to make a determination, but I hope he does. After all, he’s their child...

-

[ Chapter Two ]

The restarting of this project, which had stopped for decades, was beset with difficulties. But no matter how difficult it was, this project had to be pushed forward.

A month later, as Black Swan’s activities grew increasingly frequent, the man, in the capacity of commanding officer, led the team himself, leaving the base. He kept his promise, bringing the first experimental subject back - the NW Project could officially restart.

-

Gavin stands in the middle of the laboratory quietly. His familiar appearance causes me to have a lapse in concentration. But very quickly, I retract my emotions and explain what the first phase of the experiment entails, and its possible effects.

When he hears the cruel wording I use, he has no reaction, no wavering, and no fear. His back is straight, and there are still speckles of dried blood on his body. I’ve only met his eyes once before averting them quickly. That pair of eyes shrouded in shadows suppress far too deep, and far too heavy emotions. Yet, they reveal a certain odd sense of calm, as though he has calmly and fearlessly accepted his fate.

“Gavin, are you ready?” The man, who has remained silent all this while, finally speaks. In an incredibly cold voice, Gavin responds. “Yes.”

The man turns his head towards me, nodding slightly in indication. “It can begin.”

We’ve been waiting a very long time for this experiment. Before the experiment officially begins, the man’s footsteps leave hurriedly.

All procedures proceed in a systematic and orderly way. Underneath the cold lights of the laboratory, Gavin, who has been injected with the drug, is submerged into transparent phosphate buffer. Dozens of metal patches are linked up to his body, monitoring the slightest change in data.

As the experiment carries on, something peculiar happens quickly. The fluctuating lines on the electrocardiogram gradually slow down. After a sudden jolt, it becomes a flat line. Just like the final glow of light in the darkness extinguishing suddenly, although we had already prepared ourselves for this, I still find my hands trembling when this moment arrives.

A researcher informs us that Gavin’s vitals are falling, and that his Evol fluctuations are barely able to be captured. All the data cruelly tells us that this experiment is about to fail, and the death of this young man will be announced soon.

I pound my hands onto the wall heavily to prevent my fingers from trembling, and direct everyone to carry out all possible rescue measures. But as time passes by - one minute, two minutes... his signs of life have completely vanished.

“Gavin...” Quietly, I watch that young man, whose eyes are shut tight, and recall when this departed person had said this name to me.

Suddenly, the lines on the electrocardiogram fluctuate for a moment, and someone exclaims in surprise. I frantically observe the screen, watching as the degree of fluctuations gradually increases. It’s as though a hand has forcefully pulled him back from the fringes of death, finally bringing him back to normal. Everyone heaves a long sigh of relief.

After the experiment, I assume the task of observing Gavin’s situation. On the sickbed, the young man who has experienced death has a face void of colour. Even in an unconscious state, his eyebrows remain deeply furrowed.

I tidy the items that were collected from him: A phone which is turned off, a set of keys, a Special Task Force ID... and a photograph which was originally in his breast pocket. This photograph seems to have been taken unawares. It has already turned slightly yellow, and has a pretty-looking girl on it.

After a while of thinking, I place the photograph next to Gavin’s pillow.

Perhaps this way, he can have a good dream.

-

[ Chapter Three ]

It has been a week since the experiment ended.

A few things surpassed our initial expectations: Within the first 30 hours of Gavin awakening, his state of mind temporarily went into chaos. At the same time, the strength of his modified Evol left us unable to control him, and he destroyed the entire laboratory. Fortunately, he recovered at a certain point. But he became deficient in terms of emotions, and turned extremely cold and distant. It’s as though he had become the strongest “weapon” as we conceptualised.

-

“Thud--” The sound of something heavy falling drifts from the tightly shut door. The hand I’ve placed on the door pauses. After waiting for a few minutes, I push the door open.

Gavin is standing in the middle of the spacious underground training room. A pair of cold and indifferent eyes look over. Even though I’ve experienced this several times, my heart still jumps, and my body tenses up involuntarily. All the cells in my body warn me - he’s extremely dangerous.

I maintain a set distance, and advise, “You should act according to our designated plan to undergo this adjustment process.”

Gavin doesn’t speak. Black wind encircles his surrounding, the swirling air slicing the walls and floor like knives. In an instant, it ripples through the entire room. I reach out to touch the blood oozing from the new wound on my face, quietly putting even more distance between us.

I watch silently as he exhausts his Evol, waits for it to be restored, and repeats it again. This is an incredibly painful process, no different from breaking all the bones in his body and forcing them to straighten. Such capacity for violence often results in harm to himself. Very quickly, his whole body is riddled with scars, and his entire person appears as though he has been pulled out from a sea of blood.

“Today’s training should be over.” I speak up once again, stopping him.

But what I get as a response is the sound of a ear-piercing report. Stunned, I look at the patch of white appearing before Gavin. Everything in that region has completely disappeared - there has been a change in his Evol. According to the plan of the experiment, he should only reach a breakthrough after half a month.

This time, Gavin finally speaks. “Someone’s waiting for me.”

This seems to be a thought he is clinging onto. Sometimes, one’s thoughts can destroy a person, but can also strengthen a person.

I don’t know who is the person waiting for him, nor do I know how he obtained such a belief. But it enables him to persevere in this cruel project.

--The NW Project can stimulate the experimental subject’s Evol gene to its highest degree, enabling one’s Evol ability to reach its strongest state in a short span of time. But its pitfall is just as obvious. There’s a large possibility that an experimental subject wouldn’t be able to withstand the weight of such strength, and face a decline after his Evol reaches its peak.

Right now, the strength Gavin has obtained after the modification has far surpassed approximations. None of us are able to predict what ending awaits him should his Evol start to decline.

Gavin finally stops, sitting on the steps in exhaustion. I can’t help but ask, “Why did you accept this project?”

“I need strength.” He says this without hesitation.

“Is obtaining strength necessarily a good thing?”

“Not to most people.”

I understand the meaning in his unfinished words, because he is even more certain than we are that he can control such strength.

At this moment, I suddenly look forward to his future, even though an experimental subject from the NW Project will only become a “weapon”. And the future of a weapon is only to destroy or be destroyed.

-

[ Chapter Four ]

It has been two weeks since the experiment ended.

The modification in the NW Project has reached its final phase. From Gavin’s body, we’ve collected large amounts of information, supporting the future development of this project.

At the same time, Black Swan’s sudden appearance on the surface leaves us with no choice but to speed up the process of the NW Project, and search for the next batch of experimental subjects. But this is an incredibly difficult matter. Every person who accepts the modification has to possess a sufficiently firm willpower. They have to persist through the agony of such destructive strength, and have to endure the temptation such strength brings.

During this special period, Gavin suddenly looks for me. Seeing the documents placed in front of me, I lapse into a long silence before speaking. “If you’re clear on the consequences this would bring, I’ll sign it.”

“I’m very clear.” Gavin stands up straight, the resoluteness in his eyes not wavering even once. Without further questions, I lift my pen, signing this agreement solemnly - to allow NW717 to be dispatched, and carry out missions.

“If you insist on choosing this path.” I take out a set of seemingly normal-looking gloves and place them on the table. “They can help you control such strength.”

Gavin freezes slightly, and it looks like he has been taken aback. But he doesn’t ask further questions either, putting on the black gloves, the leather material fitting every finger seamlessly. He looks at his hands, a hint of cloudiness flashing across his eyes, though it dissipates very quickly. 

This is a strength which shouldn’t exist on this earth, yet it has surfaced due to various incidents.

The next time I see Gavin who has returned from a mission, all the staff have already left the laboratory. The assistant had given me a warning beforehand, but I’m determined to be here.

What I see is a Gavin who is on the brink of collapse. His body is bowed, both fists balled tightly, veins evident, as though he has sustained a blow which is difficult to bear. I understand the cause of such a situation, and it’s exactly the consequence I had warned him about before he left on the mission--

The drugs used during the NW Project modification are especially fierce. Before they are completely assimilated, the backlash is also especially fierce. Right now, perhaps every blood vessel and every cell in his body are bringing him incredible pain. Such pain far exceeds the very first experiment by multiple folds.

“You need to stop the pain.” I take out the injection needle, prepared to give him a cortisone shot.

“No need.” Gavin doesn’t even lift his head. His tone is perhaps even calmer than mine, but his voice trembles almost imperceptibly. “I’ve seen your report. I need this chance.”

He’s betting on that one glimmer of hope. I respect his wishes, setting down the cortisone shot. Instead, I give him the final dose of drugs for the experiment. After all of this, I await the final outcome from afar.

Gavin remains silent from start to end. The sound of his breathing is so light and faint that it seems to disappear, only the data on the equipment displaying the radical changes in his body. Just like this, my eyes are wide open as I observe the entire night. At the first glimmer of dawn, Gavin stands up. Because he has been maintaining the same posture for a very long time, he staggers for a moment, almost losing his footing.

I do a complete examination for him, and discover that he has indeed grasped that one thousandth of a chance. In our plan, the degree of completion of the modification will hover at around 80%. But right now, Gavin has far surpassed this numerical value.

With a complicated expression, I look at the final verdict. Before Gavin leaves, I warn him once again. “It could engulf you in the end.”

The air surrounding Gavin permeates with danger, but his eyes are as calm as ice. “I can’t retreat.”

This project doesn’t leave him any room for retreating.

I know that the success of Gavin’s modification also represents drawing the curtains on an expansion of the NW Project. I’ve stored all the data and reports related to him in a file, ready to accept the next experiment.

-

[ Chapter Five ]

Along with the implementation of the NW Project, the effects of the modified individual increasingly got out of our control. This caused us to start pondering on how we should handle those people who accepted the experiments once everything was over.

Someone asked me about what I planned to do, and my answer was that I would perhaps find a place where nobody recognises me, and live the rest of my life with a guilty conscience and remorse.

As the very first successful experimental subject of the NW Project, Gavin’s choice came even earlier than I expected.

-

I reach the doors to the commanding officer’s office. Just before the door closes, I see an insignia on the desk at a glance, along with that pair of black gloves.

When we cross paths along the corridor, Gavin gives me a slight nod. I hand him something - the Special Task Force ID which was collected from him when he had first undergone the experiment. Gavin seems to find this unexpected. Very softly, he says a “thank you” before leaving without taking it.

From behind, I watch his retreating form - his back is very straight when he walks. At this moment, his footsteps gradually turn from heavy to relaxed. I watch as he takes out his phone to make a call, disappearing into a corner of the corridor.

I hope this will be the last time we meet.

With anticipation in my heart, I push the door to the office. The man stands at the window, as though waiting for something.

“Why did you choose to let Gavin leave?” I ask.

The man returns to the desk, the NW symbol on the wall behind him seeming to become the heaviest shadow, caging him. He says calmly, “Behind this position, I’m also a father. Even though I’m not qualified.”

He pulls open a hidden drawer, retrieving a yellowed photograph from inside - I know that what’s on it is the image of a beautiful woman who remains in the memories of everyone.

I recall the night on which he knew Wardia had passed on, and recall the child who had splinters all over his body, his face filled with resistance and despair. It was such an endless, heavy night. The next day, the man had already collected his wavering and crumbling self. It’s as though all the pain I saw was just an illusion.

That child from back then has already grown up. He has grown up to have an indomitable spirit, and to the point where nobody can overlook him.

Just like what his mother had anticipated, he has become a strong protector.

For an inexplicable reason, I suddenly speak. “Actually, the two of you are very similar.”

The man immediately shakes his head. “He’s more outstanding. Back then...”

At this point, he seems to sink into a short contemplation, and doesn't continue. 

I don’t harp on this topic. Taking out the file, I give him a report on the final verdict of all the experiments in the NW Project.

The original intention of this project was to utilise absolute abilities to get rid of rebellious Evolvers, and reduce the damage between civilians and Evolvers. During the project, we fulfilled this original intention, though it also brought about several inevitable problems. And right now, perhaps it’s time for it to leave the stage.

After waiting for a very long time, I finally hear the man’s announcement. “The NW Project will officially end one week later.”

Perhaps we have already been waiting for this moment for a very long time. I pack up the files, and give him a salute - as well as to everyone who has contributed to this project and to this world.

Very soon, this project will be covered in dust and enter the vast and long tide of history, and will never be spoken of by anyone.

Only those glistening stars continue to illuminate the boundless and long night.

-

A translated comic based on (but not entirely) on this R&S: here

[bbykpoper]

Chapter 3 // Masterlist

GENRE: mafia au, fluff, a bit of smut, a smudge of angst if you squint your eyes hard enough, possible fantasy????

WARRNING: description of murder and blood at the end, viewer discretion is advised!!!

SYNOPSIS: A centuries old feud which kept itself silent suddenly ignites once again as two warring gangs face each other for the first time. A family of established immortals who came together after the war, a band of humans who began remembering their past lives and officials breathing down their neck threaten the world once again as fantasy and reality clash in the form of a young man hell bent on being in the lead and a young woman hell bent on ending this meaningless feud. A story will unfold before you now, questioning your morals as well as grinding your nerves to the edge.

“A princess turned assassin?”

“A coward turned prince?”

Who will survive the last wave of this war?

°˖✧

“I don’t trust them. Why are they here?” Mark spoke as two of Bangtan’s finest sat outside their meeting room with them. “She even killed Jaemin!”

“Shush Mark. She can hear you.” Haechan spoke up, trying to calm his friend down. 

The girl in question only observed the two, blinking occasionally to show she was alive. Her back was glued to the wall as she sat on the small bench, Solas by her side observing the commotion inside the NCT dining room. Forcas and Beelzebub were facing two very annoyed individuals, one of them being Johnny who had lost the race to Yeonjun earlier this night. 

“She killed our youngest and you want us to work with her?!” Brain was screeching at the two Bangtan men. Both of them sighed thanking every possible Gods out there that Yoongi was not here, or Jongkook. Those two would have lost their temper a long time ago and killed at least half of the house before y/n could stop them. “The fuck do you think we are?! We can take care of our problems by ourselves!”

“Oh? Is that so?” Forcas smirked in amusement. “Then why don’t you do it by not stepping into our territory of business?”

“We do what we have to, and we have similar interests with the Chinese regarding you.” Brain seethed through his teeth.

“Then I guess this conversation is over.” Beelzebub sighed, standing up along with Forcas. “Such a waste of time.”

Solas and Fae noticed the two walking up to them and both stood up catching the two babysitters off guard at the quickness of their movements. Forcas softly smiled at her and placed his hand on her head, a coping method to soothe his anger, and gently patted the younger girl.

“Wait, wait.” The leader of NCT, Lee Taeyong also known as Boss, was quick to stop the group from leaving. “Please excuse my subordinate, his anger keeps talking for him.” The four individuals didn’t seem amused. “I apologize in his stead. May we start over?”

“We are very busy individuals Mr. Taeyong.” Beelzebub narrowed his eyes, the air around them taking on a certain buzz. “We don’t have time to play childish games with men who can’t do orderly business in a disciplined fashion.”

“Then do business with only me and Boss.” Johnny spoke up from next to Fae, the girl only observing him from the corner of her eye. She noticed his intention of coming closer to her even before he thought of it. His body language was too obvious for her. “We will close the doors and come to an agreement, without anybody interrupting us.”

“Seems quite fair.” Forcas spoke, motioning for Solas to step in between Johnny and Fae. “But, I have a condition.” 

“We’re listening.”

“Keep Brain away from Fae.” Was the simple condition.

“Why? Scared I’m going to kill her?” He mocked, glaring at the girl. He was met with the most emotionless pair of eyes, which slightly glazed over with something which Brain could only identify as blood thirst.

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure she will kill you first.” Forcas smiled, coming close to him. “We wouldn’t want NCT’s top mastermind to lose his head now would we.”

“We’ll be by the car.” Fae announced and turned to leave with Solas, nodding slightly to the two men.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t you two. And be cautious!” Beelzebub yelled after them as Solas burned with embarrassment. “Now then, shall we?”

°˖✧

Kim Hanbin, Chief Inspector in charge of taking care of the whole Bangtan/Nct problem, now sat with crossed arms as four young women sat across from him. His expression was sharp as they stared down at him, with his lips trained in a tight line.

“Inspector Kim, it has come to our attention that you’ve been quite lacking with your work concerning the Bangtan gang.” Agent Manoban spoke to him, her eyes peering through the glasses she wore as she looked over a file she held in her long fingers. “No arrests were made, you are not even a step closer to finding out who their Angels of Death are-”

“Fallen Angels.” Kim Hanbin spoke up for the first time. 

“- yes, the Fallen Angels.” Agent Manoban rolled her eyes. 

“Let’s cut to the chase Inspector Kim.” Agent Kim Jennie spoke up, having enough of this spectacle her colleague and this Inspector put up. “Our superiors are not satisfied with the progress of this case and they’ve sent us to finish this, make the appropriate arrests and close it.” 

Inspector Kim didn’t speak up about this, knowing very well that he had no say in this and that if he even tries to he’ll be taken off the case. 

He’s been working on this case for the past two years and finally, a few months ago he managed to place one of his detectives as an undercover agent almost at the top to work with one of the Fallen Angels and extremely close to Fae, making contact with her on more than one occasion. He couldn’t compromise his man, and he couldn’t exactly tell these four FBI agents because they would no doubt, reveal him and endanger his life. 

And he was extremely glad that he briefed his own men on this silent code.

“All right, what do you need?” He asked, sighing and bringing his his hands on the table. 

“We will need all of the information you have gathered on the group, as well as the full support of your team.” Agent Kim Jisoo smiled softly at him. To Hanbin she seemed to be the kindest one among the four, but he knew better than to blindly go along with it. 

“We need the names and badge numbers of your team.” Agent Park handed him a piece of paper and a pen. 

Chief Inspector Kim Hanbin complied and wrote down five names. Five detectives who were part of his team and regulars at the station. 

“Aren’t you missing one?” Agent Manoban raised an eyebrow.

“One of the men was taken off the case a few months back. He is now in another division.” He spoke calmly, his eyes not giving away the secret he held.

The women nodded and took the paper from him, releasing him to go his own way. 

He went back to his division and took a seat at his cubicle as the rest of the men glanced at him, too scared to ask him anything.

“Well friends, we’re screwed.” He announced. “The FBI is going to become part of this team and investigation. They asked for all of your info and names, while they will most likely look into Jiwon to see if he really is in another division or not. I believe we will co-operate with them and not get ourselves in trouble or in sticky situations.”

“Yes sir!” They all answered, noticing how Agent Manoban observed the interaction closely.

The men went back to their tasks at hand as Hanbin looked over to his desk where a picture of him with his whole team stood. They really didn’t need the FBI breathing down their necks right now, but if this is what it meant for them to keep themselves on the case, then he’ll be damned if he couldn’t take it.

°˖✧

Fae sat on the hood of the car observing the two designated babysitters as they paced left and right. They were annoyed and on edge to have to keep an eye on them but at the same time there was something more. They were anxious, as if they were expecting something to happen.

“Hey Tae, do you feel the shift in energy in the air?” She turned to look at her friend who also seemed restless to a point.

“Yes. But it’s coming from the east. Outside of the house and their border of territory.” He spoke up, his eyes trained on the spot where he felt this sudden shift of energy.

“I’ll go check up on it and you go tell Joon and Jin.” He nodded at her as she swiftly disappeared in the shadows. 

Her footsteps were light on the ground as she neared the place of question. Her dark eyes trained on the group of people before her became lighter when she noticed it was someone who they could have expected. Approximately seven men, in dark clothing stood with guns at the ready, mask pulled up so their faces were revealed. Faint talking revealed to her that they were not Korean, but rather Chinese and that their target was to take out the four of them from Bangtan with the help of NCT.

“Rubbish.” She seethed out through her teeth as her eyes steeled themselves like the blade of her katana which she carried with her.

“I know right? Some of our kids are not exactly well behaved and they called them over.” Johnny’s voice came as a whisper, but (y/n) didn’t care much of it. She saw red and wanted them dead, as much as she wanted every single NCT member to lay their last breaths under her blade. “Please don’t look at me like that. I fear I cannot allow you to kill our kids.”

Wait a minute, he can read my thoughts?

“A little bit. Weird isn’t it?” He smiled widely at her. “It’s quite easy with you, even though I thought it would be harder.”

The movement from the seven men caught her attention and averted her gaze from the man crouching next to her in the high tree branch. Without a second glance, she jumped onto the one directly above one of the men in the back and she landed on him, her blade running through the middle of his head. She pulled it out quickly and with a swift turn cut two more heads off, before she slid into the shadows of the nearby tree line. The other four took to a stop when one turned to see the decapitated bodies of their companions and this gave (y/n) leverage to slide out round them and cut two of the mens feet off in one swift swish. The scream they let out alerted the rest of her existence but she was too fast, and in three flowing moves, their bodies were cut in half.

The minute she exhaled a breath and sheathed her sword, her eyes narrowed in on the overly excited man still stuck in the tree branch where she originally was.

“Who are you, Johnny Seo?”

[kuroo-shitsurou]

Communicate (Haiba Lev x kuudere!Reader)

note: first entry for haikyuu! i'm open for requests, just hmu! i apologize for any mistakes. some of my stories were intentionally made to be f!reader, but i figured gn!reader would be more appropriate. so i apologize if you see any she/her/names that are in the text. ^^

(i'm adding w/c now as well!)

word count: 3.8k

"He's not coming back tonight, no?"

For a few moments, there was silence. A gust of wind blew past the apartment complex, rustling the leaves of the trees planted down below. You sat on the chair set up on your balcony. Looking over the metal railings, you admired how the yellow and red taillights of cars stuck in traffic bobbed up and down the street. Somehow, they looked like Christmas lights tossed in a messy line; Like they were discarded the morning right after Christmas because the tree had to be taken down again.

You hugged the jacket closer to your arms, hoping to gain more warmth. Inhaling the fresh scent of laundry detergent, you smiled. Eyes crestfallen and tears just barely swimming in your ducts. The cold breeze of December brushed past your hair, tickling the back of your neck. It's the first Christmas I'm spending without you.

Your cat, Maika, jumped on your lap. She purred and mewled, rubbing her head against your warm hand. You managed to choke out a small chuckle, petting the white fur of the cat. You let your eyes wander to the glass doors connecting the living room and balcony. Your couch was there, a duvet carelessly thrown on top of it. You shouldn't help but let a few drops of salty tears fall down your cheeks.

You weren't really the type of person to cry over silly things. In fact, you rarely cried at all. As far as you remember, the last time you cried over something petty was back in second grade. You were teased for cutting your own hair; Your bangs looked choppy, and one classmate even mentioned how you managed to cut a giant chunk out from the back of your head. Admittedly, you were pretty stupid for messing around with the scissors you found on the table, but you didn't really know any better. Anyway, who knew that hair took so long to grow back?

Other than that, you don't recall crying anymore. Throughout your middle and high school years, tears weren't really present to disrupt your life. Not even when Kuroo accidentally spiked a ball into the back of your head, and not even when Yaku accidentally kicked your shin because you were standing too close to his original target, Lev.

Lev.

Although you didn't find any reason for letting yourself cry during those years, you couldn't help but tear up when you remembered Lev. You were incredibly proud of yourself for counting up to five days without crying every since Lev left your shared apartment. However, today was Christmas eve. There were approximately three hours before Christmas, and here you were, spending it with Maika, on the balcony, crying your eyes out.

To be completely honest, you knew that it was your fault that Lev left. You were a rather independent person. You had a bold personality; Never afraid of being blunt to people, never afraid of telling others if they needed to be scolded. However, you were an absolute novice when it came to showing affection to Lev.

It was a surprise, to say the least, to the entire volleyball team that the cold-hearted manager, _____-san, was dating the eccentric and hyperactive first year, Haiba Lev. Yaku, Kuroo, and Kai were in shock upon hearing the news from Lev. At first, they thought he was just kidding, but when they heard it from you, their minds were beyond boggled.

-

"Eh?!"

"Seriously?"

"Kuroo-san, why do you look so surprised? You too, Yaku-san. And Kai-senpai, I didn't think you'd be interested in my love life as well." You calmly said, clipboard firm against your chest, as your eyes scanned the volleyball posters displayed in the volleyball club room.

"W-Well, I didn't think it was actually true because Lev was the one saying it. I thought he was just bullshitting us." Yaku admitted, scratching the back of his head before sending you a sheepish smile.

"You're growing up too fast, _____-san!" Kuroo quipped, wrapping his arms around you like a doting aunt, "You have a boyfriend now, I'm getting old!"

"Kuroo-san, please stop patronizing me. I have feelings too. Why does this come as a surprise to you all? Inuoka-kun and Futakuchi-kun also asked me if Haiba-kun and I were actually dating. It's not like I'm a robot or anything, I can... contract love too." Your disheveled form pried Kuroo's arms away from you, and you dusted your shoulders off as if Kuroo left dirt atop of them.

"You don't contract love, _____. It's not a disease." Yaku laughed at your poor choice of words.

"You, see _____-san, we just didn't think that you were interested in romance for the time being, and for you to be dating someone like Lev, it's surprising. In a good way, though, don't get me wrong. Lev's a good kid." Kai was the calmest of the bunch, but he was simply masking his happiness. He was the one who invited you to be their manager, after all. He saw how you grew out of your shell gradually. It's nice to see you enjoying the years of your youth, as Kuroo would put it.

"Ah, I see. To be honest, I didn't think I would also participate in a romantic relationship with anyone this early on. However, Haiba-kun successfully caught my attention. I think it would be a fun experience. Whatever happens, I get to grasp a further understanding of our Russian first year, and I also gain knowledge on the department of... love." You mentioned nonchalantly.

Kuroo, Yaku, and Kai all exchanged knowing looks; Something that screamed: "Are you sure you're not a robot?"

"_____-chan!" Lev's excited voice was heard from outside of the gym. The first years finally arrived, signifying that practice would begin soon.

"Pardon me. Thank you for your time." You bowed politely to the three seniors and walked over to where the first years were leaving their things.

"_____-chan I missed you a lot today! I only got to see you in free period earlier, and that was barely 10 minutes, but you're here now!" Lev was like a puppy. He was bouncing around, showering you with genuine compliments and adorations, his smile reaching the heavens above. Perhaps, if you pat his head, an invisible tail would wag? You considered the idea.

You managed to hold back a smile of your own, only replying with, "Get prepared for practice, Haiba-kun."

"_____-chan, you can call me Lev, you know? Since we are dating and all." The Russian said softly, wanting to get his point across, but not wanting to scare you.

"Maybe next time, Haiba-kun."

-

When you slipped inside your living room, you couldn't help but let out a few more sobs. There was a Christmas tree left half decorated just beside your television. Cans of tea and red bull were laying just on the feet of the couch. Half-empty and empty packets of chips were on the coffee table. God, you left the living room in such a messy state.

You pulled Lev's enormous (Well, it was enormous on you. But on Lev, it was the perfect size) jacket closer to your body, wishing you could smell his scent instead of the laundry detergent.

Maika wandered into the living room and onto her cat bed, stretching her paws and making herself comfortable before she went to take a nap.

You couldn't help but acknowledge the absolute dumpster fire when you saw yourself in the full body mirror near the entrance of your hallway. You were wearing a pair of fuzzy pajamas, an oversized shirt covered in stains and crumbs, and Lev's Nekoma jacket. Your hair was messy and ruffled, and you looked... pale. Eyes red and swollen, cheeks puffy, but your lips were white. You had never looked so awful before.

-

"_____-chan, you look amazing as always!" Lev came bounding to you.

"Congratulations on graduating! I'm so proud of you!" He took you in a tight embrace, lifting you up and spinning you around.

"H-Haiba-kun, please put me down!" You squealed, wriggling around in Lev's grip, trying to get away. For a split second, you could've sworn that Lev's face darkened, but you decided to brush it off.

Once your feet touched the ground, you managed to say a short and quiet "Thank you."

"Ah, this is really happening, isn't it?" Lev shoved his hands in his pockets, looking up at the cherry blossom trees in full bloom.

"Y-Yeah. It will even eventually happen to you too, Haiba-kun. It's the way that life progresses," You knew that you were pathetic at mustering a good enough reply, so you chose to fumble with the hem of your collar.

"Hey, _____-chan, do you love me?" Lev asked, suddenly serious. His gaze was still fixated on the trees above, their branches freely swaying in the wind, a few cherry blossoms fluttering down as the breeze carried them away.

A blush creeped up on your cheeks. Of course you loved him! More than... anything, if you were being honest. More than volleyball, more than red bull, more than anime, but why couldn't you say it?

"Speak up, damn it!" You thought to yourself.

After a few minutes passed, you were still tongue-tied. You hated yourself for not being able to express your feelings. There were already tears in your eyes, but you didn't want to cry in front of Lev; You vowed that you never would.

Lev looked down to see his senior in a low mood. "Don't worry, _____-chan! It's okay if you can't say it yet, I understand." Lev caught a single cherry blossom as it was falling down and tucked it behind your ear, " I'll wait for the day that you can say it back, so for now, I'll say it for the both of us, okay?"

You were embarrassed. You were such an asshole for doing this to Lev. To make up for your lacking skills in communication, you tapped his hand. Curiously, he opened his palm, and you placed a small object on top of it.

Lev's smile contained nothing but pure, concentrated glee.

"Thank you for the button, _____-chan, I will always cherish this. Happy anniversary. I love you so much!"

-

You found yourself standing at the doorway of your shared bedroom. You longingly stared at the queen-sized bed. The sheets were crisp and the pillows were fluffed. You haven't been sleeping in that bed since Lev left the apartment. It just didn't feel right. There was something about a heavier loneliness whenever you tried to sleep alone in that bed when you were so damn used to having Lev sleep beside you. That's why you've been sleeping on the couch ever since; It's uncomfortable as all hell, yeah, but at least you don't feel a large empty space beside you when you sleep. Maybe a few crumbs here and there, but that was bearable.

You pattered your way back into the living room, where your laptop lay buried under the empty chip packets. You grabbed it from underneath the rubbish and brushed off other residue before plopping down on the couch. You slipped your arms into the sleeves of Lev's jacket and opened up your laptop. You've been neglecting your uni works for the past days because your sadness just didn't allow you to function properly.

Upon entering your passcode, the black background of the loading screen faded into a photo of you and Lev. He was wearing a minnie mouse headband, and you wore the matching mickey mouse one. You were standing in front of sleeping beauty's castle at Tokyo disneyland. You were wearing Lev's gray hoodie, which made it look like you were wearing a really short dress because of how long it was. You were both smiling like idiots, and you recalled that that trip was one of the best of your life. You never usually smiled like that, but because Lev carried you bridal style and kept touching your sides, you couldn't help but squirm and smile in the photo.

Once again, tears were brimming in the corners of your eyes. The stinging pain of heartbreak and regret stabbing you over and over again.

-

"It's Christmas in five days, _____." Lev popped up from behind you while you were decorating the tree.

"Jeez! Don't scare me like that, I nearly dropped the lights." You replied, calming your racing heart. Was it because of how he scared you, or because of how close he was? Honestly. you couldn't tell.

Lev could only chuckle at this, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He gave you a kiss on the cheek. "You know, my first year at uni has been great so far. Thanks to you and a few of my friends."

"That's great then." You said, tone of voice returning to a monotone one.

"I love you, _____."

You couldn't even recall all the times that you froze up whenever Lev admitted his feelings for you, but add one to whatever number it's at right now.

You could only swallow your saliva and grip the lights tighter. Say it, ______, say it! You kept yelling in your head. Why can't you fucking say it?!

"I knew it." A low laugh was heard from Lev's mouth. His fists were turning white because of how hard he balled them up. His nails were digging into his palm. "Sometimes, I wonder if you even actually love me. But I guess you never did."

You turned your head abruptly. "Haiba, that's-"

Lev let out a hearty laugh, throwing his head back. "We've been dating for over three years now and you still call me by my last name. Are you that uncomfortable with me, _____-san?"

You cringed at how he emphasized the honorific following your name, probably trying to prove a point.

"You know that's not true."

"Of course it is!" He snapped. " For god's sake, _____, three years! Three years, and not once have you told me that you love me!"

You were on the brink of crying. No. No, not in front of him. You weren't weak, you weren't going to cry.

"In all those years that we've been together, I have never seen you cry. Not even when we're upset with one another. Are you... that cold-hearted that you don't care or you don't even feel anything? Not even for your own boyfriend?"

Silence.

The words he spat were like venom.

You couldn't speak. Your mouth felt dry and your throat felt like it closed in an instant, like some sort of invisible throat cover just squeezed itself right there, preventing you from speaking.

"I see how it is."

With that, Lev spun on his heel and went to their room. He grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with a couple of shirts, his wallet, his phone, charger, and other necessities. He slipped on the thickest jacket he owned and went straight to the front door.

"Le-"

"Goodbye."

He slammed the door shut.

-

That was probably the first time that you broke down in years. Who knew that it would be a guy behind your facade fading?

Who knew that Haiba Lev would be the one to make you realize that being strong-willed didn't mean being cold-hearted and nonchalant?

"Stupid Lev." You muttered to yourself, hugging your knees to your chest. Admittedly, his name seemed to roll off your tongue nicely.

You desperately tried to wipe your tears away, but they just kept coming.

"Why do I love you so much?"

-

"Lev, are you sure you're okay with what you're doing?" Yaku asked the taller male, taking a sip from his beer mug.

"Yaku-san, we've been together for a little over three years. They've never told me that they loves me. Never even cried. I think they're just that stone-hearted," Lev replied, taking a shot of vodka. "Either that or they're a fucking robot."

He fiddled with the necklace around his neck, contemplating whether he was going to pull it off and stomp on it until it broke. The charm attached to his necklace was the button that _____ gave him on back during her graduation day.

"Lev, you better listen to me, and you better listen real fucking good." Yaku's tone of voice was sharp, and it was something that Lev hasn't heard since his years at Nekoma. "You do know that _____ can't express their emotions well, right? They're blunt with everybody, and they're honest. But when it comes to love or romance or feelings that make them happy, you know that they can't show it as easily as you do."

"Yeah, I know." Lev answered quietly.

"But you do know that they love you, right?"

"I don't."

"You're telling me that you've never even felt that they love you?"

Suddenly, Lev's eyes shot open.

-

"Christ, you're going to catch a cold! Why the hell did you run out in this rain?!"

"Sorry, sorry! I just had to rush here to see you! I missed you soooo much!"

"Get inside and hop in the shower. I'll prepare some warm food for you while you're in there. There's a spare towel in the cupboard above the sink."

"Thank you, _____-chan!"

-

"Stupid beanpole. I told you to change clothes after practice yesterday, didn't I?"

"Sorry, _____-chan. I totally forgot." He coughed.

"Here, drink this medicine. I'll reheat your porridge and grab you a cold towel for your head. I'll also bring in the assignments that Inuoka gave me."

"You'd be a good wife, _____-chan. My wife, that is." Another cough.

"Shut up and rest before I hit you with this notebook."

"Yes, yes, darling."

-

"Where were you?! We've been looking for you everywhere!"

"S-Sorry, _____-chan. I saw this cat stuck in a tree and I just had to rescue it!"

"Don't go running off like that! Do you know how worried the team was? How worried I was?! I thought you were gone! Look at how many scratches you have on your arm. You need to go to the infirmary, now."

"I-I'm sorry."

"Just... Don't do it again, please. Always be in my line of sight."

"Yes, _____-sama!"

-

"Haiba, here's your water bottle."

-

"Haiba, the forecast said that there might be a downpour in the afternoon. Don't forget to bring an umbrella."

-

"Haiba, you left your books at the gym. Here. Jeez, don't be so forgetful next time."

-

"Haiba, here, I bought your favorite meal. Furihata said that you forgot your lunch at home. You can't go hungry."

-

"Haiba, you're doing well. Your progress report shows continuous growth. I'm proud of you."

-

"I'm a fucking idiot." Lev said. His emerald green eyes were filled with tears. "Excuse me, I have to go."

With that, he dashed out of the bar, leaving a confused Yaku with a drunk Kuroo passed out behind him.

The former libero could only sight and take a giant gulp of beer.

"Damn right you are."

-

You were full on crying right now. Approximately 10 minutes before Christmas, and here you were, crying on the couch. Maika had given up on comforting you, but remained by your side as you bawled you eyes out, offering some sort of moral support or assurance that someone was there for you.

However, a few moments passed, and Maika's ears perked up. She jumped down from the couch and made her way to the front door of the apartment. She lightly scratched the door.

"M-Maika, I'm sorry. I know I'm being too loud, I'll pipe down soon." The girl blubbered, blowing into a tissue.

As if on cue, there were multiple knocks on the door.

Fuck's sake.

You didn't even care that you'd be facing whoever is on the other side of the door while looking like this. Your eyes were puffier, the bags under them more prominent. Your nose was a rosy red color, cheeks flushed and tear stains were obvious on them.

"Who the fuck-?"

As soon as you opened the door, a sudden warmth engulfed your body. The familiar fragrance you loved so much flooded your blocked nostrils.

"Le-"

"I'm sorry."

There was silence.

"I'm so sorry for everything that I said, _____. I take all of it back. I know that you love me. Your love language isn't vocal and I should have been more accepting and understanding of that. I may not know your reasons for being the way you are, but I promise you that I accept you wholly. I'm so, so fucking sorry that I left so suddenly. I love you so much. I'm never leaving you again."

Sobs racked through your body. Your form was shaking in Lev's arms. He was surprised. It's the first time he's seen you cry, and it breaks his heart knowing that he's the reason behind it.

"I'm sorry, kitten. Please don't cry anymore."

"Lev," You started, attempting to calm down, and Lev swore his heart stopped beating for a second, "I love you."

For a moment, everything stopped. They could hear the neighbors yelling "Merry Christmas!" in their own units.

"P-Pardon?"

You giggled. "I love you, Lev. I'm really sorry that it took me this long to tell you. I guess I was just scared of telling you how I really felt because... I didn't want you to think that I was cheesy or..."

Lev cut you off with a kiss. It was short and sweet. He could taste red bull and barbecue chips on your lips, and you could taste vodka on his. It was imperfect, but it was yours, and you loved it.

"I love you so much, _____. This is the best Christmas gift I've ever received."

"I love you too, Lev."

"Come on, let's get inside. I bought some takeout for us to eat." He easily lifted you up with one arm and grabbed the plastic bag of takeout with his free hand.

"Yeah, about that," You buried your face in his neck, "I'm sorry."

"We'll... Clean up tomorrow." He chuckled, looking at the messy state your living room was in. "We'll eat in our room, okay? Why don't you get cleaned up first, and I'll prepare the things we need." He placed a kiss on your cheek.

"Alright, Lev." You replied, "Sorry for causing a lot of trouble."

"Don't be sorry, malishka. We're fine now, okay? We have each other and we understand each other better now." He set you in front of the bathroom. "Now, go ahead and shower! I'll get a fresh set of clothes for you and leave them out here."

"Thank you, Lyovochka." You grinned, using Alisa's nickname for him.

"Anytime, babe." Lev turned around to go to the bedroom until,

"Hey, Lev?" You showed your head out of the bathroom door.

"Yes, _____?"

"I love you!"

The, the door was slammed shut.

"_____, you're too cute!" Lev had to use every strand of will power he had to not faint on the spot.

Who knew that his kuudere partner was such a huge softie?

Maola mewled and rubbed her head against Lev's leg.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Maika."