#JUST IN CASE IM RIGHT. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST THOUGH

[sunahsvt]

—FLOWERS FOR YOU.

kuroo tetsurou x fem!reader

+ angst and fluff, childhood friends to lovers (guess how it ends lmao)

other tags: just mentions of love making (idk im bad at these), small cases, not entirely canon

word count: 9.5k

note: came back from writing after a good 3 years. this is NOT proofread and was written within 6 hours so it's just word vomit TT

DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE, OR POST ANYWHERE IN OTHER PLATFORMS

you love receiving flowers.

at first, you thought it was a such a waste of money. this thought rooted from the fact that you're not from a wealthy family. you weren't poor either. middle class, they would say.

you just turned 8 years old when you realized money doesn't grow on trees. when your parents bought you cake, but when your classmates had their birthdays, they would throw princess parties— cake, flowers, toys, and all.

you didn't want to sound ungrateful, so with a smile, you blew the candles and thanked your parents as they hugged you. regardless, you were grateful with what they can give you.

kuroo was the first one to give you flowers— or should you say, a flower. it wasn't a bouquet, but it was, in fact, a flower.

you both just met at a playground. his family just moved in the neighbourhood yesterday, and thanks to the soft chatters of your mom's neighbour friends, you heard he's the same age as you. the shy person you were, you sneaked out of your house to play in hopes you'd meet him there. (you had no idea what he looked like or what his name was.)

you were on the swings. you've been waiting for a solid hour. at 4:30pm, your parents would have realized you weren't in your room. it was almost dark out and dinner would be ready.

at 4:50pm, you decided maybe he has no interest in playing at the park. you were about to get up when a boy with spikey black hair came running towards you. you took a few cautious steps back before he could reach you while you also noticed the rose in his hand.

"hi! im tetsurou!" he exclaimed, attempting to hide the rose behind him. he sure can't hide things, you thought.

"i just moved here," he swiveled his body just to point where his house was. "it's that one with the white roof!"

although you already knew which house he moved to, you were trying your best to look for it from where you stood. he was much taller than you for someone of the same age.

distracted, the rose that he tried his best to hide from you earlier was now right in front of your small face.

"a rose for you!" he said as he smiled so brightly you almost squinted. hesitant and confused, you took the rose from him anyway.

"y/n," you muttered.

"i saw a rose on the way here and thought maybe i could give it to someone," he explained. "you're the only one here so maybe it's destiny!"

a small smile formed on your lips, fidgeting the rose's torns. maybe it is destiny to wait for you for that long. you're careful not to prick yourself.

you played together for a while because at 5:00pm, the sun was already setting and you thought maybe receiving flowers wasn't so bad after all.

since then, you and tetsurou were inseperable.

tetsurou gave you another flower shortly after that. he had surprised you with a small makeshift bouquet with three roses wrapped in colored paper.

unlike last time with smiles and bright energy, he gave it to you in a sheepingly manner while muttering a "happy birthday". he added that he kept a silent promise to himself that'd he'd get you at least two flowers, better than last time.

you smiled, your smile reaching your eyes. he was so proud of himself from your reaction. you also noticed the torns were scrapped off. this made your heart swell even more with joy.

"where have you been getting these though?"

he scratched the back of his head, "you know that garden next to—"

"i knew it!" you laughed. you told him to stop stealing your poor neighbour's garden of roses before he gets caught. that lady had the nastiest attitude, you warned. all he did was pout.

a month later, tetsuro got caught stealing roses from your neighbour's garden, and he never attempted to steal the roses ever again. that lady has a nasty attitude, he went to you right after he was scolded by your parents. you shook your head, trying your best not to laugh and tell him "i told you so."

after that mishap, he decided he'd get creative instead. so the next time he gave you flowers, it was purely made out of colored paper. the kuroo tetsuro, at 9 years old, did arts and crafts all on his own and at his own will at that. it took him a whole month just to finish 12 paper flowers.

"why do you keep giving me flowers?"

"i like you, silly."

at 9 years old, you realized you loved receiving flowers.

if the paper flowers wasn't creative enough, tetsurou had given you flowers made out of all sorts of materials: crepe paper, post-it notes, clay, satin ribbons, pipe cleaners, papers from books (don't worry, not out of his text books), and so much more. all of them were so beautiful.

at 10 years old, he gave you a bouquet of flowers made out of crochet yarn. he even told you it took him months to learn how to crochet, master it, and finish the entire thing. little did he know, whenever you visit his house, you could see the crochet yarns, results of failed attempts of crochet flowers, and crochet tools hidden away in one of his cabinets left slightly ajar. he sure can't hide things, you chuckled to yourself.

flowers of all types made out of all kinds of materials were given to you, and all of them you happily received from tetsurou. until at 15 years old, when he had saved enough money for all the years he had given you diy flowers, he surprised you with a bouquet mixed of all types of real flowers after your first day of high school. this is why you can't seem to have a favourite flower, he noticed that too.

"you sure you don't have a favorite flower?" he asked again.

"i'm really coming out blank," you were carrying yet another bouquet of flowers and crochet coin purse he made, walking home together after his volleyball training. "i love all of them the same."

"how about me?" he teased.

you giggled, "but you already know that i love you!"

"we'll make it official someday," he promised.

you nodded, contented. i may not have a favourite flower, but "just because" flowers from you are always the best.

after the both of you turned 17, you two made your relationship official, deciding why wait when both of you were certain you have the rest of your lives to love each other plus bragging rights for that.

on his last year as nekoma's captain and middle blocker, you watched from the sidelines how nekoma lost against karasuno, concluding his last game in high school.

at 18, you gave him a bouquet of flowers of red roses wrapped in mixtures of black, red, and white cellophane. touched, he cried yet again in your arms. kenma and his other teammates watching the two of you from a far, smiling with tears in their eyes waiting to spill.

at 19, you both got accepted to your dream universities. you also got accepted at a cafe for a part time job, whereas tetsurou got accepted in his university's volleyball team. all is well.

on your 3rd anniversary, you both celebrated at an art cafe museum. he had given you a promise ring (soon to be engagement ring, he teased), a handwritten letter, and of course, a bouquet of flowers.

three down, a lifetime to go, part of the letter says. the whole night you both expressed just how in love you were with each other. you actually saw the shreds of the receipt of the ring he purchased under your shared bed. he still can't hide things, you chuckled.

at 21, when both of you graduated uni with flying colors and when he decided to go pro, things started to change.

when the flowers you would receive weren't personally given from tetsurou in the flesh, and instead, they were delivered at your office or at your shared home. when the "just because" flowers turned into "i"m sorry" flowers— "i'm sorry i was late last time" flowers, "i'm sorry i'm never home nowadays" flowers, "i'm sorry i can't update as much", "i'm sorry i can't make it" flowers.

it all became too much.

you were starring at the engagement ring on your finger— one of tetsurou's 5th anniversary surprise— when the doorbell rang. you dragged your feet to the front door, already know what to expect.

by the 10th flowers you received via delivery, you stopped counting. sometimes when tetsurou disappointed or upset you, he would either facetime you, give you flowers, or in rare times, he would be radio silent— not a single text or message or call. because how can he notice you were slowly fading away when he was so busy all the goddamn time?

this cycle repeated over and over again for 2 years. you can tell he tries so hard to keep communicating with you. he loves you that much.

it was 4:50pm, the sun was almost setting and you were in your car waiting for him at the airport. his team was miraculously given a month off to rest from the constant training and leagues. he kissed you as soon as he got inside, putting his things at the back seat. he handed you a single rose made out of paper which was colored with, as you can tell, a red marker.

this was the first time in 24 years that he gave you a lone flower instead of a bouquet.

"i bought you a lot of things! i remembered you mentioning them!" he beemed.

before you could say "you didn't have to" he pecked your lips, wiggling a finger at you. "i missed you. let me you love you just how i have been doing so for the past 24 years."

so for a month, he did. he made it up to you so well, showering you with kisses the moment you wake up and the moment you fall asleep, making love to you in every part of the house, telling you stories and becoming such a loser in love when he expresses how much he loves you all the while rubbing his thumb on the back of your hand, or you being wrapped up in his arms. not a single milimeter of space between the two of you. most of the time, he would do everything, from cooking to cleaning.

when you would eat out together, he would always give you the princess treatment. you barely lifted a finger during the whole month of his stay.

on his last day before he had to leave for overseas again, you wondered when will you ever get married.

and so when he made love to you that night, when he kissed you goodbye, when he texted again that they just landed, you had a sickening feeling in your gut.

for a few weeks, everything was fine until he gradually became radio silent again. this time, he rarely delivered flowers, or called, or texted. this time, he was mostly a ghost.

the first message from him and flowers via delivery was given to you a day late on your birthday, and that's where you decided you just can't do this anymore.

you prolonged it for weeks, even after he said he won't be having any oversea activities for a while. it just wasn't the same anymore. he was still never home.

"i love you," he said out of the blue, his eyes downcasted. all these years, he's still bad at hiding things from you.

"i love you, tetsurou," he turned his head to look at you, dreading what you would say next, "but i think we should break up."

he tried. you both tried, but it just didn't work anymore. maybe it was destiny to wait for you for so long— but that doesn't mean it works. for 24 years, you loved each other so much— but that doesn't mean it works.

after crying in each other's arms, he let you go.

you had the rest of your lives to love each other— but from afar.

a year and a half after the break up, you were sitting at a cafe, waiting for the blind date your friend at work set up for you. kenma was against the whole idea, but he realized you had the right to move on from kuroo. you and kuroo both did. the two of you were his best friends after all. it was just sad how he had to witness the both of you barely functioning after the break up, all the while doing his best not to talk to you or kuroo about each other.

so when a boy with dark brown hair went inside, quickly approaching you, you thought this was a bad idea.

"are you y/n?"

you nodded slowly, eyeing what he was holding. your heart was in your throat.

his eyes shone, handing you the bouquet— yellow daffodils and red roses.

at that moment you thought:

you hate receiving flowers.

general masterlist | haikyuu masterlist

DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE, OR POST ANYWHERE IN OTHER PLATFORMS. feedbacks, comments, and rbs are appreciated!

[luveline]

IM BEGGING ON MY KNEES PLEASEEEE 🔥🔥🔥 NOTICE MEEEE

Really quiet and shy reader who’s new to the team and Spencer JUST got out of prison like a month ago and he comes back and sees the cutest girl he’s ever seen so young and new to the team and can’t help but tease her

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE🧎🏾‍♀️🧎🏾‍♀️🧎🏾‍♀️🙇🏽‍♀️🙇🏽‍♀️

Unit Chief Emily Prentiss scares the fuck out of you, but you're still not as intimidated by her as you are by Dr. Reid. 

Dr. Reid, and not Special Supervisory Agent Reid —there's a big difference— shouldn't be a scary guy. He doesn't have any tattoos or piercings, his haircut is tame, and you watch him pour enough sugar into his coffee to weaken the enamel of your teeth just looking at it. But while all or this is true, Dr. Reid just came back from a weeks long stint in one of the most tense prisons in the world. Emily assured you in her way that everything bad you may have heard about Dr. Reid would be false, and that anything positive is true. 

He looks different to how you'd pictured him. Emily's promise aside, Garcia painted him as some sweater-wearing Teddy bear of a boy who likes chess and Doctor Who. 

This is a man. Full grown, full suit, dark-eyes. You're not sure what to feel as he spots you. When Anderson gave you the desk across from Spencer's you'd thought you were lucky, getting treated as part of the team from the very beginning, but now you're not so sure. 

“Hey,” he says, eyes on you as he puts down his coffee atop a stack of medical journals. His things were left untouched while he was gone, even though he was technically separated from the bureau. He's well respected. “I've been excited to meet you. I'm Spencer.” 

“Dr. Reid,” you say immediately, standing up from your chair to meet him besides your desks. 

“Spencer,” he says again. “I don't shake.” 

“Oh, no, of course not,” you say, hiding your hands behind your back. “I know you were here long before me, but I can safely say how nice it is to have you back.” You smile. “They were all so worried about you.” 

“You kept them in line while I was gone?” 

“No, I was useless. I've never felt this stupid in my life.” 

“That's just how it feels for the first year.” He isn't smiling, isn't frowning, a hint of amusement in his eyes and hands steady as he tucks them into his pants pockets. “It's not the others, is it?” 

“No, there's just a lot to learn.” 

“It shouldn't be hard for you, though, right?” He gestures to you like this means something. 

“I don't…” 

“You're what, twenty four?” Spencer picks up his mug and takes a drink. “If you're smart enough to be here now, you'll be fine.” 

“You think so?” 

“Don't tell me you're scared, Y/N.” His lashes flare ever so slightly in feigned surprise. After a second of your obvious flustering, he laughs. “No, you don't scare easily. I can tell.” 

Absolutely nothing like you told me he'd be, Penelope. I thought we were friends. 

“So what was your last case like? The Bentley driver?” he asks, nodding toward your desk. “How's your peer reviews going? They used to drive me insane.” 

You startle and rush to sit in your desk chair, opening the case file from the last case to gather his approval. He flicks through pages, almost non-committal, though he gives a hum of approval when he reads your UnSub summary, and when he sees a comment you'd made that you'd believed to be particularly astute, he laughs. “Yeah,” he says, “you'll be fine.” The smell of him floats your way, cologne or aftershave that makes you feel dizzy. He looks down at you. “Something wrong?” 

“Nothing, uh–” You bite your tongue rather than answer and trip over another useless sentence. 

He touches the top of your shoulder lightly. “It will get easier,” he promises. 

He means work, of course, but for a split second you wonder if he means being near him. If he's like this often, you doubt that that's true. 

[ruified]

❝ home 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 ˎˊ˗

warnings: fluff, slight implied angst for oda (IM SORRY 😭), gn! reader . characters: dazai, kunikida, and oda . synopsis: your lover comes home late to find you sleeping already . a/n: this is the first time i’ve written something like this for oda which is surprising bc i love him sm 🫶 .

DAZAI fumbled with his keys outside the door to the apartment before finally getting to the right key. He unlocked the door and swung it open dramatically. “Honey, I��m home!” He sang out, expecting that you would call back to him, but he heard nothing.

He blinked away his confusion and looked around the living room from the door, nothing looked oddly out of place or suspicious aside from your absence. He quietly hung up his coat and removed his shoes before he walked inside. He swiftly made his way to the bedroom and opened the door, making not a sound. To his pleasure, he found you sprawled out across the bed, phone still in your hand, mouth slightly ajar.

Dazai came to stand beside the bed and leaned over you, he pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to your forehead which caused you to stir. You hummed drowsily and opened your eyes about halfway, just enough to see your lover staring down at you. You were far too tired to even attempt to fight back the smile that pulled up your lips when you saw him.

“Is that prince charming coming to wake me from my slumber?” You mumbled and reached out towards him, your hand cupped his cheek gently. He chuckled quietly and shook his head. “I suppose that would mean I’m your true love or something like that, right?” You nodded with a blissful smile, your hand slid down his arm to meet his hand, interlocking your fingers. “Mm… yeah, it would, I’m so lucky…”

Slowly, you tugged him towards the bed, not too forcefully though. When he didn’t come closer, you groaned in protest, causing him to laugh once again. “I have to get changed before I come to bed with you. I really can’t sleep in my work clothes.” He explained in a gentle tone, resting his palm on your forehead. His entire demeanor was soft and warm, it was hard to tell if maybe it seemed this way because you were still half asleep anyways.

“You gotta come to bed soon…” You mumbled at him. Dazai nodded. “I will, my dear, just wait for me here.”

KUNIKIDA came home looking stressed and exhausted. He set his things down halfheartedly and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. After recollecting himself, he scanned the living room and registered your absence. He made his way to the bedroom and entered, finding you tucked into bed already. He couldn’t help but smile at how peaceful you looked. He turned on one of the bedside lamps and sat on the edge of the bed, beginning to undress himself to change into his sleepwear.

Feeling something weigh down the bed, you began to stir with a groan. You rolled over and reached out slowly towards the blonde. “Kunikida… you’re home…” His head swiveled around and he gave you a nod. “Yes, sorry I’m late,” He sighed, “I had a lot of paperwork to do because we just wrapped up a big case.” You hummed pleasantly and crawled towards him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Well, you’re home now, come rest with me.”

Kunikida looked down at you as you rested against his side, putting your weight on him. He sighed softly and placed his hand atop your head gently. “I will soon, I have to change and eat. Did you eat already?” You nodded. “I made dinner and set some aside for you.”

With that, he stood up and started to leave until you grabbed his wrist. You looked up at him drowsily with a frown. “You’ll be back soon, right?” He patted your hand reassuringly and nodded. “Of course, it’s nearing the time in which I’m supposed to sleep anyways, I won’t be long.”

ODA’s jobs are always fairly unpredictable, he’s normally stuck doing obscure tasks assigned to him because he’s at the very bottom of the pecking order. In other words, it’s not completely out of the question that he gets home at varying times depending on the job. Tonight just happened to be a time in which he gets home late. When he got home, he happily found a plate of curry on rice already set aside for him. Of course, he went straight for that first, he figured you were in the bedroom anyways and he didn’t want his food to get even colder.

After finishing his meal, he washed his plate and left it to dry before going to get himself ready for bed. He used the bathroom before finally going to the bedroom, only to find you fast asleep already. Oda leaned over and kissed your temple, brushing your hair out of the way gently. You started to stir with a hum and a smile on your lips. You slowly opened your eyes and blinked away slumber, clearing your vision enough to see your lover.

Your smile widened and you reached out steadily to cup his stubbled cheek. “You’re home.” You muttered drowsily. Oda nodded and reached up to hold the hand on his face. “I’m home. I already ate, thank you for the food. I just came to get into bed.” You nodded and scooted over to make more room for him to lie down.

The two of you laid facing each other, you nestled up against him promptly, following a sort of routine. “Hard job today?” You piped up. He shrugged. “Just took a while, nothing major.” You nuzzled your face further into his chest with a content sigh. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

You laughed. He had a point, he knew how to handle himself already. Sometimes you did worry that he wouldn’t come back, especially considering his rank, but you trusted him—trusted his judgment. You held him close as you fell asleep, embracing his warmth and listening to the steady beating of his heart.

tags: @pockystixxs

[dr-spectre]

I saw this really great thread on twitter by Grungygrim and it definitely highlights my thoughts and frustrations with the story of these games and the Splatoon fandom as a whole. (be forewarned, i get really tilted in this blog post fyi.)

I made a blog post about 2 weeks ago where i said that i was happy that the narrative online that "Callie is an idiot who got kidnapped and then brainwashed/mind controlled against her consent" is going away. (Here's the link: https://www.tumblr.com/dr-spectre/749710338672525312/im-so-happy-that-the-narrative-online-that?source=share)

Unfortunately I'm gonna have to retract a lot of the stuff i said. I'm still seeing, TILL THIS DAY THAT NARRATIVE ONLINE! IM STILL SEEING SO MUCH MISINFORMATION AND IT MAKES ME REALLYYYY ANGRYYYY!!! As a big fan of Callie, people completely outright ignoring her character arc THAT WAS SET UP SINCE SPLATOON 1 BY THE WAY!!! and not even bothering to look at outside sources for more information and lore genuinely pisses me the fuck off to no end.

No, hypnosis is NOT MIND CONTROL/BRAINWASHING! I DONT WANNA KEEP REPEATING IT! YOU CAN LOOK IT UP! if a person is genuinely uncomfortable and doesn't wish to take the suggestions to heart while hypnotized, THEY WONT DO SO! THEY STILL HAVE CONTROL! Yes, Marie did say "kidnapped" in some of her dialogue, but from her perspective, OF COURSE SHE'S GONNA THINK CALLIE GOT KIDNAPPED! She's known to worry about Callie all the time and ruminate about her, of course she's gonna think of the worst case scenario, doesn't mean she's right though. Was Octavio still in the wrong for hypnotizing Callie in the first place and allowing her to bring out her darker traits more easily? YEAH! NO SHIT! HE'S A BAD DUDE! Not a totally evil person but he has made some awful decisions out of desperation for his people. Why do you think he was so quick to help out the New Squidbeak Splatoon in the finale of Splatoon 3? His people got turned into fluffy monsters by a giant bear, he's all about helping his people.

Hell look at how Callie acts while under the Hypnoshades, she decorates Octo Canyon and her peppy and energetic self is still in tact even during the final boss, she's just more mean and violent. Callie was in an emotional and mentally unwell situation due to her overworking herself and being incredibly lonely as her relationship with Marie was damaged overtime. Callie accepted the suggestions of DJ Octavio and heard him out, AS SAID BY HER FROM THE RELATIONSHIP CHART! She wasn't forced into anything. She didn't suffer "sexual abuse" from Octavio by being forced into skippy clothing as some psychos say online, if she didn't want to wear that outfit she wouldn't cause hypnosis is NOT MIND CONTROL!! I hate having to repeat this over and over again, i hate how the developers basically rushed and ruined this interesting villain arc with stupid shades, only to try and hastily fix it later with an obscure post about A GOD DAMN RELATIONSHIP CHART THAT PEOPLE EITHER DONT KNOW ABOUT OR DONT CARE TO LOOK AT BECAUSE THEY SEE SPLATOON AS SOMETHING FOR KIDS AND TO NOT GIVE ANY CARE TOWARDS!!!!!!!!

I made a god damn giant blog explaining Callie in Splatoon 2 because i felt so frustrated about how my favorite character in the series was being treated and i tried to salvage the story that the writers tried to make. The way that people made her situation worse by saying she got kidnapped and forcibly ""mind controlled/brainwashed"" actually gave me chest pain, thinking about that kind of scenario for Callie actually hurts me... Heck i cant even listen to the Splatoon 2 stage music or final boss music because hearing her reversed vocals makes me feel uncomfortable due to the misinformation online. I hated all the misinformation and i wanted it to stop. HELL EVEN IN GIANT TIMELINE VIDEOS WHERE PEOPLE DO TONS OF RESEARCH THEY STILL GET IT WRONG!! UGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! i guess it'll still be the common and popular notion that Callie is an idiot that got kidnapped and then ""mind controlled"" by some shades... oh well... ugh...

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as really angry, i am. It's just, my brain is really hyperfixated on this squid and she means a lot to me. Seeing the way the fandom as well as the writers treat her makes me really mad. I hope i can find some peeps who feel the same way as i do. Misinformation is so frustrating man... i dont even wanna get into the Octarians because that's a whole other can of worms... anyways im done ranting. have a good night or good morning wherever you live y'all.

[deathbxnny]

Alright! Here it is!

Can i request the Hashiras (Kyojuro, Giyuu, and Sanemi) reacting to their s/o reader giving him a lock of their hair to him? Historically, giving a lock of one's hair to someone has been considered a sign of love and devotion, especially before an impending parting. So what if the reader is giving their lock of hair bc they know their lover will be on a particular long mission.

I hope this is a good request to start of your return. Also yeah, i’ve been doing well! Although i cant lie im not worried on some stuff (Chainsaw man’s new chapters worries me, also did you know that Reze’s arc will get a movie and idk if im ready for the heartbreak T.T)

But regardless of that, hope you have a good day/night though!

- Flower Anon 🌸

Hello there, Flower Anon! Thank you for your cute request, I love it so much! And yeah, I'm getting very worried over Dennis myself and have heard about the movie. I'm actually a manga only reader for CSM and will probably not watch it, because the heartbreak was bad the first time, but it's cool to hear about! Also, I'm glad you're doing well otherwise and hope you'll like this!<33

Content: Small angst, fluff, Reader is not a demon slayer, established relationship, sfw

Reader has no mentioned pronouns!

((Not fully proofread))

☆Rengoku Kyojuro☆

Kyojuro, despite his passion for his work, hated leaving you behind for longer missions. He knew it hurted you more than any wound could ever hurt him and yet, the call of a crow meant his next departure was near. He tried dragging it out for as long as he could, showering you in affection and making sure you're well taken care of whilst he's gone. But eventually, you two found yourself standing at the estate's gates together once more.

He frowned at your teary gaze, when you suddenly held out something to him. "Oh!" He blinked, noting with ease that it was a lock of your hair, wrapped in a red ribbon. He chuckled, as he grabbed it carefully and made sure you saw the way he pinned it to the inside of his haori, right over his heart. He felt an even stronger fire burn through him, his heart full and heavy with his love for you. It was the first time, he ever considered abandoning his duties just to stay with you for a while longer.

But the impatient call of a crow made him refrain only barely and sigh. He put on a wide smile, a kiss pressed to your lips, before he finally turned and began leaving. He waved to you, the sun setting and making his bright eyes shine for you.

"Thank you for this beautiful gift, my love! I'm bound to come home even faster now, with you even close to my heart!"

☆Tomioka Giyuu☆

Giyuu sighed to himself in defeat, when the crow told him about his next mission. He didn't want to leave the peace he had for the last three weeks with you. But duty calls, despite him wishing it would just stop already. He moved slowly, his hands calmly fastening his Nichirin swords to his waist, dark blue eyes meeting your solemn and sad one's. He knew, that you didn't want him to leave either.

You got closer to him then, your hands replacing his, as you began helping him. It's what you often did before his departures, a way of spending time with him for one last time, just in case it took longer than it should. It was a grim reality you two didn't like facing, but reality kept you from getting too far away.

Giyuu's eyes widened ever so slightly when you suddenly tied a small charm to one of his swords. But on further inspection, he realised that a lock of your hair was attached to it. He looked up at you, but you didn't meet his gaze, perhaps out of fear of crying the moment you did.

His hand grasped yours once you were done, his lips pressing against them in a silent thank you. His heart warmed at your gesture, despite him not fully showing it. There was hesitation in the way he let go of you afterwards, but the soft words he spoke, before departing at last, said enough, even if not alot.

"I'll return to you."

☆Shinazugawa Sanemi☆

Sanemi was in a frustrated hurry to get ready, his hands quick to grab all necessary gear and clothing items for his immideate need to leave. There was an emergency mission in a far away village and he had to be there, much to his secret dismay. He had just come back from a longer mission two weeks ago and now he's forced to leave you again? He hated it, you ofcourse did as well, despite never voicing it.

He hissed out a string of curses, when he couldn't find his Haori, until you suddenly appeared next to him with it in hand. He gave you a thankful nod, as you helped him put it on, but also slipped something into his hand, whilst he finally left in a hurry, which he shoved into his pocket quickly. Thankfully he was able to steal a kiss on his way out, secretly noting to spoil you once back ofcourse.

He only looked at what you gave him, when he finally had the time to take a break. His hand reached into his Haori, humming in confusion at the sight of a silver locket. Carefully opening it, he froze when he saw a lock of your hair. Scarred fingers carefully reached to brush against it, before he sighed and shook his head.

He missed you.

Getting up, he felt restless and frustrated again, as he gathered up his things once more. He needed to get this mission over with. He can take a break, once he's in your arms again. Pushing the locket back into his pocket, he continued on his way, motivated for his need for you.

"I'm going to personally send that damned demon back to hell for you, I swear it..."

Thank you again for the great request, Flower Anon! I absolutely loved writing this and hope you enjoyed it too!<33

[jaylleoo14]

ARGHHHHHH STOPPPPPPP

FLOYD GIVES OFF SUCH CLINGLY DOG VIBES AND JADE GIVES OFF SUCH MISCHEVIOUS CAT VIBES IM GONNA KICK HIM OUT!!!!

Azul is like my little hamster. OMG WAIT NO A BUNNY, BC LIKE SEA BUNNY UKNOW????!?!?! HE"D BE A BUNNY FS (also cus fluffy and pudgy and cute :3) and plus i find it cute imaging Azul with bunny ears being a little sassy and having that strong commanding tone of voice hehehe. Wait but he could also pass as a hamster too.... Its okay either one works but im leaning more towards bunnies because I like bunnies more if I had to pick between the two. But imagine Azul's cheeks stuffed full like a chipmunks hehehe

heavily suggestive + bonus drawing:

Kicking Jade out because i'm not trying to have him spill coffee all over my laptop

I think i'd kick Floyd out too because he'd probably be a rowdy menace and mess up my furniture because he's going to be gnawing on my chair legs and table legs. Azul you are the only tame one.... for now.

Seriously, in the end of the day though I'd let them cuddle me 😔

Jade would probably try to get your attention and when he does he'd probably hit your vase and it shatters and you'd give him the most "are you kidding me?" look ever while he has his hand over his mouth looking at you so innocently, though a look of slight malice in his eyes. That little..... Then all of a sudden once you're done cleaning up your vase Jade comes over to cuddle with you because surely you'd forgive him right? I mean just look at how cute he is being, rubbing his cheek against yours. I'm imagining that they can turn into the animals and then poof back up into a human with their animalistic attributes. Still having the tails and ears like beastmen you know? Just like Jacks unique magic basically.

Floyd is your little energetic big dog who just loves giving you attention. When he's a dog he's just running around playing around with his toys and occasionally fighting with Jade. Azul is hopping around trying to find solace from the fights because he's so much tinier and more feeble in this form that he doesn't want to get dragged into it. I feel like when they do get into fights, thats when Azul turns back into his human form and just watches alongside with you. Yea, just watching. Pretty sure you wouldn't want to interfere with their fights either. But when Floyd turns back into his human form hes all over you! He's so heavy too its such a pain to move him >_< (heheh but i wouldn't mind) Ahem, but i feel like out of the three he makes it the most prominent that he wants your attention. Jade is more roundabout about it but when you usually are the first one to initiate then he's suddenly so attached to you. Once that is the case he's having you all to himself, no sharing until he's done monopolizing your space and time; leaving Azul and Floyd annoyed and ticked off as he gives them a smug look. Sometimes I feel like Azul would just be a bit shy to do or say anything to initiate. But until he warms up to you he'd also be quite clingy and needy, honestly so much so then Floyd and suddenly does get more bolder. Floyd, again, just makes it more clear much more often.

I feel like Cat Jade would be so sneaky at times too, like imagine trying to bathe but then suddenly out of nowhere Jade just appears. You're screaming your lungs out because how the hell did he get in when you closed the door and locked it?

"Fufufu, no need to fear. I was simply minding my time here is all."

A groan can be heard right behind Jade and up comes Azul as he rubs his ass, seeming to be in slight pain. "Argh 'minding my time' is a complete lie. To think i'd find you where I was planning on hiding as well."

"You guys were hiding?! Wha- get out!" Of course Azul would also be here too. As you tell them off they let out a disappointed and sad sigh, and as they proceed to open the door to leave Floyd bursts into the bathroom. "What! You guys snuck in the bathroom without me?!"

What a red face you have, they all wanted to see and be there with you while you bathed. So suddenly Floyd just goes on ahead and quickly undresses at the doorway and you bring the shower curtain over to hide your face. "Floyd! What are you doing!?" The sound of clothes being dropped on the floor can be heard every second until you hear quick stomps. Pulling the curtains back, Floyd quickly gets in the tub sitting behind you. "Scoot scoot hehe." A sharp gasped emits from your mouth and you feel his bare body against yours. A playful giggle escapes his lips and Jade and Azul just look at each other blankly. For only a moment though, until they look back at the both of you and Jade has a playful smirk on his face. Azul has a slight frown as he begins to undress himself. Floyd wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you in closer against him as he spoons you between his legs. You go stiff, a little squeal escaping your mouth as you go on to cover your face from how flustered you were getting. "Heyyyy you guys go bathe somewhere else. Me and shrimpy are already in the tub." Jade lets out a chuckle as he also quickly went ahead to take off his pieces of clothing.

"There's enough space for me to sit, dont hog (y/n) to yourself Floyd." Azul sharply quips, a huff escaping his lips. Clothes now being on the tile floor, you only start to wonder how long this was going to take.

"I think it's only fair if we were to join you in a little bathing session as well."

"Nah-uh, ya snuck in here without me."

"Thats because you're rather big to fit in the cabinet. Me and Jade barely fit in there in our animal forms."

Peeking out between your fingers you can see from the waist above looking at Azul and Jade as they seem to be having their own little competition on who'd get to the bath first. Their little competition was pretty funny to watch however, a little giggle ushering from your lips. Floyd lets out a little hum, content that he got the best seat in the house because he was able to hold you. Azul finished first because he was quick and swift with it, hurriedly coming over to get in. At the same time Jade quickly hurried his way over and as they make their way in the water splashes and spills over the edge. Azul sits behind Jade because Jade forced his way to sit in front of you, a groan ushered out of him as he is practically getting squished from behind.

"Why do I have to be in the back?! You're bigger than me!"

"I think (Y/n) would like that better then, it does hit all the good spots after all."

"Jade!" God they were going to be the death of you. To think Jade would say something so shameless as that. Though the situation was already not helping. Splashing water at him, he flinches back as he gets wet, though still chuckling from your reaction. Azul's brow twitches in annoyance and Jade can only let out a smug look. You let out a sigh as you bury you face in your hands. The tub was so cramped you couldn't even move, just sitting in the tub was all you four did. Though Floyd didn't seem to mind at all, especially when you're in his arms.

To retaliate against Jade though, Azul turns to a bunny and quickly hops on over in front. Pushing him back as he squeezes his way in to fit the tight cramped space, Azul turns back to lean in front of you now. "Its really cramped in here. Did you guys really think we could even properly bathe like this..."

"Of course not. I'd be flabbergasted if you really thought so."

"Hmmm, how about we wash you up instead shrimpy? More hands the better hehe~"

"Oh Floyd that sounds like a wonderful idea."

The water is never still, constantly sloshing and swaying as Azul, Jade, and Floyd continue to readjust themselves more comfortably. The yellow lighting in the bathroom gives off a vintage feeling and the temperature felt warmer than usual because of the tight space full of warm radiating bodies. The feeling of Floyds arms around you loosen up, making it easier to navigate around your body. Azul follows along suite and leans in close to you while Jade grabs hold of your hand and kisses it.

"After we have our fun of course. I'm sure our little caretaker would appreciate it if we were the ones cleaning them this time." Jades voice was low and smooth, your hand against his lips as he lightly nips at your skin.

"Mmmh yes, agreed. Wouldn't you like that dear?" The feeling of Azuls voice vibrates through the base of your neck as he kisses it tenderly, a low gasp escaping out of you as he hits a sensitive spot.

"I love how you feel Shrimpy, so warm and squishy~" Strong hands sway smoothly under the tight space like a slithering eel, making their way to the fats on your body. His sultry voice makes you shiver as you feel him slightly bow down to kiss the back of your neck, a satisfied hum escaping him.

This definitely was going to be a loooonnggg bathing session. But i'm sure you'll enjoy it. Afterall, they'll ensure to clean every dip and crevice of you to ensure you'd be thoroughly clean :) Plus the many kissing and intimate touches you'll share <333

Honestly why have one when you can have all three? They would definitely share you for sure hehehehe >:3

[sungbeam]

nonidol!kim sunwoo x f!reader

you never thought your humble, little podcast would ever touch somebody's soul like it did one kim sunwoo's.

▷ genre, warnings. s2f2l, mutual pining/crushing, college au, fluff, minor angst, humor, comfort, swearing, i actually know very little about anything going on w their majors tbh LOL 💀, uhh sunwoo's a simp but wbk, the outline of sunwoo's abs but if u read too fast u will miss it, kissing, low-key miscommunication trope (im sorry i hate those too), rip sorry yangyang, uhm they're kinda cute i *guess* :/, if there r typos then whoops i don't like editing !!

▷ word count. 28.7k help TT

this is the fifth installment of the love in unity series! this fic can be read as a standalone, but there will be references to the main plotline and all other yns will be referred to as _!yn. ALSO, the second episode specifically has a direct reference to a scene from flight risk, but the rest of the fic won't need any other outside context!

a/n: for @justalildumpling and her chopsticks <3 i dragged myself out of writer's block, pls reblog :'))

EPISODE ONE (PILOT): RHAPSODY… LIKE THE BOHEMIAN ONE?

THERE was something about general education requirement courses that felt too much like a university scam. Why was it required to learn more about things that wouldn’t help one’s chosen career path in the long run? Sunwoo hadn't necessarily been thrilled when he wasn't able to get one of the lower level English classes to fill his requirement, but the 300-level literature class had so far turned out to be… actually interesting. Well, the literature itself was interesting enough. The professor?... Not so much.

There was one thing about this class that he could safely say kept him sane though. And it was more so a person than a thing.

The discussion classroom wasn't terribly full as he strolled through the door with his hoodie thrown over his dark brown curls and headphones, a pretty voice flowing through the ear pieces as he took his usual seat to the side of the room.

"...and we're back! Hope you all enjoyed this week's song recommendation. It's been a favorite of mine ever since my dad introduced it to me when I was a kid. An absolute road trip banger—"

Sunwoo's eyes flickered up to see that the TA for the discussion wasn't yet here, but he lowered the volume on his headset slightly in case.

"—kudos to all the songwriters out there. Writing relevant stuff that transcends time is hard, man. I can't even make meaningful conversation with my graduate student supervisor."

A small smile curled the corners of his lips upward. Just as he anticipated the segment on the host geeking out about her favorite oldies music picks, he heard instead—

"I can't even make meaningful conversation with my other grad student supervisors, you know?"

Wait a minute. Confusion flickered across Sunwoo's face as he checked and lifted one of his headphone ears. That can't be right…

Somebody sat down in the seat beside him, almost startling him because he had his back to the door. It was you, the pretty second-year who he had met on the first day of this discussion a few weeks ago. But he was peering at you now in a whole new light as a smile lingered on your face from your conversation with the class’s TA.

When you felt his eyes on you, you flashed him a bright grin. “Hey, Sunwoo.”

He cleared his throat, fumbling to turn his headphones off and follow your lead in taking out the materials needed for today’s discussion. “Oh, hey, Yn.” It occurred to him just how creepy he was probably being just then…just watching you. But the thoughts in his brain were flying around like mosquitoes around his head—had he been hearing things?

“What’d you think of the reading?” You asked him pleasantly.

The reading from the past week had been the first third of a novel called The Stranger, a version translated from its original written in French. Sunwoo sucked in a breath, grimacing, “It’s not my favorite,” he drawled. “I have no idea what the point of his character is, to be honest.”

You pursed your lips and nodded your head. “Yeah, he’s a little… flat,” you chuckled.

“Is this supposed to tie into the theory that professor was talking about last week?” He asked then, in an effort to actively shift his brain’s focus away from your awfully familiar voice and sayings, and to the present.

“Something about how he doesn’t fit societal standards. I think it’s existentialism and nihilism. Well, at least I think it is.”

Huh. Interesting. Sunwoo gave a little bob of his head, and this was just when the TA turned everyone’s attention to a class discussion about the novel. He definitely hadn’t thought of those terms specifically when reading, but at the same time, he did understand where you were getting that sentiment from. He just couldn’t articulate his view of literature quite as well as you could. That had made you somewhat intimidating to him in the beginning, besides your very cute smile, but he was hoping he could learn something from you nonetheless.

You weren’t even a literature major, he realized as he listened to you offer your thoughts to the group. It was cool, though—you were cool.

— ✶

The Songbird Station was a podcast, radio-esque show that Sunwoo had discovered over summer break, a few weeks ago. The podcast was hosted by an anonymous host who dubbed herself “DJ Dove.” She definitely didn’t mind talking about a few of her personal life experiences; it was easy to simply bar the names and identities. Sunwoo had binged all two seasons so far of the podcast, happily tuning in as a silent listener and admirer of hers for awhile, and he had always wondered where she went to school or who she was, but it hadn’t invaded his thoughts like this before.

Sunwoo laid in his bed the day after the literature discussion, his hands resting on his stomach and his expression turned up toward the violet-red LED-lit ceiling of his room. His phone sat on the edge of his nightstand as it played a playlist of songs that Dove had recommended to her listeners—or well, he wondered if he could safely assume that what he heard yesterday was correct, and that you were DJ Dove.

It would make sense, he thought. You were a sound and music production major, had great taste in music (from the brief conversations you struck up with him while in class), and you literally said the exact same thing that Dove had said over the podcast. It couldn’t have just been a coincidence. And now that he thought about it, your voice really did sound a lot like DJ Dove’s. There was a sort of friendly warmth to both of your voices, and—and—

Knock, knock— “Aye, Sunwoo! I'm going to Juyeon's place now. Are you sure you don't wanna come with?"

Oh, right. He had nearly forgotten that Eric had planned to head over to their new mutual friend's apartment tonight to watch a sports game. Juyeon was a friend of a friend of a friend—the connections ran long in their friend circle, he supposed. Sunwoo stole a peak at his phone screen for the time and his joints ached at the sight of 8:53 on the face. His face screwed up as he replied to his friend and roommate, “Nah, I think I'm still just gonna chill here tonight.”

He grabbed his phone fully off the nightstand this time and turned onto his side.

“Oh, okay. Don't burn the apartment down and don't steal my ramen!”

Sunwoo squished his face down into his pillow, raising his voice slightly since his words would probably be muffled, "I'm not going to steal your ramen!" This guy.

He heard Eric grumble something under his breath from the other side of the door, followed by the sound of footsteps moving farther away from his room. When he heard the front door close, he let out a breath and turned back to his phone. To his surprise, he had managed to absentmindedly navigate away from the playlist screen and to the Songbird Station homepage, filled with a collection of all of your links. One of these links was for listeners to submit song recommendations or ask questions, and most of the time, they were all anonymous with their own little nicknames.

He had never fully considered doing it… but that didn’t mean he hadn’t ever partially thought about it. He definitely imagined becoming one of Dove’s more frequent anonymous submitters and becoming friends with her—on a level that one could consider oneself friends between two anonymous users, at least.

But up until now, he hadn’t thought that he could do it. Well, because Dove was Dove; he was one of hundreds of listeners.

“But she’s Yn,” he thought aloud to himself, turning back onto his back to speak to the ceiling, as if the layer of plaster above his head could possibly give him a viable answer. “There’s probably a reason she doesn’t use her actual name,” he pondered further, expression contorted into deep contemplation. “This feels wrong!” He groaned.

There was at least one person he could count on to deal with his bullshit.

sunwoo’s phone: yes or no

tree rat: no

“Well, screw you, too,” Sunwoo huffed as he swiped out of his and Changmin’s text chain. Out of all the times Changmin said “no” randomly, it had to be this time.

It didn’t matter much anyway though. Sunwoo went back to the links page and clicked on the anonymous submissions. He was met with a customized greeting page from the hostess herself, as she thanked her listeners and asked what they’d like to contribute to the show.

Sunwoo moved to sit up against his headboard as he racked his brain for something to say. He had tons to say, but the first message had to be perfect, right?

“It’s fine,” he said out loud, thumbs flying over the keyboard to type out the first thing that came to mind. After all, it was completely anonymous, so it wasn’t like she would—or you would—even know it was him.

He probably read over his little paragraph about a hundred times before attempting to figure out an anonymous name to sign off with. He hugged his knee to his chest when he couldn’t come up with something cool, charming, or unique. Maybe he would stay completely unknown for now. Maybe he wouldn’t even have the courage to submit another message after this one anyway!—

"Rhapsody," he said aloud. Rhapsody was a cool word. Rhapsody anon? Was that who he would sign as?

He did the most logical course of action: look up the word. He asked the internet for its most basic definition, then somehow ended up in the rabbit hole of etymology of the word rhapsody. It described one who stitched verses or songs together—something of the sort. It sounded cool, at least.

It would have to do… and even if you—or DJ Dove—thought it was stupid, no one would know it was him.

Before he could psych himself out of it, Sunwoo pushed the submit button and launched his phone away from him onto the bed like it was explosive. There was something thrilling about anonymous submissions, but incredibly anxiety-inducing, as well. He could only hope that you would be pleased to read it.

— ✶

It was Wednesday when the next episode of the podcast dropped, and Sunwoo was swift to don his headphones on his way out the door of the apartment. The walk to campus was a good fifteen or so minutes, which would get him about a quarter of the way through the episode, but usually the line in the campus cafe was long, so he had plenty of time to listen.

“Welcome to Songbird Station! I’m your host, DJ Dove, and today, I went to my Groupon singing lesson and realized that I think my teacher is having an affair with her neighbor…?”

Sunwoo let out a snortish laugh, covering his mouth with his hoodie sleeve in slight embarrassment as he passed by somebody else going in the opposite direction. Usually, there would be anonymous submissions sprinkled throughout the episode, most of them having to be diverted to later episodes because they were song recommendations. Sunwoo wasn’t super optimistic about his chances of being featured in this episode, but a guy could dream, couldn’t he?

The sky was a pleasant shade of crystalline blue, even as the seasons shifted from summer to fall. There was a slight breeze wafting through the air that brought in the telltale autumnal chill.

"...and luckily the rest was history. My voice was completely dead and my throat is still a little sore, haha, so we'll do a couple more anonymous submissions and recommendations today! This is supposedly a radio show-esque podcast, after all. This one's from a new friend—Rhapsody Anon!"

Sunwoo nearly tripped over the flat sidewalk and sent a nervous smile to the other person waiting at the stoplight with him. Did you just say what he thought you said?

There came a soft laugh from you. "Ooh, like Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen? Such a classic, by the way. Rhapsody says: Hi Dove! Hoping you're doing alright and that songwriting is going well. I'm a relatively new listener but a fan from first listen—awh, wait… that's kind of like love at first sight but for the voice version, isn't it?"

He reddened. The crosswalk turned green.

"Anyways, that's really sweet; thanks so much—there's a bit more of the message that I'll post on my story later so we can save time, but Rhapsody, thank you for tuning in and interacting with me. Your message sounded so heartfelt to me? I dunno," you chuckled and he swore he could hear the smile in your voice, "maybe I'm a little biased 'cause I love your song rec, too. Speaking of which, Rhapsody recommends Painkiller by Ruel! An immaculate choice, if I do say so myself…"

Sunwoo couldn't help but smile to himself at your warm reception of his anonymous submission. He wished he could have gotten your full reaction to his entire message, but he understood that you needed to account for all the other things you had planned.

Even so, an acknowledgement from you would have been enough. He hadn't thought it was possible, but he thought he just became even more attached to this DJ Dove persona.

EPISODE TWO: I HATE VALENTINE'S DAY.

three months later.

THE curtains in Sunwoo's room were yanked open, the sound of metal rings against the metal bar scratched at his eardrums and made him grimace. It definitely did not help the pounding in his cranium, and—wait, was he in jeans? There was a disgusting after taste in his mouth, something akin to alcohol, and when he lifted his hand to rub his eyes, he felt dried tear tracks on his skin.

Eric stood at the foot of his bed with a scowl and his arms crossed over his chest. "I'm mad at you."

Sunwoo smooshed his face into his pillow in a sorry attempt to hide his eyes from the blinding overcast sky outside. "What's new?" He babbled incoherently.

It seemed his friend and roommate was not pleased with his answer and moved to tower over Sunwoo right beside him. "You couldn't have waited ten minutes before barging in? I was so close to kissing her!"

"Huh? What the hell are you…" Sunwoo's voice trailed off as the events of last night were slowly coming back to him.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Ugh. He remembered making plans to go to some singles party with Changmin and Chanhee, and that Eric was bringing EC!Yn over to woo her or something… yeah, he got all that. So why did Sunwoo drink so much and why couldn't he…

The notification… the tweet…

Oh no.

The emotions from last night came rushing back to him like the tide to shore. Horror contorted his face as his brain raced to string pieces of last night together. He released a groan as he brought both hands up to his face. "Oh my god," he muttered into his palms.

The distinct feeling of devastation and disappointment sank into his gut. No wonder he had thrown all caution to the wind last night and gotten himself drunk off his face.

"How bad?" He asked.

Eric still had his arms crossed. "You cried on EC!Yn like a whale and asked why women were perfect and why you couldn't have this one girl." By the drone of Eric's voice, he hadn't been pleased or amused by last night's events. Whoops.

"I'm—"

"You are going to be forever alone, by the way."

Sunwoo dropped his hands from his face and leveled a scowl up at Eric. Now, that he remembered saying, too. Unfortunately. "Hey! I'm still tender from last night."

Eric's smile was sarcastic and he said nothing as he made his exit from Sunwoo's room and left the hungover man to fend for himself. Left to his own devices, Sunwoo pushed out a harsh exhale as he stared up at the ceiling.

He remembered receiving the notification from the Songbird Station Twitter account and excusing himself to go to the bathroom to hear your voice memo. And when he'd finally found an empty bathroom and played it back, he learned a devastating piece of information.

Guys, I went on a date… updates in the next episode. That was what you had said, essentially—you, Yn Ln, the girl Sunwoo had met in his literature course last quarter and whom he had figured out was the anonymous host of the podcast Songbird Station under the pseudonym DJ Dove.

And he had gotten drunk over the fact that you'd gone out on a date, and said date hadn't been him.

"Dude," he said out loud to himself.

He couldn't believe he had gotten so off his rocker by this news. It wasn't like he knew you or liked you or—well, maybe he had grown an affection for you over the span of time he listened to your podcast and interacted with you via his own pseudonym, Rhapsody Anonymous.

But he was just another fan to you, and you would never know his identity.

A guy could dream though, right?

A thought suddenly occurred to him as he rolled over to go through the copious amounts of notifications on his phone he had. There were lots of messages in his group chat with Chanhee and Changmin that he would deal with later, lots of social media notifications, emails, and…

Wednesday. Today was Wednesday.

Sunwoo cursed. You were definitely uploading the episode today then.

He bit his lip as he sorted through the notifications to find one about the podcast. Sure enough, there it was: I Went On A Date? was the title, and he pretended like that didn't make him want to play Lany's Valentine's Day on loop—

The bedroom door opened and Eric poked his head into the room. "I made hangover soup."

Sunwoo blinked in surprise. "Oh. Thanks, man."

"Yeah, don't mention it," Eric mumbled, shifting on his feet. "Seriously, don't mention it."

— ✶

For the next couple of days, Sunwoo left the notification at the top of his phone, pretending like it wasn’t there. It had worked for about five minutes, but the remainder of time he was stubborn, he allowed his imagination to get the better of him. Although he no longer needed to take a literature course, he found himself deeply considering the vague title you had provided. Well, what could you mean by that question mark at the end? Had it not gone well? There was no way it could have, since your tone didn’t really scream “OH MY GOD I WENT ON A DATE!!!” (not that Sunwoo had imagined what he would have acted like post-date with someone like you or anything…). He didn’t even know who you had gone on a date with, and that made his stomach churn.

The curiosity devoured him alive over the two days he managed to torture himself with his overthinking. No one knew he listened to the Songbird Station podcast, and he planned to keep it that way. It would be the absolute death of him if any of his friends found out.

By Saturday morning, Sunwoo had had enough of his own stubbornness and caved. He donned his headphones, grabbed his bag, and headed out the door to do some work in a cafe located on the Ave. There was one that his friend Jacob had recommended to the group awhile back, and Sunwoo hadn’t looked back since.

As he tuned into the episode, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, shivering against the cold, winter winds. February weather was a doozy, and a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate sounded so very sexy right this moment.

“Welcome to Songbird Station! I’m your host, DJ Dove, and you’re probably wondering what the title of this episode even means, or why I sent that weird, cryptic voice message the other night.”

The traffic light turned green, and Sunwoo began to cross the road, the coffee shop in sight. His hands were beginning to get clammy in his pockets.

“Don’t riot, but friends, it means exactly what it says—” As you exhaled out a breathy kind of laugh, Sunwoo inhaled sharply.

“Helpful,” he muttered under his breath as he pushed into the warmth of the coffee shop. He shook the cold out of his body before hopping into the line to order.

“ —I did actually land myself a date yesterday. Honestly, I’m not really much of a dater; I never really had time with it over the past years because I would, uh… well, I would rather stay in and do music, y’know?”

The corners of Sunwoo’s lips curled up into a smile. Maybe he had been nervous before about this episode’s topic of choice, but he should have had more faith in you. Rather than speak about the date the entire episode, you always managed to worm in a discussion about your passions, and that was the kind of talk that had first gotten Sunwoo hooked. There was something so attractive about hearing or witnessing a person gush about their passions and ambitions—the way their eyes lit up, their posture righted itself, how they smiled so big that one could hear it in their tone of voice.

He was happy that you went out on a date, because you deserved to meet someone who treated you as special as you were. You were a good person, and it wasn’t fair that he was being so salty about it, especially when he was too chicken to—

“Sunwoo?”

His soul practically fell out of his body. “Shit—” He swore, yanking his headphones down with eyes as wide as the earphones. He whirled around to greet you with a flushed face, red like the old Christmas decorations still hanging up from the crown moldings.

You were standing right behind him with a mildly amused look on your face, your lips pressed into a smile and eyes crinkled in absolute delight. You were similarly bundled up like he was to no doubt shield you from the cold on your way here. “Sorry I scared you! I probably should have, like, tapped your shoulder or something, huh?”

Sunwoo let out a nervous laugh and cupped the back of his neck, the skin there warm to the touch. “Oh, uh, no problem at all. I just kinda…”

“Get scared easy?” You offered.

He huffed with a sheepish sort of smile. “No, no that’s not it. I—I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.” Inwardly, he winced. The fact that he was listening to your voice in his ears, and you just happened to say his name at the same time and appear in the same exact coffee shop as him. Weren’t there fifteen of these places on the block? There was no way you just happened to choose this one at this moment.

You chuckled, playing along. “Ah, I see, I see. We haven’t seen each other since fall quarter though. How have you been?”

You and Sunwoo inched up with the line, so the two of you now stood side by side. Sunwoo was trying everything he could to calm the racing of his heart. Play it cool, dude. “I’ve been okay…ish,” he grimaced, re-thinking his answer. “You know winter quarter is always the worst.”

“For sure,” you replied. “It’s so cold and dreary—nobody wants to leave their apartments, especially me,” you joked.

Sunwoo was about to chime in on how he could totally relate to that, when you popped the question: “And then there’s Valentine’s Day. Crazy how it never seems to rain on Valentine’s Day, though, so people can go out. Did you do anything for it?”

Sirens commenced their screeching in his head. WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO! Don’t let her know how much of a loser you were! He coughed, reaching up to scratch his head. “Uh, nothing special in particular, if that’s what you mean. A couple of my friends and I just went to this singles party.” Would that give you the wrong idea? Probably not, right? Why was he so bad at this, he thought, wasn’t he supposed to be a communications major?

You inched up in line. “Oh, that’s cool. I think I went to one in freshman year at my old uni,” you said.

Before he could stop himself, he said, “I almost forgot you transferred this year.” He knew that one from the podcast when you talked about the struggles of being a transfer student and having to almost “redo” your entire first year experience, social-wise. But you had also told him that when you and he had worked together in your shared class last quarter; it was just that the two of you didn’t really talk much about your old university much after that.

“It’s okay,” you smiled, nudging his arm with yours as a gesture for him to order first. “Not many people remember.”

Sunwoo wanted to protest, maybe to reassure you that it wasn’t that easy to forget something like that, but he was forced to switch gears and order his hot beverage first before he could say anything else to you. After he said goodbye to five more dollars, he stepped aside and made his way over to the pick-up counter to wait for you and his drink.

When you were done, you sidled up beside him, hands tucked into the folds of your coat.

Come on, say something, his inner voice chided. “So, uh, how was your Valentine’s Day?”

He immediately regretted it. Out of everything he could have asked, he had to go with the one topic he really didn’t want to hear about. However, it had been one of the logical progressions of the conversation, and who knew? Perhaps it wouldn’t lead to him feeling like he’d been shot down with lightning? (Was he being a little dramatic? Yes. Did it matter? Not when no one was going to hear him, no.)

You let out a small laugh and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “It was okay,” you replied.

It was… it was okay? What was he supposed to do with that answer—

“I mean,” you continued with a smile that looked more like a grimace, “it was—fine! It was fine. Uhm…”

Sunwoo’s thoughts came to a slow, teetering stop. Worry began seeping into the cracks of his brain as new scenarios formed. “Hey, if you’re uncomfortable talking about it, then we don’t have to talk about it.” All of the nerves and envy from before was becoming something softer in concern for your response.

“No! No, it’s okay. I promise,” you reassured him. The look you gave him was earnest, and he felt the fist tucked into his pocket gradually relax a bit. “It’s just weird putting it into words, y’know? I kind of chickened out of talking to my friends about it, and even to—” You stopped yourself short, and he could see you backpedaling in your brain. “Anyways, it just felt weird? I think it would have been a really nice night if I actually saw him in that light. But at the same time, I kind of want to try and give it a chance. Does that make sense?”

He nodded, tension falling out of his shoulders. “It does. I mean, sometimes there’s just no spark, y’know?” He added. “I was just worried he did something to make you uncomfortable or something.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. You don’t have to worry.”

“Okay, that’s good,” he murmured, licking his lips. “I’m just curious—” he piped up, “—and you don’t have to tell me, but who did you go out with?”

One of the baristas from behind the counter called your names, and the two of you both stepped forward. Sunwoo took a long stride to get there before you, and handed you your cup for you.

You murmured a “thanks” to him first before stirring in a packet of sugar. “Liu Yangyang. Do you know him?”

Did he? Yangyang was one of the people Sunwoo recognized from not only around campus, but as a person who made music online, too. Even if Yangyang was in the same year as him, Sunwoo always admired the man’s flow and way with words. It made so much sense that Yangyang would pursue you, someone equally talented and charismatic, especially if the two of you were the same major.

A tightening sensation creeped into Sunwoo’s chest as he marinated on the revelation further. If you couldn’t see someone like Yangyang in a romantic light, then where did that put himself?

As Sunwoo let his intrusive thoughts get the best of him, you finished preparing your coffee.

“I’ve gotta run now,” you told him with a soft-cornered grin. “It was nice seeing you, Sunwoo.”

Sunwoo managed a smile back at you, head bobbing in some semblance of a nod, before you were exiting the shop. He stood there for a moment to gather his wits, his thoughts, and his dignity.

“Did that really just happen?” He muttered to himself. He took his coffee with him to find an empty table and retrieved his study materials from his bag. Technically, he didn’t even have to listen to the rest of the podcast, but… who was he kidding?

EPISODE THREE: HEART TO HEART

“YOU’RE coming with me to the practice rooms, right?” Ji Changmin trailed behind Sunwoo as the two of them shouldered into Sunwoo and Eric's shared apartment with their bags and leftovers from today's lunch. It had been about a week and a half since he had bumped into you at that café and he had been feeling over the interaction since.

Sunwoo popped open the refrigerator while his friend perched on one of the breakfast bar stools, his duffle bag dumped at his feet. "Uh, yeah. 'Course, hyung," he said, shifting some groceries from JC!Yn around to make space for his white plastic container.

A thought occurred to him, and he groaned. "But you're gonna have to go first—without me," he clarified. He grabbed the carton of orange juice out to pour himself a glass, facing his friend's curious look.

Changmin's brows furrowed. "Wait, why not?"

It was a reasonable question, as it went against Sunwoo's normal pattern of behavior. Usually, Sunwoo would tag along with Changmin to the practice rooms at the back of the performing arts building. Changmin was a dance major, and with the highly anticipated winter dance showcase just around the corner, it was important that he got that practice in. Plus, with Eric out of town for an away game, Sunwoo was left alone in the apartment, which wasn't exactly his favorite thing. He would much rather go out and be around other people… unless there was something else occupying him.

Today, that certain occupation came in the form of your first live podcast session, something you were trying out. It was just going to be a live audio stream, so you could stay anonymous with your pseudonym, and answer people's submissions live. You had been advertising it for the past week, having excluded the weekly podcast in order to prepare for today.

Sunwoo was excited as you were and wanted to support you and be one of the people tuning in live. This was important to him, and he had even gone so far as to plan out his day.

"I just have something I need to turn in before the day ends," he said easily, shoulders lifting in a half-hearted shrug. He lifted the glass of orange juice to his mouth for a languid gulp.

Changmin made a teasing noise of disappointment. "Aye, you know if Chanhee were here he'd be on your ass, right?" He chuckled, the dimple of his smile pressing into his cheek.

Sunwoo pouted when he lowered the glass. "If Chanhee or JC!Yn were here, I wouldn't have admitted to procrastination. I have self-preservation skills."

"And you don't think I'd be on your ass?" Changmin gasped dramatically with a hand pressed to his chest.

With tongue in cheek, Sunwoo grinned amusedly. He shook his head, adjusting the hood pulled over him. "Hyung, you can't ding me for procrastination when you procrastinate religiously. Remember that one time you had to beg Professor Ka—"

"Yah! Nobody asked for specifics!"

Sunwoo's chuckle turned into nervous laughter as Changmin reached across the island with a claw-shaped hand. "Ah! No! You stay away—go practice!"

Changmin snickered. "Chicken."

Soon after, Changmin indeed took his leave to head over to the performing arts hall. Sunwoo drained the juice in his cup and refilled it before making a beeline for his bedroom.

The livestream was projected to last for an hour, about the length of a usual episode, but you did say the timing wasn't set in stone. Sunwoo set himself up at his desk, signing into the platform you always used. Over the past couple of months he was Rhapsody, he'd become one of your regulars, suggesting new and old songs from his music library, talking about his day or week or something the last podcast had reminded him of. He liked to think that the two of you were friends—parasocially.

A guy could dream, right?

He was on his phone when the waiting room faded and became a split screen: one half with a sketched sign that read "ON AIR: COMING TO YOU LIVE!" with a little dove in headphones, and the other half was a live chat feed that people who were tuned in could use. There was both a public and private feature, and Sunwoo kept his on the public chat, unafraid of what a bunch of other people behind anonymous names and screens could do to scare him.

"Oh! Woah, I think that worked," came your voice, loud and clear, through his laptop speakers.

He smiled to himself, reaching over to settle his fingers on his keyboard. A tingling feeling bubbled up inside him, starting from his toes and rocketing up through his chest. He could actually talk to you in real time today.

You clapped lightly on the other side, relief pouring through your voice. "Thank god. I'm supposed to be good with some computer programs, but this livestream feature is kind of new. How're we doing, everyone? It seems…" A couple clicks from your end, "... We've got some more people rolling in. I'll give it a couple minutes, but let me know who we've got here today! It's so cool seeing you guys live!"

Sunwoo was swift to type out a greeting message: Dovey hi!! He paired it with a little, hand-waving emoji.

The small gasp of delight from you had him giggling to himself. "Oh my god, Rhapsody! Hi, best friend, welcome in! We might actually be able to hold a conversation for once," you chuckled.

rhapsody anonymous: yeah fs haha

rhapsody anonymous: did u have a good week? it felt weird without an ep from u 🤧

"Oh! Yeah, haha, sorry about that—”

He rushed to type as you continued with answering his question: No no! Don’t worry, I don’t blame you or anything lol it’s just something I look forward to every week.

“...Ah,” you said after skimming over his message. “Understood—and aw, I’m glad it’s something you look forward to every week. That makes me really happy to hear… oh! It looks like the numbers are becoming a little stagnant, so I’m gonna get started. Hi, everyone! Welcome to the live edition of Songbird Station. I’m your host…”

— ✶

An hour later, Sunwoo ended up seated at the kitchen counter, drinking orange juice straight out of the nearly-depleted carton, while the livestream continued on. The whole experience had been one of a kind, and by the way you were able to seamlessly speak and engage with your audience for the entire time made Sunwoo feel warm and fuzzy. He was glad this was working out for you.

There was a gradual lull in conversation, however, and you were just wrapping up your last topic to bring your first livestream to an organic stop.

“...wanna thank you all for being here, of course. 57 people listening to my voice for over an hour is kind of crazy, but this was a lot of fun!...”

Sunwoo was just about to start typing up a message to you when his phone buzzed on the counter beside his laptop. He startled, fumbling with the device and grumbling under his breath until he saw who it was and picked up the call.

“Hyung?” He squeezed the phone between his ear and shoulder, attempting to finish his private message to you. I was wondering if I could…|

Changmin’s voice came out breathy and panting like he had just finished a run-through. “Hey, are you done with your assignment yet?”

I was wondering if I could hang back for…| “Huh?” Why couldn’t he multitask, for god’s sake? I was wondering if I could hang back for a minute? If it’s weird though, then it’s no problem…|

No, that wasn’t weird, right? Totally not. He pressed the 'enter' key, satisfied with the message.

“What were you saying?” Sunwoo asked and picked up the phone with his hand. His eyes flickered back to his laptop screen to find that you had sent him a private message back.

Changmin let out a grumbling sigh. “I was just thinking—”

“Uh oh,” Sunwoo joked.

He could hear his friend’s eye roll from here. “When you get here Kim Sunwoo…”

“Okay, okay, okay!” He chuckled as he read your message and silently punched the air in celebration. “What do you want? I was in the middle of something.”

“Rude! And I was calling you because I was thinking about you,” Changmin huffed. “Anyway, I was just going over some of the movement for Juyeon and my ‘Light a Flame’ duet, right? And I came up with this combo that would be perfect for three people—”

Sunwoo sucked in a breath. “Oh, nonono!”

“But!”

“No!” Sunwoo protested. “Hyung, you know that I don’t… y’know, I can’t dance up there with you and Juyeon hyung! That’s way too much pressure; you’re both so good at dance.” He pressed his finger against the edge of the counter and began mindlessly dragging it along the surface. There had originally been plans of Sunwoo joining Changmin and Juyeon’s dance partnership for this year’s winter showcase performance, but Sunwoo backed out. The winter showcase was far too large of an event for Sunwoo could even fathom participating in, let alone dancing with two of the best dancers he knew. There was just no way.

Changmin sighed from the other end. He’d heard this argument before and he’d argued against this argument plenty of times. “Okay, fine. See you in how long?”

Sunwoo placed his phone onto the counter again so he could tell you that he was still here and hadn’t just left you hanging. “Uh, give me like, thirty minutes.”

“Alright. I better see your ass here in thirty minutes, Sunwoo.”

“Yeah, I know. See ya, hyung.” He hung up then, shoulders sagging slightly from the conversation. It wasn’t like he had to participate in the winter showcase—he was no dance major, nor was he a dance minor. He technically hadn’t even decided on a minor, and had only been focusing on getting this degree finished. Whether or not he had chosen a minor yet was not his parents’ favorite discussion when they visited him, but… it would get done when he had the energy to. He didn’t want to bring up the idea of a dance minor—he saw what it did to Changmin and his parents’ relationship and—well, it was just better this way, for now.

Having finished with his phone call, Sunwoo returned his focus to you, where, god bless, you were still waiting for him in the livestream room.

rhapsody anonymous: omg i’m SO sorry!! >< a friend of mine just called and turns out i am awful at multitasking

“No worries,” you laughed. “I figured that was the case. Everything okay, Rhaps?”

The corners of his mouth curled up at the thoughtful ask. Even when the two of you had been classmates, you were new to the school, but still made him feel like the two of you had known each other for longer than simply a few weeks. It only made sense that you were the host of this podcast, the very thing that had been his source of comfort as of late.

rhapsody anon: yeah nothing really serious lol

rhapsody anon: i just have this friend who’s doing the winter showcase and i was supposed to go to the practice room with him

rhapsody anon: actually, i was going to dance and perform w him too but ig i kind of chickened out

He didn’t know why he was telling you all of this; this wasn’t even what he originally intended to talk to you about.

He heard you make a soft sound of understanding. You shifted in your seat. “I see… the winter showcase is a big event though, as I’ve heard from peers and friends. It's probably really intimidating to even perform in the pre-show, you know? Are you a dance student, by chance?”

rhapsody anon: i’m not, but i’ve taken the intro to hiphop course my freshman year and i usually dance for fun w my friend

rhapsody anon: i think i’ve just always been kind of insecure in my abilities to keep up w him?

“Is he a dance major?”

rhapsody anon: he is

Sunwoo leaned back from the laptop and took his hands off the keyboard. He settled his chin onto his folded arms as he listened to your reply.

“Well, I don’t think you should compare yourself to a dance major, right, Rhaps? I mean, it’s not fair to expect more from yourself when he’s clearly had more experience. And if you enjoy dancing, then I don’t see what the harm in trying to perform or even just being satisfied with private practice sessions is!” You paused for a second to gather your thoughts. “What I’m saying is… is that, I can understand where you might feel insecure, and that’s normal, y’know? And if you’re feeling a little unprepared for this year, there’s always future opportunities.”

Sunwoo peered up at his screen as if he could see you on the other side, speaking to him. He sat up to type out a response. Thanks for hearing me out, it’s nice to feel validated. Sorry this kind of took a downer tone haha it wasn’t my intention, I swear!

You giggled and he swore he was smiling a little too wide now. “No worries, really! I’m glad I could be of help, even if it’s to make sure that you know your feelings are valid. If I’m being honest, one of the few reasons why I even started this podcast thing was to kind of just put my experiences out there in search of validity.” You sighed, “I dunno. It’s a story for another time. I am curious, though, as to why you originally wanted to hang out with me after the others left.”

Oh, right. Sunwoo bit his lip.

rhapsody anonymous: this isn’t really a song rec, but ig it kind of is… i feel like superstar by taylor swift reminds me of u

He held his breath after he pressed the ‘enter’ key.

“Oh…” your voice was soft in surprise, and it made something like giddiness spike in his chest. “That’s really sweet, Rhaps. I… I’m not sure what to say, but thank you. Genuinely.”

rhapsody anonymous: u don’t have to say anything!! really haha ur work and ur words have touched a lot of people

“Even you?”

rhapsody anonymous: esp me

And even after you and he had said goodbye to one another and logged off; even after he was well out of the apartment and on his way to campus, that giddy feeling in his chest still hadn’t left him.

EPISODE FOUR: SHOT THROUGH THE HEART! [AND WE’RE ALL IN PAIN]

DEAD week was not typically something Sunwoo had to worry about, as fortunate as that sounded. There were, obviously, classes that made his stomach queasy and made him feel like the world was crumbling into Hot Cheeto dust, but his classes this quarter had been merciful to say the least. The week before finals week was always something that could be visibly observed on campus: students either manifesting like zombies or zooming around to claim seats in the library; grades rising and falling like the housing market; and snacks and coffee being more commonly consumed than any other moment of the quarter.

It was always a hot pile of shit, no matter the student or major.

“Someone just needs to tell Ouyang to chill!”

“Uh-huh.”

“For sure.”

“—it’s not like we’re the root of all of his problems! I’m just trying to graduate!” Eric halted in the middle of the hallway, causing Sunwoo, whose face was nose-deep in his phone screen, to ram into the baseball player’s back.

“Ow!” He hissed, furiously rubbing the place at his forehead that had collided with the nape of Eric’s neck.

“You’re not paying attention,” said Eric, flatly. He turned to Jacob, who also wasn’t paying attention. “Hyung!”

Jacob’s head lifted from where he was busy smiling down at some orange cat video. “What? Nacho’s learning the periodic table—” He flipped his phone around to show Eric, his face immediately lighting up as he forgot about why he was even mad in the first place.

The three of them were currently in the front half of the performing arts building, heading inwards from the main hall to the backstage area where a couple of their friends were already hanging out. Sunwoo had bumped into Jacob and Eric on his way from one of the campus libraries, and with nothing else better to do (than to study), he tagged along to go find someone to bother. (Jacob and Eric were both STEM majors though, which was weird to Sunwoo since… well, shouldn’t they be bunkered up somewhere trying to survive this quarter’s dead week? Anyways…)

Sunwoo sighed and brushed past his two friends to venture deeper into the building. He could already hear somebody’s music blasting from the sound booth as they rehearsed onstage. Over the past several weeks, everyone had been busy preparing for the winter showcase happening at the end of finals week, right before spring break. Ever since Sunwoo’s talk with you over livestream, he had felt a little better about not joining Changmin and Juyeon on stage this year. Plus, from what he could tell when he watched them practice, they already looked pretty much perfect with just the two of them.

Though, there would always be a part of him that wished he really had the courage to go up there and show the audience what he was made of.

Sunwoo wandered into the main auditorium with his hands tucked into his pockets and the doors closing softly behind him. There was indeed a group practicing their number on the stage at the moment. He could even make out the shapes moving from behind the curtains in the wings as other tech members and dancers rushed to and fro to get to where they needed to. Somewhere in that mass of chaos were his friends.

A familiar voice had him lifting his head toward the sound booth. His eyes widened when he recognized you standing in the booth with Bang Chan, one of the more prominent sound and lighting directors working here at the performing arts center. However, it looked like you were leaving, your hands clumsily wrestling with the zipper on your bag while you continued your conversation with Chan, and while attempting to walk backwards out of the sound booth.

Oh my god, you were going to trip on something if he didn’t help—

Both Sunwoo and Chan pounced toward you as the thought occurred to both of them at the same time.

“Yn, careful!” Sunwoo yelled, as he dove for your phone.

Chan steadied you at the bicep, and you hugged your bag to your chest with a flustered grin. “Oops?”

Chan ruffled your hair as he let you go, nodding his hello to Sunwoo, then ducking back into the booth. You stepped out into the main room and shut the door behind you. “Thanks,” you said to him sheepishly, accepting your phone from him.

The two of you naturally fell into step with one another and Sunwoo let you lead him back out towards the main entrance again. “I didn’t know you worked behind the scenes here,” he told you, cupping the back of his head. If he racked his brain, he couldn’t recall hearing about it from your podcast either. “This is the second time I’ve seen you here,” he chuckled.

You stopped for a minute in the middle of the hallway to get a hold of your things. You had to hike your knee up to properly zip your backpack before hauling it over your shoulder. “Oh, that’s right! Just a couple days ago you were here with your friends, right?”

He gave a bashful sort of grin. He had been here a couple days ago when he came to bother Changmin, and ended up hanging out backstage while Hyunjae’s best friend hosted auditions for her play. It was then that he had seen you hustling about with the Lee Jihoon about lights. He’d been caught so off-guard by seeing you; it was a miracle he managed to even get Changmin to forget about that whole interaction. “Yeah, sorry I was kind of… weird. I didn’t expect you, that's all.”

“Lots of surprise run-ins with us, huh,” you teased, the side of your arm bumping with his as you walked.

Us.

“It’s nice to see you more often though.”

You nodded. “The feeling’s mutual, Sunwoo. Thanks for warning me earlier; I’m usually more careful with my stuff, especially when I’ve got special cargo.” As you said this, you reached back to pat your backpack affectionately.

Sunwoo lifted a brow, opening the door for you as the two of you stepped out into the lobby. “Oh? What kind of special cargo?”

The smile on your face widened. “It’s, uhm, a recording mic, actually! I’ve been coming by to intern around the tech side of things here, and Chan and Jihoon give me some tips about music production, too.” You trailed off, an idea taking hold in your head, and that wide beam from just seconds ago became this shy, little thing. “Hey… would you maybe be up to listening to something of mine? I mean, it’s kind of a weird request, but your music taste from first quarter was top notch—”

“Yes,” Sunwoo said, without even waiting for you to finish your rambling.

You paused, and he rejoiced in the pure delight on your face. “Really? That’s—this is great. Wait, I’m so excited! We’ll need to find a private place to listen, but—”

“Oh my gosh, Yn?”

Coming in from the front lobby doors was none other than Han Jisung, a fellow second-year whom Sunwoo was familiar with. He was bundled in a massive, puffy cream jacket with his head shoved into a beanie, and his nose was reddened from the cold. Jisung tucked the earbuds in his ears away into their case, waddling over to you both with the joy of a baby penguin. “And Sunwoo! Woah, it’s so cool to see you, man. What’s up?”

Sunwoo clasped his hand in his. “S’cool to see you, too, dude. Yn and I were just on our way out.”

Jisung moved over to you and pulled you in for an affectionate side hug. “Oh, well, that’s nice to hear,” he snickered, wagging his eyebrows at you while you sent him a pointed look.

Wonder what that was all about…

“Anyways,” continued Jisung, “I just came by to bother Channie-hyung. Is he in the box?”

You bobbed your head in affirmation. “Yup. There isn’t anyone else with him right now, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty of space for you to bug him.”

“Nice,” he grinned. As he walked away in the direction from which you and Sunwoo came, he sent a wave. “See you both around!”

“Bye!” Both you and Sunwoo called back before resuming your walk out the front entrance.

“So how do you—” The two of you laughed when you both started talking at the same time, saying the same thing. Sunwoo gestured toward you, insisting that you ask the question first. You did: “So how do you know Jisung?”

Sunwoo snorted at the memory. “I, uh, saw him in the hall once and smacked his ass, then asked for his number.”

You had to stop to double over in laughter, clutching your stomach while Sunwoo looked on in flustered amusement. Your face had heated up considerably, and you barely managed to follow him down the steps toward the bus stop. “You what?” You asked, once you could get out anything other than wheezes.

He chuckled, shrugging. “Okay, well, I actually know him from this music summer camp we both went to in high school. I didn’t realize he came to this uni until I saw him last year and… well, made my presence known to him.”

You clapped your hands together and collapsed onto the bus bench. “I was gonna say—that’s one hell of a hello.”

“It’s a true story,” he insisted.

“Oh, I believe you.”

The two of you shared a laugh for a moment and Sunwoo took a seat beside you, his knee bouncing up and down as you waited for the bus to come by. He nudged your shoulder with his. “So what about you then? How do you know Han?”

“Hm? Ah, I just know him ‘cause we share the same major-ish. I’m sound and music production, and he’s just a general music major,” you explained. “We also share a composition class, as well as a writing course. Did you know the guy is a fantastic poet?”

Sunwoo’s eyebrows arched upward. “I would not be surprised; the guy’s an ace.”

“Totally agree.” You fidgeted with your phone between your hands. “He was also one of my first friends here after I transferred. He’s kind of shy, but he’s one of the good eggs you can meet.”

A nod. He glanced over at you, his eyes breathing in the far away look on your face. “Yeah, he is. But hey, at least you got to befriend him then, hm? Maybe some things are just meant to be.”

You met his gaze and Sunwoo felt his heart stutter into a gallop. “Yeah,” you murmured, “I think so, too.”

— ✶

You and Sunwoo ended up in one of the booths of the restaurants on the Avenue. It was a cozy, little hole in the wall with soup that tasted like home and made your belly feel warm and content. You had set up shop at your table, your laptop with the audio file pulled up and your wired earbuds plugged in. You had to power all of your will into not showing Sunwoo how nervous you were for him to listen to this—your fingers shook slightly even as you passed him both of your earbuds.

In an attempt to pass off as cool, calm and totally collected, you brought your glass of water to your mouth to sip on. You'd thought to order food first, then let Sunwoo listen to the file.

"Let me know if you can't hear anything," you blurted out just before he put the buds in.

He paused, then smiled. "I got it," he assured you warmly.

Once the buds were fitted and the song started playing, you could only wait and watch to gauge his reaction.

At first, his eyes widened a smidge. Then he slowly began nodding to the beat, eyes falling closed as he soaked in the electric guitar chords mixed in that Jisung helped you out with. You watched him lean back in his seat… saw the smile bloom on his face, wide like a flower opening its petals to greet the brilliant sun.

And that beautiful smile… oh, he was so pretty when he smiled.

It was a couple minutes later that his eyelids finally fluttered open, and yet that smile on his face remained ingrained there. He passed you your earbuds as you awaited the verdict. "Girl, you've got pipes," he said with emphasis, his face screwed up in an expression one could only describe as appreciative. "Like—oh my god, I want that bridge tattooed on my forehead," he groaned and leaned forward to bury his face in his palms.

Your heart could fly, soar, literally ascend to fucking space! You smiled, big and wide, as you wrapped up the wire chords around three fingers. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Liked it?" He perked up, then melted to the table as he mumbled into his hoodie sleeve, "I could kis…" You didn't catch the end bit of his sentence as his voice dissipated into the fabric of his shirt.

"What'd you say?"

When he lifted his head, his cheekbones had flushed a shade of rose gold. He cupped the back of his neck with a nervous laugh, "Nothing! It was nothing. I just—I just love it, Yn. Really, I mean it. I'm not just saying that because we're friends—"

"Ah, so we're friends?" You jested, even as your heart skipped like a pebble across the surface of a lake.

Sunwoo blinked, lips pursed. "We're not friends?"

"No, I'm only kidding!" You said and leaned your cheek against your fist. "Your reaction was cute though."

You swore something shuddered across his face, but you didn't have much time to analyze it when you felt a presence make himself clear at the head of the table.

Yangyang appeared in a warm-looking jacket and scarf, his eyes flickering curiously between you and Sunwoo. You suddenly felt an anxious spike in your chest at the thought of what this might have looked like to him. That was, until he saw the laptop, of course. You saw the relief in his shoulders, the ease in which he smiled now. "Hey Yn-ie, didn't know you'd be here."

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sunwoo scratch his jawline, then scoot forward and offer his hand to Yangyang. "Hey, I'm Sunwoo. You're Yangyang, aren't you?"

Yangyang clasped Sunwoo's hand good naturedly with a typical gummy smile. "Yeah, that's me. It's nice to meet you."

"I was just showing him the project," you said next, drawing both of the boys' attention to you.

"Ah," your friend nodded. "How'd you like it, Sunwoo?"

Sunwoo lit up. "It was—incredible. I don't even know how to describe it, y'know? If it was on my Spotify, it'd probably be on my Wrapped."

There went your heart, goodness. You and Sunwoo locked eyes across the table, and you wished you could convey how much his words meant to you by just a look.

"Totally agree," Yangyang nodded. "My Yn-ie's got a gift and she knows how to use it." He gave your head a gentle pat, and heat rose to your cheeks from the bombardment of attention. It hit you subtly, an epiphany—

Yangyang cleared his throat then and returned his hand to his side. "Anyways, I'll leave you two to it. I'll talk to you later?" He asked you as he was already taking a step backward.

—the heat wasn't for him. It simply wasn't.

"Yeah! I'll shoot you a text later," you promised. You realized then that you had barely even spoken to Yangyang since your Valentine's Day date ended several weeks ago. There had just been a lot of mixed feelings churning around in your head that needed time to be sorted out. (And it was currently being resolved.) With a slight inward grimace, you turned your focus back to the guy you'd brought here in the first place.

Sunwoo slid your laptop over to your side of the table. "Soooo… you and Yangyang, huh?" He laughed, and you weren't certain, but it sounded a bit unsteady.

You played with the hem of your sweater sleeve. "I mean, kind of? Not really? We went on that date a while back, if you remember, but that's about it."

He leaned in. "Yeah, I remember."

"Yeah, and we also haven't had time to really properly talk since?" You winced. "I guess it's not really as bad as I make it sound. It's just that, we've pretty much known each other since primary school. He had just moved from Taiwan, and we were pretty good friends. And he would move back and forth between here and this one town in Germany, but we would always—" you made a vague gesture, "—find each other? Is that the word?"

You let out a breathy sort of laugh. "I'm sorry, I dunno why I'm telling you my history with this guy. It's stupid."

Sunwoo frowned and shook his head. "It's not stupid, Yn."

You inhaled, then chewed on your cheek. "It's just that I always feel like people don't really stick around, at least for me. But Yangyang… he's been one of the few constants in my life, and I'm really grateful for that."

"I'm sensing there's a 'but' with this."

You indulged him. "But I'm starting to think that maybe I can't really see him as that kind of constant, if that makes sense." Your brows furrowed in thought. The boat you were on rocked roughly with the waves, the water turbulent and unsteady, as if at any moment it could throw you off. But you were used to the rocking, and you weren't sure why you should be so used to it. Settling for Yangyang even though you were beginning to realize that he probably wasn't The One? That was like staying docked in a home port you'd grown used to when you yearned for the horizon.

You heard Sunwoo crack his knuckles, and perhaps there really was a certain sheen to his eyes then. "I don't want to put words in your mouth," he drawled carefully, "and I can't imagine how exactly you feel and I don't know your whole story. But it has to be hard when it feels like, I don't know, like people are moving on without you." The earnestness in his eyes made his dark brown eyes deeper and richer. "And maybe it's comfortable with Yangyang and you want to try with him because you know that you two will always somehow find each other again."

"You kind of put what I was thinking into coherent sentences there," you mused, the corners of your lips curling upward.

Sunwoo reflected your expression. "That's good to hear, because I was pretty sure I sounded arrogant."

You laughed then, shaking your head. "No, I appreciated that. And you got it right." Breathing a sigh, you saw a waiter coming by to drop off the food the two of you had ordered. "I think it's just taken me some time with myself and with—with other people to make me realize it."

He glanced up with thanks as the waiter passed you your meals, and you swore you saw his hand make a move to reach for yours across the table. But he stopped short, and instead, helped move your hot bowl of soup over to you. "You never know," he said sheepishly, "The One could be right under your nose."

— ✶

eric 🤨: dude where did u go??? cobie hyung and i looked up and u disappeared into thin air

eric 🤨: omg jisung said u went somewhere w a GIRL??? IS THIS THE GIRL U WERE GETTING ALL DRUNK AND SAD ABT 👀

sunwoo’s phone: YAH!!! OH MY GOD STFU

eric 🤨: no.

EPISODE FIVE: LOTS OF THINGS BLOOM IN SPRING

“SO her name is DJ Dove?”

Sunwoo made a face around his toothbrush as he spat the frothy white into the sink bowl. “For the millionth time, yes.” Through the mirror, Sunwoo watched Eric’s face as his roommate perched himself atop the kitchen counter and went quiet, his face pensive. After coming home to Eric’s confrontation, Sunwoo promised to explain it all in the morning to him.

It was unfortunately the morning, meaning Sunwoo had spent the past hour bringing Eric up to speed on his nonexistent love life. Fortunately, it was also a Wednesday morning, which meant you had just posted your newest episode of the podcast, and Sunwoo could force Eric to listen to it with him. A part of him was tense at the thought of no longer “gatekeeping” his little secret that he had kept for the past several months, but this was Eric, one of his best friends. Maybe this would lift a weight off of Sunwoo’s chest by finally telling someone.

“...I’m still in the thrall of dead week,” your voice blasted from the speaker of Sunwoo’s phone at high volume, “and it’s come to my attention that next quarter will probably be a lot for me. I guess this is me forewarning you all that I might be late with some episodes because I’ve got this new internship thing.”

Sunwoo dunked his face into the sink bowl as he splashed water over his lathered foam cleanser. “She’s talking about her internship at the performing arts center.”

“How do you—never mind, forget I asked.”

Sunwoo patted his face dry, then opened the medicine cabinet for all of the skincare products he used to start off the day.

“...It’s been awhile since I’ve recommended something myself, so today, do enjoy ‘gone too long’ by lullaboy with me.” The song began a few seconds after you queued it up, and the apartment was then filled with muted vocals and strings.

Sunwoo straightened. He and Eric went quiet for a while as they both let the song sink in. Sunwoo continued to slather sunscreen on his face and neck, and Eric had started up the stove to make a batch of ramen for the both of them.

A peculiar sensation draped itself over Sunwoo’s shoulders, a blanket of something that wasn’t quite calm and wasn’t quite jittery. He didn’t know how to pinpoint or label the weird tightness in his chest. The song was strangely intimate, as almost all the music Sunwoo listened to was, but when it came from another person, it was always a whole new level of intimate. Whenever someone recommended a song, it was a way to view a piece of them—perhaps not a large piece, but a piece nonetheless. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then music was the viewfinder.

Maybe he missed you. But that didn’t make sense—it… it couldn’t make sense. He saw you yesterday, and he was listening to you now. How could he miss you?

“She has good taste,” Eric murmured as the song faded out.

Sunwoo nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah. She does.”

“...Hopefully when you miss me you’ll play that song,” he heard you say in a lighthearted tone, even though he felt almost like the complete opposite. “On that note, Rhaps sent in a message asking about the dance showcase coming up! ‘Are you planning on going, and if so, any acts you’re looking forward to? Isn’t it crazy that we could be sitting next to each other and never even know?’ —”

Eric perked up, his head peering over his shoulder to look at Sunwoo as he came out of the bathroom to join Eric in the kitchen. “That’s you? Rhaps?”

“Rhapsody Anonymous,” Sunwoo corrected. “And don’t judge me!” He added with a pointed look, finger jabbing in Eric’s direction.

Eric shook his head with a giddy sort of grin. “I didn’t say anything.”

For a moment, the two boys went quiet with only your voice and the sounds of the stove keeping them company.

A thought occurred to Eric though, and he worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “Does it ever feel like lying?” He asked and gestured for Sunwoo to grab a couple of bowls from the cabinet.

Sunwoo walked over with the soup bowls, then leaned his hip against the counter next to Eric. “Does what feel like lying?”

“Hiding that you know it’s her.”

Well… Sunwoo idly scratched his jaw. “I guess I never thought about it like that,” he said. All this time, he’d figured it was probably better that he didn’t bring it up to you. After all, you used a pseudonym for a reason and didn’t show your face. Maybe this was just supposed to be your secret passion project that you used as a safe space. He didn’t want to burst your bubble by confronting you with that information. How would he even go about doing it? Oh hey, by the way, I’ve known that you’re this podcast host DJ Dove for a very long time? That probably had ‘awkward’ written all over it.

Eric passed him a pointed glance. “Something to think about then.”

— ✶

Finals week had come and gone, a hurricane of destruction in its own right. But when the storm passed, it gave way to the beautiful cherry blossoms blooming in the quad. As per university tradition, the quad was filled to the brim with students, staff, and tourists alike gathering to pose in the falling pink petals that marked the coming of Spring Break. This was no different for Sunwoo’s friend group who was dragged out to the event by none other than Choi Chanhee. In an effort to appease his friend in some aspect, Sunwoo had come dressed in something decently presentable: black cargo pants, blue denim jacket, and his face fitted in a pair of dark frames (that were definitely not just frames or missing the lenses…).

He shoved his hands into his pockets after taking a peak at the time on his watch. The group had been here for about ten minutes thus far, and half of them had already split off with their significant others to take their own rounds about the quad. They weren't the only ones—in fact, there were probably as many couples as there were people taking grad photos and cosplay photos.

And wait, someone had come in their wedding dress—nothing spelled out Sunwoo's singleness more potently than a couple getting married.

He took a panoramic glance and accidentally watched another couple go in for a kiss. He looked away with a slight frown, blowing a curl out of his eyes. "I hate this more than Valentine's Day," he grumbled.

From beside him, Kevin Moon sighed as he tested a shot with his camera and had to adjust the settings for the right exposure. "You're telling me." When he raised his camera up again, he immediately had to bring it back down with a deadpan expression, "At least on Valentine's Day, people won't photobomb you."

As the group's self-proclaimed Dad, Lee Sangyeon, summoned the attention of the boys who were present for a partial group photo. Sunwoo smiled for it, then returned to his frown. Chanhee had his camera held up as he attempted to take a selfie shot since he had been staking out this one tree trunk that a group of people had just left. Sunwoo had to admire the way Chanhee wordlessly swooped in like a vulture over a dead carcass.

"Aye, Kim Sunwoo," Chanhee exclaimed and beckoned Sunwoo over with a curl of his two fingers. Chanhee's head scanned the immediate area and his nose wrinkled when he realized he was missing someone. "Where did Changmin go? He was literally right… ah."

Chanhee's voice trailed off and a sly, little grin when he located the man in question. "Look."

Sunwoo followed Chanhee's gaze across the field to where he was sneaking up behind a familiar person. Sunwoo had met this girl twice, once when he and Changmin had gone looking for Jacob and the other when he went with Changmin to go see her for moral support. Both times, strangely, had been at the lab. Huh, did she even go home…?

But then Sunwoo observed the way Changmin and CM!Yn looked at each other. Though Sunwoo had seen Changmin's eyes light up before, this was a different sort of twinkle, something softer. There had always been a cloud hanging over Changmin when it came to this girl, always some kind of bittersweetness that held him back. It made a smile crawl onto his lips at the sight of Changmin so happy.

"Wah," Chanhee murmured in awe. "They really mended their relationship well, don't you think?"

Sunwoo pursed his lips with an indulgent nod. "Yeah, I'd think so."

His friend sighed. "Oh, well. Looks like it's just us two then."

Sunwoo stepped forward and took Chanhee's phone from him, swiftly changing it to the forward facing camera. Chanhee struck a few poses beneath the blush pink trees as he soaked in the golden hour sunlight streaking across the lawn. Eventually, Sunwoo turned the camera back around to take shots of both himself and Chanhee.

He adjusted the phone so that the selfie mode could capture both of them when he spotted Chanhee scuttling back over toward him with a pile of pink petals collected in his palms.

Sunwoo's eyes went wide and he leapt backward away from his grinning friend. "Hyung, come on, let's talk about this."

Chanhee cackled and inched forward still. His hair was the exact same color as the flowers cupped in his palms. "Sunwoo-ah," he sang, "I think your hair needs a bit of color."

"I just did my hair this morning!" He whined and pleaded desperately. The last thing he needed was to be plucking stray petals from his curls later tonight. When Chanhee still wouldn't quit, adrenaline began to pump through Sunwoo's veins in anticipation for what he needed to do next. "Chanhee hyung! We can be civil about this."

"Civility is overrated!"

Just as Chanhee pounced, Sunwoo swerved on the ball of his foot and made a mad dash toward the other side of the quad. Chanhee's giggles filled the late afternoon air like the twinkling of bells, and though it was probably an amusing sight for onlookers, Sunwoo was running for his life.

Sunwoo pumped his legs furiously as he weaved in between people standing and taking their pictures, screaming out apologies for photobombing them as he went. And when he nearly tripped over someone's dog, he managed to lock eyes with yours.

You. Oh my god, you were here.

He had little time to fully comprehend what he was about to do, but he made a beeline for you.

"Sunwoo, hey—oh!"

Sunwoo grabbed your shoulders and careened himself behind you, his face partially hidden behind yours. "I'm sorry, but—" he screeched, "—he's threatening to ruin my hair!"

Chanhee laughed as he stopped in front of you and Sunwoo. His pale cheeks were dusted with the color of the flowers in the air. "Ah, well, hello. This isn't very gentlemanly of you, Sunwoo. Who's this?" He threw Sunwoo a look over your shoulder.

Fuck. He hadn't thought this one through.

Sunwoo laughed sheepishly and let go of your shoulders to clasp the back of his neck. It was only then he realized you were wearing a delicate, pastel sundress with cherry blossoms littered in your own hair. A gentle breeze wafted by and through your skirt and brushed back a few strands of your hair too.

Pretty…

"This is," he stammered, snapping out of his daze, "Yn. Yn-ie, this is one of my close friends, Chanhee."

"It's nice to meet you," Chanhee said with a warm smile and slight bow of his head.

You gave a little wave. "Nice to meet you, too, despite the circumstances."

"I would wave back," Chanhee gestured with his hand of flowers, "but this is a nice pile, don't you think?"

To your credit, you played along. You laughed, "I totally agree. It definitely should not be wasted on giving me a wave. Though, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to get back at Sunwoo." You turned your head and cocked a brow at him, to which he smiled back boyishly.

Chanhee considered you again for a moment. "I like your style. I guess I'll just… leave you to it then," he drawled and sent Sunwoo very pointed glances with his eyes toward you. Something about the way Chanhee's eyes narrowed minutely made Sunwoo want to hide behind you again.

Chanhee whistled a merry tune as he went on his way, leaving you and Sunwoo to your own devices as he probably went to go find his next victim.

"I'm so sorry about that," Sunwoo lamented as soon as Chanhee was out of ear shot. "I did not mean to make you a human shield."

You chuckled. "It's okay, dude, really. Definitely didn't think I'd find anyone I knew in this mess, so it's nice seeing you out here."

Sunwoo gave you yet another once over and felt heat crawl up the column of his neck. "I—you look really pretty," he said, gesturing to your outfit.

"Oh, thank you," you chirped. "You clean up quite well yourself."

The two of you shared a smile then and for a second, Sunwoo's mouth went dry and no words leapt from his tongue. They all remained lodged in his throat where his heartbeat went pitter-patter.

He cleared his throat, breaking eye contact with you for a moment.

You made a vague nod toward one of the open benches lining the perimeter of the quad, an invitation. "Wanna come sit with me?"

"Do I?" Yes. The answer was yes.

When you and Sunwoo were seated side by side, centimeters separating your arms and legs from touching the other, his heart still had not settled. The adrenaline, in fact, also had her to dissipate. With wide eyes, he soaked everything in.

"Did you go to the winter showcase on Friday night?" He blurted, turning to you.

You met his gaze. "I did. It was such a cool experience, especially since it was my first time. Did you?"

He nodded, locking his lips. "I did, yeah," he murmured. "I had a couple friends performing, so we all went to cheer them on. It's always a really great time though; I'm glad you got to go."

"Oh, that's nice. I always find dancers so impressive," you said with a wistful gleam in your eyes. "Do you dance?"

He found himself fidgeting with Chanhee's phone that he still held onto in his lap. "A little," he admitted bashfully. "I took an intro to hip-hop class last year, and I sometimes dance with my friends. Just—not in public," he said.

For a second, something flickered across your face. But he must have been dreaming because it was gone as quickly as it came.

"So music and dance? You're a multi-talented threat, Sunwoo."

"Aw, not really," he giggled. He wanted to hide his burning face in the collar of his jacket, but there was something about you that also made him unafraid to show you this side of him. Actually, you made this side of him come out. He wasn't usually so terribly shy, always tumbling over his words and doing diction cartwheels… communications major, his ass. "What about you? You're literally a musical genius. You should be on my Spotify Wrapped, Yn."

This time, he could relish in making you flustered. "Aye, you can't say that and expect me not to wanna…" You lost your own words, biting your tongue.

He didn't know what got into him, but he leaned forward closer to you. "Expect you not to what?" He asked lowly, teasingly.

Your breath hitched in your throat, and he swore his own rapidly-beating organ was going to come flying out of his chest.

"Expect me not to—steal your glasses!" With a high-pitched squeal, you snatched the lensless frames from right off his nose.

Sunwoo gasped in scandal, diving to grab them back, but you had already stood up from the bench. "Yah! Those were expensive frames!"

Your face lit up as you donned them. "You'll have to take it off my face then!"

"Bet!" And he lurched after you as you took off into the setting sun.

Your voices echoed across the quad: "Jisuuuuuung! Jisung, save me!"

"Jisung can't save you when he's scared of me!"

EPISODE SIX: AND THE MUSES ARE OFF!

"IT'S not a date!"

"It's a date!"

"It's not a date!" Sunwoo stopped abruptly in the middle of his living room where he had been wearing a hole in the wood floors from pacing. He whirled on his sock-clad heels to face his sofa of judges, Changmin and Chanhee. Eric was out with his girlfriend watching the newest action movie that had come out over Spring Break. "She would say if it was a date, right?"

Chanhee smacked his palm against his forehead with a puff of air. Changmin, however, leaned back on the couch with a ponderous look on his face and rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "She probably would. She seems like she has more balls than you."

"Hey!"

Changmin grinned. "Just saying." He then leaned down to pick up his duffle bag sitting at his feet. "I've gotta run now, but let me know how it goes."

Sunwoo leveled a scowl at him as he passed by to go to the door. "I hope CM!Yn trips you in the practice room."

"Into her arms!" He hollered back, which was swiftly followed by the front door slamming shut.

While Changmin was headed out to meet CM!Yn at the practice room for her first time returning to dance after three years, Sunwoo and Chanhee were left to prepare Sunwoo for today's agenda. Yesterday, you and he had traded numbers, to which you had immediately asked if he'd wanted to hang out with you some more over Spring Break. The answer had been as easy as counting to three.

Now the only problem was to not freak out over it.

"You're picking up lunch, aren't you?" Chanhee asked as he shoved Sunwoo into the bathroom.

Sunwoo nodded shallowly and picked up his round brush and blow-dryer. "Mhm. I'm meeting her at the performing arts building, and we're gonna take the metro up to Lake Anchor. Ever been up there?"

Chanhee fixed the collar of Sunwoo's white button-up, then snatched the brush and blowdryer out of his hands to do it for him. "Nope. Heard it's nice up there though."

"Yeah," Sunwoo muttered, nearly dropping the serum bottle in his hands. "She said her friend Sieun recommended it."

"Ah."

It wouldn't have felt like a date as much if Sunwoo hadn't searched up Lake Anchor when you'd texted him about it last night. The place was gorgeous, a certified calendar-worthy landscape with purple mountain majesties in the back and shores lined with emerald green hills and willow trees. It didn't help that the Reddit pages all deemed it a "couple's picnic spot you can't miss." Oh, he wasn't going to miss it, all right.

Thirty minutes later, he found himself outside the doors to the performing arts center where you said you were currently taking a tech lesson from Bang Chan. He had a paper bag of snacks and sandwiches from the local convenience store in one hand and the other tucked away into his pocket.

He wondered if he could go in and see you, but he'd already texted you he was waiting outside, and you'd replied you were on your way out.

Just as he was about to go sit on one of the benches, one of the doors at the entrance opened. You emerged out into the late spring morning with the breeze in your hair, a tote bag slung over one shoulder, and a ukulele case hanging from the other. You smiled wide at him and waved.

Sunwoo's lips parted into a grin. "Hi. I got us snacks," he said and lifted the brown bag in his hand.

"Sunwoo, you didn't have to," you pursed your lips fondly, adjusting your bag straps.

"I wanted to." The two of you fell into step in the direction of the closest metro station. It would be a short walk from here into the university Avenue, and down a block to the station. Everything was conveniently placed in the name of accessibility. "Plus, I didn't really eat breakfast," he admitted.

"Me neither." You cupped half your face with your palm. "Aish. I always forget I have, like, yogurt in the fridge, y'know?"

Sunwoo chuckled. "Yeah, I get that. My roommate and I always forget that we have groceries in the fridge because we always see the ramen packets on the counter instead. How was the lesson with Chan?"

The two of you stopped at the intersection to wait for the light. You hugged your ukulele to your chest. "It was good! He's always really helpful and knowledgeable—and patient," you mused. "I hope you don't mind me bringing my uke along though. I thought it would be a nice form of entertainment once we got up to the lake."

"I'm not entertaining enough for you," he gasped melodramatically, jutting his bottom lip out in a pout.

You laughed, and the sound made him break his pout and smile. "I thought I would be the entertaining one for once. D'you know how to play?"

The crosswalk sign turned on for you, and you both made your way across.

"I know some guitar," Sunwoo answered, "but just the basics. They teach you a bit at summer music camp." As he walked by your side, he felt his hand brush against the back of yours. "My hyung—Jacob—he plays guitar pretty well. He's good at singing, too, like you."

He caught your smile from the corner of his eye.

"He did it to woo his girlfriend," he jested, sticking his tongue in his cheek when he remembered how JC!Yn brought him and Haknyeon up to speed last quarter about her love life antics.

You chuckled. "That's a shame you know the trick," you said with an impish twinkle in your eyes, "because that was exactly my plan."

Sunwoo came to a screeching halt in the middle of the walkway, and when you realized he was still staring wide-eyed at the sidewalk, you let out a laugh and went back to drag him along to the station.

— ✶

The view was something out of a magazine, the kind that took one's breath away. You and Sunwoo had claimed the shade beneath a willow tree and settled down across from each other with the brown paper bag flattened out to display the feast he had purchased. There were other small groups of people around, as well, all of whom seemed to have the same ideas as you two as they soaked up sun, read books and napped in the shade, and picnicked along the grassy shoreline. There was even a small booth a mile down the bank that rented out swan-shaped paddle boats and canoes for people to take out onto the water.

You and Sunwoo had pretty much demolished all of the goodies he brought with him. The conversation had been flowing, simple and organic, and you felt at peace—that was the best way to describe it. Maybe it was the location, the circumstance, the company, or all three.

You picked up your ukulele from where it laid in its case by your side. "Any suggestions?" You queried, taking the instrument out and checking that it was in tune.

Sunwoo brushed his hands of crumbs and braced his palms on the grass behind him. It was the visual of him in that white shirt, his sleeves rolled up and collarbone exposed, jawline clean and sharp as he gazed out at the view that made your heart race again. "Hmm," he hummed, "what did you first learn on it?"

"I think I taught myself Lemonade by Jeremy Passion," you said to him and scoured your brain for the right chords. You strummed a G-flat minor, and when it sounded about right, you shifted to B, until you managed to jog your memory of all four chords.

He watched you with softened eyes, his knees pulled up to his chest now as he leaned his cheek onto the tops of his knees. "That's a good song," he murmured.

"Do you know the lyrics?"

He chuckled, shaking his head and flicking his wrist. "Oh, no, no. I don't sing."

"Doesn't sound like you can't," you quipped back with a teasing tilt in your smile. You swayed a little as you played the tune over and over again. "A little shy, are we?"

You could see the smile peeking from his lips even when he tried to hide it in his arms. "I don't sing a lot."

"If I sang the first verse, would you join me in the chorus?" You offered as a compromise. You wouldn't push after this if he still refused, but there was a part of you that felt like you needed to hear this beautiful man sing for you.

He balked for a second, toeing at the dirt. Then, "Okay. I'll join in at the chorus."

A smile bloomed on your face. "Excellent."

You were a little shaky going in yourself. Though you had definitely practiced this song more times than you could count, performing it for someone else was always like playing it for the first time. And you wanted Sunwoo to enjoy it, and to be impressed by you. You wanted to do well for him and to be able to encourage him.

As he said he would, you heard him join in at the chorus—softly, at first, until he was the main vocal and you could bolster him with the harmony.

His eyes met yours, all smiles, as the song continued on. The ending verse… dear god, you could fall over from pure giddiness at the way he nailed the runs and you could do a little showing off with your strumming. Shivers, just plain shivers.

"She's exactly what… I need," he crooned, fingers playing absentmindedly with a strand of grass.

You let the vibrations of the strings linger in the spring air for a moment. It was like the two of you were encased in this bubble all by yourselves; and it was beautiful. It was perfect.

"I knew you could sing," you said to him. "I just had a feeling."

He hung his head, but the smile on his face could not be suppressed. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For encouraging me," he shook his head. "Believing in me."

You pursed your lips together thoughtfully and you wished you could pick his brain without risking total invasion. "Do people not believe in you often?" You asked quietly, shifting to move yourself around the pile of rolled-up trash and to sit next to him.

He followed your lead, scooting himself next to you until you were no longer opposite, but adjacent. "Not people, just me, I think."

"Ah." You could empathize.

He gave a shallow nod. "Do you ever get scared of making a mistake so you don't—I dunno—go for it? And then you end up thinking that maybe not taking that risk was the mistake?"

You set your ukulele down in the case beside you and mirrored his position, arms looped around your legs. "I do. All the time actually, and it's a scary feeling."

"Yeah," he exhaled. "Sometimes I wish I had just gone into music, full-on. I mean, a communication major is useful and all, but there are times when I wonder where I would have been if I had nurtured that passion."

His words resonated within you. There was a reason why you transferred to this university and decided to leave your original plan behind. You had gone into college with an intent to major in Computer Science, but less than a year in, it had become abundantly clear to you how unhappy you were. Leaving wasn't just a choice, it had been a need.

You turned to look at Sunwoo and you felt your chest tug toward him. You bumped his leg with your knee. "You still have time," you said. "It's not too late to still see where that goes."

But you knew the conflict that warred in his head; you knew it all too well because you had experienced it firsthand. It was much more complicated than simply chasing after one's dreams. There was obligations, expectations, fears, and physical obstacles that made the situation more complex than it seemed at first glance. You didn't know his family situation, didn't know the whole story of why he hadn't taken his summer music camp experiences and translated it into his current college career.

You didn't know it all… but you wanted to. You wanted to know everything about him.

"You said you don't have a minor figured out yet, right?" You asked suddenly, an idea coming to you.

He hummed. "Yeah."

"Well, why don't you choose music as your minor?" When he didn't answer right away, you added, "You obviously don't have to decide right this second—it's just something to think about."

(It seemed he had a lot he needed to think about lately.)

Sunwoo rose up and leaned back onto his palms again. When he turned to look at you, a sense of calm had come over him this time. "I really appreciate you."

You broke into a smile. "I appreciate you, too."

"No, really," he laughed, then bit his lip. "I'm sorry for screwing the mood—"

"You're not! Really," you insisted. "I don't mind. I like having meaningful conversations with people who mean a lot to me."

He didn't even have to say anything, because there was this look, one you simply could not ignore. It made your stomach feel like it was swarmed with butterflies and that you were walking on air. It was like watching him smile while listening to the song you wrote, like walking out of the performing arts center to see him waiting for you. He didn't have to say anything because you knew—you had to. There simply could not be any other explanation, right?

EPISODE SEVEN: WHAT IF SOULS FEEL FAMILIAR FOR A REASON?

YOU had been keeping a secret.

"So what you're saying is that you know that he knows, but he doesn't know that you know that he knows?"

You nodded, arms crossed. "Yeah, pretty much."

Jisung made a face and rested his temple against his palm. "My brain hurts."

From where she was perched on a stool, Park Sieun reached over and patted Jisung's nest of hair. "It is a little confusing. Why don't you just confront him about it?"

"I don't know," you huffed and fell back against the wall. The three of you were holed up in one of the private studios on campus. There weren't many buildings opened since it was still Spring Break, but many of the performing arts facilities were. Jisung had offered for you and Sieun to meet him in the room he had snagged and had been currently occupying in order to bust out as much creative energy as possible. (Newsflash, it was not going well, hence, yours and Sieun's invitations.) Studio rooms were pretty much soundproof, so they were good for those in the music programs who wanted a private space to practice or record things.

You had just brought them up to speed on your latest outing with a certain Kim Sunwoo up to Lake Anchor, as Sieun had so graciously suggested to you the other day. After your outing, however, you'd come to one very solid conclusion.

Well, and there was the matter of The Anonymous Situation.

Just this morning, you had opened your inbox to find another submission from one of your regular anonymous listeners whom you affectionately nicknamed Rhaps. Rhapsody Anonymous had begun to pop up in your inbox just last quarter, and it wasn't until recently that you figured out who it was. At first, it seemed completely implausible for Sunwoo to be the face behind the name, because there was no way out of a whole internet of people that he had managed to stumble across your podcast.

To make matters more complex, you had an inkling that he also knew that you were the host of Songbird Station. He had sent you something along the lines of: "Hey Dovey! I stumbled across this song recently that I haven't heard in awhile. It's called Lemonade, and I realize that I've only actually heard the ukulele vers. LOL anyways, I hope you're not too busy this Spring Break and that you've had time to relax. I've always wondered though… have you ever met someone who feels familiar to you? Not like in a 'I've reunited with you after five years' kind of familiar, but like… something more like kindred spirits……"

The whole message had the same amount of sweetness he always used to contact and interact with you, but the recommendation of the song Lemonade simply could not be a mere coincidence. You just couldn't accept that.

You had pondered this for a long time—the possibility of confronting him about his anonymous persona. And of course, there were several things that held you back from doing so. "I mean," you began, pushing off from the wall to slowly pace the little room available, "I don't want to scare him, y'know? Like I'm sure there's a reason why he goes by a pseudonym like I do, and I don't want to burst that bubble.

"Plus," you continued, "what if I'm just thinking about this all wrong? What if I've read the signs completely out of proportion and he's not actually Rhapsody Anonymous? That would just be embarrassing."

You stopped in front of your friends with your hands positioned on your hips and your head quirked to the side in thought.

"Would it really be so bad if you brought it up, like, even subtly?" Sieun asked you, her pink-tinted lips pursed slightly.

Jisung piped up, too, "Yeah, Sunwoo's a pretty cool guy. And based on what I've seen between the two of you and what you've told us, I don't think he would laugh at you or anything."

"I don't think he would laugh at me either," you confessed. "It's just kinda scary."

The two murmured their agreement. Though Sieun was your trio's only extrovert, you actually had no idea how you'd come to be decently close friends with these two. You chalked it up to all frequenting similar social circles. The music program was always a good way to make friends, and you were glad that it had yet to fail you, even in college.

Sieun made a vague gesture with her hand. "I think you should try, though. I'm sure you'll find a way to slide it in," she chuckled.

Jisung snorted. "I have never seen that man so flustered in his life."

"Yeah, he has to be whipped for you, Yn-ie."

A cough from the boy in the room. "Not like you're any more whipped than he is."

"Han Jisung!" You reprimanded, heat swarming to your cheeks.

He broke into a boyish grin, eyes wide and alight like a chipmunk. "What? Don't give me the government name; you know it's true!"

Even Sieun was laughing behind her oh-so delicately placed hand. "He's got a point."

You sighed, wrinkling your nose. "I came for support, not a call out."

"Are those not the same things—AH, I'M SORRY DON'T WHACK ME—!"

— ✶

There was a place on the Avenue with the best lime soda, as Sunwoo had claimed, when the two of you coordinated to get lunch together. Because you had chosen the place of your last hangout, you'd insisted that he chose a place this time. By his texts, he had seemed pleasantly surprised to be hanging out again so soon, and while your nerves were high in anticipation for the coming conversation, you also couldn't wait to spend time with him some more.

You met outside the storefront of a Vietnamese restaurant that you'd only seen in passing, and had yet to try. You glanced up from your phone just as Sunwoo came up from down the road toward you, dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket.

"Hey, sorry to keep you waiting," he said as he swung the door open for you.

You and he ducked inside. "It's no worries," you assured him. "Hope you're not sick of me just yet."

You saw that boyish grin of his as he caught your eyes and signaled the waiter for a table for two. "Never."

When the two of you were seated, your eyes greedily took in the options laid out on the menu. There were just far too many appetizing items—maybe you should have scouted out the menu beforehand.

"Any favorites?" You queried from over the rim of your menu.

Sunwoo was slinging his shoulder bag over his head as you asked this. "Oh, uh, I've been hooked on their shrimp banh xeo ever since my friend Haknyeon introduced me to it. It's like a Vietnamese crepe with stir fried vegetables and a protein. But I think in general, everything is pretty good here."

You hummed. "Mmh, sounds good. And you said the lime soda is really good, too?"

He nodded his head vigorously. "Yes, for sure. That stuff is addicting."

You took his word for it, and soon, the two of you had finished ordering your lunch for the day. A part of you wished you didn't have to disturb the pleasantness of this one-on-one lunch date (was this a date?) with Sunwoo by bringing up the podcast, but what if by clearing the air, it would make your relationship stronger? (Or, it could end in a fiery, hot pile of shit!)

Either way, you would try to get to it as organically as possible.

"So I wanted to talk to you about something." Yes, because this is totally organic, Yn… You grabbed your cup of lime soda and played absentmindedly with the straw.

You gauged his reaction carefully. He perked up. "You—you wanted to talk to me about something?" He parroted, pointing his finger back at himself. "That's not usually good."

"Sorry, no, it's not bad!" You promised. On the way here, you had come up with about a dozen ways to go about this, but at the end of the day, there would only be a yes or no answer. "Do you, by chance, happen to listen to podcasts?"

There was that flicker of recognition over his face, and for a second, he reminded you of something like a puppy with how wide his eyes were. "Uhh," he drawled, scratching his head and feigning nonchalance, "I mean, sometimes. Like casually."

"This might sound weird—"

"Uh-huh."

"—but are you Rhapsody Anonymous?"

If sweat could be animated, that was what you imagined to be dripping down the side of Sunwoo’s face at this moment. He seemed to be figuring out a way to reply. “Would you believe me if I asked you what a Rhapsody Anonymous is?”

“No, not really.”

“What’s a podcast?”

You huffed. “Sunwoo—”

“Okay,” he relented, slumping over slightly. He seemed nervous, in a way, eyes looking anywhere but you, twirling his straw between his thumb and index finger, his foot tapping furiously against the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry! I didn’t really want to bring up the podcast to you because I thought that you enjoyed the anonymity, y’know?” He told you with an apologetic wince. “And I really liked listening to the show, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to interact with you anonymously, as well, and over time, I thought we’d kinda become friends.”

He peered up at you nervously, and guilt wormed its way into the trenches of your gut. From what it seemed, he must have really thought that you would react negatively to him knowing your podcast-hosting side show.

“We are friends,” you finally said and scooped a lock of hair out of your face. “I’m not like, mad, or anything; it was more of me trying to figure out why you felt so familiar to me. And I’m really honored that you liked my podcast enough to want to interact with me there. It means a lot.”

With your small smile, Sunwoo’s posture flooded with relief. “So you’re not mad that I figured out your identity?”

“Definitely not,” you shook your head. “If anything, I’m relieved. I’ve been wondering about your identity for a while now.”

The corners of Sunwoo’s mouth lifted. “That’s… that’s cool. This is really cool,” he said. He let out a sigh, leaning back to slump in his chair with a dramatic expression of anguish on his face. “You have no idea how much it’s been eating me up inside, Dovey! Like how do you balance your two identities? It takes so much energy for me to make sure I keep them separate.”

“I can tell; you weren’t exactly the most inconspicuous,” you teased.

He sat up. “What do you—”

“Well, you kind of told me things in person that you’ve told to me on anonymous, and vice versa.” You recalled to him the two main instances that gave him away to you. It was amusing to see the way he grew increasingly more flustered as you kept talking about it, but you realized that this was probably incredibly painful for him to hear.

Sunwoo had his head in his hands by the time you were done. “I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

He shifted slightly so that his cheek rested against one palm. “And to think that I was being all slick and secretive,” he pouted, scrunching up his nose. “You know, I always thought about being friends with you in real life. That one time that I told you about that one Taylor Swift song that reminded me of you?”

“Superstar?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” He meditated on that thought while sipping his drink. “It just felt right. Like you were far away but also right there in my ear. Does that make sense?”

You knew what the song was about; you could recite the lyrics by heart, and the fact that he associated that song with you… It sent your heart a-flutter. “It does.”

He jolted up so suddenly you nearly fell out of your seat with him. “Not that I’m desperately in love with you or anything,” he added quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth as fast as he mentally skimmed through the lyrics again and again. His cheeks were tinged with pink, and you were sure that your neck looked as hot as it felt.

You pretended your heart didn’t drop to the pit of your stomach when he said that. You laughed along with him, though you weren’t sure why it sounded like it did. “Oh, right, right. I didn’t think that; don’t worry.” All the butterflies in your stomach drooped.

Sunwoo scrambled to find the right words. “I just mean that I always felt like some average Joe, and you were…” He gestured to you helplessly, “you.”

Your heart couldn’t help but give a sharp pang at that.

“And how could I ever be anything more to you than just another listener in your stats, y’know?”

You never thought that you would have ever given off that kind of vibe toward listeners, or come to mean that much to any members of your audience. It had seemed simply impossible for you to ever become large enough to evoke that kind of feeling in people—a popstar to their fans. You folded your arms over the table and leaned toward him. “Sunwoo, you were never just another listener. You made yourself known to me and you made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”

He slowly met your eyes, and you sat up straighter, reaching toward the paper straw wrapper to fidget with. “I originally started this podcast because I needed a place to talk. After feeling like people were always moving on without me, I was trying to search for validation, and I found that in podcasting. I figured that maybe… if I was feeling these things, then there had to be someone out there who was feeling them, too.

“And the song recommendation and music talk was always a nice bonus,” you added. “I had people send in anonymous submissions, but never as frequently as you did, and it made me feel like I was reaching somebody. Not just a random hit every so often, but somebody.”

Sunwoo’s eyes shone in the artificial lighting inside the restaurant, and outside your little bubble, you barely registered the noises around you. It was just you and Sunwoo in this moment in time and space. He swallowed. “You’re really cool, you know that?”

You grabbed your cup of lime soda and softly knocked it against his. “That’s all you, superstar.”

— ✶

Lunch had progressed much smoother after you had confronted Sunwoo, to say the least. You were convinced, however, that you had to meet this Haknyeon character he kept telling you about. He was the one to recommend the Vietnamese restaurant, and he was going to be your new favorite person. (Sorry, Sunwoo.)

When both you and Sunwoo had finished up with lunch, you didn’t want to cut your time with him short and asked him if he’d ever been up to the Farmer’s Market north of the Ave.

“There’s a Farmer’s Market over there?” His mouth gaped as he let you lead him a couple blocks north.

You grinned, tipping your head up to the sky to soak in the last bits of sunlight before it was about to be blanketed over by gray clouds. “Yeah! It’s really neat. They’ve got one going every week, I think.”

The walk up was an easy one as it was a straight shot from the restaurant to the intersection where white picket fences were set up to barricade the street for vendors to set up in. Pop-up tents of different colors and sizes lined either side of the street as people milled about going from vendor to vendor. This had been one of the few gems you’d found when you transferred here, and though you didn’t often visit, you tried to buy at least a couple things to support the local businesses. The fruit here tasted much better than the ones in-stores, anyway.

You and Sunwoo slipped past the fences and into the throng of people, and you watched his face light up in awe as he took in the sights and smells. There were people selling beaded bracelets and art, farmers tossing blueberries into kids’ mouths… it was a lively slice of community here.

“Wow, this is incredible,” he said, but suddenly stopped short. “Oh my god, they’re selling melon pops, Yn-ie!” He pointed out a stand a little further down the way that he had peered over a few heads for. He grabbed your hand and pulled you along with him. “Come on! I’ll treat you to one.”

It wasn’t like you were going to refuse him.

Within another few minutes, you and Sunwoo had both acquired one melon popsicle each. It was adorable to see him bouncing along on the balls of his feet like a kid on Christmas morning as he lapped up the light green juice dripping down the side of the frozen treat.

“—look how pretty those sunflowers are!” He gasped at one of the stands to your left selling bundles of different flowers.

An idea popped into your head, and you scurried over to the booth and traded a two dollar bill for one of the baby sunflowers. You whirled around to where Sunwoo stood and waited for you. “Stand still,” you said while reaching up to tuck the flower behind his ear.

Before he could comprehend what was happening, you pulled out your phone and snapped a quick picture of him.

Sunwoo’s eyes had gone wide, his cheekbones the same color as the roses in the bundles behind you. “What… just happened,” he asked, blinking, then came over to poke your shoulder to get your attention. He peered over at your phone screen to see that you were setting the photo you took as his new contact photo. He let out a hum, “Wow.”

“It’s cute.” You let him see the picture.

He narrowed his eyes at the screen before finally giving it a nod of approval. “Okay, good enough.”

You scoffed, lightly hitting his arm with the back of your hand. “Good enough? I think it’s perfect.” You finished off the rest of your melon pop and tossed the stick in a nearby trash bin.

(If you’d looked up from your phone at that moment, you would have seen the utter bliss on Sunwoo’s face after hearing you compliment a picture of him and calling it “perfect.” To him, absolutely nothing could ruin this day, this moment, this year for him—!)

One raindrop fell onto your phone screen, followed by another, and another, and ano--

(He should not have spoken so soon.)

“It’s raining,” you observed dumbly, reaching a palm out to feel the pitter-patter of the sky’s tears on your skin. Others around you were beginning to notice, too, either huddling under their nearest tent or the overhangs of establishments lined on the sidewalk.

You figured somebody must have pissed the weather off because the rain only began to drum harder against the world.

"Well, shit," you laughed and patted Sunwoo on the back of his shoulder to move him toward the side of the road. "Let's find shelter!"

The two of you joined the crowd as you scrambled past the tents and up onto the sidewalks. Some people simply went into the shops themselves, but you and Sunwoo took a moment to stare out at the once-clear sky. Strange how springtime weather worked.

Sunwoo finished off his popsicle and found a trash bin to toss the stick into. He ran a hand through his dampened locks, then dragged that same palm down his face. "D'you like a little rain, dove?"

The nickname caught you off-guard for a second, but not as badly as seeing the soft-cornered smile on his face.

You cleared your throat. "I don't mind it. How about you?"

He made a frown at the sky as if he could reprimand nature for crashing the date—wait, this wasn't a date, was it? "It would have been nice if the weather report was accurate for once, but a little walk in the rain never hurt anybody."

You voiced your agreement. The next course of action you both decided on was making the long trek home in the rain together. You tried to stay out of the shower as best as you could, but there definitely weren't enough overhangs to get you home completely dry.

At one of the intersections, Sunwoo looked over at you through his dripping wet bangs. "You don't have a jacket."

On instinct, you glanced down at your bare arms, only clad in a T-shirt. "Oh, I guess I don't," you mused.

"Here—" he shouldered off the black bomber jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

"Sunwoo, I can't—"

"Yes, you can," he laughed and shook his head out. The light turned green to cross, and he wrapped an arm around you to keep you steady along the rain-slicked street.

The jacket and arm around you were both warm, but you had a feeling that even without the jacket, his arm would have been more than enough.

When you'd made it to your apartment complex and bursted into the front lobby, you and Sunwoo practically stood in your own self-made puddles. You took the jacket off from around your shoulders and shook it out; it was a shoddy attempt to get the water out, but at least the material was semi-waterproof on the outside.

"Here you…" Your throat went dry as you made to hand his jacket back to him and zeroed in on the way his wet, white T-shirt stuck flush against his skin. There was no other way to describe it but as see through, and there was no way in hell you were going to be able to erase that defined stomach from your mind. "...Go."

You coughed as you looked away, and he accepted his jacket back with a low "Thanks."

When he zipped his jacket up, you nodded toward the elevator. "Do you wanna come up and dry off before you go out? You can totally borrow my umbrella if you want, too."

He shook his head. "No, it's okay. My apartment's not far, I swear."

"Ah, alright. Get home safe then." You paused, then added, "Text me once you get back?"

Sunwoo flashed you a smile, and man, if you could engrave that smile, the wet hair, into your brain… "Promise. I'll see you soon, superstar."

He reached over and ruffled your hair, then ducked out of your apartment into the rain. Just before he was out of your sight, he turned back and waved at you through the front windows.

You let out an exhale once he had disappeared. A fuzzy feeling lingered in your chest, your smile never leaving your face. You were so far gone.

EPISODE EIGHT: SWERVE LIKE A CHICKEN

ALTHOUGH Spring Break had swept through the university faster than it came, Sunwoo could still say he felt like he was riding on Cloud 9. The beginning of the quarter was easily a more relaxed part of the term, but Spring quarter itself was a whole other nightmare in itself. Everyone around him was beginning to wake up from their break-dazed slumbers to clamber their asses back into uncomfortable lecture chairs and study rooms.

It was the first Tuesday back from Spring Break when he found out you were going to be in a practice room alone for a while, working on a new project. This intel had been courtesy of one Han Jisung, who had been texting Sunwoo off and on about a track he had been mixing with Chan.

han !!: yeah just left cuz my brain was feelin super fried 🤣 dunno how ynies still there

sunwoo's phone: oh fr?? she's still over there?

han !!: yuh bro that's what i just said

han !!: r u gonna do anything abt it 👀😳

sunwoo's phone: i have no clue what ur talking abt

han !!: okay bye chicken

sunwoo's phone: u did not just call me chicken.

han !!: 🐓🐓🐓

Sunwoo walked out of his room and stood in the middle of the apartment, staring blankly at the back of Eric's head. His roommate was seated on the couch setting up a movie, and when he sensed someone was staring at him, he began to say, "Baby!—wait a minute."

Eric made a face. "Never mind, it's just you."

Sunwoo scoffed and flopped onto the opposite end of the couch. "Rude! Before EC!Yn, I used to be your one and only."

"That's actually so incorrect—"

"Do you boys ever not cat-fight?" EC!Yn mused as she came out from the bathroom and found a seat between Eric and Sunwoo. Eric instantly curled an arm around her and pulled her into his side.

Sunwoo considered this with a frown. Why was he so single? "You're lucky I tolerate your boyfriend, EC!Yn," said Sunwoo as he folded his arms over his chest and sunk into the shadows of his hoodie.

"I'm glad you've come to like me more than your own best friend," she drawled in jest. "What's got you in the dumps, my friend?"

Eric perked up, pressing the play button on the TV remote to start the movie. "Oh yeah! You were in such a good mood this morning."

A grumble from the lump of hoodie. "It's nothing."

A moment of silence passed. Then, "He misses Yn."

"I think so, too."

"Do you think if we texted her to text him, he would at least smile?"

"Oh, I think I found her Instagram the other day—"

Sunwoo peered out of his hoodie with narrowed eyes. "I can hear you guys, you know that, right?"

Both Eric and his partner shot him impish grins, delighted that their very obvious conversation brought him out of silence. The thought forced a smile onto Sunwoo's face anyway. Eric's baseball game had been canceled today because the team who they were going up against this week had internal problems (something about an affair between coaches and players—it was complicated). Thus, Eric had decided to fill his afternoon with an impromptu movie session with his girlfriend. Sunwoo was invited by roommate obligation.

There were definitely more productive things that Sunwoo could have been doing (finding a minor, finding a job, finding the answers to his cognitive psych homework, etcetera), but watching… Wait, what were they even watching?

EC!Yn reached over and nudged his shoulder with her knuckles. "Hey, Earth to Kim Sunwoo."

He shook out of his daze. "Huh? Oh, sorry." He sighed, pulling out his phone. "Jisung just told me that Yn's at the practice room working still."

"Still?"

"Yeah," he bobbed his head. "They've been there ever since they finished their composition class this morning."

Eric lowered the volume on the TV. "Dude, you should go keep her company."

Sunwoo's eyes shot open as he began mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. "I don’t wanna bother her; she probably doesn’t wanna be bothered if she’s been working for so long.” The thought had crossed his mind to head over to the practice rooms right now and sit in for a session, but he had shut his own idea down almost immediately. Would you appreciate him going to bug you or would you mind him just going to sit with you and enjoy your presence?

“I was thinking the exact opposite,” said EC!Yn, “I mean, whenever Eric comes over unannounced to come sit with me at the dorm, I appreciate it all the time.”

Eric cooed. “Aw, you do?”

Sunwoo blinked and was suddenly glad he was staring down at his phone and not the couple on the couch next to him. But he glanced up to catch EC!Yn’s eyes. “Do you really think she wouldn’t mind?”

When Eric tucked his face into her neck, she idly scratched his head. “Oh, definitely. I think it’ll be a nice surprise, considering she probably feels the same about you, based on what you’ve already told us.”

“You’re right!” Sunwoo shot up off the couch, but halted. “Wait, she what?”

Eric snorted. “She said that Yn probably feels the same about you, which, if I’m being honest, I can’t believe—”

Sunwoo dashed into his room to grab his wallet and keys. “Nobody asked you!”

— ✶

Coffee. You liked coffee, right?

Sunwoo couldn't quite think straight with the giddy anticipation bubbling in his stomach and up his chest as he balanced twin cups of iced americano in his hands. Taking the bus to the School of Music would have been less effort on his legs, but waiting for it simply did not sit with the amount of energy currently carrying him down the street and up the stairs and across the quad like a madman.

People were probably eyeing him weirdly, but he was trying to come up with things to say to you. Preferably, these things were smooth and not strange fragments that weren't properly strung together. He wanted to look put together, to sound put together.

He was probably going to look frazzled, though, from half-running a mile uphill, but that was okay—he was excited to see you.

The School of Music stood right across from the School of Art building, the twin towers looming above the quad stairs. With school back in session, there were plenty of people milling about the entrance, and somebody graciously opened the door for Sunwoo so he didn't have to awkwardly balance his coffees and risk spilling them to get inside. He hadn't often visited this building, but he had been in here before to visit friends and upperclassmen. Though the architecture was grander, it still had the homey feeling of a high school band room, some place music students could call home.

Sunwoo navigated himself toward the practice rooms in the back hallways, murmuring "excuse me"s and apologies as he sidestepped string bassists and bassoons and snare drums. (He could've sworn there was a whole drum kit in one of these; it was strange seeing someone carrying around a single snare… huh.)

He reached the corridor to turn right into the practice hall when he froze, diving back behind the wall.

"—wait, Yangyang—"

Something in him sunk deep into the pit of his stomach, an anchor to the sea floor. He watched you launch out of your practice room and into Yangyang's arms, both of you hugging each other closely. He had his arms wrapped around you and his cheek against the crown of your head.

Sunwoo couldn't hear what you were saying to each other—if you were saying anything at all.

And you didn't let go. Not yet, at least.

When you did finally let go, the two of you were beaming at each other. It was near impossible to make out what kind of emotion was there from so far away, but Sunwoo couldn't look anymore when Yangyang leaned in towards you—

Sunwoo pressed himself against the wall he was peering around.

Oh.

He struggled to swallow; there was a large lump sitting in his throat that he had to wrestle down.

Disappointment—yeah, that was disappointment.

Before you or Yangyang could come down this way, Sunwoo retraced his steps from where he came until he was back outside. He sucked in a breath, mind abuzz.

He set down the cups of iced coffee, now perspiring, on a ledge nearby, so he could pull out his phone.

It rang twice. "Yo."

"Are you practicing right now?" Sunwoo asked, leaning his body against the railing. His free hand held his face as his brain replayed the events he had just witnessed. Did that mean what he thought he meant? You were totally allowed to see other people—the two of you weren't exclusive—but goddamn, did that hurt to think about.

Was he too late? Had he chickened out so long that you decided to move on, or was he never in the running in the first place?

He heard a bit of shuffling from the other side, then a sigh from Changmin. "Now I'm not. What's up?"

"I'm coming over."

A pause. "...Okay, see you soon."

EPISODE NINE: [YELLS.]

THERE was something different in the air and you could taste it. Not literally, of course, but you figured your paranoia had manifested strong enough within you to be able to sniff these kinds of things out. "These things" referred to the slight difference in the way you interacted with Sunwoo, or rather, how Sunwoo interacted with you.

You turned your phone off again, having checked it for what felt like the fifth time in the past two minutes. Usually, he replied relatively fast, but for the past week or so, he'd been a little more delayed. He didn't text dry, which was a relief, but there was something off about it. You couldn't articulate it too well—it was just a gut feeling.

"Oy, phone away, Yn," Sieun ordered, snapping her fingers and holding her hand out across the table.

You sent her a look, but reluctantly handed your phone over to her. "But—"

"No buts!" She tutted. She hid your phone within the confines of her purse before promptly returning to the warm bowl of biang biang noodles in front of her. "The more you check your phone, the sadder of a sap you look."

"Thanks," you deadpanned, but followed her lead and picked up your chopsticks to eat your food.

The two of you were seated in, arguably, the best Chinese restaurant on the Avenue. It had become a fast favorite of yours when you first transferred, saved for the long days and weeks when you needed something like spice to make you feel anything other than sad. Sieun had suggested coming down here for dinner rather than staying in and eating another round of instant ramen. It was something she knew would cheer you up easily, and so far, it was only half working.

You reached for your water, only to realize it was practically empty.

As if she could read your mind, the waitress taking care of your table appeared at your side and filled your water up for you.

"Oh, thank you!" Your eyes glanced over at her name tag—HN!Yn—and met her kind eyes.

"Of course. Anything else I can get you two?" She asked cheerily, swiftly filling up Sieun's cup, as well, with practiced grace. "Food's good?"

Both you and Sieun nodded your heads vigorously, especially since both of your mouths were now full and you couldn't speak. She seemed to get the idea and hustled over to a nearby table to tend to them. How waiters and waitresses always knew when you had food in your mouth, you could never figure out. It was always absolutely awful timing, but you supposed the skill was akin to Starbucks workers butchering name spellings.

When you finally swallowed your bite, you chased it with a gulp of water. "I don't think I did anything wrong," you said to your friend, pushing around the saucy rice in your bowl with the tips of your chopsticks.

Sieun covered her mouth. "I don't think so either," she replied, eyebrows furrowed. "Maybe he's just busy? It could be that he got a job or something, or school work is piling up."

You frowned. You thought he would have let you know he was going to be a bit busier, but at the same time, he didn't owe you anything. You just worried about him and hoped he wasn't overworking himself. It didn't help that you missed hanging out with him; it didn't feel like it used to between you just last week.

From behind you, you heard the door to the restaurant open and close with a loud smack! The door to the restaurant was awfully loud when it closed, unless it was carefully done. Something about the angle at which it was constructed, or something like that.

Sieun's brows flew up. "Speak of the devil," she muttered with her food pushed into her cheek.

"Hm?" You hummed and twisted around in your seat to see who she was referring to.

Oh. Well, she definitely wasn't wrong, per se.

Coming in through the door himself was Kim Sunwoo, as well as a few of his own friends, you guessed. You recognized one of them as Ji Changmin, one of the dancers from the winter showcase. Besides those two, there were four others, too—three other boys and a girl. You didn't recognize any of them, but you saw the way your waitress greeted them and squeezed one of the boys' hands.

You and Sunwoo made eye contact, and you shot him a small smile, lifting your fingers in a wave.

He seemed surprised to see you, and you didn't fault him for that. His wave was slight and smile shy, but you couldn't figure out why he ducked his head and didn't come by and say hi.

They're being seated for dinner, Yn. It's okay. Chill a little.

You turned back in your seat to face Sieun and your food again.

"Hey, cheer up, girl." Sieun's smile was sympathetic as she caught your attention. You hadn't even noticed how your posture noticeably slumped after that interaction—if one could even call it that. "Don't let this ruin your dinner, okay?"

You sighed out of your nose, testing your chopsticks over the rim of your bowl. "You're right. I don't know, Eun. It feels like we regressed? Is he avoiding me? Am I overthinking this?"

"I'm not sure, hon," she told you. "It'll be okay, though. I promise. Are you ready for the check?"

You nodded, reaching for your napkin to wipe your mouth.

Sieun lifted her hand and caught your waitress's attention, then made a motion for the bill. HN!Yn was quick to bring it over and set the little black tray with the receipt onto the edge of your table. In her hands she held a small device to input your method of payment.

"Are we splitting the bill today, ladies?" She asked you, eyes flickering between you both.

"Yeah, evenly split would be great, please," you told her.

Sieun leaned over to peer at the receipt as you reached into your bag to grab your card. Her face contorted into confusion, and she ran her finger over a line as if reading over it again carefully. "Oh, uhm, excuse me. It says we get a discount—not that I'm complaining! But…"

HN!Yn smiled. "Ah, you're friends with Sunwoo, right? That's what he told me, at least. I always give my partner and his friends my Friends & Family discount, so don't worry about it. I appreciate your integrity though."

You and Sieun exchanged wide-eyed glances, blinking, then turned to peer over at where Sunwoo's friend group sat. One of the boys sitting next to him whacked his arm to get his attention, nodding toward your table.

Sunwoo looked up.

Your head tilted to the side and you mouthed a "thank you?" to him, unsure of why he went out of his way to help you out.

He only nodded before ducking his head again. Huh. You'd have to thank him properly later.

HN!Yn was quick to help you and Sieun box your meals and finish paying. Before long, you tucked your arm around Sieun's to push out into the cool evening—not without glancing back at Sunwoo's table first.

— ✶

"She looks sad. Why is she sad?" Sunwoo sulked, lying atop his folded arms on the table and staring at you through the space between Haknyeon and JC!Yn.

You were the last person he thought he'd see when he and his friends walked into Haknyeon's favorite Chinese restaurant. You and your friend were pretty much wrapping up dinner when they'd come in, and he was quite literally startled by your presence. He'd been walking around on eggshells, he felt, all because of this stupid situation he'd forced himself into.

It was stupid. Yeah… it was stupid.

Changmin delivered a light whack to the back of Sunwoo's head. "You're dumb."

Sunwoo sat up and cupped the back of his head, leveling a glare at his friend. "Hello?"

"He's not exactly wrong," said Chanhee from the other side of him as he texted someone on his phone.

Sunwoo pressed his lips together and looked across the table from him at JC!Yn in a silent cry for help. The woman could only lift her shoulders half-heartedly. That meant that she agreed with them… great.

Eric snapped his wooden chopsticks apart and began using either stick to smooth the other for splinters. "We're saying you're dumb because you're doing this to yourself and to her unnecessarily."

Sunwoo huffed. "That's because you guys weren't there to see it happen! They're totally together—or at least, close." It still felt awful to think about. It felt like there was a hole in his chest left empty after considering the possibility that he was too late. He didn't want to get hurt.

"You can still talk to her like you used to, Sunwoo-ah," Haknyeon chimed in. "Even if they were—and I'm not saying they are—together, there's still a healthy amount of space where you can dwell as her friend."

HN!Yn appeared at the head of the table with a tray of water, and everyone pitched in to pass the cups down. "Thanks, guys," she said, tucking the tray under her arm. "Are you guys ready to order?" The question was directed towards the rest of the table, but Sunwoo saw the way her eyes lingered on Haknyeon and how Haknyeon's smile shifted to something that Sunwoo was sure was only for her.

It made him feel strange again.

The group, as usual, trusted Haknyeon's choices in dishes and let him take the reins in deciding what they ate tonight. Once HN!Yn had headed off into the kitchen to deliver their order, conversation resumed swiftly.

"I think you're just scared, Sunwoo," JC!Yn said to him over the rim of her glass of water.

Murmurs of agreement resounded from all around the table. Sunwoo's jaw fell open. "I—I am not scared. What would I be scared of?"

"The truth! Oooh," Eric pursed his lips and wiggled his fingers in Sunwoo's direction.

Sunwoo promptly smacked Eric's hand away.

"If you weren't scared of the truth," said Haknyeon, as he propped his elbows onto the table, "you would have gone up to her in that hallway."

"Didn't she tell you that she didn't see Yangyang that way anyways?" Chanhee chimed in. He was still going at it texting whoever it was on his phone.

"But she also said she wanted to give it a second chance," Sunwoo corrected.

Changmin scratched behind his ear and grabbed sauce trays from the end of the table to pass down to everyone else. "That was before she started hanging out with you some more. What is your point?"

They all made excellent points, he thought. That afternoon he'd seen you and Yangyang, he'd gone to meet Changmin in one of the dance practice rooms. After that, he'd gone home to yell into his pillow until his throat burned. Eric had muttered something about Sunwoo being dramatic and summoned JC!Yn over to the apartment to deal with him.

Sunwoo had just been bummed. He didn't even know if bummed was a strong enough word.

"I'm just scared of getting hurt, I guess," he finally admitted, meekly.

The table quieted to allow him room to speak his mind, and even Chanhee put his phone away to give him his full attention now. It wasn't often Sunwoo wore his heart on his sleeve like this, and it wasn't easy either. For anyone. Admitting to his fears in the middle of a Chinese restaurant while five of one's friends listened in was intimidating, but it was comforting to know that these friends he kept would find a way to support him. Even if he was being stupid, their tough love was out of desire to look out for him.

When he was done, Changmin clasped a warm hand on his shoulder and his dimple pressed into his cheek. "Sunwoo-yah, I think that you second guess yourself too much and you know that. You're self aware enough to know that you make the mistake of not going for what or who you want."

Sunwoo stared at an impurity in the table. What Changmin was saying hit the nail on the head—it was what happened with the dance showcase, too, and now he was about to let it ruin a friendship he had with a person he cared very much about.

"My advice," Changmin continued, "is to talk to her about what you saw and clarify it. I know it's… I know it's scary thinking you're gonna get hurt again, but I think you'll feel a lot better afterward."

EPISODE TEN: SUPERSTAR, I'M NOT TOO FAR

your phone: hey thanks for the fnf discount last night! sorry i didn't thank u properly before, but yeah, really appreciate it :')

sunshine (sunwoo): it was no problem, dw abt it!

your phone: btw is everything okay? u seem a bit distant lately and i wanted to make sure u were doing alright

sunshine (sunwoo): ah yeah, im sorry :( there's just been some things on my mind

You shot Sunwoo a quick text back to let him know you were here if he wanted anyone to talk to. His text had just come in after you'd sent him a reply in the early evening.

"Yn-ah. Still on your phone, I see?"

You jolted and shoved your device into the pocket of your jeans, smiling sheepishly as Lee Jihoon power-walked into the backstage area with a pen behind his ear and a clipboard in hand. "Hi, Jihoon!" You squeaked.

He lifted his eyebrows at you, motioning for you to come follow him. Since everyone was back from Spring Break, the work for the play being performed was kicked into high gear. Jihoon was a graduate student at the university and a director of the stage here; adding the fact that he majored in the same thing you did also made him one of your favorite mentors ever. The back hallways were bustling with costumes, props and other assorted technicians while most of the actors were either in the main backstage area or onstage proper with the play director, HJ!Yn.

You followed swiftly after him and weaved through the people littered about the corridors. "I finished synching the panel back here with the projector in the box," you told him, "though, it's weird that it was ever undone in the first place." You frowned. There had been a lot of strange things happening in the theater lately.

Jihoon gave you a curt nod and set you up in front of one of the house lights panels located in the hallway leading right out to the audience. He pointed at it with the back of his pen. "Yeah, some funky shit's been happening around here," he sighed. "You were here the other night when the speakers were acting weird, right?"

You nodded and let him guide you through navigating this backup panel. "I was. You and Chan seemed really stressed."

"We were," he said, adjusting his cap. "We really do need some more funding to update our equipment—careful, that knob is really sensitive. Good, nice work."

Once you and Jihoon had successfully finished with this panel, you lingered in the hallway for a moment. Normally, you would switch back and forth between shadowing either Chan or Jihoon, and tonight was with the latter. He was going through a couple forms on his clipboard—he must have been reading through them while working tonight.

"You seem distracted tonight, Yn-ie," he said. "Is everything okay?"

Despite being one of the busiest and hardest workers here, Jihoon was also one of the most observant, still. You leaned against the wall next to him, toeing at the floor. "Boys are stupid, right?"

Without hesitation or looking up from his clipboard, he replied, "As a boy, I can confirm."

That made you sputter out a laugh, and you saw him glance up and flash you a smile. When you couldn't find something else to say, he went forth. "I don't know the whole situation, and you don't have to tell me anything. But we guys are a little—" he made a gesture with his hands and wrinkled his nose, "—blind. You probably know that already, but dudes are dumbasses, and sometimes when feelings get in the way, they want to run for the hills.

"But if you think he's worth it, then reach out and be forward with him. And if he cares about you, he'll reach out and be honest," he finished. He let you settle with that thought, let it marinate in your brain to give you something to think about. (As if you didn't have a lot to think about already.)

You pressed your lips together with a slow nod. "Thanks Jihoon."

"Anytime, Yn-ie." He nodded back toward the direction you both had come from. "Let's go back that way, yeah? We've got some more housekeeping to take care of."

— ✶

Sunwoo was in trouble.

"...I thought I'd recommend a song that's been on my mind. I've actually been listening to quite a few Taylor Swift songs recently, especially since she's re-recording all her albums! So here's 'Superstar' from Fearless, Taylor's Version."

He had put your most recent podcast episode on full volume while he made himself dinner. It had been a long day today, and so his automatic thought was to listen to you. But now that he was getting into the meat of the episode, he was quickly coming to realize how much trouble he was in. You were playing the song, and it was a direct call out to him to wake the fuck up.

As the song faded to a close, your voice came back on.

"Actually, I was recommended the song by someone I know," you said in the mellow tone you'd been in for the entire episode so far. "I guess I'm just confused and I was wondering if they really meant what they said."

Sunwoo nearly dropped the egg in his hand onto the kitchen floor. Guilt swirled around in the bubbles of the soup in the pot and he frowned down at the rich, creamy liquid.

He sighed, tapping the egg against the counter and cracking its innards into the pot. "Of course, I really meant it," he said as if you could hear him. He wished he had the guts to tell you everything that was going on in his head… As his soup boiled away, he leaned against the empty counter to wait, cradling his head in his hands, groaning. "You're being unfair, Sunwoo."

"...This one's from Peony! They say: almost didn't realize Rhaps Anon wasn't in the last episode until the very end when we hadn't gotten a rec from them. Hope they're doing okay!" Ah, so you weren't the only one who noticed his brief absence. Your sigh filled the apartment, though, he heard the way you tried to force some kind of cheeriness into it. "Yeah, I hope they're doing okay too. But Rhaps'll be back! Let's all wish them well. Fighting!—"

Oh, man. Now he felt even worse.

He really needed to talk to you. Oh god, he really needed to talk to you. If not to confess, then to clear the air and assure you that all was okay on his end. He was just being a coward, and he knew that well enough now.

When his dinner had finished, Sunwoo turned the flame off and headed for his phone on the opposite counter. He lowered the volume as he went in and pulled up his text thread with you.

sunwoo's phone: hey,, i know ur probs busy w the play this week, but is there a possibility for me to see you sometime soon? i wanted to talk to u abt something

He gnawed on his bottom lip as he awaited your answer, until he realized you were probably working. That made him drop his phone and return to his dinner—maybe he just needed to not look, so his anxiety wasn't so high—

His phone buzzed and he bolted back over.

superstar 💫: i think i'll prob have some time saturday morning

EPISODE ELEVEN: [SOMEONE'S LOOKING OUT FOR YOU, LOSERS.]

YOU asked Sunwoo if he'd like to tag along with you as you did some grocery shopping before rehearsal on Saturday morning. His answer had been automatic, and you both agreed to meet each other at the bus stop to ride down to the larger supermarket down the hill together. Even as you stood at the corner of your street waiting for him beneath the overhang, you were trying to come up with possible things he was going to say to you. You had figured, when he’d texted you Wednesday night, that perhaps the best way to go about this would be to make this casual. Hence, why you were forcing yourself to go grocery shopping a day earlier than you usually did.

Casual, in this case, called for “you don’t have stare me in the eyes the entire time,” and to be frank, you were a little too nervous for that kind of setting anyway.

You tugged the edges of your cardigan over you as you heard your name being called from the opposing street. Sunwoo was bounding his way over to you with his arm raised in greeting. You returned the gesture with a soft smile. “Hey.”

He stopped by you, shoving his hands into the pockets of his gray jacket. “Hi,” he said, licking his lips. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”

The bus slowed to a halt in front of your stop, and the two of you retrieved your transportation cards to board. “You say that like I wouldn’t have agreed,” you chuckled and tapped your card, Sunwoo following suit.

The two of you managed to find a pair of empty seats near the second half of the vehicle where the exit was for an easy departure when you reached the foot of the hill. But for now, you tucked your bag onto your lap and settled into the window seat, while Sunwoo occupied the one next to you.

You turned your head to gaze out the window and watch the world blur by as you did. The Avenue streets were a tad narrower than most around the university, so the bus traveled as efficiently as it could from stop to stop before turning the block to make its descent. It was technically still morning, and though it was spring, the sky had decided to blanket the sunshine with gray clouds to form an atmosphere that reminded you distinctly of the past winter quarter. Except, instead of thin, empty branches, the streets and walkways were encased in darkening green leaves and falling pink petals, a nod to the short-lived cherry blossom season. From the corner of your eye, you saw Sunwoo’s foot start to tap against the ground like Thumper the Rabbit, and you wondered for the millionth time what was going on in that pretty head of his.

“I don’t really understand,” you found yourself saying—his head swiveled—and you turned to look at him, “did I do something wrong?”

Sunwoo stammered, "What? No, it wasn't you! It wasn't your fault at all—I was just—" he sighed, grimacing to himself. "I was just being stupid. And I know that sounds super vague, but the short answer is that I was being stupid and scared and insecure."

Your brows furrowed and you felt the bus come to a gentle stop at the foot of the hill. "Scared and insecure? What's going on; is everything okay?"

You both got up to make a quick exit off the bus and began making the short walk from the bus station into the outdoor shopping center.

There was a jittery bounce to Sunwoo's steps as well as a tension in his shoulders. "Last week," he began, "Jisung told me that he'd just left you at the practice room and that you were probably going to be there awhile."

You nodded, grabbing a basket at the front of the grocery store. That rang a bell for sure. It had been a very long day in the practice room, so you weren't quite sure what direction this was going in yet.

"Well, I wanted to go surprise you and come hang out with you. You know, like, to keep you company." He started scouring the opposite shelf to you in the dried foods aisle, his eyes nervously darting from the BUY ONE, GET ONE pasta noodles deal signs, to your person. "And when I got there, I saw you and Yangyang."

Me and Yangyang…? Oh, me and Yangyang.

It was like a lightbulb went off in your head, and you stopped pretending to look at the overpriced vermicelli noodles on the shelf behind you.

"And you guys were hugging and close and stuff—and by all means! I—I have no problem with that, of course," he added quickly, "I mean, you guys are really close… friends? And I just saw him lean toward you and left because I… I got the message." The latter portion was delivered in a defeated tone as he looked on toward you helplessly and sorrowfully. It was how Sieun described you Tuesday night when you'd seen Sunwoo at the restaurant: a sad sap.

You both stopped moving down the aisle to face each other. In the white, fluorescent supermarket lights, his hair hung in his eyes like his head in embarrassment. You were going to let him finish.

He cupped the back of his head, suddenly feeling so bare before you despite not being physically naked at all. "I thought some space might distinguish or extinguish my feelings for you," he continued, nose wrinkling and lip curling in a wince. "Clearly it didn't help, and I think overall, I realized I wasn't being fair to you—as a friend. And that I was also being the biggest fucking loser ever."

Wait, you were still reeling from the mentions about feelings—

Before you could even address the aforementioned, you had to make something clear first. You felt the corners of your lips lift. "Sunwoo, me and Yangyang really are just friends." At the confused, puppy-dog look in his eyes, you explained further, "That day, Yangyang came by and I made it clear to him that I just saw him as a friend. I felt really awful for feeling like I'd led him on and was going to lose his friendship."

Sunwoo's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, and he struggled to come up with the response he wanted. "So… so when he was leaning in toward you…"

"He leaned in and flicked my nose, then almost gave me a nosebleed," you chuckled. You'd given him a very appropriate flick to the forehead after that.

His eyes widened at that. "Well shit. Are you okay?" He asked, and you saw his smile slowly begin to make its appearance, the sun peeking through an overcast sky.

"Yeah, perfectly fine," you dismissed with a flick of your hand. "Especially now. But yeah, we're just friends."

There was a surge of relief in his tense shoulders. "Oh, okay."

He trailed after you as you continued to make your way down this aisle in particular to pick up the things that were on your shopping list.

At one point, he coughed, handing you the jar of red peppers you were reaching for. "So no hard feelings, right? I promise it will be totally back to normal!"

"Normal, as in back to before?"

He nodded eagerly. "Yeah! To be honest, Dovey, I was just kind of scared that I had lost my chance after waiting so long. I don't know. And I realized that I was just scared to face that fact."

You gauged his reaction and your own heart thundered in your chest. "Scared to face the fact that you'd lost your chance with me?"

"Well, yeah. I—" He stopped and froze like a deer in headlights. And in any other circumstance, you would have been laughing, but he seemed so distraught by what he just admitted to that you tried hard to suppress your amusement. Tried. "I just said that aloud, huh."

Nodding, you grinned fondly. "You did."

He smiled, cute and flustered, cheeks tinted pink. "You're always too easy a person to talk to," he muttered.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"I would've said something sooner…" He began.

Something jumped to attention in your brain. Oh no. "Was I giving you mixed signals?" You pursed your lips like you'd just gotten into something sour. "'Cause I swore I thought my attraction to you was clear. And, like, the thing where I totally began rethinking my thoughts about Yangyang when you came into the picture—"

"Wow, so Changmin was right?" Sunwoo made a face, holding his hand against his forehead. "That's crazy."

"Crazy good or…?"

He chuckled, and you couldn't help but admire the twinkle in his eyes as he did. "Crazy so good."

"I don't think people actually say that."

He whined, "Yah, you can't already be clowning me. Not when I just confessed that I like you."

That made you sober up, but you couldn't say the same for your heart rate. Man, your BPM alone could probably power a bullet train… "I like you, too. I hope that's clear."

There you two stood in the middle of the dried foods aisle with twin smiles glowing on your faces, soft and shared. You didn't know what the BOGO pasta was doing, but it was definitely adding to the atmosphere. You had intended for running errands to distract you from whatever Sunwoo had wanted to talk to you about, but clearly that was not the case—it would have never worked like that. You would be damned to have missed something like this. Not with him.

Perhaps he had made a mistake—he was now apologizing and clarifying and trying. You could hear Jihoon's words of wisdom ring loud and clear in your head. There was something perfectly fine about how this turned out.

"No more mixed signals?"

"No more mixed signals," he agreed.

— ✶

The remainder of your errand run with Sunwoo had gone smoothly, and soon, you were both seated side by side once more on the bus up to the University District. Sunwoo had gotten a couple things for his fridge, too, and so you both sat with your grocery bags by each other and your fingers grazing the other. Ever since you had clarified your position with Sunwoo a little over an hour ago, you had been feeling much lighter, your heart skipping for a different reason. You were back to feeling the giddy excitement you always had around him, and especially since you knew he saw you in exactly the same way.

The two of you shared a laugh as you stepped off the bus and onto your block, grocery bags in hand.

“—I’m being completely serious! Apparently I was just snot-nosed wailing into her shirt about being single and forever alone,” Sunwoo guffawed, grinning wide at you as you both stopped to the side of the walkway. “And Eric was pissed, oh my god.”

“I mean, you just kiss-blocked him; kind of understandable,” you mused.

Sunwoo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Aye, I know. He’s a good guy though. Total loser, but a good loser. He made me hangover soup the next day.”

You let out a laugh, walking slowly with him down toward the entrance of your apartment complex. "That was sweet of him."

He snorted, "A little out of character, but yeah."

"You know," you piped up, "when I was applying and eventually interviewing for the position with Chan and Jihoon, I had no idea what either of them looked like. So I accidentally—woah, shi—"

Somebody coming down the sidewalk toward you crashed into your shoulder and sent you careening toward the sidewalk. Sunwoo swore as you let out a squeak—his arm looping around your waist and hauling you against him to steady you.

He lifted his head in the direction of the person with a glower on his face. "Hey! Dude, watch where you're going!"

"Thanks," you said sheepishly.

He turned to fix you with a smile, and you saw the moment he realized the position you were both in: you pressed firmly up against the side of his body, his arm wrapped around you, your faces so close to one another… He released his hold on you, neck burning as he cupped the back of it. "Heh, yeah. It's no problem. People should just really watch where they're going."

You coughed and nodded your head. "Yeah, for sure."

The pair of you were now in front of your apartment complex once more, reluctant to say goodbye. You wondered if he would ask to spend more time with you, but you had a feeling that he wouldn't want to intrude on your time any longer. It wasn't like he was intruding to you, but it was just a feeling you had about him. He wanted to respect your time.

And, well, you both had groceries to put away.

"So I'll uh, talk to you soon then?" You asked him, holding your grocery bags in front of you.

He peered at you through his lashes. "Definitely."

"This morning turned out way better than I thought it would, to be honest."

"Yeah no, same here," he echoed. "I'm just glad you actually gave me another chance."

You reached over and gave his shoulder a playful punch. "How could I not? I've always believed in you."

That seemed to ignite something inside of him. He jutted his bottom lip out and whined, "Oh my god, you can't just say that! You're so—wah."

You giggled, watching him squirm like he was being jolted by electricity. "Hey man, sometimes you've gotta be straightforward."

"Yeah, I know." He sobered slightly and took a step forward. Your heart clambered around in your chest and rattled your ribcage. There was this look in his eyes that made you glance at his lips—his perfect, plush, pink lips.

You held still, held your whole fucking breath, as he turned his head and kissed your cheek. It was feather-light, barely there, and yet, all the heat in your body seemed to rush to that single spot in a millisecond.

When he pulled away, his voice was soft. "How's that for straightforward?"

EPISODE TWELVE: ONE LOVE SONG CAN'T CONVEY HOW I FEEL FOR YOU, SO HERE'S TWENTY—

SUNWOO imagined that he looked as cartoonish as any man in love could. There had to be hearts in eyes, hearts around his head, hearts on a glittery pink trail that carried him everywhere he went. He giggled to himself as he fished his house keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door to let himself in.

"Oh my god. We've properly lost him."

With a loud, war-like AHHH!, Sunwoo yelped and nearly dropped his groceries, struggling to hold the bags to his chest as he pressed himself against the back of the front door. His apartment filled with high-pitched cackles of delight.

Though his heart was going through about a million cartwheels a second, he managed to force the fear from his eyes as embarrassment flooded his system. He flared his nostrils, frowning and tipping his head against the door. "I hate you guys!"

"You should hate Eric for giving JC!Yn your apartment key," Changmin wheezed, slapping his hands together and rolling around on the living room carpet as he pointed and laughed at Sunwoo's absolute misery. "You should've seen your face!"

Chanhee was on the couch with his legs curled up into his chest as he had his phone out, recording the entire thing. "This one's going in the drunk Sunwoo folder."

"Yah, I'm not even drunk!"

Chanhee shrugged. "It's become your general meme folder now. We should probably rename it."

Sunwoo whipped his head toward JC!Yn, who was seated on the opposite end of the couch with an amused smile on her face. "Noona! Are you just gonna let them bully me like this?"

Her smile widened. "Sorry, Sunwoo, but we didn't think you would miss us completely when you came in."

He let out a loud groan, fragging himself over to the kitchen so he could set the grocery bags on the counter and begin to unload them. "What're you guys doing here anyways? Isn't it Saturday morning? Where's Kei?" He asked, unloading a carton of juice from the bag and slotting it into the fridge.

Kei was JC!Yn's roommate, and the two girls always went on a grocery shopping date every Saturday morning with Changmin and Chanhee. They often made Changmin drive since he had the biggest car, and grocery shopping was an exclusive event that only the four of them were allowed to partake in. Eric, Sunwoo, and even Jacob had expressed distaste at that elitism. One of these days, they were bound to let someone else join… right?

But regardless, that always meant that Saturday mornings were occupied for them. So why were three-quarters of the group currently invading Sunwoo's apartment?

Changmin sat up from his place on the floor and fixed Sunwoo with a grin that made him nervous. "We dropped her off at their place, and we did go shopping this morning, but you'll never guess the curious thing we witnessed while we were there." His giggles sent a doom-like shiver down Sunwoo's spine.

Then it clicked.

Sunwoo abruptly stopped taking dried noodle packages out of the grocery bag. "You're kidding."

A snort from Chanhee. "Oh, you wish."

Sunwoo bashed his head against his sweater-covered palms. "No."

"Yes!" Changmin shrieked.

"I didn't know you guys went to that supermarket!" Sunwoo wailed, throwing his head back toward the ceiling. "You guys saw us?"

JC!Yn rested her chin against her arm as she leaned over the back of the couch to face him. "We heard you, too. I'm glad you decided to own up to your chicken-ness. See? Wasn't so scary after all."

Well, he couldn't exactly agree with that. But he also couldn't disagree with it. He'd been so scared he was about to lose your friendship then for being so insecure for no reason. A simple clarifying question could have saved the both of you so much strife. But the conversation also reaped rewards: your mutual confessions.

He sulked and didn't say anything.

"It was cute though, Sunwoo-ah," said Chanhee with a teasing lilt to his smile.

"And also," Changmin cut in, "what do you mean 'so Changmin was right? That's crazy?!'"

Sunwoo snorted. "Now that, I have nothing to say to."

"So what's the deal now?" JC!Yn asked. "Are you two dating now or…?"

Oh. Another long pause, then— "Oh my god, you didn't ask her out?"

"Hey! Listen!" Sunwoo yelled in an attempt to defend himself.

"We're listening." Chanhee folded his arms over his chest with a less than impressed look on his face. He scoffed. "I can't believe you pull."

"Shut up!"

"He hasn't even asked her out yet—how can he pull?" Changmin quipped back with frenzied gesticulations.

Sunwoo groaned as he flopped over the counter. He couldn't believe he was having such a good morning, and now he was being berated once more for his stupidity. How could he not ask you out? It was right there! The opportunity had presented itself a multitude of times, and yet, why was he still here, dateless?

Then there came the thought of how to go about this. There was a part of him who thought that just asking you was probably fine. But the other part remembered how much he liked you—so texting was simply not an option. It had to have some pizzazz, a bit of oomph, to it.

"We can see the gears turning in your head, Sunwoo," said JC!Yn. "What's on your mind, bub?"

Sunwoo looked up from where he had smattered himself onto the kitchen counter like a pancake. "I have no rizz."

Chanhee coughed. "Well, that's not news."

Sunwoo sent him a scowl. "How should I ask her out? I kind of want it to be special, you know?"

"Hmm." JC!Yn pursed her lips, tapping her chin in thought. "The other day, I was talking to Sangyeon about music or something or other, and he showed me the playlist he'd made his girlfriend—"

"His fake girlfriend," Changmin corrected with a little smirk.

She rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure Lee Sangyeon is not sad enough to make fake playlists for his fake girlfriend." It was a known inside joke amongst the friend group that Sangyeon had a "secret girlfriend" stashed away somewhere. A few of them liked to joke that she either didn't actually exist or that he kept her locked in his laundry machine or something. Mostly, though, they just wanted to know if he actually was single or not. What was the point of keeping her a secret anyway?

The slight change in victim brought Sunwoo's mood up. "What about the playlist, noona?"

She blinked, turning her attention back to her original train of thought. "Oh, right. What if you made her one of those cute, romantic playlists?"

The four of them exchanged glances with one another. It was a silent form of communication, one that had one uniform thought running through the wire.

— ✶

You'd received a text from Sunwoo about thirty minutes ago asking if he could stop by your apartment to drop off something of yours. Apparently, in the madness of the checkout aisle at the grocery store, he had accidentally "stolen" one of your cans of chicken noodle soup.

You hadn't bought chicken noodle soup though.

This was why you now anxiously awaited his arrival for the real reason he wanted to stop by. You had literally just seen him about an hour or two ago, but you'd be lying if you said you were happy at the prospect of seeing him again so soon. Your cheek still seared from his kiss.

As if he could read your thoughts, you heard a loud series of knocks at the door.

"Coming!" You called, hustling over from your living space area and over to the door.

After peeking through the peephole, you definitely saw Sunwoo, but what he was holding was nowhere near the likeness of a can of chicken noodle soup.

In a hurry, you ripped the door open, lips parted at the bundle of bright colored blooms in his hands. Sunflowers and carnations and lilies and roses—

He peered out sheepishly from behind the bouquet with his other hand occupied by his open phone. "Hi," he peeped.

"Hey," you exhaled, a grin fighting its way onto your face.

"If I made you a playlist, would you go out with me?"

You blinked, heartbeat rocketing into high gear. "Sunwoo," you started with a disbelieving laugh, "you don't have to—"

His thumb lowered onto a button on his phone. "Whoopsies, already did it."

Right on cue, you heard your phone buzz from your pocket. Curious, you withdrew it and opened the text message from him with a link to a Spotify playlist entitled: "One love song can't convey how I feel for you, so here's twenty."

You could have melted into a puddle of ooey-gooey goodness. "Sunwoo," you lamented, smiling way too wide now.

He beamed back at you. "What do you say?"

You shook your head, throwing your arms around him as he laughed and hugged you back. "You're so cute. Yes, I'll go out with you."

He gave you a little, warm squeeze. "Oh, thank god. I thought I was gonna die from anticipation."

You laughed and smiled into his shoulder. When you pulled away, your hand gently reached for the side of his face. "What if I kissed you right now?"

His eyes widened a smidge. "What if you wha--"

You cut him off and pressed your lips to his briefly, then pulled back.

"Wait, wait. Come back here," he murmured, chasing after you and crushing his mouth against yours. And it was perfect. Everything was perfect. The feel of his lips, the smell of his cologne, the firmness of his shoulders beneath your grip and the perfect pressure as you both sealed the deal with a kiss.

The two of you pulled away at the same time with labored breaths, foreheads meshed together as you caught your breath.

"You're not gonna turn this into a podcast episode, are you?" He asked, voice low and raspy, yet laced in a playful tonic.

You teased him right back. "As long as it doesn't end poorly."

He chuckled, and you could feel the vibrations of his laugh against your lips. "Then I guess I'll just have to make it the best date ever."

"Don't worry," you said with a cheeky hand on his chest, "I believe in you."

With a laugh, he grazed his lips over yours again. "Thanks, superstar."

a/n: hihi!! thanks so much for reading <3 if you enjoyed, i would deeply appreciate a comment, reblog, or an ask to tell me what u thought about it! much love, onto kevin's !!

permanent taglist: @flwoie @vatterie @seomisaho @hqrana @ja4hyvn @tinkerbell460 @kaaimins @hyunjaespresent-deobi @otterly-fey @zzoguri @floatingpluto @winterchimez @ethereal-engene @gyulfriend @polarisjisung @jaehunnyy @shakalakaboomboo @loveliestfelix @sodafy @zhaixiaowen @leaz-kpop-life @amourdsr @pxppxrminty @kqyutie @sseastar-main @kxthleen14 @fluorescentloves @mosviqu @justalildumpling @jaerisdiction @hibernatinghamster @super-btstrash-posts @jundundun @kflixnet

[taffycandyqt]

Please No

You can't sleep and seek company in your misery through your best friend. However he's not at home.

Masterlist

Request Rules

OH MY GOSH IM NOT DEAD! In all honesty I haven't been super motivated lately but I started this personal project a LOOOOOOONG time ago and felt I couldn't move on to other requests before I finished it. When I started this I felt really inspired to make it solely because I feel there is simply not enough Donatello fluff in this world, especially in 03' and 12' s case. So I hope you like it!

2012 Donnie x reader

Aged up, all characters are college/older adult age, depends on how you want to read it.

Fluff, slightly angst if you really want it to be there

Fem reader

Sleeping was always a struggle for you. Logically you knew you needed sleep, physically you felt tired, but mentally you just couldn't bring yourself to do it. Your body hated the idea and actually laying down and sleeping, so you went to the only person you KNEW would be up right now.

Casey Jones.

He was annoying when you first met him be he was chill enough that he grew on you pretty quickly. Not to mention that if it weren't for him you wouldn't have met your now boyfriend. You always enjoyed spending time with Donnie but trying to pin him down was hard especially since you didn't know where he lived. He didn't want you to meet his brothers just yet, says he wants time to adjust to your guys relationship before being teased. Which, fair. SO! To Casey's you went. You two usually met up at grueling times of the night so it was customary to clime up each other's fire escapes and practically break into the other person's house. You'd either scare each other awake or find the other sitting in their kitchen shoveling cereal into their mouth watching conspiracies on YouTube.

Tonight though, nothing. Like the dude up and vanished. You checked the kitchen and his room. You even went as far as to check the bathroom. THAT WAS HIS WHOLE APARTMENT! Did he have just as an abhorrent sleep schedule as you? Yes, but he never left the house to make it a strangers problem. So to ease your nerves you decided to call him, if that doesn't work, your gonna pray Donnie is awake enough to answer the phone.

One ring. Two ring. Third ring...

"This is THE Casey Jones." You breathed out a sigh of relief. He isn't kidnapped, dead, or lying in a ditch high of weed somewhere.

"Hey man, just dropped by your place, where you at?"

"Oooooh, one of those nights huh?"

"Isn't it always?"

"heh, I feel ya. Here I'll text you my location so we can chill." after that you heard talking from the other side of the phone. Someone that wasn't Casey. But before you could ask any questions Casey quickly responded to whatever it was that they said.

"SHUT UP! ILL KICK YOUR BUTT INTO NEXT WEEK, BUD!" ending with extra sass on the 'bud'.

That's when you got his text. Perfect!

---

Orrrr not. You swear you followed the directions exactly, so why are you standing in the middle of an alleyway being told to go forward when THERE IS NO FORWARD! Being the reasonable person you are you blamed it all on Casey and let him know of your little predicament.

And, 'wait there, just a sec was his reply.' You didn't think Casey would be the kind of person to plot someone else's demise. Not that he he hasn't caused someone else's demise, he just doesn't have the forethought to think ahead about it. However this whole, standing in an alley in New York at 2 am alone, is really starting to feel like a plot.

Once again, your nerves started rising. You looked around the old bricks, worn with water damage and scraping and covered in graffiti. The dark distorted your surroundings making it unclear if you were really alone in that alley or not. The stench of the trash bags shoved as close to the corners and walls as possible started to get to you. Your breathing got a little heavier. The ominous lighting from the street lamp didn't help either. Then a sound rose above the scampering feet of rats. You turn to see the man hole cover slowly scrap along the concrete as a large gloved hand shoved it away. The darkness of the alley clouded the figure and with the covering gone the hole left seemed like a endless pool of inky nothingness. You were stiff as a board and you could hear your heart thrashing in your ears. This is it. This is where you die and it's all Casey Jones's fault.

"Hey you did make it! Nice!"

Your threw a scrapped can square at his face.

"Ow!"

"CASEY! YOU SCARED ME!"

"Yo chill! I told you I was coming to get you!"

"YOU TOLD ME TO WAIT, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE FRICK YOU WERE DOING! GOSH CASEY! WHAT WERE YOU EVEN DOING DOWN THERE!?"

"Hehe, come on. I'll show you," he winked at you before gesturing you to enter into the manhole first.

"No."

"Oh come on! Don't you trust me?"

"NO! Also gross. I'm not going down there just for the heck of it Casey. I have never been curious what New Yorks sewer system looks like."

"It's not about the sewers! We just have to walk through the system to get to the place," he told you mildly annoyed.

"And your purposely being suspicious about 'the place', because?"

"Because that's a surprise,"

"Oh joy. I just love surprises at 2 in the freaking morning, in the sewers, wearing my pajamas," you snarked as you lowered yourself down the manhole scowling slightly.

Casey led you through the sewers keeping a brisk pace. You asked him about the voice you hear over the phone earlier and all he told you was that it was part of the surprise. To which you rolled your eyes.

"You seem pretty confident on where your walking," you remarked.

"Well I sure hope so!" he laughed to himself, "I've only been coming here since highschool."

Him saying that struck a possible idea of what his "surprise" could be. But you couldn't be sure.

You initially met Casey in college. Not that he went to collage, he just crashed a class that you shared with his friend. He called her red, talked about her a lot too. You didn't really know her outside of that one class. It felt strange to know so many details about someone you've never talked to. He did mention that she was Donnies first crush but Donnie never talked about her though so you didn't really care much for that detail.

You knew that Casey had known Donnie, his brothers, and "red" since high school. He told you about their adventures all the time. Sometimes it made you feel a little disconnected, especially since the only people you ever knew from the group were Donnie and Casey. But you tried not to let that feeling get to you. It would simply take time. Besides, even if you're newer and don't know the whole group, neither Donnie or Casey ever made you feel like you weren't a part.

The thing is though, is that Casey only mentioned highschool when talking about the turtles. So while it is a loose assumption, you had an idea of what he might be planning. Part of you really hoped it wasn't what you were thinking. The other part really REALLY wanted it to be what you thought. But the majority part was to tired to care and just wanted something to do.

After a short walk you noticed the sewer transition into an abandoned subway station. That's when you heard the sounds of videogames and people. The smell of pizza lingered in the air the closer you walked to the sound. Eventually you got to the part of the station where lights lit up the dark space.

When you got to the entrance, you saw two turtles playing videogames. Pizza boxes littered the floor, some of them containing pizza, some completely empty. You were a little stunned honestly. Donnie had a genuine reason for not introducing you to his family, you didn't want to cross that line. But at the same time, you really needed a brain rotting distraction. You hesitated. But when Casey gestured you to go first through the turnstile first, that hesitation crumbled. You just wanted some pizza, was that so wrong? I mean you were already here, might as well just commit. You and Casey passed through and neither of the brothers tired to look at you. The one in red acknowledge the sound by saying,

"Welcome back Case."

"What didja need to do that you left so fast brah?" Asked the orange one.

"My best bud needed A.M. pizza, so I figured here would be the best place for her to get some," Casey told them patting your back before taking his seat next to the orange brother and picking up an abandoned controller. You followed, feeling out of place, you sat beside him.

This got reds attention.

"I'm sorry, she?" He paused the game to look over at you.

"WHAT?! CASEY WHO THE HECK IS SHE?? YOU CAN'T JUST BRING RANDOM PEOPLE DOWN HERE!"

"Dude chill out! First of all, shes not random, she's y/n," reds eye twitched, "Secondly, it's no biggie, she already knows Donnie, she's no snitch."

You smacked Casey's arm and shook your head.

"Hey! your already here aren't you?" he whined at you.

"Wait, how do you already know Donnie?" orange finally spoke up.

"Yeah, who are you anyways?" red questioned you.

"I-um. Hi, I'm y/n" you stiffly introduced.

You felt very awkward about this whole situation.

"And you know Don, how?" red reiterated impatiently.

You decided to play dumb.

"What do you mean?"

"How do you know Donnie?! Oh my gosh are you dumb?!"

"No, I get what you asked, but in what way?"

"THE FRICK DO YOU MEAN 'IN WHAT WAY?' HOW DO YOU KNOW MY BROTHER?!"

You both went back and forth like that for a while. Little did you know that this was Casey's plan all along. He had talked to Donnie about introducing you the family but he always said it "wasn't the right time". You and Donnie had been dating for almost a year now and had known each other even longer. Yet his brothers had yet to know you even existed! Knowing you, you wouldn't push the issue because you didn't want to pressure your poor boyfriend. You were under the false pretence that he would come around eventually. The truth is, he wouldn't. And it wasn't because of his brothers teasing.

They would still tease him yes, but they've grown, they know the line. The real reason Donnie hadn't introduced you was because one; he wanted you to himself. And two, the biggest reason; he was embarrassed of where he lived. Yes his home was cleanly and all but it was still a sewer. It had taken a long time for him to begin to believe that you actually thought he was attractive and not some kind of monster. Living in the sewer though? What if that breaks your entire image of him? What if you think he really is some slimy gross sewer monster after? He couldn't bear the thought. After being with you for so long, he doesn't think he could live without you.

It took a lot of nagging but when Casey finally broke him and that was the explanation he gave? Casey was so done. So he took matters into his own hands. He waited for the opportunity to present itself and tonight was the night.

"Dudes!" orange interjected, "Chillll. Ever consider that maybe she won't say cuz we haven't introduced ourselves yet?? Hmmmmmmmmm?"

He chewed red out. Red just scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Hi, I'm Mikey, and that grump is Raph," he told you, "He's been awake too long, he gets fussy without his nap."

You giggled at this, but before you could say anything back Raph had tackled Mikey to the floor. As they rustled you made a small laugh.

"What is going on in here so late?" you heard someone say from behind you. You turned to where it was coming from and saw the third brother you had yet to meet. Blue.

Before he could say anything to Raph or Mikey though, he made eye contact with you.

"Who are you?"

"This is my best bud y/n. Y/n, the fearless leader Leo," Casey introduced.

"Don't call me that Casey," he told him sternly. He walked over to you guys and took a seat in the other side of you.

"You know Case, if I wasn't half asleep I'd be way more upset about you bringing a stranger to the lair."

"She's not a stranger though, she's known Donnie for a while now. Besides we already got yelled at enough by Raph," Casey told him.

He humm and nodded in a 'that makes sense type' of way.

"So you've know Donnie for a while?" he asked.

You felt like could tell Leo just as much as you could tell Raph. Which was nothing. But you felt like Leo would be more receptive to a reasonable answer then Raph was.

"I'd tell you, but I'm not at liberty to say right now," you said.

"That's not suspicious at all," he teased.

"Hey!" you laughed at him and he laughed back.

Casey elbowed you and smiled proudly. He acted like he deserved a thank you for introducing you to your boyfriends family behind his back. All you did was elbow him in the ribs. That was he really deserved. You would be lying though if you said it wasn't an oddly fun situation.

That's when Raph had pinned Mikey and he started screaming.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY? I COULDN'T HEAR YOUR BEFORE?!" Raph yelled at him with this hands pushing Mikey's head to the floor.

"AAAAAAAAA!!" was all Mikey said him response.

Leo sighed next to you, "I guess I'll be taking care of that."

Before he could make a move though, you heard a familiar voice.

"What is going on out here?! I can't work with all this RACKET!" Donnie grumply shouted.

He stopped right in his tracks when he saw you though.

The only time you had seen Donnie that worked up was when an experiment failed or his brothers got on his nerves. Even then though, it was just venting after the fact, so you never witnessed the brunt of his frustrations. Safe to say you were a little startled, not put off or anything, just surprised mostly.

"Y- y- y- y Y/N?! What in Earth are you doing here?? At this hour? Here? I- ??" he was completely flabbergasted and udderly mortified.

He looked a mess, bags under his eyes, mask lazily pushed above his eyes, and not to mention yelling like an angry old man! Oh nononono. It was bad enough you were in his sewer home, there's no way you don't think his a monster now!

"Would you look at that, guess you did know Don after all," Raph said, head in hand while an elbow laid on Mikey's head.

You turned back to Raph, "Why would I lie about that?!"

This boy was unbelievable.

"Raph get off Mikey," Leo told him.

"Not until he says it!"

"Really Raph? I though you stopped doing that when we were teens."

Deciding that you needn't be involved in that conversation, you turned back to Donnie who had a horrified expression on his face.

"H- how long have you been down here?" he asked quietly.

"Not super long, Casey and I only got here like, a few minutes ago," you answered him.

Donnie took a deep breath, he looked like he was about to loose it. You didn't blame him honestly.

"You. Brought. Her. Here?!" he asked Casey. Clearly hanging by the thread of his last nerve.

"Yeah, s'not like you ever would have, so I took matters into my own hands. Besides she's my friend just as much as she's your girlfriend, I have a right to introduce her to my closest buds."

"Wait. Did you just say, girlfriend?" Mikey asked. Leo was helping him off the floor with a displeased Raph standing to the side. They all froze after Casey's statement and started at you and Donnie with wide eyes.

"JONES!" you both yelled at him in unison.

"What? They were gonna haft'a know eventually, I just got the awkward part out of the way for you," he shrugged and winked at you both.

You were gonna kill him. And by the looks of it Donnie and you were on the same page.

You pinched the bridge of your nose and let out a sigh.

"Okay, I think Donnie and I need to have a private conversation. When we're done we'll clear everything up with you all. Okay?"

"That sounds good," Leo nodded while everyone else complained.

You turned to Donnie signaling to lead the way to wherever you two could have some alone time. He seemed nervous and jittery, but led you none the less. He let you in first through a big sliding door that opened up into what seemed to be a garage. It had tables with tools and other electronic equipment strewn around. There were chemistry supplies as well along with some posters in the walls.

"So," Donnie started, fixing his gaze on the floor, "you wanted to talk?" He adjusted his mask to fit back over his eyes.

"Uh, yeah," you answered. Why was the air so thick all of a sudden? Donnie was so closed in on himself it was almost like he was afraid of you. Honestly, you wanted to ask him why Casey said he would never take you down here. But now wasn't the time for that.

"What do you want to do now? I know you wanted to introduce me on your own terms but now that that's not really a possibility. So where do you wanna go from here?" You asked.

You figured it would best to have a game plan before explaining everything to his brothers.

"I understan- Wait what?" He looked at you confused.

"Uuhhh, where do you want to go from here? Ya know, now that your brothers know?" You repeated yourself. Now you were confused.

"I. Wha. That's all you have to say?" Donnie said mouth agape, shocked.

"What? I mean, about this situation yeah? I mean, I am curious why Casey felt the need to do this but that's not really my first priority right now. Am- am I missing something here?" You asked him.

"I- I thought... I live in a sewer," he told you.

"You thought you lived in a sewer?" Your confusion increasing, "Like. You didn't know?"

"No! I know that! I just... you don't care?"

"Why would I care? I'm sorry," you put a hand to your forehead, "did you think I would judge you for your living conditions? Which are honestly pretty cush. Who do you take me fore Don?!"

"I! Well it's not that I thought you would judge me, it's just... I'm a mutant. Living in the sewers just- I don't know. The only things you think of living in the sewers are creepy gross monsters or rodents. On top of that it's the sewers! Most people find that pretty gross."

"Donnie. We've known each other for longer then a year. If I was disgusted by you, you would know by now," you spoke dryly.

"All this time I thought you just needed to get used to things. But you were just assuming the worst about me? What the heck Donnie?" You were hurt. You loved him so much, and he thought you would leave him because of where he lives? He really thought you were that judgemental?

"What?! No! I wasn't assuming the worst about you! I was just afraid you'd realize you deserve better than me!"

"BUT YOU'RE ALL I WANT!"

He stopped and looked at you, eyes wide.

"Really?"

"Yes! And I hate it when you talk like you're not deserving of love just because you're mutant."

"I just... I just don't see what you see in me," he admitted.

"Then stop assuming things and closing yourself off. Talk to your family, talk to your friends, talk to me. I never worry about whether or not you love me, you've seen me at my worst and never left my side. You're so scared of how I'll react to your worst you never even give me a chance to show you," you grabbed his hand and looked him in the eye.

"You don't get to decide how I feel or what I think, only I do."

"You're right, I'm sorry. Sorry for assuming things, things about you, and for taking so long to introduce you."

You kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you," you smiled at him. Then pinched his neck and pulled him to you.

"Ow ow ow ow!"

"And never do that again," you let him go.

"Yes of course absolutely never again," he nodded and smiled at you. You smiled back and patted his chest.

"Now before we continue the conversation of how to approach your family, I feel like we should address the eavesdroppers in the room," you said pulling back the door all the way. It was already cracked open to allow the peepers better visuals for your conversation.

As it slid open you noticed Casey and the three brothers trying to run away from the door.

"What! Guys! What part of private conversation do you not understand?!" Donnie yelled at them.

"I told you guys you shouldn't have done that," Leo scolded them.

"YOU LITERALLY JOINED RIGHT AFTER SAYING THAT!" Raph pointed an accusatory finger at him, "AND FOR THE RECORD IT WAS MIKEY'S IDEA!" He yelled moving his pointing to the youngest.

"Wow dude, I thought we were in this together," Mikey put a hand on his chest hurt.

"Well in the end it doesn't matter cuz it already happened right?" Casey shrugged and took a seat on the couch again.

Out of everyone here you and Donnie were most ticked at Casey.

Both you and Donnie approached him from behind and grabbed one of his shoulders.

"W-what? Uhhh. You dudes need something? Eh heh..." he stuttered nervous. Only just now did he realize the hole he had dug for himself.

"Why don't we have a chat Casey," you smiled but it was less of a question and more of a statement.

"Privately," Donnie finished, no smile to be found.

You both were gonna have fun with this. Then Donnie could take you home and tuck you in. What a great boyfriend girlfriend bonding activity!

------------------------------------------------------------Listen y'all, I know Google maps don't work like this, but just for the sake of plot pretend like it does.

[jobesbabe]

fashionista / Dominik Szoboszlai x reader

summary- You’re offered your first modeling gig, and it’s with a super hot hungarian football player named Dominik.

warnings- fluff, reader is modeling for the first time

a/n- hey guys! i’ve been inactive for a while and still deciding if im gonna continue the domi series (summer baby) or just do imagines/ one shots. anyways heres something for ya!

You could have sworn Bailee was crazy when she signed you up for that modeling audition. She took your headshots herself, priding herself on getting all of the right angles. Those pictures had took at least five hours, but they must have paid off because here you were, getting a call back from Nike.

Though it wasn’t the most glamorous brand, it was a huge brand. You knew people would see whatever you wore and you were excited to do it.

Nike had called you asking if you had ever played or watched football, and your response was perfect for them. You loved football ever since you were a kid and still watch it as an adult.

Satisfied with your answer they told you to come in at 6 am Saturday for the shoot and they would get things started.

Jittery and somewhat tired, you showed up to the job ready to see your outfit.

A nice security guard named Lewis escorted you to your dressing room where a woman was waiting for you with a rack of clothes and a carrier case of makeup and hair tools.

Her name was Milly and she was to prepare you for the shoot.

“I heard the guy you’re shooting with is a football player himself. I think it’s someone who wears those Nike boots on the pitch?” She told you while brushing the roots of your hair out and applying some product to it.

“Really? I wonder if I’ve heard of him.” You told her.

She nodded. “He’s hot anyway, I saw him walking in. He was like a greek god mixed with an angel,” You laughed at Milly.

She put your hair up into a slick back ponytail and then braided the ponytail.

Thanking her, you looked at the outfit laid out for you.

You were to start the shoot in Nike pros, a white sports bra and Nike Blazers, with some nike socks under them. Emerging from your dressing room in your outfit, you spoke with someone who you assumed was directing the shoot because of what he was wearing, and his very evident supremacy in the room.

He told you not to worry about the shoot, and you were all just there to have fun.

You began your solo part of the shoot, in this outfit taking probably about a hundred photos

While you were shooting, you saw a man come out of his dressing room, in a black nike compression shirt and shorts with air force 1 shoes on. He was tattooed, with a chiseled jawline and gelled hair.

You knew who he was.

Anyone with half of a brain in the football world knew who he was, but you had been crushing on him since he transferred from Leipzig to Liverpool.

That was Dominik Szoboszlai.

Trying to avoid his eyes, you kept focusing, eyes locked on the camera.

When your eyes met his, even for just the split second that they did, he bit his lip and raised his eyebrows.

“Y/n, can you pick up the football and rest it under your arm?” The directior asked you.

You did as you were told, “ah yes! perfect.” The photographer took probably a hundred photos of you like that before calling Dominik over.

You went to move and the director put his hands out to stop you.

“no, no hold that pose, we’re just adding Dominik into the picture,”

He directed Dominik to join you and put his arm around you for a duo picture.

You looked pretty short next to him, and your heart was racing.

You two held the pose for a while and took some various other photos.

“I need to grab a water, but stay there, You two can move about but stay on set,” The director told you and Dominik.

You nodded, dropping the nike football to the floor and doing kick ups as a challenge to yourself.

“Pass it over, let’s play together,” Dominik said in an accent that somehow made your heart melt.

You passed around for a few minutes like this, bantering with each other, unaware of the photographer taking hundreds of candid photos of you and Dominik.

He was laughing, you were laughing, and it was the most fun you’d had in a while.

There was chemistry between the two of you, and you couldn’t tell if you were imagining it or not, but everything just came natural for you.

Soon, it was time for his individual shoot, but you stood where he had stood watching.

He made eye contact with you a dozen times and winked when the photographer’s back had been turned.

You had definitely not imagined that.

When the day was done, you returned to your dressing room and changed into a square neck black top and some light jeans.

You noticed a bag of goodies like clothes and PR from Nike to you, including the 23/24 third liverpool kit, with the name Szoboszlai on the back. You smiled, thinking back on how you thought the purple had looked best on him.

Someone knocked on your dressing room door, and you made your way there and opened it.

“hi,” Dominik said, wearing a white eyelet style button up,

“Hey Dominik, whats up?” you asked him releasing a deep breath that you didn’t know you were holding in.

“Domi,” he said. “You can call me Domi,”

He smiled and you met his eyes. Suddenly, as if remembering what he had came here for, he began to speak again.

“I came here to ask you if you’d like to go to dinner with me after this?” He smirked.

“Are you asking me on a date Domi?” You asked.

His head tilted. “You are quite beautiful,” He said.

“and you are quite handsome,” you told him.

“So it’s a date?” He asked.

“Yes, it is.” You told him.

“Shall we?” He asked reaching for your hand.

You nodded and interlocked your fingers in his.

That just so happened to become your first of many modeling jobs and dates with your now-boyfriend Dominik.

A/n - ugh i’ve had this written for a month im so sorry!! Its also kinda cringey so idk.

comment & repost if u enjoyed this!

[specialagentlokitty]

Rick Grimes x sister!reader - my family

omg im so happy you're writing for rick and daryl! Could i request a Rick x sister!reader where they weren't together when the infection started and thought that the other had died but she's found by someone from the group and taken to alexandria? - Anon 💜

A/N: due to the fact I’m on season 2 we’ve changed it a bit :))

You weren’t sure how long you had been running, and you were scared to stop running.

You were exhausted, you had the worst pain in your ribs and nasty cut down your arm that by some miracle hadn’t gotten infected.

You were scavenging whatever you could, food, medicine, bandages, a few bottles of water that you were trying to make last.

You learned the hard way you had to go for the head, so you kept a few knifes at hand, trading them in when you found something better.

You were in a forest, abundant with sticks, and that’s what you made use off, sharpening the largest and strongest ones, always keeping a couple tucked under the straps of your bags just in case one broke.

You hadn’t seen any other living people, and as much as you wanted to try and find your family you didn’t want to risk them being one of those creatures, you couldn’t bare that thought, so you kept running to keep yourself safe.

If they were alive you would find them somewhere, they had to be alive.

Sitting on a large rock, you were taking a small break, making sure to keep on eye on everything around you.

You heard a noise and you picked up your stick, spinning around only to find a crossbow pointed at you and you looked at the owner in fear.

“Please don’t kill me…”

“Your arm, you been bit?”

You quickly shook your head, putting the power bar your were eating in your mouth and unwrapped the old bandage with your free hand, showing him the jagged wound.

You took the food out your mouth and looked at him.

“Cut myself on some glass escaping those things, that’s all. It’s not healed right though, still bleeds.”

He grabbed your wrist, pulling your hand up so he could look at it.

Then he threw your arm back at you.

“The fuck you doing out here?”

“If I had to take a guess, probably the same as you. Running, ran from the city.”

“Atlanta?”

You nodded.

“I lived there, saw what was happened, made a break the moment I could, knew a refugee sight wouldn’t hold long.”

“Can’t tell if you’re smart or stupid.”

You shrugged a little, holding your food out to him.

He rose a brow in question, and you made a gesture for him to go ahead and take it.

“I got more.”

“Well I sure as hell don’t want no half eaten one dumbass, what else you got?”

You laughed a little, and opened your bag, pulling out another one for him, and he took it without thanks, and you zipped your bag up.

“What’s your name?” You asked.

“You tell me first.”

“(Y/N).”

“Daryl.”

He looked around, and you did the same thing.

“Foods hard to come by now, why’d you share?”

“My brother always said I was too kind for my own good, I guess that was right. But we’re all in the same shit world, gotta make sure the ones alive stay alive.”

“Your stupid, that’s gonna get you killed pretty fast out here.”

You rolled your eyes, and you put your bag back on your back, grabbing your weapon and jumped down from the rock.

You smiled up at him.

“See you around I guess Daryl. Oh, and here.”

Looking through your pockets, you pulled out a few more power bars you held them out and he jumped down, taking them from you.

You began to walk away.

“Hey, hey wait a second, where you going?”

“I don’t know, just… just somewhere I guess.”

He nodded his head and walked over, he looked you up and down.

“Come on.”

He walked the opposite direction and you looked at him in pure confusion.

“Well hurry up, I ain’t getting myself fuckin’ killed because your dumbass is still standing there.”

Jogging over, you walked alongside of him, and he picked up something from a tree, which held a few small dead animals.

You didn’t say anything about it, knowing you had to do what you needed in order to survive these days.

Neither of you said anything, he didn’t exactly strike you as a bug conversationalist, and you didn’t want him to change his mind about you coming.

Maybe in days long gone you would’ve thought twice about following a stranger, but no you didn’t have those luxuries, he could’ve killed you before you realised he was there, and he didn’t.

In order to survive you needed company, you couldn’t do it on your own, and you wouldn’t be able to keep going along for much longer you knew that.

He led you back to a camp, with other people, and you raised your weapon.

“Put the damn stick down moron.”

“I don’t know if they’re safe.”

“Then why the fuck would you follow me?”

He snatched the stick from you, pushed you back a few steps and you winced, covering your ribs with a pained groan.

“Because I can’t make it on my own asshole.”

“Wait here.”

You nodded, slowly sitting down next to a beat down truck, and watched as he went to go talk to others.

Being able to sit down your pain finally caught up with you, and you passed out from exhaustion and pain.

When you came too again, you were on a bed, somebody holding your hand and you turned your head.

“Lori…?”

She looked up.

“(Y/N)?! Oh god you’re alive, wait here!”

She got up, running out and not even a few seconds later she came back with more people.

The boy jumped on the bed, and you groaned a little bit laughed as you wrapped your arm around him.

“Carl.. hey buddy.. hey…”

“You’re alive…” he sobbed.

“Yeah bud, I won’t let a few suckers bring me down.”

“Carl come on, let’s wait outside.”

Lori introduced you to Carol, and Carol looked you over.

“Dale thinks you’ve probably bruised a couple of ribs, nothing too bad. But your arm we don’t have the medicine for that.” Carol said.

You slowly sat up, swinging your legs over the bed.

“I do, my bag.”

Lori handed it over and you tipped everything out, showing a few bottles of antibiotics.

“Grabbed what I could when I saw the chance.”

“These will work, keep taking them a few times a day.” Lori said.

You nodded and looked out the window.

“Come on, let’s introduce you to everybody, you can stay with me and Carl, and I know Shane wants to see you.”

“Shane? And.. and Rick…?”

Lori looked at you, and you clenched your jaw.

“Lori.. where’s my brother…?”

“Ask Shane…”

You pushed yourself up, moving past her and out of the RV.

You looked around and found Shane, and you made your way over, holding your hand out as he went to hug you.

“Shane where the fuck is my brother? Where’s Rick?”

“He.. (Y/N) he was.. he was shot before all of this… I.. I tried to save him but I.. he was dead…”

Tears burned your eyes and you shook your head.

“He’s not dead…”

“I’m sorry…”

“No… no Shane my brother ain’t dead, you hear me!? He ain’t dead!”

You dropped to your knees despite the pain, and you rested your head on the ground.

“He.. he’s not dead…”

Lori knelt next to you, hugging you tightly as you mourned the loss of your brother.

You didn’t leave the tent for days, you stayed in there, refusing to talk to anybody, refusing to leave.

“(Y/N)?”

You looked up at Carl, and he walked over, sitting next to you, resting his head on your side.

“Do you think my dad could still be out there…?”

“Yeah… he.. he has to be bud…”

He nodded his head, and you ran your fingers through his hair, soothing his quiet cries.

You stared to move around after a week, but you still needed time to rest and fully heal so you couldn’t go on runs or help with much, but you watched the children for everybody.

Carl mostly kept to your side if he wasn’t with his mom.

“I’m cold.” Sophia said.

“Alright, wait here I’ve got a spare blanket in my bag.”

You made your way back to you sister in laws tent, and you stepped in only to freeze at the sight of your sister in law making out with your brothers best friend.

They quickly pulled apart and you grabbed your blanket.

“(Y/N)…” Lori whispered.

“Didn’t take you all that long to get over him huh?”

“No.. not its.. it’s not like that..”

You shook your head.

“I’ll find somewhere else to sleep, and both of you better stay the fuck away from me.”

You left, making your way back to the little girl and you wrapped her up in your blanket.

Going back to the now empty tent, you grabbed your things and set them down by a fire.

“Are you leaving?” Carl asked sadly.

“Nah buddy, I’m staying, I just want somewhere else to sleep for a while cause you snore so loudly.”

He hit your arm and you laughed a little at him.

You didn’t want to share a tent with anybody else, so as they all went to bed you stayed by the embers of the fire.

“Ain’t gonna help much if you die of cold or exhaustion.”

You glanced up, and you shrugged a little.

“Rather not stay in the same tent as my sister in law right now.”

Daryl looked at you, he knew what was going on of course.

He didn’t speak much but he saw a lot, so he knew why you didn’t want to stay in the tent with her.

“Get your shit.”

You looked at him.

“Let’s go.”

You pushed yourself up, and you followed him to his tent where he kicked some stuff aside, gesturing with his hand down the middle.

“You stay on your half, I stay on mine. I ain’t sharing my shit with you though.”

“Deal.”

You sat down, putting your bag under your head and he sat down on his stuff, sharpening a few sticks.

“Hey Daryl?”

“Shut up.”

You laughed again.

“Thanks.”

He said nothing in response.

After a few minutes you felt something hit you in the face and you looked at the sweater in confusion but all he did was get up and leave.

You didn’t want to speak to Lori or Shane, if you wanted peace you would stay in Daryl’s tent knowing that nobody dared to go near it.

“Come on, we’re going to have to talk about what happened!” Shane hissed.

“Get lost!”

“She’s your sister! You can’t just ignore her! She’s beating herself up because you won’t speak to her (Y/N)!”

“Well she should’ve thought about that before cheating on my brother!”

You stormed past Shane and he grabbed your wrist making you wince in pain.

He let go, and was shoved back, and Daryl pushed you towards the tent.

You looked at him but said nothing as you made your way there and Shane left you alone.

“Just break his nose, shuts every guy up.”

“Rather let him suffer knowing he’s the reason I won’t speak to him or her.”

Daryl half shrugged.

“Whatever then, I’m going huntin’. Stay in the tent.”

You nodded and he left.

You decided to take a nap, having sleepless nights made keeping a level head hard, it was easier to sleep knowing that there wasn’t many walkers during the day.

What woke you up was the commotion, and you got up, grabbing your weapon, hand on your ribs as you walked up to the main camp.

You heard Daryl shouting.

“Daryl?! Hey! What’s going on?!”

He pushed himself away from the people, and he looked at you.

“Those fuckers left my brother to die!”

You placed a hand on his chest.

“Then we go find him, alright? Get your stuff, you and me, we’ll go get him. Okay?”

“You can’t go out there asshole, you’re hurt.”

“I don’t give a fuck, he’s your brother. We’ll get him back.”

He nodded, placing a hand on your shoulder and followed him down to his tent to help get everything ready.

Steps came closer and he grabbed his weapon.

“Are you in there?” Lori asked softly.

“What the fuck do you want?” You snapped.

“Come outside, please?”

Sighing, you put your knife down and got up, making your way over to the front of the tent and stepped out.

You looked at her, then your gaze snapped behind her.

“Oh thank god…”

Rick rushed over, pulling you into a hug and you yelped in pain, dropping to your knees.

He quickly dropped in front of you, placing his hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, hey, are you alright? Are you okay?”

“Bruised ribs…”

He nodded, pulling you in for a more gentle hug this time, and you hugged him back, tears streaming down your face.

“You’re alive…” you whispered.

“Course I am….” He whispered back.

Rick held you closely, not wanting to let you go.

It was one thing thinking he lost his wife and son, but he couldn’t bare the thought of loosing his little sister as well.

He placed his hand on the back of your head, trying to hide the fact he was crying.

“I got you… I’ve got you… it’s alright…” he whispered.

“They… they told me you died Rick…”

He pulled away, smiling at you.

“I’m alright, you see? A little worse for wear but I’m alright, we’re safe…”

You nodded, sniffling a little, you clasped your hand tightly around his, and he held back just as tight.

“Whatever goes on now, we go through it together, like when we was kids, yeah?” He asked.

“Us against whatever crap life throws…”

He nodded, giving you smile.

“Yeah.. yeah exactly…”

He looked at you, and he pulled you in for another hug, and you glared at his wife from behind his back and she slowly walked away.

You weren’t going to tell him what you saw, he was safe, and you weren’t going to do anything to put your brother in danger.

You pulled back and looking at your brother again.

“You smell like shit Rick…”

He chuckled, shaking his head at you.

“Well thanks, I missed you too.”

[pinazee]

Heres a few more random HC’s because i get bored at work!

TGWDLM

Paul has hiked every trail in hatchetfield. He once tried to get emma to go on a hike with him early in their relationship but when he showed up at her place at 5AM (not 5pm like she thought) she nearly ended it right there. Paul spent that day in absolute despair thinking that he ruined things with her but she texted him later and they hung out at a beach instead. He promised to never show up before 10am again- (unless he was sleeping over ;) -emma)

Bill Woodward and Mark Chasity have been in an unspoken feud for several years all because they both brought cinnamon rolls to a church bake sale and it got competitive. They, of course, were polite but would add small comments like, “oh adding orange zest was certainly an interesting choice,” and “wow, i love how large they are! Almost too large! Haha!” For years. Just petty comments.

Black Friday

Tom and Becky are karaoke royalty. It took some time for her to get used to people watching her for the right reasons again, but after tom coaxed her into singing the classic don’t go breaking my heart and receiving a standing ovation, that old cheerleader came right back out. Their most popular request is Lousiana Woman, Mississippi Man by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty as they really make it their own (tom seems like a country fan, but just the old stuff, everyone groaned at first but then they killed it).

Gary was a nerd his whole life but always managed to hang out with the popular kids and college students. He’d let them copy his homework, praise them endlessly, debase himself if he had to- all to be a part of the “right” crowd. Most of his clients are actually old “friends” that he charges up the ass (and i like to think, even if it doesn’t quite mesh with his personality, that he balances this out by doing a fair amount of pro bono).

NPMD

Ruth failed her drivers test twice because she’s too aggressive. Richie never tried, preferring to bike (and plans to move to chicago for college so why bother) Petes been able to drive since he was 13 because ted taught him in case he ever needed a designated driver (he was being responsible! What? You want him to drive drunk and hit some poor old woman just trying to cross the street at 3am?)

Detective shapiro (as a classic detective thriller trope) was secretly working on a cold case from chicago when she moved to hatchetfield. Its the one case that haunted her and forced her to seek refuge in a small island town. After the incident with max though, she finally dropped it, accepting that some things could never be explained. [And just for fun, she’s a fervent knitter. Im talking 2 full closets of just blankets ;) ]

Ruth has auditioned for the local theater 6 times, but they have no idea what she sounds like. They let her stand on stage for a minute, hand her a lollipop as they usher her off, and politely say “maybe next time, ruth.”

Richie was on a first name basis with the local comic book shop. When they heard of his murder, they put up a memorial for him with a display of (almost) all the manga he’d bought from them.

[yourimagines]

Can we do one with maxi where he lies to reader saying hes tyson so she believes him they get close and she develops feelings even tho she hasn't seen his face just heard the deep voice from the suit maybe he feels guilty after she shares a secret he finally tells her and maybe they argue but overall she just wants to get to know who he really is without the suit the real maxi

( i love ansgty happy endings ) (doesn't have to be exactly that do whatever you want with what i wrote im happy either way)

I hope this is what you wanted, if not tell me then i try again for you 🧡

Should I stay or should I go

* English is not my first language I apologise

* Gif is not mine

* Triggers: Swearing, Angst and Fluff

Y/N POV

My life was boring and meaningless but ever since I met Titus, my life was a bit more interesting. I met him when he got stuck between a rock. I helped him and ever since then I followed him around the wasteland.

He was walking in front of me, casting a shadow behind him just for me. “You still there?” His robotic voice asked me. “Yep, I’m still here.” The sun burning down on the wasteland, even though I’m not directly in the sun, the heat was still there. “Can we have a little water break?” He immediately stops walking and turns around. “Of course.” I smiled at him and grabbed my water bottle. “You okay?” I nodded as I took a sip from my bottle. “Yeah, just needed a little break, the heat is getting worse.” He looked around us as I took a small bite from my protein bar. “Take your time.”

As the sun started to set and heat started to dropped down, we both started to find a place to stay for the night. “Here.” He says as he walks off to an old bridge that looked empty and safe for the night. I looked around to see if something dangerous was here and he grabbed some old wooden logs that were lying around. “It’s safe, for now.” I sat down on one of the logs, feeling a relief in both of my legs. “Finally.” I kicked one of my shoes off and started to rub my foot with my hands. “My feet are killing me.” My foot was broken because of an accident and it was also covered with bruises and blisters from all that walking in this warm weather. He throws another log down and sits down himself. “You should sleep first, just in case we have to move again.” He says as he tries to get a bit more comfortable in his suit. “Okay, wake me up when you get tired.” I slid down on the ground to grab my shoe. I pulled it back on and lay my head against the wooden log and closed my eyes.

I woke up a few hours later, Titus was still sitting in front of me, looking directly at me. “Hey.” I whispered in my sleepy voice and rubbed my eyes. “Hey, already awake?” I nodded and yawned while stretching my arms and legs. “Yeah…you can sleep now if you want.” I sat back up on the log and looked around. “I’m good.” I turned around to look at him. “You sure?” He slowly nods and stretches his right leg. “How does the suit feel? Is it comfortable enough?” I was growing a little bit curious about him. “It’s heavy but good.” I nodded, trying to understand. “You always wear it?” He nods and looks away from me, a hint for me that he’s done talking about it.

We both got up when the first bit of light was coming up. “Let’s get moving.” I grabbed my bag and followed him along the old train track. Walking next to him as the sun just got up. “This reminds me of something.” The old tracks, the old threes and some birds chirping made me feel nostalgic. Thinking about my life before I got left behind by my parents. “About what?” I looked up at him and sadly smiled at him. “About my parents.” I quickly looked away to avoid his eyes, even though his suit doesn’t show any emotions I know there is someone underneath that mask. “Good or bad?” “More like bittersweet.”

We walked for a few hours next to each other, not saying much but that’s okay. He needed to pee so he left me alone on the tracks as he disappeared into the bushes. ‘I wonder what he’s like underneath that armour.’ I sighed and kicked a few stones away with my feet while waiting for him. “All done.” His heavy footsteps crushed the leaves beneath him as he walked back to me. “Ready?” “Ready.”

“Titus, I’m sorry. I really need a break.” Sweat was dripping down, my left foot was hurting and I was dehydrated. “Okay, just take a seat.” I immediately sat down as he stood in front of me creating a shadow for me. “Thanks.” I looked through my bag to find my water bottle and some painkillers. “Did you injure yourself?” He pointed at my left foot. I shook my head slightly as I swallowed the painkillers. “No, it’s a bit complicated but uhh…” I took my shoe off and rubbed my foot. “I was in a fight and….that person broke my foot on purpose.” My big toe was a little bit crooked and it wasn’t completely healed but a lot better than it was two months ago when they broke it. “Why?” He tilted his head a little bit to the side, confused why someone broke my foot on purpose. “It’s a long story Titus, I promise I will tell you that story but not now. We need to move before the sun sets down.” I pulled my shoe back on and grabbed my bag. He reached his large metal hand out for me to grab it. “Thanks.” I grabbed his hand and pulled myself back onto my two feet. “Let’s get moving again.”

Maximus POV

‘Maybe I should tell her. She’s been telling these little secrets all the time, she trusts me.’ She was walking behind me, out of the burning sun. “You okay?” I asked her as she was quiet for a while. “Yes I’m okay.” I smiled to myself as she answered me with that sweet voice of hers. “It’s getting dark, we need to find a place for the night.” She was right, the sun was about to set and nobody wants to be out in the open at night. “You’re right, let’s find a place.”

She found a place where we could stay the night. It was sheltered from the wind and we were out of the open space. “You can sleep first.” She shook her head and smiled at me. “No not yet, I was wondering if you want to hear that story about how I got here.” She waved her hands around her. “Tell me your life story then.” I joked but the robotic voice didn’t. She just nods at me and took a deep breath. “Okay…so I’m from a vault and…..”

I really felt for her, all the horror and the pain she went through. Her whole life was a lie. The people she thought were her parents weren’t her real parents and the vault wasn’t even safe in the end, it was all a lie. I felt really guilty about lying to her about who I am, I’m not Titus, I’m Maximus. “But it’s okay now, I mean if it never happend then I never met you Titus.” She was always so positive and kind to everyone and the way she looks at me makes me wanna cry. “Can I tell you something?” I was nervous, nervous to tell her the truth. “Of course, we are friends aren’t we.” She smiled sweetly at me as I was starting to sweat.

Y/n POV

“I’m just going to say it right away, I’m not Titus. Titus is dead a-and I took over the suit. My name is Maximus.” He stayed quiet and I felt a little bit betrayed by him. “You lied?” I asked him in disbelief. “Yes, I’m sorry.” I shook my head and didn’t know what to say anymore. “I’m sorry y/n, I didn’t know you and I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I stood up and crossed my arms. “Show me your face.” He gave me a nod and his mask opened with a hiss.

A young handsome face appeared and I was a bit happy that it wasn’t an old creepy guy. “Hi.” His voice was way more different than the voice from his suit. “How do I know that you’re not lying again?” I was walking towards him, studying his face. “I promise I’m not lying to you, my name is Maximus.” He had a scar on his nose and a bruise on his chin. “Okay, nice to meet you Maximus.” I reached my hand out to him. He gave me a smile and took my hand. “Nice to meet you as well y/n.” A small giggle came out of my mouth. He smiled at me and carefully pulled me closer to him. “I have one more little secret.” He says with a grin on his face. “Oh and that is?” I felt my cheeks warm up as I had a feeling what he was doing. “I like you.” He was blushing but so was I. “I hope you don’t mind that, I hope you like me too, if not that’s okay.” He was rambling and I just leaned forward to give him a kiss. “I like you too, even before I saw your face.” I slightly touched his scar on his nose. “Good because I like you since you saved me from that rock.” I giggled and lay my head on his shoulder. “So should I stay or should I go?” He whispered as I closed my eyes “You can stay.” He wrapped his arm around me and I slowly drifted away to sleep.

[oneshlut]

Hey!! I absolutely ADORE your writing, it makes me so happy!!! I happen to be a sucker for our favorite nerd, and you write super good for him! May i ask for general datting headcanons? Like what its like to date him???? Thank you!!!<3

A/N: ohhh, i was WAITING for this one!! i loveee dating hcs. i'm assuming you mean dr. flug, in which i am always happy to write for him! thank you so much for the request! im so happy you enjoy my works!! c: (also flug may be just a teensy bit autism-coded...)

The Doctor Is Out (Dr. Flug x Reader) [Headcanons]

Rules For Requesting

Characters I Will Write For

Masterlist

Summary: General Dr. Flug dating headcanons/What is dating Dr. Flug like?

You thought he was a nervous wreck before? You've never seen him on a date. Before a date, for that matter.

After asking you out to a museum that recently opened outside the Hat Island, he dragged himself to his room and.. screamed into his pillow. Leaving 5.0.5. decently concerned.

He paced around his lab, wracked with anxiety. Oh god, oh god--what is he going to do?! Did he still look alright?? He paused his anxious strides to look at himself in his full-body mirror that he practically pulled out of nowhere. I guess he looked alright-? Or did he need to change his shirt again? Oh--crap he should probably take off his gloves.. or should he? He's always had normally sweaty hands, not including his nerves getting the best of him.. Yeah, the gloves are staying on.

Not to mention how Demencia is teasing him every minute she gets while Flug is writing out a plan. Yeah, you heard me right, this faceless man has an entire 24-step written plan for this date. He can't go without a plan, right? He doesn't want to mess up in front of you, either..

Some ridiculous, unreasonable, irrational part of him thinks maybe you won't show up. Obviously, he doesn't know any better to know how much you love him. Then again, if he knew, I don't think he'd last.

The museum went way better than he expected! There just happened to be a jet plane exhibit, and suddenly his 24-step plan has made its way to a nearby trash can. Don't get me wrong, his nerves were definitely still there, and not going anywhere anytime soon. He was just glad that he didn't draw you away with his possibly unending rambling about different types of aircraft.

The two of you stayed in the museum until it closed at 4 p.m. The time seemed to fly by, and at some point during the date you had held his hand. Poor Flug was too distracted, that he only noticed your interlocked hands when the both of you were leaving the building. He's blushing like a maniac now. As if the red tint on his face couldn't get any worse, before you left, you kissed him on his cheek. You kissed him on his cheek. His bones turned to ice, frozen in place. Later that night, he couldn't get his mind off of you. He's not washing his bag for a while. Not like he washed it in the first place.

So, you two are dating! In a relationship! Dr. Flug refuses to believe it, but every morning kinda forces him to. Though, sometimes he gets a bit overwhelmed with the attention, so when this happens, you give him the day to compose himself again.

He's happy with the attention, though! More than happy, he's honestly never received such affection before and.. he enjoys it.

Some days, you'll just have hang-out dates! For example, Dr. Flug is undergoing a heavy project and asks you to come over for comfort. He'll even ask you for help with his experiments from time to time! Don't worry, he wouldn't involve you in anything too dangerous, he's not cruel. Well, not to you..

If we're talking about Dr. Flug here, at least one date has to go wrong. Thankfully, it's almost never his fault. He's, unfortunately, slightly popular with heroes. Not that he, himself, as a villain is popular, but rather him being known under the Blackhat name has drawn in some unwanted attention from heroes.

What does this mean for the two of you? Well, worst case scenario, a hero has such a huge grudge against Flug that they are determined to ruin your date. According to Dr. Flug, there's only a 1.117% chance of this happening, so you shouldn't have to worry too much.

Afterwards, he feels horrible that your date went to crap. He apologizes profusely, even if you forgive him in the first place, he'll continue to feel bad. All he wants is for you to be happy, and it feels like he's failed you. But the fact that you're still here with him is more than enough proof that you're far from giving up on him, if ever.

On days where you would stay inside with him, whether it be a stormy night or just a long day for you, sometimes he'd turn around from whatever he was working on when you don't respond to him, and he'll find you resting peacefully next to 5.0.5. The sight warms his heart, as he moves to grab a blanket for you, and dims the lights in his lab slightly.

With you asleep, and now with him and nothing to work on, he now has time to think. And for some reason, no thoughts come to him. Surprising to his usually busy brain.

One thought came to him, eventually. Watching you rest soundly in the now dim-lighted room, your chest lifting up and down with your soft breaths, made him realize how lucky he truly is.

Then, he came up with an idea. He didn't want your dreaming to be disturbed, did he? He grabbed a piece of notepaper, tape, and a marker. Opening his door slightly, he taped up the scratch-made sign titled:

"The Doctor is Out"

[beefboyandbabygirl]

can i request pleasee? wonwoo oneshot based on taylor swift's song "the very first night" because i'm in need of smutty with extra fluffy in it ☹️😔

Very First Night

⊱ ━━━━.⋅ εïз ⋅.━━━━ ⊰

pairing: ex!wonwoo x fem!reader

genre: smut, fluff, exes to lovers

warnings: this is SMUT MDNI!, oral (f receiving), regular smegular missionary, making out, exes getting back together, brief mentions of clubbing and alcohol, petnames (baby, darling)

quotes from beefboy: "it's FIERCE" (sorry thats the only one i dont feel like scrolling thru all our messages AHHA)

wordcount: 1k

a/n: first request yaaay!! i know im a little late into the game by now (my summer vacay is pretty packed lol), but in case ur confuuuuused, hiii im the bbygirl to the beefboy (aka user @joshibambi), im taking care of all the requests xx. And im gonna be v honest here and say i hadn't heard this song until this request lol, but i took this task SERIOUSLY and i love basing fics on songs (i make a playlist for all of beefboys fics, its true), so like keep em coming. i rlly hope u like it!! (this was a v long a/n lmao i promise they wont all b like this).

You watched his name on your phone screen, displayed in your contacts in a row amongst many other w-names. Wiliam, Wade, Walter- Who the fuck was Wylan? You tried to pay attention to any other name but his.

Wonwoo.

And then you thought, fuck it. It wasn’t like things had ended on bad terms. They had ended on we-are-busy-and-maybe-we-should-try-something-new terms. It was easy. An honest talk on the couch during a chilly Friday afternoon, and you had decided it was the best option. For the both of you.

And it was only after the fourth weekend out with your friends after the breakup, you realized what had happened.  

You missed him. You missed him so bad, you wished you could abandon the strong drinks and sweaty air of the bar that reminded you so much of your very first night with him. But you didn’t. You didn’t say a word as you danced under flashes of pink and red with strangers. Nobody knew.

Nobody knew how much you missed him. Not until now.

“Hello?” 

He sounded confused, maybe even a little startled when he answered your call. Maybe you should have told your friends so they could have talked you out of this afterall.

“Hey Wonwoo.”

“Hey…”

You realized you hadn’t actually planned what you were going to do from here. 

“Do you- Like, wanna come over?”

It went silent on the other end again, and the question echoed in your head, suddenly sounding pretty wrong.

“I mean- Not like that, just like if you wanna talk, you know? Catch up and stuff, I just wanna make sure you’re okay and-“

“Y/n, let me stop you right there.”

Well. That didn’t seem too good.

“I, uh- Okay, fuck, this is really embarrasing, but I’m- I’m already here.”

“…What the fuck?”

“Yeah, and I was gonna do this whole- I don’t know this whole thing, and now you’ve ruined it, actually. So thank you.”

The familiar sarcastic tone of his voice made you giggle as you got up from the couch and sauntered towards the door.

“Really? What kinda thing?”

You were teasing him now, but hell, you had already decided to call your ex on a lonely late night. Might as well go all out.

“This whole…Romantic thing, I know it’s stupid, I’m sorry, but I just-“

Before he could continue, you pushed the door open, and there he was. Not a particularly spectacular sight, to the average person. Dressed in sweats with his glasses (your favorite pair. The slutty ones), sliding down his nose a little, exposing the fact that he probably ran all the way up the stairs. 

And still he was beautiful. The most beautiful you’d ever seen him.

“…So do we talk first, or do you wanna-?”, he asked. 

“I was thinking fuck first, talk second?”

“I wanna kiss you first though.”

“Kissing is an integral part of sex.”

“I know, but I wanna kiss you now.”

“Was that your romantic thing? Burst into my apartment and kiss me?”

He shrugged.

“I figured you’d like it.”

You took a step closer to him.

“You were right.”

At some point during the kiss you both made it past your doorstep, lips pressed together tightly and limbs intertwined in all sorts of impossible ways. 

Once again you were brought back to your first night together. How you practically jumped into his car, and he pressed the gas as hard as he could, and the lights and neon signs were so pretty it felt like they were there just for you. How you stumbled through the hotel room door all smitten and giggling, the sounds of the busy city life behind the window not even coming close to drowning out the sound of your pounding hearts. It was written in the sky that night, the longing, the want, the need you felt for each other. 

You were brought back to the present when the air got punched out of your lungs, as your back hit the mattress of your bed. Wonwoo crawled on top of you, his eyes meeting yours. 

You kissed again. Your limbs intertwined again, and clothes flew all over your room as you scrambled to get back to each other after all this time. you knew then and there that your very first night together was going to be incomparable to this feeling. This feeling, in this moment. 

His lips kissed their way down your body, not leaving a single spot missed until he met your clit, his nose brushing against it ever so lightly. 

“Don’t tease, Won- Ah.”

He couldn’t dream of teasing. Not now, when you were right here, and even though he didn’t get to tell you the words he had memorized, he couldn’t really care. Not when all he could think of at this moment, with his lips wrapped around your clit and tongue prodding at your hole, was you.

“God, so fucking good, missed this fucking pussy”, he mumbled into your dripping core as you gripped his hair tighter and gave in to the inevitable urge to grind against his tongue. 

“I know you’re close baby, come on. Cum for me darling.”

With one last flick of his skilled tongue you were falling over the edge, a rush running through your body that couldn’t compete with any other feeling.

Still in a daze, his chin coated in your wetness, Wonwoo made his way back up your body until his lips were on your neck and his hard cock was grinding against you. 

“Need you Won, need you so bad, please.”

Your voice was barely a whisper, as you ran your nails down his toned back and nipped at his earlobe in a desperate attempt to get him to do something. Anything. Everything.

“I know, I know. Need you too baby, you have no idea.”

He was almost panting, and soon enough his struggling breaths became a long content sigh as your sweet pleas and whines had him pushing into you, your familiar warmth sucking him in.

His thrusts were sharp and deep and fucking perfect. You didn’t want it fast, didn’t want it hard or rough, you wanted it real, wanted it to be just him and you and nothing else.

“Do you know-“

Now he was truly out of breath, heavy sighs and grunts tumbling from his swollen lips right next to your ear as you shut your eyes in pleasure.

“-How much i missed you? Missed you so fucking much, I should have never, fuck, never let anything get in the way.”

God, how nice it felt to know he had missed you. And how nice it felt for someone to finally know how much you had missed him. 

Between a hundred more I missed you-es, you dragged each other through the fall, him after you (ever the gentleman), and between many quick kisses and a few drowsy ones you fell asleep in his arms. 

Just like the very first night.

[badkitty3000]

can u do a five fanfic where he saves vivi from smth/someone. like “kill for ur love” sorta trope. idk if you’ve alr done im only on #3 of halo but pls its a need

No Escape

Five is forced into assassin mode when Vivian is put in danger by another Commission agent. He must not be very smart, though, because no one in their right mind would dare lay a hand on Five's girl.

Thank you so much for this request! I love writing anything with these two and this was a great subject that I hadn't done before. I hope I did ok! 😊

Words: 8,045

Warnings: blood, violence, Five being a badass but also a softy, smut at the end but can be skipped and it won't affect the story at all

As an aside: this story is meant to take place at some point during my AU series Halo on AO3, when Five and Vivian are not yet married and he is working for the Commission. If you like this pairing, you can check out more (lots more!) here. Also, here is a link to my Master List posts on Tumblr.

And a big shout out to my homie @kaybreezy3000 who was a major help with this one, and did the super sexy cover art!

Five tried to swallow down his rising panic as he sped through the city’s dark and empty streets. The heavy rain battered down onto the roof of the car and the tires sent up a spectacular spray of water every time he screeched around a corner. He didn’t care if he was driving one hundred miles an hour over the city streets or running red lights. His foot stepped harder down on the accelerator. If a cop tried to stop him, they’d have to shoot out his tires first. Even then, he wouldn’t stop. With his heart hammering away in his chest and his hands gripping the steering wheel, he glanced over at the handgun lying on the passenger seat where he had thrown it. A flash of lightning illuminated his face for a brief moment, and he saw his eyes reflected back at him in the rearview mirror. They looked like his normal emerald-colored eyes but with one major difference. These eyes belonged to a man who was desperate and seething with rage.

He had known something was off as soon as he had come home that night. Viv always left the light on in the living room for him, no matter how late he was going to be. And most times she didn’t even know when he was coming back, but she left it on all night long, just in case. So, when he had teleported into their apartment earlier and it was dark, Five was immediately suspicious.

He had called her name, but there was no answer and he didn’t hear her in any of the rooms. The place wasn’t that big, so it’s not like she wouldn’t have heard him. But he checked the bedroom and the bathroom. Both were dark, with no signs of her anywhere. When he walked into the kitchen, though, and snapped on the light, he knew something was very wrong.

There, in the middle of the tile floor, was a large pool of amber-colored liquid, surrounded by hundreds of glass shards. One of the kitchen chairs had been turned over and was lying on its side.

Five called her name again, as if she would appear out of some secret panel in the wall, carrying a broom and laughing at herself for being so clumsy. But, of course, that didn’t happen and the only sound was the echo of his own voice bouncing off the kitchen walls.

He crouched down next to the spill and the broken glass. The floor was sticky and the whole room smelled like whiskey. Most of the glass was clear with no markings, but one large chunk of it still had a label attached. When Five reached out with a trembling hand to pick it up, he held it closer to read the print. He recognized it immediately. This was not the normal liquor they kept in the house, and it would have been impossible for Vivian to have even acquired it on her own. Not unless the local corner store had come across a rare shipment of whiskey that hadn’t been distilled since 1865.

Five stared at the piece of broken glass in his hand, trying to wrap his head around what he was gradually piecing together. When he looked up at the kitchen table, he saw Viv’s phone lying there, which did nothing to quell the growing sense of dread in his stomach. He stood and picked it up, the movement making it come to life and flashing a photo of the two of them that she kept as her home screen. That’s when he noticed the smear of blood across the screen.

His eyes darted from the phone to the overturned chair, to the broken bottle and spilled ancient whiskey and his heart sank.

“Vivie,” he said in a horrified whisper.

She was gone and he knew who had her. Why, he had no idea, but wherever she was, she would be scared and maybe hurt; or worse. Five forced the gruesome horror scenes from his mind. It wasn’t going to do him any good to crack up now. He needed to focus on finding her and he needed to do it fast. There was no telling what this fucking psycho was capable of. And if Five found out she had been hurt in any way whatsoever, one thing was for damn sure. God help the man who was responsible.

When Vivian heard the knock on the door, she figured it was the older lady from two doors down. Ever since Five had moved in, the woman had been making herself much more present around their apartment; always stopping by with plates of cookies or a scarf she just happened to have knitted. She never seemed particularly interested in talking to Viv, but if Five was around, she had endless amounts of time to stay and chit-chat. Not that he even pretended to be remotely interested, but she ate up every terse smile and head nod, apparently taking them as signs she should come over more often. Viv had no doubt the woman, who was technically closer to Five’s age than her own, wished Viv would suddenly disappear in some sort of tragic accident so she could swoop in and make her move.

Viv rolled her eyes and smiled as she headed for the door. “Sorry, Betty,” she started as she opened the door. “Five’s not home right n—oh!” Viv stopped when she saw it wasn’t Five’s old lady girlfriend, but rather a man she did not recognize. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. Can I help you?”

The man was taller than Viv, but his build was a little on the scrawny side, with thinning brown hair that was combed to the side and a pockmarked face. His gray suit pants looked too baggy for his frame and were cinched at the waist with a belt, as if they had fit him at one time when he had more weight on him. The white dress shirt he had on was wrinkled and a shabby-looking trench coat hung loosely around his wiry frame.

“Oh…sorry,” the man said slowly and Viv could see he was most likely drunk. “I’m looking for Five Hargreeves? Does he live here?”

Considering she had no idea who this man was and the fact that he was asking about Five had her immediately on edge. It’s not as if Five had friends stopping over. Or had friends, period, for that matter.

Viv crossed her arms over her chest. “And who, may I ask, wants to know?”

The man laughed and ran a hand through his sparse hair, holding out a hand for her to shake. “Right, sorry. I’m Sam. I work with Five.”

Viv hesitated but accepted his handshake. “I’m sorry, you said you work with Five?”

She knew better than to just give up any information about Five’s work, and she was highly skeptical of this man’s claim. For one, Five worked for the Commission and it’s not as if that was the accounting office down the street. They were a highly secretive time-traveling operative filled with dangerous assassins. For another, Five never talked about anyone he worked with. Unless they were pissing him off in a particular way that day. So, to have this man she’d never heard of before showing up at their door and knowing Five lived there was a major red flag.

Sam ran a shaky hand through his hair again, looking embarrassed. “Yeah. I’m sure you don’t have many of us stopping by unannounced, do you?”

“And by ‘us’ you mean…”

The man gave a sheepish smile and then pointed at the ground near his feet. Viv looked down and saw the familiar black briefcase she knew Five and all of the other agents at the Commission used for getting around. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone else to have one, so this guy must have been who he said he was. It put her a little more at ease, but not totally.

Viv nodded. “So, what can I help you with? I’m afraid Five isn’t home right now.”

The man’s face fell a little. “Oh, really? That’s too bad. I don’t have much time, but I wanted to bring him by this bottle of whiskey I know he likes.” He held up a very old looking bottle of some kind of brown alcohol. The label looked old-fashioned, yet brand new. It was also only half-full, presumably the remains of what Sam had already drunk. Viv wasn’t familiar with the name on the label, either, and she was fairly certain she knew all of Five’s preferred drink choices.

“We shared a couple of glasses of it a while back, so I picked up some more on my last mission and figured I’d bring it by,” Sam explained. Seeing Viv’s dubious face, he continued. “It hasn’t been made since the 1860s, and technically we aren’t supposed to take things back across timelines, but I figured one little bottle of whiskey wouldn’t make the whole world collapse, right?”

He laughed at his own joke and Viv could see he actually had a nice and genuine smile, even if he was a bit tipsy. His story seemed legit, although it was still weird that Five had never mentioned him to her at all. Although now that she thought about it, he didn’t really tell her much at all about the Commission; for both of their sakes. For all she knew, maybe he had a boatload of friends down there. Maybe he was the life of the party.

She gave him a smile, softening up a little. “No, the world seems to still be in one piece. And don’t worry, I won’t tell. Five once brought me back a bottle of perfume from 1923 Paris, so I think we’re safe.”

He chuckled and then they both stood there awkwardly until he cleared his throat. “Well, just tell him I stopped by, I guess.”

Seeing his disappointed face made Viv feel sorry for him, especially when she saw that it had started to rain. He looked so sad and pathetic standing there in his baggy clothes, drunk on Old West whiskey, and seemingly lonely. She wasn’t sure why, but something about him tugged at her heartstrings and she didn’t want to leave him alone in the rain.

“Why don’t you come in? Five should be home soon, you can wait for him if you’d like.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be too much trouble.”

“No, no, really, I insist. Come on in. I’m Vivian, by the way; Five’s girlfriend.”

Sam followed her inside and she shut the door behind them. She then led him into the kitchen, where she offered him a seat at the table. He sat down heavily, almost missing the chair entirely in his altered state, leaving the black briefcase next to him on the floor.

“This is a really nice place you have here,” he marveled as he glanced around their simple kitchen.

Viv looked surprised. “Really? Well, thank you, but it’s not much. There weren’t too many apartments in the area that I could afford at the time I moved in.”

“So, you lived here first and Five moved in with you?”

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh. “We met, fell in love, and he moved in here. I was never intending on having a roommate, but you never know what life will bring, right?”

Sam looked at her with an odd expression; one that Viv wasn’t sure how to interpret.

“And life brought you Number Five, the assassin, huh?” he asked.

That was a weird question and Viv hesitated for a moment. “Uh…yeah, I guess it did.”

“You know, Five never mentioned you when we shared that whiskey,” Sam said; his eyes seeming to harden just a little. “He also said he lived in a shit hole place, all alone. But this is definitely not a shit hole and he clearly isn’t alone.”

Viv swallowed nervously. “Well, that was probably before we met. He was kind of a loner before that.”

Sam gave a low chuckle and he looked around the kitchen again, seeming to take in his surroundings in detail and soaking it all up. Then he was back to eyeing Viv up. He still had the same friendly smile on his face, but she could see something about it had changed.

“Aren’t we all,” he mumbled. “He’s a lucky guy, though. Ending up with someone as pretty as you.”

Vivian shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. “Um, oh. Thank you.”

It was quickly becoming clear that inviting this man in had not been a good idea. Viv cursed herself for having such a bleeding heart sometimes. She should have followed her initial instinct about him. She just hoped Five would be home soon.

Trying to change the subject, Viv pointed to the bottle on the table. “So, you said you and Five spent some time together at the Commission? Five’s not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, so how did that come about?”

Sam leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg of the other. “Well, you’re right about that. Five is not exactly Mr. Friendly, at least around there. But he must have been in a good mood one day and decided to sit and chat with me. Although, maybe the whiskey was more of the motivator. Anyway, once we got to talking, we realized we had a lot in common.”

“Like what?”

“Well, we both ended up working for the Commission out of necessity rather than desire, but I won’t bore you with those details about myself. He was kind of a loner like you said, and so am I. And I could tell he had a lot of hostility towards most of the world. He knew the unfairness of life and how some people have it good and some don’t. That’s just the way it goes. Unfortunately, he and I got dealt one of life’s shitty hands and had been living with it our whole lives.” Sam stopped and looked at Vivian, again with that weird look in his eyes. “At least, until he met you, apparently. Now he seems to have the good life; coming home to this nice place with you waiting for him, while I’m stuck in my piece of shit house eating microwave dinners for one every night. That is, when I’m not putting a bullet in some poor bastard’s head.”

He chuckled at that and Vivian attempted a smile. This man was appearing to become more unhinged by the minute and she wasn’t sure how to keep up this conversation anymore.

“I know doing what you do, and for whom, can be extremely hard and I’m sorry. But I’m sure things will change for you. Everyone deserves to be happy, and to have love.”

Sam stared at her with unfocused eyes as he processed her words. Viv could see the wheels turning in his head and she suddenly felt very much in danger. Why had she let this guy in their home? The hairs on the backs of her arms stood up.

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Sam said slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Maybe I’d be happy, too, if I had someone like you to come home to every day. Someone young and pretty to take care of me.”

The tone of his voice and look in his eyes were dangerous, and Viv instinctively began to stand up and back away. “You know, you’re making me a little uncomfortable. I think you should leave.”

Despite his unsteadiness from the booze, Sam was quick. The kitchen chair he had been sitting in fell over with a loud bang as he sprang up, grabbing her arm in the process.

“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes wide. “Please. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Viv tried to pull her arm away. “Let go of me!”

“Please, just sit back down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You are hurting me! Let go of my arm!” she cried as she desperately tried to free herself from his grasp.

He took hold of her with his other hand so that he was firmly gripping her by both her upper arms with surprising strength. Shaking her, he yelled in her face. “I am not hurting you! Just stop! Stop and listen!”

“No! Let me go!” she yelled back, struggling against him and trying to kick at his shins or anywhere else she could reach.

“Stop doing that, or else…” he hissed.

“Or else what? If you think Five’s not going to lose his fucking mind when he finds out you grabbed me like this, then you’re even crazier than I thought.”

“I AM NOT CRAZY! DON’T CALL ME CRAZY!” he screamed; his face contorted with fury.

Viv flinched and she started struggling harder. That’s when she saw Sam’s eyes move off of her and down to the ground near where he had been sitting. A white-hot panic started to rise up inside of her when she realized what he was looking at. The briefcase.

She couldn’t let him get to it. Not when he also had ahold of her. There was no telling where or when she would end up. With all of her strength, her adrenaline pumping, Viv fought as hard as she could against him. Kicking and pulling, she managed to yank him off balance, causing him to knock into the kitchen table, upsetting the bottle of whiskey and sending it tumbling to the ground. They continued to fight against one another, their shoes crunching in the broken glass.

When Viv lost her balance, she managed to free one of her hands, catching herself on the way down. Her hand landed on a piece of glass, the sharp edge slicing into her palm. With a last-ditch effort, she tried to reach out and grab her phone off of the table. At the same time, Sam reached for the briefcase. Viv watched in horror as she saw his hand latch onto the handle at the same time that she felt her fingers slipping across the screen of her phone. Then she felt the familiar feeling of being sucked into nothingness, her stomach lurching, as they both disappeared in a flash of light.

It was a miracle that Five even remembered what street Sam lived on. He had only mentioned it once, during a drunken conversation one night as they both slugged down the gasoline passing as whiskey in the Commission break room. Five had remembered because it was about a block away from where he used to live; before he met Vivian. It was in a shit part of town, but that would actually play to his advantage now. It was less likely anyone would pay attention to gunshots or other signs of violence when you’re already in a crime-filled neighborhood. Not that Five didn’t know how to cover his tracks. He was a professional, after all.

The fact that he wasn’t sure which run-down house was Sam’s posed a problem, along with the fact that he could have taken Viv anywhere and to any time. If that were the case, he was going to have to go to more extreme measures to get her back, including breaking Commission protocol. Which he was more than willing to do.

But as he drove slowly up the street with his headlights off, Five was granted a small amount of luck. A light was on inside one of the houses and Five could see clearly into the front window. On a table in the living room was the briefcase. He didn’t see Sam or Viv inside, but it was most definitely a Commission issued case.

“I’ve got you now, you piece of shit,” Five mumbled out loud as he parked the car a few houses down.

The rain was coming down hard and Five was soaked through in a matter of seconds as he hurried down the uneven sidewalk, his shoes splashing through the puddles. He didn’t want to risk being seen by blinking out in the open, so he waited until he was standing on the front porch of Sam’s house. The rain leaked down through the cracks in the rotting awning above him. After another quick peek inside the window, and seeing no one in the front room, Five teleported inside.

He took a second to take in his surroundings. Resisting the urge to call out for Viv, he remained silent and started making his way toward what he assumed would be the kitchen, his Glock held firmly in his left hand. There was no one there, but on top of a wooden cutting board on the worn and peeling countertop, was a meat cleaver. It caught Five’s eye, and since he is never one to turn down the convenience of a sharp weapon up for grabs, he left the kitchen with his gun in one hand and the cleaver in the other.

Five passed by a small, empty bathroom, and then came to a bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was closed and when he tried the handle, it was locked. The door was old and flimsy looking, so he didn’t hesitate to give one strong kick, cracking the wooden frame and splintering the door so that it swung open. As soon as he saw her, he felt immediate relief and horror wash over him.

“Vivian!” he cried, forgetting all of his training and not surveilling the rest of the room first. If he had been watching someone else doing the exact same thing, he would have told them they were brain-dead and lacked critical thinking skills. It was such a rookie move. But his emotions had taken over and he only saw her.

Viv was tied up to a wooden chair, arms behind her, with a blindfold over her eyes and a piece of duct tape over her mouth. She was frantically mumbling something when she heard Five’s voice, but it was unintelligible from behind the tape.

“Shit,” Five whispered as he hurried over, kneeling down in front of her, and placing the gun and knife on the ground. He immediately started to undo the blindfold. “Oh my god, Vivie, I’m so sorry. It’s ok, I’m here. I’m going to get you out of here,” he was saying as he yanked it away from her eyes.

Viv blinked into the sudden brightness, but then her eyes widened in fear as she looked at Five. Five assumed it was from shock and he continued to talk to her and assure her it would be ok as he carefully stripped the tape away from her mouth.

“I’ve got you, angel, don’t worry,” he said, right as he freed her mouth and she took a deep breath in.

“Five! Behind you!”

Five turned around, just in time to see Sam emerging from the bedroom closet with a wild look in his eyes. In his hand he had some sort of small device and he was coming their way. Five tried to grab one of his weapons off the floor next to him, but it was too late. Sam was quicker, and before he knew what was happening, Five fell to the floor in a heap; convulsing violently as electrical currents traveled throughout his entire body.

The stun gun Sam used was a standard-issued weapon from his employer and was given to every field agent, along with a Glock. The electrical charge from these particular guns were much stronger than what any modern-day policeman or SWAT member carried. Word around the halls was that it once took down a full-size grizzly bear with one zap. Sam wasn’t letting up on the trigger as he leaned over Five’s body, pressing the device into the back of his neck and watching with satisfaction as he was electrocuted over and over again.

Because Five was soaked through from the rain, the electrical shock was amplified as it continued in an endless loop through his body while he writhed and groaned on the floor. Five let out a grating cry, his body flickering with a pulsing blue light as he tried to use his own electrical power to counter the attack, but he wasn’t strong enough. Viv watched in horror as the light faded away and he became silent, even as his body continued to contort and seize right in front of her.

“Five! No! No! Stop, you’re killing him!” she screamed, her voice breaking and her eyes filling with tears. She tried in vain to break from her restraints. “Stop! Please! Five!”

Sam finally stopped, tossing the weapon to the side so that it skittered under a beat-up dresser. He was breathing hard as he looked at Viv and then at Five’s limp, unmoving body at his feet. Viv started sobbing loudly and she hung her head as the tears flowed down her face and onto her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. Then he spoke louder, but his voice was trembling. “I had to do it. He was going to take you away. I’m going to let you go, I told you that, but I need you to listen to me first and you’re not listening. All I want is for you to sit here and talk to me, and maybe stay with me for a night. But you weren’t listening, and so I had to tie you up, but I didn’t want to. He was going to take you away from me, and I can’t let that happen. Not until you stay here for a while.”

Viv lifted her head slowly, strings of tangled hair sticking to the tears on her cheeks, her eyes narrowed in a hateful glare. “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING PSYCHO! YOU ARE A CRAZY, PATHETIC LOSER AND I FUCKING HATE YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME? I HATE YOU!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking before she started sobbing again.

Five was still lying unmoving on the floor, but his eyes were open, and to Vivian’s relief, she saw he was breathing, although it was shallow. Sam looked down at him with a glower. Then he nudged him in the side with the toe of his shoe and Five let out a weak moan.

“This is your fault, Five. If you had just stayed put and let me handle this, it wouldn’t have gone this far. But now you ruined it.” Sam squatted down next to Five, leaning in closer so that he could hear. “I wasn’t going to hurt her, you know. But now…well, now you’ve gone and fucked it all up.”

His voice grew louder and more desperate. “We were the same, you and I! So, how did you get so god damn special? I thought we were friends; I thought we had a connection. But then I find out you’re living this perfect little life, with your fancy apartment and your pretty girl. But what about me, huh? Where’s my perfect life? My happy ending?”

Sam stood up and looked at Vivian, although he was directing his words at Five. “I was going to kill you and keep her, but now I have a better idea. Since I know you’re currently paralyzed but can still see and hear everything that’s going on, I think maybe I’ll kill her instead. Then you can watch and listen as your perfect little life is ripped away from you until you’re just like me again. All alone and mad at the world.”

“You stupid piece of shit,” Viv growled out. “He never did anything to you.”

“YES, HE DID!” Sam yelled right in her face. “He took my life! I deserve this life, not him. He’s killed way more people than I have; I’ve seen his records. I know his reputation. He might as well be Satan himself! So why don’t you tell me why he gets you and I get nothing?”

Viv looked him dead in the eye. “Because Five is good and decent, and he knows how to love others. He feels remorse for all of those lives he took. You, on the other hand, are nothing but a giant pile of dog shit in a cheap suit. And no one will ever love you.”

Sam smiled. “At first, I wasn’t going to enjoy this, but now I might.” He bent down to pick up Five’s Glock which was lying next to his immobile body. “I think I’ll shoot you in the head with his own gun. That feels poetic to me, don’t you think?”

He raised his arm and pointed the gun right at Viv’s head. She squeezed her eyes shut, whimpering as a few tears leaked out. “Five, I love you,” she said quietly, knowing they would be her last words, and hoping he could hear her. Just as she was trying to steady herself against the pain and sudden death that would be upon her any second, she heard a high-pitched scream and she opened her eyes.

Sam was standing right where he had been, his face frozen in horror as Five’s gun dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor. He slowly sank to his knees before falling face first onto the ground, collapsing onto his stomach with a loud and painful groan. As he fell over, Viv could see a meat cleaver was embedded in the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades; the shining metal handle sticking straight up in the air as blood seeped from around the blade. Viv looked up to see Five falling to his knees next to Sam. He was shaking and breathing hard, but alive and apparently able to move again.

“Oh my god, Five! Are you ok?”

Five nodded slowly and lifted his head weakly to look at Viv. “Yeah. Are you?”

She nodded her head and started to quietly cry again. Then another pitiful groan came from the injured body on the floor. Sam was stirring and trying to get his arms under him in a futile attempt to get up. Five seemed to gain more strength as he slowly hauled himself up to standing again. He placed a foot on Sam’s lower back, grabbing the handle of the cleaver and yanking it out of the mutilated flesh beneath him. Sam screamed again while fresh blood began pouring out of the wound. Thick drops of scarlet red dripped from the cleaver and onto the old and dented hardwood floor beneath them.

Five was still unsteady on his feet, but he leaned down and pulled Sam’s face up off the ground by a fistful of hair.

“You made a fatal error, my friend,” Five warned. “You have no idea what I am capable of. But you’re about to find out because you have fucked with the wrong man.”

Sam breathed out a shaky laugh. “You think you’re better than me. But we’re the same.”

Five clenched his teeth and held the blood-stained meat cleaver under Sam’s throat. “Listen, you pathetic waste of space; you are wrong! We are not the same, and we never have been,” he hissed.

Sam let out a more maniacal laugh. “We are though. You just can’t admit it.”

Five got ready to draw the sharp blade across Sam’s neck. He wanted to split his throat open from ear to ear and watch him bleed out slowly and in agony. One corner of the cold steel pressed into his skin and a rivulet of blood trickled out.

“Five, don’t,” Viv said suddenly.

Five didn’t look up as he paused. “He needs to die, Vivie.”

“Not like that. Please, I just want to go home. Let’s go home, ok?”

Five looked up at her sorrowful face and knew she was right. He needed to get her back home. But he still wasn’t about to let this fucker go, even if the odds of him surviving the horrific wound in his back were slim. He let go of Sam’s hair, letting his face fall with a loud thunk onto the floor. Then he picked up his pistol and pressed it into the back of Sam’s skull. He glanced at Viv as a warning to let her know to look away.

“Lights out, you stupid fuck,” Five growled before pulling the trigger.

BANG! Sam’s skull exploded, sending blood and brain matter everywhere. Vivian flinched and looked away, but Five watched with satisfaction as the grisly contents oozed out of the gaping hole in the dead man’s head. Then he dropped his gun and hurried over to Viv, who was still bound to the chair.

As soon as her hands were free, she threw her arms around Five’s shoulders and he pulled her tightly into him. She burst into tears again, sobbing into his shoulder as they both knelt on the ground. He kissed her temple and smoothed her hair.

“Vivie…look at me,” he said as he held her face in his trembling hands. “Are you hurt at all? I saw blood on your phone.”

She shook her head while more tears ran down her cheeks. “No, I’m fine. I’m so sorry, Five, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault, I was stupid and I let him in, he said you were friends, I wasn’t thinking. Five, I’m so sorry.” She started crying loudly again, touching the side of his face with her hand. “I thought I lost you. I thought you were dead. And it was all my fault.”

Five closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers, his own tears threatening to spill over. “Darling, you have nothing to be sorry for, ok? You did nothing wrong. I just…god, I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you. Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Five, you’re the one that almost died!”

Five gave her a smile and kissed her softly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. You should know that by now.”

She let out a small laugh, sniffing back her tears. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, angel.” He glanced very quickly to the dead body on the floor and then back to Viv. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

She nodded and they stood up, Five still shaky and unsteady on his feet. Viv held on to him for support. “What’s going to happen now? Aren’t the cops going to come after us?”

Five shook his head. “No, we’re safe. He works for the Commission, so he’s their problem to deal with. Agents die all the time in the field. He’s just one more spare cog in the wheel that won’t be missed.”

On the way out of the house, Five remembered the briefcase. He grabbed it off the table and turned to Vivian. “I don’t think either of us should be driving. I have to bring this back anyway, so do you mind?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. The sooner we can get home the better. We can get the car later.”

With a nod, Five programmed the case, took Viv’s hand in his, and in less than two seconds they were back in their apartment. As soon as they arrived, though, Five collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees. He was still so weak from being electrocuted almost to death and now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, it was starting to catch up with him.

“Five! Oh my god…”

Viv put her arms around his waist as he leaned against her and she helped him up. Tears started to form in her eyes again as they traveled over Five’s exhausted face.

“I am so sorry, Five…this is all my fault…and now you’re hurt…”

“Vivie, I’ll be fine. And it’s not your fault.”

She could see he was starting to sway on his feet again and she nodded before realizing he was covered in a splatter of quickly drying blood. “Come on, you need to get cleaned up first and then you can lie down, ok?”

Viv led Five to the bathroom where she had him sit on the top of the toilet seat while she helped him undress down to his underwear. She didn’t trust that he was strong enough to take a full shower, so she wiped up his face, neck, and chest with a wet washcloth; the dried blood that was painting his skin gradually fading away. Five closed his eyes from both exhaustion and the feel of her touch as she gently washed his latest sin from his body.

After he was cleaned off, Viv washed her own hands and bandaged the cut on her palm, and they both collapsed onto their bed, too tired to turn back the covers. Viv crawled next to Five as he lay on his side, and he wrapped her in his arms with her face buried in his chest. They both let out a long sigh and then she looked up at him. With her hand on his cheek, she kissed him, her warm lips pressed to his as he kissed her just as deeply in return and stroked her hair.

“Are you going to be ok?” he asked her quietly.

“Yeah, I’ll be ok. I’m pretty tough, you know,” she said with a smile.

Five laughed and squeezed her tighter. “I know you are.” He was silent for a minute before speaking again. “I’m sorry, Vivie. I’m sorry that I can’t ever seem to escape the hell that follows me everywhere. All I want to do is keep you safe, but I seem to be failing in that department.”

“I never feel safer than when I’m with you.”

Five didn’t respond to that and was quiet again. “I’d do it again, you know.”

“What?”

“Kill anyone that tried to hurt you. Without a second thought. And I’m sorry because I know that’s not what you want to hear, but if protecting you means I have to be the bad guy, then so be it.”

Viv looked into his eyes and smiled sadly. “Five, you’re never the bad guy. You’re my own personal superhero and you will always be the good guy. Because you are good inside. I need you to remember that.”

Five chuckled. “I don’t know about that, but if I am, it’s only because of you, angel.”

Bonus: Smut (as a little treat)

It took a few days before Five was completely healed from his electrical ass-beating. He couldn’t even blink a few feet without the power leaving his body and feeling like he was going to faint. And even though he loved that Vivian took care of him, he was getting pretty fucking annoyed with getting scolded every time he tried to do something she didn’t think he could handle. He reminded her several times that he had made it through four and a half decades of self-preservation in a barren hellscape, so unloading a bag of groceries was probably not going to be the end of him. But she just gave him a pointed look that told him she didn’t give a shit what he said and then he shut up again. After the third day, though, she finally decided he was well enough to return to his normal activities.

Viv was at the kitchen sink when Five came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck. “I have a surprise for you,” he told her with a grin.

She sighed heavily, continuing to rinse off the plate she was holding. “If it’s what I’m currently feeling being jabbed up against my butt right now, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve seen it before. Several times.”

Five gave her ass a pinch so that she squealed and then scooped her up in his arms, the dish clattering into the sink. “That’s only part of it,” he answered before he teleported them into the bedroom and onto the bed with a bounce. “I can blink again,” he said with a cocky smirk.

Viv scowled at him, fighting against her smile, and she smacked him on the arm. “Five Hargreeves, you are the worst! What have I told you about non-consensual blinks?”

Five laughed and shrugged. “It was worth it.”

Before she had a chance to respond, he was dragging her on top of him and pulling her in for a kiss, his hand tangling in her hair. She immediately gave in and made a little moaning noise into his mouth.

“Besides,” he said as he pulled away with a smile. “I know you secretly love it.”

Viv shook her head. “I don’t. But I do love a lot of other things you can do.”

Five nuzzled his face into her neck and placed a line of soft kisses along the underside of her jaw. “How about I do a few of those things right now?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” she said quietly while she started tugging up his shirt.

He chuckled as her hand slid over his hard abdomen and chest. “Trying to undress me already, my love?”

“You know I hate it when you have clothes on. I’d much rather have you walking around naked all day, just for my viewing pleasure and for easy access.”

Five laughed again and then flipped her over so that Viv was on her back, and he sat up on his knees, pulling his black t-shirt over his head before leaning down again. The muscles in his arms and back flexed as he held himself over her. He pressed the hard crotch of his pants into her thigh and he flashed her his sexy, crooked smile.

“If anyone needs to be walking around naked all day, it’s you. So let’s start there.”

Viv smiled and let him take his time with her, softly running his lips over her stomach and chest before lifting her shirt over her head. When he moved to tug her pants off, she stretched out long, closing her eyes and sighing. She felt his hand drifting over her legs and hip, and around to her ass where he gave it a small squeeze. Then he repositioned himself between her legs and she felt the warmth of his breath on her inner thigh as he placed his hands on either side of her hips.

“You’re so beautiful, baby,” he murmured.

Viv let out a quiet moan when she felt his mouth and tongue drawing hot lines over her skin, punctuated with tiny nips of his teeth. When he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties, pulling them down a little bit before covering the entire damp area between her legs with his mouth, she jerked her hips up with a whine.

Five leisurely sucked and licked at the thin fabric that separated him from that hot piece of heaven just underneath. He was teasing himself just as much as her, because the wetter she got, the more he could taste. And the more he could taste, the more his feral instincts kicked in and he wanted to devour her.

When he finally threw the lace underpants somewhere to the side, he was already on his knees between her legs, holding her tightly by her thighs, as he watched her rocking her hips up in anticipation. She looked up at him under hooded eyes, the corner of her bottom lip caught in her teeth, before sucking in a loud breath.

“God, you drive me fucking crazy,” he growled before immediately getting back to the matter at hand.

Five always knew the best ways to make Vivian a trembling mess, and one of those ways was to eat her out like she was the first meal he’d had in years. She liked when he was slow and gentle; flicking his tongue over all of her most sensitive places and taking his time. But when he lost all restraint and consumed her entire pussy, groaning and shoving his tongue inside of her while sloppily sucking at her clit, that’s when she lost her damn mind.

It always came with a slight risk of bodily harm for Five, since she would be thrusting her hips up into him so wildly, and pushing his face harder into her that it was a wonder he didn’t end up with a neck injury or suffocating to death. But he figured if that’s how he went out, he’d be ok with that.

“Five! Oh…my…fucking…god…YES!!!”

She pushed herself harder into his face with each word until she was screaming unintelligible words and Five could feel her thighs trembling and her body shaking as her back arched off the bed. He continued greedily lapping her up until she relaxed again and fell back against the pillow.  When he sat back on his knees, he was breathing hard and fast. He pushed his hair off his forehead as he licked at his lips; her warm, liquid sex coating his mouth and dripping down his chin.

While Viv lay there, catching her breath, she watched as Five wiped his face with the back of his hand, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a tiny smirk. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes told her all she needed to know. Now it was his turn and she was about to get railed. Hard.

He unbuckled his belt and opened the fly of his pants, taking out his hard cock before shoving her legs further apart with his knees. When he leaned over the top of her, covering her body with his own, he kissed her long and deeply; making sure she got a good taste of herself on his tongue. Her already soaked cunt accepted his dick with ease as he sunk himself inside of her.

With one hand holding himself up and the other gripping and pulling her leg up higher around his waist, Five started rhythmically thrusting into her, and moving his face to her neck.

“Vivie,” he breathed against her skin and she closed her eyes and dug her fingers into his back. “I can’t live without you, angel.”

 “I’m yours forever, Five.”

Five continued to fuck her hard but slowly, the buckle of his belt that was still dangling from his opened pants clinking with each push of his hips. He was groaning and biting into the crook of her neck as he kept his face buried there and Vivian clutched his body to hers. In between heavy pants, he told her all of the things he needed her to know. Every little thought and emotion that made its way to the forefront of his brain. If he didn’t tell her, the moment may pass and she’d never know.

“You are my whole world, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I am nothing without you. I love you so much, Vivian, so much.” He started moaning louder as his pace got faster and he held himself over her again to look down at her face. She smiled up at him, even as she let her head fall back again with a cry from how good he was feeling as he pounded into her.

“Five…”, she whimpered. “I love you, too...you feel so good like this.”

Her words acted like some sort of switch inside his brain, and after a few more seconds, Five was unleashing his hot cum inside of her while he pressed his forehead into her shoulder and groaned low in his throat. As his body relaxed, he stayed where he was, lying on top of her and breathing hard against her neck. She stroked his back and hair and ran her fingers lightly down his arms. He felt her lips press against his ear and she sighed happily.

“No one can ever take me away from you, Five,” Viv whispered.

Five kissed the side of her neck and then her lips. He didn’t say anything in return. Mostly because he knew she was right. Because if anyone ever tried to take her away again, he had no problem slaughtering everyone in his path to get to her.

[fabledfoxglove]

Okay so im a minor and my mom knows i want to be “spiritual” but nothing specific, I’m really interested in hestia+athena+kitchen witchery and could i get some book recs+ i have some general questions

- is it okay if i only worship 2 goddess

- is it okay if i only read about athena and hestia? or do i have to research all of the main gods/goddesses

I hope this isn’t to much! 🙂

Welcome & thank you for the ask (^-^*)/

1. So here’s the thing - I’m more of a trail by fire person than a researcher so I unfortunately don’t have any book recs for you. I’m sure this is advice you’ve probably heard before but “read” or just experience her mythology. I personally prefer YouTube videos but you do whatever feels right for you. Otherwise I would look into things commonly associated with them (I.e hestia is heavily associated with fire and hearths, Athena is usually associated with owls, Aphrodite with doves etc etc)

I personally think that the best way to do deity work is to just “do it” for lack of a more inspiring way to phrase it. take a moment to pray/meditate and focus on reaching out to whomever you’re trying to work with and honestly express your feelings. Speaking from personal experience, Hestia is super sweet and accommodating. If you reach out, she will surely answer. I think most of the gods are the same way though. I saw someone once liken deity worship to being a crow bringing a human shiny things - you just appreciate the fact that this funky lil creature is giving you shiny trinkets and likes you, you feel??

2. You can work with as many or as little gods and goddesses you want and anyone who tries to tell you differently is a pretentious jerk.

It’s also ok for your practice to be fluid and change over time!! When I first started, I worked solely with Hestia. It wasn’t until much later in my journey that I began working with others.

Also also as a bonus tangentially related nugget of wisdom: people often think that being a worshiper of a pantheon of gods means you have to work super closely will all of them all the time and that’s not the case. You can have as serious or as “casual” a relationship with your gods as works for you. I don’t work super closely with Hermes, but I say a little prayer to him when I travel/drive, and he likes to respond by sending me funny vanity plates on cars I see. Nothing crazy, you know? But with Hestia I have a much more deeply devoted relationship with her as you can probably gather from my blog LOL.

I hope this was informative!! If anything didn’t make sense feel free to ask clarification questions.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───