#all of my high school and college stuff is in that storage as well. old family videos and albums and everything. but yeah i don't know

[yandere-mha-blog]

Part 6

word count:2352

Keigo enters the scene yay!

You and your mom made plans to go out shopping for some school supplies

“Mom, aren't I a little old for this?” you asked “ I mean high school was one thing, but i'm going to college.”

“Nonsense, this brings me back.’ she said holding up to stationary sets “now Hello Kitty or My Melody?”

“I like the Cinnamoroll one behind you.” you pointed

“Perfect, let's get you this one.” she said and put it in the cart “Now your dad has already found a nice dorm for you, so we should go get some moving boxes soon.”

“I'm moving out already.” you said

“(name), me and your father will be thirty minutes away from you.” She explained “Do you want to stay home for college?”

“No..it's just I spent a while away from you guys, don't you want me at home for a bit.” you said, she smiled

“Of course we do, but I think having your own space, with no boyfriends, will do you some good.” She said, patting your shoulder “Unless you want to stay home.”

“Hmm…” you pondered “I think having my own palace would be nice, but are you sure you and dad are okay with it…after what happened.”

“Of course, I do want what's best for you, but I guess in the past I thought I knew what was best for you and did not consider what you wanted.” She said with a small smile “No matter how far away from home you are, you will always be my child , okay.”

You gave a small nod

“Great, now you will need some new clothes, I'm guessing your old clothes are still at his place.” He grimaced 

“Unfortunately, i didn't even really choose them he just kind of bought them for me.” you said, and you heard your moms hand crack from clenching it in a fist

“Is that so, well let's go to somewhere you want and we can get you some clothes, i mean you mostly wore your school uniform, and the rest were pajamas.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” you said, as she checked, and the two of you headed toward one of the clothing store, you grabbed a couple pair of pants, a couple shirt and a few skirts, and a hat that looked pretty cute

“Oh I didn't know this was your style.” Your mom said “you look so cute!”

“I'm not sure if it is my style, but I like it.” you said

“Great you can wear the outfit out then.” she said

And after a long day of shopping you two returned home, to see you dad springs  bunch of boxes

“Honey,what are you doing? Where did you get those?” your mom asked as you set the bags on the table

“What do you mean?” He asked, “we've had them in storage forever.”

“You mean to tell me, you kept the boxes from our move that was 16 years ago?” she said “Gross they are probably filled with mold!”

“They are not, i check them myself.” he said

“You expect our daughter to put her stuff in 16 year old moldy boxes!”

“They aren't moldy and even if they are old they still work!”

You pulled a bread bun from the cabinet and took a bite, glad to know your parents were the same as usual, eventually their yelling turned into laughter, whenever they argued it was not really anything serious.

“Mom, dad, can we have fried chicken tonight.” you asked

“Sure sure.” your mom replied, as you took a box up to your room 

“I'll start packing.” you said and went to your room, you didn't really have all that much, the only thing that would be a pain to take with you would be your furniture.

You reached into your bag and pulled out the necklace Dabi had gotten you, before throwing it in the trash

“Jerk.” you mumbled and confined to pack up, your mom knocked on the door a while later saying the food was here.

Had to be some of the best fried chicken you had in a while, it was nice to have some sense of normalcy, still there was  nagging voice in the back of your head that made you feel like you didn't deserve their kindness, after what you said to them that night you left, and that they just wanted you out of the house as past as possible, so they wouldn't have to deal with you.

“Earth to (name).”your dad said “You okay?”

“Something is bothering me.” You said “I don't know if I can be independent.”

“Oh I see, moving out jitters.” Your dad said “well let me tell you something, when i first moved out, the toilet flooded the first week i was there and i didnt have a toilet plunger, so i ran over to my next door neighbor to see if they had one, and lo and behold…they didn't have one either.”

“Dad, I really didn't need a story about how you clog toilets.” you said

“Hey that's not the point of the story, my point is that no one is ever really ready to be independent or move out, but if you have any questions, you can always give us a call.” He explained

“So I should get a plunger before I move out?” you asked

“Yes..but that's not the point.” he exasperated

Finally the last box was in your dorm room, you let out a long sigh  as your dad cracked his back

“Okay next time we are hiring the movers.” He said

“I tried to tell you.” Your mom said as she looked around  “Wel this palace sure is nice, and look you have such a nice view of the fountain.”

“Oh I do.” you said as you looked out your bedroom window, it beat looking at a brick wall

“Whelp.” your dad said and slapped his knees “this is the part where we let you go.”

“Don't frame it like that.” your mom said “But we should get going, you have a lot of unpacking to do.”

You three came together for a group hug

“You are going to do great.” your dad said 

“And if you have any trouble, we are only a phone call away.” your mother added, you three let go and they went on their way, you closed the door and looked at the boxes that scattered the area.

It felt weird to have a space all to yourself.

Putting everything together was straight forward, but now you were really hungry, you were sure you could get something delivered to your place, you placed the order and went back to unpacking stuff for your bathroom.

You sat on the floor eating from the to go box and looked out the window, the sun was going down, you looked over and made sure your door was locked. It was going to be weird sleeping in a new place all alone.

You spent the rest of the week putting stuff away, making sure it all had a new space, and cleaning lots of cleaning.

You tried the tub out and glad the water came out hot, eventually you got used to the space and could sleep with no problem. 

Overall your tiny space was nice and friendly, but you knew classes were the next day and even if you did grow comfortable here, the thought of going back to class made your skin crawl.

What if it's just a  repeat of what happened in highschool, what if all your classmates hated you, maybe dabi was right, maybe it would be the same thing over again.

No, that guy was full of shit, you would be fine.

But what if you weren't

It's going to be fine

Sure keep telling yourself that, you always find a way to mess up when it comes to relationships.

Needless to say, you were dead tired in the morning, you took a sip of your iced coffee as you headed into your classroom, a couple of people were they and chatting among themselves looking at the paper, should you go up and say hi, introduce yourself, your throat felt dry and you approached them, and eventually made way to the stairs and sat in the very back.

You took out the syllabus and read over it, your eyes pecked over the sea of people, you were thankful you didn't recognize anyone from your old school.

The teacher made his way in

“Hello everyone, i am glad to see you printed the syllabus out, now we will be starting this class going over the semester.” He said, you were about ten minutes into the boring lecture when the door opened, a man with blond hair that looked a it like a birds nest came through

“Hey teach, sorry i am late, what did I miss.” he said as she slung his bag over his shoulder bag that kept

“It's the first day so you get a warning.” The teacher explained as he looked as his papr “you better not make this a habit of yours mister-”

“Mister, please, i just go by Keigo.” He said waving him off “now where do i sit?”

“Have a seat anywhere.” the teacher explained

“Anywhere?” Keigo said

“Just take a seat.” The teacher quipped, Keigo looked around the classroom and his eyes fell to the back row, where only you sat, you prayed that the loud mouth wouldn't sit next to you.

God must of had his headphone in because he plopped down right next to you, you kept a straight face and looked at the papers, he leaned over and whispered

“Hey…what did I miss, I got a little lost.” He said, you looked at him, and wow those had to be the most golden yellow eyes you had ever seen, they almost reminded you of a bird you saw when you went to the zoo.

“Oh just a couple of dates when the tests are going to be held, there are 6 very important ones that are worth 10 of our grades each.” You examined as you pointed at the dates “the other 40 percent are going to be out homework and assignments.”

“Oh cool.” He said “thanks.”

He searched through his bag and pulled out a red pen and started circling the dates. You went back to listening to the teacher, a part of you wondered why you showed up, since you already read all of this.

“Hey.” he whispered again “I can't help but wonder, why are you the only one sitting in the back?”

You had to think of a dumb response quick, last thing you wanted to do was trauma dump that being around to many people makes you sick 

“The ac is better back here.” you responded and give yourself a mental facepalm, great now you are the weirdo

“Oh so that's why I feel a draft.” He said 

“Hey you two in the back.” The teacher said, and the class looked at you two “Stop talking and pay attention.”

“Yes sir.” Keigo said and gave him a salute, yup you wanted to crawl into a hole and die, now the teacher was going to hate you just like your last one, and the eyes of your classmates you could feel them.

Everyone went back to looking at the teacher and you really wanted to run to the bathroom, but if you did that what would the teacher think, that you were sassing him.

You are so thankful the class was done, you went out the door, before anyone could use a word to you, you felt like you wanted to throw up.

“Hey wait up!” you heard the loud blond guy say, you kept walking “hey girl was I was sitting next to!”

“Yup thats me…” your thoughts trailed on as you looked back and how the hell did he get next to you so fast.

“Oh good I found you, you dropped your bunny pen.” He said, holding out the blue pen.

“Oh, thank you.” You said “it's a dog though.”

Oh my god shut up, he is going to think you are annoying!

“A dog really?’ He said and gave a closer look. “I mean…maybe I could, actually I can't see it, designers did it intentionally to trick people huh.”

“Uhh…maybe?’ you said

“Haha rhetorical question.”  He said “Still you really saved my ass back there, why is the teacher so serious, I mean it's the first day you know.”

“I want to make an impression.” you said as you put the pen back in your bag.

“That's gotta be it.” Keigo said “also I never got your name.”

“...it's (name).” you said as you went to look for your next class when a guy on a skateboard road by almost hitting you, Keigo pulled you back

“Hey! Kaito watch it!” Keigo yelled

“Sorry hawks.” The guy said

“Don't apologize to me, apologize to the girl you almost ran over-and he is gone.” Keigo said

“Hawks?” you said out loud by accident

“Oh that's just a nickname.” Keigo said “a few people called me.”

“Why do they call you hawks?” You asked, wishing you didn't, you really shouldn't be getting involved with people, you knew what happened last time you did.

“Oh I'm sure a smart girl like you will be able to figure it our.” He said “but just call me Keigo, kay?”

“Alright.” you said as you adjusted your bag “i have to get to my next class now.”

“Oh right we have a second class to get to.” Keigo said ”well see you tomorrow (name).

He raised his hand for a high five and you flinched

“Sorry I have to go.” you said and rushed off, you felt like slapping yourself, seriously how awkward could you be.

Keigo stood there for a second, he pieced the puzzle together of why you flinched when he raised his hand, and why you seemed to jumpy at things, he sighed maybe he came on a bit too strong.

[mayadoesfandomstuff]

As I'm currently writing a long post right now based on Persona 3, I've decided to take a break and let my brain rot over some old ideas of my cursed "Filo Thieves" AU in which Persona 5 takes place entirely in the Philippines.

It's so stupid of an idea and I cringe at every thought but hey, misery loves company so imma inject these ideas to other people. Here's just random things in word vomiting out in bulleted list format.

The gsme would start at like 2015. Typically this won't matter much, but in the Philippines, there were a lot of major political and academic changes in the Philippines during this time so the year is a bit more important.

The Philippine elections also takes place on May so it would align with the 2016 May elections.

This means that the thieves may be about a year younger than they are in the actual game. This also makes sense since if the were the age they were in the game, most of them would he college-age because of weird school year stuff in the country and the story just won't work as well.

Joker and the other second years would be 10th graders though. This aligns with their canon age anyway.

The thieves are definitely memed on as the "Akyat Bahay Pangmayaman" and has had supporters since the beginning. Like huge supporters.

Because of this, I do think that even if people think they killed Okamura here, they would still have like a shit ton of supporters.

The international community could not give a rat's ass about these people up until the Okamura case. That's what I think would happen in this case. That country is filled with crazy stories anyway and weird criminal groups so why the fuss about them? When a wealthy local CEO got killed, people started paying attention.

With the other cases like Kamoshida and Kaneshiro, it was expected with the climate of the country.

Madarame was a surprise and did cause waves internationally just for a little bit.

The Medjed incident really got people talking but Okumura was the thing that really sensationalized the whole thing internationally.

Side note, of course all of these names would he different in a Filipino AU. Can't figure it out yet.

The PT case is being handled by the DOJ and none other than Prosecutor Nijima, a bright and trailblazer lawyer who graduated from UP Law.

She's not that directly involved in the investigation as she is in-game as Filipino prosecutors don't have the same insane duties as Japanese and Korean prosecutors, but she's pretty involved as she can be. She handles high profile cases but her backlog still has like a shit ton of drug cases and shit.

Joker doesn't get officially arrested but is sent to the DSWD. There's more context to this that I might elaborate on later but just count him lucky that he didn't die.

He gets sent to Manila from the province since his parents wanted to avoid the stigma.

Sojiro is just a close friend of the family who has to take Joker in since they don't have any family in Manila. I'm debating if he runs a karenderya or a private cafe like in-game or just a small private restaurant. Either way, I doubt it would be as atmospheric as it is in-game no matter what it is.

Joker lives not in the attic but some sort of backroom storage thing where typical house employees would have roomed in.

Some of the palaces would definitely look different but some might stay the same.

I definitely think that Kamoshida's palace might retain it's castle status but I'm torn between that and a hacienda but a hacienda might fit Madarame more.

I'm also torn between having Madarame having a hacienda or retaining a museum or maybe something close to the Philippines Culture Center.

Kaneshiro's palace wouldn't be a bank in my opinion but maybe one of those high-end BGC office buildings where millionaires reside in next to lavish shopping malls.

Futaba's palace could be a tomb as well, but if I want to Filo it up I was thinking of making it a deserted island temple or something like that or maybe an elaborate burial cave system kinda like those caves where archeologists keep finding ancient human settlements in the country.

Okumura's whole space thing could definitely be retained but I just gotta add that I find the idea funny that Haru's confidant would be dealing with her trying to keep the company away from the Jollibee Food Corporation.

Sae's palace is just straight up Resorts World Manila. Yep.

Shido's Palace would still be a boat, but I do want to make it that the entirety of Malacañang would be on said boat as sort of a reminder that Malacañang was built near a riverside. The flood that covers the country is polluted like the floods that cover the country regularly.

I have more but that's it for the brainrot for now. See you next time as I vomit up ideas on how Joker's treated as a Filipino palaboy in the big city in his fancy private school!

[purplesurveys]

1811

What would you say is the worst part of high school, period? I was actually fine with high school for the most part – my bigger problem was with the very nature of the school itself since I went to a Roman Catholic school. Doing a bunch of church shit several times in a month was the norm, dress code was super suffocating, and 'prom' was not only mandatory attendance but was also instead called 'benefit dinner' because apparently prom is too scandalous. There were also secret student spies assigned by the guidance counselors to tip off whoever was thought to be in a same-sex relationship. I also had a male teacher make a remark about my boobs once. :) Made me hate the concept of religion for as long as I live.

A few weeks into college I was already wearing shorts and sleeveless tank tops to campus because that's how freeing it felt.

What is your favorite color of apple? Red, green or yellow? I don't eat apples.

How old will you be on your mother’s 68th birthday? Is that ‘old’ to you? I will be 41. Yes, the idea of being in my 40s makes me a little dizzy lol.

Ever thought you were dying of something you weren’t even close to having? Yeah, isn't that a running joke on the internet too cos most of us have felt anxiety/paranoia over this?

Ever want to be a doctor? Is it because of all the hospital shows? I considered being a doctor very briefly but it wasn't because of medical shows. I just genuinely enjoyed learning about the human body and with memorization skills coming naturally to me, I thought that could've been a possible route.

What do you think of all these reality shows that try to alter personality? Wdym, like Dr. Phil? Idk they're trashy for the most part but boy are some segments guilty-pleasurely fun to watch hahaha.

Where are your favorite pair of shoes in the whole world right now? In our storage area under the stairs.

Do you live anywhere near a mall? Which one exactly? I live near several malls. Philippines might as well be the Mall Capital of the World because of the sheer number we have of them.

If you were dying who would you say goodbye to first out of everyone? Probably my family because it would be too excruciating for me to be saying goodbye to others first without them having any idea about what's going on.

Are you someone who actually likes to babysit children? Depends on the kid, which automatically disqualifies me from being a good babysitter lol. I'm picky with kids and will avoid ones that are rude/talk back/yell everything everywhere/throw their toys/cry if they don't get what they want/are hooked to gadgets/will do the opposite of what you ask them to do, thinking they're being charming. So...most of them haha.

Do you ever have those ‘ah ha!’ moments? Do those annoy you? Uh, I guess so? That's very vague though, and I can have aha moments that are good, that are bad, or when I realize how dumb I'm being about something.

When is the next time you’ll eat a cupcake, if you know when? I have no idea :( I love cupcakes but there just aren't a lot of shops that sell them, and when I find one it's always so so so expensive.

Does your family go on a lot of vacations? Are they more boring or exciting? For my own standards yeah it's already a lot for me! We go for 1-3 times every time my dad is home, which comes up to 2-6 a year. Our itineraries have considerably slowed down the older we've all gotten, but I like it just like that.

Where did you last buy socks from? What do those socks look like? Uniqlo. It was a pack of three pairs - one is white with blue accents; one is maroon; and the last one is grey.

Do you ever lay in the grass and look up at the sky, just because? I don't lay in the grass because uhhhhhh red ants and stuff lol, but I like looking at the sky whenever I can. I did that yesterday in UP while I was people-watching :)

When do you normally go to sleep on the weekends? Anywhere between 2-5 AM.

Have you ever met someone with the same ‘biggest fear’ as you? Yes, mine is fairly common.

Do you ever have movie nights with your significant other? I don't have a partner but even when I did we didn't really do this.

Would you rather write with a pen or a pencil? Why is this? Pen. I don't like how pencils get dull so quickly.

Who was the last person to call you fat, if anyone at all? Not exactly 'fat' and they didn't mean it in a demeaning manner but my mom referred to me as having put on a little weight over the years, but I didn't find it offensive because it's generally true anyway.

What color skin does the last person you danced with have? That would be the rest of the 32,000 capacity crowd that I watched Seventeen with, and it would be my best guess to assume 99% of us were brown. I saw some foreigners too but super few and far between.

Are you afraid of being kidnapped if you go outside at night time? Yes. I never walk outdoors in the evenings unless I'm at BGC.

Has your mother ever called your school because of your grades? No but that's kind of shitty. I had bad grades because I didn't put in enough effort, so I would have found it embarrassing if she went that route.

The best field trip you’ve ever been on; where was it to anyway? Answered this in a previous survey, but tbh just any field trip where we went to museums. I actually credit my school for kickstarting my love for museums because in Grade 1 we went to a couple of small local ones. It was such a fun and profound experience and I never stopped searching for new ones to visit from there.

In the next twenty minutes, what will you be doing and where will you be? I'll still be in my room but probably watching YouTube videos to prepare for bed.

Do you work? If so, have you ever been fired, then rehired from the place? I do work, but have never been fired.

Can you tell when people are lying or telling the truth? That's hard to answer. Some people can lie effortlessly.

What would you say your average word per minute time is on the keyboard? Anywhere between 85-100.

What is your least favorite class in school? Why is this? Chemistry, trig, calc. They were impossible for me to understand and I also resented those classes a little bit because it definitely made me think, "I'm headed towards journalism school anyway, what is the point of ever learning this?" like it was just a waste of time for me knowing I'll never have to apply the more complex concepts in the real world.

Do you bite your fingernails or tap them on desks? I can't bite them at the moment because I have braces lol, but I used to do it. An alternative I go for is to just tinker with them enough to tear the long nails off.

Have you ever wanted to be in a band? What position exactly? I wanted to be a drummer once but that was more of a fantasy. I never actually had the goal to be in a band.

Do you ever call your cousins just to talk to them randomly? Nope.

When did you last spend the night at someone’s house? Hans' house. Well technically we arrived at his house from Thailand at like 5 AM and then we all took a nap there til noon, but I'm still counting it. This was back in June.

Do you find any of your friends’ parents creepy or really mean? Reena's dad has an attitude problem and I don't like him, and fortunately I've never had to interact with him save for one instance where he tried to be snooty with me after I picked up Reena from their place. I threw it right back at him but just under my breath.

Do you ever have to wash your clothes at someone else’s house? I haven't done that.

When is the next time you’ll go to the library? Why is this? I don't have plans to do that. I don't even know enough about our public libraries to know which ones are the best to visit.

Do you know how to play pool? Are you any good at it? Nope and nope.

Are you someone who likes to get in arguments or fights a lot? No.

[braindeadmaggot]

I finally got Killer from the Statue 02 series gashapon to go with my Kid bust 💙🖤💙 I've honestly never been happier

Also got Kid and Barto cup hanger gashapon to go with the Luffy, Robin and Crocodile I got years and years ago.

[ukiyokki]

mars reads too much dreamnotfound fanfiction for their own good

a dreamnotfound fanfic recommendation list by your resident dumbass (me)

this took way to fucking long... i’m tired

below is a (very extensive) list dedicated to all my favorite dnf fics, ranging from quick one shots to 100k+ word monstrosities that devour the storage on my computer, forever incomplete masterpieces to ongoing works of art, you get the idea. i provided links for each fic/series for your reading pleasure. there will be no smutty/nsfw fics on this list, that’s just not my vibe lmao. this list goes in no particular order, and i’ll update it from time to time when i feel like it. now, without further ado, let us begin.

Heat Waves (complete) by tbhyourelame

(wtf else did you expect, looking at a dnf rec list?) amazingly well written, and while it’s not my favorite dnf fic it’s damn near close. in the midst of a brutal heatwave, a suffering dream comes to terms with the fact that he is desperately in love with his best friend. everything i could say about this fic has already been said by nearly everyone who’s read it, so if you haven’t yet caved into the hype, just go for it. you won’t be disappointed.

Gonna be around (completed) by georgescatcafe

(mc irl) my favorite dnf oneshot to date. just read it, i don’t wanna spoil for you :)

Inferno in the Sky (ongoing)by zairielon

(star wars au) an ongoing star wars au currently clocking in at almost 200k words. need I say more? everything about it absolutely slaps, each chapter is amazingly written, and it’s just good. also, can we just appreciate dream and tubbos dynamic in here? 10/10, amazing, must protecc. oh right, a summary: george, an exiled padawan turned engineer, must return to the jedi temple after attacks on it from an unknown assailant threaten the safety of himself and the other jedi.

Like Magic (ongoing) by KangarooKen, NotGra55 (Gra55)

(harry potter au) the unofficial official dnf harry potter au. we watch the young unlikely wizard pair grow up together throughout their years at hogwarts as they battle good old fashioned wizard racism. beautifully written, incredibly fun and suspenseful, and just an overall blast and a half.

GeorgeNotFound, Son of Poseidon, and the League of Minor Gods (ongoing) by Clichewho_69, Cygnvs, Trash_Kinggg

(percy jackson au) percy jackson au? check. “road trip” (technically quest but u get what i mean)? check. enemies to friends to lovers? check. this fic follows the plot of the lightning theif (albeit loosely), but everything is explained enough where you don’t have to read percy jackson to understand what’s going on. basically after moving to the usa, george gets taken to camp halfblood where he learns that a) gods exist. b) he’s the son of poseidon and c) he needs to prove that he didn’t steal zeus’s master bolt.

Protected (completed) by aenqua

(royalty/camelot au) my favorite piece of dnf media of all time. dubbed the official dnf camelot au, where dream is the heir to the throne and george is a servants son with a secret that couldp get him killed. these childhood friends grow up together and learn trust, love, and acceptance. (that summary did not justice to the masterpiece that is this fic) here’s the directors cut

The Hunter (completed) by HederEgo

(mc irl) a choose your own adventure fic with 13 different endings, where dream the hunter must kill george and stop him from beater the ender dragon. enough said.

The official dream team cowboy AU (series)(ongoing) by antsu_in_my_pantsu

(cowboy au) cowboys and outlaws horses and shit. and the big gay. it’s a cowboy au, what else did you expect? fucking yee haw (all seriousness this is a great read, i loved it so so so so much and i can’t wait for the final chapter to release).

This is a Drista moment, let's just accept it (completed) by Qekyo

dnf fic from drista pov. considering its unique perspective, it’s perfectly done. beautifully showcases a sibling relationship through drista and her memories/moments with dream, and it just works, y’a know? also drista supremacy.

Dear Dream (completed) by Qekyo

(wwii au) i don’t cry when watching/reading anything sad. translation: i’m a heartless bitch. however, this fic is the only exception. it caused me to cry so hard my mom walked in my room and asked if i was ok. ‘nuff said.

TECHNOlogical Wingman (completed) by Closeted_Bookworm

techno is the autocorrect ai on dreams phone, and he gains sentience. interesting concept, and the author fucking nailed it. great fic.

It Was Only a Fic (ongoing) by imagineitdear

dream starts reading a dnf fanfic (we’ve all been there buddy).

Teacher’s Pet (ongoing) by niyuha

(teacher au) in which dream is a high school english teacher and george is the new comp sci teacher in room 297.

Saltwater Secrets (ongoing) by earlgay_milktea

(mermaid/high school au) a great example of the shear amount of variety in fics this fandom has to offer. when i started reading dnf fics i would have never thought i’d find one about a mermaid george hopelessly crushing on his human friend, who happens to be his schools star swimmer. yet here i am, and i am far from disappointed.

Smash My Heart (incomplete) by dontrollthedice

george and sapnap are commentators for duper smash brothers tournaments, and george develops a crush on an up and coming smash streamer named dream.

roleplaying in the dark is harder than it seems (completed) by Alienu

laser tag. 10/10

solar system (completed) by quartzfia

(mc irl) george vists dream in pandora’s vault.

Ramblings of a Lunatic (completed) by jungkooksfic

ahh communicating through a notebook left on a shelf in a bookstore- what a perfect way to start a relationship.

Paint me like your French Girls (It's Charcoal, Actually) (completed) by Turtle_ier

(artist au) george is an art student, and dream is a model.

00:00:00 (completed) by isleofdreams

(soulmate au) 00:00:00 is the moment you meet your soulmate, as indicated but the clock ticking down on your wrist until the moment you meet. i’m not a fan of soulmate aus; this fic is the exception.

Blue Skies Smilin' At Me (completed) by kivy

(artist au) i don’t usually cry while reading stuff, but this brought me damn near close. george is a painting conservator and chats it is with the ghost of the artist if the painting he is working on. they fall in a love.

Current Location (incomplete) by hendollana

(influencer au) george simps for a hot american instagram model. who knew he’d actually follow back?

The Withering (series) (series ongoing, 1 work completed) by App1e_Juice

(mc irl) lore and world building and fight scenes and everything i crave. what’s not to love? something starts making the plants and crops around dreams village wither, and must team up with new friends to find the cause of the mysterious disease plaguing the land.

Minecraft, But You Can't Leave (complete) by facadecake

(mc irl) dream and george are sucked into their own private minecraft world together and must beat the game to escape.

Free The Game, Beat the End (incomplete) by goatgoatwasfound

(mc irl) a glitch in minecraft causes thousands of players from around the world to be trapped inside minecraft, with only one way of escape- beating the ender dragon. first dnf fic i ever read, and it’s still 10/10 for me.

Why don't you come a little closer? (completed) by lifeofandoms

george gets stood up by a date, and Dream pretends he’s the date to save george from the embarrassment. simply adorable.

lightning bug (completed) by saintachesP

(band au) while on tour, dream realizes his feeling for george.

Hold me closer (completed) by Treesofmyheart

(mc irl/dsmp) i just,, really like this trope.

Dizzy on caffeine (completed) by GleamingGreenGoggles

(coffee shop au) best dnf coffeeshop au i’ve read. periodt.

living a life of crime isn’t always easy (series) (completed) by itisjosh

(mafia/assassin au) stockholm syndrome except it’s not weird.

Inhibitions Make Interesting Situations (completed) by Ship_On_The_Sea

i pissed myself laughing. it’s just a dream and george being hilariously dense, flustered idiots. serotonin central.

thy eternal summer shall not fade (completed) by gracequills

(high school au) that moment when you recite shakespeare to your crush in your ap lit class instead of confessing (hate it when that happens).

All is Fair in love and Football (ongoing) by graciegirl2001

(college au) #1 favorite college au. in which george is a cheerleader, and dream is the football teams rising star player. this one gets extra points because of the amazing karlnap moments sprinkled throughout. *chefs kisses air*

online love (completed) by andbutso

(high school au) online classes go zoooooooom

Can’t help falling (completed) by isleofdreams

dream re-learns the guitar to sing to george on his birthday. beautiful. fluffy. amazing

dance in the rain and my arms (completed) by lazy_kitkat

george is a rain god, and dream is a wind god

Weather Boy (completed) by DaintyDiizzle

wouldn't you like to know, weather boy? (where dream can control the rain)

The color orange (completed) by anon

(mc irl) dream describes the colors of a sunset

Family Mode (completed)by Strawberry_flavoured_tears

they’re dads :,)

Breathing Room (incomplete) by papercranes

(band an) an amazing band au. the mad lad author wrote original songs for each chapter. above and beyond, mad props :). unfortunately, it’s incomplete

Piece of Clay (completed) by carbonbrine

(artist au) george is a sculptor and his sculpture comes to life- but oh no he’s hot.

Try (completed) by Not4typicalwriter

(royalty au) george must choose a suitor, but none of them are up to dream, his head knights, standards. or dream is hella jelly. also protective dream is perfect

When the Roses Bloom (completed) by HederEgo

(royalty au) close second for my favorite fic. go to royalty au for a quick serotonin bost. it’s all fluff and flowers and crushes, and i love it. criminally underrated.

Heavenstruck (ongoing) by dontrollthedice

george is dreams guardian angel, and dream want to find out more about him and his past life. bittersweet :,)

Bang and Burn (completed) by App1e_Juice

(spy au) george accidentally falls for target number 1 on sapnap’s secret agency’s hit list. this ones great, i love me a spy au :)

Can I get a uhh… (completed) by lemonskies

dream keeps pulling up to the drive through mcdonald’s that george works at drunk.

Pretty Stranger (completed) by anon

when looking for dream in the terminal, george sees a cute guy and decides to flirt.

Take my Hand (completed) by latinbias

(royalty au) another royalty au? poggers. surprise twists? double poggers. love this a lot.

seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes (complete) by meridies

ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP *inhales to compose herself* roadtrip au. unrequited love, ignored feelings, longing, pining, you know the drill. absolutely love this one, its the best roadtrip au i have ever read, in any fandom. (maybe cause i identify with it a little too much, but thats not important. whats important is that you read this fic. right now. im waiting).

Message redacted (complete) by justyouraverageloser

(text fic) dream asks for a girls number and realises hes been given the wrong number. however, an unexpected relationship starts to form between him and the stranger on the other end of the line.

the waves (completed) by anon

(mc irl) this fic was written by the same anon who wrote the color orange, which is up there on my fav dnf oneshot list. dream and george know they have a higher purpose. they don’t know where they came from, or why they are seemingly the only humans in the world, or how they feel about eachother, or even where the skeletons come from, but they are sure of one thing: they have to beat a dragon.

The Dream Doll (completed) by PeppDream (Pep_Pizza)

(voodoo i guess) i’m a real big fan of fics with really out there or unique concepts, so naturally this one makes the cut! i really liked it, it’s really sweet and made me think a lot about what matters to me in the world. george finds a strange doll in an antique shop, and would really like to just stuff it in a drawer and forget about it. sadly (?), the doll has other plans.

last updated February 6th, 2021

[nastyburger]

May as well do the obvious. Danny B for the 4 headcanons ask game?

realistic: he lives on bare minimum necessities because hes always broke and he’s on that teacher salary where he spends his extra money on stuff for the students pretty much. sam and tucker try so hard to decently furnish his apartment even though he keeps saying he’s fine (”you have exactly ONE fork in your house danny YOU ARE NOT FINE”).

while it may not be realistic it is hilarious: the reason pretty much everyone dated him in college was because the perception of him was so low in high school but when anyone spent at least a good 10 minutes with the dude, they realize he’s actually a really cool person. everyone was kinda experimenting in college so they all collectively went “fuck it, ill date danny b fenton.” danny always went with it because 1) it was sorta fun having at least one date with all his classmates and getting to know them better after being so closed off in high school and 2) he always got free food out of it.

heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends: his childhood room in the fenton household has pretty much been abandoned and turned into a guest bedroom. many stuff that db didnt take with him when he moved out was either shoved into the deepest corners of storage or donated. danny b once saw his old model rocket (signed with his name and all) at a goodwill while he was shopping for cheap clothes and never went back to that specific location ever again.

unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own: is it rejecting canon if hes basically my oc and IM the canon??? um lets see, i’ve seen this trend going around where teachers doing online teaching make their classes look like a twitch stream set up and i think it would be HILARIOUS if danny with his bare necessities life style just randomly set up his class exactly like that all obnoxiously cute with those cat ear headphones and everything with no explanation. his class is CONFUSED. he does it for like one day and then the next its all completely normal again and everyone thinks they hallucinated their catboy teacher session.

[qianoir]

IT3D 2 - Galaga vs. ET

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: college students!WayV x Chinese fem!reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: non-idol au, college au

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+ (Do not interact if you are under 18)

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy cursing (censored), mentions of sex, nudity, love octogon, foreign humor, overbearing parents

♡ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.2k

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @eggbutnotyolk @d1nne @fanficbitchwhowriteskpop @staysstrays

Preview < 1 < 2 < 3

Your stomach started to churn during the lesson so you pulled out a handful of white rabbit candy from the front pocket of your bag. There was more candy than school supplies in your bag so you generously handed a few each to Xiaojun and Kun, whose empty tummies thanked you greatly. The professor soon closed the lecture and the three of you headed out together.

"I don't suppose either of you guys have dance next?" You ask the two boys with a slight laugh.

Both shook their heads. Kun pulled out his schedule, "I have biology." Xiaojun was searching for something or someone behind you as he spoke, "My next class isn't until 2. I'm gonna go try to find one of my other friends. I'll see you guys later?" Kun and you farewelled Xiaojun’s take off.

"Come on, I'll walk you to the dance studio." Kun offered his arm, which you accepted. "You know where dance class is, but you aren't in it?" Kun shook his head, "One of my friends takes dance, as well. He got so lost this morning, I had to help him find the hall."

"Wow I wish I had a friend like you four hours ago.." You told him, remembering Xuejiao and her useless a.ss. Kun smiled, "He should still be in there. He has like 3 dance classes mixed in his schedule." You took note of this and unlinked your arm from Kun's as he delivered you to the dance hall. "Thank you for walking me."

"No problem. I'll catch you around. Good luck!" Kun waved good-bye as you walked into the studio. Immediately, you were hit with shocking sound waves and saw a few very skilled dancers performing some contemporary urban routine. You walked along the far wall to the back corner of the room to put your stuff down then unpacked your dance clothes and walked into the dressing rooms.

Dressing rooms in China are usually very strictly organized to separate genders. The room you walked into did not clearly decipher what gender it was made for, so you could only hope you chose the correct one. You turned a corner housing unoccupied lockers and.. a man fully clothed in ballet attire.. thankfully. The beautiful Asian man looked up from fixing his tights.

"I'm so sorry I thought this was the women's dressing room!" You stuttered, blushing in uncomfy embarrassment.

The man chuckled at you and stood up straight. "You're fine. Everything on this campus is co-ed." He said with a small eye roll. "Oh.. that's a little.. discomforting.." You said, dragging your eyes to the floor to avoid staring at the beautiful man's beautiful body.

He pointed to your dance clothes. "You're taking ballet?" You nodded. "So am I. The class is about to start.. you should get ready quickly." He walked past you, out into the studio.

The strange encounter gave you chills. You wondered if he was the friend Kun mentioned. After all, he was the fourth Asian guy you had seen today. Am I just like a magnet for cute Asian boys?

Taking his advice, you quickly got dressed and slipped out into the dance room where the instructor was already giving his new term speech. You tried to attract as little attention as possible as you walked to sit in an empty space on the floor, which was a little further ahead from the boy you previously met.

"So enough about myself, let's go around the room and have each of you introduce yourself and tell us about your dance background. Starting with blondie over there." The instructor points to a pretty girl with dyed blonde hair.

"Hi, I'm Hyo Yeon Kim, I'm from Incheon, South Korea and I have been dancing mainly hip hop since I was seven years old."

The class claps and this continues for every student. Then it's his turn. He sits up straight and waves around the room as he introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm Sicheng Dong. I'm from Wenzhou, China and I have specialized in traditional Chinese dance since I was 10 years old."

So Sicheng is his name..

Suddenly, the studio door bursts open with a petite Asian boy panting like he just ran the Great Wall.

"S.. sorry.. I'm late.. I slept through the alarms.. I never set." The boy fixes his dance clothes which were thrown carelessly over his body.

"That's ok, son. Come in and introduce yourself and tell us about your dance history." The instructor motions for him to join the group. The boy suddenly has so much energy and brightly greets us, waving his hand high in the air.

"Hi everyone!! My name is Chittaphon “Ten" Leechaiyapornkul! I'm from Bangkok, Thailand and I have been dancing since the womb!!" Everyone laughs at his personality, except Sicheng, who just rolls his eyes, but still smiles at the bubbly boy. Ten takes a seat on the floor next to Sicheng who offers him a hi-five. I guess all the Asians keep it tight here, huh?

"We're almost done, you there, go ahead." The instructor points to you and you straighten your spine before speaking.

"Hi, I'm Y/N. I'm from Hong Kong and I have been dancing contemporary ballet since I was eight years old."

"Very good, Y/N. I think you will fit in nicely with our ballet class." The instructor nods at you before addressing the whole class, "Right, so we will continue to get into actual dancing in the next class. Thank you all for showing up, even if not on time." Everyone turns to Ten who just smiles cheekily in return. "Class dismissed."

You pick yourself up from the floor and decide to wait until everyone has changed to change yourself, since the idea of co-ed dressing rooms still doesn't sit well in your mind. While you wait in the corner, Ten and Sicheng walk towards you.

“Y/N, right?" Ten asks. "Yes, that's me." You smile. "We should hang out sometime! We have a whole clique of native Chinese friends you could be a part of."

"Actually I think I may have already met some of them. Do you know Dejun Xiao and Kun Qian?"

Ten nods enthusiastically. "Wow small world! I'll add you to a group chat with all of us. Give me your phone!" Ten takes your phone from your hands and starts typing your number on his own. The device is suddenly buzzing with new message notifications as it is returned to your hands.

"I can't be late to my next class- we can meet up later! See you, Y/N!!” Ten rushes out of the studio, leaving you and Sicheng alone in the corner.

"Sorry if he scared you. He can be a bit hyper." Sicheng says with a small grin. You wave him off, "It's fine. You should go change now."

"Are you waiting for me to change so you can be alone in the dressing room?" You stay silent. "If you've been taking dance classes since you were eight, you should learn that going out of your comfort zone is essential." Sicheng teases, but offers another option, "There is a better place to change if you're that uncomfortable with it, come on."

Sicheng leads you into the dressing room where you are met with various colors of boobs and a.ss cracks. You just look up and let Sicheng guide the rest of the way. You hear him giggle at your flushed face. You arrive at a spatial closet that is filled with hi-tech film equipment. "This is one of the theatre storage closets. Xiaojun and I hang out here a lot."

Sicheng looks around the room while you stand there, bag in hand and ready to change. His eyes land on you awaiting awkwardly in front of him and he realizes, "Oh sorry! I'll leave you to change." Sicheng apologizes and rushes out of the closet. You laugh at the quirkiness of the cute boy and start getting dressed up again.

Walking out of the storage closet, you see Sicheng waiting in the empty dressing room. He holds up your schedule as he notices you coming out. "You dropped this and I couldn't help but see you're free for a couple of hours. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me and the rest of the guys in the group chat Ten added you to? My treat." He says, handing back your schedule.

You stuff the paper back into your bag, "I would love to."

"Awesome. Let's go."

The two of you walked around the campus and met up with five other Asian guys by the sculpted fountains, three of them being Xiaojun, Kun, and Ten. Xiaojun and Kun noticed you immediately. "Hey nice to see you again. I see you've met Winwin and Ten." You look at Xiaojun confused. "Winwin?"

"That's my nickname." Sicheng blushes. "You can call me 'Win.' It sounds manlier." He puffs his chest a little.

“Y/N, this is Lucas and Hendery. Hendery is from Macau and Lucas is from Hong Kong, like you!" Kun introduced you and Lucas gave you a hi-five, "Waaah what's up, little Hong Konger!?" You laugh as his hi-five pulls you into a bro-hug, where your face painfully smacks into his hard chest. "It's been a while since I've met someone from my hometown. What are you doing in America?" Lucas asked you.

"My parents wanted me to attend an Ivy League to become the best doctor in Hong Kong, so here I am with painful irony." You answered. "Cool, cool. I'm studying animal biology. I love animals, especially puppies."

"You are a puppy!" Ten calls out and everyone agrees. "We actually have a dog and two cats hidden in our dorm, but don't tell the DA." Lucas puts a finger to his lips.

"GUYS LOOK WHAT I JUST SCORED! THEY'RE GIVING OUT FREE CONDOMS!!"

The annoying, orange-haired, Taiwanese kid from your chem class ran to all of you with like 20 unopened condoms in his hands. All of the guys facepalmed and you just rolled your eyes at more of his immature behavior. Yangyang’s eyes fell on you and hid all of the condoms behind his back as he screeched, "What the hell guys!? Why did you invite a chick to hang out with us?? We can't have a girl knowing our manly secrets!"

"B!tch, you and I both know those aren't going to fit your 5’8” a.ss." You motioned to the golden X-tra large rubbers hiding behind his back. The guys except Yangyang laughed when his face started turning red, proving the accuracy of your assumptions.

"You two know each other?" Asked Xiaojun. "We have a.. history." Yangyang narrowed his eyes at you, stuffing the condoms into his backpack without breaking visual contact. "Get over yourself. We only met this morning." You scoffed. The young boy stuck his tongue out at me like he had done once before.

"Let's go eat. I'm starving." Hendery groans.

The group walks to the dining hall where different restaurants are catered to the students and staff. It was decided to eat at a Hawaiian rooftop grill. You sat near the edge with a great view of Manhattan. Winwin sat on your right with Lucas and Kun next to him. Xiaojun sat across from you with Hendery and Yangyang on his side, and Ten at the front of the long table. You looked over the menu placed in your hands.

"Get whatever you want, ok?" Win told you and you complied with thanks. The guys ordered a bunch of food for the table as well as for themselves; you ordered a simple ahi tuna poke bowl.

Upon the food’s arrival, Kun starts a conversation. "How is everyone's first day going?"

"My professor hit my wrist with a ruler because I said Galaga sucked." Yangyang answered. "You had it coming. You think ET: The Video Game should have made a comeback." Xiaojun attacked.

"None of you fools gave ET a chance." Yangyang crossed his arms and looked away.

"My calc professor ate an egg and bacon biscuit from Tim Hortons, then fell asleep." Win said as he stuffed his cheeks with macaroni salad.

"Did he ever wake up?" You wheezed and asked him.

"No."

"Hendery what's on your neck?"

"He got that good-good on the first day- my man!" Yangyang said with his cheeks full.

"Some kid in my aerophysics class launched a bottle rocket into my neck. It really hurts." Hendery replied, rubbing the sore area.

"D.amn."

...

"This dude in my psych class kinda packing no homo." Everyone groaned at Xiaojun’s comment, Ten just smiled and beamed him up.

Everyone finished eating and you offered to pay for yourself, but Winwin wouldn't allow it. You all walked back to the fountains you had met up. Yangyang, Hendery, and Kun left for their next class together. "What do you have next?" Win asked you. "I have biology." You replied.

"Oh you're with us!" You looked over at Lucas and Ten. Turning back to Winwin, "I'll see you later. Maybe we could have a movie night sometime this week, just you and me?" He proposed. "Sure. That sounds fun. Also thank you for buying me lunch, it was yummy." Win smiled at you. "No problem. I'll text you tonight." You nodded and parted ways with the lovely boy who walked with Xiaojun- the other lovely boy.

You walked off with the three Chinese boys, not looking forward to biology, but glad to spend the hour with your cool new friends.

To be continued…

*DA = dorm advisor

𝘲𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘳

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

On Oases

An excerpt from Memoirs of a Flesh Eater, never published

Previous Excerpt

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I’ve talked a lot about the importance of safe places, of how important it is for us to be able to be our true selves. I’ve talked about how our families and the Society provide us those spaces, but I haven’t really talked about those spaces themselves yet, or how they operate. I call them oases. Kestrel calls me dramatic. She needs to lighten up {Editing Note: Does that sound funny or mean?}. As ever, though, I’m an anthropologist, and I need my definitions if I’m going to explain things clearly, so oases is what I’m going to keep calling them.

While I’m being scientific, indulge me in some definitions. An oasis is any place run by ghouls that caters to ghoulish needs or wants. I’ll subdivide those further into open oases and closed oases.

{Editing Note: As far as I know, I’m the first person to formally classify this stuff. Am I naming them right? If this book is as successful as I want it to be, these terms are going to be used forever. Should I stick my last name on one of these? Would that be egotistical?}

Whatever you first think of when you hear “safe place” or “ghoul haven” or whatever, you’re probably thinking of a closed oasis. A closed oasis is a place for ghouls and ghouls only. No humans allowed, and usually no ghouls that haven’t been invited either, given our usual security concerns. These places are usually specifically social spaces, like bars or private clubs, places specifically designed for ghouls to unwind without having to keep our true natures hidden. These places are more varied than I’ve probably made them sound, to be clear. Like, I’ve been to an all-ghoul book club meeting before.

We were reading Dracula, in case you were wondering.

The closed oasis that I’m most familiar with is a members-only poker club, at least in name. Obviously I’m not going to name it here, but a lot more goes on there than poker. They keep a bit of flesh on hand, obviously, but it’s not really an eatery. The proprietor, Goji, has done a little of everything to hear him tell it. I know he’s a damn good card shark, and I don’t know if I actually believe that he was in an all-ghoul circus, but he can actually sword-swallow. And he’s a talented tattoo artist, if a little too willing to work on drunk teenagers. Scarlet’s Shakespeare tramp stamp is exceptional, but for some reason he doesn’t like it when we tell him that {Editing Note: That might actually be too much identifying information. I don’t think that’s a common tattoo}. Spatha, on the other hand, really likes showing off the sword he did for her. I kind of wish she’d gotten it in a less intimate spot, what with how eager she is to flash it.

{Editing Note: Clean that paragraph up. The fine line between relatable and rambling keeps eluding me.}

Other than that, Goji’s place has got some nice couches and beanbags, a pretty good tv, and even a few old arcade machines. It’s just a genuinely pleasant place to unwind. It even has a pretty decent bar. Given the rest of his clientele, I don’t think serving drinks to minors counts as much of a moral quandary for him. I do wish he’d cut Scorpio off sooner, though. He’s of age now, but he gets drunk fast, and when he gets drunk he gets weepy.

Goji’s an accepting guy, though, which is mostly a blessing. Being a ghoul doesn’t make us immune to human prejudices, so it’s doubly nice to get a break from the less instantly deadly kinds of othering. We’ve met a lot of interesting people at his place, a lot of ghouls from a lot of backgrounds with a lot of stories to tell and ideas to share. Not that I’m always entirely comfortable with what they have to say. One of the advantages of a closed oasis is that it gives ghouls a place to vent their frustrations with humans, which is important, but some of the venting from the ghouls less integrated into human society, like the Hunters, goes places that I’m not comfortable with. Even if it’s just hot air, I don’t like hearing about how much better things were when “humans were our cattle.” Especially not from people who choose to kill for their food.

{Editing Note: I don’t know if it’s safe to include that here. I want to present an accurate portrait of us, not an idealized one, but I haven’t even talked about Hunters as a group yet. That might be too much, too soon, too bluntly.}

Open oases, on the other hand, are an entirely different beast. Open oases cater to humans as well as ghouls. Obviously the humans don’t know that ghouls are part of the target clientele, and they aren’t places where we can typically be fully ourselves, but they have other advantages. Open restaurants or candy shops or bakeries give us places we can go with our human friends and not have to eat food that makes us sick. Open doctors can check our teeth and claws for problems, and they can check the rest of our bodies too, for that matter - we avoid normal doctors like the plague for reasons that I hope are obvious. I even know of a few open butchers, though I’ve never needed to go to one myself.

I have, however, spent a lot of time at one particular open oasis: my patron’s shop. She runs it as a small indie bookstore with a cute little cafe attached. The cafe will serve you flesh burgers or sandwiches if you know the right signal, which makes it a decent place to meet new ghouls discreetly. I know Yaga uses it to meet other influential ghouls that she considers dangerous, since it’s too public for them to start trouble. Other than that, the shop floor just operates like a normal book store. Yaga’s fond of her collection and she likes talking to customers and making recommendations.

It’s what’s off the sale floor that makes the bookstore special. In addition to the normal storage space, Yaga maintains guest bedrooms, which she lends out to any ghouls that need a place to lay low, or just to sleep. She’s had all sorts back there - lone fugitives, feral children, sometimes whole families waiting on some fake documents to be ready. She’s especially good at getting ghouls off the streets and integrated back into human society. Kestrel was living in one of those guest rooms when I first joined the household.

I met her the summer before I returned to public school - high school, specifically - and my mom and I were still in the early stages of integrating into the household. Yaga offered to watch me while my mom was at work, and she let me hang out in the bookstore and read whatever I wanted while she handled customers. My mom ended up having to work late, though, so Yaga kept me around for dinner, and introduced me to a girl who was staying with her for awhile. 

Kestrel’s about two years younger than me, we think, and her growth spurt ended up being more of a growth bump when it finally came, but even then she was tiny. She was also quiet, but I’d always wanted a younger sibling, so I didn’t let that deter me. I asked a lot of frankly insensitive questions. I wouldn’t get real answers to most of them until later, and the ones I did get aren’t really mine to share, but suffice it to say that she was a feral orphan before Yaga took her in. Yaga didn’t think she was ready to interact with the human general public unsupervised yet, but I promised to watch out for her like a really good big sister if she got to come hang out with me the next time I visited.

I didn’t get an answer that night, but when my mom dropped me off again a week later, Yaga went and got her. She didn’t really appreciate me trying to be her big sister, but she did want to be my friend. It was a little awkward at first, but I’ve always been pretty good at getting to know new people, and pretty soon she was joining me and Scarlet and Scorpio on our afternoon outings. Turns out she didn’t need the extra family anyway; Yaga formally adopted her a few years later. She’s still one of my best friends, and quiet or not, I swear she’s better adjusted than Scorpio.

Yaga isn’t the only patron out there using an open oasis as a halfway house. It’s not the most common thing in the world - it takes a certain kind of person and a fair few resources - but I think it might be the most valuable thing the oases do. No one needs a space to learn how to be themselves more than the ghouls who slip through the cracks. Kestrel is taking a gap year before she decides on college, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she takes over the shop once Yaga’s gone. I hope, one day, that I can help people like that too.

{Editing Note: I might just be paranoid, but I think that this draft makes it way too easy to find the bookshop, especially since Yaga’s masque isn’t exactly subtle. There can’t be that many indie bookstores/cafes owned by old Russian women with  much younger adopted daughters. I’ll need to do some serious rewrites.}

[dancingthesambaa]

The Smell of Plum Blossom Tea Ch 2

Summary: Just like a butterfly wing, a single act of kindness can change the course of the future, it certainly did for MK as a black-furred monkey put out a hand towards him.

Rating: Teen and up

Chapter 2: What’s in a Name?

It was a week since Macaque had taken MK in and to the child it has been the best week of his life. When he woke up in the mornings he didn’t have to worry about there being no food as he smelt it as soon as he opened his eyes, he could play in the forest with all the monkeys as long as Mac was there and he even had clothes that fit him instead of the same stinky shirt on days end. Everything was just wonderful.

“MK, what should we do about school?”

Or at least it was, but as soon as the monkey demon asked that question, MK's whole body deflated. “Do I have to go to school?”

“Education is important shooting star,” he said as he diced up some plants. “It helps things we don’t know and things we want to know.”

“Okay, but it is really boring, I always lose all my stuff all the time, and the teacher always explains it so weirdly,” the child pouted.

“Everyone has a different method of teaching, so you may have a method of learning as well.”

“Oohh….what does method mean?”

“It’s just another word for way.”

“Oh okay,” MK then tilts his head, “so what are you doing anyways?”

“Well right now I’m cutting up some herbs so I can use to make medicine,” he explained in simple terms as he then picked up the diced up blue plant and placed it into a cauldron and began to stir it.

“I didn’t know you could make your own medicine from home!” He leaped up and tried to poke his head over the counter to watch, “I always thought that you get it at the doctor's office.”

“Well doctors actually get it from a lab where people make the medicine there, this space here is my own lab.” He gestured to the room that was filled with all types of different ingredients all placed in a package inside of one storage cabinet and in another was a cabinet filled with modern lab equipment.

“So you don’t have to be a doctor to make medicine?”

“Well for most yeah, but for me,” he grinned as he picks up MK with one hand and placed him on his hip as he continues to stir with his other “let’s just say that I have been doing this for a little over 500 years, so I have a tad bit more experience and knowledge than regular humans.”

“Can I try?!” He excitedly asked.

“Well I don’t know, sometimes it will be a bit too dangerous for you to even be In here, which by the way, do not enter this lab unless I am here,” he sternly told him.

“Okay, okay got it, but pleaseee.”

“I don’t know, think you can handle it,” he teased.

“I’m a big boy! I can handle anything!”

“Hmmmm,” he pretended to think before conceding, “Alright you persuaded me, so I’ll allow it this once,” he said as he put the spoon down, “so first we make sure we have our safety gear on.”

“Check! Check!” MK adjusted the goggles on his eyes and showed off his long sleeve jacket and gloves.

“Next, what you have to do is go slow and make large circles.”

“Slow and large circles, got it,” he then proceeded to pick up the spoon and do what he said as he stirred.

“Good job kiddo, but how bout we make that circle a little bit bigger,” he gently grabbed MK’s hand and made it a bit wider. Soon enough the medicine's previous light yellow had transformed into a dark green.

“Look, it changed colors!” MK pointed out.

“That’s the beauty of medicine kid,” Mac grinned as he set him down, “now all I have left to do is to let this simmer for a few hours and it will be ready to be bottled up.”

“That’s a lot of medicine, is that all for you?”

The demon shook his head, “no it’s actually for one of my regular clients. His students routinely injure themselves, sometimes in the dumbest of ways, so I usually make batches of this every month.” His ears then slightly twitch as he grinned, “speaking of students, MK come here. I have someone here for you to meet.”

“Who?” He tilted his head as the monkey put a lid on a pot, proceeded to put away both of their safety gear as they left the room.

“Hey old-timer, I know your hearing isn’t that bad!” A voice yelled from down below that MK could barely hear, “come grab me, I’m carrying too much shit to climb up!”

“Someone to help,” was all Macaque said before he leaped out of the open window and less than a few seconds later, returned with a short bluenette woman in his arms. “MK this is Yanyu,” he said. “Yanyu, this is MK.”

“Uhhh, he shuffled his feet awkwardly as he gave a slight wave, “hi.”

“Awww,” she cooed at him, “it’s nice to meet you MK. You're rocking a pretty cool shirt there.” She pointed to his solar system shirt, “it’s really far out man.”

There was a pause as MK stuttered out a thank you and Macaque put his face in his hands.

“That was terrible, I hope you know that,” he groaned.

“That’s what you say, I know my puns are rockin my world,” she smirked at the louder groans.

“Please stop, I beg you.”

“Then beg.”

“Are you human?” MK bluntly asked, which made the two pause.

“Strangely enough that isn’t the first time I was asked that, but yes I am fully human. Though a small percentage of me is most likely full of crazy,” she grinned widely.

“I think you have those backward,” he muttered and didn’t even flinch when she elbowed his stomach. “So your probably wondering why she’s here right?”

“Uhhh yeah,” he nodded.

“Well, I have come to the realization that despite my many years with humans, I have never actually taken care of a human child outside of giving them medication.”

“Which he means that he knows not a single thing about taking care of you tiny ones,” Yanyu butted in as she crossed her arms, “and this is where I come in.”

“Oh well that’s good...I think?” MK didn’t exactly know what she meant, but since they said it’s a good thing, he feels like he doesn’t have any complaints.

“Oh trust me, it will be,” she said as she put down the bag and it was filled with books when she opened it up. “I may be a big sister of five, but even I can admit that I don’t know everything, so I brought some parenting books, nutrition, school, and a lot more.”

He couldn’t help but deflate slightly at the last word, which the bluenette noticed.

“Don’t like school?”

“Not really, it's just that I can’t stay focused sometimes,” he admitted as he lowered his head.

“Hey now,” Mac kneeled and ruffled his head, “you don’t have to feel shame for being distracted sometimes.”

“Hmm, well if you have troubles with traditional school classrooms, then how about you try online schooling?” Yanyu said.

“Online school?” MK tilted his head.

“I didn’t know it was also available for the younger grades, I thought it was only for the college classes like you had,” he admitted as he used his feet to pick up one of the parenting books.

“Nah, it was incorporated for all years a few years back. It certainly helped a lot of students out and one of them being me,” she proudly pointed a finger to herself, “let me tell you, kid, it was the second-best decision to do online school. Made my life so much easier.”

“What was the first?” He curiously asked.

Yanyu walked over to Macaque and patted him on the shoulder, “begging this ol doc here to take me on as a student. It was the cheapest and most informative learning I ever had since high school.”

“Student? You were a teacher!” MK's eyes widened as he looked at the monkey demon.

“Kinda, though I did question my sanity during those times,” he said as he flipped through the pages.

“Oh shut up, if it wasn’t for me you would still know squat about technology.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were still using the Jiaguwen system when I first met you.”

He winced, “okay yeah you got me there.”

“Anywho, it’s gonna be a right pleasure working with you MK,” she held out a fist bump to him, “we’re gonna see a lot of each other.”

MK looked at the outstretched fist and gave a little grin as he fist-bumped her hand.

“Boom,” Yanyu made an exploding sound as she opened her fist when the two parted.

He looked at her strangely.

“Don’t worry Starbright, she’s just weird like that,” Mac patted his head.

“Hey!”

A few months have passed and MK has taken to online schooling like a fish to water. He found it much better to concentrate and while there were still a few issues over understanding the problem itself, he had the help of both Macaque and Yanyu. The last one herself was helping him with his writing.

“The girl is walking to the market by the river to get milk for her mother,” MK repeated to himself as he finished writing.

“Congratulations kid, you have finally graduated from Yoda writing to a regular language,” she gave him a little applause.

“Thank you, thank you you're too kind,” he also jumped out of his seat to give a mock bow.

“But for real kid, you have really approved with your writing,” she gave him a high five, “nice job.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you both,” he scratched the back of his neck.

“I know that you would have been just fine even without our help and I know your dad would agree.”

“Really!” Then MK realized what she said and backtracked as he flailed his arms about, “Wait dad?! I mean dad is kinda a big word and he just adopted me, so he probably doesn’t even see me as a son, more like a responsibility he has to take care-,” he was stopped by a hand gently covering his mouth.

“Whoa there little monkey easy, I can’t keep up that fast,” she lightly teased as she put her hand down, “now you want to tell me what that was all about?”

“Well,” he sat down and kicked his feet, “I-its just-I don’t really-.”

“Take your time,” the bluenette said.

“Well,” he twisted his hands “is it okay if someone-and I don’t mean me just someone I know-don’t call mom and dad, well, mom and dad.”

“Yeah,” she said easily.

“Wait really?” He was a little more than shocked at how easy she said that.

“Really. You, or my bad that person you know, don’t feel comfortable or don’t want to call their parents so that they don’t have to.”

“But they gave birth to me-I mean that person and they raised them, so shouldn’t they have that name?” He tried to insist but was shut down by her shaking her head.

“They don’t keep that name if they harm the child, no parent ever deserves that kind of title if they purposely try to bring harm to their child. It is wrong,” she stated.

“Oh...and what about those that do?” He shyly said, both knowing what he was implying but not saying it out loud.

“Then you say it when your ready,” Yanyu simply said.

“I don’t think it’s that easy?”

“No, but what is?”

MK just shrugged his shoulders.

“Now how about we put away this stuff for ten more minutes before we get into history,” she pushed away from the materials and made sure the laptop was charged up.

“Yes!” He fist-bumped the air as he then spotted the pencil on the ground and tried to pick it up with his feet.

Yanyu had to press her lips together to fight against the bubbling laugh in her throat as she watched MK struggle to pick the pencil with the socks on his feet.

“Oi bastard I need a little help ova here!” A rough voice yelled out as it was followed by a loud bang, which led to the eight year old flailing off his bed.

“How many times have I told you to stop that?” He heard Macaque's familiar voice being annoyed.

“Too many times to count,” another softer voice replied.

“But you think that gunna sticka?” The third voice laughed out loud. “That’s a laugh!”

MK slowly opened his door and crept quietly to the living room as the voices got louder.

“I guess it is too much to ask you to be quiet for once?” The monkey deadpanned.

“Now why would I do that?” The first voice said.

It was at this point that MK managed to poke his head into the living room and saw three different demons, he knows they are demons this time, and his da-Macaque.

There was one whose skin was dark brown, but lighter above the shoulders. The more he looked, the more he could see that they were actually feathers all along the body, and instead of hands, they had clawed bird-like feet and two large black wings protruding from the back.

Another one was softly glowing a light blue hue that matched the pale blue skin as the creature was gently floating just a smidge above the ground. They had almost a mushroom-shaped hat covering their eyes and dozens of dark blue and purple strings attached all around the bottom of the hat as they hung just above the demon feet.

The final one is something that MK could clearly tell what it was as he had seen a bunny before, though this one was way larger than the other bunnies he had ever seen. The demon had pure gray fur and large white fluffy paws, if he wasn’t so nervous right now he would ask to pet them.

“Well I was hoping that you would have kept it down for the kid that is currently living with me right now,” he cracked a smirk at their frozen faces.

“Huh?” They all said in unison.

“Speaking of kids, you can come out MK. Don’t worry bout them too much, they ain’t harmful, just insane.”

At the prompting MK slowly shuffled into the living room and he saw three heads swivel towards him.

“Uhhh hi,” he gave a little wave.

“You have a kid?!?” They all shouted either loudly or softly.

“It’s not that big of a shock,” he grumbled as he walked over to the child and threaded his fingers through his hair. “Sorry, these knuckleheads woke you up.”

“I know I have not been gone that long for you to have a chick without me knowin!” The female bird demon squawked as her feathers puffed up in indignation.

“Nah, adopted him a few months back.”

“And you didn’t tell us?!” The bunny huffed as they thumped his foot in agitation.

“Nope,” he grinned as he watched their growing frustration.

“There are times where you are the best of us and times you are the worst of us, I don’t know which one this falls under,” the mushroom head demon groaned as one of the strings was massaging the top of his head.

“Are they your friends?” MK loudly whispered to the monkey demon.

“I don’t claim these lunatics,” he bluntly said.

“I think you mean to say that we are your amazing, wonderful, fantastic friends that you hold dear,” the bunny demon pointed out as they put an arm around his shoulder.

“I was forced into this,” Macaque said as a wing wrapped around the two of them.

“Ah just admit that you have a soft fuzzy heart for us,” the bird demon grinned.

“Not even when my bones decay away.”

MK just blinked at the unprompted scene as he saw the glowing blue demon approach him.

“Sorry about my companions, they can be a little much sometimes,” he smiled softly to him.

“It’s fine, you're not the only ones who make a loud entrance,” he thought back to the times Yanyu would kick the door open when she walked in.

“I suppose not,” the demon then held out one of his arms to the child, making sure his tentacles were out of the way, “my name is Bohai little one.”

“I’m MK,” he smiled back and shook his hand.

“Oh, we’re doing introductions?! Well, I’m Daiyu chicky,” the female demon grinned or at least that's what he thought she was doing with her scarred beak.

“I’m Minsheng,” the bunny demon twitched their nose and gave a toothy grin, “you're so small that you remind me of my siblings when they were born.”

“How many siblings do you have?” He curiously asked.

“Pfft older or younger? I stopped counting after we reached the 200s,” they laughed.

His eyes widened, “over 200! That’s a lot of brothers and sisters.”

“Well, you know how bunnies are.”

Before MK could question that he felt two furry hands cover his ears.

“How about we don’t talk about that to a kid who has probably never had a crush before,” Macaque hissed to the bunny who had their hands held up.

“He’ll learn eventually.”

“But I would rather have that explained to him by literally anyone but you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyways,” the monkey took his hands off MK’s ears, “what were you screeching about earlier?”

“Oh well I got a bit nicked with some of dem cretins after a territory dispute you know how it is and,” Daiyu turned around and showed her back...which had a few knives sticking out of it. “I got a bit scratched up in the tussle.”

“At least you had the sense not to take it out,” he couldn’t help but sigh. “You at least win?”

“Who do ya think your talkin to?” She proudly puffed up her feathers.

“And people say I have too much pride, you damn vultures take the cake,” Macaque rolled his eyes as the two of them walked towards the infirmary room.

“You say that as if you never met Flicker before,” she chortled.

“Well there’s a stark difference between you two.”

“Wha that?”

“He actually has a brain.”

“Hey!” She attempted to pull his dangling fur, but he ducked away in time.

“Can I stay up a little longer!” The seven year old asked before the door could shut.

“Only for a little bit, but when I get back it’s straight to bed.” He answered back and then the door closed.

“Thank you!” He called out regardless as he fully knew that he could hear him.

“And that’s the whole lot of us kid, we're only half as insane as curly made us out to be '' Minsheng joked.

“Almost all of us,” the jellyfish demon said.

“Who you? Ha! Hate to break it to you, but the last time you lost your patience was when they didn’t make your starfish the way you wanted and you paralyzed the entire cooking staff.”

“You didn’t have to bring that up, but no not me,” he waved one of his tendrils. “I meant Ahmed.”

“I didn’t include him in the first place because that man does not even classify as insane,” he bluntly said. “He has the patience of a monk to deal with our brand of insanity which, in hindsight, is insane itself.”

“Whose Ahmed?” MK asked, “is he another friend of d-Mac?”

The two looked at each other before Baiyu spoke, “yeah, he’s a friend of Macaque.”

“Ouch, that’s a low blow for poor Med,” they grinned then winced as a tendril shocked their arm. “What? You know I’m right.”

“You know as well as I do that he can still hear you.”

“I’ve been craving death anyways,” they then turned back to the kid, “so you want to hear some crazy stories about your old man.”

Needless to say that Mac had tackled the bunny demon to the ground, with two violet glowing escrima sticks in hand, in the middle of their story on how the fierce monkey demon had to dance his way across a road of hot coal as he tried to outrun an angry herd of demon pheasant while wearing a rather beautiful kimono.

Macaque was reading out on the patio when his ears twitched as he heard a soft whimpering coming from MK’s room. He put the book on the table when he walked in and safely crept his way over his room and like many times before MK was crying in his sleep from a nightmare once more.

“It’s okay shooting star,” he gently began to thread his fingers through MK’s hair, “it's just a bad dream. You will be fine.”

At first, it didn't have any effect, but the longer he talked the softer the whimpers began to die down and the kid's eyes softly began to blink open.

“W-what's goin on?” He hoarsely said as he rubbed his eyes as he realized that he wasn’t dreaming anymore.

“You just had a bad dream kid,” he hummed as he continued stroking his hair.

“Oh.”

“Want to talk about it?” He received a firm shake of his head, “that’s okay, do you want to lie back down, sing, water, or want me to give you a little shadow puppet show?”

“Shadow show please,” he muffled out as he gripped tighter onto the blanket.

“One show coming right up,” he used a shadow clone to bring back a lantern as the room began to softly glow. When all was set Macaque began his tale in a low voice, “There once was an old man who lived in a shack.” He used some of his shadows to show a picture of an elderly man and wooden shack, “he was nothing special, did nothing extraordinary, and his life was simply normal. Until one day he happens upon the most peculiar thing.”

He continued to tell the tale of the old man even when he, unknowingly, had wrapped his tail around his child’s hand and MK, who was slowly drifting off into a deep slumber, held a tight grip upon it.

MK was currently sitting on the edge of a large lake as he kicked his feet in the water. He was alone at the moment as the monkey demon was tending to the plants that he needs for various medicines. The lake itself was a beautiful view filled with lily pads, reeds standing tall in the crystal lake, fishes and herons swimming in the water. Though he was trying to guess what that large dark shape was, it was nothing he has ever seen before.

“Hmmm I don’t think it’s a fish...maybe a duck?” He leaned in to get a better look and noticed. “Or maybe a turtle!”

The shape shifted as it appeared to be getting bigger and bigger as MK now noticed that he had never seen a turtle with long arms and claws before. He then saw there was long string hair upon what he thinks is its head until suddenly it disappeared and was replaced with two beady eyes. His heart dropped when the creature opened its mouth to reveal countless rows of sharp, pointed teeth. Then it began to rapidly swim towards him.

MK, frightened, fell on his back as he tried to crawl away, but it failed as the creature burst out of the water and onto the ground merely a foot away from him.

He let out a piercing scream, “DDAAADDDDD!”

At the same time the creature, with his mouth wide, said “hi there human child!”

“What?” He abruptly stopped his screaming right as an ominous force suddenly filled up the area as MK then felt two familiar hands scoop him up and hold him close as the voice spoke almost lowly.

“What happe-oh it’s just you,” Macaque let the pressure go back to normal once he realized that there wasn’t a true threat that was trying to attack his kid.

“Bwahahaha,” the creature let out a bellowing laugh, “sorry sorry. I must have scared your youngin.”

“No!” MK instantly said, but then he wilted and nodded, “just a bit.”

“Sorry about that little child, I just get a bit excited when a new face comes around my lake and all,” the webbed creature gave a toothy grin. “I know I startled the pant off Minzhe when I first met him.”

“Your lake? You live here?” MK, after being let down, carefully tried to examine the waters closer.

“Right on the mark, since being a Shui Gui and all.”

“Shui Gui,” he drawled out as he thought about that familiar name.

“Or Kappa, our damn naming changes so often that at this point I just go with the flow.”

“Oh! I know what a Shui Gui is!” MK brightened as he began to tell what his...mom used to tell him. “Aren’t they vengeful demons that have drowned and are bent on dragging helpless victims underwater, drowning them and finally eating their...flesh to…to...” his face took on a look of horror as he realized what he just blurted out. “I am so sorry!”

Luckily though the two demons chuckled, or at least Macaque did as the Kappa was holding his stomach. Though this did make MK’s face flush in embarrassment, he should be glad that the demon wasn’t angry, but he didn’t find any humor in what he said.

“Well I’ll give you credit,” Kappa said as his laughter died down, “what you said was mostly true, except I’m not a demon, just a ghost.”

“And let’s be clear he hasn't eaten people since two-maybe three millenniums ago,” the monkey demon intruded as he knew what MK was gonna ask next.

“You humans have become much too stringy for my taste,” he joked, but it served the opposite purpose as the small child paled even further.

“And this is why your only friend is an adrenaline junkie who has a taste for his own death,” Mac deadpanned as he soothed MK down.

After his heart stopped thrumming in his ears the human managed to look up at his guardian and his eyes widened as he noticed that Macaque suddenly had three pairs of different colored ears: red, blue, and purple. “When did you get three ears?!”

“You just now noticed?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Did you have them all this time?!?!!”

“Not all the time, but I do when it’s quiet usually.”

“Cooolll!” He attempted to climb the monkey to get a better look, “Is this how you're able to hear things from so far away?”

“Yeah,” he lets him examine his ears as only his eye minuscule twitch when MK accidentally pulls it too hard. “Be careful now, only have three pairs of them you know.”

“Right, sorry.” He apologized as he became gentler with his touches. He couldn’t help but gently drag his fingers through the oddly pointed ears and he smiled, now he understood why some of Mac's clients called him the Six-Eared Macaque. He eventually got down and faced the spirit once more, who was just looking at the two of them with amusement. “I’m real sorry for screaming at you.”

“Water under the bridge young child,” he waved him off, “least you apologize for it. I know that half the ones in these woods won’t even say sorry for ramming into you.”

“There’s more of you?” He tried to look in the lake, but he was once again met with only fish and water.

“Me specifically no, but spirits, demons, and other whatnot. Oh yeah there's hundreds of them dwelling in this here forest.”

“Wowww,” his eyes sparkled, “so does that mean that we are all neighbors.”

It was stunned silence before the Shun Gui began laughing once more as he bends down, “PFFTHAHAHA!”

“Did I say something funny?” MK looked towards Mac who was pinching his nose once more.

“No, he’s just obnoxious, that’s all.”

“You know what I like you kid, yeah we’re all neighbors, man even Ping would get a laugh out of this,” the water spirit said after his laughter died down. “Welcome to the neighborhood MK!”

“Thanks...umm what’s your name again?” He embarrassedly asked as he realized that he never got a name throughout this whole interaction.

“Oh here we go,” Mac sighed as he got comfortable and plucked up a Ravenna grass and began to chew on it. He grimaced as he realized that he had plucked up a weed again.

“Eh, you can call me Kappa if you want, don’t care for the whole naming thing,” he shrugged as he got back in the lake and laid there.

“Why not?” He curiously followed him.

“Why should I?” He shot back with a grin.

“Huh?”

“Why should I care for my name? It’s my name and I can do whatever I want with it, so I just choose not to care.”

“But don’t you like your name,” he was very confused about how this conversation came about.

“Oh I do, but truth be told, most of the time I forget others' names, so one day I just thought ‘you know what, what if I just don't use my name all the time’ and I didn't,” he finger gunned at the blank face child.

“You're kinda weird,” he bluntly told Kappa.

“I’m sorry,” Mac spoke up in disbelief, “You met a trio of lunatic demons that are a hot mess in general, an insane human who likes to add too much ghost jalapeño to her food, one of my clients who have their organs outside of their body and this is where you draw the line of weird?”

“I just wanted to know his name!” He threw his hands up.

“Just whatever is fine,” he laughed.

“Well fine! Your name is Whatever now!” He said in a fit of frustration before he realized what he said, “wait! I didn’t mean-,”

“Pfthahaha!” The spirit once more threw his head back in laughter.

“...what is even happening,” MK deadpanned.

“Welcome to my life Starchild,” Mac said as he ruffled his hair.

“That’s an interesting one, alright Whatever it is then,” he gave him a toothy grin.

“Wha-no please no,” MK almost begged him. “I didn’t-,”

“Nope too late, I won’t respond to anything else but Whatever from you. Hope to see you around short stack, you really know how to bring a laugh to a vengeful spirit face,” he let out a bark of a laugh before diving down deep into the lake.

MK blinked for a few moments before turning to Macaque, “is he really gonna-,”

“Oh yeah he is only gonna respond by that name,” he cut him off, “called him a Kappa once to his face and that slimy frog hasn’t let go since.”

“...I think I want to go back home dad,” said MK as he leaned into his fur. “I think I’m done for the day.”

Macaque’s breath hitched as he then gave him a gentle smile and scooped him up in his arms. “Yeah, I think I am as well.” And with that, the two mentally exhausted people made their way back to their warm home.

MK, who proudly turned nine as of a few months ago, was playing in an arcade as his dad was grocery shopping. He stuck out his tongue as he attempted to repeatedly punch the monster in Monkey Mech, but he keeps getting beaten right before he can land the final punch. He mused up his short ponytail out of frustration that was held by a red ribbon, “Oh man! I swear this guy cheats, alright seventeen times the charm.”

“I thought it was the third time the charm?” He turns around at the voice and sees a pigtail girl around his age looking at him.

“It is, but I lost sixteen other times, so this time I will win,” he confidently said as he put another token in, and just like before he lost. “I almost had it!”

“Move over,” the girl pushed him aside and took over the controls, “let me show you how to really play.”

MK's jaw dropped when the Winner title popped up after she managed to land the final triple axel uppercut to the enemy. “How’d you do that?!”

“Oh just a lot of practice, and searching online, to find the right moves to slain the beast,” she bragged.

He went down on his knees and bowed to her, “oh teach me your ways oh wise one.”

“You may refer to me as Master Mei,” she deepened her voice to sound elderly, “and who shall I call my young student.”

“Call me MK,” he followed along with glee, he hasn’t played with a kid his age in so long.

“Well then let me show you the ways of Monkey Mech,” and with that the two proceeded to play the game, playfully pushing each other as they double battled in a co-op mode. It wasn’t until a few hours had passed, and they had long passed Monkey Mech and went into all the different kinds of games in the arcade when MK noticed the digital clock behind the counter.

“Aww man, it’s getting late,” he pouted as he didn’t want to end, “I have to meet up with dad.”

“Awww,” Mei's shoulder slumped as they walked to the prize area, “that sucks.”

“Yeah,” he slumped his shoulder, as well as the two, looked through the prizes available, which did brighten the mood a bit as Mei left with a strange mutated stuffed dog that had three eyes, a few pieces of candy, and three bouncy balls, while MK was sucking on a swirly lollipop, pieces of chocolate in his pocket, and a sticky hand sling that he is slinging everywhere.

“So you like racing?” MK asked as they left the arcade, besides the Monkey Mech he noticed that Mei tended to go to the racing games more often.

“Yes! One day I will have my own motorcycle and I will be faster than anyone, even the Monkey King!” Mei declared.

“Even the Monkey King? Wow that is fast,” he said in awe, he read the story of the Journey to the West from the library. He was quickly enamored with the story the more he read and he soon began to idolize the great Monkey King. To think that such a being could ever exist in the first place was amazing! He did find it funny that the great Monkey King rival was named Macaque, it was hilarious to think that his dad could ever have powers to fight on equal standing with a god-like immortal. Grumpy? Sure! Easy annoyed? Oh yeah definitely, but scary? Ha! The scariest thing Dad has ever done was glare at his patients when they were being too noisy, but for some reason it always works as they shrink back in fear. He mentioned it to Yanyu and the demon gang one time and well-

“HAHAHAH/PFFTTTTT/SQUAK SQUAWK SQUAAAKK/SHEHEHEH,” Yanyu was rolling all over the floor as Minsheng was banging his feet, Daiyu was slamming the table with her wings, and Bohai was using all his tentacles to wrap himself.

-they burst out laughing when he mentioned this to them. He still hasn’t gotten a full answer for that one, all they told him was to wait.

“I wonder how far that can go?” Mei curiously asked as she watched the green sling attach itself on the top of the door that they were exiting.

“Not far, how high can your bouncy ball bounce?” He asked as he then watched her bounce the ball and saw it soar a bit high above their heads.

“Not that high either...how about we combine them,” she gave a mischievous grin as MK followed suit as he used his sticky sling and attached it to the ball.

“One,” Mei started.

“Two,” MK raised his hand in mid-air.

“Thr-”

“Ready to go kid.”

“AH!” They screamed and watched the sling and ball slip from his hand and instead of bouncing, it was thrown in Mac's face, who easily caught it.

“Not the first time I had something thrown at me,” he didn’t even blink at the outburst, though he did take a second glance at the other child next to his son, “though your new, made a friend Stardust.”

“Her name is Mei!” MK excitedly said though it didn’t look like Mei was paying attention to him at all as her focus was all on Macaque, or more specifically, his head.

“What?” The monkey demon raised an eyebrow.

“You have the longest hair I have ever seen,” her eyes sparkled as she instantly zoomed behind him and started to pull on his fur. “Can I braid it?!”

“It’s actually fur,” he corrected her.

“Can I still put it in a braid?”

“Sure.”

“Then I don’t care!” She happily proclaimed and pointed to one of the benches. “Sit.”

“...” he looked towards his kid who just shrugged his shoulders, “well I guess this is happening,” he sighed as he got a clone to take the rest of their groceries back home.

Needless to say that Mei very much enjoyed putting the demon fur in a messy, but still manageable, braid.

“You know if I had some Morning glories, they would look amazing in your hair,” she mused.

“You know their weeds right?” He pointed out.

“So? They look awesome.”

“You got me there.”

“There!” She proudly finished her creation with her green ribbon tied up at the end, “you have very fluffy hair.”

“Fur,” he once more corrected her.

“Eh fur, hair there the same thing,” she turned back from the monkey and to MK with a nervous smile, “you will definitely come back right? I haven’t finished playing all the arcade games with you.”

MK looks towards his dad with puppy dog eyes and Mei easily follows suit.

“You know those don’t work on me right,” he deadpanned and smirked at their hanging heads, “but yeah, I’ll drop him off from time to time.”

“Yes!” They both jump up in cheer, only for some of their candy to fall out and onto the floor.

“My babies!” MK rushed to pick up his pieces of semi-melted chocolate.

“Noooo!” Mei quickly began to grab as many of her jawbreakers as it rolled away.

Macaque watched them in amusement at their mad scramble to save their sugar fix.

[sope-and-shine]

The Right of a King: Pt. 1

-> SFW // Soulmate!AU // fluff, angst // mummy!Namjoon -> Pairing: Namjoon x Reader -> Word Count: 15.1k  -> Summary: Life as the night guard for your local high-end museum was supposed to be simple and easy. The most dangerous part of your job was only supposed to be the middle-aged patrons who insisted they get a discount for a line being too long. Nowhere in your contract did it say you’d be taking care of a 1,000 year old king that had been mummified. Thankfully, for you he’s harmless, but the storm that comes with him is not as welcoming. -> Warning(s): mild language, brief crude humor, Namjoon is kind of a jerk but he gets better...kinda, also a bit of a misogynist, technology abuse RIP the museum equipment, Jimin IS that salesman that uses his charm to steal your money - but will anyone complain? no.  

A/N: This whole fic is a BEAST i sWEAR! I am however really excited to share this fic with everyone! This was originally for a collab that never got to happen -RIP - but I liked the idea too much to just throw her away!

I do want to give a huge shout out to @sakuraguks-main​ for beta reading this as well as my squad for their constant encouragement throughout the writing process.

Now if you excuse me, I need to get back to writing part 2 

Masterlist

* * *

“Just the lunch box and the banana milk this time?” 

“Uh…” You look up from your wallet to view your items on the counter. It was just one prepackaged lunch and a few banana milks, much less than you usually buy on your routine dinner stop. You don’t want to buy too much, but you’d need something for later in the morning too. 

You settle for grabbing a few bags of chips off the rack next to you and set them on the counter, “I’ll take those too.”  

He nods and rings them up, bagging them while you pay with your card. He grabs your receipt and tucks it in the bag, handing them to you as you slide your wallet back into your bag, “Have a good evening, (Y/n)!”

You nod, “Thank you! See you tomorrow, Gyu!” You wave to him as you exit the convenience store and step back into the bustling city.  

Stopping for food is always a must for you before every shift with it being smack in the middle of your route. If you were to spend 10:00p.m. to 8a.m. by yourself with no food, you would probably go insane. It wasn’t like you couldn’t bring them from home, but it was much more convenient to stop on your way there. Occasionally, you’ll attempt to pull back on your snack intake, but Gyu never makes it easy on you when you do. He just makes it another typical day for you.

Wake up at 2:30, take a shower, do your school work, get ready for work, leave the house, stop to buy food from Gyu, and then arrive at the grand entrance to the Seoul Museum of History and Art.

The building itself is 4 stories high - not including the lower level storage it sits on top of - and 1 city block in length and width. It’s exterior is grand and extravagant with 3 large pillars that encase the 4 doorways that lead into the lobby. A large staircase greets you at the sidewalk, flower beds decorating the front along the brick railing on either side of the stairs. You never take the stairs on your way in, choosing to take the ramp hidden in the flowers up to the entrance instead. You’d have enough problems walking around the entire museum, adding more stairs to the mix would only ruin your mood.

Thankfully, Jin is always there to greet you on your way in. He never fails to brighten your day when you see him. Dressed sharp in a white button down tucked into fitted black dress pants with a grey suit jacket on top, he stands with his hands together in front of him and a large welcoming smile. His hair is parted just off center, not losing shape even as he nods to the patron in front of him.

You wait for him to finish his conversation before you greet him, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Worldwide Handsome himself.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Jin chuckles. He lets his shoulders relax, moving his neck from side to side before looking at his watch. He looks impressed, “Wow, you’re earlier than usual.”

You shrug, “Yeah, Hoseok said he needed to talk to me about the exhibit pieces that are coming in.” 

“Say no more,” Jin raises his hands in front of him and shakes his head, “I’ve heard all I need to.”

“Yeah, I know how you feel,” You laugh. You shake your head and sigh, “I should get going so I can get ready to clear the last minute rush.”

“Don’t work too hard, night guard.” He gives you a mock salute and you turn away, waving goodbye to him as you continue down the corridor into a sea of people.

Most people would think a museum wouldn’t be so popular, but your crowds never seemed to dwindle. You suppose you’d have Yoongi to thank for that. He ran the museum so smoothly it was almost like clockwork. Doors opened at 9 and they closed at 9, new exhibits rotate in and out every 7 ½ months to the day, and employees were put through severe background checks and training just to make sure they’d be competent enough to work in his museum. Everyone that works in the museum was handpicked by Yoongi himself, and everyone chosen contributes everything they have to be here.

You pass by the gift shop, spying Jimin at the counter helping a few kids pick out candies. He notices you passing and smiles, giving you a quick wave that you return before he gives his attention to the children in front of him.

You continue on down the hall, passing the cafe and the restrooms. The walls begin to lose their decor the farther you go, becoming planer and planer until you reach the break room doors. 

“He was like, ‘do you think toys for cavemen were any different from present day? Like that shit must be wild bro’ and then they all started laughing at me when I said they didn’t have a Toys R Us, so yeah, they were different from now.” Jeongguk says as you enter the room. His impeccable timing for ‘strange conversation’ never ceases to amaze you every time you walk through the door.

Jeongguk’s a great guy, always very respectful and eager to learn more, but he’s been working as a tour guide in the museum for about a year now and he still hasn’t seemed to pick up on anything. You’re pretty sure Yoongi only hired him to keep the single ladies coming back. It was hard to correct someone with such a cute, bunny smile and such remarkable enthusiasm in the work place.

“Do you think it was an inside joke?” He proceeds to ask, his attention trained on Johnny who stands at the locker to the right of yours.

The man in question can’t stop himself from giving the younger a disappointed frown, “Dude...you’re the joke…”

Jeongguk tilts his head in confusion and you jump into the conversation, “I’m sure they’re just being teenagers, Guk. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” You turn to briefly glare at your locker mate as you open it, turning your frown into a smile when you face Jeongguk again, “Tomorrow is another day!”

“You’re right!” He closes his locker and throws his bag over his shoulder, his confidence already returning, “I’ll learn everything I can about cavemen toys and come back tomorrow prepared to tell all of my tours about them!”

He leaves before you can say anything back, off to do whatever it is he usually does after work. You don’t mind though, it’s a little hard to understand the college sophomore anyways. At least with him leaving you can relax before your shift starts.

Johnny sighs next to you, “You mother him too much.”

“I don’t mother him. I just don’t want to explain to him what they’re actually talking about.” You argue, placing your bags on the hooks in your locker. You take off your overcoat and replace it with your black security jacket, fixing the collar, “Besides, he’ll figure it out by this weekend and then he won’t make eye contact with either one of us for the next week.”

“Whatever you say.” He pulls out a lint roller and hands it to you before closing his locker, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Waving behind you with the roller in hand, you say, “Have a good night!” You hear the door open and close behind you, leaving you alone in the room to sort yourself out. 

You make quick work to de-lint your black work pants, setting the roller at the top of your locker. Then you take the bags you set down and pull them over to the table at the center of the room, leaving your locker open while you take out your food to be refrigerated. When you have everything you need, you place the leftover snacks back on the hook and shut the door. 

The door opens on your way to the fridge, Hoseok walking in with a folder in his hands. He looks up from whatever he’s reading and his eyes widen in surprise, “You’re here!”

You open the fridge, “Yeah, you told me to come in a little early.” You set your bag on the top shelf, close the door, and turn to him, “You wanted to talk to me about tomorrow?”

“Right.” He approaches the table and sets his stuff down, sorting through a few papers before he pulls one from his stack. He extends it to you,  “This is all the information about who we’ll be meeting with tomorrow. It has times, names, and a manifest.”

“Everything is the same from the texts you sent me, right?” You ask, eyes skimming over the sheet for anything new.

“Yes! Each artifact was individually packed, so we should only have 12 new pieces coming in tomorrow.” 

“Okay, so we just need to keep an eye on what they bring in.” You say, more to yourself than to him. You take a moment to let the information sink in, nodding in understanding when you’re sure you have it all down. You look back up to Hoseok who’s already discarding his security jacket, “Did you have any luck on new night guard help?”

“Ah-...no,” Hoseok sets his jacket over the back of the chair in front of him. He’d been searching for new help ever since Chanyeol left, leaving you to run the night shift alone. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t ideal for a museum in the middle of the city. You knew that and so did Hoseok. “I’ve been working on it, but it’s been hard with the new arrivals. Besides, you know how Yoongi is when he’s hiring new employees.”

You nod, knowing exactly how anal the museum director could truly be, “Yeah, I know. Just keep me updated though?” 

You don’t really mind working by yourself, but you could only go so many days without a single day off. Thankfully, Hoseok was understanding of this, “I will! I’ll work something out, I promise!”

“Thank you,” You smile. You grab your bag off the table and hoist it over your shoulder, “I’m gonna go clock in and see about ushering the night crowd out.” 

“Hyuk should be starting on level 1.” He informs you. 

“I’ll take level 4 then.” You bid Hoseok goodbye and head across the hall to the security room, setting your stuff down in your chair and clocking in at the main computer. You take a moment to check the camera’s, looking for the most populated areas to look out for and which exhibits you could close as you go through.

This was something you did everyday. You’d find the unpopulated areas first so you could sweep the rooms and lock the exhibits behind you. One by one, you make sure to clear the floor before you move to the next level.

The third level is much busier than the other levels, having had the most change to it’s layout since the new exhibit was brought in 2 weeks prior. Families make their way to the stairs while couples try to catch one last look at exhibits they missed in favor for another.

Walking into the Ancient Dynasties Exhibit, you nod to the partons that you pass on their way out, stopping by the occasional straggler to let them know it’s time to go. You rarely ever have problems with getting someone to leave - maybe once or twice you’ve had to get physical with someone or call the police to escort them out of the museum - but the number of times is so small you could count them on one hand. There’s only one person you have to repeatedly kick out of the exhibit, and he’s worse than any patron you’ve ever dealt with.

“Taehyung, I need you to leave.” You tell him, approaching him from behind. His green, 3 piece suit is only slightly wrinkled from his work throughout the day, his jacket discarded and set off to his side.

The bubbly curator turns his head over his shoulder, dirty blonde locks still kept in a perfect side-sweep thanks to his “very essential” hair gel. His smile is almost a tease as he says, “Just a few more minutes.”

You cross your arms and sigh, “I’m counting.”

The saying “Just a few more minutes” has lost all meaning with Taehyung. You haven’t believed him since your third day of working together. He’s never been good at leaving his exhibits, wanting to take pride in his work. Despite having the ability to take pictures of the area as it’s curator, he insists on committing them all to memory. In hindsight, it’s very endearing. However, his wants tend to put you behind your own schedule.

He turns back around and you take a seat next to him on the bench. You take an obligatory look around the section he sits in, glancing over each artifact that decorates the walls. From tapestries or writing displays that hang on the walls, to small podiums with items far more fragile encased in glass. In front of you - roped off and on a placed on a small stage - is a large sarcophagus covered in gold with two lit candle placed beside it. Behind it is a wall of flowers, all apparently favorites from when the King was alive. 

“Have I told you about Namjoon hyung?” He asks, referencing the mummy in front of you.

King Kim Namjoon of the Kim Dynasty. The only king of Korea to be mummified. Of all the exhibits you’ve been through with Taehyung, this one was his favorite. You could really say he’s obsessed with the dead King! Even with 6 more exhibits to his name. Taehyung spent almost all of his time in this section.

“I think I could talk about this guy in my sleep!” You laugh, nudging his side playfully, “And should you really be calling him ‘hyung’? If anything, he’s an ‘ahjussi’ to you.”

“Yes, but I know so much about him that he feels like a hyung to me!” He argues with a certain admiration in his eyes, “I’ve spent years waiting for this moment to have him in one of my exhibits, and now he’s right at my fingertips!”

He really isn’t exaggerating either. Before the king arrived, Taehyung would show you continuous updates about his uncovering and the updates on how his body was kept. The day his exhibit was approved, you thought he was going to explode. Of all the curators and all of the possible museums, he got King Namjoon. Anyone who didn’t know would’ve thought he won the lottery. In a way, he did.

“His exhibit here is a permanent one, Tae. He’s not going anywhere, so you don’t have to worry about him leaving anytime soon.” You assure him, placing a hand on his arm. Your smile turns into a grin, “What I am worried about is you leaving soon. Get out of my museum before I go find Yoongi.”

“I’m not afraid of Yoongi.” You raise an eyebrow at him and his shoulders drop, “Okay, so maybe I’m terrified of Yoongi, but that’s not important right now!”

You give his shoulder a light nudge, “Go home, Taehyung. The rest of your hyung will be here tomorrow.” You tease.

He sighs and leans his head back, “You say that like he didn’t arrive all put together. He’s a mummy, not Frankenstein.”

You hit his arm, “Get out of here.”

“Okay!” He stands up and turns to you with a boxy grin, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t work too hard.”

“I never do.” You wave him off, watching him saunter out of the exhibit with a little jump in his step. Even after 14 hours on the clock of rounding the museum to look at his works, he’s still running like he just woke up. Some days you wish you could be as happy with your job as Taehyung is, but how many people truly loved working the night shift in a dark, quiet museum?

* * *

“Alright, let’s make this fast and efficient everyone!” Yoongi barks, walking up to the loading dock where you and Hoseok stand on opposite sides of the doors. He eyes the unloading crew unlocking the truck and sends them a warning glare, “It’s a full moon tonight, and I will not be out at 3am like last time.”

“You need to relax, Yoongi,” Hoseok warns him, still standing across from you, “It’s just a few small pieces and then we’ll be out of here before your ‘witching hour’ is here.”

Hoseok wiggles his fingers for a “spooky emphasis” and you stifle a chuckle. Yoongi is not as amused, “Laugh all you want, but at least I won’t be dead.”

“Is that a threat? Can I file an HR complaint?” Hoseok asks.

Yoongi sighs, “Just do your job while they unload so we can leave.”

You offer a teasing grin and a nod, “Yes sir~”

Yoongi walks away and Taehyung replaces him, standing next to you instead of in the way of the workers. He rolls back and forth on his feet, watching happily as if he were a child at Christmas.

“Did I tell you what’s coming today?” He asks.

You roll your eyes, “I’m sure you may have mentioned it here or there.”

Of course, you know what was coming in. Your job is to protect it with your life. Hoseok gave you the run down via text on your last 5 shifts and again today as soon as you walked through the doors. More paintings, a chair, a dusty old book, and the shining jewel of the King’s tomb.

“His lover’s necklace!” Taehyung beams, “According to what we know, this necklace was used by the King to find his soulmate. We believe that because he didn’t take a queen, he never found his other half.”

You shrug, “Maybe he wasn’t really looking.”

“Maybe...maybe not. Most historians believe he mummified himself so when fate brings his soulmate to him, he’d wake again and they’d spend eternity together.” He turns to you and flicks your forehead, “You would know if you actually paid attention to me.”

You push him back, “Well, excuse me if I can’t listen to you talk about his majesty for more than 10 minutes a week.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes and turns back to the movers. His annoyance quickly turns to excitement as he catches sight on the last box being carried in, “Is that the necklace?”

“Uh…” The man carrying the box looks at the label on the side, nodding to Taehyung in confirmation, “Yes sir.”

“Oh! Follow me!” Taehyung grabs your arm and pulls you after him. You turn your head back to Hoseok for help but he’s already waving you off while he closes the loading doors. You both follow the crew member to the table where a few other small items are being opened already, waiting long enough for the man to open the box for you. You can’t see the inside of the crate with Taehyung in your way, but he gets the first look at whatever dingy piece of jewelry is inside. He flails in excitement, “Look at this!”

Taehyung rushes forward, pushing the man helping him out of the way to reach into the box. When he turns around, he holds a smaller box in his hand, “It’s right here!”

“That’s another box…” You point out, eyes narrowed in irritation.

“It’s not just another box!” He argues. He undoes the latch and pulls the lid back towards him, revealing the most beautiful necklace you’ve ever seen. A delicate string of silver stones bedazzled with small fuschia gems all laced together with a golden band weaving under and over. It glistens in the shine of the storage room work lights, drawing you in with every hypnotizing twinkle. 

Taehyung smiles knowingly, enjoying your sudden engrossment in the artifact, “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

You nod, wanting nothing more than to reach out and touch the delicate jewel. It takes a surprising amount of restraint from you just to pull away, “It’s definitely pretty.”

Yoongi claps his hands from the table beside you, “Let’s get these up to the Ancient Dynasties exhibit and in their places so we can get out of here.”

Everyone takes a box and begins to move upstairs, you and Hoseok helping the men with the old chair to ensure it doesn’t get stuck on anything. With the few items left to be brought into the exhibit, it didn’t take long at all for everything to be settled into their rightful places. 

“Perfect! It’s all perfect!” Taehyung cheers, clapping his hands and squeezing them together. His excitement for this event was unmatched, and you know that in the morning when you see him next, he’ll be bouncing up and down just as he is now.

Hoseok nods to you, “Let’s lock them up.”

“Right.” You pull out your keyring and begin the process of going case to case while Hoseok sets their alarms after you. You make it all the way around the room until you stand in front of the necklace again. It’s beauty draws you in, having never seen something like this before. Many would think it too bulky and busy for someone to wear everyday, but a part of you could see it’s appeal.

A part of you wouldn’t mind wearing it at all. 

Taehyung walks over to where you stand locking the cases and audibly gasps behind you, “Fix it!”

You jump, “Fix what?”

“The necklace! It’s not straight!” He points at the case and you turn your attention back to the object beneath the glass. Staring at with a clearer mind, it is indeed tilted just slightly to the left. If you were to just glance at it, you probably would have never noticed. But nothing could get past a perfectionist like Taehyung, “We have to fix it now!”

“Okay!” To appease the overly attentive curator, you unlock the case and adjust the necklace yourself. You pull the delicate string of stone and gem into place, locking it back up when you’re done. It glimmers in the corner of your eye as you turn back to Taehyung, “Better?”

He grins, knowing fully well that you’re more than annoyed with him, “Perfect.”

“Alright, now that we’re all done, everyone needs to leave so I can go home.” Yoongi announces.

Hoseok chuckles, “You really don’t want to be up past midnight do you?”

“I don’t care about being up past midnight. I don’t want to be out past midnight.” The older man grumbles, most likely cursing the other in the back of his mind, “There’s a difference.”

“Sure there is.” Hoseok teases, making Yoongi glare at him even harder than before. He turns to the movers and waves for them to follow him, “Gentlemen, let me show you back to your truck. We wouldn’t want the grump over here to bite your head off.”

The group follows after Hoseok and so does Yoongi, “You’re so lucky you’re my friend, Hoseok, or I would fire you so fast.”

Hoseok only laughs at his loose threat, “Well, if you’d like to take the bus then be my guest.”

They all leave the exhibit and you turn to Taehyung who still stands in front of the case admiring the necklace inside, “So, I’ll see you early tomorrow, Tae?”

He turns back to you and gives you a large, reassuring smile, “Bright and early.” 

“Go and get some rest for your big day then.” You say, placing a hand on his back and nudging him towards the door.

You watch him leave the exhibit, laughing at the way he dances to the music playing in his head. You take the responsibility of closing the gate, glancing over the exhibits contents between the bars before following Taehyung yourself. You say goodbye to Yoongi and Hoseok at the front door, ensuring the door gets locked behind them before getting to your own duties that were halted because of the shipment.

---

It’s later in the evening when you finally get to make your rounds through the empty halls of the museum. You’d checked every camera in the building twice, filling out your night paperwork as well as the visitor log for Hoseok to look over in the morning as you went. All you really had to do was roam the halls every now and then, keeping an eye on the monitors for anything suspicious.

The night shift was never quite as tiring as the day shift. Your interaction with patrons or real people was always far below what Hoseok and the dayshift would have to deal with - that was part of the reason you chose to take over the night shift. It was a bit more time consuming with just you, but hopefully Hoseok will find someone to replace Chanyeol before the New Year.

You hear a faint bang down the corridor and you pause. You’ve heard bumps like this before, mostly when it would rain and the tree by the ramp outside would hit the window. Rain wasn’t on the forecast for the evening, but that had never stopped it before. Not so easily scared, you continue on down the hall, stopping at the end of the hall when you hear it again.

“What the fuck…?” You say to yourself, a slight shake in your voice. The bang sounds again and you reach for your flashlight, it being the only protection against intruders. 

In the three years you’ve worked as a security guard, you’ve never had a break in. Even before you, there had never once been an attempt by anyone to steal anything. In reality, the alarms should’ve gone off by now if someone had made their way into the museum. That meant that someone was smart enough to get past the security system, or you were going crazy.

You really hope you’re going crazy.

You make your way down the hallway, following the bumps and bangs into the Ancient Dynasties exhibit. The gate is locked - it hasn’t been unlocked since you left the room at midnight - but the noise isn’t one easily mistaken. 

Against your better judgement you unlock the gate, stepping in and leaving the gate cracked behind you. If you needed a quick escape, then you wanted to be able to yank it closed as well. The noises cease as soon as you’re completely past the gate, sending an ominous chill up your spine. At a glance, nothing in the room seems out of place. Nothing looks to have been moved or damaged, but that does little to settle your unease.

“This is normal...everything is normal.” You say to yourself, trying to trick yourself into having the courage to move forward.

You spot the necklace in it’s spot close to the sarcophagus. It’s glass remains intact, just like every other item within the exhibit’s walls. It would make sense for someone to come after it considering it’s value, yet there it remains untouched.

“So where did the banging come fr-Agh!” You scream as the sarcophagus lid bursts open, falling to the floor in front of it and ripping the ropes connected to the wall right out.  

Inside the now open casket, the ancient king covered in tattered, dusty cloth rolls his head. You can see his mouth move from underneath the dirt as he yawns. His arms raise to stretch in front of him, the mummy taking one step out of his box.

You can only stand in shock as you watch what happens in front of you. You had to be dreaming. There was no way you were actually awake witnessing a dead king coming to life in front of you. This had to be some sort of sick joke from Yoongi for calling him short. Maybe Johnny for calling him out in front of that group of fourth graders. Someone has to be messing with you. 

The mummy turns his head to you and your breath hitches. You’ve never wanted to have seen The Mummy so much in one moment than this one, wishing you knew what exactly to do in this situation. You wish your feet would move, but they’re planted so firmly to the ground that they feel more like cement than limbs.

The monster before you takes a step in your direction, and you scream. You will yourself to move back, but you can’t stop yourself from stumbling over your own feet. You trip and land on your bottom, your body not even registering the pain as you attempt to scoot back away from the danger that continues to follow after you.

Every step he takes is another scream that releases from your lungs, your fear getting the best of you. It isn’t until your back hits the large display case that helps to divide the room that you realize you have nowhere else to go. You turn your head away, preparing yourself for whatever is about to come.

But nothing does.

You take a peek at the tall being before you and notice that he’s stopped moving, towering over your cowering form with his head tilted. His mouth opens and sounds come out, but his speech is muffled by the bandages. He seems to realize this though as his bandaged hands fly to his face.

You watch him pat around his face and neck until he finds a loose cloth, pulling it out and beginning the process of unwrapping his face. You watch in horror, unsure if the image before you will haunt you forever or not. To see what’s left of a 1,000 year old decomposed body that’s been “preserved” was something you never thought you would ever have to bear witness to. Hopefully, your therapist for this experience will understand.

If you get that far.

However, you weren’t expecting to see a full head of healthy brown hair appear as he went, nor did you expect to see healthy, tanned skin be freed from the confines as well. Brown eyes meet yours and a smile is uncovered, “Hello.” 

“Hi...” You blink rapidly, hoping if you do it enough times your vision will clear, but the man in front of you still half-covered in gauze doesn’t disappear. You shake your head, “Am I awake?”

“You are as awake as I am.” He says with a pleasant smile.

“That’s not a very reassuring answer...” You can’t help but stare at him in awe and wonder just how this was happening. Of course, Taehyung had told you countless times about this supposed curse or whatever it was, but you thought it was all just a hoax your ancestors believed in. There is no possible way that you are actually awake and experiencing reincarnation or rebirth or whatever this is firsthand.

“Ow!” You feel a pinch on your calf, pulling you from your thoughts and back to the matter at hand. Or more specifically, the person before you. 

“Well, did you feel that?” He asks. In your dazed state, you hadn’t noticed the man bend to your level and reach out to pinch you with rag covered fingers. The dust and mold leave a stain on your work pants and you can’t help but frown in disgust, “Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately I did.”

“You must be frightened and confused. Allow me to introduce myself-” He bows his head to you from where he kneels on the floor, “-I am King Kim Namjoon of Korea.” He looks back up and smiles bright, showcasing his dimples, “It is my pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.” 

You tilt your head in confusion at his choice of words, “I’m sorry, you’ve been waiting for me? I don’t understand.”

“Are you not aware of our bond?” He asks, tilting his own head to the side.

Of course you know about his bond, it’s all that Taehyung has ever told you about! His necklace was gifted by the moon goddess so that when his soulmate touches it, he’ll wake up and they’l-

It takes you a moment to realize that he believes you to be his long lost soulmate, and you’re ready to spiral into another frenzy when you do, “No…” 

Soulmates aren’t real. Nobody just walks around and bumps into their soulmate on the street. They don’t hear their voice in the back of their heads. They don’t wait over 1,000 years to be matched with a fucking dead guy.

“No.” You repeat, more confident in yourself. 

“I understand you may be confused as to what this all must mean, but I’ll explain it to you-” Namjoon tries to reach out to you again, but you’re quick to push him away this time.

You stand from the floor in a rush and take two steps towards the center of the room where the two display cases separate and show a clear path to the exhibit’s only exit, “No, you won’t. Please return to your box.” 

He stands up after you but stops when he sees you step back again, “But we’re destined to be together!”

“Destiny isn’t real! This-” You gesture with both hands from you to him, “-isn’t real!”

“Our bond is as real as you and I!” He argues. You can feel the want and passion dripping from his voice. It isn’t hard to tell how much he truly believes you’re his soulmate, but he’s dead wrong - no pun intended. “I’ve spent so long waiting for you.”

“Nope.” It didn’t matter how many times he flashes you that lovestruck look. Soulmates weren’t real, and whatever is going on in front of you isn’t real either, “This isn’t happening.” You turn away from him, resorting to pacing out your frustrations instead of voicing them. 

Namjoon watches you with a disappointed frown and slumped shoulders, “Well, this isn’t how this was supposed to happen.” He mumbles.

You attempt to calm your breathing, pleading with your rationale to find some way - any way - to explain what’s happening. The whole interaction felt like a crazy fever dream that manifested on the worst day of a cold. They’re always weird, but they’re never this realistic. 

You turn back around to address the not-so-dead king and yelp when you see him pulling at his wrap, “What are you doing?!” You ask as he tugs and pulls at the rotten fabric.

Namjoon looks up, pausing his ministrations to give you an answer, “I’m removing these incessant wrappings.”

He returns to his unwrapping, leaving you to watch him as he goes. He wasn’t naked - thankfully - but you weren’t prepared for him to immediately unwrap himself. In all honesty, you wanted him to wrap himself back up and return to his box. Fortunately for you, under his wrappings he wears a loose white shirt and loose tan pants, his shoes long forgotten. 

When he finally frees himself, he takes a moment to look around the room. His gaze trails over the walls, “What is this place? Why are we not in my tomb?”

“You’re in a museum.” You explain, watching closely to gauge his reaction. In a way, he wasn’t really that old in retrospect, but you doubt he’d seen a museum before.

He turns to look at you, just as confused as you expected him to be, “What is that?”

You shrug, “It’s a place where people go to see old things and art.”

Namjoon breaks into a smile, a red tint coloring his cheeks, “I wouldn’t say I’m art.”

“I didn’t.” You say, causing Namjoon’s face to drop just the slightest.

He’s quick to mask his disappointment with a polite smile. Turning to the side of the case he stands on, he looks back to the exhibit around him. He looks up and his eyes trail over the lights above him, “What dynasty is this?” He asks. 

“Uh...the capitalist dynasty?” You reply, unsure of what you would call this era of time. Namjoon looks confused and you sigh, “You’re in the 21st century.”

“Fascinating…” He takes a long look over the glass case a few feet in front of him - the one that holds the crown made for his queen - before he moves forward, reaches out, and swipes a hand over top of it, collecting a thin sheen of dust on his fingertips.

“Don’t do that!” You rush forward and grab his wrist, pulling it away in fear of the alarm going off. Anybody who even got too close to it should set it off, yet no siren wails at his touch. The alarms had been set by Hoseok himself, so they have to be broken if neither of you were setting it off, “What…?”

“Can I have my arm back, or is this a new rude custom I’m unaware of?” Namjoon asks, staring at the place on his wrist your hand holds hostage. 

“No, just-...” You release his arm and take a breath as a poor attempt to remain calm, “-just don’t touch anything.”

“We’ll need to touch the case to get your necklace so we can return to my home together.” He says as if what he suggested was completely normal for him.

You’re once again taken aback by his words, unsure if you heard him correctly or not, “I’m sorry?” You ask.

“We’re soulmates,” He explains, “It’s only natural for you to come live with me, so we can spend our days together.”

“We will not be going anywhere together!” You tell him. You step forward and grab him by the shoulders, turning him around so he faces his sarcophagus. You attempt to push him, “You will be staying here in your box, and you’re going to go back to sleep.”

Namjoon fights against your attempts, digging his feet into the hardwood floor beneath him. He scowls at the realization of what you’re trying to do, “Did you not hear what I said earlier? You are my destined lover. That’s how this is supposed to work!”

“And I told you that destiny isn’t real!” You argue, now using your shoulder to push all of your weight against him.

Namjoon turns to face you, causing you to lose your balance and fall forward. Namjoon grabs your arms before you can fall to the floor, using this opportunity to hold you close, “Is my life not enough proof for you?”

Dark brown eyes bore into your own, his sincerity written all over his features. You can tell he’s hurt, but you can’t help but continue to fight against him, “I don’t know! I’m still trying to process everything that’s happening right now!” 

“As soon as we leave, I will explain everything to you in much greater detail.” He says, now offering a smile. However, leaving with him is the last thing you wish to do.

You push away from him and take a few steps back towards the exhibit's entrance, “We are not leaving.”

“I am a king, I have wealth beyond your wildest dreams! I can take care of you and it is my job to do so.” He reaches out and takes you by your wrist, “We’re going!”

“I don’t even know you!” You yell, pulling your arm away from him once more and stepping closer towards the exit behind you.

Namjoon looks annoyed, but he takes a deep breath before he continues to try and pursued you, “Why don’t you allow us to get to know each other then? At least tell me your name.”

“Just-” You pause, unsure of what you should even do. You take a few more steps back and he follows, “Stay there!” You demand, raising a finger to him. He does as told - whether he wishes to or not - and allows you to take a few more steps back until you catch sight of the gate in your peripherals. As long as he stays where he is, you could slip out without him, “Good.”

Namjoon, however, takes offense to you keeping your distance from him. This was no way to treat a king, especially ‘your’ king nonetheless, “Do not speak to me as if I am a child! I am a king, may I remind you.”

“You may. But may I also remind you that your rule ended over 1,000 years ago and you no longer hold any power.” You say, watching the frown on his features deepen into a scowl. With every minute that passes, his calm exterior continues to break, showing you his true nature. You take this moment of weakness against him and reach for his exhibit key on your belt, “I, however, am in charge of this museum after hours, so you have to listen to me.”

“I am a man-” He tries to argue, but you’re quick to shut his misogyny down.

“-And I am a woman,” You retort, thumbing through the labeled keys. Hoseok always made fun of you for trying to organize them, but it looks like the jokes on him. Not that he would really believe you if you told him. 

“Your man card doesn’t work in this age, so try something else, your highness~” You tease.

Namjoon crosses his arms over his chest and glares, “You have quite the tongue when you’re not screaming.”

“Thank you, I get it from my grandmother. Now-” You slip through the crack you left in the gate and pull it close, pulling his key from it’s retractable clip and locking him in, “-go back to sleep.”

He blinks a few times before he moves towards you. He places his hands on the bars and pulls at them, but they don’t budge under him. His eyes widen in shock and he turns to you, “Did you just lock me in here?”

“I did.” You nod, smug smile and all.

“Unlock it. Now.” He demands, tightening his hold on the bars.

“Hm…” You pretend to contemplate his request, tapping a finger against your chin before you come to a fake decision, “No.” 

“You insolent girl!” Namjoon yells, banging his fists against the gate that holds him.

You step back with wide eyes, stunned by his sudden outburst. You knew you were making him angry, but not this angry, “Wow, that’s one way to talk to your apparent soulmate.”

“I’ve been pleasant long enough! It’s time for you to accept the truth and let. Me. Out!” He demands.

You shake your head, “I don’t think I will.”

“You’re being unreasonable.” He huffs. 

Staring at him through the bars, you take in his features. He’s angry, that much is clear. But there’s something else about him that just seems more hurt than anything. You don’t want to feel bad for him, but you have to give him credit where it’s due.

You release an exasperated sigh, “Look, I’m sorry, okay? This is probably hard for you and...a fever dream for me-” Fever dream is perhaps the most lax way to describe this experience, “-but I think your necklace chose the wrong person.”

Namjoon stiffens and he almost looks offended at your assumption, “The moon goddess is never wrong.”

“Well, this time she is,” You insist.

“So what do you expect me to do?” He asks.

You shrug, “I’d prefer it if you went back into your box.”

“You want me to live my life in a box? After I’ve already spent so much time in it?!” He asks.

“Yes! No...I-” You’re unsure of what to say. On one hand, you feel a bit guilty asking him to return to a box he’s spent 1,000 years in. He died once, believing that when he woke he’d be greeted by his one true love. Instead he woke up to you screaming at him. 

But on the other hand, he was supposed to be dead. 

You sigh, “I don’t know what I want, but I can’t deal with-...” You raise your hands, grasping at the air before gesturing to him, “-this.”

The king looks offended, but he holds his tongue. Instead he crosses his arms and straightens his posture, “Well, I will not be going back in that box.”

“Wha-?” You cut yourself off, in disbelief of this man’s stubbornness. You huff, “Then go find your palace or wherever you lived before!”

He shakes his head, “I won’t leave if you refuse to leave with me.”

“Then you better get used to your view, because this is all you’ll be seeing!” You state, finally having enough of him. You turn on your heel and begin to walk away, something you should have done when you first came up to the exhibit.

“You’ll come to realize that our intertwined fates will not go away just because you wish them to!” He calls after you, his voice echoing off the walls around you, “And then you’ll be crawling back to me!”

When you continue walking and refuse to answer him, he yells again, “At least let me explore!”

“Not happening!” You call over your shoulder.

“This is humiliating! You can’t do this!” You hear him rattling the gate again, but you pay him no mind. “Come back here, you insolent child!”

You bypass every other exhibit that you were supposed to check, instead rushing back to the safety of your office. Once you’re in you bolt the door behind you, just in case anything else in the building decided it needed to come to life as well. You drop yourself in your office chair and take a moment to yourself, giving yourself time to take in all of the events that just transpired.

The mummy from the new exhibit just came to life, you were somehow able to talk to him without passing out, he thinks you’re his soulmate, and now he’s upset with you because you locked him in his exhibit that he shouldn’t be freely roaming in. 

You turn to your monitor and switch through feeds until you find Namjoon’s exhibit. He’s still standing by the closed gate, his hands slipped through the bars to try and fiddle with the lock. His posture that he once held with you is lacking, not as pristine as it was before. You can’t help but watch him with pity as his attempts to get out continue to fail.

But you can’t bring yourself to go back before the night ends.

30 minutes before the morning shift was due to come in, you use the intercom to tell Namjoon he’d have to return to his sarcophagus for the day. You couldn’t hear him, but you didn’t need a microphone to know he was not only confused but also very unhappy about that. You managed to convince him by informing him they would take him away to rot in a cell without you if he didn’t, and that seemed to kick him into gear. 

Thankfully, he didn’t need your help making it back to his bed or putting the cover on top. You were not about to go down to his exhibit. Especially when the room itself looked completely untouched on the camera. The ropes that had been torn from the wall were back in their place as if nothing had ever happened, and the wrappings the King decided to discard were nowhere to be seen.

After that, you sat and waited for the morning shift to come and take over for you. You said good morning to all of your coworkers, and then you left. You went home and you went to bed, but waking again didn’t feel like a new experience. The looming feeling of knowing what awaits when you get to work again haunts you until your once again clearing the exhibits for the night. 

You make it to the exhibit that has weighed you down for the past 12 hours and you hesitate to step inside. Clearing the room and locking it up will start the night, and then you’re left with the chances of seeing him again. Seeing him again means that everything you saw last night wasn’t a joke, and that you really have a living mummy in your museum.

What’s worse is he thinks you're his true love. 

You come across Taehyung, once again sitting on the bench in front of the king’s sarcophagus. He wears a loose white button down and a pair of black dress pants, balancing a sketch pad on his thigh. He attempts to draw the exhibits main attraction with the altar that took weeks to create. If only he knew the object of his affections was alive and well only 15 feet away from him.

“Having fun there?” You ask, sitting next to the fashionable curator.

He takes a moment to answer, defining a line on his paper before he acknowledges you, “I always do when I’m here with Namjoon-hyung.” You roll your eyes at his use of ‘hyung’ and he chuckles. He turns his attention back to his paper, “Did you have a good rest of your night?”

You feel every bone in your body tense at the mention of the previous night. Last night was almost an out of body experience for you, and there was no real way to describe what you went through.

You shrug, “It was okay, same old same old.”

“That’s good! I’m glad you’re doing well here on your own at night.” He looks up from his shading and sets his pencil down, his expression becoming somber, “It must be hard without Chanyeol.”

“Yeah, it can be...” Working without Chanyeol really wasn’t any worse than working together. The only thing is now your new coworker is a 1,000 year old un-dead guy, but that’s a little much to explain, “But it’s fine! It really isn’t that strenuous on me at all.”

He smiles at your response and turns to look at his drawing, “I guess I’m holding you up aren’t I?” 

You want to tell him more than anything that today you want him to stay just a little longer. Today is the day you want to hear all about every exhibit in the museum. More than anything, you just don’t want to face Namjoon alone, but no one would believe you if you told them the truth. So instead, you hum in agreement.

“Alright, I’ll get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow!” Once again, you watch him pack up and dance his way out of the exhibit. Only today you follow close behind, locking the king’s exhibit and rushing to the next - much more normal - exhibit.

 ---

It’s surreal to watch Namjoon through a screen. Sure, seeing him the other night was an experience, but to see that your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you is another trip entirely! With Namjoon truly existing, that leads you to really question his claims. You did touch the necklace, but so had plenty of others. Not to mention, it took him almost 3 hours after you’d touched it to wake up, so who’s to say that Taehyung isn’t his true soulmate? Even Yoongi could be!

Anyone but you.

He’s much more different now that he’s ‘chilled out’ from last night’s events. He’s no longer pacing back and forth or banging on his exhibit’s gate - though he has tried to pull it open once or twice. Now, he just sits on the bench where you had sat with Taehyung, only he sits facing away from his final resting place. 

He looks to be in deep thought, as if he’s contemplating something as he stares ahead of him. You like him better this way, calm and quiet instead of trying too hard to convince you to run away with him. This king you could babysit until he fell back asleep as he should’ve been in the first place.

With him seemingly content, you allow yourself to work on other things you’d normally do throughout the night. You mainly focus on the online coursework you didn’t get done due to the distraction on the screen in front of you, organizing your office in between assignments. You don’t really pay any mind to your cameras until you catch movement coming from Namjoon’s.

On the screen, he appears to be waving his arms and yelling, resembling those people you see on TV when someone gets injured. You can’t help but sigh. You’ve been putting off your rounds just so you wouldn’t have to go by his exhibit for him to accost you, now you didn’t have a choice but to go see what was troubling him before he broke something.

You grab your flashlight and tuck it into its place on your belt clip, leaving the safety of your office to see what his majesty so desperately needs from you. It must be desperate if he’s yelling for the entire city to hear. You quicken your pace to get there faster, hopefully before anybody besides you has the chance to hear his cries.

“Soulmate!” He yells, his voice clear as day as you reach level 3, “Come here! I demand your presence!” 

“If you don’t stop yelling for everyone to hear you, then I’m going to turn around and leave you alone!” You yell back, assuming he hears you when the yelling doesn’t continue. You make it to the gate of his exhibit and find him waiting for you with his arms crossed, no longer as relaxed as he was when the night began. 

“What?” You ask, stopping in front of him.

He doesn’t give you the pleasure of knowing right away. Instead, he looks you up and down with a hard glare, “You didn’t bring me food.”

“That’s what you’re yelling about?” You ask in disbelief.

Namjoon takes offense to your indifference, “Yes! For your information, I am very hungry for someone who hasn’t eaten in over 1,000 years.”

In hindsight, you’d most likely be a little angry too if you hadn’t eaten in so long as well - though it’s not really an excuse for his behavior last night. But explaining why an unconscious guy was chilling on the floor of a locked exhibit with security footage showing him coming out of the sarcophagus would not be fun for anyone involved. 

“I’ll be right back.” You leave him to run back to the break room, grabbing the prepackaged lunch you had bought for yourself, a pair of disposable chopsticks, and a banana milk that you kept stashed behind Hoseok’s forgotten lunchbox before heading back up. 

Namjoon gives you a strange look when you come back, his eyes trained on the box in your hand, “What is that?”

“It was my lunch, but you probably need this more than me.” You look for the key to his exhibit on your belt, sifting through until you find the right label and pull it up to unlock the gate. You pause before turning the lock, “Move back to the case.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks, his eyes narrowed in a glare. You return your own glare until he finally gives in and takes the steps back to the case as you asked him to, “Happy?”

You nod and turn the lock over, opening the gate and slipping inside with the food you brought for him. You hand him the lunchbox and the milk before you reach into your back pocket for the chopsticks, “Sorry if it’s not what you’re used to, but this is all I’ve got-”

“-There’s no need.” He raises a hand to stop you - an action that irks you to no end - and sits on the floor with the food you’ve given him. You watch as he struggles with the tape that holds it together, holding back your laughter when he manages to get it off the box and stuck to his fingers instead. He seems to relax when he rubs it off on the floor, but his next challenge comes when he opens the packet of chopsticks and there’s only one inside, “What this?!”

“I’m going to assume you’ve never seen this before.” You bend down to his level to take the chopsticks from him, holding each one and pulling them apart to create two, perfectly good chopsticks. You bite back a laugh when you see the amazement written across Namjoon’s face, “Pretty cool, yeah?”

“Very…” He says. You hand him the chopsticks, watching with amusement as he tries to fit them back together. One drops and he fumbles to catch it before he realizes you’re still watching him, quickly using the utensils to shove food in his mouth as a distraction. 

“Here.” Not wanting him to embarrass himself further, you take his banana milk and open it for him, setting it beside him while he eats. He takes a moment to take a sip and his eyes widen in surprise.

“What is this?” He asks, holding the bottle close to his face to inspect the label.

You shrug, “It’s just banana milk.” 

“Well, it tastes fantastic!” He tilts his head back and chugs the rest of it, wiping his mouth before turning back to you with the same expression of a puppy ready to play, “Is there more?”

“Uh…” You hesitate to answer, afraid he’ll try to boss you around again, “Yeah, we do.”

“Bring me-!” He stops when he sees your expression sour. Instead, he clears his throat and bows his head, “If you wouldn’t mind, could I please have another?”

“Sure thing.” You smile, and he smiles back. It wasn’t much, but it felt like an understanding after the fiasco that happened the night before. 

So, you rush back while he continues eating, grabbing two more banana milks and a bag of chips for you to munch on yourself. When you come back, you’re not surprised to see that he’s finished his food and left the box laying on the floor with the empty milk container. You want to be upset with him for just leaving his trash lying around, but it’s hard to be mad at him when he’s trying so hard to work the kiosk.

“This infernal contraption doesn’t work!” He yells, hitting the top of it as if that would somehow make it work. Of course, he’s not the only person to try this - you’ve seen many middle aged men try to do the same thing when you close - but it would only prove to break if he didn’t dial it back.

“Don’t do that!” You rush to his side and push his hands away, blocking him from touching the kiosk any more. “You can’t just hit things and expect them to work. That’s not how people solve their problems.”

“Well, it doesn’t have a mouth, so how am I supposed to talk to it?” He questions.

“Okay…” You heave a sigh and grab the headphones that rest on the kiosk’s base, a pair for you and a pair for Namjoon. You place yours on your head and then move to place Namjoon’s over his ears. He flinches away from your touch and you pull back a bit, “It’s okay, I’m just going to show you how this works.”

He relaxes, bowing his head so you can place the headphones over his ears. Once they’re well adjusted, you tap the screen of the kiosk to bring it to life. You read through the options designed for the exhibit, choosing to let it read through information about Namjoon himself.

“The Kim Dynasty-” The woman’s voice fills both of your ears, scaring Namjoon so much that he jumps back and his headphones clang to the floor.

His scared expression is priceless, eyes wide and hands raised to defend himself. You laugh, picking up his headphones and extending them to him, “That’s supposed to happen.”

“How is it doing that? Is there a woman trapped in each of these?” He asks, eyeing the other kiosks that line the wall beside the one you share.

You shake your head, “It’s called a recording. They made a copy of her voice and put it in here so the people that come here can learn more about you.”

“Oh…” He accepts your answer and the headphones in your hand, “I see the moon goddess has been very busy.”

“Here.” You grab his hand and fix it so his pointer finger sticks out, guiding his hand so it presses lightly against the glass to select a different option. A new section of Namjoon’s life begins to play and Namjoon seems impressed by the ‘power’ he holds in one appendage. “This is called a touch-screen. You just have to tap the buttons on the screen and it’ll change.”

He nods, staring intently at the screen before him. He tilts his head and taps the little home button at the top left, surprised when the screen changes from a video to the screen it started on. He smiles, his dimples popping out as he chooses another option, “This is amazing!”

His smile is infectious, as well as his eagerness to learn more about the technology in front of him, “I’ll just leave you to play with that for a bit, I have a job to do.”

“Yes! Okay.” He waves you off, paying more attention to the kiosk than to you. 

You lock the gate behind you when you leave, though it doesn’t seem like Namjoon even took notice of either action. Even after you rush through your duties to come back to him sooner, he’s still playing with the same kiosk with a child’s enthusiasm.

“You’re really enjoying yourself.” You muse, standing off to the side behind him.

Namjoon nods, his fingers still dancing across the screen, “This technology is amazing! If only we had this in my dynasty. I can only imagine the advantages we would have had.”

You nod in agreement, “Yeah, it definitely comes in handy. Though, a lot of people believe it’s made us weaker as a society.”

“I can see why. Everything I could ever want to know about myself is right here at my fingertips,” He says, scrolling through the different options he could look through. He comes across a picture of himself and grimaces, “I wish they would have used a different portrait.”

You chuckle in amusement, “Well, if you’re not having my trouble, then I‘m going to get back to my office.” You go to leave the room again when Namjoon grabs you by the arm.

“Wait!” He yells, pulling you back to him. It takes him a second to realize what he did before he let’s go, “Sorry!” 

“It’s fine.” You mumble. 

“I just-...” The king pauses, taking a moment to collect himself, “I wanted to know if I could look at more exhibits tomorrow?”

His eyes look down into yours, so hopeful for a good answer. You’re unsure, “I don’t know…” You want to say yes to him, but there’s so much at stake if you were to let him walk around on his own. Granted, he couldn’t trip the alarms, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t break anything. 

“I won’t touch anything, I swear!” He promises, both of his hands reaching out to take your own. He holds them to his chest, lightly cradling against the fabric of his shirt as he begs you, “I just don’t want to spend the rest of my time sitting in this room when there’s so much more around me.”

That gets you.

If there was one thing you could understand, it was being somewhere new with so much knowledge that you just had to know more. For someone like Namjoon, this was more than that. He had a whole world to try to come to terms with, and he was standing in the best place to do so. If you denied him that, then would you be able to deal with it?

“Tomorrow.” You say, “I’ll let you explore the museum tomorrow.”

Namjoon’s eyes light up and it looks like a weight is lifted right off of his shoulders. He doesn’t hesitate to bow to you, “Thank you, soulmate.”

“It’s not the whole museum!” You add quickly, “And my name is (Y/n).” He seems unhappy at first, but he does eventually nod to give his thanks where it was due. You give a polite bow back, “You’re welcome.”

The next night comes all too quickly for you. Leaving him alone to explore was more than nerve wracking. You were probably out of your mind for even considering letting him out on his own, let alone trusting him in the first place. Sitting in your office you’d check the camera’s every few minutes just to be sure he was still in the hall, or you’d pinpoint his last location and make your final round of the museum according to how he’d walk through the halls.

That first night, Namjoon only went through his exhibit and the rest of level 3. Occasionally you’d catch him playing with a water fountain on the camera’s in front of the bathroom. Another time you caught him turning towards a planter and you quickly changed screens, reminding yourself to open a bathroom for him for the next night. 

As two more nights pass, you notice his want to get closer to the exhibits than to just sit on the outside. More often than not, you caught him with his face pressed against the metal bars trying to get a closer look at everything. It wasn’t hard to tell that he wanted to be in the room with the art itself, but a part of you is still worried to let him have that extra inch.

It’s only on the 5th night when Taehyung takes notice of your woes that you change your mind.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, leaning over himself on the bench to look at you. You sit with your hands in your lap just staring at Namjoon in front of you, wondering if you can really trust him to continue keeping his word. You don’t notice Taehyung, nor do you hear his question. He rolls his eyes and taps your knee twice, “Hey!”

“Huh?” You blink away your thoughts and turn your attention to him. Unaware of what he asked, you tilt your head in confusion, “What?”

Taehyung hums to himself and nods, “I’m right, something is wrong with you.”

“What do you mean something’s wrong with me?” You ask defensively.

Taehyung sighs and shows you his watch, showing you that it’s 5 minutes past weekday closing time, “This is the longest you’ve let me sit here rambling to myself. 10 minutes past our normal time!”

You shake your head, content to push him away, “I’m just a bit distracted, that’s all.”

“By what? Is it a work problem? Family troubles? You can tell me, I’ll listen!” He assures you. 

You have no doubt in your mind that he will listen to you, but how do you explain your situation is the real problem at hand. There were only so many excuses in the world, and if you weren’t careful you might get yourself fired just for using a bad analogy.

You weigh your options and sigh, “My niece - she’s really little and way too rambunctious to come here - really wants to come and see the art on display. I want her to come see where I work because I know she likes the art, but I know my sister is worried about her breaking something or causing a scene.”

“Hmm...I see.” Taehyung hums, not showing any sign of suspicion against you. He really thinks about your ‘concern’ before he comes to a conclusion. “I think she should come and see.”

“Really?” You ask.

He nods, “Yeah! It’s best to let children experience art and it’s creativity for themselves! Even young children have an eye for art, and those who truly appreciate it only want to see it up close to see every detail.”

“I guess that does make sense…” Thinking about it, he does have a point. Namjoon may be from a different moment in time, but he’s still a grown adult. 

Taehyung seems to sense your uncertainty and places a calming hand on your knee, “Art isn’t meant to be viewed from afar. It’s made to make us feel emotion.” He explains, “Even the most unlikely of patrons can find something that makes them appreciate art.” 

Even after your talk is finished and you’ve left Namjoon’s exhibit unlocked for him to let himself out, you’re still debating your next course of action. There’s a big risk in letting him roam through the exhibits, but you can’t in good conscience let him sit around doing nothing forever.

You find Namjoon on level 4, his face pressed against the bars of the Apparel Through the Ages exhibit. You sneak up behind him and clear your throat, “Good evening, your highness.”

Namjoon stumbles back, not expecting you to be there. It’s amusing to watch him scramble into a more respectable position with his hands behind his back. He glances your way, “Have you come around already?”

“No, I haven’t,” You say. You pull at the keys on your belt and jingle them, “I’ve come to open an exhibit for you.”

“What?” He’s surprised, “Will you really?” 

“Someone told me that those who appreciate art want to take in all the details they can.” It didn’t take a genius to see that Namjoon wants to see more than he can see at the exhibit’s gates. An old soul like his could probably use some new perspective, “You choose the exhibit and I’ll unlock it.”

“Any of them?” He asks.

You nod, “Just lead the way.”

The light in his eyes that you saw the night before comes back and it relaxes you for some reason. Even as he takes your wrist to lead you down the hall to the exhibit he wants to see, it’s as if he’s two different people. It’s almost confusing how quickly his demeanor changes with you. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he becomes a child. Yet the moment you offer something new - something for him to learn about - it’s as if he’s just a child at heart. 

When you open the Animal Kingdom exhibit on level 2 for him you’re thrown for another loop. He only gives you a simple thanks and walks away, leaving you to question if he’s just inherently an asshole or if he’s just petty. Even as you come back around from your rounds to close up for the night, he still seems to flip back and forth with his own personality and his thanks.

You go home that morning confused and on a mission. You throw the notion of sleep out the window and settle onto your couch with a cup of coffee and your laptop, determined to know more about this so-called King that intends to ruin your life little by little. 

A simple Google search brings you many results, ranging in portraits and newspaper articles to biographies written by renowned historians. You click on the first link available, taking you to a page drowning in photos and art. It would seem that even in life, Namjoon enjoyed surrounding himself with art. 

His portraits were absolutely breathtaking - you could understand his disappointment now that you’ve seen more than just the one - and the pictures they showcase of his palace are surrounded in flowers and gorgeous statement pieces littered across the grounds. It’s surprising to read that they’ve remained there for so long without any disturbances. You would have thought they’d taken one or two lawn pieces like they had taken Namjoon, yet they remain in their home without any signs of distress to them. 

You take another long sip of coffee and move onto another page, checking out a more informative website. This one goes into detail about his life as a prince and as a king. You discover that he became king at the young age of 17 when his parents sadly passed away during an ambush to the throne. Apparently, he changed over half of the Kingdom’s laws the very next day and saw to every change in policy himself. It only took him 3 months to get the people of his kingdom to trust in him and his guidance, which - according to the article - was a big feat for his time.

You’re surprised to read about his contributions to his people. He strongly encouraged his people to progress forward and bring him their concerns, he housed over 30 children in his home at one time because they had no homes to go to and he even had a sort of sanctuary for animals to be cared for under his watch. He oversaw their historians writing, ensuring that they put every detail on paper. Even his failures were written down under his careful eye, despite his power to erase them from future generations

This Namjoon was so kind and caring. He was so well educated and well-spoken, and he was loved by all of his people for his generosity and understanding nature. How is it that a man who was known for being so kind, could be the same man who bossed you around and demanded that you spend the rest of your life with him?

How is it that a guy who sounds so sweet on paper can be a total dick in real life?

* * *

After hours of research with no sleep and a cold shower to wake you up, you find yourself standing in front of Namjoon with a copy of The Little Prince tucked on top of the food you’ve brought him for the night.

Namjoon accepts the food, taking the boxed lunch with one hand so he can pick up the book with the other. He inspects it carefully, flipping it over a few times to look it over, “What’s this?”

“I did a little research on you, your highness. According to historians and the internet, you were quite the avid reader.” You’d read a lot about Namjoon, and every website you visited gave you list upon list of books read by him when he was still alive and well. They all spoke of his fascination for fantasy novels and those with deeper meanings behind them. The Little Prince seemed like a no brainer to you when it came to more relevant novels to fit his tastes. “I figured you might get bored sooner or later, so I brought you something to pass the time until you fall asleep again.”

“You know that’s not how the enchantment works, yes?” He asks.

You think about it for a moment before you reply, “No, I don’t know that. Do you?”

“I-” Namjoon is at a loss for your teasing words. Instead he frowns and turns his nose,“It doesn’t matter if I’ve seen it happen! I trust the moon goddess!”

“Mhmm, whatever you say~” You laugh, much to his annoyance. Namjoon sits down to eat his food and you take that as a sign for you to continue doing your job, “Enjoy your book and your food.”

You go to leave, but the king calls after you, “Can’t you stay here? Keep me company?”

You pause. His company wasn’t terrible, but you don’t want to stay and risk giving him a sense of false hope. He was still over 1,000 years old, and you were still a broke college student trying to pay her way through life. You’ve never been the type to play with someone’s emotions, and you weren’t going to start now. 

“That’s not in my job description.” You say. You almost regret your choice when you see his sad expression, but you steel yourself, “Have a good night.”

You leave him, not coming back until you’re making a lap on your rounds. And there - sitting against one of the large display cases - sits Namjoon with the book held loosely in his hands, his face holding a look of pure concentration and a ghost of a smile. He looks so peaceful and content sitting cross-legged on the hard wood of his exhibit, you almost feel bad for asking him to return to his sarcophagus. But that night he goes willingly.

And you can’t help but notice the glow of the necklace on your way out.

---

“Hey-!” You turn your head away from the water fountain, hearing Jimin’s voice call down the already noisy hall. You spy him at the entrance of the gift shop, but his attention is on a girl passing by who’s turned to look at him as well. He holds a box in his hand, but you can’t see what’s inside from where you stand. “Have you seen our new merchandise that just came in?”

“Uh...no, I haven’t.” The girl seems slightly uncomfortable. Either from his approach from the gift shop for her to buy something, or just from a guy who looks like Jimin approaching her - you don’t know which. 

You walk closer to the gift shop, curious yourself about the mystery box in Jimin’s hands.

“This - my lovely lady - is our newest piece of jewelry.” He opens the box and you catch a glimmer of silver and fuschia, “The necklace of King Kim Namjoon’s lost lover.”

Her face lights up initially when she sees it, but then her face drops and she shakes her head, “Oh, no, thank you.”

“You don’t want to buy it?” He asks. Jimin pouts and you can feel the immediate distress coming off the poor girl he’s talking to. 

“It’s pretty, but it’s a little expensive…” She tries to explain her situation - whether it’s true or not - but Jimin is relentless.

He looks around the hall to make sure no one is too close to listen - all but you anyways - and gets closer to her, “But don’t you know the legend behind the necklace?”

“Of course I do! King Kim Namjoon’s soulmate is supposed to wear this necklace.” She says.

“Yes, but that’s not all!” Jimin makes a point of string into her eyes, unwilling to break their eye contact, “Legend says he prayed to the moon goddess herself to find his true love and she gifted him with her own special moonstone to guide his other half to him!”

He moves closer, so that the two are almost shoulder to shoulder just so he can give her a closer view of the product, “These pink stones are pieces of the King’s soulmate's heart, and they’ll glow brightest when his lover wears his necklace by his side!” 

“Wow...that’s so romantic.” You can see her resolve breaking, and you almost feel bad for her that Jimin is the clerk on duty today.

“Do you want to know the best part?” He asks, his smile reaching his cheeks and his eyes full of mischief that resemble love almost too closely. She nods enthusiastically and Jimin brings the box closer so she can see, “This gold string that holds it altogether represents their connection to each other. It’s a bond that can’t be broken by anything in the universe.” 

He carelessly throws an arm over her shoulder, just light enough to be seen as friendly. Though, it would seem the small trick is already working it’s magic on the poor thing. He squeezes her shoulder, “A lot of people believe that wearing this necklace will bring you closer to finding your own true love, so they package them with their own prayers to the moon goddess in hopes she’ll grant them eternal love as well.”

“Really?!” She asks. She looks to him as if he holds the whole universe in his hands, having been swayed by the blonde’s charm.

“Yeah!”

Just like that, you watch him lead her back to the counter and then wave her and her new treasure goodbye, holding a sticky note close to his heart. 

“Should you really be lying like that?”You ask from the store’s entrance. You’re more than disappointed to see yet another girl fall for the man’s charms

Jimin shrugs, “I didn’t lie. I just stretched the truth.” 

You walk up to the counter and snatch the note out of his hand, “Stretching the truth sounds a lot like lying.” 

“Don’t you have a monitor to watch somewhere?” He teases. You hand him the paper back and he sticks it in his pocket, bending below the counter to grab another.

You can’t help but think about what he said, and the legend behind the real necklace. You’ve heard a lot about the real thing, but all of it usually went in one ear and out the other as myth for you. Now that you know it’s real and far from a hoax, you have so much more that you need to know.  

Jimin pops back up with a stack of necklaces in his arms and sets them on the counter in front of you, pulling out a sheet of tags that go with them. You take the sheet from his hand and peel one off, handing it to him, “Can I ask you a question? About the necklace?”

“Sure, but Taehyung is the expert around here.” He says, accepting your sticker to place on the box in front of him.

“You think I don’t know that?” You laugh. You look down and peel off another one, “Is all of what you said about the necklace itself true? About the real necklace?”

“According to Taehyung it is!” He nods, not even sparing you a glance, “The moon goddess gave the King a necklace so powerful that only he and his lover could tear the bond if they chose to, but they never got the chance to meet.”

You hand him another sticker, but you stare into space as you do, “That’s...really sad.” You can’t help but think of the pain Namjoon had to go through knowing his soulmate would be by his side, but not knowing it wouldn’t be in his first lifetime. Not only that, but to wake up and then be met with someone who doesn’t even want to be his soulmate? You can’t help but think about how you’d act towards him if the roles were reversed and he were in your shoes.

You’d be devastated.

“It is.” He takes the sticker from you with one hand and flicks your forehead with the other. You flinch and pull back with your hand rubbing the spot he hit while he just smirks at you, “You would know if you ever listened to Taehyung.”

“Yeah.” You don’t even register your response before handing the sticker sheet back to Jimin and pushing off the counter, “Thanks Jimin! Have a good night, okay? Don’t call me at 2am like last week.”

“No promises~” He sings, going back to his work in front of him.

Later that night when you’re handing Namjoon his dinner, you sit with him to eat yours as well. The look Namjoon gives you as you calmly open your dinner across from him is almost too good to ignore.

“What are you doing?” He asks, slowly unboxing his own lunch.

You pay him no mind as you break apart your chopsticks to start eating, “You wanted me to keep you company, remember? Or is my presence no longer appreciated?” You pick up a clump of rice and turn your attention to him, eyebrow raised.

Namjoon is quick to shake his head and get started on his own food, “Of course it is!” 

You both eat in awkward silence, neither of you quite sure how to start a normal conversation. You’ve only ever made polite talk with him, and he only ever seemed to anger you no matter what he said. The only time you were ever civil was when you would show him something new.

Namjoon swallows his food and clears his throat, “Where would you like me to escort you tonight, my lady?”

You shake your head, “First of all, don’t call me ‘your lady’ or anything else other than my name.” You warn him, pointing at the tag on your jacket. He nods and you continue with your rant, “Second, I have some rounds to do, so you can join me tonight as long as you don’t bother me too much. Understood?”

“Yes, my la-” You narrow your eyes at him and he corrects himself, “(Y/n).”

The two of you finish your food quickly with some small talk made here and there. When you’ve cleaned up, you allow Namjoon to lead you to another exhibit he’s yet to see. All the way on level 1, he wants to see art he’s more familiar with.

“So, you said you asked the moon goddess for a chance to meet your soulmate?” You ask one you’re inside the museum.

“Indeed,” Namjoon nods, listening to you as he takes in the art around him, “I prayed to her one night on a full moon and I begged her to send me a lover. Someone I could confide in and care for, and would do the same for me.”

You tilt your head in confusion, “And instead she gave you the necklace?”

“No, she gave you a way to find me.” He says, a genuine look of happiness on his face. 

“Still-“ You feel a heat rising in your face and you can’t help but turn away from him out of embarrassment. Your eyes land on a painting of a couple and you feel the knife dig just a little deeper, “-you asked her for someone to rule by your side as your equal and she let fate tear you apart.”

He shrugs, “Maybe we weren’t meant to meet before now.”

His calm exterior bothers you. If you had asked for what he had, you’d be livid! He made a promise and that promise was misguided! 

“How can you be so calm?” You ask, allowing your thoughts to be heard.

Namjoon stops to look at a picture of a cherry blossom in the winter, it’s petals covered in frost. He smiles, “You said you read about me from one of your current books. The internet? What do they tell you of me?”

You chuckle at his misunderstanding of what the internet truly is, “Well, the internet told me that you were a very generous and beloved king. They said you were intelligent and caring.”

He chuckles, “I’m flattered.” He looks to you with an amused smile and you elbow his side carefully, causing him to laugh, “I’m only joking!”

You roll your eyes, “Oh, sure.”

Moving on to the next painting, he follows after you, “What else did your book tell you?”

“Well, it told me about your love for the arts.” You remember the extensive biography you’d found during your research. You didn’t read it in its entirety, but you did skim through it, “I read that you would host a festival every year?”

“Yes! Just something special during the summer seasons to enlighten everyone.” He has a far away look in his eye as he recalls the fond memories of his past life, and you can only begin to wonder what a day in his life would have been like, “I’d import goods from everywhere just to have the best for my people.”

“It would seem you’re truly generous, your majesty~” You tease.

“Namjoon.” He corrects you. You give him a quizzical stare and he only smiles in return, “If I’m to call you by your more common title, then you should feel free to use mine. I am attempting to woo you after all.”

“Right.” You smile awkwardly, remembering that you were actually trying to give him a chance. You’d actually been comfortable for once, that you hadn’t even noticed just how easy it had become to talk to him.

“And to really answer your question of why I am as calm as I am,” He pauses in front of a portrait of a town under the night sky, his attention trained on the light orb in the background of the painting. “The moon goddess is lonely herself by nature, so separated from our world. Just like this portrait, we see her, but we pay her no mind.” 

You stand beside him and take your own, clear look at the picture. If you would have looked at it on your own, your main focus would have been on the town and the people in the foreground. You would have glanced at the moon, but the orb and her stars were painted so faint compared to the rest of the picture.

“She came to me - and perhaps it was out of boredom for her own happiness - but she made me a promise. Promises are something I don’t take lightly.” He says. His words are spoken like a true king, but you can’t help but wonder if he himself truly means what he says. 

Namjoon turns to you with a peaceful smile, “Fate works in mysterious ways, and sometimes it’s best for us to wait and see what it brings.”

He’s ready to move on and you both bask in a new found silence as you continue to walk through the exhibit, stopping occasionally at a portrait here and there. Though at every painting you stop, you can’t help but look at the man next to you.

This was the man described in everything you read. This was King Kim Namjoon at his finest, and you were privileged enough to be there.

“Did you really house orphaned children?” You ask out of the blue.

He blinks at first, registering your sudden outburst. Though, when he does realize what you’ve asked, he smiles fondly, “I did. Of all the people we should take care of, our children and our elderly are most important!” 

His words are filled with passion, and you can tell he really cares about the people he’s talking about, “Our elders have shaped our generation, and we shape the generations after us. It’s only fair that we see they’re well taken care of.”

There’s a part of you that truly wishes to see what he was like as a ruler for yourself. You smile, “Well, I guess the internet doesn’t lie.”

“I suppose it doesn’t, though I’m probably not the correct person to ask.” He sheepishly admits, a light blush dusting his cheeks.

You nod in understanding. He really didn’t know much about this era or it’s advancements besides the kiosks in his exhibit. It takes you a moment, but you think of the perfect exhibit to introduce him to the 21st century. 

You take his hand in yours - effectively catching him off guard - and you pull him in the direction of the exit, “Well, allow me to educate you about the world I live in.”

Namjoon doesn’t even attempt to hide his blush this time around. He only nods and allows himself to follow you, “Please.”

You lead him out of the more classic featured art section and into the Modern Art Exhibit. This exhibit starts very tame, sticking to photography and modern painting styles before it morphs into free form art sculptures in the connecting rooms.

One sculpture is made of metal and it’s shape reminds you of a round mushroom. It's definitely interesting, but you don’t necessarily understand it’s appeal. It would seem Namjoon is confused as well.

“This is art?” He asks, his head tilted to the side as he follows his distorted reflection.

“It is.” You assure him. You had a feeling he wouldn’t get it either, you just wanted to show him what he was missing. You sigh, “I don’t really understand it either so don’t fe-”

“It’s so intriguing.” Namjoon says, cutting you off. 

“I’m sorry?” You ask, slightly confused.

“The structure and the colors, they’re so complimentary to the other! I don’t want to look away.” His entire being is completely enraptured with the piece in front of him. It’s so simple, yet his eye contact doesn’t break from his reflection. “I feel as though I am in a trance.”

You squeeze his hand - not even caring that your hands are still connected, “Well, there’s much more of this to see.”

A look of pure joy and elation blossoms on Namjoon’s face and you feel a faint flutter in your heart. You’d never noticed how bright his eyes shine until now, nor did you notice just how cute his dimples really were.

Are you really falling for him?

~ Read: Part 2 ~

[aondaneedles]

Bella Goth (all as well!)

Which one, my fake (the clone) or the real one? I'll just answer for both (and will regret this not even halfway through).

❤️: OTP

Of course I ship Bella with Mortimer. That's not even a question.

For fake!Bella, I think she's a free spirit. She needs to find herself before she can ever settle down. For now, I don't see her with anyone.

💔: No OTP

Um, anyone but Mortimer? But that's not true. I've seen her with Pascal and liked that. I don't think I have a NOTP for her...

Anyone who clips her wings.

🌈: Sexuality

Bella is straight, maybe bi-curious?

Fake!Bella is bi.

😊: Friends

Morty, of course, and the rest of her family. Bella is everyone's friend. You may have met her just two minutes ago, but she behaves just like you've already known her for years.

Fake!Bella befriends Erin pretty early on and they're as thick as thieves. She's also one of the few sims who really just... gets Nervous.

💀: Enemies or Rival

Bella has this larger than life personality that doesn't hate anyone. Or at least, you won't notice if she hates you. She'll always behave just as amicable as if she likes you. Dina was one of the only people who could see behind that facade and it drove Bella nuts.

The Beakers, no doubt. They'd love to get their hands on the clone, and while fake!Bella may not realise this, she senses that something is way off about them!

🐶: Pet or favorite Animal

Bella comes from a long line of witches. She is a cat person, 100%. But like... those ridiculously fancy, naked cats. They're just as high-maintenance as she is.

Fake!Bella has a pet lizard back at the gas station she sleeps at. She's named him Ziggy.

🌷: Flowers or plants they like

Roses!

Have you ever seen a blooming cactus? They're kind of pretty...

☀️: Favourite Season

Winter, when everyone gathers together and all of the big functions are held.

Anything but summer.

🌧️: Favourite Weather

That's easy! Sunny weather for both!

🕯️: Favourite Aromatic candle

Bella is a big fan of exotic flowers. Mix them with anything that creates an interesting smell (like herbs, sea salt or something) and she's all over it.

Fake!Bella likes it simple, in contrast. Lavender is nice.

🥘: Favourite Food

There's nothing better than a homemade barbeque with burgers for Bella. They had an old grill they got out of storage a few times of the year and did a small family barbeque. Bella manned the grill (because Mortimer burns everything he touches). Michael and Dina used to bring salads (Bella would never admit it, but Dina's salad was actually quite tasty) and the kids played in the graveyard. There aren't as many family barbeques nowadays...

Fake!Bella is not too picky. Anything that fills her up is fine with her. Whenever she's got some money, she heads over to the diner. Their burgers are good.

☕: Favourite Drink

Officially, champagne. Inofficial, Bella is fuelled by coffee.

Tap water. If she ever had coffee, she'd be all over it, too.

🍦: Ice-cream Flavour

Something simple, yet elegant, like Straciatella. Bella loves the little chocolate bits in it.

Chocolate.

🍕: Pizza Topping

Bella and Mortimer used to get salami pizza every Friday back when they were in high school. She's been craving it lately.

Once again, Fake!Bella is not picky. She's heard that pineapple pizza is a crime against pizza, though and steers clear from it.

🍟: Snack

Bella's favourite snack is frozen grapes. Very refreshing and sweet.

Fake!Bella's favourite snack is chips. Every flavour is fine, but the more savoury, the better.

🍿: Movies they like to watch

Bella is really into those old-school Hollywood movies. Movies like that just aren't made anymore...

Whatever's running on tv. Fake!Bella has a soft spot for those lifetime-esque movies though, where long lost family members are reunited and everyone gets a happy ending.

📺: TV Show they like to watch

Don't tell anyone, but Bella loves telenovelas. They are her guilty pleasure.

Fake!Bella has been watching soap opera reruns religiously lately. Erin showed her how to use SimTube, and she's been spending all her free time watching them. She's on Episode 2751 of "Days of the Cowplant" already!

🎵: Music they listen to

Classical music. Maybe a bit jazz, if Bella's feeling fancy.

Fake!Bella hasn't heard anything but the type of elevator music they play at the gas station yet, but she's pretty sure that that's not it.

⚽: Sport they like or play

Golf.

Fake!Bella goes running sometimes. Just runs as far as possible. Until her lungs burn and she can't remember anything. It's freeing.

📚: Books they like to read

There's a library of classics in the Goth library and Bella has read most of them.

Fake!Bella has found a tattered copy of "The Great Simsby" behind the trash cans of the community pool one day and for some reason, it spoke to her...

🕹️: Video Games they like or Play

Bella doesn't do video games.

You can find fake!Bella at the arcades on a good day. She likes anything that has jumping and running. And she loves rhythm games!

🎻: Musical instrument

Bella knows how to play the piano and usually plays it to entertain guests.

Nothing yet. Maybe synthesizer?

🎨: Favourite Colour

Her signature colour, red!

Red, even though she feels like a fraud for wearing it...

👠: Shoes they like

Fancy high heels. Bella has ruined her feet years ago but she doesn't care. She loves how powerful and sexy she looks in it.

Sensible shoes. Who needs uncomfortable shoes, fake!Bella thinks.

👕: Clothing style

Fancy, elegant, yet understated.

Anything that she can find in the dumpster behind the clothing store. She makes sure to look put together, though. It's an urge she can't help.

👜: What’s always on their bag

Her lipstick. And a good book. Always carry a good book with you and you'll always be in good company.

A few coins, if she needs to buy stuff.

📰: Section of the Newspaper they read

The society section.

The celebrity section.

💻: Website they visit the most

Bella spends a lot of time on various fundraiser sites to look for a good cause to sponsor and fundraise for.

whoisbellagoth.com

📱: Social media they use the most

Bella doesn't really use social media. She'd rather spend time with her family and friends in person.

Fake!Bella is addicted to SimTube. Not only for her daily dose of soap but also for conspiracy videos about aliens and the Elixir of Life.

📗: Favourite School Subject

Economics and Biology. Morty may be the genius in their family, but she was no ditz either!

Fake!Bella never went to school. But if, she would have been be super into P.E.

📕: Less Favourite School Subject

P.E. She wasn't bad at it, but she hated getting sweaty.

Maths. Her brain's wired weirdly and she just can't wrap her head even around simple maths. She usually just tosses money on the counter and hopes it's enough.

🎓: University they attended (or not)

Bella attended ALT, of course. She was in a long-distance relationship for all of it, as Morty attended LFT.

Fake!Bella was never college-aged.

🎒: University Major

Economics. It surprises a lot of people, but it really suited her. She has a mind for business. In another life, maybe...

I think that Fake!Bella would have ended up in philosophy due to being unable to decide which major to choose.

🔮: Something Random

Sometimes, Bella wonders what would happen if she were to disappear. Would her family be fine, or would they struggle without her? Of course, she wants them to be happy, but a not so nice small part of her wishes that they'd have trouble to move on...

Fake!Bella sometimes has random flashes of... she's not sure what she sees, but it makes her sad... a small girl with pigtails, a big house, a man holding a baby...

Phew! Thanks for playing, anon!

[leupagus]

My Stationery Box, or: The Douche Chest, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Being A Terrible Parody Of Myself

So I really love to write letters, and have since i was a kid — when i cleaned out my grandparents’ house I found a few I’d written in grade school, and my parents’ files are chocablock full of the weird collage type things I sent to them in college. 

I’ve also been a huge insufferable fucking snob about stationery since way too young (yes I did have a fountain pen phase, no it did not go well) and have been collecting fancy paper and cute cards and assorted weird writing paraphernalia forever. Up until recently, things were just kind of haphazardly stuffed in various drawers and shelves and I could never actually find any said fancy shit when I wanted it; but a couple of months ago I discovered an adorable little chest of my late mom’s that had previously housed, I think, her knitting and has mostly just been collecting dust since. And voila: The Douche Chest was born:

(Pictured with my elderly laptop and coffee with my coffee warmer, which I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone to buy one day when we’re not under worldwide quarantine, seriously it will change your life.)

Keep Reading for some top tier stationerdery

First off, the stuff that helps me write! I still use my family address book, which was purchased sometime in the early 80s and has the name and address of everyone my parents ever cared enough about to want their name and address, which is actually not that many people. I keep it updated and have added a few people, but mostly rely on my phone’s address book. Mostly I like it because it’s got a lot of my mom’s handwriting.

My planner, which has a whole correspondence section where I keep a record of who I write to regularly, when I write to them, and what kind of stationery they usually get (because there are different types and you don’t want to give a correspondence an inconsistent letter-reading experience! Yes I know, I can’t believe I’m like this either) indicated by the m, s, x, l, b notations. That will be relevant later. Also yes the planner is where I scribble down both story ideas and my gratitude journal. This is what I’m saying in re: yikes.

At my own house, I have a whole huge box of letters I’ve gotten over the years, mostly organized by sender and date. Since I’m at my aunt’s house for quarantine, my correspondence is all being kept in my dad’s old... I dunno what to call it, basically it’s a trapper-keeper type thing that I literally never saw him go to work without. (A running theme of this tour is that a whole lot of this stuff is inherited from/given to me by my parents and grandparents.) Inside is also various labels that have come in handy when addressing packages etc, as well as our local neighborhood directory.

Next up is my pen bag, which is — I mean, it has my pens. I prefer writing with a black .5 tip rollerball type pen, and by “prefer” I mean “I cannot abide writing letters with anything else and will go to Staples and buy a new box rather than use a ballpoint pen except obv not right now, which makes the bag real important for keeping track of all my special pens.” Also pictured: my grandpa’s ancient letter opener that I’m pretty sure he stabbed multiple people with, and my blue Le Pen which I use to annotate my letters when I’m reading them through before sending. I KNOW.

This is my assorted letter-writing stuff storage box (no we’re not even at the cards yet this is TERRIBLE); please note that I sort of jerryrigged this box together myself, which will be another running theme of this tour. Glue, roller whiteout thingies, washi tape (which I don’t really use but people keep sending me?) post-its and my address stamp because no matter what I do, the fuckin’ Audubon Society refuses to send me a single donation request with cute stickers showing my address even though they’ve sent my deceased dad like three THIS YEAR. Anyway. Also please note the incredibly awesome initial stamp thing — I came up with the rough design in college and use it in place of my name a lot, but I went to leoniebunch and they transformed it into this super professional and lovely design that I want to use for the rest of my life. Not pictured: the fucking wax seal I also had made with that design, because yes, I’m like this.

WE’RE STILL NOT DONE WITH THE PARAPHERNALIA: here’s the other misc. stuff that I use on the regular. Cup with sponge because we’re not really licking envelopes these days: tons of weird stickers that I’ve collected, YET MORE PENS, including rainbow ones because one of these days I’m going to write to one of my friends with alternating rainbow colors and they’ll have to murder me. Also pictured: the letter opener which I forgot to put back in the pen bag, as well as my dog’s nail clippers and brush because that’s a handy place to keep them. Also also pictured: my dog, who does not help in any way with letter writing.

OKAY FINALLY ONTO THE STATIONERY, Jesus just writing this all out is making me both proud and ashamed.

I’m sure you noticed in the first pic how everything is meticulously, not to say monomaniacally, labeled. Some stuff might require a little bit of explanation; some stuff is pretty wysiwyg though. For example, BEAR CARDS, which:

(These are sent exclusively to my nephews, who go absolutely apeshit over them every time. Come to think of it, I have a LOT of cards/letter stock/etc that is just for one person or one set of people, which maybe I should talk to my therapist about.)

PUN CARDS are likewise exactly what you think they are; they’re the most recent addition to my hoard, having found them at Powells when I went to Portland in February. They are extremely My Kind Of Thing.

Then you’ve got things like BIRTHDAY CARDS, THANKS, POSTCARDS which like — guess what:

(Please note that of these birthday cards, all but two were actually inherited from my grandmother who passed away in 1986. See if you can guess which two are my purchases.) (Also I’m running out of thank-you cards but to be fair I am rarely grateful so this should last me another few years at least.) (Also shit, I didn’t take a picture of the postcards I don’t think? Whatever, they’re postcards that I’ve either inherited from my parents or collected over the years. There’s also a very odd collection of wolf-themed cards that SOMEONE in my family collected, and that I have been using exclusively for allighater because she’s the only one who could ever appreciate them enough.)

Then there’s the BLANK CARDS and BLANK AND WRITTEN CARDS WITH/WITHOUT ENVELOPES, because sometimes I just need to know what I’m getting into before opening the boxes. I’d say a good 50% of these were inherited from my folks, with the cutsier ones being my own purchases. The cards that these boxes originally contained are looooooooong since used up but they’re nice boxes and that meme about adulthood being an endless debate over whether or not you should keep a box because it’s a really good box is accurate as all hell. 

(There are a lot of cards in here that I bought when I was like, in college — those square ones, for example, were purchased at Faces in Northampton when I was in college and I’m probably never going to actually send them which is kind of ridiculous but see: this entire post.)

And finally, the actual letter-letter stationery! Which I also have an embarrassing amount of! First up is what’s labelled MADOC TREE CARD/LETTER because I honestly had no idea how else to describe it; it was inherited from my grandma who everyone called MaDoc (on account of her being both a ma and a doctor, go figure) and it’s really lovely. I doubt it’s the original intention, but I like to unfold the paper and use both sides of it, because I always have a lot to say. These are used only for family members on MaDoc’s side, and of those, only the ones I really like, which accounts for there still being a lot left.

Then there’s the X-LARGE paper, which isn’t actually that large — it’s just normal computer-sized — but in context is the biggest stuff I’ve got. All of this paper is from my mom, who loved using cute themed paper, and I use this stuff mostly for the friends of hers I keep in touch with (which is actually kind of a lot).

Then there’s the letterhead I use for — okay, so like, we know by now that I’m deeply weird, but this is probably just DEEPLY WEIRD, but whatever, you came this far. So I found a metric shitton of 6 3/4 envelopes in amongst my parents’ office supplies — I have literally zero idea why they had about 5 100-count boxes of these envelopes but I’m one of those people who can never, ever throw shit out, so! I gathered together all the letterhead that they’d also collected over the years from the various universities and hospitals they worked at, cut said letterhead down so that it a) didn’t have University of Tacoma or whatever still on it and b) perfectly fit a 6 3/4 envelope if folded three times. The resulting shape is a little... odd, I’ll admit, but it pleases me greatly and that’s the important thing. In fact this has been my go-to correspondence choice for a couple of months now.

(Also pictured: the cover for this hinky-ass box I made out of a Beekman 1802 box from when we went to their store for their Rose Apothecary popup shop. Zero regrets. Not pictured: the really cute pad of paper I also use for these envelopes that’s a more normal size and shape because where’s the fun in showing you normal stuff?)

And finally, my pride and joy, my Crane Stationery, some of which I have had since I was in high school and my mom bought me a box of it for my birthday (I told you, running theme). It comes in small, medium, and big; yes, I absolutely have rules as to who gets what size of these, too. The medium box kind of fell apart a few years ago so I cobbled a new one together; Crane stationery is notable for not being as exciting as that cover might imply. I’m also kind of pleased that I still have the airmail stationery that I got in college that apparently isn’t sold anymore, which I find baffling because what the fuck is the point of international correspondence if you don’t have to use special stationery? Anyway:

(In re: the lined sheets — I actually have them for every size, because I loathe lined paper but also loathe writing crooked, hence these guides that I put under each sheet as I write. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

So that’s the complete guided tour! If you aspire to have a collection as viscerally unnerving as mine, feel free to send any questions my way. You’re welcome/I’m sorry.

[ourimpavidheroine]

Okay, @peoniequeen, here are your stories.

How many people do you know moved across the world for love? 

Well, you all know about this one. I met my late wife online in late 1998 on an X-Files message board, we emailed and then called, etc. until she came to the U.S. from Finland in September of 1999 to live with me for a year. After the year was up we relocated to Finland, in part because she could not legally immigrate to the U.S. during that time as a same-sex partner (Finland was a huge fucking pain in the ass about it but eventually they let me immigrate there based on our relationship status) and in part because we thought Finland would be a better place to raise kids due to healthcare, schools, etc. When I arrived in Finland it was the first time I had even been to Europe, never mind the country I was going to live in and the airline accidently left my two dogs in Amsterdam instead of putting them on the plane to Helsinki and I spent my first moments in my new home sobbing about my dogs until the very nice airline lady called for my late wife over the loudspeaker and let her come back and take me in hand (much the way Mako takes Wu in hand, if you must know). (Don’t worry, the airline put us up in a hotel next to the airport and the dogs came on the next flight and came to us there in a taxi the airline made arrangements for. They were completely fine and in fact weren’t sure what the fuss was about.) It was kind of a big culture shock. The end.

Or worked as a college radio DJ? 

I did! I had a show on Tuesday mornings from 4-6 am that nobody listened to but about 10 loyal people. (Kind of like my blog here, come to think about it.) I played a lot of old blues and jazz stuff that I’d grown up listening to. My Dad worked part time as a DJ at a local radio station so I knew how to work all the equipment and such thanks to him. (I also had a two hour slot on Wednesday nights there in high school where I played stuff teenagers wanted to listen to and not the never ending country western that the station owner and manager wanted played 24x7.) Yes, this was in the late 80′s-early 90′s when I was at university so it was all vinyl. I still have a collection of albums that have the gold stamp on them saying they are not for sale, that they are for radio station play only! (Some of them the aforementioned station manager gave me since they were not country and he was basically going to toss them into the trash and some of them were albums that I might have gotten through less altruistic means.)

Or was a makeup assistant to Drag Queens? 

I took a stage makeup course while I was majoring in theater at University and did so well with it that the guy who gave the class asked me to come and assist him at the San Francisco opera while they were essentially painting all of the singers brown in a classic racist move that was pretty well accepted in the 90′s but, thankfully, would be extremely frowned upon now. As I was doing it I struck up a friendship with one of the chorus tenors; it turned out he was a drag queen who sometimes did performances when he wasn’t doing opera. He was a Madonna impersonator (not a very good one, sorry to say) and he wanted me to help him design his makeup for it. So I went to the club he performed at a few times to get a better feel for how drag queens worked and then hung around backstage and ended up doing some designs for some of the other queens. The pay was basically me getting to see their performances for free and getting fed afterwards at whatever was open at 4 am but God it was fun. Also, now I am the most Judgy McJudgerson of ever when it comes to drag makeup on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The end.

Or wrote a letter to their Archbishop when they were twelve and got a personal answer in return? 

I was very put out by the fact that boys could be altar boys but girls got shit (I was Catholic, in case you haven’t guessed) and I was talking about it to my Grandma one time and she told me I should write a letter to the Archbishop and ask him why. Now see, my maternal Grandmother was married to a labor union president (my grandfather was still the president when he died of a heart attack when I was 8) and she was a good old fashioned liberal rabble rouser. Like, she got arrested with nuns protesting nuclear power plants in her muumuus and Birkenstocks, okay? She wrote letters to EVERYONE. So I sat down and very carefully wrote the letter and my Grandma made a few calls and got me the address and we sent the letter. I don’t think my Grandma actually thought I’d get a letter back (it was more of a teaching moment, if that makes sense) but he did send me a letter back! He was very kind, although his answer was the usual Catholic BS. I still have the letter but it is packed away in storage so I very sadly will not be producing it at this juncture in time.

Or drove from Los Angeles to Philadelphia in a 20 year old Volvo? 

My friend from university was going to Grad School at Temple University and her parents didn’t want her to drive the entire way by herself. So I drove with her in an orange 1971 Volvo sedan. (In fact, I drove about 90% of the trip because she didn’t like driving.) The air conditioning fan died as we were driving through the Mojave Desert on the way to Vegas and I realized that if I floored it the cool air would actually move itself and so I floored it all the way through the desert and we are lucky that fucking ancient hulk of Swedish steel did not die and leave us stranded to be baked to death. We stopped in Vegas (which was not as impressive in 1992 as it is today, trust me) and found a guy who could actually fix the fan and spent the night in one of the casino hotels before continuing on. We did stop in Chicago to stay with her grandparents for two weeks (where so many elderly Jews kept responding to my last name with confusion as they assumed I was Jewish that I eventually started to do genealogy and found out that I am, indeed, Jewish on my father’s side) and also we saw the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer film in Des Moines and went to a cowboy bar in Cheyenne (I learned how to line dance and my friend got completely trashed and I had to practically carry her back to the hotel) and many other adventures until we finally arrived in Philly and her parents flew me back to California. It was a great road trip and short of the reeeaaaally sketchy and filthy motel room in Salt Lake City that had both a half-empty Chinese takeout box and a soiled condom under the bed we had a grand time.

Or was part of a thruple? 

I have been part of two thruples. Well. Sort of. One thruple and one wanna be thruple. The first one, with my first husband and my girlfriend was a huge mistake from the get-go. (Oh god, she was so hot and the sex was so fucking good but she was really an awful person and my ex kept trying to control the entire thing and basically forced her into living with us instead of being just my girlfriend with benefits and the entire thing blew up and while it wasn’t the reason why I divorced him it didn’t help either.) The second one was with my late wife and our mutual boyfriend and it worked very well but he had a little boy from a former relationship and his son got very ill and died and he didn’t handle it at all and he disappeared out of our lives. It’s been 20 years, give or take, since I’ve talked to him. He asked us to no longer contact him and I’ve always respected that. And before you ask, he knows where I live and my email address is the same as it was all those years ago. If he wanted to find me it would be very easy for him to do so. He clearly doesn’t and I respect that. I wish him love and peace, wherever he is. I miss him still.

Or beat up the drunk lady in the hallway to get back a little girl’s keys?

Ah, I’ll tell this one tomorrow.

[personasintro]

Sleepover [oneshot]

⏤𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴; Jungkook is your best friend’s little brother who invites you to have a sleepover at his place. Nothing can happen, right?

⏤𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: oral sex [female receiving], strong language, light spanking, penetrative sex, protected sex

⏤𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘳𝘦: fluff, smut

⏤𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 10.4k

request: “Would it be ok for it to be smut? And oc is going over to jk house to have a sleepover with his older sister, only that his sister is working late and will be home later on in the night so it’s just oc and jk?” 

A/N: This one is inspired by one of mine requests. I made a little twist to it I hope you’ll like it x

You don’t think you’ve ever seen so many boxes in one room. The room is already filled with so many boxes and you put another one on top of it. 

How can one person have so much stuff? 

You turn back to repeat the same process of putting boxes from the huge van to inside. You’ve been doing it for the past thirty minutes and even if you’re holding boxes which aren’t that heavy, you still feel the little ache in your arms. You should probably start working out but you’re too lazy for doing any of it. Plus, being an adult while trying to survive in this awful world — nah, you don’t have time for that. 

“Jungkook, why the hell have you so much stuff?!” you hear your best friend’s — Jina’s — loud voice, seeing her already wiping the sweat off her forehead.

 You chuckle at her furrowed eyebrows, probably mentally cursing at her younger brother. You come up to the van he rented for today seeing your best friend fuming with her hands on her hips. He hops out of the vehicle, his boots hitting the floor while wiping his own forehead. His hair is curly and raven and even though he is probably the most tired person here, he still looks effortlessly beautiful and you’re trying not to stare too much. He smiles at his sister in teasing manner while his eyes crinkles at the end. 

“I’m an adult, I’ve a lot of stuff.” he explains but his sister only scoffs loudly.

“Just because you’re twenty doesn’t mean you’re suddenly an adult. You’ve to take care of yourself now, no mom’s homemade food.” Jina says but not in rude tone. 

She talks to him softly thinking her younger brother doesn’t realize what it takes to live on your own. Moving out from your parents’ house — your home — is a new and big step. You and Jina have been already through that and it was way harder than it seems.

“I know, I can perfectly take care of myself,” Jungkook states confidently, while taking one of the lightest box in his hands. He looks up at you, those big doe eyes looking at you softly. 

It’s your best friend’s brother, Y/N. Don’t be so effected by him. And what? You can still think he’s attractive because well... he is and there’s that. It doesn’t mean you’ll jump on him. You’ve some self control and besides, it’s like best friend’s code — no dating with each others’ siblings. As much as you and Jina get along, since high school, you know she wouldn’t be able to get through it if you and Jungkook would be somehow involved. Also, he’s five year younger than you starting with a college. You both are completely at different places. 

Not that you’re thinking how it’d be dating him. 

“Can you please take this, Noona? It’s one of the last ones,” he asks you kindly and you quickly scurry to him taking the box from him. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.” you nod with a smile, taking the box to his new home. His new apartment looks like some storage space but it’s understandable when he’s just moving in. There’s no personal touches to his new home yet — the apartment isn’t that big but still looks amazing. The bathroom and kitchen looks modern and even the walls he got painted look amazing. It looks like he’s got a great taste. 

You put the last one box down turning around to see Jina and Jungkook coming in.

“Thank you so much for helping.” he says to his sister as soon as he closes the front door.

“Of course, I told you I’d help you. I’m your big sister,” she says slinging her arm around his frame but it looks rather funny. 

Even though he’s younger — he’s obviously a man now. He’s taller than her at least for good thirty centimeters and his whole body is perfectly fit and manly. The dark khaki long sleeve T-shirt he’s wearing shows his broad shoulders and chest perfectly. Jina getting emotional for her brother who’s not affected by it that much like she is, she quickly gasps wiping her eyes which got watery. 

“I’m thirsty, I’ll be right back.” she says trying to get to the kitchen through boxes. 

After she’s out of your sight, Jungkook looks at you with his soft brown eyes. You almost visibly gulp but you stand there simply staring back at him. What is this kid doing?

“Thank you Noona for helping me. I really appreciate it.” he thanks you with a soft smile playing on his small plump lips revealing his bunny teeth.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to thank me. I’m glad I could help. Moving out is a huge step for you,” you tell him sitting down on the side of his sofa still covered in huge plastic cover. He leans against the wall next to him ruffling his hair which got into his eyes.

“I know, my mom is freaking out since I told her I’m thinking about moving out,” he chuckles. “She thinks I’ll die from hunger but I can cook something. Besides the convenience store is just around the corner.” he shrugs. 

You simply stare at him seeing him differently. He’s not a little kid anymore like he used to be with his ball cut wearing extremely edgy clothes for his age trying to look tough. His skin acne free now, looking smoothly and velvety which you’re secretly jealous of.

“I live just a few blocks away. If you ever feel hungry I’ve got enough food for you,” you laugh but you’re serious. 

He’s like a little brother to you as well. Whenever the Jeon’s family went camping, organized some family gathering — you’ve always been there. You’ve known their family well for about six years know. You’ve met him when he was only sixteen, remembering the first time he shyly greeted you with a bow. You’re a part of their family — as they like to claim.

“Good to know,” he laughs while pulling his sleeves up to his elbow. His gold skin almost blinding you, the little veins decorating his skin. He definitely grew up real fast. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks suddenly cocking his head to the side.

“You just... grew up. You’re not that sixteen year old kid I met anymore,” you let out a laugh watching his eyes staring at you.

“I can assure that I’m definitely not,” he says lowly and your eyes widen a little bit at his tone. You cough smiling at him awkwardly.

“I think I know how Jina feels now,” you tell him and his brows scrunch is confusion. “You’ve been like a little brother to me and now you’re living on your own. It’s just emotional a little bit.” you laugh in amusement but he doesn’t laugh with you. 

His jaw clenches while he watches you darkly. Your laugh freezes and you think you’ve somehow crossed the line. Maybe he doesn’t feel like you’re that close for you to call him your little brother. But you’ve been there. Since his rebellious period to now.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” he mumbles smiling at you but it doesn’t look real.

Thankfully, your best friend comes to the room with smudged mascara under her eyes sighing dramatically. “I wasn’t crying!” she quickly says, putting her hand in front of her like in defence when both of you look at her with raised brows.

Checking yourself in the mirror for the last time you make sure that you look decent. Satisfied with your look you lock your car walking inside trying to find Jina. Once you spot her pink sweater you walk up to them. 

Jina, Jungkook and his friends invited you to hang out with them. What is better way than spending your Saturday playing bowling? Even though you’re absolutely awful at playing it but you don’t mind. 

Everyone greeted you with cheerful greetings, Jina hugging you so hard you could barely breathe. But one particular pair of doe eyes looking at you while he sits on a leather couch. 

“Hi, Noona.” he greets you with little wave and you smile at him greeting him back. When you said you’re awful at playing bowling — you were right. 

Your name being the last one on the big board with the lowest score is the proof of it. Even Taehyung and Jimin are better at it and they were fooling around the whole time. 

“We’re going to order some drinks, do you guys want any?” Taehyung asks when the game ends, everyone ready for another one but decided on taking a break. 

Jungkook reserved the bowling alley for the whole night. Everyone says their order when Jina’s phone starts to beeping ending up with her going outside for a while to talk with her boyfriend. It’s just you and Jungkook — and it feels awkward. You haven’t seen him since he moved in and it’s already been two months. It wouldn’t be even that awkward but the silence between you two is. The sounds of a bowling ball hitting pins, music and people talking could be only heard. Jungkook feels the weird and awkward atmosphere so he coughs loudly catching your attention. 

“So,” he starts giving you a soft smile. “How have you been?”

His body is slouched on the leather couch, arm stretched around the couch’s seatback. He wears an oversized khaki hoodie with matching pants and those favorite black boots of his. He looks stunning. He looks completely different from the all men with suit and ties in your work, maybe that’s why you always find his fashion sense interesting. His forehead could be seen making him look somehow different than with his usual fringe covering it. 

“Noona,” he speaks when you don’t give him any answer and you quickly gave him your awkward smile. You hope he doesn’t catch you checking him out — that would be too embarrassing.

“O-oh, I’ve been great. Just too busy with my job and everything... but besides that I’m great. How’s living on your own?” he smiles at your question looking happy.

“It’s been great. I definitely miss my mom’s homemade food but other than that, it’s been great.” he answers while you nod at him making sure he knows you’re listening. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” he adds reaching for a bottle glass of cola and drinking from the straw. 

You eye the movement of his lips puckering around the thin yellow straw seeing him sucking and drinking from it.

“Yeah...” you mumble just watching him simply drinking his cola like some lunatic. Get yourself together, Y/N! “So why bowling? Other than you’re perfect at it.”

He chuckles while shaking his head. “Perfect? Barely.” he scoffs while smiling putting the cola back on the little table.

“Come on, you’ve won for third time with biggest score. We weren’t even close to your score,” you laugh pointing to the big screen above your bowling alley which shows the old score.

“Okay, I’m good at it. I’ll admit that,” he puts his hands in surrender and you tsk at him. “And why bowling? I guess I wanted to thank all of you who helped me with moving out. I already payed for everyone’s dinner but you couldn’t come so...” 

It’s true. 

After a week or so Jungkook moved in, he invited everyone who helped him — which included you and Jina helping him the first day and Taehyung and Jimin the next day — but unfortunately you couldn’t come due to your work schedule.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I wish I could’ve come,” you apologized with small pout and he finds you adorable. Adorable even though you’re five years older than him.

“Oh, no don’t apologize. I get it. I’m just glad you’ve made it this time,” he smiles looking at you deeply in the eyes. 

You could see the honesty and spark in his big doe eyes and you feel your heart beating faster. You’re not supposed to feel like this about him. The attraction towards him is pulling you to him but you’ve to stop yourself. Wanting nothing more than to sit on his lap and— no you can’t think about that. It’s Jina’s younger brother. He’s simply just a... kid. Even if he definitely doesn’t look like one with his toned body. 

“So do you want to learn how to play bowling?” he asks suddenly and you blink couple of time quickly nodding before processing his words properly. This is what an handsome boy does to you.

He walks to the bowling alley before turning around to finding you sitting there watching him. He quirks a brow at you chuckling to himself. “You’ve to come here, Noona.”

Idiot! You want to slap yourself for making this even more awkward than it already was. You just hope he doesn’t find you weird. You never thought you’d ever care what a twenty year old thinks about you. But now it’s like the only thing you’re thinking about. Does he think I’m weird? Does he find me awkward and annoying?

“Alright, but I suck at this.” you announce hand in surrender while walking up to him. Maybe coming to the bowling in your work attire which consist of pencil skirt and high heels wasn’t the best choice, but you’d come even later if you would go home just to change yourself to better and more appropriate clothes. Thankfully they insist on wearing a bowling shoes which they borrow for everyone at the counter.

“I know,” he shrugs and you slap his shoulder with offended ‘hey’. “That’s why I’m helping you with this.” he adds with cheeky smile and you shake your head at him while laughing. 

He clicks something on the little side board setting up the pins before choosing from the bowling balls. 

“This is the lightest one and best for you,” he says handing you the neon green ball. “Put your fingers here,” he says showing you while he puts his fingers into the little holes on the ball and you gulp. This is rather awkward seeing his long fingers disappearing in the hole. 

“Okay, your go,” he says and you do exactly what he done. “Perfect.” he muses.

He walks to the balls arranged in the line choosing the black one. It seems way heavier than yours, the way his biceps bulge out. “Now watch me.” he says walking back to the front of the lane.

I am, you don’t have to worry about that.

He shoots the ball giving you a good view of his ass. You watch him intensely as he releases the ball. It glides smoothly in the middle of the lane. He hits all the pins, the sound echoing loudly. He turns around a proud smirk on his lips when he hits the strike. He walks to you proudly with cocky grin. “And this is how you do it.” he points out and you roll your eyes.

“Okay, Mr. Jeon. Enough with the bragging,” you tease him trying to mimic the posture he showed you just a few seconds ago. 

You’re focusing scrunching your brows in concentration when you hear his loud laugh. You turn around seeing him holding his stomach while laughing at you.

“What the hell are you doing, Noona?” he asks through his laugh and you frown at him.

“I’m bowling, obviously.” you mumble watching him calm down from his laughter. “And stop laughing at me, I’m older than you.” you huff at him while pouting without realizing it. He bites his lips while looking at you.

“Let me help you,” he says walking towards you, standing behind you. 

You can feel his presence behind you, the masculine smell mixed with his cologne filled your scents and you hold yourself from humming. He smells nice. You always had a weak spot for men who smells nice. He places his hand over yours, which is way larger than yours. 

“Don’t throw the ball, simply just let it glide.” he explains quietly his lips too close to your right ear. 

You can feel the little breaths from his lips on your skin and it tickles. Closing your eyes you try to control your beating. Jungkook continues talking about your posture and more professional stuff about bowling but you’re not really paying any attention. You just nod like you do but you could care less about it now. He steps away from you gesturing to the lane. 

“Try it.” he says while you blink at him for awhile. He raises a brow in confusion before you quickly smile.

“Yeah, I got it.” you say trying to glide the ball — just like Jungguk advised to you — trying to hit all the pins. It’s not that easy as it looks, the ball sliding towards more left side but you still manage to hit four pins. You squeal happily clapping to yourself even though you weren’t so good as Jungkook.

“Great job, Noona.” he comments you with cute smile while scrunching his nose a little bit.

“Hey, did you start without us?” Jimin asks as he and Taehyung walks to you with hands full of your drinks. You quickly walk to them and help them placing the drinks onto the table.

“No, I was just showing to Noona how to play a bowling.” he answers while Taehyung arches a brow at him but you don’t see that.

“Okay, can we start? I’m ready to kick your ass, Jeon.” Jimin teases Jungkook pretending to stretching up.

“We still have to wait for Jina.” Jungkook says still slight smile playing on his lips at Jimin’s little show.

“I’m here!” Jina yells little bit louder causing to some people look at her with annoyed expressions but she could care less. 

She runs to your lane with grin plastered on her face. The similarity between her and Jungguk can be seen when they’re doing similar mimics. 

“Guys, we have to kick Jungkook’s ass.” she says causing everyone in the group laugh including Jungkook who stares at you with sparks in his eyes. Maybe it’s the lighting or he really has those sparks in his eyes.

As expected, Jungkook beats all of your asses without even trying. You all go return the shoes they borrowed to you, standing at the counter where young male is standing. He looks very young he’s probably still in college. 

“Did you have fun?” he asks everyone seeing the good mood between all of you. You spent at least three hours here playing bowling.

“We did, this place is amazing.” Taehyung, the social butterfly, answers with his boxy smile already telling Jimin how better he was than him at playing bowling. They both were miserable so you don’t see any difference in that, but you still find them funny.

“And what about you? Did you have fun?” The guy asks with little cockiness in his voice. You’re surprised when you look up at him finding him looking straight at you, grinning at you like some teenager. He probably still is. He takes the shoes away from you touching your hand slightly before pulling away.

“Yeah, she did have fun. Can you take my shoes?” Jungkook interfers all of a sudden, tossing his shoes on the counter leaving everyone speechless. The guy visibly gulps before quickly taking all of yours shoes before saying goodbye and rehearsed ‘thank you for coming to our place’.

“Damn, girl that boy was after you.” Jina says teasingly, slouching her hand around your shoulder grinning at you widely while Jimin walks next to you laughing at your sour expression.

“He is too young.” you scrunch your nose leaving the building with Jina teasing your ass off about how you should go back and take his number.

Jungkook pays for everyone, Taehyung waiting for him with his arched brows. Jungguk puts hit wallet into the back pocket of his pants before looking at Taehyung in confusion. “What?” he asks.

“What was that?” Taehyung asks looking at Jungguk with his big knowing eyes. He narrows his eyes at him while Jungkook looks even more confused.

“What was what?” he asks before walking towards the direction all of you went. Taehyung catches up to him quickly walking beside his friend.

“Come on, you know exactly what I’m talking about.” he says seriously causing Jungkook to stop, an annoyed expression visible on his face.

“No, actually I don’t.” he says somehow bitterly. But Taehyung knows better — Jungguk knows exactly what Taehyung’s aiming at.

“Y/N is too old for you. What are you trying to do, Jungkook?” he asks straight ahead. Jungguk isn’t really a type to play around, although girls are practically falling for him everywhere. It’s just — he’s too picky with girls. And Taehyung knows his friend really well and he’s sure Jungguk is somehow interested in you. But you’re unavailable. He doesn’t want him to start something which may hurt everyone including his sister.

Jungguk bites the inside of his cheek in annoyance. “I’m not doing anything, hyung.” he shrugs before walking away from his friend who only sighs following him.

Ramen. Do you need it? Yes, you do! You toss it into your little shopping basket grabbing couple of packages of chicken, vegetable and shrimp ramen. It’s necessary to have these at home plus they’re quick to cook. 

Coming to home from your work to finding out that your fridge is indeed empty wasn’t a good end of your day. There was nothing in it expect one bottle of soju — you won’t probably eat that for your very late dinner. The most annoying is, that you took a shower and changed yourself into pajamas excited for some food. But then you had to dress up to come to the nearest convenience store. Putting the most ugly sweatpants you have with nasty oil stain that even your wash machine can’t wash out anymore. You don’t care, it’s late and you’re in convenience store. Not on fashion show.

“Noona?” Soft voice calls at you and your eyes widen when you turn around to look at Jungkook. 

The same shopping basket in his hands, he scans your figure and you want to freaking dig yourself into the floor. Why the hell did I have to meet him? You nervously smile at him feeling your cheeks red. When you said you don’t care wearing this, well you do now. And it annoys you that he has such an impact over you. You shouldn’t care that your face is makeup free and he can see that one spot on your forehead you desperately trying to hide for the third day. Even the hoodie you’re wearing is massive and it’s hiding your whole figure. How did he even recognize you? You look like a piece of shit.

“Hi, Jungkook.” you greet him brightly acting confident while he walks up to you looking like some model. 

All he's wearing are sweatpants with a baggy T-shirt, his outfit similar to yours, but he can definitely pull it off. You look like som beggar compare to him. He probably thinks that as well but he just doesn’t say anything.

“What are you doing here so late?” he asks with his bright smile, fingers gently moving the fringe which covers his eyes.

“I was hungry when I came home and had nothing in the fridge, so...” you trail off awkwardly pointing at your basket. His eyes follows your movement looking at the ramen packages in it. 

“That’s not very healthy, Noona.” he scrunches his nose disapprovingly. You look at his basket — vegetables, fruit and some pasta in it.

“I know, but I’m really craving ramen, okay?” you exclaim jokingly and he laughs with you. “And it’s quick to cook.” you mumble.

“You’re right about that.” he agrees moving the vegetables revealing two packages of ramen and you gasp.

“You hid it really well,” you laugh looking down for a moment before looking back at him seeing him staring at you. You stop laughing nervously shifting. “I know, I look like a piece of shit.” Wait, did you just say it out loud? Yes you did.

He scans your outfit before looking back at you. 

“What are you talking about? You look beautiful, Noona.” he says, the spark in his eyes once again and you gulp. Biting the inside of your cheek you awkwardly stand there while gripping the handle of the basket.

“You’re right, I do. With these ugliest sweatpants I own with a stain on it.” you roll your eyes hiding the embarrassment.

“Really? I thought it’s suppose to be there,” he says lightly touching his chin gesturing that he’s thinking. You stare at him when he looks at you with cheeky grin and you lightly slap his shoulder. He was just messing with you. “No, but really. You look fine.” he says his eyes serious although friendly smile on his face.

“Thanks.” you mumble still thinking he’s bluffing. There’s no way you look fine. You kind of thought you wouldn’t meet anyone you know and you don’t care about strangers’ opinions about you. But then you had to meet Jungguk just like that. It’s okay, Y/N. Just think about his awful fashion sense when he was sixteen.

“So... I’m planning this sleepover with Jina and you’re more than welcome to come. I told her to invite you as well since you’re hanging out more often, but I guess she still didn’t ask you.”

“No, she didn’t.” you confirm his thoughts while thinking about it. “Will Jimin And Taehyung be there?” you ask slowly walking to the next aisle while he trails after you.

“Hell, no. We already had our gaming night while Jimin spilled beer all over my new couch and Taehyung vomited all over my bathroom,” he says with horrific face at the memory. 

He had to scrub and wash all Taehyung’s vomits all by himself because Taehyung wasn’t able to — even the next day. And Jimin? Jimin simply ran away as soon as he woke up not wanting to smell those vomits any longer. 

“So, what are you saying? Will you come?” he asks with hopeful eyes. You’re ready to decline since your attraction towards Jungkook has been all over the place and you don’t like how much he attracts you. But he does that cute thing with his eyes — or it’s simply just his doe eyes — when he looks at you with hope and hopeful smile.

“When is it?” you ask and you swear you can see him grin in your peripheral sight.

“This Friday.” he answers. It’s tomorrow. You stop in your track turning around while biting your lip. You don’t know what posses you, but the next words in your mouth are much quicker than they should be. 

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

Jungkook smiles or smirks — something in between you can’t exactly define it but it makes your heart beat faster — and says; “Okay. See you tomorrow, Noona. I can’t wait.” And just like that he walks away from you while you’re standing there dumbfounded.

Jungkook walks to his home with two bags full of food finding his dearest and only sister slouched on his couch — clean from the beer Jimin spilled there. 

“Don’t you have to go, I don’t know... home?” he asks her as he puts the bags on his kitchen counter. She averts her eyes from the big television their parents gave him as a welcoming gift, before scrunching her brows in response.

“Yah! I’m older than you!” she exclaims threateningly but he only rolls his eyes off. 

Since he moved in, she’s been more at his place than at hers. At first, he thought she’s just being the protective and caring older sister, but now it seems like she’s using benefits of his new home. New home which he got rented, but it’s still his home.

“Doesn’t seem lIke it sometimes,” he mumbles under his breath knowing if she’d heard him she’d probably throw her slipper at him — it wouldn’t be the first time. He puts all the groceries to the fridge and cabinets — where it belongs. He sits next to her exhaling but even then she doesn’t pay much attention to him. “I met Y/N at the convenience store.” he speaks.

“Oh, really?” Is all she says, her eyes still stucked to the television. He sighs looking at James Franco on the screen while his sister has literal heart eyes. Is this what women like?

“I invited her to our sleepover since you forgot.” he tells her little bit annoyed that she forgot. She looks up at him for a moment before continuing watching the movie.

“Yeah, sorry. I completely forgot,” she apologizes. “Did you buy a popcorn?”

“I did. I also bought some nachos and snacks. I thought about cooking a kimchi stew for dinner.” He says watching how James Franco appears shirtless. Jina looks at her younger brother with scrunched brows.

“You barely cook for me,” she remarks suspiciously looking at her brother. “Are you doing this for Y/N?” she asks with louder tone and it causes Jungguk to flinch.

“What? No? I can’t really invite someone for sleepover without any food.” he justifies but she doesn’t believe him.

“Jungkook,” He looks up at her curiously not liking the way she looks at him. She looks intimidating. “Do you like Y/N?”

“Of course, she’s a part of our family.” he answers diplomatically hoping she’d just let it go. But knowing his stubborn sister, she won’t. And that’s exactly what happens.

“I don’t mean it that way.” she almost snaps at him knowing he’s playing his little game right now. Jungkook is completely smart and sly at the same time.

“And what way do you mean it?” he asks her with fire in his eyes. The staring contest between Jeon siblings starts. Nobody says even a word before Jina groans leaving Jungkook smirking little bit.

“The bowling night... when that guy was flirting with her. You snapped at him. Why did you do that?” she asks with her jaw locked. But Jungguk doesn’t seem phased. He simply chuckles at that not letting that memory annoy him.

“I found it disrespectful for him to flirting with her. He was way too young and Y/N is like a second sister to me. I was just protecting her.” he explains and Jina’s eyes soften. 

She knows how protective Jungkook is. Once he and Jina went for a family dinner with their parents at this nice Korean restaurant in the center of Busan. There was this one waiter who was shamelessly flirting with her. Jungkook ignored it with his balls fisted under the table but when he tried to sneakily sneak his phone number to Jina that’s when he bursted. Let’s just say... that guy stopped working there. Probably too embarrassed and scared of Jungkook.

“Good, because she’s my best friend, Jungkook. I can’t imagine if something happens between you two. She’s like my sister as well, I hope you know that and respect that.” she says already vomiting at the thought of you and Jungkook. 

She hasn’t seen anything suspicious between you two but the way he reacted at the bowling made her wonder if he likes you somehow... different. Plus, she has never seen anyone with Jungkook recently and she doesn’t really get that. She’s pretty aware of her brother’s looks and the way all girls are drooling over him. But now she sees he doesn’t see you like that.

“I know, I won’t touch her.” he says and she pats his head which he annoyingly flinches away from her touch.

“Promise?” she raises her brow and he sighs while rolling his eyes.

“Promise.” he mumbles with a fake smile while those words leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

You knock on the door shifting your weight. Was this a good idea? Well, why not? They’re like siblings to you. Yeah, siblings. Exactly that. The door opens and Jungguk stands there with bunny smile. 

“Noona, you came.” he says happily letting you in.

“I told you I would, remember?” you laugh, taking your shoes off while he closes the door after you.

“Come in,” he says leading you into his living room and you gasp at the amazing interior. 

There’s a no sign of boxes and everything looks so good. This apartment has Jungguk’s personality in it. You can see his three cameras on the shelf, one of them you bought him for his eighteenth’s birthday. You like he kept it, you were scared you bought some bad camera even thought the price wasn’t that low. But you’ve no knowledge about cameras so you had to go with seller’s opinion. 

“Jina is still not here. I guess she’s late as usual.” he explains when he leads you to his kitchen, which is combined with colors of white and beige. You love the kitchen the most — you can imagine yourself cooking in that pretty kitchen. You put your bags on the table already showing what you brought.

“I bought some strawberries and whip cream, me and Jina loves it as a snack.” You explain when you see his surprised look. “I bought some soju, I didn’t know if you’d like to drink but I still bought it because I know Jina will.”

“You didn’t have to bother with buying anything. I already bought a lot of stuff.”

“Did you buy a strawberries with whip cream?” you ask with raised brow. Silence. He stays silent looking at you dumbfounded. “Exactly.” 

He only sighs feeling like he messed up. He should’ve ask you what would you like. Maybe he should’ve bought more ramen since you obviously love it.

“Do you want to try it?” you ask pointing to the strawberries. “It’s really good.” It’s not exactly healthy with the whip cream but you don’t care and neither should he, because it’s delicious.

“I’m not sure...” he mumbles not really convinced by you.

“Let’s try it, you’ll love it.” you say happily clapping while he smiles already pulling out some bowl you can put the strawberries in it. 

You hand him strawberries and he washes them with cold water before putting them in a bowl. He leads you to his living room when his phone rings. He puts the bowl on the coffee table while he reaches for his phone. Jina’s name is flashing on his screen and he accepts the call.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I’ll be late a little bit I have to work a overtime. I should be at yours by ten.” Jina says, the disappointment clear in her voice.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jungkook says kindly giving you a look. You look at him with puzzled look wondering who’s calling and he mouths ‘Jina’ at you. You only nod reaching for one of the strawberries quickly putting it into your mouth.

“Is Y/N already there?” she asks. 

“Yeah, she just came.”

“Okay, wait up for me. Shit, my boss is coming I’ve to go. Don’t watch that movie with Chris Hemsworth without me, bye!” And just like that she hangs up leaving Jungguk chuckle at his sister’s behavior.

“What was she saying? Is she on her way?” you ask when he puts his phone back to its place.

“She’ll be late. She has to work overtime.” he answers and you only nod.

“Okay, let’s try this.” you say almost too happily causing Jungkook chuckle at you. You’re cute. “This is the way we do it.” you explain, shaking the whip cream before spraying it at the big plump and red strawberry.

He stares at every motion you do with your lips — sucking the whip cream before gently biting into it. But that’s not all. On top of it all you moan at the amazing taste while rolling your eyes off. You don’t think about it too much, simply eating and enjoying the strawberry. But he quickly covers his crotch while biting his lip. He can’t believe such a stupid thing just turned him on.

“Do you want to try it?” you turn to him when you swallow. 

“Huh?” he asks and you chuckle at him. 

“The strawberry... do you want to try it?” you look at him seeing him acting weird.

“Yeah, sure.” he says quickly popping a strawberry to his mouth without the whip cream.

“You forgot the whip cream.” you comment and he rolls his eyes before spraying it right into his mouth. 

His neck stretched you eye the glowing skin there as his Adam apple bobs as he swallows. You want nothing more than to kiss it. Wait what?! You quickly advert your eyes away from the pleasuring sight.

“Noona,” he speaks and you shut your eyes for a moment. 

His soft voice calling you like that makes your heart tumble. You look at him before spotting some of the whip cream in the corner of his lips. You reach out for him wiping it off with your thumb. You put your thumb to your mouth cleaning it while swallowing the whip cream. You haven’t realized how bad and inappropriate this looked as Jungkook’s eyes widen. He reaches out for you, pulling a strand of hair behind you hair. You sit there frozen feeling the light touch on your cheek. He bites his lip before leaning in. His lips are becoming too close and you put a hand on his chest stopping him.

“Jungkook...” you murmur softly but he only puts his hand over yours pulling you in and kissing you.

 He holds you in place kissing you softly like he’s afraid he’d break you. The little kiss is innocent as he pulls away while biting his lip. You breathe out opening your eyes. 

“What...” you trail off shocked from what has just happened.

“God, I wanted to do that for so long.” he admits shamelessly and you open your mouth in shock.

“Why would you do that?” you somehow manage to say as he chuckles. It’s not that you didn’t like it, you did. And you’re scared of that feeling because you want more.

“You didn’t like it?” he asks innocently but his eyes sparkles with cockiness. He enjoys this and you scoff.

“No,” you cross your arms over your chest making your breasts peek out from your top. Jungkook’s eyes follows the movement and he shamelessly stares at them. “Yah!” you scold him covering your chest.

“Oh, come on! We just kissed!” he exclaims laughing at you. You can’t believe you kissed him. Well, you can’t believe he kissed you. Whatever, you both kissed each other.

“You kissed me!” you exclaim this time frowning at him.

“And you liked it!”

“No, I didn’t—“ You’re cut off by his lips being pressed roughly on yours. He moves his lips skillfully and damn, this boy can kiss so good. He rummages your mouth with his tongue pulling you more to him. His hand gripping your neck as he hold you in your place. You move your lips against his enjoying the sweet taste of his lips. He stops leaning his forehead against yourself trying to calm down his breathing. 

“Did you like it, Noona? Hm?” he whispers and you almost whimper at the seductive tone he has. You push him away slightly with a scowl on your lips and he almost pouts wanting to pull you closer to him.

“Jungguk, stop playing around.” you scold him feeling embarrassed you just kissed with Jungkook. The same Jungkook you watched growing up into an adult.

“Do you think I’m playing around?” he asks serious, any sign of playfulness long gone. “Oh, I’m serious, Noona.” he smirks at you. 

You visibly gulp sitting there frozen while your lips are tingling. He grabs your hips putting you onto his hip while you screech.

“I like this much better,” he says looking up at you while you’re peering at him surprisingly. 

But you don’t pull away simply enjoying how good it feels to sit on his lap. You shamelessly feel the slight bulge above your entrance. He burrows his face into your breasts inhaling your scent while you’re sitting on him all dumbfounded. 

“Umm, Jungguk—“ you try to speak but he cuts you off. 

“Shhh, let’s enjoy this.” he says his voice muffled by your skin. 

You feel his hot breath on your skin and you hold his figure closer to you. You feel the little smirk on his lips against your skin before he starts pecking it making his way from your breasts to your neck. Blushing, you bit your lip when you feel him getting harder in his pants. He feels getting harder but he doesn’t do anything even though he needs to feel some friction between your bodies — he wants you to do the next move and luckily enough, you do. Without too much thinking you buckle your hips, brushing against his bulge and both of you moan immediately.

“Oh, shit I didn’t—“ you whimper as he thrust his hips upwards, your crotches colliding together. “Oh my god,” you moan out throwing you head back at the amazing feeling. 

He starts moving your body so your crotches brushes against each other. But it’s not enough — the slight pleasure you’re feeling is not enough. 

“I need more.” you breathe out and Jungguk slightly pulls away to look at your face.

“Are you sure?” he asks scanning your face but you quickly nod.

 He chuckles at you massaging your hips. You feel your arousal between your legs, the way it’s slowly dripping damping your underwear. 

“What do you want, Noona?” he asks looking at you innocently before cocky grin makes appearance on his face.

“I want you to touch me,” you answer quietly and he hums in acknowledgment. He grabs your T-shirt silently asking for your permission. You nod and in one swift movement he takes off your T-shirt leaving you in your bra and leggings covering your legs. 

“Jungkook,” you whine in anticipation and he chuckles.

“You’re not very patient, Noona.” he comments with cocky tone and you roll your eyes. He slaps your ass making you jerk away gaping at him. “Stop rolling your eyes at me.”

It’s your turn to chuckle at him in amusement. “I think you’re forgetting that I’m older than you.” you say with authoritative tone. His hands caressing your naked skin on your hips stops.

“Who cares about the age? I certainly don’t.” he remarks bitterly kissing one of your breasts. 

You feel your nipples hard against the material of your bra and you want nothing more than to take it off. So you do. You reach back slowly taking it off surprising Jungguk. His eyes immediately spots your naked breasts and he doesn’t wait a second, simply dipping his head taking one of your nipples into his mouth. You gasp at the way his tongue swirles against it before he starts sucking your nipples.

“Should I continue?” he asks breathlessly and you’re quick to nod. 

“Tell me.” he insists and you obey. 

“Yes, please continue.” he smiles putting you on his couch as you lay down. 

He takes off your leggings leaving you only in your panties. You look down, your eyes widening at sight. Your unmatching underwear is nowhere attractive and you blush in embarrassment.

“I didn’t know this would happened, so my underwear—“ Jungkook laughs pulling your feet up, bringing his lips to kiss your knee.

“I don’t care about your underwear,” he speaks glancing at your for a moment. 

You can’t believe this is happening. 

You, almost all naked at front of Jungkook. 

But you’ve no regrets simply anticipating his next move. “Can I take these off?” he says pulling your panties before letting it go. It slaps against your wet entrance and you bite into your lip.

“Yes,” you breathe out and that’s all he needs for him to start pulling it against your legs slowly revealing your wet entrance.

“Beautiful,” he says looking between your legs before giving you a quick glance. You freaking blush at his words wanting to close your legs but he holds them in place before you could. “So pink,” he mumbles kissing your ankle. “Can I taste you, Noona? Will you allow me to?” God, this boy is playing with you and you’re so up for it.

“Fuck,” you shiver at the feeling of his fingers tracing random patterns on your ankle. “Yes, taste me.” 

But he stands up and you immediately lean against your elbows to look at him. He takes off his T-shirt revealing his abs and you drool at the sight. This boy keeps working out and it definitely pays off.

“It’s fucking hot in here,” he grumbles annoyed and you giggle.

It’s true, it was really warm when you came in and now it’s definitely getting hotter in here. You watch him as he shifts the hem of his sweatpants. You can see the outline of his hard length and you clench your legs together. He smirks and you embarrassingly look away. This kid will kill you, that’s for sure. He reaches for something on the table and your curious self can’t hold yourself, watching what he’s doing. He grabs the whip cream shaking it wilth little smirk on his lips.

“What are you doing?” you ask unsurely watching him as he comes back to his place. In one hand holding the whip cream, he uses the other one to pull your legs apart. He watches your entrance glisten and he feels himself twitch in his boxers.

“You’re driving me crazy, fuck.” he rasps out as he shakes the whip cream. “Do you trust me?” he suddenly asks and you widen your eyes.

“Huh?” you lay there dumbfounded looking as Jungguk sits on his knees in front of you.

“Do you trust me, Noona?” you gulp as he caress your ankles with light touch. 

His eyes glisten in the light — those same eyes which looked shy when you first met him. He barely looked at you. That shy kid who was avoiding you to that point you thought he’s scared of you. You were there — his first heartbreak when he locked himself in the room not letting in anyone. You knocked on his door as he yelled ‘I don’t want to talk’ without knowing who’s behind the door. Not that he’d opened the door because you’re there — he was angry at everyone but mostly hurt from his first heartbreak. That day, you’ve talked to him through the door trying to take his mind off by talking nonsense. Both of you sitting against the door with your backs.

“I do.” you answer confidently and he smiles at you. 

Not a smirk in the hottest way like he's able to do, he just genuinely smiles at you. Happy by your words. He sprays the whip cream on your heat as you squirm when you feel the cold substance on your most sensitive part. He lays down between your legs quickly dipping his head and latching his lips on you. You gasp out loudly rolling your eyes back when you feel him sucking the whip cream. He eats it like he’s been hungry for days while you’re gasping for air. You clutch your hands around Jungkook’s expensive couch. Thrusting into his mouth he moans at the feeling. His whole nose and chin stained by your wetness and whip cream but he doesn’t care. The heat pooling in your stomach is enough for you to star clenching uncomfortably.

“Come on, Noona. Cum for me.” he says with raspy voice and that’s all it takes for you to let go. 

Your thighs shake while Jungkook tries to swallow all of your cum. He moans at the taste of you on his tastebuds. He gives your clit small kiss causing you to flinch at the overstimulate feeling. He rises to his knees simply watching you fucked out state looking so vulnerable and sexy at the same time — laying there naked just for him to see.

“Where did you learn that?” you pant out breathlessly slowly sitting up covering your naked breasts which causes Jungkook to frown. He doesn’t like that you’re hiding from him. “That was... amazing.” you admit which he smirks at.

“I told you, Noona. I’m not a little boy anymore,” he smirks at you standing up revealing his huge bulge in his sweatpants. 

You bit your lip at the sight. You don’t even see him exposed and you’re already drooling. You’re surprised when he lays beside you cuddling you to his side. He grabs one of your breasts holding it in his big palm.

“What are you doing?” you ask quietly feeling his breath on the back of your neck. It tickles but you don’t move away. Enjoying his naked chest on your back.

“Let’s cuddle.” he mumbles into your hair and you scowl. 

That’s what he wants to do? To... cuddle? 

You can feel his length digging into your lower back waiting for attention. But he doesn’t say nor do anything, simply holding you in his arms while inhaling your scent.

“But you’re—“ you try to say, not feeling like it’s fair. You’ve reached your orgasm while Jungguk is painfully hard. 

“Shhh, forget it. I’m fine.” he shushes you but you don’t let it go. You pull away from him sitting up ignoring his mischievous eyes on your breasts.

“At least let me...” you trail off not really knowing what to propose. ‘Let me blow you?’ he smirks at you seeing you struggling. “Or we could just...” His eyes snap to yours eyes widening little bit at your suggestion.

“Are you sure? Because... there’s no turning back once we’ve sex.” he tells you waiting for your final answer. He lays there watching you with curious eyes half naked. You should take this opportunity because damn, this guy is a piece of art.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Fuck me, Jungkook.” you tell him loudly and he growls at how sexy you sound. He sits up pulling you onto his lap. 

He leans against the seat back kissing your breasts.

“You really love them, right?” you chuckle humorously but quickly groan when he bites your nipple.

“They’re fucking amazing.” he says amazed and it warms your heart. 

You’ve always been little bit self conscious about your breasts. It’s not like you are not comfortable with their size or anything, more like what would other guys think about them. It’s stupid thing to even think about this, but you can’t help it. You stand up on your knees ready to pull his sweatpants down when he grips your wrist stopping you. Thinking he’s stopping all of this you’re ready to feel embarrassed. But he quickly searches your face before smiling. 

“Are you sure?” he asks one last time and you nod not ready to wait any longer. 

He leans back slowly caressing your thighs letting you know you can continue. You pull down his sweatpants just enough to let his length spring free.

“You aren’t wearing your boxers?” you question him and he laughs at you shaking his head. 

“No, I forgot to put them on. You came little bit earlier.” 

Really? You didn’t realize you’ve come earlier. 

You chuckle averting your gaze to his length. It’s slightly curled making it a perfect angle. His size isn’t that huge like you can find on porn sites staring with men with abnormally huge cocks. But it’s still big and thick in width. He lets you to curiously look at him almost like you’ve never seen one in your life.

“You aren’t virgin, right?” he asks just to be sure, since you’re looking at him that way. 

You look at him bewildered by his question and he awkwardly scratches himself on the back of his head. 

“It’s not a problem, if you’re. I just don’t know if I’d like to take your virginity, it should be someone you love and...” you actually laugh at his little ramble while his blushed cheeks contrasts with his creamy tan skin.

“Jungkook,” you say making him hum. “Shut up. I’m not a virgin.” Laughing you shake your head at him. 

It’s not that you should be ashamed even if you were one. You’re twenty five but that doesn’t mean you necessarily had to have your virginity taken. He breathes out almost like he’d be afraid you are. Even if he wanted to be the one to take your possible but not existing virginity, he’s much more of a man than that. He’d stop even if he doesn’t want you because he never really craved for someone like you.

“So why’re you looking at it like you have never seen one?” he asks with his mouth open eyes adverting to his length wondering if something’s wrong with it. No one ever complained about it so...

“I did,” you shrug. “I just have never seen one like yours.” you answer shamelessly and he blushes. Jeon Jungkook blushes at you hating the feel of his red cheeks. 

“Are you?”

”Am I what?” he asks confused and kind of tired of this conversation. 

He’s too needy for you and he wants to feel you warmth wrapped around him. There’s already pre-cum on his cock, that’s how desperate he is for you.

“Are you a virgin?” you ask feeling the same thing like Jungkook. 

You wouldn’t want to take something like that from him, even if it isn’t that precious to men. You feel like they don’t care for that kind of stuff. But the way Jungkook ate you out — using the whip cream and you can’t help but blush at the memory — you’re sure he has to have some experience at least.

“Hell no.” he scoffs at you and you slap his chest. 

“I just wanted to be sure.” you mumble and he puts away some hair strands from your face.

“Can I fuck you now?” he asks and this time you’re the one who scoffs. 

“Wow, such a gentleman.”

“I can be,” he shrugs. “But I just want to really fuck you.” he says honestly and you chuckle at him. 

“Then fuck me.” His eyes sparks at your words already lining himself against your entrance but you stop him.

“Wait,” he almost rolls his eyes at you. He was so close to finally feel you. You’re annoyingly cute, he’ll admit that. “Condom?” he almost whines at you throwing his head back. 

But he doesn’t move he looks at you with hopeful eyes and you shake your head. 

Even though you want nothing more than to feel him bare — just like Jungkook wants you to — you don’t want to risk anything. And it’s not like you don’t trust him, because stupidly to say, you do. You just want to be careful and he gets that. He groans setting you on the couch before awkwardly scurrying away in his sweatpants. He doesn’t pull them down nor he pulls them up; quickly heading to his bedroom. He comes back with a condom in his hand showing it to you with raised brow and you give him thumbs up. He puts it on and you don’t waste one single second, quickly sitting on his lap. You raise yourself as he slowly guides his tip to your entrance. You both moan as he coats himself with your arousal and previous cum. You slowly slide down on him taking his entire length in one go making you gasp out. He entwines his fingers into your soft hair pulling you to his lips. He kisses you in praise how good you take him. 

“You feel so fucking good,” he groans as you slowly lift yourself before dropping onto his length. 

He can’t believe he’s fucking inside of you, feeling your velvet walls welcoming him in warmth. You’re balancing yourself while holding his broad shoulders which you’re digging your nails into but you don’t care. You pick up your pace — the sound of your ass slapping against his thighs echoes through the room. It turns you on even more and you clench around him making him gasp into your mouth. He’s fiddling with your clit causing you to see starts. You lean your forehead against his feeling his cock hitting all the right places.

“Oh my god,” you moan out when he pinches your clit. He chuckles darkly looking up at you. 

“You like that, hmm? Your cunt wrapped around my cock?” You never thought you’re a fan of dirty talk but the way he says it with his dark voice and lust filled eyes cuases you to clench around him tight.

“Yes!” you pant shutting your eyes off suddenly feeling as he tucks his fingers under your chin. 

“Look at me, Noona. Look at me while you’re fucking yourself on me.” he pleads and you slowly open your eyes, looking at him with hooded eyes. 

He freaking smile at you with his bunny boyish grin. That similar grin. The one your best friend has.

Jina.

You suddenly stop, the guilt slowly creeping its way out. She’s going to fucking kill you — the both of you if she ever founds out. You can’t believe you’re fucking her little brother. The one she helped to raise and here you’re, having him inside of you.

“Y/N?” you hear him say but you’re too deep in your thought. 

“Noona? Are you okay? Why would you stop?” he asks a hurt flashing through his eyes wondering if he hurt you somehow.

“Jina...” you mumble and his eyes widen at hearing his sister’s name. “We can’t do this.” you mumble but not moving away from him. 

He can feel how much you want him, your arousal slowly dripping down Jungkook’s balls. He scoffs thrusting up causing you to jerk and moan out loud.

“We can,” he says sternly thrusting his hips slowly at you. You grip his shoulder thighly while enjoying the feel of his cock slowly hitting your g-spot. “We both want this.” he picks up his pace and you become a moaning mess.

“But Jina—“ you try to talk but he thrusts harshly into you. You’re hot and cute, but he really wants to tape your mouth right now.

“Fuck Jina, I don’t care about her.” he says breathlessly feeling his balls tighten. You clench around him uncontrollably feeling your second orgasm approaching you.

“But—“

“You. Talk. Too. Fucking. Much.” he says with each thrust pinching your clit and that’s all it takes for you to come down. 

You clench around him cumming while he keeps thrusting into you. He chases his climax grunting through gritted teeth gripping your hips so hard you’re sure it’s going to bruise later on. You flinch from the overstimulation quietly begging Jungguk to stop, but he doesn’t listen. He’s hitting your g-spot again and just like that, you’re cumming again. He groans his thrusts getting sloppy. Jungguk let’s out low moan emptying himself into the condom and you wish you could feel him bare, but it had to be like this. He thrusts one last time before throwing his head back breathing heavily. 

“You’re fucking amazing.” he praises you with his closed eyes and you smile.

 You lift yourself, his now soft cock sliding off of you. He removes the condom with scrunched nose quickly tying it down while you chuckle at him. He stands up pulling his sweatpants up before throwing out the condom in the nearest bin. When he comes back, you’re putting your clothes back on and he pouts.

“I can’t believe I just fucked you.” he mumbles in realization but cocky grin making its appearance on his lips.

You glare at him. “Have some manners, boy.”

This time he glares at you with a cocky scoff. “Boy, I think I showed you I’m not a boy anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah.” you wave him off with teasing grin and he growls.

“I can show you again. Just give me a few minutes, baby.”

“I’m older than you!” you exclaim with a laugh. His eyes crinkles at the end laughing with you.

“I’m aware, Noona.” he says with soft smile and you blush masking it with a laugh. He comes closer kissing you once last time before there’s a loud knock on the door. 

“Is that...?” You question out quietly causing him to pull away slightly.

“Jungkook?”

Jina.

You can hear her rustling with a keys and Jungkook’s eyes widen before throwing your pants at you. “You gave her keys?” you whisper shout at him quickly putting your pants off.

“I didn’t think she would ever use them!” he whispers at you quickly putting his T-shirt.

“Fuck!” you whisper in anger when you can’t seem to get the little button into the little hole on your pants. 

Your fingers are fidgeting nervously and Jungkook kneels in front of you quickly doing it for you. He stands up giving you a quick kiss before you hear the front door open. You both jump onto the couch, the both of you on each side of it.

“Hey, you didn’t hear me knock?” Jina says coming into the living room, still wearing her working attire. 

She looks at you the both of you when none of you answer her and you glance at Jungkook in panic. Luckily, he gets the message right away.

“Oh sorry, we’re watching movie.” he smiles at his sister innocently and you almost want to laugh at his great act.

“What’s whip cream doing here?” she asks pointing to the can of whipped cream thrown on his coffee table. The color of your face drains and you gulp but Jungkook’s already got you.

“Y/N brought it here, she claimed it’s really good so I had to try it.” he tells his sister and she nods in approval.

“It’s really good, right? It tastes like heaven!” she exclaims remembering all the times you both ate only strawberries with whip cream.

Jungkook looks at you with mischievous grin before saying to his sister; “It really does, indeed.” You gulp looking at him with wide eyes, his sister and your best friend completely obvious to your stares.

But Jungkook isn’t done. He stares at you deadly looking into your eyes as he smirks at you.

“I wouldn’t mind trying it again.”

[hqprotectionsquad]

Dear Chikara (Ennoshita x Reader)

Title: Dear Chikara Pairing: Ennoshita x Reader Word Count: 2416 A/N: Definitely a self-indulgent piece, but hey, it’s for Ennoshita. He always deserves my self-indulgent ideas.

“You’re really still trying to find a pen pal, (Y/N)?” Atsumu asks when he peers over your shoulder. “Doesn’t that kind of stuff get a little old?” He clicks his tongue. From the corner of your eye, you see that he settles into the seat next to you, munching on a piece of onigiri. It’s lunchtime at Inarizaki and all the students are out and about the building and courtyards, but all you’re focused on is this piece of mail that you received in the morning. This is the first chance you had and you’re ready to slide a finger underneath the adhesive and open this bad boy up.

“Yes, really,” you reply pointedly. “You know I’ve wanted one since, like, middle school.” Pulling the prized letter of its sheath, you unfold the paper, pressing it hard against the desk to squash the creases.

“Can I see too?” Atsumu presses his shoulder against yours and it takes both of your hands to get him off you.

“You’re still going to look, so why do you ask?”

“I dunno. Don’t you think it’s nice of me to ask anyway?”

Hi (Y/N),

My name is Ennoshita Chikara. I’m a second year at Karasuno High School in the Miyagi Prefecture—

Your perfect letter reading is disturbed by Atsumu making noises next to you. “He’s from Karasuno! I’m just wondering if he knows anything about the volleyball team. Ya know,” he wags his finger. “Karasuno’s been building up steam. We’re gonna have to watch them, so if you could just gather some tapes on—”

“Atsumu, you’re the one interrupting my lunch, not the other way around.”

“Okay, sure you can say that, but you haven’t even touched your lunch, (Y/N). So can I have—”

“Shh!” You hold up a hand and when you don’t hear another word from him, your eyes are brought back to the paper.

I’m a second year at Karasuno High School in the Miyagi Prefecture. I am in one of the college preparatory classes for my year. They’re hard, but I work harder. I really enjoy my anatomy class and I also like to make short films with my friends. After school, I go to volleyball practice. I’m a wing spiker, but I’m not on the court often—

“Psst. Atsumu.” When he doesn’t look up from his phone, you tap repeatedly on his shoulder. “Hey, it says my pen pal is on the volleyball team.”

“How cute. Hey! Maybe you two can be star-crossed lovers or something like that if our teams ever face each other.”

“Shut up, Atsumu. Don’t make me tell you — again — that your brother is the better twin.”

"Oi, Ennoshita! Watch this!" Nishinoya calls out to his teammate. The hour hand on the clock will be hitting 3 soon, when practice begins for the afternoon.

Ennoshita's sitting with his back to the wall and his eyes peer up from the words he's reading. He can never trust Nishinoya and Tanaka to do something together at the same time because they'll get someone hurt — that or they'll praise Kiyoko as a goddess.

Nishinoya runs to jump onto Tanaka's back, and in the split second that Ennoshita looks back down, they fall like bowling pins and crash to the ground.

"Nishinoya, Tanaka, what are you doing?" He abandons the letter, placing it to the side, before standing up to scold these two teenagers that act like children.

Nishinoya and Tanaka shake Ennoshita as they laugh at his stern eyebrows and his hands on his hips. Out of the corner of his eye, Nishinoya looks at the place his friend just sat and walks over.

"Hey, what's this?" Nishinoya asks as he picks up the paper. It bounces as he raises it up, with the tri-fold creases flowing up and down. His question is purely innocent, but it’s easily turned into a teasing nature when he sees the weight it holds in Ennoshita’s life.

"Wait, don't look!" Ennoshita rushes with his hand outstretched.

"'Dear Chikara, my name is (Y/N). I’m also your age. I live in the Hyogo Prefecture,'" Nishinoya announces to the world and when Ennoshita grabs for it, Tanaka takes the hint and gets to the letter first.

"What kind of letter is this?" Tanaka laughs while running across the gym. The baldie has always been ahead of Ennoshita in athletics, and even more so in pranks. "Is this a sexy letter? Chikara, I didn't know you were into that!" Their chuckles resound throughout the gym and now that the two knuckleheads are involved, the third years are trying to settle them down.

Finally, Daichi gets a hold of the letter and all Ennoshita wants is to run to the storage room with his letter and just sit there, recovering from his overworked heart. “Get ready. Ukai’s coming soon and he’ll make us run more if he sees you going around like that.” Sure enough, the captain’s words make them shudder from the chills and they stop moving so much. “Here, you should probably put that away before they rip it.”

“Thank you.” With a shy grin, Ennoshita takes one last look at it before putting it with his water bottle and towel.

I’m really glad you sent me a letter, so I’ll continue to send one as long as you do. I’m from Inarizaki High. According to one of the boys on the volleyball team that I manage, we might see you at some point. Maybe if you reach Nationals.

Sure, it’s only your first letters to each other, but Ennoshita wants to do anything in his power so that he will be able to see you in person.

And so it goes. You chase the mailman on weekends to see if the mail came in, but not just any mail — a specific cream-colored envelope written to you with the return address starting with the name Ennoshita Chikara. You hear from Ennoshita that he waits for his dad to come home from work with the letters from the mailbox. He laughs because you say all you have at home are pink envelopes, but he’ll snatch it right away to run up the stairs to his bedroom. He’ll cherish the first time he reads the letter, because he says it will ever be new again except for the first time. He can read it again to reference things for the next time he writes to you, but “it’s just not the same.”

You learn tiny things about him. Tiny things that make it easy to want to get to know him better, and those tiny things would probably make you fall in love with him if you knew him in person. But it’s different, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be learning how he likes his ramen or curry on a date together?

Still, you’ve learned that being pen pals with him is better than not knowing him at all.

Chikara, are you afraid of something? I think what I’ve learned over the years is that I can’t afford to be afraid when I’m going to die one day. There’s no point in being scared someone might not like my company or avoiding an activity because I might not be good at it. I might as well try, right?

Thank you for your letter before. I think what you said cheered me up. I’m glad you enjoy keeping your teammates straight as much as I do with the boys on the Inarizaki team. Listen, since I’m learning how to be fearless, here is my number. When you read this part for the first time. Call me, I want to hear your voice.

He does call you. He doesn’t bother thinking of drafting another letter or how to respond to your question about fearing the world.

As he sits on the edge of his bed, Ennoshita taps in the digits you provided at the end of the letter. Even your numbers are a combination of neat and messy, but it’s all legible. After pressing call, it rings and rings and rings, up until the point he’s afraid you’re not available. But he wants to stay true to what you wrote and what you wrote is to call you when you see the letter.

It goes through and he’s bold enough to offer a hello but he’s met with silence. You’re probably there, so he says it again and even adds, “It’s me, Chikara.” Finally, you aren’t answering back, so Ennoshita finishes by telling you, “I know you’re there, (Y/N), but it’s okay if you won’t talk to me. I’ll trust that you’ll come to me in your own time.” Reluctantly, he hits the end call button.

You want to scream. Shout. Open your window and expel expletives into the neighborhood, not caring about who bothers to hear. Literally do anything you can because you’re a complete idiot. You’re the one who gave him your phone number, yet you don’t even respond? What kind of loser are you to do that?

From your bed, you rise to your feet and start to pace the length of your room for what seems like hours, but in reality was just a few minutes. You realize the root problem is that you’re scared of him judging you. You don’t know him outside all of the detailed and wonderful notes he mails you every week or so, but who knows if he’s completely different than the person he presents on paper?

But...if you don’t call him back now, will you ever grow the courage to do it again?

After all, you’re an Inarizaki student. You might not always need reminders of the past, but as for the future, you’re always up for a new challenge, even if it scares you because you’ve embarrassed yourself.

Maybe he felt this way when you didn’t say anything when he was on the line, but that doesn’t mean you should just leave it at that. You don’t take anything else for chance and just go for it.

You’re back to pacing your room, but at least now you’re dialing the digits of his phone number. “Hey Chikara, I know you’re probably there since you picked up, but I just want to say I’m a total idiot for picking up earlier and not saying anything. I’m pretty embarrassed about it and I’m sorry for all of that. Like come on, I was the one who sent you my number, but—”

You pause in your steps, hearing something unfamiliar, something that isn’t just you rambling your head off. “Chikara, is that you? Did you just laugh?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, so you were listening this whole time?”

Another laugh comes and it flows out like smooth butter dissolving into a searing pan, or like wind on the perfect summer day, or really anything that is smooth. It’s perfect. It’s him.

“Yeah, I was. Sorry for not responding right away. I just wanted to hear what your voice sounded like.” When you hear this, you’re not only flattered, but you also are forced to take a look at yourself. Was this part of the reason why you didn’t want to take a step forward and speak back to him during his first call?

There’s an awkward silence and you’re wondering if he’s still on the line because he’s bored and has nothing else to do except to talk to a pen pal who’s on the other side of the nation.

“I—”

“I—”

“Sorry, you first.”

“Oh, I was just going to say that I really like your voice.” Your confession brings about a red color to dust over your cheeks and you can’t even deny the way you feel when you hear his calm voice flickering out from your speaker.

As if your face couldn’t get any more colorful, Chikara quips back, “I could say the same about yours.” You slap a hand over your mouth and then your other for reinforcement as you mutter incoherent things into your flesh. You roll your lips into your mouth to help you stop smiling, but you can’t. If you were to live in a particular moment forever, you’d choose this one.

Now, you can’t stop laughing. Between the jokes he lands, and the descriptions of his own volleyball team, it’s finally nice to get to know someone who isn’t trying to be your friend as a way to get to Atsumu, or trying to get your math homework—not that it’s any good, anyway.

What you don’t notice outside of your bubble of this phone call is that the sun outside your bedroom window has begun to set and descend farther into the horizon. You don’t notice that your room has become exponentially dimmer without the warmth of the sun; your desk lamp is no match for the glowing star.

Soon enough, with your ear pressed against your phone and your head on your pillow, everything feels right. Maybe this is dream land, or as close to it as you can get.

“Knock, knock” is what your dad says before coming into your room. It’s annoying, but at least he doesn’t barge into your room like Atsumu and Osamu would when your parents let them into the house. “You have to get off your phone now; it’s nearly one in the morning and you still have school tomorrow.”

“Okay, dad. Thanks.” You can tell he wants to ask who you’ve been laughing with on the phone, but maybe he’ll avoid asking you the question. The last thing he wants to know is that his daughter’s interested in another person. The last thing you want him to know is that this person has been sending you letters for the past three months. 

The door is closed softly, and you chuckle. There’s a shakiness to your laughter that hurts your soul. “You heard my dad.”

“I know. It was really wonderful talking to you, (Y/N).” Before you can put in a word, he continues, “I want to talk to you more, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s okay. That’s more than okay.” You’re truly privileged to have found your perfect pen pal. You want to start spewing goodbye’s because otherwise, you’ll never find the heart to hit the end call button. “Hey, Chikara?”

“Yeah?” He responds almost too quickly and this brings about another laugh for you both.

“Make sure you work really hard, okay? I want to see you at Nationals.”

“I want to see you too. We’ll be there.”

general haikyuu tag list: @dorkyama​ @kingkags​ @clowninfortodoroki​​ @ykchaos​​ @kingkagss​​ @alienvarmint​​ @gogohaikyuu​

special tag for @hunntea​ <3

please let me know if you’d like to be removed from the tag list via ask!

navi! | master list | tag list form

[fieryhcart]

✨  candice patton, cisfemale, she/her    —    whenever i see  adelaide “addie” savoy  meandering down agnes street  growing pains by alessia cara  starts to play inside my head. maybe it is the vibe they give off.  overalls stained with paint, rustic sewing machines, band-aids and lollipops on her purse at all times  ;   you know ?  artistic impressions  is what keeps them interested in agnes. i heard they are a  thirty-two  year old  b&b ower . they look like the kind of person who  has it all figured out. // @agnesextra​

TW: child neglect, abuse, arson.

‘ello chickens! it is i, g aka the dumb dumb behind alexander, once more bringing you a character nobody asked for but hopefully someone will love? she is my precious baby and i adore her so hopefully, she’ll find a home and a family here with all of you and your amazing characters. without further ado, i’ll introduce you to my baby, addie.

addie was born in peachtree, georgia as adelaide savoy dupont, daughter of a salesman/conman and an atlanta socialité who learned to be a scammer thanks to her husband and taught addie to be one as well from a very young age. 

they part of the renown du pont family, so they p much lived like royalty for a good portion of addie’s life, even though her parents were never affectionate towards her and p much only used her whenever they needed something from her because no one suspected the little girl with the ponytails and sweet smile.

theodore michael savoy du pont, addie’s younger brother was born when Adelaide was around nine. their mother lost interest on teddy pretty quickly so addie pretty much raised the kid as well as she could after she turned thirteen and the two formed an unbreakable bond very quickly. the most their parents neglected them, the closer they got.

CHILD NEGLECT TW the worst instance of their parents neglecting both addie and teddy happened right after teddy turned 7. their friends and family found out about how the couple had played them and the savoy family lost all respect within the community, so they quickly started to go in debt with banks and strangers to try to live the life they were so used to. by this time, the matrimony had mostly forgotten their kids to the point where they stopped providing for them unless they needed adelaide for some job, so it was all addie’s responsibility to not only care for her brother but her parents somehow. she started working (an honest job) when she was fifteeen and never truly stopped.

ARSON TW when addie was seventeen, one year from graduating high school her parents made a decision: they needed money to pay off credit debts and alas, they needed to burn down the house the du ponts had bought for them down. when she heard about the plans, addie started to storage as many stuff as she could when she was informed of what was going to happen (was guilt-tripped into staying silent) and the night her parents actually burnt the house down, addie grabbed teddy, everything she had gathered, a car a friend had lend to her and fleed peachtree. the two siblings never look back. 

in the next years, the savoy siblings lived in around eight different cities in the usa, where addie would work two, three jobs and sometimes homeschool teddy, since they moved a lot and couldn’t find schools for him. 

when addie turned 18, she sued her parents and gained teddy’s custody, becoming his legal guardian and raising him as such, all by herself

the savoy siblings arrived to islesbury in 2015, when addie was 26 and teddy 16 after receiving an inheritance from the du pont. they bought a nice house in town and a bigger manor near the beach in shambles and worked to turn it into ALMOST HEAVEN INN, a b&b addie still manages to this day. she also makes all of her and some of teddy’s clothes (something she had to learn to do after their parents stopped providing for them), paints and sculpts.

when the two arrived to islesbury, addie met someone she completely fell in love with and within a year, the couple was already married (i already submitted the wc to main BUT PLEASE GIVE ME ADDIE’S SPOUSE I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS IN MIND) and raised teddy together for a year, until he started college.

he recently graduated as a vet, still lives with addie and her spouse and is addie’s biggest pride and joy.

most days, addie is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, the kind of girl who smiles at everyone she meets and greets strangers with a smile on the daily. she likes making people around her happy. she thrives when people around her shine.

however, she can be very closed off and go as far as to be very deceitful? I mean, she is sharp, even though people don’t think she is because they write her off as a “southern belle” type, but what most people don’t know is she can be cunning whenever she sets her mind on it, she learned from a very young age how to take advantage of everything she had to get what she had her mind settled on.

the one thing she cares the most about in the world is her brother. the boy is pretty much her own and has been since the day he was born, she would stop at nothing to make sure he is fine and he is happy.

her hobbies include painting and sculpting (which she makes some money off of), gardening (the Atkins sibling’s home is a glorified zen garden by now) and designing (she sometimes uses this skill to make clothes for selling to friends and acquaintances).

loyal to no end, good god. It takes a lot for her to feel comfortable with someone to call them her friend but once she does, she is the most loyal friend. also the mom friend, no matter how close you are. If it’s even a little bit chilly outside and she sees a stranger shivering she WILL give them her sweater, has medicine and candy on her at all times.

she can be quite impetuous and extremely curious to the verge of being noisy, but never in a malicious way, unless you mess with someone she cares about.

whatever you throw her way, she’ll land on her feet.

i’ll post her full bio later but please if anyone wants to plot with my baby, give this a like and i’ll come to you!