#and thought I finally managed to achieve what other writers always went on and on about re: enjoying writing

[myname-isnia]

Suddenly got this really weird off-putting feeling in my chest that I usually get when I’m about to cry over something, but also with some general iffyness thrown into the mix, and for once instead of immediately giving in to it or getting pissed at my mind I tried to figure out where it came from

Turns out I would have been completely justified in getting pissed at my mind because turns out, the cause is that I thought about a fic concept I was really excited about a few months ago that I never ended up writing because I couldn’t get into the flow from the very first sentence. I thought about it for a whole five seconds and now we’re here. Fucking great

[lilith-little-world]

The Oracle|| Concept Oneshot 4||

Here is some fluff and a slightly suggestive theme. Sorry for not posting sooner, I had slight writer's block and some stuff came up.

“See, this isn't so bad!”

You bring a small cup of coffee up to drink. It has been a while since you went to a cafe. The weather was becoming warmer as the month came to the end, soon transitioning to spring. Today, however, was just perfect to be outside and eat out. Even though it took a little bit of persuading for a certain someone to join you.

“It wouldn't be so bad if people stopped staring.”

“Nobody is staring, my little sunspot.”

Wukong huffs before taking a sip from his tea, flustered by the pet name. You just smirk at his reaction. Enjoying the time together, you guys don't really go out in public. Since Wukong prefers not to be out in the eye of the public for obvious reasons.

“Is this payback for always teasing you? Why did you choose a cafe with lots of people?!”

“Sunshine, how dare you even think that? Of course, I did this just to see you all flustered and shy. Also, this place never got this full, so I'm just as surprised as you are.” You said the last part quietly and looked away to see the busy cafe.

Wukong groans, pulling the hoodie over his face. Whilst sinking into his chair, with clear annoyance. You take a bite from your muffin and think. How can you make this time more comfortable for him? Maybe, cool it with the pet names?

Nah.

He wouldn't dare show the same mercy to you.

You stretched your leg over and lightly rubbed against his calf. His body tensed up from the sensation. It took a minute before he raised his hoodie and peeked at you.

“Hope you know, I don't mind you sleeping over for the night.”

“Oh?” He sits up with a smirk. “What is that supposed to mean, peaches?”

You put down your foot but made sure it was touching his.

“Hm? I thought it was straightforward and clear what I meant. You can stay over the night at my place.” You glance at the window, trying to keep your composure.

“I mean it is, but you were quite vague. So please tell me, what are we planning to do all night?”

Wukong’s posture was now relaxed, having placed his elbows on the table and resting his head in both his hands. Leaning forward closing the distance. You glance at him and smile softly. Silently celebrating for finally achieving your goal, of making him comfortable.

“Oh I don't know, maybe-” You lean back and pretend to think for a moment. Wukong’s smirk falters but forms a small smile instead and leans back in his chair.

“Hmm, we can watch a series of your choice and eat snacks all night!” You innocently say. He let out a chuckle.

“That sounds lovely, just know I won't let you sleep. We are going to be staying up all night.”

He takes a sip from his tea, copying your actions from earlier. You laugh at his antics.

“But you must spend the day out with me.”

“I wouldn't have it any other way.”

“Great, let's go then!”

“Huh? Wait, where are we going? I thought you just wanted to go out to a cafe!” He said with panic.

“That changed when you agreed to spend the whole day by my side. I'm not going to let this opportunity go to waste. Don't worry though-” You lean close to his ear and whisper.

“You’ll have me all night within your arms.”

Wukong shuts his mouth, face red. You worry a bit when he just stares at the spot in front of him.

Looks like you broke him.

After 2 minutes of pure silence, you could see his fur prick up as his pupils dilated.

‘Oh, that's not a good sign.’

A coo came out from him. It was deep, almost purr-like. However, just as the sound quickly came out of him, it just as quickly disappeared. He slumps over the table and groans, slowly turning into a laugh.

“Hahaha, peaches, you- nearly got me there.”

You raise an eyebrow and smirk. Usually, it was him making you flustered and shy but now it was his turn. You felt proud that you managed to get the Great Sage, himself, all riled up and out in public, no less.

“Oh, I don't know what you mean. I just want to spend time with you. Now let's go shopping, while the sun is still out.” You slowly made your way out of the cafe. Wukong follows behind, already exhausted from the earlier incident.

As much as Wukong looked indifferent about everything you show him. He was enjoying his time spent with you. It had been a while since he had gotten out. However, he can't ignore the warm feeling in his chest whenever he sees you excitedly buy things for him.

If only this day could last forever.

______________________________

Okay, so I'm gonna be opening the asks now. So I can answer questions about the story or just want me to write some oneshot lmao

I need to update daily since I will forget about this and lose motivation. So send in questions or request if not there will be slower updates here.

[goldentournesol]

to be true, to not be true (part 1)

Spencer Reid x Reader

Summary: early in y/n’s and spencer’s relationship, y/n fears the growing distance between them, although what seemed to be possible infidelity, is actually much worse–for spencer.

Length: 2.9k

A/N: i wrote this in collaboration with one of my favorite writers on here, Mia over at @mggpleasedontlookhere​. She is so wonderful and hopefully you can see both of our writing styles here! 

masterlist

The sunlight streaming through the windows made the hairs on my skin dance in glee, although it was the soft breeze invading the space that contrasted the radiant warmth. An equilibrium was achieved–a needed balance. The same can be said about the nerves crawling about my stomach and the naive excitement that made me light-headed whenever I was around Spencer. I glanced up at him from where my head lay in his lap. The reflected glow from the TV danced across his features making my heart jolt. My stare caught his attention and he sent me a small smile, his hand leaving traces in my hair. It was his day off and I had no problem spending it in suffocating proximity with him.

“This is nice,” I breathed, leaning back into his soft touch. He hummed in response, almost in contentment, if not for the moment his eyes seemed far off, entangled in a distant thought. It was so brief, I might have missed it. His job took a lot from him and I knew that, which is why I never pushed him. Instead, I let the subtle aroma of morning coffee and fresh linen confine my senses, leaving me oblivious to reality.

Although not a few moments later, the ping from Spencer’s phone burst the fantastical bubble that surrounded us. My eyes lingered on the cartoon characters plastered on the screen but I couldn’t help noticing the way Spencer’s fingers would thump rhythmically against the floor. Adjacent to his palm, rested his phone, revealing several notifications as it came alive. Albeit I paid no mind to their context given I was enamored by the picture of me on his homescreen. A faint smile graced my lips at the observation, feeling a wave of warmth rush my cheeks.

“I wonder who that is,” I teased, referring to the image. Spencer must have misunderstood my point of reference, hastily explaining that new language that Morgan had introduced him to through text messages.

“Spencer, using emojis does not constitute a new language.”

“Considering its context, I would argue it is–I mean look at hieroglyphics!” I covered my face in amusement, running my hands over my eyes. A sharp exhale left my lungs as my chest filled with contagious giggles. It seems that I was too consumed in my fit of laughter to notice Spencer stealthily concealing the device and turning off his ringer.

“First of all, hieroglyphics is a formal writing system-”

“And does that not ‘constitute’ a portion of language? Also, isn’t texting a writing system in itself?” His lips formed into a sly smirk, thinking he’d gotten the best of me.

“You’re right in the way that hieroglyphics is part of the language, however it’s all but the ‘expression’ of that language.” I debated, gesturing to the air as I explained my point. For a moment our eyes met, and I could feel my playful resolve melt away under his gaze. Despite the pause in my confidence, my stubbornness shone through.

“All I heard was that I was right,” he jested, tickling the side of my waist. I jumped at his mischief, collapsing into pleas and begs as he continued his assault at my skin. My stomach churned in delight as my hands attempted to pry him off of me, the premise of our conversation vanishing into air like wisps of smoke.

-

Spencer’s days off were becoming increasingly rare, I’d barely seen him in the last two weeks, but we’ve managed to salvage enough time between cases for a date. The excitement buzzed through my veins as the clock ticked closer to 7 pm. I was growing restless in the apartment, obsessively checking my phone for the time. Spencer is usually right on time, if not early. Dread and anxiety clogged up my throat as I waited for him. For hours, call after call would be sent straight to voicemail. The weather outside seemed to be in tandem with the way I felt. The rain was as unforgiving as the tears that striped my face.

I was never one to hold a grudge. But it happened once, then it happened twice. Slowly, it became a habit and it was impossible to reach him.

I guess date nights on Thursdays were now obsolete.

He came over to my apartment maybe once whenever he was in town and even then he was nearly unrecognizable. His shy, loving demeanor was replaced by explosive irritability and general unease. I wished he’d just talk to me, but he continued to brush me off. He was being distant and strange, his behavior was so unlike him. Knowing him though, he was probably too stressed or busy to get around to doing simple tasks like eating a balanced meal. Spencer can be quite scatterbrained, and I hadn’t seen him in around a week. So, around lunch time, I made Spencer a healthy meal packed with proteins and veggies and decided to pop into the BAU and drop it off. It felt like a good way to cheer him up. Maybe we’d have lunch together at the park he always liked to visit. It wasn’t that far from headquarters. Hell, I’d even eat lunch with him at his desk at this point.

The walk into the BAU was strangely nerve wracking, I could feel my heart in my throat. I had an uneasy feeling in my gut but I took a deep breath and pushed the heavy glass doors open. My eyes scanned the bullpen for my boyfriend but I couldn’t find him. Standing there in confusion, I was only snapped out of my trance when someone bumped into me from behind.

“I’m so sorry–oh, it’s you! Hey Y/N, what are you doing here?” JJ said, closing the file she held in her hands and wrapping me in a one-armed hug.

“Hey JJ! I was looking for Spence, I got him lunch, but I can’t seem to find him anywhere? Do you know where he is?” I said as I pulled back from the hug, she began to say something but was interrupted.

“Woah hey, sunshine! I was wondering why it suddenly got so bright in here.” The deep voice of none other than Derek Morgan came from beside us and he was, of course, donning his signature cheeky grin. I couldn’t help but grin back, even though my chest was nearly caving in on itself.

“Did Spence come in today?” JJ asked Morgan, whose brows immediately furrowed.

“No, I haven’t seen him today. I think he might be coming in late, I’m not sure. He’s been kind of off, lately.” Morgan said, eyes searching my own for an answer.

“He has, hasn’t he?” I exclaimed and the two nodded in agreement, “I’ve been worried about him, maybe all that emoji-talk finally got to him.” I laughed slightly, but stopped when I found Morgan’s expression shift.

“What do you mean? I stopped trying to explain emojis to him like months ago, if the genius doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it.” Morgan shrugged, unknowingly allowing the literal caving in of my chest to take place. JJ noticed the change in me immediately.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” She asked in her usual caring manner, but I could barely hear her over the rushing of my blood in my ears.

“Nothing, nothing. Um, if he comes in today, can you just give him this?” I dismissed the conversation and handed over the brown bag with the lunch I made, disguising the sharp exhale that left my lungs. Before JJ had the opportunity to utilize her profiling skills, I gave both of them a cordial nod and left the office.

My steps felt heavier with every collision against the tile, albeit the loud thumping of my heart drowned out reality around me. My mind warped itself around irrational thoughts as my loyalty to Spencer attempted to retaliate against the invaders. The concept of Spencer as dubious and sly fell foreign to me. However, that lack of knowledge only added fuel to the imminent blaze that engulfed my head and stomach.

I swarmed with alternate realities, trying to make sense of the unknown. If Spencer was aware of my method of defining a solution, I would’ve been scolded by my naivety and illogical thinking. Oh to be a scientist–to have a mind like his. It’s a gift yet a heavy burden to carry. Is that it? Was that it? Does he not believe I’m capable of understanding a mind like his? Was I stupid? No. He had shared intimate momentos of his life before, so what was it? What can I not offer…What can I not promise to make him drift away like this?

It must have been me, right? I must’ve hit a boundary the last time we spoke! Or was it his work? No. By the time my thoughts stopped buzzing, I realized my feet carried me to the park I intended to visit earlier with Spencer. An unfamiliar pang hit my chest, sending reverbing waves throughout the cavity. A sort of ache rested in the core of my heart–something I didn’t think I would feel when reflecting on my relationship with Spencer–my Spencer. I guess I was so used to the warm bubble he fabricated that I forgot how cold the real world was.

Was that it? Did I stop being that for him too?

The thought of the slow degradation of our relationship sent a chilling shock through my veins while I swallowed pins and needles. My hand rested on a park bench next to me, letting myself use the wooden beams as support. Looking out into the far pond in the center of the park, I pulled myself to take a seat. The wind began to whistle through the trees, and the lake of glitter–the nickname I gave whenever the sun casted its glow onto the surface–lost all of its beauty. Crickets didn’t even dare to sing their usual melody and birds flew south to their homes. The breaths I took kept going nowhere, dissolving into nothing even though my chest expanded and retracted.

I pulled at the ends of my sleeves, tucking my knees into my chest as the air grew crisp. Questions of infidelity and unfounded justifications collided creating a mass of insatiable curiosity. My head coincided with entropy–it enjoyed the chaos–until suddenly it went blank. Every tether that kept me grounded vanished, my consciousness going into autopilot. I didn’t even realize the burn that resided in my eyelids or the wet streaks coating my cheeks–maybe from the dryness or something more. It was only the small drop of water landed on the back of my palm that pushed me out of the addicting trance.

Another one had landed on my forehead. And another one. And another one. I cringed as I felt the water drip from my head to the crevice of my ear. The clouds began to rumble a somber tune as it began to rain. Plucking myself from the bench, I made no hurry to make it back to the house. In a way, the droplets cascading the skin distracted me–seemingly blissful compared to the former events.

Once again, my feet held a prominent consciousness as it was the only part of me that was stable, leading me to the doorstep of my apartment complex. With what felt like a last ditch effort, I checked my phone for any new messages from Spencer. My heart lurched seeing a new notification pop up. To my surprise, it was from him.

With a deep breath and newfound hope, I unlocked the device, taking a moment to gaze at the picture of I and Spencer on the screen, before proceeding. My shoulders dropped, the tight squirming in my stomach halting. A hopeful smile crept on the corners of my lips, the previous distrust dissipating from my unreliable mind as I read the words displayed in front of me.

“Date night tomorrow?”

-

Tomorrow night couldn’t come quick enough. It somehow felt like I was holding my breath the entire day until I finally saw him. He was apologetic and sweet enough that it quieted my anxieties for a while. If he held any guilt or shame, it wasn’t apparent, or maybe he hid it well. Or maybe I was being ridiculous and reading far too much into things that could be circumstantial. But this was Spencer…my Spencer, the tenderhearted, gentle soul who made way too many corny physics jokes.

Dinner went by much smoother than I expected, but I still felt like there were things unsaid. The words felt lodged in my throat, almost like an itch I couldn’t reach. Either by mindless habit or by sheer deliberacy, we ended up in our favorite park. The very park that I found myself running to in a fit of frustration yesterday. Our feet seemed to know the way of our usual path along the pavement. I wondered briefly if there was a place I stepped in twice without noticing it. There was a lull in conversation and before I realized it, the words escaped me stealthily.

“Hey, Spence?” I started, and he took his attention off his shoes to look at me, “I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something.” The way the words stumbled ungracefully from my lips had me cringing. He lifted a brow in intrigue and caught my eye, silently profiling me and my nervous behavior.

“Anything, love.” The use of the amorous term caught me off guard and I had to swallow under his intense gaze. I felt myself open my mouth, but the words died on my tongue as the blaring of his ringtone took the place of my voice between us. It was almost as if the scratchy melody startled him because the way he snatched himself away from me to look at his phone was worrisome.

His brows bunched together as he took a look at it, “I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

Without waiting for my confirmation, he pressed the phone to his ear and took a few large steps away from me, as if the space would give him more privacy. I suddenly felt extremely exposed without him by my side.

The emptiness beside me lingered of his scent, almost mocking me, the words constricting my tongue. If I had a second longer, maybe the phone call would’ve been obsolete, maybe for the first time in a long time he would’ve been selfishly mine, even for another moment. I found myself suffocating in the same place I was yesterday like some poetic injustice. Perhaps I’m just a marionette, dangling from loose strings as the universe had their way with me. Frankly that would be less upsetting than watching Spencer slip through my fingers, knowing that it was possibly me who sealed that fate, and not some otherworldly being. It would’ve been my doing, and that’s something I’m not yet ready to realize.

Maybe it was my undying curiosity or growing twinge in my chest every second passed that led me to consult the moral figures weighing down my shoulders. At two opposing extremes, they debated the right course of action–or if doing the right thing was even the course of action to consider. Surprisingly in the end, it was my impulsivity that answered for me, wasting no time to stipulate consequences.

I shook off the twisting feeling in my stomach, pushing myself off in Spencer’s direction. I kept justifying my actions by telling myself that all I would be doing is checking on him, although the underlying motive was nothing under disguise. I whispered the same mantra to myself with every inch closer. I gritted my teeth as the antsy sensation traveled to my shoulders, slowing my steps to contemplate my reasoning.

What am I doing? A harsh exhale of detest left my lungs, leaving a light yet deserved burn in my esophagus. It seemed incredulous to me that I was willing to eavesdrop on my own boyfriend, although it didn’t seem like that minutes ago. I bit the inside of my cheek in shame, turning myself around.

Has this all been in my head? No, it can’t. Then why would he lie? He wouldn’t, but he did. Confusion set deep within me, however it was my guilt that left an everlasting mark. Maybe Spencer had his reasons, he would never deliberately fib–at least the Spencer I knew would never. But what if that’s it? Did I really know Spencer that well? The world around me closed in rapidly, my senses overwhelmed. Did I make him lie? It would make sense considering my recent possessiveness. Did he see that? Did I drive him away?

I bit down on my bottom lip, threatening to break the skin. I ran my hand through my hair several times, taking a few calming breaths to compose myself. No, I can’t think like that. This is Spencer, he’s my Spe–no, maybe he never was mine?

Unable to contain my contradicting thoughts any longer, I shifted around with a newfound determination. Pushing the bile building up at the bottom of my stomach, I prepared to march my way to him. My body set aflame with feigned confidence, hopefully enough to fuel the overpowering desire to know the truth.

To know whether the truth actually lied in the irrationality of my mind

To know whether the truth lied in the coarseness of my behavior.

To know whether the truth  lied in the prospects of Spencer’s job.  

To know whether the truth-

“I guess I’ll see you on Thursday!” Spencer smiled with endearment–a smile I thought was reserved for me. “It’s a date…”

To know whether the truth was that he was no longer mine.

part 2  feedback is always appreciated!

[jodibodie]

I Have Some Feelings

To start let me just emphasize how much I love and adore this show and always will. This was my covid show. Both of my kids loved “Lucifer” and always said I should watch so at the start of covid I binged it and when I say binged, I mean all 4 seasons in a few days and have rewatched so many times I’ve lost count. I think it is timeless, engrossing, original and all around amazing. The writing and the cast were all excellent. The writing was smart and consistently strong and that is so rare.  Funny, sad, poignant, it hit all the notes with very few plot holes or missteps. There is not one episode in the entire series that was not engaging. Even if I didn’t like an episode, it was still well done. What a rarity.

The cast is scary good. Completely underrated. Just all phenomenally talented.  I don’t remember the last time a cast was this strong.  From the core group to both reoccurring and guest stars, the cast was just fantastic.  

Tom Ellis, no words.  The man deserves to choose whatever he wants to do acting wise. He should have people breaking down his door. He can truly do it all and do it all well. He took a character that if portrayed by a lesser actor could have come off as a complete asshole and made him one of the most sympathetic and loveable characters in recent history. Ellis made a crime solving devil, a promiscuous man-child that occasionally breaks into song and the evidence room into a beloved character that has become an icon.  

Lauren German, WOW.  She is just so damn good. She can break your heart one second and have you laughing the next. She makes Chloe real, and people don’t realize how hard that is. Chloe is smart, kind, tough and gorgeous but she’s also an insecure dork.  She’s us and German just brings it.  

DB Woodside I’ve loved since “Buffy”.  He is a phenomenal actor and who knew he could bring the laughs so well? His expressions were classic. Clueless angel indeed. Amenadiel could have been very one-dimensional but because of Woodside’s talent he became fully fleshed out and full bodied.  

I have no doubt Lesley-Ann Brandt has a huge career in front of her.  She took a character that very well could have been hated, a demon and made her into one of the most human characters on the show. Kudos to her for taking a tough role and making it her own.  

Kevin Alejandro is another actor I’ve loved for a long time.  He also took a character who if we’re going to be honest here did so many unlikeable things that he should have been truly despised but because of Kevin’s portrayal he was beloved. Great actor and a terrific director.

Rachael Harris IMO is the downlow MVP.  She was literally the rock and again, with a lesser actress the role could have been a throwaway. The normal human, the sounding board but Harris imbued her with so much more.  Her spit takes, sarcasm and her obvious compassion was what made Dr. Linda an unforgettable character. Once again just perfect casting.  

Aimee Garcia was a great addition. She made Ella a fan fav and put so much heart, joy and sincerity into Ella never once did you doubt that she would prevail no matter what was thrown at her.  Garcia was just fantastic, and I want her skin care regime.  

Scarlett Estevez pulled off the one thing I thought almost impossible.  She took the role of a young child and made it so I didn’t want to cringe. She portrayed Trixie so beautifully from day one that she was a true pleasure to watch.  Even though Trixie was super precocious Estevez never made her obnoxious. I loved Trixie and I have never said that about any child character in an adult show.  She was wonderful and has an amazing career in front of her.

That said, I’ve got some feelings now that I’ve seen the finale and have had some time to digest it all.  I love that Chloe and Lucifer had eternity and I agree that they had to be separated for Chloe’s lifetime. Didn’t like it but it’s the logical path. She’s human, he’s not. The ageing thing alone necessitated them not being together long term on earth and that’s just to start the list. They had to had to be apart for the short term to get their eternity but the duality of Lucifer's ending and Amenadiel's didn't sit right. Amenadiel as God got to have it all. His calling, his family etc. while Lucifer had to give up everything.  I also don’t buy the “If he came up from hell, he could never leave them again” defense.  I call bullshit.  Amenadiel managed, plus, missing out on the day to day is a huge sacrifice and by Lucifer missing out on the day-to-day Rory could still have had the hatred she needed to drive the story.  Popping in for birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc., the big stuff does not a father make.  Not being there for skinned knees, first heartbreaks, and all the little things a daughter needs her dad for can build up tons of resentment.  Boom, absentee father, just like his dad was. That provides all the millennial angel angst you could ask for. I have a daughter; it doesn’t take much.

The Trixie issue was huge for me. Can Chloe see her in Heaven? Will she be able to travel to Heaven and visit Trixie, Penelope, Dan, her father?  Chloe hesitated leaving Heaven in 5x16 because she couldn’t bear saying good-bye to her dad again. It seems as if Chloe sacrificed everything for Rory including Trixie. I want to preface this by saying. I liked Rory and loved the actress. I didn’t however like how it was as if she were their only child.  When Lucifer spoke of family Trixie was not mentioned. Their family day, the same thing. She didn’t need to be there, I get that the explanation regarding Rory would have been way too much to get into but just a mention of her, how awesome it would have been to share this day with her would have worked. It seemed as if Lucifer went from, “I would do anything to protect that little Urchin” to “Trixie who”. Trixie was a character that we watched grow up and she meant something to us. I hate to say this, but the writers did Trixie and the viewers dirty in this regard.

This show was built around a few premises.  Free will, honesty, redemption, sacrifice and family, both blood and made. The ending completely negated almost all of these.  Chloe and their entire family were made into the one thing Lucifer abhorred the most which are liars. Their daughter was brought up surrounded by lies. What did they tell Trixie?  The poor kid just lost her dad, and she was pissed at Lucifer when he went back to hell the first time. Did she grow up hating him because as far as she knew Lucifer left her mom again without saying good-bye and this time it was even worse because Chloe was pregnant.  I get that the actress who plays Trixie had limited availability but seriously. A quick good-bye.

“Hey Urchin, you won’t understand why for a long time, but I have to leave. You know I never lie so I can’t explain why but know that I love you and your mom and one day I hope you can forgive me.”  

A 30 second scene would have worked.

As all the characters learned throughout the series, omission of the truth is just a form of lying and there are always repercussions i.e., Chloe and Father Kinley, Dan shooting Lucifer, Maze finding out about Lilith and even Ella not being told. As far as free will, both Chloe and Lucifer had their free will taken from them in the end. By Rory forcing them to abide by her wishes, their free will was forfeited. It was a huge manipulation on Rory’s part and considering how much Lucifer hated manipulations it just didn’t sit right.

Parents making huge sacrifices I get. Chloe and Lucifer sacrificed everything for their child. Unfortunately for me this sacrifice, the way it was written seemed contrived to pull out maximum and IMO unjustified angst. I love angst.  Hell, this is my favorite show.  I thrive on the angst. But as I wrote earlier, all the anger, angst and hatred towards Lucifer could have been achieved without having Lucifer completely out of the picture. I have two kids and my husband, and I have made huge life altering sacrifices for them as many parents do but being there for the day-to-day little things was what made the difference in their lives and cemented the close relationships we have with them.

“Yeah, dad you were great. Showing up for the fun stuff, always swooping in for the big finish to play the hero then ditching us when things got tough. When Grandma was dying where were you?  Nice that you showed up for the funeral but the six months leading up to it…we needed you and once again you weren’t there. When T got sick, when Jen broke my heart, blah, blah, blah…”

Even the whole Chloe dying scenario. They could have written it that rage Rory traveled minutes before Lucifer got there. Have him pop in right after Rory comes back. There were so many ways to achieve the end game they wanted other than the way they went. It seemed contrived and as if they took the easy way out to get where they needed to go. The Rory rage that was the catalyst for her traveling back in time and Lucifer finding his calling could still have been accomplished without the whole Lucifer disappearing storyline.

Now that I’ve finished my diatribe there’s a couple of additional things I would like to say.  Lucifer is and always will be one of my favorite shows of all time. There are not enough words to describe the comfort and enjoyment this show has brought me. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the producers, cast and crew. You truly created something special.

To the fandom. Please do not let a polarizing conclusion rip apart the fandom. The only other fandom I was a part of tore itself apart so badly that the FBI got involved.  Hence why I waited for 15 years to dip my toe in again. Everyone invested in this show has the right to their feelings.  Debate is fine, baiting and bullying are not. The Lucifer fandom like the show is very special. Without the fandom we wouldn’t have gotten any conclusion so don’t let opposing viewpoints tarnish what has been a magical journey.  

[seraphimguks]

roses, poetry and jeon.

☾ pairing: bookstore employee!jungkook x reader

★ summary: Between the pieces of sappy poetry and dried rose petals hidden in every book you buy from the local bookstore; you fall in love with the anonymously enigmatic writer.

➳  genre: bookstore au, enemies to lovers-ish?, fluff, slight angst

☂ words: 12k

♡ a/n: hellooo! So, after countless days and nights working on this, I’m VERY proud as to how it came out to be. I don’t have any experience as a bookstore employee so please forgive me if I made some mistakes! Also, all the poetry compositions have been written by yours truly hehe. I really hope you guys enjoy this story as much I enjoyed writing it! Let me know how you felt (reblogs and comments go a long way!) c:

                                                               ~*~

The sunlight filtering through your window was a familiar feeling. As it warmed your covers, you lazily turned to the other side of your bed hoping to find a cooler spot to resume your slumber. When not even cocooning yourself helped, you angrily pulled your blanket over your frame and let the heat take the win for this one.

You opened your eyes and took a minute to take in your surroundings. You felt like your party-hungry college student-self waking up one morning on someone else’s bathroom floor that wasn’t yours. In that reverie, you winced as you could almost taste the vodka at the back of your throat and the puke roiling up in your stomach.

A half open book lay face down on your nightstand and dried up drool pooled near the top of your pillow, possibly because you dozed off in between. You checked your phone, and was relieved that it was the weekend. There were no messages from work, you wanted to jump up in joy like you were a child on sugar rush.

Your job as a market assistant was good, and although you enjoyed the work, sometimes it felt dry and you lost all enthusiasm to continue. Your boss was an asshole, you really wanted to smack him. Your colleagues were no less either, but in all speaking you didn’t want to change your job yet because it paid well to give you a good apartment room and four-square meals a day.

Even thinking about work made you upset. You hugged your knees to your chest, resting your head on them because you were just too tired. Deep down in your conscious, you knew you couldn’t pursue your true passion for financial reasons and because it was just a dying profession.

Thoughts aside, you decided to treat yourself to the weekend by going to the bookstore just around your block. You loved bookstores, it was your favourite retreat growing up when your father would come and pick out the books you wanted to borrow. You were a very avid reader as a child, however as the homework started piling up as you went up a grade, there was no time to wiggle some reading time in between the cracks of your heavy schedule. Until now.

The bookstore opened five years ago, a cozy place that usually met a lukewarm crowd on weekends. You were a regular there. The owner, Kim Namjoon, was few years elder to you but was polite, handsome and very well read despite having a demanding position at his accounting job. Namjoon had opened the bookstore as a part-time thing to stay rooted to his love for literature, and since his profession earned well, he was able to recruit two or three employees to help him out when he was at work.

Ji Changmin was the cutest employee there, and honestly you couldn’t deny that part of the reason why you headed up to the cozy establishment was to see him. He had an ebullient disposition with lovely dimples that you couldn’t help but think was cute. He always greeted new customers with a wide smile and you stifled a laugh when you remembered his extremely loud shriek when one of the customers accidentally dropped a book. The poor boy almost fell from the ladder when he was trying to sort out the books on the highest shelf.

He was a dance major at the nearby University and his shifts were on the weekends, the two days when he was free. He often came to the store disheveled from practicing on his own, but he still managed to clean up and look flawless in a simple apron uniform.

You also knew that the first weekend of the new month meant fresh arrivals – so not only were you going to see your favourite employee (you would never tell Changmin, of course) and get some eye-candy, but also browse through the new novels waiting to be read by fellow bookworms like yourself. Maybe even eye Changmin over the top of the pages you read, and knowing him long enough he would probably be practicing few steps of his dance routine, and oh didn’t he look sexy.

And with that said, you were ready in flat 15 minutes.

 ~*~

 The conundrum of living in cities was known to you – the whizz of scooters going by in the morning, the delightful screams of school children returning from class in the afternoon and the shutters of karaoke bars and clubs opening up for the evening.

That’s why you were so relieved that the apartment you were housing in was located in a sleepy neighbourhood, where the hustle-bustle was less pronounced.  It was also near a subway that took you effortlessly to work. The street which you lived in mostly had all the necessities you could ask for, from grocery markets, a hospital, small cafes, retail stores, and of course, a medium-sized bookstore.

Fact and Fiction Bookstore was a store squeezed in between a medical shop and an apartment, just a couple of blocks from your place. It always had a wooden signboard that had “Open” and “Closed” in hand drawn letters and the interiors were festooned with decorative pendant lamps that lit the room in a golden halo. Walnut coloured, skyscraper height bookshelves lined the walls in even spaces, from classics to children’s books to study materials. There were few wooden stools scattered hither and tither and a small cash register at the extreme center, that led to the store room in the back. Overall, the shop had a modern yet minimalistic look that was to your liking.

As you walked inside of Fact and Fiction, you heard the familiar bell chime as you pushed open the doors. You made it just in time, and of course there were no customers there. You smiled a bit, knowing that Changmin might just be around and you could have some quality time with him for a bit. But instead of seeing Changmin usually wiping the bookshelves carefully, you were surprised to see Namjoon in his place.

“Oh Y/N! So nice to see you this morning,” Namjoon smiled, walking up to you. Namjoon never came on weekends, and if he did, it was when one of the employees were unable to work anymore. But that was very rare. Could that mean-

“Hey Namjoon,” You said, trying to mask the slight disappointment. “I thought you didn’t come on weekends?”

“I don’t, but now I guess I have to,” He laughed, returning to clean the bookshelves at the far right of the room.

“Why, what happened to Changmin?” You faked playing it cool by taking a book off the Bestseller’s shelf.

“He had to leave, he got scouted by an entertainment agency couple days ago. He’s going to be a trainee,” Namjoon shouted from the opposite side of the room.

As much as your heart felt like it fell from the sky, that you were no longer going to be ogling over the button eyed boy now, you felt a surge of happiness at Changmin finally achieving his lifelong dream to be an idol. It would take some years, but seeing him on the big screen – possibly even cuter – made your heart flutter. Of course, Namjoon was handsome too, so you didn’t mind stealing glances at him now that you no other choice.

“So, what are you going to do, now that he’s gone?” You asked. Surely the other two employees would be a replacement, you thought.

“I already hired a new employee; he’s going to be in charge in weekends now,” Namjoon wiped his hands on the cloth and disappeared into the storeroom.”

You silently nodded to yourself. It was silence now, just you and the books. Evidently you moved to the New Arrivals section, picking an interesting book cover and started reading the first chapter.

As soon as you ensconced in the setting, you heard the door open with the low chatter of what you assumed were female college students.

You heard footsteps. Someone from the other end of the store, presumably the new employee, greeted them in the conventional fashion bookstore employees usually do.

"What may I help you ladies with?"

The hair on the back of your neck stood. Your ears perked up out of its own volition. The vibrations in your heart quickened. Your knees suddenly felt weak, goosebumps erupting on every inch of your skin. You felt the air shifting, as if the coffee toned floorboard beneath you was angled and moved on its own accord.

You've heard that voice before. No, you knew that voice. You started to panic, leaving the book you were reading on the wrong shelf and scurrying past the aisles to the center of the room, where the voice seemingly came from.

You tried to recall where and whom the voice belonged to. The vestiges of your brain that locked out certain memories of your high school unlocked. Your mind worked like a tape recorder left on fast forward. If what you thought was right, it seemed as if that voice belonged to a certain five foot something, a mean, nitpicking, lanky teenager that went by the name –

 Jeon Jungkook.

 Your eyes widened immediately. The second you laid eyes on your high school enemy, your legs went cold. You stood there gawking at the boy – now a man – and couldn't for a second fathom why, in all places, he just had to work here in the same neighborhood you lived in. For a second you were cursing Namjoon, but honestly how could that innocent and charming aficionado, unalike Jungkook, know who your high school nemesis was?

Jungkook too, seemed flustered by your appearance, hand straight away behind his neck as he looked at you sheepishly. He aged well, you thought for a moment. He was no longer the gangly teenager that he was; he was bulky, with budding muscles on his arms if you strained your eyes just a bit. He grew out of his ridiculous mushroom haircut, settling for a fringe that slightly kissed the top of his eyes. He grew taller, no doubt, and this time he grew into his features, a square face with a visible jawline that could, quite literally cut glass.

Your history with Jungkook was clear as day. You guys were classmates in high school for four years. The then 15-year-old used to tease you every chance he got. He used to make fun of what you wore, the pieces of writing you wrote and why you always received the highest scores in literature class. Even when he asked for your help in getting better scores in English, he would always speak with a hint of sarcasm and impatience. You left high school cursing him through and through, but was happy you'd never get to see or run into him ever again. Until today.

"Hi Y/N," he said.

"Jungkook," you took a step forward, crossing your arms. This was habit you did as a form of defensive mechanism. Sure, whatever teenage Jungkook said to you during your high school years were long past, but it did put a dent in your self-esteem even if a bit. Maybe your teenage self still feels that the grown up Jungkook would once again sputter mean words to you even though high school was a good while back. “Been long.”

"Yeah, you're right. It's so good to see you again, I mean, I never expected," his voice soft, kind. Of all things, this was the most surprising. You tried to forget how shockingly attractive he turned out to be.

"Ditto," You said, unsure of what else to say. You looked down at your shoes, circling one foot around the other. "So how do you know Namjoon?"

"Oh, Hyung and I go way back. He used to tutor me in high school. Maths, geography, literature, you name it. I owe it to him, for making me pass. I heard he was looking for work so I decided to step in."

Oh, so that's why. The pieces were falling in place now. It did feel nice to catch up with an old high school ‘acquaintance’ of sorts, so you kept aside the qualms of your bullying experiences aside.

"Hey, now that you're here, I never got to say that I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you in high school. I was dumb, stupid really, I mean, dumb and stupid are the same thing, but what I mean is-"

"It's okay, Jungkook. I'm long past it, to be honest. You're forgiven." You manage a small smile, your insides warming with his thoughtfulness. What was even sweet was that he appeared a bit nervous, even though the line seemed rehearsed - it made you think as if he'd been saying this apology to himself so many times as if he would meet you again one day and say it.

Now that the mood was lighter, few more customers began pouring in. You let Jungkook continue with his work even though you wanted to know details about his life now. You resumed reading the book, considered even making this the first purchase in a long time, before Jungkook waddled up to you suggesting that he was free to talk.

"So," Jungkook began slowly, leaning over the wall opposite the bookshelf. “You live here?

“Just a couple of blocks from here. What about you?”

“Oh no, I took the subway here. It’s bit far from my boxing center at home,” he smiles, bowing at new customers who already seemed to know what to look for. You noticed when he smiled that the one thing that didn’t change about Jungkook was his doe eyes. God, they were so misleading to anyone else who didn’t know him well.

And wow, that explained the muscles. Jeon Jungkook having his own boxing center? You pegged Jungkook as being unemployed after high school because if you recall correctly, his grades were dismal. But you can’t judge a book by its cover, right?

“Wow, boxing center huh? How’s that going?” You kind of feigned interest, nodding your head more than usual whereas you just wanted to read.

“Great actually. I took business in college, and it really got me thinking. So, I pulled some strings and opened a center, that way I could practice and so can everyone else. It’s going pretty good,” he nodded satisfyingly.

You give him a sad smile. He was doing something he liked. You were too, but not exactly.

“So, do you still write poetry?” He asks, knowing he’d been talking too much about himself.

Ah, that was your sour spot. Your true passion. Writing poetry. Those years in high school you realized nothing gave you true happiness than what the joy of words did. You never wanted to make a career out of anything if it didn’t happen to include writing. However, prospects in becoming a writer were perilously low and by the time you finished your first year in college, you realized you had a take different direction if you wanted to lead a financially stable life to pay off your loans.

“Oh, that.” You shrugged, another one of your defense mechanisms. Jungkook’s eyebrow lifted questioningly. You weren’t one to call poetry as ‘that’.

“Well, I learnt poetry can get you far enough as someone with a dying YouTube career, sadly as it is. It's a beautiful profession, but I needed to make ends meet. So currently I'm working as assistant marketing manager at this company an hour away.” You tried to seem as content as possible.

“How is it?” Jungkook now had to go and take to some customers but he was still listening to you.

“It's great!”

It's fucking tedious. Sometimes I want to scream, tear some papers and run around like a maniac.  

“I love my boss and my teammates.”

My boss is a sexist, misogynistic prick and my teammates love to kiss his ass.

“There are days when I don't even think about poetry.”

I think about it every single second that I'm at work. I can’t even write cause I’m so packed with stuff to do.

Jungkook laughs as he aligns some books in the correct angles. "You were a good student in high school. With those grades, getting that job must have been piece of cake for you. Although, it must suck not to write because of your work.”

You’re telling me.

The book you were previously reading wasn’t that interesting as you thought. You moved over to the Poetry section, skimming your fingers over the covers of books. You saw a familiar title and took it out. It was the same book of poems that your school had given as part of your Literature syllabus. This book made you fall in love with words and what they mean. You looked inside and to your relief, it had all the poems of love, tragedy and loss that you came to love when you studied them meticulously when you were still a student.

Your favourite poems were I Dream of You by Christina Rossetti and Rooms by Charlotte Mew. You longed for a romance like the ones they described in stanzas, but only seldom in your life did you come across someone who shared the love of sappy poetry like you did.

“Rooms, huh? I love that poem,” Your head sharply whipped towards Jungkook’s direction, who was now curiously studying the book you had in hand.

Jungkook, liking poetry? The same lad who made fun of all the writers for being over-dramatic over love, was now saying he liked poetry?

“Surprising, I know. But like, if anyone found out the guy on the football team shared a secret love for prose and poetry, I would’ve been thrown out,” He shrugs lightly. You understood, your school solely ran on conservative values of toxic masculinity and favouritism. You managed to survive all of that, thankfully.

You and Jungkook then engaged in a discussion on the best poems and writing you guys read, surprised at his wide knowledge and the opinions he had to share. You agreed on many, disagreed with a few. But one thing you realized was that maybe meeting Jungkook wasn’t such a bad thing at all, you guys could finally be friends.

You decided to buy your book of poems. You haven’t seen this book in ages and it would be nice to add to your collection anyway.

As you handed over the book to Jungkook to check out, your hands touched only slightly. Jungkook gave you a small, shy smile, and you returned it. Right before he was going to give you the bill, his hands awkwardly hovered over the register for a moment.

“Wait,” he quickly remembered. “I have to put a stamp inside of this. It’s a way of checking what books are purchased. Work regulations. Give me a sec?”

You nodded and he disappeared into the store room for a good 10 minutes. You waited as you looked around the store for the nth time and wondering when you’d be back again. Jungkook suddenly returned, looking a little sweaty even though the air-conditioner was still on. He wiped his sweat using a towel next to the register and handed over the book to you with both hands.

You smiled at your purchase, tucking it in your bag and respectfully bowing to Jungkook before you decided to make your leave. As soon as you turned your heel towards the door, Jungkook awkwardly extended a hand to you.

“So, what do you say, friends?” His eyes were looking down, to hide his embarrassment. You thought it was cute. You extended your hand too.

“Friends.”

~*~

The sky had enveloped the sun the same way it always did during sundown. You settled comfortably in your duvet, taking out the book inside the paper bag that had the initials F.F. printed in large colourful letters. You placed the book gingerly between your legs as you scanned the hard cover.

You inhaled the pages, the smell settling somewhere in your bones. Then you began reading. It was sunset when you started and then midnight when you got to the middle. You held back a yawn as you decided to call it a day and then get to work from tomorrow. You were putting a bookmark inside the page you stopped at when something like a scrap of paper fell out of the book.

Carefully, you kept your book on the night stand and picked up the fragment and turned it over.

The paper looked as if it were torn from a notebook. What looked like a poem was written in the childish scrawl of a 10-year old, but it didn’t seem reasonable that a child would write something with such thought and maturity.

  Thousands of libraries will never exhaust

How you wander in the loveliest recesses of my thoughts,

An angel fallen from heaven,

Am I merely just a spectre in your presence?

Your fingers possess secrets in every page that you write

But how would it feel my dear,

if the hands that touched your skin, were I?

Books may command your attention

But I mean no harm,

But beyond the classroom walls, here is my confession

That it fatigues me that to remain a boy who will love you from afar.

  You stared at the paper for a while.

The poem was no doubt very beautiful, suggestive even. Unrequited love always made the best poems, you knew. You imagined a love-struck young boy penning down this very poem for his classmate in the back of his Algebra book, thinking it would never be seen by anyone else except him. What you loved most was that in each verse, the writer made his best effort to form an analogy between his lover’s passion for books and his passion for her. And to top it all, you and this girl shared your love for books.

But how did such a sensitive piece of writing wind up in your poetry book?

The paper didn’t match the quality of the paper of your recent buy, obviously. Namjoon was also not one to keep second-hand or used books in his store either. Was someone else reading the book and somehow slipped this inside? But the writing seemed very personal and it would be irresponsible for someone to misplace something like this.

You shrugged it off later, safely keeping the piece in one of your night stand drawers. Just when you were about to place your treasured book of poems in your book case, rose petals from the book fell to the floor.

Gasping, you picked the bunch in your hands, the petals bearing an angry crimson shade. Roses were your favourite flower, so you couldn’t but smell the petals that lay within your reach.

But if anything, it only multiplied the questions in your head as to how, when and why both the love poem and the petals were in the book in the first place.

~*~

You forgot about the poem and the rose petals until you found yourself going back to Fact and Fiction the next week.  Surprisingly, work load was less but you didn’t want to be one to ask why.

It was a sunny afternoon. You got the news that a sequel to one of your favourite series released few days ago. You were sure that Namjoon would keep a neat pile of the sequel somewhere in his bookstore.

Jungkook was already at the register handing a customer his receipt when he noticed you entering through the glass door. He gave a small wave as you scuttered to the New Arrival’s section. Anxiously, you browsed through the section until you finally saw the familiar title.

“Yes, yes, yes,” you muttered, the pads of your fingertips feeling the glossy hardcover. You had only turned to the front page when a dark-haired someone appeared by your side.

“Seriously, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? Heard it didn’t get good reviews,” Jungkook smirks at you.

“Didn’t get good reviews my ass,” you mock him, going back to reading. The boy shakes his head and lets you read as he helps a customer find a certain book. More customers started to pour in, and soon Jungkook is up and running across the store every five minutes. You felt sorry for him, but then you realised with all his working out, running across a five thousand feet store was practically nothing.

It was just you in the store when it was evening. Jungkook leaned on the wall, resting his head on the counter in respite. You smiled dejectedly at him, wanting to say something to light the mood.

“So, how is Taehyung and Jimin? We couldn’t really catch up properly,” you said, sitting on one of the tools.

Jungkook sighed, almost happy that he could have one conversation today that wasn’t about foraging book titles of books ceased producing copies anymore.

“Jimin is good,” he said, wiping his sweat with the back of his hand. “He’s working at this law firm in Australia. Taehyung is pursuing his Master’s in Europe, something in cultural studies.’

“Wow,” the jealously in your voice was slightly apparent. You did work at a well-known company, but still, working abroad was a different league altogether.

“Gosh, can you believe how messed up we three were? Always fooling around, teachers said we wouldn’t amount to anything,” Jungkook reminisced, leaning his elbows on the counter now.

“I remember,” you laughed. “Especially when Taehyung pranked Mr. Choi with that whoopie cushion and Mrs. Kang when you drew her face on the board one day.”

“I think even Mrs. Kang laughed at that drawing herself, it was pretty impressive,” he smirks, lips breaking into a cocky grin. “

“And I think everyone remembers how you made Hae-ri cry in front of the whole class when you broke up with her,” you chucked, remembering the incident. Hae-ri and Jungkook sort of were going out in the middle of eleventh grade, but you always heard rumours how Jungkook was just playing around, like boys always did.

“Come on, Hae-ri and I were a joke. Can’t help it if she took us seriously,” Jungkook rolled his eyes. He clearly wasn’t interested in her as much as she was. As much as the others girl were really, even though to you he was what you always thought he was – a stupid, mean and lanky adolescent. “To think of it, I couldn’t help if I was a bit popular.”

“Oh, you were the cynosure of all eyes, Kook,” you smiled, looking down. It was true. Jungkook always carried an aura of confidence was that infectious. The kind of charm that made heads turn when he walked in the room, the type of startling charisma that was unnatural of a fifteen-year-old.

“Everyone’s eyes except yours,” he emphasised, crossing his arms over another.

“I mean, you hated me. We hated each other,” You state matter-of-factly, as you got up from the stool to the counter to make your purchase. “I can’t believe I even tried to be nice with you.”

Jungkook faced you with an expression on his face you couldn’t decipher. “I didn't hate you, not completely.”

That was news. You always thought Jungkook and his little gang were out to torture every weakling in school. Jungkook especially liked to torture you, so it would be an understatement to say you were a bit surprised.

“Which part of your icky teenage self,” you jabbed a finger in his shoulder playfully. “-even tolerated me?”

“The part that tolerated you thought you were special. And you still are, Y/N. Special.”  He repeated.

There was a twinkle in his eyes when he spoke that you didn’t miss. Your heart felt like it was floating, warmed by the how Jungkook meant every word he said about you. Your stomach did this thing where it felt like a million bees were swarming around when you felt shy. A blast of warmth shot up your arms. The feeling lingered even when you pushed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in his direction.

Jungkook’s smirk didn’t wipe off his face after you had given your payment. The silence seemed unusual, did you just share an intimate, if brief, moment with your high school foe? Why had he called you special? You never stood out even when you were classmates, so why was he saying this now?

“I’ll go stamp this, yeah?” he cuts the silence. You nod, and he vanishes into the storeroom again. He comes back five minutes later this time and hands you the paper bag. You take your leave and silently leave the store.

What you don’t see is Jungkook’s gaze following you intently as you pull the door, walk across the street from the store and disappear into the night.

~*~

You returned home, your laptop greeting you with tons of messages from work. You cursed each of them, especially the one from your boss asking you to revise last week’s updates even though you emailed in a bunch of times saying you did. You pulled an all-nighter as you completed the tasks expected of you. By the time you were done, it was already two-thirty in the night.

You flopped on your bed, your body relaxing as it hit the soft covers. You breathed a sigh of relief as you pulled out your purchase from the paper bag.

You suddenly remembered the poem and the petals. You decided it would be weird, but you turned the book over as if you were expecting the same contents to pool from it. And sure enough, you were right.

Not one, but two pieces of notebook scraps settled onto your lap with some blue coloured rose petals. Your mind did a mental ‘what the fuck?’ before picking up the petals and placing them on your night stand. You picked the scraps and read them, never expecting what you would find.

 Help me, for I am surrounded by loquacious ghosts

Yet you stand there, a beauty in flesh and bone

Women would die for me,

yet my mind echoes only your name

Break me from my reverie,

To kiss you in the blue sweater that hugs your delicate frame

You eye me with pure hate, yet is I to blame

I treat you wrongly,

But only to hide my love for you – if you push me away.

 You read the second one now.

 Blue,

It is the colour of the sweater you wear every first Monday of the month

The pencil you write poems at the top of your chemistry notebook,

The rain as it brushes against your skin when you're late to class

The look on your face when you're happy

The sound of my heart when you walk past my seat at the cafeteria table

The smile you wear when your friends hook their arms around yours

And my love for you that will never be requited.

 Cold sweat broke out on your spine. This wasn't some love poem that was mistakenly placed in your book. It felt like the poems were directed at you. Even the first poem made you feel slightly suspicious because you had a resemblance to the girl mentioned in it.

You tried to knit all three poems together, because all those years in poetry class made you an expert at analysing. You found a connection. They were written by someone in high school.

The love for books, the pencil, the sweater, the behaviour traits, all reminded you of your teenage self from years ago. It was so intricate, as if this person had been observing you through a lens in class for years.

It was someone that you hated and he hated you too, but then again, you hated a lot of people in high school, and they too, you felt, disliked you. You had few friends, however good ones, all of which whom you remained in contact today.

Who could this person be? He definitely had outstanding poetry skills, the words worming its way into your heart ever since you had the first poem. You felt shy. Someone, in your class, liked you behind a mask of hatred. Your body contracted as you concluded that you had a mystery writer sending you messages with every book you bought. You wondered why you were living in the dark for a long time.

How had this not happened earlier? Why was it that before buying the book, it didn’t seem to have any individual contents in it, but after taking it home, it did?

You wanted more answers. You wanted to write back, but whom would you be writing to? You didn't know this person or his address. You realised that this was a one-way connection. You could only build your assumption if you had more poems to build them on.  

And that could only happen if you happened to go to a certain bookstore couple of blocks from your apartment.

~*~

You went there the next weekend, on a cold Sunday morning. You kept the mystery poet a secret to yourself, although it haunted you for the whole week while you were at work.

As the weeks ensued, work was piling up, but you felt at peace when you were there among the books and Jungkook's company. The weekends went by with Jungkook narrating funny stories of certain customers he encountered, high school memories, work schedules, and of course books.

“No, Dark Places was absolutely not one of Gillian Flynn’s best works,” you commented, one evening.

“But the Satanic vibe was cool, you have to admit,” Jungkook’s voice was lost as he piled books in front of a stand.

Jungkook was a diligent worker for a newbie; he polished the shelves and smoothened out dog-eared books. He always checked the register and counted the cash, aligned the books the correct way, made note of what books were available and those which needed immediate restocking. He lost his callous attitude of high school years, but you berated yourself for always comparing his high school habits to the Jungkook now.

You rolled your eyes. “Have you read Karin Slaughter’s books though?”

You could feel his smirk from behind the stack of books. “Pretty Girls.”

“The Good Daughter.” You argued.

“Pretty Girls was grislier. I like.” God, you wanted to lunge a book at this guy. Everything gory or Satanic amused him, it seemed.

Jungkook was funnier than you imagined with the comedic antics he sometimes pulled off, by failing at twirling a book in his hands to accidentally hitting his head on the storeroom door behind the register. He sometimes flirted here and there, which was mostly harmless. But you couldn’t forget that time in the store when he called you special. The look he gave, the sincerity behind it, how genuine it felt.

You kept buying books and of course the love letters kept emerging along with the roses. You still had no idea who this person was, but as time went by, you kept falling more and more in love. You kept the petals in your journal. They did dry off, but you kept them regardless. You always kept the poems in your drawer, neatly piled into one corner. Sometimes, you pressed them close to your chest as if the words would somehow leap up from the page, dissolve into your rib cages and settle near your heart.

But one stormy morning that you were at the bookstore, you were weighed down by how work was progressing. The company had faced some setbacks, so you were responsible for getting the hearing from your boss. You tried to mask your sadness until you see Jungkook doing something suspicious near the centre of the room.

There was a small stand, where usually books were heaped into a mountain of paperbacks. It looked as if the boy was trying to pile the books in a house of cards fashion. The experiment was bound to fail, and Jungkook was lucky Namjoon was never here on weekends to see what was about to be happen.

But you help him instead.

“Do you like working here, Kook?” you tried to sound nonchalant. You hand him two books at a time, while he dexterously stabilised a book on top of another.

“I do,” he replies. “It’s relaxing. Especially when I’m not sweaty and working out all the time. Why?”

“It’s just, I hate my work environment you know, and I miss writing– “

Jungkook eyes you worriedly as he stops midway through the activity. You don’t notice and hand him some books anyway, but they fall right at the edge of the pile and the whole stack falls down on both of you like dominoes.

Jungkook falls back first on the ground, catching you as you fall on his stomach. Your faces are inches away from each other, but you rest your head on his chest, tears stinging the corners of your eyes.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! See? I’m such a mess. I can’t do anything right, I’m a failure, I’m-“

Jungkook rests his hand on your back and the other hand gently stroking your forehead. You picked up on his hesitance, as if he was asking your body to relax as a signal that he was comforting you. You did relax, you felt as ease. The weeks when you were around him, you never felt comfortable with anyone in your life. Let alone the fact that he was attractive, erm, cute – but he was probably one of the best people you knew.

“Shut up okay? You're amazing. Those assholes at work don't know how talented you are. You're amazing.” Jungkook whispered, rubbing your back in small circles. “I…I sometimes don’t like working at my centre either. The toxic masculinity over there makes me want to puke. I hate the environment, and sometimes I think I’m the one who sparked it.

He wraps both arms round you now, and you're reminded again literally, that being surrounded by books and Jungkook was what led you to Fact and Fiction every weekend. You two lie there for a good ten seconds, before you realised that a customer may walk in any moment. There was also the mess to sort out.  

You help Jungkook up, wiping your tears with the back of your hand.

“I can’t really see you cry, I start crying too,” Jungkook jokes, as he hands you a tissue from the tissue box. Always so concerned, you took note. “Is there something that keeps you happy apart from books? Y-you could try and do that?”

"Actually,” you sniff. “There is something that keeps me happy these days. Someone keeps writing me love letters."

There, your secret finally revealed. Jungkook gaped you, as if he didn’t believe it. Honestly, you didn’t either until you made the connection yourself.

He proceeded to ask you details of the discovery, and was shocked himself when you told him of how you thought the person could be someone from high school. It really got him thinking. He named each classmate you’ve ever had an interaction with, but you couldn’t picture any of them having any interest in you.

How did your mystery writer/(lover?) know so much about you? Little details, little quirks. Was he a stalker? But how did he know exactly which books you bought and when?

"Well, maybe you should write something of your own too. Maybe like, in response to how you feel when you read his poems.” The boy suggested, picking the books from the floor, dusting them before putting it in a box next to him.

You mirrored his actions. You pondered over the thought for a while though. Writing to him would be a way to practice your writing that you thought you lost. It was a great idea; you were doing it for yourself. And then if you ever meet this mystery guy, you would show him too.

“Wait, before you leave,” the doe-eyed boy stops your tracks. The books were successfully placed in the box, and you were helping him put it in the sore room when he asks you to wait.

Jungkook walks you toward the end of the room. He picks out a book and shows you the cover. It’s a limited-edition copy of one of your favourite authors of all time, and signed. You wondered what it was doing at the back, when it should be out in front.

“I saved this copy, just for you,” Jungkook’s cheeks blushed a tinge of pink. “I remembered how much you liked his work in school. And I’m willing to give this to you, half the price.”

You ran and hugged Jungkook the tightest hug you had ever given someone in years. He laughed, returning the hug. You felt like the luckiest girl, customer, (whatever!) and you almost felt bad because you had gotten something exclusive for a discount because you knew the employee, anyone else would have paid fortunes for this. You thought about declining, but Jungkook really insisted.

“Don’t think about refusing. I’ll go stamp this before you make your payment,” he says before you could protest.

Really, where had Jungkook been all this time? So much kindness, this boy was brimming with endless love that you thought you didn’t deserve. After a while, he comes out and you hand him the cash.  

As you say your goodbyes and make your leave, Jungkook says “And please don’t cry, wouldn’t want to taint that pretty face, right?”

Something stirred in your heart. You had just started seeing Jungkook as a man, was it now that he started seeing you as a woman? A blush creeps up your neck as you contemplate the thought all the way home.

~*~

You carefully keep the purchase on your bed. Taking out the scraps of love poems from your drawer, you needed to look at your muse before you started writing on your own.

You stretched your hands, pen in hand, ready to recreate wonders when it hit the paper. But you were blank. It’s like your mind had wired out all the imaginations you had kept stored for the last couple of years. You fell flat on your desk, exhaustion over coming you. Had you really lost your touch? Your parents, teachers and friends always praised you for your writing skills, have you let them down? But you weren’t really going to quit this easily.

You looked at your purchase. There must be another poem hidden inside. As if controlled by an entity, you opened the book, flipped the leaves and saw the very page sitting in between the middle pages. You removed the pink rose petals too, your guy never seemed to forget adding them in. You turned the scrap over.

 Today I heard your laugh

Setting my heart in a frenzied trance

The purest sound even the sweetest nightingale could not match

Like fireflies bouncing against thin glass

The most beautiful treasure, I can never have.

 Your eyes watered. It was a poem tinier from the rest, but this one struck something within you. “Like fireflies bouncing against thin glass”, the words feeling sweeter every time you repeated them. You couldn’t believe someone, who was so far from you, could love you this vehemently.

Suddenly, you had found your strength. You were going to write. You were doing this for him. For you.

You picked up the pen and the words just came to you. It was a struggle, but it was a start, you console yourself. You never imagined you would be writing a love letter to someone you had never seen, touched and spoke to, but you didn’t care. Your hands worked away, filling the page in front of you.

But your mind echoed the same mantra over, and over again: I am doing this for us. I am doing this for us. I am doing this for us.

~*~

It's three weeks later that you decide to do an experiment. It's been quite a while since you've been to the store, and the poems stopped coming as well. Work was driving you crazy. You knew sometime in this week you had to drop by the bookstore, so you decided to see if your mystery lover came on the weekdays.

Another employee whom you didn’t know personally and Namjoon were there. Jungkook, of course, was nowhere in sight like you guessed. Namjoon gives you a wave from the register as he speaks to a customer. You knew that you already had too many books, but today was crucial if you wanted to see if your experiment worked out. You could also return the book after you bought it, granted you brought it in after fifteen days. You could buy a book for someone else; your mystery man would never know you were buying it for yourself. Yeah, that’s what you decided do.

You picked up a random title from the shelf and made your way to the counter. The store was mostly empty, except one or two customers. Everybody was busy on a weekday.

As you made your payment, you noticed Namjoon stamping the inside of the book before handing it over to you. The counter was designed in a way so that a person standing a normal distance away couldn’t see what was inside of it. So naturally, your eyes furrowed in confusion.

“Don’t you have to go inside and stamp?” You asked, wondering if Namjoon made the wrong stamp. Even the brightest minds can forget.

“What do you mean? Namjoon looked at as if you had said the most ridiculous thing ever.

"Like whenever Jungkook checks out a book, he goes into the storeroom and stamps? It’s a rule?" You weren’t being sure of what you were saying right now. You sounded like a poor student explaining the concept of rocket physics to a professor.

"Oh, I don't know why he does that, since there's already a stamp here." He holds up a plastic rubber stamp like someone would hold an antique. "And I mean, you could do that, since there are few spare ones in the storeroom, but that’s like extra effort you have to put in. I'm not sure why he does that."

You nodded, kind of silent.

"Does he do that to you or for every customer?"

You realise you never even noticed this. Usually when the store had customers, you were engrossed in reading or looking at books. You never even wondered if Jungkook went to the storeroom to stamp all the books that were purchased. The bookstore would be very crowded during weekends, and the time taken for Jungkook to go and come back usually takes five or ten minutes. Surely, he would’ve taken one of the stamps to the counter itself cause the journey would be too tiring. But you didn’t know for sure what he did for other customers. You slapped yourself in your head for being so ignorant.

You left the store with an uncertainty heavy on your chest.

You return home. Billions of questions bounced from one corner of your mind to another in an intense ping-pong battle. What was worse, when you looked inside the book you bought, there was no poem. No rose petals either.

Could it be that Jungkook knew your mystery guy? Was he the one slipping in the poems when you made your purchase? Did your guy come in the middle of the week and hand Jungkook his writing and leave it up to him to do the favour? Is that why there were no poems or roses today, cause Jungkook wasn’t at work?

You didn’t know. All you knew was that the best way to handle your doubts was to confront Jungkook.

You noticed that you needed to buy groceries for the night. You just had take-out for three days in a row and now the thought of Chinese food made you feel icky. You hit yourself on the head for not buying groceries earlier after you were at at the store. You took your purse and made it in time at the grocery before closing.

Once you were done, you stepped out with your heavy paper bag and saw it was pouring heavily. Pedestrians were already waiting outside the store, hoping the rain would subside soon. Nobody suspected today that it would rain and neither did you.

“Fuck,” you muttered, you didn’t bring an umbrella. The bookstore was just across the grocery. It had a bigger shade, enough to cover seven people from the rain. You silently thanked Namjoon’s choice of constructing the store as you launched yourself across the street.

Jungkook was standing under the shed, looking for something in his bag. You didn’t notice he was there until he called your name.

“Y/N!” his eyes lit up. Desperate, your eyes searched his hands. He was carrying an umbrella. You breathed easier.

“Oh hey,” you say, the rain making it hard for you to be audible. Raindrops pounded against the shed like fists banging a door. “I thought you didn’t work on weekdays?”

“I don’t,” he said. “I was meeting someone here for work.” You nodded, wondering how would bring up the topic of the poems. Maybe you would ask him on Saturday, two days from now. Right at this moment, didn’t seem like the best time.

“Would you mind dropping me off at the subway, though? It’s just near my place,” you knew you sounded desperate, but you needed to get back home. You remembered he had to take the subway to get home too. Jungkook violently nodded his head as he opened his umbrella. You both started walking, shivering slightly at the cold.

"Hey, come closer. Don't want to get your pretty outfit wet," Jungkook huddled you closer to his side, wrapping a hand around your waist for purchase. Your cheeks reddened, maybe at the way the wind whipped your skin or the fact that no one's ever been this near you.

As the space between you and Jungkook closed, you looked at the boy who was always so concerned with your well-being. He had been occupying your thoughts lately. Maybe because of his dorky personality or because he was very smouldering in person, but either ways, your experience of crushes told you that this was the beginning of another infatuation. But you, liking your high school classmate? As much you fantasised him from time to time, you had to resist thinking about it. He maybe had a girlfriend, who knew? Someone as wonderful as him deserved one.  

But in this moment, under the incessant rain where both of you trying to turn his upturned umbrella, Jungkook breaking into bouts of laughter as a car splashed water on your clothes, and you complaining of your matted hair – you felt so happy. The puzzle of the poems was longer a worry to you. All you wanted was to be happy in the moment, with Jungkook.

“So, are you going to give this mystery guy a chance?” Jungkook's voice strained to speak over the rain. Ah, coming to the point. You had been so sure you wouldn’t bring up the topic, but destiny had other plans.

“How am I supposed to give him a chance when I don't know who he is or how he looks like?” You say, uncomfortable at how wet the hem of your jeans was. You were walking at an uncomfortable speed, trying to avoid the puddles in your path but in vain.

“He surely knew what he had to do to get you swoon over him,” Jungkook laughed, as if he was so sure. He was right though, strangely.

“He does have a way with words,” you agreed. The wind was horrible now, pulling your top over your midriff.   "I'm scared cause maybe the day he'll come up to me, I'll look like trash."

"No, you never look like trash. You look pretty in whatever you wear, Y/N." Jungkook scoffed. You blushed again. God, why was it so hard not to blush in front of him? “But you do know what's coming.

“What is?” Honestly your mind had been occupied so much about work, and your anonymous lover than you had no time to think the next Jungkook wanted to say.

“Valentine's Day.”

As soon as you heard it, something in you jolted. Two days from now was Valentine’s Day.

"Do you think he might make his appearance that day?" you asked, your voice high as a sparrow’s chirp. Jungkook offered to hold your grocery bag in return for holding his umbrella. You obliged.

"Can't really say that, but would it make your day if he did?" he continued.

“Oh my god, yes,” you stressed on the word, even slightly a little bit anxious because you wouldn’t know what you did if he came out of nowhere.

“Does someone have butterflies in their stomach now?”

"Stop it.” You nudged an elbow at him. You have no idea what he does to me."

"I do know." He holds his gaze longer this time. The rain finally subdued. You saw something in Jungkook's eyes then, you're not sure what – sadness, hope, expectation? But whatever it was, you felt something reverberate in your ribs long after he tears his gaze away.

"I think this is where we part." You say, brushing the hair from your eyes. You were still holding his umbrella, waiting for the right moment to give it to him.

Jungkook suddenly takes your free hand and squeezes it in his own. "Whatever you do, Y/N, please give that guy a chance. He does seem to really like you." He tucked a hair beside your ear, you shuddered a bit at the cold touch.

Why was Jungkook being so persistent about it? Why was he so serious when it came to you and your mystery lover? Whatever the deal was, Jungkook's expression didn't waver. He was right too, and that strengthened your resolve to accept this stranger no matter who he was. You nodded, which made Jungkook only happier.

"I wish I can see him." You sighed, wondering if Jungkook was thinking what you were thinking.

"Y/N," Jungkook leaned over to whisper in your ear. "Maybe you just need to keep looking around you, because he could be so near to you, but you just don't know it yet."

You still don't understand what the raven-haired stunner meant by his words when he hands you the groceries, leaves without his umbrella and descends the subway stairs.

~*~

It was Saturday. Valentine’s Day.

Jungkook woke up in his one-bedroom apartment, a little shaky. Today was the day.

As he reached over to pick up the backpack he took to work, he unzipped the tiny front pocket. Scraps of paper fell out from the seams, like snowflakes on a wintry morning. The twenty-three-year-old looked at each piece, running his fingers over the love poems his high school-self had written to you. If Jungkook had told his angsty teenage self that someday the poems he had written at the top of his history notebook would be read by you, he would have never believed himself.

Jungkook always liked you.

It wasn’t love at first sight, heck, he didn’t believe in that. He didn’t mind you at first, but he realised what made you so special than the rest. You were strong, maybe not in the vocal way, but in the way you saw the world around you. When the teacher complimented how well you would write your answers, you evocative your poetry was – Jungkook could never imagine how a shy girl, her nose so lost in a book at the corner of class would do that.

So when Jungkook read your answers one day, or when he would sneak a glance at your writing, he felt insecure. The real reason why Jungkook always teased you was that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t write as well you did, put his mind to something that you did so well, to be so intelligent, strong and soft. From you, he understood that strength doesn’t equate to being aggressive, or overly vocal. It can be in the way you can showed kindness as well.

So that’s why started pestering you, to hide his own feelings he could never reveal to anyone.

Jungkook never forgot how even after he teased you repeatedly in class, you would always give him an extra pencil when he wanted one, or a reassuring smile when he was anxious before a test. That was the only limit of his interactions with you, but it was more than enough.

He quickly took notice of you in the most subtle ways. The pencil you wrote with, the way your hair was styled one morning, that blue sweater that was apparently your favourite. How you passed by his seat at the cafeteria every morning to sit with your friends. How opinionated you were about certain authors and their writing styles. Even when Jungkook had to put up his ‘popular boy’ persona, sometimes he would tune out all the meaningless conversations he had just to hear how soft your laugh sounded when your friends showed you something funny.

You quickly became his muse. Jungkook was good at physical activities. He was popular, everyone had expectations from him to go on to college with a football scholarship. Everyone looked up to Jungkook cause made himself look like an idol. But in reality, Jungkook had nothing to show except for a fleeting charisma.  Jungkook was good at physical activities, but not at words.

But you made him fall in love with words. Like everyone else, he was at first impatient at why poets and writers took so long to get to the point. But he learnt from you that art was patience. Love was patience.

He struggled, for weeks, months, trying to get the right words out of him. How he felt for you, how you made him feel. He now realised how hard it was express your feelings in few words. But with some practice, Jungkook eventually got there. He had begun to read more, surprising his parents too, but he eventually loved the activity. It calmed him. Soothed his nerves. Staying up late at night just reading, Jungkook noticed his English answers were improving. When he received the final grade, it wasn’t great. But he was satisfied. His whole gang slapped high-fives with him asking how he cheated his way through the exam successfully. He bit his lower lip, a habit of his, as he shrugged at them in response. The real reason was a pretty girl who always sat in the corner of class.

He kept his proudest pieces of poetry hidden in his bag for so long, secretly thanking you for realising a part of him he never knew existed. He took the bag everywhere with him, serving as his strength. His true, strength.  Not the kind that had him running 20 laps around school and bench press 30 kilos to impress his coach.

He always regarded you as his first love, not Hae-ri, not any of the girls he went out with as a joke. He was sad when he graduated high school, but was too shy to come up and thank you. He regretted not saying anything to you then, knowing life is not one to give second chances.

But when Jungkook saw you in the bookstore for the first time, part of him thought this was fate. His feelings resurfaced, stronger than ever. He still had the scraps of poetry in his bag in the storeroom, he could just retrieve them and slip them into the book you would purchase. Maybe even some roses Namjoon liked to decorate on the inside.

When you slid your book the counter, Jungkook had deliberated the idea. But he knew that everything happens for a reason, so he decided to do it anyway. You would never know who it was, but at least he could tell you how he felt for you in one way. He kept repeating this as many times as you bought something from the store. He loved your company, he felt like the luckiest man in the world. Never had he felt happier when he was talking to you, getting to know the real you.

So that’s why he wanted to reveal himself to you, behold! I’m the writer behind all those poems!

Valentine’s Day would be the perfect opportunity to do so. He just hoped, wished, that you wouldn’t push him away. Or, be disappointed. That was Jungkook’s fear that kept him wide awake at night. Could you have been hoping for someone else? Did you not look at Jungkook the way he looked at you?

He would only know today. He was bracing himself, when he got changed, when he showered, when he raced to the subway and made it sharp at ten am.

Namjoon was already there, smiling at the young boy wondering why his cheeks were so red. Jungkook’s heart never beat that fast. His heart felt like it would be sliced open by a hundred bullets. He quickly put on his apron and pretended to be busy arranging the books on the middle shelves in proper order. It was already an hour when he heard the door open.

Jungkook’s feet almost leapt up when he saw you coming inside. He waved, a bit too much he thought, and took few seconds to gather himself together. He was ready to approach you any moment now. He would take your hands, press them against his chest and say: “Its me, Y/N. I’m the anonymous writer you’re looking for.”

Jungkook edged himself forward. All this time he’d been waiting for this.

Until he sees Namjoon walking up to you first.

~*~

“Y/N,” Namjoon approaches you. You didn’t expect him to be talk to you, since he was always so busy on weekends. He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to say…that you look pretty today.”

“What?” you laugh, nervously. Namjoon calling you pretty? All of a sudden? You never even thought he even looked at you beyond a friend. Yes, he was very good looking, Jungkook must have talked about you to him, hadn’t he? The former always complimented on your appearance, making you smile inwardly. 

“Gosh,” he chuckles in return. “Your laugh really does sound like fireflies bouncing against thin glass.”

You blink twice, hand going right up to your mouth. Namjoon. Wait, Namjoon? So, it had been him all this time? Yes, it all made sense! Only someone as charming, educated and well-mannered as Namjoon fit in all the right pieces of the mystery man you pictured. No wonder the poems had a very loving touch, it was written by someone like him. But how he had he known so much about you? Was it Jungkook who told him all those teeny, insignificant details that you were made of? 

At that moment, you didn't care. All you knew was that Kim Namjoon noticed you. He had noticed you.

You smile at him.

You looked over your shoulder, Jungkook’s face turning to a shade of grey. His seemed frozen in position. You wondered why. You just wanted to jump up and shake him and scream into his face: Jungkook! Namjoon is the one! He’s been the one writing to me!

“I've been meaning to ask, would you like to go out to coffee with me today? It is Valentine’s Day,” he scratches the back of his neck. You take his hands in yours. You nod willingly. You were too excited that all you had was time to point at Namjoon to Jungkook when Namjoon had his back turned to remove his apron.

Jungkook got the message you tried to tell him. He only smiled, but you wondered why it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

~*~

The café shop that you and Namjoon decided on was already swarming with customers, couples mostly. You guys decided to sit outside, a table for two. You were so excited, you were ready to bombard Namjoon with a series of questions, hoping it would give you the insight it needed. You both ordered two lattes and brownies with ice-cream topping.

“I can’t believe you readily agreed to go out with me,” the man before you shrugs modestly. “I mean, I could pass on as your elder brother, right?”

“Um, no, I was so happy that you asked, I…I never imagined, really. I’m really happy you did,” you stuttered, reaching out your arms to touch his. He appreciated the compliment.

“That’s so sweet, Y/N,” Namjoon smiled again, resting the palm of his hand on his cheek, giving you a longing gaze.

“Sweet, just like the poems you wrote for me,” you giggled, waiting to hear just what he would say. You almost choked on the next words.  

“The what?” He blinked. Immediately, you knew you looked stupid. You tried to find your words.

“I said, just the like the poems you wrote for me.”

“I never wrote poems for you, heck, I can't even write poetry, Y/N.” Namjoon sipped on his latte that arrived. Your knees turned rubbery. He was joking right? You continued to insist, but Namjoon just shook his head firmly. 

“I'm serious, I never wrote anything for anyone. Ask all my exes.” He was looking at your curiously now. You did too. Your hands were getting sweaty with nervousness.

“Then why did you say that my laugh sounded like fireflies tinkling against glass?” Exactly your question.

“Cause, I heard Jungkook saying it was.”

Your heart again did a little flip at his name. He was talking about you to Namjoon. But Jungkook was narrating the same line from the last poem you received, how is that possible, granted if he didn’t know the content? Or if, someone had given him the poem in the first place and he just happened to see it? A streak of anger went up your body when you thought of Jungkook intruding on your privacy.

“If...if, you didn't write these poems, then who did?” You searched your bag, taking out the poems that you kept in your wallet. You laid them out, one by one, on the table. There were many of them, but Namjoon scrutinised each piece closely. His eyes darted from one end to another, eyebrows furrowed in confusion suggesting he was in deep thought. Namjoon squinted at the scribbly, childish scrawls on the scraps and suddenly his brain clicked.

“This seems a lot like the poems Jungkook showed me, you know.”

You looked up shocked, your heart feeling like it was dropped from a height. Jungkook writes poems? You knew he read often; you didn’t know he wrote too. Did he have the time to? When did he start writing? All these questions made your head feel like it was stuffed with cotton.

Namjoon noticed your silence. “I know,” he laughs. “Seems weird right? He doesn’t seem like it, but that boy does have some talent in the writing department. He says it calms him somehow.”

“Do you keep roses in the store room, Namjoon?” You said, not looking at him. Your voice almost sounded robotic.

“I do, to brighten up the space there. Although I realised on the days you would come, there would always be one rose less the last time I counted them.”

Do you think...?

Suddenly, your brain had connected the dots. You shouldn't have judged Namjoon so quickly. All the times you remembered, Jungkook mentioned going to the storeroom to stamp the books you purchased. There was actually a stamp right there in the counter, but he never failed to go inside the storeroom instead. Maybe he slipped in the poems and the roses then?

And the handwriting. You remember going through Jungkook's essays in high school when you tried to help him out, even a bit. You remembered how bad his handwriting was.

But Jungkook, writing poems for you? You admit you did feel a soft spot for Jungkook albeit your sour history with him in high school, but soon you realised he's so much more than his shy demeanour. Yes, your assumption on Namjoon being your mystery writer overlooked all the clues, and you wished you thought more thoroughly. Now, because of your impulsive decision-making skills, you landed up in this awkward situation with Namjoon.  

Jungkook was the one writing poems for you. Only he could notice those habits you had possessed in school, he was your classmate for fuck’s sake! All those years that you hated him for being mean to you, he was crushing on you instead? How, why?

But then you understood. You liked Jungkook. Ever since the first poem. He became such a beautiful writer, with all the delicate details he noticed about you. So, there was meaning behind him calling you special. There was meaning when he looked at you for a few seconds longer. There was meaning in his smile, in his actions, in his concern. There was meaning in every little thing he did because he liked you, and still likes you. And you liked him too.

Why had he resisted the ache in his heart to come forward and tell you the truth about who the person behind the poems was?

You put back the poems and muttered several apologies to Namjoon before you fled the scene, your mind rehearsing exactly what to tell Jungkook the first thing you meet him.

~*~

You barged inside the familiar bookstore, the cold air from the air-conditioner hitting you smack in the face. There were no customers, it was Valentine’s Day you remind yourself. Jungkook was busy cleaning up the bar, a solemn look colouring his usually bright face.

He looked a bit startled when he saw you open the door, as if he didn't expect you to enter at this hour.

“Y/N! How was your date?” He faked enthusiasm. You marched up to him and slammed the poems down on the counter.

“You could have told me, you know. The worst I could do was to storm off,” You crossed your arms, this time not as a defence mechanism.

“What are you talking about?” He wasn’t looking at you, he was looking at the poems now. How long was he going to keep up this act?

“Disappearing to stamp my book? The horrible handwriting? The intricate details about how I was in school? Sounds like only someone who knew me, or observed me very well, would know.” You said, tone a bit lighter. “I'm not dumb, Kook.”

There was a slight pause on Jungkook’s end before he speaks. “Took you this long to find out, though.”

You grinned. “You’re a coward.” You leaned forward, slightly kissing him on the lips. He responds, smiling, taking his hand to cup you on the cheek. It’s awkward at first, but his lips were just the right amount of soft and yours. Suddenly, Namjoon, your temporary crush on Changmin, disappear. The moment is magical as you lock both arms around Jungkook’s neck as he kisses you excitedly. Sparks fly between both your bodies.

You break away from the kiss. “You say big words in your poems, yet you can't muster up the courage to confess to the girl you like?”

“I thought…you and Namjoon hyung...” Jungkook’s cheeks are flushed crimson, as he eyes the floor in attempt to hide his evident embarrassment.

“Which wouldn't have happened if you confessed to me earlier.” You rolled your eyes, baffled that he didn’t speak up when he should have. “Do you know how awkward it was, realising you were the one behind the poems and not Namjoon?”

“Oh my god, did you leave him there all alone?” He tried to suppress a small laugh. “So, do you like me now?”

“We just kissed, Jungkook.” You punched him. “But yes, I have liked you ever since I read your poem the first time. And your writing is just…wow.”

“I try,” He did that thing again where he rubbed the back of his neck when he got shy. “Only for the girl I always had a crush on.”

“And you succeeded.” Throwing your hands over his neck again, nuzzling your nose against his, you felt the comfort, the same one whenever you were around Jungkook, slowly making it way from your legs to your arms.

“Valentine's Day is not over yet, shall we go out?” You nodded at Jungkook’s suggestion as you both made your way out the store, no customers projected to come anyway.

Hand in hand, you realised that fairy tales with happy endings did exist. Except for princes, dragons and villains – your story had roses, poetry and Jeon Jungkook, your enigmatic writer in hidden notebook scraps, whom you loved with all your heart.

[shinidamachu]

I haven't watched anything after ATLA, but I was shocked to find out that Zuko and Mai don't work out. What are your thoughts? Do you think the writers could have gone in a different direction or was it for the best?

I gotta be honest, you're not missing out much by not engaging with the extras. I only watched Legend of Korra and I don't really remember Mai even being mentioned on it.

They did give Zuko a daughter, though. Her name is Izumi. And even though they never explicitly revealed the mother to be Mai (or what was made of her), I just assumed she was the mother due to the remarkable resemblance:

Now, I haven't read the comics (nor will I ever), so if you're actually refering to them, my knowledge is very limited. But it is my understanding, from the metas I've read about them, that Zuko and Mai break up and make up, as it was their modus operandi in ATLA.

Mai not being around in LOK doesn't necessarily mean she's dead or that they broke up for good. The fate of their relationship was purposefully left open and they do end up together at the end of ATLA, so what happens after doesn't really matter since not everybody takes the comics or LOK as canon, anyway.

Now, since you asked for my opinion... I wasn’t shocked to find out about how they were portraying Maiko in the comics at all. First, because Bryke suck at writing romance. Second, because from the interactions in ATLA, this was more or less what I imagined their relationship would play out and that’s why I never shipped them.

MAIKO CRITICISM UNDER THE CUT!

The writers should have gone in a different direction, but in the ATLA finale. I love Zuko. And I love Mai. But I don’t like them as a couple because I think they are not fitted for each other. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a Zutara shipper, let’s get this out of the way right here, right now.

I’m saying this because I would rather they had ended up alone than together. Not only them, but Aang and Katara as well. They were all so young I feel like there wouldn’t be any harm for the story if no couples were canonized. 

Especially because, again: Bryke suck at writing love stories (with the notable exceptions being Yukka and Sukka) and romance was actually the less compelling part of ATLA.

More than that, if Zuko and Mai had to end up with a love interest, it shouldn’t have been each other because Maiko is actually a disservice to their characters. In some aspects, it keeps Mai from growing and it regresses Zuko's development.

You see, their relationship always struck me as something they would eventually grow out of. Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt they really cared about each other. But the narrative went out of its way to show us that the years they spent apart changed their dynamic fundamentally.

Mai and (especially) Zuko aren’t the same people they were when they first met. And when they finally reunited, no real effort was made to learn who was this new person in fron of them. He tried to open up, but she shut him down. 

Instead of reconnecting, of deepening the relationship, they insisted on jumping head first into dating and picked things up where they left off, desperatelly trying to cling to what they knew and forcing two pieces of a different puzzle to click. Of course it wouldn’t work.

The person Zuko became needed someone passionate by his side. Someone he could open up to and confide in. Someone with the same sense of honor, of justice. Someone who understood him and his actions, who got how important it is for him to take the throne and right the wrongs of his country. Someone he could count on to help him get there. I guess we can all agree that this doesn’t sound like Mai.

The person Mai became needed someone who would focus on her and her needs for once. Someone who would have made her a priority. Someone who could actually see past her poker face. Someone who would take her away from the boring royal stuff she hates so much. I guess we can all agree that this doesn’t sound like Zuko, either.

When he took off to join the Gaang, he left the life style he had always known behind because it didn’t fit who he was anymore. He can’t go back from that. And this includes Mai. She is the personification of that life. And as much as they liked each other, being together just doesn’t make sense anymore. Especially because becoming Fire Lady inevitably traps her in the life she was trying to get away from. It’s one of the worst endings they could have given to these characters.

And the way it was executed? Even worse. They reconciled without as much as a conversation about what happened: his “betrayal”, the end of the war, what it means for their relationship, if their feelings were still the same. In fact, apparently Zuko kind of... completely forgot she was in prison and made no move to get her out because he had been too busy fighting Azula and taking lightning to the chest for Katara.

Mai isn’t even a part of the apotheosis of his arc. He got where he needed to be and she wasn’t one of the characters who activelly help him get there. This is very symbolic. And the apotheosis of her arc? Was saving him from Azula, but she didn’t did it because she understood his reasons and wanted to be supportive. She did it because he is the guy she likes. Which is fine, but not enough to “award” her with Zuko. There were feelings there, but they were never on the same page.

“Mai Alone,” is what she deserved. To travel the world on her own. A different place every day. Never the same, always moving. Maybe that way she would have seen the things Zuko did. Maybe this way she would have understood. And after tasting freedom, she would have realized she would have never want to be confined to palace walls ever again. Not for Zuko, not for anybody.

She would have been much happier as the first woman in the White Lotus or as a Bounty Hunter. A spy who, after seeing what the Fire Nation did to the world, finally found her calling by working on the shadows to make sure nothing will break the peace the Avatar and the Fire Lord managed to achieve.

And Zuko deserved the family he always wanted, with a partner who would not only put up with the political duties, but would have been thrilled to do so. Katara seems like the obvious choice here, but even Jin would have been a better fit.

Sometimes things aren’t meant to be and that’s okay. Zuko and Mai work better as friends.

[juminsmysticmc]

I'm so sorry that you are sad. Honestly I was suprised that request are open for so long... So I will request! Can I have RFA + minor trio (i'm so happy that i don't have to choose one part this time, i love almost everyone) who was forced by her family to have job like lawyer or doctor but she dreamed about being a writer since she was very young? Thank you and don't be sad about lack of requests. I'm sure thatbin short time you will again have tons of them

RFA + Minor Trio with a Mc who was forced to do high sociality jobs instead of becoming an author

Thank you, yeah, they were open for a pretty long time, the likes and reblogs also went down a bit, I believe that I was gone for too long, ups.

But I will catch up!

Your words made me happy! Thank you for your support!

Jumin

,,I look up to you, my love,’’ Jumin praised you in your shared bedroom as you faced each other.

Your head was resting on his warm chest as you could hear his heartbeat.

,,Why?’’ you asked him, curious about what he would say next.

,,You achieved so much. You studied medicine and are a professor at such a young age, saving other people’s lives, it’s really amazing, you know?’’ he asked you, smiling down at you as you stayed silent for a few moments.

,,You think so? Because I always wanted to become an author. I can’t think of a time in my childhood in which I wasn’t thinking about a story. I only began to write them down way too late. I didn’t even get the chance to ask a publisher to look at them,’’ you whispered sadly, and Jumin could hear it.

,,Why didn’t you do that then?’’ he asked you, now patting your back.

,,I was forced to. My mother, gosh, it was such a hard time. That’s why I don’t have a good relationship with her.

She burned all my writings, forced me to go to the school she wanted, all because she wanted me to have a good stable job; a job with money, contacts to marry into a rich family, to marry another doctor, and open my own hospital.

Because she came from a medical family, I had to do the same.’’ you sighed.

,,Then… just resign, I will call a publisher tomorrow. You don’t need to worry about money. I already told you once… just put yourself above everyone else… if you want to become a writer, I will open that possibility for you… I will protect you, even in front of your mother,’’ Jumin whispered and held you tighter in his arms while you began to fall asleep with your heart at ease...

Zen ( this one was kinda hard cause, like everyone else knows, I always try to stick to the original story line and MC is his manager after they become a couple so…)

,,I’m so proud of you,’’ Zen laughed as he kissed you.

You just resigned your position as a lawyer, all because you were going for your own carrier.

,,Thank you, Zenny,’’ you mumbled and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

,,You motivated me to not do what my family wants. Thanks to you, I’ve realized that even if that was a stable job, nothing can beat doing something you love,’’ you laughed.

Zen knew that you were very brave and that it took you a lot of strength.

But luckily, you saved a lot of money in your years as a lawyer so every single door was open to you.

,,ARE YOU CRAZY?!’’ someone screamed when you just returned in front of Zen’s door.

,,YOU BARELY KNOW THIS MAN! WHAT CAN HE GIVE YOU?! NOTHING! HE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY!’’ your mother screamed at you.

,,Mother, I have enough of my own. So does Zen and we already talked about this. Besides, no one is saying that I won’t keep making money anymore,’’ you told her calmly, making your boyfriend even prouder.

,,Ah! And what do you intend to do? So you think that you will write something and someone else will make a book out of your crap?’’ she asked you, laughing at your idiotic idea, or so she thought.

,,No,’’ you laughed.

,,I will work as his manager and while I am doing so, I will write my own book, my steps, and a script for a movie. Everything is already set, mother,’’ you smiled and pulled Zen.

,,One day, we will be able to talk like a mother and a daughter, but until then, stay healthy,’’ you lastly said and then closed the door behind yourself.

Yoosung

As you helped Yoosung, he realized more and more that you taught him with a bit of bitterness.

Of course, humans and animals were different, but you noticed that there were a few basics you could help him to remember.

One day, Yoosung finally found enough strength to ask you about it.

,,Mc, do you like your job?’’ he asked you, a bit nervous even though you two had been together for such a long time.

You answered with a short, ,,no’’ and then you smiled.

,,I hate it. I wanted to become a writer. I put all my hope into it and lost. My parents were pretty strict and they still are. I had to become a doctor and I couldn’t change that. And so, here I am, with the most wonderful job, saving human beings, without actually enjoying it,’’ you told him and laid back on your chair.

,,And why do you keep doing it?’’ he asked you.

Well, that was a good question. You really had no idea...why…?

,,Let’s do it like this! Work on your books, on whatever you want to write. Write whenever you have time and once I have the job, you can resign yours! I will make your dream come true. You just have to go through it for a little while longer,’’ he smiled at you, actually making you tear up.

,,Yoosung, I’m so happy that I met you back then,’’ you laughed in tears and kissed him with all your love.

Jaehee

Back then, when Jaehee gave you the key, she never thought that this could be a harder fight than she imagined.

As a banker, one of the most known in Korea, you however, knew what you were talking about.

But something felt off.

And Jaehee, even though she didn’t like it, began to understand while you supported her so much with doing what she loved.

You were probably going through the same.

,,We need these credits and you need to fill out that page and sign here, these papers,’’ you told her, with the most monotone voice you ever had.

,,You don’t look as if you enjoy this. I’m sorry that you have to do this for us…’’ she mumbled.

In the next moment, you smiled at her. ,,Don’t worry, Jaehee. this just isn’t my favorite job, that’s why. I just don’t like my job, it has nothing to do with you,’’

This made her feel even more uncomfortable.

,,Mc, why don’t you do the same as me… I mean, I thought that we would do this together, but seeing you so busy… is that really something you want to do?’’ she asked you, more nervous than before.

Currently, Jaehee was questioning all her decisions.

Was it the right decision to leave Jumin’s company and open a shop with a stranger she kind of felt attracted to?

,,I’ll find a solution,’’ you smiled and stroked her arm.

,,I have to wait until we are finished with the preparations or else our money will be cut off and we won’t be able to do anything. Then, when this coffee shop is up and running, I will write a book about how to make it work, give out information without wanting money for it, and just helping people,’’ you smiled, your eyes looked even warmer now.

,,You- oh my, my head, what was I thinking? Of course, what you’re saying makes so much sense,’’ she laughed.

,,Let’s do this. I will support you with all my heart,’’ she smiled and signed the paper you needed from her.

Saeyoung

,,I’m home,’’ you called as you rushed inside and took off your shoes.

Saeyoung rushed to your side as he helped you to take off your jacket.

,,How was your day, my dear?’’ he said.

You were shocked to see your fiancé in a dress with fake hair.

,,What the heck are you doing?’’ you laughed as you kissed him.

,,Since you weren’t home, I had to play the madam of the house,’’ he acted.

,,In short, he had to act like an idiot,’’ Saeran said and rolled his eyes as your friends, the other members of the RFA laughed.

Yes, carefree days finally came.

,,How was work?’’ Zen asked you.

,,Please, no, don’t let me begin! I hate it! Being a judge for teenagers is just so… Ah, I can’t take it anymore! I’m pissed and I don’t want to do it anymore,’’ you said and drank some water.

,,Why?’’ Jaehee asked you. You were doing a good job, why did you think like that?

,,Because I don’t want to take children from their parents anymore. I’m sick and tired of it,’’ you answered.

,,If they get neglected…’’ Saeyoung answered, this time being serious. He knew what he was talking about.

You looked at him. You understood his point, but…

,,It’s not fair to judge by things you hear or experience yourself. Sometimes, there are good parents who lose their children, you know?’’ you warned him.

But you already knew that Saeyoung put an end to all of this, even though you didn’t like the way he did it, just like he did it for Zen back then when he posted a short chapter of your book and made a lot of publishers come to you.

As a little thank you, he said back then.

And even though you didn’t like the method he used, you were thankful to him and were happy.

If someone wants to see a oneshot out of this HC please comment below or send me a message ( anon works out too ) I want to hear your opinions.

Saeran

You laid down on your couch when you turned your head around to read the time.

Once again, it was 3 am.

Saeran walked over to you without you noticing him and hugged you from behind.

,,You’re still not sleeping?’’ you asked him and nuzzled your face into his neck, inhaling Saeran’s scent.

,,Jumin needed help with something and I had to finish it,’’ he lied. He waited for you but he would never tell you. The thing he worked on wasn’t even that important.

He just wanted to see you, because as a politician, you two barely had time for each other.

It was funny. He hated politicians, his ,,father’’ at first, but you… you were different.

You were fighting for something.

And he knew that if it wasn’t for him, you would have given up this job a long time ago.

,,You know, if you want to do something else, do it… you don’t have to stay in that position just for me,’’ he mumbled as he stroked your hair.

,,It’s okay. We need to save Saeyoung. I don’t want to get revenge, but I want everyone involved to get what they deserve. You know, back then I never would have thought that the job my father forced on me would someday help you. I always hated him and myself for not being able to change it. But as soon as we win this fight, I will finally realize my dream and write a book about our life. What happened to you and Saeyoung should go public and I will fight for it!’’ you told him.

He hugged you and took you in his arms, carrying you to your shared bed.

,,We should pay our respect to your father and visit him over the weekend,’’ he whispered and waited for your answer, but you already fell asleep.

,,Thank you, Mc,’’ he whispered before he also fell asleep.

Jihyun

,,I never thought that in the two years I wasn’t around you, you would actually change your job. I’m happy that now you’re able to do what you always wanted to do,’’ Jihyun praised you.

,,Yes, thank you. I never liked working in a hospital, although I grew with the job. 

But today, writing about all these things helped me.

And I finally showed my parents that a writer can also be something to look up to,’’ you smiled as you watched your daughter Lucy.

,,Did you ever speak to them again?’’ he asked you.

Your parents and his father didn’t come to your wedding; that was why only the RFA came.

It was kind of sad that the only true friends you guys had were the RFA, but everyone else weren’t really people you would call friends.

,,No, well, having a daughter going from being a surgeon to being an author is something to feel disappointed about, apparently,’’ you laughed sadly.

,,I will never ever forbid Lucy to do anything she loves,’’ you said and then looked over to Jihyun.

He nodded and agreed with you.

Your husband hugged you and kissed your cheek, he had to think about the time he first saw that you actually published something. He could only imagine how hard that time must have been for you.

He was also kind of sad that he wasn’t there with you. Jumin told him later that he actually supported you a lot without even telling you because he knew that you would have never accepted his help.

But from now on, he would be there and support you.

For you, and for the sake of his family and friends.

Vanderwood

One day, when Vanderwood was cleaning up after the two of you moved in, he saw a box.

The box, which was standing in the middle of a room, was getting on his nerves so much that the long haired man decided to throw it away, thinking that it was nothing but trash in there.

However, he soon realized that he had been horribly wrong.

The box slipped out of his hands and a lot of papers fell out.

,,Huh?’’ he asked himself as he picked one up, the words “chapter one” written on it.

One by one, Vanderwood sorted the papers and actually noticed that three whole books were inside the box as single pages.

Just when Vanderwood was at chapter six of one of the books, you entered, the cleaning session long forgotten when you arrived.

,,What is that?’’ you asked him when you saw that he actually read something from your books.

,,You should tell me, don’t you know that that’s against the copyrights? I mean, you are a lawyer, you should know that-’’ Vanderwood quickly stayed silent when he saw your tears.

,,I can hide this scandal, you know?’’ he whispered.

But he was totally wrong.

,,I wrote it years ago. Back when my father lost a trial because of a lawyer. At that time, he forced me to become one too to get revenge.

And so I had to give up on my books,’’ you told him.

,,But your father died! Who cares?! Change jobs!’’ he said, a bit louder.

,,With what money should we pay for the appartnemnt with… and the food?’’ you asked him and laughed. He seemed to forget that he still didn’t have a job and that you were the only one with an income.

,,We will manage. I will make it come true,’’ he told you, and indeed, Vanderwood made everything you wished for come true.

You didn’t know how, and he asked you to not ask about his methods, but your books were published. You could work as an author and could give up what you didn’t enjoy and he was actually working as your manager.

,,I told you to clean the keyboard twice a day!’’ he hissed while you smiled at him.

MASTERLIST 1

MASTERLIST 2

MASTERLIST 3

29.03.2021// 22:26 MEST

[firelxdykatara]

I really like hearing your thoughts on ships, so I was just wondering what you thought about the episode 'Seeing Red' from Buffy as a Spuffy shipper. I love the ship too and remember being so uncomfortable watching that episode. It felt like it came out of no where while I was marathoning the show

Ok so, I’ve been sitting with this for a while (my inbox is telling me it’s been 10 days......time plz stop moving without me noticing), mostly because it’s... a really Touchy topic, for a lot of (very obvious, to anyone familiar with the episode or the arc) reasons.

CW for discussion of attempted sexual assault and rape ahead. (I’m gonna talk a bit about Willow too.)

First of all, I wanna state that I understand why Seeing Red was a ‘point of no return’ for many people. There are a lot of people for whom sexual assault/rape is The Thing they simply cannot get past and they could never see Spike or Spuffy the same again, and that’s valid and understandable. For me, personally, I don’t consider it any more or less reprehensible than murder or anything else vampires and demons get up to in the show because they’re monsters and very specifically Not Human, but at the same time it felt gratuitous and unnecessary (like the writers were trying to remind us Spike was really evil right before he went to get his soul back of his own accord, and I’ll talk a bit more about that later), and the episode itself is difficult to watch. (Also because it includes Tara’s death, which wrecks me to this day.)

It’s also been a very long time since I’ve seen the episode in question, mostly because I haven’t done a full rewatch in years, and when I do watch Buffy it’s either starting from the beginning and then losing track of where i was and starting over again, or else jumping to random episodes throughout the show which I enjoy and watching those by themselves (and Seeing Red is very much not on that list lol). So I rewatched it just to refresh my memory and....god there are a lot of other reasons I don’t care for this episode. (Xander was exceptionally horrific to Buffy re: finding out she was sleeping with Spike. Gods I dislike him more and more the older I get.)

In general, it’s just a really hard episode to watch. (And I’ll never forgive Joss for finally putting Amber Benson in the opening credits, only to kill her that same episode.) There’s a lot of ugliness, and the Trio are among the worst villains in the show--not in terms of how they’re written (they feel kind of terrifyingly realistic, although they also seem kind of exceptionally meta in light of how much has come out in the last decade about Joss Whedon’s own attitudes and behavior and treatment of women), but because every other big bad with very few exceptions has the excuse of being a soulless vampire or a demon or a hellgod or some other monster that can’t really help the fact that they were made that way. The Trio are just normal dudes who think they’re entitled to women and money and power and are willing to do absolutely anything to get all three, proving that maybe it isn’t really the presence or absence of a soul that actually makes humans, like, humane.

But that’s me side-tracking. As far as Spuffy goes, yeah, this episode is pretty brutal. There’s no mincing words here--Spike attempted to rape Buffy, and he only stopped and had his ‘oh my god, what have I done’ realization after she managed to kick him off. If she hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have stopped. And I can almost understand it, from a writing perspective--how do you make a soulless vampire realize that he’s truly a monster and, further, how do you finally get him to want to change that? Make him cross a line he never had before. Except... that really wasn’t necessary. Not for his character arc, nor for his relationship with Buffy, and a part of me thinks that it was really intennded to just drive home the message that Spike was a monster, and that Buffy could never really love him, and the easiest way to communicate that was sexual violence, something that the show never really had its vampires engage in previously. So it would be a shock to the audience, it would throw Spike’s motives into question when he went to get his soul back, and it would make his presence in season 7 a constant question, plus provide a reason for Buffy not to trust him.

I think all of this could have been achieved without the sexual violence. I think the scene was largely done for shock value--again, to douse the audience with ice water and remind them that Spike, no matter how chummy he’d seemed with the Scoobies since getting chipped and eventually working with them, was still a monster. But we really didn’t need that reminder, and I think it would’ve made more sense for him to simply attempt to kill her--still a betrayal, still shocking, still something that could spur him into the actions he would take afterwards (going to get his soul restored), but without the exceedingly uncomfortable attempted rape scene in a season where there had already been serious issues with consent.

I’m talking, specifically, about Willow.

There’s something interesting I’ve noticed in fandom, and it’s that people really don’t seem to want to talk about or acknowledge the fact that Willow raped Tara. Maybe because it was via magic, rather than violence--or because it was never really called what it actually was in the narrative, or because they’re The Gay Ship of btvs, I don’t know. But she did--when she spelled Tara to forget about their serious fight which had been building for weeks, and then went to bed with her. And then explicitly had sex with her the next day. It’s part of why I’ve always had a complicated relationship with “Under Your Spell”--I love the song, but it’s also literally spelling out the fact that Tara’s mind had been violated by the woman she loved and she could not consent to sex while under the spell.

So that moment was already toeing the line in terms of consent and at least Tara was able to talk about how Willow violated her mind and how that made her feel (in song, at that), but Seeing Red was like a slap in the face. Where Willow’s magic addiction and willingness to cross those lines had been building for more than a year, Spike attempting to rape Buffy came out of nowhere. This isn’t a show that explored any really complicated relationship between vampires and consent (in The Vampire Diaries, for example, vampires have an ability called compulsion and compelling humans that they then have sex with is pretty normal and no one really blinks about it, human or vampire; it’s definitely still rape, but it’s not treated as anything particularly beyond the pale, because they’re vampires who can control the minds of their prey and don’t tend to consider the feelings of their food sources to be of any real importance), and while the vampires are hot and have sex, there’s never been any indication that they sexually assault humans in addition to feeding on them.

I think that specific scene in Seeing Red is the hardest to watch in the entire show. There’s really nothing like it in any other episode or with any other villain, and it has a tendency to sit in the back of the mind and sour feelings about Spike and Spuffy because it’s genuinely difficult to forget. I’m not sure if the intention was really to turn people off Spuffy (especially since he got his soul and came back in season 7 and Buffy forgave him and fell in love with him), but that was certainly the effect it had on a lot of people.

For me, personally, like I’ve said I don’t like the scene and I don’t think it was necessary, which is why I tend to ignore it as much as possible when I’m thinking about Spike and Buffy and their relationship. It’s a thing I know that happened, but I also know that I don’t think it was particularly fitting from a character perspective, and that makes it easy for me to file it away as sloppy writing and generally OOC, and move on. Again, I can definitely understand why some people can’t or don’t want to do that, but I also know that a lot of people continue to love Spike and Spuffy and I don’t think I’m alone in considering that moment to be OOC for him and generally try to ignore it in my meta and other analysis of the show.

[rigelmejo]

i just want to say you always inspire me SO much to keep working on learning language. motivation is always an uphill struggle for me but seeing your dedication keeps me going and trying to shoot for more!

You motivate me!!!!!!!!!

Genuinely, whenever you share how you've studied or what you've done ToT I want to learn from what you did! I'm like "well Yue managed to do this! so maybe eventually I'll be able to too!"

Also. I don't know how much you get motivated similar to how I do but. I think sometimes for me the biggest challenge is how to make myself "just DO something" ToT

I tend to be such a perfectionist, and to study languages I absolutely kept self sabotaging myself because of that. In school classes, it didn't hurt me as much because teachers made me keep engaging with new material (but I had other issues in classes lol). But when I started studying on my own, it made me want to just re-read beginner materials (or whatever I was studying) over and over instead of engaging with new things to learn so I could actually improve. I had to set goals to do Actual things in the language, because when my goals were just 'go over X study materials' I'd just keep repeating them and refusing to move forward. Then when my goals were Actual things, I couldn't perfectly re-do them over and over to try and be perfect! Because I simply cannot be a perfect speaker, reader, listener, writer, for years. Even if I try to be a perfectionist - I'm not going to understand a text 100% at my level even if I look everything up, there's still nuance I won't get for years lol. Even if I try to perfectly master how to say X, I won't master pronunciation for a long while. So those goals got me to just... realize I needed to stop Being perfectionist and be happy with doing things 'good enough/understanding enough.' And then finally I stopped being perfectionist so much when going and engaging with reference materials - and just trying to read Through them, listen Through them, and then review later when I'm done as needed if I run into those aspects again while Doing things like reading/speaking etc and need some clarification.

I started making goals after that to "just go through X/try X steps" and not care if I understand everything or do steps perfect. Just getting myself to willingly DO them is the hard part. And if I do them, even imperfectly, I'll learn Something and make Some improvements anyway. Which is good enough for me.

So uh. That's probably not part of your motivation problem lol ToT. But if u happen to tend toward perfectionism too, maybe u relate somewhat.

Also! Your advice to 'do what you want most'!!! Again genuinely you don't know how much you end up motivating me!!! Last summer when I got back into japanese, I didn't really know how committed I was or my goals or how to motivate myself to keep trying when I'd spent 2.5 years learning barely anything and then had a long break. And because of you I went and was like screw it, I'll play what I've always wanted to play and understand in japanese! That's the ultimate goal I had wayyyyy back when I started! But it felt way too hard to be possible! And because of your advice I did end up trying to play, instead of waiting until I was "better" and "more prepared." It was hard! But it was also much closer to achievable than I had thought it was gonna be. You're advice really took me from "too worried I know too little to engage with any real japanese outside of learner materials" to "I can actually try manga! I can buy the Parasite Eve novel and maybe chip away at it with a dictionary! I can go play a game in japanese when I want and follow some of it!" To just actually Doing the things I was hoping to even Start to do, once upon a time.

also like. slightly related but. I love learning by doing. And the fact you did manage to learn and improve by playing video games and reading and looking some things up, figuring some things out from context. You succeeding showed me like... the way I tend to learn can actually work for some people. Because you know how it is when you look stuff up - some people will say it works but its 'inefficient' compared to some things (but another method isnt efficient for me if i wont do it lol), and other people will say 'its way too hard to dive into real materials so EARLY and make any progress'. Which. You and me are proof it is doable. You can be as prepared/unprepared as we were and still do okay and make progress. My point is just like. I definitely admire how you learned and since you succeeded I felt more like I could manage to do this too.

tldr: anyway please feel free to share whenever you're up to some study method! or working on things! or things you've done before! your progress is awesome and u motivate me a lot too! ♥♥♥

[weaverofthreads]

On the process of writing a novel...

Ok, so this began as a DM to a very dear friend who had said they were super excited to work on a novel of theirs that they'd abandoned for years, but they felt a bit lost when looking at the project again. They had "too many characters, too many intrigues" and they didn't "know how to create order" for all their ideas. They didn't know "what to keep, what to remove, what to change" and wanted to know if I had any tips.  

I began to reply in messages and then realised I needed to make a whole post out of it, so here it is! All 3k words of it. This is for you, darling! I hope it helps.

Things I found extremely helpful when planning my novel for NaNoWriMo this year, after also taking some time off from it.  

Most of this comes from Alicia Lidwina’s Four-Part article on her NaNoWriMo prep process, and setting up a writer’s notebook, for 2018. You can find the link to the first part here and I highly recommend you check out the whole series of articles for a more in-depth read. 

Content of this ‘essay’: 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials

Project 'Stats' & Overview  

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

Things to Consider, and Important Bullet Points

Get to Know Your Characters  

Chronological Order

Tangential and Preceding Events

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, Sub Plot Ideas  

List of Locations

Scenes

Chapter Outline

NaNo Plan

Additional Notes and Tips for Writing

Ok. Let's begin.  

First of all, I'm not saying that this is the only way to write or organise a novel. It can be tackled in as many ways as there are writers in the universe. This is just the method I used to get my ideas crystallised and organised. 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials.  

Take your preparation seriously. I bought a cheap but still nice A4 sketchbook with blank paper for maybe £2 at the local hobby store, and used it solely for the purposes of being my Novel Notebook. It doesn’t have to be a pretty, perfect, Aesthetic(TM) journal at all. Its function is to act as a route-guide through the process.  

I bought a cute sticker from Etsy and used it as the front cover design so that I liked the book and that it felt a little bit special, without being too intimidating to put a mark in. Then I left the very first page blank, and opened it to the first double page. On the left, I wrote ‘Contents’ and then moved on to the right and wrote ‘Project Stats and Overview’.  

I used a pen that was comfortable to write with, which for me was important. I’m a very tactile person, and having nice paper and pens (not necessarily fancy), made the process feel good.

Project Stats and Overview

This is the bare bones of the book, and includes details such as:

Project Working Title: (in my case it’s Weaver of Threads)

Targeted Wordcount: (to give yourself an idea of the scope, but it’s not necessary. For me it’s 50-100k)

Genre: (for me, fantasy)

Series: (will it be one book or more? For me, probably more than one, and at least two).  

Inspiration: (here you can jot down all sorts of things which inspire your world and your writing, and it can be anything. In my case, I began with “density and lore, and feeling of being grounded in a real world from LOTR and Tolkien.” And I went on to include other writers and novels in the fantasy genre, as well as elements from our own world, such as Mongolian herding communities and way of life, the history of the Persian Empire, and Renaissance Florence!).  

Project Timeline: Give yourself a structure, and be realistic. If you know you’re a slow writer who’s prone to distractions, be generous, but if you’re someone who responds well to short deadlines, tighten the time frame up a bit. I said “November 2020 - November 2021 for the whole manuscript” because I know I’m a procrastinator who gets dejected if they shoot past intense deadlines….

Editing Deadline: December 2021-January 2022. I know I can edit fairly quickly, so I made this one much shorter.  

Main Requirements Prior to Starting: What do you need to get sorted before you can get going? It could be purchasing a laptop or figuring out a magic system. In my case, it was the latter.  

What Happens in your novel?: This is not ‘what do your characters do?’, but what, in one sentence, actually happens in the book. For Fellowship of the Ring, you could say ‘a diverse group of people assemble and set off together with the goal of destroying the Ring’. LOADS more stuff actually takes place, obviously, but that’s probably the key thing that happens in that book. So, write the same thing for yours. I’m not going to tell you what happens in mine, because that would spoil it :).  

That took up the first A4 page of my writer’s notebook, and after that, I moved on to Mood and Key Imagery. 

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

On the left hand side of the page, I wrote down the words and concepts that sprang to mind when I thought of the novel itself. These were in no particular order or placement — just a random cloud of ideas in a rough column on the left hand side of the page — and they included: history, mystery, love, friendship, betrayal, nostalgic, homesick, sense of belonging, sense of place, searching, closeness, secrets… etc. etc.

Then on the right hand side, I wrote down five key words that I wanted to associate with the novel. These would form the ‘visual aesthetic’ in the background of my mind, and could be very easily expressed with a moodboard.

This same process (writing down words and creating a moodboard) could be achieved on a website like Pinterest. Take your time with it, find the right visual clues that really match the essence of your story, and create a final mood board with a limited number of panels that will be your novel’s ‘true north’ when it comes to feelings. If you're artistically inclined too, you could draw sketches of things relevant to your world too.  

While this stage is really important for solidifying the feeling and mood of the novel, don’t get stuck here and spend forever procrastinating on Pinterest or whatever. Once you’ve crystallised that ambiance, it’s time to move on. It’s also perfectly fine to come back to this at a later stage if you find yourself running out of inspiration or drifting a bit. Daydreaming, drawing, mood-board-ing are all great ways to work on your novel on days when you don’t feel like writing.

Things to Consider:

Alicia Lidwina asked herself some questions which helped me get past the ‘block’ that I’d created when thinking about the novel, and those were:

What scares me about this story? (in my case it was the scope of it - it was easy for me to get lost in over-thinking tiny details and get too overwhelmed to handle the big picture)

What will readers take away from it? (in my case, I hoped that it was a sense of friendship, people from desperate cultures finding common ground, and a sense of being grounded in a real, tangible world.

What is its selling point? (essentially, why would an agent/publisher choose yours over the next one in the pile?). Don’t be bashful about this. This is your notebook, so if you’re proud of a feature or aspect of the story, write it down. In my case, there is no ‘Big Bad come to destroy the world’, no Chosen One who is the only one who can stop it. There is an antagonist, but it’s on a personal scale, and that’s the selling point. It’s about two people going on a personal journey to uncover a lost piece of knowledge that’s arguably not all that world-changing on its own, but which means the world to them.  

What will be the three biggest issues in writing the first draft? Identify the three biggest roadblocks, and then take a bulldozer to them. For me, it was time management, getting mentally stuck, and the sheer darned effort of it becoming overwhelming!

Important Bullet Points  

These are five key facts about your novel, distilled from the sections above. They include: What’s at the heart of the story? How long is the story? What’s the narrative focus of the story? What are the maximum number of main characters? And the maximum number of supporting characters (this obviously doesn’t mean you can’t have other, less important characters too!)?  

Relationship between the two main characters is forefront

50-100k words

The novel’s focus is on the characters’ main goal (had to be more vague here so I didn't give it away)

2 main characters

3 supporting characters  

If you find you’ve got too many main characters (not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of characters - look at A Song of Ice and Fire after all!), then figure out whose story you want to tell here. You can always write another story with other characters in a connected novel, or a sequel. You don’t have to tell everything all at the same time.  

Speaking of characters… 

…Get to Know Your Main Characters:  

Here you can write character sheets for each of your main characters and cast. There are hundreds of these templates available on the internet, asking questions like ‘how would your character react to [insert event]?’ etc. to get to know your character. If this isn’t your thing (it isn’t mine) then at least write down some useful information about them. Rough height and weight, hair, eye and skin colour, general temperament, and any other defining physical or mental traits. 

Next came the Chronological Order

This does not have to represent the final order of the novel’s structure, nor the order in which you write the manuscript, but you need to know what happened within the timeline, and when, in order to be really clear when you’re telling the story. You can write the manuscript out of order, and you can tell the story with flashbacks or in a different order, but you need to have the underlying chronology securely in place so that your writing makes sense and so that you don’t confuse yourself or the readers in the process.  

Preceding and Tangential Events

These don’t need to be in the novel itself, but it may be important to define the sequence of events that also led up to the moment where we pick up your story, and what is happening elsewhere so that you can be sure of these too. In my case, I defined the events that concerned one of the supporting characters’ lives so that I knew how and why they were at the point they are in the story. It relates directly to - and heavily influences - the events of the novel, so I needed to have this person’s history nailed down as well, even though I don't tell it all explicitly in the book (because that would be unnecessary and a bit dull).  

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, and Sub-Plot Ideas (plus writing a synopsis)

Alicia Lidwina defined the story premise helpfully with the following formula:

Story Premise = Main Character + Desire + Obstacle

Pick a different colour for each of these components, and write a short paragraph to explain them in the context of the novel. Alicia Lidwina used the following:

[Main Character] “Harry, an orphan who didn’t know that he’s a wizard, [Desire] got invited into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wanted to live his school life to its fullest, [Obstacle] but a certain Dark Lord who killed his parents is trying to rise into powers again and kill him in revenge.

Do this for your novel, and keep it really short.  

Plot Definition: This is even shorter than that! It’s a single sentence!! It’s most closely tied to the desire of the character, and lies at the heart of the story. It’s most likely a distilled version of the ‘what happens in the story’ from the Project Stats page, so check that to see what you wrote there.  

Sub Plot Ideas  

Five bullet points (no more) for things that are happening concurrently and which are related in some way to the main story. For me, Kae and Tomas are doing their research, so that’s the main theme, but beneath that there are a few other related incidents.

Writing a Synopsis - developed out of the points in this section, and includes:

Who the main character is

What the stakes are (the story premise is your guideline)

What the main plot line is

How the MC resolves the problem in the main plot line

How the book ends.

List of Locations  

Start with the main ones and add to it as you go on. Write a little bit of information about them so that you have something to refer back to. I also drew a big old map which I found very helpful and also really fun to do.

List of Scenes

It’s very important to map out every single scene that happens in the novel. Use your timeline to help with this, but remember a scene is not necessarily a chapter. You can have more than one scene within a chapter, but try not to have too many.  

I used small post-it notes (sticky notes) and wrote down things like “M joins K’s clan at the fire and K learns about magic” and “K studies at Citadel, intro to Citadel, magic, and characters” as separate scenes. Once you’ve written down everything that is going to happen (this will take some time! Get a drink and some snacks ready, and go slow), you can stick them into your notebook in the order you’d like to tell the story. Some chapters may have just one scene, while others may have two or three. I didn’t have more than two in any of my chapters, and actually ended up splitting some scenes that I’d made too vague in this section into more chapters. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it will form a road map.  

Additions and Notes:  

I left a section of the Scene Outline bit of the notebook blank for things to add in as I went along. I haven’t used it yet, but I might.  

Chapter Outline

I arranged the scenes into the chapters already by sticking them in order, but you could do a chapter outline separately after this. It’s up to you. 

NaNoWriMo plan:  

I did this back in October, and wrote down the main goal for nanoprep, which was to finish the background info. Breaking that down further, I listed - magic (how does it work exactly), geography, and politics. 

After that, it was just a case of writing the 1667 words a day. *spoilers, I got distracted and didn’t do NaNo this year* . What I should have done, was break it up into chunks and write down my goals so that I had something tangible to use as a road map, and I will be doing that now for the novel as I take it up again outside of NaNo. Having check boxes and manageable goals really works for me. Find what will work for you, and if it turns out not to, adapt!

Some final pointers and tips:

Set regular goals for yourself. Whether you work by saying ‘I’ll write 1000 words a day’ or ‘I’ll write something every day’, make a structure for yourself. If you slip and miss a day, week, or month (I didn’t meet NaNo this year because I chose to work on another project instead *slaps forehead*), don’t beat yourself up. Writing is a craft and it takes a long time and a lot of discipline to master a craft.  

Your first draft does not have to be good. At all. Your first draft is just words on paper. A first draft is the block of marble taken from the quarry, and subsequent edits and reworking is the process of carving the sculpture itself. The editing that is done by the publisher or the professional you employ to edit it for you later, is the final polishing. Don’t be demoralised if the block of marble seems very rough when it first lands in your studio. That’s ok!  

Take regular breaks. Writing is hard work, and most people can’t concentrate on something successfully for longer than 55 min's, and if you’re doing that, you’re already doing really well. Personally, I’m at 15-20 on a good day. Write in little sprints of ten minutes or so, and then get up and stretch, look out the window, maybe leave the room, come back in with a fresh approach.  

Stretch your hands, and wear wrist braces when you work. Seriously. I gave myself tendinitis on my first major project, and couldn’t use either hand properly for weeks. The ones I have are these, and they allow me to work safely for much longer.  

Keep hydrated. Have a bottle of water on the desk in front of you between your arms as you type and sip it, otherwise you’ll forget. 2 litres a day is usually recommended, but know your body and drink accordingly.  

Treat yourself. Whether that’s something as simple as a decadent hot chocolate after your first chapter/chunk/sprint is done, or a new notebook or a pen or that sticker set you wanted on Etsy or literally anything nice, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve put in, with tangible things you can look at or experience and say ‘I have that because I did the work’. It’ll help with your sense of achievement, especially if the project is a long one.  

Join a local writer’s group for feedback. With the current Covid-19 chaos, this is probably not possible right now, but getting constructive feedback on your work from someone who hasn’t been cocooned in the project in the way you are, but who respects you as a writer and wants to help you grow, will be invaluable. It’s too easy to exist in a little isolated bubble and think you’re doing ok, when in reality you could be creating bad habits which will be difficult to break later. By these, I mean things like ‘filler words’ you don’t realise you use, or other pit-falls it’s easy to tumble into when you can’t see the wood for the trees…It’s intimidating, and it might take some courage to work up and do, but I promise it’ll help you grow. You don’t have to do what the people suggest, but it’s great to get outside opinions all the same.

Submit work to writing competitions. This will help with showing agents and publishers later down the line that you’re not only committed, but hopefully talented, and will help you to push yourself. Use the world of your novel for the setting, and get to know it by writing short stories on the competition’s theme set there.  

Read. Read the writers you admire, and read them ‘actively’ - figure out exactly what it is about ‘that’ sentence that made you shiver, and use the same techniques in your own work (don’t plagiarise, obviously, but if it was alliteration that made the sentence work so well, use it yourself! Perhaps it was the metre of the line? Great, now you know a rhythm that will drive a sentence forward or slow it down etc.)

Enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’ll show in the work. Take a step back if you start floundering, and ‘interview’ yourself about why it’s not fun any more. Refer back to the sections in the notebook that helped to clarify the plot/process, and see if you’ve wandered away from them. Make yourself answer questions like: ‘What is the main reason I don’t want to do this?’ ‘What is the character’s motivation?’ ‘Should I scrap this section?’ (don’t delete it, but cut and paste it into another ‘scraps’ document, and then start afresh from the last place you were happy with. Nothing is wasted - it all goes into building the world and getting to know the characters, even if it doesn’t get explicitly told in the finished product, so don’t be afraid to do that last bit).  

Good luck!

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or things you’d like to add to this, please feel free to send me an ask here on Tumblr.

If you’re a new writer hoping to get an agent or publisher, you might also find this post on ‘talking to a published author’ helpful or interesting.

If you would like to keep up to date with my own novel’s progress, you can follow me here on Tumblr, as well as on my writing Instagram @rnpeacock

[y0ur-h0nor]

[ Please do not post my writing on different social media platforms, if I end up finding you reposting or stealing and claiming it as yours I will have to rearrange your guts in your fucking sleep, I ain't joking so think before you act upon it.]

A/n: This is the second part of High Achiever so if you guys haven't read the first part, link is here.

Fem! Reader.

After arriving at the mall the five of you had discussed what to do inside and about the time management so the five of you could line up for movie tickets at the cinema because you guys didn't want to wait for a long time so the five of you decided that you'd be 30 minutes early to line up for tickets and then eat lunch, then you guys could hit the arcade to play some games before buying snacks and waiting to line up at the cinema for the movie.

So, as you guys lined up for the tickets the guys were just talking about video games and Kyle and Eric would argue a bit before they changed the topic to defuse the tension, you had never hanged out with people out of school and when you had to come over for a school project and vice versa, you were really behind with the trends due to you 'living under a rock' and had any time for herself because you spent most of your time with lessons and free time was just for you to practice the piano or violin.

You didn't listen in with their conversation anymore because you started to zone out which was always rare but it happened enough for you to be aware with this tempting tendency, it was always when you were deep in thought or when class was being to boring to pay attention to but since you were a smart student you had to listen and par attention so you didn't miss anything and disappoint anyone because your grades had dropped slightly and besides, you didn't want your Mother to be even stricter with lessons because of a feeble mistake you had made.

"I never thought the top student Y/n Thompson would be very different people expected you to be." The mention of your name had made you come back and turn to them, their attention to you "Huh?" Eric says  "Well, you don't seem like a real nerd you don't spout out smart nonsense and-" "and your lowkey hot." Kenny cuts off Eric earning a smack from Kyle who gives him a disappointed look.

"Oh, uh..well all that smart stuff was because I was forced to study hard that's all." You say nonchantly.

"Forced to?" Stan repeats, Your eyes widen realizing your sudden slip up you frantically wave your arms and spout out excuses "Oh that's just nothing!" You stutter and awkwardly chuckled rubbing your neck.

"Well, you can just tell us when your ready, you don't need to rush." Kyle says, he already knew but he just decided to exclude that you had already told him so his friends won't try to pry explanations from him because it should be you who should tell them.

Stan nodded.

Kenny put a thumbs up and Eric just let out a 'hmph' but nodded.

You smiled and went to attack them with a hug to which Eric screamed to get away, Kenny and Kyle went wide eyed and Stan just went flustered but they didn't budge but just let you.

The rest of the day was really fun and it seemed you felt like a whole different person without having people expectations weighing down on you.

As you waved goodbye you turned around and took your keys and opened your door, you expected your Mom to be waiting for you and ready to be scolding you but you were greeted with your Mom passed out on the couch with a wine bottle in hand, you sighed and went to get a blanket to tuck your Mother in so she didn't get cold.

You really wanted to repair things with your Mom because of course she was your Mother and tried telling her how you felt about things, key word 'tried', she didn't listen she just told you how it was a bad idea to let you study in public school to begin with and she should've proceeded with her plan to home school you instead.

You started to tuck your Mother in and carefully took the bottle away from her hand "I'm so sorry.." You froze and looked up but then sighed in relief that your Mom was just probably dreaming, you placed down the bottle and stood up to go to your room but stopped when your Mother spoke in her sleep again "Mommy's sorry baby.." She whimpers and snuggles into the blanket, you brush hair away from her face and kissed her cheek and went upstairs after closing the lights.

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You and your Mom make up and go to happy land along with your friends and Eric who happens to be your new boyfriend and livehappilyeverafter :D

I'm just joking I hate writing quick happy endings because I happen to be an angst writer so-

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It was Monday and another day of going to school, you get out of the covers of your bed and went to go down stairs and get some breakfast, hearing chatter in the kitchen you slowly look to see who your Mother was talking to, peeking at the corner you gasp.

It was your older brother Micheal, He was smiling and talking to Mom it had been long since he was willing to get along with your Mother because she always nagged him about his future and him and Mom would always argue about his decisions those arguments prompted him to move out after he graduated College.

"Micheal!" You exclaim his name and he turns around and his smile widened even more, you went to tackle him into a hug crying into his shoulder, you long missed your brother and you missed the warmth of your brother.

"Hey, Kitten you've grown taller." he says rubbing your back.

"Oh shut up, you just happen to have taken all the tall genes." you say sniffling.

Your Mother smiles at the exchange and looks down to the floor guilty of the things she did to ruin her family from being like this all the time, she just wanted her children to grow up successful in life and not have to worry about their future but she took it the wrong way and drove away her son and robbed her daughter of a normal childhood.

"I'm sorry.." She says fiddling with her fingers looking down at her feet, she should've said this a long time ago and maybe her family would've been much more normal.

You and Micheal look at each other then to your Mother before encasing her in a hug, you forgave your Mother years ago already just waiting for her to realize what she had done wasn't right, she was human after all no one was perfect and everyone made mistakes.

A week had passed after that moment and things had gotten much more closer with your Family, no longer strangers living in the same household.

You had gotten better, your grades were still good but there were certain major changes in your daily routine you were allowed to do things you couldn't like do extra curricular activities so you chose (Activity/sport) as an extra curricular and would stay at school for a while for certain (activity/sport).

You also had started hanging out with Kyle and his friends more, and also was finally formally introduced to Stan's girlfriend Wendy Testaburger sure she was suspicious of you at first but eventually she opened up to you and you just jokingly flirt with her when you and her are around Stan, the look on his face was always priceless but those flirty words all just a part of a harmless joke but you were sometimes genuine though.

You and the gang were hanging out at Eric's place this time, the five of you were going to hang out there to play video games and eat pizza and also have a sleepover, your Mother was reluctant at first for letting you go but she decided to let you have fun as long you didn't do anything risky and you just told her that you wouldn't even do anything "risky" with one of the boys or whatever she was thinking about (no offence to your friends though bless them but you don't see them like that in anyway even if with or without a girlfriend you just don't see yourself dating at the moment.)

Kenny, Kyle and Stan were downstairs picking out video games to play and getting bowls for the snacks you had brought, you already had soda cans in a cooler on the floor so no need for cups or anything like that.

You were scrolling through your before deciding now should be the time to talk about something you knew about for some time now, the evident scars you saw decorating his wrist it was hard to notice but you somehow saw them.

"Hey Eric?" You say looking up from your phone to look at the boy munching on one of the chips you brought "Yeah?" He responds not looking up "Do you...Do you want to talk about it?" You question.

"About what?" Finally, he looks up at you with a confused expression with eyebrows furrowing "The scars." You say.

His breath hitches and his widens even more fiddling with the ends of his jacket sleeve his expression becomes solemn he looks down and he tried not to start crying then and there.

Y/n stands from her spot and due to this action Eric looks up at her but his body goes stiff due to Y/n hugging him he relaxes and slowly sinks into the hug and cries into her shoulder Eric was never one to open up to these kind of things or soften up to other people but due to the tip of the glass the water just came pouring out.

"You don't need to say anything right now but if you need someone to be there I'm always here for you now that we're friends."  She says rubbing circles onto his back.

He sniffles nodding, they stayed there for a while before Y/n pulls away and smiles at him "Let's go downstairs and see what's taking them long." She says standing up and offering him a hand.

Not long after that the relationship slowly bloomed, nourished by the moments they spent together Eric found a comfort in Y/n she didn't judge him because of his problems instead she encourages her to tell him how he feels and tries to help him in anyway she can.

And yet a new feeling seem to bloom between the two Eric thought of things about her he has never thought of, always missing the feeling of her embrace and he felt much more happier around her and just started thinking of her more, subtle glances at her were caught on by the boys and it didn't take long till they caught on to Eric's attraction to their female friend.

Teasing was made, at first Kyle like icky because it was Eric who was in love with you but the more time went on and the way he sees Eric look at you from afar he was convinced that maybe you guys were meant to be, you did bump into him and that's how you know destiny has you guys wrapped around it's finger.

The guys would give advice towards Eric about the way of courting you, Stan wasn't really much of a good help because Wendy was always the one to initiate things between them which earned teasing looks and remarks whirling his way.

But in the end Eric confesses when you guys were on your weekly movie day, after the movie played and people were exiting you were about to start leaving after getting your things but Eric grabs your wrist and you turn to look at Eric confused, he looked hesitant before sighing and looking at you in the eyes blush tinting his cheeks he says "I know this may seem out of character for me but I just wanted to say ever since we started hanging out and all this" he gestures to the two of you and continues "I consider you as a really good friend.." He says you smile at him despite the hurt you were feeling at the mention of friend "but I don't want to be "friends"  anymore" he says raising his hands air quoting the word friends you furrow your eyebrows 'Does he not want to be friends anymore?' but before you could say anything Eric takes your hands into his and you look up at him.

He smiles at you so lovingly.

He tucks a hair behind your ear "Y/n Thompson, would you be my girlfriend?" He asks caressing your cheek.

You look at him and tears start prickle your eyes at first Eric's expression changes and he started to get worried he opened his mouth to ask if you were okay but before he got to you attacked him into a hug and kissed him his eyes widen but melts into both the hug and kissing wrapping his arms around you.

The two of you pull away and you smile up at him "Of course I'll be your girlfriend!" You say wiping away your tears with your sleeve the two of you look at each other before kissing again.

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This is it fpr Part 2 and I'll be posting another South Park work, I have about 2 more to post and then I'll be working on a request an anon sent me.

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[extremelyblackandwhite]

handmaid - 05

PAIRING: mob!sebastian stan x ingenue!reader

WARNINGS: age gap

A/N: sorry for the delay, i’ve been having a bit of a writer’s block recently and started getting out of it now. thank you so much for the support so far, hope you enjoy this one xx

NEXT CHAPTER

Sebastian was very much a powerful man in the way he carried himself to the way he spoke. She mostly stood by his side, basking in the glorious power he seemed to so easily hold over everyone who spoke to him. They spoke to him as if he were a king and, somehow, he was. After all, he managed to keep his family’s mob name still on top of any other and somehow even improved it, at least she heard from rumours on the street. All but one single guest had been polite, probably due to the fear he irradiated, that one being a guy named Thompson Williams. Mr. Williams was what Mr. Forrest called a mob rat, feeding on the wealth of those who had built it themselves without dirtying a single finger. His voice was mellow like snake’s venom, the politeness the fakest she’d ever heard, even Sebastian seemed to rush the conversation.

In order to do so, he had decided to finally dance with his fiancée, pulling her away from a pretty blonde haired guy she has been flirting with. Unhappily, Gwen put on a forced smile as he twirled her around the dance floor surrounded by other mob bosses and their wives. Seeing couples always brought a tinge of sadness to her. If there was something she knew is that she had to constantly be by Gwen’s side no matter her status which didn’t give her enough time to fin someone and if she did, she didn’t exactly think they would be happy to live with another couple. Besides, she was already in her early twenties and still to have a significant relationship with someone, the only one getting close being a guy she had met in private school who had taken her first kiss but other than that she just watched everyone fall in love while she waited in the wings.

Soon enough, Gwen was pulling her onto the dance floor, sending her off dancing with several men whose hands would constantly need to be watched fear they went lower than before. Whenever she thought she could step out of the dance floor and go stand, someone else was grabbing her hand to dance or Gwen was pulling her back in. As the seventh song finished, she managed to rush to the side, hiding behind one of Sebastian’s bodyguards before they could pull her back on the dance floor. She leaned against one of the table, soothing her very tired feet due to the unbelievably high heels he was using. 

      - Are you hiding, Y/N? - Sebastian came up from behind her, making her squeak ever so slightly due to the surprise. 

      - My feet really hurt. - she ever so slightly raised her feet. - I think Mr. Garret stepped on me a couple of times too. 

       - Mr. Garret is one for the wines. I wouldn’t put it against him as doing it on purpose. 

       - You and Gwen make a beautiful couple. - she gave him a warm feeling, not entirely sure why she felt sadness whenever she said so. Maybe it was because none of them really wanted to be in that relationship despite how great they looked together. - Although I must say, I didn’t pen you for dancing.

       - Well, I was gonna ask you for a dance considering you’ve danced with every single man here but me. - he extended his hand towards her and despite the numbing sensation of her feet, she could find it within herself to deny him. She placed her hand upon his, tiptoeing a bit towards the dance floor. 

Y/N considered herself a good dancer, at least a nice one to lead with but with Sebastian, things were slightly different. Her small squeak escaped her lips as he put his hands on her waist. She could almost feel the texture of his fingers through the thin beige lace fabric and suddenly she wished she had picked a thicker fabric. He was much more skilled at it than her, or maybe he was better at hiding how nervous he was. The latter was definitely true as he found it harder to control the grin that was trying to escape his polite stoic face as he felt her warm skin against his hand.

She turned her face looking at the people who were staring at him. She guessed that being that powerful had the disadvantage of the constant gaze of those trying to usurp his place. However, there was a sort of hiding kindness in his baby blue eyes, light, bright eyes contrasted to the darkness that followed him around. No, there was some sort of happiness in those eyes, a remnant of the child he once was. 

      - Everyone is staring at you. - she spoke for the first time ever they had started to dance, her eyes moving up to stare at his, the familiar nervousness starting to brew up and manifest itself in the heat up of her cheeks, warmer than the several candles displayed around the room. 

      - Trust me, angel, it is not me they’re staring at. - he twirled her around, pushing her a bit more towards his chest once she returned to her initial position. Y/N could feel every single cell on her body electrify and heat up. 

      - Maybe ... maybe you should return to dancing with Gwen. - appearances once again were important and Y/N knew it wouldn’t look good for the couple being celebrated being on two opposite ends of the room. She was the one to step away, half bowing to him and clapping as the song ended. Before Sebastian could even process her words, she had already departed to the sidelines of the dance floor, tapping Gwen’s shoulder and sending her straight to her fiancé. 

It was still a harsh truth for her brain to process. As an English graduate, she was, as most graduates of the same course, an incurable romantic adoring the idea of kissing in the rain and small gestures that prove complete knowledge over your loved one. Here there were no hidden love, no unrequited affection, they were just getting married to form an alliance, to follow a contract set way before Gwen was born. Y/N understood her friend’s side and unwillingness to bend to the rules expected from her, she had always been a wild spirit who enjoyed relishing on her youth. However, she wasn’t one to agree with the constant petty remarks towards Sebastian. 

     - A remarkable party, isn’t it Miss Y/N? - Y/N sighed, watching Mr. Williams walk up to her side, a glass of red wine in hand.

     - I would say so. - she replied politely. 

     - That is a very particular necklace you have there. - Thompson pointed at the necklace nested in the middle of her collarbones. - A gift from Mr. Stan, I would guess.

     - No, I’ve had this necklace since I was born. However, with all due respect Mr. Williams, I don’t feel comfortable enough to discuss my personal life with you. 

     - You seem rather comfortable with Mr. Stan. - Y/N didn’t enjoy the undertones in his voice, taking a few steps behind and going onto a protective state. - Miss Y/N, you can trust me. Whenever you need anything, I’m here.

     - I appreciate the gesture, Mr. Williams. I’ll keep it in mind. 

     - You’ll keep what in mind? - never once had Y/N been so happy to hear Sebastian’s voice and feel him looming presence behind her. Mr. Williams, however, seemed to keep his composure, merely raising his glass as a curtesy to the mob boss. 

     - I was just paying your new employee my respects, Stan. Offering my aid if ever in need. 

     - She won’t need your help. - he scoffed at the idea of a lower rank mobster being ever able to provide Y/N with someone he couldn’t. If Y/N ever needed something she was to come to him not to a rat like Thompson Williams who had made a small empire by screwing others over. No, Y/N would never need help from someone like him, if it was up to Sebastian’s will. Gwen too did not enjoy to see her friend speak with guys like Thompson, and like a spy was standing a few feet apart from the three, glass in hand, watching with a few bodyguards in hand if needed. - If you excuse me, my fiancée and I are retiring for tonight. 

     - Have a nice night, Mr. Stan, Miss Y/N. - she didn’t know how to explain it but her name felt wrong in that tongue. Like it shouldn’t be said and before she could politely reply as she had been taught, Sebastian already had a hold on her wrist, pushing her towards Genevieve who was willingly waiting to make sure her friend was alright.

     - We are going home, right now. - Sebastian muttered to one of his bodyguards, ready to end the parade of his personal life. On the other hand, Gwen had other plans not exactly agreeing with leaving a party thrown in her honour that early. Y/N noticed her change in attitude, fully knowing exactly how her friend behaved whenever she didn’t agree with something. - Now means now, Genevieve. 

      - I’m staying, you can go. - Gwen looked at Y/N, her eyes begging for her to plead with Sebastian so she could stay over. Should she do it? No. Was she gonna do it? Well, it was Gwen, her oldest friend, so with a sight, Y/N turned on her heel to face the mob boss. 

      - We could go now and maybe let Gwen stay here with the bodyguards. For appearances. - she suggested and Sebastian seemed to pounder it. It was rather clear to him what Y/N was trying to achieve, she wasn’t that sneaky, however, he also did not want to have a fight with his fiancée for everyone to see. - I could stay too. 

     - No, Y/N, you can go. - Gwen definitely did not want to have a babysitter following her around and telling her to be mindful of her role, despite that being Y/N’s job since they were children. - I know you don’t like these functions anyway. 

Sebastian did not reply, instead bolting out of the room followed by one of his bodyguards. Y/N gave Gwen a “be careful” look before rushing after him the best she could in her heels until she reached him, stopping him by grabbing onto the sleeve of his suit. The mob boss stopped, glancing for a few seconds at Y/N before sighing, placing his hand on the small of her back and leading her towards the limo. He couldn’t be mad at her for defending her friends, however, he could be mad at both of them not to follow orders, specially his orders. Sebastian was not one to have his control tested yet Y/N unknowingly did it. 

     - Do not disobey me next time. - he almost growled at her, watching as Y/N moved away from him, her innocent nature returning on full display. 

     - I’m sorry, Mr. Stan. - she bit on her lip, leaning against the limo’s window. 

     - I understand your loyalty towards Genevieve but I’ve been in this environment much longer than you and her have been. I know better. 

     - She’s young, marriage isn’t exactly what she wanted specially to someone like you?

    - Someone like me? - she briefly looked to the side and even though she was in the dark of the night inside the limo, she was met by clean white teeth gritted down at her as well as a deep dark angry glared directed at her, of course. - Care to explain?

     - A stranger. - she stated, playing with the fabric of her dress as not to look him in the eye. 

    - No, angel, that’s not what you meant. - he knew when someone was lying, his profession, if that could be said, called for that ability and she was lying. If not, she was at least trying to be kind. - What did you mean by someone like me?

    - Well ... your ... your reputation follows you. 

   - You should know your friend’s reputation follows her too, she isn’t exactly the type of woman I would enjoy to marry. 

The atmosphere was heavy and none of them really knew how to break the ice. Every once in a while she would look at him, briefly trying to see if his posture had relaxed but he kept on with his statue like posture which continued even as they rode the lift back to the penthouse. He took back to his office while Y/N stood at the entrance of the penthouse. Sighing, she took her shoes off and walked to the kitchen, grabbing a cup of iced water. Just like she used to do back in her old home, she stripped off her dress standing in a corset and petit coat that gave volume to the dress and sat on the balcony, drinking her glass of iced water. 

Y/N knew better not to annoy Gwen or Sebastian, however, it feared her more to disobey Sebastian. He had enough power and men to dispose of her and make it look like an accident, however it wasn’t that which made her not want to disappoint him. It was something else.

She climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

It had been a long day.

tag list: @sideeffectsofyou​ @lilya-petrichor​ @xoxohannahlee @irespostthingsiwanttoseelater

[psychemeanscure]

PART 29 {Finally!! and it’s been a week of stress indeed. 😞 But thankfully things slowly gets better and better for our Mum YJ 🤗 And for the record? I just wanna say, I’MAPUPPY!😂🤣 I maybe expert on reading smuts but I do am puppy in writing. hahaha. So for you  who was left hanging from the prev. part... Better live it to your imagination guys. keke}

Gentle breeze of summer hay, daylight hues of morning skies, a serene waves of crystal seas. And of course, what’s much more perfect for Jang Taeyoung other than his living Aphrodite’s side profile. Sitting on her daybed balcony, wearing an ash gray robe, drinking her set of bottled water. ‘Fresh from a bath.’ He can tell.

“F*cking hell.” Scolding his own innuendo while she ain’t even doing anything but sit!

A resting elbow, a root of knuckles assisting a tight jaw suppressing a taste of his volatile prey once again. Shifting gazes with a rising pet under the sheets of hot mess they’re in throughout the night. “I can’t blame you Bud. It’s been a while indeed.” Like a consoling friend to his long sleeping member. Yet, she’s beautifully tempting to ignore for so he decided.

Sung Eunyoung on the other side, cannot contain her smiling from coming. Feeling absurd by a single thought in mind. She, being intimate with the man she used to brush off her senses surprises her. Not in her whole life did she expect that but now? “Unbelievable. You are so unbelievable, Sung Eunyoung.”

“Unbelievable. Yes, it is.”

A breathy voice speaks after her. That the same person who exactly did a great chaos of her sanity. Jang Taeyoung’s snaking hand on the fabrics of her robe is enough for her to feel the tingling sensation she starts to familiar with. Slanting to get a glimpse of him from behind for there she is being drooled by those dark orbs which only sees is her and only her. She saw it all. The way her own reflection radiates the apples of his sight. And for the first time in a long time…

She felt proud. He’s solely hers. “Jang” She have to say it, like a validation she wanted to seal. And so she did. A peck to her shoulder, a rubbing thumb circling her belly as well as a seeming smile he gives in, and the sight that never left hers. She confirmed.

“Morning, sunshine.”

Before she knew it? She’s already responding, giving the same curve as he did. “Same as you, Mr. Jang.” Her smile that he cannot take, he eventually stole a kiss on her glossy lips. Thus she hissed a glare, frowning by the sudden chaste she least expected. “I knew it. Tss. Seriously, Jang Taeyoung. Hold it, will you?”

Just to garner his famous snigger. “I can’t promise though. You already awaken him, Eunyoung. You tell me.”

True to his words, she did felt its pet inside his sweatpants bulging behind her. Rolling her eyes, she retorted. “Por favor, Loco. You tire me so shut it.”

Much to her dismay, there ain’t much worse than a stubborn Jang Taeyoung it is. What’s new. A traitor hand sensually sneaking inside her, yet after a slicking smirk on his face. “Is that so? But it seems like I’m much tired Mi amor, considering you even went up first than I am. Isn’t it?”

A jolt from her own, and she’s sure she’ll going to deal another of his expertise. While a sudden image he almost forgot to open up pops his mind. “And oh! Speaking of first…” he begins his contractions.  “You’re a damn seducer woman. Sex education, eh? And here I thought you merely took up the common ones. Damn, if I only knew about it early I should have ravished you even back then. You and your wise mind it is, Ms. Sung.”

‘So he saw it. Mierda!’ she can only think of scolding herself. If not her being too occupied that time, she would have known what his contemplating stare mean the moment he stands in front her piled achievements. “So I was wondering…” thus he started his interrogating response.

“Since the educator has already enlightened the writer. Then isn’t it best for the writer to do his part too?”

Right after the impeccable swirl work of his tongue through her neck, he follows his judgement. “Here, in your daybed. You, my tempting empress and I, your welcoming slave. Writing a better version of Kamasutra. What do you think? Hm?”

And she lost it.

As to a delirious awe of her parting lips subsided, slumping back leaning by the nakedness of his chest, carves of its toned tattoos filling the heat of her whole soul. She accepted her defeat again, for rumor whom she cursed to avoid through a lifetime has it. Him, being the infamous Jang Taeyoung in bed that every bold ones looks forward to. Is indeed one fat truth! Which now she shamelessly admits includes her. A one big slap to her denials. A screw momentum for her living pride. She’s hopeless for she starts to become unsure herself between the reason of her own desire.

Was it because of the fact that he’s simply a natural taming scavenger? Or rather it was his effortless sweet talk calling of giving her names of his liking? Either, or. It’s just seems her writer has finally taught her of what a word insatiable means. A kind of pleasure that had slowly become her favorite thing. Before she realized? They eventually did it again. In her daybed. Feeling the sweats of their aftermath solitude. Hearing each other’s heaving breaths.

Sometime later. Reviving from a huffing state she opts to turn her head to face the weariless man next to her, spooning her and ready for a possible round he’s wishing. Yet, not on her watch as she quickly grabs his sultry hands off her. “Loco, please. I have other things to put at work. Spare me, will you?”    

Even when she ends up slapping him afterwards. Him and his slyness, what’s new. “Cabrón.” A set of warning before a groaning contrary by him happened. “Tss. You and your threats.”  

“And when did a simple warning become a threat,” Sitting up to fix her disheveled robe. Frowning to face the culprit himself. “Huh?” followed by a glancing inquiry she demands for answer. “Whatever smart Sung. As if you let me slip anyway.” A frustrated man came to visit for defiance.

She almost forgot to suppress herself to snigger. For heaven’s sake! She supposed to remain compose even, yet damn this sulking loco of her ruining everything that the only choice she had is to hold her breath to stop a bursting demeanor. Good thing she had her back on him that he’s clueless of what she’s up to, trying to make herself calm as much as possible.

Biting her lips for the last time, “You’re mad at me?” she managed to reciprocate an indecent follow-up, facing him. “FYI Mr. Sly fox, whose fault is it anyway that I have been bombarded with numerous calls from my superiors and so my presence is a must this instant? Good thing my phone is still working even after being thrown. I’ll definitely kill you if it isn’t. Tss.”

“Dare if you can.” Raising up while avoiding her sight, he sprints back inside her bedroom picking up his tussled summer shirt to as well cover his shirtless figure before mockingly staring at her. “As if I was the one who rejected the call even, when in fact the only thing I did was to tease you. That is.” Upset by how suddenly hard to button his shirt, a cussing Jang finally came by. “F*cking shirt!” a forcing hand frustratingly put on-hold.

And she can’t hold any longer. “Hmpp--- pfft! Hahahahah.”

“Now your laughing. Wow.” Indeed. She had freely put herself from laughing out loud, so enough to flex her low vibrato. “Really, woman?” Another of his rebuke for she still doing it. “Sung Eunyoung! I tell you woman, if you don’t stop I might just---“

“Okay! Okay. I’ll--- hahah--- sorry. Okay, uhum. I’ll stop. There. Are we good?”

“Whatever. Tsk.”

Sensing his mug menace, she eventually stopped for real, approaching the man who felt victimize. “Hey, cutie.”

“Did you just call me---“

Something sealed onto his lips before he could actually finish his sentence. It was hers to begin with. The savoring taste he cannot attain to sweep away for so in just a snap of it, his frustration fade away. As fast as that, she swiftly turns the table while he has to curse himself for being a muted cub with this volatile woman in front of him silkily volunteering to button his shirt herself before giving a scrutinizing stare that drown him to dive in the depths of his sensible soul.  

“Is this the real you, Jang Taeyoung? An ever persistent man with the woman he like? Hm?”

He remained speechless. Not long before he clamor to decide beneath himself. Proclaiming to dive along the eye-banging they begun to get used to. “Yes. And you have never been the woman I like, Sung Eunyoung. Let me just correct you in that part because you’ve always been a lover for me. That is.”

He confessed, and she was taken aback. Silently gulping on her own, she can only hide her fluster. She won’t let herself get defeated that easy. Not yet. Sliding away her hold from his nape as she crossed her arms provoking him instead. “You, sly. You pretty sure it isn’t just the lust talking?”

Levelling her pace, he countered back. A brow, twisting to bicker. “Given. You can’t blame me. I’ve been caged enough with celibacy, woman. Just so you know.”

“Is that so? Well sad, Loco. Seems that woman of yours can’t spend a whole day for you.”

“F*cking sh*---“

“La mierda. Halt that vulgar mouth of yours, will you?”

“Like who’s talking as well. Now woman, if you keep making excuses just not to spend time with me, it’s not working.”

She surrendered. A sweeping hand thru the air and a clicking tongue of mockery. She debated. “Aish. Fine. For the peace of your mind then let me just tell you Mr. Jang Taeyoung that aside for the urgent school agenda, I will actually go straight to meet my parents for dinner. There? Does it answer all your question?”

Crossing her arms once again before the unexpected bafflement she never imagined to see from him happened. Looking by his reaction, she was left confused as if he suddenly reminded of something he had forgotten in a while. Nevertheless, she crossed the idea anyway. Choosing her assuming one instead.

With a dreary sigh, she banters. “Right. How come I expect that my parents-pass will actually work for you. I’m foolishly hoping for nothi---“

“Oh…”

“Oh?” surprised by his reply, somehow she unconsciously responded the same before shrugging the thought off and obliged to fill her discontinued one different from the original she opts to be.

“--- Miraculously. Thank you then, Loco. Congratulation eh, that’s new.”  

She even dared to add some teasing at the end of her sentence, just to be unheard by still zoning man in front of her. “Cabrón?” Wanting to get his attention, she retaliates not knowing it was actually a start of a counter. An eyeing man bound to release an unexpected reply. “Can I tag along?”

“Of course, you sha--- what?!”

An embellish retort came after her indeed. “Come again, Jang Taeyoung?” A sassy man tacking its hands in his pockets responded instead. “I said can I tag along. So, can I?”

“And why would I?”

“You never know…” Shrugging off, a knowing smirk faces her.

“No.”

Thus the stern word she decides to give in. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mister. I have to get change already.” Forcefully pushing the stubborn man behind her closed doors, a piercing shut has been heard.

~

But screw her for underestimating everything for it was still her in the end being clowned by what was happening around her all along. “What the.”

“--- hell?”        

[meow-bebe]

Pairing: Moon Taeil x reader Genre: fluff, high school au, best friends to lovers Word count: 1.1k Warnings: swearing A/n: psst @neonun-au​ this ones for you! youve been complaining about a lack of taeil content so heres a little something to keep you from having to reread your own work for the next few days heh. oh and google docs was bugging out and i had to write this whole thing on my phone so its unedited oops

[Taeil: Meet me at the playground in fifteen minutes?]

[You: Dude it’ll be dark soon]

[Taeil: Yeah i know and im sorry]

[Taeil: Please come before i change my mind]

[You: Well at least now i have an excuse to use the super cool lights on my bike wheels]

Your tone is harsher than the meaning behind it, and you’re sure Taeil knows that. He’s your oldest friend, after all.

You’ve been through so much with him. You met him the first day of school, and you clicked immediately. He had been with you through so many things, all your years of school, the time you broke your arm in seventh grade, your first major breakup. And on top of all that, he was the first person you ever truly loved. Not that he knew that of course.

He would do anything for you, and you would do anything for him. Which is probably why you found yourself leaving the house as the sun sinks below the treeline with what could barely even be classified as an excuse left for your mom.

The sky is still light, giving the trees that certain look of darkness that they only can achieve at a very certain time. It’s your favorite time of day, and as you turn your bike onto the path through the woods that connects to the other side of your neighborhood you find that you don’t actually mind that Taeil dragged you out here. The sky is beautiful, sporting the colorful oranges and purples of sunset, and though it’s surprisingly cool for the end of July the weather is perfect.

The wind caresses your face and whistles slightly through your wheels as you pedal quickly to the elementary school. Biking has never been your favorite means of transportation, but it was easy and cheap and if you went farther than over to Taeil’s house you could always get someone to drive you. Usually there would be a lot more complaining involved, but tonight you feel a strange peace amongst the trees despite your heaving breaths.

You catch sight of the pole which may or may not have once had a sign on it that indicates the exit from the path. From there it’s just a short ride down the street and around the corner before the school—and more importantly the playground—rises up before you. The gate has been left open, presumably by Taeil taking the same path, and as you ride through you spot his bike abandoned by the tree he always leaves it by. Taeil sits on the swingset, moving back and forth only slightly. He stares off in the other direction, and he seems nervous. You’ve known him too long and too well to not recognize the way that he obviously wants to fidget but shoves it down in order to remain mostly still.

“Hey!” you call out as you hop off your bike and set it down next to Taeil’s. He whips his head around in surprise and returns his own greeting.

“So what was so urgent that you called me out here to talk now?” you ask as you meander over to the swingset and take a seat on the swing next to Taeil, immediatelykicking at the ground to give yourself a bit of momentum. The nervousness that you detected in his body language a moment before surges up, swelling into his face as he gulps and twists his fingers together.

"Oh, nothing much. How're you?" His words are almost too calm, and he still refuses to meet your eye.

"'Nothing much'?" Your disbelief is obvious as you quirk an eyebrow upward.

"Just answer the question," Taeil mumbles.

You roll your eyes, slowly kicking your legs back and forth. The air has begun to chill slightly, and goosebumps begin to slowly form on your exposed skin. "Oh you know. Still going through constant internal turmoil over college. Go to college with my best friend and not have to separate myself from you or go to the best college for my major. Same old same old. You?"

"I'm in love with you," Taeil blurts out.

Your eyes pop open like a cartoon character's and you just barely manage to stop yourself from falling off your swing in surprise. "Holy fuck."

Silence falls between you as you try to gather your wits enough to form a sentence and Taeil sits statue still. The chorus of cicadas and the wind in the trees hums in the background as your surprise slowly fades enough for you to regain brain function.

"This is nothing much—"

"I understand if you—"

You speak at the same time but quickly cut off, each chuckling slightly. He was still Taeil, and you were still his best friend.

"You go first," you say with a slight smile that Taeil returns, if with slightly less enthusiasm.

"I get it if this makes you uncomfortable," he begins, taking a big breath. "Trust me, it weird me out just as much." You roll your eyes good naturedly and open your mouth to respond but Taeil barrels on like a runaway train. "I'm sorry this is so sudden but I needed to tell you and you've probably going to a different college than me and that's terrifying on it's own but the thought of you never knowing—"

"Taeil," you say, setting a hand on his shoulder, "do yourself a favor and actually breathe." He nods vigorously and wheezes in a breath, looking very much like he was about to continue his crazed monologue. Unfortunately, you couldnt hold yourself together anymore and burst out laughing. "You dumbass!" You finally cackle  "I love you too!"

Now its Taeil's turn to almost fall over in surprise. "What?" You've never heard so much shock in his voice and for half a second you wonder if perhaps you just caused his brain to disintegrate. "Since when?"

You count backwards in your head, finally coming to the right year. "Eighth grade."

"Eighth grade?" He demands. "You mean we could have been dating this whole time?"

You snort out a laugh, "I don't know about that, anyone in their right mind would've dumped tenth grade you."

Taeil grimaces. "Good point."

"But hey," you say, a grin taking over you face, "others may arise but this solves one problem."

"Which is?" Taeil asks, fingers brushing across yours where they grip the chain suspending you from the swing set. You take his hand and swing your conjoined fingers back and forth between you. He offers you a small smile, happiness glowing on his face.

"I know which college I'm going to.”

@kpopscape​ @neowritingsnet​ @nct-writers​

[chookity-dookity]

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN...

Can I really say that this episode was a disappointment when I wasn’t expecting it to be that great in the first place?

Listen. I’ve been here since S1. I remember the way Olan hyped up Chapter 8, an episode I don’t actually like all that much. And I remember all the promises of improvement and course-correction that were made during the hiatus, only to be disappointed by a relatively mediocre S2. So I’m not at all surprised that this episode didn’t live up to some people’s expectations. Swept up in the fervor of the moment, the showrunners and the fandom set the bar unrealistically high.

This is Final Space. It’s dumb, it’s zany, it makes absolutely no goddamn sense. It’s always been a bit hit-or-miss, with more misses in the early season and more hits towards the end. And it’s a show that wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s earnest in a way that so few works of fiction are. That raw emotional honesty is what makes its best episodes so great, achieving heights that are rarely reached by other shows. But on the flip side, some episodes are just cringe-inducing hot messes.

This is an episode that falls into the latter category.

THE PACING The pacing is by far the biggest problem with this episode. Too many things happen too quickly, with no time to process them in-between. AVA dies before the opening credits even roll and then is promptly forgotten about. Nightfall’s sacrifice, so crucial to the S2 finale, is never even mentioned at all. Half a dozen new plot threads are introduced and then immediately dropped.

In all fairness, I fully expect that these plotlines will be picked up again in later episodes. And I can appreciate the impulse to lay out the foundations for the rest of the season in the premiere. But it’s just too much. Cramming so much stuff into a 21-minute episode robbed everything of the emotional weight it deserved.

THE JOKES Tonally, they just didn’t work. This is supposed to be the super-serious horror season, but here we are getting hit with S2-style grossout humor. It’s not even that they’re terrible as jokes. They just don’t fit in with the atmosphere of the rest of the episode.

And then, of course, there’s the whole “feel the friendship” bit. It felt like it came straight outta one of Olan’s old YouTube videos. Out-of-context, it’s hilarious. In-context, it’s excruciating. To start with, the whole telepathy thing feels like an unnecessary addition to an already complicated mythology. How seriously were we supposed to take this bit? In the future, should we expect more communication to be happening telepathically? Or was this like... a one-off funny thing we’re not supposed to read too much into?

It also plays into some, dare I say, misogynistic tropes. I’m a little sick of media telling me that the bond between bros (no homo) is closer and more intimate than the relationship between a man and his romantic partner. The writers tried hanging a lampshade on it with a few funny lines from Quinn, but that doesn’t really make it better. It would be one thing if this was building up to a Gary/Quinn breakup further down the line, or if I thought polyspace was seriously on the table, but everything Olan has been saying outside of canon seems to indicate that’s not the case. So this joke is just left feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

THE ANIMATION Would you believe, I even found things to dislike about the animation. The direction in this episode just felt a little bit off. There were some moments where the lipsyncing was a bit weird, one moment where the lighting was very weird, and a particularly interesting cut from a shot of Bolo punching a planet to... very nearly the same shot of Bolo punching a planet. It makes me wonder if this episode went through some major changes in post-production.

All that being said--that Titan fight was cool as hell and one of the highlights not just of this episode, but the entire show. The imagery was spectacular. The Lovecraftian cosmic horror stuff has always been one of my favorite things about Final Space, and it looks like S3 is really going to lean in on that. Despite everything, I’m still excited to see where this season will go.

Overall, I felt this was a weak episode but not a totally awful one. It reminded me of The Toro Regatta in a lot of ways. I’m beginning to sense that premieres are a distinct weakness for the writers, who seem to start out seasons with a really spectacular finale in mind, but have no real idea of how to get there. S1 suffered from having too few episodes to get to its designated endpoint; S2 had far too many for its relatively meager plot. Here’s to hoping that S3 manages to strike a better balance.

[nina-a-pines]

Takaishi Takari

So, a couple of days ago I mentioned I had found an old Digimon work and well... here it is. This story is really old, and it wasn’t even written in English at first, I’m translating this right now, but I honestly want to add a piece to the digimon fandom so bear with me, please. And if you guys end up enjoying it and having a good time, that’s a win ^-^

-

The sunset was beautiful that afternoon in Odaiba. Although it was summer, a nice breeze blew, refreshing everyone, and that included the kindergarten students, who had just left the classroom at the sound of the bell.

Among the many children who went out at that time, two of them stood out: A little blond boy with blue eyes wearing a whistle around his neck, and a little girl with medium brown hair and the same blue eyes. Both looked eight years old.

“Ahh, I'm so hungry... What you think Mommy’s cooking today?” asked the boy.

“I want omelet!” Pagumon exclaimed in the blonde's arms.

“You two are hopeless,” murmured the tanemon on the girl’s head.

And speaking of the little brunette, this one just watched and giggled. Tanemon was right, Hikaru would never change, but she liked her brother just like that. Only sometimes did he go overboard.

“Hey, race ya to the gate!” Like when announcing sudden races for example.

“That doesn't count, Hikaru!” she exclaimed, still smiling, and running after her brother.

However, in her desire to reach the blonde, she ended up bumping into another child. That entire area of ​​the patio quieted down instantly when they saw the two of them lying on their butts, in front of each other.

“I'm sorry,” the brunette was quick to apologise, looking at the boy, whose main feature was his surprisingly light brown hair. She recognized him as Yoru, one of her classmates.

But despite the apology, Yoru looked at her with an angry face. He got up quickly and patted the dirt off his uniform before staring down at the girl. And with a mocking tone, he said:

“It had to be the Taka girl.”

A chorus of "Ohh...!" and a few giggles could be heard in the crowd that had formed around them. With the nickname, the brunette frowned, and as the usually sweet tanemon growled at Yoru, she finally got up and stared back.

“I already told you I don't like to be called that!”

“But it's the truth, everything in your name has Taka! Takaishi Takari!“ Yoru also raised his voice, emphasizing the syllables that made it possible to joke with the girl. “And it looks like your name was just because of that. What even is Takari, after all? Not even in other languages ​​have I heard that word!”

“As if you knew all the languages ​​in the world, Yoru!” Finally someone stepped in to defend Takari.

Hikaru returned when he noticed the crowd, getting between his sister and his classmate. Her gaze was skittish; he might be only two minutes older than Takari, but he was still the oldest. And even if the difference was two years, they always took care of each other.

“I know more than you,” replied Yoru, but he decided to take advantage of the blonde's arrival to continue his tease against Takari. “But since she's your sister, you should know that. Where does her name come from?”

Hikaru gulped, continuing to glare at the brown-haired one. Nor did he know how his parents decided on that name.

“You don't know, right?” Yoru mocked, looking at the girl over the blonde's shoulder. “I was right, your name was meant to be a joke, TAKAishi TAKAri! Taka girl!”

“Argh- Enough, Yoru!!” Hikaru finally yelled, controlling himself not to jump on and punch his classmate. “Let's go, Takari. You don't need to listen to this idiot.” He took his sister's hand, who had remained quiet until then, and left, pulling her without hurting her.

When they finally left the school and reached the end of the block, they stopped waiting for the signal. And it was only then that Tanemon spoke up.

“Nee, Takari, Hikaru is right, don't listen to Yoru,” he tried to cheer up his partner, seeing that her head was down to the point of covering her eyes with her bangs.

“Yeah, your name is... cool,” Pagumon agreed. Praises weren't his strong suit, but other than the girl being his partner's sister, she was one of the few humans he actually liked. Maybe because he liked Hikaru and the blonde cared a lot about his sister.

But not even with the support of the two digimons did Takari’s mood get better, she kept her head down.

“Forget about it, Takari,” Hikaru spoke once more, pulling her by the hand still joined when the light turned green for the pedestrians.

And they didn't exchange another word the rest of the way.

However, that didn't stop Takari from rambling the rest of the way. The girl's neurons were racing, thinking about Yoru's words. The nickname, Taka Girl, was no surprise; everyone has called her that at one time to annoy her (even Hikaru during one of their fights).

What was really bothering her was what her classmate pointed out, about where her name would have come from.

She was also curious now. She had never heard of another person named Takari, nor of anything with that name. Was it really a word from another language? And if so, what did it mean? It should be something really special, because it wasn't worth having a name that seems like a joke for nothing.

~DingDong~

The sound of the doorbell pulls her back to reality. Takari is surprised to see that they were already at their family’s apartment doorstep. She didn't even notice they had entered the building... how far were her thoughts?

The door was opened by a woman with brown hair identical to Takari's, only a little longer. The reddish-brown eyes rested on the children and a smile spread across the older woman's face.

“Okaeri, Hikaru, Takari,” She looked at the digimons. “Tanemon, Pagumon.”

“Tadaima.” Hikaru hears her sister answer, to his surprise. She was so distracted that he had had to drag her all this time by the hand.

Releasing her was the first thing he did when he realized that the girl no longer needed it.

Hikari made room for the children to come in and as they went to the bedroom she returned to the kitchen, giving the usual warning, “Take a good shower quickly, dinner’s almost ready.”

“Hai, okaa-san!” The two responded together, in an incredibly perfect sync. Hikari smiled at that.

“They're definitely twins,” Tailmon put her partner’s thoughts  into words.

“Yes... they are,” Hikari just nodded, turning part of her attention to the on the oven.

I say ‘part’ because the rest focused on her children. Whenever May came, she was like this, nostalgic, thinking that they would soon be another year old when the fifth day came.

This has been going on for nine years... They were no longer those little babies she brought into the world, and they would only grow up more and more! Now they were turning nine, but before long they would have eleven, and then fourteen! Just that idea made a shiver run up her body, after all it was with fourteen that she and Takeru began to have something more than friendship.

Speaking of her husband, he wouldn't linger much longer at the publishing house, where he set things up for the announcement of his new book.

Like her, who became a teacher, Takeru also fulfilled his dream of being a writer and write down all their adventures at the Digital World. Both achieved everything they wanted and more. And the proof of that was the ring on her finger and the two children who, at that moment, were having fun making a mess in the bath.

“Hikari, the rice’s burning!” Taimon warned, seeing some beans becoming of a toasting brown.

The brunette hurried to turn off the fire, checking if her little slip hadn't compromised the meal, and sighed with relief when she found that it hadn't.

“What were you thinking about to be so distracted?” asked the digimon.

“Hm... Just a few good things,” was Hikari’s only answer, before concentrating once and for all on the pan.

Less than an hour later, the entire Takaishi family was gathered at the table.

“And then, I managed to catch the ball and shoot it into the basket!” Hikaru narrated excitedly about his day.

“It looks like we have a real basketball player here,” Hikari smiled at her son.

Both she and Takeru love this. Dinnertime was when they could pay most attention to their children and the twins made the most out of that time. Although... Takari was strangely quiet tonight, just poking food off her plate. She seemed lost in thought.

“Takari?” Takeru noticed the girl's behavior. He was used to his little girl being the life of the room, so that silence was concerning. “Is something bothering you?”

The brunette seemed to be awakened from a daze with that question from her father. She looked up only to see that both her parents and her brother were staring at her, waiting for an answer.

"Actually…" Takari started, a little hesitant if she should tell or not.

She looked at Hikaru, as if asking for his advice on what to do, and just with a look too, the blonde replied ‘If you want to tell, go ahead’. It might not be the best advice in the world, but it was enough for the girl to make up her mind. She wanted answers, so why not ask?

“Otou-san, okaa-san… Where does my name come from?”

That question took both adults by surprise.

“Why this now?” asked Takeru.

“It's just... I need to know,” she pressed the hem of her green T-shirt, trying to muster the courage to speak. “I need to know where my name came from, what it means. Because maybe then, it won't bother so much how weird it is.”

Okay, now even Hikaru was surprised by his sister's words. He didn't imagine she would put them like that. Hikari quickly turned to Takeru, worried, and she saw in the blue eyes, which still remained on Takari, a hint of pain and guilt.

“Weird...?” repeated the older blond.

“Well yeah,” Takari went on. She had already started, so now she would go through with it. – After all, what is Takari? Is it any other language?”

“Well, not exactly. – Hikari replied, wondering if what had formed her daughter's name could be considered a language or not.

“So what is it??”

“Takari, why is that now?” The girl's mother responded with another question. “Your name’s a bit different, but it’s not weird.”

"Maybe," Takari frowned, getting angry. “But when combined with my last name, it really is!”

Silence.

A heavy and uncomfortable silence settled over the place after that exclamation from Takari. Hikari stared at her daughter, shocked at those words; Hikaru was also surprised; And Takeru still had that guilt in his eyes, only now with greater intensity.

The bad mood started weighing on the little girl’s shoulders as she became aware she had created it. She was still immersed in anger, however, and so she continued to speak:

“Takaishi Takari. Takaishi Takari! Everything has Taka! And the fact that my first name doesn't exist only makes the joke even worse! Was this supposed to be a joke?!” And with a snort, she concluded her angry speech.

But she didn't stop there to find out her family's reaction. She jumped down from her chair and ran to the room she shared with Hikaru, just giving Tanemon time to come in before slamming the door shut. And she slipped dowm on it as soon as she did, letting out a long breath.

“Nee... Takari...” the digimon tried to call for his partner after a few seconds. “Don't you think you exaggerated a little?”

Exaggerated? Takari pondered about this. Yes, she had exaggerated with that last speech, but the anger that raged in her was too much. So you mean to tell her that her name, in addition to being used in bad jokes, had no meaning to it? Was it plain and simply... Takari?

She didn't pay attention to how much time had passed after she'd collapsed onto her bed and buried her face in the pillow. Takari thought it had been hours while she brooded over the latest events, but looking up at her watch, she saw that she had barely spent ten minutes thinking it over. That explained why Hikaru hadn't invaded the room yet.

But even after a short time, Takari was already gathering the courage to leave the room and face her family again. She knew she owed them an apology, especially to her dad, as she had spoken ill of the last name he had given her. She should also make up to her mother for leaving food untouched on her plate. Yeah... the list of excuses to ask was long.

Knock Knock Knock

The sound of knocking on the door caught Takari's attention. Her throat went dry. She already knew it wasn't Hikaru, as he never knocked, let alone to enter his own room. So it could only be one of her parents.

“C-come in,” Takari authorized, sitting upright on the bed and thus leaving her lap free for Tanemon to accommodate on it.

Who entered the room was none other than Hikari. She looked calm, and brought along a plate of food (the same one Takari had left behind) and a smile. But that didn't calm the girl down, she knew her mother had the gift of teaching her right and wrong without having to raise her voice.

“Hi,” Hikari greeted, walking calmly towards her daughter. “I thought you would be hungry so I brought your food,” she explained, leaving the plate with cutlery over the dresser.

“Thanks...” Takari replied in a whisper, unable to stop staring at the floor. Having her mother treat her well after what she did was worse than getting scolded for it.

“Can I have a seat?”

Still not looking up, Takari nodded and felt the bed move when Hikari sat beside her. A few seconds passed until the eldest decided to speak,

“Takari, do the boys still call you by that nickname?”

Once again, the hem of the green shirt was gripped tightly. Of course, Hikari knew about her terrible “nickname” given by her peers, since the first year of the garden, when it was created.

At the time (two or three years ago), Takari, instead of getting mad, would start crying when they called her Taka girl. And Hikaru, always willing to defend his sister, picked up a fight6 with whoever had done that. Such an attitude could not be expected to be resolved elsewhere than in the principal’s office, with the parents present. The result: both their parents and the parents of most of their class knew about that nickname.

“Yes, they do,” takari decided to be honest. “But it doesn't bother me anymore.” ... Or almost.

“Are you sure?” But Hikari almost always knew when her children were lying. ”Takari, I already explained that there's nothing wrong with having Taka in the first and last names. Is it annoying that they keep calling you that? Yes, and it is wrong as well, but the problem is not you.”

That speech did nothing, Takari barely raised her face to look back at her. Hikari sighed, deciding then to do what she had decided was about time to do, and the reason she had went to talk to her daughter in the first place.

“Do you want to hear a story?”

Finally Takari looked at her mother, with confused aeyes. A story? Now? What was the ex Yagami up to?

“About what?”

Hikari just smiled. A sweet, nostalgic and full of love smile.

“It's about two people, a girl and a boy, who you know very well, by the way.”

Flashback on: I told you guys this story was old

Was there a better way to celebrate the peacetime of the Digital World than with a picnic? In the opinion of the second generation of Chosen Children, there wasn’t. Which was why on that cool spring morning, they were on top of a hill, with a towel spread out and several snacks just waiting to be devoured. A little way away, near the river, their digimons played all together.

“You can attack, everyone! I brought only the best from the market!” Miyako spoke with evident excitement, sitting next to Ken.

“I also brought some snacks that my mother made,” Iori spoke up.

“Hey, Hikari-chan, do you want to try the noodles I made myself?” Daisuke had a bowl in his hands.

“You made that? You are really working on becoming a cook, Daisuke-kun,” Yagami commented smiling, as she accepted the bowl.

“Yes, yes! I'm still going to become a famous ramen cook,” the teenager puffed out his chest proudly, before adding with a suggestive look at her, “And my skills in the kitchen will help a lot when I cook dinner for my wife and children.

Hikari suddenly started coughing, choking a little on the noodles at those words.

“R-right?” She tried to smile at her friend, but the gesture was evidently nervous. “Your family will be very lucky.”

“We'll be very lucky! “Daisuke exclaimed, already daydreaming about four or five children, mixes of him and his beloved Yagami.

As Motomiya wandered off, Hikari glanced sideways at Takeru, who was relatively close to them to hear their conversation. As usual through the past weeks when that happened, the blond had an amusing look. However, with each time, Hikari could see a hint of annoyance growing in Takeru’s eyes. She suspected it shouldn't be easy for him to see that and keep silent.

And you know what? Hikari couldn’t bring herself to hide the fact anymore either.

A smile grew on her face with an idea.

Being sure to get the attention of all of her friends, she went to Takeru's side, and sat down with him, who just looked at her inconfusion. And in front of everyone, she took the blonde's hand and approached their faces, placing a light kiss... on his cheek.

But that alone was enough to trigger a series of reactions. Takeru himself turned red, looking wide eyed at the brunette. Daisuke started having a fit, screaming, pulling his hair and even thinking about going after the blond, but he couldn't manage with Hikari so close to him. Ken was slightly embarrassed to witness the scene, and only that. Iori at first looked surprised, but then he got a face like he was expecting that. And Miyako... Well, she was still in shock.

“Hikari-san, Takeru-kun...” she started, gradually recovering. “That right now… W-what does that mean…?”

“Minna, we have news to share,” decreed Takeru, finally calmer by the latest attitudes of his "best friend". Smiling and holding Hikari's hand a little tighter, he left the big revelation to her.

“Takeru-kun and I have been dating for three weeks.”

Two screams echoed throughout the place (if not across the Digimundo!) with that declaration. One was the "NO!!" from Daisuke, and the other one was a “KYAH!!!” from Miyako. While Motomiya slapped himself trying to see if this wasn't just a nightmare, the purple-haired girl practically danced in place.

“WOO-HOO!! My Father in heaven, my ship became canon!! TAKARI TO THE WIN!” 

The girl continued her fit of hysteria, with everyone (except Daisuke) watching with drops on their foreheads.

“Takari?” Hikari repeated, finding that word to be strange. “What is that, Miyako-san?”

“Why, it's the name of your ship!” she replied as if that were obvious. “The perfect mix of Takeru and Hikari: Takari!”

Despite having found the fact of being “shipped” a little weird, Hikari ended up laughing at her friend's ideas, soon forgetting what she had said.

But Takeru didn't let it get lost so easily.

“Hmm...” he muttered, with a distant look, before smiling. “Takari, huh?”

Flashback off:

- Your father never forgot what Miyako-san said that day,” Hikari continued, still smiling and having her daughter's full attention. “And when you were born, with my hair, but looking at everything with his eyes, there was no doubt. The perfect blend of Takeru and Hikari,” she looked at the girl, her eyes full of tenderness. “It's you, Takari.

Silence reigned again, but not uncomfortable as at the dinner table. Takari just needed time to process everything she had heard. And by the flicker of her blue irises, one could tell she was experiencing strong emotions.

So that was the meaning of her name? Was that why he was so different, unique? Takari smiled, letting out a light laugh. She couldn't believe she complained about something so special!

But wait, if it had been her father who remembered about that word, then-

“Mom!” she called, getting serious all of a sudden. - Was Daddy who chose my name?

“Yes, it was,” Hikari replied simply, already knowing where her daughter's reasoning had brought her.

“I have to talk to him!” Takari declared, and jumped off the bed. But before she left the room, she smiled at Hikari. “Thank you.”

Finding her father was not a difficult task, she soon saw him in the living room, more precisely on the couch, watching a basketball game with Hikaru.

“DAD!” she exclaimed, drawing the two blonds’ attention.

Without waiting another second, she ran to them and threw herself into Takeru's arms. 

“I'm sorry!” she circling as much as she could from her father's torso with her little arms. “I'm really sorry, I didn't know! I didn't mean to say that!”

“...Takari, what's wrong?” Takeru wasn’t understanding a thing, but even so he responded to his daughter's hug.

The little brunette lifted her head to look at her father. And Takeru was amazed to see that, despite smiling, she had tears in the corners of the blue orbs. Giving a sniff to chase away the crying, the little girl declared:

“I just want you to know that I no longer care about what others say,” she opened her smile even more.”I’m proud to be Takaishi Takari!”