#UR JUST KIND OF A CONSTANT IN MY BRAIN I GUESS. UR ONE OF THE FEW MUTUALS I RECOGNIZE AND GO 'HEY I LIKE THAT ONE'

[colliope]

How date-able are twst boys? ♡

inspired by @sunsguilt

Features all chars, and gets pretty suggestive btw. Otherwise mostly crack +fluff

a/n: my first writing! I hope u enjoy :) if not then go die i guess

﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋ ♡Heartslabyul ♡

Riddle Rosehearts - I don't ljke him. If we're talking pre-overblot he'd banish you to that headlock thing with his unique magic if you ever tried to ask him out or flirt with him. Post-overblot hed be really shy in getting into a relationship but wants to be cared for and protected. But he's not standing up for u in front of his mom tho you'll have to deal with her urself

6/10 he’s a sweet boy, just too bossy and not assertive enough to his mom. Divorceablity is quite high with this one.

Cater Diamonds - low-key relatable to me. BUT. His slang gets annoying after a while. His constant posting without peoples permission is weird too. Picture this. He's meeting your family for the first time, and you sit to have dinner. Cater takes a pic of you guys and posts it with the caption "With bae their fam, I'm a bit nervous guys wish me luck!🥺"#girldad #boymom #saveme Your family assumed it's his humor. WRONG. It's his way of coping with his uncomfortability. When it's silent during dinner he says" OH EM GEE GIRLYPOPS!!!, this food is so SLAY💅!! Tysm bestiessss" Your family gives him the nastiest side eye. He never speaks again. 

7/10 he seems to be a pretty sweet and understanding person, just needs better ways to express himself . Also he calls your mother queenie.

Trey Clover - he’s an interesting guy. You'll typically see him as an npc, but he's much more than that. Have you seen his *tips fedora * "m'lady" stare?? Yeah there's definitely something strange going on there. He's a pretty family oriented guy tho, and he loves to bake for his s/o and to provide comfort and care.

8/10 he's probably one of the more normal ones that I would actually date. Or be friends with. Just keep one eye open when your sleeping with ur with him tho

Ace Trappola- I don't understand how someone could even like him. He's the kinda kid to push you off the swing during recess and when you tell the teacher he'll go like "NUH UH!! THEY HIT ME FIRST!!" . Plus he's canonically not a good partner lmaoooo

3/10 he’s not even a middle schooler. Too pebble brained. Don't date a gremlin like him. maybe if he finds someone like him he might maintain a steady relationship.

Deuce Spades- no thoughts head empty. He needs a little direction in life but he's got a goal in mind. He's a lil stupid but he's getting there. He's such so sweet and silly you have to love him. But he needs to mature a bit before entering a long term relationship 

6/10 not my type, I would go for his mom instead. Plus his dad is literally dr.eggman, that explains everything. but yeah he's got what It takes, be kind to him. He's fragile. Like an egg.

ᓚᘏᗢ Savannaclaw ᓚᘏᗢ  

Leona Kingscholar - girl he is 21 years old he should be in the CLUB!!!!! But no. He's sitting alone eating Kentucky fried chicken alone on a Friday night. If he really wanted someone, he could go for it, but he seriously can't be bothered. If you do manage to get him attached to you it'll take him a while to fully love you as much as you love him, as well as put in the same amount of effort .

7/10- I don't think he genuinely needs a partner. He's got his own issues to sort out. But when he falls, he falls hard. I wonder how hard his abs are.

Ruggie Bucchi - Rugbartholomew !!!! The scrunkly. The scrimp. It'll be so fun horsing around with this guy. Being his s/o is like being his partner in crime. It'll be fun, and you guys support each other . He really cares abt his loved ones and always tries to bring something to the table for them, literally and metaphorically. Midnight runs to seven eleven. He's working 10 jobs at a time. He's EMPLOYED. He's a boyemployee. He just needs his girlboss to complete him.

5/10 he's a bit scummy tbh. It'll take him a while to fully trust someone. He’d do some sleazy things for money. It also gives you the ick when he smells donuts and starts floating towards them.

Jack Howl- he's surprisingly normal. He's got a set sleep schedule , he's healthy, he has set routines, and healthy coping mechanisms. But that's the thing. as much as he is such a caring and gentle lover, these routines take up most of his life and time. He would be waking you up at ungodly hours for a morning jog only for you to pass out midway to Mount Kilimanjaro. .

7/10 -he dates for marriage, and he’s really serious about his future and starting a family. So he’s such a loyal and protective guy. He's just too much of a gym bro. He prefers pre-workout over partners. Also he unironically likes alpha/werewolf quotes.

𓆝𓆟𓆜 Octivinelle 𓆝𓆟𓆜

Azul Ashengrotto- I love him so much. He's so me guys you don't get it (capitalism) but that aside, HES SO DAMN WEIRD LMAOOOOOO like he thinks he has rizz but he just looks like a Reddit 'nice guy'. Legitimately says m'lady. He gives off the fake dating trope to me. He'd date you to get something out of you but then actually fall hard bc he's touch starved and longs to feel emotionally vulnerable but is afraid of it. So he's an absolute mess in a relationship and needs a lot of reassurance. But yeah he's pretty bitchless 

7/10 he's gorgeous, but he sounds like that one pufferfish singing thing. I relate to him a lot so he gets points. Also since his parents are divorced he definitely has a high divorceability. I have a theory in the works that since we don't know who his biological father is, it might just be Mr. Krabbs. Like it's never said he's a full octopus (to my knowledge). SpongeBob and squidward are Floyd and Jade respectively. SpongeBob X twisted wonderland when?

Floyd Leech- he drank battery acid as a baby. Like dude you're in love with a nuclear fission bomb. If you like Floyd, you're just as fucked up as he is. It's okay tho, he's a very physically affectionate guy and may be overly possessive and obsessive but that's just his charm dw abt it. He also does thing like "if you hug me, expect a little nibbling on your earlobe 😝" and he bites off your entire ear.

2/10 his kisses taste like fish and sheet metal, and he licks short peoples heads when no one's looking. 

Jade Leech- if you saw him eat mushrooms well no you didn't because if he eated mushrooms then he would have not eating mushroom bc no . His version of love is psychological warfare . He’s a mysterious guy. Let's set a scenario for him. You're sitting in the monstro lounge. You see a tall, dark and handsome man across the bar with a mysterious aura. You catch his gaze and quickly dart your eyes away. But his never stop staring at you. He comes up to you and you guys chat naturally . He buys you a drink, your favorite actually. He knows all the ways to make you swoon. He’s so dreamy. Then he says that he put cyanide in your drink as joke. Then he lets it slip he's been stalking you for days. You find out his a wanted criminal. And end scene. Yeah that's romance with him. 

4/10 he's an attentive and observant guy, but sadly that's way before you guys are dating and he's a psych ward escapee.

𓄼𖣠 Scarabia 𖣠𓄹

Kalim Al-Asim - OTTERRRR!!! I love otters. He’s like deuce. But rich. And more innocent(ignorant). He’s so head over heels for his s/o bro. He’d shower them with his love and gifts. He still has a lot to learn in life, but he's willing to give it all to you. You should be honored.

6/10 he's my son. Treat him well. I can’t forgive him for what he did to Jamil tho. 

Jamil Viper- AWWHH YEAH BABY!!! He’s so Fine oml. But personal bias aside, he's very much insane. He’s just a closeted insane.pre-overblot he wouldn't even date u bro he would pretend u don't exist but then hate u being around Kalim. Post-overblot he accidentally avoids you because he has no idea how to express or hide his feelings for you. Okay but definitely has w rizz. Azul seethes at the sight him. Like chewing up his fedora and spitting it out type shit. Men wish they were Jamil. 

8/10 he's so wifey, he can cook he can clean  I will give him a ring if u don't. Minus points for the attempted murder, but still he's pwetty so I forgive him (*^ω^*) . He probably once got hit in the head with a basketball with you looking.

⊹𖥔˖࣪ Pomefiore⊹𖥔˖࣪ 

Vil Schoenheit - okay this one's hard cus he's literally just my mother. But more fierce diva cunty. I've been sleeping on his character ngl, but now that I think about it he's pretty relatable. Like everyone wishes to be beautiful, in some sort of way. I think in a relationship he'll need some reassurance about his looks, but also about it his partner only wants him for his looks. I don't think he actually has high standards, he would probably want someone pretty normal, but also takes good care of themselves, not just appearance-wise.

8/10 he's pretty good as an s/o, but the fame aspect will make things very difficult. Also expect him to be brutally honest with you or pick apart your appearance. He's just trying make sure u look ur best bro he's caring like that. Would make an excellent rupauls drag race judge.

Rook Hunt - I have sent a nuke to your exact coordinates. Why would u want him bro he’s Fr*nch AND a felon. There's no good aspects of this relationship he has negative rizz and his fucking bob makes him look like SpongeBob took the gay potion from the dark web at 3 am. also, he's already mentally married you and has your wedding dress prepared as well as a loan taken out for your new family home before you even know his name. 

0/10 Mr Electric KILL HIM!!! Probably the kinda guy to post a selfie captioned "who want me" and then before epel can reply "the mental hospital " his post gets taken down due to mass reporting and his account gets suspended and he's put on an fbi watchlist.

Epel Felmier- ngl mood bro. It's so annoying being seen as fragile and weak simply for your inherent femininity.I believe in a relationship he'd want someone that tells him what he wants to hear. He'll have some trouble accepting some facts, especially with his anger issues, but he'll learn to sort that out. He's a sweet boy at heart. He just feels he needs to overcompensate due to his appearance.

6/10 I'm not an anger issues kinda guy. It takes resilience to deal with, something i don't have for that. He probs listens to red pill podcasts while on a tractor. He's a 14 year old boy who just discovered Andrew Tate (he's deathly afraid of women)

꒷꒦꒷Ignihyde꒷꒦꒷

Idia Shroud- no. I have no idea how you could have feelings for him if you've never seen him. And definitely not online bc 1. He would never engage in that 2. Theres nothing romantic about the call of duty lobby. Also another guy with negative rizz. But not like in the creepy way like rook but in a loser way. He genuinely believes he is unfit for a relationship and that he is undeserving of love. If somehow he finds someone like that he'd be attached to them until the day he dies.

8/10 I love me a loser boy. He def has trust issues and paranoia but who doesn't in this game. He's rich so he could spoil u with the battle pass for literally any game. Plus ortho ends up becoming your little brother too. It's a win-win. Also don't ask him if the carpet matches the drapes.

Ortho Shroud- would probs hire u to date his brother out of genuine fear the dude would be alone for the rest of his life.

𓆩 ♡ 𓆪Diasomnia𓆩 ♡ 𓆪

Malleus Draconia - his prehistoric charm and awkward demeanor had captivated you, it seems. But yeah he's the kinda guy to say lines like "For the world could be dying and I would have never noticed it because I would have been not paying attention to the world itself, but would be gazing into your eyes watching them shine like the stars". He's soooo down bad. he's so happy to finally have someone to love him. Very very very loyal. But sometimes toes the line of yandere. 

9/10 he's so wonderful. All he wants is to love and be loved. But he still thinks of romance in this Victorian ages and gets hard when he sees your ankles or sumn.

Lilia Vanrouge- this Gent a wee bit peculiar innit? He has connections within the furry community that could destroy your life in seconds. He's everything. He’s everywhere. All at once. He genuinely has dabbled in many different things over the years , so he'll never run out of stories to tell. Many 3 am Minecraft dates. Those upside down  Spider-Man kisses. He’s more than ready to settle down with someone have kids of his own. Maybe have a girl. Name her draculaura, you know the rest. He probably went to monster high ngl. But he's a much more mature kinda guy. Definitely knows what he wants in a relationship. He's reasonable too. But you guys don't sleep in the same bed he hangs from the ceiling in a sleeping bag.

9/10 he's a bit vertically challenged and sometimes summons ancient demons by accident. He whispers sweet nothings into your ear in forgotten languages.

Silver - he's the female gaze bro. He's gorgeous . He’s legitimately a normal dude. But I don't think he's even been near a woman before. No rizz. Just soldier and eepy. But he definitely wants an s/o who can care for him a lot considering his narcolepsy. It's something that worries him a lot, and needs a person who's full of love to give, not only to him but to his family. But you're always welcome to nap with him underneath a tree in the warm sun.

7/10 he's a bit narrow-minded, only having a few goals set in mind and a strict regimen as a soldier. You have to work around that and his disorder in order to be his s/o. It's a lot dude. Especially when he leans in for a kiss but falls asleep inside and hits his head on the way down and gets brain damage.

Sebek Zigvolt- this gator wouldn't last a day in the Everglades bruh ‼️🚫I actually despise him. I have a picture of him in my room that I chew on when I get angry. Why is he always yelling. Why is he so obsessed with malleus even outside of his job. Actually, he probably leaves you for malleus. no chance with him bruh. But seriously you need to be super determined to get with him if you manage go past his alarm clock-like exterior. he's lonely.

3/10 I would turn him into a purse.his version of dirty talk is going "do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior wakasama-" and then you make him put his clothes back on and leave.

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Thank you for reading!  ₍˄·͈༝·͈˄₎◞ ̑̑

[pebiejeebies]

FINALLY REDESIGNED MY BABY!!

Fuorzy!! Look at her :D

… wait.. this is too.. boring.. hmmmm

hmmm.. it wouldn’t hurt to..

well..

destroy an innocent little lovable sona to the point she loses sanity and gets forced to merge with announcer..

The line less art was her first ever appearance. Innocent. Happy.

The outlined art is, well.. the Aftermath.

Hhhhheeeeehhhh, Huge difference huh..? I really, really destroyed her didn’t I? :(

Lore if ur interested!!

(Tw,, robot gore..??? Surgery,, uhh test subject horror—?? Idk man)

First of all:

WHAT IS A ROBOTERSTIEN??

It’s a robot Frankenstein, and I used the word Roboter and not Robot because it was German :P (idk let me mix random words together like they’re my shampoo and conditioner bottles)

She was playing in the equation playground for a while, until she strayed too far

She bumped into a bear, and since she struggles to see clearly because she’s cross eyed.. well.. I think you get the picture.

Xeir legs got completely snapped and seperated off of her, and her arms and hands were scratched heavily, and bent, and her.. uh.. ears I guess? Welll……

the only reason she survived was because there were objects camping nearby, who were professionals in hunting down bears and such

As much as the bear hurt Fuorzy, she didn’t want to see it die, so she convinced the objects with her little to no consciousness, and they let the bear go

She wakes up in a lab, with professional robotic scientists, they fixed up her limbs and bandages her missing ‘ear’, and just when she thought that they were too kind to offer all of this for free..

They didn’t. They told her to pay, either in any currency (which she doesn’t even know what it is) or..

She becomes a test subject.

She disliked the idea, but she really, REALLY wanted to live and keep her new cool limbs!

Days, weeks, and a month or two pass, every day they’d make a surgery on her, either cut open her missing ear, or her back and tail (Do know, canon version of both phases had the same back, just the first appearance didnt have the stitches)

Or they’d try new codes and chips on her

It doesn’t matter if anything happened to them, the scientists were only using them to test out things they’d do on the projects and robots they wanted to make

And with the lack of nice treatment, constant forgetfulness of her starvation and exhaustion, it finally made her tick

The scientists completely forgot that she was, ALIVE, so they never really made sure she was stabilized well

The scientists are all gathered, as they speak excitedly about this test and how it would work

They make her unconscious, and after a week of a heavy forced deep sleep, she wakes up, with a— A FUCKING ROBOT ON HER HEAD..

HUH. They tested if she could connect announcer to her BRAIN, and the only way it would work was.. well… yeah.. owchie…

She wasn’t supposed to wake up at that time, she looked at herself in the floor’s reflection, and instead of crying and looking at herself traumatized, she smiled

She ripped the chains from the bed off of her, and completely..

Lost

Their

M I N D

She started killing EVERYONE she saw

everyone who had a white long, coat

She was about to get shot by a scientist, only for one of the other scientists she tried to kill push her away

The shot reflected back onto the scientist and drops dead

Then she stared at the scientist that saved them

Rose, he helped her up and smiled warmly

“About time they got what they deserved”

He helped them out of the lab, and they both went their separate ways

She smiled as she wiped off the blood on her face, and stared back at her Home, Sweet, Home.

I knoe I probably wrote this badly,, but I have a headache sooo bear with me here ….

Alrighty uuhhh byebyee <3333

[bicon-crange]

can the nosey ones know abt ur crush? :3c dw if not. my condolences (positive)

yeah sure why not i cant stop fucking talking about it anyways.

iiii dont know if its necessarily a crush though!! definitely an obsession. definitely some kind of. fixation. thanks for your condolences i definitely fucking need them. TT-TT )

its like. uh. this person i know whos sooo articulate and smart and. theyre really sweet. yknow BASIC SHIT. theyre great everyone likes them.

anyways when we first started talking it was like. some kinda. there was clashing. i guess is how you could put it? but every time we finished talking i felt soo like. electrified. like buzzing. like my whole body was just shaking. adrenaline? maybe?

i really thought at first that it was just a friendly interest. some sort of.. y'know intellectual thing! you meet someone whos so much smarter than you and whos ideas are so well put together and who thinks YOU'RE interesting and of course you want to know more of how their brain works of course youre. captivated a bit yknow? thats like. normal. to feel. i think.

oh the first couple times we talked i went so nuts! i reread over our convos like a thousand times and reiterated our talks several times to EVERYONE in my house. its so actually embarrassing. but they were good convos you HAAAVE to understand. it was like. ducking weaving. it was like. some sort of mental exercise . and i thought it was like. normal. but it just kept. HAPPENING. AND HAPPENING. AND HAPPENING.

and i tell you what this was a lot easier a month or so ago when i was like I JUST REALLY LIKE TALKING TO THIS PERSON!! ^_^ (<- STILL A DEFINITE POSSIBILITY) cause ugh. lately its like. ever since the thought popped in my head that this interest MIIIGHT be romantic in nature its. ALLLL DAY thinking about them its so nuts! its so constant!! its literally like a fucking DISEASE... i feel like. angry over it? spiteful? almost? it reminds me of when i had a crush on a guy in elementary school and I didnt know how to handle it so i beat the hell out of him with a lunch box.

like im over here forgetting shit left and right and messing up basic conversation skills and having heart palpitations and theyre like. fine probably. iiii honestly dont think they even think about me lol. i mean definitely not as much as i am,easy, because im totally insane and obsessive i know this.

we also dont talk so much! its not very often! so yeah im sure they dont think about me as much. im even definitely sure if i ever verbalized this it wouldnt work out. ive visualized them turning me down like 20 different ways for 20 different reasons just today. lots of reasons yknow! im mentally unwell and totally nuts, im immature and also very ugly im unable to carry out a meaningful relationship because of my chronic pain problems and various health issues, all of that is fine but my obsessive nature is really freaky,LD relationships are a no-go, they just dont like me that way, ect ect ect.

its sooo stupid. its SO middle school. they type a response to me and i can barely look at the screen. i feel SO fucking stupid its insane. im like. going to claw my eyes out of my head and chew on them till they burst. i hate it here. and its never going to be reciprocated whatsoever so im literally not even going to try.

BESIDES Y'KNOW!! I DONT EVEN KNOW FOR SURE IF THATS WHAT IM FEELING!! its been wracking my brain for a week straight!! its like. am i just fascinated on an intellectual level, am i just interested in an anthropological sense, are these just really good conversations, if this just normal friendship and im making things super weird? am i just excited that someone seems to get what im saying about what im interested in? yknow. dumb.

either way TLDR; im waiting for it to pass. either I'll sort my own feelings out or itll pass! if its infatuation, GOOD, that has a expiration date of 1-2 years so i will just box it up and not think about it and not do anything about it. ^_^ )9 and it WILL die. BUT if you know how to force that process to go along faster let me KNOW.

[proxythe]

WAIT WHAT DID THEY DO TO AKIHIKO IN RELOAD..... hes my fave and i was reading ur tags and now im scared 0_0 (spoilers are cool ive played the original im just curious)

p3 reload spoilers just in case

its so hard to explain bc i suck at words but a lot of reload rewrite kind of gives a lot of the characters basically 1 or 2 personality traits and it’s super annoying LMFAO

the characters are basically at their best when the game is just the story and lines that were taken from the original game 😭

anyways. idk if you’ve been unlucky enough to experience persona 4 arena ultimax but basically in that game aki is literally addicted to protein and constantly brings it up (it’s annoying as fuck) and they took that and put it into reload + if not protein, every other line is him talking about training and fighting and working out and being an overall meathead

i understand his character and i understand his obsession with getting stronger, but the way those lines are written i don’t think seem reflective of “i need to get stronger to protect everyone”, and instead seem like all that bounces around his brain is fighting and the gym if u know what i’m saying 😭😭😭

same goes for aigis and the constant repetitive “as they say” after every phrase she utters

+ aki and mitsurus friendship has been watered down to mitsuru basically babysitting akihiko where in the original you could actually tell they were friends who respected and liked each other. aki (and shinji) are like afraid of her and make it seem like she’ll hurt them if they speak out of line 😭 it’s so annoying

his new voice isn’t a huge deal for me (tho i still very much prefer his old one) but imo it doesnt help when it comes to the annoying tweaks they made to his personality

also his social event is ass im sorry if anyone liked it but it was really corny and i didn’t like it. if u want to see akihiko fight 11 gang members and win then i guess you’ll enjoy it. and let me not even go into detail about the scene where he talks about his dead sister and then right afterward he says “now where’s that protein powder”

tldr everything reload added to him pretty much sucks while everything taken from the original is fine ✌️

(my brother and i have been playing it and this might just be us but we’ve both agreed that it also kind of feels like he doesn’t really have a huge presence in the game, as in he doesn’t hit as hard as he did in the original)

[magnoliamyrrh]

@osmanthusleaf djdks im so sorry for replying in post i didnt wanna cut this up into a million bits, uve not even got to read all this cuz its long ive just got a lot going through my mind and im bad at shutting up once my brain starts going sorry 😭

for sure & well said. i fully agree, and understand having more care and knowledge for your own peoples issues, its natural; like u know example apart from ur own ex., i do know and have looked into the sex trafficking situation in the rest of the world and it horrifies me just as much and it is all connected, but end of the day, i understand most and focus most on the issues in my area and thats what i can give my two cents on more than anything. or, yea, i know abt plenty of things going on around the world, but theres also Tons that i have no clue on and overall i end up knowing more and spending more time on mostly things that i have some sort of personal connection to, like even this thing which i spend time on cuz of my own trauma; were all bound to be more immediately concerned if our own house is burning down w us in it than if the house a mile away also is, and were bound to be more interesting in why our own house burned down and who burned it down than the one a mile away, especially if the two arent connected directly. its past a point impossible for the psyche to b up to date w so much info, especially so much info on bad shit, to keep track of all of it and to feel something about all of it all the time.... if anything, i think the constant info on bad stuff everywhere happening which,,, for the most part we can do little on, is part of whats made our generations more doomful, hopeless, and lost - end of the day its good to care, but weve just got to pick some things in particular to rly care abt and if we can, try to understand them and do something about them, and hope if enough ppl do that for enough things they care about while working together, things may get better...... but also, if u say u care abt some issue, i reckon its important to care too abt other ppl caught up in it, even if its not a main focus and not dismiss it bc its not ur own shit directly 🤷‍♀️

i guess yea, the lack of knowledge isnt what bothers me at all bc god knows we all lack knowledge of plenty of things and frankly we kinda have to for our sanity. its the attitude that does and we all do it too often. like some while ago i was telling my mom u know, we (in broad ethnic&national terms) have some sort of responsability to the ppl that have been opressed in our lands and still deal w the consequences and weve got to care abt that history and struggle, not even in a sins of the ancestors way but in a we all have to try to be better way, and her first reply before we talked more was, well, whose going to help us and pay us back for communism, or serfdom, or imperialism, or slavery, or poverty? and havent we got enough of our own issues? and its like yea 😭 the world isnt fair and theres endless cycles of ppl fucking each other over and its a lot, which is why we have to try to just be kind and decent and help each other and rise each other up and come together as hard as it may be and as endlessly annoying this species may be 😭 and weve got to spend more time on how were similar and can understand each other, rather than always predominantly looking at differences, or pointing fingers, or giving in fully to our good old tribalistic mentality. theres gotta b a balance and id like to think and hope, if we tried, we'd indeed find out in many regards we are more similar than we are different, and all more connected than apart ..... if anything, i think thats something that the loss of spirituality in the "modern" world hasnt helped, bc it was one of those things which bound us to universality and connection

and yea, part of it definetely is social media and also current academia and the general cultural mindsets floating around, theres a whole lot of boiling down of super complex shit into short tidbits or black and white things, bc its easier to digest and faster (also, that overboard american centrism that goes beyond being concerned w ur own stuff, while the rest of the world has to know abt the us). i think too, were all bound to have reactionary and defensive attitudes to things especially when dealing w years of shit from ppl, and when we hold a lot of pain and anger, and it leads too to ppl taking things in bad faith which is something ive dealt w too and had to learn to hold myself back on, bc ive definetely got a tendency for it for sure... and its frankly a whole lot easier to point fingers endlessly or to play the opression olympics than look at the god awful messy complexity of it all and how were all caught up w it,, and frankly, i reckon that it feels better to an extent too... it feels/safer/ and simpler i think, than to say, oh god, has truly this whole species been capable of so much hororr? is there nowhere that was or is good, and pure, and untained, and truly a lot better?.. and its i reckon nicer too, to think of things in terms of purely victim and victimizer, than to think abt how plenty of us, most ppl throughout histoy actually if looking at it systemically, have been as u said, a messy contradiction of both....and uhh what's that bible quote, why are u pointing out the spec in your neighbors eye, but not the log in your own? take the log out of your own, and then you may help your neighbor w the spec. and yet, we just dont like doing that much as humans cuz its harder and uncomfortable, its something we have to force ourselves to do and train ourselves for. and unfortunately its not something that is taught very much either

,,,, and yea on top of that too youre definetely right, ethnicity and race and even culture especially in regards to opression and historical and current day dynamics (especially on an international scale) are so incredibly messy, changing, and mostly a whole bunch of stuff weve made up and keep making up and changing all the time and choosing to define ourselves by or to oppose or imposing on other ppl, that it is hard shit to keep track of and detangle. ur example is a good one and in some ways the same sure can be said for the balkans, the question of if were white or not and to who and where and why and when could go on forever, and our history sure has been when taken as a whole, as both opressed and opressor. america too in particular focuses a lot on race (where u could say other parts of the world might focus more on ethnicity, tribe, religion, or class, even nationalism etc, and as far as ill say, i think we need to focus more on class here), and its had a particular kind of rigid understanding of it, and i know from talking to ppl born here in academia and outside and online and whatnot, that a lot of ppl are surprised to find out how ethnicity and race and racism xenophobia and all that shit are different in even south america for a closer exmaple, but in the whole world in general 🤷‍♀️ which aint an issue at all cuz again theres shit we all dont know, but ive also seen plenty of ppl b past surprised or confused, trying to impose us understandings of shit elsewhere... and also, yea, we get focused on things here to the point where its forgotten in a lot of things what it means that were also living in the imperial core at the same time, especially in america

,, , , , i guess w my complaining abt this sort of stuff broadly speaking, it mostly bothers me tbh when i see it come from ppl who do position themselves as like,,,, social thinkers, social activists, or ppl who look into all this and care and speak about it, as self proclaimed educators for others especially, or as some form of academic. not neccessarly like random ppl who occasionally talk on things or vent frustrations or whatnot (cuz also, we all talk abt things casually we havent spend idk how much time on thinking abt or knowing extensively abt)....,,, bc when u say ur that or hold urself up to that, or say u know youre talking or doing whatever to teach ppl or try to help society be better then... welp,,,,, theres a certain responsability (?) and need to try to hold urself up to that ... and i guess yea, its also my personal thing bc after idk a lifetime of always being fascinated w messy complexities and years of cultural anthropology, my brains very focused and fascinated by complexity and contradiction and endless webs of connections 🤷‍♀️ and it does bother me when ppl want to throw around their degrees or education (which dont even matter all that much, plenty of ppl with degrees who dont think too well, and plenty of ppl without them who could run circles around me when im having a good day) or even their own self taught info, and they want to say theyre ppl who generally care abt opression or theyre caring ppl or theyre better than others or whatnot, as a way to say ppl should listen to them and they know better dont uhhh,,,,, , , take the time to really,, think too much abt what theyre saying and educating on and if its actually helpful

[just-your-average-tangerine]

u said u understand inetellectually that ur not capable of being loved, but "intellectually" all that theorizing and shit is based on underlying assumptions.

''im not capable of being loved'' is an underlying assumption the primate that runs most of ur brain made. its not math or biology or shit really. the distinction between emotion and the frameworks we make is less blurry than people like to think.

You're not dealing with facts about yourself, you're dealing with your own feelings and being in a shitty situation. Give yourself time. Show yourself and that brain primate some love. Apollo you deserve it, and you will see love from the people around you also.

I meant intellectually more in the sense that I acknowledge it but don't know what to do with that information. I guess theoretically would have been a better word?

But to your point, it's not based on math or biology no, but it is based on experimentation. Coming up on 26 years of it. With me as a constant and variables of other people, and outside circumstances (life circumstances, how we met, what we 'bonded over', etc). And time and time again, people are only interested in me as far as I am useful to them. As a young kid I was useful as a dress up doll because I was raised by a butch lesbian single mother so I didnt know anything about makeup or hair so the girls could do whatever they wanted to me and I didn't know any better. As soon as I didn't like what they were doing or wanted to try something for myself, they didn't want me around anymore. Later in school, people were friends with me because I let them copy off me in class or did their homework for them, as soon as I stopped, I had no friends again. As an adult its been that I drive people around or buy them lunch or little gifts, or they just wanted another trans person around and as soon I wasn't the only other option I wasn't needed anymore. Even if you don't count the time before I started school, which is a perfectly reasonable portion of my life to exclude, even though my family doesn't care about me either, that's still over 20 years worth of the same results over and over again. I mean, I'm an actor, not a scientist but I think any experiment that shows that kind of consistency over that period of time is pretty clear.

I also know it's true due to observation. I know a lot of trans men, of all ages, and of all of them, only one has had a successful relationship, and that's with a woman. I'm gay so that's not really relevant to me. Of all the gay men I know, and I know a lot of gay men, none of them are interested in trans men (unless it's as a hookup they'll never tell anyone about).

I know that due to deductive reasoning. Communication is vital to any kind of relationship. I'm autistic. I can't do communication.

And honestly it doesn't really matter if, hypothetically, I am able to be loved. I currently have to navigate the world completely on my own, and that's not possible long term. I have no support system, and no one willing to help me. I lose my housing this summer, and I have nowhere to go. And because I don't have anyone, I have no way of fixing that. There is no holding out for better times without people to help you get there.

[skinni-girls-eat-books]

Sunday November 12th

5am cats woke me up. Random thoughts. I think one reason for when I think about "my" future and constantly think about him not being in it, was truly because he has been a constant in my life for so long. I don't think it's actually because I'm obsessed with him, that just doesn't add up. Think about it. I know that I'm going to school next semester, but I don't know what classes or what schedule or literally anytime about it. So when I try to imagine my own future it is EXTREMELY vague. My anxiety does NOT like vague so it just starts churning out these anxious thoughts. Whenever I think about my future I always think of him. After so long there's really nothing wrong or bad about that, it's just something I need to work on changing.

I'm really glad I was able to analyze and articulate this feeling to myself, instead of just feeling that anxiousness and texting him, which would not help me or solve anything and then this feeling would just keep reappearing with no solution. Thanks CBT! ❤️

On a similar note, remember every time when you would ask him how he thought about the future and he couldn't articulate a single thought about his future? You used to think that was cute and whimsical, but after never having a single thought for 9 years, ok well now it's like, is that part of your brain missing or something? No ability to plan things or even pretend to talk about aspirations or like what's happening beyond the next 12 hrs. Kind of like a goldfish. I know he's not stupid, so I have never understood why he is like this. We can't have a conversation about the future unless it's me doing 99% of the talking and then it's weird never getting his input ever because he refused to give me his input, for what reason I still don't know why. He was afraid to disagree with me or something? I'm not some weird stickler, and I'm ok with compromise except he never offered his pov um until things were literally already set in motion. I think the idea that you or I can't just jump ship constantly (or just my unwillingness to keep changing my trajectory) for reasons that don't make sense to me (bc he won't explain his reasoning ever) is not clear to him. Sometimes, I can't just stop what I'm doing, like quit school or just not pay a bill. I COULD but the negative consequences typically outweigh whatever I would gain from doing those things. So long story short, I'm not sure this is something he can even change because he's always actually been like this, I just no longer want to be in a relationship with someone who can't even tell me what they're doing today (to make casual conversation hello??) to more serious things like hey where do want to move to? What type of fun trips would you like to plan? What type of plans/ things do you want to do for Christmas? I would ask and I would never get any type of answer, he would just avoid the questions and change the subject or just ignore me 😐🫠

Longer story short, this inability to talk about the future, clearly means you don't have a future with me, because I can't stand it 😂 talk about your future with me or get out of it! Also, actions >> words but we all know that already.

9am ok woke up fr this time. Wow I feel so well rested! I slept in the bed with the radio on and it was such a good, long, 10.5hr sleep damn 😅 this journaling is helping a lot with me not like texting him out of habit, now when I text him it's because I want to, not because I need to get something off my chest or something lol. This is really good and helpful.

7pm hey bitches I'm drunk AF and wish I had a bf to love on but guess what???? I'm just gonna love myself and fuck everyone else who doesn't want my sweet love like wtf is ur problem?? Lmao missing out lil BITCH. Have fun with your new problems 😎

10pm I don't want someone who doesn't want me. What kind of a hill is that to die on lol.

[tiredrobin-scooted]

ohhh hey nebulous-rain im not gonna @ tag u because. gestures. we are Currently not mutuals bcuz ur icon freaks my bean and this isnt me asking u to change and nor am i complaining, it its jsut an explanation, if u at all noticed or. cared? i hardly remember who im mutuals with so idk how important it was to u. yes im posting this publicly and not sending u a message or an ask . the reason is the aforementioned bean-freaking . thats also why im not @’ing you bcuz i jsut dont wanna see the icon im babymode about it forgive me sexy

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Hey man I’m glad you liked the first soft Baku freak out when I tell you I have SO MANY I swear it’s the only thing my brain can come up with

Oh Baku is having a nightmare? Boom his crush crawls over him and holds him till he calms down or wakes up then what? Chuck that bitch across the room outa fear don’t question it just do it

Having fun at the pool or lake? Offer to put sunscreen on their back ( or just do it anyway who asks for permission when you know you’re the best) they look at you flustered? Guess who gets carried and thrown into the water

Uh oh they dragged you in the water? Guess I gotta splash them oh no they giggled fuck it summon and tsunami on them that’ll teach them a lesson right?

Crush is styling their hair? Why watch them when you can just do it yourself. Oh wow their hair is soft this is nice and calming. Oh no they are resting their head on my chest guess I gotta full on yank them into a new dimension

Oh got they are cuddling me? This is nice I can get used to this. Ah fuck they kissed my cheek?! B I T E T H E M >:)

Honey there are sooooo many more my brain REFUSES to stop making these fucking scenarios when I’m trying to sleep but honestly I’ll take the hit

ARE YOU KIDDING ME @kits-mania ,,,I- IM ABOUT TO HAND OVER MY ENTIRE BLOG TO YOU,,, YOU NEED AN AUDIENCE FOR THESE

like- that last one??? about the biting ?? are you kiDDING ME,,, BRAIN ROT BIG TIME

pls one of my very first posts was about how i just knew bakugou was a biter. and nobody had nothin’ to say about it then, but i’m so gLAD UR VALIDATING ME ABOUT IT RN

Like u cannot sit here and tell me he wouldn’t bite. he would, he does, it’s practically cannon. like imagine this right, y’all are all laid out on a couch, cute n domestic. for some reason, lighting struck n he decided to lay on top of you for once??? and you’re just sitting there petting his hair and saying nice things and it’s nice but its too much

too much softness and care and kindness and dude just bites in response. just latches onto your collarbone with his teeth before he can even think about stopping himself.

and shit like that will happen with him all the time. it’s daily chaos. like it’ll be quiet and soft and nice for all of two seconds, and then something in him just flares up and he freaks out. like he’ll stomp out of the room just to come back in two seconds later,,,, he’ll put his entire hand over your face because he can’t handle the way you look at him,,, and he’ll get up and take a lap around the room for seemingly no reason (read: you giggled at him and the sound made his heart beat so fast he felt like he had to move his feet to catch up with it)

and like, the best thing about him is i dont ever see him outgrowing that kinda thing. so while his reactions might lessen over time, you’ll still occasionally catch him starting to bounce his leg, so fast that it shakes the entire table like there’s an earthquake, and you’ll just know. can see from his body language alone that he loves you more than he can handle in that moment (which is very cute)

or or or hear me out on this one right

bakugou, on his own, generally stays away from doing stupid impulse things- but like, if ur next to him, telling him to “watch your step, there’s ice!” or “be careful, the pan’s hot” or “oh wow, this door is pretty heavy” bakugou’s brain is just a constant loop of “do it. do it coward. do exactly the opposite of what they said. don’t listen, it’ll be fine do it try it c’mon”

and he just- he’ll step directly on ice patches just because you told him not to. he’ll touch hot pans just because the childish impulse to disobey you is so strong. he’ll start ripping heavy doors off their hinges just to prove you wrong. and it’s dumb, it’s sooooo dumb, and he knows it too but he can’t fight the impulse!!!!!

[horanghoe]

warm milk & honey - SKZ fic

A/N: I just realised I forgot Han ^ I am screaming

Pairing: OT7/reader

Rating: PG friendly (with a friendly warning of poly / multiple person relationship).

Genre: POLY!SKZ / Fluff / Very slight angst & mentions of bad sleep patterns.

Word Count: 3.6k exactly, my doods

Summary: A restless night, ultimately remedied by your sweet baby man angel boys. Or alternatively: Istg if Jisung makes one more weird noise imma end this man’s whole life no cap, Binnie hold me back -

Back to ~ SKZ Masterlist

Back to ~ Main Masterlist

Special Mentions <3

 @domjaehyun​ for being a yoghurt eating legend that takes a year to respond ASKDJF ILY BICH//

@seowoos​ for inspiring this whole damn thing & helping me feel more comfortable w publishing more niche content models. Even if it’s just cheesy enough for the two of us <3 //

@chocolvte​ for being another OG on this list, n just generally being a sweet bean <3 baby girl ur reactions were the second inspiration to get me INTO SKZ in the first place. ily uwu // 

and lastly, surprise @mikoto-ica-fics​ !! You were the last part of the equation that got me to write smin for these boys. I binged practically all your fics in two nights bby, keep making michellin star fics <3

Tonight wasn’t working out quite as you had expected.

To be honest, it was fucking shit.

Well, the night itself was okay. In terms of activities. An evening in with your boyfriend, Chan.

Just you two versus the world. The poor boy was so tired that honestly, it had only consisted of a walk through the park to grab snacks, and returning to the empty dorm to laze around the whole evening. A Netflix date with some *ahem* late night fun to settle you both into a deep, restful state.

It was brilliant, fantastic. Until it wasn’t.

Until you lay painfully awake in his bed and suffocated in the dark silence and space between you. It wasn’t Chan’s fault; the obnoxious whirring of electronics made your head spin, tiny flashing lights and minute feelings of unease at the cupboard door leaning open; all made it virtually impossible to sleep.

It was too cold. Too hot. You were so comfortable, melted into the mattress. But it was swallowing you and your claustrophobia was starting to make you twitch. Moving off of your angelic boy’s limbs, you shimmied to the cooler side of the bed.

He stirred a little, before settling on turning away, onto his side. Phew. At least you hadn’t woken him. It wasn’t like you were trying to be selfish, but fuck. This was insufferable.

Every time you looked at the clock you were sure it slowed down - balls, at this point it could’ve skipped back an hour and you wouldn’t have batted an eye. Mostly because if they weren’t checking the clock, they were staring dead straight up at the ceiling.

Eh. Ugh. Fuck. I can’t sleep.

That’s all your brain could think. Stuck - monotone and on a never-ending loop.

It seemed like everything you had ever thought was swimming around in your brain like some kind of primordial juice. Feelings and emotions swelling and bloating in your belly until they settled.

And then a car passed outside, and everything started to swell up again.

Chan was on his side, turned away and peacefully gaining some shut-eye. He was only lightly sleeping though, that much you could tell. His body gently lifting, then falling with breath. Like you; he often struggled to sleep deeply, usually not lasting very long when he did manage to.

You were so pissed.

How dare he sleep. And look so good doing it. Even just his bareback looked hot as shit - here you were, a messy, greasy big toe wrestling with your stupid ape brain to shut off the useless brain thoughts, next to this slice of heaven - just, ugh existing so perfectly.

“Oh my god, this is torture.” You cursed quietly into the dead space.

Maybe the frustration was all from hormones?

Nah, fuck that. Feminism and all that jazz. That’s just part of the human condition, babycakes. Happens to the best of us, unfortunately.

No, what it was, was the constant whirring coming from the TV screen and Felix’s PlayStation tower and large monitor. The tiny little flashes, whirrs, huffs from the fan and rotating lights. It was driving you abhorrently insane. FUCK.

“Chan? Channie, baby, are you awake?.” You whispered into the air. His breath faltered a little, stirred mostly by your movement to groan, gruff and flip the duvet off your hot, sticky body. Gentle though you tried to be, it was still enough to wake his fuzzy brain.

“Chan, please. I’m sorry babe but that TV is driving me fucking insane.” Your voice was too alert and frustrated for him not to stir. His heart panged a little at the distress laced in your tone.

“Please, Channie. I’m so sorry…”

He rolled on his back to look at you. Slowly, and with much effort. He groaned softly before wiping his eyes and leaving his arms above his head.

“Hey.” He whispered, warmly smiling.

“Don’t be sorry – can you not sleep again, baby girl?” Chan asked softly, watching you sit stiffly upright. His deep voice made your heart flutter, nodding as he groaned. He smiled despite any resentment you may have allowed him to feel. Resting his warm palm against your rib as he muttered a response - you excused his fumbled words for definition - so tired he was barely able to keep his eyes open.

“You can turn it off, yeah?” Chan sighed.

What he meant was ‘You know how and where to turn it off, without messing up the whole system like last time, right?’. You nodded quickly, squeezing his bicep lightly before slipping from the exposed mattress.

Dashing up to scramble behind the low TV unit and find the one wire to end it all. Your infernal pain that was.

He watched you, letting his eyes rest occasionally. Truth was, you looked so beautiful to him when you were concentrating on something. For example, pulling out the HDMI cord triumphantly. And holding in a small squeal (scream), of relief when the high pitched buzzing cut out with a slight electronic fuzz. He chuckled, not missing your little feet pattering in step with a tiny little victory pump.

“Yes. Fuck. The noise, it’s gone!” Chan chuckled softly, keeping his arm outstretched until you landed beside him. Pulling you toward him, under the covers.

“Yeah, you really got that wire Y/N. Showed it who’s the boss, huh?” His tired enthusiasm outweighed his sarcasm, owning a soft kiss to the cheek as you clambered over the bed, only to flop with a weighted sigh straight down onto his shoulder.

He giggled, smiling with a yawn as he tucked his arm against your ribs, tucking you up against his chest in a bearhug.

You fell asleep quickly; soft breaths and just the presence of Chan's being, enough to satiate the gnawing ache in the back of your brain.

And it was peaceful. Restful. Warm, and so pleasant.

Until it wasn’t.

Turns out tonight wasn’t your night. The clock read 1:28 am – and the boys were due to come home from practice any moment now. To be honest they were pretty late.

Chan had originally had the day off, hence the chance for you to be led here in his arms. But you were starting to think it really hadn’t made that much of a difference.

It wasn’t just the high pitched whirring that had aggravated you, but now the uncomfortable heat radiating from Chan's body. The small whoosh of cool air against your neck at any vehicle that passed by. Or just the evening breeze. You groaned softly, dropping your head back to Chan’s chest with a soft thud, lulling back into a light and unrestful sleep.

Ten minutes or so passed. Waking from a fuzzy dream, you were disorientated. The worst dreams always happened in short little bursts. Like little hellish fever dreams.

The clock now read 1:39 am and the time between minutes was becoming unbearable. Too long to bear . You had to move. Speak. Scream. Cry. Kick. Do something.

Peeling off Chan’s arm, and replacing yourself with a large fluffy pillow, you left your lover to rest. You dread to think that it would be able to replace you, but hey, at least it wouldn’t move like one big fat sweaty ferret, right?

Sigh. Sad times.

You abandoned Chan for the disgustingly bright hallway. Seeking new comforts, from whoever would take you. The boys were home; noises of beings floating down the hall, past Chan’s room.

By the time you had gathered the strength to rise off the bed though – blinking away the stars and excited little lines in your vision and raising enough chi to move your soul, and body upwards off of the bed – an inkling of tiredness was starting to itch into your consciousness.

You ached to be held. Loved.

You weren’t sleepy enough to get back into his bed though. Though; you missed Chan’s body as soon as you had tumbled yourself away from it.

---------

Fetching your favourite fluffy square pillow and putting on one of Chan’s big shirts, you padded out and into the hallway. The door closed behind you with a soft putt, pillow tight against your belly.

The tired but comfortingly loud voices of your other lovers were coming from the kitchen.

You wobbled forward, groaning to yourself as your thighs began to ache. Just from being alive, you guessed. Your thighs tingled your skin into little chilly goosebumps, a shiver sparking down your spine.

Maybe the heat of Chan’s bed wasn’t so bad, you began to consider. Before a voice echoed down to where you were slowly walking from.

“Ya – hold up, I’ll grab my jumper then we can watch that stupid shit-film you were on about earlier?” You heard Jisung shout over the kitchen to the boys gathered on the sofa.

The boys muttered some form of agreement and before you could process it, the firm but soft body of Han Jisung had swung right around the corner and straight into your zombie path.

Being conscious, and not half-dead like you, he was able to stop abruptly in front of you and step back a little. The shock of a body blocking his path was quickly masked with warm love as he cooed at the sight of you.

“Y/n-ieeeeee look at youuuu~” He whispered loudly, wrapping his arms around you to squeeze you firm against his body.

His presence eased you, despite the chaotic energy he may have appeared to have. He was just one big squirrel with muscles. The perfectly-right size to pull you against him, your neck flopping so skin met skin, cheek to shoulder in that white sleeveless shirt of his.

You melted into his caring touch, groaning when he gave a squeeze and actually, not hating how firmly he held you. For a moment, he seemed to be just quietly accepting your unspoken words. Night-long grief expressed in the way you clung to him.

Eventually, he asked the inevitable questions, though.

“Baby, why aren’t you asleep? Hmm, pretty? It’s like, 2 am already!” He exclaimed softly, somewhat conscious of Chan’s sleeping presence down the hall. And your zombie-eardrums.

You couldn’t answer, instead, you let him pull you away so he could peer down at your head against his shoulder. The pillow was a soft barrier between you, though he removed it to place it softly on the floor.

“As cute as you look in Chan’s top right now, baby, this hallway is pretty cold. Gosh damn, your legs are shaking so much. How long have you been standing out here princess? Let’s get you warmed up, yeah?” He squeezed you against him once more - rubbing his warm palms against your trembling, shivering thighs.

As he stood back up you groaned again, reluctant to articulate how badly you just wanted to be softly touched. Not aggressively rubbed. Even if you appreciated the notion, it was cutely awkward. Your expression made him laugh softly, tucking hair behind your ear and placing a kiss on your cheek, head, forehead.

“You okay though? Wanna come sit with us?” You nodded quickly, body flopping into his hold as soon as his arms went to lift you. Your head rested on his shoulder, Jisung’s body dipping to lift you and wrap your knees around his hips. He was such a careful, sweet baby boy.

“Ya – come on you big baby, you. Who do you want to be delivered too for the meantime, huh? I gotta go change out of my gym stuff.”

“Hyunjin-ah... please...” You mumbled airily. Despite how unused your voice was, it was sweet as honey. He smiled, responding with a soft “Sure" before turning back to where he had come from. Heart warmed by the opportunity to care for you, even if for just a moment.

And even though he was a bit sticky – and the thought ‘yuck' registered quickly in your half-conscious brain – you didn’t mind the smell. Or the languid way he carried you.

You nuzzled against his neck, groaning once more as his entrance was announced to the room. A loud “Han Jisung's Special Delivery Service!” was projected, I.N. slipping by with a quick ruffle of your hair before moving to turn down the hall, into his room. The boys looked up at the noise and your entrance into the room, immediately softened by the sight.

You, entirely snuggled against a buoyant Jisung, that held you so carefully against his chest. Messy hair tucked under his chin; your eyes were puffy, sore, and barely open as he came into the centre of the soft-lit room.

“Nawww – cuuuutieeee~” Changbin cooed, Lee Know giggling as Seungmin stepped forward to kiss your cheek, sweetly brushing hairs away from your face. The proximity to Jisung didn’t seem to spook his intimacy.

Your eyes fluttered close from the embrace, Seungmin smiling to himself at his ability to soothe you. Even just a little.

“That’s a funny looking jumper, Ji.” Seungmin quipped, before adding a quick “Hi Y/N.” With a small squeeze of your cheek, before heading toward the kitchen.

“Hyunjin-ah you have a special request delivery here, where shall I put her?” Jisung questioned, approaching the sofa nimbly.

Hyunjin smiled, shuffling a little before holding out his arms, patting his lap.

“Right here~” you heard, before feeling gravity weigh at your back. You got off early, aided by Jisung and Hyunjin’s hands on your hips. Quietly you yawned, turning to a barefaced beautiful boy, smiling at you cutely.

Jisung pecked a kiss on your shoulder before passing, leaving to go sort himself out.

Hyunjin smiled up at you with a coo, pulling you down towards him with his long limbs. With you laying, legs tangled above him he wiggled back so you could lay comfortably on his chest.

He kissed your cheek before tucking your forehead against his chin, your eyes slowly bobbing open and shut as his calm vibe washed over you. Changbin shared some of your weight on the somewhat roomy sofa; kissing your hair softly and curling against you to keep you warm.

The television was on a late-night MC show playing. Though it registered to you as white noise. The boy’s voices over you were soothing, even if they edged a little loud occasionally.

At some point, you had started to drift off again. For the most part, Hyunjin was a gentle giant anyways. So despite his resistance to skinship, your body (and some of the boys), was never left out in terms of body-pillow-comforts.

Meaning, he treated your limbs like a very bony pillow he could encapsulate entirely.

You weren’t sure where the others were. Or what part of the sofa you were even on. You figured the end since the guys had their feet up. But you didn’t mind. It was safe. Here, in their arms. Against their bodies.

Even the bright overhead lights of the kitchen and hallway weren’t enough to stop you lulling into sleep.

At a later point, you awoke again with a startle – Jisung shushing your tired whines with a kiss as he jumped onto the sofa to your left, a little too enthusiastically. Hyunjin moaned like a brat, ultimately having a play fight underneath you until you mustered up a death stare to end all squabbles, ever. Period. Jisung settled, intertwining your fingers on Hyunjin’s belly until your breath softened. Falling into a weak slumber once more.

Once again; your sleep was great. Perfect. Until it wasn’t.

An abrupt jostle of Hyunjin jolting to stop spilling the food he held above your head, was met with an unattractive grunt of pure disgust on your part. Eyes squinted, head wrinkled and body tense, you were once again awake.

“Sorry baby! I didn’t mean to wake you!” Hyunjin whined, too loudly next to your throbbing head. Changbin noticed your tense limbs and pulled you backwards against his chest. This merely caused another squabble to ensue between them - who held the right to hold you, like a fluffy comfort blank.

Suddenly everything was bothering you again.

Their constant jostling and boyish movements were just too much. You pulled up from Changbin. Avoiding the tugging, whining, needy arms and hands from Hyunjin to stand weakly once more.

Frustrated. Tired. And all coupled with a reasonably ugly scowl weeping over your face.

They were so engrossed in their silly little arguments, little kicks, punches and teasing laughter, that they barely even noticed your sluggish movements to get up.

Until you were on your feet. Your body heat sapped from them in a bitter attempt at being sour. Hyunjins hands immediately flew out to steady you. Changbin pouting but ultimately letting you retreat once more.

“Y/Nieeee~ Come baaack, I didn’t mean it. Come lay back down, baby~” Hyunjin whined warily, the other two boys still giggling amongst themselves. You swatted against the tiredness on your face, grumbling before stumbling backwards.

You made it a few steps before you folded over on impact at hitting the kitchen table. The table thudded on impact and the boys winced, watching your face scrunch up in pain immediately.

A new pair of hands caught you this time, stuttering before lean arms caught you.

“Woah! Careful there pretty girl, nearly took the whole bloody table out. You okay?”

Felix's. Soft, caring and most importantly soft voice and calm motions of support waved over you in a way that gave you immediate comfort. You rested your head against his chest as he tugged you up, body slumping into him with an inaudible impact. He giggled, despite your weighted movements, speaking lowly with that deep, tired voice of his.

“Y/N, you silly sausage, are you alright?” He prompted quietly, leaning his head down to capture your whines and huffs of pain.

“Owww, my butt… That hurt~” You groaned, not minding his giggles but sending a puffy glare to the others snickering away on the sofa.

The table (or your idiot bulldozer body), had set a deep ache right into the cheek of your butt. Your hand kneaded it gently before Felix’s hand quickly replaced yours, rubbing and squeezing softly until your face scrunched, the pain subsiding.

“Ouch.” You whispered, peering up at him with a pout. He kissed your nose cutely with a little eruption of giggles, helping you crack a pouty smile.

“Come on, cutie.” He mumbled before grabbing your hand to guide you slowly into the kitchen. “I could kiss it better?” He prompted, ultimately softening at your lack of response. You were so morgue-ish you hadn’t even registered his words. Letting him tug you blindly as your eyes struggled to stay open.

You could barely register his hands, pressing at your waist. Weakly managing to hold on as he lifted you on top of the counter. Squinting, you could see the clock read 2:23 (am) on the cooker. Ugh. What a night.

You’d feel shit in the morning. But that was nearly impossible to think about with the way Felix was holding you right now. Like a baby. Or a puppy. A little ball of fluff.

He kept some form of contact as he moved around you – a hand to the knee or his hip between your legs. Or even lips against your hairline, using the counter space around you to do something. What he was doing, you were tired to even care.

“You know what used to help me Y/N? When I couldn’t sleep at night?” He prompted gently. You shook your head, pulling back with a weak sway

“Warm milk and honey!” He exclaimed quietly. Too cute for his own good. You smiled, and he pulled you against his chest to kiss your cheek and giggle delicately.

“You want some? Then we could try to sleep? You look like you need some shut-eye, baby. Don’t wanna miss out on that beauty sleep! If you want - we can always sleep in – just call in sick? Your boss is honestly so nice, I'm sure she won’t mind. You say you’re always working through lunch breaks anyway?”

Despite his rambling, you just nodded. Tired eyes once again resting as the hum of the radiator, the vibration of his chest eased your brain. Your head tucked so right underneath his chin. His palms folded behind your lower back.

At some point, Changbin had appeared. Sweeping a thumb over your forehead before kissing you sweetly, cheek resting on Felix’s shoulder.

“I love you, princess. Sorry for waking you.” He had whispered against your lips. “Mmm-I-love-you-too-Binnie~” You managed in one tumbling sentence. In fairness, the touch would've probably led you both somewhere (the bedroom), if you weren’t in such a zombie-like state.

“Sure thing, pretty.” He whispered, pressing a kiss to your puffy cheeks before retreating. He let you both be, cold marble beneath your thighs now warmed by your constant body heat. You passed out pretty quickly against Felix’s chest. Cocooned, safe.

What you did miss in your deep, deep sleep was the way they carried you.

Felix physically, to their shared room. Changbin carrying your drinks and fetching your favourite pillow from the hall.

And what you heavenly missed in the night; they made up to you in the morning.

And the next night. And the night after that.

Because even though you occasionally suffered restless nights, you knew one of them would always be there to catch you.

And you’d do the same for them.

P.S. Fuck Chan’s wiring system. Extension cables were the bane of your nightly living. *holds up fingers in a cross and hisses*

well would you look at that: updated 03/OCTOBER/2021

[bugtoonz]

i think ryan and min are both idiots and take WAAAAAYYY too long to realize they have feelings, and even LONGER to realize theyre requited.

for ryan its like a casual acceptance after he sees a gay couple at a venue theyre playing. he sees them and is like "aww those guys are bff's just like me and min--" and then they kiss and he's like "............ hmm. i think i have to reevaluate my entire relationship with min." and then goes. "hmm. i think im in love with him??? that sucks. min-gi is 1000% straight. also what would our families think? oh right i dont care. this changes nothing." and continues to change absolutely nothing abt how he interacts with min. btw this all happens in the 30-second chorus of a song mid-performance. mans doesnt even falter.

for min it would be something SUUUUPER dumb. like ryan licks a pole in winter and gets his tongue stuck and min just has a warm, soft moment of "why do i love him" followed by a 4-month freakout of "I LOVE HIM????????" he spends a lot of time thinking it through, what does this mean for him, for them, for his future. does this change anything? and the conclusions he comes to are, no, this changes nothing. he's okay being romantically alone his whole life as long as he gets to spend it with ryan. he'll die with this secret. he's okay and he can be content with this life.

i think them both coming to the realization that theyre in love w each other is probably very dumb and very much them but thats a headcanon for another day maybe lol -mtd

no bc this is so in-character for these two idiots!!

i feel like Ryan’s kind of... used to settling, if that makes sense? He’s grown up with 4 siblings so he knows what it’s like to not get what you want, and i think to him Min is just another one of those things he’s Not Meant To Have. He accepts the heartbreak and the yearning as something unavoidable and never once considers that maybe the world actually wants him to have the one thing he’s ever truly wished for. he tells himself its ok though because just having Min by his side is more than enough, its all he could ever ask for.

i also imagine that Ryan kinda takes a long time to even consider his true feelings for Min-Gi. tbh he’s probably been in love with him since they were like 14, but Ryan’s not very good at figuring out what his heart is trying to tell him, so its not until some random ass thing switches the flip in his brain that he realizes he’s slowly been falling in love with his childhood best friend for the past decade. and when he does realize it’s kinda anticlimactic because he immediately writes off his feelings as something that will never be reciprocated. like i said before, he settles for heartbreak.

ohhh my god. let’s talk about Min for a second. Min-Gi “have i seriously been in love with Ryan for years now without knowing?!?” Park. he definitely thinks through his attraction to Ryan more than Ryan does for him. i wouldn’t be surprised if he made an organized chart of his emotions or something lmao. he’s melodramatic like that. ultimately though i agree with you in that Min’s just like “ok i guess i will just take this with me to my grave.” he feels more... guilty about it than Ryan, i think? like he feels selfish for wanting more than what he’s been given, and to him Ryan is such a star he feels like an idiot for ever thinking he could keep up.

so these two idiots both decide to just never confront the constant tension between them bc they both think that its just them projecting onto the other. there’s a lot of pining and totally platonic bed sharing and a hell of a lot of stolen glances as they both fumble to pretend there’s nothing between them. there’s a sort of fear that keeps them rooted in place, a fear that what they have could be ruined again if one wrong step is taken, and i think, ironically, their love for each other is almost what holds them back from confessing bc they’re so scared of what they could lose.

i think a confession could go a lot of different ways, and i’d love to hear ur take on it :))

[asexualdynamics]

The following is mental breakdown I no longer wish to be reminded of 🫠

You know, when I do remember that I have a tumblr, I usually have a separate blog that I wrote on ever few months. That is, when I remember that I have. it but you know what, fuck it.

Hello. I'm the coward who cant talk to anyone. Just found wildly kind then vile messages in my inbox after not checking for months. Tried to reach out to someone else who wanted nothing to do with me, but I guess that's warranted. So I'm currently feeling like a unlovable piece of shit. Just a human to human thing, ya know. Just in case you were wondering. (But I'm sure you already knew that I'm a peice of shit so, moving on)

Oh but yeah!!! You wanna know how my life has been going??? ok ok well uh still 🌠suicidal and off my meds🌠 havent talked to a therapist in over a year because my insurance suddenly cancelled! Well why not just reschedule with ur new insurance?? Well, other than the fact that I will have to cycle through strangers and go through the whole process of unpacking my trauma and self depracation is an incredibly exhausting process, I work at a brain dead job that makes me forget what day of the week it is. so these past 3 years have felt like an unending painful blur!

Oh, I'm also living with both of my disabled parents who are a constant reminder of what a disappointment I am! They're not getting younger, just older and filled with pinched nerves that might paralyze them at any moment! Yes, both of them!

Oh oh, but what about my older sister? My one and only confidant I could tell anything to? Oh yeah, shess currently in a psych ward because she believes that there are voices in her head that are coming from the devil telling her the secrets on the universe!

And I feel paralyzed because I dont know what to do. On the one hand I can just smile and pretend everything is fine while working 40+ hours a week for minimum wage job that doesn't value me so I can pay off my debt. Or I could kill myself BUT THATS NOT AN OPTION! No, because even talking about it is so unfair, because by hurting myself I cause more harm than good and that is just so fucking frustrating.

What, do I just leave my family devastated that their youngest killed themselves after finding that that their oldest is experiencing hallucinations and delusions of grandeur? Do I just ignore all the emotional labor my friends have invested in me, probably also sending them spiraling in their already terrible mental health?

Am I supposed to keep relying on the two friends that I have left time and time again until they eventually leave me like the rest on my three partners did?

Arent I supposed to be taking this time to reflect on what messages these people left for me in order to make me a better person?

Okay okay!! let's reveiw. Hers what you need to know naomi:

Lesson 1: dont ever talk about serious things through text! You never know if someone is lying right through their teeth on how they actually feel about you. Turns out, you might not ever know how to actually communicate how you're feeling, ever! That's why she always kept telling you that she hated your fucking guts!! Its becaue you so emotionally immature and stunted so how could she ever want to associate with someone like you!? You will never be anything more than that, no matter how many times she says she forgives you and sees you as a person! You're not! You are lower that dirt! she was right about you, you socipath! You are an unsympathetic peice of shit!

Lesson 2: maybe learn to actually be completely self reliant for once instead of taking advantage of people's love and kindness again and again you stupid peice of garbage! That's why she left you! She couldnt stand that you made her feel like an after thought and only ever thought about yourself! Did you ever actually try to become a better person? Or did you just need someone else to hold your hand as you took baby steps towards being a barely decent human being? You selfish fucking bitch! You never did anything to make her feel loved! So why would she continue to do so for you?

Lesson 3: dont date coworkers! Even if they say that they will change and stop drinking and verbally degrading you! They might get drunk and aggressive and then sexually assault you at work, forcing you to stay quiet and participate, otherwise you might get fired! Turns out, even after reporting what happened, you still get a write up, even after bursting into tears explaining why you couldnt just leave your managers office for over 15 minutes! She will never contact you again and will never apologize for leaving mental scars that will take years to heal!!! But guess what heres a secret.

YOU. FUCKING. DESERVED. IT.

So that's how I'm fucking doing in case you were wondering. I cant even fucking kill myself because I'm waiting for a psychologist to call me and tell me about all the ways that I'm broken.

You're right. I dont deserve to be here. I dont want to be here anymore. I fucking hate it here.

I'm staying off of tumblr. I'm getting help, but right now I am not doing well at all. So everyone just fuck off.

[myelocin]

Diver | Miya Atsumu

Synopsis: For you, decisions have always resulted in one, then two, then twenty steps back from the jump you know you want to take, but never find the courage to do so. Miya Atsumu was one of those decisions, and it baffles you how he makes the edge seem so inviting.

Characters: Miya Atsumu, You

Warnings/Tags/Genre: Self reflection, Slice of Life, Fluff (atsumu is cute lmao), Mentions of sitting on a cliff, Friendship w Bo!!  Pining!Atsumu, hard to get reader when irl ur just confused , more sky references are surprised? no

WC: 4.6k+

a/n: this was purely based on my desire to explore atsumu and the y/n i headcanon’s character more. this is also to those who struggle to decide which risks are actually worth taking.  (atm this is not edited bc im just gonna do that tomorrow lol)

playlist: Hello by Elijah Who

++note: please click keep reading bc whole thing is posted!

-

You remember standing at the edge of the cliff and thinking about how big and beautiful the world looked at age seven. You think back to the words your grandfather tells you when he sits on the ground next to you and begins to tell the familiar tale of the boy who lived life too scared to leap. You don’t think it was a true story; some elements changed every other time the same story was retold but you listened with rapt attention either way.

Every summer when you visited your grandfather in that little house by the cliff hours away from the rush the city brought, more than half of your days were spent sitting by the edge watching the clouds chase and envelop one another. You’d watch as the blue moved into gold, then orange, then red, then back to blue—and finally dive into black. There was never a day where the chase looked exactly the same.

At nine, you still thought the world looked too vast and beautiful and now you think it was because there was still so much you didn’t know. At sixteen, you remembered seeing more streaks of pink along the horizon in the distance but when you look back at the photos now—it was still really just swirls of red and kisses of orange. Maybe that was the summer you first felt love, because the world you saw in those days were through the rose colored lenses that only you wore.

When your grandfather would ask you why you preferred to sit out by the edge instead of run in the field with the kids you knew nearby you only shrugged and said you didn’t want to miss the stories in the sky later that day. Some days, he’d sit next to you and you’d listen to the story of the boy who never leaped again, but during the last few years of his life when he became too frail for the world, he’d only ruffle your hair and go back inside the house.

There wasn’t a particular reason either; no dramatics that told a heartfelt backstory towards your infatuation with the sky, or a long spill about how you love letting the sounds of the waves crashing silence your thoughts—it was quite the opposite, really. Even when your first love told you it wasn’t working out and you spent the entire evening and the next crying over a story ended, you still sat and watched the colors changing with the expression of wonder that stayed constant since you were a child.

“I still care for you,” you remember him saying and his voice clear in your head doesn’t fight over the sounds of the waves crashing on jagged boulders below.

“—we’re just not meant for each other,” he says again but you don’t feel the need to look away from the sky because the sun’s beginning to dip into the horizon and the violets are starting to paint swirls in the sky.

“I don’t think I ever loved you, (y/n),” you hear along with the cry of a seagull somewhere on your left but you only let out the sigh you’ve held in when the show is over and the black curtains cover the sky. You remember closing your eyes to try to search for that twinge of pain you always read about when your first love is over. But, when you breathe in, you only hear the water below roar. When you breathe out, you hear your grandfather’s call from the house behind you.

That night when you stood up to leave, you dusted the dirt off of your pants and stepped closer to the edge; you weren’t going to jump but you wanted to step into that line of uncertainty to feel that rush.

The feeling you always get when you’re tipping your seat back and you let your fingers graze off of the table you’re supporting yourself with—and you’re dipping into the territory of whether you’ll fall forward or backward. Whether the fall either ways could mean good, or bad.

“Can’t we work this out?” is what you knew you wanted to try to say in the moment he turned his back. And then the first step towards him became one, then two, then three—before your hand stopped short of grabbing his shoulder because you realize you don’t want to say it.

Maybe because you were sixteen and the chemistry test you had to take next period was a more important thought than this, or maybe because this was the kind of puppy love where it as quick as it started—so you didn’t want to tarnish the final chapters with an ugly fight. But, really, you began to think, as your hand curled back into a fist and you watched him with dry eyes turn the corner and disappear, you just don’t have a reason to want to work it out.

So then as the bell rang, you turned to take a step that went from one, to two, to three, four—and then eventually six steps back.

Six steps away from the edge where you let yourself be dangled by uncertainty.

-

The strange part is you don’t remember what began shifting afterwards; when you lost sight of the horizon you spent years losing yet finding yourself in all at once.

After that night, for the years that led up to now it felt like there was never a balance when it came the climax of your decision making. Every time the atmosphere tensed and you feel your gut twist with the pressure of the outcome, your brain is suddenly creating loopholes to mend the situation and your body is already in motion—every single time moving one, to two, to twenty steps away from the drop. That way, you could rock your heels to the side or tip the back of your chair as far back as possible without the need to pull back because you know the steady ground would always break your fall.

You weren’t sure if you necessarily enjoyed it but the cliff by your grandfather’s house doesn’t look the same anymore. This time, you’re sitting in a chair on the porch, a heavy distance away from the pull of gravity down below. Because it’s safe, you reason, but the horizon from your spot doesn’t look quite the same. Peering at the strokes of colors in the 6pm sky through cracks in the porch’s rooftop makes the world feel so little.  You hear the sound of the TV running inside the house instead of the water roaring below and you know it isn’t the same.

But when the sun peeks in finality before diving the world into dark, you stand at the edge of the porch like you did at the edge of the cliff so many times before.

One foot hovering over the ground below and you know your balance is tipping, but you don’t feel anything. There isn’t a hitch in your breath and the feeling of weightlessness and heaviness simultaneously nipping at your skin.

You sigh in blankness as you thrust your body forward and let yourself dive. Before you even leap you already feel the ground beneath your feet.

The ground is only two feet below you. 

-

In your mid-twenties, Miya Atsumu came into your life in a whirlwind of laughter and expressions.

He wasn’t really that spectacular. Sure, Atsumu could twirl a pencil like the honor roll kids as well as he could land a service ace, but that was kind of it.

How the two of you became close friends was always a wonder to you as well. You knew his twin brother—Osamu, after frequenting his onigiri shop every day for lunch, but your interactions with him were mostly limited to the “hi”, “how are you”, “thanks”, and “goodbye”.

Atsumu was, well, interesting to talk to because of all the expressions that substituted some verbal cues in the conversation.

It took getting to know him for about a year and joining him in the last minute road trips he pulled with you to realize how much Atsumu embodied uncertainty.

He was like the push and the pull of the wind when you’re standing at that edge again. Like somewhere between the moments of unfiltered fear from plunging down into the ocean you know you can’t swim in, and that step back of reasoning that tells you a two more steps further means two more steps safer.

He was neither of those, but at the same time, made you feel the magnitude of both simultaneously. Atsumu, to you, was the cliff, the rocking wind, the steady ground, and the plunge below.

And it was frustrating because you couldn’t read him at all.

-

When he asked you one day if you wanted to join him for dinner, this time, just the two of you while the apples of his cheek blushed a visible shade of red despite the dimmed lighting of the sky—you felt your gut churn in uncertainty.

For a while you’ve felt he wanted to push the boundaries of your friendship into a territory more unknown to the both of you, but you thought it would just stop at the experimental prodding. You weren’t blind. You felt how his eyes would trail your profile when he thought your attention was too engrossed in a book, knew that the unmarked box of chocolates were from him because he wasn’t subtle in hiding the special instructions written on the bottom of the box. You saw the triumphant spark in his eye when you told him the gift he gave you on your birthday was exactly what you wanted even if he just shrugged and said he guessed lucky.

And that’s the thing—Atsumu was painfully obvious. He wasn’t explicit about his intentions—he was just obvious; you know he wasn’t dumb enough to leave all these hints and expect you to still not know so that frustrated you even further. Did he want you to find out? Did you want to find out?

“Do ya think you wanna get some dinner tonight?” he quips beside you, “—just us two?” he adds, finishing awkwardly as you two come to a halt in front of the train station.

You think about his offer; you really do. The feeling in your gut doesn’t go away and your left foot is subconsciously rocking backwards. One step back.

“Maybe next time,” you hear yourself say. Atsumu’s deflating in front of you and his right hand rests on the back of his head while he shoves the left into the pocket of his jeans.

Two steps, “I’d love to—“ you continue, “but I may miss the last train and I don’t really wanna take a taxi tonight.”

Atsumu’s nodding his head saying, “Of course! Of course. Yeah, definitely. Next time!” And in a way you’re thankful he doesn’t mention the fact that he could always drive you back instead of letting you take a taxi.

Three steps, as you wave at him from the top steps of the station’s exit.

Four steps, “For sure next time!” you call out as he waves at your retreating figure with a smile. Neither of you really have faith on when next time will be, nor were sure if either of you believed it in the first place.

It’s when the train doors close and you’re holding on the railing where it dawns on you that you just took about 20 more steps back.

-

Two weeks after Atsumu’s offer of a dinner date was when Bokuto comes to you to say that he understands why you rejected the offer.

“You and him are just too different from each other,” he says like he made a profound discovery and not like he’s commenting on your love life.

“Aren’t opposites supposed to attract?” you ask.

“Not all the time,” Bokuto answers almost immediately and you nod your head choosing to not expand on the topic while your mind begins to whirl at his words.

On the bright side, you were glad neither you nor Atsumu spoke much about it. The days where you’d spend the afternoons with the team until practice ended, if nobody wanted to catch dinner the two of you would eventually just part ways at the train station he walked you to every night.

“I could always drive you home, ya know, I’m a good driver,” he says when you search through your bag for your PASMO card.

“I live in the opposite way you’re going, ‘Tsumu,” you laugh, albeit still appreciative at his offer.

“I know,” he replies and rattles his keys in his hands.

You’re still digging through your bag as you look for the card you know you must have left at home before you finally sigh and look at him looking at you holding out his keys.

“C’mon, (Y/n), I won’t speed I swear!” Atsumu laughs as he leads the way to the parking lot.

-

A few more weeks pass and you’re glad no one mentions the fact that you follow Atsumu into the parking lot every time practice ends. The day after he drove you home for the first time, you flashed the PASMO card you made sure to have with you this time and told him thank you for dropping you off the day before. He only rolled his eyes as he grabbed your wrists and pulled you in the car with him.

In hindsight, you could have said no and waved him off like usual, but your feet were matching the steps in his before you could even process what you were doing. He just drove you home, made small talk, and asked about your days most of the time—so all in all it was pleasant.

And you lived in the west side of town so drive always meant that the both of you had a front seat view to the sky’s art show. One thing you noticed (and appreciated) about Atsumu was the duality in his focus.

First hand, you’ve seen up close the intensity of his focus during his serves. The air would whip itself into a deafening silence at the drop of his hand and his eyes steeled over as fast as the sounds came to a halt—it was eerie, almost. In the way that sent chills down your spine and admiration bubble in the pits of your stomach. Then, as quick as the ball slams on the spot of the ground he aimed towards—the yell of triumph he’d express and the smile that would break into his face would overflow from his whole being. Like exhaling shakily after a sharp intake of breath—Atsumu was everything intense.

But, Atsumu, you think as you peek at him looking at the skies in front of him, was also serene. The kind of focus that pulled you in all the right ways. Like the gentle teacher you had from elementary who would coax you softly to focus sounding out the words in the passage you had trouble pronouncing. His hands were steady on the wheel, at 10 and 2 and the car would slowly come to a stop at every red light instead of the sharp lurch your body moves into when you press the brake a little too harshly. He only sometimes put music in the car—he told you he prefers to have your voice as company instead of hearing about the weather from the radio.

It surprised you, but at this point Atsumu brought nothing in your life but surprises. Then again, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—you were just used to feeling the ground before you fell so his uncertainty was still very much of an unmarked territory for you.

-

“Is it something about me?” he asked when the two of you exited the car and stood outside the entrance to your apartment building.

You know what he’s talking about, but you opt to stay silent and look at him with your head tilted instead because you already feel the urge to take one step back.

He’s still looking at you even as the passing moments are stretching into an awkward silence so he sighs and shoves his hands back in his pockets—something he does when he’s nervous, you noticed—and waved you off when you opened your mouth to try to retaliate. You’re thankful because you aren’t exactly sure what it was you were going to say anyway.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he says as he turns.

“See ya tomorrow?”

He waits for you to nod and wave a goodbye at him, which he first smiles at, before he starts the car and drives away.

-

His question “doesn’t keep you up at night,” is what you try to convince yourself when it’s 2:05 am on a Tuesday night and all you’ve done so far is toss and turn in bed. To prove your own point, you’ve sat up and turned the bedside lamp on while you scroll through some unopened emails on your laptop.

Halfway into retyping the same email you know you’ve been staring at for the past hour, Atsumu’s contact photo chimes in your phone in the form of a text message.

“you up?” it reads from the notification bar and you automatically shut your laptop close, turn off the lamp, and throw your covers over your head.

“No,” you reply out loud and you internally groan because of how ridiculous you’re being.

Your thoughts from the night before still remain in your head as you’re sitting on the bench beside the court later that afternoon as you type away at your laptop. It’s still the same email you never replied to last night, but you try to ignore that. You also ignore the fact that you’ve kept count of how many times the ball slammed on the opposite side of the net when Atsumu practiced his serves.

You don’t notice it when Bokuto takes a seat next to you and looks over your shoulder at the email you’re not even halfway through typing.

“That’s the same email opened since this morning,” he points out and you groan before turning to face and quickly shush him.

He’s laughing when he takes a seat next to you.

“You know,” he begins, “I think you’re just scared to feel something for Atsumu.”

You close your laptop—the draft of your email unsaved, like it had any coherent content anyway.

“Bo, you’re being silly,” you reply knocking your shoulder against his in laughter.

“You’re avoiding the conversation, (y/n),” he laughs back and you wave him off towards the court in laughter when the coach calls for him.  He stretches when he stands back up and tells you, “We’ll talk about this later because I think you need it,” before jogging off to the other side of the gym.

Inwardly, you heave another sigh, because this was one of the times where Bokuto’s being more serious. You had to give him credit—the duality in his personality and harsh line when he switched from jesting to seriousness was impressive. Bokuto Koutarou wasn’t smart in many aspects of the domestic parts of life—he didn’t understand taxes, or why you needed to change the oil often, but he had a way of looking through the layers people build around themselves.

At first, it caught you off guard because two weeks after you met you had only been sitting outside a convenience store watching him lick the melted parts of his ice cream on his hands when he suddenly turns to you and says, “(Y/n), I wish you would take risks more. You’re too cautious.”

He never brought it up again, but every time he chose to tell you something—it was always something you knew, never acknowledged, but needed to hear.

So when Atsumu waves at you and shouts that he’ll just shower and be out in thirty minutes, you ignore the urge to step back, and smile at him instead.

You’re thinking about Bokuto’s words again as you listen to Atsumu yell something at Sakusa from inside the locker room.

You’re too different from each other.

You suppose there are differences, especially in the way you address your friends—Atsumu’s not afraid to clap your back while he laughs while you choose to keep your hands to yourself. He’s not afraid to let his intentions be known while you try to wrestle with your thoughts every time you’re shifting closer to the edge.

You could always walk away, you tell yourself every day, but every day you also choose to not do that. You know day by day and sunset after sunset you watch with Atsumu you’re nearing that edge again—and you want nothing more than take twenty more steps back but each day he offers you a new joke that you genuinely laugh at you know it’s a couple centimetres closer to where you’re afraid of going.

Bokuto’s right, you’re different from each other, but you know deep down that you’re alike in so many ways. When Atsumu talks about what he wants to do accomplish in life outside of volleyball, he talks with such a childish wonder in the certainty of the tone of his voice. At times, he was stubborn to the core—just like you were, and you realize that would clash between the both of you some day but Atsumu smiling as he’s jogging towards you has you realizing that you don’t really mind at all.

“Ready to go?” he asks and you could only nod as you follow him out the door.

Bokuto’s looking at you and giving you a thumbs up which you nervously return with a smile of your own.

During the car ride back home, you’re thankful that Atsumu chooses to flip on the radio this time; you didn’t plan on telling much of a story, and your thoughts are too jumbled up with everything for you to even settle with small talk.

“You good?” he asks, then looks over at you at the red light. You nod yes and shift the bag sitting in your lap.

“The sky looks pretty today,” you begin, “—the sunset today looks like the ones I grew up seeing when I was a kid at my grandfather’s by the coast.”

Atsumu hums, but it’s still heard over the low volume of the car’s radio, “You should take me to see one day.”

Your gut churns and you curse yourself when you habitually chose to stay silent.

“I don’t mean it like I’m inviting myself there, (Y/n)—“

“It’s okay, you should visit with me next time,” you reply then turn to watch his expression shift from flustered to surprise from his profile. You’re watching him with baited breath and your heart thumping can almost be heard when the radio dips into a silence in the commercial.

The light switches to green and Atsumu eases his foot off of the break as the car slowly gains momentum before he’s nodding his head and saying a soft, “Yeah. Sure. Totally.”

It’s quite uncharacteristic for him to be so muted with his replies, but you suppose these are one of the similarities you’re discovering you have with Atsumu. He’s confident and barks out his comments when his emotions are running high, but at the moment you know the both of you are tiptoeing around that line of uncertainty at the moment.

When his pointer figure taps the steering wheel in an unknown rhythm, a nervous habit of his, you feel yourself slightly relax. The difference this time from that hallway breakup you had when you were sixteen was both of you were at the same page. That boy who said he didn’t love you let the certainty in his intentions be known in the way you could already anticipate the long term ending for. There was nothing more to be uncovered—and you didn’t find the push to dive down for more.

This, with Atsumu, was a different story. You had curiosity with the unclarity. You craved to unravel his truth. 

Truthfully, every decision you’ve made so far had you already seeing the outcome—that’s why you’ve only felt like you were only jumping to a ground two or three feet under you.

With Atsumu, you’ve come to realize that he personified the edge. At the same time, he was the push and the pull of the wind when you’re balancing yourself between curiosity and reason. You know the frustration you feel when you can’t read him comes from the fact that you’re only seeing him from the surface. You see licks of who he is with every slam of the ball and every spark in his eye. 

But just when you feel that knot in your stomach, you allow reason to cloud your desire to jump into the blurred lines of variability— Every. Single. Time.

And it frustrates you because twenty steps back have become too comfortable for you to try to leave. You hated it, but you knew what was waiting for you every time, so you learned to find the comfort in it.

The truth is, you’ve always had the curiosity towards what it felt like to plunge. Like the story your grandfather would tell you—it ended with the boy dying by the edge he never found the curiosity to jump in, surrounded by the questions that ultimately died with him. It was a pitiful end, and up till now you believe the entire story could have been avoided. You know you’re always thinking about the dive and what comes with it, but never found quite the push that’d lead you to want to throw your body forward and seek.

You know Bokuto always had a point in the passing comments he tells you when you least expect it. Bokuto presented them to you in forms of declarations not even in questions.

The sky in front of you is the same sky you stood under when you dangled your feet over the edge, fearless, years ago. Atsumu feels like the push and pull of the wind, and the tug of gravity under your soles when he looks at you as you stand in front of your apartment building.

You’re not in the cliff side this time but you see the horizon you forgot you loved when Atsumu shoves his hands in his pockets and offers you a smile.

You hear the cry of the waves below and the call of the seagulls to your left when Atsumu says, “About earlier, you don’t have to worry about it—I was just jokin.”

“You’re scared to feel something for Atsumu,” you hear Bokuto tell you when you itch to take a step back, then, “I wish you’d take more risks.”

“I wanna take the risk,” you say out loud and Atsumu looks at you quizzically, before softening his eyes when he realizes what you’re trying to say.

And you could almost laugh because of course he understands what you mean. Atsumu knew more than he let on and you could laugh again at the mirroring of your personalities. It was opposite and identical at the same time: identical like the both of you understanding each other’s metaphors without explanation, and opposite in the way he always addresses them while you do, well, the opposite of that.

“I wanna jump,” you say even if it doesn’t make sense because you’re confident the message will reach him all the same.

Atsumu’s beaming and you think it looks like the sun that’s looked at you from the horizon for years. When he takes your hands in his, you inhale yet feel breathless because the balls of your feet feel weightless and your body is leaning forward.

And when the clouds in the sky blend with the painting and Atsumu leans forward, you let gravity take you—

Then, you’re diving.

-

[19red]

hello, this is me trying to strong-arm my brain into stopping the constant tweaking and re-tweaking of the same stinking 3k so I can write on and get to the good parts of this project namely p and j having all the sex thank you very much

+

The day after Patrick and Jonny bang a chick together, Patrick wakes to the weight of an alien limb squashing his bladder. The alien limb belongs to a furnace-hot, tentacular mass plastered all along his back. The mass smells oddly familiar, kind of citrusy—as if it stole Jonny’s body wash.

Patrick squints his eyes open. A blade of sunlight filters through the half-drawn curtains and stabs him in the face. Right under the window, Jonny’s suitcase dribbles clothes onto the floor.

It shouldn’t be hard to put two and two together, but Patrick’s really dumb first thing in the morning. Plus, he needs to pee. Bad. Which is pretty distracting.

He paws at the tentacle swung over his waist, fingers catching on—a beaded string. Did the alien mass steal Jonny’s bracelet too? Patrick struggles to lift his head. He wants to see.

The alien mass stole Jonny’s whole arm. What--?

A growl spills in a damp, ticklish huff into the crook of Patrick’s neck as the mass coils itself closer. Something hard pokes Patrick’s ass. His nostrils fill with a waft of scent his hindbrain understands as so viscerally Jonny that recognition smacks him dizzy.

The mass is Jonny. Last night, he and Patrick banged a chick together. That thing wedged between them, growing firmer by the second? That thing is Jonny’s—

Patrick’s heart plummets straight to his dick.

It’s okay. It’s whatever. Patrick isn’t gonna freak over a physiological response. Bodies are also really dumb first thing in the morning.

“Jonny,” he says, wriggling to catch Jonny’s attention. Jonny has always been his go-to guy in a crisis. Except, in this instance, he is also the crisis itself. Jonny’s hips buck forward once, twice—Patrick stops breathing for the handful of seconds it takes Jonny’s sleep-drenched, horny-ass body to lose interest and stutter back into relative stillness.

Fuck, Patrick thinks. Visions of impending awkwardness swarm his brain. If Jonny were to wake up right now, full-mast boner pressed to Patrick’s ass, and discover the tent pitched in the front of Patrick’s sweats, he might rush to conclusions. Their ability to make direct eye contact would definitely endure permanent damage. They’d have to restructure their life with the aim of reciprocal avoidance. Patrick would have to request a trade. Jonny would probably drop out of the NHL. He’d forsake hockey and society at large and end up trampled to death by a giant moose while he hides from Patrick in the Canadian wilderness.

Fuck, Patrick thinks again. When a whole minute drips away and Jonny doesn’t stir, he thanks the hockey gods. With very little, very slow movements, he dislodges the arm pinning him to the mattress. By the times he’s free, the light slanting in from the window changed the angle of its assault to his pupils. Still careful, he slides the covers off himself, sits up, swings his legs off the bed. His feet land on the floor just as a variation in the pattern of Jonny’s breathing alerts him it’s all been for nothing. Jonny is awake. Or, like, as close to awake as Jonny manages to be coffee-free and before noon. Which is not much, thank fuck.

“It’s early,” Patrick reassures him. Jonny gets real pissy when he doesn’t get his full eight hours. Patrick doesn’t want to get stuck with Captain seriously cranky and his legitimately lethal death glare on the flight back to Chicago.

Jonny hums, lids fluttering open and back closed immediately, dark lashes kissing the top of his cheekbones. Patrick expects him to just roll over and sink back deep into snoring, the man is easy like that, instead he plumps an arm over the empty space next to him and mumbles, “Come back,” so low Patrick feels the vibration of it in his belly more than with his ears. Jonny must think Patrick’s some chick, maybe his ex or the one from last night.

“Dude,” Patrick chuckles to clear his throat. This is prime chirp material. Jonny’s such a clingy loser. “It’s just me.”

The side of Jonny’s mouth that isn’t squashed into the pillow tugs up in a smile, then his eyes tremble open, searching the space in front of them for Patrick’s, as if he knew where to find him, as if he weren’t surprised. It’s a bit like being punched but with weird, devastating gentleness. Patrick’s left breathless and dazed, a slow ache spreading below his ribs. “Sorry,” he says, legs moving on their own accord. “Sorry, gotta piss.”

Jonny flops onto his belly and sprawls across Patrick’s side of the bed. With a sigh, he hugs Patrick’s pillow to his face. “Be quick,” he whines—or maybe not. It’s muffled and Patrick is already halfway out the door so he can’t be sure. It doesn’t really matter.

***

“Where’s Tazer?” Duncs asks in lieu of good morning when Patrick shows up at breakfast almost two hours later, no captain in tow.

Patrick chomps on a hunk of strawberry toast and shrugs. Contrary to popular belief, no clause in his contract bids him constant awareness of Jonny’s whereabouts.

Duncs squints, clearly feeling entitled to a degree of eloquence involving efforts of the verbal variety and resenting their lack.

“Don’t tell me he’s sick,” Shawzy says.

The legs of Stromer’s chair screech against the floor as he scoots away from Patrick. He ends up almost in Brinsky’s lap. “It better not be catching.”

“Oh my god,” Patrick puffs the words fat with annoyance. “He’s sleeping. I mean, I guess he...” He is for sure. No chance Jonny is still waiting. If Patrick barged back into his room right now, Jonny would laugh, would tell him to stop trying to make things weird. Patrick knows this rationally. Yet some spiked grip squeezes his insides with the same vicious strength of an anaconda trying to crush itself a snack.

People can’t die from upset conscience, can they? Especially not if the upset is unquestionably misplaced, right?

“I mean,” Patrick snaps after a second, “the fuck do I know.”

Duncs eyebrows shoot halfway across his forehead.

“Whoa,” Stromer gasps.

“Wait,” Shawzy says. “Are mum and dad fighting?”

Patrick grinds his molars. Everyone’s so fucking pressed. It’s not like Jonny is a regular at team breakfasts. In fact, unless attendance is mandatory, Jonny prefers to limit the number of people upon which he inflicts the ghastly spectacle of his slow de-zombification to a minimum.

Patrick casts his mind back to the last time the two of them didn’t resort to room-service during game trips. He dredges up both no recollection of that happening in years and the stomach-sinking hunch that maybe this is weird. Maybe he should have gone back. Maybe that would have been the normal thing to do.  

“Shut up,” he says, to the voice in his head and everyone else. He grabs a pitcher of coffee and fills his cup until it brims. “Don’t talk to me. I’m waking up.”

“He’s rubbed off on you,” Shawzy appraises.

He’s more right than he’d probably care to know—nope. Patrick yanks his thoughts away before they can trip over that precipice and splat into the phantom embrace of Jonny’s body and its heft, its warmth, its neediness.

“Shut up,” he repeats, and with big emphatic motions designed to put a period on the conversation, he whips out his phone. He trusts the mindless scrolling will work its time-warping, mind-numbing magic and when he’ll look up next, all the weird will have been purged from this day.

Between sips of coffee, he pores through the stats for the last game, skims the emails in his inbox and rage-reads a review trashing the new Twilight book. He considers sending the link to Erica so he can vent about the snobby assholes who think they’re smarter than everyone else just because all the books they read are boring as fuck, but she’s probably at work already. He scrolls through his contacts. The one of the chick from last night jumps out. Her name’s Chelsea, which is pretty lucky. She was hot, Patrick recons, and thinking that feels normal. Feels safe. Feels like something Patrick would love to feel more of, thank you very much.

Hi, he types, riding the spur of the moment. This is Patrick from last night.

Stupid and risky, his inner Jonny warns. Never give your number to one night stands. Patrick ignores him and for the sake of clarity and glory, adds, The one who made you see god with his tongue.

“Look who’s joining us,” Shawzy’s voice announces just then.

Patrick’s gaze springs up, landing squarely across Jonny’s chest. Patrick knows it’s Jonny’s chest even though he doesn’t let his gaze climb up to the face attached to it for confirmation. The chest is sailing across the breakfast hall toward Patrick. Well, not toward Patrick specifically. Toward Patrick and the rest of the guys.

“Morning,” Jonny mumbles, dropping his scrambled eggs on the table and his ass between Seabs and Crow.

Patrick’s phone chimes.

well hello patrick 😜

“Slept well?” Shawzy probes, feigning innocence. Patrick’s hackles rise.

“I guess,” Jonny says.

Patrick allows himself another quick glance. Jonny looks good, which means like his usual self, which means nothing like a dude who went through the transformative experience of witnessing his best friend o-face.  It’s kind of annoying, actually. Patrick’s nerves are all fried. He’s half-convinced in the right light anybody could look at him and simply—tell. Patrick Kane got off with another dude in the room and enjoyed it. For a blink he’s fourteen and trying to fight a guy almost double his size who called him a cocksucker, that slammed him against the boards and told him not to bother standing up since everyone knows he does his best work from his knees.

His phone chimes again.

“Tell me the truth.”

totally hit me up again next time ur back here

“What?”

Patrick’s heart rate spikes. Would Jonny even be up for it?

Won’t be for the rest of the season :(, he types.

Maybe things feel weird because threeways are a novelty, maybe they just have to work up an immunity. People have threeways all the time and afterward their lives go on undisrupted. But if you’re ever in Chicago… his fingers are so clammy they smudge the screen when he hits send. He reaches for his cup.

“Did you keep our Kaner up all night?”

Patrick’s head jerks up.

“What?” Jonny says, flat.

For the first time since Patrick sneaked out on him, they make direct eye contact.

Shawzy drones on in the background, “Saw you trying to score that hot--”

It last precisely long enough for a sip of coffee to get its lanes mixed as it plunges down Patrick’s throat and somehow u-turn its way out of his body through the nostrils.

Patrick’s lungs try their best to turn inside out.

“Dude,” Shawzy says.

Stromer slaps Patrick’s back a couple of times, hard.

Duncs throws a handful of paper napkins in his general direction and winces in open disgust as Patrick snatches one mid-air and uses it to dab at the liquid leaking out of him. “Gross.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Patrick informs them tartly between fits of coughing. Some treacherous asshole on his right is fucking cackling. He sweeps the table with an encompassing glare and catches Jonny’s eyes again, all dark with concern. The back of Patrick’s neck prickles with embarrassment. “I’m fine,” he repeats, steadier, and Jonny looks away so Patrick does too, hurriedly withdrawing like from the touch of something scalding.

He zeros in on Chelsea’s new message.

might fly in for a couple of weeks around christmas actually

Patrick latches on to the conversation, blocking out his surroundings, trying his hardest to look busy. Fuck everyone and Jonny too.

We could catch up then if you have time ;)

totally 👅🔥🍆🔥, she texts. And after a moment, say hi to porn dick from me btw

Who?

🙄

Patrick bristles. For some reason, the thought of this random stranger sitting around with her head full of pictures of Jonny’s dick makes him hitch. His chest riots with some misguided protective instinct. Jonny would be insufferably smug if he knew, no doubt about it. It’s not that big.

it is! 100% porn worthy

You don’t know what you’re talking about

???

I’m just saying, are chicks even into that? he writes, just to be an asshole but also because he’s pretty sure chicks hate porn. It’s supposed to be a feminism thing. Erica once made him a whole speech about it or whatever.

big dicks? They are

Haha

their also into porn btw this aint the middle ages AND they have way better taste in it then men

Can you prove it? he asks, hoping it sounds flirty and not confrontational. He wants this chick to bang him again but not over the head with a blunt instrument.

maybe if u stop trying to outdick ur bf with ur personality ill send you some recs

“Who are you texting?”

Patrick elbows his cup off the table and scrambles to catch it before it crashes against the floor. “Fuck,” he mutters, shaking his coffee-soaked hand.

Jonny laughs and at the sound, Patrick’s heart stumbles, then sprints up his throat. “You’re a mess,” Jonny says. He stole Stromer chair.

“Yeah, no, fuck off.”

Stromer is nowhere to be found. He and the rest of the guys must have migrated to the lobby. Patrick picks up the phone from where he abandoned it to make the save and shoves it deep into his pocket just as it pings.

Jonny quirks an eyebrow. He’s smiling.

It feels like Patrick trudged around all morning with a lead rib-cage before the universe caught the glitch. The sudden slack from gravity makes him giddy.  “Don’t be nosy.”

“I’m not!” Jonny protests, all put upon outrage. He flicks Patrick on the hand. “Just saying, team’s gonna suffer if you sprain a thumb.”

A laugh bubbles up Patrick’s chest, loud and easy, and just a little embarrassing.

For a moment, Jonny looks impossibly pleased but then he catches himself. “Everything alright, yeah?” he asks, turning bashful. His eyes drift to the small heap of crumbs he’s sweeping together with his pinkie.

Patrick nudges his thumb against the back of Jonny’s hand. “Yeah. You?”

Jonny’s lips curl up at the corners. “Of course,” he says, looking up, gaze dark and soft.

Of course, of course, of course. Jonny would never let anything happen to them. Patrick stomach flutters. “Okay,” he smiles, dimples out, and Jonny beams back. Time goes fuzzy as they stare at each other in silence—until the ping of an incoming text makes them both startle.

“Again?” Jonny bitches. A moment later, his forehead creases and he puts his serious face on, “Everything okay with your sisters?”

“Yeah, no. It’s not--” Jonny’s eyes flicks to Patrick’s mouth. Patrick hadn’t realized he’d been chewing on his bottom lip. He stops and it tingles, his own breath turning chilly enough to sting as it laps over the bite. “Just-- the chick from last night,” Patrick’s tongue says forgoing any input from his brain. It’s fine. It’s whatever.

“Oh,” Jonny says.

The world keeps rolling. Unfortunately, so does Patrick’s tongue, “Yeah. She’s cool. She was fun.”

“She was okay.”

Patrick can’t believe the understatement. “Okay? Just that? You’ve got some tough standards, man. She was--” as he searches for the right adjective, it suddenly hits him that Jonny has more experience, at least when it comes to threeways. It’s fucking unfair, but entirely possible, the mind-blowingest sex of Patrick’s life would barely chart as okay for Jonny. While he was dating Lindsay, the two of them got up to some kinky shit, Patrick’s pretty sure. Not that he spent any time thinking about it. He licks his lips. “It was hot, right?”

Jonny scoffs. What an asshole.

“Fuck you.”

“It was hot,” he grants. His cheeks are turning pink. He means it.

It feels like scoring the game-winner in the Stanley Cup final. The rush of triumph makes him cocky. “Hotter than the one you had with Lindsay?”

Jonny scoffs again, to Patrick infinite delight. “It was!” Patrick surmises.

“Lindsay’s hotter than her.”

“No way,” he is so offended on Chelsea’s behalf, he barely registers the deflection. Lindsay dumped Jonny. No matter how she looks, her insides must be rotten. Patrick hates that Jonnys is still hung up on her. He kicks Jonny’s foot to make sure he has his attention. “Maybe we should try again. Chelsea’s coming to Chicago around Christmas.”

“Is she?” Jonny kicks him back. “You two move fast.”

“She’s got family there, I think.”

“Sure,” he sounds skeptical. He admitted it was hot, why wouldn't he want a rematch? He and Patrick and some hot chick, she doesn’t even have to be Chelsea, she can be whoever. Small and blonde, like Jonny likes.

“Or we could find someone else,” Patrick says, growing more committed to the idea each second it lives in his brain. “Just go out and see what happens.”

“You think that’s smart?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “I think you’re boring.” He goes in for the kill, “Captain serious.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’d even let you pick, I don’t care.”

“Starting to sound a bit desperate there, Kaner,” Jonny flashes his most punchable smirk, the one that’s a little lopsided and always makes Patrick squirm.

Patrick starts a mental list of ways to wipe it off his face. Maybe if he shoved two fingers up Jonny’s nose… “What?” he asks, kind of distracted.

“I’m just saying, If you want to see me naked that bad, you only have to--”

“Fuck you,” Patrick sputters. “I was being generous. Bros before hoes or whatever.”

“I’m telling Erica you said that.”

The thought is terrifying. “Don’t,” Patrick shrieks, so loud people in their proximity stop mid-munching to give them the stink eye.

It’s their cue to clear off, a pretty timely one, considering they barely make it on the bus. They’d probably be yelled at, if they weren’t Kane and Toews.

Jonny saunters past Colliton’s glare and flops down next to Seabs. Patrick takes the two seats right behind, stretching out until he’s almost horizontal.

He checks his phone. Chelsea sent him a text and a link. The texts says, one of them looks a bit like your boy. you’re welcome. The link-- Patrick slaps the phone face down on his thigh.

“You okay there, Kaner?” Jonny asks, glancing over his shoulder.

Patrick feels his ears burn redder than the Hawks home jersey. “Yeah, no. Real peachy.”

[headofhelios]

Ok I am a single follower but I like hannibal tv but would enjoy ur movie thoughts I like some of the books too and have been meaning to get around to the movies 😳😳

OKAY I'M EDITING A READMORE ONTO THIS LOL I REALIZED THATS SOMETHING I CAN DO! so now my incredibly waaayyy too long answer abt my thoughts on 2002 will is under there. apologies bc this is less "movie thoughts" and more "2002 movie will thoughts" but well thats how the chips fell

GOD okay sooo for the record i am reading the red dragon book and am like 7 or 8 chapters in and full transparency im not like. enjoying it lol. the book pisses me off with its misogyny (all the women in it are either dead or it feels like you're supposed to think theyre Selfish Bitches or theyre just there for like. bizarre and uncomfortable sexual moments like the guys talking abt that woman in the elevator, or that one part of mrs. leeds diary which is like. i guess could be there to Show Her Humanity or whatever but 1. there are more ways to do that 2. the book doesnt seem particularly concerned with her humanity considering she's barely even given a first name and so far the novel hasnt seemed to disapprove of how will thinks of her as a possession of her husband) and its inconsistency with will's most important character trait or whatever (he's so intensely, extremely empathetic towards EVERYONE, even serial killers, which makes him really good at finding them! and he can never turn this off, to the point where every time he has a conversation with someone, he ends up mimicking the way they talk, even if he tries to stop! but also he never empathizes with the victims or HIS OWN FUCKING WIFE? HELLO? so it really feels less like "extremely strong empathy for everyone that he cant control" and more like "he can empathize with serial killers extremely well and also other people if we want to Make A Point in one scene instead of letting the point show through the whole book") BUT UHHH ANYWAY. MOVIE THOUGHTS. THE MOVIE THOUGHTS YOU ASKED FOR COMING RIGHT UP!

okay this is what i am worried will either 1. draw annoying tv will graham stans to my blog like flies or 2. end with me being hanged in the town square BUT. it must be said. i prefer 2002 red dragon will graham to tv will graham. and quite frankly? so far? i think 2002 red dragon will graham is better than book will graham. i cannot lie.

my reasoning: because 2002 will actually empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss! y'know! like you'd assume someone with constant extreme empathy would! the difference between the first scene with molly in the book vs in the movie are SO striking to me now that i've read that part of the novel. in the novel he seems very... rough, i guess, and like he doesnt care about molly's worries. he doesnt seem to see things from her perspective, which especially feels like a kick to the gut because MOLLY! SEES! THINGS! FROM! HIS! PERSPECTIVE!!! she literally empathizes with him more than he does with her! what the fuck! MEANWHILE in the movie, he does seem to care about her. his assurances that he wont get too involved seem like assurances rather than him trying to get her off his back. he hugs her and tells her he loves her and i actually believe that yeah, he loves her, he knows she's worried about him, and he wants to comfort her and ease her worries. and the victims! AGAIN such a stark difference to me! in the book, will is like... uncomfortable empathizing w the red dragon, of course, but he doesnt seem to empathize with the victims all that much, ESPECIALLY not the women. he doesnt care about them. he sees them as possessions belonging to their husbands and its so fucking gross. despite already suspecting that the red dragon chooses families based on the women, he decides to waste time focusing on the husbands as a way of "asking permission to look at [their wives]." what the fuck? meanwhile in the film, he feels for the victims so much that he can barely even say that the kids were shot in bed! when he watches the tapes, he focuses on the women! because that's his fucking job!!! and we see him empathizing with them! wow!!

siiigh okay im gonna stop talking abt the book vs the movie now bc again im only like 8 chapters or so deep. but now we come to tv will vs. 2002 will, which is admittedly gonna be more subjective and part of that it bc i cant remember a whole lot of specifics from the show bc my memory is Very Bad. but anyway

let's get the shallow stuff out of the way. yes i prefer ed norton's face to hugh dancy's. call hugh dancy "gender" or whatever have your fun i support you and your right to call any blood covered man a gender but by god is that not even REMOTELY my experience. next shallow thing to get out of the way: ed norton's line delivery is like music to my FUCKING ears compared to hugh dancy's i am so sorry. like the jokes about will shaking like a damp chihuahua before taking 5 minutes to stutter out "he's killing them....... On Purpose, jack." are funny and all but christ i had SUCH a hard time watching the show bc of that im not lying. literally hearing 2002 will just say "he's not keeping them. he's eating them." nice and quick, matter of factly is better than well im actually gonna end that sentence there but you get the idea. like YESSS you little blonde bitch get to the point i love you!!!

OKAY NOW less shallow points but also less uhh idk man i just dont remember a lot of hannibal. but basically: after seeing how caring 2002 will is, i'm kind of... idk i'm just so over tv will and how abrasive and harsh he is in comparison. like i fell in LOVE with how vulnerable 2002 will is, how he feels like he cares deeply about the people around him (and honestly... idk i cant remember a moment in the hannibal tv series that made me feel the way i felt when 2002 will can't say "the kids were shot in their beds". it's like... yeah this is a guy who feels so deeply for everyone around him at all times. i believe that.) and i just dont remember getting that same feeling from tv will. i have been gently spoon fed the most excellent chocolate pudding and everything else in my memory is just a snack pack. i guess tv will has those moments (what comes to mind is when he brings gideon to hannibal's house and is crying and he says "please dont lie to me") but idk they just didnt really do for me what 2002 will does. and then their scenes with reba! wow! i rewatched the tv version after watching red dragon, bc the film version made me tear up, meanwhile the tv version i barely remembered and i wasnt sure if that was just bc of the different mindsets i was in while watching them or what. and ok i just rewatched the tv version again and like... yeah. it's the wills lol. i LOVEEE tv reba SO much she is giving everything in that scene!! she sounds so like... broken, both bc of dolarhyde's apparent suicide and bc of finding out who he was + what he was doing, she sounds so fragile and guilt ridden! she's amazing!! but will. idk. tv will's delivery just seems... idk this feels dumb to say but it sounds like writing. i admittedly LOVE the line "people who study this kind of thing say that he was trying to stop because you helped him." and his delivery there is good. but between tv "you didnt draw a freak, you drew a man w a freak on his back" and the 2002 version, the 2002 delivery seems more genuine while the tv delivery sounds rehearsed. idk overall the 2002 version of that conversation just makes me feel more? its like. idk i can feel the 2002 version gently holding my heart while the tv version is a scene that is nice in h/nnigram gifsets or w/e.

umm ok this is already suuuper long and my brain is getting a bit mushy so i'm gonna start wrapping it up lol. i'll probably compare book will and 2002 will again after i finish the book, and then i miiight rewatch hannibal, or at least parts of s3. but right now my thoughts are basically: book will is a fucking dick who has an easier time empathizing with serial killers than with his wife. tv will is a nothing girl after being so completely catered to + also idk he doesnt have the same fragility that i want from my wills now. and 2002 will is my little caramel apple. he has this delightful vulnerability and feels like he cares so much and empathizes with more people than serial killers and his boss and 4 people in a diner for one scene! 2002 will made me care about will graham! which is honestly kind of a feat!

[wonderlustlucas]

four - hwang hyunjin

⇢ prompt They say good things come in fours. Who? Couldn’t tell you, but they especially do during Christmas. Maybe that’s just Saint Nick. ⇢ pairing hyunjin x female reader ⇢ word count 11.7k ⇢ genre fluff ⇢ warnings swearing. mentions of alcohol & s e x. teenagerz being teenagerz. insane amount of fluff & stupidity. kind of ends w a smutty cliffhanger. ⇢ summary After suppressing how you felt about Hyunjin back in high school, you thought you were done going back on your feelings. Turns out, a little time apart, the spirit of Christmas, and an accidental nap is the perfect cocktail for falling in love with your best friend.—friends to lovers!au ⇢ a/n hello & merry christmas! here is a gift for you all on this very merry day. also, thank you for 1,000 followers! that in itself is one of the best presents i could ask for. thank you for all your kindness & support on my blog & for following me in the first place! it truly means so much to me. i hope you enjoy reading! ♥︎

big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇[now] Sorry! I just woke up

big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇[now] Whats wrong fool

big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇[now] Did u rlly think 12 texts were gonna wake me up?🤦🏻‍♂️ godt damn u on some WACK shit

You roll your eyes in time with each consecutive text that Hyunjin sends, waiting for the lock screen of your phone to blacken after reading them. He’s about as useless as pedals on a wheelchair, you think, ignoring the texts and forcing the device into the snug back pocket of your jeans before transferring the last two excessively packed grocery bags into the trunk of your car with an exhausted huff. Christ, if the bagging lady put one more item in those bags, she would be the one to blame for six cans of soup rolling about the parking lot.

The license plate rattles when you slam the trunk lid closed before hurrying around to the driver’s side and anxiously hopping inside to start blasting the heat. It is obnoxiously chilly for the first of September. Well, not really. Your body is just beginning to get used to the ungodly wrath of summer’s sweltering heat leaving you in a constant state of sweat and nausea for the past three months. Not that you’re complaining, of course. You nearly did somersaults of joy when the morning news reported a temperature of sixty-one degrees with some wind gusts and welcomed the beginning signs of autumn with open arms.

You would never admit to Mom who told yo uon the way out to change out of a tank top or at least wear a jacket, but yes— you are, in fact, cold. But now you have godsent warmth blowing from the vents and the seat warmer on its highest setting beginning to thaw away the goosebumps painted on your skin. Giving your arms one last rub, you lean up enough to retrieve your phone and open the conversation with Hyunjin.

[2:37 PM] YN: please. smell my balls

[2:37 PM] YN: nothings wrong btw. i was GOING to ask if u wanted any specific snacks for tn buttttt someone didn’t answer

[2:37 PM] YN: and excuse u i called too. i may be an idiot but im not stupid

[2:38 PM] YN: ik u would never hear a text when ur having wet dreams of yeji

You stop there with a smug smirk when the three dots on his side appear, knowing you’ve hit his funny bone with this one.

[2:38 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: Bruh

[2:38 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇 :I’ve literally never have had a wet dream ab Yeji pls stop

You cannot fight your shit-eating grin, thumbs circling over the keyboard in thought as he apparently deletes whatever other text he was going to send when the three dots disappear.

[2:38 PM] YN: mmhmmmm

[2:38 PM] YN: because last time you slept over you weren’t whimpering her name in ur sleep

[2:38 PM] YN: sureeeee

You decide to end your teasing there and continue once you’re home. It is starting to get late, after all, and Mom will begin to worry that the creepy employee always in aisle sixteen has abducted you. Plus, you’re cruel and like to watch Hyunjin suffer. Switching the ringer off, you throw your phone into the cupholder and drastically lower the heat and turn off the seat warmer. It’s starting to feel like a sauna in here, and not in a fun way. Can’t understand how anyone enjoys hanging out in a sauna to begin with anyway, but to each their own, you guess.

In the five-minute drive it takes until you are pulling into the driveway, Hyunjin calls three times. He is incredibly peeved at your lack of a response to his distressed texts and still wound up from your text about Yeji. As if! You’re already a clown not realizing his ever-growing affections for you, but to think he had a crush on Yeji? You’re the whole damn circus!

By the time he calls a fifth time, now sat up on his elbow in bed and strumming an annoyed beat of his fingers at his thigh because he really just wants to yell at you for being the most annoying person alive (and maybe to hear your voice, too), you have brought in the last of the bags and look to Mom who has started to put the groceries away and expects you to half-heartedly do the same.

“It’s Hyunjin. He’s having an existential crisis because I haven’t answered his texts,” you explain to her, unenthusiastically holding your phone as it vibrates against your palm. Half of you wants her to ask to finish putting everything away first just so you can torture him even longer. Alas, such extravagant wishes are denied, because when it comes to Hyunjin, your parents would undoubtedly throw you under the bus just to keep that boy happy. And so, just like any other time, Mom’s undying love for Hyunjin has her dismissing you from the kitchen with a hearty laugh.

“Jesus Christ! What?” You hiss, halfway up the stairs when you tap to answer his call on the last ring.

“Wow! Look who finally decided to answer!” Hyunjin shouts back, the swoosh of his sheets once he finally falls back against his pillow again rustling all too loudly through the phone. “I was driving,” you spit, marching into your bedroom and collapsing against your bed, the same rustle of your blankets sounding loudly into his ear. “There’s a thing called the speaker, ___. Ever heard of it?” He retorts, evidently shutting you up and he knows he won this round if your silence is anything to go by.

“Whatever,” you groan, using all your toe strength to kick the sneakers off your feet by their soles, “what was so important that you couldn’t wait and had to call me five billion times?”

“I had a question. And you hurt my feelings.” Well, shit. You can practically hear and see his pout through the phone and your heart positively swells in your chest at how undeniably, unjustifiably cute he is. You sigh.

“I’m sorry for making fun of you about Yeji. I’m going to do it again but next time I promise I won’t pull the wet dream card,” you apologize frankly; because, in all honesty, it would be worse to say you are not going to do it again when you most certainly will. Bullying Hyunjin is fun, what can you say?

Hyunjin heaves an exasperated breath from his lungs because he knows there is no point in arguing with quite possibly the most sarcastic human he knows and that’s the best form of an apology he’s going to get. Whatever. He’ll make sure to wipe his morning snot and droll on your shirt in the morning. “Anyway,” he grumbles, in the background you hear Kkami bark from a few rooms over, “I was going to ask if you wanted to come over my place instead? I know your parents probably want to see me and stuff but mine are out of town for the night so we can sleep in my bed until like three without Mom waking us up to force feed breakfast.” You roll your eyes. Of course your parents want to see him.

“Plus, Mom just put that grey comforter I know you really like on my bed so we can cuddle all night and watch stuff on YouTube,” he quickly adds as a convincing afterthought. He’s really got his sales pitch going on this one. Truth is, you have only slept in his bed with that stupidly soft blanket twice last winter break, but it’s still sweet that he remembers how much you loved it (aka how quickly you fell asleep and how grumpy you were being woken up because it’s just that darn cozy). Either way, you would never pass up an opportunity to snuggle up with Hyunjin in the comfort of his own bed with his citrusy, floral scent on the pillows luring you to sleep.

“My Mom is going to be heartbroken, Hyunjin,” you tease, “but who cares. You had me sold at sleeping until three. Do you still want me to bring the snacks I got?”

“Oh, thank God. I love your Mom’s cooking but I haven’t left bed all day and I really want to keep it that way. And yes, please. I’ve been eating dry cereal for the past two hours.”

“Hyunjin, have you brushed your teeth yet?”

“No. Didn’t you just hear me? I said I’ve been in bed all day. Eating cereal. When would I have brushed my teeth?”

“You’ve officially taken breakfast in bed to a whole new level, Jin. I’ll see you in a few hours. Oh, and please, you have no concept of personal space so make sure you brush your teeth before I come over.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Love ya, bye,” Hyunjin promptly hangs up, probably eager to get back to binging whatever drama he’s watching before you lecture him about his hygiene again. Not that it matters, anyway; chances are, it went in one ear and right out the other and you’re going to drag him out of bed later to brush his teeth.

Damn. You didn’t even get the chance to say love you back. Not that it matters.

It doesn’t, you quickly shut down the pesky thought that keeps you up at night and force it back into the storage part of your brain labeled ‘Deal with Later,’ because, really, you’ll have to think about that later. It’s not that you don’t want to think about it yet… you just don’t have the time to stop and really figure out what your feelings toward Hyunjin actually are. Yeah. That’s it.

And now isn’t the time, you tell yourself, scooting up the mattress in order to bury your face in the pillows to suffocate the pounding throb in your head. Hyunjin is nothing special.

Well, no. That’s a lie. Everything about Hyunjin is special. Anyone with eyes, ears, even a nose can sense that. You had quickly found out just how wonderful he is when you met him freshman year of high school. At the time, he was everyone’s sweetheart by the first day, but it just so happened his eyes were all on you.

He was obviously adorable, and every class you had together he always made a point to talk to you and returned your sarcasm with an impressive level of expertise. So, when it came to him asking you to the first homecoming, the answer was yes without a second thought. But during the last slow dance of the night, with his hands gently holding your waist, he at last listened to his conscience and revealed that as much as he liked you, he truly did not want to date in high school. Or right then, at least. And honestly, you were glad; Hyunjin was quite possibly your favorite person you had met thus far, and you would have rather kept him as a friend than commit to a relationship the second month of school and risk losing him later down the road.

And boy, keep him as a friend you did. As it turned out, Hyunjin grew to be your truest, best friend in high school. Sure, you each had your own friend groups, but the two of you were the iconic pair everybody knew. But strictly platonic, despite the rumors and wishes that went around for the next four years. You like to think that neither of you ever developed feelings past what everyone feels toward their best friend— an innocent, wholesome sort of love.

But when had things changed? Hormones, as always, were definitely a big part of it. Hyunjin was always a cutie, but it wasn’t until he grew into his own skin and developed a newfound confidence did you start to see him differently. Until everyone saw him differently. Neither of you missed the way people stared him down, pupils dilating every time he ran his fingers through the black tufts of his hair, hearts aching for some sort of interaction. Or when you started attending parties, groups of girls would fling themselves at him in a blundering disarray, most of which he would turn down with a gentle dismissal that flew over their heads, too drunk to actually care.

But then there were times his dick made the decision for him, desperation and deprivation weighing in on him and you’d watch with a tight jaw as he’d leave the room with the pretty girl of the night skipping after him. You never realized it was only on those nights did you wind up in the back seat of Han Jisung’s car.

But even after the physical attraction sizzled out over time, things were not the same. Hyunjin wasn’t your hidden little treasure anymore. All eyes were set on him and it took more than a glass of water to swallow your jealousy. But why? Why were you so resentful all of a sudden?

It’s hard to share Hwang Hyunjin, you decided. Once established that you were his main hoe and he was yours, it became a significant burden watching others try and get in between. Not that they did it with a malicious attempt to separate you, but it still hurt. You’re selfish, and you admit it— Hyunjin, quite frankly, is the love of your life. Romantic or not, nothing could change your feelings toward him. It goes beyond his unfathomable beauty and spunky personality. Everything about him from his nose to his hands, to his distaste for onions and the way his face scrunches up when he lets out that giggle of his and even to the way he prefers to sleep against the wall but will force you to when you’re over so he can “protect you in case there’s a monster” all mount into this big, giant section of your heart set aside for Hyunjin.

So despite your efforts to ignore the pang of jealousy each time he would find a potential someone or the joy whenever he’d find his way back because “they kept wanting to hang out in the morning even though I said I don’t wake up before noon,” this Hyunjin-shaped hole in your heart seems to only grow the longer you ignore it. Kind of like every medical condition out there: the longer you ignore it, the worse it gets. So, basically Hyunjin is your heart disease.

Yikes. Sounds a lot worse when you try putting it into words.

Well, he won’t be your heart defect for long if he keeps ruining those pearly whites of his by only brushing once just before bed, you chuckle to yourself, rolling to your side at the sudden lack of oxygen between your face and the pillow. There’s a fleeting moment without thought when you unconsciously reach for your phone to check for any notifications before the fattest revelation of them all falls from the ceiling and smacks you right upside the face.

Shit. Looks like you’ve gone right ahead and totally dissected each and every fiber of your feelings for Hyunjin.

Blinking up at the ceiling, the weight of your emotions isn’t as heavy as you expected them to be. Instead, it’s more of a breath of fresh air, as if you have finally accepted the way things fell instead of ignoring them. Your feelings for Hyunjin have always been there. It just took a little effort to get them out.

Nevertheless, it is going to be difficult hanging out with him in a few hours with your exposed emotions still needing to be processed. Especially when he will pull you to his side and keep you nestled there the entire night. Rubbing your temples, you realize it will take some serious self-control to put everything on the back burner and just enjoy the time spent with Hyunjin.

Sighing, you check the time on your phone again. 3:21 and a text from Hyunjin asking if you could bring green tea.

“Mom!” You yell, defeated. “You were right!”

You used to think Hyunjin lived far away. Truthfully, he’s only fifteen minutes away if you go ten over the speed limit. But the only way to get to his house entails driving through the chaos of the mall and town center, which adds an extra ten minutes sitting through traffic no matter the time of day.

Now, Hyunjin’s college campus is two hours away. Well, technically five from you, since you’re almost three hours away in the opposite direction. So you’re lucky if you get to see him once a month with how hectic school becomes and how difficult it is trying to plan to come home the same weekend. Fortunately, it has worked out this semester. And while you should spend this time with your families, they know how much you crave one another’s company as the weeks drag on. The twenty-two minutes it takes getting to each other’s homes is totally worth it.

You expect Hyunjin to tell you to use the key hidden underneath the resin meditating frog statue in the front garden to unlock the front door when you text him you have arrived, but to your utmost surprise, he’s there, awake, to open the door for you.

“Stinky!” You yell, dropping your things on the floor to burry yourself in his embrace, standing on your tippy toes to wrap your arms around his neck in order to really get the full experience of hugging your favorite giant. “Poopy!” He shouts in return, long arms winding tightly around your waist and even going so far as to lift you up a few inches. God. Hate when he does that.

“Why are you up? I thought I’d have to let myself in with you sleeping all your problems away,” you ask, smiling gratefully when he bends down to pick up your bag. “I realized Kkami hadn’t been out all day, so I came down to let him out and find actual food,” Hyunjin explains as he makes way into the kitchen, opening the back door to let said dog back inside. “Aw, poor thing,” you pout, squatting to scratch at Kkami’s neck when he zooms faster than the speed of light to you, “does that mean you brushed your teeth?”

“I did, actually,” Hyunjin snorts right back, scrunching his nose at you before turning away to open the fridge. Sitting on the floor with Kkami in your lap, you take the opportunity to finally get a good look at Hyunjin now that he’s distracted. And of course, he looks good. Really good. Last time you saw him he still was a brunette, a look he rocked during the spring and summer months. This is the first time you’ve seen the freshly dyed black hair in person. Even though he always looks handsome, something about Hyunjin with black hair completely changes his aura. Brings back memories of how badly you wanted him in high school. You shiver at the thought.

And, to top it all off, how he manages to stay in such disgustingly good shape despite his atrocious eating habits never ceases to amaze you. Like, come on. The boy eats worse than a raccoon seven days out of the week, lives off boba, works out maybe five times a month, dances in his free time and still keeps his body in tiptop shape. God, you hate him. His pediatrician probably hates him, too. You even go as far as to sniff the fries in your dining hall and you gain five pounds.

Even now, he looks unnecessarily regal in the baggy material of his sweatpants and flannel. And the warmth of his kitchen’s ambient lighting does nothing to suppress the heavy thumping of your heart. So casual is his dress, yet how immaculate he looks rummaging the cabinets for a snack.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, the familiar softness of his voice shaking you from your daze as he closes the refrigerator door after his unsuccessful search. Here’s the thing: you really aren’t hungry, but Hyunjin clearly is, so if you say no then all he will be thinking about is food until you decide that you are hungry. “Yeah,” is what you say, nudging Kkami off your crossed legs to stand, “I brought green tea and a few snacks, but we could order Chinese food or something. The place near Dunkin’ and the gas station makes bubble tea now, too.”

Hyunjin’s brows shoot up, flashing his boxy smile. “Is it good?”

“I mean, I’ve only had their pork dumplings and mango tea before, and it was pretty good. I don’t know about their noodles or anything, though,” you shrug, moving to stand beside him at the kitchen island. Distracted by Kkami trying to jump onto the sofa in the living room, you don’t look to Hyunjin until the poor dog is successful in doing so. Startled to find him already gazing down at you, your heart truly is not prepared for him to go right ahead and wrap his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder. Totally not freaking out or trying to overthink his need to constantly cling, you justify his actions by quickly recalling the time he said, “My head is too godtdamn big for my godtdamn body.” More like his head is too heavy because instead of a brain it’s just a chunk of cement up there. He just needs to rest his head sometimes.

Yeah.

“Mm, I don’t know,” Hyunjin hums, swaying your body with his to an unheard tune. By now, any coherent thought has dissipated into thin air and all you can do is melt against him. “Why?” You manage.

“’Cus if we order anything that means I’ll have to get up and get it.”

“Oh my God, Hyunjin, really?” You laugh. Your hands naturally glide to where his are linked at your stomach, pressing to interlock your fingers overtop his. “If that’s the only reason for your uncertainty than I could always come get it, idiot.”

“No! It’s okay,” Hyunjin says, jumping back before you can even process it, “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

“Ohhh ‘kay,” you laugh breathlessly, whiplashed by the whole thing. Good thing you aren’t hungry, because when was the last time Hyunjin turned down food? Blinking at him precariously, he doesn’t seem to notice until one too many seconds of silence pass by.

“C’mon,” he demands excitedly, jumping back into reality, “my roommate told me to watch this anime called Soul Eater but I wanted to watch it with you.” Once again, before anything can even register past every single That Was Cute™ alarm ringing in your brain, Hyunjin is grabbing your bag and reaching for your hand, leading you out of the kitchen and upstairs.

You and Hyunjin binge aforementioned anime until he falls asleep first around 2 AM, only stopping to order food an hour in (he’s an indecisive man indeed), to get up to retrieve it, and to actually eat while catching up. For most of the night, you are able to forget the way his heartbeat against your back mirrored your own in the kitchen. But then, a little while after you fall asleep yourself, Hyunjin unconsciously shifts closer and you spend another hour blinking at his relaxed hand twitching against your abdomen, trying to keep the hurricane inside your heart at bay.

You can’t make it home October. Hyunjin texted you to let you know he was going to be the third weekend in, and you tried desperately to manage your time in order to make it work. But one group project in chem lead to another paper in psych and before you knew it, your roommate was listening to you sob over a boy and curse out your classes.

September left you emotionally wrecked, to be totally honest. You hate Hyunjin and you hate the way he makes you feel and you especially hate how realizing you have a crush on him makes you unsure if everything he does is his way of hinting he feels the same or if he’s always been this touchy and you are just now recognizing it. So, missing a month of seeing your favorite human being essentially means missing another day of trying to decipher which actions of his go in the Friend list, and which go in the Questionable list. And that, my friend, is unacceptable.

You absolutely cannot not go home this month. November is the calm before the storm (the storm being exams looming the second week of December), and while it would be beneficial maybe staying on campus to continue preparing, you tell yourself going home will be just as helpful. Mental breaks, and stuff. Totally not just to see Hyunjin.

Either way, Hyunjin asks you if you would join him on the seventeenth to go to his second cousin’s christening and you absolutely cannot say no when you know how bored Hyunjin gets at family events when they aren’t for him. And so, fast forward to the third Sunday of November and you are ready to pass out ten minutes after entering the church.

“I’m so happy for you two! I always knew you would last into college,” one of Hyunjin’s aunts exclaims, pinching your cheeks but the only pinch you feel is that of your heart.

Clearly she is misinformed, or just prone to jumping to conclusions but yet again, you can’t really blame her with how couple-y you and Hyunjin are. Past the single tunnel vision of your gaze, you watch her smile falter when Hyunjin goes rigid beside you and oh my God this is the most embarrassing moment of my life, his whole family thinks we’re dating and here we are still stuck in each other’s friendz—

“I’m glad you think so, imo,” Hyunjin suddenly picks up, sneaking an arm around to rest his hand on your hip, tugging you close, “I don’t know what I’ll do if she ever decides to leave me.”

It’s nice to think that he means it, to imagine that you are here not as a tag-along but to join him in a family ceremony because you are part of the family. The thought turns your blood to sugar and everything surrounding you falls apart; you listen to the rest of their conversation without processing it, the precise detailing in the marble pillars blurs into a mass of white, and you still feel his strong hold on the curve of your waist yet you are lost in the swam of possibilities.

How lovely it would be to live up to her assumption. To ‘last into college’ as a couple, not as best friends. To be able to call him yours even when you’re not together, to come home and kiss his lips, to sleep in his bed and it mean more than the laziness of blowing up the air mattress. At some point, he leads you into the third pew to sit beside his parents, and when you greet them with a hug all you can think about is them viewing you as more than their son’s friend.

God, you hate it.

You’re not as religious as Hyunjin and his family. But for the first time in years, you find yourself looking to the crucifix during the service and praying to whoever is up there to give you some strength and patience, because Lord do you need it.

Hyunjin is a funny guy.

Or so he thinks.

It’s not that he isn’t funny. It’s just— compared to your friends Minho or Changbin, he isn’t at the top of the list. When you think of Hyunjin, the first words that pop up are soft, loud, and dramatic.

It’s not that he isn’t funny. He’s just weird.

Insanely, ridiculously weird. For example, the time he called Jeongin a vitamin. Or the time he slapped half a bottle of sunscreen on his face. Or his random bouts of dancing at inappropriate moments. Just to name a few.

After the Baptism, Hyunjin acted like nothing happened. Didn’t even bring it up. Not even a joke. After the ceremony, you joined his family for a luncheon, which just involved the two of you being weird and making peculiar dancing videos on SnapChat with the swirly filter and complaining about school for a few hours until he drove you home. Obviously you stopped for food again on the way.

But that was it. Things went on as normal, and you returned to campus later that night and forced the whole experience to the back of your brain. It was officially grind season, and grind season meant studying for exams. No parties. No boys. And certainly no Hyunjin.

You both were home for winter break in the blink of an eye. And in normal Hyunjin style, he sort of vanished for the first week. Probably catching up on his strict sleeping schedule, you presumed, and accepted the fact that it was going to be a few days before you saw or even heard from him. The only anticipation you felt was wanting to give him his Christmas gift.

After what seems like an eternity away from Hyunjin, you get out of the shower on this fine Saturday before Christmas to find a slew of texts from him.

[5:52 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: Aloha mamacita

[5:52 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: How do u feel about getting froyo tn

[5:52 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: We can get fat and then u can sleepover aaaand

[5:52 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: We can stare at the wall for a few hours

[5:52 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: And

[5:53 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: *cough*

[5:53 PM] big tiddy jinny🍯🧸🌟🖇: Exchange Jesus gifts

See? Weird. Who wants froyo when it’s thirty degrees out?

[5:53 PM] YN: “aloha mamacita”

[5:53 PM] YN: uHmmmMMM

[5:53 PM] YN: im down mr president

[5:54 PM] YN: why do u want ice cream in winter tho. don’t u want like

[5:54 PM] YN: hot chocolate or seomthing

Obviously not. Two hours later, Hyunjin arrives to pick you up for froyo despite all your efforts in convincing him maybe you could take the train to the city and watch a light show, or simply drive around and swoon over the rich people houses and their Christmas decorations. He didn’t budge. This leads you to your second question of the day: why is it that when you threw on sweats for the occasion you called yourself a hag, but upon entering Hyunjin’s car you make a mental note of how hot he looks when he’s wearing the same exact thing? You groan at the thought. It’s because it’s Hyunjin, of course.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he greets, flicking your forehead once you settle into the seat of his Subaru WRX because he’s a hotshot and likes to flex that he can drive a manual. Not really— the car is absolute garbage by now, having been his Dad’s old car (his Dad likes to flex too, apparently). However, Hyunjin takes care of it enough for it to seem five years old instead of ten, and, either way, watching him work the stick shift is unexplainably hot.

You swat his hand away. “Drive, bitch,” you huff, twisting to buckle yourself in. Once he’s reversed out of your driveway, you glance back to find him fighting against a devilish smirk.

“So,” you start once he has navigated out of your neighborhood. His brow twitches up. “Are you taking Hawaiian and French at school? You’ve been throwing quite a lot of languages at me recently.” Hyunjin shoots you an unamused look. You return it with a wrinkle of your nose.

“Anyway,” he ignores your teasing, pausing to switch gears for whatever reason so he can make it through a yellow light, “how did your exams go?”

“Well, you know…” You trail off, looking to your window. It feels a lot later than eight o’clock. With it getting dark so early in the evening nowadays, it feels as if nighttime is always following you.

“You know… what?” Hyunjin interrupts your daze, concern laced in his voice. “They were fine. I passed everything, I’m just worried about my major,” you explain sadly, barely glancing at him before you are turning back to the window to stare at the moon. Must be nice being a moon. Just get to hang out in the sky watching everyone and being watched.

“I mean, if you want to switch, now’s the time. Better do it now before the second semester,” Hyunjin advises, wise as always. Not really, but he’s right. “What are you thinking of going into?”

Yikes. He’s going to kill you.

“Nursing,” you blurt.

“Oh my Lanta, ___, are you serious?” He groans, stopping at a convenient red light presenting the perfect opportunity for him to smack his forehead on the wheel. Dramatic. “How are you gonna manage that? You’ll practically be two years behind everyone else!”

“I know,” you sigh, throwing your head back on the headrest, “that’s the problem. Bio just isn’t doing it for me. I don’t think I can spend the rest of my life in a lab watching mitosis. I need something more rewarding, so theoretically nursing is a perfect start. I don’t know, though.”

“Why don’t you switch to interior design or something? We could get our own HGTV show, ___,” he says, but you don’t meet his gaze when he glances over because beneath his words, you can sense some serious hopefulness. Interior design would be cool, but you’ve never considered that as a career choice. You once helped your parents pick out everything when they redid a bathroom at home and that turned out great, but as a major?

“I don’t know, man. I’ll have to talk to my counselor about it, I guess,” you shrug, pulling the hood of your sweatshirt over your head and tightening the drawstrings until the material covers your eyes, “why can’t you audition to be a K-pop star or something? I could be your manager. Heck, even your makeup artist. I’ve done your makeup before, remember?”

Hyunjin laughs, loud, and the sound sinks deep into your heart and makes you feel warm all over. Stress? Gone.

For the next few minutes or so, the ride is comfortably quiet. At some point, he turns on the radio and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” floods your brain and reminds you to look forward to exchanging Christmas gifts later. God, you hope he likes it. You really went out on the sentimental gifts this year.

Hood shielding your vision, you jump when his large hand suddenly comes to grab the top of your head, squeezing hard and you imagine he’s trying to press some hopefulness into your brain. “Hand on the penis stick, Hwang,” you bark, blindly reaching for his own head across the way and pulling his ear when you do so. Good Lord, you hope no one can see into the car because… what.

Hyunjin lets out a giggle this time, reaching to pull you into a headlock and even though he’s got your head shoved up against his sturdy chest and goes on to give you a noogie, you’re stuck being all high and loopy on the sound of his happiness. And hey, it’s nice to know you’re the cause of it.

“We’re literally parked, idiot. If you had your hood down you would’ve realized,” Hyunjin snickers, releasing you after watching you struggle for a few seconds. Jerking away from him, you swiftly pull back your hood. “Oh,” you laugh, reading the flashy Yogo Factory sign above the building in front of you, “you could’ve just told me instead of watching me bask in misery.”

Hyunjin suitably ignores your moaning and groaning by getting out of the car and standing in front of the car, illuminated by the headlights. Why? Why must he look so scrumptious in his black hoodie and grey sweatpants and four-year-old white Nike sneakers? He has no gosh darn right!

After fixing the mess he made of your hair, you at last join him outside the car, shooting him another glare and moving ahead of him to open the shop’s door without waiting for him. “From now on, we have to start texting each other what we’re wearing before we go out, ‘cus this looks a little ri-donk-ulous,” Hyunjin whispers in your ear as you make your way to the cup selection, trying to ignore all the stares you— no, he is getting along the way.

“What do you mean?” You ask, plucking two medium sized cups up before turning to look at him. Then you look down at yourself. Oh. Looks like you’re both wearing the hoodie from junior spirit week. “Nice.” Just Couple Things™!

Back to Hyunjin being weird— why did he drag you all the way out here just to get a cup of chocolate frozen yogurt and maybe half a scoop of peanut butter chips?

Meanwhile, he watches in absolute disgust as you blow through your own dessert. Vanilla yogurt with probably every topping offered because you physically cannot make a decision, especially when they have chunks of cookie dough up there.

“So,” Hyunjin starts, trying not to look you in the eye considering you look like a goblin shoveling globs of diabetes down your throat, “have you talked to Jisung recently?”

You choke on a Fruity Pebble at his inquiry, prompting him to reach across the table and slap your back a few times until your esophagus is cleared. “Ugh,” clearing your throat one last time, you take a few sips of water while shooting him a glare. Jisung? Really? “How dense are you?” You hiss unintentionally.

Hyunjin raises his hands in defense. “Just a question.”

Yeah, just a question. Dumbass. “I mean,” you laugh awkwardly, “not really. We have a streak on Snap and sometimes we’ll talk occasionally but I don’t text him every day or anything. How about you?”

He shrugs, concentrating instead on stirring his yogurt into a goopy mess. “Eh. We still use our group chat a lot but that’s it. He’s too busy making music in Malaysia.”

You chuckle at this, picking out the boba from your own cup and leaving the rest now that it has started to look like something sold at the Chum Bucket. “That sucks,” you offer, not the best at giving him consolidation, you opt for linking your feet around his own in some weird act of intimacy, “isn’t he coming home for the holidays, though? I’m sure you can all have a reunion soon.”

“Yeah, he is,” Hyunjin hums, suddenly too focused on trying to escape your trap under the table. Annoyed Hyunjin is cute. “Stoooop,” he whines, kicking at your shins before breaking into boisterous laughter at your relentlessness, “I will not hesitate to throw this cup at your face.”

“Yeah, right,” you scoff, “I’d like to see you try.”

At this, Hyunjin drops his stupidly long arms beneath the table and easily captures your foot by the ankle, pulling hard enough for you to slip down your side of the booth. “Hyunjin!” You shriek, panicking slightly at your sweaty hand’s insecure grip against the leather. You’re going to fall. You’re going to fall flat on your ass underneath a table at a frozen yogurt place because the boy you like pulled your foot too hard. Fantastic. Ignoring you, he starts to wiggle your shoe off your foot no matter how hard you try to squirm out of his relentless grip. “Stop trying to eat my toes in the middle of Yogo!”

Finally, he releases your foot, letting it fall limp against his thigh.

“God,” you huff, breathless as you squirm back up your seat, cheeks burning ferociously, “you are such an ass.”

Behind the playful smirk he fails to hide, something darker glints in Hyunjin’s eyes and it makes your heart skip a beat. Then, “We should go.” The suggestion makes the heat of your blush scorch even hotter down your neck and you instinctively turn away, only to find the customers on the other side of the shop watching you with just as perturbed looks. Fantastic, part two.

“Okie,” you squeak out, blinking after him in complete and total bewilderment as to what just happened when he gets up to throw his trash away. Whatever. Following after him, you too toss your cup out before quickly finding your hand engulfed by his larger one as he leads you back outside, the sudden sharpness of the cold air bringing tears to your eyes. You desperately want to ask him what that was about, or why he’s acting so sneaky, but you stay silent, too afraid your voice will come out shaky and vulnerable. Instead, you let him tug you into his side and try to keep up with him no matter how badly your knees threaten to buckle with each glance you sneak up at him.

It’s silent when you enter the car, watching warily as he reverses out of the parking spot and maneuvers through the lot. Your heart rate seemingly cannot slow itself down, adrenaline taking the place of oxygen the longer you stare at him, at the concentrated scrunch to his face, at the cute tip of his button nose and at the swell of his lips and you distantly wonder what would happen if you pulled him into a kiss at the next red light.

In the midst of your daydream Hyunjin clears his throat, bringing you back to reality and you realize with a startle that he has caught you. Jesus Christ! What has gotten into you? You mentally smack yourself upside the head, instantly turning away from his cocky little gaze and staring straight ahead in search of something else to focus on. “___,” he sing-songs, slow and sensual and entirely demolishing the walls you have built around yourself. It is at this red light you wish to simply open the door and run.

“Yes?” You manage, wincing at how small your voice sounds and while looking out his window instead of into his eyes, you notice him grip the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. The tension is insurmountable, weighing in heavily on your chest and you desperately wish to arrive home, even though that means having to survive the next twelve hours with him. Anything is better than the small confines of his car.

“What do you want to do when we get home?” He asks, cool as a cucumber. You pale. It is a dangerous question and you do not know if he realizes that. “Um,” you cough, scooting to sit up straight, “whatever you want.” You whisper the last part, genuinely petrified because you have absolutely no idea if your brain is twisting everything to make it seem like Hyunjin is flirting or if things are totally normal. No idea.

“Hm,” he offers, tilting his head in thought, “we shall see.”

Yeah. We shall.

The rest of the ride is quiet, comfortably or uncomfortably you cannot say because you are too busy trying to calm the Spongebob burning office scene occurring inside your own head, hopelessly telling yourself that everything is fine, Hyunjin’s fine, you’re fine. Just pretend like nothing happened, you tell yourself when Hyunjin pulls into his driveway with practiced ease. “Ugh,” he groans after retrieving your bag from the back seat, and you watch with a raised brow as he skips up to his porch, yelling, “I have to pee!”

“Begone with you, piss boy,” you tease, holding the screen door open for him as he struggles to unlock the storm door and pulling on one of his hoodie’s drawstrings just to annoy him. “Stop,” he growls, low and playful but nevertheless sending a swarm of butterflies to your tummy. You ignore him. Finally unlocking the door, Hyunjin shoves the keys into his pocket and seizes your wrist, yanking your arm down with enough force to nearly topple you into him. “Why are you being so annoying tonight?” He frowns at you, nose and brows scrunched in irritation and it is only because of his proximity do you finally soften up.

“Sorry,” you pout back, bringing your other hand up to boop his nose, “I just missed ya.”

“Ew,” he snorts, stepping past the threshold and kicking off his shoes. You follow suit, closing the door behind you and clicking the lock into place as Kkami comes sprinting over. “B-R-B,” Hyunjin announces, presumably bouncing away to the bathroom.

“Oh, boy,” you huff, squatting to pick up the fluffy little dog and hugging him close to your chest, “your dad is making my life very difficult.” Pressing a quick kiss to the top of his head, you put Kkami back down and grab your bag before heading upstairs, knowing Hyunjin is going to take his grand old time and probably take a shit while he’s at it. Plus, you’re impatient and dying to take your bra off.

Aside from what light his Gudetama nightlight offers, Hyunjin’s room is ultimately left dark. Here’s the thing: he used to have a lamp on his dresser, but then he took it with him to college and only brings it home for summer because he’s lazy and sleeps the majority of the time he’s home, anyway. Instead, he put up his little remote-controlled Christmas tree in addition to the lava lamp he has beside his bed. Perfect. For Hyunjin, at least.

Switching both of these on, their subtle glow offers just enough to keep you from banging your toe against something. It’s happened one too many times. Hyunjin’s room isn’t messy— he really isn’t a messy person to begin with, but he will reorganize the furniture in his room fifty times a year and you never know where the crooked leg to his bedside table will be to ambush your pinky toe.

Setting your bag onto his bed, you excitedly fumble past all your layers and unclasp your bra, maneuvering out of it with a delighted exhale just as Hyunjin begins his ascent up the stairs, steps creaking loudly under his heavy trudging. “I’m an idiot,” he grumbles, leaning against the doorframe to catch his breath.

You don’t bother to look at him, opting to quickly retort instead, “We been knew.”

“Ugh,” Hyunjin groans, exasperated, and you finally turn to him after successfully jamming aforementioned undergarment into your bag, “anyways. I don’t know why I didn’t just come up here, because I have to wash my face anyway and you do too and now we’re both going to have to share a sink.”

“Aw,” you coo, tone dripping with sarcasm as you pat his arm, “poor baby has to share the bathroom.”

“I’m actually going to strangle you,” he sighs, nevertheless following after you into the bathroom.

“Kinky.”

Hyunjin glares, unamused as he opens a drawer for his pink bow hairband and your striped pink and blue one that he bought for you, but keeps here for sleepovers. Yeah. He throws it to your face. “Sorry,” you offer, pulling the soft headband up to hold your hair back, “I’ll try to stop. I’m just so used to annoying you.”

“Clearly,” he scoffs, flashing his stupidly cute teasing smile and in your head, you imagine raising a white flag in surrender— he’s got you, he’s won, it’s over. Time to call it quits and head home. Evidently shut up (for now), you offer him a roll of your eyes before turning on the sink to wet your hands before pumping out some of his scrumptious watermelon face wash. Maybe if you scrub hard enough, you’ll manage to rinse away all the overwhelming thoughts of the night, too.

Barefaced Hyunjin is immaculate. Well, Hyunjin is immaculate twenty-four hours out of the day, but barefaced, freshly washed, hair messy, ready for bed Hyunjin is immaculate, and you are one of the few people lucky enough to see this eighth wonder of the world as often as you do.

Now, maybe it has something to do with the unexpected ambiance the light from his laptop, Christmas lights, and lava lamp have created together that makes him look so unfairly beautiful at this given moment. Or, you’re just insanely pussywhipped and looking for an excuse. You try not to think about it.

“Why are you so squirmy tonight?” He asks, frustrated enough to interrupt Kermit singing ‘Shawty I don’t mind’ playing from his laptop. “I’m not,” you defend, a weak argument indeed, given that you have just finished adjusting your position beside him for the umpteenth time.

“I mean, four female Ghostbusters? The feminists are taking over! I’m an ad—”

“___, you’ve touched my dick like four times. Don’t try and tell me you’re not squirmy. What’s wrong?” Hyunjin interrupts a second Vine, and even goes on to talk over ‘I have the power of God and anime on my side!’ like a lunatic. Oh Christ, you have? Surely you would have noticed. “Sorry,” you mumble, embarrassed as you bury your face into the curve of his pectoral and instinctively move your leg settled between his away, “I’m just hot, to be honest.” Technically, it is not a lie. Hyunjin’s family definitely keeps their thermostat at a higher temperature than yours and you always manage to sweat your ass off every time you come over. This time, however, you are certain it has more to do with the assault your heart is facing rather than your sweat glands.

At the sound of his tap against the spacebar to pause the video, you wordlessly and reluctantly sit up from your comfortable spot beside him in order to rid yourself of your heavy sweatshirt. Now, here lies the problem. Sweatshirt: off. Nipples: out. Realistically, Hyunjin has seen your boobs a number of times over the past few years, and even if he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t even bat an eye. But right now, your heart is on the line, you’re embarrassed and you’re trying to play it extremely safe.

You toss the hoodie to the floor and nestle right back where you were anyway, slinging your right arm over his torso and ignoring his sharp intake of breath when you snuggle closer. “Better?” He asks, voice strained and it literally makes you nauseous. “Yep.”

He resumes the video. You had started early in the night watching Pom Poko, which unsurprisingly ended with the two of you crying at the bittersweet ending, then moved to TikTok compilations on YouTube to cheer up before moving on from them and onto the classic Vine compilations. You paid good attention for the most part, chuckling along with him to ‘What up, I’m Jared, I’m nineteen and I never fucking learned how to read,’ ‘Bruh chill, I don’t know why you in a big time rush,’ and all the other absolute comedic masterpieces. But after the fourth or fifth video of the same six second clips with an occasional rare one, you began to grow bored and decided to do what you do best: admire Hyunjin.

Sure, ‘Come get yo juice!’ followed by the loud smash of the oven made you smile, but you found the flashing lights casting shadows beneath Hyunjin’s eyes and lips much more fascinating. Of course, this is not the first time you have been held so close to him. But it is, however, all too easy to get lost in the sight of him and you’ve noticed recently that you are in desperate need of a map. Whether it’s due to your time away from him or simply an appreciation for untouched beauty you do not know.

Even now, your gaze flickers to his laptop once you hear ‘Get to Del Taco,’ but having already watched it five thousand times you tilt your head upward to catch Hyunjin’s silent giggle at ‘free-sha-voca-do.’ It’s a vicious cycle, really, going back and forth between wanting to simply enjoy the night and realizing enjoying the night lies totally in Hyunjin’s presence. And so, you continue to fall into this trap each time until you pay no mind to the videos at all, basking in the brilliance of Hyunjin’s joyous smile and the warmth his happiness makes you feel. It is this thought that slowly tugs you to sleep, a fight to keep your heavy eyelids open lost until finally, you give in to the comfort and allow yourself to drift off to the sound of ‘Step the fuck up, Kyle.’

You think you are dreaming.

You think.

“___,” the softness of Hyunjin’s voice at the crown of your head eases you from the clutches of sleep and you stretch your locked limbs before curling further into his side. “We didn’t open presents.” Even though you can’t see him, you can hear his pout, and you realize you must be awake to hear the disappointed words caught sluggishly between his lips so vividly. You hum, hesitant to open your eyes because you really want to go back to sleep. Just for a little while. And so, you ask, “What time is it?”

“Just past two,” he whispers.

You hum again, trying to formulate a sensible sentence in the parts of your brain still asleep, “We can… wake up at four. And open gifts. Okay?”

“Okay, weirdo,” Hyunjin chuckles to himself, sliding lower down the mattress after shutting his laptop.

You think you are dreaming.

You think.

You can’t remember ever falling asleep facing each other. But yet again, your brain is clouded beyond capability and now, you know for certain you are dreaming. Hyunjin never faces you.

Blinking slowly, it takes a few seconds for your eyes to adjust to the impenetrable darkness and you struggle to make out the features of Hyunjin’s face. You know you are dreaming, and so you tug him closer, throwing a leg over his thigh and an arm over his waist. Even in your sleep, you feel the sadness pricking at your heart, for even it knows this is only what dreams are made of. You like to make the best of it.

“You know I love you, Jinnie, right?” Your voice comes out funny, drawn out and mumbled like your tongue is numb and you fight the urge to feel for yourself.

“Of course I do. I love you too.” His reply surprises you. You thought he was asleep and, either way, hearing such fond words from him puts your heart at ease. He must be misunderstood.

“No. I mean like… I like you, love you. Like I want to kiss you… kiss you good morning and before bed love you. Send you hearts and take stupid couple pics and… go on dumb dates love you. You know?” Your words feel garbled and incomprehensible the longer you go on, trying to express how you feel when nothing is real proving to be increasingly difficult. God, if only you could do it when things are real.

You start to feel yourself slipping as he mutters a reply, mind in free fall and fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s whispering and you can’t hear him but you are too tired and helpless to wake yourself up to hear it. No, too lost in the next dream to go back. You can’t tell what is real and what isn’t. Christ, were you awake? You can’t tell. All you know is that you are warm, so, so warm and letting sleep take over you once more is the best answer to all your questions.

Hyunjin always says he hates waking people up. Because he’s normally the one needing to be awoken, whenever the roles are swapped he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

This time, however, he takes it upon himself to repeatedly smack your face with his pillow. Not a fun experience when it’s coming from someone who fails to recognize his own strength. “Jesus, fuck! Okay!” You hiss, the cloud of sleep abruptly ripped away from you with the slap of his pillow against your skin. Arms raised defensively in front of you, you catch his next swing and tear the pillow out of his grasp to shield yourself all before you have even opened your eyes. When you do so, with the blatant intention just to find where he is and hurl the pillow at him, you are met with the harsh light from his ceiling fan and have to squint past the stinging white light to see his shit-eating grin.

“Was that necessary?” You groan, undeniably annoyed and wanting to glare at him more but needing to rub the ache out of your eyes. “Yes,” is all he says, reaching for your bag and catapulting it to you. He is incredibly lucky you are quick enough to catch it before it thumps against your head. What has gotten into him? Did he eat an entire bag of Pixy Stix while you were asleep? You watch, still dazed from sleep and reeling from the whole pillow smacking attack, as he flings open his closet door and turns back around with two neatly wrapped boxes. You squint to make out the dancing Santa T-rex wrapping paper.

“Oh,” you chirp, understanding, and you unzip your bag to retrieve the large box taking up the majority of space, “thanks for waking me up. I’m surprised you remembered. Did you stay up?”

A rosy blush burns its way across his cheekbones. Odd. “I, um— yeah. No, actually,” he stutters, really odd, given he was bouncing off the walls not even thirty seconds ago, “I set an alarm. You made me sleepy.” Hyunjin sits beside you once you have scooted over, leaning against the wall and crossing his long ass legs. He keeps his eyes trained on the boxes in his hands. “Oh,” you hum, looking to your own gift and suddenly wishing for the mattress to swallow you up, “sorry. I haven’t gotten as much sleep as you on break so far.”

“I don’t think anyone ever has,” he jokes and you finally look to him, sharing a cheeky smile before he gets all shy again, tongue darting out to wet his lips, “um, Merry Christmas, ___.”

It’s a simple phrase, but it makes your heart swell. “Merry Christmas to you too, Hyunjin.” Leaning over, you wrap your arms around his shoulders in an awkward side hug, but still end up feeling all drunk and loopy on love when he eagerly returns the gesture, arms curling around you.

“Okay,” you huff, sitting back, “me first.” You dramatically hold your gift out to him, jittery and nervous all over. Buying for Hyunjin is always hard. He’s just so easy to please, but when you want to do more than just please him it’s a constant battle trying to decide how far out you are going to go for him each year.

You watch impatiently as he tears the wrapping paper open first, and then finally lifts the flaps of the box up. “Aw,” he whimpers, pulling out the quokka plushie and attached certificate, “you adopted a quokka for me?”

You grin when he hugs the soft stuffed animal to his chest, the weight on your shoulders partly lifted from his positive reaction. He reaches back into the box, brow scrunched in thought as he regards the framed picture. “The First Day…?” Hyunjin asks, perplexed as he reads the title above the constellation poster. You scoot closer, leaning over to look it over once more. “This was the constellation of stars on our first day of freshman year. The day we first met.”

“Oh,” Hyunjin sniffs, “that’s really awesome, ___. Thank you. This is coming with me to school.” At this, he hugs you again, probably to hide the tears you know are threatening to spill because Hyunjin is Baby and cries every year. “Anything for my favorite fake Aussie,” you smile, leaning your head on his shoulder as he reads through the quokka adoption letter.

“Okay! Your turn!” He exclaims, setting his gifts back into the box and passing you the smaller one of his. He catches your curious glance to the second one he keeps by his side. “We have to open this one together.”

“Christ, okay. Looks like I’m gonna be crying tonight, too,” you sigh sadly. “Ooh,” jumping ahead of yourself, you wiggle your eyebrows at the white box before you, “Hyunjin if you bought me a Fitbit… I swear to God. How many times have I said I am not working out with you?” However, once you finish tearing open the wrapping paper you find it is not, in fact, a Fitbit.

“It’s not a Fitbit, idiot,” Hyunjin scoffs a second too late, waiting for you to slip the lid off the box. “They’re bond touch bracelets.”

“Explain,” you murmur, enamored but confused at the two little house arrest looking bracelets.

“So basically, we each wear one,” Hyunjin starts, taking one of the bracelets out and a burst of color blooms across its small screen at the motion, “and if you touch it, mine vibrates and I ‘feel’ your touch.” As he explains, he buckles it around your wrist, twisting it so it lies correctly. You silently take the second one and help it on him, brain too caught up to actually say anything.

“Try it,” Hyunjin whispers, suppressing his excitement.

You gingerly bring a finger to the little screen, tapping it once, twice. Nothing happens. Frowning, you try again, tapping and holding, then a second time, and finally— a strip of pink light appears and the bracelet gently vibrates as you tap and hold a random pattern. In response, the bracelet on Hyunjin’s wrist lights up blue, buzzing in the same pattern.

“Oh, Hyunjin,” you sniffle, fighting back your own tears because you refuse to let yourself ugly cry in front of him, “this is amazing. Now I can annoy you year-round. Thank you so, so much. I love you so much.” He hums, pulling you close when you turn to give him a proper hug. To your utmost surprise, however, instead of letting go he curls one fist into your side and helps swing your legs over to straddle his lap. “Oh.”

“___,” Hyunjin sighs thoughtfully, fingers playing with the sleeves of your tee, “I love you, too.”

You nearly spit up your coffee. If you were drinking coffee. Instead, you’re left with a dry mouth and a slack jaw at his words. Huh?

Glancing to the constellation picture peeking out of his box, and then to the matching bracelets you both wear, you find your mind reeling trying to make sense of it all. Yeah, you say the forbidden L-word to each another all the time, but most certainly not with you on his on lap and his lips mere centimeters away. The answer is so obviously clear as day you have trouble believing it.

“Fuck,” you laugh all of a sudden, as soon as the realization hits you, “I wasn’t dreaming, was I?”

Hyunjin lets out a joyous giggle, hands linking behind your back. Unable to hide his smile any longer, he clarifies, “You were not, madam. We literally just finished talking about when we were going to open gifts and then I got ready to sleep. Two seconds later you dumped your heart out to me, but when I answered, you were asleep.”

“Bruh,” you wince, hiding your face with your hands, “I am so sorry you had to deal with that.”

“No, don’t be,” Hyunjin comforts, reaching to tug your hands away. Your gut does somersaults when he intertwines his fingers with yours. “I was actually, uh, planning on doing some sort of confession to you anyway, but then you went right ahead and did it for me. So thanks for that.”

“Wow,” you chuckle, trying to wrap your mind around it all, “does that mean you, ahem, perhaps like me too?”

“No, I just got us really couple-y long distance relationship bracelets, pulled you onto my lap, and kissed you because I just want to be friends.”

“You didn’t kiss m—”

The sly little fucker interrupts your retort by quickly dipping down to press a fat smooch to your lips, missing miserably and you don’t know if he did it on purpose but you quickly fix the problem, releasing his hands to cradle his jaw and tilt his head the right angle. Finally, finally you kiss him, breathing in the smell of him like some sort of aromatherapy and whimpering into his mouth when his tongue swipes against your own. It is like nothing you have ever experienced, the taste and feel of him making you tremble and igniting a burst of electricity through your veins. You could kiss him forever, you think, sucking on his plump bottom lip greedily until he finally pulls back, desperate for air or trying to reel himself in you can’t say.

“You have to open your other gift,” Hyunjin reminds, chest heaving, and your gaze follows his long fingers as they comb his hair away from his forehead. Automatically, as if kissing Hyunjin once grants you some kind of free pass to do the same, you brush a few stray strands away from his face before leaning back to admire him. “Stoooop. You can’t do that and not expect me to kiss you again. Open. Your. Gift.” Hyunjin whines, squishing your cheeks and turning your head away.

“Okay, don’t blame this on me,” you huff, reaching for the second box before jabbing a finger into his chest, “you, sir, need to stop being so beautiful for like, two seconds.”

He scoffs, helping you rip off the wrapping paper, “You’re the beautiful one here.”

“Ew,” you wrinkle your nose, most certainly not used to Hyunjin dishing out such compliments, “this is too Hallmark Christmas movie for me. Let me open my gift in peace, ugly.” This box, unlike the bracelets’, is simple cardboard and when you lift open the lid, a brown leather book looks back at you. “You remember Up?” He asks.

On the leather, it reads Our Adventure Book in mismatched colors. “Yeah,” you whisper, flipping open the cover to find two baby pictures glued on the paper, one of Hyunjin, and one of you. At the top, it’s labeled ‘Before Shit Went Down.’ You laugh.

On the next page, there are random photographs from middle school, and then finally each other’s eighth grade graduation portraits. Then, written at the top is ‘Here It Begins,’ followed by a selfie he randomly took with you a few weeks into school freshman year, and then some from homecoming. Silently flipping through the rest of the book, your tears flow freely now, touched beyond comparison at all the photographs and all the memories accompanying them. Some are from large events like prom, others from random moments you don’t even remember, but each and every one comes together to form a special mold fitting perfectly into that Hyunjin-shaped hole in your heart.

The last picture is from the christening last month. Of course, it isn’t one of the nicer photos his mom took of the two of you, but a SnapChat selfie with the flaming sunglasses filter. He’s mid-laugh and you’re pressing a kiss to his cheek. Funny thing is, you don’t even remember taking it.

The page next to it is blank, aside from what’s written at the top of the page. “Togetha Foreva,” you read aloud, voice choked up and God, you cannot fathom how gross you look right now. “What the fuck, man!” You sob, punching Hyunjin’s shoulder before wiping your nose and cheeks with the back of your hands. “I didn’t sign up for this cock and ball torture.”

Hyunjin laughs loudly at this, pulling you into a hug and giving you a few seconds to recover. “Hyunjin, this is like… seriously the best thing anyone has ever done for me, holy shit. God, you Pinterest son of a bitch, this is such a good idea,” you groan, flipping back through the pages and getting teary-eyed all over again, “I can’t express how much this means to me, Jinnie. Thank you, really.”

Flashing that toothy grin of his, Hyunjin tugs you to lie back down with him and tilts your head up to press a much more accurate kiss to your lips. “I meant what I said before, ___,” he murmurs, “I don’t know what to do without you, and I know we only get to see each other once a month but I can’t keep living as just friends. You’re so much more than that. And I hope all the pictures we add from now on will show this new chapter of our lives. If not, well, then I guess I’ll just burn the book.”

“Are you asking me to be Kkami’s official poop-picker-upper?”

“Yes. Wait— what? No!”

You break into a fit of laughter, only to be interrupted with him pinching your side and causing you to let out a yelp. “Hey!” You bark, jumping closer to him and away from his hand until, finally, you give in to your self-indulgence and go right on ahead in swinging a leg over his hips and pinning him beneath you.

“You ruined my serious love speech, ___,” Hyunjin pouts, face scrunched up at you.

“I’m sorry, baby, go on.”

You pause, blinking slowly at him. He blinks back, the silence in the air weighing in heavily as both of your two brain cells bounce around trying to figure out what did you just call him?

“Never mind,” Hyunjin says, voice a low rumble of thunder as he reaches for your hips and easily flips positions, “I think you’re on the same boat.”

You laugh, tilting your head back and eyeing him indignantly. Fuck, he looks unfairly delectable hovering above you.

“Okay, how many more times do I have to tell you I love you for you to formally ask me to be your girlfriend, stupid?” You scowl, bringing your hands to cradle his neck, thumbs brushing delicately against his jaw.

“Call me baby again and we’ll see about making that happen.”

You raise a brow, tugging his face closer by the chain of his necklace. “You’re lucky it’s Christmas, baby.”