#and i do very much have a crush on that pathetic sad wet cat doctor

[moonchild-in-blue]

17, Chatham Street,

Wednesday.

My dearest Mina,—

"I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children; we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness.

LUCY.

P.S.—I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.

💋

Would you believe that I screenshoted this earlier today when I read it to send you:

... and then forgot?

You're here! Officially!! This was literally you telling me about yours and Mr Kate's love story 💌💋

(how cute is that Mina and Lucy are gossiping about hot boys and crushes 🥺💖 Lucy sounds so chirpy and happy 🥹 this is you to me 💙🧡)

[marshmallow-phd]

Nine Little Letters

Genre: College AU, Fake Dating AU, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AU

Inspired By: This graphic made by @rcse-tvler​

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: Just when you thought life was done shoving you down, it got much, much worse. After finding out that your latest crush was already in a relationship, you did what you always did when emotions ran high: you wrote a letter. Signed and sealed, you put it away with the eight other letters you’d written to past one-sided loves, never to be seen again. That is, until a mix up accidentally sends those letters out to their respective recipients and you find yourself in the middle of one confusing web of love. With fake relationships, insecurities, and revelations swirling around, things are bound to get a little messy.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11

**

You were walking on eggshells. Every time you turned around, you were sure you would be confronted by another past crush. The muscles in your neck were aching from constantly looking over your shoulder. The corner of your eye was haunted by cute boys ready to confront you on your deepest thoughts. For a whole day, you were able to avoid any of them. It was a nice Thursday. Then Friday came. 

If you were to list the boys in an order of most to least wanting to evade, Junmyeon would be at the very top. Hence, you avoided the math building. Easy enough, you thought, since you only had one class there about twice a week. You made sure to get to Thursday’s class with only a minute or two to spare so you would have the excuse that you needed to hurry, then you hightailed it out of there to your next class. But your focus had been a little too honed in. While you were taking extra precautions to avoid your former tutor, you forgot to make good escape plans for the others. 

“Hey, (y/n).”

You squeezed your eyes tight as you heard the seat across from you at the library table scrape across the thin, frayed carpet. 

“I guess you know why I’m here then,” Jongdae said empathetically. 

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Jongdae’s hands were folded on the table’s surface and the slightest crooked smile sat in the corner of his mouth. His hair was wet, either from a recent swim or a shower. The black strands were curled against his forehead. Smiling, he ran a hand through his hair, tiny little droplets splattering against the blonde wooden table top. 

“I’m really sorry,” you mumbled, unable to hold eye contact for long. 

Jongdae laughed. But it wasn’t an “at-you” kind of laugh. That was nice, at least. “I don’t know why you would be sorry. It was flattering. It's nice to be looked at as a hero, even though I didn’t really do anything.”

“High school brain tends to over exaggerate things.”

“I get that. I actually just wanted to say thank you and that it was sweet.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Your go-to response these days. Like when the doctor hit your knee, it was reflex. “I left a pile of private letters out and my mom mailed them on accident. It’s like having your diary read into a microphone in front of an audience.”

Jongdae nodded. “I had a feeling. After the first few sentences, I figured I shouldn’t have gotten it, but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s been a while since someone confessed to me. Few years, actually.”

Your jaw dropped. “What? No. I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true, unfortunately.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get another confession in the future.”

“Hopefully.” He looked around aimlessly before coming back to you. “Well, I’ll see you around. It was good to see you. Again.”

“You, too.”

You breathed deeply as soon as he was gone. Okay. That one went well. Three out of four were good odds. You were hoping to get out of this with at least a “B”. If Yixing ever wrote back you could simply… not open the letter. And if you avoided the others, you’d be in the clear. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad. You were still alive, at least, and with your true identity intact. 

You felt a little lighter as you went home. Funny how it could feel like the world was falling apart but the sun still shined and the breeze still blew. As you dropped your bag on your bed, you got a text. 

Get online. 

Oh crap. You’d forgotten about Sehun. He knew you didn’t like talking on the phone, but you could talk to him over the headset. Don’t ask what the difference was, not even your irrational mind could come up with a reason. Sitting down in your chair, you turned on your console and connected to the internet. 

“There you are.”

“I’m not in the mood to play today.”

“That's fine. You don’t have to play.” He killed your character as it stood around aimlessly as if to make a point.

You rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “You are such a jerk.”

“That’s not what you said in the letter.” 

“And there it is!” You couldn’t hold back the whimper echoing through the headset microphone. “I should have never done that. Writing love letters like I’m an Edwardian heroine… Because I’m not, obviously. But I don’t even know what I am instead.” 

“Sad, lonely, pathetic?” There was a pause. “Yes, I said that out loud.” 

You sat there, completely abashed. “Okay, I take back everything I said in that letter. You are such a jerk. I must have been hallucinating back then.”  

“Don’t get so touchy,” Sehun said. “I thought about it once, too. That’s why I’d let you win every once in a while.” 

“Really?” Well, that was a first. None of the others had mentioned possibly liking you back. 

“Yeah, but then I thought about it some more. I like being your friend and didn’t want to experiment with that.” 

And then you deflated like a bouncy castle. “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.” 

“How about neither and I just send you the letter back?” 

Okay. A compromise you could live with. And having that letter back would give you a small piece of mind. “I think I like that better.” The doorbell rang like a savior. “I got to go. But thanks for not making this a big deal.”

“Not a problem.”

You logged off and headed downstairs. Your mother, who you hadn’t realized was home, answered the door. You stayed on the staircase, out of sight but within earshot. 

“Um, hi. Is (y/n) home?”

Your eyes widened and you nearly choked on the air in your throat. Chanyeol?

“I think so. (y/n)!”

Nope, nope, nope. You ran. Quietly. Like a mouse scurrying away before it could be seen by the resident cat. You went through the kitchen to the sliding glass door, opening it slowly so it didn’t make too much noise. Once through, you closed it behind you, barely hearing your mother call out for you again. 

“Funny. I thought I heard her come home.”

Now what?

Your brain looked to the fence that separated your yard from your neighbor’s. That was your option. Keeping an eye on the back door, you climbed over the wooden fence, dropping down on the grass. You sat there figuring five minutes or so would be enough time for him to leave. Eyes closed, you leaned your head back against the wooden barrier. Apparently, you weren’t as brave as you thought you were. Even with the easy confrontations, you still ran like a coward the first chance you got. 

“What are you doing?”

Your eyes snapped open. Crap. You’d momentarily forgotten who your neighbor was. “Sorry!”

Kyungsoo huffed from the porch. He leaned on the railing, forearms exposed from his rolled up sleeves. He was frowning at you again, but this time it didn’t seem to be from a place of annoyance as much as confusion. “You say that a lot.”

“I know,” you agreed. “I’m sorry.” You flinched. Nice one. 

A few seconds went by before he came down the porch steps. He crouched down in front of you. “If this is about the letter….”

“It's not! Well, not about your letter.”

“You sent out more than one?” You nodded. He smirked. “Well, that makes me feel a little better.”

It made him feel better? Like your letter had made him… upset? He didn’t seem to be worried about you at all when he gave it back. “I’m just waiting for him to leave,” you explained. “I’ll get out of your hair soon.”

The expected response was that he would simply shrug and leave you alone. But instead he sat down across you, knees up with his elbows resting on them. It was odd. Even before he and Yeonhee broke up, he didn’t have one on one conversations with you like this. “Why did you write the letter?”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Why did you bother writing it if I was dating Yeonhee?”

“I….” You threw your hands up as if you could suddenly catch the answer. “It’s how I work out my feelings. When I found out the two of you were dating, I was… confused, scrambled. Some people journal to figure things out, I… write a letter. A letter that was never meant to go out in the first place. All it was supposed to do was help me work through my thoughts, help me understand my feelings when they’re too strong for me to grasp.”

“If you felt that way about me, why didn't you say anything before Yeonhee?”

“I think it goes without saying that I'm not good at verbally expressing my feelings,” you stated flatly. “Besides, I thought I had time. You know, to figure out what it was I was actually feeling. I didn’t realize why I enjoyed seeing you until it was too late. I never suspected that the two of you liked each other.”

“Really?”

“I'm kind of oblivious to things like that.”

A short laugh. “That’s true.”

You heard a car door shut and then an engine roar to life before fading away. Part of you didn’t want to leave, but being here, alone with Kyungsoo and talking to him like this, was dangerous. “I think the coast is clear.” You stood up and Kyungsoo followed through. “Thanks for, um, letting me hide out here.”

“Sure.”

You turned to the fence, examining how you could get back over.

“(y/n)?”

"Yeah?”

“You could just go this way." Kyungsoo opened the gate that led to the front yard.

“Right. Probably the better idea.” Once out of the backyard, you looked at Kyungsoo. Your heart was beating hard in your chest. “Have a goodnight.”

“You, too.”

Back inside, you didn’t bother to be quiet or sneaky. Your mother was sitting at the table, papers spread out all over the surface in an order that only she could understand. 

“Hi, sweetie!” she greeted. “A classmate stopped by for you. Chanyeol, I think?”

“Oh, okay. I’ll give him a call.” An absolute lie, but… whatever. You headed up the stairs and grabbed your bag. You needed to get away for a few hours.

**

The ice rink was your mindful place. Well, your second mindful place, that is. The first was the library. Whenever you needed to not think for a while, you went there to find a new book to lose yourself in. Whenever you did need to work through your less extreme thoughts, you came here, to the rink. The cold made you hyper aware of your surrenders and of yourself. Your feet did all the work while your mind was free to problem solve. Given the time of day, there weren’t too many people here. Good. That meant the ice wouldn’t be too crowded. Only a few divots and scratches decorated the white surface. You zipped up your jacket and started lacing up your boot. 

“I wouldn’t really have suspected you to come to a place like this.”

Your head snapped up. 

Leaning up against the railing that separated the bleachers from the walkway around the rink, Kim Minseok smiled up at you.

Captain of the soccer team, he was a bit of a hero around the university. A handful of last-minute wins were taken because of him. How many championships had he led the team to? You wouldn’t necessarily say that people at school fawned over him as he walked the halls. It was too large a campus for that. Not to mention, he wasn’t extremely tall and there were certainly others that could be considered more handsome. There were, however, several large posters around the stadium and halls that featured the team, Minseok front and center. An image that didn’t fit what you saw. He mostly wore clothes that said he could have just left the gym or be on his way there. His laid back attitude on his elevated status was part of what led him to being letter number seven. 

The thing about that letter was the fact that there was no one incident that led to your need to write it. He was always simply… nice to you. He knew your name from a shared history class your first year of college. In passing, if he saw you, he’d wave before going back to whatever conversation he’d been having before. You weren’t quite invisible to him, but you certainly rotated on the very outskirts of his vision. 

“Why do you say that?” you asked as you straightened up. 

He shrugged, hands still hanging lazily over the rail. “You never seemed like the athletic type.”

“I didn’t realize that people had to look a certain type to ice skate.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Climbing over the rail with a smoothness that was inhuman, he ran up the steps and took a seat next to you. You stared at him with confusion. “Don’t be like that. We both know why I’m here.”

“How did you even know I was here?”

“Your mom told me.”

Traitor. “I’m getting real sick and tired of being confronted by this. I never should have left those stupid letters out.” You never should have written them in the first place. You wished you could go back to your younger self and warn her. Hopefully, she would take your advice. 

“I’m not surprised that I’m not the only one who came to talk to you. Although, I’ll admit, when your mom mentioned the fact that I was the second guy to show up at your house today, my ego took a little hit.”

You gave him an unimpressed side-eye. “I think you’ll survive.”

“So, which one do you actually like?” he asked suddenly. 

You blinked at him. “What?” 

“Jongdae explained everything to me. He said you mentioned a pile of letters so I figured it was more than just me and him.”

“Jongdae told you everything?” Why would he do that?

“Yeah. He’s my best friend so we don’t really keep secrets. Although, I didn’t tell him that I was a little jealous that he got a letter for pulling you out of a pool. Much more romantic than mine was.”

Groaning in frustration, you dropped your face into your hands in a pathetic attempt to hide. It was either that or wack this boy who was showing a new side of himself to you with the rubber cover of your skate. You figured the latter option would be a bad example for the small kids running around. 

Minseok patted your back. “Hey, it's okay. Don’t be so embarrassed. I am still curious, though. Of all the people you sent letters out to, who do you actually like?” 

“No one.” You weren’t going to spill your guts to Kim Minseok. You had Baekhyun for that. Soccer star had no business knowing your heartache over your neighbor. 

“No one? Interesting.” 

You lifted your head to look at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean interesting?”

“Well, that was kind of the answer I was hoping for. Sort of.”

This was not how you pictured this conversation going. You figured it would be like the rest. A simple “thank you but no thank you” had been the typical response. None of the others cared if you liked the other recipients. “Why is that?” 

“I have a proposal.”

“Oh-kay….”

Minseok turned towards you. “Hear me out. So, I was seeing this girl, Libby. But we broke up. Well, I broke up with her.. And now she’s seeing someone else.”

“So, you suddenly want her again?” Typical. Why did couples always try to make the other one jealous? It sounded like a teen drama you wanted to steer clear from. 

“No. The opposite. She’s only dating this guy to try and make me jealous. She’s always flaunting him in front of me, as if that would actually work.”

Okay…. Now you were even more confused. “I don’t see how I come into play.”

Minseok cringed. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Oh, no. “I make no promises.”

“She knows that you had a crush on me.”

“WHAT!” Oh, you were dead. So dead. Cause: humiliation. Perhaps you could walk around the campus with a disguise on? Surely the security guards wouldn’t mind. There was always the witness protection option. Now it seemed even more appropriate. “She knows about the letters?”

“No, not about the letters,” he reassured you with a hand on your thigh. You quickly shoved it away. “Sorry. No, she just overheard Jongdae and I talking about the liking me part. Still made her mad because she thought I might like you back. So I started thinking, if she thinks that I’ve moved on, eventually she’ll leave me alone.” He looked at you like all of that should have made sense.

“I still don’t get it.”

He sighed. “I’m asking you to be my fake girlfriend.”

The snort could not be contained. “What are we? In high school? Tell her to back off! Or avoid her. You don’t have to make up a relationship to be a grownup about this.”

“I have. It hasn’t worked. Please? It would only be for a short time.”

You mulled the offer over in your head. It didn’t sound too bad. On paper, that is. Putting on a show that you were someone’s girlfriend shouldn’t be hard. And, maybe it would help you forget about your troubles. But… you didn’t want your first relationship to be fake. 

“No,” you answered. “I’m not interested. Sorry.”

That was not the answer he was expecting. “Come on. If word gets out that we’re dating, then the other guys you wrote letters to might back off.”

“I’ve already talked to most of them,” you said. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Lie. But he didn’t need to know that. “Good luck with your ex.” 

You went to stand on your skates, reaching out in front to hold on to the railing. Your mind, however, was in a hundred different places, which set your balance off. You wobbled and nearly fell back onto the bench. Minseok caught you before that could happen, saving your butt a world of hurt. He chuckled as he helped you regain your balance. 

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He sent you a wink and left you leaning against the railing. You scoffed to yourself as you watched him walk towards the exit. 

Staying where you were, you tried to wrap your head around Minseok’s proposal. How he could have even come to that kind of solution to his own problem was beyond you. What sense did that make? You shook your head and carefully stepped onto the floor. You needed this time now more than ever. Men were so confusing.