#but i forget which college flashback

[nordegrafz]

i think the older interpretation of neil w lighter hair is cute so one hc i have is that he dyes it so we get best of both worlds (and i like designs where the natural color is showing through the roots i think he would look cute w that)

[2hightocare]

LOVE WAGER! 02

Synopsis: The concept of love resurfaces as you both agree to center your psychology project on the premise that love is a choice. You propose an intriguing idea to Jungkook: he must exert every effort to make you fall in love with him within a month, to back up his belief.

Pairings: jungkook x fem!reader

Genre: college au. strangers to friends to lovers. angst/romantic comedy.

Warnings: mentions of divorce parents, neglectful parents, mentions of depression, banter, cussing, ex girlfriends, flashbacks, jungkook low key being super mean and discarding people’s feelings, jungkook hard-key depressed, implications of sex.

a/n: hai… this is so long overdue— exams month is coming and I had the biggest writers block fr but here’s my beloved babies. Song of the chapter— “love is embarrassing” by Olivia Rodrigo.

prev chapter! series masterlist!

Love.

Love is an intricate subject in its own right. Scientists elucidate it through the interplay of three cerebral chemicals: noradrenaline, dopamine, and phenylethylamine.

That's how Jungkook perceived love. He didn't subscribe to the notion of butterflies in the stomach or the fluttering heartbeat as justifications for love. To him, love was a scientific phenomenon, a complex emotion akin to sadness or jealousy-if he could evade such feelings, he would spare no effort.

But why did his stomach churn as if his organs were performing tiny somersaults whenever he gazed at you a tad too long? You were engrossed in the menu, pondering whether to get a burger or a slice of pizza.

Seated beautifully in your loose red Formula One shirt, Jungkook couldn't fathom how you managed to make that oversized shirt look so good.

Jungkook's eyes dropped to the ribbon in your hair, wondering why someone who was a full-on adult looked pretty, adorable even-with a red ribbon tied into a beautiful bow contrasting your skin and eyes. Your long eyelashes entranced him. He felt his stomach do something, a turn? Maybe his stomach was upset-he thought to himself.

Jungkook couldn't believe he found himself willingly sharing a table with you at the same dinner two years ago, he almost killed you at. He had moved to Emberhill U two years ago, ever since he moved out from his mom's house. Jungkook's life had gone to hell, which is exactly what his mind would tell him ever since his mom got a boyfriend. To make matters worse, he now had step-siblings.

He hated every bit of it. He wasn't jealous whatsoever.

It was the fact that his mom seemed to forget he even existed in the first place. Jungkook was hurt. He tried not to dwell or cry about it since he was a big boy-that's what he told himself now, pushing twenty-two, but still, part of his already broken heart shattered more.

How could your mom forget about her child? How could she not care about her only flesh and blood? He never told her that ever. Talking about his feelings with his mom was like talking to a brick wall that nothing could pass through. Plus, Jungkook wasn't good at communicating or talking about his feelings anyway. He found it embarrassing to lay yourself out there for someone to be able to discard you at any given moment.

Jungkook's dad wasn't any different as wellbeing too busy with work to even call him to ask his son if he was okay or how school is going. But the calls or text messages never came. Jungkook was used to it. It was his everyday. It was more shocking when he did call, but he wouldn't know what that would feel like since he never called ever since the divorce. Jungkook knew the divorce wasn't his fault whatsoever. His therapist—that his high school counselor made him go to—basically talked his ear off about how anything that happened wasn't his fault, but still, it felt like it was.

Ever since everything went down, his parents seemed to forget they had a child, who still needed them.

One advantage of his situation was the freedom to do as he pleased without his parents' interference. However, the downside was their lack of concern for his activities or just him in general. Jungkook was certain: if his parents didn't love him, who else in the world would? So, he didn't believe in love. When the two people meant to demonstrate unconditional love failed to do so, he doubted anyone else would. He would like to say that it didn't affect him and it's been years since everything, but deep down it still did.

Jungkook experiences a pang of guilt every time he looks at you. Perhaps it's the way he behaved when he first met you, the influence of the romantic comedy in your hands causing him to lash out at you.

Something about your ribbons makes him feel that you’re too innocent and naive for this world—part of him wants to shield you from its harsh realities, while another part wants to disillusion you about the cruelty of the world and the disparity between love in fairy tales and reality.

"Are you done daydreaming?" You say, interrupting his thoughts. Jungkook shakes his head, attempting to banish his thoughts before raising an eyebrow at your curious doe eyes. "I wasn't daydreaming," he states proudly, prompting a scoff from you, a grin tugging at Jungkook's lips.

"It was either daydreaming or checking me out since you were staring at me for a hot minute, but I decided otherwise since you have a girlfriend," you quip nonchalantly before calling the waiter to take your order.

"First of all, I don’t have a girlfriend, and second of all, what if I was checking you out?" Jungkook challenges. He didn’t know why he enjoyed getting on your nerves—any other person he would probably flip off and never give them the time of day, but instead, here he was with you doing the complete opposite.

"What happened to the girl from the dinner?" You question, your eyes finally meeting his brown ones. A glint of something passes over his eyes before disappearing as quickly as you saw it—so you thought maybe you had imagined it.

"Who?" Jungkook says, tilting his head to the side as he leans forward, his elbows propped on the table. "the one you mentioned to me two years ago? The one you discussed intimately," you mimic his voice. Jungkook's smile widens, amused by your jest.

"If you want to know so badly, we broke up—well, she broke up with me," Jungkook clicks his tongue, observing your expressions closely. He notices the creases of your forehead whenever you are thinking or the way you bite your lower lip to contain a smile that’s threatening to come out, each time Jungkook says something dumb.

"Oh, let me guess, she wanted love letters and sweet words whispered into her ear," you mock him, knowing he said that he didn’t need to do any of that to keep a girl. "You’re annoying, Ribbons," Jungkook shakes his head with a low soft chuckle.

You watch him pick up the menu and start scanning the items as you observe him. You notice how his jaw clenches momentarily before relaxing, his tongue poking on the inside of his cheek, making you wonder if you angered him—and if you did, maybe you should do it more often since he looked hot—

Record scratch.

Your mind was playing games with you the more you watched the raven-haired boy. The more you realized he was the epitome of the boy you imagined whenever you were reading a book, the dimples on his cheeks, the scar right above his cheekbone, and the mole underneath his bottom lip had you wanting to ask him for his whole life story.

He also looks like those cute love song playlists that had all your favorite songs in them, but you knew from the way he acts around you, it was definitely a hard no and maybe you were delusional after all. So you try hard to shove those ideas into the back of your brain as far as you could.

"I knew that you couldn’t keep a girlfriend," you shrug, prompting a gasp from him as he jokingly places a hand on his heart, as if you had just dealt him a mortal blow.

"Wow, YN doesn’t think I’m boyfriend material?" Jungkook gasps dramatically, shaking his head.

"You’re literally everything that's not boyfriend material," you throw your head back with a laugh, observing his widened eyes with amusement evident on his face. "Ouch," Jungkook scoffs dramatically.

"What makes you say I’m not boyfriend material?" he says, scanning the room for a waiter but finding none, before redirecting his attention to you.

"You don’t believe in love, that's one way to start," you point out, eliciting a hum of agreement from him. "What's that got to do with being a good boyfriend? I assure you that a good boyfriend isn’t necessarily head over heels in love," Jungkook says, as if imparting a valuable lesson, while your facial expression betrays you.

"The fuck? You literally hate everything related to love. Being a good boyfriend means doing cliche shit you hate doing so much, how could you possibly be boyfriend material?" you assert proudly, prompting an eye-roll from him.

"All that stuff is just superficial shit that everyone collectively agreed on. It’s just embarrassing how people put themselves go through all that just to make someone lik—“

"Love," you interject, earning yourself a glare from across the table.

"Like I was saying, I stand by the fact all those stupid romantic gestures are pointless. Society basically romanticized love and set up unrealistic expectations— everything just leads to heartbreak and disappointment," Jungkook continues, you watch how the hard expression on his face wavers to something more… sad, like he was talking from experience.

"Have you ever experienced love?" you inquire, not sure why since you guys weren’t even friends in the first place—the only reason you found yourself sitting with him willingly was because of psychology class.

"What?" Jungkook is caught off guard by the sudden question.

"Have you ever been in love?" you reiterate, observing his expression harden once more. "No, never, and I don’t plan to," Jungkook shrugs, going back to his usual cocky self in a blink of an eye, prompting yet another eye-roll from you, marking thirty-eighth.

You didn’t get the chance to reply since a waiter came to your table, apologizing for taking so long to get to us before taking our orders.

You and Jungkook decided on sharing a pizza, and you obviously ordered a coke, which got Jungkook joking about how he isn’t trying to make you choke again, which had the waiter shifting uncomfortably beside you both while Jungkook had an eating-shit grin on his face.

“That’s not what he meant!” You chuckled nervously, your face reddening, matching your shirt from how embarrassed you are.

“No, it’s okay, you don't have to explain,” the waiter said before excusing himself.

The moment the waiter was out of your line of vision, you turned your head to the boy who’s sucking in his lips, trying not to laugh.

“What the fuck was that?” You glared, your eyebrows scrunching. “What, you both just have a dirty mind,” Jungkook shrugged, the grin on his face making you shift in your chair.

Jungkook's aura was unlike anything you’d ever stumbled upon, and you hated it. It made you want to know more about him than you should, the way he carried himself and talked had you questioning why? He wasn’t so different from other boys you had met, besides the fact that he spoke his mind as if no one was around, not caring if he hurt your feelings or offended you. It was refreshing in some way, but it still made you want to pull your hair out.

“Alright… let’s change topics, Mr. Anti-Romantic,” you say, watching his smile widen.

“What?” You stared at him, trying to think what could possibly make him smile that much. You were sure your face would hurt if you possibly smiled that much.

“Nothing, I just find it extremely hot when you call me that, it turns me on,” Jungkook said, leaning forward.

Okay, that’s not exactly what you were imagining him saying. Your eyes widened momentarily, feeling your heartbeat rise. The smile not leaving his face had you feeling hot, as if the room temperature suddenly increased.

“Uh… so, project,” you blinked rapidly.

“Yeah, project,” Jungkook agreed, smile still on his face as he saw your cheeks flush with a reddish color.

“So, any ideas about what our project can be about?” You said, grabbing the hair tie around your wrist and using it to make a ponytail, taking the ribbons out before tying your hair.

Two small strands fell from your face, tempting Jungkook's fingers to reach out and tuck them behind your ear. He wanted to slap himself back to reality since he never in his life thought those thoughts, not even with Haneul, whom he dated for five months, setting a record. He still remembered the reason she gave him for breaking up. It was laughable.

“Jungkook, you don’t even look at me with love, and I know you said when we first met that it was only attraction, but I thought you would change over time the more we hung out,” Haneul whimpered, tears gathering around her eyes as Jungkook just stared at her, not knowing what to say. Because yes, he did tell her it was all attraction, and it’s still only attraction to this day for him.

“You don’t hold my hand or give me kisses, you don’t even give me flowers,” Haneul cried, her voice cracking with each word she said.

“I told you, I don’t do that stuff,” Jungkook said. He felt bad for her since he knew she deserved better, but he didn’t feel bad about not doing those things for her since he told her he wouldn’t and never would do them. And she agreed, so why was she crying about it now when she agreed to it five months ago?

“I know you did, but I thought you just… fuck, you haven’t even introduced me to your family,” a crack is heard from Jungkook's heart, but not for the girl in front of him crying her heart out, but for himself, because yeah, he had no family he could take a girl home to, since he had no home at all. He had a house, but it was as empty as he was.

“Haneul, I told you—“

“Yeah, that you will never do that! I get it, okay? I get it, but fuck, how can you not care? Do you not feel anything when it comes to me?” The girl wept more, which had Jungkook sighing.

“I like you, Haneul,” Jungkook replied. “I love you, Jungkook, can’t you tell…” she whispered, a choked sob leaving her lips as she looked up at the man who’s just standing in front of her like nothing.

“I’m sorry,” that's all Jungkook said… because what else could he say? It was either that or that he didn’t love her, but to not take it personally since he didn’t love anything?

So instead, he said the only thing he could muster without his voice cracking.

“Love,” Jungkook finally says, his statement catching you off guard, widening your eyes in surprise.

“Love? I thought you hated love,” you raise an eyebrow, perplexed by his sudden declaration.

“I do, but love is psychological. We can discuss how we, as humans, have the ability to choose whether we fall in love or not,” Jungkook articulates.

“That’s not how love works, Jungkook,” you retort, to which he responds with a disapproving nod. “It does, though,” Jungkook rebuts.

“It doesn’t. Love is not something we can choose and pick, it just happens,” you try to explain.

“You believe love just happens, but I disagree, respectfully,” Jungkook adds, causing you to tilt your head curiously, intrigued by his perspective. “I’ve held on for too long without being in love since I said I wouldn’t fall in love,” he concludes.

“That’s because you haven’t met anyone you actually want to try with… maybe you just haven’t met your soulmate,” you suggest, annoyance evident on Jungkook’s face the moment you mention the concept of soulmates.

“Soulmates don’t exist, ribbons,” Jungkook snickers.

“I beg to differ,” you cross your arms, adamant in your belief. “I don’t know what fantasy lovey-dovey world you live in, but soulmates are just made up,” Jungkook shrugs casually.

“Maybe you are right about the fact that you get to choose who you fall in love with since I know for a fact I would never fall in love with you,” you spitefully state.

Jungkook nods, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth that catches him off guard. Perhaps it was the fact that someone had just openly admitted they wouldn’t want to love him—reminding him of the kid he once was, desperately begging his parents to love him. But wasn’t this what he was trying to prove in the first place, that love was a choice? Then why did it hurt to hear you say those words out loud?

“Atta girl, finally got it huh,” Jungkook smirks, ignoring the pang of hurt in his chest. “Alright then, if we did do that for our project, let’s say we argued that love is a choice and it doesn’t happen. How do we prove that?” you question.

Silence fills the table as you both brainstorm ideas, trying to back up this argument.

“I got it,” you say, as if a light bulb just appeared on top of your head. Jungkook nods, encouraging you to continue.

“What if we spend a month with you doing absolutely everything to make me fall in love with you? And I mean do all that cliché, romantic shit I love that you hate so much. Since I know for a fact that I choose not to fall in love with you, we can discuss how, even if a person does everything right, you still get to choose who you love,” you explain carefully, ensuring he understands your proposal.

“It’s a good idea for the project; we could use ourselves to illustrate how we pick and choose who we love, like you said,” you try to convince him, giving him the benefit of the doubt after he convinced you of his beliefs. You knew you would never fall for him, even if he did everything you ever read in books and saw in movies.

“We can call it the Love Wager,” you finish, scanning his face as he contemplates the idea.

Jungkook’s mind races, unsure if he likes the idea or absolutely hates it. On one hand, it could earn him a good grade, given the strong rationale behind it, using yourselves as an experiment to support your argument. But on the other hand, the thought of spending a month doing everything he had vocally despised for the past five years gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“Alright then, the Love Wager operation starts,” Jungkook agrees instead, while you clap happily. “Oh my god yay, this might give me an A plus,” you celebrate, giggling as Jungkook raises an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story; I just hate psychology,” you say, to which he nods in response.

“Well, we have a month together, so start explaining why you hate it so much,” Jungkook says nonchalantly, and before you could reply, the waiter hurriedly returns to your table, apologizing for the wait, mentioning the kitchen’s struggle with the influx of orders. But you keep your eyes on the boy in front of you, who looks at the waiter, reassuring him it’s okay.

The smell of fresh, hot pizza fills your nostrils as you finally snap out of your trance, looking down at the pizza the waiter is sliding onto the table, cautioning you both that it is extremely hot. The waiter continues to place all the food you ordered on the table before leaving with a bow.

“I’m starving, oh my god,” Jungkook moans as he picks up a slice of pizza and takes a bite, ignoring the steam.

“How is that not burning your tongue, oh my…” you begin to say, but you’re interrupted as you take a bite of your own slice, immediately regretting it as you burn your tongue. “Ah, ah, ha,” you drop the pizza onto your plate, sticking your tongue out and fanning your mouth with your hand. A small laugh escapes from Jungkook as you shoot him a snarky glare.

“He literally just told you it was hot, ribbons,” Jungkook says, grabbing a napkin from the container and reaching over to wipe some sauce off your lips and face. The fanning from your hand halts as you stare at his focused face, feeling yourself heat up again, but this time it’s not your mouth—it’s your cheeks.

“Why did you just do that?” you ask before you can stop yourself, as he sits back down properly. “I’m starting my boyfriend material journey, you know, since the project?” Jungkook says casually, taking another bite of pizza, watching you in surprise as you shockingly observe him not being fazed by the burning food in his mouth, chewing happily.

“Oh… we’re starting right now?” you gesture to the table between you both, indicating ‘right now’. “Yeah, we only have one month, let’s make it worth it,” he says, diving back into his food.

God, this month was definitely going to be a roller coaster.

💌taglist— @brune77e @cherryfragrancx @inlovewithharutoo @jcnggukie @vkjmjjk @seokjinspinkslipper @jayjahni @mxrecg @suciedad-divina @peterstarkchrishiddleston @aiiselle90210 @lovingkoalaface @httpjeonlicious @thekookiedealer @somehowukook @taiwan0618 @gwsjungkookie @chxrrybangtan @seokout @junecat18 @joonsanswer @ahgasegotarmy116recs @jkmylove97 @letjungcoook7 @skzthinker @whoa-jo @ziyaexe @kooloveys @sneezedonthebeat @parkinglot-nights @btsffreader92 @jjeonjjk7 (lmk if you wanna get taken off)

[unlikelypandahologram]

Reasons to ship every single version of MegOP

since Very Dumb Discourse™ exists about whether or not certain versions of this ship are valid, this is going to be THE most positive post about all versions of MegOP. refer back to this post for reasons to ship your favorite version of MegOP if anyone gets weird about it with you. now let us begin!!

G1: goofy '80s faction dads fighting each other in a denny's parking lot every week LET'S GOOO, that shit is fun as fuck. orion pax also totally had a celeb crush on megatron before megatron ruined that and shot him and his pals 😔 and there's a lot of angst you can add with megatron becoming galvatron and optimus coming back to life to see how much he's changed!

BW: it's the sheer fucking comedy gold factor of a newly minted college graduate and a terrorist dinosaur IMMEDIATELY singling each other out on a prehistoric rock and deciding to call their daily gang slap-fights the BEAST WARS, what iconic drama queens LMAOOOO. also, megatron made his final body in BM look like optimal optimus SPECIFICALLY to fuck with him, and that's just...incredible

UT: the fact that megatron CANONICALLY acted like a grieving widower over optimus after he died in armada is. amazing. never forget their absolutely insane obsession with each other that they can never EVER give up on played a direct part in unicron nearly ending the world <3

Bayverse: this is the one continuity of all fucking things that gave us the lore about megatron being prime's lord high protector. absolute galaxy brain writing from the tie-in comics. also these two would ABSOLUTELY have the messiest, nastiest, most brutal hate sex imaginable, and that's beautiful. <3

Animated: optimus being a rookie washout underdog and megatron being a super scary much older warlord is a really interesting and underrated fresh take on their dynamic! lots of fun to be had with exploring what their relationship would be like after megatron finally acknowledged him as his archnemesis, lol. also...age AND size difference ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Prime: do i even need to say anything, i'm pretty sure that one flashback still of orion and megatronus being friends is responsible for birthing a million shippers for this pairing alone LMAOOOO. the bitter ex-boyfriends energy was TRULY off the charts in this show, it's a damn shame megatron never appeared in RID15

Cyberverse: same bitter ex-boyfriends energy but this time with dates at maccadams. megatron also dies encouraging optimus to beat the unhinged alternate dimension megs AAHH THE ANGST

IDW1: they're both depressed gay war criminals in this one who CONSTANTLY live in each other's heads rent-free and that's amazing, lmfao. also, megatron becoming an autobot means this is one of the VERY FEW continuities where it's not nigh impossible to figure out a way to give these two a happy ending together in fanon

IDW2: space date space date SPACE DATE. they were falling together and everything. megatron also LITERALLY tells optimus to open himself to him...to give him the matrix...yeah megs my dude i'm sure that's the ONLY thing you wanted from optimus "opening" himself. toootally positive, lol

G1 Marvel: megatron was SUPER fucking pissed and weird as shit about the time optimus died over a video game. it counts

Dreamwave: their first fight had megatron urging optimus to join him AND they disappeared together in a space bridge explosion once which is like, a fanfic-esque setup for them to be alone. also i'm pretty sure this is the continuity where optimus accidentally gave megatron a lobotomy, so...uh...potential for angst is to be had

SG: mirror universe!! evil crazy villain optimus with noble goody-goody hero megatron has so much potential for absolute chaos. bonus if you also bring in the normal versions somehow through multiverse shenanigans <3

KP: the only way this version of prime can redeem himself from the creepy underage human girl bullshit is if he gets a good hard dicking from megatron. next

Prime Wars: huge "ex-husbands go on a road trip with their disgruntled daughter" energy here. megatron also LITERALLY says "oh optimus, if only you could see me now" <3

Earthspark: again...need i say why? they're pals and working together from the get-go, what's not to ship??

Skybound: optimus literally wears megatron's arm. truly beautiful <3

TF One: it's not out yet but give it time. the entire movie is going to be about orion and d-16 being madly in love and tragically breaking up, baby!!

[lividstar]

愤怒的星星 ★ — COLLISION OF PARALLEL LINES.

៚ wc: 17.6k

៚ fluff, punk!hongjoong x fem!reader, slowburn, ot8 cameos, college au except idk if i did it right, mutual pining, first few parts are just flashbacks, opposites attract (kinda?) will probably be a 2-part series

៚ The thought of enjoying your Saturday morning however you please may initially seem exciting, but it can become as daunting as weekdays when you end up with tasks even on your supposed days off—which, in your case, is none other than buying a psychological thriller book for your roommate, who claims she needs it in order to share a "common interest" with the nerdy guy from her linguistics class she seems to be obsessed with. You already saw it coming when you opened your phone to find numerous missed calls from her, but what you didn't expect was a coincidental encounter with a guy who seems to have visited the bookstore for the same reason as you. It only took you two more no-longer-so-coincidental encounters for you to realize just how deep you’ve fallen into the bottomless pit.

You never really tend to realize just how much of an effect a certain person’s presence has on you until you start to crave more of it during the times you fail to feel it around.

The first time you saw him was when you were walking in and out of your local bookstore’s aisles, fingers brushing through the rows of books neatly arranged according to their genres. For how long you’ve been doing the exact same thing, you begin to forget just why and how exactly visiting the place managed to sneak itself in between your routine for the day.

Rewinding the day’s events so far so you could recall what exactly were you doing inside a bookstore standing in front of an aisle solely for the psychological thriller genre, you vividly remember your roommate calling you in the middle of your morning stroll at the park asking if you could stop by a nearby bookstore and buy her a book she apparently needs for “academic purposes.”

You were hesitant at first, thinking she was probably airing out a false reason. With the amount of times you’d come home to the sight of her deeply engrossed in a complex thriller movie, you’d assume she wanted the book solely due to her interests.

You ran your eyes through the columns once more, sighing in relief when you finally found the book your roommate wanted you to buy. You took your phone out to take a picture of it and send it to her for confirmation, but just as you were about to reach for it, another person whose presence you failed to notice until now did so as well, making your hands brush against each other after reaching for the same book stacked in the sixth row of the shelf.

You immediately looked to the side and managed to catch a glimpse of his eyes slightly widening, and so did he with yours. You remember being the first one to snap back to reality, taking a step back to face him while waving your arms off in front of your chest.

“You can take it,” you said, awkwardly chuckling as you gestured for him to take the book instead. You figured you’d just buy a copy of it online, or if you’re going to be free on some days this week, perhaps you’d stop by other bookstores. Your roommate didn’t specify when exactly she needed the book, anyway.

He mirrors your actions instead of reaching for the book, gently pulling down the left cord of his earphones—you thought it was a subtle gesture of bouncing your initiation of small talk back to you, so you let your attention get taken away as your ears perked up to listen to whatever the stranger had to say.

“It’s fine, i’m sure you’ll need that one more than I do,” he said, pointing to the book neither of you were considering taking with a gentle smile. “I’ve actually read it five times already—just thought a sixth reread was necessary earlier in the morning, so here I am now.” He chuckled, and only then did you manage to get a good look at him.

His hair had a striking resemblance to the burgundy patterned carpets of the bookstore, and from the looks of it, you were able to tell from a single glance that it definitely wasn’t the first time he’s ever dyed his hair. Black sunglasses remained sat atop his head, and his ears were decorated in multiple piercings. He wore a layered chain necklace, the silver material of the accessories shining as the lights by the roof reflected on it. A dark red leather jacket was hung lazily over his shoulders, showing the black tank top he wore underneath. He was wearing black, ripped baggy jeans, and it was adorned with chains attached to its waistline. His combat boots were of the same color, and the shoelace of the left foot was undone—you couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or if he simply didn’t notice. He wore silver rings on almost each of his fingers, and you were able to see that one of his nails was painted black when he adjusted one of his rings. It almost made you smile, but it wasn’t until he cleared his throat that you realized you’ve been staring at him for about a minute or two.

Your eyes widened in surprise, awkwardly chuckling as you did your best not to give him the wrong impression. “Sorry, I was just...” you trailed off, not knowing what horrible excuse you should use to drag yourself out of a potentially awkward encounter. “...just wondering why you’d want to read the same book six times straight.” Great, you certainly didn’t come off weird, but you definitely sounded rude.

Just as you were about to hurriedly mutter out an apology, the man’s stifled laugh immediately put a halt to your train of thought. “It sounds strange, doesn’t it? My friends have been asking me the same question for a while now, so this isn’t really surprising for me. See, this book has a lot of foreshadowing in it, so I think It’s nice to reread it every once in a while to see the points I’ve missed.” He shrugged his shoulders, making his leather jacket fall off smoothly on one side.

He noticed you struggling with thinking of what to respond, so he took it upon himself and steered the conversation away from himself and towards you. “What about you? what were you going to buy the book for?” he asked, and you were quick to answer—thankful for his initiative.

“Going to the bookstore wasn’t originally part of today’s schedule, but apparently my roommate couldn’t get any more lazier and asked me to stop by to purchase the book for her because she can’t do it herself.”

There was something about the way you expressed your frustration (although jokingly) with a deadpanning look on your face that almost made him want to laugh, and you could tell by the way he was visibly fighting against the corners of his lips that were twitching upwards.

“That’s tough,” he stated the obvious as he ran his jewelry adorned fingers through his burgundy hair—with the way you saw a line of sweat drip down by the side of his face, you knew you weren’t the only one who found the bookstore to be in a strangely warm temperature today.

You saw a few air conditioners here and there on the walls, and they were working perfectly fine earlier, so you assumed they were probably just malfunctioning. “Are the air conditioners going through a malfunction or something?” he voiced out your thoughts for you as he practically asked himself the question with the way it came out as a whisper while he was looking around.

You took your cardigan off, and only then did you notice the stark contrast between your choices of outfits. You were clad in a pink knitted cardigan your mother made by her own hands—she gave it to you as a present for Christmas a while ago, and underneath it was a white camisole top decorated with lace and a pink ribbon on its center—something you added yourself. You wore a long, white ruffled skirt, a piece of clothing you bought online two years ago when you and your online best friend agreed upon buying it together to wear it the moment you’ll finally get the chance to meet up. You stopped talking to each other a year ago, so you just started to wear it to your own liking. You chose to wear the pink doll shoes you found at a thrift store a week ago, and the cherry on top was the white ribbon hair clips you placed on either side of your hair.

“They were doing just fine when I first came in, so I guess it has something to do with technical issues.” You shrugged, and the man mirrored your actions yet again as he proceeded to fully take off his leather jacket as well.

Just as he parted his lips to say something, your phone suddenly rang, making both of you look at the device you didn’t even notice you were still holding in your hands until now. Staring right into your eyes was your roommate’s caller id on the phone screen, and for a second, you were debating whether to answer or not.

You decided to ignore the latter, figuring the call was made regarding the book. You apologetically smiled at the man first, gesturing to your phone as he returned your smile, urging you to go ahead as he mouths something about checking out other sections of the book store so you could have some privacy.

Once he was out of the frame, you didn’t hesitate to press the green button, bringing the phone up to your ears. “Before I proceed to say anything, I need you to answer a question of mine first. Do you think you’re capable of committing murder today?” She asked from the other end of the line, making your brows furrow as you scoffed in both confusion and disbelief at the sudden confusion. “Am I what?”

“Please just say yes or no,” she said in a hurried tone. “No... why? Did something bad happen over there?” She chuckled nervously as you heard the shuffling of bedsheets, assuming she was either rolling around her bed or sitting up.

“No, but... you see, about the book I asked for you to buy... remember that guy from my linguistics class I told you about last weekend?” You were confused about where the conversation was heading, yet hummed in confirmation anyway. “I do. What about him?”

“Okay, so, thanks to my... connections, I found out just now that he owns an annotated physical copy of the book, and, if you’re already catching my drift...” she trailed off, yet the moment she heard your sigh from your end, she was quick to regain composure and stumble over her words.

“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! I wouldn’t have sneaked the task in between your schedule if I had known beforehand—I just really don’t want to waste the opportunity of a potential connection between us... and, I mean, well, yeah, I should’ve done it by myself to begin with, but I wasn’t really thinking straight earlier in the morning so I—” you cut her off by ending the call, heading straight to your messages as you scrolled down to look for her contact number.

The sound of your nails clicking on the phone screen echoed across the empty aisle as you typed, “Go shoot your shot. Don’t stress it out, alright? Just make sure this won’t happen again. Love you :)” With a sigh, you turned your phone off and put it back inside your bag. You were happy for your roommate, yet at the same time, you couldn’t help but feel like you just wasted a portion of your day.

Exiting the aisle, your thoughts went back to the man you were just engaging in small talk with a few minutes ago, eyes darting around the bookstore to search for him. You didn’t see which direction he went when he left, already having your back turned against him the moment you heard his fading footsteps.

The man sitting by the register who seemed to be around the same age as you noticed you and was quick to call for your attention. “Are you looking for the redhead, miss?” And for a second, you were slightly embarrassed, but it was the truth, anyway, so you found yourself nodding wordlessly. “He already left a minute ago.”

Hearing those words come out of his mouth, you almost let a disappointed sigh slip out of your lips, but you were quick to cover it up. “I see. Thanks for telling me,” you said, flashing him a polite smile as he gave you his own.

Figuring there was no longer any purpose for you to stay inside the bookstore any longer, you headed to the exist, the clinking of the bells on top of the doors ringing in your ears as you swung it open, putting your cardigan back on when the cold temperature of the city hit your skin like a speeding truck. Only then did you realize you didn’t even get to ask for his name, and since then, he hadn’t left your mind for the rest of the day.

The next time wasn’t any different. You were taking a stroll at the park for a much-needed unwinding after taking your exams. Kids were running around and chasing each other by the grassy fields, couples were being all cute and cuddly as they sat by the benches, and some elderly people were walking around much like how you were, admiring the beautiful sceneries unfolding in front of their very own eyes.

Your pink dress was being carried away by the soft breeze, making it flow as you took one step after another. Thankfully, you chose to wear a long dress for the day, so you didn’t have to worry about any potential wardrobe malfunctions.

From a near distance, you saw a little boy standing by the grass fields pointing towards you. His voice was a little loud, so you managed to hear what he was saying to the two men he was with. “Wooyoung-hyung, look! A princess!”

The little boy’s comment caught you off guard, making you look the other way as you pretended not to hear the words he was saying, which were hard to ignore due to how loud he was speaking. “Kyungmin, she’s not a princess, and you can’t just point to strangers like that!”

The man who you assumed to be his older brother lightly scolded him, and for a second, you were debating between playing along with the child’s wide imagination—it wasn’t his fault for thinking you were a princess as he was still young, after all, or fleeing from the park so his attention would be directed to something else so his brother would stop scolding him. “But she is a princess! Seonghwa-hyung, you see it too, right?” The other man with them was probably a friend of the little boy’s brother.

“Well, Kyungmin, she might look like one, but she isn’t—” the man you assumed to be Seonghwa stopped in between his words all of a sudden, and the next thing you knew was the little boy was standing right in front of you, tugging on your dress that was still flowing due to the wind.

“Kyungmin!” Both men yelled his name in unison, but he ignored them, his attention fully focused on you instead. “Miss pretty lady! You’re a princess, right? Right?” He looked up at you with a smile, and once again, you found yourself ignoring the latter between your choices of how to handle the situation.

You sat down so you could see each other eye to eye, a fond smile spreading across your face as you let out a soft laugh. “You think I’m a princess?” You tilted your head, making him let out a gasp of disbelief. “But you are! Wooyoung-hyung and Seonghwa-hyung won’t believe me, but I know you are! Right?” he asked for confirmation again, making you laugh once more as you rested your hands on the area of your chest where your heart was.

“Well… I think it depends on what you want to believe. I won’t tell you whether I’m a princess or not, but if you think I am, then so be it. What you believe in is what matters the most, and not what anyone else does, don’t you think?”

You figured talking some wisdom into a boy who’s probably still in kindergarten wasn’t exactly the best way to handle the situation, but it’s not like you knew better ways. Seeing his smile grow even wider after hearing your words, though, was enough to let you know you handled it just fine. “So you are a princess! I knew it!” Okay, well, that was definitely not the reaction you were going for, but at least he’s happy, right?

“You should tell them that, too!” He pointed to where his brother and his friend stood, but this time, there were three of them, and the one standing in the middle was definitely not an unfamiliar face to you contrary to the two who stood by his side. You certainly couldn’t have been mistaken—especially not when you saw his burgundy hair.

Your eyes met briefly, yours widened and his completely normal, save for the fond gaze you assumed was probably directed to the little boy in front of you. He probably didn’t even recognize you at all. “Come with me, miss pretty lady! You should meet them so they’ll be proven wrong,” he said, reaching for your arm as he took a step towards where the three men stood.

When you didn’t budge from where you crouched at all, he looked back at you with a confused expression on his face. “What’s the matter, miss pretty lady?”

You chuckled awkwardly as you stood up, looking down at him. “They’re waiting for you, not me. Go on now, don’t keep them waiting. I’m sure you’ve proven them wrong already, anyway,” you said, using your free hand to take his off your wrist. “Are you sure? I…”

“Kyungmin!” His older brother called out his name once more, making his head turn to where they were all standing, patiently waiting for the little boy to go back to them. “See? You should go.” You ushered, making him look back and forth between you and his brother and his friends for about a few seconds.

“Well… okay, then.” The frown on his face was a huge contrast to the huge smile he once had a few seconds ago, and you were quick to do whatever you could to bring it back.

“Hey, don’t be sad, alright? It’s always better to spend days like this with a smile on your face,” you said, smiling at him fondly. “Will I get to see you again?” The sudden question put you at a loss for words, and you spent a good couple of seconds thinking of how to respond correctly.

“Neither of us know the answer to that, but if you ever see me again, I promise I’ll let you introduce me to your brother and his friends, okay?” It was definitely not the right thing to say, but it was certainly what the boy wanted to hear.

With the smile on his face returning, he waved at you enthusiastically, running back to the three men who have been waiting for him for quite a while now. He approached them with a cheerful expression on his face, and you watched them slowly start to smile as well while the little boy told them about his interaction with you.

Unbeknownst to you, your attention was unconsciously directed towards the burgundy haired man who was now exchanging laughter with his friends while the little boy was still going on about his story. This time, he was wearing a see-through black jacket with a beige compression long-sleeve shirt underneath, partnered with baggy denim jeans that were secured by a black belt with embellishments. His ears had less piercings this time, and so were the amount of necklaces he wore. His boots were the same as the ones you saw him wear when you first met him, and his fingers were still adorned with multiple accessories. You could tell he opted for a casual look today, yet he still looked as cool as ever. Perhaps it was due to the vibe he carries with him, and not just his choices of clothing itself. There’s still a huge contrast between your outfits.

The little boy didn’t mention his name when he was talking to you earlier, and that was the only thing you were disappointed about with your heartwarming interaction with him. You’d probably look strange if you were to approach them, yet it proved to be impossible either way as they now had their backs faced towards you, walking away as they continued their conversation. Luck really hasn’t been on your side lately. You wonder when it will be.

Three weeks later, and you’re now walking through the halls in search of your roommate. Thirty minutes ago, she sent you a message, telling you to meet her on the third floor. She didn’t really tell you why, and it drove you off the edge more than it should’ve—one thing you’ve always disliked was when people would ask you to meet up for an unspecified reason, or even worse, message you by texting you only your name and your name alone without telling you what’s the matter beforehand. So now, here you were, eyes searching the halls in hopes of finding a familiar face.

“Hey!” A familiar voice called out a few steps behind where you stood, making you immediately look back. Sighing in relief as you recognized who it was, your roommate made her way towards you, pushing past the small portion of people crowding the halls. “Sorry for asking to meet up all of a sudden—I know you hate it when I do this, but I promise this is the last time!” So was last week, you said in your thoughts.

“What’s this about, anyway? And it better not be about your crush from your linguistics class because I swear—” She cuts you off with an apologetic chuckle, making you sigh in disappointment. “Nope, I’m not doing it.”

Just as you were about to walk away, she held your arm to keep you steady in your place, desperately pleading as she shook your arm repeatedly. “Please, please just hear me out! I promise I’ll leave you alone after this!” No way in hell you would, you thought once again.

Still, you chose to hear her out anyway. Sure, she may be annoying at times—especially when it comes to her undying crush on the boy from her linguistics class, but you can’t really deny the fact that you hold a soft spot for her deep within. When it wasn’t about her man who technically isn’t her man but you’re sure will be her man one day, she was really fun to be around. She was loud and outgoing, a huge contrast to your calm and collected personality, and as different as you both may be, you feel the most comfortable around her compared to anyone and everyone else. Whenever she’d notice you were feeling down, she wouldn’t hesitate to speedrun to the nearest convenience store by where you both lived, buy you your favorite food even during the times her pockets are begging for her to leave them alone for once, and put on your favorite movie once she comes back.

So then, you now find yourself heading towards the library to look for yet another book her crush has apparently been frequently visiting the library for lately. You figured you should hire whoever’s airing all this information to her as your detective one day, if it ever came to it.

Apparently, the book is a tale as old as time, so he couldn’t really find a copy of it anywhere, hence why he chooses to visit the library on a daily basis to read it. Your roommate thought sharing the same interests with him would be a great way to deepen her “connection” with him—if they even had one to begin with, considering how the only bridge between both of them was the annotated book she borrowed from him—which she still hasn’t returned—and that was pretty much all of it. She claims she’s too shy to approach him, and maybe that’s why.

You found yourself standing in between two tall bookshelves once again, the situation being somewhat familiar to you in a way that almost made you laugh. This time, though, the air conditioners were working just fine, and you weren’t accompanied by a presence other than your own.

Your eyes search through the books neatly stacked in the shelves, squinting and inching closer to get a better view in case you accidentally miss the book you’re looking for. There was a blank space in between two books, and for a moment, you assume the book had already been borrowed by your roommate’s crush, or maybe someone else.

You were about to message your roommate to tell her about it, until you heard some shuffling from the other side of the shelf you were facing, drawing a confused expression on your face. You heard from one of your colleagues that the librarian was way too strict for everyone’s liking, so students would mostly stop by the library just to borrow a book, but never to actually stay.

Which student was brave enough to actually stop by the library to read? Wouldn’t they be at least a little scared to be yelled at to shut up over the smallest of things such as breathing like how a normally functioning person should?

Peeking through the empty space in between the books to see who it was, your eyes widened comically as you recognized the person solely from their hands resting on the table alone. The sight of a singularly colored nail and layers of rings and bracelets couldn’t have been more familiar to you.

But what was he doing here? His hair was half blonde and half black, though, so you were contemplating whether your assumptions about his identity were correct or not, but you knew there was only one way to find out—and it certainly wasn’t peeking through a bookshelf like a creep.

Exiting the aisle—a familiar experience once again, you slowly walked towards the table while rethinking your life decisions, wondering if you should just leave him alone and mind your own business. You were on the brink of considering it, but it wasn’t until you recognized what he was reading.

It was the book your roommate asked you to borrow from the library, and it was certainly the one meant to be placed in the blank space by the aisle you were searching through just now.

Your mind was racing with questions pleading to be answered—the first ones being, Who the hell is this man? Why do I keep seeing him around? Why did no one ever tell me he goes to the same university as I do? And what is his name?

You figured there couldn’t have been a better time for your questions to be answered other than now, and even if you were gambling with the possibilities of him either recognizing you or not feeling any sense of familiarity with you at all, you couldn’t really care less right now.

“Hey,” you were hesitant, making your voice come off as soft and barely above a whisper—and it certainly wasn’t due to your fear of being scolded by the librarian. The man shot up and immediately turned his head around, and as he stared at you with those eyes of his, you knew your assumptions regarding his identity were correct, after all.

For about a second or two, all he did was stare at you with a blank expression on his face, and you swore you were about to let the ground swallow you whole right there and then. But for the next second, his face softens as he flashes you a toothy grin, and the words that soon followed after it caught you completely off guard. “It’s you.” It’s you?

What on Earth could he have possibly meant by that? Does that mean he recognized you when his friend’s little brother was talking to you within a fair distance from where he and his friends stood by the park, after all? Does that mean he remembers? “I was starting to think I’d stop seeing you around. Turns out we’re closer than I thought we would be.” Okay, what?

“What?” You voice out your thoughts by accident, tilting your head in confusion as all he did in return was smile at you once more. “Third time’s the charm, after all, isn’t it?” He closes the book laid out in front of him on the table, pulling out the chair beside him, tapping on it as he gestured for you to take a seat.

You do so wordlessly, awkwardly fiddling with a loose stitch of your white knitted sweater adorned with baby pink strawberry patterns. How come you’ve never seen him around? With a face as strikingly beautiful as his, you’re sure you would’ve already noticed him long ago—or maybe you were just looking at the wrong places all along.

“He still thinks you’re a princess, you know.” He rests his elbow on the table, placing his chin on his hand as he looks at you with a smile. “Who?”

“Kyungmin—the little boy from the park, remember?” That was all it took for you to put two and two together and realize what he was talking about, making you let out a hum of realization, nodding soon after. “He hasn’t stopped talking to us about it, especially Wooyoung, since he’s his older brother and he’s pretty much the only one out of all of us who keeps on breaking his little bubble of imagination.”

The conversation flowed through more smoothly than you expected a few seconds ago, and the next thing you knew was you were stifling a chuckle, careful not to drive the librarian mad—actually, was she even still around right now? He was practically speaking in a normal tone and not in hushed whispers, so he should’ve been told off by now already. But he isn’t.

“It was a little hard trying to convince him to go back to you and your friends, honestly…” you said, rubbing the back of your neck as he chuckled at your response.

“Kids and their imaginations never fail to impress me. You know, when we went to the park again last night, he kept crying because he couldn’t see you anywhere. He said you promised you’d let him introduce you to us once you both meet each other again, so he was really upset. It was adorable, though.”

You found yourself smiling as you imagined the little boy crying in the arms of his brother due to not seeing you around, this time being the one chuckling.

“I didn’t mean to leave him hanging off by my words… I hope it wasn’t too much for your friend to handle his tantrums,” you said, smiling apologetically. He waves his arms off in front of his chest—another action appearing to be somehow familiar to you. “Don’t feel bad about it. Pretty sure Wooyoung’s used to it by now,” he responded, shrugging afterwards. He was right, the boy was his friend’s younger brother, after all.

Finding both yourselves at a loss for another topic to discuss, you opted for the first thing that came up in your head. “You changed your hair color,” you stated the obvious, rushing over to make a follow-up statement in order not to look stupid, “it suits you.”

But only after voicing it out did you realize that perhaps maybe leaving your first statement as it is would’ve been a better option. Unbeknownst to you, heat immediately flushed through his cheeks, but he was quick to cover it up, making you fail to notice the way your words made his breath hitch for a slight second. “You think so?”

“W-Well, yeah. Burgundy looked just as great, though.” It was a huge lie, though. Sure, burgundy looked good on him and suited his style pretty well, but a split-dyed hair look is always a hit or miss.

For him to make it look this good, though, definitely proved to you that it’s a hit—a rare one. Even so, you were just glad you managed to save yourself from embarrassment, playing off the fact that you literally just complimented a stranger.

But with the way you’ve been thinking of him ever since you first touched each other’s hands by accident at the bookstore, was he really still a mere stranger to you at this point?

He found himself smiling at your comment, fiddling with the rings on his fingers like how you were doing with your sweater just a while ago. “Thanks, I definitely needed to hear that.” With his response, you looked at him in confusion, subtly asking for context. He was quick to catch on, bracing himself for a little bit of a story time.

“My roommates have been flaming me ever since I came home with the red dye all gone, asking me if my hairstylist ran out of bleach in the middle of the process. They’ve been teasing me about how my scalp is probably begging to be freed by the shackles of my stylist at this point, too.” You then ended up thinking about it as well. Just how many times has this man changed his hair color by now?

“Wanna take a guess?” You didn’t need further explanation from him in order to know what he was talking about, as you’ve already been pondering about it anyway.

“I’ll say… five times, maybe?” If the correct answer was to go way past that, you think you’ll end up having the same thoughts as his roommates by the end of the day. “I hate to be the bearer of the bad news, but the answer’s very far from that.” Oh.

Seeing the flabbergasted expression on your face, he laughed loudly, and only then were your suspicions about the librarian no longer being around confirmed. If she was, he’d be thrown out the window by now. “Surprising, isn’t it? I don’t know how my scalp is still holding out well until now, either.” He shrugged, and about a couple of seconds after, you ended up joining him on his fit of laughter as well.

“I gotta say, though, that’s really impressive. Anyone else would be bald by now,” you said, making him laugh once more with how you voiced out your thoughts in such a serious tone. His laughter died down after a little while, eyes now staring right into yours. “What brings you here, though?” He finally brought it up, making you wordlessly point to the closed book in front of where he sat by the table.

“Take a guess. It’s not any different from last time,” you said, and he was quick to piece your words together. “Your roommate?” You nodded, mimicking his actions as you rested your chin on your hands like how he did earlier.

Right now, he was lazily slouched on the chair, one arm of his placed on the table as the other was resting on his thigh. He seemed to be comfortable. Only then did you manage to look at him completely from head to toe.

The contrast between your choices of clothing remained the same as ever, so you weren’t really surprised at this point. For you, beneath your white knitted sweater was a pink lace camisole top, paired with a short, pink frilly skirt. Along with your pink doll shoes—one that was different from what you wore when you went to the bookstore a while ago, was a pair of knee-length lace socks with pink ribbons resting atop its garter. And lastly, for your hairstyle, you decided to go for a simpler look today, with half of it tied up and adorned with a large pink ribbon hair clip.

For him, you noticed he looked simpler than how he’d usually style himself. But then again, you’ve only ever seen him twice before today, so you were not one to talk. He wore an oversized black shirt with a simple red graphic design in front, and it was tucked in his black denim cargo jeans that were held up by an equally simple black belt, partnered up with glossy black boots that were shining every time he’d move his feet around due to the lights by the roof of the library reflecting on its shiny surface. He was only wearing one necklace today, but as always, his hands were clad in multiple accessories. A cap, which you assumed he was probably wearing earlier before you found him, remained sat on his lap. When he ran his right hand through his hair, the sleeve of his oversized shirt went down a little, giving you the chance to catch a glimpse of his tattoo that says, “NO 1 LIKE ME.”

Once again, you failed to see the corners of his lips twitching upward when he noticed your eyes raking over his form, eyes twinkling in amusement. You’ve only seen each other thrice, but for each time that you did, something that would never overlook his attention was the way you’d always examine his clothing. It was cute, though. And it’s not like he doesn’t do the exact same thing every time as well, anyway.

His smirk disappeared as quick as the speed of light the moment your eyes met his, making you avert your gaze immediately. It’s not like you were uncomfortable, but rather because his eyes just hold such an intense aura within them that never fails to make you feel intimidated—in a good way, you assume.

“You know,” you began to speak, although still refusing to meet his eyes, “I still don’t know what your name is, and we’ve crossed paths three times already…” Due to the lack of a response from him, you were quick to assume you were probably overstepping a few lines.

What if he doesn’t really want your connection with each other to go way past two people who coincidentally see each other in the most random circumstances and places? What if he liked things better this way—you not knowing his name, and him not knowing yours?

But your thoughts dissolved into nothingness the moment he finally spoke up, his voice a little softer than you could recall as he says, “Kim Hongjoong.” Of course his name is just as beautiful as he is. Were you really surprised at this point?

“Kim Hongjoong,” you let his name roll off your tongue, and something you failed to notice yet again due to how you were still refusing to face him was the way his breath hitched—again. “What about you?”

He was quick to come up with a question to ask in order to keep his composure, head tilting ever so slightly, secretly anticipating for you to turn your head towards him again. And it seems luck chose to be on his side today, with the way you did exactly what he wished for you to.

“Me?” You asked, and he nodded. “Yeah, you.” You were hesitant at first—once you and Hongjoong finally exchange your names with each other, there’s no guarantee of which direction your affiliation with him would lead to.

Sure, you may have been overanalyzing things a little—maybe he’s just asking for your name with the hopes of being friends, but even so, you couldn’t help but wonder where you were both headed, because even if you were only a potential friend to him, he certainly wasn’t one for you.

You knew the risks of dating way before you even first entered college two years ago. If anyone were to wish for a relationship, the best periods of time to do so would either be in high school or adulthood. High school’s for the cheesy moments, the sneakily exchanged glances during class, the chasing each other by the fields, the heartfelt confessions during prom night. You’d break up with each other over something childish yet would be serious if you were to be at the age of a high school student, and you’d forget all about it the moment you step into your college life.

Getting into a relationship once you have grown into an adult would be the best option out of all, because as we grow older, we learn more things about life each day. Relationships during high school are ruined pretty easily usually because of how both parties aren’t emotionally mature enough to handle conflicts, and such an occurrence can be easily avoided if you’re both functioning adults with a better perspective on most things in life. It’d certainly be more mature compared to the aforementioned.

But relationships during college aren’t exactly the brightest of all. College students are around the ages where all you’d ever want is to mess around and have fun no matter the cost knowing you’ll barely ever get the chance to do so once you step into adulthood. So, with that being said, relationships being taken seriously by college students isn’t really a common occurrence. They live to fuck around and find out, and that’s all that’s there to it. You’ve seen girls getting their hearts shattered left and right by stupid men who seem to only think with their hormones, and you know how bad it gets.

From struggling to balance their studies and relationships to completely losing focus on their goals because apparently a conventionally attractive yet emotionally unintelligent man is worth crying over more than great examination results were, all you know about college relationships is that it either plays out surprisingly well and lasts long, or it could initiate the beginning of your downfall for years on end. You swore you’d never try it out, afraid to end up being part of the latter.

But as hard as relationships during college seem, resisting your undeniable attraction towards the man sitting in front of you also proved to be just as difficult with the way all you could think about at the very moment was how those soft hands of his clicking on the table while patiently awaiting your response would feel against your skin. It wasn’t much of a surprise for you, anyway—you knew you were doomed the moment your eyes first met his in an empty aisle and you ended up staring at him longer than you should’ve.

You knew there was no point in considering the pros and cons of deepening your connection with someone who wasn’t meant to play a role of just a friend and nothing more in your life—and might I add, someone you’re heavily crushing on yet would rather jump off a cliff than admit it to yourself and accept the terms, knowing even if he asked for your name that day at the park or that one time in the bookstore, you would’ve given him what he wanted with zero hesitation anyway.

And so you do.

He proceeded to mirror your actions from earlier, rolling your name out of his tongue—and you swear your name hasn’t sounded so beautiful until now. “That’s a beautiful name you’ve got,” he starts, and when you finally gained enough courage to turn your head to the side and meet his eyes, you were met with that toothy grin of his you didn’t seem to be able to get enough of, “it suits you pretty well.”

“Oh, I—” You weren’t sure whether to be thankful for your friend for saving you from embarrassing yourself over not knowing how to react to Hongjoong’s unprovoked compliment, or to completely loathe her for cutting in between your conversation with him once again.

You’ve been getting deja vu over the parallels between everything that’s been happening right now that has already happened before although under a different situation way too often it’s actually starting to make your head hurt.

The loud ringing of your phone echoed around the empty library, and once again, you found yourself contemplating between pressing the green button or the red one. But not this time, no. You figured she’s probably calling to ask you whether you’ve borrowed the old book from the library yet, and that’s a question you were capable of answering either through text or personally, so you clicked on the red button, hearing Hongjoong let out a confused hum. “Why’d you decline?”

Because I’m feeling selfish right now and couldn’t care less about my roommate and her linguistics crush, especially not when you’re sitting right in front of me looking so breathtakingly beautiful like you’re an angel from an art museum that came to life and escaped to taste the wonders of life, was what was begging to escape from the pit of your mouth, “It’s probably about the book, so I’ll just talk to her in person later,” was all that came out.

And with the way he looked at you as if he was waiting for you to say something else, you knew he knew of your thoughts. Thankfully, he was kind enough not to bring it up. Or he probably didn’t notice at all. Truth be told, you’re hoping the latter was the case.

“What’s up with your roommate and books, anyway?” He asked curiously, although you could tell there was a hint of playfulness with the way he spoke. “You mean what’s up with her crush from her linguistics class and books?” You shrugged, holding back your laughter when you noticed his eyebrows shoot upward ever so slightly with his mouth agape.

“Oh. So that’s what it’s about, huh?” You let out an exasperated sigh, faking a frustrated expression as you responded, “Unfortunately so.”

Classes had already ended a few minutes ago, but students were still allowed to stay in the library afterwards—at first, you thought the implemented policy was stupid at first, seeing how literally no one ever visits the library, but now, you find yourself being grateful for it.

You both sat beside each other as silence surrounded both of you, but it wasn’t the kind of silence that would drive you on the edge and make you hurriedly think of what you should do or say in order to dissipate the looming tension, no. The silence between you and Hongjoong was comfortable. He wasn’t demanding you to speak, and neither were you. But just as the silence was starting to grow deeper, you were drowning in an ocean of your own thoughts again—specifically, thoughts about Hongjoong.

You weren’t sure when it happened or if you were the one who moved or if it was him, but the distance between both of you was now smaller than how it was a few minutes ago—you were sitting so close beside each other you’d occasionally feel the fabric of his jeans brush against your thigh whenever either of you would move. Since he was now closer, the scent of his cedarwood perfume engulfed you completely. You thought it made perfect sense for someone like him to favor such a scent—it suits him pretty well.

Every now and then, you’d steal a few glances from your peripheral vision while he remains engrossed in his phone, chewing the inside of your cheek whenever you’d find yourself wondering what it would feel like to rest your head on those shoulders of his. You were wondering what it feels like to rest your head on those shoulders of his?

And since you’re way too focused on not making yourself too obvious, you, as usual, fail to notice him doing the exact same thing as well. He was scrolling on his phone, sure, but in reality, he wasn’t even reading any of the posts that were appearing on his feed, way too focused on the way your eyelashes would flutter so beautifully whenever you’d blink.

The awkward smile you gave him when you first met each other in the bookstore is an image he had taken a mental photograph of, the memory still lingering in the back of his head clearly. The first thing he noticed about you that day was the way almost all of the pieces of clothing you wore were adorned in ribbons, as it reminded him of himself, in a way.

But instead of ribbons, anyone could find more than a handful of silver chains attached to almost everything in his closet. You seemed to love wearing knitted sweaters and cardigans, much like how half of his wardrobe consisted of leather jackets in varying designs and colors, though most of them were black, just like how most of yours were pink. It’s amusing to him how you two were so similar yet so different all the same.

The day he went to the park with Wooyoung, Seonghwa, and Wooyoung’s little brother, Kyungmin, he wasn’t really any different from you. You’d never know of it much like the other way around, but even when he went to the park with the same purpose you had, he couldn’t get you off his mind. It was as if his mind was the shore, and you were the waves of the ocean constantly pushing forward after being pulled away by the tides.

So, when he came back to where Seonghwa and Wooyoung were after separating himself from them for a while to look for less crowded areas of the park they could go to, to say he was surprised to see you talking to Kyungmin would be nothing short of a huge understatement.

“What’s Kyungmin doing over there?” he asked Seonghwa and Wooyoung, to which one only laughed at while the other sighed. “He kept on insisting that the girl he’s talking to right now is a princess and wouldn’t let me hear the end of it when I told him she isn’t. Then he ran off, and the next thing we both knew was he’s already tugging on her dress.” Hongjoong’s gaze went back to you, who was now crouching to face Kyungmin eye to eye.

It wasn’t exactly like he could blame the little boy for thinking that way—you did look like a princess, especially with the beautiful dress you chose to wore that day, and not to mention, the natural look of your face he was sure people under the influence—and even those who aren’t—would mistaken as one that belongs to an angel gracing the Earth with her presence.

He couldn’t believe his very own eyes that day. When he left you by yourself when you had to answer a phone call in the bookstore, he was originally supposed to head back to the aisle you were at after checking out the other sections that seemed interesting enough to grab his attention, but just as he was about to, another one of his friends (a.k.a roommates) along with Seonghwa and Wooyoung, Mingi, messaged him, telling him to come home as soon as possible because Yunho burnt the kitchen while trying to remake a recipe he saw on his feed.

At first, he thought they were just messing around with him—a normal occurrence, at this point, but it wasn’t until Yeosang sent a video of the kitchen actually burning to their group chat. Hongjoong could no longer afford to go through all the five stages of grief looking for an apartment that would suffice for eight people, so he immediately left the bookstore and ran faster than the speed of light.

Just as he was about to cross the street the moment the lights for vehicles turned red, he started contemplating between quickly heading back to the bookstore just to bid you farewell or just heading straight to his apartment building. His phone vibrated once again, and his lockscreen was being flooded by notifications of his roommates spamming his DMs, most of them coming from Jongho and San. Only then did the answer become clear to him.

Fortunately, he was able to fix the fifth problem his roommates have created for the week on time, immediately proceeding to scold all of them, save for Seonghwa who just got home from buying groceries and was now cleaning up the kitchen. For a fleeting moment, his mind drifts back to you, making him scold the six men even more than he should’ve, not-so-slightly upset over the fact that they timed burning the kitchen perfectly right when Hongjoong was just about to head back to you and continue your conversation.

Later that night, they were messaging one another one by one privately, each of them all saying the same thing: “It wasn’t really that deep. What got him so riled up?” But not even Hongjoong himself knew the answer to the question he never knew they were thinking of.

He thought he wasn’t going to see you again, and it never failed to make him feel confused whenever he found himself being a little too disappointed over it. So, when he saw you again—talking to his friend’s little brother, if anything, he was at a loss for both words and thoughts. The moment Kyungmin pointed to where he, Wooyoung, and Seonghwa stood, your eyes met for a fleeting second, and with the way he saw your eyes widen ever so slightly, he felt a little too happy over you recognizing him, so he did the first thing he thought of—trying to look as unbothered as possible even though his heart was literally spinning around, begging to be freed.

He failed to realize how smiling at you would’ve been a better option until he saw the way the corners of your lips went downwards ever so slightly upon seeing the look on his face, and before he could even clear things up by waving at you or literally anything to make sure you know he knows you, your gaze was already back on Kyungmin, and by the looks of it, you didn’t seem like you wanted to look his way yet again. To be fair, neither would he.

And as usual, he still couldn’t get you off his mind that day—though this time, it was worse, especially with the realization over the fact that he could’ve walked up to you yet didn’t dawning over him. He was beyond frustrated, to say the least. So, so frustrated he couldn’t even sleep.

Figuring his emotions were way too all over the place for him to be able to fall into a deep slumber, he sat up with a groan, stumbling over with his steps as he went to the living room, finding Yunho sitting by himself on the couch while watching a film that seemed to be a coming of age romance movie.

“What are you all up and about for?” Hongjoong walked around the couch, sitting beside Yunho as the cushion underneath him sank. “I could ask you the same question, you know,” Yunho responded, not even sparing Hongjoong a glance, obviously way too focused on the movie playing on the television screen in front of him.

“Just frustrated over some things.” Hongjoong leaned against the couch, sighing as he initiated a staring contest with the ceiling. With this, Yunho was quick to reach for the remote, pausing the movie before shuffling around so he could face Hongjoong while sitting down. “What’s the matter?”

“Do you ever think about something so often it starts to make you feel frustrated?” His question had Yunho pondering for about a while, making him think about it thoroughly.

“Depends on what this “something” we’re talking about is. I’m pretty sure that would mean two different things, depending on whether it’s “something” or “someone,” so which one of the two is it?” Hongjoong was hoping Yunho wouldn’t bring it up, but oh well. If he’s screwed, then he’s screwed.

All he had to do was stare right into Yunho’s eyes, hoping he’d put two and two together—and luckily, he did. “Since when?” Yunho was surprised, given how Hongjoong isn’t exactly the type of person who’d let himself be bothered by such things. Still, he wanted Hongjoong to tell him all about it, thankful he trusts him enough to do so.

“I don’t know, honestly. We just met by coincidence in the bookstore a few blocks away about a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to go through a single day without my head being filled with thousands of thoughts ever since then.”

“By coincidence?” Yunho tilted his head, and Hongjoong was quick to rewind and tell him all about it. After Hongjoong was done telling him about how it started and how it’s going so far, Yunho found himself smiling, already knowing what was up with Hongjoong, while he himself was still left in the dark.

He resorted to convincing Hongjoong to get up and do all the work himself so he’d be the one to come to terms about his feelings first-hand. “You know, nothing’s gonna happen if you keep on refusing to make a move. You can’t just expect your paths to cross once again if you’ve been staying at the same spot for days on end.”

And that was when he messaged Wooyoung privately once he was back in his room, asking if he was free to hang out for the upcoming day and if he wouldn’t mind tagging Kyungmin along with him. You’ll never know he was the reason behind Kyungmin’s second visit to the park, and part of him thinks things will be better off that way.

However, both of you were going through your own predicaments unconsciously. Until now, you still don’t know why you’re thinking of resting your head on his shoulder, and in his case, he still doesn’t know why on Earth he actually debated between bidding you farewell or saving his apartment from its impending doom.

It didn’t help how you weren’t really one to open up to people, so you were left all alone trying to fix the tangled wires inside your head, unlike Hongjoong, who was blessed enough by the gods to have a friend like Yunho. Still, despite being provided moral support and advice, he wasn’t any less oblivious to his feelings than you were.

“What’s it like?” You asked all of a sudden, surprising both Hongjoong and yourself. Much to your surprise, though, Hongjoong let the blooming conversation flow freely as he said in response, “What do you mean?” You shrugged, fiddling with yet another loose stitch of your sweater—you figured you’d definitely have to fix it up once you get home later.

“You know… having a lot of roommates.” You weren’t sure why you were asking about his roommates when you could’ve asked a question about him instead, yet you were blissfully unaware of the fact that Hongjoong was more than happy to hear you ask about his roommates—his best friends.

“It’s fun on most days, yet it’s also very frustrating sometimes. Living with seven people doesn’t exactly sound like the best experience when you’re living in an apartment that can barely fit all of you—even more when more than half of us have proven themselves deserving to be banned from the kitchen.” You laughed at his words, his laughter soon following after, watching you attempting to wind down your voice with a toothy grin on his face. “Why’s that?” You managed to ask in between your stifled laughs.

“Remember when we first met?” How could you ever forget? “Yeah, what about it?” You tilted your head, wondering what your first encounter had to do with Hongjoong’s roommates burning their kitchen. “While you were on a phone call with someone, I was in the middle of checking out the other sections, but just as I was about to head back to where you were, they spammed our group chat with messages, each of them telling me to head back home as soon as possible. Wanna guess why?”

“Please don’t tell me someone actually set the kitchen on fire.” Hongjoong only laughed in response, shaking his head. “Unfortunately.” Your eyes widened slightly, scoffing in disbelief. “You’re lying, aren’t you?” This time, it was now Hongjoong’s turn to look at you in utter disbelief, making you think he was actually offended over you not believing his story for a split second.

“Don’t wanna believe me? Here,” he said, showing you the video waiting to be played on his phone screen as he gestured for you to press the button yourself. As the video started playing, a look of shock spread all over your face as you watched the fire get worse as the video progressed, hearing screams from people whom you could only assume were his roommates.

Someone draped a towel over the flames, hurriedly stepping back when his solution turned out to be an additional problem with the way the fire grew even more. “Mingi, are you fucking stupid?! Take that towel back!” to which the man named Mingi responded with, “No way in hell! San, you do it!” followed by another, “Don’t drag me into the consequences of your stupidity!”

You heard someone from the background yell Hongjoong’s name, and as the camera was turned towards where the sound came from, you were met with the sight of a man who you recognized as Wooyoung hiding behind someone who seemed to be way too calm considering the fact that the kitchen was literally being set on fire—he was even eating an apple, if anything. The video switched to the front camera, revealing a man who, this time, seemed to look too happy despite the fire unfolding right behind him, and he even had the guts to giggle and wave to the camera.

Needless to say, you were left speechless, and the video wasn’t even halfway finished yet. You pressed his screen to pause the video, being met with the sight of him contemplating whether to laugh over the memorable (strangely enough) moment or to let his grudges come crawling back at him.

Looking at the expression on his face, you couldn’t help but laugh, your voice echoing around the quiet halls of the library. “So that’s what living with seven people looks like…” With the way you spoke, Hongjoong was unsure whether you meant it in a good way or not—and if he were to be honest, that’s exactly what made your reaction even more amusing.

“That’s also why I wasn’t able to come back to the aisle after looking around. Sorry,” he apologized, sheepishly rubbing his nape. You were quicker than a millisecond to dismiss his apology, shaking your head as you reassured him that it’s fine and a while has passed ever since that day anyway so you don’t really mind anymore. You had that awkward smile on your face again, and Hongjoong had to put every fiber in him to use in order to hold himself back from just melting right there and then.

Suddenly, your phone rang yet again, cutting your conversation with Hongjoong short. Assuming it was your roommate calling you, you were about to decline the call, but it wasn’t until you read the contact number’s nickname and realized it was your mother calling you and not your roommate.

You were quick to tidy yourself and hung your pink crocheted crossbody bag over your shoulder, reaching for the book that was resting in front of Hongjoong by the table, retracting your hand for a split second when you realized you hadn’t even told him yet that the book your roommate wanted you to borrow from the library was the one he was reading before you approached him.

He looked up at you from his seat, tilting his head. “You need it?” he asked, making you nod. “If you don’t mind, of course, it’s just—” Hongjoong waved you off, gesturing for you to take it, swearing he doesn’t mind at all. Just as you reached for the book once more, his hand rested on its cover at the same time, pushing it towards your direction. It didn’t take you longer than a second to realize your hands were on top of his. Your phone has stopped ringing, and the sound has now been replaced with your thundering heartbeat.

You were the first one to break the contact, taking your hand off his. Too focused on trying to look calm—you have no idea why having composure seems to turn itself into an almost unattainable challenge whenever Hongjoong was around—you fail to notice the way a hint of disappointment flashed on his eyes with you taking your hand off so soon, and it disappeared as quick as it showed up when you reached for the book once more the moment his hand was no longer sitting atop of it.

“I, um, have to go,” you stumbled over your words as you shoved the book inside your bag, “I’ll… see you around?” You sounded way too hopeful for your liking, but before you could take your words back and replace it with something more neutral, Hongjoong beat you to it by grinning at you widely, nodding at your words. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you around.”

But he doesn’t, and neither do you.

Three weeks have passed, and the increasing amount of his library visits were starting to become more noticeable to the seven men Hongjoong shared his apartment with through every passing day. They all went to the same university, so they knew just how annoyingly cruel the campus librarian was, which made things even harder to piece together for them. Hongjoong had also spoken up once about how much he hates the librarian during one of their drinking games when he was under the influence, so his frequent visits at the library were really confusing—save for one person who had an idea what the reason behind it was.

“You’ve noticed it too, haven’t you?” Mingi tilted his head at San who sat across from him, enthusiastically munching on the desserts he ordered while taking a few sips of his coffee in between—clearly, he didn’t hear Mingi’s question. “You’ve noticed it, right?” Mingi repeated his question, this time a little louder in hopes of getting an answer from San. His attempt proved to be successful as San finally looked up at him with a confused expression on his face. “Noticed what?”

“Oh, you know. Hongjoong and his sudden library star user transition,” he shrugged, and San let out a hum of realization after being given context. “Yeah, I have. What about it, though?” Mingi scoffed in disbelief, having a hunch that San was just playing dumb. “Come on, San. Don’t you think it’s strange? Because I do.” But the aforementioned man’s eyebrows only furrowed as he asked once again, “What is?”

“What isn’t strange about it? You know he hates the librarian just as much as we all do, right? Don’t you ever wonder what on Earth is he stopping by the library everyday for?” For a few seconds, the only thing San could do was stare at Mingi from across the table, mouth slightly agape as if he was trying to connect the dots inside his head. And then it clicks—finally. “Oh… Oh. I mean, now that you’ve mentioned it, it does seem a little weird.”

“Right? I asked Seonghwa last night if he knew anything about it, but he told me Hongjoong hasn’t brought up anything related to the library to him so far. I mean, sure, yeah, Hongjoong likes to read, so normally, it would make sense for him to visit the library every now and then—but everyday? Is he reading a compilation of the terms and conditions of every existing app?”

“You may be overanalyzing a little, don’t you think?” A familiar voice spoke up from behind San’s seat at the cafe, making him turn his head around as Mingi only had a smile on his face, already having seen the man enter the cafe before he even approached the two of them. “You know you can visit the library for more than one reason, right?” He gestured for San to move aside, opting to sit beside him as both of them were now facing Mingi, who sat on the opposite side of the table.

“And what would those other reasons be?” Both Mingi and San asked in unison. “I don’t know, maybe the usual things that happen when you’re a college student on the brink of graduation with an eye for attractive people?” Mingi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Yunho, what the hell are you even talking about right now?”

Yunho rolled his eyes, leaning against the cushion of the sofa he sat on. “Think it through, Mingi. Hongjoong wouldn’t even dare to consider visiting the library everyday, had he not been developing feelings for a certain person he often sees there.” Both Mingi and San knew Hongjoong as someone who wasn’t quite fond of the idea of anything romantic, but it’s not like they knew what Yunho knew, anyway, so they resorted to laughing Yunho’s words off.

“You’re not onto something, Yunho,” Mingi began, and San continued his words, saying, “you’re on something.”

“Are you seriously accusing me of being high on a Saturday afternoon? Being high, if anything?” Yunho stared at the two men who were now proudly laughing over their joke in disbelief, frowning when he realized they didn’t even plan on taking his words with a grain of salt. “And are you seriously trying to get us to consider your idea of Hongjoong being hit by Cupid all of a sudden?”

“It’s not an idea, San. Just—would you just listen to at least a goddamn word I’ll be saying?” Yunho ran his hand through his hair, and only then did Mingi and San stop with their antics. Moments of Yunho being upset were extremely uncommon, and whenever it would happen, all of them would always fail to hear the end of it. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry. Where did your theory come from, anyway?”

“For the second time now, it’s not a theory. It’s a possibility loosely based on a conversation Hongjoong and I had a few weeks ago while you were all asleep.”

“So… a theory?”

“God, no!”

“It is, though.” San backed up Mingi, making him pat his back with a grateful expression on his face. “See? He gets me.” Yunho only responded by rolling his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a theory or not—just hear me out, please.” San could tell Yunho was growing tired of their shenanigans, so he was quick to lock in and get serious. “Shoot.”

“It was around three in the morning already, and I was in the living room watching a movie. Hongjoong suddenly came out of his room and sat beside me, and he asked me a question I wouldn’t have expected to come from him. He asked me if I’ve ever thought of something so often to the point where it drives me frustrated, and based on the look on his face that night, I assumed his answer would’ve been yes if I asked him the question instead and not the other way around. I told him it depends on whether it’s a “something” or a “someone,” and he gave me a look that non-verbally told me it was the latter in his case.”

“So, to sum it all up, he likes someone who visits the library often?” Mingi asked, and Yunho shook his head. “From the looks of it, I’m pretty sure he’s waiting for a certain someone to visit the library everyday.”

“Why the library, though? And why would he have to do it everyday? Doesn’t that sound a little creepy? Or maybe that’s just me, but, I mean, there’s no way you don’t find it weird at all, Yunho,” San said, wondering why on Earth would Hongjoong have to visit the library everyday just to see whoever his crush was.

Yunho sighed, “That’s not exactly the case, you know.” Both Mingi and San’s attention were completely hooked once again, both of them leaning forward on the sides of the table they sat on, eager to listen to what Yunho was about to tell them.

“What I’m thinking is that Hongjoong probably last saw his crush in the library, and that whoever that person is went out of town—but Hongjoong doesn’t know, hence why he keeps on visiting the library everyday in hopes of seeing his crush again.”

“That’s… oddly specific,” Mingi gave Yunho a skeptical gaze, whereas San remained drowning in his own thoughts. “The fact that your theory is actually highly likely to be correct is what scares me,” San said, finally speaking up after a few seconds of silence.

“It’s not a—”

“Yeah, yeah, not a theory! We get it!”

It’s been three months, at most. You wanted nothing more but to leave your hometown and head back to your apartment—you never liked the suffocating feeling the walls of your mother’s household would always give you. You’re starting to miss hearing your roommate’s loud snoring in the brink of dawn, too. You wonder how she’s holding up—it’s not really your thing to keep in touch with people while you’re away as it only makes you miss them even more, and this is something you fortunately remembered at the last minute to tell her before you left.

Your mother had contacted you that time you were hanging out with Hongjoong in the library to tell you to head back to your household as she and her garbage of a boyfriend had scheduled a three month vacation for themselves, leaving you the responsibility to watch over their house while they go out and enjoy their lives to its fullest. How pathetic.

You vividly remember feeling your heart ache with flames while you had to fight back your tears while packing your things—trying so hard to convince your roommate—who you assumed by that time was probably hanging out with the guy from her linguistics class—that you were fine when she was on the other line of the call while you were informing her about your sudden vacation, even though it was painfully obvious you weren’t by the way your voice kept on trembling with every word you spoke.

It didn’t help that all you could think of while spacing out while waiting for the train you took to arrive at its destination was the way Hongjoong’s eyes widened ever so slightly when you placed your hands atop of his by accident, as well as the way he’d flash you that toothy grin of his every single time you’d find yourselves staring into each other’s eyes.

No, it really didn’t help. Especially considering the fact that you don’t even know why the hell you were thinking of him when you were supposed to be upset because of your parents. It really, really didn’t help how thinking of him ended up painting a small smile on your face that was quick to disappear the moment you snapped back into reality.

Yet here you are now, mindlessly staring outside the window of your childhood bedroom, watching the sun slowly fall into a deep slumber as you wonder what Hongjoong could have possibly been doing by the other side of the world. Part of you regrets not taking the old book you borrowed from the library with you, but at the end of the day, you borrowed it to help your roommate forge a connection with her crush, and not with your own, for heaven’s sake. Wait, what?

And then it hits you—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know you’re out of town and will continue to be for three more days. You wonder if he thinks of you as much as you do of him. You wonder if he’s out there, waiting for you. You wonder if he wonders what you’re doing right now as well. You wonder if he’s concerned about you.

“Oh, God, I can’t do this anymore,” you buried your face in your hands in frustration, sighing heavily as you parted your fingers to glance at your phone placed by your bedside table. Its screen, although pitch black, felt as if it was glaring directly at you, taunting you to take it and just say “screw it” and break your no-contact-during-vacation rule.

And you did, in fact, say, “Screw it.”

Quickly scrolling through your contacts, you wasted no time and immediately dialed your roommate’s number, the constant ringing of your phone echoing around the almost empty surroundings of your bedroom. Most of the things you left here before moving out have already been thrown out, it seems.

“Oh my God!” The screeching of your roommate from the other end of the line made you jolt in surprise, hissing as you felt your ears ring due to how loud her voice was. “Is this real?! I thought you said you wouldn’t call me until you’re back here! What happened?! Is something wrong?! Are you okay?! ARE YOU—”

“Calm down! Do you want me to go deaf or something?” Your voice was as calm as ever, a stark contrast to hers. “Did you really miss me that bad?” Chuckling, you await her response, which arrived faster than a millisecond.

“Did I miss you? Did I miss you? You have no idea how quiet it has been in here ever since you left! I have no one to annoy and it’s slowly driving me insane…” she let out an exasperated sigh, making you laugh. “I’ll be taking that as a yes, then.”

Your roommate clears her throat, going back to the topic at hand. “Seriously, though, why’d you suddenly decide to break your no-contact rule? Are you alright?” Concern was evident in her voice, and it almost made you tear up. You failed to realize just how much you missed her until now.

“I’m still breathing, that’s for sure,” you joked, laughing after hearing her groan as she said, “Now’s not the time for your jokes! Did something bad happen over there?”

“No, not really, but… well, you know, I’m not supposed to come back until Friday this week, but I really don’t think I can stay here for any longer. I’m all alone because my mother and her boyfriend are out on a vacation, and I haven’t had anyone to talk to for the past few months I’m not used to waking up because of my alarm and not because of your loud snoring, you know?”

Truthfully, you really did miss her. But even if you knew she was not the only reason behind you desperately wanting to leave your hometown, you figured you’d have to tell her all about it another time—just not now.

“I can’t tell whether you meant that as a compliment or an insult…” she sighed, making you erupt in a fit of laughter. Darkness was now starting to consume your surroundings, with the moon all up and about. Your bedside lamp is now the only source of light your bedroom has. “Do me a favor and take it as both?”

“Haha, yeah, real funny. I really hate you, you know.” You could tell from the tone of her voice alone that she was rolling her eyes, making you laugh once more—she seriously had to stop, or else you were certain you were gonna have to go to sleep with an aching stomach. “I don’t think you do, though…”

“You know me too well,” she sighed, faking an exhausted tone. “Is there anything you wanna tell me about? Like, you know, literally anything? I feel like all we’ve ever been talking about lately is mister linguistics class who is my man but is technically not my man but will, one day, become my man… come to think of it, I don’t think you’ve ever talked to me about any of your crushes—”

You could still hear her voice through the speaker of your phone, but the moment her words entered your ears, they were all muffled—you were, once again, adrift in a sea of your own thoughts. In a way, she was right about the part where you never talk to her about anything regarding your romantic affiliations—but that’s precisely because you don’t even have one in the first place, and you swore to yourself you’d keep things that way until you graduate.

But right now, as your thoughts drift back to Hongjoong yet again—something that seems to have been happening way too often for your liking at this point, you weren’t so sure anymore.

“—Oh, you do like someone!” Beaming happily, she squealed like a little child winning a plushie from a claw machine for the first time, pulling you back up to the surface of reality. Surprised, you stumbled over your words, “W-What?”

“You suddenly grew quiet when I started talking about relationships, you know.” I did?

“If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a certain someone who came to your mind the moment I mentioned the word “crush” and brought up how you’ve always been so secretive with your dating life.” You could visualize the teasing smile on her face as she spoke, and it made you feel flustered. She was right, but were you really going to tell her that?

“So, who is it? Can I make a few guesses? Promise me you’ll bring a basket of candies home for me if I get it right!” It wasn’t exactly like you were doubting her—it was more on the fact that you, yourself, weren’t even sure if you actually harbor feelings for the only person in your mind right now. If you were to think about it, wouldn’t it be too soon to say you do?

Maybe it was the way he seemed to have an eye meant for seeing everything around him as diamonds in the rough—an eye able to see the best even in those already proven to be the worst. Maybe it was the way he has no fear of expressing himself freely—maybe you just admired that trait of his and wished to have it as your own. Maybe it was the way he’s always eager to thoroughly get to know the details of everything he crosses paths with—the way he reread a book five times just to look for the foreshadowed parts may sound a little silly to be used as an example, but it serves its purpose.

You don’t really know much about him, except for the fact that he lives with seven people whom you could tell he adored so much, and that he liked to design his own clothes. So for a split second, you begin to debate whether you do like him or if you just admire him as a person.

But it wasn’t until you were reminded of the way you felt sparks ignite all over your veins when his fingers first brushed past yours that day in the bookstore, the way you stared at him a little longer than you should’ve when you saw him at the park, the way you had to hold yourself back from unconsciously leaning your head on his shoulder that day in the library—maybe the way you felt about Hongjoong was a whole book itself, and you’d also have to reread it a few times to catch everything you’ve overlooked in the long run.

You may not know him at all, but right now, one thing was crystal clear to you—you wanted to.

“Do you know the…” A little uncertain at first, you trailed off, not knowing whether you should continue or not. But then again, running away wouldn’t draw you any closer to your destination. “... Do you know anyone named Kim Hongjoong?”

Silence engulfed both of you for at least ten seconds at most, until it was broken by yet another squeal of hers. “Are you for real?! The Kim Hongjoong?! You like him?! Oh my God! Wait, now that I’m thinking about it, aren’t you two, like, polar opposites, at most?”

If only she knew.

“I guess…? Why?” You decided to play along with her for now, eager to hear what she has to say. “You two would totally be the cutest couple of the whole campus! I mean, come on, think about it! He’s a punk, and you do ballet! Well, technically, you don’t, but I trust you enough to rest assured you get the reference, so…”

“You think so?” Truth be told, you could perfectly visualize the message she was trying to deliver. Subconsciously, a smile soon began to creep up on your face over the thought of you and Hongjoong walking together, the stark contrast between your styles and the way you carried yourselves being heavily obvious.

“Oh, I know so! Wait, though—when, where, why, and how did this even start? I can’t believe you’re actually telling me about your dating life now!” She beamed, but you were quick to tone her down. “Now…? I don’t even have any experience within the dating field,” you said, bracing yourself from the scream that was yet to come from her.

“I’m sorry, what?!” Yeah, called it. “You heard it right. I wasn’t hiding anything from you—there were never any secrets to be hidden to begin with.”

“So Hongjoong is your first boyfriend—” “—I think we’re skipping a few chapters here,” you immediately cut her off, turning her assumptions down as fast as you could. “What do you mean?”

“Well… remember when you asked me to buy that one psychological thriller book from our local bookstore there?” You started, continuing after hearing a hum from the other line. “That was when I first met him. He was going to buy the same book as well, but we reached for it at the same time, and, I don’t know, we kinda… talked? And…”

You continued on, starting from when you first met him to when you last saw him. At this point, you could no longer even count the amount of times she had squealed over the phone.

“Wait, so you mean to tell me you didn’t even exchange contacts before you left the library? And he doesn’t know why you left?!” You could tell she was frustrated—and to be fair, so were you. “Well, if I did, we’d be talking to each other right now, wouldn’t we?” You sighed.

“So that means it’s been three months since you… wait, hold on… three months? Like, actually?” You have no idea why she was asking for confirmation all of a sudden, yet you let out a hum of approval anyway. “So that’s why he’s been… oh my God! If you don’t come back as soon as you can, I swear!”

“Huh? Why would I need to?”

“Hongjoong’s been visiting the library everyday for three months straight now! It’s, like, one of the many things our whole campus gossips about everyday! It all makes sense now…” What?

“What?”

“I’m telling you, you need to come back before it’s too late and he loses hope!” You couldn’t help but laugh at how she seemed to be more passionate about the topic at hand than you yourself, but in a way, she also had a point. There’s no guarantee he’d continue to wait for you until you’re finally allowed to leave your mother’s household.

And that was all you needed to hear for you to immediately hang up and rummage through the clothes you packed with you for your vacation—you could hardly even call it such, but whatever. You have no idea why you’re in such a rush, but for the first time ever, you opted for a casual look: a white shirt with an oversized pink hoodie with a half-done zipper on top of it, paired with shorts that weren’t even visible due to the hoodie’s length. You quickly slipped on a pair of white socks and wore your pink converse afterwards, having to re-do the shoelaces about three times due to messing it up over and over again because of how you were in such a rush.

You didn’t even have time to stand in front of your mirror to see what you looked like—your mind was set on coming back to you and your roommate’s apartment as soon as you could.

For a minute, you were stuck in a debate between following what you had to or what you wanted to. You knew for sure that dire consequences were to wait ahead of you if you were to follow the latter, but you could no longer find it in you to care. You had to follow your heart.

Sighing under your breath, you finally got yourself to twist the doorknob open, being met with the cold breeze of the night. Perhaps it wasn’t the best decision to wear shorts, but it’s too late to reconsider things now, is it? Quickly locking the door with your keys in hand, you wasted no time in sprinting to the nearest train station, not wanting to waste the chance that laid itself upon you.

“Mind explaining what’s been going on with you lately?” Seonghwa asked, hands on either side for support as he leaned against the kitchen counter, eyes boring directly into Hongjoong, who was standing across him, too busy spacing out that Seonghwa was certain he didn’t hear anything at all.

“What?” Hongjoong’s voice was a little slurred, and one could easily tell he lacks sleep. “I said, do you mind explaining what’s been going on with you lately?” Seonghwa enunciated his words so Hongjoong could hear him better, only for the said man to respond with a chuckle.

“You really gotta stop overanalyzing everything around you, Seonghwa.” Yet the aforementioned man wasn’t having any of it. He knew very well of Hongjoong’s tendencies to deny his own struggles—even to himself, always refusing to admit he’s going through something even though it’s already crystal clear. Of course, Seonghwa and the rest knew to respect his boundaries and not pry further, but the circles under Hongjoong’s eyes were starting to grow darker, and he just couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

“I’m not buying your excuses this time, Hongjoong. Clearly, you’re forcing yourself to go through something all alone again.” Seonghwa sighed, brows furrowed in concern as he took in Hongjoong’s appearance.

“What? Like it’s the first time I’ve ever done so?” Hongjoong chuckled, although it was easy for Seonghwa to tell he was forcing it upon himself. “You know you can’t keep everything to yourself forever, right? They’re all worried about you, and so am I. Look, you don’t have to tell me all the details, okay? Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“How on Earth am I supposed to feel when someone tells me ‘see you around’ but then they proceed to literally disappear right after those words come out of their mouth? Wouldn’t you be downing a dozen shots in one streak too?” From the way Hongjoong spoke, it was clear that he was beyond frustrated. His words came out slurred and raspy, and even Seonghwa himself was surprised he understood what Hongjoong said.

Brows furrowed in confusion, Seonghwa leaned forward from the counter, clearly not knowing what the hell Hongjoong was talking about. “Woah, woah, alright, calm down. Where’d all this even come from?”

“It’s been three months—three months, Seonghwa. Disappearing without a word is one thing, but not showing up for three months is just absurd, isn’t it?” Hongjoong groaned, running his hands through his hair. Still confused, Seonghwa attempted to ask for a little more context. “Who are you even talking about?”

“Her, Seonghwa. The girl whose name I could’ve gotten sooner, had those stupid goons not decided to burn our kitchen. The girl Kyungmin mistook for a princess.”

Oh.

Oh.

So it all makes sense now. It now makes sense that Hongjoong scolded the rest of them for almost burning their apartment way too harshly than he normally would have. It now makes sense why he caught Hongjoong staring at the girl from the park longer than any other person would have. It now makes sense that—does this mean what Seonghwa thinks it does?

Hongjoong likes someone? The Hongjoong, who swore he’d never allow himself to get into a relationship yet again after a bad falling out with one of his exes a few years ago? The Hongjoong, if anything?

“Can I take a wild guess and assume she’s the reason behind your daily library visits?” Seonghwa asked carefully, not wanting to hit a wounded spot by accident. Hongjoong only sighed, “I wish she wasn’t. Really, really wish she wasn’t.”

“Why? Do you like her?”

Does he like you?

At first, Hongjoong refused to accept the terms. He knew very well of his promise to himself not to fall for anyone again, tired of experiencing the same hardships that came along with it over and over again. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking of you as often as he does. He knew he shouldn’t be letting you affect him in the simplest ways possible.

Yet here he was now.

“I tried to stop myself, you know. I really did. But I just—I couldn’t. I didn’t have it in me to forget about her just like that, even if she’s been gone for three months straight now and I don’t even know where she is.” Seonghwa could tell Hongjoong meant every word he said. It was still mildly surprising, but the words came out of his mouth so smoothly it was enough to tell Seonghwa he was really being genuine.

“I know I look stupid waiting like a dog in the library everyday, hoping I’d be met with her awkward smile when I turn my head towards the door whenever I hear it open, but I just—I can’t, you know? I can’t stop. Not when the last words we spoke to each other was about seeing each other around. I can’t help but wonder if I messed up unknowingly, somehow.”

Seonghwa’s gaze softened, stepping forward to gently caress Hongjoong’s shoulder in a comforting way. “Why not go on a midnight stroll? I think you really need one right now. I’ll make sure they won’t burn the kitchen again this time, okay?”

“You really know how to make me feel better, don’t you?” Hongjoong chuckled, looking upwards to prevent his tears from falling down. “I’m gonna need you to remember the fact that we’ve known each other since we were kids. Of course I’ll know that,” Seonghwa sarcastically said, although a smile was plastered on his face.

At this point, you were certain your legs were about to give up before you could even reach your apartment. The train you took had a major malfunction in the long run, but you didn’t have it in you to wait for 30 minutes until the train would start working again, so you did the only thing you could—run. Okay, that was most likely not the correct solution, but it wasn’t like you had any other choice. You need to head home at least before 8:30AM tomorrow, since that’s usually when your mother would call you to ask how you, or rather, her house, is doing.

You stopped between your tracks to catch your breath, hands on your knees as your chest heaved with exhaustion. You decided to walk for at least a few minutes for now so you could regain enough energy to start running again later on, knowing there was absolutely no way you’d be able to keep on sprinting without passing out in the middle of it.

You were walking on an empty road, the dim lamp posts and the convenience stores from a distance being your only sources of light. As you were peacefully admiring your quiet surroundings, you spotted a coastline from a fair distance besides the road, only about a few steps away. As you drew closer to where the waves of the ocean met the sand, you saw a figure from afar sitting on a boulder all by themselves.

Except it wasn’t just a figure.

Your heart started racing, eyes widening in surprise as you focused your gaze on the person’s hair—you couldn’t have been mistaken. You know exactly who that split-dyed hair belongs to.

Before you even knew it, your feet had a life of its own, running towards where the figure was sitting even though your legs were literally about to give up after running for half an hour without stopping.

“Hongjoong?”

He turned around almost right after you called out his name, eyes all puffy and widened in surprise, blinking repeatedly as if he was trying to process the fact that you were standing right in front of him.

“It’s you.”

You no longer even cared if your actions were way too straightforward, immediately engulfing him in a warm, tight embrace as you buried your face in the crook of his neck. “Hongjoong—I’m sorry, I just…” Your voice came out as nothing but trembling whispers blending it with the midnight breeze.

For at least a few seconds, all he did was stand still, not an ounce of his body reacting to your touch. Afraid he might not have been comfortable with what you were doing, you were quick to take a step back, removing your face from his neck.

Yet just as you were about to release the grip you held around his body, he was quick to wrap his arms around yours, this time being the one to embrace you tightly. Hongjoong’s arms envelop you, holding you tightly against him. The warmth of his body, the gentle rise and fall of his breath—it’s an entirely new feeling, yet it felt soothing all the same, as if this was where you were always meant to be.

You let yourself let loose in his embrace, feeling the tension and worry of the past three months slowly melt away. You close your eyes, savoring the moment as you bury your face in his shoulder. The subtle scent of his cedarwood cologne that you missed so much mixed with the salty sea air lingers in your senses, making you feel grounded and safe.

His chin rests on top of your head, and you can feel him take a deep breath, almost as if he’s trying to breathe you in and reassure himself that you’re really there. His embrace feels secure and protective, as though he’s shielding you from the heavy burdens of the world weighing upon you.

You notice his hesitation in the way his hands pause on your back, almost unsure of how to hold you at first. But eventually, after being allowed a little more seconds to familiarize himself with the feeling of your body resting against his, he started rubbing your back in soothing circles, making you feel lightheaded—as if all of your worries have slipped away with just a single touch.

He removes his chin from the top of your head, making you stare into his eyes with a teary gaze as he does so to yours as well. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about it beforehand, I…” you trailed off, words getting stuck in the middle of your throat after feeling Hongjoong cup your face with his hands, “... It all happened so fast, I… my mother needed me home right away, and I just couldn’t say no to her… I wish I could’ve told you beforehand, but she only told me why she needed me home when I was already there, so I couldn’t…”

Hongjoong’s gaze softens as he listens to your words. He gives you a small, understanding nod, but you can still see the hint of hurt in his eyes—his dark circles were so visible, even under the dim light of the moon. He pauses for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, before speaking.

"I thought I might have done something wrong," he admits quietly, vulnerability evident with the way he spoke.. "I kept wondering if you were upset with me. It was... hard not knowing what happened.”

“When you left without a word, it felt like my world shifted,” Hongjoong begins. “We were in the library, and the last thing you said was you’ll see me around—but I didn't see you again. Not the next day, or the day after. I just kept going back, hoping you’d show up. It didn’t make sense—you were there, and then you were gone.”

“I started overthinking everything, replaying our conversations in my head. I wondered if I said something wrong or came on too strong, that maybe you didn’t want me to. I was scared that I might have scared you away somehow," he admits, and the way his voice trembled ever so slightly made your heart twist in pain.

“Hongjoong, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to leave you wondering if you ever did something wrong—I didn’t like what happened just as much as you do. I just… it’s complicated…” Truth be told, it really was.

Still, Hongjoong nodded with a faint smile on his face, reassuring you that he understands.“I know it wasn’t intentional,” he said, caressing your face with his thumb. “The nights were the hardest. I’d lie awake wondering if you hated me or if I had done something to upset you.”

You reach up to caress his face with your hands as well, staring at him with eyes that hold a swirl of emotions. “God, no, it never had anything to do with you… I’m so sorry for disappearing like that," you say softly, your voice filled with a mixture of guilt and frustration. "I wish I could have told you what was happening, but my mother... she wasn’t easy to deal with.”

As you hold Hongjoong close, you sense there’s more he wants to share, but he seems to be holding back, seemingly at war with his own emotions. You give his hand a reassuring squeeze, encouraging him to express himself.

He lets out a heavy sigh, his expression a mix of longing and frustration. “I’ve been trying so hard to sort out how I feel about all of this,” he begins slowly. “I’ve been at war with my own thoughts ever since you left. Trying to keep my feelings under control, trying to convince myself it was just a worry for a friend. But it just… doesn’t add up.”

He pauses, running a hand through his hair, his gaze on a far distance. “Every day, I would tell myself I could keep it together, but I kept thinking about you so much, it was starting to drive me insane,” he admits, although a little hesitantly. “I tried to keep it down to just concern, but it wasn’t enough. My mind kept circling back to you, wondering where you were, if you were okay.”

His eyes meet yours again, making your breath hitch. “I’d go to the library every day, hoping to see you, hoping to hear your voice again. It was maddening, not knowing if you’d come back or if I’d lost you completely,” he sighs, as his grip on the skin of your waist becomes a little tighter. “I just couldn’t shake it off,” he continues, his voice quieting down.

“You were on my mind all the time, and the more I tried to ignore it, the more frustrated I became. I tried so hard to deny it, but...” he pauses, taking a deep breath, as if he’s steeling himself for what comes next.

“Oh, screw it all,” he finally mutters, as if giving in to his own feelings. “I love you, and I don’t think I can hold it back any longer.”

“You… What?” Your eyes widened in surprise, struggling to process Hongjoong’s words. Hongjoong only smiled at you in return, repeating his words, “I said I love you. I really, really do.”

“Hongjoong,” you begin softly, your voice carrying a hint of nervousness. Hearing his name slip out of your mouth sent his nerves going haywire—oh, how he missed the sound of it.

“When I had to leave so suddenly, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was so difficult not being able to explain what happened or tell you how much you mean to me.” You pause, trying to find the right words.

“You know, I… I promised myself I wouldn’t let anyone in until I graduated," you confess, your voice being a little softer than it already was. “So when I first started catching feelings for you, I was in complete denial. I didn’t know how to handle it.” You look away for a moment, feeling embarrassed.

“It was a war with myself, one I never expected to fight," you continued. “I told myself it was just a phase, just a fleeting crush. I even thought maybe I was imagining things or confusing friendship with something more.”

You let out a small, nervous laugh, trying to hide the depth of your feelings. “I even tried to tell myself that you were just a good friend, that I was misinterpreting my own emotions,” you admit. “But the more I tried to distance myself from my feelings, the harder it became. My heart kept betraying me, reminding me how much I looked forward to seeing you again, how your smile could light up my whole day.”

Your tone grows quieter as you share your struggle. “I kept thinking, ‘This can’t be happening. Not now. I promised myself I wouldn’t fall for anyone,’” you say, vividly remembering the battle with your own feelings you once faced. “But every time I thought of you, it became harder to deny it. My heart wouldn’t let me forget you, and it drove me insane. Eventually, I lost control, and…”

You take a deep breath, forcing yourself to face the reality of your feelings. “Now that I’m standing here with you, hearing you pour your heart out, I just… I can’t deny it anymore,” you admit. “I’ve fallen for you, Hongjoong, and I’m done pretending otherwise.”

And that was all it took for him to inch his face closer to yours, intertwining your lips with his. The kiss was nothing short of pent-up tension being released, and you could feel every part of your body being set aflame.

His hands wrap themselves around your waist, its grip on your skin tightening every now and then. Your hand traces his jawline, soon finding itself tangled in his hair while the other one balls the fabric of his shirt into your first, feeling yourself get even more lost in the moment with each passing second.

As the kiss intensifies, there’s a sense of exploration, as if both of you are savoring the taste and feel of each other’s lips for the first time. Hongjoong’s hands slide up your back, one hand finding the nape of your neck, his touch gentle yet firm as if he was using every single fiber within his body to hold himself back, sending a shiver down your spine.

You mirror his movements, one hand now resting on his shoulder while the other presses against his back, wanting to be as close as possible. The world around you fades away, leaving just the two of you lost in the moment.

As your lips finally part, you both find yourselves gazing into each other’s eyes as if both of you believe the other hung up the stars in the sky. “You know,” Hongjoong began to speak. “As grateful as I am that you’re back here with me now… I can’t help but wonder where on Earth you came from...”

“Can we please save that discussion for another time?”

🪞 — lividstar.

[justmy-account]

List of byler-gates

I’m just bored, but read it anyways, it’s fun

there sooo many of them, and i’m still pretty lazy so this isn’t perfect, but just let’s start

Mikhailgate

This is practically anti byler theory, but nvm

So, Dimitri has a son named Mikhail, which is russian version of name Michael, Mike

So, people were just saying that instead of Mike, Will will end up with Mikhail(who’s technically Mike bc of the name, yk)

I think everyone was just joking, oh, good ol’ times

and willloveinterestgate is the same

Lettergate/Pocketgate

These theories aren’t the same one, but it’s basically the same concept, ig

The basic thing is, that Mike wrote a letter to Will(singed Love, Mike)

In pocketgate, Mike has the letter saved in his triangle pocket, bc in st, characters many times has letters, that were important to them, in their left pocket(above the heart), for example Hopper and El(Hopper’s heart-to-heart), Jonathan(acceptance letter to college) etc.

And he would just take it out in the middle of confession or sth

+the triangle always points to Will like an arrow

Lettergate is just basically the same, ok, idk how to describe it differently 

Twelvegate

Not exactly a byler, but theory, that Will was number twelve in HNL, and that he’s El’s actual twin

And from that, there’s theory that Will has powers, but wasn’t n. 012

Okay, back to byler

This is same as rainbowgate i think

Flickergate

This theory is very lovely! after Will tells Mike that rolled seven in s1, the light behind them flickers

and since ud is frozen on nov6 83, when you signal sth from ud, it should appear at nov6 83-s1

this connects to electricgate(i dunno if sth like this exist, but just keep reading), the electricity~are friends electric~will possibly having electric powers

so mike and will could go together in s5 to ud on a mission or sth, and kiss in wheelers garage, and that would make the light flicker(i’m so good at explaining things, right😐)

will and mike going to ud together is predicted by mike and will sitting on upside down couch in last ep. of s4

Birthdaygate/Memorygate

Soo, remember how they forgot Will’s birthday? what if all wills memories, that people reminded him of in the shed are gone? his birthday, building castle byers, meeting mike… and that’s why mike says that his life started the day he found her, bc he doesn’t remember meeting Will

for me, it’s really weird, they couldn’t just forget Will’s birthday, no, this ain’t it

Kiss at lovers lake

I’m not sure if this has a different name, but it’s that their first kiss will be near lovers lake

evidence: patrick(the kid who died at lovers lake), had a nickname “berlin wall” or sth(we saw this in the school newspaper), and it was devided to four, same as hawkins

and song heroes is abt couple who lived at different sides of berlin wall, and idk, it just connects, okay?

when will painted the map of hawkins while he was possessed, mike was holding blue and yellow meter

Eightfifteengate

Context: will left the wheelers at 8:15 in s1

in s1e1, time mark 8:15 is literally the shot where will disappears in the shead

i think there’s a season 2 soundtrack called eight fifteen

tw: time fuckery: while will was recording on halloween night, the time says 8:04 while he’s recording mike saying “did you agreed with this?”, but when joyce rewatches it, it show 8:15(byler)

“ it’s 8:15, you’re late”

btw, clocks and watches from hiroshima are stuck at 8:15

aaanywaaay, there’s just too much 8:15 things, aaah(this is just a few)

what it has to do with byler?

well, 15-8=….(wait for it)….seven. a byler number. it was a seven!

also, “the first lie”, when murray says this to jancy, the time mark is… guess what, 8:15

there’s this theory with the songs “the first lie” and “the first i love you”, and it just connects 

Motelgate

theory, that after mike’s “love” confession to el, they went to a motel for sleep, and mike and will had to share a bed, and we could possibly see flashbacks of it in s5, and it would kinda explain the two day skip

Colorgate

blue and yellow meet in the west, i’m sure you know this one, and there’s sooo many evidence in this

mattduffersbasementgate

It’s too late for this to be true, but the duffers are(/were) holding every cast member that ships byler in their basement, lol

bloopergate

Bloopers from byler scenes, basically, for example “not when i was the spy, oh fuck”, basically Finn and Noah being all giggly, i guess

bloopergate implies to every blooper, but why not to mention it

curtaingate

Sth like, that when there’s some fight happening between characters, if curtains are open, it means they’re open with their feeling and opposite 

Example: milkvan make out scene-closed, but you don’t love me fight-opened

Bonus: „ but they like the curtain. people like us are just trying to look behind the curtain”(my very bad quotation of murray, yk what i mean)

Also, Suzie had blue and yellow curtains, and they were opened

And, “and i love her and i can’t lose her again”? Also curtains closed, like wtf, this fandom is crazy

piggybackgate

El knows abt Mike and Will. she saw how they act around each other, she’ve heard will saying “you’re the heart” to mike, saw that mike has Will’s painting now

New Coke Theory

basically, old coca colla is mileven, new coke is byler. it contains some of the old ingredients(mike), and new ones too(will). not everyone likes(bc its gay ship). and when you look at scenes with can of new coke, it’s many times symbolizing byler vs. milkvan

one of my favorite new coke theory examples is this: in s3, after el gets attacked by the flesh monster, she tries to crash a can(but she doesn’t have her powers, so she can’t). this is a can of new coke(byler) and she can’t crush that/destroy it. and in this scene, we get a flashback to the lab, where she crushes aka destroys regular coke(mileven)

phonegate

mike and will not calling each other, bc of joyce’s telemarketer job(he won’t stop whining abt it)

————

i miss all these little silly theories abt literally everything

i hope the byler tag will be like this once again

maybe we could start naming our new theories “gate”s again

for example: heartfeltgat, strangerwritersgate, snowkissgate or sth

anyway, byee

[coolprettyleo]

Don't Forget, Don't Forget About Me - Gabe Perreault ☆

wc: 1.9k

tw: angst. alcohol. kissing? cussing. partying. almost sa. slut shaming. weird frat guy.

part 2 of superman !!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

gabe hadn’t called. he hadn’t texted. it was now sunday night; the night before he was supposed to land back in boston and lottie wondered if he had even thought of her.

her little overthinking insecure mind couldn’t help but hope he wouldn’t go off and save some other girl. a girl who desperately needed saving just like the naive little freshmen lottie was a couple of months prior.

*flashback*

“c’mon!! we’re in college now, you have to actually leave your dorm if you want to make friends char” her best friend from home told her while they were face timing.

i mean its not that lottie liked to stay home. she kinda felt burnt out. her whole life she didn’t have strict authority figures who told her she couldn’t go out. so by the time she was eighteen years old in a new city she didn’t feel the hunger of freeness, every other eighteen year old was feeling.

she grew up with her grandmother in california who had already done her part in raising her children. she was raising lottie out of the kindness of her heart. or mainly due to the fact lottie would be in the foster care system since both her parents were in jail.

“i dont know what if something goes wrong” she says, beginning to look like she can be convinced seeing how cute dylan looks.

it might be fun to dress up and take cute pics…

“it’s college! you finally have the opportunity to be somewhere where no one knows you. you can talk freaking australian and stupid bitches would believe you. your just like every other bitch tonight!”

lottie couldn’t help but smile at her friends drunkness desperately regretting the fact she didn’t go to umich with the blonde friend.

“honestly thats so real and tru. when the hell did u start giving such good advice”

“shutup and let me help you pick a fit” dylan excitedly squeals.

—

lottie walked into a frat party alongside her roommate and some girls they had just met. the music was typical frat music but she was honestly feeling it.

maybe because she missed going out or maybe because her and her friends had just pregamed a bottle of titos before leaving the dorm.

the thing about lottie is that she doesn’t usually drink so when she does, she drinks to have a good time.

“oh my gosh!! charlotte pls let’s go dance. plsss” my roommate Mary slurred whining.

lottie was obviously not going to turn that invitation down, so off she went. unbeknownst to her she had already caught the attention of several guys with the worse intentions possible.

all lottie can remember of that part of the night is that she was dancing with mary having the time of her life and then the next thing she knew, mary was making out with some guy.

okay mary!! slay!

she didn’t want to awkwardly third wheel that, so she quickly made her way out the dance floor. into the kitchen where there were several tall guys standing around with red cups.

“hey charlotte right? we have english together” a shorter boy walked up to her. lottie didn't think he was with the taller boys.

ive never seen this man in my life.

but of course she was naive. and in her little naive mind she didn’t want to make this random guy feel bad so she went along with it. as if they were old friends. they weren’t.

“oh yeah! hi!” she told the black haired boy standing way too close for her comfort.

unbeknownst to lottie he didn’t actually have a class with her and he was just another dumb freshman hoping to get into a frat, trying to prove he was somebody to a bunch of nobodies. in all the wrong ways too. he had just been ordered to slip something into her drink.

why he chose lottie, she would never know.

“here let me get you some water, you don’t look too well”

“thanks!! thats so nice! I was just dancing with my roommate but I don’t know where she went, I think she went off with some guy which is totally fine! im not judging or anything, like good for her” lottie drunkly rambled. one thing about lottie is that she becomes a yapper with just one sip of alcohol.

“ya it can get pretty tiring out there” he said looking around and at her nervously handing her some ‘water’. or so she thought.

as lottie was about to pour the liquid down her throat a tall dark haired boy came and slapped the cup out of her hand. spilling it all over the floor and on her top.

what the hell man

“im so sorry but don’t drink that. here” he said handing her a bottled water desperately searching for a towel to give her to wipe off whatever the hell that liquid was which smelled like the farthest thing from water.

“cmon man i was already talking to her and it was just water” the frat boy said grabbing lottie harshly.

“get the fuck out of here ass hat. how stupid can you be”

"that wasn't water!"

the taller boy and i yelled at the same time while the frat boy shoved him.

“don’t fucking touch me or her” he said pushing him back. harder.

"she's pretty easy to touch man, I mean look at her" the frat guy drunkly said.

the tall dark haired boys friends quickly came and got between them before something bigger started.

“cmon gabe it’s not worth it” a freckled boy said to him while shooting a dangerous glare to the stupid frat guy.

lottie just stood off leaned against the counter trying to figure out who’s the hell are these people? and what the hell was going on? and did that asshole just slut shame her? what the hell did he even mean by that? .

“let’s go find your friends” he said taking my arm much gentler and guiding me through the party. trying to see if I recognized anyone.

“thank you for that, honestly. i didn’t think anyone could ever be capable of doing something like that” I told the boy who had gentler eyes now as we stepped outside. as lottie began to sober up, it hit her what could of happened if this mysterious boy never came to save the day.

im so dumb.

lottie couldnt help but think.

“well now you know for next time right” he said with a light smile as he texted on his phone.

whose he texting?

“who we texting!” lottie said jokingly. trying to lighten up the mood.

“im trying to call us an uber, your a freshman right?” he said with a chuckle, feeling a flip in his stomach as he seen her smile.

thats pretty.

“yeah, are you?”

“yeah, my names gabe by the way” he said realizing he never got her name or even told her his.

“charlotte. but i go by lottie” she said smiling at him, noticing gabe was honestly cute.

“the uber is fifteen minutes away” he said looking down at her, into her big brown eyes.

“thank you. really” she said starring into each others eyes, as if they’ve spent all eighteen years of their lives searching for one another.

feeling her heart beat a million times an hour; something lottie has never felt before. so she couldn’t figure out what it meant. heart attack? maybe?

lord save me.

*flashback over*

lottie felt like an idiot. she knew gabe was back from his trip seeing as his location was in his dorm. he usually would have asked her to go over by now or he would of came here, but seeing as he probably believed lottie didn't love him; he was going to be stubborn and not answer her.

screw it I cant take it anymore

lottie rolled her ass out of bed and put on her uggs as she marched down the hill to his dorm with a mission on her mind.

she had spent the weekend wallowing in self pity and she couldn't take it anymore. this had been the longest they had gone without speaking to one another since they got together and lottie realized she did not like it. not one bit.

—

"gabe just call her back, if she's calling you so much then she obviously does care about you" will snapped finally tired of seeing his roommate in such a terrible mood; all weekend.

"thats the problem! i want her to love me not just care for me. you guys know lottie; she cares for the homeless man down the street that she's never even met before!" gabe gestures with his arms.

"dont be complicated gabe" ryan chimes in, knowing all too well how their friend and teammate is.

as gabe opens his mouth to talk further he is cut off by a loud knock on the door.

ryan quickly trying to escape gabes self pity party practically runs to open the door while will and gabe stay sitting back on the couch.

"lottie! come in!" ryan says loudly looking at will with eyes that speak 'lets get outta here'. will practically ran out with ryan. not wanting to deal with depressed gabe any longer, not before waving at lottie on his way out though.

gabe rolled his eyes at their antics before getting up and walking to his room as lottie began to shut the front door.

"gabe wait! please hear me out"

"there's nothing to hear out lottie. its okay to not love someone back, you dont have to explain anything" he said looking anywhere and everywhere but her.

lottie took a good look at him seeing as he looked like his heart was breaking into a million pieces; lottie wanting so desperatly to put it back together one by one, however long it took. she loved him.

"you cant honestly believe that I dont love you gabe" lottie said softly, walking closer to him.

"look at me gabe" she whispered, while softly turning his head down to look at her. his deep green eyes has her wanting to scream from the rooftops.

"I love you" she said as she shook with nothing but raw emotion and pure love.

gabe couldn't help but scoop her up into his arms and kiss his girl like there was no tomorrow. smiling into the kiss because he hated what he had felt all weekend long.

lottie pulled away from the kiss as she wasn't finished. she planned the speech the whole way here, she wanted to tell him. because when you know you know and she knew.

"I love you gabriel perreault. and im sorry for not telling you sooner. i just assumed you knew and that was wrong of me and so sorry. since the very first day I've loved you. since you saved me from my own stupidity, I loved you. since you've put up through every bad habit and fit I've had, I've loved you-"

"lottie, i know. you dont have to say it" gabe said cutting her off knowing well lottie isn't one to scream her love from the rooftops. with his hands on her lower back. making her stomach do cartwheels.

god I love him. I want him.

"I want to though" lottie said, looking into his eyes. eyes that lottie thought were heart shaped starring deeply into her soul. leaning on her tiptoes to kiss his soft sweet lips again.

the boy who was her boyfriend. the boy she loved. the boy who knew she loved him. her version of superman. at least its the same thing too lottie.

the end!!

I dont know if I want to make this into an au or leave it as it is. we'll see!

[grison-in-space]

Watching the new Alex Jones doc, which is heavy on the alt right response to Sandy Hook and the gun rhetoric that followed... so yeah I thought of when I was teaching during #GunFreeUT back in 2015 as a PhD student in Austin. I would have been about 25. When people came to my workplace and the state said that the students had been complaining* about how frightened they were to be away from their firearms for twenty minutes. When the entire campus was newly declared acceptable for open carry of ducking semiautomatic rifles. The undergrad who organized #CocksNotGlocks, who accurately pointed out that state obscenity laws banned sex toys in public to appeal to people's comfort and sensibilities, but would not consider such a thing for deadly weapons. As I recall, she drew massive waves of harassment from random people who were actual alt right adults with jobs and lives, not college students. I think she had to take a gap year.

*in fact the law was extremely unpopular among the UT Austin student body, most of who were horrified by having to confront the possibility of deadly weapons belonging to fuck only knows whom in not only their workplace but their homes.

I remember standing in a room for staff resistance through #GunFreeUT, the smell of the room, the texture of the cotton shirt I wore. The hastily organized attempts to carve out any freedom we could. The horrified stipulations about whether firearms could be kept out of classrooms themselves if not campuses (no), and the fretful whispers about what the state had declared about our offices, how we were going to be able to declare them gun free zones... If we agreed that students with concealed carry licenses could choose to meet with us somewhere where the gun was allowed to go. The group that announced it was going to celebrate its new open carry status by staging a school shooting on campus, the shooter of course to be played by a "good guy with a gun." The university announcing that they had interceded and made clear to the group that this re enactment could not take place, so they kicked the demonstration a couple of blocks away. Happened at a local gas station.

I was still seeing sad flyers from office staff and teachers saying things like PLEASE NO GUNS IN THIS SPACE when I graduated with my PhD in 2020, the first winter the pandemic was in full swing. I remember the texture of the paper the last time I saw it vividly. I catch myself starting to think about the campus school stabbing I would teach through in 2017 and any one of a hundred more rearguard final stands between the city and the state and—

Okay, that's where I got up and walked off to get a soda. You're getting me now after I've had a minute.

That's a classic PTSD flashback, in case you're wondering. At no time do my senses report anything to my mind about anything unusual happening in the room. At no time, while I remember these things, do I believe that I am currently in danger for my life. It's a strong, vivid memory, but only a memory.

But it's a memory that grabs you by the mind and shakes you. That's a flashback. It's a classic simple PTSD flashback as a consequence of fear and stress sustained over time. Other folks around me who think maybe PTSD or maybe cPTSD applies to you, if you're hung up on not thinking you get anything like flashbacks?

That's what a flashback is from the inside. Your brain is running over the memory of the thing that forever changed your estimation of safety. Just in case you might forget.

Just, you know. In case anyone is wondering.

[lawqual1ty]

Burn out... (FEM! Trafalgar Law x FEM! Reader)

Pov: College can sure take a toll on anyone, especially when exams come around the corner. Your roommate however tries her best to be your biggest supporter even though she's quite dense on how to do so...

I wrote this on a whim while trying to get my stress levels down a bit due to my exams so... Expect a lot of errors--

Warning: Curse words, Lesbians, burn out and stress symptoms (reader), mild flashbacks (Law), College scenario, fluuuuff I need female Law to comfort me okay??, A bit of Ooc Law? I'm not sure. Law calls you a raccoon--

College is the most magical chapter of your life, they said... Enjoy every part of it while it lasts, they said...

Those words resounded in your brain like some sort of non-breakable chant as you read and re-read the PDF the teacher had sent you over to study... It was long and filled with intricate words that you struggled to understand... It made your whole entire system feel dizzy as you stared at the screen of your tiny laptop, almost dumbfounded.

"I'm hungry..." You muttered in annoyance.

"Ugh God dammit!" You let out a loud groan as you roughly held onto your hair, luckily you were sitting on your bed of your tiny rented room so your fall backwards was rather safe, your hair fell backwards as you groaned in annoyance... Did you really have to wait until the last minute to study...? Did you really have to be so persistent on getting a better grade than last time...? Why did everyone define this as the best phase of your life...? If this was the best part you didn't even want to begin to imagine what the rest of your life would be like. You were tired, too sleepy to process another equation but too stressed to take at least a single wink of sleep, not that you could either way since, well... Tomorrow morning you would have to go to class all over again and sleeping would only make time pass faster. You bury your face into your hands, lifting your glasses up a bit, a soft groan escaping your lips before silence surrounded your room...

Before you knew it you had stood up from your bed and walked out of your room and over to the kitchen.

The small house you lived in was rather cozy; your room was located in the basement which gave you a clear access to the kitchen, you only had to climb up a pair of stairs and you were greeted by a small living room to your right and the kitchen to your left, it was perfect for long nights such as these in which you only needed to serve yourself a small cup of coffee and some pancakes (since they had been your basic night diet for the past week or two...), especially considering the fact that since you were so close you wouldn't have to wake up either of your roommates.

Their rooms were upstairs, far away from you and your annoyed at the world and your decisions ass. You rented a room with two other girls; One you had only passed by a couple of instances since she mostly hung out with her friends and even sometimes went to sleep over to their house, if you were to describe her you would say she was like a hurricane of sunlight in some way... She was cheerful and energetic and always had that characteristic strawhat that made her stand out just with a single glance, you had only interacted with her a few times but when you did you couldn't help but smile dropping an occasional laugh or two. She was cheerful and you could appreciate that occasionally. You turned to look up at where her room was only to realize her light was turned off... A soft sigh escaped your lips, a wave of relief washing over you as you realized that she won't be stealing any of your food this time around.

You looked around once more, your eyes falling into your other roommates room... Oh yes, you couldn't forget about the other one, although, she was even more rare to see than the prior. You had definitely interacted with her more but it was still on certain occasions, heck you could even count them with your fingers and it would fit. She was the first one to get here, even before you, and her tired gaze and demeanor made you realize immediately that she was not someone you wanted to get in the way of... She was cold, sharp and analytical; although there were occasions in which that all came crashing down and you have managed to witness that more than once much to your luck...

As you stared up into her turned on light you wondered what would go down if she came down to the kitchen with you inside it... Would she argue with you about how much longer she's been up than you? Or will she just ask why are you still awake and head off once you made her a mug of your characteristically strong coffee? You let out a soft amused huff before shaking those thoughts away, only she knew if she would come down... It all depended on how drowned out in studying she was: it wasn't up to you.

Since she was a medicine student it was rather obvious she had the most stress out of the three, you being a criminology student was in the middle, you had ran into her in your occasional ransacks into the kitchen looking for something to keep you awake and functional as you tried to Speedrun all your investigation papers, since your work groups had rarely managed to do shit right in the first place. Occasionally, you would chat about meaningless things; starting out with a quick "hey..." And following it up with a "why are you still awake...?" Making the conversations evolve from that point onward. She introduced herself as Trafalgar Law but told you you could just call her Law if you'd like to which you agreed since well... you found it a tad bit rude to call someone by their full name, even if you had just met 'em. You would catch glimpses of her softer side, noticing just why she had decided to study medicine in the first place, she was a sweet gal' underneath that cold exterior; that however didn't take off her snarky remarks nor her anger when she talked about some incompetent classmate in her class, to which you usually reluctantly agreed sometimes due to your own experiences. Your relationship with Law was... Unique to say the least, although you two got along you would sometimes get into banter out of who cleaned up or your grades even though you were completely different majors, it resulted in some rather tense yet fun moments between you two, although, mostly there were more calm moments than heated ones.

You walked into the kitchen and opened your cupboard to take out your coffee. You took a few spoonfuls and placed them into the filter of the coffee machine, the soft scent of the coffee grind already helping you to wake up a bit. You hummed softly as you walked up to the sink to get some water into the machine.

Unbeknownst to you, on the upper side of the house a black haired girl let out a tired yawn as her gaze was fixed on her computer. The accumulated sleepiness of several days with a wink of rest was finally catching up to her as she tried to read the document on the screen of her laptop. She squinted her eyes, her vision getting blurry due to how sleep deprived she was; frustration made her let out a groan as she leaned back on her chair, her hands ran through her hair making it even more of a mess than what it was already... She couldn't concentrate at all.

"four cups should do..." You muttered to yourself as you poured the needed water into the machine, clearly oblivious to your surroundings.

Her brows perked up as she realized she wasn't the only one awake. It was around 12:12 pm when she headed out of her room and noticed the kitchen light on together with the light to your room in the basement reflecting onto the small living room, You were also awake, the faintest scent of coffee coming from the kitchen confirming her suspicions. Unbeknownst to her, a small smile crept its way to her lips as she headed down the stairs... Almost as if the sweet scent of your coffee mixed with your characteristic humming pulled her into the kitchen, a magnetism only you had on her.

"Fuck..." She cursed under her breath, both out of respect for you and your other roommate and out of tiredness, she didn't have the strength to even yell out but if she slept she definitely wasn't going to pass, why did she decide to study this again...? She looked up at the ceiling, the slightest glimpse of her family coming back to her... Her lips parted slightly before smiling gently to herself.

"I better wake up..." She muttered under her breath as she slowly got up from her chair and onto the main hallway.

You were so focused on your duty at hand that you didn't realize a tall dark haired girl was leaning against the door frame, staring at you... Pondering on how long exactly it would take you to realize she was there. Sooner rather than later you quickly turned around and almost yelled out when you saw her, she had to hold back a laugh at how scared you seemed just by her unexpected presence alone.

"HOLY-- LAW!" A soft snort could be heard from her.

"Hey..." Her half husky yet sweet voice greeted you in a very nonchalant way, almost as if she didn't regret how she had scared you even one bit. A pout could be visible in your pursed lips.

"A warning would have been nice..." You mumbled under your breath as you turned around to turn on the coffee machine, the familiar sound of a beep showing you it was already on and ready to make the coffee you two very much needed. She let out a low chuckle, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared at you.

"Even if I had warned you, you were too focused on your own shit to actually take it seriously..." Her playful words only made you pout as you turned around to face her.

"Shut up!" You exclaimed almost in a yelp which was rather amusing to Law "Warn me still! Or did you want to scare me that badly...?"

Your question only made her shrug, fueling your frustration up a notch... Although you couldn't quite exactly stay mad at her for long, you were too tired for that. A soft sigh escaped your lips, you leaned against the counter a reaction that caught Law's attention immediately; Sure, you could usually be a bit grumpy when you didn't sleep well but for you to go on and sigh... It was rather odd. If you looked close enough, you would notice the slightest glimpse of worry in her eyes, she didn't show it openly due to her little understanding of how far she could go with her emotions when it came about you, she just stared at you... Her body gently leaning forward a bit towards you as if she was pulled yet again by your presence.

"Rough night...?" Was all she could muster the courage to ask, a soft groan escaped your lips as you rubbed the bridge of your nose.

"Rough night..." You responded gently, not really wanting to act annoyed at her, after all, it wasn't her fault that you were in a foul mood... You were the one who forgot to study days before the exam and just now was catching up... Not her! So why would you burst in front of her?

As you were mentally struggling to keep yourself at bay Law stared at you with a hint of concern in her face, although you two had rarely interacted she knew something was off... Sure, she could blame it all on the lack of sleep, college could be a bitch and she totally understands that since well... She's in the same situation as you, but your uncharacteristic annoyance and groans were more than just having a bad sleep schedule. Law was so torn on what to do... How is she supposed to help you...? You had always been a great aid, unbeknownst to you, whenever you two had interacted during these long and stressful nights you had always managed to make her believe that things weren't as rough as she had believed so in the first place, it was like your mere existence was all that she needed to keep going... Almost as if you gave her the little spark she needed to keep going strong during this long and arduous journey that is studying medicine; But now that you needed her to aid you she froze... She had no clue on what to do or what to say to help, she had never been good with comforting even herself so how was she supposed to do it for you? It was frustrating...

The coffee machine pouring the four cups of coffee you had served was the only sound that surrounded the two of you, the mere dripping adding a soft sound of ambiance as both your minds filled the rest with loud thoughts.

You kept pondering and pondering on the things you've studied so far, remembering everything you could, getting frustrated by the second as you forgot some stuff... Your brain was filled with dark strings of thoughts, some threaded into your mind with knowledge and understanding of debates and investigation yet others just stepped into the edges of your patience with a negative poison that made your head hurt... It was getting overwhelming and you didn't even know how to stop it from getting as intense as it was... Your heart felt heavy and your mind became dull, a migraine threatening to start and ruin your study night... Just like before, you were so caught up in your own world that you didn't realize the movement that had happened just next to you.

You had fully expected for Law to have already left, after all the only thing she would have stayed for was a cup of your coffee... Or that's what you thought. Your mess of a mind was suddenly blank, all the dark threads of thought seemingly coming to a halt as you felt a pair of hands stop them... The unfamiliar warmth that covered you sent a shiver down your spine; What had happened...? You slowly glanced over your shoulder only to find a mass of black hair over the crook of your neck... Law was hugging you.

Your whole body froze; she had never been the type to give hugs heck, even the slightest glimpse of affection coming from her was like a rare achievement, so for her to now be hugging you was... Odd; Even Law herself was surprised, she wasn't one to be this open yet when she saw how your eyes had slowly drained out of that spark she loved, her mind went blank and her body moved on her own, Half out of her whim and half out of what she had learned from you aiding her.

A few minutes went by in this position, her rather strong arms holding onto you while you looked at the coffee machine, the sound of coffee dripping onto the container now feeling somewhat comforting... Your heart and mind were a mess, the latter now filled with thoughts about Law and Law only, almost as if her presence alone made your whole mind agree on what should be threading it. Before long, you raised your hands and gently placed them on top of her tattooed arms, making her flinch slightly. She fully believed you would make her pull away but you didn't, you chuckled slightly as you rubbed your thumb through her soft skin.

"Thank you..." You muttered gently, a soft hum was heard from Law as she held you tighter against her.

"No need..." She mumbled against the nape of your neck. "I just... Thought you might need one of these..."

A soft snort escaped your lips. "'One of these'...? Are hugs so alien to you you don't even know what they're called...?" Your teasing words made her blush a bright red, not that you could see.

"S-shut up, That's not--"

"Nah Nah, you said one of these!" You giggled before clearing your throat and speaking in a bit more of a formal tone just to mess with her. "Allow me to introduce you: Law, hugs; hugs, Law"

Your playful tone made her roll her eyes; sure, you were being annoying but it was better than that gloomy version of yours she saw a few minutes ago, so she would let it pass... For now.

"Oh well nice to meet you I guess..." You laughed at her sudden approval of your teasing words.

Your laugh... It was beautiful, Law's mind became a mushy mess as she chuckled along with you. Sure, she had heard plenty of people laugh but for some reason the way you laughed with such genuine joy was... Something that always made her melt.

"You little raccoon..." She mumbled against the back of your head, making you giggle. It wasn't long before Law's instincts took place... She stared at the back of your head, your soft hair greeting her almost as if asking her to act as she had desired to for so long... A deep breath was all that she needed to get the courage to do so. Your eyes widened as you heard a faint smack sound coming from the back of your head, the gentle tickle of your hair mixed with Law's lips snapping you out to reality... Your pulse jumped up to your cheeks, tinting them a light pink as the realization of what had happened sank in... Your lips parted slightly.

"Did you... Kiss me...?" You didn't even understand why you asked... The answer was so obvious it made Law feel flustered about the fact that you were asking in the first place. A low chuckle was heard from her.

"What do you think little raccoon...?" Her words made your heart leap, she had kissed you... While holding tightly against her. Your silence made her a tad bit uneasy as she couldn't look at how brightly you were blushing confirming that you had indeed liked that small showcase of affection.

"You okay...?"

You perked up. "Y-yeah I'm fine!"

Your yelp caught her off guard, it was all the affirmation she needed... You liked it. She laughed, clearly amused by your reaction. She let out a soft sigh before hugging you against her body.

"Rough night then...?" She asked once more, the resounding of the same question from earlier making your heart flutter, the silent affirmation of that change lingering in the air like a mute prayer... Your lips curved up in a soft smile. You don't know where you got the courage but you laced your fingers with hers, the words 'DEATH' greeting you for an instant before they were quickly hidden by your lips, turning them a slight rosy pink as your companion felt a surge of warmth go through her entire body.

The coffee machine suddenly beeped, signaling the end of its coffee making process but neither of you cared for coffee anymore... You were too drowned out in the pleasure of being next to each other that you didn't listen, all you could hear was your heartbeat as you spoke in a soft whisper...

"Not anymore..."

[eundiarys]

LABYRINTH — ❪ TOMORROW X TOGETHER SMAU SERIES INSPIRED BY TAYLOR SWIFT SONGS ❫

info— hellooo welcome to my first ever series! this series will be txt socmed aus inspired by taylor swift songs, i hope u enjoy ^_^ please note that this isn’t the actual representation of the idols, and that this is merely for entertainment!

THE WAY I LOVED YOU, CHOI YEONJUN 𖦹

pairing — choi yeonjun x fem! reader.

warnings — will be added on every chapter.

extended summary — not being to get over your highschool ex even after he broke your heart is horrible. that’s understandable, especially since he was your first everything. but yn has decided that it’s time to get out of her shell and date again! lucky for her, there’s a perfect candidate for that as her company’s president son is head heels for her. but what if it doesn’t work? what if she still longs for the way he loved her? and what happens if he feels the same?

genre — fluff, angst, crack, socmed, non idol!au academic rivals, enemies to lovers, highschool au (flashback), opposites attract, second chance romance, exes to lovers, etc.

short teaser / masterlist ( ONGOING )

CRUEL SUMMER, CHOI SOOBIN 𖦹

pairing — choi soobin x fem! reader.

warnings — will be added on every chapter.

extended summary — summer when you were 17 was the best and worst time of your life, filled with memories you aren’t sure how you feel about. having a summer “fling” is fun until those feelings start to grow. and you know that summer was your favourite season before he left. now that he’s back into your life, will that change?

genre — fluff, angst, crack, socmed, non idol! au, she fell first he fell harder, second chance romance, etc.

short teaser / masterlist ( COMING SOON )

CARDIGAN, CHOI BEOMGYU 𖦹

pairing — choi beomgyu x fem! reader.

warnings — will be added on every chapter.

extended summary — beomgyu was once your everything, and now he is simply just a memory that you want to forget. you both were young and stupid, but for some reason your heart still belongs to him. this time, you are determined change your ending with him to a happy one. but will that actually happen?

genre — fluff, angst, crack, socmed, non idol! au, one sided love, second chance romance, etc.

short teaser / masterlist ( COMING SOON )

ENCHANTED, KANG TAEHYUN 𖦹

pairing — kang taehyun x fem! reader.

warnings — will be added on every chapter.

extended summary — taehyun and yn was known as the inseparable duo ever since kindergarten. and now they are in college. yn also has been in love with taehyun for 7 years, and wants to move on because she knows taehyun will never look at her that way. but when yn goes on a date with a guy taehyun realises that he doesn’t like that idea. a bit too much.

genre — fluff, angst, crack, socmed, non idol! au, college au, she fell first he fell harder, etc.

short teaser / masterlist ( COMING SOON )

YOU BELONG WITH ME, HUENING KAI 𖦹

pairing — huening kai x fem! reader.

warnings — will be added on every chapter.

extended summary — which one is more miserable? being in love with your best friend 10 years and never being able to confess because you don’t want to ruin your friendship or the fact that he’s now interested in having a relationship and wants to go on dates with people on the campus? answer is both. when yn decides to stop liking kai, her friends don’t agree with the idea. her friends and kai’s friends have decided to show kai that what he’s looking for has been here this whole time.

genre — fluff, teeny bit angst, crack, socmed, non idol! au, college au, childhood best friends to lovers.

short teaser / masterlist ( COMING SOON )

© eundiarys 2023

( please don’t copy, translate, repost on any other app, or take inspo any of my works without permission! )

jules notes 📝 FINALLY POSTING THIS!!! hope ur all excited im jumping in joy rn

IMPORTANT ‼️ — (1) first of all, im super thankful for @sakuzleaves for making the amazing banners u should all follow her and check out her works because she’s so talented 🥹 <3 (2) taglists are open by smau that is posted, no reservations or anything. (3) taglists for all smaus of this series are open. and for individual masterlist/smau that is being posted are limited to two batches only~ first come first serve i guess! (4) idk when this will start but i hope you guys are as excited as i am >3<

taglist — @zuyairus @ddenoudepression @sserafimez @ox1-lovesick @reverbtunes @vernonweb @flwoie @ja4hyvn @xiaoderrrr @galaxyhalloes @j4y-lvr @taegyuul @trsrina @fairyytyunn @r7yu @taekwondoes @pleasetellmenow @nshimura @soobin-chois @jinsquishes @sakuzleaves @bomugf @ox1-lovesick @eulris @bunnystrm @haknom @txtbrainrot @bluebearybeom @cherriegyu @snowfalltxt @boba-beom @hyeinszn @liyaliar @wonioml @lvrjjun @luvsoobs @strawbrinkofdeath @cecedrake2217 @soobswvrld @yenqa @adajoemaya @cookiehaos @captivq @captivq

[117luv]

THE PARENT TRAP — LHS | CHAPTER 12

synopsis: jungwon and ni-ki met each other at a summer camp and found out they were fraternal twins. this leads to events where the two ex-lovers, heeseung and yn, are reunited after 14 years by their children.

genre: exes to lovers, smau, fluff

pairing: lee heeseung x fem!reader

warnings: cursing, poor attempts in humor, grammatical errors, marriage, pregnancy, parenthood, miscommunication

taglist: CLOSED!

a/n: hi my loves! i know i was suppose to fix my old smau links but i kept forgetting about it but rest assured ill fix it soon (apologies about that) and also i just started college + our wifi isn't doing well hence the late update (AGAIN) but as always, i will try to do better next time! its either the next chap or chap after the next chap will be the end of the flashbacks so i hope to finish it, ne ways enjoy the chap and love ya mwah! <3

masterlist | previous | next

The pregnancy wasn't easy, nor were her cravings, but Heeseung always managed to do everything she told him to do or get, even if it was ridiculous, like cooking her spicy noodles and feeding them to her little brother because she wanted to see him eating well. Time flew quickly as the twins were born several months after their graduation. It was indeed hard to be first-time parents, especially to twin boys, but they stuck through and learned how to navigate parenthood despite the struggles. The pregnancy was hidden from Yn's parents for the sole reason that her mother didn't like Heeseung for her daughter. Although she told her little brother, Sunghoon, about the news of her pregnancy and the birth of the twins, He was ecstatic to meet the twins and to become their uncle. Heeseung's parents were there throughout the entire journey and never once left their side. She was beyond grateful to his parents for being so loving and caring towards her throughout the years, and she couldn't thank them enough for the things they had done for them. The happiness bloomed even more after he asked her the question, to which she quickly said yes. This was the happiest she ever was, from the birth of her twins to marrying her first love. She couldn't ask for anything more and wished for this happiness to continue. But good things always come to an end when her mother learns about her marriage to Heeseung, and on top of that, she didn't know they had conceived twins prior to their marriage. She was angry not only at her daughter but at him as well, not only for hiding the marriage but also the twins. This is when everything started to fall apart.

taglist [CLOSED] : @yangwaa @emikisses @yohanabanana @arizejkt19 @skuwu-blog @beatr2x @svarcq @softiehee @enhastolemyheart @deobitifull @emxshu @bucketofhiros @lost-leopard-beanie @soobin-my-beloved @azurez @flwrshee @beomgyusonlywife @lalalalawon @yanagisprettygf @astrae4 @myjaeyunn @sesame-street-lol @yumilovesloona @jhopesucker @omgjwon @yoonjunshi @wannatinyus @yeahhemmings- @coupscheri @neozon3nha @mevalemadrws @wonyoungsvirus @ilvsoup @dneltrise @chirokookie @noascats @sxftiell @onionzzzs @nokacchan @i-yeseo @02zluvbot @iamliacamila @nicholasluvbot @ilovewonyo @ddazed-lhs @tobiosbbyghorl @youmenotyummy @minhoie @enhaz1 @beoms-sugar

[geeminz]

ᯓ A CHANGE OF HEART // giselle x oc ; smau

00 | as long as it's you

↳ in which: mihye has been secretly dating giselle, her best friend’s older sister, for four months. what happens when their relationship turns toxic, and their secrets become public?

word count: 1.7k

taglist: @thefckghost @emphobics @jisooftme @xszn

a.n. i was literally so nervous while posting this cuz im not too confident about the quality of the writing T^T but anyways yeah! here's the prologue guys 🥹

───────────────────────── flashback

───────────────────────── now

it’s now 9 in the evening, and mihye is tired of waiting.

she could no longer count the times giselle’s stood her up. she knows her girlfriend is busy — after all, she’s a junior in college. mihye’s well-aware of the fact that giselle’s coursework is much more demanding compared to hers. mihye tries her best to understand — she tries her best to be sweet, to not get mad or outwardly frustrated, but couldn’t she spare a minute for her girlfriend? can’t she just send her a tiny little message? or maybe even call her if she’s too busy to type?

giselle’s lack of communication gnaws at mihye’s heart like a persistent ache, a relentless throb that refuses to dull, no matter how hard she tries to ignore it.

she’s been forgetting a lot lately… how long until she forgets she has a girlfriend?

mihye wonders if normal relationships are like this — after all, love is all about giving and taking, right? it’s about adjustments, understanding. shortcomings are normal — but at this point, shortcomings from giselle are everyday. 

it wasn’t just the missed dates that mihye was frustrated about — it was the constant cycle of disappointment from all of giselle’s broken and hollow promises. mihye wonders if she’s done something wrong to make giselle act so… detached. 

frustrated, mihye sighs deeply. the side of her head crashlands on one of the throw pillows on the couch — while a plethora of emotions swirls inside her. right now, mihye’s stuck. 

should i text or call her?

mihye doesn’t want her girlfriend to think that she’s being too clingy — giselle has told her that before (even though giselle only said it indirectly, mihye isn’t dumb; she knows what giselle meant when she told her about how ‘they’ve been spending too much time together lately’ and that they’ll be ‘tired of each other at this point’). but what else can mihye do? she hasn’t seen giselle for the past three days.

three days too long, the girl thinks. i miss her so much.

a ding! sound popped from mihye’s phone, and mihye swears she’s never gotten up that fast before. reaching out for her phone, she checks out her girlfriend’s reply.

frustrated, mihye puts her phone back on the coffee table. it was violently buzzing from the endless stream of phone calls that giselle was spamming her with. 

mihye misses her girlfriend, for sure. but despite her desire to just crawl into her girlfriend’s arms and just forget everything else (just like how giselle forgot their own date), mihye also doesn’t want to listen to her poor excuses about how she didn’t forget — she just had a lot on her mind.

hearing those poorly thought out reasons over and over again was gradually draining mihye. not only did it wear her out, she was also hurt by giselle’s lack of a proper and valid explanation to justify her absence.

mihye glances at her buzzing phone once more. let me let her suffer a little, just this once. i’m too frustrated to listen to her right now.

mihye sighs, tired from the endless train of thoughts that looped inside her brain. she lets her phone ring — knowing very well that giselle will stop calling her soon. she always does. she listens to her ringtone as if it were a broken record playing again and again, and her empty pair of eyes stares at the rose petal-filled and candle-scented room she had set up two hours ago. with blank eyes, mihye observes her living room, her body stunned and her heart empty upon the realization that her best efforts to impress her girlfriend were all going to waste.

i really thought we’d get to spend a little time together today.

due to a force of habit, she subconsciously grabs one of the plushies near her — the one that giselle gifted her for their first monthsary — and mihye clutches it against her chest. her nose brushes against the fur of the plushie, and she smells giselle’s signature perfume on its surface. just like that, giselle invades her thoughts once more.

her phone, which was perched on top of the glass surface of her coffee table, stopped ringing after a minute or so. mihye could only lay like that in silence and in solitude, heart heavy, pained and empty. she must be tired now, mihye thinks. but after that thought, three notifications pinged at her phone.

mihye lazily reaches for her phone to check the notifications.

mihye’s eyes widen at the text, and before she could even register the texts and respond to giselle, a series of familiar knocks came from the front door.

mihye makes no sound to address the knocks, but she recognizes the voice coming from behind the door.

“hye, i know you’re in there. open the door for me, please?”

mihye doesn’t respond to giselle. she stays mum and stuck at her place.

“mihye, baby. please. let’s talk, love.” giselle pleads once more.

mihye slowly shuts her eyes in defeat. she knew she couldn’t resist giselle — she could never. it’s giselle, after all. and mihye loves her enough to get up from her sofa and walk towards the door to open it for her girlfriend, who was currently pleading for her on the other side of the door.

once the door was opened, mihye sees giselle, clad in all black, leaning on the frame of her doorway.

why does she have to be so goddamn pretty! 

with her big brown eyes, and pouty lips, giselle still looked breathtaking to mihye, even if she did make her cry multiple times before. right now, the older looked like a kicked puppy with the way that she was furrowing her eyebrows. giselle’s glossy eyes stared deeply into mihye’s, and just like that, mihye had no choice but to let giselle in her apartment.

mihye stretches her arm to open the door wider for giselle to enter the premises of her apartment. but instead of immediately going inside, the older girl pulls mihye into a tight embrace.

“baby,” giselle whispers, burying her head into mihye’s neck. “i am so sorry. i’m such an asshole.”

at least you’re self-aware, mihye says in her mind, but she stays quiet as giselle continues to hug her, grasping at her body as if mihye will disappear once giselle loosens her hold on mihye’s waist.

“i just had a lot of things on my mind, hye.”

tell me something you haven’t already told me, gi.

“and i was just so tired today, our prof is literally trying to kill us. i almost fell asleep the moment i got back to my condo.”

i’ve heard that one, too.

“i’m sorry, hye. please forgive me.”

when will you ever stop saying sorry?

“you know i love you, right? i love you, mihye. i’m sorry for fucking up.”

“...”

“hye? please talk to me.” giselle’s warm breath hits the skin of mihye’s neck. due to the closeness of their bodies, mihye could feel the quick thumping of her girlfriend’s heart. she could sense the quickness of giselle’s breathing; as if she just ran a marathon and is running out of breath. mihye could feel how tightly giselle has shut her eyes from the feeling of giselle’s long lashes against the surface of her neck.

she’s sorry — she always is.

and you always forgive her.

that’s how this goes.

mihye sighs, slowly giving in and reciprocating giselle’s hug. just like that, mihye feels the older girl’s heart rate increase tenfold, but after a few seconds, the girl relaxes in her arms.

“gi, let’s go inside first.” mihye suggests, but giselle doesn’t budge at all. 

“gi,” mihye calls out to her girlfriend again, and this time, she lightly taps the girl’s back to call her attention. “gi, let’s get in. someone might see you here.”

“so?” giselle replies, not wanting to interrupt the position they were in.

it is comfy, mihye tries to justify in her head.

“so… someone might see you. some of your blockmates are my neighbors on this floor, you know. they might get the wrong idea if… if they see us like this.”

giselle stays frozen for a few moments, before pulling her body away from her younger girlfriend. mihye looks at her, and deems giselle’s expression as unreadable. she neither looked happy nor sad — instead, she looks like she’s just been hit by a ton of bricks.

did i say something wrong?

the couple walk toward the living room together — giselle observed the place with the same unreadable expression. at this point, mihye couldn’t read her, she could only observe. despite everything, giselle was still careful so as to not step on the petal of roses sprawled around mihye’s floor.

when they got to mihye’s couch, they both stayed silent. mihye — truth be told, did not want to speak. she was far too tired to do so.

we may not be okay, but at least she’s here with me now.

no matter how disappointed i am.

it was giselle who broke the silence between them.

“hye… i’m sorry for putting you in this setup.”

mihye looks at her girlfriend with concern. giselle stares at her lap, unable to look her girlfriend in the eye.

“i’m sorry that i can’t publicly show how much i love you. i’m just not ready yet. i hope you understand that.”

mihye nods before responding. “i do, gi. i knew what i was getting myself into.”

mihye stays silent as giselle continues to rack around her thoughts to pick better words to tell her girlfriend.

“i just need more time, hye. please be patient for me.” giselle says, and mihye’s heart has no other choice but to accept what giselle gives her.

mihye has a lot of questions that she wanted to ask — gi, are we okay?

gi, why are you so confusing?

why are you so cold and sweet at the same time?

what happened to us? 

but as soon as giselle pulled mihye into her warm embrace, all of mihye’s questions and thoughts dissolved into nothing, as giselle’s tom ford perfume swoops into her sense of smells and floods her thoughts with how good her girlfriend smells. 

she's here. with me. and she does care. she's just been busy.

giselle loves me. and i love her.

turns out, no matter how disappointed mihye is in giselle — one word, one apology, one hug from giselle, and mihye’s melting into her touch again. 

as long as it’s her, i’ll endure the pain.

go to: masterlist | next

[55sturn]

✮ SNAP OUT OF IT: CHAPTER 0.02

series masterlist!

pairings: college!matt sturniolo x fem!reader

synopsis: in which a small argument snowballs into something much larger. tensions grow high only a few hours after re-meeting and some repressed memories are revealed much earlier than anticipated.

warnings: swearing, smoking [weed + cigarettes], cocky!matt, matt not realizing who the reader is, flashbacks.

important things to note: starts out with reader’s pov, then will switch to matt’s pov, followed by switching to third person pov, and then back to reader’s pov.

READER’S POV

“what’s wrong sweetheart?” he hums, a smug grin on his face as i feel his eyes trail up and down my body as his tongue clicks. i scoff, pushing the door open, and making a beeline for the door with a sticky note of my name on it.

“wait how the fuck do you know my name?” i hear him call out from his room which was across the short hallway from mine, causing a sharp pang rush through my chest.

he really doesn’t remember me?

how the fuck can he forget the girl he said was his favourite in middle school? i know i look different from how i did at the end of high school but i didn’t think i looked that different.

i dismiss the thoughts and questions with a scoff, walking back to my doorway as i stare at him, watching as he shifts uncomfortably under my gaze.

“maybe my name will ring a bell.” i spit, ripping the sticky note off my door, shoving it against his chest before leaving the dorm, not bothering to watch his reaction.

as i swiftly begin my way back to jocelyn, i felt my entire body begin to shake with anger. no matter where i was in life, no matter what i was doing, matt found a way to taint those moments and memories, i had thought moving to cambridge would be a break from his ghost constantly haunting every corner of my mind. i thought that once i got out of boston, he would be nothing but a distant and blurry figure in the back of my mind.

but i guess fate had another plan.

jocelyn sits on the hood of her car, talking with someone, more than likely flirting her way into making him do all our heavy lifting, making me snort as i unlocked my car.

“couldn’t last twenty minutes without seeking your next victim?” i tease, watching as she throws her head back laughing, a quick shrug following as she hops off her hood.

“please i will not be hooking up with chris, i was just shocked to see him here.” she hums, causing me to freeze for a moment before turning to face him.

“chris.” i nod, quickly busting myself with a couple bags and a box, trying to steady my hands.

“long time no see y/n, nick and i miss you, ya know.” chris quips, making my shoulders fall as i sigh.

“well if you plan on visiting your brother, you’ll see me a lot more.” i mumble, watching back toward the doors as chris and jocelyn trail behind me, each of them carrying a box of mine.

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“it means that the universe hates me and gave me the worst fucking dorm mate in existence!” i chuckle, however i found very little humour in the situation at hand.

“no fucking way.” jocelyn cackles, knowing exactly what i meant as we made our way down the hallways, stopping in front of my dorm.

“welcome to hell! please enjoy the visit!” i huff, my voice laced with dry sarcasm as we enter the dorm, matt leaning against the counter, a half finished cigarette in his hand as jocelyn fails to hide her snort.

“i thought you were joking but you’re actually living with him?”

“unfortunately.” i scoff, walking off to my room, placing bags and box on the bed, before returning to the kitchen.

“jocelyn.” matt nods, a grim look as his face as she stares him down, her arms crossed as her eyes dart around his face.

“matt. you still look like shit.” she quips back, her expression matching his.

“and i heard you’re still a slut, guess some things don’t change.” he laughs, causing her to bite back a laugh.

that was one thing about jocelyn, she would dish it out and take it just as well, she was one to let any and everything roll off her back because she didn’t care what people thought of her. it was the one thing i envied about her, but being so close with her has definitely helped me learn to take things with a grain of salt.

“hey y/n, about earlier, i’m sorry. you just look a lot different from the last time i saw you, it took me a second to recognize you.” matt murmurs, his eyes holding an indescribable expression, i tilt my head and watch him with a blank expression before speaking,

“you act like i give a flying fuck, matt. now make yourself useful and butt that out, we don’t need to get in shit the first night.”

after a while, jocelyn, chris, and i had finally moved everything from our vehicles to the dorm, and jocelyn made herself at home on the couch while i began unpacking.

“hey joce, classes don’t start for a couple more days, do you mind staying and coming shopping for dishes and other important shit tomorrow?” i hum, placing my skincare and makeup bags in the bathroom.

“you know i’m down.”

“try not to catch an infection the first night you’re here.” matt speaks from the kitchen, causing her to roll her eyes.

“hate to break it to you matt but the only infection i’d catch is from you and there’s no fucking way i’m touching you with a ten foot pole.”

“hey man, i’m clean.”

“not what i heard from the chicks you’ve fucked back home.”

“you know, you and chris would be perfect for each other.” matt snorts, rolling a joint on the counter as jocelyn chokes on the water she was drinking.

“why do you say that?”

“you’re both whores who love to sleep around and are scared of mature relationships.”

“like you know anything about maturity, mister “you’re my favourite girl and always will be.” only to go back on your word the day freshman year ended just because some bitch broke your heart.” jocelyn snaps, causing me to drop the the bottle of perfume i held, the sound of it clattering against the ceramic sink snapping jocelyn’s attention back to me.

“jocelyn what the fuck?” i exclaim, watching as her brows creased, an look of remorse covering her features.

MATT’S POV

as soon as the phrase “you’re my favourite girl and always will be.” left jocelyn’s mouth, i felt my ears turn hot and my mouth run dry as clattering echoes from the bathroom.

“jocelyn what the fuck?” y/n exclaims, her voice cracking with hurt as the memory of my eighth grade promise comes rushing back to the both of us.

“you know jocelyn, i’ve never seriously held the fact that you sleep with anyone who looks your way against you, but that comment? that was fucking low, even for you.” i bite, grabbing my keys and wallet from the table, quickly leaving the dorm, making quick strides toward my car.

i couldn’t be around either them as i kept picturing the day i promised y/n she would always be my favourite girl and the day i told her i could never date a fucking loser like her. the images of her eyes full of love followed by images of her eyes welling with tears filled my mind, i needed to get away from those memories, so i grabbed the joint i stuck behind my ear during the fight i had with jocelyn and lit it as i drove around the city.

THIRD PERSON POV [SUMMER BEFORE EIGHTH GRADE]

it was the summer before eighth grade, y/n, jocelyn, and the triplets were all gathered around the triplets’ cape house yard. everyone’s parents had agreed to one big final sleepover before school started in three days. they had all decided they wanted to camp-out in the cape house backyard all in their own shared tents.

matt and chris were sharing, nick and nate were sharing, and y/n and jocelyn were sharing, and that was decided by the parents.

as everyone sat around the fire matt looked at y/n, he smiled, excited to start his last year of middle school with her. they had known of each other since kindergarten but they didn’t became friends until that summer when nick and jocelyn started hanging out more.

“hey y/n/n?”

“yeah matt?”

“you’re my favourite girl and always will be. i don’t really like a lot nick’s friends that girls but you’re really cool.”

“thank you matt, promise i’ll always be your favourite?”

“pinky promise.” he smiled, sticking out his pinky, watching as the girl hooked hers around it, shaking their hands back and forth slightly.

THIRD PERSON POV [FIRST DAY OF FRESHMAN YEAR; AFTER SCHOOL]

y/n bounced on the balls of her feet as she waited outside the triplets door, wanting to hang out with matt and hear about his day, and hopefully confess her crush on him. she hadn’t really heard much from him that much this summer and she missed her friend.

“oh y/n, what are you doing here?”

“just wanted to see if you wanted to hang out.”

“uh sure, come in i guess.” matt sighs, opening the door, letting y/n step through.

a couple hours pass and matt seemed to be in a better mood than he was when she first got there.

“hey matt can i tell you something?” y/n whispers, fidgeting with the bracelet she wore as matt sat up, his back against his headboard as he nods, gesturing for her to continue.

“i like you, like a crush, and people have told me that you might like me too.”

“who said that?”

“jocelyn and nick.”

“well they’re wrong. i could never like a dorky fucking loser like you.” matt spits, rolling his eyes as her jaw drops. she felt tears start to well along her waterline as she stands up, quickly exiting the room, letting matt’s door slam softly, both literally, and metaphorically on their friendship.

READER’S POV [CURRENTLY]

i watch matt leave in a hurry, his brows furrowing in anger as jocelyn stands in the living room in shock, not realizing how far she overstepped.

“i’m sorry y/n, he just infuriates me, especially with the way he acts as if he never knew you at all and that he never did anything wrong, and on top of that, he acts like pretentious jackass that’s better than everyone.” jocelyn pleads, her frustration over everything that’s happened with matt pouring into every word.

“it’s alright, joce.” i sigh, already dreading the moment he comes back. if there was one thing that was i count on when it came to matt, it was the fact that he would hold a grudge, he would hold onto fights with an iron fist grip. if he was mad at you, he would make sure you knew for days on end until he was over it.

and i knew that the moment he came back, he’d direct his anger at me.

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© 55STURN 2024 ! REBLOGS NOT EXPECTED BUT GREATLY APPRECIATED ! [ you do not have permission to copy or save or share my work to other platforms and devices! ]

[gojos-thot-patrol]

Now Presenting...

Starring Suguru Geto in a curseless AU set in the early 2000s.

Synopsis: Neither one of you are quite over your "Relationship" If you could call it that. You had been avoiding him since the breakup for that very reason. He was the last person you ever expected to see at this party.

The wind was bitterly cold. You blew the smoke out of your lungs, watching it swirl into the clouds and praying it would take you with it. You didn't want to be here. You hated parties. You hated this town.

"There you are!" Your friend groaned as she came outside. "God, you're way too good at disappearing. I've been looking for you everywhere." You took a moment to take her in. Her eyes were filled with worry for you, frustration etched into her eyebrows. You hated to admit it, but you liked that she worried. It made you feel loved again. A small smile tugged at your lips. 

"Yep. I'm here. You should have guessed," you chuckled, throwing your cigarette onto the concrete and stomping it out. 

"Come inside," she insisted, "it's freezing out here." She was right. October nights had always been bitter, but tonight had a particular edge to it. You nodded to her as you slipped your hands into your hoodie. 

"I'm coming." 

"Try to look like you don't hate it here" your friend teased, "miserable is not a good look on you." You disagreed. You thought misery was your default. It was glamorous. It was vintage. It was hand tailored for you. At least, that's how it felt these days. Since things had ended. It had only been six months since your relationship failed, but it felt closer to six decades. Suguru’s ghost clung to you, haunted your body and mind. It felt like you were never not thinking about him. You wondered what you’d do if you saw him again.

“Ah, but that's the thing,” you half laughed, “I do hate it here. Frat parties are for people who like other people. And that's not me.”

“While true, they’re also for people who want to get black out drunk and forget their ex, which is you.” Your friend argued. I mean, shit when she was right she was right. The two of you walked back into the party, the music blasting top twenty pop hits into the air and shaking your soul out of your body. You tied your hoodie around your waist, the heat becoming thick faster than you expected it to. Your friend yelled…something you couldn’t decipher into your ear before disappearing into the crowd. Fuck.

 You sighed and made your way through the ocean of college kids, all swaying, making  waves in time with the music. You found your way to the kitchen, mixing yourself a vodka redbull. You drank it far too quickly, made yourself another one, and got about half way through it before you took another breath. You tuned back into the music, just to roll your eyes. Who burned the CD for this party anyway? You were sure this party couldn’t get any worse. Then it did.

You made eye contact with him the moment he walked into the kitchen, looking tired and disinterested. Satoru was going on and on about something inconsequential, you were sure, and Suguru was looking for a drink to help make his best friend bearable. His corpse eyes found a light in them as they connected with yours. You were sure whatever light you may have had left in your eyes faded instantly. You finished your drink. 

“Dude, are you even listening to-..oh.” Satoru cut his own sentence off as he realized what, or rather who his best friend was staring at. Shit. There was a solid five seconds of the three of you just staring at eachother in a fucked up standoff. Each waiting for the other to make a movie while Brittnay sang about genies in the other room. He looked better than you were fully willing to admit, wearing tripp pants and an old Korn tee over a mesh shirt. Your breath felt heavy in your throat. Memories of the last night you saw him exploded in your mind like war flashbacks. The tears, the fighting, the begging. The goodbye. Fuck.

He made a b-line to you and you b-lined to the back door, your closest escape. “Dude, stop!-” You heard Satoru call, no doubt chasing after Suguru. You were thankful for him. He was rarely the rational one between the two of them, but he was normally able to bring Suguru back to earth when he lost his mind. Maybe that was why they worked. You didn't really care to give it much thought anymore honestly.

“Y/n!” you heard your ex call for you. Fuck he sounded close. You could hear the chains on his tripp pants rattle as he made his way to you. You started to run. You hated making a scene but you couldn’t see him. For all the times you wondered what you’d do if you saw him again, running wasn’t ever really one of the options, but you’re here now. You made your way out the back gate and to your car. Your salvation. You picked up the pace, unlocking your car and falling into the seat with a swiftness that shocked even you. You let out a sigh of relief as your car door closed behind you. Finally, safe. You took out your phone to let your friend know you were leaving.

“Y/n!” Suguru called out as he plopped down in your passenger seat, scaring a squeal out of you. What the fuck?!  

“Get out you bastard!” You yelled at him.

“I just want to talk!” He said back, not yelling, but definitely talking louder than he normally did.

“You’ve fucking lost it Geto!” You matched his tone, “This is breaking and entering!”

“I’m pretty sure that only applies to buildings, Gorgeous.” He grinned, and it was so charming you almost forgot you hated him. 

“Don’t call me gorgeous!” You hissed, “I have nothing to say to you!”

“I have so much to say to you though!”

“Too bad, get out of my car!”

“Give me five minutes!”

“No! I’m going home!”

“You can’t drive like this Y/n! You’re drunk.” You started to yell a comeback, but realized you didn’t have one. He was right. You were starting to feel the drinks of the nights, and we're definitely not good to drive. 

“Then I’ll walk home!” You scoffed. And he laughed. He actually had the audacity to laugh. 

“No you won’t.” He chuckled, “You live too far away. Plus, you would never leave your car unattended at a frat party.” He was right again. You hated how well he knew you. “Let me drive you.” He offered.

“No. you’re drunk too.” you scoffed.

“Am not,” He informed you, “I just got here.”

“Then what the fuck compelled you to just…get into my fucking car?” You asked, still flabbergasted by the audacity. The Suguru you knew would never have done that. He fumbled, looking for an answer. Truth was, he didn’t know why he did it either. 

“I miss you Y/n.” was the best he could offer. You sighed, a deep sigh that felt like it was pulled straight out of your sorrow and you threw your head back onto your headrest. You stared at the roof of your car. This was a bad idea. Suguru came with far too many emotions. Wounds that had barely had time to scab over were ripping open in real time, bigger than they ever were before. 

If you were smart, you would have gotten out of the car. You would have found Gojo to have him collect Suguru, and found your friend to have them drive you home. Or at least have them call you a cab. If you were smart, you would have told him to leave you the fuck alone. You would have saved your heart the extra heart break. You would have forced yourself to remember all the fighting that led you to where you were now, the pain, the heartbreak, the neglect. 

But, you weren’t feeling particularly bright that night. And all you could remember was the soft Suguru. The one that held you close at night, and asked before he kissed you. The one that took you out on late night dates in famous cemeteries cause he read it in a romance novel and thought it was just oh so romantic. You sighed and handed him your keys.

He gave a far too enthusiastic Yes! As the two of you changed seats. You settled into the passenger seat, already regretting your decision. You buckled up as he started the car.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, looking at you. You returned the look, though yours was laced with far more annoyance. 

“I’m annoyed.” you respond. He rolled his eyes.

“I’m just saying, food would be nice. Would probably help you avoid a hangover too.” A hangover sounded like a nightmare. Once again, you relented. 

“Fine, but you’re paying.” he grinned.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He said, pulling out to the street. He turned up the radio, a smile spreading across his face as he heard the song. Everlong, by the Foo Fighters. It made you smile too. Suddenly, you weren’t in your car anymore. You were sitting on Toji Zenins couch, nervously fiddling with your hands as he weighed out an ounce of weed. He’d been your plug for a few weeks at that point, but you still hadn’t grown used to his aura. 

You jumped when there was a knock at his door, and he looked just as confused before a realization dawned on him. “Oh, shit. I think I okay-ed two people to come over on accident.” he laughed to himself. “Hope that's okay Y/n.” he said, going to get the door. It wasn’t, you wanted to leave. But, you didn’t say that. Sometimes you wished you did. 

“Heyy! Weedman!” You heard a now familiar, but then utterly unrecognizable voice. “Thanks for covering me on such short no- Oh, hello!” Gojo said as he walked into the living room, seeing you sitting awkwardly on the couch. Suguru was behind him, quietly observing you. He smiled softly, raising his hand in a wave. His long black hair perfectly framed his sculpted face. His kind eyes seemed mismatched with his almost mischievous smile. You couldn't help but be sucked into his orbit. You smiled gently and waved back. 

“Hi.” before you knew it, Suguru was sitting next to you while Gojo rambled about..something. Honestly, he was always rambling about something. You don’t know why you didn’t leave after you got your weed. Maybe it was because Toji offered to smoke with the three of you to apologize for double booking, maybe it was because Geto kept managing to catch your eye. Either way, the two of you hadn’t really spoken, Toji and Satoru speaking enough for both of you. 

Suguru passed a joint to you as Everlong came on the radio. Toji grimace. “Man, this song is shit.” He said, going to turn it off.

“Watch yourself Zenin,” Suguru said, pointing at Toji and stopping him in his tracks. “This songs hot as fuck, disrespect it again and we’re gonna have a problem.” You really liked Sugurus' voice. 

“Chillax man, this songs not worth trippin’ over.” Toji scoffed, “Especially considering it’s not good.”

“I like it.” You said, the weed making you feel bolder than usual. “I really like the Foo Fighters.”

“Not you too Y/n.” Toji groaned, finally stepping away from the stereo. Suguru looked at you and grinned. It made butterflies explode in your stomach.

“I knew you had taste.” He praised. It was the first thing he had ever said to you. 

“Here.” Suguru said, handing you your drink and jerking you off of memory lane. You grabbed the drink and thanked him. You realized the two of you were parked now. You looked at the burger he handed you and smiled. 

“You remember my order.” You commented. He scoffed as if that was almost insulting.

“Of course I do. I remember everything about you.” He muttered. The two of you started to eat, a pregnant silence filling the car. That pregnant silence, then gave birth to many other smaller but just as intense silences. Blink 182 played softly in the background, but no matter how many times Mark Hoppus asked what his age was, it didn’t cut through the awkwardness in that car. 

“Look, Y/n, I know I-” Suguru started. Rage and despair welled up inside of you.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Geto.” You said very bluntly, finishing your fries. 

“But I-” he started, but cut himself off. He didn’t want to push his already unbelievable luck. But someone had to say something. He smiled softly to himself. “Hey, do you remember when the Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped By The Way-”

“Album or song?” You cut him off to ask.

“Album,” He clarified, “And we raided 7/11 and drove around all night, listening to it on repeat.” You laughed because you did remember that. You remembered it like it was yesterday. You could still taste the blue slushy on your tongue as you tried desperately to analyze lyrics while Suguru insisted The Red Hot Chili Peppers were not the kinda band you analyze the lyrics too, they’re the band you get high to. 

Still, you remembered getting goosebumps the first time you heard Midnights, the opening verse of “Things will never be the same/Still I'm awfully glad I came/Resonating in the shape of things to come/Never waiting when I know there's only one” Speaking to your soul in ways you didn’t quite understand then, but felt like you did now. 

“Yea, I remember,” You giggled, “I think there's still a stain on my seat from you getting mustard on it.” You said, searching for said blemish, “Yea! There it is, right there!” The permanent mark he left in your car. 

“Hey, it is not my fault that you can't eat 7/11 hot dogs without mustard.” He laughed.

“No, but it is your fault you couldn't keep it on your dog, you dog!” You teased.

“I blame Anthony Kiedis.” He grinned with a shrug. This was nice. This felt like old times. This felt like the moments where he was actually him. 

“I think that album’s still in my car.” you muttered. 

One whirlwind later and you were getting slurpees at 7/11, the cashier looking at the two of you with disdain as you laughed and made a mess of the machine he just cleaned. Blue for you, red for him, just like it had always been. Suguru had to grab sour gummy worms and twizzlers. He still couldn’t leave a convenience store without them. He didn’t even like twizzlers, not really. It just ‘felt right’ to grab them. Whatever that means.

You were looking through your CD case when suddenly, he stopped you.

“We got to listen to a different album.” He said out of nowhere.

“What?” You scoffed.

“We can’t try to recreate the magic of the By The Way album release. It would be disingenuous.” He insisted.

“I thought that was the whole point!” You argued, before groaning. “Ugh, Fine! Umm…” You shuffled through CDs. “Fall Out Boy just released an album.”

“Who?” He asked, squinting his eyes in confusion. 

“They’re a new band out of Chicago. This is their debut studio album, it’s called Take This To Your Grave.” you said, holding up the blue jeweled case. Suguru looked…hurt. Like the cavalry had come and made it their personal mission to trample him into the dust.

“You’ve been listening to new bands without me?” He asked, starting the car. That bitter taste of resentment filled your mouth again.

“Well, yea. Life didn’t end because we did.” Besides, this album had been helping you more than you were willing to admit. He nodded in defeat, biting his lip as the two of you pulled onto the road.

“Play it.” he muttered. You didn’t know if you were thrilled with or deeply regretted your decision to play this album, but the opening verse was cutting. Light that smoke, Yeah, one for giving up on me/ And one just 'cause they'll kill you sooner than my expectations/ To my favorite liar, to my favorite scar (to my favorite scar)/ I could have died with you.

“Well fuck Y/n, Is there something you’d like to say to me?” He tried to laugh, but the humor didn’t make it to his voice. “Feels a little targeted.” you shrugged.

“We all cope in different ways.” you muttered. You thought back on your relationship. A backseat romance that belonged to parking lots and famous cemeteries. A relationship that existed on highways and at dingy basement shows, and always on his terms. It was fun at first, even you had to admit. And, maybe it could have stayed as just fun, if he wasn’t so fucking…sweet! He was always so tender with you in the afterglow of your nights together, even if that just met cleaning you up with fast food napkins in his back seat. He was a cuddler too, insisting on you staying the night with him after your nights together under the guise of it being late, when you both knew it was so the two of you could hold each other.

It wasn’t just the after care though, or the sex for that matter. It was him bringing you candy and setting up a movie marathon when he knew you were struggling with your classes. It was him giving you a copy of Rebecca that he annotated because he wanted to share his thoughts with you about it. It was him giving you a copy of The Color and the Shape album because it had Everlong on it, and that was “Our Song” according to him. How could you not have fallen in love?

It started to hurt. That he was so willing to be so sweet and tender with you behind closed doors, but the moment you wanted to be something more, he froze. Suddenly, he didn't know why you guys needed to put a label on things! You guys were having fun, why did you want to mess up ‘the dynamic’ whatever the fuck that ment. Yea, he was fun. But you were tired of being just another hook up in a dingy venue bathroom. Absolutely sick of having to sneak out of his bedroom window, because his roommates would start asking questions if they saw you there for the fourth time that week. He constantly promised he was going to make things official, he just needed time. But, it wasn’t like you were asking him to fucking marry you, just to change your fucking title and maybe take you out on a real date every once in awhile.

Doubts started to fill your head. There had to be a reason he wouldn’t commit to you, right? Was it another girl? Was something wrong with you? It all came to a head six months ago. The two of you were laying in his bed, Crestfallen by The Smashing Pumpkins softly playing in the background as the two of you shared a cigarette, pleasure still throbbing between your legs as you listened to the steady beat of his heart. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He purred, gently petting your head. You hummed in response, not really believing it at this point. He picked up on your doubt, “I’m serious.” he doubled down. “You’re probably the prettiest girl I’ve ever been with.” He chuckled.

“That so?” You asked, taking the cigarette from him, “Then why aren’t I your girlfriend?” you asked, blowing smoke in his face. He grimaced as he waved it away.

“We’re doing this again? Seriously?” he seemed so…annoyed. Like this whole conversation equated to a nat he couldn’t quite seem to swat. 

“No.” you shut down, “We’re not.”

“Good.” he said, taking the smoke back, “I’ve told you before, we’re perfect as we are.”

“Perfect for you maybe.”

“Y/n.”

“What? You can’t seriously be shocked I don’t agree with you.” you scoffed, rage starting to bubble in your stomach.

“I’m not shocked. I just don’t get it. What could you possibly get out of a title that’s worth all of the fighting you’re doing for it?” you could feel yourself seething, your blood boiling over. Did he ever listen to you?

“Well, for starters I’d get the safety of knowing that you probably weren't out sleeping around with anyone willing to open their legs for you.” It was Getos turn to seethe. You could tell by the way his jaw clenched that you had struck a nerve deep inside him.

“Oh, is that what you think I’m doing in my free time? Just fucking anyone and everyone? That I’m so pussy motivated I just can’t keep it in my pants? Well if that's the case, Babe,” The word ‘Babe” had never sounded so dirty. You would have rather he called you slut, bitch, dumbass, anything. “What makes you think that having a “GiRlFrIeNd is going to magically make me loyal? Huh? What then, Gorgeous? And, not to be that guy, but you’ve let me fuck you in just about every venue, parking lot, and random bedroom this town has to offer, and I’m not even your boyfriend. So who’s to say you’re going to keep your legs shut just because we’re official, huh Sweetheart?” 

Suguru could make you feel on top of the world, or cheaper than dirt depending on his mood. That was the problem with English majors. They had a way with words and more often than not they used them for evil. Any heat you had left drained from your body, replaced only with an inescapable emptiness as you realized the Suguru you convinced yourself was next to you may not have even existed. 

And Geto knew he fucked up. He regretted the words as they were spilling out of his mouth, but he couldn’t stop himself and he couldn’t put them back now. The silence was heavy with all the words the two of you wanted to say to each other but couldn’t.

“Y/n-” Geto started, hand reaching for your shoulder, but all it did was break you out of your daze. You snapped, slapping his hand away as you got up and dressed.

“Don’t you fucking touch me. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.”

“Y/n, wait, please, I didn’t mean that-” He struggled to defend himself, hurriedly putting on his pants. 

“You fucking said it Suguru! Lose my goddamn number, I am so fucking done here. It’s so good to know i’m just a fucking fleshlight to you.” you hissed, rushing out of his room.

“I never said that Y/n! You mean so much more to me than that, don’t go!-” he said, following you out.

“Clearly I fucking don’t!” You snapped. Oh good. His roommates, Satoru and Sukuna, were both sitting in the living room. 

“Yes you do Y/n, I love you!” He pleaded. He had never said that before. Satoru audibly gasped. Your entire body seized and seethed. You turned around and smacked him across the face without thinking, making Sukuna laugh,

“Don’t you ever fucking lie to me again Suguru Geto.”

“I’m not lying Y/n-”

“Shut up.” You cut him off. “I don’t fucking care anymore. You are the worst mistake I have ever fucking made.” You wanted to sound intimidating, but the tears in your voice gave you away. You rushed out of the door before he could see you cry, almost laughing at the “Have a good night!” Sukuna threw your way as you did. 

The sound of a car door closing snapped you out of your day dream. You were at another convenience store. When did you get here? Suguru had just plopped in the seat next to you, handing you a bag. 

“Hold these for me, will you, beautiful?” He asked. You did as he asked, looking into the bag.

“Suguru, these are four lokos.” You pointed out. 

“Yep. best flavors too.” While you may agree with the green apple, he also had a gold flavored one, which was just objectively wrong. Not the point.

“Dude, these will fuck you up, what do you think you’re doing?” You asked as he pulled into a park less than a block away from your apartment. The two of you had spent many a night here on the swings.

“Trying to get fucked up, duh.” He laughed as he took the bag. He handed you the green apple flavored can of death. You sighed as you took it, getting out of the car and moving to sit on the hood with him. You noticed he had turned off the CD, Like a Stone now drifting softly from your car speakers. You wondered when he finally gave up on it. You finally opened the green camo can, and winced as the drink electrocuted your now sober nervous system. 

The two of you fell into a comfortable silence as the alcohol saturated your systems. You wondered why you were here with him. What kept you coming back to Suguru Geto. Why couldn’t you just move on? Suddenly, you felt it in your bones when Chris Cornell groaned out “In your house, I long to be/ Room by Room, patiently/ I’ll wait for you there/ Like a stone” 

“I’m sorry.” He finally broke the silence. Your head whipped over to him. He was staring up at the stars. He looked so delicate in that moment. Like a gust of wind would shatter him into stardust. 

“What for?” You thought you knew, but you had to hear him say it.

“Everything.” Oh god, there were tears in his voice. It made you put down your four loko. “I’m sorry about all the shit I said to you the last time I saw you. I’m sorry I just tried to call instead of coming to face you, like a coward. And I’m sorry I couldn’t just man the fuck up and make you my girlfriend.” The words were tumbling out of him faster than he could process them, leaving him more vulnerable and honest than he would have liked.

It shook you. You weren't prepared for him to be so vulnerable with you that night. “It’s fine Suguru.” You muttered. He laughed and shook his head, finally looking at you.

“No it’s not. I hurt you.” He said matter of factly. “And then, I doubled down on it to make it all worse.” you were silent for a moment, staring at your dirty converse.

“W…why were you so against being with me officially?” You finally asked the question that had been weighing heavy on you for so long now. 

“I was scared.” He finally admitted. “I was so scared that if we put a label on it, things would change. That suddenly we wouldn’t be hanging out because we liked to be with each other anymore, that we’d just be doing it out of obligation.”

“Suguru, that's dumb.” You sighed, the booze making you a little more blunt that you otherwise would have been.

“I know that.” He laughed, bringing his knees to his chest. “I just…I don’t know. I thought if I kept you at an arm's length, I wouldn’t have to worry about it. There would be that space. But, I don’t know how to keep you at an arm's length. You’re like my favorite song, you get stuck in my head and I don’t even want to get you out. I just want you closer. So, I thought I’d maintain that space by just…not labeling us. And that clearly did more harm than good. When you left, I tried to just…let you go” he sighed, leaning back against the windshield of your car. He looked at you with love and adoration glimmering in his eyes. 

“I figured it was better that way, I tried to forget you. Yea, turns out that's a lot easier said than done. God, I can’t even think about listening to the Foo Fighters anymore. Which, Fucking Sucks because Everywhere But Here just dropped and I can’t bring myself to listen to it because you’re not there.” he laughed at his own stupidity, his palm meeting his forehead. He still couldn’t believe it took him losing you to realize how much you met. How cliche. 

You felt a lump in your throat. You had been wanting to listen to that album too, but couldn’t without him. It didn’t feel right. It felt like cheating. It was why you had picked up the fall out boy album instead. “You know,” You started, “You really hurt me. Like, you really fucking hurt me Suguru.”

“I know-” He sighed.

“But.” You cut him off, “I’ve also been a mess without you. It’s weird. You don’t really know how much you care about something until you’re missing it. And I thought I really cared about you even before the breakup.” You half chuckled to yourself. “And I mean, I want to still be mad about the fight. I want to hold it over your head. I wish I could hate you even half as much as I hate myself. But, I just can’t. I miss you.” you sighed, feeling foolish.

Suguru suddenly placed his hand on top of yours, pulling you out of your spiral. “I miss you too.” He confessed. Followed by a pause. “It’s not too late for us, ya know.” He finally said. “I’d really love to make you my girlfriend Y/n.”

🎵🎵🎵

Laughter filled the air as the two of you walked to your apartment building, deciding it was best to leave the car after the two of you had downed the alcoholic energy drinks. Buzzing with booze and caffeine was a different type of feeling. “Well, this is mine.” You smiled as the two of you walked up to your door.

“Sure is” Geto nodded, “Mind if I come in?” You couldn’t help but laugh at his sudden gentlemanly persona. 

“Was this your plan the whole time?”

“Not the whole time but it was definitely the end goal.” He admitted, and you couldn’t tell if his cheeks were red from embarrassment or alcohol. 

“And what was your plan if I said no?” You teased.

“Well, plan B was to see if you’d at least let me come in while I waited for Satoru to come pick me up.” He admitted. He really was one step ahead. 

“And if I said no to that?”

“Then I’d have one hell of a walk on my hands.” He laughed. You couldn’t help but giggle along with him. His laugh had always been infections. 

“Well, I’d hate to make you walk.” You chuckled as you unlocked your door, the two of you tumbling inside. In true Suguru fashion, he went straight to the stereo system in your room, looking to see what album you had been listening to. About a Girl filled the air of your small apartment. You chuckled softly as you joined him in your room. Of course he would play a CD he burned for you. 

You took a moment to actually take him in. mesh top clinging to his arms, an Alice in Chains shirt covering up the real action. His hair was messy from the walk, half up half down, and he now sported a slight stubble he hadn’t during your relationship. He looked good. He turned to look at you, dark eyes softening as he smiled softly.

“What?” He asked. You shook your head.

“Nothing.” you shrugged.

“Oh, so you wanna just keep eye fucking me? Ok, cool just making sure.” He laughed.

“And what's wrong with wanting to do that?” you laughed. He turned and smirked at you, moving to close the space.

“Why fuck me with your eyes when you could just fuck me?” He asked, a line you 're sure sounded way smoother in his head. You rolled your eyes as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Yea, real smooth there Cruzan Cassanova, you-” You didn’t get to finish your sentence. Sugurus mouth had connected with you, the taste of pineapple alcohol and cigarettes mixing on your tongue. You melted into him, your hands coming up to tangle in his hair. You felt your pulse quicken as the kiss heated up, the drinks of the night combining with his presence to make your head spin. He bit your lip, using the small gasp you let out as an opportunity to deepen the kiss. 

God, you missed him. Your body cleared up any doubt, if there was any, in that fact with the way it immediately reacted to him. You felt his hands start to wander, moving down your spine to grab your ass. You wrapped your arms around his neck, trying to pull him impossibly closer. Your body tensed as you felt his hand slip under the waistband of your jeans and the elastic of your panties.

“Look at you princess,” He pulled back to smirk, lust filling his eyes, “Already soaking wet. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you missed me.” He never missed an opportunity to be condescending in bed, did he?

“Get fucked Suguru.” You groaned, your hips involuntary bucking into his hand as he pressed too fingers into your folds. You needed more.

“I assure you, I’m trying.” He grinned, removing his hand and making you almost scream in frustration. He kissed you before you could get a word in about how insufferable he could be. “I’m gonna take care of you Princess, don’t worry.” He assured you as he took your top off, “But it’s been awhile since I’ve been with my favorite girl. And I want to enjoy it.” he purred.

You weren’t sure how, but at some point he had gotten you on your bed and was taking off your pants. “Hey, no fair!” you panted as you realize. He paused what he was doing to look at you quizzically, trying to figure out when he had been anything other than fair. 

“You’re completely dressed and I’m basically naked.” You clarified sheepishly. Suguru held back a laugh at how cute you were. He finished his task, then took off his ratty band shirt.

“Better?” He asked. You felt like you were going to burn from the inside out as you looked at him. The mesh perfectly outlining every bump and crevice of his perfect body. Greek gods wished they looked like him. You nodded.

“Much.” you said as Suguru dragged you to the edge of the bed. You felt needy and helpless under him. He dropped to his knees in between your legs, kissing your inner thighs with intent to bruise. More than once he ghosted himself right where you needed him the most, filling you with frustration. “Suguru please..” You moaned out.

“Please what Princess?” He asked, smirking up at you.

“Please Sug, I need you to touch me.” You begged.

“But I am touching you Darling.” You almost kicked him.

“Suguru Please!” You begged.

“Princess, you can’t already be fucked stupid. I’ve barely touched you, Pretty-”

“Yea, that’s the problem!” you whined. He chuckled darkly at your pain, but relented.

“Where do you want me Princess? Right here?” he asked, fingers ghosting over your clothes core. Your breath hitched and you nodded frantically.

“Use your words Babygirl, you know the rules.” You took a deep breath.

“Yes, please Sir, I want you to play with my pussy.” You felt red hot saying all of those things out loud, but god the look in his eyes was fucking worth it. He was taking off your panties in an instant, marveling at the sting of slick that connected you to them until it snapped. 

“Fucking Christ.” He moaned to himself, one of his hands going to grind on his hard cock. “I’ve barely fucking touched you and you’re fucking gushing.” He chuckled, his hands finally moving to where you needed him to be. The moan you let out as his fingers finally found your clit was embarrassing. “Can anyone else do this to you Doll?” you shook your head almost violently.

“No, no sir. No one but you.” You panted softly, getting lost in the bliss currently filling your bloodstream. Shit, you 're not going to last long. 

“That’s what I thought.” He chuckled darkly, two fingers abruptly darting into your cunt and making your entire body tense. “My slutty girl only puts out like this for me, isn’t that right?” 

“Yes sir.”

“Good girl.” he said, rewarding you with a third finger. You gasped at the feeling, your soaking pussy taking anything it could get and more. He curled his fingers, sending a rush of electric endorphins through your body as he graced your g-spot. You moaned out his name, your hands curling into your sheets. 

“Just out of curiosity, what have you been doing for six months without me?” His eyes were dark, letting you know he wasn’t just asking what new books you’d read.

“Thought of you.” You moaned, a tight knot forming in your stomach. 

“Oh?” He asked, pausing his actions. He wanted details.

“I thought about you fucking me.” Right answer, he started moving again, “I thought about how good your cock stretched me out, and how good it felt inside me. I pretended it was you fucking me whenever I used my toys, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing feels like you do Sug,” You moaned out your sloppy confessional. His thumb had found your clit and was massaging it in time with his relentless fingers. His free hand groping himself through his jeans, needed even an ounce of friction. “I’m so fucking close..”

“You’re goddamn right nothing feels like Me princess.” he groaned to distract himself, least he cum in his jeans like a fucking teenager. You felt yourself speeding off a cliff, his words only aiding in pressing the accelerator. “You think a fucking toy could make you feel even an ounce of what I make you feel? That's naive at best Darling. You’re fucking mine nothing and no one is ever going to make you feel the way that I do. Cum for me Princess.”

A few strokes later and you came hard on his fingers, pussy clenching around him in beautiful ways. Suguru didn’t know if he wanted to watch your cunt or your face, but it didn't matter really. He didn’t plan on letting up anytime soon. He finger fucked you through your high, removing his fingers only after you had semi-calmed down. 

He moved over you, slipping his fingers into your mouth which you gladly cleaned off for him, always eager to show him how good you were. You pulled off with a loud pop, looking at him with doe eyes for approval. You assumed he approved, because he was very quickly freeing himself of his tripp pants and boxers with the efficiency only a mall goth could ever possess. He was in between your legs before you had even fully processed what was going on.

He leaned down to leave rough kisses on your neck, the blissful pain of the bruises forming almost distracted you from the feeling of his cock pushing into your soaking wet cum. Almost. Nothing could ever fully distract you from the euphoria of Suguru Getos cock stretching you out in ways only he could. You moaned out his name, hands flying to claw at his back through the mesh shirt. 

He faltered, letting out a shaking breath as he felt your warmth for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. “Fuck Y/n. I swear to whatever god there is this pussy was fucking made for me.” He said through a breathy laugh, pulling back just to push back in, stroking your g-spot beautifully and earning himself an embarrassing moan from you.

“So fucking good for me.” he groaned. Every stroke of his hips sent a new wave of electricity through your core, your body reacting to his every move and begging him for more. If Suguru Geto was a drug you were an addict. The pleasure sent your head swirling and your nerves on fire. 

“God you feel so fucking good,” he groaned as he rolled his hips into yours, “I can’t fucking believe you forgot you we’re mine.” He said, his movements suddenly becoming rougher, forcing you to yelp out his name. “You tried to leave me and then couldn’t even get yourself off Doll, it’s almost cute.” He mocked. “You’re mine do you understand? This cunt belongs to me, Do you get that?” you nodded, trying desperately to take in all his words while the coil in your stomach began to tighten again. He had never been so possessive before. 

“Answer me Slut.” He demanded with a rough buck of his hips. You nodded violently.

“Yes! Yes Sir.” You groaned. You wouldn't argue even if you could have. 

“Say it.” He demanded, “Say my name, say you belong to me.”

“I’m all yours Suguru, You’re and only yours. I’ll never leave again.” You said, your second climax coming on faster than you would have liked. Every stroke of his hips hit your g-spot dead on. He really did know your body better than anyone else.

“Damn right you won’t.” He groaned, his hind falling between your bodies to massage circles into your clit. Your entire body tensed with pleasure as you started to come undone again.

“Sug-”

“I know.” There was no mistaking the way your pussy fluttered around him. He knew you were close. “Cum on me, cum on cock.” You didn’t need to be asked twice. A few more strokes of his dick and you were coming undone all over it.

“You’re so pretty when you cum Princess.” He said darkly, somehow picking up his pace. He wasn;t worried about your pleasure anymore, you got yours. He wanted his. And you felt so good around him, warm and velvety. He could stay in between your legs forever and be happy. He moved your legs over his shoulders, managing to fuck you even deeper than he was before. Your overstimulated moans only adding fuel to his fire. 

“You’re so pretty whenyou’re fucked out, you know that?” He said, condescension dripping from his voice. “So fucking pretty, You’re gonna look even better with my cum dripping out of your pussy, you know that?” The way you moaned and the way you clenched around him was enough to send him over the edge, filling you to the brim and somehow still finding the energy to fuck some of it back into you before collasping onto you.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, him inside of you and holding you close to him. You felt more thankful than ever to be on the pill as you played with his soft hair.

“I…is fucking Closer playing? Nine Inch Nails?” You asked, suppressing a laugh as you tuned into the song. Suguru lifted up his head to listen, laughing as he registered Trent Reznors distorted growl. 

“Oh my god, I think it is.” He laughed, “I forgot this was on here.”

“Helluva song to hook up to.” You laughed. He nodded in agreement. 

“Yea, definitely not the best for a hookup. But maybe not bad for a round two?”

[btsgotjams27]

this is us ~ jjk | masterlist

How could you possibly forget him? You couldn't even if you wanted to. You wanted to extract core memories of the two of you and store them in a pensieve for safekeeping, so you could revisit them whenever you missed him, but magic isn't real, and the fairytale of you and him isn't either. You were just a writer caught up in your fantasies, living in daydreams, escaping reality, and projecting your hopes and dreams onto an imperfect person--what a fool you were. But yet, this is you. This is him. This is the story of us.

✨ title: this is us | completed (sequel to all grown up) ✨ pairing: jungkook x f!reader ✨ word count: 159k | ✨ rating: m/18+ | minors dni ✨ genre/au: drama, romance, angst, fluff, smut | est!relationship, age gap ✨ warnings: language, kissing, alcohol consumption, significant age gap (9 years), noona kink, recreational drug use (edibles), girlxgirl kiss, insecure reader, crappy mom, jungkook's nipple is pierced, cheating, toxic ex's (jk's & readers), talks of miscarriage/inhospitable uterus, flashbacks to 18-year-old jk, reader slaps someone, accidental voyeurism, heartbreak, time skip, eventual happy ending, there is a lot of emotional trauma and this story is pretty much a rollercoaster of emotions, love confessions, longing, pining ✨ smut warnings: jungkook + reader attempt to have sex in a hot tub and fail, allusions to sex, LOTS of teasing and touching, blindfold kink, masturbation(f), unprotected sex, oral sex (m,f), creampie, rough sex, rough oral (m receiving), 69, jungkook is a tease but so is reader, non-penetrative sex, fingering, breast play, light anal play, protected sex ✨ a/n: hiii, this is a sequel to all grown up! if you've read it here, then you can read the sequel :) this is probably one of my favorite series, and this couple has a special place in my heart. ✨ a/n 2: have a drabble request for any of my couples? drop them here and i'll do my best to fulfill them! ✨ read on AO3 & Wattpad ✨ playlist | ✨ quiz: which tiu character are you? | how well do you know tiu? ✨ tags: fic: this is us | tiu couples mood boards | tiu asks | tiu ramblings | ask my muse | tiu pin board | character profiles

✨ one - this is how you fall in love | wc: 5.5k ➥ you start to fall hard for jungkook.

✨ two - back hugs and peppered kisses | wc: 4.3k ➥ when you're stressed, jungkook has a way to help.

✨ three - hot tubs and clubs pt 1 | wc: 10k ➥ you get to meet jungkook's college friends during a weekend getaway.

✨ four - hot tubs and clubs pt 2 | wc: 5.0k ➥ jimin and taehyung want to party before they leave.

✨ five - daydreams and stargazing | wc: 4.2k ➥ you finally talk to jungkook about the conversation you overheard.

✨ six - it's not all rainbows and butterflies | wc: 5.6k ➥ after a hard conversation with your mother, you learn some new things about yourself.

✨ drabble - girl's night | wc: 2.0k ➥ a fun girl's night with yuna and hyunie.

✨ drabble - the reveal | wc: 4.0k ➥ jungkook sees the photos you took with hyunie.

✨ seven - party of three | wc: 5.4k ➥ you find out yuna's big secret and reveal one of your own.

✨ eight - a blast from the past pt 1 | wc: 5.5k ➥ a blast from jungkook's past comes to stir shit up.

✨ nine - a blast from the past pt 2 ~ the college years | wc: 8.3k ➥ jungkook feels guilty about what he did.

✨ ten - a blast from the past pt 3 | wc: 10.3k ➥ jungkook finally admits what's been on his mind.

✨ eleven - the call | wc: 7.8k ➥ you receive an unexpected call.

✨ twelve - i do | wc: 6.3k ➥ you finally find hyunie, amongst other things.

✨ thirteen - heartbreak hotel pt 1 | wc: 6.6k ➥ after a few weeks apart, you have to tell jungkook what's happening.

✨ fourteen - heartbreak hotel pt 2 | wc: 8.6k ➥ jungkook makes a decision that will change the course of his life.

✨ fifteen - here comes baby | wc: 5.4k ➥ let's have that baby, shall we?

✨ drabble - it'll be okay (jk) | wc: 891 ➥ a small glimpse of life in LA

✨ sixteen - so maybe you're not okay | wc: 5.4k ➥ six months later and you're still not over jungkook, and when you finally hit rock bottom, you realize you have to pick yourself up because no one else can do it for you.

✨ seventeen - one year later | wc: 8.8k ➥ it's been one year since the breakup, have jungkook and y/n been able to move on?

✨ eighteen - you're seeing things, aren't you? | wc: 10.9k ➥ you're dreading the meeting in LA, but it's a big city. you're not gonna bump into jungkook, are you?

✨ drabble - dream bigger, darling | wc: 1.3k

✨ nineteen - together again | wc: 9.7k ➥ after three long weeks, you and jungkook reunite.

✨ twenty - ending credits | wc: 9.2k ➥ you finally get your happy ending.

✨ epilogue - us | wc 5.9k

✨ TIU deleted scene

➥ TIU Celebration | Podcast Episode

➥ drabbles 01 - jk + oc compete who thinks iseul will say mama/dada first 02 - jk telling his family he’s coming back home 03 - jk gives oc his photo album 04 - iseul's bedtime routine 05 - jk, joon + tae look after all the girls 06 - indie + hani meet baby iseul

➥ character asks - jungkook | oc | yuna | namjoon | hyunie | taehyung | jin

➥ ama

[gaylittlerichie]

Any fic recs?

boy do i ever! these are all reddie which im assuming u wanted if u’ve seen my blog lol!

• in fact, everything’s got that big reverb sound by dystopiary

3 chapters, 46k words

my all time fave! pure slice of life character study, just a few days in 14 yo richie toziers life in all his bonkers self destructive glory. follows the canon compliant timeline, on the cusp of the losers splitting up and forgetting. ive actively read ppl in my life passages aloud from this bc it’s so delicious.

• dinner at the kaspbraks by knightnight7203

3 chapters, 11k words

more rambley richie character study goodness, wherein the main plot is sonia catches richie climbing out of eddie’s window and has him over for dinner to teach them a lesson & all their unspoken gay foolery is brought out in the open. miscommunications ensue. this has a really strong character voice to the narration that captures richie beautifully.

• before pennywise by david_ginsberg

8 chapters, 7k words

each chapter of this is a snapshot of the original 4 losers’ lives primarily through the eyes of their parents. gives so much love and time to fleshing out went and maggie in particular which im always an extra big fan of. flows great and really easy to read while still being super detailed + well characterised, which is hardcore personal writing goals.

• recovery position by fluorescentgrey

oneshot, 7k words

the whole series this is from (lifes rich pageant) is WONDERFUL but this one’s my personal favourite (followed by beachcoma). it has eddie as richie’s trip sitter while he’s going nuts on lsd, the writing is so stylised and insane to reflect the acid trip it’s perfect! impeccable weird vibes! read this when i was 17 and I’ll confess i’m long overdue for a reread but it set little me’s world on fire.

• ready to grow young again by moichi

2 chapters, 7k words

first chapter is a flashback to teen reddie blatantly dancing around their feelings for each other and the second sees them reuniting adults and finally addressing them. this has a delightfully distinctive, spot on eddie portrayal (and he has adhd! this is huge for me!) and his and richie’s back and forth/chemistry is just excellent, has a very warm feel to it.

• coke bottle glasses by theliteraltrash

one shot, 6k words

a study on blind!richie throughout his life. i rediscovered this fic very recently after having read it back in high school and was so happy to come back to it, it’s super thoughtful and the characterisation is razor sharp accurate! also gives richie a twin sister which is a concept i truly never get tired of seeing ppl’s take on. incredibly unique!

• missed signs by rea_of_sunshine

oneshot, 2k words

super fluffy little fic where a dude hits on deaf!eddie and richie has to act as interpreter for the interaction. this is just really sweet and made me happy as hell, featuring a flawed & jealous richie too which is just generally my lifeblood.

as a bonus some fics-in-progress ive been following along + loving recently are best summer ever by @t4tozier (slasher style au where college losers are summer camp counsellors and there may or not be a werewolf on the loose. need i say more) and rich & eds’ excellent adventure by @beverlysclown (adult richie and eddie are sent back to the 80s…shenanigans ensue)

i also have a fic rec tag that i rb good stuff as i find it into :)

[mof17]

please more apocalypse au please pretty please

(I almost fell out of my chair and broke my neck from how happy I got seeing this lol)

So so for the Aau, there’s a lot to explain. But I should get the ground rules of before the infection that spreads (this is technically an infection AU but eh, apocalypse seems more fitting)(this AU was in help with one of my friends in the beginning of it)

so- let me just dig deep into my Google doc real quick

Before the apocalypse starts, life is normal. There’s a small town, which has most of the characters mentioned in the entirety of the characters living in it.

scar lives with the clockers (minus etho, he left, BUT he will show up later…)(also his attire is his normal skin, BEFORE the apocalypse begins)

(I will be making a post as to why his outfit changes into what was seen in the drawing I made)

grian lives with Pearl (Who is a college student)

Pearl is very much into arts and crafts, so they tend to have very bizarre stuff around the apartment (like gas masks from when Pearl would spray paint things)

gem works at a diner, with Skizz being a cook and Tango being a waiter (alongside Gem)

the four of them don’t know each other EXCEPT Grian and Scar

(Scar, Grian, Pearl, and Gem are pretty much the main four, although more people join on in later)

who used to be in the same middle school and sat next to each other in math class. They would talk occasionally, mainly just Grian helping Scar read the problems and make sense of them or just lending a pencil to one or the other.

one day, Scar gets bullied heavily (it usually happens, but it’s more of a tease). Why does he usually get teased? Because he brings Jellie to school, who is licensed as his emotional support animal and the school just doesn’t care if Jellie is there or not.

but this time, someone took is too far. We’ll call this guy ‘bully’

bully gets a bit psychical taking a book binder from Scar’s bag and tracing it along his face, saying some things, the cut draws blood (and eventually turns into a scar later on in his life)

but out of nowhere, the bully get shoved into the ground, by who? None other than Grian! Grian is one of the only hybrids in the school, him being an Avian, or more specifically Macaw, he draws a lot of attention. see, the town isn’t exactly fond of Hybrids, it’s more discriminatory than most places. So the chances of the bully getting expelled is lower than Grian getting expelled

Grian continues to fight the bully, and the bully fights back

it’s eventually broken up by a teacher, and they’re sent to the office. Grian gets expelled, and is never seen again by Scar

that is until a faithful day in his senior year, where after school, he goes to Theatre, the only place he’s really accepted in. Ren is the teacher.

As Ren is teaching the Theatre club and gives them just a scenario to get a feel for the play they’ll be doing (a mock of third life)

the people in the theatre club include

Scar (18)

tango (19)

Mumbo (on sound)(18)

Katherine (yes, she’s here, it’s important I have to include Nature wives in here somehow, but that’s all of Empires that will be in this AU probably. Other than that, it’s a mix of the life series and Hermitcraft)(18)(set)

Joel(18) (EYYY IT’S THE ONE WITH THE EGO!)

and more

They all take turns being the “lead” in this script, Joel voltuneers to go first

as they’re performing lines, Joel happened to forget a prop, so he calls out to someone who is sitting by the prop table that’s next to Ren’s desk.

that someone happens to be Grian, Grian panics as he didn’t expect to be called on or spoken to at all during this. He throws the prop (a wooden sword) and accidentally hits Scar in the head (Sound familiar? COUGH first death COUGH lol)

Scar passes out and luckily, he doesn’t get a concussion because author logic. While he passes out, there’s a flashback scene (AKA THE FIGHT FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL THAT WAS STATED EARLIER :D)

Scar wakes up and sees Grian, who is apologising but Scar’s ears are ringing, he points to Grian and just says “You look familiar…” and then closes his eyes again. When he wakes up, Theatre is about over and there’s an ice bag on his head and the mysterious “stranger” (grian) that he saw, is now gone. Scar goes up to Ren, and talks to him about him

Ren mentions that that was a brother of a friend from college (Pearl). He tells Scar that he doesn’t go to school and is technically homeschooled but borrows stuff from here. Ren also let’s Scar know that Grian feels like he owes Scar a favour or anything because he feels bad that he hit him in the head with a wooden sword.

Scar leaves the class with Jellie and his stuff and takes the bus home, on the way home he can’t help but think about what favour he would owe this guy, or if he’d ever see him again?

he goes home and Cleo asks him about his day, he brushes it off as a normal one, but it really wasn’t. Scar lays on his bed, too tired to change and ends up falling asleep.

(Then there’s a time skip, but that should be saved for a whole different post)

that’s basically like a prologue I guess? Idk, I can turn this into a proper Ao3 chapter, and maybe have a whole fic for this

this whole thing was taken out of my doc, from the section labeled “CHAPTER PLANS” lololol