#and maybe it's still too early to tell bc its been a week since my last surgery

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

Time to go monkey mode once more and spend all hours of the night researching VP shunts.

[urf1lterr]

lovesick | pedro pascal [4]

"and on this night and in this light i think im falling, im falling for you."

previous chapter: [3] series masterlist

summary: in which a 1975-obsessed film student accidentally falls in love with an older man she can't have.

pairing: actor!pedro x intern!reader

genre: acting world!au, big age-gap!, strangers to friends- maybe lovers?? au | angst, mature, awkward, love- eventually

word count: 10.6k

status: in progress

author's note: so sorry for the long wait! but i tried making this chapter longggg. i typically have my days off altogether and the rest of the week booked with work/school. i try to post many chapters within my short timeframe (bc im booked af) so pls expect another update soon after this one! sadly, it takes me around 8-10 hours to write one bc its hard to think lol. also, i don't want this to be too long of a series and kinda wanna connect the dots- slowly but surely, ya know? not edited.

"So, he just came knocking on your door at 6am?" Joon questioned, taking a sip of his smoothie soon afterwards. "I can't even wake up that early."

"We had to do that everyday for our last job."

"I woke up ten minutes before I had to be out the door," he shrugged. "Men get ready fast."

"Anyway," you eyed him as he cluelessly did the same, confused as to why you wouldn't look away. "I don't remember him coming."

"Yeah, because you fucking freaked out and hallucinated over Lady Gaga," Jules exclaimed, you automatically cringing just at the horrible memories you've recently faced with that damn cat.

Once she explained what had happened hours after you had woken up, you were disturbingly shocked.

And the fact that your sleepiness was to blame had you going insane- imagine all the other odd things you may had committed while under the covers.

But you will admit you did remember some of that night's events clearly, again like you practically making out with Lady Gaga- although she was the one who licked your face endlessly first.

Mortified just by the thoughts, you will never be able to face Pedro again sanely.

How could you when you recently dreamed about a man 25 years older being intimate with you- that's...confusing. And the worst part of it all was you couldn't say anything to anyone with the fear of being judged or laughed at- maybe both.

The thing was you couldn't quite understand why you had to dream about that. Maybe your time of the month was coming and your hormones targeted the first guy you had nonstop contact with?

No, that would've been Joon.

Attraction may had played a part but Joon definitely had that, Pedro as well but a little different...age-wise at least. There's no way you felt allured for men with bad jokes and rough skin- no offense. Right?

He did text you that same morning he dropped by and commented on how creepy you are half asleep and whether or not you agreed to his 'business' proposal. Not trying to start a conversation you knew you couldn't finish, out of second-hand shame, you just replied a simple:

LOL but busy with school atm to make a final decision- tell ya later

That later still hasn't arrived.

Unfortunately, you forgot to ask him why he made a random visit that morning- but you weren't going to ask him days later. In your mind, you need to avoid him. There's no way you'd be able to act normal after have unholy fascinations about him.

Not that it'll be a problem, you two hadn't seen each other for weeks before your cafe encounter, you're sure you can do it again without him noticing your distance.

It's been about two days since then which meant you didn't have to prioritize so much of your time on homework, you'll just save that for Sunday when it's all due.

"Did you bother to ask him why?" Jules added, turning to you. "He obviously wasn't coming to see me- I barely know the guy."

"You do know him!" you argue as she rolls her eyes. "You literally got mad at me for not recognizing him the first time we met."

"He's a celebrity- everybody knows him," she defends before tilting her head in curiosity. "But you two are oddly close, it's kind of weird."

"No," you shake your head, trying to laugh off her suspicions. "We are casual friends who fan girl over the same things."

People did take notice how close Pedro and you were but it wasn't anybody's fault you two had so much in common. Both of you loved Starbucks, going on hikes- when you weren't lazy, and believe Matt Healy is extremely attractive.

If they have a problem with that they can sue you.

"I see it," Joon adds, jumping up a bit. "Him and I barely talk and we're men- we should be bonding easily!"

"You're...you," Jules cringes, making Joon glare in return. "I can understand why he chooses not to be close to you."

Laughing, you watch as Joon quickly flips her the finger before he continues on with the conversation. "I just feel like he always comes around only to see you, it was pretty obvious since the first time he took us home."

Furrowing your eyebrows, you didn't understand what he meant by that. Pedro offered all three of you a ride home, not just you.

Already feeling done with this topic, you wanted to switch it before things started escalating and freaky theories started unfolding. They had every right to question your friendship, but you were starting to think they might be leading down a road where they may soon develop other impressions as to what your friendship might have been.

Why are you even thinking that? That's so inappropriate to imagine.

"You two are silly, he probably needed my advice on something or wanted to workout," you suggest, their faces showing they weren't fully convinced. "But anywho, did you call Yoongi yet?"

"I don't think that's a great idea," Joon declared, adjusting in your warm sofa. "He's not really a skating kind of guy."

Since it was Friday and you had no plans, you thought it would be a fun idea to be adventurous for once and do something you would never do on a regular basis.

Ice Skate.

Your friends were extremely down with the idea, but you needed a fourth person to make the group complete. Why not a skinny, impatient blonde man who would probably spend the whole night complaining about why this plan was awful?

Right now you could use some other grumpiness in your life.

"Just tell him to go," you beam back, clapping your hands in excitement as you'll soon be able to fall countless of times on the ice. "I'll buy him hot cocoa."

"You better do it or he'll never let that go," Joon states.

After hours of sitting around and blasting random music through your speakers, the three of you were ready to set off on your journey of locating the ice rink.

If it wasn't for Joon's constant whining to stop walking to take pictures of the scenery you probably would've arrived 15 minutes sooner than your actual arrival, but too bad your friend is a nature freak.

"You taking pictures of the pigeons better not be the reason why you're late," you heard Yoongi grumble as the three of you finally found him sitting on a bench near the entrance of the rink, staring directly at Joon who just scoffed.

"I'm sorry if my happiness bothers you," Joon snapped back as Yoongi just stood up from his seat and made his way to your trio.

Grabbing your ice skates wasn't too difficult as the long line seemed to flow by smoothly, but standing on them was a different story.

"I can't do this," you squeal as your hurriedly motion your arms around to find some balance. "I'm falling!"

Yoongi sent you a questionable look as he watched your poor attempts to stay still embarrassing. "We're not even on the ice yet."

Feeling a hand grab a hold on your shoulders and practically drag your feet towards the ice, you glance up to see Jules steadily directing you to face your fears.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"Are you going to push her in?!" you hear Joon gasp a few feet behind you but you couldn't turn your head as you rather focused your attention on yanking yourself off of Jules.

"It was her idea so she'll be the one going in first."

"Ahh!" you screech, putting all your pressure on your feet to stop her hard pull. Spiraling your ankles in the most crucial ways, you start to lightly slap her arms off you as she continues to fight them off.

One thing about her was she's going to make sure to remind you that this was your idea.

Feeling an arm gently tug you off her grip, you landed on Yoongi's side as Jules whined in return, offended that he ruined her vicious plan. Respectfully, he kept you stable with an arm wrapped behind your middle back as you gripped his other one, fearful she might snatch you away again.

"Why would you do that?!"

"I don't think watching her fall face first on the hard ice would be a fun sight to see," he bluntly returned as Jules huffed. "The sight of blood gives me the ick."

"I was waiting for that moment all afternoon," Jules sighed, disappointed that she wouldn't be seeing you fall- yet.

Waiting for her to walk away to go on the ice, you see Joon follow her before you released your friend, relieved that she wouldn't be partaking in her scandalous scheme just yet.

"You do know how to skate, right?" Yoongi asked, his uncertain eyes on yours as you crazily wave your arms in front of him to rub off his questionable thoughts.

"Do I? Of course I do!" you argue, making your way towards the ice until you were two feet away from it. Putting your feet on the edge, you hesitate as you could feel the cold breeze wrap around you legs. "I'm gonna go now."

"Yippy," he states, waiting at your poor attempts to convince him.

Giving him a thumbs up, you clap your hands together to try to reassure yourself that you could do this, forgetting that he was right behind you secretly laughing.

Taking one final breath, you placed your right foot on top of the ice steadily, trying your best not to make any harsh movements, until you felt a hard jerk on your upper body, making you lose yourself in an instant.

"God, if you don't know how to skate why would you suggest it?" Yoongi grumbled, gliding both your bodies along the ice as he held tightly onto your arms. You were practically skating like a wet dog in front of him, begging with your eyes for him not to abandon you.

"I always wanted to try."

Sending you an annoyed look, you zipped your mouth as his arms were now securing you, closing any gaps there may have been and giving you the ride of your life.

Shutting your eyes harshly, you didn't dare to witness the environment around as you felt the icy wind slap your face the faster you two- or at least by Yoongi's swaying, got.

There were times where he did pretend to lose his balance, causing you to cry in horror and him immediately placing his hand over your mouth by how loud you weaped.

But other than that, you came to enjoy his help as your two other friends rudely abandoned you guys in order to practice their poor attempts of leaping across the rink.

"Okay," Yoongi started, releasing his left hand from your side and keeping you close with only his other. "Now you try on your own."

Fear creeping up in your face, you rapidly shake your head in disagreement and try catching his recent abandoned arm, which he denied. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?" he countered back making you silent.

He did have a point.

"C'mon, it's not that hard. If Joon could do it, you can."

"He's literally on the ground right now," you whine as Yoongi quickly averts his eyes in search of your tall friend, soon finding Joon clutching his knee in pain as Jules records on her phone.

"No."

Sighing, he continues to look around, trying to plan out an idea that would at least convince you to slide a few feet alone without his help until he smirked and met your eyes.

"What would Matt Healy do?"

Widening your eyes, you were taken back by his question.

Only Pedro used that line on you.

And for some reason it felt odd when Yoongi did the same. You shouldn't be bothered by his choice of words...but you were a little.

He wasn't him to be saying it.

"He wouldn't force me to do something I didn't want to do," you reply back, causing him to groan.

"I feel like you just want to be in my arms," he retorted with a grin, immediately making you revolt and fly out of his arms, your bottom hitting the ice hard. "Well that's one way to make you skate."

Feeling immediate pain on the back of your thighs, you just knew you were going to be bruised and swollen the next day. But hey, this technically counts for your workout for the week.

Awkwardly swaying your body around, you couldn't get up off the damn ice. You were sure you looked like a fish out of water by how crazy you were moving.

"Get on your knees," Yoongi commented, causing you to send him a death glare as he lifted his hands up in defense. "It helps you stand."

Or he could just grab your arms and help you himself.

Cautiously following his suggestion, you slowly pull your right leg up and place it firmly on the ice before slowly trying to do so with your left one. As you began to feel satisfied with the weight being supported, you felt your body finally working and lifting up off the ground before he poked your shoulder- making you fall again.

"I'm going to murder you!" you threaten as you stare at him on your back, whole body restlessly laying on the ground in misery as he cackles loudly.

He may have advantage on the ice, but oh man- once you regain your balance off it you were going to end that slender man's life.

"Isn't this just a sight to see," you heard someone exclaim before hands grab your arms and soon lift you back on your feet.

Moving your eyes to the ones in front of you, you burst out in smiles. "Bella! Nico!"

"I take this as my queue to leave,'" you hear Yoongi mumbles but you swiftly grab his arm from his close proximity and halt his plans.

He was not going to desert you now.

"What are you girls doing here?"

Not seeing them for a few weeks didn't make things awkward, but different. It was like catching up with old friends, even though you barely met them less than three months ago.

"Had nothing to do tonight so why not ice skate?" Nico giggled.

Bella examined you up and down before pointing at your head. "My god, your hair grew so long. Has it really been that long?"

Rolling your eyes, you were about to answer her before Yoongi cut in. "No, it's her fake extenstions."

Gasping, you turn your body to him and smack his shoulder as he smacks you back. One thing about him, he's all about equality. You touch him, he touches you- simple.

You don't see the way Nico and Bella exchange smirks to one another before Nico slides in front of you and pulls out her phone. "We should take a selfie! You know, for memories."

Laughing, you agree. You took some pictures with them but never really out of the work environment.

Uncomfortably standing still, Yoongi hastily moves to the side a bit, not wanting to intrude this moment you were having with your friends. He was a pretty sociable person, but only if they had things in common and he fairly knew them.

Yoongi didn't know these two young girls and he sure as hell didn't want to be the one being kicked out of this picture- so why not kick himself out first?

"Where are you going, we need your long arm to get us all in the frame!" Bella exclaimed, motioning Yoongi to move back as he sent her a flustered glance.

"I can just take it with the three of you."

"Nonsense!" Nico argued back, shaking her head as you giggled. "We don't leave people out."

Biting his bottom lip a bit, he scratches the back of his neck swiftly before increasing the speed of his skates to the girl, accepting her phone. "I suppose."

Fixing your posture, you stand behind your friend as he carefully raises his right arm up in the air, positioning the phone that was able to capture all four of you in the frame.

Pulling out the gummiest smile, you bursted out a gigantic grin after seeing the rare radiant expression Yoongi was giving. He was never one to show much emotion so finding him giving in for a picture amused you.

Taking the phone out of his hands, Bella examined the screen before chuckling. "Wow, you've got one adorable smile."

You could've sworn you saw Yoongi blush as he lowered his head while shaking off her compliment, trying to act natural but he wasn't fooling anyone.

He was shy.

Gasping at the sight in front of her, Nico pointed at the concession cart near one of the exits of the ice. "They have hot cocoa! We must get some."

Faking a groan, Bella allowed her friend to drag her away but not before sending you a pout to follow, which you were happy to do. You were freezing to death without even realizing it until you stopped your attempts to skate for the picture.

"I was promised a free cup," Yoongi stated as he was gliding behind you, softly pushing your back as you proceeded to do nothing but allow him to direct you to where your desired hot cocoa was.

Scoffing a little, you shush him as you reached the exit ramp. Jumping off, the two of you slowly waddled to Bella and Nico who were next in line.

"Wait," you start, pausing your footsteps which resulted in him almost falling after slamming to your side. "Shouldn't we ask Joon and Jules if they want one?"

Peeking over your shoulder, Yoongi looks back down to you. "Nah, don't wanna ruin their fun."

Following his recent glance, you could see Joon and Jules in front of one another, both holding hands as they try to catch a faster pace while twirling in big circles.

You were sure they were eventually going to knock a small child over soon.

"Next," you hear the worker call out, sitting behind his register waiting for your arrival.

Quickly walking up, you place your order as nothing else but the hot drinks seemed to interest you. The total came out to be the cost as what four drinks at your local cafe would be, but you shouldn't be surprised since this place was pretty popular to the public.

Pulling out his wallet so fast, you didn't have to process what Yoongi was doing until you caught the view of his credit card as he handed it over to the man in front of you.

"No-" you try intercepting what had just happened by giving your card to the worker who just shrugged as he had already paid for the drinks on Yoongi's card. "Why would you do that?"

"You're too slow," Yoongi bluntly said as he grabbed the two drinks and moved to the side so the next person in line could place their order.

"But it hadn't even been three seconds since he said the total before you handed him the card," you protest.

He handed you your cup, hoping it'll shut you up as he took a small sip from his own. "And?"

Is he being serious? "'And,'" you question as he continued to be unaware as to what you were getting at. "Since the beginning I vowed to buy you hot cocoa."

Yoongi laughed at how stubborn you were becoming. "Vowed? What a great word choice for this scenario, fiance."

Rolling your eyes at his teasing, you hated the fact he was avoiding your question. You knew he did it because he wanted to be a gentleman, but the problem was he didn't want to admit he was one.

Again, he was being shy.

"I see you are kind," you smirk as he gave you a disgusted glance. "Don't worry, I won't tell people you have a heart."

Before he could leave a snarky comeback, Nico and Bella came back in giggles as Yoongi retreated back to his natural state of looking lifeless. "Oh my gosh- we went to get napkins and I kid you not I may have poured my drink on the back of this poor little girl."

Lightly gasping, you widen your eyes as Yoongi confusingly replies back. "May have? You don't know if you did or not?"

Bella makes an accountable face, scrunching her nose in the process. "Okay, I did. But she's the one who ran into me!"

"Well, she was really small and you kind of didn't search your surroundings before kneeing her," Nico exposed, causing Yoongi and you to give each other a concerned look.

"You kneed her?!"

"Only in her side," Bella excused herself, sending Nico a betrayed look. "It wasn't like it was her stomach."

"It practically was...," Nico mumbled but became silent when her co-star eyed her hard.

Coughing uncomfortably, Yoongi caught everyone's attention as he tried to avert the conversation into something that wasn't as horrific as striking a child with hot cocoa and a knee. "We should probably hit the ice again soon before Jules and Joon find out we got these drinks without them."

"Jules is here?!" Bella beamed, searching around for her through the large gatherings of people on the ice. "I missed that crazy lady, she was the only one who would get my coffee order right."

"She told me she would threaten to get the baristas fired if they kept getting it wrong," Nico recalled, chewing her mouth a little. "That's why I stopped letting her take my orders."

Sighing, you looked up in the ceiling in disapproval as you could feel Yoongi laughing his ass off beside you. That was very Jules of her to do.

After another two hours of trying to figure out how to skate, and basically latching onto Yoongi the whole time as Bella and Nico were doing laps around you guys, you finally made it home.

To say you were exhausted would be an understatement- you were drained.

No, seriously. You hadn't worked out this much since Jules and you almost missed the subway two months ago and had to run three blocks to catch it on time.

That day was dreadful, but you were sure if you went to bed you were going to wake up lifeless like a worm.

"I call the shower first!" you hear Jules scream, running to her room in order to grab her belongings but you were faster and instantly made your way to the bathroom, locking the door before she could break in. "You bitch! How dare you steal it with my back turned!"

Grinning evilly to yourself, you wanted to get your night routines over with so you could hit the pillows quickly. Even after taking off all your makeup, taking a very steamy shower, and doing your nightly skin care routine, you were sure you could easily knock out sitting on the toilet if you had the chance.

We all have done it once in our lives.

Opening the door, the steam flows out smoothly as you face your very displeased roommate on the other side, glaring at you. "All yours," you smile, stepping to the side but she roughly pushes you in response, causing you to yelp as you manage to catch your balance midway.

Mental note, burn her eggs next breakfast.

Stepping into your room, you change into an oversized hoodie and sweats before throwing yourself under your covers in excitement.

The moment you've been waiting for all day: sleep.

Closing your eyes, you feel all your senses slowly drifting away from your body as relaxation crept up from all around. It was truly intoxicating how in trance you were.

But of course with your luck, nothing goes as planned- ever.

Wildly jumping up from the loud blaring of your phone, you cover your face in agony as the vibrations and noise cause pain throughout your entire body.

Who the hell was calling you at 10 o'clock at night? This should be illegal.

After taking a minute to control yourself, the ringing stopped. Good, now you won't have to make time to engage in a conversation. Quickly falling back down onto your pillows, it wasn't even ten seconds later before you feel your phone going off like crazy again.

With you eyes shut, you move your hands around your bed until you feel the cool object underneath your pillow. Lazily pressing any button, without batting one eye open, you move the phone to your ear before releasing a groggy, "What?"

"What a lovely way to greet somebody, kiddo."

You instantly freeze, automatically thinking about the vivid dream you had about him, then Lady Gaga, and felt a blush creeping in.

Slowly pulling the phone away, you let out a loud but fast scream before moving it back. How the hell are you going to begin a conversation without thinking about his lips on yours. "What do you want?"

Pausing for a second, you can hear him move around through his end. "Did you just scream?"

It's not like you didn't just dream about him kissing all over your body two nights ago.

"Did you just wake me up to ask me the obvious answer?"

Act like you don't care. Like you are perfectly fine.

He chuckles lightly and you can tell by his tone he was close to passing out too. "Somebody's cranky, is it past your bedtime?" Pedro teased.

You were definitely not in the mood to handle his ridicules at this hour, especially by how nervous he was slowly making you. What did he want?

"Yes," you simply reply before hitting the red button, ending the call and laying your head back on your pillow. Good, just end it before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

It hadn't even been another ten seconds before your phone was ringing once again. Pulling it up to your face, you let out a huff. What a shocker, it was him again.

"You better have an insanely good reason as to why you chose to wake me up in the middle of my dream," you immediately say as you press the 'accept' button.

Hearing him laugh, you just know he has a sarcastic comment coming any second. "Wake you up? Honey, you're still living your dream talking to me."

Honey.

No, not another nickname for him to call you in future dreams.

Shaking that thought away, you rejected the idea of him being in any more dreams- you forbid it.

Loss at words for a second, you almost let your next words trip over one another before calmly gaining your composure at the incidental choice of your pet name.

"So funny," you reply back, trying your best to sound sane. "Pretty sure I was dreaming of a very shirtless Matt Healy playing 'Please Be Naked' to me."

Why the fuck would you slip that out.

"Are you trying to hint at something?" he smirks, making you press mute and hold your hand over your mouth to hold back the screams you feared would release.

Feeling like your soul was about to leave your body, you couldn't believe he just said that.

Actually, you couldn't believe you would even recommend that song. God, your sleepiness was messing with your mind.

Finding your energy once again, you unmute the call and try to seem unfazed by his last comment. "Yes, that I want to sleep. Goodbye now."

Before you could hit the red button again, you could hear him chanting over the phone to do the exact opposite. "Don't!"

Groaning, you clutch the phone harder in despair. "I am so tired. Don't do this to me, please. I am a girl who values her sleep!" you whine as you hear him continue his light giggles in the background. "If I don't sleep I will die, is this what you want. Are you trying to kill me?"

"I can reassure you I don't plan on keeping you up long," he explains. "And I wouldn't dare wish for your death."

Your heart fluttering, you glare at your chest. "Then what do you want?"

Moving his phone from one ear to the other, he lays in his bed while smiling at his ceiling. "You," he declares, making you widen your eyes as he shuffles around in his blanket. "Tomorrow, let's hang out."

Sitting up against your bed frame, you furrow your brow. "Hang out? For what?" There's no way you will be able to act normal for a long period of time, your weak-self can't do it.

Placing a hand over his chest, he lets out a light hiss in fake hurt by your comeback before continuing. "Can't I hang out with you by choice and not by a work schedule? Unless you're so disgusted by me." That's when he started his fake cries. "I'm so sorry I am not Matt Healy and can't do a great British accent."

Shaking your head, you try to intervene as his ugly cries become louder through the line. "That's not what I meant, stop being dramatic," you complain as he instantly stops while smiling widely. "Is there a specific reason why you want to hang out?"

Taking a deep breath, he fiddles with the fingers on his non-occupied hand. "Does there need to be a reason?"

You pause for a second. He's acting too kind for your liking and it's making you question what his intentions are. In this point of time, you're sure he's going to take that moment to convince you to work with him in Canada.

"With you there's always a reason."

Scoffing lightly, he grumbles. "I just want to go on a hike and need a hiking partner."

Oh hell no, you already did enough working out this evening. You were not about to do that again, that's for sure.

"Yeah, nooo," you exhale lowly. "I already did too much working out with my body if you know what I mean and-"

"I don't know what that means," he cuts you off.

"It means I am going to be sore for days so my body has no strength to walk for more than five minutes," you declare as he falls silent.

After a few seconds that felt like forever, he replies. "Fine," he blankly states. "Have a goodnight, sweetheart."

The warmth as blood began drawing to your face became present as you quickly reply with a simple "night" before ending the call. And for some reason you felt as if you couldn't breathe normally by the pounding on your chest.

What the hell was happening to you. Looking up at the ceiling, you silently pray you don't have a Lady Gaga 2.0 fiasco.

As you were questioning why your heart made you feel as if you were going under cardiac arrest the night before, your body was currently making you feel if you really needed to make that trip to the ER by how tender you were.

It also didn't help that Jules was the one waking you up at the crack of dawn, half asleep with her eye mask clinging onto her forehead.

"W-why are you-" you grumble, rubbing your eyes as you look at the alarm clock near your bedside. "-waking me up at 6:18am? It's Saturday."

She sent you a death glare for assuming she randomly wanted to wake you up for the fun of it as she was the one who was woken up first. "Someone's here for you."

Positioning your body upwards, you squint your eyes up at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Why don't you take a look for yourself," she gritted her teeth, swaying her head towards your door.

Slowly standing up, you make your way to it before sneaking a peak of the view of your living room. That's when you see a very annoying man you were sure you both agreed on the phone last night to not go hiking.

Luckily, he didn't notice your wandering eyes as his were glued to his phone, scrolling through his social media.

What was he doing here? You can't face him without thinking about his body wrapped around yours and his lips doing dangerous things.

Oh no, you truly were screwed.

Lightly shutting your door, you nervously turn back to your roommate who looks displeased. "I told him no."

"No means yes, I guess," she replies, snaking her arms around her body for warmth. "I'm going back to bed."

You could hear her walk out of your room as you frantically begin searching for something warm yet comfortable clothes to wear on this undesired hike. You knew if you tried backing out he would stay until you caved, he was very persistent to get what he wanted.

And what he wanted was for you to get your ass up and exercise.

You were also certain you heard Jules let out a "thanks for the invite" to him before hearing her bedroom door shut.

Running out of your room, you made sure not to look in his direction so he wouldn't see your morning appearance clearly- well he already has but why reveal yourself in this state again?

Quickly brushing your hair, teeth, and washing your face, you change into a baggy green sweatshirt and some black workout leggings before slipping on suited running shoes.

Try to act natural. Give him little attention so he won't speculate anything. You aren't into old men and did not vision him smooching you on your sofa.

"You are so buying me breakfast," you deadpan as you walked straight out of your door, not even daring to wait for him to follow.

Good, be straightforward.

Laughing to himself, Pedro promptly jumped off the couch and jogged after you once you shut the door on him and continued down the halls to the elevators.

Finally catching up, he barely made it through the elevator doors as they were closing to find you leaning against the corner, mad and tired. "Good morning to you, too."

You let out a small cry as you lay your head against the wall in pain from how frustratingly exhausted you were. If one cold breeze hit you outside you were sure you were going to burst into tears.

"Oh, come one," he walks over to you and nudged your shoulder to wake up some more. If he unexpectedly touched you again you were sure you were going to rip his arm off. "In a few minutes you'll be wide awake and fine."

"How dare you assume I'm going to be fine!" you whine, trying to hit his side but he manages to capture your arm and that's when you give up and allow your worn out body to fall on him.

He instantly wraps his arms around you as your head falls just beneath his chin, your eyes slowly closing and your thoughts drifting away as his warmth was making you drowsy.

You tried to stay focus, but your poor state was taking over and you suddenly weren't as anxious as you once were. Being sleepy really made your mind roam.

"Hey, now," he whispers and looks down to see you snuggling up against him. "You can't fall asleep on me. I do not want your security guards thinking I drugged you."

Tightening your arms on how lower sides, you ignore him as you feel yourself easing closer to dozing off by the constant beating of his heart. "Stop," you mumble, clutching your ears softly before positioning your head on the other side of his chest.

"What?" he curiously glances down at you.

"You heartbeat's annoying me," you lightly whine. "It's pounding against my ears."

Pedro was extremely glad you were too tired to process his heartbeat and the bright red tint plastered across his face. Your drained-self definitely saved him from embarrassment.

Finally, the elevator doors opened and you still weren't moving. You were too comfortable to make any effort to walk on your own and if he really wanted you to hang out this morning then he was going to have to find a way to make you move.

And to him, dragging you was his best option yet. But with care.

Delicately keeping his arms secured around you, he gradually walked out with you still engulfed by him, eyes shut and only moving your feet with his pace.

Honestly, you were surprised how much rhythm you had.

Stopping to pull out his car keys, he unlocked his car and opened his passenger side door once you two reached the garage complex. Gently, laying you on the seat, you station you head against the headrest as he buckled you in. "God, I really hope security doesn't report me."

And once he made it to his side and hopped in, he laughed at the state you were in, head instantly bent to your side and legs tangled together in hope to create some kind of warmth. "Adorable."

But of course you were too dumb to not catch that.

You were awoken by a small speed bump and the instant hit of warmth through the heat vents, your eyes slowly glancing around your surroundings. Taking a quick peep at the screen indicating the time, you read that it was almost 7am.

Tilting your head and leaning against the headrest, you lazily stare at Pedro as he continues to drive to god knows where.

"Don't I look so handsome in the morning?" he jokes before meeting your eyes, sending you a warm grin.

And handsome on top of you.

Shutting your eyes tightly, you beg your imagination to please shut the fuck up.

"You mean drastic," you mutter, moving your head to the opposite side, against the window to force some sleep again.

Better to make time fly by faster knocking out where you were sure you wouldn't say anything stupid.

"Hey, no..." he whines, moving his right arm across to shake your chin softly to keep you conscious. "Don't pass out on me again, I'm lonely."

"And I'm tired, deal with it."

Shuffling in his seat, he looks over to see you curling yourself up in a ball with your legs to your knees and arms wrapped around. Not thinking things throughly, he hits the brakes hard for a split second and watches as your body jolts forward before swinging back against his seat.

"What the fuck!" you shriek, propping your body up and facing him in pure rage. "Are you trying to irritate me?!"

"I'm lonely and you're not helping," Pedro calmly states, shrugging as you continue your daggers his way.

You were beyond pissed. How could he think you would be energetic and talkative right now? How could he attempt to make you fly out the window? You could feel your nerves slowly fading away by the fury growing inside you.

If he wanted you awake then fine, you were going to be awake.

Doesn't mean you had to talk though.

Silently sitting up, you stare at the windshield in front of you and watch the cars drive as he continues to spare you a glance every once in a while.

Honestly, your silence was terrifying the fuck out of him. Normally, you would have some snarky comeback or violent punch to return to his evil tactics, but you were doing nothing.

Literally nothing.

And he knows damn well the sights of trees and cars did not interest you.

"Hey...," you feel Pedro lightly poke your side, pursing his lips once he saw your non-existent reaction. "You're not mad, right?"

Ignoring him, you continue your deep stare now onto more trees as you two were getting closer to nature than streets. You must've been out for some time as you barely noticed how far away from the city you really were.

Joon would really love this.

Gradually lifting his arm up, his places it on top of your own and gives it a small squeeze while laying it there. "C'mon, don't ignore me."

As if that would make you stop your scheme.

Blinking slowly, you acted like you paid no attention to his puppy dog pleads as the car was making its way towards an almost empty parking lot, all surrounded by a forest that only had one route starting within an old wooden bridge.

Pulling up to a nearby parking spot, Pedro parked the car before turning back to try and capture your attention but nothing was working.

You were so damn frustrating, it was infuriating. But he was still desperate to gain your attention.

"Are you just going to sit in here all day or what?" he questions as he waves a hand over your face to make you blink.

You didn't and that kind of frightened him. Work of the devil.

"I am going to cry," he warned, swatting his hand over his face to prepare for his fake tears.

Yet you showed no mercy. Sitting there patiently, you inhaled and exhaled softly, causing him to internally flip the fuck out because why were you being so aggravating when the two of you should be walking and pointing out the squirrels fighting over nuts.

And sadly, he was slowly giving up.

"Imagine if I really was crying," he began, offended you did not care one bit. "Really means a lot how unconcerned you are."

But when you suddenly started examining your nails and carefully picking at them is when he totally lost it.

Reaching over to you and moving his arm down your arm, he swiftly intertwined your fingers with his before moving you posture to face him.

His hand was huge.

"No, no-" he started, pulling a face as you gave him a blank stare back. Act natural. Pulling your shared hands in front of his chest, he sulks. "-please, for the love of whichever god you believe in, or if you're an atheist- for the love of you, please talk to me."

Watching him beg for forgiveness has always been funny in the past, but his pleading for attention now makes you feel bad.

"If you talk to me I will buy you breakfast and a very delicious milkshake that will make you extremely happy for the rest of the day," he continues, using his free left arm to wrap around you as his right one still clutches onto your palm.

He's so warm.

Pursing your lips a bit, you send him a skeptical glance. "Oreo shake with a lot of whipped cream?"

He instantly nods, a smile breaking out. "Of course, anything you want."

You look at the car's steering wheel before averting your eyes back to his. "And a red cherry?"

"I'll buy you a full jar of cherries if it makes you happy," he declares.

"And fries?"

Agreeing, he lets out a quick nod again. "With extra seasoning."

Biting your lip, you proceed to think about other stuff you may want with your milkshake and fries. "A burger?"

"My goodness, woman" he sighs, letting go of you and jumping out of the car before running around to your side and opening your door. "I'll buy you the whole menu, now let's go!"

With that, he vigorously yet cautiously pulls you out of your seat and throws you over his shoulders.

"Oh no!" you squeal, trying to find something to hold on to as he begins his journey, walking towards the bridge to start the hike. Grabbing a hold of his neck, you try not to choke him as you place your arm around it.

If you were going down, you were sure you were going to break his neck in the process. At least it would be a learning lesson for him.

"If you drop me I am never talking to you again," you threaten as he continues down a path.

"Said that before and just did it half the car ride here," he begins, moving his shoulder to give you a little fright of your life. "Now I just found out that all I have to do is buy you food and you'll yap again."

Glaring, you choke him a little to which he chuckles. "Didn't know you were into that."

Speechless, you couldn't believe his words. What the hell was he on this morning?

"Put me down!" you exclaim, immediately moving your body so he would lose his balance. Once he did so, you scowl as he ruffles your hair, making it tangle around. "Hey!"

"Can you stop being negative for a few minutes and enjoy the environment?" he asks, pulling his arms up to twirl around. "Just take in that fresh air mother nature gifted us."

Scrunching your nose, you frown. "It smells like rotten eggs."

"Because of the ducks," he pointed out before patting his pockets. "Which we will be feeding with the bread I brought."

Examining his pocket, you shoot him a curious glance. "How big are your pockets?"

"Not important," he states, grabbing your arms and dragging you along with him down the long trail. "What's important is finishing this trail to feel accomplished."

Pouting, you allowed him to drag you along as you miserably dreaded the next few hours to come. The energy you had to give off just for some damn breakfast.

Shame on you for loving food so much.

Encountering many frogs, lizards, and pigeons who loved flying right by both of your heads and scaring you to death, you had long forgotten about how anxious you were being around him. Being distracted constantly had you occupied which was a relief.

Eventually, you two finally found the drugs.

Or the ducks.

Walking by a huge pond, there were numerous amounts of ducks leaping around with their families following behind. It was really cute, but the smell wasn't.

"I wonder if they can choke on this?" Pedro muttered as he pulled out a large bread. Slowly nearing one medium-seized one in caution, he rips a piece apart and throws it. "It is kind of thick."

Taking a moment to check the bread out, you sigh. "Are you feeding these ducks bolillo bread?"

He pauses, not sure why you would care to ask. "Yes and?"

"They have thick crusts!" you exclaim. "And why not just feed them normal wheat bread?"

"Who even eats wheat? It's bland." he protests. "Plus, this is leftovers from my dinner last night."

"They're ducks! They don't care," you argue as he shakes his head.

"Just imagine if you were a duck," he began, making you huff in annoyance as you just knew he was going to say something ridiculous. "Wouldn't you love to eat this nice bolillo bread, maybe visualize a torta with some carnitas, onions, avocado, can't forget the refried bean-"

"The duck is choking!" you squeal and stare in fear as the poor duck starts to wheeze sharply.

Pedro's facial expressions drops as he sees the poor duck quacking in agony. Nervously rushing to its side, he looks up at you. "Do we pat its back? CPR? Call 911?!"

Pulling out your phone, you type away to find answers for your current problem. It was indeed true that you aren't supposed to feed ducks bread.

Especially thick Mexican ones.

"Give it mouth to mouth if you want chlamydia," you read aloud, causing Pedro to instantly leap away from the duck as it hastily begins to lay on the ground. "Wait, you get that from birds, not ducks. Silly me."

"Ducks are birds," he discloses, trying his best to softly pat the ducks back, finally giving it one powerful swat to help but instead the duck ends ups being thrown a few feet away by his force.

"Do I look like a fucking duck doctor?" you spit out, making him look up confused.

"You mean a veterarian."

Ignoring his last comment, you continue scrolling through more of google's suggestions, finally finding some information that may help. "You need to press down on its chest with 1-2 fingers or just give them water to drown it down."

Immediately grabbing the duck and placing it on its back, you worriedly watch over the duck from Pedro's shoulder as he works his fingers on the poor animal.

However, no luck was given as the duck was beginning to look weak and drowsy as pressure kept being projected on its chest. "We need water!"

Running towards the pond, you motion for Pedro to follow along with the duck as you look for a safe ramp to lead the duck onto. "Let's just lay him down near the water and splash him with it."

"He?" Pedro asks, stopping his movements. "But it looks like a she-"

"We are not arguing over its gender when its literally dying in your arms!" you exclaim, causing him to quickly nod and follow the ramp you found towards the water.

Gently, Pedro lowered his arms near the water with the poor duck taking over his hands. Trying to move the flow of water towards its face, he calls you over. "He's not accepting it, you need to scoop some up in your hand and pour it over his beak."

Rapidly nodding, you do as he says and take a handful and try not to spill it before gradually pouring it over the duck's beak. This water was not clean, but at least it was something. Nothing was happening until your third scoop once the duck began to actually swallow some of the water slowly.

"I-I think it's working! We did it!" Pedro cheered, trying to give you a high-five, failing incredibly as he somehow managed to lose his grip and dump the poor duck hard in the pond. "Oh shit!"

Squatting down, you try to reach for the duck as its face was buried underneath the water before Pedro's body slams into yours, causing you to fall into the dirty, cold pond.

The feeling of thick, muddy water overtakes your body as you lose all sight of air. Quickly moving your arms up and down, you rise back to the surface to find Pedro with his hands over his mouth and his jaw dropped.

He knew he wasn't going to hear the end of it.

"Fuck," he nervously muttered to himself before reaching out for you. "I am so so so sorry, the leaf made me slip AH!-"

He couldn't finish his sentence as you yanked his arm down with you, pulling with almighty to get him to land in the pond. The weight of the water going down with his body diving harshly against it, you knew he was completely soaked.

And probably pissed, but its okay. It's what he deserves.

Waiting for him to come up, he finally did so in seconds looking very unhappy. It made you delighted.

"You did that on purpose!"

Scoffing, you splash him and watch as he gasps harder. "You do a lot of things on purpose."

Using both hands to release bigger waves, he splashes you back. "Don't splash me!"

Growling, you slap his chest as he clutches your wrist afterwards. "You're so lucky I forgot my phone at home."

Gasping, you feel one of his hands fly underwater. "I didn't!" You hold in your giggles as he shuffles frantically before moving his gaze back up. "Wait, I never removed it from my glove department. Be fortunate I forgot it because if you destroyed it I would've made you walk home."

Furrowing your brows, you push his shoulders and make him move back by the force of it. "You're the one who started it. We're gonna get duck chlamydia now!"

Rolling his eyes, he pushed you back, causing you to fall under the water. Once you caught your breath again you notice the way he glares at you. "That's not even a thing."

"Just another STD to add to your list," you jokingly mumble to yourself, sure he didn't catch it.

You were wrong, again.

Launching himself onto you, the two of you fall underwater as he shoves you body around in revenge. Swimming back up, you gasp for air while slapping his arms off you as he tried blocking all your attempts.

Wrapping his arms around your waist, he clings his face on your shoulder as he proceeds to try and bring you down under but somehow you manage to wrap your leg around his thigh, causing him to lose his strength and fall backwards with you on top of him.

He sure has one strong grip.

Now, not saying you were going to kill him. But this was your chance to kill him with no witnesses.

Well- besides the ducks, but they wouldn't quack a soul.

Regaining his energy, he lifts himself back up and holds you up, about to drag you under again before you crazily oppose while shaking your head, "Don't! We're gonna get sick!"

"That's not a very sincere apology," he tilts his head, his wet hair scattered across his face as he awaits your alibi.

Huffing, you fight back a rude remark. "Do you understand how much poop were swimming in right now? These ducks are probably laughing at us by how much they are quacking."

Swiftly looking around, the two of you check the surrounding ducks around who blankly stare back. The older looking ones hollering nonsense, probably making plans to kill you and Pedro.

"I bet their releasing their chlamydia right now," you cry, hiding your face in his shoulder as he bursts out laughing.

"I don't think that's how it works."

Glancing down on him, you're surprised by his strength. He's been holding you up by your waist for so long you're shocked he hasn't dropped you accidentally yet. "Let's not find out, let's get out."

"You're forgetting something," he smiles, staring innocently at you, knowing damn well you can't leave without his release. "And I wouldn't wait this one out because I am pretty sure I feel toads swimming near my feet."

Instantaneously, you clung onto him tighter in fear as you could imagine the feeling of something swarming around your body. It was like hundred of spiders crawling all over you, you needed to get out of here.

Pulling yourself back up, you place your hands on his shoulders as he impassively stares back at you, waiting. "Fine," you huff. "I'm sorry for claiming you had STD's before."

Pedro just stays there, not moving an inch as if he wants more. Groaning, you knew he wasn't going to give in so easy. "And I am sorry for stimulating the idea that you would get duck chlamydia," you apologize. "But you can get E. coli."

That didn't help as he just helplessly eyed you, not impressed with your poor excuses of your so-called apologies. What more did he want? You can't necessarily beg on your knees, you're in the water!

Whining, you knew you had to pull out your sincere face. You just knew your Oscar-worthy acting was about to award you freedom.

Softly, you move strands of hair stuck near his eyes away from his face and brush his hair back before quivering your lips and looking down upon him in sorrow.

He has really pretty eyes.

"I'm really sorry," you start as you push your face inside his neck and lock him inside your arms. "I know you don't have any infections, you don't even have visible rashes or sores to prove it."

Pedro finds your plead for forgiveness charming as you squeeze him tighter. He begins to release you until he hears the mutter of your "-that are visible."

"You couldn't hold it in for a few more seconds?!" he whined at how fast you went back to insulting him.

Sighing heavily, you slap a hand to your face. "It's hard!"

Suppressing a laugh, he unwrapped his arms around you and let you get back to the sidewalk. But once you were back on your feet, you looked down to find your body filled with random pieces of dirt, sticks, and grass. "Ew!"

"You're not sitting in my car," Pedro states, waving his head side to side to release some water from his ears.

"You're worse than me!"

"My car, my rules."

Frowning, you weren't sure if he was kidding or not. "Well, you almost committed first-degree-murder so if you don't want people to know you must be my personal servant."

His instant glare turned into confusion as he abruptly moved his attention back towards the pond. "Where did the duck go?"

Widening your eyes, you forgot that you had a helpless duck in your hands minutes ago before your splash attack with Pedro. Scanning your eyes from the sidewalks to the ramps to the pond, you noticed a duck floating nearby. "I think that's them."

Pointing at a duck with the closest familiar colors than the rest, you felt Pedro let out of sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, I would have felt extremely guilty if she would have died."

"It could be a he," you snap back.

He was about to protest but honestly, you were done for the day. You just wanted to take a long and hot shower and knock back out. Not only that, but you ruined your cute running shoes you gifted yourself months ago for your work out journey.

You never really wore them, but it's the thought that counts.

"We can get breakfast another day," you plead to which he didn't argue over because he really wanted to remove the unknown substances off his body asap.

He wouldn't admit it, but he was genuinely scared he may have gotten duck chlamydia .

"Okay, but no sleeping in the car," Pedro states as you exhale loudly. All this and you still weren't allowed to doze off, how cruel is life at the moment.

Walking back to the car would've went down smoothly if the two of you weren't given disturbed looks from strangers and your clothes weren't clinging uncomfortably to your bodies, especially your shoes.

Luckily, Pedro had towels in his trunk and set them down on the seats. "God, I am definitely going to need a deep cleaning after this."

Slipping inside, your hands find the heater and turn it on full blast. Not only was it freezing outside, but your drenched state made you feel like an icicle.

Setting off back to the road, your mind begins to wander back to the question that has been flooding your mind lately. Craning you neck towards his presence, you make out his comfort state. Cool, he's calm.

Here goes nothing.

"So," you start, awkwardly playing with your hands as you try to make direct eye-contact with him as he turns his head to you. "Why did you visit the other morning?"

Lifting a brow, he pulls a face. "Other morning?"

Biting the inside of the cheek, you try to sound composed. "Yeah, remember? You dropped by around 6am-"

"-and you thought I was Lady Gaga, slammed the door on my face, and went back to bed?" he finished, grinning while finding your eyes again. "You mean that day?"

"Well if you knew what I was talking about why make me recall those mortifying details?" you grumble, leaning back against your seat. "And I thought you were a cat."

"I figured, I always questioned why Jules would ramble on about buying Lady Gaga a new electric litter box until I connected the dots," he confessed making you let out a small chuckle.

Yeah, you clearly remember how upset Jules became when Lady Gaga neglected the expensive box.

"But if you're curious, it wasn't because I wanted to go hiking," he smiled, referring to the current day.

"Then why?"

He paused for a minute, checking his mirrors before switching lanes. "I'm not really sure."

Tilting your head a bit, you express curiosity as you glance back. "I don't understand?"

Laughing lowly, he slightly shook his head. "I did wake up real fucking early that day," he started. "Maybe around 4am? Which sucked because I must've gotten like 3-4 hours of sleep."

"So you decided to wake me up so I could feel your pain?"

"No," he stifled another chuckle. "To plant trees."

Squinting your eyes, you become very confused. What is he talking about? He noticed your puzzlement immediately. "You know, go early in the morning to different areas in the city and help dig and replace old trees to plant new ones."

This whole time you were flipping out, wondering why he randomly came early in the morning just to find out it was because he's a nature boy who wants to help out the community?

It was very sweet of him to be as helpful as he was, but you were a little disappointment it wasn't something more.

"That's why?" you ask and he nods. "And why no warning?"

"Well, I was going to call but I figured all that studying you had done the evening before may have knocked you out early," he confessed.

Yet he still made you wake up early today knowing damn well you were exhausted last night. Strange.

"Why me?" you giggle. "I'm not your typical nature girl, Joon would've been perfect for the job."

Shrugging, he leaned his elbow on his middle console. "I thought about asking him, but to be honest I didn't want to pay for any damages he may have caused."

That was a very accurate insight of what Joon really was, clumsy. The amount of times he accidentally dropped his coffee cups, tripped over wires backstage, and face-planted against glass doors would be too much to count on both your palms.

You're surprised he hasn't broken his back again- but still glad he hasn't. That would really suck.

"But have you thought things over yet?" Pedro glanced your way before looking back forward. "About Canada?"

Stiffing up a bit, you move your eyes to the dashboard. You weren't dreading this conversation, but you didn't want to talk about it.

This was a situation where it was a win but also a loss.

Win as in gaining incredible experience, loss that your parent's wouldn't be pleased, it was in a different country, and you'd be missing out on your social life for almost a year.

"Not really," you admit and sense from the corner of your eyes his shoulders fall. "Still indecisive, as always," you try joking to lighten the mood.

Sending over a tiny grin, he mirrors your same expression, doubtful. His face turns concentrated again, leaning closer to you before he shuts down again, ultimately rejecting whatever idea he had going on.

The rest of the drive back to your place went by fast. The two of you made little talk about each other's life and how school was going for you, but he already knew so much already from past encounters.

Pulling up to the red curb you loathe, you crack a scowl as he only returns a smirk at his doing. "I will personally send my property manager to you so she can threaten you."

"I do love threats," he beamed, watching as you reach for the handle before stopping you by his voice. "-but I had fun this morning, despite our little uh...catastrophe," he chuckled, looking down at his clothes.

"I totally agree," you grin. "Dirt just looks so good on me."

He sniggers lightly before slightly sobering up. "But seriously, think about the offer," he begins, nipping at his lip a bit, not trying to put too much pressure on you. "It'll be good for you, you know- your future."

Sighing, you nod. You knew where he was coming from since he's been doing this for so long, but you were still young and had a lot on your mind.

"I'll think about it," you smile, reaching for the door handle and swiftly getting out, missing the way his smile slowly vanishes.

Taking your usual step back, you send him a farewell wave but he does his habitual goodbyes as he gets out of his car and grins to you. "See you around." Laughing, you walk inside the doors and make your way to the elevators, his followed soft "beautiful" being muffled by the traffic on the streets.

It seemed like both of you were screwed.

+

taglist: @thesapphirequeen @floralsightings @wrathofcats @avengersheart @fafik7  @chimchimjiminie16 @adriennemichelle98

[dulcewrites]

I was thinking since Baelor’s birth won’t go… great in fcc, I would like to think his birth and the immediate aftermath goes much better bc of modern medicine and all that for aemyrah’s modern day counterparts. Also I was thinking if hotd was a completely different story and myrah was in the show, I would obviously trust ramin djawadi to give their love story a sickening score. BUT if modern fcc was a show of its own, I’d probably get Nicholas Britell to do the score. I would need the most beautiful, soul crushing music for all their big moments. The moment they realize they love each other, their wedding, and ofc each kid being born 🫶🏽

Agape

“At what age do you think you’ll start balding?”

“I rubbed your huge feet, and you’re asking me that,” Aegon looks at her in disgust.

“My feet are not huge, they are pleasantly plump at the moment. Also I’m thinking around 40. If you live that long of course,” Myrah shrugs.

“Remind me why I agreed to came over here?”

“Because you love me.”

“Or your husband would choke me out otherwise.”

Myrah rolls her eyes as she twist the yarn around her needles. Her mother tells her it is blessing to have a husband and future father as attentive as Aemond. Myrah supposes she’s right; there have been too many horror stories of men being involved then flipping on a dime as soon as a baby comes along. Hell, she has a cautionary tale as a mother in law now.

Aemond managed to put together a schedule that involved Myrah not being alone for too long. Someone always checking in for the past week till he gets back from his business trip later that night.

Aegon came over with beer for him and freshly squeezed mango pineapple juice for her. They shared a big thing of carbonara. He even let her pick what they watched, and Aegon was strict about his television privileges. Now, they are giggling over his Raya options.

“Maybe you should go back to meeting people the old fashion way.”

She feels a pang settled in her lower stomach. It was one of a couple that pulsed throughout her the last hour and a half. Assuming it is indigestion from the pasta, she shifts a bit before continuing to scroll on Aegon’s phone. Not impressed by his options, she hands the phone back.

“You could sent me up with your cousin I met at the wedding. The one with green eyes,” Aegon grins.

“I love her far too much to put her through that. But I do have an great aunt on my dad’s side that would love someone to pay her mortgage in exchange for companionship.”

When Aegon looks like he is actually considering it, Myrah scoffs. “I’m joking, you freak.”

He shrugs. “The women in your family are hot. I’m still waiting for your mom to realize I would make an excellent controversially young second husband.”

Myrah goes to laugh but the pain that was in her abdominal shifted to her back.

“I think I have to pee… or shit.”

Aegon wrinkles his nose, but helps her up off the couch. Myrah barely makes it to the master bathroom and closes the door before she feels a slight snap and liquid gushes down her leg.

No… no. She can’t possibly be having this baby early.

Myrah freezes for a moment, standing there in wet sweatpants. “Aegon…”

Her voice comes out shaky.

“Don’t tell me Aemond wipes for you too,” he calls back from the bedroom. “I love you guys but the codepency is a lot.”

“Aegon, please get in here.”

Dropping the humor and sensing something is wrong, he opens one of the double doors and peaks his head in. He takes one look at her wet pants and the startled look on her face, and frowns.

“Did you pee on yourself.”

She shakes her head no slowly. His already wide eyes get impossibly big.

“So, is that…”

She nods her head. Despite possibly being on the verge of becoming a mother, she’s never felt more young. Like she’s a young girl again, going to her mother to tell her she started her period. Scared of her own body. Aegon come in and swallows hard.

“Ok um maybe I should call my mom or your mom. Fuck, Aemond’s on a plane.”

“No!”

“No,” he repeats confused.

“I’ll call my doula and my midwife,” she begins to walk towards the bathtub. “And take a shower.”

“A shower,” Aegon panics. “Shouldn’t we get you to the hospital?”

No, she cannot have this baby without Aemond. She refuses.

“No, I think it’s ok. He will wait.”

“He will wait?”

“Will you stop repeating me,” she sighs. “And yes, I’m his mother. He will listen to me.”

She rubs her belly. You have to work me here kid.

“Just go get me phone.”

Aegon gives her a skeptical look, eyes trialing the wet floor, before leaving. Myrah tries to blink away tears. It is not even the slow throbbing pain that occurred that scares her, it’s everything after that. Aegon comes back with her phone. With shaky hands, she calls Lynesse, her midwife.

When she first became pregnant, Alicent insisted Myrah go to Alicent’s aunt. Siting that she delivered all of the kids, including Aemond.

“I think we may have a… situation.”

“Her water broke,” Aegon pipes up bruntly.

Myrah explains the pain she’s been having, ignoring Aegon muttering in the background that Aemond will kill him for giving her eggy pasta. Lynesse tells her to take the shower, make sure her bag is ready, and call her if the contractions get worse or closer together.

“And sweetheart, you’ll be ok.”

She will ok. She will ok.

“I think I’m going to do my makeup.”

Aegon gives her an exasperated look. “You will more than likely sweat it off Myrah.”

“Not true. My Urban Decay All-Nighter setting pray is amazing. Now be a dear and go get me some towels to clean this mess.”

Aegon shoos her away as she tries to get on her knees to clean the bathroom floor.

“You know for all of this, you guys should’ve considered naming the ankle bitter after me.”

“I’d rather not. I have a feeling there will be too many Aegons in the world when things are said in done.”

She is confused and slightly perturbed by the naming in their family. There’s homages, and there is whatever the fuck Targaryens like to do. But when in Rome…

When Aegon is done cleaning the mess, Myrah finally gets in the shower. The relaxation of the warm water is cut short with a contraction. Sharp and sizzling throughout her body. She had to grip the tile wall for a moment to catch her breath. Despite the effort that will go in for it, she opts to wash her hair and do a face mask. Knowing it may be the last time she gets to do some self care for a minute.

The pain does not subside but at least she feels a bit more prepared.

“You know we really should text Aemond so when he gets off the plane he knows what is going on.”

Myrah makes eye contact with Aegon in her vanity mirror in the master bedroom. “You know how Aemond is. He will be awful on the road. Best to wait till he gets here to let him know.”

It could a bit for her sake too. Honestly more. For some reason, she’d wants to see Aemond in this space. In their home as just Aemond and Myrah before they become ‘Aemond and Myrah, parents’. Before everything completely changes. The more people she tells, the more real it is. If he can just hold off a little bit longer.

“Help me pick a palette.”

“I highly doubt a newborn will care if your eyeshadow is sparkly enough.”

“Your mommy issues has made you cold, I think.”

Aegon flips her off, but nevertheless picks a palette.

“Oh, we need music,” Myrah claps her hands, gesturing for Aegon to look at her phone on the charger. Aegon is scrolling till he looks up with a smirk.

“Ewwww, you and Aemond have a sex playlist,” Aegon laughs. Myrah throws an eyeliner pencil that he doges.

She turns to look at herself in the mirror.

You can do this Myrah.

Something Aemond learned quickly about Myrah is that she is not a texter. At least not in the traditional sense. Where someone else would send a ‘Good. How are you?’ in reponse back to a simple question like ‘How are you doing?’, Myrah would much rather send a picture to show she’s doing well.

Or a detailed voice note about how she got free drink from Starbucks, and that’s why her morning is going splendid.

So, when Aemond lands and gets the notifications from Myrah, one selfie of her drinking some sort of bright juice and the other a picture of her and Aegon with ladybug hair-clips in their hair, he assumes everything is alright with her and baby.

It makes him breathe easier. He’d been in a foul mood the whole week. Pissed he even had to travel. Myrah had waved off his reservations.

“I’m the one on maternity leave. It will be over before you know it. Bean and I will be fine.”

It began to set in why some people he works with, men like his father, are always fucking miserable. Putting work before your family is shit.

It is not until gets a phone call from Aegon that anxiety comes back.

“Hey, so how was your flight? Did you get any of those good cookies,” Aegon sounds a bit distant and nervous. “Any hot flight attendants I should know about?”

“Aegon, what’s going on,” sighs Aemond.

“I don’t want you to be upset or scared,” it makes Aemond sit up in his seat. “But… we are at the hospital, Myrah is in labor.”

Aemond feels his stomach lurch into his throat. “What?”

“The midwife said she’s moving along ok. But her contractions started getting worse so we had to come in.”

“Fuck fuck fuck.”

“Don’t freak out,” Aegon raises his voice. “Amal is on the way. So is mom.”

“Tell him that I’m fine. My tarot cards showed good things!”

Aemond hears Myrah’s voice chime up in the background.

“Just get here, man.”

He babbles almost incoherently to the driver, asking him to essentially find a way to go the opposite direction towards the hospital. He can feel himself starting to sweat on the way there. It almost makes him wish he would’ve had time to change out of the suit he was wearing into something more comfortable. He hopes he has time to at the hospital.

He hopes he doesn’t miss the birth of his first child. Aemond might actually commit arson in his office if that’s the case.

Aemond finally gets to the hospital. All but jogging down the hall to the maternal unit of the hospital, bags in hand. He is relived to see that it seems Myrah is still in labor. He walks in to see Aegon sitting in the couch in the large room, Myrah is laid in the bed, a contraption in her mouth till she sees Aemond.

“Pookie bear,” she smiles lazily.

Aemond doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to hear that terribly embarrassing nickname. He drops his bags immediately and crouches down near her.

“Are you ok,” he brushes a hair back from her face.

“They gave her some gas and air. She’s on top of the world,” Aegon laughs. Myrah’s sweet disposition shifts when another contraction comes. Aemond is quite surprised by how strong his wife is by how hard she squeezes his hand.

“I’m never letting you impregnate me again,” Myrah winces.

“That’s ok,” he laughs, kissing her. “You giving me one is enough. I love you.”

“You better.”

Lynesse comes in with a smile. “Ah papa is here. Great, just in time for me to check how far she’s coming along

She puts Myrah in the stirrups, putting on her gloves.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Aemond questions in a panicked. “What does ‘Oh’ mean.”

“Looks like she’s progressing a lot quicker than I thought she would be,” she grins. “We should be having a baby soon.”

Aemond, in peak curiosity, takes a look himself. He tilts his head to the side trying to imagine a baby coming out.

“Stop staring,” Myrah lifts her head off the pillow.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Aegon goes to make sure his mom and Amal know the way in.

“Do you think he’ll look more like you or more like me,” Myrah whispers.

Aemond twist his mouth in thought. “Targaryen genes are pretty strong.”

“That would be nice. A tiny Aemond running around,” she smiles tiredly. Her finger gentle traces his face, ending on his nose. “I’m really happy to have a kid with you.”

“Aw labor made you soft,” he jokes. He grabs her hand and kisses it. “Thank you for making me a father.”

Her eyes flutter shut when she feels another contraction.

“Thank me again after he gets here.”

Baelor Targaryen comes into the world, wailing and red faced.

Myrah was sure part way through the labor that he was never coming out. Hot tears flushed on her face.

“He must’ve inherited the Targaryen big head too.”

People come in and out of the room to see him.

“I think he kind of looks like me,” Aegon cooes which receives pinch in the arm from Aemond.

Alicent and Amal marvel over their first grandchild.

“Your father and Esme will be coming into town soon,” Amal kisses Myrah on the forehead. “You did so good sweet girl. He’s beautiful.”

Between the people, nurses come in to check on him on Myrah.

“I can’t believe we made a human,” Aemond whispers when they are finally alone.

Baelor yawns, wide eyes fluttering. A tuff of dark hair already on his tiny head.

“He’s so perfect. He could be a Gerber baby,” Myrah sighs in agreement. Aemond looks up from Baelor with a perplexed look.

“Hello, they only hire the cutest babies for Gerber commercials.”

“Ah,” Aemond nods.

“I changed my mind,” Myrah runs a finger over her son’s soft cheek. “I’ll let you get me pregnant again.”

Aemond laughs.

“And I’ll give you as many as you let me.”

[star-burrow]

oh !!!! happy early bday then just in case i dont get to wish u it on the day

my weeks been good ! i had a badminton session yesterday and that always makes me feel better sbhhbsbss . im also planning ideas for what im gonna dress up as for halloween !!! its the first time im gonna be doing it since i was tiny and still socially acceptable for me to go but this year has been a very "fuck it , im gonna do whatever i want no time like the present babey" time so !!!! ive decided to go anyways !!!

yeah !!! i thought this season was a lot more hilarious and a lot more interesting in general

aaa lily of the valleys r very cute <33 they look like tiny dresses fairies would wear sbhsbshss

my mothers reaction to getting my cat (he used to be a stray too and his name is mantou ! i named him after a type of chinese bread bun i love to eat sbshbsh) was a lot like ur dads sbhsbshs she used to say she doesnt like them because they get hair everywhere but she doesnt complain much about him

also i dont think u talk a lot ! or maybe thats bc i ramble all the time abt random stuff so maybe we both talk a lot and i just cant tell but i dont think its a bad thing anyway

Aaah that's great !! I like badminton, it's one of the few games I can play/am good at, glad that it makes you happy :] Also, I never really understood why people put ages on halloween like ??? It just don't make sense at all :T

This season was definitely more interesting, I mean, what the hell was Lesley. Also flufflybird :]

I always said that they looked like bells but that interpretation is so cute !! <33

My dad wanted to give my cat to someone else, but when some girls low-key kidnapped her he stopped complaining that much. But I'm glad that your mom is more okay with your little bread bun ksksk

Yeah, maybe it's this

[gutlesh]

Day 7 tolerance break

10am

Woke up a while ago with w/d symptoms: stomach/guts hurting, muscle aches. I seem to have some energy/anxiety coming back bc i was driven to do some little admin tasks (renewing library books, filling out timesheet) that ive been putting off for a week.

I'm not looking forward to dealing with the GI symptoms since im gonna be out of the house for most of today at a pride event somewhere new to me. I'll bring some tylenol with me and not eat anything crazy and hope for the best? There might also be a party i go to so I'm not sure how that will be re:substances, it's advertised as all ages so i guess it won't be too substance heavy. If its too rough i will just leave meep. It's a 2 hour trip home so i'll have 2 leave kinda early anyways.

I should also bring stuff to help me sensory/autism cope. Headphones, stim toy, familiar snacks, gum, sunglasses. Maybe i should wear sunscreen we'll probably be outside a while. At least it wont be very hot today :')

Ah besides the worries im excited to hang out w the person who invited me and get to know him better, and i'm really curious about what this event will be like bc ive never been to a pride parade or any other event by indigenous ppl. Part of me is worried abt offending people and while thats well intentioned i know its the sjw brainwashing lol as long as i am chill and nice and follow the lead of people around me im sure it will be fine. And if i mess up i can trust the ppl around me to tell me and ill fix it bc i am a mature adult who can take criticism, and being criticised or hurting other ppls feelings doesnt make me a bad person it just means i made a mistake which everyone does. How would i even know everything abt being indigenous when i'm not. Lol. God tumblr interacted so badly with my morality ocd i'm still undoing the damage 10 years on 😔😔 sometimes i wish i grew up like more normal but id just be messed up in some other way lbr

Anyway!!!! Im gonna dress up in a cute lil goth girl fit and itll be fun and ill meet cool people and probably hear cool music and eat new food and get to know this sick dood who i wanna kiss hehehehe. And i will NOT shit myself. Manifesting it 😤😤😤🙏🙏 w/d switching from constipation to diarrhea was such a dirty move like girl cmon im not even going away forever just takin some space i still love u miss mary jane u dont have to do all this 😩

[startyunz]

muffin for you

requested by @leech4ns: oooohhh also i just saw your reqs are open!!! 🥺 if it’s okay can i request a fluffy coffee shop au with chan (svt)? absolutely no rush and i’ll love whatever you write 💗

a/n: ty sol for requesting !! it means a lot :3 i hope you enjoy this !! i rewrote this like eight times idk why but open ending bc writing juice ran out oopsie

genre: fluff sm fluff, acquaintances to lovers, coffee shop au

pairing: athlete! lee chan x barista! reader

word count: 0.5k 

You loved the smell of coffee and pastries. That’s why you ended up working at the campus cafe. Working there had a breeze since your friend, Mingyu, had trained you. It's been a few months since you’ve started but you already have favorite regulars. Boo Seungkwan, a music major with the best gossip and the best tips. Jeong Yunho, he’s from a different school but he just loves the way you make coffee and he will admit that proudly. And Lee Chan, the shyest athlete you’ve ever met. Lee Chan always comes in a rush everyday before practice and he always has a shy smile when he apologizes.

At one point you timed when he comes in so you can make his order before he shows up. Finally after two weeks of timing, you figure out about the time Chan comes in everyday. You still remember the day you first tried it out. The door's bells jingle its familiar tune and Chan comes in with a sheepish smile.

“Hi Chan! I made your drink early so you don’t have to wait. Let me just put some ice in it and I’ll be right there, Mingyu will ring you up.” You say as you scoop some ice into the cup and a muffin bad with a cute note to cheer him on.

“Oh my god, do you have a crush on little Mr. Lee Chan? Very subtle and smooth, y/n.” Mingyu teases.

You groan at Mingyu’s antics since you usually bully the overgrown child. You just know this is gonna be a daily thing.

Fast forward to now, the crush you’ve grown for the cute and not very punctual soccer player has grown like weeds in a pretty bed of flowers, annoying and too much. Mingyu has been persistent in getting you to confess, yet you’re still hesitant. What if he doesn't like you or, worse, thinks you’re weird. 

Mingyu whines as you two are on break,”Come on y/n! He has to like you. You literally save his ass everyday and give him a free, emphasis on free, muffin with a cute encouraging note everyday. That dude must love you. I mean I would love you for that; I love free shit.”

“Mingyu I hate you, why would I need to know if you would love me. I wanna know if I have a chance with Chan, not your beanstalk ass.” You say as you roll your eyes. 

You see Mingyu pout as you get up to put on your apron and go to take orders. You walk up to the counter still bickering with Mingyu to see Lee Chan right in front of your face.

“Hi y/n! Practice was canceled so I came early today. Do you think I could get my regular with your phone number, maybe?” Chan says with a shy smile and with his phone stuck out.

a/n: tell me how you feel with a reblog or comment!

[kiss-inthekitchen]

more than friends | peter parker

summary: it's your first sort-of date with Peter. college au. you're both nervous idiots

wc: 1.2k

a/n: this is loosely based on an experience i had when i was living in a college dorm, except with way more nervous energy bc u know, its Peter. also its my personal opinion that he loves early 2000s buddy comedies

It wasn’t really a date.

At least, that’s what you told yourself so you’d be less nervous. Not that it worked.

You were just going to watch movies in your dorm room with Peter, which wasn’t even out of the ordinary for you. Except that now you knew Peter liked you, and he knew you liked him. You’d blurted it out last week at a party, when you were just drunk enough not to care about the possible consequences. Which, for you, didn’t really take much. Drunk you was always way more confident than she had any right to be. Luckily, this time it worked out. You could still hear the way Peter had exclaimed “Really?!” in a much higher pitch than normal. It made you smile to think about.

So you were seeing how things could work out. It was a… transitional date. No, that sounded stupid. It wasn’t important what it was.

Peter knocked on your door then, saving you from your thoughts. You’d decided to hang out in your room since you only had one roommate and Peter had two, and (unlike you) your roommate was a bit of a social butterfly, so she was out most of the time anyway.

You opened the door, the decorative sign bearing yours and your roommates’ names clattering against it. Peter stood before you, clearly nervous. That made you feel better.

“Nice sign,” he said, pointing to it.

“You’ve seen it before,” you laughed.

Your dorm was co-ed and Peter lived one floor below you, so you’d been to each other’s rooms a few times already. The two of you had become close pretty early on in the semester, since you saw each other so often in the halls and you even ended up taking the same science class. You couldn’t get away from him, really. Not that you would’ve wanted to.

“Right,” he exhaled on a nervous chuckle, and you stepped aside to let him into your room.

“Come in, I’m sure you’re tired after that long walk.” Ugh. Stupid joke. You turned so he wouldn’t see you cringe.

“Oh, yeah, I’m exhausted. The things I do for you, Y/N,” he joked.

Right. Peter liked your stupid jokes. Obviously, or you wouldn’t be on this maybe-sort of- date. You needed to calm down.

“So, your roommate…?” he trailed off, setting his keys down on the end table by your bed.

“She’s out. I kind of kicked her out? But it’s fine. Half the time she doesn’t come back to the room until like 3 in the morning, anyway.”

“Aw, you kicked your roommate out for me?”

“Don’t get too excited,” you joked, “It was mostly just so I could make sure she wouldn’t bring her friends over. One of them brings his guitar everywhere, and he sings. It’s bad.”

“Oh god, how do you live like that?” His face screwed up in disgust.

“I honestly don’t know,” you told him, laughing at his expression.

“Well, I’m honored that you would spare me from that. I feel very special,” he said, his tone lighthearted, though you could tell that he wasn’t entirely joking.

“Okay, Parker,” you laughed, turning away from him to switch on your desk lamp, and then making yourself comfortable in your tiny twin bed. “Will you turn the main light off?” you asked as you got your laptop out.

“Yeah, sure,” Peter said. He switched it off, hovering near your bed.

“You can sit, you know,” you couldn’t help but smile at his nervousness. “In fact, I think I’m gonna have to insist on it.”

“Oh, right,” he said, springing into action so quickly it made you giggle. One upside to the bed being so small was that he had to sit as close to you as possible, so at least neither of you had to overthink that part. He threw his arm over your shoulder, hoping you couldn’t feel the way his heart was hammering in his chest as you leaned into him. “What movie did you pick?”

“When Harry Met Sally. I- um. I just like it.” You cut yourself off so you wouldn’t start rambling. In truth, you’d thought way too hard about your selection, and you thought it might be a little too on the nose, but once you’d thought of it you couldn’t think of a better option.

“Oh, I love that movie.”

“You do?”

“Yeah! I love the whole friends to lovers thing. Although, hopefully it doesn’t take us twelve years to fall in love. That would suck.” You felt your face flush at his words, but Peter was way redder. His brain went into overdrive trying to correct himself. “Not that I’m expecting- or anything- I just really like you, and I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t be happy if we-”

“Pete, breathe,” you said softly, reaching up to squeeze the hand resting on your shoulder.

“Okay. Can we pretend I didn’t say that?”

“I guess we could, but then I couldn’t tell you that I really like you, too.” You felt him exhale in relief. “I’m really nervous too, if that helps.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, of course. You’re important to me. And I don’t really… know how to do this.”

“Oh thank god. I don’t either.” He sank a little further against the headboard. “That did help, actually. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” you laughed, feeling more relaxed yourself. “So, what movie did you pick? For the second one? Wait, let me guess, it’s a comedy.”

“You know me so well,” he said, and you raised an eyebrow at him in a silent question. “It’s Hot Rod,” he confessed.

“Oh my god, of course it is. I forgot about that movie.”

“How could you forget about Hot Rod?” He put a hand up to his chest, feigning shock.

You rolled your eyes. “I know, I’m terrible. I understand if you want to leave now.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I can forgive you, I guess.”

“That’s so kind of you. Can I start the movie now?”

He agreed, grinning, and you got the movie set up. You set your laptop next to you on the bed, turning to look at Peter. “Should we…?” you trailed off, gesturing to the bed, for some reason finding it too awkward to say “lie down”.

He nodded, and you laid down facing your laptop screen. He fit his body against yours, one arm wrapping around your waist. You were surprised at how comfortable it felt to be so close to him, your body finally relaxing.

“Can you see like that?” you asked him.

“Oh, yeah, totally.”

--

When the movie ended, you reluctantly twisted out of Peter’s hold and sat up, passing him the laptop.

“Wanna switch?” you asked, referring to your positions on the bed.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he smiled, placing your laptop over on his side and turning that way.

You turned, too, wrapping your arm around him and appreciating the feeling of his body so solidly against yours. And then you realized something.

“Peter! There’s no way you could’ve seen the whole screen like this!”

Man, was he glad you couldn’t see how red his face was right now.

“Oh… yeah, I lied. I just really liked holding you like that and I didn’t want to have to move.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. This man. “You’re unbelievable!” you teased.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but you could tell he was smiling.

“It’s fine. At least now I know that you’re a liar,” you teased.

“Not usually!” he protested, making you giggle.

“Just hit play, Parker.”

“But... you can’t see?”

“Eh, I can see enough. Besides,” you said, squeezing him tighter against you. “I like holding you like this.”

[watchmegetobsessed]

Eunoia - Harry Styles

a/n: i’ve been meaning to write a piece filled with just fluffy, domestic moments through a relationship, and that’s when i created Flora in my mind. wrote it with an OC bc i had very specific traits and stuff in my mind about her and it didn’t feel right to write it with y/n but feel free to read however you’d like it! but i think Flora is a delightful girl, she is a teacher and a free spirit, i think you’ll like her!

pairing: Harry x OC (Floortje ‘Flora’ Hoven)

word count: 9.5k

masterlist

Eunoia (n.) Beautiful thinking: a well mind.

Harry is always looking forward to times when his days aren’t filled from morning to midnight, traveling all around the world, meeting dozens of new people at various new meetings. Don’t get him wrong, he loves the buzz his life comes with, but one can drive this lifestyle only for a while before getting tired. He now appreciates his calm periods, when he is not living out of his suitcase, he has the time to drop by a café and enjoy his morning coffee sitting down instead of grabbing it in a go-to cup and chugging it down in his car. When he can just take a walk when the weather is nice enough and his favorite is when he has the time to just look at things without a rush and appreciate them.

He has built up a habit of going to the same coffee place since he got off tour and jumped right into his well-deserved months off filled with meditation, resting and focusing on himself after giving so much for the world. It’s just two corners down his place, falling perfectly into his way to the gym and now he even has a favorite table in the corner, because it gives him a great view of the place but the vines hanging from the ceiling masks his presence enough that people don’t often notice him there, providing some privacy for his morning coffee.

It was his third day here when he first noticed her. She was sitting at the table by the window, near the door, deep in a book, another pile waiting for her on the free seat next to her as she intensely made notes of her reading. She had her wild, curly hair in a puffy bun on the top of her head, clearly just thrown into it haphazardly when she started working. Her ivory frame glasses kept sliding down the bridge of her nose and thy seemed a bit too big for her face, but they overall fit perfectly with her knitted sweater and dungarees. And Harry couldn’t look over the fact that she had little sunflowers painted on her nails. That instantly made him smile as he adorned her from afar.

As the days passed and Harry spent almost all his morning at the same spot, he started seeing or more like noticing her more often. She always sat at the same table and Harry figured it was because of the natural lighting coming through the windows that came in handy, because she was always either reading and making notes, or doing something crafty, mostly origami, he noticed. She often had her laptop open with tutorials on different origami works that she was trying to make herself, not always succeeding, but she got it right most of the time, a triumphant smile plastering across her face every time she finished a piece, her dimples digging deep into her round cheeks. Harry couldn’t stop herself from smiling whenever she held up the finished work and adorned what she just created. He often wondered what happened to the little creations afterwards, but she just usually shoved them into her backpack before leaving.

By the fifth or sixth time he has seen her, he already knew her order. Vanilla latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Large sized, of course, so she has something to sip on while she typed away on her laptop or finished reading another book.

Harry caught himself looking for her on mornings when he didn’t see her, which were usually Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but one Wednesday, when he had an early meeting for a change with his team, he arrived before 8 am into the place and for his biggest surprise, there she was, sitting at her usual table, drinking the same drink as always. Later, Harry found himself coming earlier on those days just to find her there yet again and he figured her work schedule must start earlier on those days.

As the days went by Harry started to play with the thought of walking up to her. He wondered if she has noticed him as well, but it seemed like even if she did, his presence didn’t impress or bother her at all which just irked his curiosity about her even more. But every time he thought about finally talking to her, he decided against it, feeling like he would just be an intruder in her morning sessions. Until one day, the chance was handed to him on a silver plate.

She is doing origami once again on this particular day, making little cranes, one after the other, using different colored papers to make them form out a mess rainbow on her table. It’s a quiet morning, only a few more people sitting around at place. It’s been quite windy the past couple of days and today seems to be the worst, the trees are being tossed around by the howling winds outside, but it just makes it even cozier to sit inside in the warmth, enjoying a nice hot drink.

Harry finds himself watching her intently as her delicate fingers work on the paper, one crane following the other, she is starting to have a whole army of them.

An older man walks into the café and as he opens the door wide, the wind is quick to run into the place, knocking over everything that’s not heavy enough to stay still and the paper cranes are the first ones to start flying off the table.

“No! Darn it!” she gasps, her hands grabbing after them, saving just a few, but most end up on the floor, somersaulting away from her table. Harry is quick to jump to his feet and come to her rescue, lending her a pair of helping hands as she gathers her creations. “Oh, thank you!” she breathes out softly, her eyes meeting his and for his biggest surprise… she doesn’t seem to be stunned or even surprised by him, as if she doesn’t know who he is.

Maybe she doesn’t, it’s a possibility, he tells himself, smiling at her as he collects the cranes from the floor.

“Guess they wanted to be free,” he jokes, setting them on the table with the rest.

“It wasn’t my brightest idea to do it on such a windy day near the door,” she chuckles, looking over the bunch she’s been working on for the past thirty minutes.

“May I ask why you need so many paper cranes?” Harry inquires, leaving out the part that he’s been watching her do her origami for weeks now.

“Oh, I want to make decorations out of them, hang them up in my classroom. I’m a teacher,” she adds smiling.

That’s the most fitting job he could ever imagine for her, she is definitely the cool and adored teacher every kid is obsessed with.

“Wow, and how many do you need?” he asks, the stack of paper at the edge of the table looks quite a lot and he wonders if she wants to use them all for the cranes.

“Well, as many as I can make before my fingers fall off,” she jokes. Harry notices her freckles from up close that have been hidden behind her glasses until now. Her hair is in two space buns today and she is wearing a striped shirt with light-washed jeans and colorful sneakers. The sunflowers are gone from her nails, replaced by tiny daisies, but Harry likes them just as much as the previous flowers. They fit her well.

“Do you… I would love to help, if you want,” he finds himself offering, not even thinking about the question before it slips his mouth.

“You sure?” she asks, seemingly surprised but she definitely doesn’t find it weird that he just offered to help her.

“Yeah. Looks really calming and I haven’t made one in so long. Want to see if I still remember the steps,” he smiles.

“Take a seat then,” she nods, returning his smile. Harry goes back to his table to grab his stuff and join her.

“I’m Harry, by the way,” he introduces himself as he takes the empty chair at her table, holding out his hand for her that she gladly takes.

“Floortje, but everyone just calls me Flora,” she smiles.

“Never heard that name, what’s the origin of it?”

“It’s Dutch. My dad is Dutch, he came up with the name as well and my mother liked it. It means little flower, nothing grandiose,” she chuckles, reaching for another paper to start her next crane.

“Do you have a Dutch last name as well?” he asks, but then realizes she might not feel comfortable sharing her full name just yet. “You don’t have to tell me your last name though, if you don’t want to.”

“It’s alright,” she chuckles. “It’s Hoven, which is Dutch, but you pronounce it pretty much the same as you’d if it was a simple English word, just with a softer V in the middle,” she explains, her fingers working easily and fast on the thin paper, the crane is already starting to form. Harry reaches for a paper himself and tries to recollect his memory of the steps.

“Were you born in the Netherlands too?”

“Yes, I was born in Eindhoven, but we moved here when I was five. But my Dutch is still just fine, luckily. My dad refused to talk to me in English when we moved, he said he won’t have his daughter forget her mother tongue just because he is getting paid more here,” she explains with a soft chuckle as she finishes up the crane, putting it to the pile.

“I always envied bilingual people. Must be great to speak two languages that easily,” Harry wonders, eyes fixed on the paper as he is trying his best with the crane. It’s slowly coming together, though it’s not as pretty as Flora’s.

“It’s not that fun when I suddenly forget a word in one of the languages and then spend twenty minutes trying to remember when I know for a fact I know the words, it’s just stuck on my tongue.”

Harry laughs, finishing up his creation, holding it up and Flora looks at it as well. It’s a little crooked and one of its wings is longer than the other, but overall, it’s a decent first one.

“You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to,” he chuckles, putting it to the others.

“What are you talking about? It looks great!” she smiles, taking it into her hand, looking at it from all angles, smiling widely as she places it back to its peers. “It’s a nice one, and after all, it’s not your job to make cranes, so you’re fine,” she jokes.

Harry reaches for another paper as he thinks about if she knows him. Does she know what his job really is? Not that he expects everyone to know him, but she seems his age and it’s been quite impossible for him to meet someone close in age to him and not know a thing about him.

“Yeah, origami is definitely not my job,” he hums and then adds: “You… know what my job is?”

Flora glances up at him, a small smile tugging on her lips.

“Is this your way of trying to find out if I know you or not?” she smirks, tilting her head to the side, and it’s already a giveaway that she is very much aware of who she is sitting at a table with.

“I know, it was lame,” he huffs awkwardly.

“No, it was alright. And to answer your question, I do know what your job is, Harry Styles,” she replies.

“Sorry for asking around about it, you just seemed so casual and unbothered when you saw me, I thought you have no idea who I am.”

“I’m a teacher, my job is to treat everyone the same, I take equality very seriously. I don’t want my kids to think I put any of them above the rest, but I do the same outside of school too. Or do you want me to gasp and stutter now that you are sitting here?” she teases him making him laugh.

“That’s not needed at all.”

They work on their cranes in a comfortable silence and just as Harry thought, it’s quite relaxing, his thoughts slowly clear out, only focusing on the little birds he is creating. Then he glances up at Flora and suddenly his thoughts are filled with her once again. Now is his chance with her, he doesn’t want to leave this café without at least asking for her number even when he knows that he will surely see her around, just like always.

“Can I ask you something?” he speaks up as they both keep folding the colorful papers.

“Of course.”

“I hope I won’t sound creepy or something, but I’ve seen you around a lot and noticed how much you read. Is that just your hobby or…?”

“First of all it’s not creepy that you have noticed me, it’s flattering, because I have noticed you as well,” she smiles, paying him a quick glance.

“Really? I had a feeling you haven’t even seen me.”

“I did, but I thought you come here for the same reason as I do; to have some peace for yourself.”

“Ah, I see,” Harry nods.

“But to answer your question, I’m working on my second degree.”

“Oh, what’s that about?”

“Special education, speech therapy to be exact,” she tells him and Harry is even more stunned by her. Education is already a field not many can handle and then there is Flora, who didn’t just take up on it, she jumped right into it, pursuing a second degree in special education, a hard and challenging part of this job.

“Any particular reason why you chose it?”

“I have a younger brother, he is ten years younger than me, so he was already born here, but he was taught Dutch too. However, it wasn’t as easy for him as it was for me to speak two languages at the same time and he has developed some speech errors. Nothing major, but it was enough for him to be bullied in school. I saw his face every day when he came home and lied to our parents that everything is fine but then he cried to me in my room when they weren’t around. I don’t want any other kids to go through that, I’d love to be the one to not just help them come over their speech errors but also make sure they are treated the same way as everyone else.”

Harry hasn’t even noticed that he stopped working on his crane, he is now staring at her in awe, completely stunned by her. The more he learns about her the more he thinks she is a literal angel sent from above and that he can’t let her slip from his hands.

Flora looks up at him and finds him staring, a blush appearing on her full cheeks.

“Sorry for staring, but I just… this is so beautiful. Your passion about education is just one of a kind, truly. And the way how you made it your whole career and everything, I’m just… blown away,” he admits.

“Well, you made a career out of your passion too, didn’t you?” she chuckles softly.

“I did, but your story is just a little more touching,” he smirks. “Flora, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve been meaning to come up to you for a while and now that we officially met, I just—I would love to take you out on a date and get to know you better.”

She blushes again and Harry notes how well the pinky shade fits her even if she probably wishes she could control it more.

“That would be lovely,” she smiles shyly and grabbing a crane from her pile she grabs a pen from her bag and writes her number to the wing of it before handing it over to Harry.

He loves that she could have easily just typed it into his phone, yet she chose to do it this way. He smiles down at the crane and puts it into his bag, securing it as if it was his biggest treasure.

When Flora opens her door for Harry she is still wearing her apron that’s filled with tulips, a pair of simple jeans underneath it with a bright yellow shirt. Harry smiles as he leans down and greets her with a soft kiss. Ever since their first kiss he has been obsessed with stealing one whenever he has the chance. Their first one was nothing grandiose, such a simple and mundane moment but for him, it was perfect. They were visiting a gallery, he chose the exhibition hoping she’ll be a fan of it since the theme was botany, all paintings connected to flowers, gardens and plants and he was right. Flora was stunned, fascinated by each painting as they stopped at one after the other, taking their time to adore the works. They were looking at a painted garden filled with colorful wildflowers around a small cottage in the distance. Flora’s eyes wandered over all the tiny details as Harry stood close to her. She then leaned closer to point out her favorite flower and once they realized just how close their faces were, he just easily closed the gap and kissed her softly, surrounded with art, but he was convinced she was his favorite masterpiece he has ever seen.

“Hi, sorry, I’m a little late, dinner is not ready yet,” she huffs letting him inside. “Had to stay at the school a little longer than expected.”

“Don’t worry. Can I help with anything?” he asks following her into the kitchen, putting the bottle of wine he brought into the fridge to keep it cool until dinner.

“No, it’s fine. I just need about fifteen minutes to finish up the veggies,” she smiles at him and tiptoeing she steals a quick kiss. Harry hasn’t been the only one obsessed with kisses. “Make yourself home.”

Harry leaves to use the bathroom quickly and on his way back he finds himself wandering into her bedroom. He has been in her home just a few times before, only spending short minutes here when he was picking her up but now he has time to actually look around, hoping she won’t mind him snooping around.

Her whole place is just as colorful as she is always, each piece of furniture a different style and color, yet fitting so well when you see it as a whole. The quilted patchwork blanket over her bed is definitely homemade, each patch has a different flower on it while the left lower corner has Floortje embroidered into it. Harry wonders if it was made by a friend or family member, either way, it’s surely a special piece.

Her dresser is cluttered with rings, perfumes and endless amount of hair ties. She has complained before that her hair stretches her elastics out so fast, she keeps buying new ones every month. The little armchair in the corner is covered with a few of her used clothes, ones she’ll wear once more before putting them into the laundry basket.

As he walks over to her nightstand that’s filled with books, at least seven piled on each other, his eyes stop over something that makes his heart flutter.

A crooked little paper crane is sitting on the edge of the nightstand, the one he made the first time they talked, to be exact. Harry takes the bird and looks at it in awe, surprised that she kept it to herself. However he doesn’t find it odd, not even a little bit, since he has also kept the one she wrote her phone number onto, it’s sitting on his desk in his study.

“Found something interesting?” Flora walks in and Harry’s head whips towards her, feeling like he was just caught. But the warm smile on her lips is a telltale sign that she doesn’t mind him looking around.

“You kept it,” he states matter-of-factly, holding up the paper bird.

“Of course I did,” she nods, walking closer. “It’s a special one.”

“Thought you treat everyone and everything the same,” he teases smiling as he puts the crane back, his hands finding her waist.

“I guess there are a few exceptions,” she smirks slyly, her hands running up on his arms until they reach the base of his neck.

“Am I an exception?” The corners of his mouth curl up as he places the bird back on her nightstand and circle his arms around her waist.

“Did I say that?” she teases him. “I think I called your work a special one.”

Harry narrows his eyes at her, pretending to be hurt at her words, but he can’t push the growing smile back from his lips. They’ve been seeing each other for only over a month, but it was enough time to make him completely hooked on her. He is amazed by her in every possible way, feeling like he could never get enough of the ray of sunshine that Flora is. His favorite thing is that she makes him feel so normal, just an average guy dating a girl he met at a café. Not once did she treat him any different because of what he is and it’s just the feeling Harry has been looking for for such a long time.

“Come on, dinner is ready,” she smiles, pecking his lips before peeling his arms off of her frame, taking his hand as she pulls him out of the bedroom, however they surely end up in there again sometime after dinner, but with way less clothes on.

Harry watches as Flora plays with the bubbles in front of her, picking some foam up into her hair, watching it move around on her wet palm before blowing on it gently, her delicate fingers poking at the small bubbles that escaped from it. His hands are caressing her sides under the warm water that was once hot when they first got into it about an hour ago.

It’s been a lazy Sunday, Flora arrived early in the morning and went plant shopping. Her home has always been filled with plants and Harry has grown a liking to all the greenery, wanted some more in his house as well and Flora was more than happy to help him pick out the ones that are the easiest to take care of. Then they cooked lunch together, watched a movie and cleaned up the mess they made in the kitchen before running the bath. Harry has been loving these domestic days, lounging around his or her home, wearing comfy clothes and not caring about much of the outside words, just enjoying each other’s company.

“Remind me to buy peanut butter the next time I’m going grocery shopping,” she speaks up, leaning further back against his chest while Harry rests his chin on her shoulder, his arms tightening around her waist under the layer of bubbles.

“What do you need it for?” he hums, nudging her hair with his nose, her curls ticking his face, but he doesn’t mint it.

“I want to make cupcakes for the kids next week.”

“What for? Is there gonna be a special occasion?”

“No, they’ve just been super nice lately, we set up some new rules in the classroom and they’ve been really good following them.” Harry hums, loving how she is so eager to treat her students, he is convinced she is easily the best teacher he has ever came across.

“So peanut butter, huh? I think I need some too. Been dying to eat a good burger with some peanut butter.”

“I cannot believe you put peanut butter into your burgers,” she chuckles, peeking at him over her shoulder.

“Don’t bash it when you haven’t even tried!” he defends himself, kissing her cheek softly.

“The Aztecs would be so disappointed,” she sighs turning back forward, so she doesn’t see the puzzled look on Harry’s face.

“The Aztecs?”

“Yeah, they technically invented peanut butter,” she nods, as if it was common knowledge.

“Do I want to know why you know this about the history of peanut butter?” he chuckles softly.

“Well I had this kid last year who was obsessed with it and I started looking up fun facts for him for mornings when he looked a little moody. Then the others started enjoying it too so it became our morning thing that I told them a fun fact about anything.”

“Oh really? Tell me one then!” he asks smirking, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

“Okay, um…” she thinks to herself. “Do you know what the Olympic rings stand for?”

“I do not,” he shakes his head.

“The five rings stand for the five inhabited continents of the world, united by Olympism.”

“Sounds logical,” Harry nods. “Tell me another one,” he asks.

“Are you going to make me tell you all my fun facts?” she chuckles, turning a little so she can look into his beautiful green eyes.

“Maybe. I like it when you talk like this,” he smirks playfully.

“Like what?”

“Like… smart. I love how you know all these little things about the world and teach it to not just the kids but to me as well.”

“You don’t think I’m a smartass?”

“Why would I?” he questions, eyebrows furrowed.

“I used to be picked on in middle school because I liked to learn, more than what was required.”

“That doesn’t make you a smartass, baby. You don’t go around, correcting every tiny mistake around you. You use your knowledge to educate, like you should.”

Flora smiles softly at him, his words bringing the sense of reassurance she’s been seeking for so long. She pecks his lips shortly before turning back forward.

“Do you know how many days a billion seconds make up?” she asks, smiling to herself.

“I don’t.”

“11 574 days. That’s a little over 31 years.”

“So I haven’t lived a billion seconds in my life just yet,” Harry states, doing the quick math.

“No, you haven’t,” she smiles, mostly at the fact that he didn’t just listen to her little fun fact, but also thought about it a bit deeper.

They stay in the bath until the water gets cold and Harry keeps asking for fun facts and Flora gladly tells him whatever comes to her mind.

Harry finishes up the fresh salad, filled with Flora’s favorites: cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and corn with some kale, baby spinach and garlic dressing. He even sprinkled some sesame seeds on top, now he is pretty proud of his work, it looks like something influencers would snap in an aesthetic photo to their Instagram feed.

His bare feet tap against the hardwood floor as he makes his way to Flora’s bedroom where she is still curled up on her chair in front of her computer, her hair in a mess on top of her head, glasses perched up on the bridge of her nose. She hasn’t moved much from the spot in hours, intensely working on her thesis that should be finalized within the next two weeks. She has been gradually working on it over the last few months, in no mean she is behind, but she’s been extra nervous about making it as good as she wanted it when she started and Harry has been nothing but supporting about it, knowing how much it means to her. So he’s been her moral support, making sure she eats, gets some rest and doesn’t get herself too worked up about her research. She appreciates his efforts and though she often feels bad for neglecting him lately, he made sure to assure her, he’ll be right here when she is finally done with it.

Harry walks around the mountain of books on the floor she has piled up from the library these past two weeks as he walks up behind her while her fingers type away on her computer so fast he can barely believe she even understands what she’s typing.

“Hey,” he softly calls out, leaning down he kisses her cheek, holding the bowl of salad in front of her, drabbing her attention, making her gaze move from the screen to the food in front of her.

“Oh, hey! Is this for me?” she asks with a soft smile, lifting her head so she can look at him. Even with the circles under her eyes, the messy hair and worn out t-shirt that she’s wearing, he thinks she is the most wonderful creature he has ever seen.

“Yeah. Come take a break, yea?”

She doesn’t protest, just saves the file before moving away from the desk to the bed along with Harry. She props herself up against the headboard, a tired moan escaping her lips as her spine rests against the pillows under her back. Harry hands her the salad and she digs right into it, only just now realizing that she’s been feeling hungry for the past two hours, but ignored it entirely.

“How much do you have left?” Harry asks nodding towards the computer.

“I’m finishing up the last part, then I just have to write the abstract and then…” she explains, popping a tomato in her mouth. “It’s just gonna be the formatting. I think I’ll be done by Wednesday.”

“That’s great,” he smiles proudly. He has always admired how hardworking she’s been when it came to school and her profession. He could never imagine himself do the same, especially because he didn’t even finish high school. He used to feel a little self-conscious about it when they first started dating, afraid that she might think less of him because he didn’t finish his education properly, even though it was never something that bothered him. But Flora assured him that it makes absolutely no difference in her opinion about him.

“It’s not about the papers or how many schools you’ve finished. It’s about how you see the world and if you are willing to learn when it changes around you. And I think you are perfect in that department, your curiosity and openness makes you an excellent learner,” she told him without even thinking about it.

Harry lies on his side next to her, one hand propping his head up while the other one wanders to her thigh, massaging it gently. She hums to herself, enjoying the food he made and he can’t help the smile that creeps on his face. He loves taking care of her, especially because most of the times it’s her that takes care of him. Cooking for him after a long day at the studio, putting his laundry away while he is in an online meeting or writing him a list for when he goes grocery shopping, Flora has been watching out for him through these little things, but now it’s finally his turn to give it all back.

He’s been thinking about asking her to move in with him for a few weeks now, he just hasn’t been brave enough to bring it up, thinking that she might find it too early for such a big step, seeing that the two of them have been dating for a little over nine months. He’s been playing with the thought of coming home to her every single day, waking up next to her in the mornings, watch her form his home more to her liking, creating a space for the both of them, making it a home not just for him but her as well.

As she finishes up her salad, completely oblivious to what Harry is thinking about, he decides to bring it up once she is done with her thesis, not wanting to bother her in any possible way until she is finished.

“Mm, this was lifesaving, thank you,” she sighs, leaning over she kisses him softly as her appreciation for the sweet gesture. “I’ll finish up this one paragraph I’m in the middle of and then we could watch a movie. But strictly without subs, because I’m done with words for today,” she jokes, making him laugh as he takes the empty bowl from her hands.

“Sounds good,” he nods. “I’ll clean up in the kitchen and find something to watch while you finish.”

“Thank you.” As they both get up from the bed, she pulls him down for another kiss, Harry’s free hand finding the small of her back right away. “I love you,” she whispers against his lips, his heart fluttering in his chest at the words he has heard before, but it never fails to stun him.

“I love you too. Now go, finish it so we can cuddle,” he smiles, smacking her bum gently before they let go of each other.

“Ja, pappa. Dat klinkt fantastisch. Ik zal het hem vragen. Ja.” Yes, dad. That sounds fantastic. I’ll ask him. Yes.

Harry listens to Flora talk to her father on the phone as she applies her lip balm, the one she uses every night before going to bed. He loves it when she talks in Dutch, many tend to criticize the language, but not Harry. Or maybe it’s just because he only hears Flora talk it and he loves everything she does.

“Ja, dat is goed. Dank je. Tot ziens, pappa, ik hou van je!” Yes, that’s great. Thank you. See you soon, dad, love you!

She ends the call and switches the light off in the bathroom that’s been not just Harry’s but hers since she officially moved in with him just last week. Harry finally built up the courage to ask her opinion about the possibility of living together in the near future once she was free from the worries of her research and thesis. For his biggest surprise, she was on the exact same page as him, definitely a fan of the idea. So three weeks later they started slowly moving all her stuff over to his until her apartment completely emptied out. Now all her belongings are splattered across Harry’s home, they haven’t found the perfect place for everything just yet, but it’s slowly starting to feel like home for the both of them.

“Dad called, asked if we would go over for dinner this weekend,” she tells him, moving around the bedroom as she takes her little hoop earrings off, placing them in the shell she uses as a jewelry holder on top of the dresser. She is wearing a pair of yellow sweatpants with one of Harry’s shirts, nothing underneath them, just how Harry loves it.

“It’s cute how you always tell me it was your dad, but he is the only one you speak Dutch with,” he chuckles lowly as she climbs to bed, pulling the covers over the both of them.

“It comes so naturally, I don’t even realize I’m switching languages,” she admits smiling.

“Dinner sounds lovely,” he nods, getting back to what she was talking about before.

“Arnold is bringing his girlfriend too,” she smirks, her eyes sparkling from excitement.

“Your brother has a girlfriend now?” he hums, eyebrows rising at the new information.

“It’s the girl I saw him with at his basketball game last month. They made it official like two weeks ago.”

“And he is already bringing her home? He is not beating around the bush,” he chuckles. “Is it going to be the first time the girl meets your parents?”

“Yeah, so it’s gonna be exciting,” she nods, cuddling to his side.

Flora is playing with the little cross pendant on Harry’s chest and he is watching her delicate fingers flipping it over, her fingertips tickling his chest a little in the process.

“When we have kids, will you also teach them Dutch?” he suddenly questions, the words just blurting out of his mouth. Flora lifts her head, resting her chin on his chest as she looks into his curious eyes. She stays silent, but a small smile is tugging on her lips for sure.

“What?” he asks, feeling a little nervous. It’s the first time he is bringing having kids up, but he definitely has been thinking about it, especially since she has moved in. They haven’t been dating for that long, but Harry is one hundred percent sure he is in the long run with her.

“I just… love how you said when and not if.”

“Well, it’s a question of when for me. What about you?”

“Same goes for me,” she smiles warmly. “And yes, I do want my children to speak Dutch. It’s important to my family and me as well. How does that sit with you?”

“Totally fine. In fact, I always envied kids growing up who were taught another language so early in their childhood. Would love that for my kids as well.”

“Dan is het geregeld,” she smiles widely at him.

“What’s that mean?” He furrows his eyebrows.

“I said that, then it’s settled. We’ll have some cute, bilingual babies,” she chuckles, half jokingly, half seriously.

Today has just been one of those days that were doomed from the moment Harry opened his eyes. He has been overwhelmed with stress lately, working on new music, but his studio sessions haven’t been as successful as he wanted them. He is also flying out to LA for two weeks in just a couple of days and he has to miss Flora’s mom’s birthday this weekend, which has been torturing him with guilt ever since he found out he can’t push his trip back.

This morning it felt like the universe just plotted against him. He slipped in the shower, broke a glass in the kitchen and successfully ripped one of his favorite jeans when he was getting dressed. He had a one way ticket cranky city, turning Harry into a moody little child. It didn’t take him long until he started a fight with Flora over the smallest, most ridiculous thing. It started with how Flora misplaced a bowl in the cabinet and took him two moments longer to find it than usual, then they ended up disputing about every little thing about each other they’ve been finding annoying, but neither of them voiced their feelings about them.

Flora, on the other hand, was not in the mood to argue with Harry so early on a Tuesday morning and she chose to just walk away and let him stew in his own anger. Harry knew the moment he heard the front door shut that she was mad at him: she didn’t kiss him goodbye like she does every day before she leaves.

He took a cold shower to cool him down and clear his head, get his thoughts straight so he can apologize like she deserves. Getting into his car he drives to the florist he usually goes to when he needs flowers for whatever occasions. The old lady greets him with a warm smile and upon describing what he envisioned, she immediately knows what to create for him this time. The result is a giant, colorful bouquet that reminds him of Flora in every possible means.

Driving down to her school he is met with an extreme amount of nostalgia even though it’s not even the school he went to as a kid, but it still brings back some memories.

The security guard immediately stops him when he walks into the building, but once he has explained him the situation, the old guy gladly tells him which classroom is hers so he can go and surprise her. His footsteps echo in the empty hallways as it is the middle of the second period, all students are locked up in their classrooms, lucky for Harry, because he surely can’t deal with teenage girls recognizing him right now. Holding the flowers in one hand he stops when he finds room 414 and he can hear Flora’s voice coming from inside, enthusiastically explaining something about penguins and it makes Harry smile.

Even with such a horrible morning behind her, she is still giving one hundred for her students. He brings up his hand and softly knocks on the door, interrupting her speech.

“Come in!” she calls out and Harry opens the door, popping his head inside first, then holding up the bouquet of flowers, making the kids start chattering in excitement at his arrival while Flora is staring at him shocked.

“Miss Hoven, do you have a moment for me, please?” he asks with a shy but charming smile. She quickly gains back control over her features before turning to her class.

“Please start working on task two and five, I’ll be right back,” she orders, but the chatter doesn’t die down so she raises her voice at them. “This is not how we act when we have guests, guys!”

The kids are quick to quiet themselves, eyes curiously switching between their teacher and the intruder at the door.

“Miss Hoven, is this your husband?” one of the kids, a little blond boy asks.

“No, Michael, he is not. Harry is my boyfriend,” she answers calmly, heading towards the door.

“Wait, I know him!” a girl exclaims gasping. “He sings the watermelon song!”

“Lilian, no discussion now. Do the tasks!” Flora tells her before walking out, but keeping the door open so she can hear what’s happening inside. Her cheeks are flushed and eyes wide when she finally looks at Harry again. “What’s—What’s this?”

“These are for you,” he clears his throat, handing her the bouquet. “And I came here to apologize for being such an arsehole this morning. It wasn’t your fault, I’ve just been crankier lately and I took it all out on you. I’m very sorry.”

Flora’s eyes soften on him as she takes one of his hands with her free one, giving it a squeeze.

“I said some nasty stuff too, so I guess I’m sorry too,” she sighs, her anger and frustration from earlier now long gone.

“I brought that out of you, so I’ll take the blame,” Harry chuckles softly. “But the point is that I’m sorry.”

“Well, you are forgiven. You were even before you came here,” she assures him smiling warmly. “Why don’t we order something tonight and just get lazy on the couch?”

“You said you have some tests to go through.”

“That can wait. You’re leaving in two days so I want to spend time with you.”

“So we won’t get our tests back tomorrow?” they both hear a muffled voice coming from inside and Flora chuckles shaking her head as she opens the door wider and steps inside. A small group of kids run back to their seats, but not fast enough to not get caught.

“Lilian, would you mind telling me why you left your seat without permission?” Flora questions the girl who just rolls her lips into her mouth, pretending like she hasn’t even moved all along. Flora sighs stepping outside once again. “I gotta go now, but thank you for this. They look beautiful,” she tells Harry.

“I love you,” he murmurs and leaning down he kisses her quickly, feeling like he is breaking rules even though he is not a student or a teacher here.

“I love you too,” she smiles back before walking back inside and shutting the door. Harry stays for a minute, just out of curiosity to hear if the kids ask her some more questions about him.

“Miss Hoven?” a girl calls out and Harry bets it’s the same nosy girl who recognized him.

“Yes, Lilian?”

“You have a nice boyfriend,” she exclaims, earning a soft chuckle from Flora.

“Well thank you, Lilian, but let’s get back to our new unit. Let’s see the tasks you had to solve!”

The splashing sound of vomit arriving to the toilet hits Harry’s ears once again as he is rushing up the stairs with a glass of water and the Emetrol his hands that he dug the kitchen cabinets through for. Arriving to the master bathroom he finds Flora just where he left a few minutes ago, kneeling in front of the toilet, arms on the rim as she is taking a deep breath, hoping to calm her stomach and stop throwing up finally.

“Oh baby, here. Found you some Emetrol, this should help,” he coos gently, sitting down to the marble floor next to her he places the water beside him as he pours some of the liquid medicine into the cap for her. She lifts her head, skin pale as the wall, the dark circles under her eyes make his stomach churn, he hates to see her in this condition and wishes he could just help her.

“Thank you,” she mumbles, her shaking hand takes the cup and she downs the medicine before taking a few sips from the water. “Harry, I’m so sorry for ruining our date,” she sighs in defeat.

“Oh shush. Don’t you dare apologize for being sick,” he shakes his head, putting the Emetrol aside before he towers above her to redo her hair so it doesn’t fall to her face. Today marks their one year anniversary and though they only planned to go out for a nice dinner, nothing extra, Flora still feels bad they had to cancel on their reservation when she started throwing up this afternoon. She’s been feeling nauseous ever since she ate that leftover casserole for lunch. She had a feeling she should have just gotten rid of it, but she hated wasting food so ate it. Big mistake.

Harry’s fingers delicately work on her curls, piling them on the top of her heat before he secures the bun with professional movements using the elastic he tends to wear on his wrists, just because Flora always loses hers. He likes to keep one on him as well. His long haired days trained him well, her hair is neatly kept out of her face as she frowns, feeling her stomach churning again.

“Can I do anything else for you, baby?” he gently asks, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead to make sure she doesn’t have a fever, but she feels alright. She probably just has to get rid of the bad food.

“Can you please get me a wet washcloth?” she asks faintly. Sitting to her butt she leans against the wall beside her with her eyes closed.

Harry nods and he is on his feet in a blink of an eye, grabbing a washcloth from the cabinet and wetting it in some cool water. He kneels in front of her and starts gently tapping it against her cheeks, forehead and neck, wiping off the thin layer of sweat.

“This is not how I planned to spend our anniversary,” she groans with a frown, making him chuckle.

“We agreed, the anniversary is postponed. Don’t even think about it.”

“But I wanted to look nice for you, even bought a new dress.” She pouts her lips at him, eyes opening narrowly, glistening from the tears that watered them while she was throwing up.

“You always look nice, baby,” he softly tells her, letting her take the washcloth before she places it over her forehead.

“Even now? After you saw me throw up four times? We have very different versions for the word nice, H,” she jokes with a soft chuckle and Harry is thankful to see her smile, even if it’s still very faint and tired.

“Even now, baby,” he nods smirking and he is not lying. Though the situation is saddening, Harry still enjoys taking care of her, being the one she can rely on even on her worst days.

They sit on the bathroom floor as the medicine slowly works and she finally gets rid of the urge to throw up. Then Harry scoops her up and undressing the both of them, he helps her take a nice shower before dressing her in clean clothes, tossing their dirty ones into the laundry basket, noting to do them sometime in the morning.

When Flora is settled under the cover, head comfortably sinking into the pillow, she immediately feels her eyes closing, the strenuous afternoon has successfully sucked all her energy right out of her body. Harry brings her another big glass of water for the night and just to be sure, puts a trashcan next to her side, if things go south again. When he gets under the covers she is already half asleep, but she hums when his fingertips dance down the side of her face.

He allows himself to shamelessly admire her as she finally falls completely asleep, her lips parted as she slightly snores, but she looks so peaceful, the painful frown he saw on her face all afternoon is now gone from her beautiful face. He hasn’t fully wrapped his mind around how an entire year has passed with such a wonderful creature by his side. As their anniversary was coming up, he caught himself thinking about what the future is holding for them more often. There were so many things they needed to experience together, so much to see and do as partners and Harry couldn’t wait for it all to come.

As he lies in the bed next to her, a smile tugs on his pink lips at the thought of the possibility of spending the rest of his life with Flora. His future has never seemed brighter than in that moment.

“This is harder than I thought,” Flora admits, focusing on the instrument on her lap, trying to figure out if she is holding down the accords the right way, but a moment later Harry’s hand covers hers on the neck of the guitar and he fixes her fingers on the strings until they are in the right position.

“Like this. Try it now,” he murmurs, his chin resting on her shoulders as she is standing between his legs, back leant against his chest. Flora has been begging him to teach him a few accords on the guitar and today finally brought the moment Harry would turn into her master.

The two of them are sitting on the bed, Harry only in his underwear while Flora is in one of his hoodies with only her panties covering the lower parts of her body. Harry came back from a week-long trip to New York and they haven’t left the bed too much since he set his feet inside the house, only emerging from the bedroom to fulfill their other physical needs.

Flora’s fingers strum against the strings and the instrument comes to life, giving her a clear accord finally, bringing a triumphant smile to her lips.

“You are a natural talent, baby,” he smirks, giving her hips a gentle squeeze before kissing into her neck.

“Don’t tease me, I’m trying!” she warns her playfully, playing the chord again, loving how she can create such a beautiful sound with the instrument.

“Mm, you’re coming for my career?”

“Oh, surely. I think I would make an excellent rockstar,” she nods confidently, making him laugh.

“You are so not the rockstar type. More like the chill indie singer who dances barefoot on stage.”

“Yeah, but I could spice it up a little and make it rockstar-y,” she explains and glances back at him over her shoulder. “Don’t you think I would look hot in one of your stage costumes? Sparkly suit and all?”

“Oh I know you’d look amazing,” he nods eagerly. He has spent quite some time imagining her girl in one of his suits and he quite liked the thought. Flora chuckles as he puts the guitar aside before she turns around and straddles him, her knees on each of his sides.

“Yeah? I would need a better name, mine is not too fitting for a star,” she explains. “Easy for you, your name is basically the most perfect name for a rockstar.”

“You think so?” he cocks an eyebrow at her, his palms coming to cup her bum as he tilts his head backwards since this position makes her the taller one for a change.

“Harry Styles? Oh please, it’s like Anne knew she would give birth to a legend,” she scoffs making him laugh.

“I’ve been told it’s a nice one,” he shrugs smugly. “I think it’s the surname.”

“It’s pretty cool, yeah.”

“What if you had the same? Flora Styles? Sounds pretty badass,” he suggests and at first, she doesn’t even realize the hidden meaning behind his words, tasting the name so obliviously.

“Flora Styles? You might be right, the surname sounds very cool,” she agrees and it amazes him how easily it went over her head.

“You like it?”

“Mhm,” she nods, her hand reaching for the guitar once again, but Harry stops her, taking it between his as he blindly finds her ring finger that is now ringless.

“Do you like it enough to actually take it?” he questions, hoping she would get the hint now where this is heading. She blinks at him a little puzzled but it’s until she realizes that his fingers are fidgeting with her ring finger, more specifically where a ring would sit on it, his fingertips gently caressing the skin around it.

“Harry?” she gasps with wide eyes as she just watches his grin grow wider. “This is not… Are you--?”

“What?” he chuckles, feeling entertained how she lost all her smug confidence all of a sudden. “What’s it that you’re trying to say?”

“No, what is it that you are trying to say?!” she snaps back, still in shock about what he just implied. “Was this your sneaky way of… proposing?” she asks, whispering the last word as if it was a curse word.

“Why do you act like we have a forbidden love and marriage cannot be even mentioned?” he chuckles at her.

“Because I was shocked! Not that bad now though, you haven’t pulled out a ring so I guess it was just a cruel joke.” She narrows her eyes at him, kissing his smug grin shortly, but Harry is definitely not done with her just yet.

“I wouldn’t be that sure about it, baby,” he warns her before gently pushing her off her lap to get off the bed. Flora’s eyes widen as she follows him walk to his suitcase that’s still lying on the floor next to his dresser, waiting to be unpacked. He digs under his clothes before pulling out a small velvety box, making her gasp immediately. Harry gets back on bed as he holds out the box in front of her on his palm, not opening it just yet.

“Did you buy that in New York just this week?” she asks with her mouth hung open.

“I didn’t. I’ve had it for about a month, I just took it with myself because I was afraid you’d find it,” he chuckles as he plays around with it between his fingers. “Have been planning on it for a while, but I couldn’t come up with anything so then I just decided to wait for the right moment and go with the flow,” he explains.

“And this is the right moment?” she questions, her heart beating in her throat as her gaze is switching between Harry’s green eyes and the box in his hand.

“Felt like it, yeah,” he nods, the corners of his mouth curling up.

Silence settles between them as they both just wrap their heads around the weight of the moment. Harry’s heart flutters in his chest, a little afraid it’s too early. They’ve been dating a little over two years now, marriages have been tied way earlier in a relationship before, but Harry feared Flora would feel it too rushed just yet, however the question is out there now. Or is it?

“Well, are you gonna ask it?” she questions and as Harry’s eyes flicker up to meet her gaze, he is met with that playful challenge in them that he adores so much.

“I just asked,” he mutters.

“No, you asked if I would take your name. That’s not a proposal,” she reminds him and he realizes she is right. He never actually asked the big question.

So he finally pops the lid open revealing the vintage diamond ring he bought a month ago when he was just out and about. The moment his eyes laid on the jewelry, he knew it’s the one he’d like to see on your finger and bought it right away.

“Floortje Hoven, will you marry me?” he simply asks, his dimples digging deep into his cheeks as he smiles widely at his lover.

“I will,” she nods, her heart hammering in her chest as she watches him take the ring out of the box and carefully put it on her once empty ring finger. Still holding her hand, he brings it up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the ring before leaning in he connects his lips with hers.

-

Thank you for reading! Please like and/or reblog if you enjoyed!

[ackerfics]

the parent trap — levi ackerman (iv)

— levi ackerman x female reader (modern au | the parent trap au)

— warnings: angst??? and feels, i think

— summary: after assuming that everything was starting to shift further away from the plan, the people in the ackerman estate found out the identity of the boy mirroring the twin they know so well.

— word count: 8.6k (i know, i had to do it bc it's been so long)

— author's notes: finally, after weeks of not touching this series, i finally updated it. this part is centered around the reveal in levi's side of things. to those who watched the movie, you know things will go down from here. happy reading everyone !!

part one | part two | part three | masterlist

The news that was dropped on Altair last night stole away every ounce of sleep from him.

At first, he felt like everything collapsed on his shoulders. His mum is getting married? In what universe? There wasn’t even a decent man in a five-meter radius around his mother, well, except for her employees at the bridal shop. Nonetheless, all of the men trying to court her were turned down in an instant but why was she getting married to an idiot when he was away from home? The number of times he ran his hand through his hair and wishing everything was perfect can’t be counted on his fingers. First, it was that Cindy woman and now, an unknown man wooing you with serenades and God knows what in London has added himself in the list of pesky outliers. There shouldn’t be outliers in the first place. Throughout the night, Altair made his mind busy by making adjustments in their plan, eyes fixed on the ceiling in concentration.

The next thing he knew, daybreak dripped on his eyelids, peeking through the spaces between his curtains. Altair sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes free of sleep crust before turning to his alarm clock on the nightstand. A red 9:34 glared at him, telling him he overslept. The boy huffed and plopped himself back on the plush mattress, his pillows swallowing him whole as he tried to give himself more hours of sleep. His five-minute doze was interrupted with a knock on his door. It took everything in him not to shout ‘five more minutes' so he decided to might as well wake himself up by walking to the door and answering the person on the other side.

Petra’s face beamed at him and Altair had to narrow his eyes because Petra’s smile was too bright for his own good. It was like looking too long at the sunrise.

“Good morning, Al!” the redhead greeted him.

“Morning, Petra,” Altair replied, rubbing his eyes again. “I’m sorry I overslept.”

Petra waved him off. “It’s fine. I expected it yesterday since you just came home from camp. You must be so tired. Why don’t you go take a bath and change and come downstairs for some breakfast? I’m sure this will wake you up — I cooked your favorites.” The boy nodded at her suggestion. She tried teasing him by calling his name again, Altair turning around to acknowledge his nanny with a raised eyebrow. “You know, I’d probably oversleep, too, if I were up in the middle of the night making mysterious phone calls from my bathroom. It’s pretty quiet in here at midnight so I think that pretty much exposed you.”

Altair froze at Petra’s inquiring tone, blinking his speechlessness. In an instant, he doesn’t feel sleepy anymore. He scratched his undercut. “Uhm, it was a friend from camp. He just wanted to talk to me, that’s all.”

The redhead hummed as she crossed her arms. “Ooh-kay. Well, your breakfast will be waiting on the kitchen counter!” She shouted while making her way downstairs.

“Okay!” Altair yelled back.

He opened his closet and took out a blue flannel, a white undershirt, and a pair of jeans. Without wasting any more time, Altair got himself ready by taking a bath just as Petra suggested and made himself presentable once he reached the kitchen. His hair was still wet, a towel wrapped around his shoulders when he inhaled the savory smell of breakfast on the first floor. As Altair sat on the high counter stool, Petra turned around from cutting up fruits and placed too many plates in front of the boy with a smile. He couldn’t control the twitch in his eyebrows as he stared at his breakfast. Is his twin really eating this much food every morning? He realized he might be coming off as rude since he was only staring at the number of bacon slices on his plate so Altair took a bite of bacon and let the sound of knives against the cutting board flit through his ears.

“Petra?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I have a cup of rose tea?”

Petra stopped cutting the mangos and stared at Altair, who was immersed in doing small bites of his breakfast. The redhead stared for a moment and assessed the way Altair picked up his fork and knife — it was the same way a certain someone did back in college when Levi’s friend group and lover ate meals together. Now that Petra remembered it; when you gave birth to the twins, she mentioned how one of them inherited the shape of your eyes. It could be a trick of the light but Altair’s eyes were softer in the edges instead of the sharpness Levi adorned, the boy’s eyelashes slightly fuller than usual.

“Petra?”

The said woman jumped at the mention of her name, with Altair’s face scrunched up in worry at her lack of response. She cleared her throat while transferring the mangos in a small bowl, sliding it towards Altair. “Yeah?”

The silver-eyed boy rose an eyebrow. “Are you alright? You look like you were in a trance there.”

“I’m fine.” Petra washed her hands before wiping them dry with a clean towel. Her gaze went from the boy’s expectant stare to his unfinished breakfast. This was weird. Altair usually never leaves any leftovers on his plate, it was what Levi taught him since he could eat on his own. Pushing this matter at the back of her mind, she smiled. “You’re not going to finish that, Al?”

Altair looked down on his half-eaten scrambled eggs, bacon slices, and still full pasta salad. He only had a couple of bites from the last dish and wished he could eat more but the two slices of bacon and scrambled eggs made him full in an instant. His stomach couldn’t handle too much in an early hour. He needed the tea to wash all this down. “No, I’m not, I think I’m full,” he answered, patting his stomach with a grin. He hoped Petra wouldn’t notice that his appetite wasn’t like his twin. That idiot (his twin, never Petra) appeared small like him but the buffoon has a vacuum inside his torso, always hungry at the wee hours of the day. If this was roast beef, this was a different story. “Must be because I’m tired from the trip. I don’t feel like eating and moving around too much.”

Petra nodded in understanding, preparing the rose tea the boy requested. She was waiting for the water to boil as she glanced at Levi’s pride and joy. “So why rose tea?”

“Pardon?”

Pardon? With a suppressed chuckle, Petra turned around with an incredulous expression on her face. “Camp made you prim and proper, huh? So why rose tea, champ?”

“Because I thought it would be nice to try the flower teas instead of the fruit-flavored ones this time. I know Dad has been experimenting with flowers for the next blends.”

Petra hummed, letting the tea steep for a few minutes. The scent of roses immediately wafted across the kitchen, making the two sigh in contentment. Petra wasn’t one for tea but smelling the pink drink made her want to try one. She presented the cup of rose tea to the black-haired boy, who was leaning forward to finally have his drink, his silver eyes sparkling at the small petals floating on top of his tea. Petra knew she was watching Altair closely but all her doubts flew out the window when she witnessed the boy hold the teacup the same way Levi does. Maybe she was looking into this too much. She shook her head and took away the leftovers, placing them in containers.

She missed the way Altair blew out a sigh of relief, a small half-smile tugging on the corner of his lips.

Altair stood up from his seat, patting his lap from imaginary dust and placing the towel from his shoulders to the back of the counter stool. He took a long sip of his tea before grinning widely at his nanny. “Thank you so much for breakfast, Petra!”

“No problem, kiddo. Oh, and your Dad wants to talk to you about something. He’s in his office.”

“Okay!”

The black-haired boy walked past the archway leading to the living room, where the glass double doors to the patio were located. Snuggling on the floor and chewing on his toy was Levi’s golden retriever, Captain. Altair flinched when he saw the dog shift their head in his direction. A series of barks came out of the pet, making the boy hurry for the handles of the double doors. His heart was pounding when he couldn’t get the doors to open, pulling on them as Captain was now standing up to give him another round of barks. It caught the attention of Petra and the woman instantly shot to the living room but not before shouting something that made Altair’s ears turn red of embarrassment.

“Push, Al.” Petra was now wrapping her arms around the dog, eyebrows furrowed with confusion.

Altair stopped for a moment, twisting the handles of the double doors and pushing them just as Petra said. He turned around with a sheepish smile, chuckling nervously because this mistake might have lost him the plan. “Must have slipped my mind.” He had never gotten out of a house that quickly in his entire life.

Only when he stepped foot on the patio that he could breathe normally. Altair kicked a pebble on the pathway, hands snug inside his pockets, as he thought about what his father will tell him. He followed the pathway until he was met with a slope, a building looking the main estate was sitting on top of the small hill overlooking the plantation. With a bundle of nerves swirling in his stomach, Altair took a deep breath and trekked the hill. The higher he got, hectares of a variety of tea trees greeted his vision, mimicking the sea with its vastness. It was the first time he saw something so wide and before he knew it, questions started entering his mind.

If the Ackerman family held so much money, why did his grandparents make his mum go back to London? Why did they take away the only person who made her feel loved in every sort of way possible? She could’ve been happy here. Everything is so soothing and secure.

The sound of people talking snapped him back to reality. Altair shook his head and continued his small walk towards the building. It looked like there was more activity in here than he imagined. People were sorting out the tea leaves they harvested and others were manning a machine meant for grounding the leaves. It was so busy that he didn’t realize he stopped in front of the huge window showing all of the employees trying to keep Levi’s business booming.

A person rounding the building noticed his gawking and smiled a little. They clutched the flowers they picked for the new blends Levi was experimenting on and went to the black-haired boy. “Al, welcome home. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday to welcome you back.”

The silver-eyed boy turned around to the young woman sharing his features — the same jet-black hair, pale complexion, and shade of silver for the eyes (though hers were more on the bluish side of the spectrum). He tried recalling the family members his brother told him to remember. There was a woman with the same appearance in one of the pictures. She was hugging the Altair she knows, their smiles shining through the piece of shiny paper. She was the older cousin his twin was telling so many stories about since she was the only one closer to his age around the household. The Altair standing in front of her right now smiled, muttering her name, “Mikasa.”

Mikasa returned the smile with her own, sitting on her heels to meet the boy’s eyes. “How was camp?”

“My opponent in a fencing competition pushed me in the washing area of our pavilion.”

Mikasa winced, ruffling the boy’s hair gently. “Why did they do that?”

Altair shrugged, feeling proud of himself for doing that to his twin despite being guilty to this day. “Guess he was better than me at fencing. He has a teacher specifically for that sport back in their hometown.”

“Oh, wow. If you want someone to practice fencing with, I’ll gladly help you.” The young woman tilted her head with a smile. “That is if you want to go back to that camp next summer. I’ll even learn the rules for you.”

The older of the two had so many records in her portfolio. Altair recalled that his brother was gushing about how Mikasa was a part of the track and field team the entirety of her stay in college. She was also a part of a volleyball club when she was in high school. This young woman has everything in her belt and it would be so good if Altair practiced fencing with her. However, he also realized that Mikasa probably had her hands full with academic and familial responsibilities. “But you have your final year in college, though, and you’re so busy in the plantation.”

Mikasa once again tousled Altair’s hair, chuckling under her breath. “Anything for my baby cousin so don’t worry about it.” She looked down at the pile of flowers in her arms. She handed a single red lily flower to Altair. “Here, to brighten up your day.” Mikasa stood up and waved at Altair. “I’m testing these flowers out with some berries, kiddo. I’ll be in the kitchen by the sorting room with Annie. If we can get the right combination, we’ll let you try some. Your dad is in his office waiting for you.” With that, Mikasa turned around but not before ruffling Altair’s hair again.

Altair nodded at nobody in particular and entered the building with a slight skip in his steps. The office was situated on the second floor of the manor-like establishment. The color palette of red and olive green was still observed in the interior but the large, open balcony let in enough light to illuminate the second floor. There was a railing surrounding the middle space of the entire floor, perfect for looking down and observing the bustling life inside the house. Altair’s destination, however, was the door to the left side of the second floor down a painting-covered hallway. He tentatively knocked on the door with his father’s name pinned on it. Altair faintly heard someone call inside the room and opened the door to peek his head in.

Levi was behind his desk, phone close to his ear. “Yes, Erwin. I thought you will be visiting because of Altair today. I see. No problem. You can visit the plantation anytime.” He glanced at the opened door, seeing Altair meekly staring at him. He smiled a little before telling Erwin, “Al’s here. Yeah. The stocks are fine and the new blends are coming out great. Sure, I’ll send you some. Bye.” The silver-eyed man sighed as he placed his phone on the desk. “You can come in, Al. Usually, you just barge in here and wait for me on the couch.” Levi hummed, eyes softening at the sight of his son grinning in front of him.

Altair chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “I thought it was an important call.”

“It was just Eyebrows.”

“Whatever you say, Dad.”

The boy sat on the couch, eyes inconspicuously roaming around the office. He heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and Altair looked up to find his dad preparing a cup of tea in the kitchenette installed in the room. He looked away from Levi and shifted his attention to the framed photographs on the desk. Everything wasn’t facing him but there was one frame positioned to face the person behind the desk. Altair craned his neck to get a glimpse of the picture, his eyes going back and forth between the frame and his dad, who was waiting for the tea to steep. With his body draping over the couch and neck stretching as far as he could (the position was starting to hurt), Altair saw that it was a picture of you, his mum. The silver-eyed boy gasped because it was you in a wedding dress.

“Blimey.”

“Al?”

Altair dropped the position with a huff. He straightened himself to face a confused Levi, a tray of two teacups filled with raspberry tea held by his hands. “Thought I could just, you know,” he nervously chuckled, “get a good stretch after oversleeping. So what’s up, Dad?”

Levi hummed, placing the tray on the low table. He sat beside Altair, body facing the little boy as he surveyed the innocent smile plastered on his son as he sipped on his cup of tea, the two of them mirroring how they held their cups. Maybe it was because Al went away for summer camp in the last eight weeks or maybe he was just missing you and your presence in his life, but Levi felt his heart clench at how fast his little boy was growing. The summer camp must be a blessing in disguise because his boy came home with newfound manners and the whole time he was away, he thought hard enough to make a decision he won’t come to regret. Eight weeks was a long time, things are bound to change. So Levi cleared his throat and readied himself in spilling his carefully thought-out plans to his son.

“There’s something really important I want to talk to you about, Al,” Levi started, putting this teacup back on the low table.

“That’s funny because there’s something really important that I want to talk to you about.”

“Yeah? Well, you go first, kiddo.”

Altair shook his head rapidly, gulping down his tea first. “No, you first, Dad.”

“Hmm.” The black-haired man carefully formulated the words in his mind. The first order of business was to cut off any people who would dare hurt his son. Yesterday was just the catalyst in his ongoing debate with Petra all summer to get rid of the publicist leeching off of him. From the look on Altair’s face while he was wading in the pool, Levi figured that Cynthia said something to him that might have shaken his mind. He leveled his gaze with Altair’s and told him, “Okay, I want to talk to you about Cynthia, the hired publicist for the teahouse and plantation.”

The boy turned his body so that he was seeing his father eye to eye. “And I wanted to talk to you about Mom.” Altair furrowed his eyebrows in distaste. “Oh, so Cynthia’s her name. What about Cynthia?”

Levi blinked in surprise. He knew Altair was a smart kid but he didn’t expect him to pick up on things so fast. There was no one in the estate that he shared his current sentiments. Petra was known to be a person not careful enough to keep a secret hidden from Altair and Erwin will most likely tease Levi throughout the day if he revealed his plans. Not to mention that Mikasa will probably indulge his kid in spilling every embarrassing thing about him so that makes his niece out of the list of people worthy enough to be told a secret.

With a calm voice, he regarded his little him with a flat expression. “What about your mom?”

Altair groaned in exasperation. “Dad, I’m almost twelve. I’m at a point in my life to ask about the whereabouts of my mom. You can’t expect me to believe the stork story all my life!”

A slow inhale and a look at the ceiling was all Levi needed to compose himself. “You know what, that is a story for later. But first, we’re going to talk about the publicist. Did she say anything to you? Anything that might have hurt you in any way yesterday?”

One pair of gray eyes looked away from the other to examine the invisible dust gathering on top of the coffee table. Altair wanted to tell Levi that Cynthia was trying to exploit him, trying to wound him in her trap and to make him fall in love with her. But the way that his father was insisting on the topic of Cynthia instead of you didn’t sit right with him at all. To Altair, it looked like Levi was desperate to clean the woman’s name and to make him build a relationship with her when the time comes that she’ll be carrying the Ackerman name. He mentally apologized to his other half across the ocean for not having the strength to continue the plan. Because as he glanced at Levi, the man’s concern apparent on the glint of his eyes, Altair wanted his father to be happy — to love someone without any pain that spanned for more than a decade.

“No, she didn’t say anything to me. She just told me how happy she is to be on the plantation.”

As much as he was scared to be a father when his boys were born, Levi always knew if his son was lying after years of raising Altair alone (with the help of Petra but the nanny will always give him the credit). Right now, however, he couldn’t tell if Al was lying or not. “Al, are you telling me the truth? If not—“

The door burst open, bringing with it an overly dramatic woman. “Levi? Are you here, sweetie?”

Eld followed after Cynthia, his face betraying his aggravation at the woman. “Don’t just enter Levi’s office without permission, Ma’am!”

Cynthia scoffed, insulted at the term. “'Ma’am’?! I’m not that old, employee.”

The blonde man bristled. He tried puffing his chest to remind the publicist that he has more authority than just a last-minute accommodation in the staff, but he stopped when he saw Levi starting to stand up from the couch. He had never seen his boss express anger in his years of being Levi’s secretary, however, the apparent look on the onyx-haired man will probably drive Cynthia more than six feet under the surface. Eld dismissed Cynthia with a roll of his eyes, focusing on the annoyed man walking towards them with terrifying footsteps. “Levi, she just went inside the building. Believe me, we were trying to prevent her from getting her head cut off by you but she wouldn’t listen!” The blonde glared at the woman who was gasping dramatically, manicured hand pressed on her chest. “Levi, you have to believe me. Mikasa even had to—“

“I understand, Eld.” Levi’s voice was uncharacteristically icy. Sure, he was known for being blunt and dismissive at times but that was the man's nature in forming social relationships. The employees were used to him being that way. Right now, though, his glare could have frozen Cynthia in place. “What is this, Miss Maryland? I thought I told you to leave a message to my secretary if you want to have an appointment with me. But I remember telling you that I’m not free this day.”

Cynthia pouted. “But I also told you that I wanted to have lunch with you! Is your job more important than me? Or are you just using that as an excuse to not make time for me?”

Eld looked scandalized at the woman’s reaction while Altair was wincing at the sound of Cynthia’s whine.

Levi was praying for his ears as well, pinching the bridge of his nose to calm himself down. He looked at Altair at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t recall you being on my priority list, Miss Maryland, and I have plans with Al today anyway. Horseback riding.”

“You’re lying!” The woman turned to Altair. “Is this true, Al, darling?”

The boy quickly took note of the hint of desperation from his father’s eyes so he smiled. “Yeah, I’ll be riding Nox since I miss my horse while I was at camp.”

“You heard my kid,” Levi drawled. “Now get out. You’re invading my privacy — sounds fitting for your job.”

Cynthia’s face scrunched in disgust, turning around abruptly, her hair hitting Eld in the face. The blonde man sputtered before incredulously staring at the retreating publicist. There wouldn’t be any need for Mikasa to restrain her if needed since she knew the way out. Eld turned back to Levi and Altair, his face showing how guilty he was. “Levi, I’m really sorry. If I’d known she’ll barge in here like this.”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you, Eld.”

“Alright.” Eld trailed off, shifting his attention from Levi to Altair. He waved at Levi’s son before pointing at the door behind. “Have a great afternoon, you two.”

Levi nodded at his friend, sitting on the couch with a sigh when the door closed. He had to get rid of that publicist, she was starting to become a headache. Levi then felt a small weight on his shoulder. Turning his head to the side, a head of onyx hair greeted his vision. With a small smile, he lifted his arm and wrapped it around Altair, letting him snuggle into his side some more. The two of them cherished the silence as if the room was their haven, away from pesky publicists and the bustling activity a floor below.

Speeding through the plantation felt liberating for Altair. He wanted to raise his arms in the air as they zoomed by the small tea trees but that would mean having Levi being suspicious of him. At first, Altair thought that the predicament with Captain would be the same with Nox but the black beauty of a horse nuzzled his palm affectionately as if he was the real owner. Of course, it couldn’t happen without the help of the sugar cubes laid out on his palm. Now, he was laughing as he raced with his dad, their destination was the hill on the other side of the plantation. It looked like Levi was winning but Altair tried to spur Nox faster. A blur of black reached their landmark, a tree with a swing on it, and Altair whooped at the top of his lungs.

“I won!”

“You always win,” Levi told him, a loving stare directed at his son.

Altair turned his horse to meet Levi’s stare. “I do?”

A confused frown painted the silver-eyed man’s lips.

At that, Altair brightened immediately, realizing his mistake. “I do! Just slipped my mind again. I can’t seem to stop forgetting things. That’s so weird.”

Levi guided his horse to walk towards Altair’s. “Yeah, so weird,” he murmured until he was beside his son. They stared at the plantation with varying expressions. The boy looked so mesmerized at how the sun touched every single tree while Levi blankly surveyed the rows of what brought him to this moment. It was once upon a time when he brought you here during spring break in junior year at college, telling you his dreams of starting a tea plantation. You looked radiant against the sunset, the rays creating a halo that Levi wanted to preserve forever. Altair’s laugh when he won has the same smile as yours when you manage to outrun him in a race. Levi couldn’t help but think of a life with you and the twins here in the plantation and estate, the two boys growing up with each other and with both parents unlike now. The four of you wouldn’t experience the pain brought by the separation. But reality struck him hard when Altair breathed out an expelling sigh, eyes soft around the corners like yours.

“So, Al, do you think we’re lonely?”

The said boy looked at his dad, who was wistfully looking at the plantation like it was hurting him. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Altair’s grip on the reins tightened. “Why are you asking this, Dad?”

Levi took a deep breath. “Believe it or not, Al, but I feel lonely every night. The moon and the stars must be tired of my internal monologues to them, all wishing to have a normal night with our complete family. But with Maryland here, there seems to be someone at the back of my head telling me to make a move. You know what, Al, I want—“

“Race you back to the ranch, Dad!”

“What—wait, Al! Hey, slow down, kiddo!”

Tears were starting to blur Altair’s vision as he rode around the plantation. No, the plan wasn’t going to work. His twin brother was a liar when he said he had an amazing and genius plan. Everything was starting to burn in flames and Altair had no choice but to watch it fester until only ashes remain. When he reached the stables, he tied the reins to the post with hurried yet precise knots. And Altair ran and ran. Up the slope leading to the manor, past the building where the workers were happily interacting with another until he felt himself bumping into someone. He brushed off a concerned Mikasa shouting at him to slow down. Minutes later, Levi passed by the fretting young woman, the latter asking if Altair was alright. But the onyx-haired boy finally reached the safe confines of their manor, passing by the opened double doors. He started pacing around the living room.

Altair buried his hands in his hair, his accent coming out as he rambled. “This isn’t going the way he expected it to. Bonkers, this is a mess! I’m just a kid and I couldn’t handle everything at once. Now, Mum’s getting married to a person I don’t know and Dad is tying the knot with Cindy—Cassandra—whatever!” He leaned on the back of an armchair, body slumping on the plush cushion. “And I don’t even know Dad as much as he does. How am I supposed to fix this?”

“What are you trying to fix?” Petra suddenly appeared in the armchair. (She was there all along but she figured that by keeping quiet, she will learn more about why Altair acted strangely since he came home.) The redhead stood up, arms crossed on her chest. “Do you want to share something with the class, Al?”

Altair jumped back, placing a hand on top of his pounding heart. “You gave me a fright, Petra.”

Petra leaned back with an expression of disbelief. “What? Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to talk to me about? If you’re scared of your dad finding out your secrets right now, you can always tell me.” Altair remained silent as he stared wide-eyed at the nanny and housekeeper. “Care to explain to me why Captain doesn’t like you anymore when he has been with you since you were a toddler? Or how you can’t open the doors properly? Even your appetite change this morning. I have so many questions, Al, and it all stemmed from when you came home. Do you know something we don’t?”

The boy shrugged. That didn’t seem to alleviate the suspiciousness he carried. “I just changed over the summer, that’s all.”

Petra slowly took a step forward and tilted her head down to meet Altair’s eyes. “I’m starting to think you were raised …” She shook her head to dispel the thought and turned around to make herself busy in the kitchen. “That’s impossible. Never mind. I must be needing sleep from all these theories.”

“I am raised by who, Petra?”

She waved her hand to dismiss the question. “Forget it, Al. I’m not supposed to talk to you about this anyway.”

“Like I’m raised by [Name] [Last Name]? Like I’m the other half of one pair of twins?”

The redhead tensed at the question, her smile frozen in place. She managed to blink herself outside of her stupor, slowly regarding the onyx-haired boy, who was gradually turning into an image of you. Those eyes, though sharing Levi’s stormy irises, were reminiscent of your kind ones — always appearing as soft as they can be despite the intensity of a present glare. Petra was at a loss for words and she had to clear her throat a couple of times to find her voice. “How do you know her full name? How do you know that you have a twin, Al? How do you know about—?”

“About Caelum?” The boy pursed his lips, forcing himself to smile. He dropped the act because there was no use continuing their charade any further. Besides, this is Petra, the most loyal person from what he could observe during a full day in the Ackerman estate. She reminded him of Oluo, the way they stuck to each parent almost every day. His British accent came out when he said the next words, “That’s because I am Caelum.”

If this wasn’t a serious situation, Caelum would’ve laughed at Petra’s reaction.

“Altair?!”

Levi looked around when he stepped foot on the patio. However, he was surprised at the peculiar scenario welcoming him in the living room — it was as if Petra was looking at his son for the first time in years. The redhead had both hands covering her mouth, tears prickling her eyes, and an expression showing disbelief. He rose an eyebrow in incredulity because nobody paid him any attention. With measured footsteps, Levi placed a hand on his son’s shoulders, making the boy jump a few inches in the air.

“Hey, buddy,” his voice was so soft since his boy looked shaken up just as much as Petra, “why did you take off on me like that? I told you I wanted to talk to you about something.” His son looked up at him with wide eyes so Levi expectantly glanced at Petra. The woman was still silent with that constipated look on her face. “Petra, do you need to take a shit? Why are you looking at Al like that?”

Caelum was breathing heavily, eyes pleading with Petra to let him tell Levi the truth.

With a subtle nod, Petra wiped her eyes and turned to Levi, who had his face scrunched in perplexity. “Like what? I’m not looking at him in a special way.” She shrugged but with one look at the bright-eyed boy beside her friend, her voice started to falter. “I’m looking at him like I’ve looked at him for eleven years. Since the day he came home from the hospital, all wrapped up and squirming for contact with his parents.” Petra looked like she could cry any minute. (Levi was staring at her like she had grown a second head. He was ready to give her a day-off.) “Seven pounds, five ounces, 21 inches long. This is how I look at him.”

Caelum felt himself smile as Petra gestured at him.

“Can I hug him?”

Levi blinked and stayed silent for a second. He lifted his hand from his son’s shoulder and stepped back since Petra wrapped the boy in a tight hug. He felt the back of an armchair behind him, leaning against it with a sigh. “Everybody’s so weird.”

As the woman continued hugging Caelum, she exclaimed, “Oh, he’s so beautiful and he’s grown so much.” The boy nuzzled his head on the crook of his nanny’s neck, a large smile painted on his face.

For once in his life, Levi wanted to sleep the day off. Maybe everything might go back to normal.

Petra pulled away from the hug, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. She pointed at Caelum while trying to control her voice from shaking. “I’m going to make you something special to eat. What do you feel like eating? Anything? You know what?” She waved her hand once she reached the entrance of the kitchen. “I’ll just whip up something from everything we’ve got, okay?” With a last nod and an apologetic smile directed at Levi, Petra went to the kitchen whilst wiping her tears, leaving behind the two Ackermans’.

Now that heartfelt moment ended, Levi knew he had to tell his son what’s weighing on his mind for the past years. All it took were eight weeks for him to steel himself in making a choice he won’t come to regret. If only he had done this when you gave him your back, a baby looking like him snug in your arms and reaching out to a father he won’t come to have. If only he had chased you to London, fighting for your love in front of your parents, promising a life filled with enough luxury for your newfound family. If only he had the strength back then, none of this would’ve happened. So Levi gently directed his son to the couches, sitting in front of the boy on the low table. Their gazes matched each other and it looked like Levi was staring at his younger self.

“We have to talk.” The onyx-haired man’s voice was so soft, matching his visage that was contorted in slight wariness and expectation.

Caelum nodded. “Okay. Shoot, Dad.”

Levi nodded back. “I’ve been thinking about this since you were a toddler and this summer was the only time I could focus on debating with myself on it.” He took a deep breath, his heart thundering in his chest, and his cheeks burning. “Al, I want to get back together with your mom.”

The whole world stopped. Caelum stopped breathing for a few seconds. There was a lack of emotions inside him at first, him just staring like an idiot at Levi. Suddenly, he felt like jumping but that would look suspicious so Caelum abruptly stood up in front of his dad, tingles traveling in every fiber of his body.

“Al?” Levi asked, confused at the constipated look on his little boy.

Bright gray eyes stared back at Levi, Caelum’s grin erasing every doubt in his father’s body. “This is perfect, Dad!”

“It is?” The onyx-haired man trailed off before perking up a little, a small grin tugging his mouth upwards. “Yeah, it is. I decided that I will do everything right this time and have our family back again.” He looked down wistfully on the floor, fingers wringing with each other. He murmured under his breath, “I wonder how Caelum’s doing right now. Will he like me? I’m not exactly awarded with the best father of the year title.”

On the other hand, Caelum heard it and he couldn’t help but grin knowingly. He erased that on his face when Levi looked up at him. “So, Dad, what are you going to do about Cindy?”

“What about the publicist?”

Caelum sat back down, leaning forward to enunciate his next words. “Well, it’s quite obvious that she’s so enamored by you.”

Levi scoffed a disdainful laugh. “Why would she? I’m not interested in her in some way. I don’t even like women her age.”

“That’s the thing, Dad. I heard from her yesterday that you’re planning on telling me something. I figured it would involve her since she suggested it. It might be a different thing than what you told me right now.”

“Oh, that. I decided, with the help of Petra and the other workers, that you will be the face of the tea shop. Since I am not too comfortable with the idea of having my pictures posted on every branch, a majority vote prompted you to do the job. But Mikasa suggested that we also do that by putting you in the new label design. It doesn’t have to have your face on it, just your silhouette. I think Isabelle will do that well enough.”

“So,” Caelum prolonged the word, “you’re not engaged to her, right?”

Levi looked ready to barf his lunch. “What? Where the hell did you get that idea?”

A sheepish smile prevented the laugh that was bubbling in Caelum’s chest. “I tend to overthink at times, Dad.”

The silver-eyed man sighed, running his hand through his hair. “You get that from me.”

“I asked you that because yesterday, she told me you proposed to her because you wanted me to have a mother figure. She even told me you dated because you liked her at first sight. She mentioned that you went horseback riding in the sunset like a typical chick flick pairing and there you confessed that you felt lonely because Mom left you. Oh, I mustn’t forget how you reciprocated her feelings under a moonlit night. Hey, Dad, where are you going? Dad?”

“Don’t mind me, Al, I’m killing a bitch this afternoon and it’s best if you stay put while I do that.”

“Dad?!”

Cynthia Maryland is a fucking menace to society.

It has been so long since Levi met a person who just by talking, brain cells are diminishing at every word they utter. The first one who made him feel this way was a genius, however, they were too much for his social battery. They always hung off of him at times during college all because they were your childhood friend, who followed you to America to make you feel like you had someone in a foreign country back then. That was seen as endearing but this time, it’s fucking irritating. Levi didn’t even have to control himself from showing how much he wanted this meeting to be over.

“Miss Maryland, can you please listen to me for one second?” Levi spat out, the stress coming to him in a migraine.

“I am listening, doll, and I guess those plans with Altair didn’t happen because you have me in your office — doors closed and just the two of us,” Cynthia spoke in a sultry voice that didn’t have any effect on the man slumped on his chair. “I will do anything for you, Mr. Ackerman.”

“Thank God for that.”

Cynthia was over the stars at that statement.

“Because I believe it’s time for your job as my shop’s publicist to be terminated. So I suggest getting out of here.”

“What?!” The brunette all but shrieked.

At the commotion, a knock resonated in the room. “Levi, is everything all right in there?” Mikasa asked. “Do you need me to restrain her?”

“No need, Mikasa,” Levi answered, not looking away from the distressed woman squawking in front of him. “Hey, Maryland, what are you whining about? Didn’t you hear what I just said? You’re fired. What are you still doing here?”

“Pray tell, why are you firing me?! You need me!”

Levi rose an eyebrow. “Why would I need you when I have capable people working on the plantation right now? It was a mistake hiring you. Eld was actually the one who wanted to have a publicist for the tea shops and if my secretary said it would be beneficial to the business, I will always say yes. But I guess he hired the wrong person. As for the question of why I fired you, let’s just say, you were spewing things that weren’t even true. And of all people, you said those things to my son. What are you trying to gain from telling him we’re fucking engaged? Money? My last name?”

The brunette remained silent, angry tears dripping on her cheeks.

“Let me tell you this, Miss Maryland, you’re not worth those things. So if you don’t want me to get fucking angry at you, get the fuck out.”

While the whole debacle with Cynthia was happening in Levi’s office, Caelum was in the kitchen rolling a pin over a chunk of dough. The silver-eyed boy was helping Petra with the afternoon snacks, something that the nanny suggested since Caelum looked bored out of his mind, staring into the high ceiling of the living room while lying on the long couch. Only half an hour passed since Levi stormed into his office, demanding Eld to contact ‘that hysterical fucking woman’, and only two batches of apple turnovers were ready for the oven. There were a lot of workers on the plantation, all of them having big appetites, so Caelum and Petra had a lot of work to do.

Caelum just finished his story of meeting Altair for the first time and his shoulders felt so light after spilling everything out.

Petra pensively gave Caelum a wistful glance. “I’m happy that you two found each other.”

The boy looked up at the redhead. An air of earnest gratitude exuded from her, the idea of two twins reuniting was worth being happy about. Petra wasn’t the only one thanking the moon and stars for granting a request, Caelum felt like his world expanded because of that summer camp. “I am happy, too. I got to meet you, Mikasa, and the workers. I want this stay to last longer than a day but Al and I will eventually go back to our rightful homes.”

“Why are you being sad, kiddo? Didn’t Levi tell you that he’s planning on courting your mom again?”

“That’s the thing,” Caelum mumbled. The dough became too thin to wrap around apple fillings at the force he was pressing down on the rolling pin. He sighed, starting over again. “Mum is engaged to someone in London. I can’t even do anything about it.”

Petra hummed casually. “But Altair can.” Beside her, Caelum once again shifted his attention from the dough to her side profile, making her smile. “One thing I know about Al through the years is that he will do everything to make his plan a success. That brother of yours is a stubborn kid but he’s determined to fulfill his goal, which so happens to be what Levi’s planning, too.” She placed the knife on the cutting board, leaving the apples unattended, and faced Caelum with a half-smile. “How about this, you want to make this a success?”

Caelum nodded.

“Then tell your dad who you really are.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “No!” He looked down, cursing himself for raising his voice at Petra. “I mean, he’ll be mad for sure.”

The redhead chuckled before pointing a ladle at Caelum. “That’s where you’re wrong. Levi was always praying every night to have a glimpse of his other son across the sea. Now that you’re here, you’ll be giving him the happiness he always wanted for eleven years. He deserves to hug you, knowing who you are.”

This is how Caelum found himself standing in front of Levi’s bedroom. It was inevitable anyway — his dad finding out his real identity. Letting out a sigh, Caelum twisted the doorknob with clammy hands, opening the door to the image of Levi reading a book on his bed. The boy smiled when Levi looked up at the sound of the door opening.

Levi took off his reading glasses and smiled. “Hey, kiddo, come in.” He lifted his covers as an invitation for the tentative boy. When Caelum got on the bed, Levi placed his book on the nightstand along with his glasses. For a moment, he only looked at his son with soft eyes as Caelum adjusted the duvet to cover his lap. He pulled him close with an arm around the boy’s shoulders, letting Caelum relax against him. “Did you have a nightmare?” Levi felt his son shake his head. “Is something bothering you?” At the silence, Levi looked down on Caelum's onyx hair. He kissed the side of the boy’s head. “I hope you will feel better once we spend the rest of the day tomorrow.”

“I can’t, Dad, I’m sorry.” It was a low murmur that Levi had to crane his head to hear. “I have to go somewhere tomorrow.”

“And where will this somewhere be? Is Mikasa going with you? Or did Petra invite you to go get the groceries?”

The silver-eyed boy squirmed out of Levi’s hold, burying himself in the think blankets.

“Al? Are you feeling unwell? Kiddo?” Levi tried tickling his son’s sides but was only met with muffled laughs. “Al.”

A British accent enveloped the words Caelum uttered next, “That’s where I’m going! I have to go see Altair.”

“And where might Altair be?”

A pause. “In London.” Levi froze. “With his mum, [Name] [Last Name].”

It was as if cold water surrounded Levi, dunking him in a fever dream. It was too good to be true. Of all the surprises he received for the day, this is by far the most responsible for taking away his voice and steady breathing. He couldn’t think properly at the revelation. So this was the reason why Petra looked like she saw the boy for the first time because she did, after eleven years. His heartbeat echoed through his chest, making a duet with his clattering mind. Levi didn’t know what to do. Should he embrace the son he never got to hug in almost twelve years or should he stay quiet and let the night go on, pretending that this was a dream? His eyes started to burn with unshed tears as he carefully lifted the edge of the duvet off the small figure lying beside him. There was no way this was happening. But as he finally got a glimpse of his son staring up at him, eye shape boring some similarities to yours, Levi let out a shaky breath.

“Caelum?”

Caelum sat up. “Yes, Dad?”

Levi’s vision became blurry, arms instantly wrapping around Caelum. He hugged him tightly, worried that this might be a trick of his loneliness, that this was Altair pretending to be his twin to make him happy. But no. He knew Altair like the back of his hand and if he hugged him like this, the little brat would whine at the long physical contact. This was Caelum, hands gentle like yours as they patted his back. He didn’t know he was crying until Caelum rubbed rhythmic circles on his back to calm him down.

“Al and I met at camp and we decided to switch places.” His breath hitched, nuzzling his head on Levi’s chest. “Dad, I’ve dreamt my whole life of finally meeting you. Seeing you waiting at the airport nearly made me cry because you were exactly like Mum’s vague stories. And Al wanted to meet Mum as well so we sort of made the switch impulsively.”

Levi pulled away, a smile present on his face. “Who exactly made this plan?”

“Never in my life would I suggest switching places with my twin. I told Al this is an idiotic plan yet here we are.”

Levi snorted a laugh. “Of course it’s Al’s idea.”

“But Dad …”

“Hmm?” The man waited patiently for his little heaven to speak up.

“I hope you’re not raging at the moment because I love you so much and I just hope that one day, you will love me as me — not as a mirror image of Al.”

Levi pulled Caelum again in a hug, kissing the boy on the crown of his head. “Did you know I was the one who named you?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Since your mom named Altair after a star, I thought it would be best if you were named after the realm the star is situated. You’re my little heaven, Cae, and nothing can change that. I’ve loved you your whole life. Stop being a mopey little brat — I meant that term in the most endearing way possible because your mother was the original one, she was my pain in the ass — and give your dad another hug.”

Caelum felt like he forgot something, choosing this moment to never mention you being engaged to someone and instead chose to let his dad’s warm hugs lull him to sleep.

taglist:

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[jiminrings]

umm maybe this is me projecting bc i am messaging you during my break but for a drabble request, yoongi in a retail setting???? 😐😐😐😐 oc could either be a co-worker or a regular customer who asks too many questions 😔😌

retail-type beat

drabble week: day three

drabble week masterlist

pairing: customer!yoongi x retail worker!reader

wordcount: 3k

glimpse: "hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second. anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

feedback + support mean the world to me!!

the last time you checked, work doesn’t start until nine

you kNEW it doesn’t start until 9 in the morning, so clearly that’s why you’re just wearing slides instead of your sneakers

the company uniform is either black or purple (it has to be from what the store is selling though so you can get to choose) with of course!!!! a lanyard!!!!

and you know this, because you’re still wearing your slides from home because it isn’t opening time yet

“goddamn it, i forgot to bring my slippers,” jin moans the moment he walks to see you, looking down on your feet that only reminds him he’d be stuck in his cool yet painfully uncomfy sneakers

he’s probably the only co-worker that you’re truly close with, not feeling the urge to sell him just to get a free day

“i told you to get the sneakers that nurses use!!”

hands-down one of the best purchases you’ve ever made

retail’s hard and it’s not exactly the best-paying job!!! thankfully the franchise owner is a bit more generous so that’s why you get slightly-higher hourly pay

“i would if they looked a little more seasoned,” jin snorts and stubbornly crosses his arms, “i might sacrifice my pride and buy some compression socks.”

OOOOOH THOSE ARE GOOD TOO

makes you feel like ur walking on air

but lol no seokjin isn’t ready to buy those just yet

he’ll settle on some blisters and putting salonpas patches because they look cooler that way, thank u very much <3

jin yawns, talking about finding a steam iron somewhere to replace a blowdryer so he could break in his shoes

“you wipe the glass this time.”

oh right he absolutely hates wiping down the glass — even before opening!!! even when there aren’t any grubby kids that would soil it instantly with their equally as grubby hands

you don’t mind it honestly

you might honestly like it

you prefer wiping the glass a hundred times over than steaming clothes

there is nOT a single thought in your head when you spray on the solution to the glass, rag and squeegee tucked between your fingers when-

maybe you should’ve hOLY FUCKING SHIT

it’s not opening!!!! it is nOT nine o’clock in the morning!!!!

you know that the shop you’re working in is pretty fucking famous and it’s located on one of the most populated streets ever BUT THERE’S ALREADY SOMEONE

although the bucket hat seems familiar from a distance and-

oh it’s just yoongi

yoongi?

yoongi’s already here????

:O

yoongi, the guy in question, is an always customer!!

no, not a regular customer — an always customer

he comes every week and maybe even twice within that period

he’s a nice talkative customer who likes asking questions and even occasionally guides the other customers on what to buy and where to find it

he’s yoongi!!! of course that’s expected of him

he’s been going here long since you ever started working here, and jin keeps iNSISTING that he’s been here more frequently since you started like a year ago

but doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?

“woah, yoongi’s already here? — doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?”

?!!?!!

“i was just thinking the exact same thing.”

jin bangs the glass with his fist and you automatically wince and frown

you dO like cleaning the glass panes!! you didn’t say you liked cleaning them a second time :(

“YOONGI!”

“YES??”

you push jin’s fist away to wipe at the smudge his hand left

“IT’S NOT OPENING YET!”

“I KNOW!!”

wow they’re uh

they’re really loud

sometimes you forget how seokjin could be since it’s been awhile since you heard him yell

lol no one’s been shoplifting recently so you haven’t been hearing him

a mind-blowing idea is for jin to come outside and talk to him in a normal talking voice, so your ears would stop ringing

“HEY! WHAT IF YOU JUST ENTER EARLY IN?”

“REALLY? IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED??”

"YOONGI, EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR KNOWS YOUR NAME. NAMJOON EVEN GAVE YOU A CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFT, AND WE DON'T GIVE CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFTS TO ANY OTHER CUSTOMER!!"

namjoon, who technically should be called mr. kim because no one really thinks to call the franchise owner with their government first name, is actually pretty cool

but he's too busy these days and haven't been visiting because he's too busy tending to his newly-opened coffee shop

as if the money he earns from opening his franchise in a day alone isn’t enough :0

"IF YOU SAY SO?"

you’re the one who hikes up the roll-up door in the slightest, enough for only yoongi to enter and not encourage anyone else to nOT enter when it’s still not opening time!!!!

he only has to crouch a little but he still has to dust his thousand-dollar pants as if he crawled through mud

his cream-colored slacks with a large black hoodie that has a giant bear embroidered on the middle of it and mules

... you don't hate his outfits

pretty cute, actually

it's yoongi!!

you'd never catch him lacking!!!

you don't even have to envision him rocking the shit out a paper bag

one time, he came in the store wearing the WRINKLIEST brown linen jumpsuit that no iron could possibly fix and he still pulled it off

toon-teen-ten!

oh god that’s the sound of the intercom

and the sound of the intercom equates to jungkook

... as in jeon jungkook who’s the floor manager and his constant top one goal for every month is to endearingly annoy seokjin

he’s young and mischievous!! but if you were to ask him, only you and jungkook are the people in this floor he’d actually get drinks with outside the shop

“seokjin come to the lingerie department right now, please.”

you see the thing is :D

“now this is just funny

there’s walkie-talkies for everyone here!! jungkook likes intercoms, and seokjin like yelling!!

“WHY ME AGAIN?? I’VE ALREADY FOLDED-“

“there’s a literal rat and i need yOU to catch it!! you know that i hate rodents!!”

him and jungkook are forever gonna be on this eldest-youngest brother dynamic and while jungkook pouts and shared the extras that he gets, jin is the one who kills the bugs :D

10/10 totally fair

fine then!! he’ll catch that goddamn rat

that leaves you and yoongi. alone.

“why did you come so early this time?”

you ask out of courtesy, genuinely baffled too because you know that yoongi’s a creature of habit

yoongi’s eyes pop out, head fervently shaking no

“i’m typically not the type to do that, no.”

???

is he-

are you-

are you both talking about the same thing

yoongi’s face flushes in embarrassment, his mind just then registering what you were actually saying

“o-oh! it’s because last night, i dreamt of the sweater i saw here last week!!"

oh right

typical :D

"need me to find it for you or do you already know the aisle?"

you align the folded shirts by the corners as you pass, looking at yoongi briefly while he trails behind yoh

“not unless you pulled it out already."

he's hoping that dear god you haven't

the black sweater with the moon aND buildings on it and when you turn on the flash, the windows of said building reflect it right back???

he SHUDDERS just by thinking about it

it’s gonna go with everything!!! an instant boost of serotonin every time he sees it

"for you, yoongi?" you shake your head, a small smile on your face that he only sees every once in a while, "i'd comb through the entire stock room."

wait

that’s sweet :((

“i’ll hold you to that.”

you know what??? you're less cranky when it's only him, and a couple of hundred people less

your smiles aren't for customer-service and you don't have misplaced clothes hanging from your shoulders and your walkie-talkie isn't talking in latin

or when no one’s asking you to reach something from the top shelf

or when you’re on the way to the intercom because a kid got separated from their mother

or when someone’s approaching for a refund for a shirt who has a stain that’s 100% no doubt customer error

his feet immediately move on its own because he’s memorized the outline of this too many times

there it is!!!

the sweater he’s dreamt about is already on his hands, only a handful few left

the piece is considerably more expensive than majority of the items here, so that’s why they’re all spaced-out instead of being clustered altogether

yoongi rarely goes to the dressing room, regardless if it's a full-house or not!!

he could just look at an item and immediately tell that it’s made for him ta know

he's beyond sure that this sweater fits him perfectly, but he may want to be here a little longer

yoongi may have say inside one of the fitting rooms and spent a little time in it just to sit on the chair inside, not fitting the sweater at all

he's gotten his item SO quick and he wished he could've just walked slower or pretended to not know where it was!!!

he wants to spend a little more time here

you don't hate yoongi!!! but sometimes he could just be... yoongi

he's quite talkative and strikes it whenever, making you unguarded

he could be overbearing but like an overbearing kind of nice

yoongi’s nice!! he’s the type to ask a lot of questions sure, but he’s also the type that would point the other customers what to buy and where to find it

he’s the type to find an obvious faulty stitch on a shirt, but he’d just quietly exchange it instead of asking for the manager

he’s the type you wouldn’t want to stand behind in line because it would take a long time for him to finish, but he’s also the same one who buys giftcards with generous amounts for family and friends

yoongi’s kind of cool and that’s cemented on your mind

"what do you got for me?"

he materializes out of nowhere, spooked because you thought he already ringed up and was out of the store already

it just happens to be ten minutes before opening and you’re doing last-minute arrangements on a new spread

well, yoongi most certainly is still here and his attention’s piqued

“we have... a new collection."

you clear your theory, awkwardly gesturing because you’re more than aware that yoongi hasn’t seen this either

“yeah, i know that. but like, what's going on??" he gestures to the displays and racks, squinting his eyes, "what's the theme? what's the material?"

:O

uhm you haven't read the brief about this

you aren't even sURE if there is one!!

doesn't everyone make up something on the spot in retail

or atleast that’s what seokjin tells you

“the theme," you clear your throat, scratching your temple before gesturing towards the full rack, "is everything."

“everything?

yoongi’s eyebrow is raised, not expecting that answer at all

you look back to the new feature, and nOW that you think about it,, there's no cohesion at all

“y-yes. the shop was going for the theme of uhm, everything... all at once — yeah, that's it. everything all at once."

it’s a nice way to put it when not one bit of the new collection goes together

“hmmmm. i like it,” yoongi nods solemnly and tilts his head, “and the material?"

"the material?"

you repeat, eyesight not the best so you can’t really tell anything off the bat or uh aNYTHING really

"t-the material is shirt."

they're all shirts!!! that’s it

yoongi grimaces in disgust, the first time you’ve seen of it

“what?? you can't say that.”

he outsretches his hand to the nearest article, holding it up by the hanger

"this, right here, is satin. see how it shines like silk, but doesn't feel like silk?"

uhm yes

you have a gist of what he’s saying but yes

yoongi picks up a pink button shirt this time, flipping it inside out

"this, is silk charmeuse. look at the inside, is it smooth?"

okay where is he going with this

he urges you to put your hand on the fabric and uhhh you didn't sign up for this???

it looks smooth, sure!! end of discussion

"yea-..."

“it's not. it's rough. it is smooth, but it's dull. silk charmeuse is still silk, but the backing it has is different from the lustrous part."

okay yoongi

you’re starting to feel uncomfortable and it has to do something with the tone he’s using on you

“can't believe you didn't know that!! how about this," he plucks out a shirt with a tiny print at the middle of it, "cotton or polyester and rayon?"

"i don't-"

there’s an itch in your neck that you want to scratch, a tell-tale sign that you just wANT to remove yourself from this situation

“come on!! it's a dead giveaway!!"

:((

why is he being like this?

toon-teen-ten!

“y/n, panty section please. jin almost got bit by a mouse and he needs comforting. two minutes until opening, people!!"

jungkook speaks at the right moment, and jin’s little incident is enough of a reason for you to bolt

yoongi's still looking at you but you can't afford to embarrass yourself further

“bye. happy shopping."

huh?

yoongi’s face falls when you leave as cold as that!! typically when you were going to show him out (when it’s regular shop hours), there’d be a smile :((

there's not even a customer service smile :(((

yoongi goes to the only cashier that's open so far and it happens to be far away from you and a teary seokjin

seokjin's fine he didn't even get bit!! that much he could say

but are you okay? uhhh you kinda went cold on him by the end and he thought he started on a good note

yoongi doesn't visit for another week and you don't find yourself counting the days until you meet him again

you did not have a devil wears prada moment where anne hathaway has an epiphany for fashion knowledge

you just felt belittled at a job that isn’t exactly what you wanted anyways

needed, yes. but wanted? not exactly

you know that basic knowledge about clothes is required in a retail job like this and you have it!! you do!!!!

you’d know more if only there were actual available resources for employees to know!!! nobody besides yoongi asks anyways

you’d know if you have time to yourself and aren’t working two jobs trying to make ends meet and tHEN you could pull up a book or something!!!

you’d know if your life is as lax as yoongi’s and could have the budget to buy new things for yourself every single week

“jin, i need to ask you something.”

he hums as called, looking at you briefly until you get on with it

“do you know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse?"

he shrugs casually while you're sitting inside one of the closed-off fitting rooms to catch a break, sharing a burger because the store’s packed-packed

why did you ask him? it’s too easy

“one's made by worms, and the other's a pokémon."

that,.,., could not possibly be righti* it brings you a laugh and you honestly don’t even try to correct him

it’s 11:15 and you kNOW it’s time to resume your shift, straightening your shirt because atleast one (1) person would hound you when they see a familiar red lanyard

oh you’re hounded alright

“hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second.”

yoongi????

oh

you haven’t seen him for a week and you don’t know what to feel in all honesty

"anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

wow

you're quite speechless as he holds up the item

really?

this thing all over again???

why are you even surprised

the only thing that yoongi gets your customer service smile, fishing your hand from inside the sweater to show him

“70% wool."

that's it???

NO GOOD MORNING????

you're mad at him, aren't you?

he knew it :((

he knew something was wrong but he just didn’t know what

he’s gonna fix this!! he will

which is why the very next day, he takes the day off from his work and comes to the store at a time he knows you’d surely be there

you're on cashier duty and you like it actually :D

you have an option to sit and the way you’re just gonna scan pricetags (and occasionally enter the code if it doesn’t work) is really appealing

“good morning!"

you’re about to grab the items from the basket laid on the counter and your eyes could only see the very familiar hand

the same one you’ve seen go through racks and racks

yoongi??

he sets his items one by one, buying himself more time

the first one is the same exact sweater he came to wait for before opening

“you already bought this."

you tell him even before you could hold it back, looking back at him briefly before you scan the tag

“i know. i just wanted to see you."

oh

oh

yoongi threw a bunch of other items (individually) so it would be a longer talk, but you scan each item quickly that he’s grabbing things from the counter

hand sanitizer!!! hair ties!!! keychains!!!! yeah he needs them

“i'm sorry that i tend to spring shit on you most of the time. you don't need to know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse."

you only chuckle then, a meek smile on your face

"it's okay, yoongi.”

“it's not."

... it’s not?

yoongi fidgets, opening and closing his mouth like he’s nervous!!! he’s never had his credit card cancelled but he could only feel that this type of jitterness is more than the former

“can i make it up to you? no lanyards, no baskets, no customer service?? i don't wanna fuck things up with you."

“don't feel obligated-"

“i know i could be a condescending ass who expects people to automatically know fabric and whatnot, but i wanna make it up to you."

alright yoongi’s a really good apology-maker

you mIGHT be even flustered a little

“you're holding the line, yoongi.”

“i cleared my schedule."

“i haven’t!!!!!” - guy in the back

“dinner at my place at 8. i-i promise to make your hard-earned break after your shift worthwhile!!!"

hmmm

maybe that wouldn’t hurt

“okay. just because you're holding the line."

“fine by me."

:))

yoongi transfers all the items he bought, all but one, to his tote bag

he hands back the paper bag to you, scribbling his address on the back of the receipt before he does

he lingers a little while at the counter, the people behind him ALREADY switching lanes to the one seokjin’s just opened beside you

it's the sweater that he has too

yoongi scratches the back of his head, this time being the meek one

“what? m-matching sweaters for our first date. s'cute."

[a-wildemusing]

The Three of Us: A Late Night at the Cafe. 

word count: 1,676~

genre: Kenma x platonic!reader, Kuroo x Platonic!reader.

warnings: nothing I can think of. probably any mistakes.

summary: Y/n took the late shift at the Cafe they work at. It’s been a slow night until unexpectedly a whole volleyball team decides to get a late snack. 

a/n: this is part of a series I’m doing, called the Three of Us. Its made up events and adventures with being best friends with Kuroo and Kenma. Hope you enjoy!

The Three of Us. ✨ Masterlist. ✨

--

The night was going to be a long one, you thought. As a courtesy to your boss lady, you said that you would take her closing shift so she and her family could spend the evening together. It was her son’s birthday. You wanted them to spend as much time with her family as possible. There was no class the following day, so it all worked out. You could sleep in and your boss lady can relax. 

A few customers came in, but it wasn't overwhelming. Even at the last hour, you even told your co-worker they can go home early. You have done this many times before. Taking the closing shift wasn't anything new to you. The boss lady did not hesitate to trust you.  

It was a quiet night. Only two people came in for drinks after your coworker left. They left after a short stay. You were on your own after that. From the front window of the cafe, you looked out. Occasionally, a car passed by. As the minutes passed, the streets began to clear. After catching yourself spacing out, you decided to keep busy and start cleaning a little.

You had your back turned from the door. Cleaning the counters a little while waiting for closing time. There were still forty minutes left. You were minding your own business. Humming along with the low melody of the song playing over the speakers.  

This sort of quiet was sometimes enjoyable to you. However, it was beginning to feel a little overwhelming. You went too deep into your thoughts. 

The past few months have been interesting. There were many things coming up soon. Summer break was just around the corner. Graduation was drawing near for third-year students. In the coming term, Kuroo will be attending university. Kenma and you were going to be third years. Everything felt a little overwhelming. 

As you sighed, you began to organize some things. Your work routine slowly returns and you try not to space out again.     

Your ears were alerted to the chimes from the door. A smile soon appeared on your face as soon as you turned around to see your smirking best friend. You had a slightly confused expression on your face, but the smile was still prominent. Kuroo was standing with what seemed like the whole volleyball team. 

“Welcome!” You cheerfully said putting down the rag you were using the clean moments ago.  

You smiled at Kuroo. “What are you guys doing here? I thought you guys had practice” 

“We-

“Y/n, can I still order?” Lev interrupted Kuroo. Lev walked towards you with heart eyes. Kuroo rolled his eyes and sat at the nearest table. Kenma follows him. Both of them are watching you. Before giving Lev your full attention, you shook your head at the two. 

“Oh. yeah! Of course,” You said cheerfully as you made your way to the cash register. “What can I get you, Lev?” 

The rest of the team lined up behind Lev to order and offer a small greeting as well. After taking some orders, you take a short break to make the drinks or give the snacks to the boys. Even though they had practiced, everyone was so lively. Kuroo caught your eye as you glanced over at him. A smile spread across his face. It was as if he knew you needed the company. 

Kenma finally came up to you to say hi when it seemed you had a small moment to yourself.   You handed him a box to go. 

“Hi, Kenma.” You smiled. “I saved that for you.” 

Kenma opens the box to see a piece of apple pie. He smiles, and thanks you before sitting with Yamamoto. Then you went back making drinks again.

Once everyone had their food and drinks. You went around chatting with everyone. Yaku and Fukunaga were the two you ended up with. The two of them took care of you by protecting you from Lev, Inouka, and Yamamoto from simping too hard or bothering you. 

All in all, it was a good time. You felt so much better. The thoughts you thought earlier weren't so bothersome to you anymore. 

In time, the volleyball team began to slowly leave. Everyone said goodbye and thanks to you.  Before leaving, some of them helped you stack some of the chairs on top of the tables. All that remained was to mop the floors and finalize the cash register. 

Soon the only person that was left was Kuroo. Kenma was actually feeling tired and went home with the rest.

“Thanks for tonight.” As Kuroo grabbed the spare mop, you said softly, "I was kind of feeling weird." You moved the mop side to side as you slowly walked backward, not making eye contact with him.

"I remember you telling me you would be taking the night shift and we ended practice early. So why not.” Kuroo said while he mopped an area a little further apart from you. “But what’s up?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged. 

“I am sure you do. How am I supposed to give you amazing advice if you don’t tell me what’s bugging you? How can your elder help you?” Kuroo teases you. 

You shake your head with a small smile on your face. “You are only one year older than me... Shut up.” 

A chuckle escaped Kuroo's lips. Then he taps your mop with his. Bringing your eyes up to look at him. As you hold the mop and pretend to be holding a sword, Kuroo follows your lead and does the same. 

“I don’t know…” You softly tap your mop with his a couple of times. “What are we going to do without you, Kuroo?” You leaned the mop by the counter. 

“What do you mean? I’m not leaving.” 

“Yes, you are. This is your last year. Graduation is coming soon.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. We have been together since we were kids and I don't know... Maybe I'm just being weird.” You looked down.

“No. No. you’re not. To be honest with you. I thought about this.” 

“Really?” You looked back up to meet Kuroo’s eyes. There was a seriousness to them.

“Yeah, really. I was thinking that I get one whole year without you and Kenma. How peaceful will that be.” 

You nudged him playfully, “ Hey!”

Kuroo starts laughing, putting the mop that he was holding down next to yours. He leans on the counter to keep his balance. 

Kuroo as he calms down. “It’s not like I’m leaving the face of the Earth Y/n. Plus, you are going to the same university as me.” Kuroo teases. 

“I know! Okay…it’s just I-I’m... I’m going to miss you.” You give him a small smile. 

But with that Kuroo starts laughing again.  

“Oh come on, Kuroo let me be sappy for a second.” You sighed and gave Kuroo a shove. “You’re my best friend...my annoying older brother. God. Maybe, this is going to be a nice break from your teasing!” Your vision slowly started to blur. You shocked your head. 

“I’m going to miss seeing you every day,” Kuroo said, as he walked towards you. He wraps you in a hug and you return the hug. “But don’t worry. It’s going to be like I haven’t left. I’m going to bug you and Kenma as much as possible.”

You rolled your eyes but hugged Kuroo a little harder. The both of you stayed like that for a bit.

“Hey, come on. I know you still have to finalize the cash register and it's getting late.” Kuroo lets go of you. 

You and Kuroo completed the cleaning and you completed the cash register after your conversation. The cafe was locked. The two of you walked home together. It was a quiet walk and train ride home. Each of you taking a moment to ponder over the small conversation you both had. 

There was going to be a lot of change. Getting used to not seeing each other every day was going to take some time. However, you knew Kuroo and Kenma would be your closest friends for a long time. 

*Kenma and Y/n during the first two weeks of their third year*

Your alarm went off and when you saw it was the third special alarm you woke up so quickly. A burst of energy helps you race to get yourself ready and out the door. Your third alarm was your last warning before you were going to have zero time to make it to school on time. 

You knew if you were waking up late, Kenma would be as well.  Your hair was a little messy, your uniform wasn't tucked in completely, and there were some papers trapped in the zipper of your school bag.  

“We're going to be late, Kenma!" You barged into Kenma’s room. Kenma is still lying in bed. Opening his eyes gradually, he gazes into the distance towards you by the door. 

“Kenma! Let's go!" You threw his uniform at him. Despite still being confined to his bed, he slowly begins to rise. 

“What do you mean...Kuroo is not here yet.”  Kenma rubs his eyes. 

After a brief pause, you turned your attention to him. Your face displays a sad smile. It's then that Kenma realizes what's going on.

“Oh.” He grabs his uniform.  

Kenma and you were finally out the door and rushing to school. You both were able to catch the train. Both sitting down, you placed your head on Kenma’s shoulder trying to catch your breath.

“How did Kuroo manage to keep us from being late for so long?” You look up smiling at Kenma. 

“I don’t even know.” Kenma takes out his handheld console. 

You lifted your head from Kenma’s shoulder when you felt your phone blowing up with text messages. You smile to yourself seeing who was texting you. Kuroo was texting you asking if you made it on time and if you and Kenma were at school yet. You message him back and then put your phone away. Placing your head back on Kenma’s shoulder to watch him play his game.

--

end notes lol 

~ Kenma and Y/n were so distracted by the game that they almost missed their stop. ಥ‿ಥ

~Kuroo is stressed af bc of Kenma and Y/n and he doesn’t even go to same school as them anymore lol 

[egcdeath]

birthdays with the boys

in honor of my own birthday, today i’ll be sharing with you what i think your birthday with many cevans characters would be like. enjoy! <3

steve rogers

he leaves his mission early and unannounced so when you wake up to the smell of pancakes in your house, and a man with breakfast in bed you almost jump out of your skin buuut you couldn’t be happier to see him

breakfast in bed is just the start of your bday because he goes ALL. OUT. 

as you finish up eating, he grabs a folded piece of paper with a wax seal on it and hands it to you

he tells you to open it once he leaves, gives you a wink, then goes

he planed a birthday scavenger hunt for you!!!

for the rest of the day, you travel around the city to a bunch of important places in your relationship, like your fav dates n stuff

at the midway point of the hunt, he meets you for a coffee and makes sure you’re still enjoying everything before he sends you off with the avenger’s company card and basically tells you to get something nice before finishing the hunt hehe

you do in fact get yourself something nice

at the end of the hunt, you end up at the compound where all of your friends and teammates are and you have a very nice birthday party

by the time that you and steve go home, you’re exhausted but wanna spend a lil more time savoring your birthday so steve suggests that the two of you watch that one cheesy rom com that you love (and he hates)

as you cuddle on the couch, popping the occasionaly popcorn kernel in your mouth, you cant help but to feel grateful that you have such an amazing boyfriend

ransom drysdale

his birthdays were always disregarded when he grew up, so he has a very extravagant celebration planned for you

we all know that he can make a pretty airtight and elaborate plan so you literally have zero idea of what he’s got up his sleeve

enter: a whole birthday week

(he sweet talked your boss into some time off  so thats one whole thing you don’t have to worry about)

day one is a whole spa and a shopping day

he can’t stand some of your friends but he invites them anyway bc he knows it’ll make you happy

he’s glaring at your friends while they giggle about some new louis vuitton purse and you’re thoroughly amused by it

you give him extra kisses that night as a reward for not instigating any fights that day (awww bf of the year am i right ladies?)

day two you guys do a museum hop and look at lots of art

ransom rolls his eyes at canvases that have a few drops of paint on them and are called modern art, you think this is hilarious

day three you have a picnic together in a park

ransom knows you have an affinity for charcuterie boards and attempts to make you one himself (and it’s not all that bad), along with a bunch of dainty little sandwiches

later that day, you go to a planetarium together

on your drive back home you have an interesting convo on the meaning of life

day 4 you take a pottery class together

ransom makes the most deformed bowl you’ve ever seen in your life

so naturally you put it up for display in your bedroom (so whenever you see it you can think of him)

day five is a first class flight to some luxurious villa in europe. most of day five is taken up on a plane

ransom lets you lay your head on him while you sleep, even though the position you’re in is making it astonishingly uncomfortable for him

day six you guys explore the city all day together

ransom makes sure not to complain about his aching legs (even though yours are getting sore too, and if he said something you would’ve done something about it!)

on your real birthday (day seven), ransom takes you out to a very nice dinner, and gives you a hand written letter detailing how much he loves and cares about you (because sometimes it’s hard for him to say his feelings)

you’re extremely flattered but have no idea how you’ll top this for his own birthday

andy barber

you and andy aren’t really huge on big gestures, so he does little things throughout the day

while you’re at work, he makes a surprise stop by and brings you your favorite drink & lunch from your favorite food place

he sends a bouquet of flowers to your job as well

after work, he cooks for you then showers you in gifts

your favorite thing that he gets you is a little engraved necklace with yours and his initials on it

at the end of the day, he gives you a nice full body massage and somehow that was exactly what you needed.

maybe not the most extravagant birthday, but a good one nonetheless.

frank adler

you have a pretty chill birthday with him and mary

he brings you a cake that him and mary made/decorated together

it’s kind of hideous but you love it

you guys let mary skip class for just 1 (one) day but tell her to keep it a secret

you call the school and let her fake being sick in the background. it is a hoot

you all go to the zoo together 

you take tons of pictures

your personal favorite is one where mary and frank are posing with a giraffe

after the zoo, you go bowling

when you win, the sore losers that came with you claim they were letting you win since it was your birthday

you end your day at the beach, watching mary and her cat play in the sand in your peripheral vision while you and frank admire the sunset

ah, sweet, sweet domesticity

ari levinson

you go to an escape room to celebrate your birthday

it’s just you and ari, but you’re smart so you don’t expect it to be too difficult

🚨wrong🚨

you’re both so hard headed and stubborn that doing any of the tasks is like pulling teeth

eventually the building had to close, and you’ve only finished like... a few tasks in the hours you’ve been there

this was certainly not a bad birthday though, arguing with ari is one of your favorite pastimes

and this birthday certainly did not disappoint

jake jensen

you and the rest of your team decided to go to a little retro arcade for the first half of the night

you spent way more time than necessary watching jake attempt to beat the high score of some random game

after giving up on beating the highest score on a pac-man machine, jake decided to attempt to win you a prize on the claw machine

like, $20 and a few annoyed humans in line behind him later, it was still nothing

when jake finally gave up, the next person in line won the soft and plushy elephant you had your eye on

and while your back was turned, he may or may not have paid off its rightful owner in order to get it with you

it was too sweet of a gesture for you to even try to be annoyed with jake

a bit later, you decided to partake in a game of laser tag which was going on in the same building

this was fine and dandy buuuut

everyone on your team treated every mission (real or fictional) like the end of the world

this made for a few very interesting matches

jake nearly trampled a child more than one time

good thing everyone was required to sign a waiver before playing

a custody battle over which team got to have cougar seemed to be a consistent theme during the night

when you were on different teams, you couldn’t help but notice that jake was getting a little too much pleasure out of shooting you

it was fine because you were equally enthusiastic about shooting him

you were eventually booted from the game when an employee claimed you were all being too rough

at some point you lost the elephant

but luckily for you, you found it before you went home

you were going to keep that elephant forever

johnny storm

you were genuinely convinced that johnny forgot your birthday

he did not bring it up ONCE the whole day

you’re actually kind of hurt for a while and get all in your head

johnny gets the silent treatment 🙄 (but he deserves it)

you decide to stop moping and go out, since it issss your birthday

you do your makeup and put on a skimpy little dress

as you leave your room and start enter the communal portion of the baxter building, johnny stops you and checks you out

he’s like “where are you going????”

and you’re like “out 😐”

and he’s like “are you sure? 🤨”

and you’re like yes duh

then he gestures to the side really quickly and you’re kinda confused then a whole bunch of people pop out and start cheering for your birthday

you’re kinda embarrassed that you spent so much of the day moping but you quickly get over it because you love a good party

by the time that most of your guests are gone, you force johnny to take you out to the club

and of course you warn him not to ever pull a stunt like that again

lucas lee

he forgot it was your birthday

[parappah]

sasuke makes me feel like.... you would match with him on tinder right. he looks pretty cute in his pictures but his bio isn't really saying anything special and he looks like he has the personality of a mailbox but maybe it'll be different once i actually talk to him right. he messages you first surprisingly and he just says "Hey" and you're like omg.... hey. and you guys just carry out some really basic small talk like hey where do you work, are you in school, etc. he gives really straightforward and kinda boring answers he just doesnt seem like he's doing much. he's not in school he doesn't have a job but you know. you can't really have your standards too high right now simply because of the fact that you were on tinder in the first place. anyway, you and sasuke text over the next couple weeks and its still dry and you usually have to text him first but you figure its just because he's shy and maybe he'll be different once you guys meet in real life. so you guys plan to go out to a restaurant and eat on a friday night and he comes to pick you up at your place but he doesn't get out of his car to greet you which makes you go like.... ok... that's a little weird and also bad manners but you brush it off. you get in his car and say hello and he says hey and on the radio he's playing like some chill lofi hip hop study beats and he doesn't have spotify premium so the ads would play between the songs kind of ruining the chill immersion he was probably going for. anyway, not much is said during your drive to the restaurant but you figure it's just because he's focused on driving and you think he looks pretty cute and you're lowkey relieved that he's not a catfish or anything like that. anyway you guys get to the restaurant right and you guys sit down you order your food ggs and he still isn't really talking that much and he only says things when you ask him a question which is kind of... ok... maybe he's just being shy and you feel like you should just stop being paranoid and just act like a normal person because hello not everyone is the same as you maybe he just needs more time to open up. He cracks a few smiles and jokes throughout the rest of your dinner which greatly relieves you but you still dont feel like you can be fully yourself yet because you know this is just the first date. After dinner he asks if you want to go back to his apartment and hang out and you’re like okay sure even though you know in the back of your mind that its dangerous but he doesnt give you like. Direct serial killer vibes outright and you’re lowkey thinking about texting your best friend to prepare the photos that are going to show up on your episode of 60 minutes just in case. You guys go back to his apartment and its a pretty okay looking place not much furniture but it seems pretty typical for a guy’s apartment. You guys sit next to each other on the couch and he turns on the tv you guys start watching some netflix he doesn’t even ask what you feel like watching and he turns on a show you’ve never seen before and that he’s in the middle of season 5 of but you feel like if you just sit and listen you can get the gist of what’s happening. You start to feel really uncomfortable just laying on the couch in your jeans bc you’re wearing jeans it’s just not comfortable to wear jeans while you’re just chilling so it’s hard to relax sitting there with a guy you’ve basically just met chilling on his couch in jeans. You decide to let your guard down a little bit and lay your head on his shoulder and he lays his head down on yours too and you’re just like okay great it seems like he’s into this and you’re just feeling reassured somewhat due to this small gesture. He puts his arm around you. More reassurance. Then out of the blue he mentions that his roommates aren’t there tonight and if you want to go back to his bedroom and you’re like okay sure not really thinking it through that much but like. You know exactly whats about to happen. A small wave of excitement washes over your brain a bit bc its been a while since you’ve had any intimacy and you’re somewhat curious about what this guy has to offer even though you know how you’ll probably feel afterwards. Anyway. You guys pretty much fuck. But it feels like you’re fucking someone who’s in the other room. He’s not a particularly bad fuck he has a pretty nicely average size/looking dick but you just dont feel him. There’s no emotion you cant tell what he’s feeling it just feels like. Yes theres a guy here he’s fucking me but thats it. Who is this man why am i here i dont even think he knnows my last name and i dont even know his last name either but i do know that he mentioned a friend of his named naruto. Anyway after you guys finish sasuke looks over and asks if you’re okay because you’ve been really quiet and you say yeah everythings fine your stomach just hurts from your dinner earlier which is partially true since you had some spicy food earlier and you can handle your spice pretty well but since you’ve been so on edge the entire night you kinda feel it doing the works on your stomach. He asks if you want to spend the night but it doesnt sound like he actually wants you to spend the night it just sounds like he’s asking out of politeness because it’s not super polite to just cum in someone and then kick them out directly after but you say that nah you have some plans early in the day tomorrow and you should probably just go home. He says aight and then grabs his keys and drives you back to your apartment and as you’re getting out of his car he gives you the softest “see ya” where you can just slightly feel some emotion in his voice but it just doesnt quite reach it. Anyway you go inside you go straight to your room and get in your pajamas and you just curl up and cry. Even though he wasn’t particularly a bad guy but his frigid demeanor just sent you off a little bit and the emotionless sex at the end was really the icing on the cake. And you just kind of feel empty and used like wow did i really just fuck a guy that i just met on tinder 2 weeks ago i feel like such a whore. You text your friends in the group chat what happened and they reassure you that you are in fact, not a whore. You and sasuke text a few times over the next week or so just to keep up appearances out of politeness even though you both know good and well that you’re not compatible. You dont ghost each other or anything like that you guys are still friends on snapchat and follow each other on instagram and you watch his snapchat stories and he watches yours but you just never really talk to each other again but every time you come across him on social media you’re just reminded of that really uncomfortable night

anyway thats how i feel about sasuke

[etherealino]

too early, but not enough — l. minho

synopsis: after a year of his services, minho receives the name of his last client when usually a grim reaper’s service takes for five centuries. also, why the hell are you early?

genre: grim reaper!au, fluff and angst, a bit of incarnation

warning(s): foul language, mentions of death and flinching. let me know if i missed something

word count: 11.6k (be proud, thanks)

note: from one of my blurbs. also, happy minho day everybody !! 3rd repost bcs its not showing in the tags. :)) i love it here

one. — october five.

“I’m sorry?” Minho pardons as he looks at Chan with confusion in his eyes. When getting the list of names that grim reapers would fetch, it’s always mailed. Minho would just go inside his office and ta-da, the envelopes are there neatly placed on his desk.

Minho has gone through his series of weird events during his service of being a grim reaper. And he like it being weird, otherwise it wouldn’t be fun. But this is yet the weirdest and one that he doesn’t like. It’s too... early.

“Final client?” Minho repeats Chan’s words.

A chuckle falls off of Chan’s lips as he goes around his desk, leaning in front as as he looks at Minho. “Are you not happy about it?” Chan asks as he crosses his arms on his chest.

Happy? Should he be? This is honestly too... sketchy? Hm, I guess. Minho is just so confused. It’s only been a year since he started his service why is he already going up? It should take at least five centuries before he goes up, so why so sudden?

Minho clearly remembers when he started his service, he didn’t want it. So, he should be happy. Even though it’s bit suspiscious as to why is that. He even honestly thought he was called in Chan’s office because of the rules he has broken. Out of 50 rules, Minho thinks he has broken 49 of them.

“I am!” Minho says, looking at the ground then back at Chan. “It’s just that... it’s only been a year and I kind of broke... um—”

“You broke most of the rules, we know that.” Chan cuts him off and Minho sheepishly smiles at the boy in front of him. “You’ll find out soon why you’re early.” Chan smiles at him, turning lightly to his desk to get the envelope then back at Minho, extending his hand to give it to him. “You’re lucky you’re going up already. I still have a century left.”

Minho gets the envelope with both hands, bowing as he takes it. “Who would take your place then?” Minho asks and Chan shrugs.

“Changbin most likely. Or maybe Hyunjin. It is yet to be decided, and for now, don’t think about it too much. Just enjoy your remaining weeks here on Earth. You’ll go upstairs with your last client.” Chan says and Minho bows once again as he smiles at Chan.

“Thank you, Chan. I’ll be going now.” MInho says and Chan nods.

“Take care.” Chan says. “Even though you’re not gonna die again.” Minho chuckles at Chan’s witty remark as he leaves the higher’s office. He closes the door, stuffing the envelope inside the pocket of his trench coat.

“Congratulations.” The taller boy who Minho is friends with ever since his term has started greeted him as he takes the seat across Minho. Minho looks up at Hyunjin, a bit taken back that he knows.

Ah, everyone must’ve known already.

“Thanks,” Minho says. “But don’t you think it’s a bit too early?”

Hyunjin lets out a chuckle, sipping his coffee. “You should be happy. I’d kill just to be you right now.” Hyunjin says and it was Minho’s turn to chuckle. But Hyunjin is right—of course, he is. He’s been here longer—Minho should be happy at the fact that he’s finally going up after serving as a grim reaper. But it’s too weird that it’s only been a year since he started his term.

“I am.” Minho nods and Hyunjin pulls a boyish grin that every girl dies to see. “But others go upstairs after five centuries. How come it’s only been a year and I’m finally going up? You’ve been serving for three centuries and you’re still stuck for another two centuries.”

Hyunjin knows why. Everyone knows why, except for Minho himself.

As far as Minho knows, he has broken most of the rules and he should have been punished because of it. But why is he going up already? Is this his punishment? It couldn’t be, right?

“You finally got your last envelope?” Hyunjin asks and Minho nods, fishing it out of his trench coat’s pocket. He opens the envelope to see the details. “Can I know?”

“Uh, (full name), October 25, 8:37 pm.” Minho says, voice trailing off as he looks at the side to think—the name was so familiar—and Hyunjin nods. “Do you know them?” Minho asks and Hyunjin shakes his head ‘no’, shooting his friend a smile. “You want to go now?”

Hyunjin nods, standing up from his seat as he fixes himself. Minho does the same thing while sitting. When Minho stands up, he sharply turns around with his coffee, the early ‘graduation’ still in his mind when another figure bumps into him.

Minho’s eyes widen as the person gasps, mouth gaping open as they look down at their clothes with spilled coffee all over them. Minho looks at the person, finding himself being shocked at who he is facing.

What day is it today? Minho looks at his phone, as it lights up. October 5.

“You’re early.” is what Minho says which leaves you very confused despite your whole body burning (and Hyunjin being the dramatic friend, rolling his eyes wanting to slap Minho upside down).

“I’m... what?” You ask and Hyunjin nudges Minho again, this time with more force. Minho panics, palming his pockets to look for his handkerchief, but none. He turns around to face Hyunjin, taking his friend’s handkerchief.

“Hey!” Hyunjin exclaims, but Minho is already turning around to lightly dab the handkerchief on your chest. Minho sighs, frowning deeply as he keeps on working. Minho takes the cup from you, taking your wrist, drying them as there were tiny droplets that spilled there. But especially on your other hand. Minho lets go of your hand, flipping the handkerchief to another side that is still clean, then getting your other wrist and cleaning it.

Oi, Minho. What are you doing?

Minho freezes, his hand still on your wrist. He slowly looks up at you as you stare back at him. Your eyes screamed for softness as you stared at him. No confusion, just admiration. Minho clears his throat, softly dropping your wrist. “I’m sorry.” Minho mumbles as he holds the handkerchief out to you.

You take it, nodding once as you continue to clean your hand. “It’s okay.” You softly said. You zip your jacket close and bow to the two of them. You were about to take a step when Minho suddenly speaks up.

“Wait,” Minho says and you turn to him. “Let me give you a spare shirt, at least.”

“Oh, no,” you gently declined as you tried to find the right words. “I was just about to—”

“Please, I feel bad.” Minho cuts you off. You took a deep breath, pulling your lips into a thin line as you nod at him. You look at Hyunjin who just smiles at you and Minho starts to walk with you and Hyunjin following him suit.

When Minho is finally in front of his office—holy shit, wait. Minho just brought a stranger whose soul is his final client to his office because he spilled coffee all over her. Is he sure about this? Minho holds the door knob, looking at it as he just realized how much he fucked up.

If this was in the list of rules, the higher officials above would probably have second thoughts about his early ‘graduation’ here on Earth because this is probably the 50th one.

“Minho,” Hyunjin calls and Minho blinks, snapping out of his thoughts as he looks at Hyunjin. Minho shakes his head, turning the knob and stepping aside to let you in first. You step inside, the small office giving you a homey vintage vibe as you look around. There was even an old telephone on the side.

“Does this work or is it just for the theme of the place?” You asked as you pointed at the telephone, but your eyes roamed around the place. Minho smiles as he rumages through the small cabinet at the corner.

Oh, it does work. But he’s not gonna tell you that. “It doesn’t. Just for the aesthetic.” Minho says. “Oh, and where are you going today, by the way? Somewhere formal or—”

“Oh, please, just give me one of your old shirts. I’m just going to a friend’s house.” You said as you looked around a bit more. You like this place.

“Here you go, Y/N.” Minho says as he walks closer to you, giving you his shirt. Hyunjin who was behind you, gestures dramatically at Minho as he palms his face. Minho squints his eyes in confusion and Hyunjin rolls his eyes as he turns around.

“How did you know my name?” You ask and Minho shifts his eyes on you, widening once again. Minho looks over at Hyunjin who just rolls his eyes, but still walks towards you.

“Hey,” Hyunjin says as he places a hand on your shoulder. “You’re probably burned lightly underneath your shirt. Follow me, the bathroom’s this way and here’s another towel to clean yourself, okay?” Hyunjin instructs as he takes the shirt from Minho and leads you to the bathroom.

Now, a reason. Think, Minho, think!

When Minho hears the door close, he turns around to see Hyunjin walking back to him with a frown on his face. “First, you tell her she’s early. Second, you bring your last client here where she will be on her last day. Third, you stupidly say her name? Minho, what’s happening? You’re never this distracted.” Hyunjin says with a quick chuckle on the end.

Hyunjin’s right, Minho’s never this distracted. But why does his client make him go all over the place? Not to mention, he even went as far as cleaning you up as if he’s known you for so long. Does he? Why are you so familiar?

“She’s so familiar.” Minho says and Hyunjin scratches the back of his neck.

“Don’t mind it.” Hyunjin says, shrugging. “She’ll probably forget it.”

Minho sighs, nodding as they wait for you to come out. Seriously though, he swore he heard your name around town and has at least seen you once. That’s quite impossible, though. Minho would forget a face he only saw once and he never had a friend this close except for Hyunjin.

Minho hears the door open and close gently. He looks up seeing you in his shirt that was oversized to you. But you managed to pull it off, tucking it in your high waisted jeans. Minho feels his heart flutter, breath knocking out of his lungs.

You just took the grim reaper’s breath away.

“Um, thank you for letting me, uh, change and clean up.” You say and Minho nods, smiling lightly. You look so beautiful in his shirt—Minho, focus!

“Sure.” Minho smiles and you smile back.

“I’ll be going now. Thanks, again. Um, what’s your name again?” You asked and MInho smiles, standing up straight as he composes himself.

“Minho,” Minho says as he holds his hand out. You smile brightly, reaching a han—

“Minho!” Hyunjin exclaims and Minho drops his hand, turning around to Hyunjin, confused. Minho looks at him with questioning eyes and Hyunjin just looks back at him. Huh? Oh. Oh.

You clear your throat awkwardly and Minho turns back around. “I’m gonna get going. Thanks, again. M-Minho.” You say and Minho nods, smiling at you. You turn around, walking to the door as you finally exit the office.

“Take care, Y/N.” Minho softly says and you smile, closing the door of his office.

Minho was so distracted. He almost broke the 50th rule that he’s always been careful and the easiest for him not to break.  He almost touched a person’s hand when he wasn’t supposed to. He almost broke into her privacy—into her memories.

Minho’s just thankful the last time he would see you again is when you die.

two. — october six.

Minho, you can do this. You can do this without Hyunjin. You can do this without messing up. Just focus.

“What brings you here?” Minho asks as he opens the door wider for you, yet you stay in your position. You shook your head politely.

“I’m just here to bring your shirt back and your friend’s handkerchief. I washed them already.” You said with a sweet smile on your face. Minho nods, taking them from you.

“You sure you don’t wanna go inside?” Minho asks and you shake your head ‘no’ with a kind smile. Minho doesn’t want to admit it, but he would like to spend time with you. But, to save himself from another series of embarrassment, he holds himself back from asking you.

“Thank you for your kindness yesterday. I really appreciate it.” You say and Minho chuckles, nodding.

To be fair to the reaper (which you’re not aware of), your heart flutters just as much as his does. You aren’t this shy, but you just grow conscious around Minho even though you only met him yesterday.

“I’m gonna go now.” You say and Minho’s smile lightly falters, but he holds it. This is better, at least he’s sure he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself.

“Wait, do you wanna go somewhere for coffee or something?” Minho asks. What? Minho, you’re so smitten! Minho facepalms himself inwardly as he lets the words roll out of his mouth. Sigh, Minho. Sigh.

You look at him, pulling your lips into a thin line. “I... I can’t. I got this thing—”

“Ah, no worries.” Minho says with a smile as he lightly waves his hand. You smile up at him. “No pressure. Sorry.” Minho says and you nod, turning to your heel as you start to walk away from him. Minho watches you, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Why does he keep on gravitating towards you?

“You know what, my thing isn’t even due until next week.” You said as you turned around to face Minho. You took a deep breath as you looked at him. Are you sure about this? Hm, after all, the moment you got home yesterday, you immediately washed Minho’s shirt just so it would be dry and you could come back here.

Smitten.

Minho smiles widely. The first ear to ear smile he broke into the moment he became a grim reaper. Why didn’t you come into his life—grim reaper term, rather, earlier? Chan said to enjoy his remaining weeks on Earth. Why not spend it with his final client? Minho, how would you tell her that you’re the one who is assigned to take her to her last destination? Minho shrugs his thoughts off, Chan’s words are the only thing in his mind... and you.

“Let me just put these away.” Minho gestures at the fabric in his hand and you smile ever so brightly at him. The brightest smile he ever saw even if the others smile from ear-to-ear and you don’t.

You nod and gently, you say, “Okay.”

“Minho!” You coo, a small pout on your lips forming as you gentlycup the cat’s head, nuzzling your nose against his. “He looks like you.” With this, Minho lightly laughs. “Seriously, you have cat-like features.”

Minho smiles, patting the cat’s body. You smile at him as you look at his sharp but very beautiful features. How the hell did he manage to create a soft spot in your heart?

A kitten suddenly jumps at your lap, sitting as he made himself comfortable, mewling lightly as he snuggles. You smile, bringing your hand up to scratch his head lightly as he started to close his eyes. You put your hand beside you on the ground, supporting yourself.

And Minho.. gosh, if someone was to judge at the two of you, they would think Minho and you are in a relationship by the way he would stare at you with a gentle smile on his lip. It was like looking at someone who just found a treasure that barely anyone knows about which makes it very special.

Minho then suddenly just reaches a hand out but a cat suddenly put his head underneath his palm. Minho snaps out of his daydream-y smile and looks at the cat. He was just about to hold your hand. Tahnk God, the cat suddenly became clingy.

“Minho?” You called as you turned to him. “Wanna go grab lunch?”

Minho stares at you and you smile at him to which he returns. He nods and you stand up, his eyes still on you as you fix yourself. He couldn’t help but feel like it was ethereal being with you.

Yesterday, Minho was wondering how come you were so early. Today, Minho wondered why you never came earlier. Right, Minho never really socialized, even with his fellow grim reapers. Minho has been around the town, and he wished he knew you way earlier. Sucks.

Minho has honestly expected that you and him would just spend time together for at least an hour or two, not the whole day. But here he is, in the playground siting by the swings as he listened to your stories about college at 8 in the evening. Minho finds himself staring at you fondly, smiling to himself as he watched you push yourself back and forth lightly with your foot on the ground. You stared at the ground, sighing.

“And then, that’s it.” You said with a soft sigh. “And that was not the last time I went to an early class with a hangover.” Minho laughs, boyish giggles rings through the empty playground as he looks up above the skies, the stars littering, some making constelations, some were just being a beautiful sparkly mess. You shift your eyes to him, smiling as you watch him admire the skyline. It is beautiful, just like him.

“Do you ever regret that you were such a rebel?” Minho asks and you chuckle lightly as you shake your head ‘no’.

“I don’t.” You answer and Minho looks at you with such soft smile. “Ashamed, after the second I did them, but suddenly I don’t know. I’m happy I did them. We only get to live life once—I mean, of course, we get to have another life, but what I mean is, at least I got to do it at this life. Who knows? Maybe I’d be a boring up-tight girl in my next life. It’s better that we do everything even if we’re reluctant. At least, we won’t have any regrets.”

Minho looks down, finding interest at the ground.

“So, you,” you said as you looked at him. Minho looks at you, humming as a response. “You should smile more often.”

Minho chuckles, “What’s the connection?”

“No correlation or anything.” You said. “You look good. But you shine when you smile.”

But you didn’t know, you were the reason behind it.

Minho chuckles, a soft smile invading his lips as he stands up, walking towards you. “Come on, let’s take you home.” Minho offers and you stand up, shooting him a smile. You both walk at a slow pace, not wanting the night to end. It’s a bit too fast, Minho admits. And he doesn’t know what’s making him do these things. It felt as if you two have been together for the longest time already.

“You should go,” you said to Minho as you stopped at a convenience store. Minho frowns as he looks at the road ahead. It was too dark for Minho’s own liking for you to walk through it alone.

“No, it’s too dark—”

“I’m meeting up with a friend.” You cut him off with a smile. “He’s already inside. We need to talk about work.” You said, jabbing a thumb behind you to point at the convenience store. Minho frowns and you chuckle.

“Okay,” Minho says in defeat and you sigh.

“Text me when you get home.” You say as you wave at him. “Bye, take care.”

“Take care, text me when you get home, too.” Minho says and you nod, waving at him. Minho crosses the road to to his office as you watch his back. Should he go back? Minho! You’ve only met her yesterday. Stop obsessing. Minho shakes his head as he made his journey to his office.

You sigh as Minho went out of sight. You pull your lips into a thin line, breathing deeply as you turn around, pushing the door of the convenience store and stepping inside. You immediately spot your friend at one of the seats provided and sat down with a huff. You covered your face with your hands as you thought of Minho.

“This is too hard, remind me why am I even doing this? I should’ve just declined his offer yesterday. Why didn’t you stop me?” You asked as you looked up at him. “I should’ve just waited.”

He chuckles, sipping at his coffee as he smiles at you. “Do you ever stop drinking coffee?” You asked the boy in front of you as you snatched his americano and sipped on it.

“Honey, am I even Hwang Hyunjin if I don’t drink coffee?” The said boy asks with a chuckle escaping his lips. “Before, I knew Minho was in love with you, I really do know that. But yesterday? Stumbling all over the place? That was the first time I ever saw him like that for five years that we’ve been friends.”

You released a sigh, looking down as you returned his americano to him. “Why did I have to remember?” You mumble and Hyunjin’s eyes soften at your question. He remembers how miserable you were at Minho’s death. He remembers how much you cried because Minho can’t remember you. He remembers how much you love Minho. He remembers how much you’ve resisted for a whole damn year just to not get near him. But all failed when the happenings yesterday occured. “Why didn’t you stop me yesterday?”

“You’ve suffered enough for the whole year, Y/N.” Hyunjin softly says. “Those sleepless nights you went to me just to cry over Minho over and over again, it was really saddening as your friend. But seeing you with him after holding back? It was nice because you were genuinely happy once again. You were such a jolly person, but when you started to remember what actually happened, that was tough for you.” Hyunjin sees how your eyes got glassy due to the tears pooling in your eyes. “Besides, I needed a break from you.”

You pout and Hyunjin breaks in a laugh, you joined along soon anyway. Hyunjin was a great friend and you love how he always watched out for Minho. Hyunjin had his own share of problems with you as well and just like him, your shoulder was there for him.

“But you know what sucks?” Hyunjin asks as you both calm down. Hyunjin never told you, but you know it and he knows that you do.

“When Minho remembers and he realizes his sacrifice was for nothing.” You looked down as you said, chewing on your lower lip. And that’s what you have to do. Do everything to not let Minho remember even if it sucks. “And this was actually his punishment.”

“Can you?” Hyunjin softly asks and you look up, smiling at him as you nod. For him, you would. You sigh, shaking your head as you cover your face with your hands as you took in a deep breath and releasing it.

“Anyway,” you said as you dropped your hands to the table. You smile widely at Hyunjin. “Tell me how your day went.”

“Oh, no, no.” Hyunjin shakes his head as he smiles. “You tell me. How was the day?” Hyunjin asked with a grin like a best friend that was supportive of his friend like she got her first date... more like a mother, actually. “Tell me everything.”

You sigh, smiling as you thought about Minho, elbow resting on the table as you placed your jaw on your hand. “It was just exactly like our first date, Jinnie.”

three. — october ten.

Stubborn. Lee Minho is stubborn. You insisted for him to not to come with you shopping flowers for your grandmother, but Minho insisted more. So here you are, in the flower shop with Minho following around. Minho stops by the small white flowers on the side as you go to the counter. The flowers are really pretty, it reminded Minho of you for some reason. Minho looks at you as you as you talked to the florist on the counter.

Minho sees you nodding, smiling at the florist and then you turn around to look at the flowers, admiring all as you looked at their names. Minho looks back at the  white flowers, wanting to give you. Minho looks at the name of it, baby’s breath, “I wanna stay with you forever.”. Does he feel that way? All he knows is that he just wishes you arrived earlier and not 20 days before—

“Minho?”

Minho lightly jumps, turning around to look at you. “Yes, flower?”

You stop, looking at him. “What did you say?”

Flower. He always called you that. Does he remember?

Minho looks nervous, shrugging as he tries to look cool. “I just.. I was thinking—”

“Right, right.” You said, shaking your head as you walked past him. Minho looks at you, watching you as the sun rays cover your skin and you protectively hold the flower arrangement on your hands. It feels so right to call you that. Minho smiles lightly and taking a small stem of baby’s breath with three branches that blooms tiny flowers, looking at the florist who was just smiling at him.

“Take it for free. It’s just a stem.” He says and Minho bows with a big smile, saying thank you. Minho turns around chasing you.

“Hey, flower, wait up.” Minho calls and you stop, turning around to him. He gives you the stem of baby’s breath and only did he realizes that it was a bit... lame.  “I-I was going to give you a whole boquet but you.. you’re, um—”

“Do you know what the flower means?” You gently ask and Minho nods.

“I wanna stay with you forever, flower.” Minho says and you bite your lip, fighting off the smile that threatened to take over your face. You take in a deep breath, calming yourself from the giddiness you’re feeling. “This was stupid, I’m sorry—”

You take the stem, tiptoeing as you kiss his cheek. “Thank you, I appreciate it.” You turn around continuing to walk as you let the smile out that you can’t get rid of. Minho smiles gently, a chuckle escaping his lips as he tries to ignore the fast beating of his heart.

“Flower, you really got to stop making me chase you!”

four. — october fifteen.

Minho frowns as he watches you from afar. You pinch Hyunjin on his arm as Hyunjin squeals and laughs. What? When were the two of you friends? From what Minho remembers, it’s just you and him who became friends after that incident in the café. Hwang Hyunjin, back off! She’s mine. Minho looks at the side. Is he actually jealous? Minho, she’s not your girlfriend. Calm the fuck down. Minho shakes his head, a pout evident on his face as he makes his way towards you two.

“M-Minho!” Hyunjin calls, surprised—lowkey, nervous—as Minho looks at him with a pout. You turn around seeing the other reaper as he just looks at Hyunjin.

“W-When did the two of you become... friends?” Minho, what the fuck? You sound like you’re her fucking jealous possessive boyfriend. Minho was about to open his mouth, ready to take his words back when you spoke up.

“He was passing by and he thought he knew me. And I’m like, ‘Hey, you’re the dude with Minho in the café.’ and then that’s it.” You explained, lying through your teeth. “Turns out, he was talkative as I was.”

Hyunjin awkwardly smiles. Hyunjin was just thankful that grim reapers don’t have the power to read minds. Or else, you and him were doomed.

“Anyway, I gotta get going.” Hyunjin says and you nod, turning to him. “Min, see you later.” Hyunjin looks at you one last time as you look back at him and turns around as he makes his way to... wherever because frankly, he doesn’t know either.

You closed your eyes, breathing out the breath you held when you were lying. That was so fucking close. You opened your eyes, turning around to Minho with a wide smile on your face. “How are you?” You asked him.

“Fine.” Minho mumbles and you chew on your lower lip. But a smile comes up on your face as you watch him. Typical Minho. He was just the same as he was before when he gets jealous. The pout on his face was still evident. The pedestrian light turns green and you both start to walk. You walk closely beside by Minho as he started ahead of you, but your eyes were shifting on him, the ground, the road in front of you and... his hand.

As your hand was on the air around Minho’s you immediately halt your action as you remember that you shouldn’t. Minho would always forget it, tempted to hold your hand but thankfully, you have your own dumb excuses that he managed to believe.

When you reached the other side, you both turned to left to walk to your destination. God, you were so tempted to hold his hand. Wait... the rule was holding hands, palm to palm contact, right? So... it wouldn’t hurt if—

Minho stops (which makes you stop as well) as he looks down at his hand, your pinky curled with his. Minho looks at you as you nervously look at him, teeth chewing on your lower lip. How did Minho not think of this before?

Too nervous at his staring which was really hard to decipher up until now even though you’ve known him for half of your life, you uncurl your pinky from his to pull away—

Minho locks his pinky with yours quickly before you could even pull away and looks down as he starts to walk, leading the way as he left you a few steps behind. A grin takes over your face and you follow him. Minho, himself couldn’t hold the large grin that took over his face.

“Hey, good day?” Changbin who was ahead of Minho’s way says as his fellow reaper notices how unusually big his smile is. If Changbin recalls, Lee Minho never smiles. Minho only gives a nod and a soft expression of respect.

“A great one.” Minho answers as Changbin gives him a friendly pat on his shoulder. “Hope yours is, too.” Changbin smiles as Minho passes by him, his eyes following him and then he sees you, blushing madly which makes Changbin’s smile falter. Changbin looks at yours and Minho’s hand, pinkies linked and Changbin chuckles as he sees his intuitions were wrong.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Changbin mumbles to himself and he continues on his way.

Yeah, this is way better than hand holding.

five. — october seventeen.

You folded your arms on the table, chin resting on your arm as you frown. It’s raining hard today and that’s okay that Minho was held back because of it but it’s been an hour and half, and Minho would text you. You’ve shoot him texts but he hasn’t answered even once.

“Hey, Y/N,” the kind waiter, Felix who was also your friend greeted. “You okay?” He asks as he places a hand on your shoulder. You sat up straight, smiling at your friend.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me, Lix. I’m fine.” You say and Felix nods, not wanting to pry anymore. “Would it be okay if I stay a bit longer?” You ask and Felix chuckles, nodding.

“Until I close down, if you want.” Felix says and you grin at him.

“Thank you.” You smile and Felix nods as he walks off to entertain the customers. You turn around, looking at the door, praying that Minho would finally come. The bell above the door rings once again, but no, it still wasn’t Minho. Where is he? Not holding back anymore, you grabbed your phone and dialed his number, chewing on your lower lip in anticipation as you pressed your phone against your ear.

Minho turns around to the table as he hears his phone ring. He looks at Hyunjin who was sitting across him with a worried expression on his face. “Minho, just answer her.” Hyunjin gently urges, but Minho shakes his head as he grabs his phone and flips it over. “What did Chan tell you?”

Minho looks at his friend who quite distressed over the situation. “Enjoy the remaining days I have here.” Minho mumbles his answer as he looks at the ground.

“Everyone sees you’re enjoying. Changbin even mentioned to me how you were grinning so wide the other day when he ran into you.” Hyunjin says and Minho sighs, placing his hands on the table as he hangs his head low. “And why is that you’re enjoying?”

“Y/N,” Minho whispers.

“So what’s stopping you?” Hyunjin asks.

“Fucking dammnit, Hyunjin!” Minho snaps, pushing the chair in front of him to the side. The reaper in front Minho freezes, surprised at how he reacted. Minho really does love you, huh. Hyunjin remembers, this was not the first time Minho has snapped at him. But Minho doesn’t remember. “Don’t you fucking get it? At first, I feel bad for her because she’s so young and she has to die. I’m the one who is assigned to fetch her so we can go up together.” Hyunjin only watches Minho, not able to say anything. “But now, I want to do something. I don’t want to go up yet. I don’t want her to, either. I want to spend more time with her. I’m not ready to let her go. Too fast, I know, but—” Minho cuts himself as he looks at Hyunjin with a pained look on his face.

If only Minho knows, it’s not too fast. It is too early. Hyunjin felt sad for his two friends, he couldn’t do anything for them.

“What do I do, Jinnie?” Minho asks. “It’s not like I can take her place and die again.”

Hyunjin sighs, smiling up at him. “Exactly, Minho.” He says. “You can’t do anything about it and you have to accept that.” Hyunjin says and breathes out. “Go to her, spend the reamaining time you have together.”

Minho licks his lips. Hyunjin’s right, what the hell is Minho doing? Minho shouldn’t have dwell about the short time that was given to them. At least, they were given time. This was better than just a few hours. This was better than nothing.

Minho takes his phone, stuffing it inside his pocket and walking to the coat rack to get his coat and umbrella. Without a word, Minho opens the door and his umbrella. He starts to walk to the café where you both first met. Minho finally arrives and he closes his umbrella as soon as he got under the roof. He pushes the door open with a smile and steps inside. But that smile quickly falters when he sees you at a corner with someone else, laughing like you were the happiest at the very moment.

Minho pulls his lips into a thin line, turning around to leave the café with a heavy heart. Hyunjin was right. You should spend your time with someone important to you. Minho was just someone who you met two weeks ago who spilled your coffee to you because he was being a ditz. You deserve someone who you’ve known your whole life.

“So, why were you here all alone?” Jisung asks.

Jisung has been your best friend ever since you entered college. He was the reason why you met Minho and Jisung was the one who you’d go to whenever you feel like talking about Minho.

“Uh,” you trailed off, chuckling. “I got stood up.”

“Oh?” Jisung asks. “Like... date?” You nod and Jisung’s expression remains surprised. “I... I’m proud of you, Y/N. After what happened with Minho, you’ve been miserable and—is it alright to talk about him?”

“Of course!” You said, shaking your head. “Continue where you left off.”

“Are you sure?” Jisung asks and you nod. “How have you been since Minho’s accident?” How have you been? Miserable, as fuck. Especially now since you’ve made the mistake of being close to him again. Oh, yeah, and, uh, dying on the 25th of October.

“Good.” You answered. Minho’s back to your life, except he doesn’t remember you at all. “It’s been hard without him, but great.” You trailed off, feeling your voice waver. Jisung notices, of course.

“Let’s not talk about it.” Jisung says as he looks down. You took a deep breath, smiling at your best friend.

“I love that you caught me here, but I have to go, Ji.” You say and Jisung nods, fully understanding you. But no, he doesn’t understand what’s been happening lately, and you don’t plan on telling him. “Bye, Ji. Take care. Let’s do it again some time.”

“Take care, Y/N.” Jisung says and you stand up, taking your umbrella with you as you finally go home.

It’s been a bad day today. But you wish, Minho just told you why he stood you up.

six. — october twenty-four.

Minho hears muffled giggles as he stands in front of your apartment. “Jeongin, stop! I will fucking throw you out of the window, I swear.” Your giggles were loud, making Minho’s heart swell. It hurt. You’re so happy today, not knowing tomorrow you won’t be here anymore.

“Do it, I dare you!” A boy answered with laughter. “Is that what aunty and uncle taught you how to treat your younger cousin?” You only answered with laughter. “Hey, it’s almost seven. I should be going.”

“Right,” you said as you walked through the apartment. “Do you want me to walk you to the lobby?”

Then, the door opens. Minho’s eyes widen as he came face-to-face with your younger cousin. Jeongin was about to smirk when he realized the man in front of him was oddly familiar. Minho bows in respect and Jeongin does the same but with little reluctance. He was so familiar.

“Hey, uh, you don’t need to.” Jeongin calls as he turns away from Minho. “You got a visitor, by the way.”

“Oh? Who is it?” You ask from your room and Jeongin faces Minho again, gesturing for his name.

“Minho.” The said boy says and Jeongin smiles.

“Jeongin.” The younger says as he holds his hand out to him. Minho almost grabs Jeongin’s hand when he remembers. Sigh, Minho. To the hundredth power. Minho lowers his hand as he tries to look for a stupid excuse.

“My hand isn’t really clean right now since I... uh, played with a stray cat along the way.” Well, Minho wasn’t really lying. Jeongin chuckles, nodding as he lowers his hand.

“It’s Minho, Y/N.” Jeongin calls and a thud erupts, Jeongin laughing immediately as he shakes his head. “Come in, sit by the couch.” Jeongin instructs for Minho and he follows. Jeongin walks inside your room, ready to tease you on how excited you are until his eye catches your Minho’s picture at your desk. Jeongin frowns and he looks at you as you got the picture frame and hid it in one of your drawers. “Y/N.”

“Yeah, Innie?” You said, not facing him as you fixed the mess that you made on your desk in a way that looks like you’re panicking. Jeongin sees your hands visibly shaking as you paused for a moment, looking at your desk thinking of what to do.

“M-Minho.” Jeongin says. “That Minho looks like your Minho and they have the same name. H-How did you even know him?”

“Long story,” you said and you breathed in as you turned around with a smile. “A bit insane, huh?”

“Creepy, yeah.” Jeongin answers and you laugh lightly. “Does he know about your Minho?”

You shake your head, laughing lightly. “Come on, Innie. He... He doesn’t have to know everything. He’s just a friend.” You say and Jeongin nods. He shakes his head and you smile. “Take care. Tell your mom and dad I said hi, okay?”

“Yeah.” Jeongin says and you walk him out to your door. “Bye, Y/N.”

“Sure you don’t want me to—”

“Y/N! I’m not a baby.” Jeongin laughs in an exasperated way. You laugh, opening the door for him. Jeongin then turns to Minho, bowing at him lightly and he finally goes out of your apartment. “Have fun, Y/N. But not too much!”

“Shut up!” You laugh and Jeongin kisses your forehead. Your cousin finally leaves and you close your door. You take a deep breath, facing Minho who was already walking towards you. “What brings you here?” You ask him as you lean back at the door.

Minho stops at a distance, looking everywhere but at you. “I... I’m sorry I stood you up the other day. I was feeling—”

“It’s okay.” You said, nodding. You know what’s really up. Hyunjin told you everything and you forgive him. But something in you right now doesn’t want to be around him. “Is that all?”

“Remember what you told me in the playground?” Minho asks, his voice small as he feels so nervous right in front of you just like the first day you both met. “That we should do everything even though we’re reluctant of it?”

“What about it?” You ask and Minho takes in a deep breath.

“I love you, flower.”

Your head snaps up, looking at him. Did he just..?

“I know, too fast, but...” Minho trails off as he tries to look for the right words. “Something just keeps on gravitating me towards you, flower. I... It never felt like I was getting to know you. It felt like I was remembering you. It sounds insane and I just—”

“I love you, too.” You answered which left Minho speechless. Minho felt he was insane—you two are insane, but Minho doesn’t care. You do crazy things when you’re in love (Hercules and Meg were right). “Always have, always will.”

Minho marched up to you, cupping your cheeks and pressing his lips against yours. You were taken aback, but oh, it felt so good to taste his lips again. You kissed back, holding on to his wrists as you felt your knees weaken. Minho pulls away, looking into your eyes as you opened them.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Minho mumbles and you shake your head. “Flower, listen, I’m—”

“Minho,” you cut him off, thumbs running circles against his wrists. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Don’t tell me anything right now. Please, just... whatever you have to tell me, don’t.”

“But, flower, you don’t understand.” Minho says. “You’d hate me once you find out.”

“I won’t.” You whispered, assuring him. How could you? You close his wrists together, hands wrapping around his closed ones. “I could never hate you. I love you, too much. More than anything.”

“Y/N, flower,”

"Trust me, my love. Never.” You whisper and Minho pulls his hands away from your, wrapping his arms around your waist as he pulls you impossibly closer, resting his chin on your shoulder.

Minho’s heart remembers you and that’s more than enough for you.

seven. — october twenty-five.

Minho has his hands shoved inside his pocket as he waits for the bus with you. You were to visit your parents tonight and even though Minho knows what is bound to happen, he still couldn’t help but grow anxious.

“You okay?” You ask as you lightly nudge him by the arm. Minho nods, forcing a smile to you. You know it, it was a fake one. Should you just tell him? No, telling him would make things even worse. “Promise?” You ask and Minho just nods, pulling his hands out of his pockets and pulling you into an embrace. You giggle, wrapping your arms around him.

“I love you, flower.” Minho mumbles and you pat his back, mumbling those three words back to him. Then you see the empty bus, coming your way. Your heart grows heavy and you move, pulling away from Minho. You hold him at arm length, smiling widely at him.

“Whatever happens is not your fault, okay?” You say and Minho grows confused. But Minho nods, anyway. The bus finally reaches you, stoppping in front of you. You breathe in, smiling at Minho. “Bye, Min. I’ll see you.”

Literally and figuratively.

Minho pulls you back by your wrist, cupping your cheeks as he presses his lips against your lips. You kiss back, lips dancing together as you wrap your arms around his torso. Minho pulls away, pursing his lips as he forces a smile again. “I love you.” Minho mumbles.

“I love you, too.” You answered. “So much. And I’m so thankful you came back.” You pull away, walking off to climb the bus. Minho was even more confused at your words as he watches your back.

The bus starts to move and you turn your back to him, instead of looking. Minho looks at the ground, frowning as he waits for the sound of the crash. He has to accept it, he has to accept that it was the only time given for you two. Minho clenches his fists as if trying to hold back.

But this is you. He doesn’t hold back when it comes to you.

So, Minho breaks into a run, chasing your bus. He wasn’t a fast runner, everyone knows that. But how the hell did he managed to catch up with the bus? Simple, you. Minho slams his fist thrice at the side of the bus, signalling the driver to stop. Minho slows down as the bus does, running inside and face you as he grabs your wrist to pull you out of the bus.

“Minho, what are you doing?” You say, but Minho stays silent, dragging you out of the bus. Minho drops your wrist as he manages to drag you away form the bus. You look around and slowly, time stopped.

Minho, not aware that you were able to move, pulls you into his arms hugging you and not wanting to let go. Minho takes in a deep breath, tightening his grip. You pull away, looking at Minho and sighing. Minho’s eyes widen.

“H-How could you..?”

“Minho, stop it!” You raised your voice as you glared at him. “Don’t you understand that we can’t do anything about it anymore?” Your tears started to stream down your face as you kept on speaking. “Please, I’m going back to the bus. Don’t stop it. This was meant to happen.”

You sigh, wiping your tears off and turning around to go back to the bus. But Minho was stubborn. He looks at your hand and grabs it, making sure to have a palm to palm contact, pulling you again and everything finally comes to him.

Minho shoves the envelope against Hyunjin’s chest as he read the details. “Not a good joke, Hyunjin.” Minho says and he shoves past Hyunjin as he looks at the envelope.

“Minho, I... you’ve been a great friend to me.” Hyunjin says as he turns around to look at Minho who only had his back turned to him. “I just thought... you deserve to know.”

Minho turns around, shaking his head. “What can we do?” He asks, tears welling up in his eyes as he looks at Hyunjin with hopeful eyes.

“Nothing, Minho. There’s nothing—”

“Well, we have to do something!” Minho raises his voice and Hyunjin winces at it. Minho never does that. He’s a happy person who never gets mad. “Hyunjin, that’s my fucking girlfriend. Dying on my fucking birthday.”

Hyunjin sighs, feeling bad for he can’t do anything. “Minho, time will freeze if you try to stop her from riding that bus. We can’t do anything. I’m so sorry.” Hyunjin says but Minho is stubborn. He will do everything just for you.

(Full Name), October 25, 8:37 pm. Cause of death: truck ran into her bus.

Minho looks at his watch. He still has exactly an hour to do something. Minho passes by Hyunjin, runnning his way to the station where you would be. Hyunjin could do nothing but sigh at his friend, following slowly.

Panting, Minho arrives at the bus stop. He sees you with a paper bag on your hand, earphones plugged in your ears as you wait for the bus. Suddenly, a bus stops in front of you and Minho runs to you, and before you could step on the steps of the bus, Minho grabs your wrist, pulling you back.

“Minho!” You exclaimed when you see him. “I was just about to go to your apartment, what are you doing here?”

Minho looks at you, panting and you look at him. “Baby, what’s wrong?” You ask as you grab his hands. “Baby, what happened?”

“N-Nothing, can we just walk the way to my apartment?” Minho asks and you frown, looking at the bus. “Please, flower, for me?”

“Okay, but when we get to your apartment, you tell me everything?” You asked and Minho nods. “Promise—” You stopped moving, offering him your pinky halfway in between your bodies. Minho looks around, seeing everyone has stopped moving just like what Hyunjin said. Minho grabs your other wirst to look at your watch, looking at the time but it has stopped. He looks around, tears pooling in his eyes. He lets out a quiet sob, hugging you tightly as he places a gentle kiss on your forehead.

You have so many things you want to do, especially with Minho. He only wanted for you to reach those dreams because it would make you happy. But how would you if you’re gonna ride this bus? An idea pops in Minho’s mind and it makes him hug you even tighter. Minho sighs, peppering kisses all over your face. MInho slowly lets go, looking at you.

“I love you, flower.” Minho mumbles, kissing your lips one last time. Minho looks at the bus, walking towards the entrance as he stands by the entrance, looking at you. Minho closes his eyes, repeating “Please, work.” phrase over and over again. Minho suddenly feels the bus moving and he opens his eyes, looking at you.

You blinked twice, looking around for Minho. Then you see him on the bus, he smiles at you, waving and you grow confused.

Hyunjin, who followed Minho was on the corner, watching the scene unfold right in front of his eyes. Hyunjin immediately fishes his pocket, pulling the letter out. It was still your name on it, but you were at the side watching. Hyunjin hears a crash and suddenly your name was changed to Lee Minho.

Hyunjin looks up, the bus laid on its side as the truck collided with it. Hyunjin turns his gaze to you, hands covering your mouth as you were unable to move. And that was when Minho’s punishment started.

You pull your hand away, looking at Minho. “No, no, no, no.” Minho mumbles, looking at you. “This isn’t...” Minho trails off, you come forward cupping his cheeks and you shake your head, closing your eyes. Minho rests his forehead against yours and you draw circles on his cheeks with your thumb.

“Flower, I..” Minho mumbles and you shake your head, bringing his lips forward to yours. Minho kisses back, pulling you impossibly closer by your waist. You pull away, Minho hugging you by your waist as he rests his chin on your shoulder. You let out a shaky breath, pressing your lips against his cheek. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I couldn’t do anything to stop this.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s supposed to happen.” You mumble gently as you try to soothe Minho which was quite successful as he closes his eyes. “You did everything you could, alright?”

“But you had your dreams, you have a lot going on, wanted to do things you never did.” Minho says and you sigh, pulling away. You smile at him, wiping Minho’s tears off.

“And so did you.” You said and you sighed. “But, baby, this is what’s suppose to happen last year. Next life, we still have each other, right?”

Minho’s hands come up to your wrists, mumbling, “I don’t want to forget you again, flower.” And you sighed, smiling up at him.

“Minho, you didn’t.” You said. “You forgot your memories, but you kept on gravitating towards me. We’ll find each other again, I know it.” Minho sighs, bringing his hands down, arms cricling around your waist as he buries his face in your neck.

“I love you.” Minho mumbles and you wraps your arms around his shoulders, leaning your cheek against his head.

“I love you more.” You mumble and Minho pulls away, grabbing your hands and lifting them up to press his lips against your knuckles. You slowly pull away, cupping his cheeks, tilting his head to kiss the top of his head.

Then, you pull away from his touch as you walk towards the bus, climbed up and everything started to move.

a little ways down the road (or maybe longer).

Seungmin grumbled as he looked at you who was walking towards him in the office. “Just because you’re the boss’ favorite, doesn’t mean you can come in late.” Seungmin glared at you as you kept walking towards your desk which was beside his. Clumsily enough, you pulled your swivel chair out and placed your bag down on it. Seungmin started to grumble things out about being always late and having to cover your ass out from the snotty assistant of your boss. Having enough of it, you hand a cup of coffee out to Seungmin who brightly grins as he takes it. “You’re the best.”

You chuckle lightly, sitting on your chair as you begin to work on the paperworks that has been dumped on your desk way before you arrived.

“By the way, Y/N,” Seungmin calls and you look at him. “Boss gave us the half day, he’s going out later to spend the rest of the day with his mother who arrived from.. somewhere.”

“Oh, nice.” You mumbled. “That reminds me as well, I have to pick up flowers for my dad.”

Seungmin looks at his phone then back to you. “Happy anniversary to your parents.” Seungmin says and you mumble a small thank you as you look at your papers but your mind somewhere else. What flowers should you get this time? When your mother and father were on their boyfriend and girlfriend stage, your father would always plan something for the anniversaries until it became a tradition for them. And when you were born and would always admire flowers, your dad suddenly asked you if you could always be in charge of the flower boquet that he would give to your mother since he quite sucks at that part.

“Seung?” You call and Seungmin looks at you with a smile. “What flowers should I get this time?”

Seungmin turns to you, smiling. “What’d you get them last year?”

“Daisies.” You said and Seungmin nodded, thinking of what you should get.

“Roses?”

“Too common.”

“Sunflowers?”

“Got those last two years ago.”

“Tulips?”

“Um, no, I’m not feeling it.”

“Baby’s breath?”

Your head snaps up at the mention of the said flower, looking at Seungmin. Why.. did your heart suddenly felt.. heavy? You breathe in, lightly patting your chest, above your heart as you sit up straight. “What does it mean again? The flower.” You ask as you start working again, ignoring the heaviness that suddenly settled in your heart.

“I wanna stay with you forever, I think.” Seungmin says and you nod.

“Thanks.” You say.

“Sure.” Seungmin says as he goes back to his own work. You eye Seungmin who pokes his tongue out to you playfully, making you laugh lightly. And just like that, time passed by like a blink of an eye and here you are, fixing your things to finally go. When you’re done, you and Seungmin walk side by side until the exit of the building.

“Hey, Y/N, I have to go now. I have something to take care of.” Seungmin says and you nod with a smile.

“Take care, Seung.” You lightly smile and he gives you a grin as he takes the other way. You walk to the opposite direction, the bus stop to wait for a bus that would take you to the flower shop.

You sigh, looking around as you didn’t see that much people around. It was probably like this around this time, people being busy with either school or work. And you honestly kinda like it since it’s not crowded, but it feels like a ghost town.

Finally, a bus stops. Two or three people climbs down and you climb up, walking down the aisle as you want to be seated by the center. On the process of walking down to your designated seat, you lock eyes with a stranger and there it was again—the heaviness in your heart. You ignore it, continuing down the aisle as you finally get to your seat, getting comfortable on it.

Unlike any other day that you would ride a bus, you sa by the aisle looking at the stranger whom you locked eyes with. He was a stranger, but he felt familiar. And your heart never grew heavy like this. It would always get heavy at randome things, baby’s breath—just like Seungmin mentioned earlier—, cats, coffee, random people that you woul catch linking pinkies together, name it. But this one felt the heaviest.

You immediately moved to the window seat as you see his head turning around, but you were positive he caught you. Whatever. It’s ot like you two would see each other again anyway. You sigh, your eyes looking at the other side’s window and you see a long-haired man sitting on the side of your seat with a gentle smile who had a cup of coffee on his hand. He shakes his head, smiling as he clears his throat. “Is that your handkerchief?” He says as he points by your foot.

“No, not mine.” You awkwardly say, the shyness in your voice could not be hidden as your cheeks started to go light red. God, you were not good with interacting with strangers.

The man nods, standing up as he feels the bus stop. “Bye, Y/N. Take care.” He says with a smile as he walks down the aisle, not waiting or your reply. You watch him as he climbs out of the bus, meeting with a friend who was slightly shorter than him who has the same black trench coat as him.

“You, too.” You mumble and the bus finally moves. Soon, the man who knows your name gets off of your mind and you sit there at the bus with your earphones plugged in your ears as you watched the buildings that you pass by and soon, your stop comes. You stand up, keeping your phone and earphones in side your bag as you feel the bus stop. When it fully stops, you walk down the aisle and slow down as a lot was coming off.

Slowly, your head turns around to where the stranger you locked eyes with was seated but he wasn’t there anymore. You sigh, turning your head in front of you as you climb out of the bus and walk straight to the corner of the flower shop.

“Hi, Y/N,” the owner of the shop, Felix greets with a sunshine-like smile. “As expected, every year. So, what flower do you have in mind?”

Felix was your friend from college whom you met through Seungmin since they had another mutual friend. Felix was the boy who was an absolute sunshine to everyone, smiling at you even if he doesn’t know you. And you just absolutely love him.

“Um, baby’s breath. What do you think?” You ask.

Felix hums in approval. “I’ve been waiting for that name to get out of your lips for years.” Felix says as he gets ready to arrange your flowers.

“Why didn’t you just suggest it to me?” You ask with a laugh.

“Because that would be cheating, Y/N.” Jisung, Felix’s co-owner and his best friend says as he walks out of the room at the back with a watering can on his hand, walking past you to go around and water the plants. “We had a bet about it and I lost.”

Felix grins as he keeps working on the boquet. “We always have a bet on what flower are you gonna get every year.” Felix informs you and you chuckle, shaking your head. These two dorks, I swear.

“And he always, always bets on baby’s breath.” Jisung says as he looks at you with a shrug. You chuckle, looking at Felix.

“Why baby’s breath?” You asked and Felix shrugged.

“Don’t you remember your dreams, Y/N?” Felix asks and you raise an eyebrow at him. “Remember when we were together at the library and you fell asleep when you were supposed to help me?”

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” You laugh.

Felix laughs as well, shaking his head. “Not the point, Y/N.” Felix smiles as he holds the flower up, fixing some fallen flowers or branch or something. “I heard you mumbling in your sleep ‘I wanna stay with you forver, too.’ and then when you woke up you told me that you were holding a stem that had small white flowers on them but you couldn’t remember why.”

You tilted your head, trying to remember. But that’s weird. Why would you dream about it? You’d always forget that flower exists until Seungmin mentioned it today. What was it with that flower? Why did your heart grow heavy at the mention of the flower earlier?

“Here you go.” Felix says with a smile and you take the small boquet in your hands. You pay Felix and when you hear the sound of the cashier, you wave at Felix.

“Thank you, always.” You say. “Bye, Lix. Bye, Hanji.”

“Bye.” They both said with a smile and you turned around to exit the shop. Felix watches you through the glass panel and when you came out of sight, he turns to Jisung with a smirk.

“Where’s my 20, loser?”

It was beautiful. The tiny white flowers that bloomed made you smile as you just watch the whole time you were riding the bus and it honestly made you almost miss your stop. You went to your parent’s house, giving your dad the boquet he asked you for. With a kiss on his cheek and and I love you that was said by both, you went off to go back to go to your apartment, wanting to sleep the day away since you don’t have to wake up early tomorrow morning since it’s your day off.

You came home to your cat sleeping at the top of your bookshelf and you couldn’t help but chuckle. He would always pick the most uncomfortable places to sleep on. But hey, who were you to judge? You’re not a cat.

Yes, even though cats made your heart heavy, it didn’t stop you from getting one. You just love them so much and you always wanted one ever since you were a kid.

If one was to see what you would always do with your cat, they would assume that you probably planned your life living it alone already. I mean, come on, you’d always cuddle your cat, tell him about your problems and worries and especially about your heart growing heavy at most random times, and if you were being completely honest, you’d dance with him sometimes—but that’s a secret—but honestly, you just treat your cat as if it was your child.

So, here you are again.

“Hey,” you said as you move around to fix yourself. “I saw this stranger at the bus and we stared at each other. It was nothing, but I can’t shake the feeling that I know him from somewhere.” You said as you collapse on your couch. “And then another guy knows my name who smiled at me but I don’t know his name.” You said. You were honestly bothered. Who the hell was he? You sigh, biting your lower lip as you look at the ground. “But the first guy, he looks like someone, he’s so familiar. I just can’t name who the hell looks like him.”

Your soulmate, most likely. He looks like your soulmate but that was the last thing in your mind.

“So, Felix and Jisung would always bet on me every year on what flower I would request.” You say as you sip on your coffee. Seungmin across you just laughed, shaking his head at your two friends. “Did you know? Is that why you suggested baby’s breath?”

Seungmin shakes his head. “You just look like a baby’s breath person. Plus, it wasn’t the first suggestion.” Seungmin said and you nodded, shrugging. “Felix told me years ago you had a dream about—”

“Yeah, he told me yesterday.” You said with a smile.

Seungmin is your best friend. Ever since college, he was your ride or die. He loves to tease you, but when others do it, they better run away.

“So what did you do yesterday?” Seungmin asks.

“Not much. Just the flowers and then I went home and go sleep.” You said and Seungmin nodded. “How about you? Where’d you go yesterday?”

“You know my friend, Jeongin, the one who was still in college?” Seungmin asks and you nod. “He called me yesterday because he said he had an emergency. And when I went there yesterday he said it was all fixed and since I was there already, I chould hang for a bit.”

You laugh lightly. “He must be missing you.”

Seungmin looks at his phone and sees the time. “I should get going, I promised him yesterday I would help him with his papers.” Seungmin says as he stands up. “How about you?”

“I’ll walk out with you. I just came here because I had nothing to do, so now, I’ll be going back to my apartment.” You say as you fix your clothes, dusting non-existent dust off and when you’re satisfied, you grabbed your coffee. You move to the edge of the seat, standing up and sharply turning, coliding with someone’s chest. The person takes a step backwards as your coffee spill all over the person. You look at him with wide eyes as his eyes were down on his clothes, a small frown on his lips.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” You mumble.

“It’s fine.” He mumbles and you palm your pocket to see if you have a handkerchief, but no you don’t. So you look for table napkins but it looks like you ran out of. So, you looked at Seungmin who was looking at you as you looked at his hand. Bingo. You snatched his handkerchief off and turn around to the poor stranger you accidentally poured coffee all over at as you placed  the empty cup on the table.

You lightly dab on his torso, frowning ligthly as you continue your work. You gently grab his hand cleaning the spilled coffee off. You let his hand go, unfolding the handkerchief as you flipped on the clean part.

And then you stopped.

Dude, what were you doing?

You sigh, feeling the redness on your cheeks spreading. Suddenly, you feel something on your back pocket being pulled out and you looked at Seungmin who just holds your handkerchief out. Oh. There it was. You grabbed it and held it out to the stranger.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized. “I was panicking and I didn’t know what to do.”

“it’s alright.” He says with a light laugh as he takes the handkerchief, mumbling a thanks. He cleans the rest and with a smile he folds the hankderchief. “I would give this back, but..” He shrugs, gesturing on the handkerchief being unclean.

“No, it’s okay!” You said. “My apartment’s just nearby, maybe I can give you some spare shirt.”

He just looks at you with an unknown look as if he was studying you. “I���m sorry, you look very familiar. Have we met before?” He asks and you shake your head, looking at him. Oh! He’s the guy in the bus yesterday.

“I think I rode a bus with you yesterday.” You said and he laughed lightly, nodding.

“Yes, but not that.” He says with a light smile. “I just think, this happened before.” He mumbles and you nod. You feel it, too. It was all too familiar. Did this happen before? Have you two met but just can’t remember? But why won’t you remember?

“it does feel like this happened already.” You said with a soft smile. But deep down inside you, you know where it happened, you just haven’t been into that much thought yet.

“I’m Y/N, by the way.” You smile, holding your hand out to him.

“Minho.” He says with a smile, placing his hands in yours as he shakes them. You don’t know if it’s just the way he holds it or maybe his hand really does fit with yours like a puzzle hugging it’s piece.

For the first time, your heart felt joy not heaviness.

[hey-hamlet]

*slides in on socks* hey can we hear more abt that bnha cult au, the one where bc mido is quirkless and the cult town thinks hes better for it

So I’m probably going to be too lazy to actually write that as a full fic, so lemme go find my brainstorming and yeet it here for you all! Under a read more bc this is long and messy.

The whole fic takes place over either 1 or 1.5 months

Quirks = route of evil, those without powers are closest to the divine's intentions and anything subverting them from that should be expunged. Closer to normal you look = purer you are. Izuku is considered near gold standard excluding his green hair

2000 people in the town - 82 are quirkless (marked with a band - where? Wrist, neck or?)

Global quirkless pop = 20% but japan is 5%, much much lower in Izuku's generation, movement has been around since the dawn of quirks - infanticide

100 people statistically would make sense but rate of quirkless births vs quirkless people is very different as many die due to poor patient care

Some members of the town are the grieving parents of people who's quirkless children were killed as doctors didn't listen to them - some of the first people izuku meet

"Hizashi's family" Invite izuku over - they aren't related, it's part of a plot where they look at quirk records to invite the quirkless to join. Those who do not are disposed of in the woods.

The quirkless are treated like royalty, free food + other stuff

Anyone not on board is killed - settlement is new but buildings are old - the prior town was chased out/killed to make room for the cult. They used to meet in normal churches but quirkless supporting cults were cracked down on so they relocated into the woods by taking over a town

Start the fic w izuku getting off the train, Town is called Rishi, based the town off Nanmoku

Mum: Miyatani Haiyu Dad: Miyatani Juzou Daughter: Miyatani Kei

Need a very secretive, insular vibe - the place has no wifi, a church radio station and a townhall

Timeline

Arival Bakugo and Izuku take the train, Bakugo is there bc his mother told him to go: Inko was worried about sending Izuku off alone so she offered up bakugo to play guard dog. Bakugo is pissed. 

Bakugo will have a blow up about being there pretty early, izuku will try and soothe him which will only make him angrier. Is shinsou there? 

Shinsou is coming as well, but later > originally going to meet up w izuku for the first time (shitty foster parents) but wants to shield him from bakugo. Izuku just wants to sleep.

Golden band for the quirkless (ribbon?) “in our town we value good fashioned hard work so we like to give back to the quirkless, this little band lets everyone know the folks we should give a little more to”

Look around town, Izuku alone (shinsou there tomorrow >> all three staying at an inn)

Meet the family, bakugo pissed right off and they talk some smack about him while izuku flounders. “bet he’s got some flashy quirk, huh? Seems like the type. Makes me sick, thinkin they're better just cause they’re -”

Bakugo goes straight to his room to be a piss baby, izuku looks around. They are setting up for a festival. A group of kids teases another with a visible mutation, she cries, izuku tells the kids off and they scatter, she says some concerning stuff izuku is concerned. 

Izuku eats dinner w the family, they talk about how they think he’s gonna like it there, the little kid is cute.

Shinsou rolls into town, they go for a hike, its pretty chill - they have a picnic n shit they have dinner w the family 

Back to room (share one), izuku fiddling w the radio to find mic’s show, find the town’s own radio, they listen: something about  someone being brought into the fold, visitors in town to be treated kindly, a reminder of a church service that week “Hold fast to your faith, the world may slip a little further each day but we shall fight together to bring our faith outwards and bring purity back to the world” 

“Wow that was weird” “Wanna do some research?” “Fuck, sure.” 

They run into bakugo at breakfast, izuku mentions the show and bakugo kinda nods, “you heard it too?” “yeah. Fuckin weird” “We were gonna do some digging -” “Fuck off, I don’t need you two messing with my shit, I’ll look into myself.” “That was almost polite for Bakugo, huh?” 

Maybe timeskip to end of week? 

With the family, doing arts craft with the daughter. Shinso is sleeping off a migraine. They mention church vaguely in the background and Izuku tries to look like he's not listening in.

The daughter brings it up to izuku and the family chuckle and say he’s free to come if he wants but there is no need to rush him.

They eat lunch, the family kinda advertise the town to him, talk about the nice quirkless girl down the street his age, how rare it is for quirkless people to be born in this generation. Izuku vaguely thinks about how nice it would be to live there

Church that night, izuku looks in on shinsou to see he's still sleeping in the dark, goes to bakugo “look i know i’m sorry but they’re having church tonight and i know you were a little interested and i was gonna go anyway -” “I’m coming with because otherwise you’ll be useless.” They decide to sneak around to listen “I was kinda -” “yeah, sure” “wait but -” “oh fuck off, it rubbed me the wrong way too. The weirdos might talk different if they know we’re there.”

Bakugo throws a darker jacket at Izuku, he slips on a beanie and they head out into the woods, walking through to reach the back of the church. They wait 20 minutes after it was supposed to start and creep out, they listen in. 

“We will purge the impure our streets, we will stop this blight and, we will enact god's wrath and spare the pure, letting relieve the purity of the past. We will strike them down in his name, let them know we are his wolves let loose upon the blinded sheep.” 

Bakugo grabs izuku’s arm, they are both pale. They go to run, and a metal sheet falls down. The preacher goes quiet and someone a few people stand and the two of them book it as fast as they can.

They get back to the inn and have a minor freak out, they wake up shinso and they are like “oh shit, oh fuck.” they decide they need proof bc the pros will never listen to them, they become baby detectives 

Bakugo going off at izuku and having the shit scared out of him by a local, izuku steps in and the local backs down instantly, all smiles

One part of the story involves them running through the festival, changing clothes and masks as much as the can to escape the people chasing them.

The cult have a gas that is toxic to anyone with the quirk factor and intend to release it all across japan, starting with their own town. The climax of the story see’s Izuku going it alone through the facility, dead and dying bodies around him, looking out for any quirkless members that will stop him as he tries to find the locations of the canisters containing the gas. 

Aizawa and Nighteye are in the town as well, Bakugo and Shinsou run to them crying ab how Izuku is all alone and they think he’s going to die and oh god they can’t even help him - 

The dumb comedy throughline in this AU is Aizawa and Nighteye have to fake having crushes on each other to explain why they are hanging out so much in secluded areas. They both hate this very much. 

Izuku, who recognized the two heroes On Sight, is having a minor crisis about them both being here and apparently getting handsy behind a 7/11.

[milkacchan]

Request for anon: Can I have aizawa dating (without knowing) one of his student's (you can chose) older sister? Thank you and stay hydrated! 💗

• It was Bakugous sister.

• He honestly didn't even make the fucking connection. He's just tired.

• You have brown hair, Katsuki has blonde hair. You curse a lot but have a much better control with your temper and youre not as hot headed.

• he didn't connect the resemblance either until he see's you too in the same room

• and he doesn't like bringing work home- especially when he gets to see you

• which isn't as often as he'd like it to be

• so he won't talk about it

• so you wouldn't know that he taught your brother

• he'll say his day was frustrating or it was good and then the subject would be changed

• Your family would know you're seriously dating /someone/

• but they wouldn't know who.

• your dad would know more than your mom would- you're closer with him

• Katsuki would also know youre dating someone, he doesn't know who, and he pretends not to care but he's annoyed he hasn't met them

• he doesn't know what they're like. They could be an asshole- he wouldn't know.

• your relationship with Katsuki is weird.

• some times he's decent- and yall act like normal siblings

• and then sometimes the two of you ignore eachother for months

• which is ridiculous because youre 26 and he's 17.

• you think he has some animosity for leaving the house and leaving him to be the only child there

• now his parents are down his back

• he might also be upset that you disciplined him a lot

• but you also comforted him when he needed it

• regardless he'll still show up at your apartment when he's fought with mom

• or he 'got bored' aka he missed you but he's not gonna say that

• if he didn't feel like spending the night in the dorms, he'd crash at your place.

• Back to the point- they don't know much.

• it's completely unknown to everyone that you're dating your brothers teacher.

• Aizawa is patient. He's so patient.

• you've been hesitant on him meeting your family (though you've been together for what- a year? Year and a half?) Because well...your family is your family.

• you don't want him to dip

• you're utterly in love with this man and you'd be htterly devastated if he left

• and honestly? He's content with how it is now.

• Him occasionally spending the night(s) ((weeks)) at your apartment, leaving work out of conversations and just enjoying company.

• you dont have to go too fast- its fine how it is now.

• he loves you and that's really all that matters to him.

• but one day, you do decide its time for him to meet them.

• it's over winter break- it's December, not long before Christmas, he'd be spending it with you this year and he should meet your family before hand.

• You guys decided breakfast was an appropriate time.

• So there you are, sitting in bed with your greasy gremlin of a man

• he's got a hand in your hair, the other on the bed on the other side of your head to hold him up.

• you were under him, licking the inside of his mouth

• that's as far as you two had gotten before there was a knock on the door.

• you looked towards the clock as he let out a small groan.

• forgive him, it'd been a solid 2 weeks since he'd seen you last and he missed every part of you.

• it was late, around 11:30, none the less you got up, pressing another kiss to his lips "I'll be back in a minute babe,"

• and off you go to answer the door

• and when you do answer you see Katsuki standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, looking very upset.

"Katsu?"

"I got into a fight with mom. Can I sleep here tonight?"

You nod, "yeah yeah, of course. Just text dad that you're here okay?" You step aside to let him in. "Did you walk? Drive?"

"Hung out with Ei and then drove here."

"Car out front?"

"Mhm, parked next to yours."

"Did Ei do a good job making you feel better?" You glance back at him as you take a cup out if the cupboard.

"Yeah, he did. I'm just not in the mood to go back."

"That's okay. We know how mom gets. What was it about?"

"Responsibility or some shit like that. Not exactly sure anymore."

"Katsu," you mumble, sitting a cup if tea in front of him. "You're doing fine. With everything thats going on, you're dealing with it really well. You're still just a kid, you deserve to have some fun." You kiss his forehead and he nods. "I'm gonna make sure the guest bedroom is ready, kay?"

"Kay."

• So once the room is ready, he brings his cup into the room and plugs in his phone before looking at you.

"Is /he/ here?

"Sho? Yeah, he's probably sleeping now. You'll meet him in the morning. Is Ei and his family still spending Christmas dinner with us?"

"Yeah. He is."

"Does he know how crazy we are?"

Katsuki smiles slightly. "Yeah, one of his moms is like that."

"Good, then you have nothing to worry about. Goodnight Katsuki." You ruffle his hair.

"Let the bedbugs bite, hag."

"You too, little fucker."

• Getting back into bed woke Shouta up, though he was only just drifting off.

"Who was that?"

"Brother, he got into a fight with mom. He's spending the night in the guest bedroom so you'll meet him tomorrow."

He nodded. "Can I go back to kiss you now?" He mumbled.

"Yeah, but we have to be quite now." You smile.

"You know thats one of my favorite games," he got back on top of you, moving your legs so they were on either side of his waist and he had easy access to grind himself onto your heat. You let out a sigh and his lips reconnected.

• The next morning you woke up early than you had really wanted but sometimes shit happens.

• katsuki was already up, if course he was.

• he gave you a small nod, eyes traveling to the hickey peeking out from under your robe before looking away. Gross.

• "Sleep okay?"

"Slept fine, you?"

"Mhm," you smile slightly. "Dad say anything last night?"

"He said to tell you goodnight and he was excited to see you tomorrow, but I was too lazy to get up-" his spoon clattered.

You glance back, "Ah, Katsu this is Shou, Sho this is-"

• Katsuki is 😃

• Why are you fucking here???

• Aizawa is 😌

• I'm gonna use this to destroy you

"Jesus-" Katsuki groans. "No- no no-"

Shouta rubs his face, but he's internally jumping- oh he's going to use this to his advantage.

"What-?"

"You're dating my fucking teacher?"

"Wha- oh." You snicker.

• This is gold

• This is absolutely gold

• You are going to beat Aizawa ass later though, he's totally been overworking his class

• They walk into breakfast and your parents are like ????

• "Hey isn't that-?"

"Yes." Bakugou grumbles. "Yes it is."

• Honestly they'd both use it to their advantage.

• "I'll tell my sister if you ____"

• "I'll tell your sister if you don't _____"

• and when y'all get engaged and class 1a finds out that he's going to become bakugous brother in law, they flip their shit dude.

• Because one, Eiji was the only one who knew he had a sister and that he was dating bakugous sisterb

• mans walked in with his famiky to see his boyfriend and stopped dead in his tracks.

"M-Mr. Aizawa..why are- uhm- why are-?"

Bakugou grabs his hand, nodding at his mother's. "He's dating my sister."

"He's what?" He whispered, eyes widening.

"Tragic, I know."

• One time you had to bring him something bc he forgot it at your apartment that was practically his too at this point

• and you walk in

"Hey sho, you forgot this."

"Mm, thanks."

• Bakugou drops his head to the table

"Bye Katsu," you wave and smile. "By Ei, have a good day,"

"Please leave,"

"You too Bakugou!"

• "who was that?" Mina asks

"Bakugous sister,"

"My fiance,"

They said that the same time

• All hell breaks loose

• "The fact that bakugou has a sister is processed first- "she looks nothing like you how-"

"She has my dads brown hair. I have my moms blonde hair.'

• He's bombarded with questions

• he ignores them

• the fact that Aizawa is ENGAGED to bakugous sister- now that's gold

• and he's bombarded with questions too

• no he did not know you were bakugous sister

• he met you after school started

• at a fruit stand actually

• he proposed before Christmas

• yes, he asked for your parents approval

• yes he asked for bakugous approval, he said yes

• no, he didn't have kids

• but y'all did have a cat and a dog

• No Mina, I'm not showing you a picture of them

• because Ayoma, we're in class right now

• maybe after if you guys shut up

• Anyway Bakugou is the ringbearer for the wedding 🤪🤪

• Class 1A is invited

• Mic is the best man

• Your best friend is your maid of honor

• All might officiated it

• its a good time