#but instead i don’t feel at home at college nor at my actual house

[ventismacchiato]

hoping u didn’t die cus u haven’t interacted in a while 🙏

(not saying u have to interact everyday i just wanna make sure ur doing ok!! rest up :3 )

nah i’m alive but i wish i wasn’t!!

[husbandhoshi]

title: what’s your number?

genre: fluff, light angst

pairing: vernon x gn!reader

wc: 6.1k

summary: this whole soulmate thing is supposed to be easy. unfortunately, fate has other plans for you. 

tags: soulmates!au (in which people find printed numbers on their skin, counting down to when they meet their soulmate), best friends to lovers, highschool!au, college!au, slow-ish burn, emotionally confused!reader, suggestive content 

being at this party, filled with people you neither like nor know, feels like staring straight into the sun, where you feel your eyes closing in on themselves but cannot bring yourself to look away. you sit in a ring in front of the television, the light from a midnight teen drama casting everyone's faces in neon and shadow. 

the girl next to you tugs the collar of her shirt to the side to reveal a delicate, neatly printed 493 on the ridge of her collarbone. "i can't believe i'm going to meet my soulmate in university. it's the perfect romance!" 

they all giggle, heady and pitchy. "i can't believe i have to wait like, two thousand days. i think i'd be dead by then." another reveals a 2003 on the back of his wrist. 

"hey, what about you?" 

all the heads turn to you, like dolls in a horror movie. 

your heart plummets, god, it feels like it tumbles right out of your body, bare for all of them to see.  

"uh, mine haven't shown up yet." the silence feels like it's pressing into your eardrums, punishing your honesty. "my mom says there are late bloomers for this kinda stuff so... i'm not worried."

instead, you're met with cruel twists of their lips. snarls from a wolf pack. 

"oh, i've never heard of that one before." 

"maybe yours is broken." 

"or maybe you don't have a soulmate."

you run out of the house in tears, watching the flames of the birthday candles, the glittery smiles, the printed numbers on their skin blur in and out of vision. 

__________________________________________

if you could describe vernon's car, you think you would start with how it sounds. the clanking of the engine as it turns over (she’s thinking, he would say, and you reply, only because she’s not sure she wants you to drive her.), the rasp of his speakers as he plugs in the frayed aux cord, your laughter, floaty and ephemeral. it's faded red, and it feels like home.

he props up his feet on the ratty dashboard. the trinkets he's hung on the rearview mirror jingle airily; you catch a glimpse of the faded little tree air freshener you bought for him three, maybe four years ago.

"shitty party." 

vernon's a man of little words, but you like that. he actually thinks before he talks, a rare commodity in your circles. you don't need to try to read him—he speaks, and you know his heart.

you can only slump back in your seat and reach for your milkshake. you're parked in front of your regular diner, facing the moon and the stars and sharing an order of fries (one of your favorite best friend traditions). he's in his big blue pajama hoodie, although when you called, he insisted that he was most definitely not asleep. 

"i don't understand why they had to be so mean. my mom's numbers showed up when she was 17, and a lot of people online haven't had theirs yet." he hears you sigh and turns his head ever so slightly to look at you, really look at you to let you know he's listening. "or maybe i just don't have a soulmate. what if there's an odd number of people in the world, and i'm just the unlucky one? it doesn't make sense." 

"mine haven't shown up either," vernon says, digging his hand in the bag to eat the fries at the bottom, because it feels like he's hogging them just a little less. "just gotta be patient, i guess. those guys wouldn't know a thing about that." 

vernon shrugs his right shoulder, just lifts it up a touch. he's inviting you to rest your head on it, which you gladly do.  

"i think you have my favorite shoulders in the world," you groan, and he smiles, because of course he does.

vernon's never cared about your numbers. it's almost like, when you're with him, you're in a different world, one without soulmates, without these dumb body calendars, without feeling like you're pressed up against a window outside, looking in.

sometimes you feel like you're somewhere out there, lost among the high-tide of unknowns and of things that vernon calls stupid, like whatever the hell mingi from literature is going to say about you fleeing the party. and sitting here, riding the rise and fall of his breathing, your cheek smushed against his shoulder, things feel a lot less complicated. things feel right.

inhale. you meet his eyes in the rearview mirror and he smiles at you. exhale.

"you know what? fuck soulmates!" you say this decisively, like you're marking your heart, your being with those words. 

"yeah. fuck soulmates!" 

you commemorate this with a hearty cheer (the dull clink of your styrofoam cups). your smiles are warm in the moonlight, and your heart feels a little something too, like the glow of a stoplight through a thick fog. 

__________________________________________

as the rose-colored hysteria of high school retreats far into memory, your sentiments remain the same. 

dinnertime conversations with passing acquaintances all somehow come back to the frustrating topic of those neatly inked prints on the side of a finger, the small of a back, the curve of an ankle. 

you've learned better than to indulge them in your missing numbers. "297, to be exact. on my hip." the lie now feels light on your tongue, a practiced dance. they always coo excitedly, speculating as to where and how you will meet this mystery person, as if they knew you. "but what really is the point of these numbers? i mean, do we really only have one soulmate?" and they always seem to not hear that part, instead choosing to pick at the cherry tomatoes in their dinner salads. 

your heart still feels a little in love with the idea, but you just haven't been dealt the right cards. not in this lifetime at least, you tell yourself. 

sometimes you draw in the numbers yourself, sharpie in your shaking hand, and watch the ink bleed black into the ridges of your skin. you know you'll see it weep in the shower, but you like how it makes you feel real. like you have a person, like you're like everyone else.

you miss vernon.

he's studying at a different university, a few thousand miles too far away from you. you miss your midnight talks in his car, sleeping over at his place, sneaking into movies at the local theater, sharing ice cream from the parlor. 

you talk often, but when his voice comes through the speakers, tinny and hollow, the miles between you two feel stretched, real.

("you'll call right?" you had asked. your voice is small, and the seconds before his reply feel long, taut, like they'll break. vernon's smile makes you want to cry, but you don't know why. "more times than you can pick up," he says. he doesn't say it like a promise, because promises can be broken. instead, he says it like it's the one true thing he knows, and your heart feels like it shatters into a million little pieces. you don't know why either.

"you're gonna get so fucking tired of me," he laughs, and you swear, never, ever, ever.)

"what, you kept that?" 

you see him lean towards the screen to look at you better, to really verify the blue hoodie in your laundry pile was the pajama blue hoodie he lent you and you never gave back. time stops for a breath; god, why is your heart squeezing like that?

and of course you kept it. wore it too, on the nights where you missed the way he smelled (fresh oranges, pine, fabric softener), the way he would press his hand against yours to make fun of the size difference, the way he smiled for you across a crowded room. 

life's a little different without vernon  — even your music doesn't sound as good as it did through the grain of his car speakers.

"well, you gave it to me!" you grin and hold it up. "you want it back? fly your dumb ass over here then." 

vernon smiles again, the big and wide kind that makes his cheeks round. "you know i'm too damn poor for that." 

a heavy i miss you hangs in the air, although neither of you can bring yourselves to say something that feels so precious. you keep it locked up in a little part of your brain, instead, letting the fragile, warm memories wash over you like they'll somehow bring him closer.

"come during winter break," you whine.

"i just might." vernon cards a hand through his hair and takes another swig of his energy drink (specifically, the light blue red bull). "who else is gonna call you idiot?" 

"the only thing i'll ever say you're good at." 

"aw, come on." he holds up his hands in protest. "now who basically took ap lang for you? or chauffeured you to mcdonalds literally every—"

"you only drove because i don't have a car!"

"no, you don't even have a license."

his sweet laugh bubbles through your speakers and fills the room with the feeling of sunshine, even though it's 2 in the morning and the nighttime is tucked behind its blanket of clouds. 

__________________________________________

the first time you did this, you swore you'd never do it again.

but here you are, sitting pretty as a picture at the party you're at, with an inked in 409 on the back of your thigh, just low enough for it to peek through the slit of your dress. you tell yourself it's an invitation—come, show me we don't have to be soulmates to feel something—but, really, it feels like armor against some wretched invisible voice telling you you're dying alone.

a year and some change until you meet your soulmate, so might as well have some fun, you tell junhui, a kind graduate student with beautiful eyes, and he smiles because he believes you.

you think his eyes are still beautiful when he tells you he doesn't think it's going to work out. "waiting for my person," he says as he runs a limber finger over the 88 on his wrist.

the following week, you're a neat 31, the script tucked below your rib for chan to find. "whoever you meet next month is a lucky man," he tells you, pressing you into the creased covers of his bed, smelling of downey and soju.

it's a compliment that digs into your skin. no, you're not going to meet someone next month because there isn't anyone on your roster, and all the allure of feeling wanted shatters in the face of that realization. temporary numbers for temporary feelings trying to replace a forever.

when he drops you off in front of your apartment complex that liminal time of night when the moon bleeds into the sky, you feel the hollowness in your chest somehow grow larger; you watch as his little car is sucked up into the grey horizon, like he's irrevocably stolen some part of you that you don't know is gone yet.

somehow, you feel even more profoundly like you don't have a soulmate.

somehow, you find yourself missing vernon again, against all odds.

__________________________________________

you're a 107 when vernon video calls you.

"i'm, uh, coming home for break," he says. you're taking off your makeup from the night's earlier excursion, where you went on what could possibly—no, undoubtedly—have been the worst date of your life. "we can hang out, right?" he asks into the void of silence as you shuck a muddy cotton pad into the bin.

"yes, please," you laugh. "i'm dying out here."

"you're beautiful, " seungcheol tells you. he has a 492 on his bicep, which he does not hesitate to display as he pushes up the sleeve to his white tee. the jaundiced light of the diner falls into his dimples, his collarbones, makes him look like he's glowing. he might just have been one of the hottest men you've ever met.

"hey, you look..." your eyes drift from the mirror to where your phone is propped up, admiring vernon's admittedly very cute thinking face.

"awful?" you ask, albeit rhetorically. it should be clear from your raccoon eyes, but he's never been one to pay too much attention to how much, or how often you beat your face. you'd always just been you to him, which made you feel all sorts of complicated ways. but above all, it made you feel comfortable, which is what you need the most at the moment.  

"no, uh..." vernon rubs the back of his neck, a familiar gesture that makes your chest feel like it's being stuffed with cotton, or maybe cement—you feel your stomach pressing, pressing, pressing into itself, like it's trying to make some abstract shape without your consent. "good?" he tilts his head and laughs as a replacement for words.

"flattering, considering i just went on a terrible date."

"not too shabby yourself," you tell seungcheol, watching his eyes crease up at the corners in a smile. you search your heart for that soaring feeling, that little catch in your chest you’re supposed to get when you're in love. you're so absorbed in denying the sheer emptiness you encounter instead that you miss seungcheol's next question, which he so graciously repeats. "do you believe in soulmates?"

"oh?" vernon looks shocked, so much so that it inexplicably breaks your heart a little.

"i'll tell you more when you come visit," you say, yanking off a falsie hard enough to smart. that's a lie, which you've gotten much better at telling without him around to see right through you. "much rather hear about your day."

he knows better than to pry when he shouldn't, so he acquiesces.

"dj'ed again at the radio session today," he starts. "played the playlist you made me, actually."

of course he's been thinking about you. the knowledge that you even exist to him when you're not around fills you with a certain amount of guilt. 

ever-present, ever-faithful vernon, and you. you, who feel like you're lost somewhere in the cracks, drifting, drifting, until he tugs your kite string back to earth.

"i'm not really into the soulmates thing," you reply. "that's kind of why i'm here." you meet seungcheol’s gaze, unwavering, fascinated by your honesty. "me neither," he tells you. his lopsided smile disappears under the lip of his beer glass. "this may be kind of stupid, but i want to get to know you better." "okay," you say.

you look at your phone screen again. vernon's little face, illuminated by the light of his phone (his roommate is asleep, unlike yours, who knows no concept of time), grins back at you. it's an excuse to study him, trace the lines of his smile, see how they disappear into his handsome jawline.

"why are you looking at me like that?" vernon laughs again, and it makes you feel funny. "it's a compliment! i was saying my good taste in music must have rubbed off on you."

"sorry, i just..." for once, the words feel like they've been ripped out from under you. "just wanted to look at you." you settle on the truth, which feels so easy when you're with him.

the silence is pulled thin again. you count the seconds as they bite into the immeasurable space between you.

this is one of the few times vernon's expression is unreadable, his eyes shiny caramel pools in the glow of his phone as they avert from your gaze.  

"what was so bad about the date?" he asks. "just curious."

"nothing, i—" you chew your lip. "i dunno. he was too perfect, maybe that was it."

and that's exactly why the date was so terrible. seungcheol was perfect, and yet you felt as if you were chasing a wall. searching those puppy dog eyes for an answer he couldn't possibly give you, no matter how much he wanted to.

later, you're watching vernon drift off to sleep on facetime, honey hair falling into his eyes like a habit, when your heart takes the worst fucking plunge of your life.

fuck. fuck.  

you notice the tiny little numbers on your collarbone that you had so carefully, stupidly inked in, in remembrance of that terrible party you went to years ago. they melt onto the cotton pad like they always do, except this time it matters, it fucking matters that vernon's probably thinking your numbers waltzed in one day and you just didn't tell him.

it matters that he thinks you have a soulmate now, and that soulmate isn't him.

and for the life of you, you can't figure out why the hell that makes you so upset.

i just don't fucking want him to leave me behind, you tell yourself. and right now, you don't know what the hell a soulmate is supposed to be, but vernon's the damn closest thing you have to one, and you might have just lost him.

__________________________________________

it's the most unfortunate thing to happen, you think, your back to the mirror as your roommate tries to position another mirror within your line of vision. 

you were studying, and you had reached back to tie your hair up when your roommate had unleashed the most unsightly gasp. 

"fuck, your numbers!" 

and there they are, you now see, in the shaky reflection of your roommate's makeup compact. 

a neat, round, zero. 

"zero. you have got to be kidding me. all my life and i've waited for a freaking zero." you don't know whether to laugh or to cry at the irony of it all. you don't even feel real right now. "so maybe i am fucking broken after all." 

the beat your roommate takes to think is so palpable, it might as well have grown legs and started talking.  

"maybe it popped up a little while ago. and since it's in a place impossible for you to notice, you wouldn't have known. and then the countdown just ran out." 

"so you're saying i have no idea when i met my soulmate." 

your roommate frowns. "maybe someone within the past few days. i don't know." then a sigh and a shake of her head. "you always told me you thought this whole thing was stupid anyway." 

you bite your lip. yeah, it was stupid because it didn't work. and now it feels all the more stupid that you still get fucked over, even if it just so happened that you weren't actually defective.

"what if your number was always zero because you had already met your soulmate? like it appeared late, and when it appeared it was already zero?" 

"then what's the point?!" you bury your head in your hands.

a reel of faces flashes through your memory. the beautiful girl on the subway. seokmin from psychology. the waiter who served you lunch at the cafe last week. seungcheol.

and then you think about vernon. what his numbers are, if he even has any.

and you think about that little part of you that so desperately wants him to be your number.

"look on the bright side! anyone with a 0 could potentially be your person! and i bet every one of them is eager to meet their match." 

"i don't wanna talk about it." 

you roll over and cover your head with a pillow, memories of you and vernon's fuck soulmates! stuck on a slow, sick repeat in your head.

__________________________________________

you don't think there's a better place in the world than curled up next to vernon on the ratty, naked queen sized mattress he has in his parents' basement (the two of you outgrew the twin in his bedroom).

the walls are plastered with second-skin band posters, pearly with the cast of the summertime moonlight. the sunshine yellow of the nirvana logo peeks out from behind the setlist from a blink-182 concert; the crt tv in the corner is playing a late-night sitcom, the fuzzy audio a low drone beneath vernon's quiet humming.

you're lying on your side, making some headway through a book his mom had gifted you for your birthday two years ago—or at least, trying to. instead, you're dancing somewhere on the periphery of wakefulness and a lovely dream. vernon is reading too, propped up on his elbow so he can see over your shoulder, although you suspect he's not absorbing much either, given you've been on the same page the entire commercial break.

"tired?" he asks, although it's more of an acknowledgement. a warm, familiar hand runs down the column of your spine. you roll over to look at him, sleep-dazed, hair fanning out around you like a halo. when your eyes catch, it melts you; the treble of the crickets quiets, and you feel you're so close to him, your hearts blur together.

he smiles at you, and you feel dizzy.

that was the summer you almost said you loved him.

but you didn't know what it meant yet. a part of you thought that if you said it aloud, the words would shrivel up and die because you didn't say it the right way, with the conviction that someone like vernon deserved.

today, he had texted you that he was going on a date with a girl from music theory.

what should i wear? he had asked, and this stupid question set you off and ruined the rest of your day.

and now the words you never said—i love you, i love you, i love you—swell in your head, taunting, fading. you're reaching for something now just barely out of grasp, two seconds too late.

it wasn't even fair of you to call seungcheol back, but you did. and now, you're here, reading the airbag warning on the visor in his camry, trying to find something to talk about for the 5 minutes it takes him to drive to his frat house.

you think, maybe, just maybe, if you kiss him hard enough, you'll fall in love with him. and just maybe, when you wake up in his bed tomorrow morning, it won't have mattered what his or your numbers are. he'll push up the sleeve on his tee again, and that 492 would have become a 0 because he'll be your soulmate, and then you can stop worrying about whoever the fuck vernon is busy falling in love with.

__________________________________________

the coffee shop is crowded in december, flooded with overdressed tourists in christmas scarves and couples defrosting in the booths tucked in the back. 

it's become a bad habit of yours, reading the sad forums on "looking for my number 0". it's a craigslist of missed encounters, of sad, desperate zero-holders to possibly reconnect with that passing face, the soft eyes that perhaps held their entire future. you've never posted, but it gives you a solace of sorts knowing that other people are in the same boat as you. 

“misery loves company,” you had told your roommate, who then proceeded to berate you for deleting seungcheol's number.

against her honest advice, it was easy. is the shitty date club accepting new members? vernon had texted you, and it was all you needed (honestly, more than enough) to hit that red button and be released.

suddenly, a pair of mittens comes crashing down on your head. "get off tinder, dummy." 

your brief indigence gives way to something that can only be described as falling in love. because there stands vernon chwe, cheeks blushed pink with warmth and glowing smile stretched from ear to ear. you fall into his arms like the best kind of habit; amongst everything going wrong around you, this one thing feels right.

again, you're pulled into the moment where you're two summers younger, where numbers don't matter. you feel stupid for ever doubting him, for ever trying to replicate what you had here, with him, because you honestly couldn't dare to imagine it with anyone else.

“i missed you,” he whispers into the crook of your shoulder, where both you and he know you have absolutely no chance at seeing his face. 

“i missed you too.” 

the both of you pull away more reluctantly than you’d like to admit. there’s a buzzing, whirring in your chest like something's coming to life again.

you both take your usual seats at the little table in the corner, next to the frosted window dotted with fresh snow. 

“your voice sounds better on the phone,” you joke, but, god, it’s the biggest lie you think you’ve ever told. you hate the electricity running through your veins; he sounds like home, like your favorite songs, the grit of his truck radio, the muffled beating under his hoodie. 

“you’re insufferable.” he does that thing where he leans back in his chair and ruffles the hair on the back of his head. “is that the only thing you have to say to me?” he’s light, floaty, with laughter.

“you first.” 

“okay, well. working at the studio has been amazing. i got an offer to write the lyrics to a song—and my evil boss happened to love it.” he fishes a pair of earbuds out from his coat pocket.

"you didn't tell me!"

"wanted it to be a surprise." his crooked smile has always been cute, but this time, it makes you feel like you're on the brink of exploding. "yes, there were a lot of late nights—” 

“you made sure i got an earful about those.” 

“yes, because, fuck, those were rough. picture this—you're mcing a radio show, at midnight. the booth smells like the floor of a frat house superbowl weekend, you’re running off ramen and piss-warm red bull, and someone's trying to phone in and ask if they should drop their chemistry class.” 

you love seeing him like this, all lit up with the energy he has when he’s in love. 

"the answer is always yes, you know."

he meets your eyes for a split second, then his gaze falls back to his latte. “wish you were there. who else would entertain me at 4 am? i’ve lost my touch.” he says this half-dunked in a chuckle, but there’s a hint of sincerity in it that makes you feel as if you’re on a rocking boat.

something feels different, like both of you are holding back or something, like there are a million unsaid words floating in the air and no one can seem to pull them out quite right. you've been rehearsing a half-baked speech in your head, but all you can come up with is (1) you might possibly be the worst friend in the world and (2) fuck soulmates, unless their name is vernon. 

“shut up.” you finally notice you’re smiling, that you’ve been smiling, that your cheeks hurt from doing it so much. “now what about your song? i wanna hear it.” 

“you gotta tell me about you first.” 

and you know he's not talking about all of the fluff about your final exams, your roommate's lying, cheating boyfriend, or how you fell down a flight of stairs trying to text him a picture of mating squirrels because he's heard it all already.

you know he's wondering about the script on your collarbones, the mythical numbers that he saw that tuesday night that you conveniently never mentioned again.

“well, uh…m-my soulmate numbers finally showed up.” it comes out stilted, afraid, because you're scared of where the conversation will go. if it'll wander to the topic of his numbers, but whether they're ten or five thousand, you just don’t want to know about that lucky person he’ll spend his life with.

it doesn’t seem right, the two of you existing separately.

"yeah, i saw, but i didn't want to ask," he says. the words come out so easily, you wonder if they mean anything at all. "looked... looked like kind of a big number, though."

"well, uh..." you pick at your napkin, tearing it into neat, straight shreds. it bothers you that vernon doesn't have to look at your hands to know what you're doing, that he knows you so well, and yet what you're about to say might make him know you a little less.

"you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

"no, i—" you pause mid-rip. "those numbers weren't real. i drew them on for a date." and then you place another gauzy strip of paper in the neat pile by your mug.

this is one of the few times in your life where you can see vernon take a visible pause, brows furrowing together as he tries to process what the fuck you just said.

"i just wanted to feel normal," you start to blabber. it feels like with every piece you tear, you're laying your innermost thoughts out to dry, bare for vernon to see. the embarrassing word vomit comes out like water from a broken faucet—slowly, then all at once. "i wanted someone to want me, to feel normal. i don't know why, i — "

"hey, it's ok." the breath you've been holding in feels heavy as it oozes out of your lungs. "but why didn't you tell me?"

"it's because they weren't real. just some stupid thing i was doing for attention." you place the final napkin shred in the pile. "but—my real ones did show up. a few days ago."

vernon raises an sharp eyebrow. "well," he says expectantly, and all of a sudden it feels like you're stripped naked in front of him. you turn your back to him and begin to draw up your hair, and he follows suit, gathering all the loose strands and holding it in a loose ponytail so you can fix the collar of your shirt.  

it's an easy gesture for him; it comes naturally—it's not like he's never touched your hair before, but for some reason the whole ordeal makes you want to throw up. and then he runs a finger over the number, touch deliberate and reverent, like he's afraid it might disappear, and you're two seconds away from digging your own grave.

luckily, he breaks the silence, first with a warm chuckle.

"zero, huh?" and then the warm, playful lilt of his voice.

you turn back around in your seat to face him, and the air feels weightless; he's searching your eyes for something, but you can't tell what.

"guess you were right about this whole thing being stupid," vernon continues, saying something along the lines of no idea who it could be then, and even maybe it was that awful date you went on, something that's supposed to make you laugh but instead twists in your stomach like an awful curse.

"yeah, fuck soulmates, am i right?"

you wait for him to say something funny in return, but he doesn’t end up saying anything. 

“lemme hear your lyrics,” you finally say, and he snaps out of his thoughts to plug in his earbuds. 

“right. i think you’ll really like it." he has this nervous tic where he stretches out his words when he's unsure, much like he did years ago when you told him you actually read the shit he was writing in the margins of his notebooks, yeah it's really fucking good, and all the blood rushed to his cheeks.

"of course i will," you say. he looks up from his phone with a million stars in his eyes, and you say it again.

the song starts. it’s a number sang by a girl with a voice like fairies, about the kind of love that feels like sticking your head out of the car window on the highway by the ocean, like holding hands for the first time, like coming home. it’s lonely but it's not, and you can’t help but be surprised by how lovesick it sounds. 

what’s even more surprising is that it came out of vernon's head, the stupid, awkward kid who used to do flips on the monkey bars and eat dry cereal out of the bag for dinner. and that horrible feeling creeps into your heart again, stills your breathing—that kid is now an adult, sitting less than a meter away and looking at you with a certain softness.

what if it's been us all along?

“it’s beautiful. who would’ve known such poetry could come out of that coconut head of yours?” 

he colors rose pink. “hey, now.” 

“i’m kidding, you know i'm kidding, but it's really fucking good, and—"

reveling in your praise, he takes his phone off the table, jacket sleeve falling down his arm towards his elbow. 

and if you hadn’t been paying attention, you would’ve missed the tiny, jet-black 0  on the side of his forearm. it looks like a birthmark, and honestly, if you weren't so good at faking your numbers, you would have thought it was one.

“vernon, wait!”

a thousand scenarios play through your head. it feels like you're tumbling somewhere, maybe floating, maybe even sinking.

“what, you wanna listen again?” he grins. “it’s not that great.” 

“you—you have a zero. like me.” 

vernon opens his mouth and then closes it again, obviously looking for the right thing to say. 

“did you just not want to tell me?” 

“no, no, no. it’s—” he pauses again. 

it’s quiet again. the ambient noise fades in and out, the idle chatter and the jingling of bells and the thready cafe music. 

“i didn’t want to tell you because—” the words trickle out of him; they just scatter into the air, and they're so quiet, you think you might lose them. “i was afraid it wouldn’t be me.”

“w—” 

it feels like the world has stopped, except for yours, which is spinning on the axis that is vernon chwe. 

“from the day that i met you, my numbers were zero.” he bites his lip, but he knows he can’t stop. “i just...i just wanted to fall in love with you no matter what. no matter what my numbers, or your numbers, said. when i walked into that classroom for the first time, it could’ve been any of them. but i wanted it to be you.” 

you feel all the strings binding up your heart unravel all at once, like a great big gasp.

you really want to say something. anything. that you’ve always thought this whole soulmate thing was stupid because it’s always been him. him, him, him. 

that you didn't know how, or why, or when your numbers came up, but it might have had something to do with that night, the last night you had ever faked your numbers, the night they bled from your neck and you cried because you realized you might just be in love with your best friend.

the words feel trapped. you chose him, and he chose you. how the hell did you manage to make it so complicated?

you know your now three-fourths baked speech is not only very bad, but also a near impossible feat at this point, so instead you make do with the limited vocabulary you're capable of. 

“i can't fucking believe it, but i think i'm in love with you.”

and you lean across the booth to kiss him, all sugar and mocha, the heat from your cheeks and the cool of winter, the soft press of his lips and the feel of his skin on yours. 

"can i get a redo?" he murmurs somewhere in the space between, and, god, you've never said yes faster. the way his smile fits against yours, oh, you know he's thinking something dumb about wanting to kiss you the right way, but it can't possibly be better than this.

you finally pull away, feeling all honey-sticky with love. is it normal to want to kiss him again?

"maybe i should stick with the poetry," vernon says, guilelessly, as if he just didn't ask for a redo like you were both back in 5th grade.

unfortunately, neither of you are really great at the self-control thing.

“vernon chwe—” 

kiss.

“fuck—” 

kiss. 

“you.” 

kiss.

you feel heady, love-drunk, like you are five million feet in the air. 

“i love when you say that, you know.” he grins. "fuck soulmates, you said? you mean me?"

and maybe this whole soulmate thing isn't so bad after all.

[restapesta]

23. Don’t you get it? You’re the only one I can be honest with.

Mickey takes being alone with Ian for granted. He really does.

It's quite sad he only realizes that when he's not alone with his ginger life companion—specifically when he's stuck in a moving car with him and fucking Phillip, feeling like a pussy for not having the guts to just open the door and jump out.

Did Ian put child's lock on his door, what the fuck?

He can't do this. It's a fifteen-minute ride to the Gallagher house and Mickey won't be able to survive it. No fucking way. Why did Ian have to say yes to picking Lip up from work? Did he know what hell he would be putting his poor husband through, huh?

If college bitch says something about his shitty delivery job one more time, he swears to God—

"And you know what the best part about this shitty delivery job is?" No. Please, God, make him stop. "Bathroom? Doesn't even fucking exist,"

If Mickey had a gun, he'd stuff it in his mouth.

From the corner of his eye, Mickey sees Ian's gripping the wheel slightly tighter, his knuckles turning white, his tongue bitten between his slightly clenched teeth. Sadly, only Mickey can see him be so frustrated from the passenger seat. He wishes Lip would lean over from the back and see how fucking annoying he really is with his constant babbling.

Maybe it's good he didn't bring a gun with him—Ian looks like he'd wanna stuff it in his mouth, too.

Does he have child's lock on?

"Anyways," Lip breathes out and Mickey focuses on the buzzing of the AC so he wouldn't have to endure the brainwashing his brother-in-law's—why him?—voice is doing.

Ian seems to be thinking the same thing, his eyes rolling discreetly to the back of his head, staying there for a moment or two.

Mickey's torn between telling him to keep his eyes on the goddamn road or just letting him crash their new car into a pole. At least then they wouldn't have to listen to the yapping that's filling every nook and cranny of the fresh interior.

Their car had never seemed so small. Since when is Mickey so claustrophobic? There used to be so much room.

Oh right, Lip's ego is taking up most of it. How could Mickey forget?

"Oh, yeah," He says suddenly, and Ian and Mickey share a look. What now? Will he ever stop? "I meant to ask you about your meds, Ian. You told me you were visiting your doctor or some shit like that."

Mickey reclines back in his seat, lips pursing as he waits for Ian to fill Lip in on the new prescription and its side effects, and whatever other shit Mickey's already got written down in the notes on his phone from when Ian told him in detail about it.

He had been pretty down when he came home from seeing his doctors, listing off all of the shit he was worried about with the new therapy and adjusting to it. He even had a couple of sleepless nights that resulted in him seeking out different pharmacies to buy sleeping pills, which ultimately led to a night of sleepless vomiting because the cocktail of pills didn't really bode well for Ian's stomach.

Mickey doesn't mind reliving it. Doesn't mind listening to his husband talk about the things important to him and things that Mickey should know about.

And, truthfully, Mickey's already come face to face with the fact that he likes knowing about all of Ian's shit—they're already living, sleeping, and working together, so the prospect of knowing that new meds give Ian diarrhea if they're taken on an empty stomach doesn't really seem like a TMI-type of thing to know.

When Ian's related, nothing and everything is pretty much TMI.

"Oh," Ian responds after a moment of silence. His eyes aren't focused when Mickey turns to look at him. It seems as if he's racking his brain around for the proper words, yet can't seem to find them. Eventually, he just lets out, "Everything's the same. Nothing new."

Mickey knows that's not true.

"Didn't you say you were being put on some new shit?" Lip's confused. Mickey is too.

Ian was put on new shit. Shit that landed him with a week of goddamn exhaustion and a fucked-up stomach.

"No. It's the same."

"Oh," Lip mutters. "Okay then."

And he continues to go into another monologue about why being a delivery boy is such a shitty job to have with a mind of his.

Mickey stares at Ian's side profile for as long as it takes him to turn around and meet his eye. It takes him long—in fact, Mickey's pretty sure Ian won't be turning around any time soon.

Why would he lie? Why would he hide the fact he did change his meds when it's really not that big of a deal?

Mickey's even more confused by it because Ian had ranted about his doctor's appointment the day of it, nearly talking Mickey's ear off. He had been annoyed, relieved, and worried, all at the same time, and the entire Tuesday was just spent with them talking about bipolar like the mundane thing it was.

So, why wouldn't Ian just want to retell that shit again? It wasn't as if he didn't still have frustrations over it. Not like he wouldn't fucking jump on the chance to talk about his biggest concerns the second the opportunity presented itself.

Why then?

Lip's still talking and Ian's still not looking at him.

Mickey places a gentle hand on his thigh, trying to get his attention. In response to Mickey's thumb running over his husband's jeans, Ian just places a hand on top of his, picking it up and raising it to his mouth until the rough skin meets the smoothness of his lips. When he finally looks at him, there's a plead in his eye. An answer to Mickey's unasked question.

Later.

"Ugh, can you guys not do that here? Since when did you become that couple?"

They both ignore the dumbass in the backseat of their car. Ian turns to look ahead, and he pushes his foot down visibly on the gas pedal, and Mickey knows that the time until they're able to drop Lip off is cutting shorter.

"You guys are really annoying with that mind-reading shit, you know that?"

Mickey breathes in deeply.

Five more minutes. Just five more minutes and they'll be alone.

Ian's hand doesn't disentangle from his, but Mickey does move them so they're laying on top of his leg, palms pressed tightly together. He squeezes at it once.

Ian squeezes back.

There's a faint mumble from the back.

"I fucking hate being the third wheel."

Mickey barely stops himself from jumping into Ian's lap, just in spite.

Instead, with his free hand, he just flips him off.

---

They're driving to their place when Mickey finally asks the question. They've been alone for a couple of minutes now, after a prolonged—much to both their dismays—goodbye to Lip in front of the Gallagher house. As soon as it was appropriate to, Ian peeled out of the driveway, putting as much distance between him and his family—his annoying-ass brother—as he possibly could in a record time.

At first, Mickey fiddled with the radio until he landed on some radio station that played pop-shit music, lowering the volume until the Taylor Swift song—he hates that he knows it—was just a hum filling the silence. Ian isn't speaking, but he doesn't seem tense.

He seems just as always, shoulders even further relaxed—slumped, actually, because he has the posture of a question mark—now that Lip is out of the car and in the hands of the others to deal with.

"So," Mickey starts casually when his weirdo of a partner starts singing lowly to Lover on the radio. It's a song they only listen to when they're feeling sappier than usual, but Ian tends to always be sappy, so none of this sweet singing shit was a surprise for Mickey. The lyrics coming out of Ian's mouth still make his chest swell pleasantly, despite him barely holding himself back from rolling his eyes. "What was that?"

"Hm?" Ian's eyes momentarily move to eye Mickey. They go back almost immediately. "What was what?"

"What was that thing with Lip?" The question isn't meant to be judgmental nor accusing. Mickey really is just curious.

It wasn't him whom Ian had lied to. But why did he lie in the first place?

Ian shrugs, lowering the volume with the switch on the wheel even further until they can barely hear the soft voice.

"I just didn't feel like telling him." Is the simple reply.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Ian."

"Mickey—"

"Come on, man, don't give me that bullshit."

"I'm not—I don't," He exhales roughly as if finally forcing himself to admit to something he doesn't want to admit to. "I don't like anybody knowing about it. It's nobody's business but my own."

Mickey makes a face, still confused as fuck. He gets the reasoning behind the words, but it's just not clicking in his brain. Maybe Lip really did brainwash it. "You say you don't like anybody knowing, but you told me."

Ian glances away from the road and sends Mickey the type of look that says he thinks what Mickey just said was the dumbest thing possible. It's incredulous.

"You're not anybody, Mick."

And that's sweet and all, but—

"Lip's not anybody either."

Ian sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, dramatically exasperated. "Don't you get it, Mickey? You're the only one I can be honest with. Completely transparent."

Mickey doesn't know why he's still pushing, but fuck, there's no way. "You can be transparent with Lip. He'll hear you out, give you advice. Won't judge you." Why is he defending Lip again? "I'm not the only one who understands."

"Yeah, but you're the only one who isn't annoying about it. If I wanted Lip to know, I would've called him straight away. But instead, I talked to you. Mickey, you're a dumbass if you don't see that you're the only one I want to tell."

Well fuck.

Mickey blinks. He actually is a dumbass, but that's already been genetically proven. This is something else.

Mickey feels Ian's words deep in his chest. His heart jumps to his throat—it's one of the best things Ian could've said to him. It doesn't feel fucking real.

"Really?" He asks pathetically. It's not like Ian would lie; he's always had a knack for saying everything that's on his mind. Mickey loves that about him right now. It's just that—Mickey? He wants to tell Mickey about it and nobody else?

Ian smiles at him. "Really, babe," Mickey blushes as the nickname. "You know just how many questions to ask. When to listen and when to talk. When to give me advice and when to tell me to get out of my own head." Ian's eyebrows furrow. "Lip doesn't know how to do that. Not like you—"

No. Mickey will not cry. No. It's just eyeball sweat.

"—With you, I know that I can say whatever is on my mind and won't feel like shit about it. It's fucking liberating, having somebody like that."

Mickey breathes in deeply. Fuck Ian for using his words like this and making his heart squeeze impossibly. Why is he so fucking perfect all the fucking time?

How did Mickey get so fucking lucky?

"Yeah," He responds dumbly, out of breath—because it legit is logged up in his throat at the moment. He clears it. "I guess that's what best friends are for."

And the grin Ian sends him in response to the sheepishly-said sentence is enough to make butterflies explode inside Mickey's belly—ugh, no, he's supposed to be past that stage, for fuck's sake.

Ian's still grinning as Mickey's whole face probably turns the shade of Ian's favorite vegetable—maybe that's why Ian likes it when Mickey blushes—and he has to avert his gaze so he doesn't go even redder than Ian's hair.

"Best friends? I feel honored, Mick."

"Shut up."

"No, for real."

"Shut up."

Ian laughs and spares Mickey the embarrassment by raising the volume up on the radio, the song now booming loudly through the space.

Ian glances over at Mickey right as he starts singing it joyfully, a wide smile on his face. This is the Ian Mickey knows and loves—happy Ian.

Mickey's favorite Ian after the horny one.

Mickey's chest swells with pride. He ended up with Ian. The Ian who loves him unconditionally; who knows just the right to say and when to say it; who just told him Mickey's the only one he can be real with.

I can only be honest with you, too. He wants to tell him. I only am honest with you.

Instead of saying the words, he starts singing himself, and the screeching voices of two men stupidly in love are seeping out of the slightly opened windows, the wind whooshing them away.

I can only do this with you, Mickey thinks. I'm only this free with you.

Judging by the way Ian's smiling, Mickey guesses he's thinking the same thing, too.

"Darling, you're my, my, my, my lover."

[sundaysundaes]

Drunk Antics

Mark Lee X Reader, ft. Johnny | Smut, Fluff | 5.8k | College AU

Summary: After being caught having sex with your previously virgin boyfriend, you thought Mark and your brother Johnny would never get along. That is until your boy comes back to your room in the drunkest state he’s ever been after a short trip to the bar with his Johnny-hyung, asking you to try new tricks he’s learned from the Master of Sex.

Sort of a continuation from Our First Time but can be read separately.

Warnings: Smut, oral sex, drunk unprotected sex. For the sake of the very little plot there is, Mark is intoxicated in this fic so his consent may be unclear. Please don’t read this fic if this makes you feel uncomfortable. I also don’t approve nor allow taking advantage of your romantic partner while they are under the influence of alcohol.

“You forgot that you borrowed his AirPods?!” Your boyfriend is shrieking in whispers, doe eyes shaking in fear and horror as he kneels on your bed, trying to shamelessly hog every inch of your blanket to cover his body.

Mark is so drowning in panic that he doesn’t even notice that you, in fact, are still naked. “I was going to use them before to work on my assignment,” you try to reason, “but then you came so I kind of forgot about them.”

“Kind of?!” He screeches. “I agreed to have sex with you because I thought you were sure that he had his AirPods on!”

You stare at him flatly. “You’re making me feel like I just took advantage of you.”

“I am feeling like you just took advantage of me!”

“You just lost your virginity, I think you have to thank me instead.”

“Babe,” Mark grabs both of your shoulders, staring with wide eyes as if there’s a ghost lurking behind your back but he’s trying his best to calm you down (though he’s pretty much shitting his own pants). “You should’ve remembered that you took his AirPods. He heard us.”

“Mark,” you imitate his tone mockingly, taking a hold of his shoulders in the same manner. “It would’ve been super weird if I thought about my brother when I have my hot boyfriend rubbing his dick against my ass.”

Distracted, a sheepish smile forms on his face. “You think I’m hot?” But he shakes himself awake on the next second, going back to yanking out his hair with both hands. “No, wait—what am I going to do—your brother heard us having sex—I can’t—”

“I heard my brother having sex all the time.” You shrug nonchalantly. “Sometimes even when he’s alone in his room, which is gross.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT—”

“Guys?” Johnny’s knocks on the door are becoming more impatient. “I swear to God, if you two go back to sucking each other off, I’m going to throw Mark under the bus and run him over myself.“

Mark’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Did you hear that?!”

You roll your eyes in response, reaching out to the table beside your bed and snatch Johnny’s AirPods from inside the drawer. “Here,” you hand it over to Mark.

Your boyfriend reacts as if you just handed him a bowl of hot lava and he fumbles with his hands, shoving the AirPods back to you with so much horror in his eyes. “Why are you giving me this—no—no—”

“Mark, honey.” You gently smile, pushing the thing back in the most motherly way you can manage. “I’m covered in cum—your cum, in case you forgot—and you’re hogging all the blanket—“

“No—”

“Also, I’m sweaty and gross. Can you please be a man for once and let me take my shower? You can still join me afterward.”

“Babe!” You can tell he’s about to throw up out of fear but he’s just so cute, you can’t help but keep teasing him about it. “This is not fair—he’s going to kill me! And what do you mean ‘for once’, am I—“

“Okay, guys, any day now.” Your brother, Johnny, calls again from the other side of the door. “If one of you don’t come out and hand me back my AirPods in the next ten seconds, I am literally going to call the police.”

Mark nearly jumps out of his own skin. “What?!”

“Oh, shut up, Johnny,” you shout back, mouthing calming words to your boyfriend who looks like he’s seconds away from fainting. “You’re not going to do that and we both know it!”

“But I am going to call our Mom.”

“That he might do,” you say, wincing a little at Mark. “Okay, I’m going to take a shower.” You lean forward to give him a peck on his cheek. “Good luck, babe.” And you sprint off to the bathroom inside your room, all while holding out your best not to cackle loudly.

“Where are you going—Baby, get back here!” You can hear Mark protesting in whispers, but you just send him flying kisses and a wink, and shut the bathroom door behind you.

Mark’s soul is leaving his body, he can feel it. And that’s okay, because Johnny is going to kill him anyway. But when the older man really starts to count to ten, Mark jumps out of the bed, tripping approximately three times as he tries his best to dress himself back in his own clothes while muttering the words “shit” and “fuck” repetitively under his breath.

When he’s sure he looks less fucked than before, Mark opens the door, breathing hard as if he just did the worst workout in his life.

“H-hey,” Mark starts, attempting to throw his best look-at-me-I’m-a-good-boy-who-did-not-just-fuck-your-sister-when-you-were-around smile at the other man. “How’s it going, man?” His voice breaks in the middle of his line and he winces as he tries to calculate the least painful death options he can commit.

Johnny unenthusiastically gazes back at him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m… smiling at you?”

“Don’t. You look like a serial killer.”

“S-sorry, I’m—“ Mark’s eyes start searching everywhere but Johnny’s eyes as he feels his own feet turning into jelly. “I guess I’m nervous.”

“Nervous? Why?” Johnny places his hands inside the pocket of his jeans, looking way too intimidating for your boyfriend to handle. “Because you just had sex with my sister while I’m in the house?”

Mark’s jaw is almost dislocating from his face from how wide he opens his mouth. “I—I, umm���“ He clears his throat, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead. “S-so, you really heard us, huh?” He tries to laugh it off, which he soon regrets from the way Johnny’s eyes are throwing daggers at him.

“Yeah, well,” Johnny shrugs, “My ears don’t have on-and-off buttons that I can switch whenever I want. I used to have my AirPods to do that job, but she borrowed them to help her concentrate while doing her assignment.” He gives out a sly grin, almost mockingly. “Little did I know that her assignment was you.”

If he didn’t feel like dying before, Mark is sure as hell feeling it now. “I’m so sorry—I swear, she told me you had them—I also thought you were downstairs—“

“Yeah, I do go upstairs from time to time, you know, ‘cause my room is over there,” he dully replies, nudging his head to the end of the corridor, where his room is located next to yours.

Mark’s entire body shudders in horror. “Dude, I didn’t know—I thought that was a storage room—oh God—”

“Don’t call me dude. I’m not your dude.”

“Fuck—sorry, you’re right—I’m—“ He’s hyperventilating by this point. “Is there any place in this house where I can kill myself?”

“You can try jumping off my balcony,” Johnny answers in the most casual way that Mark begins to question whether he’s really being serious about it.

“G-great, I’ll put that in my options,” is all Mark has to say. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing, bud.” Johnny yawns, offering one hand to the other man which Mark stupidly enough stares in confusion before he takes a hold of it and gives it a sweaty handshake. Johnny switches his gaze from Mark’s face to their hands before he brings back to stare at him straight in the eyes and says, “My AirPods, you idiot.”

“FUCK—“ Mark is so embarrassed that he stumbles on his feet, knocks the side of his head against the door frame, and does a silent scream when the pain jolts to his entire body.

“Man, I wish I had my phone ready to record all of that,” Johnny comments.

Mark is too much in pain to recognize his mumbling. He fumbles with the AirPods in his hand, shoving them to Johnny’s chest. “Shit, I don’t know why I thought you wanted a handshake—here—oh my God—I’m so sorry—“

Even Johnny seems a little bit amused at his antics by this point. “Thanks,” he says, tucking the AirPods inside the pocket of his jeans. “You have some time to spare?”

Mark gulps. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Not until the end of the day.” Johnny says, and Mark laughs a little bit too loud and a little bit too hard and by the way Johnny smiles, he still can’t tell whether he’s joking or not. “Come on, let’s go have a drink.”

“Umm I-I don’t think I should—“

“Not a request, Mark.”

“Yes sir, on my way!” And he knocks himself once again against the door frame as he rushes forward to follow his steps.

“Also, Mark?”

“Yes?”

“Your shirt’s inside out.”

***

“Mark?” Your voice is answered by the silence of your room. You’re feeling a little bit dizzy from the hot shower you just took. You took a bit long in the bathroom, waiting for Mark to come and join you with a cute pout on his lips and tears in his eyes (that’s how you imagined him to be anyway) but your boyfriend, it turns out, was not even in your room. You put on your clothes—a knitted navy blue sweater with sleeves a little bit too long for your arms and a simple pair of jeans—and head downstairs, searching your house but nobody comes to answer. Sighing, you go back to your room and try to call his cellphone but immediately feel disappointed when his ringtone comes from under the bed.

“Great, he forgot his cellphone,” you mutter to yourself, picking his phone up and throws it on the bed. “Did he really run home without telling me?” The image of Mark panicking and running away from your house like his life depends on it sure does look like it’s something he does out of shame. But judging by how great your previous sex activity was, you figure that he’s probably going to go back to you sooner or later. He also has his phone to retrieve anyway.

So it’s time for you to actually get some work done. There’s no other reason for you to run away from your goddamn thesis and the day is getting late. After having some ramyun for dinner, you finally begin working on your assignment.

It’s hard to start, but a few minutes after you get your head to it, you start losing track of time. You’re finally done with your work (most of it anyway), already closing your laptop and place it back on your backpack, when your door abruptly swings open, showing your boyfriend’s face with the biggest grin on his face.

“Baby, I’m home,” he says in a sing-song voice, a bit slurry and a little high pitched. Before you can say anything—too busy trying to figure out how high he is judging from the dopey look on his face—Mark is giggling and walks closer to you. “You know,” he says, placing a hand on your desk and leaning close enough for you to know that he reeks of alcohol. “I just had the greatest day of my life today. And it’s all because. of. you.” He pokes your nose repetitively between every word.

“Mark—“

“Are you hungry? I’m hungry. Do you want some pancakes, because man, I’d love some pancakes—“

“What, are you drunk?” The answer is obvious but you ask anyway.

“No, I’m Mark.” He grins, chuckling at his lousy joke.

“You are so drunk.”

“And you,” he snickers, pinching one of your cheeks, “are so cute~”

You swat his hand away. “Where have you been?”

“I went to a bar with your brother,” he giggles again, playfully massaging your shoulders. “He’s so coooool~”

“What?!”

“Yeah, he’s, like, so tall and, like, so fit.” You can’t believe you’re hearing your boyfriend fangirling over your brother. “And he knows a lot of stuff—like, a lot a lot.”

You certainly have to kick Johnny in the shins after this. “How—why—I thought you were—“

“Babe, you’re rambling.”

You can’t believe you’re turning into him, so you clear your throat and try again. “How drunk are you exactly?”

“Drunk enough to know that this,” he stops to pick up the fishbowl you placed on the bedside table—where Marky the Goldfish is sleeping with its eyes open—and lifts it up to his face, “water cannot be drunk but drunk enough to contemplate about doing it.”

You make a face. “Leave Marky alone.”

“Why did you name it after me?”

“Because it’s dumb. Like you.”

“Huh, can’t really argue with that.” He snorts, placing the fishbowl back to the table and tripping on his feet as he does so—spilling some water from the side but thank God, your fish is safe and alive, though probably also a little bit drunk because of that sudden… turbulence.

“Oops,” he giggles, “Sorry, Marky.” He doesn’t look regretful in the slightest. You stare at him in silence, unconsciously judging him with all you have and usually, he would start becoming nervous and fumbling with his words but now, he just looks at you like you’re the best thing that ever happened to him and rushes forward.

“Man, I love you.” He tackles you into a hug, almost sending you toppling down your chair, “I love you so much. Have I said that today?”

This is certainly not the way you imagined your first confession to be like, especially coming from Mark who’s usually shy and too childish to admit his feelings. “No, you haven’t,” you retort. “Ever.”

“What, really?” His eyes are perfectly round and wide, actually surprised about it. “Shit, I’m sorry. Come here.” He pulls you up to your feet, cradling you into his arms, hands flailing all over your body before they finally rest on your waist. “I can’t believe we had sex and I didn’t even tell you that. I’m so sorry.” He leans back, putting some space between you so he can stare directly into your eyes. “I love you. I’ve always been for a while. I’m so in love with you that I can barely concentrate whenever you’re around.”

You wish he wasn’t drunk out of his mind because those words, those lines, could have been so romantic but even though he looks romantic, you’re not sure whether he’s being one hundred percent conscious about it.

“Okay, let’s talk about this again when you’re sober.” You tap his cheek with one hand and pinch it when he whines. “Have you even taken a shower yet?”

“Yeah, this morning.” He smiles dreamily at you, kissing the inside of your palm. You can’t believe how bold and greasy he becomes when he’s drunk. “And yesterday. And the day before that. And—”

“Okaaaay.” You shut him up by placing your hand above his mouth, which he licks like a little puppy, earning a surprised yelp from you. “Mark!”

“Babe!” He imitates before throwing himself to the bed, laughing at your face. “Come here, join me in my bed.”

“That’s my bed.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

You exhale loudly, rolling your eyes. “I don’t think you can go home at this state. Your mom would kill me.”

“But I’m already home,” he says, crawling toward you until he kneels at the edge of the bed, face to face with you. “Home is wherever the heart is, right? And my heart is with you.”

You curse yourself inwardly for having your heart flutter at his embarrassing line and you hate yourself even more when he notices you’re blushing.

“Whatever. Just take a shower and get some sleep.” You walk back to your desk, flipping around the pages of your textbook. “I still have two chapters to read.”

You can hear your boyfriend huffing behind you, but try your best to ignore him. It’s an impossible feat, it turns out, when Mark sneaks up behind you, circling his arms around your shoulders and peppers few kisses down the side of your neck.

“Mark—“

“You smell so good.” He inhales deeply, burying his nose in the strands of your hair. Standing up, you turn around to face him so you can protest and push him away but the look on his face makes you freeze.

“You’re so cute,” he says, running his hand up from the curve of your neck to cup your cheek. “And You’re so pretty. And hot. You’re so…” He begins staring at your lips, eyes unfocused. “Hot.”

You can tell it’s coming but when he kisses you, almost hungrily, it feels like he’s snatching your breath away. “Mark, wait—”

“Not waiting,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling your hand over his shoulder so you’re forced to lean your entire weight against his chest. Mark’s calloused hands travel down your body, wrapping both against the back of your thighs and lifts them up so you can wrap your legs around his waist. You follow his lead though still not entirely convinced that you should continue this.

Mark kicks your sliding chair away with one leg and places you down on your desk. He roughly pushes all your papers and textbooks to the end of the table, making enough space where you can sit facing him, with your legs tangling around his waist.

You have spent a decent amount of time kissing Mark over the months you’ve been dating, but only now that you have the chance to kiss him when he’s drunk and you’re aware just how much you’ve been missing.

The drunk version of Mark Lee unexpectedly kisses much more slowly compared to the sober version of Mark Lee, and if you thought fast, passionate kisses were hot, then these slow, deep kisses are sending actual shivers down your spine.

Mark has his right hand cupping your cheek, rubbing comforting circles on your skin with his thumb, while his other one is around your waist, slipping his fingers underneath the hem of your sweater. He angles your head to the side, and his parting lips fit like a perfect puzzle piece with yours. There’s a shy trace of his tongue along your bottom lip, as he nibbles at it slowly and he lets out this small moan as he does it as if it’s something he’s been wanting to do for years and just finally able to do it now.

He tastes like alcohol and you’re not particularly fond of it but the more he kisses you, the more you think it doesn’t matter because he still somewhat tastes like how Mark usually does and you always love the way he tastes on your tongue.

He drags your chin down with his thumb, tasting you a little bit deeper and as he presses his hips against yours, his breathing becomes ragged and you just realize that you probably have a kink for all of this stuff because holy mother of God, this is just so hot.

“Mark,” you sigh as he moves away to kiss your ear, warm lips pressing against your earlobe. He hums in a low, breathy voice that you’ve never heard him do and it makes your stomach flip. “Mark, you’re drunk.” It’s more like a reminder to yourself because you know that as the sober one, you have to put a stop to this but what can you do when he has his tongue tracing against your skin and his soft moans vibrating through your ears?

“Baby,” he whispers, pulling away a little so you can see his eyes and fuck, it’s the biggest mistake you’ve made today—bigger than forgetting that you borrowed Johnny’s AirPods. His eyes are half-lidded, utterly filled with lust and the way he licks his bottom lip as he stares at you has you breathless. He leans closer, as if he’s about to kiss you again, and whispers, “Don’t you want me?”

You remember that you said the same thing earlier to him that day and it makes you think how karma is a fucking bitch. You secretly wonder whether you have the same effect on him because Mark is being so irresistible right now and he successfully makes you throw all of your reasoning to the back of your head.

“Fuck this,” you claim under your breath, pulling him down to you by the neck and crush your mouth together. You can feel your boyfriend smiling into the kiss, and the sounds of your wet kisses make your heartbeat go crazy.

“Take off your shirt,” you command, already grabbing the end of his shirt and struggling as you try to pull it over his head. Mark helps, chuckling a little bit and when it’s off, he has his lips against your neck again. His teeth are prickling against your skin, sucking it until it’s bruised and you have to remind yourself to be angry about it later—because you have classes tomorrow and what if anyone sees that nasty hickey on your neck?—but right now, you just want him to mark you over and over again.

Mark starts to unbutton your jeans, pulling the zipper down and you use your free hand and legs to shake your pants off. It’s not easy, and you almost kick your boyfriend in the face while doing so, but he laughs it off and kisses you again. You can tell how hard he is when he presses himself against you, and you’re eager to put him out of his misery but he suddenly pulls away, saying, “Wait, let me do this first,” and he kneels on the floor, his face right between your legs.

You can feel your breath hitched when he runs his fingers on the inside part of your thighs, his lips follow soon after. He slips his fingers around the edge of your panties and pulls them down. You suddenly feel so exposed to the way he’s looking at you so you pull the end of your sweater down, trying to cover your thighs as much as you can.

“Why are you so shy?” Mark says, taking your hand away and pressing his lips against your palm. His eyes never leave yours and they twinkle in the most teasing way. “You weren’t shy about this before.”

“Stop looking at it too much,” you reply nervously, can’t help but to blush about it. “I feel weird.”

Mark chuckles, airily and soft. “Sorry, I just didn’t have the chance to really see you before,” he explains, one hand unconsciously rubbing your thigh, trying to calm you down. “Can I eat you out?”

Sober Mark will definitely not say anything like this—hell, sober Mark will probably faint just thinking about saying stuff like this—which is why you’re becoming even more nervous and excited at the same time.

“Baby?” Mark calls, smiling softly. “I kind of asked you a question.”

Fuck me. “Yes,” you breathe out, and you realize he was just messing with you before but who the fuck cares right now.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Mark, please.” You can hear yourself whining and you hate yourself for it, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “Please eat me out, Mark.”

He smiles in the sexiest way that you don’t think it’s possible—like seriously, who is this guy?—biting his lower lip as he does so and if he keeps doing that, you figure he doesn’t even have to eat you out to make you come undone.

He presses his lips near your heat, whispering, “Good girl,” before he places his mouth on the exact spot you want him to be.

“Fuck,” you hiss, biting your own lip as you see his head move between your legs. Mark has his eyes closed, repeating what he has learned earlier that day and does the thing you like the most. When he locks his eyes with yours, you almost choke out a sob.

“Mark,” you try to keep your voice down in whispers but Mark is so good that it feels much easier to work on your goddamn stupid thesis rather than holding back your moan.

“Mmm.” The way he moans at the back of his throat as if he’s having the best time of his life makes you weak and you press your thighs together without knowing. Mark places his hands on each side of your thighs and spreads your legs wide apart, allowing himself to be even closer and making you feel way more exposed. You have to grip your desk with both hands to keep yourself from falling.

“Okay, no, stop—“ You find yourself breathing hard, pushing him back by the shoulder and he raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Was it not good?” He asks and you curse inwardly.

“Mark,” You grab him by the silver necklace he has around his neck, pulling him up so you’re face-to-face. “I’m about to come, what do you think?”

“Really?” He looks impressed with himself. “Then, why did you stop me?”

You tangle your legs around his waist, bringing him close and grind your hips against his. “You know why.”

Mark’s thin lips part in a silent moan, whispering, “Fuck,” under his breath but he tries to keep his composure. “No, I don’t,” he says, teasing you though he doesn’t look like he’s able to hold himself back long. “Babe, I literally just lost my virginity a few hours ago. You have to tell me what you want.”

“Mark.”

“Babe.”

You scowl at him and scowl harder when he has this shit-eating grin on his face, and if your eyes could throw daggers, he’d be in so much pain right now. But Mark is making a sound between a giggle and a snort, which is rather cute but you still kick him in the stomach for playing with you at a time like this. “Mark, come on! I want you to fuck me!”

He takes a hold of your thigh, leaning down to place kisses under your ear. “And where do you want me to fuck you, exactly?” He whispers, purposely making an mmm sound as he sucks on your earlobe. “Should we move to the bed?”

“No, fuck, just do it here.” You unbuckle his belt, pushing his jeans and boxer down to around his thighs, low enough for you to stroke his member and position it toward your entrance. “Mark, just put your cock inside me.”

It seems like he’s beginning to lose his mind over how desperate you are actually begging him. You guide him toward you, making sure he’s not doing anything wrong and when he pushes inside, you just have to bite on his shoulder to muffle your moan.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groans, eyes closing shut as he grips on your thighs, nails sinking into the skin almost painfully. “I couldn’t remember whether you were you this tight before but—oh God—”

His movements are still a bit sloppy, but soon he finds the pace you both like and maintains it. When he sees you throwing your head back in pleasure, he grins to himself and lifts your sweater up to your chest. You help him take it off, unclasping your bra with so much effort as he continues pounding into you.

He’s so consumed by the sight of your breasts bouncing up and down matching his thrusts until he can’t take it anymore. “Babe, can I go a little bit rough?”

“Wha—fuck!” It’s your luck that you don’t slam your head against the wall from the sudden force Mark is thrusting into you. He has his mouth on your breast, moving his hips much quicker than before,  and moaning your name several times under his breath. The desk is clearly making a sound as it bumps against the wall but you don’t care—your parents are out of town and Johnny already heard you two before anyway. You can just apologize to him tomorrow.

Mark suddenly changes position, lifting one of your legs up in the air while keeping the other down so he can slide in deeper. “Johnny-hyung told me to try this,” he says with a smirk on his face. He’s breathing quite hard, just like you. He kisses the side of your ankle once before he lays your leg on his shoulder. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

When he moves his hips again, with so much force that you have to hold on to the table, you’re pretty much just screaming his name. Mark’s bangs are sticking to his skin as beads of sweat start to form on his temple, and he pushes his hair back with one hand, chanting your name like a prayer and recording every expression you make in his mind.

You can handle his movements but you’re sure the skin around your waist is going to bruise tomorrow from how hard he’s holding you. You’re getting distracted by the way the muscles on his abs flex with every movement that it catches you off guard when he suddenly says, “I love you,” between his soft moans. You shudder at his words, leaning forward to wrap your fingers around his arm, begging for support. “Mark, you’re not fair—“ The rest of your sentence dies when he hits the spot that makes you see stars.

It’s a little bit embarrassing for you, the much more experienced one, to come undone before he does but Mark doesn’t stop, even if you beg him to. “Hold on to me,” he says, smashing his lips against yours and adding, “Just a little bit more, baby,” between kisses.

When he’s finished, your back and legs are aching so much that he has to carry you onto the bed. Mark shakes his pants off before he slides under the blanket next to you. He asks whether you want to shower and you shake your head. “Tomorrow. I can barely stand right now, to be honest,” you comment which earns a light chuckle from him.

You both sigh out loud, staring at the ceiling and trying the process what the fuck just happened.

“Mark?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“I know it’s bad for your health, but do you think you can get drunk more often?”

He giggles at that, turning to his side so he can face you. He looks so sleepy and you let him caress your face with his fingers with the little energy he has left. “Thank you for today,” he says, smiling dreamily. He leans closer to press your temples together, rubbing the tip of his nose to yours in a childish manner before he kisses you softly. He drifts off to sleep soon after.

When you wake up the next morning, still naked and gross from the night before, you realize that yes, small purplish bruises are forming on the skin of your thighs, waist and for sure, your neck. You look to your right, seeing your boyfriend still sleeping soundly with his stomach pressed against your bed and his lips slightly parted. You don’t have the heart to wake him up, but your parents can come home anytime soon and they cannot catch the two of you looking like this.

“Mark,” you softly call, placing a hand on his cheek and rubbing his skin with your thumb. “Mark, wake up.”

He groans, turning his face away from you. You tap his shoulder, run a hand through his dark locks and still nothing. Huffing, you gather the very little energy you have—without coffee in the morning, you’re pretty much nothing—to turn his body around and crawl on top of him.

“Wha—” Mark’s eyes are half-open but don’t stay so for long when he notices how you’re basically straddling his bare abs with your naked body. He panics so much that he begins to flail all over the place and end up falling from the bed and knocking you off his lap in the process.

You break into a train of laughter, pulling some blanket to cover your body. “Guess sober Mark is back.”

“Why are you naked?!” He shrieks, head peeping out from under the bed, and he shrieks louder when he notices that he’s also in his birthday suit. “Why am I naked?!”

“You seriously don’t remember?”

Mark takes a few seconds to himself, trying to process everything that his blurry memories can give and his jaw falls slack on his face when he realizes that, “We had sex!”

“Yeah, we did. Twice.” You giggle, nudging your head toward your desk which is literally in chaos—papers scattered everywhere, books falling to the floor, pens unaligned.

Mark follows your gaze and gapes harder. “Shit, yeah, on that desk—I remember—wait, but how?! Why—” He looks like he’s physically hurting trying to remember every detail, and probably that’s his hangover talking.

“Want some aspirin?”

He pouts rather cutely. “Yes, please.” When you step down from the bed, leaving your blanket behind, Mark blushes and immediately turns his face away, unconsciously letting out a girly yelp as he does so.

“Umm, babe?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re naked.”

You stifle down a laugh. “Yes, I noticed. And so are you.”

Mark covers his bottom half with a pillow, face flushed. “C-can you put some clothes on?”

You were planning to, but seeing him react like this makes you re-think your decision. “Mark, we literally had sex twice yesterday.”

“I know, don’t say it!” He hides his face behind his palm. “It’s still embarrassing for me.”

“You certainly weren’t embarrassed last night,” you tease, “You even asked whether you could eat me out—”

“GAH!” He has both hands covering his ears, turning his entire body around to hide his face but the way his ears are going red is contradicting his action.

“Mark, look at me.”

“No way in hell!”

Smirking to yourself, you slowly walk to his spot, not covering even an inch of yourself. When you call him again, softer this time, Mark makes a mistake and throws you a glance. He’s no longer able to take his gaze off you after that.

You spread your legs, sitting on the pillow he has on his lap and wrapping both legs around his waist. Pressing your chest to his, you lean close to his ear. “Wanna go for another round?”

Mark gulps.

***

[neoculturetravesty]

We met in online class - Part 7

Image adapted from here.

Pairing: Renjun x Reader Genre: College AU, romance, angst, fluff Warnings: Strong language, descriptions of a shiner, a character gets Covid-19 Word Count: 7.3k

Navigation: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | You are on Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Last Part

A/N: I’m sorry for all the angst, you guys.

You only stop walking when you’re out of the apartment building. Eyebrows scrunched, face scowled like you were trying to hold onto the anger. But the more you had walked, the more you had realized that you couldn’t hold onto something that wasn’t there in the first place. It would be like holding onto smoke: futile and baseless. You weren’t angry. You stop moving to just breathe for a moment. And as the cool night air hits your face, you get a little more clarity in your thoughts. No, you weren’t angry. Not really.

Suddenly, you find yourself smiling to the sky and scoffing. Oh, how stupid. How stupid and how typical. This was classic you. Only this time, you couldn’t believe you had fallen for the broody artsy boy type. The kind of boy that blew hot and cold. The kind of boy that would keep you on edge and never like you as much as you liked him. God, you were such a cliché. Fuck, how embarrassing. So no, you weren’t angry. You were embarrassed. You had spent the last few weeks simping over a boy that never really liked you. God, you were so stupid.

‘The only reason I’ve kept you around for so long is because I wanted to get to your brother.’ His voice echoes in your head. 

Your friends had told you that you were doing way too much for a boy you weren’t even official with yet. You had literally spent the past couple of weeks running to him to dote on him. Bringing him food and checking up on him even though you were drowned in work, and making sure he was okay. And all this time, he had been using you. Oh, God. You were like the embarrassing second female lead in every drama ever. The kind that would bring cartons of milk to her crush in the hopes that he would like her back. Only you had actually believed that he liked you back. Oh, how embarrassing. 

‘Y/N, you are not my girlfriend. So stop acting like it.’

Oh, how freaking embarrassing. You had been acting like the girlfriend. But you had been the second female lead all along. 

You groan and make yourself keep walking. You didn’t want to be near his building anymore. Not where he could step out any moment and humiliate you some more for reading the signs all wrong. You keep walking as your phone keeps ringing. You don’t pick up. You wanted to put as much space between yourself and the building as possible. You walk and you walk till you reach the bus stop. And then you finally sit and take your phone out.

There are around 8 missed calls from Haechan as well as a string of texts. You sigh and hail a cab from an app before you get the spirit to read his messages.

‘Y/N, please pick up.’

‘Where are you???’

‘I can’t find you. Where are you???’

‘Pick uppppp’

‘Can you at least tell me where you are?’

‘I’m calling Yeri.’

That’s Haechan’s last message and you let out another groan. Why did he have to call Yeri? She was going to be worried for no reason. She was already under so much stress with her thesis. You didn’t want her to sit in the apartment and have all sorts of thoughts going through her head about what happened to you. So you text him back.

‘I’m just going home. Don’t worry.’ you write back. Not even ten seconds pass by before he replies.

‘How? You don’t even have your car! And you’ve been drinking.’

‘I called a cab. Don’t worry.’

‘Y/N, please tell me where you are? Let me take you home.’

‘The cab’s already here, Haechan. It’s fine. I’ll text you when I get home.’ you say as you get into the car.

‘No way. Share your location.’

‘The cab’s already moving.’

‘Okay, but share your live location so I know you’ve safely gotten home.’

You sigh and give into his wish. ‘Happy?’

‘I’ve shared it with Yeri as well.’

You groan again, making the cab driver give you a quizzical look through the mirror. ‘Haechan, please don’t bother Yeri.’

‘Text me as soon as you get home. I’m coming over first thing in the morning.’ 

‘Okay.’ you reply and sigh again, resting your head against the window because it felt like the sort of thing to do in this situation. But it only makes your temple awkwardly rattle against the glass as the car moves. How did people do this in dramas? Look so elegant as they pensively looked out the window? Because right now, you neither felt elegant, nor pensive. You just felt stupid. You feel your phone buzz again and see another text from Haechan.

‘You’re my best friend and I love you to the moon and back. Nothing changes that, okay?’ the message reads and suddenly, you feel tears brimming in your eyes. That’s the first time he had called you that. What a stupid boy he was, Lee Donghyuck. Why did he have to attack you like that with all the feels? Silly boy. Well, at least there was something that came out of this mess. 

How had you been so stupid? Renjun had practically told you of his motives on the very first date. He had told you that his lifelong wish was to get into Midnight fucking Arthouse. And instead of staying away, you had run to your brother the very same day to fulfil that wish. The thought chases away the tears that Haechan’s text had brought. You were so stupid. Even your brother had warned you.

“Y/N, I don’t trust his eyes.” Doyoung had told you that afternoon at the party. And you had laughed at him.

“What does that even mean?” you had rolled your own eyes at him, because really, you were watching Renjun into the distance as he talked to another artist. God, he looked so handsome, you had thought as you ogled.

“He just seems like he’s hiding something. He just seems like a guy who would have something to hide.” your brother had warned you and you had just laughed and joked it away.

“I mean, sorry to break it to you like this, big brother, but he’s a serial killer by night. The art student stuff is just for show because when people aren’t looking, his ass goes full Joe Goldberg in You.” you had teased your brother who had exhaled long and put his arm around you.

“Fine, fine. Don’t trust your big brother. Do what you want. I just don’t like him for you.” Doyoung had cut it out for your sake and you had cuddled into him happily because you were so giddy that day. Nothing could’ve spoiled your mood then because the boy you liked had just kissed you. He had held your hand and held your face and kissed you and kissed you and kissed you.

“Of course you don’t like him for me. You won’t like anyone for me because you’re my big brother.” you had baby-talked at Doyoung and cuddled him till he had ruffled your hair and pushed you away.

God, you were so stupid. Did everyone know but you? Could everyone see how he’d been using you? Had your crush on him really been so bad that it blinded you? Oh, how embarrassing. How fucking embarrassing. Well, at least the two of you weren’t official yet. That was a plus. Otherwise, there would’ve been a break up involved. Then again, that would mean that Renjun liked you enough to make you his girlfriend. Or that he would have gone so far as to exploit you like that. Would he have done it? You don’t even want to think about it.

You were fine, really. This was okay. It’s good that he cleared that you weren’t his girlfriend. This whole situation would’ve been sillier if the two of you were official. You chuckle as you enter the elevator of your building. You were fine. Everything that had happened was just a silly misunderstanding. You had just read the signals all wrong. You knock your knuckles on your head. Silly you. It was just a silly crush. You had just chased a boy you had a crush on and it hadn’t worked out. There was nothing wrong with that. These sorts of things happened all the time. You were fine. 

But Renjun hadn’t been just a boy.

He had been the boy of your dreams. He had been the boy that had smiled at you over his coffee cup on your first date and you had felt that he looked into your soul. He had been the boy who would wait outside your lecture hall with the most hopeful look in his eyes and you would melt because he wore that look for you. He had been the boy who had laid his head on your shoulder and opened his heart to you and you had thought that you would do everything it takes to give him the world. He had been the boy that had held your hand and made you feel so incredibly safe that day at your parent’s house that you had found yourself falling. He had been the boy who had taken you in his arms and kissed you so sweet that you had felt like flying. He had been the boy who would lay out in the sun next to you and you’d think that everything was alright. 

Renjun hadn’t been just some boy you had chased. You couldn’t lie to yourself like that anymore, even though you were trying. He had been the boy you had given your heart to. 

You don’t realize that your feet had carried you all the way home till you look up to the door opening on it’s own. And Yeri is standing there like she was expecting you.

“Haechan called me.” she says and you have no idea what she sees on your face because she says “Baby…” in the softest voice before she grabs her Lysol concoction and starts spraying you carefully.

You stand there in the doorway, watching her as she sprays at your feet and takes your shoes off for you with so much love. You don’t know what it was about seeing her face. But anytime you did, all your walls came tumbling down. You could never hide from her.

She looks up at you and whatever she sees makes her speed up her sanitizing ritual. And you realize your shoulders are shaking. You feel the wetness on the tops of your cheeks. You feel the scrunching between your brows. You hear your breath coming out in sniffles. It probably looks like the strangest scene in the world. You, standing there unmoving, looking at her as you crumble in the doorway. And her looking back at you worried, and hurriedly soaking you in Lysol.

Yeri takes your hands in hers and sanitizes them, then takes your purse from you while you do nothing but just stand there, looking at her. She takes your jacket off and then your mask and then finally kisses your cheek and pulls you into her arms. She holds you and kisses your forehead and strokes your hair.

“You will always have me, okay?” she tells you and this time, you’re fully aware that you’re sobbing. Because she puts an arm around you and walks you to your room. She lets you cry as she takes your makeup off for you and brushes your hair. And you watch her attending to you with so much love in her eyes, that for a moment, you’re not sure what’s making you cry. Your broken heart, or her pure, unadulterated love for you.

For as long as you could remember, this girl had been there for you through all your highs and lows. She hadn’t just been a friend. She had been more like a sister. Come to think of it, she had been more a parent to you than your actual parents. You could never hide from her. So when she puts you to bed, you cuddle into her and cry when you tell her,

“I really liked him, Yeri.” Because what was the use of lying to yourself or anyone else? You liked him. You had unabashedly, completely and without any sort of a restraint given him your whole entire heart. And he had broken it. This was something that had happened. So why would you deny it? You had been hurt so you were going to cry to your heart’s content. That’s what people do when they have been hurt.

“I know, baby girl.” she strokes your hair and holds you and kisses the top of your head and your eyes go to your nightstand. You see things that would look like trash to other people. But to you they were the most important treasures.

A paper napkin folded up into an origami crane. Renjun had made it on your very first date.

A can of coke, flattened and leaned against your nightlight. Renjun had drunk from it the first time he came over to your apartment.

A scrap of paper taken from a notebook in a photo frame. Renjun had doodled on it one day as you two had waited for class to begin.

A daisy, pressed and preserved in a little glass disc. Renjun had randomly plucked it from the grass and given it to you as you two had lazed about. It was the first flower he had given you.

God, you were such a sentimental hoe. This boy had broken your heart and you had kept his trash in your room, right on your nightstand so his would be the last thought on your mind as you went to sleep. Realizing that just makes you cry more.

“It’s okay, baby. Your heart’s been broken so you’re going to cry. It’s okay to cry.” Yeri coos at you, echoing your own thoughts. But somehow hearing it from her makes it more soothing. She was right. You had liked a boy and he had broken your heart. It had happened. You were going to cry. 

So you laid in Yeri’s arms and let her comfort you. Even Galbi the asshole had joined your pity party as he sat on top of your head and purred, as if he realized you needed comforting and all the purring was going to heal whatever hurt you were feeling. You laid and you cried and you cried till you were all cried out and sleep was taking you.

“That is a shiner.” you say, eyes wide.

“Mhmm. It’s my mark of honor.” Haechan smiles his smug, annoying smile as he leans back in his chair.

The library was emptier than usual, because really, exams were over for most students. So people that lived in and around campus were basically using it as a common room.

“I mean, it’s a shiner as big as I’ve ever seen.” you say, leaning over and lightly tracing the hues of red, purple and black under your friend’s eye. And he just sits there, chin jutting out, smiling broad, proudly allowing it to be touched like a trophy.

“It’s the outcome of me being the biggest little shit, so it goes with the vibe.” Haechan says and you make a face at him.

“Honestly, I’m surprised it took someone so long. Lowkey impressed that you’ve avoided these so far, despite being that professional little shit.” you lightly press the pad of your index on a particularly discolored area and watch as he moves away.

“Guess I’d just been looking for the right reason to get one.” he says, still wearing the smug look on his face. But he must have noticed a change in your expression because he gives you a look of disapproval. 

“Hey, stop that.” he snaps at you.

“Stop what?” you retort defensively.

“Stop it with those sad puppy eyes. I don’t like it.” he almost scolds.

“I’m only sad because it’s making you look uglier than usual.” you reply pouting.

“Please. It’s making me look sexier than usual.”

“If ugly was the new sexy, then sure.”

“Yo, he’s not ugly, he’s just not in his moment right now.” he pouts and nothing on Haechan’s face says that he’s joking which somehow makes it funnier.

“What’s that even supposed to mean?” you wanna smack him on the head.

“It means that you need to give it till tomorrow to finally see it in it’s full bloom.” he says with the most satisfied look on his face but it deflates you. Shit. This wasn’t even the worst of it. He was probably going to look worse in the next couple of days.

Haechan sighs because you figure he finally sees that this conversation isn’t exactly making you feel any better. So he addresses the elephant in the room.

“He’s an asshole.” he says simply.

“Haechan…” you stop him because honestly, you didn’t really want to talk about it anymore, especially not with him. You didn’t want to be that person that makes mutual friends pick a side. Besides, Renjun had been right. They were technically his friends. But they were also your friends. This was a hot mess already and you didn’t want to add to it.

“I’m only saying it because it’s true. But, also, Y/N…” he’s taken your nickname and his voice has suddenly gone small and so apologetic that you look up, just to check if he’s the one talking. Your stupid friend had a way of never reading the room and keeping up his joking antics no matter the circumstance. So hearing his voice do that got your attention to say the least.

“I, uh…” he goes on and he looks like he’s uncomfortable, like he’s trying to find the words to break some bad news. “He’s an asshole and all, but… I’m kind of the one that put that idea in his head in the first place.” he fesses up and finally meets your eyes.

You jump a bit as you see a strong arm reach over your shoulder and set down a coffee cup on the table with a resounding thud. Jeno has appeared as if on cue and he now has those arms crossed over his chest as he pins Haechan down with a death stare.

Haechan looks up at his audience of two and decides to address the boy that stands there looking like he would most likely complete his shiner set. “I just told him Y/N was Kim Doyoung’s sister! You know he had been dying to get into Midnight Arthouse! And Y/N was the one that asked him out! Didn’t you, Y/N?” he looks at you with eyes that plead for help “I only told him he should accept her date, I promise. But yes, it was my stupid idea and fuck, I wish I could take it back. I’m an idiot and I deserve whatever you want to do to me, Y/N.” he holds his hands up as if in surrender as he watches Jeno’s cold expression and your unreadable one. 

You reach your hand over towards him and watch as he closes his eyes and braces to perhaps be punched in the face again. But you don’t punch him. You ruffle his hair.

“Don’t do it again, okay?” you scrunch your nose at him and give him a smile to put him out of his misery.

Heachan lets out a long, dramatic exhale that finally matches his true personality. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” he says, actually crossing his heart over his chest and he looks up at Jeno to seek his forgiveness as well. 

Jeno’s expression has softened and he’s smiling, almost as if he had expected this confession and its outcome. He was always more perceptive than he let on. Although his arms are still intimidatingly crossed over his chest as he says

“Follow me to the rooftop, Lee Donghyuck.” 

“Yes, yes, I know I deserve it, because I know she’s your childhood friend. But she’s my best friend now and if she’s forgiven me, then--”

“--you’re a piece of shit.” Jeno declares and takes a seat next to you, laying out the rest of the breakfast he got. You snigger and hug onto his arm, as if to thank him for... everything. You and Jeno had never been one to talk things out, but an advantage of being friends for so long was that you didn’t have you. He would understand what you mean, even though all you’d done was held and leaned into his arm.

Haechan looks at the two of you fondly and waits a couple of beats. His voice is soft and empathetic when he says, “He probably didn’t mean those things he said, you know? He was drunk.”

“We were all drunk.” you agree, tracing your finger over your coffee cup.

“He’s an asshole, but… he likes you, you know?” Haechan says and suddenly, you can’t look anybody in the eye anymore. You don’t want to say anything either, because you’re afraid your voice would give you away. 

So you purse your lips and take a deep breath before you say “Yeah, well… it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“I’m going to kick his stupid ass.” Haechan mutters but it only makes Jeno chuckle.

“You mean when you’re not too busy getting your ass kicked by him?” he pokes fun while he feeds you a bit of his croissant. And despite everything, you find yourself laughing out loud.

“Hey! I could totally take him down if I wanted to. I was just holding back.” Haechan puffs his chest and Jeno smiles wider, shaking his head.

“Ugh, you know what. We’re on semester break. We’ve literally been waiting for this time. Let’s just chill before I have to leave.” you declare.

Haechan snaps and points his finger at you. “That is the right attitude, Y/N L/N.”

After that, he goes on and on, talking nonstop about everything you could do while you didn’t have classes, doing the most to make it up to you. You listen to him fondly as you happily enjoy breakfast with your friends.

Down the rows, Renjun had walked into the hall, hoping the library could be his sanctuary for the day. How very wrong he was. Because now, he just watched into the distance as you reach out to ruffle Donghyuck’s hair and Jeno smiles down at the two of you. Unbelievable. Renjun turns on his heel right away and leaves. Because this was unbelievable. 

How come Lee Donghyuck came out of this situation unscathed? It was his stupid idea to begin with. Renjun had been happy living his life normally till Donghyuck encouraged him to date you. So how come neither you nor Jeno were mad at him? Renjun was the only one that came out of this as the bad guy. And everyone else just continued on to be one big happy fucking family.

Last night, Jisung had left to stay over at Chenle’s, and Renjun assumed it was so he didn’t have to be in the same room as him. He hadn’t seen Jeno, and it was probably because he had woken early morning to have breakfast with you. The only one of his friends that Renjun saw this morning was Jaemin. But the only thing he had said before he walked out the door was that he was spending the day with his girlfriend and won’t be home either. 

It seemed like everyone around him was doing their best to avoid him. He felt like a dementor. Like he was putting out lights wherever he went. Like he was draining hope, peace and happiness out of everyone that came in contact with him. That’s perhaps why his friends wanted to stay away from him.

There was maybe some advantage to that. Renjun wanted to be alone. You had pretty much stolen all his friends. It was clear that they had taken your side in all of this. No one had wanted to know what Renjun was going through. But they were all too concerned about the poor little rich girl. It’s why they were with you this morning and not him. Poor little rich girl that got her heart broken by Renjun the asshole. Of course, no one would want to know the other side of the story, Renjun thinks bitterly.

What was the other side of the story, anyway? That you had been too kind to him? That you had been thoughtful and understanding? That you made so much effort to be a part of his life, and he had made none? That you had put a word in with your brother right after you had first met Renjun, before your relationship had even begun? 

You had done everything in your power to make Renjun look like the bad guy. And he realizes that this was precisely the reason he never wanted to look at you ever again. Renjun feels nothing but bitterness in his heart. He had spent all those weeks exploiting your feelings for him. Making you believe that he was interested in you so he could get close enough that you would introduce him to your brother. But all of it had been for naught. Because you didn’t need a relationship or a reason to be kind to people. You had just heard Renjun’s dream and fulfilled it that very same day you had met him. You had granted him his biggest wish whilst wanting nothing in return, expecting nothing back. You had put him in your debt. And he hated you for it.

Renjun needed a break. Because his life seemed to be throwing him more curveballs than he could possibly manage. He wanted to reverse it all. Go back to the time when he hadn’t met you. He should’ve turned you down during that ill-fated online class. Then none of this would’ve happened. 

But almost as if the heavens wanted to give him a cruel reminder that all of it, in fact, had happened and he, in fact, had exploited you, he gets a phone call. Whilst he can barely make out the number through his cracked screen, he recognizes the voice right away.

“Huang Renjun!”

“Kim Doyoung.” Renjun replies automatically, because his mind is still processing the irony of it all.

“I have a proposition for you.” Doyoung goes straight to the point and Renjun realizes that he’s not talking to him as your brother right now. He’s talking to him as the owner of Midnight fucking Arthouse.

“Uh, okay?” Renjun says and almost instantly regrets it. He should’ve said something more professional, but he has to admit he has been caught off guard.

“Can you come meet me at the studio in an hour?” he states more than he asks. And Renjun gets the feeling that this man hasn’t been told ‘no’ enough. At least not in this context.

“I… I can.” Dammit. Why wasn’t Renjun able to put more than two words together today?

“Great. Let’s have a lunch meeting at my studio.” Doyoung once again states. Renjun would usually be annoyed when someone was this imposing with him. But for some reason, Kim Doyoung’s boss voice is working on him. 

“Okay, see you in an hour.” Renjun says and he’s glad he’s spoken a full sentence this time.

“Great. Oh, and Renjun?”

“Yes?”

“Bring your portfolio along.”

Renjun doesn’t know how long he sits there. The steak that was served to him in a pretentiously off-centered plate remains mostly untouched. Because Renjun couldn’t keep more than two bites down. Not when Kim fucking Doyoung was standing up and flipping through his portfolio without a sound. 

This portfolio was Renjun’s lifelong work. Who knows how long he had spent on each piece. Some day, when he had the time, he was going to calculate the number of man hours he spent on building the whole damn thing. And then calculate how many days, weeks or months it amounted to in total. Because the way Kim Doyoung was flipping through it without much care minimized his life’s worth to mere seconds. He had spent hours and hours on each work and Kim Doyoung didn’t even spare more than half an eyeful on each piece.

And not a single word. 

Doyoung seemed to be a different person at work than he had been at the party at his parent’s home. Here, he was the Kim Doyoung, and for a moment, Renjun could finally see how he might have risen all the way up to the top. Because every single minute of his life was accounted for. From the moment Renjun had walked in, all he could see was how his assistant kept pushing him from one task to the other. He hadn’t even spent too long on pleasantries before he took Renjun to his office for lunch. And if he thought that lunch for Doyoung would be a time of peace, he was wrong. Because he ate quickly and Renjun couldn’t possibly meet his speed. He supposed that’s how successful people ate. Because every minute they ate was every minute they were not making money. Renjun was only halfway through his lunch when Doyoung had gotten up and started going through his portfolio.

And Renjun hadn’t been able to take a single bite since. His stomach was in knots. He felt small, sitting here in this grand old office in one of the biggest arthouses of the country. Weirdly, Renjun finds himself internally smiling at the fact that Doyoung had called this place a studio. Because, no way. The place that Renjun interned at was a studio. This was a fucking art museum and nothing less. 

A finalizing shut of the portfolio is what breaks Renjun out of his thoughts.

“Okay, Huang Renjun, I’m going to cut to the chase.” Doyoung says and Renjun sits up straighter, his eyes and ears attentive and open. “I need new artists for the 2021 Midnight Arthouse Annuale. Every artist that I’ve ever introduced in spring has gone on to become a best seller by winter.”

Of course he knew that. Renjun could name every single artist that had gotten that exposure. But hearing it straight from the man that gave it to them was making goosebumps run down his spine.

“I’ve got two spots to debut artists that no one has ever heard of. And someone put in a very convincing word for you.” he says and Renjun feels his stomach do a flip before it drowns in guilt, because he knows that the both of them know who that someone is. “But I’m going to be honest with you. Nothing I see in here is worthy of the Annuale.” he says plainly. Renjun looks up. His heart drops.

“Um… nothing?” Renjun asks stupidly. Suddenly, he doesn’t feel like the big man that had punched someone in the face from an inflated ego the night before. He feels like the little fish in a sea of big fishes. He feels like someone is finally showing him the mirror and telling him exactly what he’s worth in the context of big names and big opportunities. And it’s a humbling and sobering experience. Because Renjun feels his hangover dissipating. 

“This is basically an art student’s portfolio. What you’ve shown me is essentially a series of assignments you’ve made for your professors. Nothing is inspired. Nothing has vision. Nothing in here jumps out at me and tells me who Huang Renjun is.” Doyoung is speaking to him straight up. No niceties. No filters. He’s speaking to him like the owner of a huge motherfucking company and nothing less.

And maybe someone had to speak to Renjun this way and deflate his ego, so he could finally open his eyes to the real world. Because Renjun doesn’t feel angry or broody or venomous over these words. He feels like he has been sobered. He finds himself agreeing with everything that has been said. Like he’s opened his eyes for the first time and finally seen what he’s actually like without his ego or conceit filtering his vision. He was absolutely right. Kim Doyoung had been the one to tell him this before. But sitting here in his huge fucking office, in a building where he was surrounded by art that was in every way better than his… it puts everything in context, and Renjun finally realizes that he had been right all along.

“So, here’s my proposition.” Doyoung begins. “Make me something worthy of the Annuale. And I’ll help you make your debut.”

Renjun’s eyes widen. His mind races. He didn’t have much time. And the stakes were too high. How could he possibly make the best work of his life, the work that would help him launch his dream in a span of two weeks? It wasn’t enough time.

Then again, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. This was make or break. So Renjun doesn’t even think much before he replies “I’ll do it. I’ll show you.”

Doyoung smiles. “I had a feeling you’d say that. In that case, I have another meeting to go to. But my assistant will help you sort out the details. I’m sure you’ll understand.” he says, already getting up and putting his jacket on. 

Renjun stands with him. He doesn’t believe it. Suddenly, this opportunity feels too big for his breaches. But it’s there for the grabbing. And he could only ever miss the shot he never shoots. 

Yet somehow, Renjun also feels like he’s about to make a deal with the devil. Is this how the unassuming hero feels in movies when he’s made an agreement with the mob boss? Renjun reckons it comes close. He’s not sure whether to shake hands or to bow in these situations. So he stands there awkwardly and does neither as Doyoung walks to his door.

“My assistant will be in contact with you. I look forward to seeing your masterpiece.” he smiles a loaded smile and in that moment, Renjun decides that your brother was nothing like you. 

“Oh, and Renjun. The theme is ‘The Past Year’ but don’t tell anybody that.” he smiles and Renjun nods as Doyoung takes his leave. He’s not sure why he’s been given that extra bit of information. He’s not sure if that pointer has come from Kim Doyoung of Midnight Arthouse or Y/N L/N’s older brother. It is a bit of a mindfuck, but Renjun tries not to dwell on it too much. He had to leave his intellectual capacities free for his bigger purpose.

Renjun looks up to see Doyoung’s assistant smiling professionally at him. “Would you like a tour, Mr. Huang?” she says and Renjun once again gets the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feels he always got around your family’s grandeur. But this was more than riches. This was art from people Renjun had admired and closely followed. Maybe this would give him some inspiration and put him in the right headspace.

“Yes, please.” Renjun says a bit too eagerly before he is led outside.

It is once again, a humbling experience. Renjun had already seen most of the work displayed here in one form or the other. But watching it with the naked eye and up close was a different experience altogether. The art here was in a different league and now Renjun starts to understand what Kim Doyoung had meant. None of Renjun’s existing works came close to what he was seeing displayed right here. He had thought Midnight Arthouse was some sort of a viral launcher. The kind of company that only looked for social media sensations rather than trailblazers and actual talent. But Renjun realizes that he had been massively underestimating them. Kim Doyoung knew what he was doing. Renjun did not. 

All this time, Renjun had walked the earth with a chip on his shoulder. He had been envious of everyone who ever did better than him. He had resented every artist that had risen to fame for reasons Renjun could not understand. He had judged every person ever who was well connected enough to rise to the top. 

And now, standing here in the majesty of Midnight Arthouse’s proud displays, all Renjun feels is small. Like he’s been served a slice of humble pie. For the first time in a long time, Renjun feels inspired, but not from a place of envy or jealousy or bitterness or vengeance. He feels inspired to make the most out of the opportunity that his life had given him. Because who was he to judge anyone that used connections when he was standing here doing the same? The mere fact that he, a junior in college had gotten a meeting with Kim Doyoung over lunch in his office while his assistant was personally showing him around… that was proof that Renjun had become one of those well-connected people.

Renjun’s initial feeling had been right. This was a deal with the devil. Because Renjun had paid a pretty big price for it. His stomach feels queasy. Was it only last night that he was going around throwing punches and being a general asshole? He doesn’t want to think about it. Because then he’d be forced to remember the faces of all his friends, and he didn’t want to revisit that memory through the lens of a deflated ego and a dissolving hangover. So Renjun is almost thankful when Doyoung’s assistant speaks to him.

“Are you ready for some paperwork? Just some general entry applications and agreements.” she says, still smiling that strictly professional smile.

Renjun takes a deep breath in. He feels unprepared, yet ready. He was going to take this opportunity. Or everything he had done this past year would have been for naught. 

“Let’s do it.” Renjun says, nodding.

“Great. Follow me.” she says and Renjun starts walking. Each step forward feels like a heavy, purposeful and loaded step towards his future. Here it was, a few strides away from his grabbing. Forget the past year. His whole life had been amounting to this moment. 

Every stroke of his brush had led him here. Every drop of his sweat. Every sleepless night. Every decision he had made. Every heart he had broken. Every friend he had lost. 

Renjun was walking towards his goal a man with nothing left to lose. And he had heard that they made the most dangerous men. His future was two strides away now. Two more strides and he’d be one step closer to achieving his life goal.

But when he’s about to make the final stride, Renjun receives a phone call that shatters his entire world as he knows it. 

And in that moment, he turns on his heel and runs faster than he ever had in his entire life. The future that was so close that he could almost taste it, now becomes smaller and smaller as it fades into the background behind him. Because Renjun had run in the opposite direction and left it in his dust.

Renjun pushes through the doors and doesn’t even absorb the pain he should be feeling in his shoulder from the force of the contact. 

“Where is she!” he yells. He doesn’t feel like a person. Because how much could one person take, anyway? How many times could he be beaten down by the universe before he would fall to his knees and beg to be spared?

He looks around and finally spots the man he calls his father standing near a watercooler, talking to someone he doesn’t recognize. So he has no care about rushing up and getting in his face. Because what more was there left to lose?

“Where is she?” he yells at his face. His father nods a farewell at the unassuming man before he turns to his son.

“In the isolation ward, Renjun. Where else would she be?” his father says and his voice is so calm that Renjun wants to grab at his collar. But he takes in a deep shaky breath to calm himself. It doesn’t happen. So he finds himself yelling again.

“How did this even happen! She hasn’t even been outside her house this entire time!” Renjun is trying so hard to hold back the tears of rage. But they’re threatening to explode any minute now.

“What does it matter how she got the virus? It’s a global pandemic. She has it now, like thousands of people around the world. The doctors are doing all they can.” his father says and if Renjun had been in his right mind, he would’ve realized that this was the first time he had spoken to him in over a year. But all he could think of right now was so what if others had it? So what if every fucking person in the world had it? How dare his father say that? 

“How are they doing all they can when she’s on fucking life support?!” Renjun growls through his teeth and he’s inhaling sharp breaths to keep himself from breaking.

“Your mother is with her, Renjun. The best you can do now is pray.” he replies and Renjun wants to hit him. He wants to punch that holier than thou look off his face. His grandmother was probably on her last breath and his father had the audacity to ask him to pray.

“I have to go see her. I have to take care of her.” Renjun turns and looks around, breathing heavily before he begins to move. But his father grabs at his arm.

“You can’t see her, Renjun. Are you even listening to me? Your grandmother is in the isolation ward. There’s only one family member allowed and your mother is it.” he has raised his voice at him.

“She doesn’t know! She doesn’t fucking care about her! I’m the only one who knows! I have to be there with her!” Renjun shouts at him and he’s only acutely aware that he’s sobbing because his words are loud but inchoate. 

“Renjun. Son. There’s nothing we can do.” his father shakes his head at him and watches with his mouth open as his son sobs and barges to the door like a madman. Because Renjun will find a way to get to her. No one cared about her like he did. No one loved her like he did. It had always been him and his grandmother against the world. He needed to be there for her. But the hospital staff is grabbing at him and pushing him out while his father watches from a distance like a helpless man. 

Renjun is barely aware that he’s doubling over because his tears are blinding him or that he’s been led outside because the cool air is hitting him. He gets up to charge back in but his resolve is so much weaker now and he feels another hold around him, keeping him back. 

"Renjun I'm so sorry. Your mother called me. I don't think she knows about us." Yoo Jimin whispers softly as he falls to his knees. She crouches next to him and puts her arms around him.

And in this strange, awful moment, Renjun finds himself realizing that the arms that are holding him aren't the arms that he wanted. The arms that are soothing him and holding him while he cries into the ground are not the arms he craved.

He wanted the arms that had held him that one night while Renjun had laid his head on their shoulder and bared his heart for the very first time. He wants the arms that had enveloped him and had, for at least a moment, made everything alright. He wanted the arms of the person whose heart he had cruelly broken.

Copyright © 2021 NeoCultureTravesty. All rights reserved.

[shanastoryteller]

Underworld Dreams

i feel the need to clarify that this isn’t fiction writing, that these are about real dreams and real events that happened to me, and i was just thinking of them and thought - i should write these down 

i don’t remember my dreams, generally, and i don’t tend to put much stock in the meanings of dreams, generally

but sometimes i have dreams that are stickysharp, that are very vivid, and that feel very real to me for the first few seconds after i wake up, and then i’m always filled with an embarrassing amount of relief that no matter what’s going on in my life currently, those problems aren’t my problems

my friends call them my underworld dreams

~

the first one i had was one i was very young, less than six years old, and i don’t remember much from my actual life from that age with clarity that i remember this dream. i was alone on the street, searching for someone, but everything was empty. i wasn’t scared. then i come across two dogs, fancy poodles, but they’re not right. they see me and immediately begin arguing. “what’s she doing here? she’s not supposed to be here.” “get rid of her” “she’s here now, she might as well stay” “she’s not supposed to be here!” and i try and interrupt, but then they’re looking at me, looming, so much bigger than me when they hadn’t been before, until they’re all teeth, and i’m running. all i hear is barking, and i’m not nor have i ever been afraid of dogs, but i run and my chest hurts but no matter where i look i’m alone. the dogs aren’t there, aren’t chasing me, but i don’t know where to go. i look around and i realize that everything’s in black and white. that the only things that hadn’t been a shade of grey had been the those two dogs. life isn’t shades of grey, i remember suddenly, and i bend over to pick up one of the grey bricks lining the sidewalk. i hold it in both hands and break it in half and liquid cement pools from the broken brick onto the ground. “oh,” i say, with relief, “it’s not real. this is a dream. i can leave now.”

then i wake up. 

~

my mother dies a week before my tenth birthday and i have a dream that i do not forget. i am in the front yard, looking down at the highway from the large sloping hill of our home, leaning against a birch tree. 

there’s a car slowly rolling down our long driveway. once, when i was younger, i was left to play in the front seat of the car as it was parked on top of the long driveway. it was an old car. i moved something i shouldn’t have and the car started rolling and i screamed and screamed, knowing something bad had happened but not how to stop it, and then my mother’s boyfriend, who i hated, ran and jumped into the rolling car and slammed on the breaks. 

i am not in this car. it is getting faster, no one to slam on the breaks, and then my mother is standing next to me. “i’m in there,” she says. “you could save me.” 

i understand that this isn’t real. that my mother is dead and so she can’t be standing next to me. everything else seems so real and normal, but my mother is here like she hasn’t been for weeks, and that  means this is a dream. i look at the car rolling down the hill and remember her casket getting lowered into the ground and i say, “no. you’re already dead. you have to stay dead, that’s how this works.” 

she’s disappointed, but not angry, she stands next to me, silent, as we watch the car roll into the highway, watch it crumple, watch it roll into a ditch. when i turn to look at her, she’s gone. 

then i wake up.

i’m not relieved. i feel guilty for not saving her, even in a dream, even when she was already dead. 

i do not dream of my mother again.

~

my grandmother raised me after my mother died. my grandmother dies when i’m twelve and i do not dream of her when it happens. 

i will, years later, but not then. 

~

i’m in high school and i have another dream. i am in something between victorian england and modern day. everything is gray. i live in a small apartment. 

children keep appearing at my door. i let them in, i feed them, i cloth them. i go to food banks and schools, searching for who these children belong to, but no one claims them, so i keep them. it’s so hard to keep them, but i can’t leave them. 

some of the children get sick. i do my best, but some of them die. 

i put the bodies in the closet and lock the door. i tell the other, living children not to go near the closet. 

i go searching. dead children don’t belong in closets. i go to the hospital, but they say they will not take random dead children. i go to the police and they laugh at me, saying no one will take them, that i’ll have to get rid of them on my own. 

i am angry and desperate but there is a part of me that is not surprised. 

i go home. i will have to keep the dead children in the closet. the living children ask questions, reach for the closet, and i stand in front of it, standing between my dead children in the closet and the living children in front of me, knowing that they can’t open it, that i have to keep it closed, because if i open it then my living children will walk into the closet with my dead children and they will not come out.

then i wake up. 

i do not have any dead children in my closet. the relief is sharp, but not sweet.

~

i have a loft bed in college because the tiny room i’m sharing in this small apartment is not big enough for us to fit two bed side by side. 

i dream that i wake up in this bed, in a place that’s not my own. there are children there, that i know but do not recognize. they cry out when they see me and yell for me to climb down. i do and they grasp my hands, pulling me outside. 

my grandmother is there. other people that i do not recognize but that i know are there. the children are my cousins. these people are my family. we are outside and it is beautiful and bright. the grass is green and soft. 

i sit and talk with my grandmother as the children play. the children run off somewhere else. 

“i’m so glad you’re staying,” someone who i thinks might be an aunt says, patting my hand. 

the first curl of unease is easy to mistake for confusion. “no, i can’t stay, i’m just visiting.” 

“visiting?” she says, pitying. “there’s no visiting. the dead have to stay dead. you know that.” 

i am cold. the grass is still soft. it’s still beautiful. i do not want to stay. 

my grandmother is sad, not pitying, when she says, “it’s too late. they’re burning the bed.” 

i am running. i do not stop to say goodbye. 

the house is burning. the children are tugging at the long legs of my loft bed, trying to to pull it to the ground, and all around me are flames. i run through them, ignoring the cries of my cousins as i climb into the loft bed, laying down and burying my face into my pillow that smells of smoke and heat just as the legs crash and i’m tumbling to the ground.

then i wake up. 

my pillow does not smell of smoke. 

~

it’s finals week and i dream that i’m in a cave. there are bars on the entrance, even though it just leads to even more cave, and guards and a warm yellow light coming from somewhere. 

i am with people i do not know. they are not concerned about leaving. i am. i get the gate open, the guards aren’t around. “come on,” i say to everyone. “let’s go. we have to go.” 

“it’s just a waste of time,” one of them tells me. “we can’t leave. where would we go?” 

i don’t understand. 

someone else puts a water bottle and a several packets of saltine crackers into my hands. “you’ll need this,” he says, not unkindly. “don’t lose them. it’s important.” 

i can’t force anyone to come with me. the guards will be back soon. they should be here now. leaving seems too easy, suddenly, but it’s not like i’m going to stay, so i go. 

the caves are confusing. it takes a long time to find my way out, and i drink most of the water and eat the saltine crackers. when i step out of the labyrinth of caves it’s too bright, brighter than it’s ever been. 

i walk for a long time. i come across a field that is a mix of golden corn and golden wheat growing side by side in a confusing, impractical mixture. 

i see a man, dark skin and greying beard, in grey overalls and a grimy henley that maybe didn’t used to be grey but is now. he has a scythe in his hands, leaning back and swinging it through the mix of corn and wheat. 

the wheat falls to the side and the scythe passes through the corn, leaving it unharmed. 

“can you help me?” i ask. “i need to go home.” 

the man startles, looking at me. “you shouldn’t be here.” 

“i know,” i say, “can you help me? i can’t figure out how to get home.” 

he stares at me for a long moment, then nods, digging a small hole in the ground with the toe of his boot. “here. you kept them, didn’t you?” 

he doesn’t specify, but i know what he means. i take out the mostly empty water bottle and the torn plastic packets of the saltine crackers. i shouldn’t have eaten them. but it was the only way to get out the cave. 

the man sighs, as if i’m tiresome, and takes them from my hands. he empties the saltine crumbs into the dirt, then pours the last of the water on top. he directs me to stand on top of the hole, and i do, and he kicks the dirt in around my feet. “they didn’t have to help you. you’re lucky they gave those to you.” 

i am. i would not have gotten out of the cave without them. i would not be going home without them. 

the man takes a step backwards, leans back, and swings the scythe through me. 

then i wake up. 

my bed is soft and warm. i wonder if i was the corn or the wheat. 

~

my cousin has been two years younger then me our whole lives and she is two years younger than me when she dies. it is strange to think that for the rest of my life my cousin will not age and i will. i live on the other side of the country to her. the last time i was home, i had a bus to catch and she was busy talking to her boyfriend, so instead of waiting to hug her goodbye, i left and said, “i’ll hug you extra hard next time,” and the pain is too familiar to be sharp. 

i dream we are in a beach house like we visited once as children, but we are adults. i am delighted to be here, with my family, warm and content and safe. my cousin is there and we’re floating in the pool and i look at her and my easy contentment falters. something is wrong. i put my arms under her shoulders and knees, like i’m supporting a child who’s just learning how to float, and she looks very still and peaceful until she cracks open an eye to grin at me. “oh no,” i say say, looking at her, remembering, “you’re dead.” disappointment flashes over her face. i wasn’t supposed to say anything. i wasn’t supposed to remember. 

then i wake up. 

i dream we at a garden we’ve never been to. it is bright and easy and the moment i see her, i know that she is dead, but she does not. i don’t tell her, i let her drag me to look at roses bloom, and try to feel for coldness in her skin, but it’s warm. i make myself smile and she doesn’t make me let go of her hand and it’s so very warm here. for the first time i want to stay, but it’s not even a choice. she looks down at our clasped hands and when she looks up, her lips are tinged blue. “oh no,” she says, and i’m reaching for her, to pull her in to hug her extra hard, but i’m not quick enough, “i’m dead.” 

then i wake up. 

can you forget you’re dead? i wonder. can you forget you’re alive? 

~

the last stickysharp dream i had was over a year ago, and it was this: 

i am at the beach with all my friends. i love them so much. it’s hot and and the sand burns my feet so we are sitting on the shoreline, damp and hot and laughing. 

there is a bright flash of light. it’s a bomb going off. i don’t know how i know, but i do, and i run. 

you can’t outrun a bomb, but i try, my first instinct to flee and the hot sand is burning my feet. it takes me too long to realize that no one else is running, that they’re all standing perfectly still, watching their death coming for them. 

my friends are still at the shoreline. the first shockwave is coming. i don’t have enough time to run back to them, even though i want to. 

i die alone 

then i wake up. 

~

i do not remember my dreams, generally, and i don’t put much meaning into dreams, generally 

generally 

[shackermanwrites]

PAPER RINGS

Summary:  In year 1908, you and your friends attempts to have the remaining best days of your lives before entering college. Yet you only have a few months to persuade your parents to send you to boarding school instead of finishing college and marry a man. Will you succeed when Kuchel's son Levi Ackerman suddenly entered your life? Will you let a lower class like him love an upper class like you or will you continue to pursue your dream to enter college and be with your friends?

Pairing:Levi Ackerman x Fem!Reader

Warnings & Content: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe,  based on Anne with an E, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, first love, arrange marriage, coming of age.

Chapter 1 -> Chapter 2

Year 1908

“I’ll see you tomorrow, we shall make our remaining last days and summer here in Avonlea memorable!”

“No need to cry Sasha, we’re attending the same boarding school remember? Along with Annie, Historia, and Ymir.”

You opened your arms to give a big warm and reassuring hug to your blossomed friend Sasha as the both of you stand along the huge trees. You and Sasha are kindred spirits as she likes to word it ever since you were just a little girls. Both of your mothers are best of friends since school that’s why you have known each other since.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow y/n” The brown-haired girl smiled widely to you before the both of you started parting ways.

The grin on your face instantly faded as you began to walk home. You’re not even sure about college since your parents which is mostly your father who is pushing you to attend finishing school after this year and start practicing how to be a proper lady that is fir to marry since they’re insisting you to find a gentleman to marry and settle.

Which of course you do not wish nor approve to do so. Finishing school means you are going to be isolated from your friends and not to mention that it will not actually give you a well-rounded education. You wanted to be a teacher since it is your passion since you were a little kid to teach and educate a lot of people but with the disapproval of you parents, you find it hard to believe that it will be possible.

Sure, you wanted to be to be wife someday but not with someone you just met and most specifically not because you have to. Not a lot of forced marriage ends up beautifully. You are a hopeless romantical waiting for your someone to capture your heart at the right time and moment.

Since you have no other choice but to obey them for now and persuade them some other time and hopefully they will change their mind.

You reached your house within a matter of time thanks to your preoccupied mind along the way. You saw your helper in farm which is Mr. Ackerman mending the saddle of the horses.

“Good day Mr. Ackerman!” you greeted while waving your hand in the air.

“For the last time kid, just Kenny!” Kenny did mind a little being called Mr. since they were just helpers, in short, they are poor and you coming from a wealthy family calling him with honorifics isn’t a norm.

“Good day Kenny!” You repeat with a giggled before proceeding to head your way.

Faint sound of voices coming from inside the house was already audible in front of your house. You thought your mother was only having a tea with her friends. You quickly opened the door hoping to great Mr. and Mrs. Yaeger but you were instead greeted by Miss Ackerman sitting in the couch with your parents along with a raven-haired boy sitting beside Miss Ackerman.

“There you are dear, come take a seat. We’ll discuss some things.” You mother stated as she pours tea in each cup.

You took off your hat and hang it in the hat stand along with your coat. Obediently, you sat beside your mother facing the black-haired boy. You can now clearly see his face, he is pale and has a straight emotionless face that gives the impression that he is not interested.

“You see dear, Kuchel here needs to say her goodbye to us for now, she’s sick and can’t be use of helping in house chores and in farm so instead she’s lending her son here to help his uncle in farm.”

You worriedly look at Kuchel who was giving a faint smile to you. Kuchel was not just a helper in your house, she was like a second mother to you. She’s kind and beautiful and she always taught you things that made you see the world in another perspective.

“Are you okay Miss Kuchel?” You asked which made the boy in front of you furrowed his brows. Never in a million years he would see a wealthy person like you use honorifics to their kind let alone be concerned to them. He thinks that most people who were born with a golden spoon is spoiled and annoying, always blabbering about money and things they bought. Yet he also felt a little envious since they don’t have enough money to support their family but nonetheless he is still grateful for the things he has especially his mother.

“Yes dear that’s very kind of you but no need to worry I am okay.” Kuchel replied with a reassuring smile on her face.

You avert your gaze to his son which he was already looking at you with his cold stare. Just like his mother, he has a steel blue eyes and jet black hair. He looks just exactly like his mother.

“My son is strong, kind, compliant, and very hard working, you will have no problem with him. I am very sorry for this inconvenient Mr. and Mrs. L/N” The dark haired woman smiled weakly which you then returned with a reassuring smile when her gaze averts to yours.

“It can’t be helped then but I expect nothing will change from your service.” You father simply replied. You and your father were never really that close especially he was always busy at work managing the town being the reason why you sometimes do not approve on how he speaks.

You were about to speak when your mother cuts you off. “Well then I guess it is settled. We will take good care of your son Kuchel and besides Kenny is here. Take good care of yourself on the way Kuchel.”

You can tell that you got your trait of being compassionate from your mother, you never really had a conversation with your father without the both of you arguing so grew up being distance with him to avoid conflict.

Kuchel then proceeded to bid her goodbye before your mother shows her way out, but you're pretty sure your mother gave her some money to buy enough food and even medicine. You were left in the living area along with your father and Kuchel’s son.

“Tell your mother I will be back before supper, Mr. Yeager and I needs to discuss some things. Kindly tell your mother to show Kuchel’s son around the house and the farm.” And there was your father’s strict and bossy attitude, whenever he talks to you, he almost sound unaffectionate and uninterested.

“Yes father, send my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Yeager.” You softly replied before your fathers walks out of your sight.

You look at the boy in front of you who was already looking at you.

“Hello, my name is Y/N, what’s yours?” You reach out your hand to him to have a formal handshake yet he just looks at it with confusion painted on his face.

“Levi.” He simply replied. You then pull out your hand from the embarrassment of him not returning the handshake. The first thing you noticed about him is his French accent just like his mother’s, you found it interesting as you always wanted to learn new language.

“Nice meeting you Levi.” You flash a nice welcome smile to him yet he remains the same and only responded with a nod.

You grip on your slate and books as you stand up and fix your dress. “Well, it was nice meeting you once again Levi, please excuse me.”

You graciously stood up and bowed your head at him, it was like you were programmed to do social etiquette all your life to the point where you are convinced that being graceful is the only thing you excel at.

You were greeted by the same beige colored wall in your room along with the fresh vanilla scent from your perfume. Your mother insisted that you start wearing perfumes and start taking care if your body since you are now a lady and perhaps next year you will start wearing corsets.

Once a woman reached the age of eighteen, it is a must to wear one to maintain an upright, 'good figure' and of course, parents should decide whether they would send their daughter to college but in your case, finishing school it is.

“I still have months to persuade my parents to change their minds. Nothing could possible go wrong.”

You settled your books and slate in your study table before deciding to come down to help for supper. Even with the helpers in your house, you are expected to do basic simple chores in the house such as arranging the plates in the table before and after a meal.

You found your mother cooking in the kitchen while Levi was already arranging the plates in the table. You were about to stop him since it is your job to do it but your mother grabbed you by the wrist.

“Let him dear, just for tonight. I already told him the chores he will be doing and just for tonight, I asked him to eat with us and he insisted on helping.”

You nod in response to your mother before glancing over at Levi who seems to be unbothered. You noticed that he has this bored expression in his fac. He’s short and pale, and noticeably quiet which his presence made you feel intimidated by him.

Levi had caught you staring at him which made him a little uncomfortable, you were only observing him but to him, he thought you were judging him for the way he is, maybe he even thought that you pity him, you being disgusted to the plates because he touched it also crossed his mind.

“Do you need anything?” You felt your blood rushing through your face when you realized that you were staring at the new boy, it was embarrassing and improper for a lady to stare.  

“What?” you did not understand what he just said and why he said it. you look around and your mother was not in the kitchen anymore and the two of you were left alone.

“I said, do you need anything?” Levi placed the last plate he was holding in the table before averting his gaze to you.

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sta-” you were cut off by your father stepping into the kitchen along with your mother. You hurriedly checked the soup before taking it out on the stove.

The four of you took a seat in the dining area. You were sitting beside your mother and in front of Levi. Only the sound of clanking utensils can be heard.

“Say, Levi is it? what do you usually do in your house?” Your father and you looked at your mother and Levi as she tries to engage a conversation.

“I take care of my younger sister Ma’am, she’s 12. Sometimes, I help sell our small crops and goods in town for our extra income.”

“That’s good. How old are you anyways?”

“Eighteen ma’am, turning nineteen.”

Your mother nod at his response while you and your father remained quiet for the entire night. Normally, you were the one who was being asked about your day in school but it was nice having a break even just for a night.

Levi on the other hand was a little uncomfortable not from talking but from the food. It’s not like he did not like the food that was served, in fact he liked it very much but he just hoped that he could share the meat and the delicious soup with his mother since they rarely eat anything like that. Bread, cheese, oats and jams were the only food they can afford.

Nonetheless, it was a decent evening for him and to you too. It was peaceful and the both of you shared one thing in common, changed.

-

“Psst!”

“Y/N!”

You rose from your bed as soon as you heard whispers along with rocks hitting your window from below your room. You did not need to know who was the culprit because only one person keeps doing that for years.

Sneaking at night was improper especially for a lady at your age but you and your friends were never really liked at term ‘Proper’, you and your friends are indeed proper in the eyes of everyone, but not when all of you are alone.

Without wasting any time, you put your boots on and carefully head outside without making a noise. Sneaking outside your room was always easy but going down the stairs was the hardest part. The amount of times you were caught sneaking out when you were a child because of the squeaking sounds that the stairs makes still haunts you till this day.

Luckily, you managed to pass the old squeaky stairs, there was just a faint light coming from the living room. You were taking your time way too much that you forgot about your friends waiting outside for probably almost 10 minutes now, you hurriedly made your way to the front door before looking back just to check if any of your parent is up.

You opened the door and the cold wind immediately welcomed you as soon as you stepped outside. It was dark and only the moon was giving the night sky its light. You carefully and quietly closed the door making sure no sound can be heard from the inside.

It was already getting late so you ran as soon as you turned your back on your house not caring on the slippery additional five concrete stairs in front of your house. You just need to go to the side of your house where your room is and everything will be fine.

Everything was going on so smoothly not until a person suddenly stood up just as you were about to turn, you bumped you head hard on that persons chest. You look up to meet Levi’s confused expression.

“Levi! You scared me, what are you doing?” You whispered before looking around to see if anyone was there.

“Sitting, obviously.” He simply replied while looking at you.

You looked back at him nervously, you were scared he might tell your parents that you were sneaking at night.

“Listen I- Please don’t say anything to my parents, please, just pretend you didn’t see me.” You begged him. Levi didn’t say anything, he was thinking if he should accept your request or not which made you more anxious as time goes by.

“See what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Levi replied.

Immediately, a smile was plaster on your face, you were relieved by his answer. You smiled at him.

“Thank you Levi, I owe you one.” You walked passed him before running to the side of your room.

Levi was left alone confused, you were still behaving like the way you did earlier. You still smiled at him even when no one’s around. Yet a part of his thought knows you needed to be kind to him only for him to not tell your parents what he just saw.

-

“There she is, Y/N we’ve been here for almost an hour.”

“Ymir I think that’s a bit overreacting now.”

You were greeted by your friends, Sasha who’s clinging over Annie, Ymir holding a bunch of scarfs and Historia who’s holding flower crowns. They walked over to your direction to meet you.

“I’m sorry, I’m here now let’s go.” All of you looked around as you all walked away from your house. You looked back at the direction where Levi was when you were already far away from your house, there was no Levi already.

‘Maybe he already went inside.’ You thought to yourself.

There was laughter and chatter while you and your friends are on the way to the near lake in your house. One every two weeks, all of you spends the night there talking about life since all of you were just a child.

“it’s still so beautiful no matter what.” Historia says in an awe when you arrived at the lake.

She’s right, it’s always so peaceful and calm here especially at night.

“It’s nice, nothing changed in this beautiful lake but we’re all changed. Look at us now.” You sadly said while looking over the lake.

Your friends understood what you said. None of you were ready for being grown up, for the reality you need to face.

“We’re all adults now, I’m scared that one day we all might forget each other, we have to marry some gentleman one way or another.” Annie stated.

“I hate them already.” Sasha replied.

There was a lump in your throat, you want them to know that you can’t go to college with them but you can’t, it just doesn’t feel right to you to say it just yet.

“I’ll just marry all of you if that’s the case.” You jokingly said to lighten up the mood.

“It would please of if you don’t include me and Historia, we’re going to marry each other.” Ymir said as she hugs Historia while the blonde girl giggles before returning her hug.

You spend the night laughing and playing around while wearing flower crowns, the happy faces of your friends reassured you that everything will be fine. After an hour, you all parted ways before it gets too late. Maybe some other time you will have the courage to tell them the truth.

You manage to went back inside your house without waking your parents up yet at this point you don’t care if they did. It will give you the reason to beg not to send you to finishing school but you know it will worsen the situation.

You were thinking for so long that your thoughts went to that Raven haired boy, he seems nice yet not much of a talkative person. Kuchel was so nice to you so you’re also certain that Levi is just like his mother. You remembered that you owe him for tonight and you know exactly what to do.

[thefanficmonster]

Corpse Infested

Corpse Husband & Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Mentions of dysfunctional family, Family problems, Swearing

Genre: Humor, Comfort, Platonic fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When your friend disappears for a long time, seemingly having lost interest in what fueled the most passionate fire in their life, you cannot not worry about them. Even if you wanna give them space, you will reach out, you will offer your help. You will tell them they always have you to rely on and talk to.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to complete and post your request, but here it finally is! Hope you come across it and if you do I hope you enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

For me, it’s never hard to find things to do. I’ve constantly got things on my mind and tasks to tend to, keeping me occupied and my mind focused at all times. I think that comes with living in a home as dysfunctional as this one. I honestly can’t recall a time when my parents got along nor can I think of a time where there was at least one second of peace while the two are both present in the house. It’s always a warzone up there. I’m saying up there because I tend to live out of the basement of their home. I know living in your parents’ basement is considered a peak loser point, or the bottom of the bottom, but you’d have to believe me when I say - I wasn’t always like this. In fact, I only recently came back to this hell-hole and boy do I regret it. I mean, it was a decision forced upon me by circumstances. Trust me, I tried every other option there was. When my dorm was to be closed down and demolished, we were given a notice to start planning our next move about a month early. You can bet I immediately started looking at places but my very tragic and miserable budget didn’t allow such a purchase. No rent was adequate for me and my near-empty wallet so my second option was moving in with my best friend who was also not in the greatest of situations but I thought I’d give that a shot too.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out. She lived in a tiny apartment with her boyfriend and his best friend at the time, so four people in one apartment was a nightmare. Still a lesser nightmare than this one but a nightmare nonetheless. Some unwanted and downright traumatizing events chased me out of that place after barely managing to pack my stuff. Therefore, finding myself on the streets again, I had no other option other than the obvious and least liked one: moving back in with my parents.

Making money during my first year of college hasn’t been easy. Working two jobs at once and also streaming video games on the side was what my time was filled with all throughout the first semester but then this damn pandemic started and now ruined everything for me. I had things going for me, I was slowly getting my life together and now it has all fallen apart yet again. The places I worked at closed down due to quarantine and I haven’t been able to steam, not only cause I’d be the victim of my parents’ comments but also cause my terrible home life would be exposed to all my fans and viewers. It’s not like I could cancel out the commotion going on right above my head, it’s a livestream and this house’s walls are cardboard thin meaning all the arguing I hear almost 24/7 will serve as background noise for my streams.

I haven’t reached out to my friends or fans to inform them of this which I feel slightly guilty about but I’m really not looking forward to having to lie to them, just as much as I’m not looking forward to having to tell them the truth so instead I’ve picked silence which is probably either worrying them or driving them insane. Either way, I’ll make my comeback soon.

Well....not very soon by the looks of it...

I have to gather the money, then I have to find a place, then comes the packing, moving out of here, moving into the new place...oh God, there’s so much to it that I don’t even wanna think about. Just that thought that I’ll be inactive for that long makes my stomach turn. Streaming’s where I’ve been channeling all my negative emotions, turning them into something positive and entertaining with the help of my friends.

Speaking of my friends, I should probably put emphasis on how amazing they are. Basically the older siblings I’ve always wished I had. I’m the baby of the group, the eighteen year old freshman in college, powering through life the best they can cause they are constantly getting tripped up by inconvenient occurrences such as this one for example. I tend to have the gang poke fun at me quite frequently - all lighthearted and with good intentions obviously - but they are also the ones to get super defensive if anyone gets the balls to talk shit about me. They’d never allow me to be the victim of any smack talk or online rumors and ‘cancel culture’ or whatever the hell people will come up with to leave others restless and wondering if they did something shady a decade ago. Well, to be fair, I didn’t even know about the concept of social media a decade ago and I’ve never been one to post much but I still have a protection squad in case anyone decides to come after me.

Little do they know the people I need protecting from are the very people that are supposed to protect me - my parents. Luckily, they don’t venture into to basement very often if at all and I have my own exit to the outside world so I don’t have to run into them unless I absolutely have to. The only time I emerge to the surface of the house - aka the ground floor - I do so to leave my share of rent money on the dining table and I usually do it when they aren’t home or when they’re asleep - that happens often with how many bottles they each knock back on the daily.

*sigh*...at least I don’t have to talk to them, right?

Anyhow, remember how I mentioned I always have things to do? Well, right now I’ve tasked myself with rifling through the large boxes containing random stuff I found in one of the basements down here to see if there’s anything I could possibly sell online. For starters, I’d like to hope there aren’t any severed body parts in here because this was one shady-ass basement before I moved in and un-creeped it a bit so I wouldn’t have to become an insomniac due to the paranoia of there being a homeless person down here with me or some paranormal entity. Regardless, old basements tend to be, apart from haunted, also filled with junk no one would find valuable despite it actually being worth something after all. That’s basically what I’m hoping to find at the moment.

As I dig through the contents of the first box, the YouTube playlist I have put on on my phone cuts off causing me to furrow my brows in confusion for a second before my ringtone pierces the silence the lack of music created.

I quickly mute the ringing and take a look at the Caller ID to see a name I never thought would pop up on my screen as an incoming call - Corpse. I, as well as many of our friends, know that he’s not the biggest fan of talking to people on the phone so this is rather surprising. Still, I pick up the call in case it’s not a mistake and an odd chance that it’s somethin urgent cause Lord knows Corpse doesn’t call people willy-nilly. 

Thank God it’s quiet up there at the moment.

“Hello?“ I try my best to cover up the confusion in my voice but I can only assume I didn’t do the best job considering Corpse replies with a slightly awkward chuckle.

“Surprised you, didn’t I?“ He asks, getting my cheeks to redden a bit, “You can’t blame a guy for calling after up and disappearing on him and on the whole internet. Where’ve you been?“

I open my mouth to respond when I hear the sound of glass breaking a shouted curse from upstairs.

Oh for fuck’s sake!

“Um...you know, places?“ I’m aware the answer isn’t only nonsensical but also sounds more like a question, but I can hardly focus on that right now. I’m too buys praying to an entity I don’t fully believe in for the situation above to not escalate.

“Uh, is everything ok over there? Where even are you right now?“ The teasing tone to his voice is all but gone at this point, replaced with deep concern, having obviously heard the commotion that did the exact opposite of what I prayed for - escalated.

“Y-yeah, it’s ok. It’s just another Thursday, you know.“ I attempt a small laugh but it’s blatantly miserable, “I moved back in with my parents when they announced the quarantine so that’s where I’m at now. They’re not the quietest of folks as you can tell so...“

“I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I HOPE YOU DIE“

Oh crap, here we go.

“...So I can’t really stream a lot...or at all.“ I mutter, cringing with all my might, “But it’s only temporary! I’ll get back in the saddle as soon as I find another place to stay.“ I don’t dare mention how long that’s gonna take me, it’ll be too disappointing and depressing for the both of us. “So yeah...um...thanks for showing concern but there’s really nothing to worry about. I’m ok, everything’s ok, things are just...a bit off the rails, but I’ll fix em no problem. Like I always do!“ I attempt to sound as cheerful as possible with little success due to the overwhelming anger I feel towards those people upstairs and the gut-wrenching nostalgia for the world of streaming I can no longer be a part of because of them. Actually, I put the blame first on the pandemic and second on my parents - if it wasn’t for Covid I’d probably still be in my dorm!

“Hey...um, I think I know an affordable place where you can take up residence. Only if you want to, of course.“ He sounds hesitant but I easily overlook that as excitement bursts throughout my entire being at the sound if an escape being offered to me just like that. Had I known I’d find the solution to my problem in the very people I spent time avoiding because I was afraid of their pity, sympathy and judgement.

“Oh please, it could be a rat and roach infested shoe box and I’d go running to it. How much is rent?“ I ask through a gasp of hurried laughter that’s a result of my inability to contain said excitement. Listen, I’ve been sitting here in Hellsburg for three months now and haven’t gotten a proper shuteye during that whole period, whatever Corpse is offering has to be better than this misery.

“Rent can be discussed once you move in...“ He trails off, “And it’s not rat nor roach infested but there’s a slight issue...“

“Which is?“ I’m honestly expecting the worst: in a bad neighborhood; faulty wiring with a high chance of being electrocuted; faulty piping with a high chance of flooding; people have died there; things get randomly moved around in the middle of the night etc. However, I don’t voice any of them to avoid getting laughed at for my wild imagination.

“Well, uh, it’s corpse infested.“ He says a little awkwardly, causing me to let out an inaudible sigh.

So my ‘people have died there’ guess was on point, huh?

“People have died there, huh? Well, I can turn a blind eye to that as long as I don’t find their bodies in the closet or meet their spirits at 3AM.“ I attempt to joke, now second-guessing my eagerness to accept the offer.

Corpse bursts out laughing his ass off at my statement, getting me to furrow my eyebrows in confusion and wonder what I said was so funny - it was a poor attempt at a joke, it in no way deserves that sort of reaction, barely a chuckle in my opinion.

“You’re golden, Y/N, I swear.“ He says once he forces the laughter to subside, “I meant corpse infested as in Corpse Husband infested.“ He breaks out in another fit as my brain slowly starts connecting the dots.

Oooohh he’s asking me to go live with him

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, hold up for a sec. Are you aware of what you’re offering me? I mean, we’ve never met IRL, you barely know me and....and for all you know I could be the serial killer in this situation!“ I have no idea why I’m pushing my luck, don’t ask. I just don’t want him to make a decision he’ll later regret, I guess. “Like, I could kill you in your sleep!“

“Would you?“ He asks confidently, silently stating he already knows the answer.

I roll my eyes, “Of course not! But...” He cuts me off.

“Great, the offer stands on my end. I’m not a noisy nor nosey roommate so I suggest you start packing. If you choose to live in that hell-hole over living with me, I’m sorry but I’ll be hella offended, just so you know.“

Corpse sounds like he’s about to hang up on me, a decision already made, so I hurry to stop him. “Wait! What about rent?”

“Fuck the rent, pack your bags.“ And just like that, despite my efforts, he hangs up on me.

Well...this is a chance of a lifetime that I know refusing would lead me to not only remain stuck here but also put me in the hugest loser bin. There’s also the fear of being Corpse’s burden which I’ll try my best not to be - I mean, I’m a super independent person and Lord knows that if this offer came any other time or from any other person, I would’ve declined asap, no discussion.

But streaming

But sleeping properly

But having a normal life again

Yeah those are most certainly the reasons I get up and go into the closet in search on my emptied suitcase. Time to fill it up again, I guess. This time with a smile on my face and excitement fueling each and every movement of mine.

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[ktheist]

finale — show me yours & i’ll show you mine

➙ muses. seokjin x college student / gamer!reader ft. best friend! taehyung

➙ genre. best friend’s brother au. university au. working au. fwb au.

➙ word. 2.1k

➙ index. 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | finale | side story 1 |

➙ synopsis. 

“show me yours and i’ll show you mine.”

x

“be nice," taehyung mouths across from you as he sits next to mina.

the red handprints on his cheeks becoming more apparent with each passing minute. it was half-believable to say taehyung fell face first in the snow, got stuck there for more than two minutes and voila, sported a red face upon your return to the kim’s.

but now, you’re just lucky no one’s pointing out the very obvious palm shaped mark on his pudgy cheeks as he stuffs his face with food.

“oh, mina, do you have any plans tomorrow? you could stay over and spend christmas morning with us," mrs kim asks as she passes the bowl of the roasted potatoes seokjin’s been boasting about.

“o-oh,” the brunette stammers, holding the fork with both hands as if citing a prayer of hope, “no, i couldn’t intrude on you any longer.”

“no such thing, we’re all family here.” mrs kim waves a dismissive hand and even that brief gesture feels warm, “___’s mother and i have known your mother since we were kids and i watch you two grow up with my boys - you’re basically  daughters i never had,” she shoots you a smile, eyes crinkling in the corners.

not seeing the remark coming, you end up almost choking on the mushroom soup you’re just in the middle of enjoying.

“i can’t say i’d love to have tae as a sibling but here we are,” you jest, half-heartedly while laughter erupts from everyone at the table.

if there’s a god, please don’t let mrs kim find out i fucked her oldest son.

“i heard yuukal co is interested in your flower arrangements and wanna buy exclusive rights to have you deliver them to the company whenever they have an event lined up?” namjoon chirps up, dimples digging into his cheek as he digs into his 

“the secretary of yuukal co was an acquaintance of mine in college, that’s probably why.” the brunette says shyly, pushing her hair to the back of her ear.

“so, you’re not planning on going back to college?” 

but it’s your voice that makes her blink once and stare at you like you’re some tricky math question.

“what- oh,” she shakes her head, as if shaking away the trance that delayed her response, “i don’t know, my major has nothing to do with what i want to do so i’m thinking of taking another year off.”

you nod casually. understandingly. “i’m sure the college has plenty of spots for people who actually wants to be there, i guess.”

it’s not a new low. but it’s a kind of low you never usually stoop to.

no one seems to notice though, as mina laughs. obviously uncomfortable by your remark, “haha yeah.”

“taehyung got offered a job at the company he interned in last year,” with a smack on the aforementioned boy’s back, seokjin proudly announces.

and just like that, taehyung takes the spotlight to himself.

“oh my god, that’s wonderful news. kim taehyung, when were you going to tell us?” mrs. kim is the first to say something, eyes brimming with anticipation as she looks at him, waiting for him to tell everyone at the table more about it.

but the fact of the matter is, kim taehyung is torn between working a nine-to-five, subsequently making his parents proud or going professional as a full time gamer.

he breathes out an ‘uh...’ before his lips curl into a forced smile.

“surprise?”

x

some time after dinner, you end up drinking and playing card games. mrs kim already went to bed and it's a hour past midnight and all four of your find yourselves in your house to not disturb the kim couples.

the grinch is playing in the background because you, taehyung and mina won against namjoon and seokjin who wanted to watch frozen.

“frozen is so unchristmasy,” taehyung complained.

though, at one point, you did backtrack a little - only a teensy bit - and sided with seokjin who looked like he just won a lottery when you casually say, “i mean frozen’s got that wintry feeling and christmas is in-”

“oh girl, not you choosing a man over your best friend,” taehyung started tickling your sides as giggles erupted from your lips while trying to beg for forgiveness.

 “okay! okay! i’m grinch team all the way!”

“is that allowed? yah! you can’t say that after converting to team frozen!” seokjin’s rebuttal sounded every bit casual.

in retrospect, him joining taehyung’s ticklish assault would have felt out of character had you not fucked behind taehyung’s back nor kissed like you were star crossed lovers just hours ago.

“two against one! not fair! seokjin- ah- hahahaha!” 

one good thing came out of it though: you ended up sitting next to seokjin. it made you a little too conscious of him - of his cologne, of his thigh that brushes against yours with every movement you make and pretend like it’s nothing and of the ghost of a touch of his pinky finger that lingers on your knee when he seemingly places a hand on his own knee. 

still, it’s the closest you could ever be in public and it’s enough to tell mina to back off.

she doesn’t seem to notice but her compliments are equally distributed to everyone in the room. she seems to be the giggly drunk. giggling at every single thing everyone say.

somewhere deep in your heart, you feel the guilt gnawing because of your uncalled for hostility.

“i better get home,” she starts to stand at 3:07 am and you wave a dismissive hand, “no, it’s so late. stay over. please. you promised to make me your special hot chocolate in the morning.”

she objects at first like she turned down mrs kim’s invitation to spend christmas morning at the kim’s. and that’s how you know your views have been blinded with jealousy to see mina for who she is - a cute, lovable girl who’d be the heroine of every romance novel there is.

“oh thank you, thank you!” her arms flail around before they wrap around you in a drunken hug.

you laugh, hugging back.

x

the memories of how you huddled together like children and fell asleep in the living room, is hazy but when you wake up - the time on your screen displaying a 6 something am - you find a blanket draped over your body.

the light from the kitchen pours over the living room but not enough to wake the slumbering bodies there.

seokjin shoots you a smile when he sees you ambling over to the dining table with hair pointing in every direction, eyes squinting trying to block out the light while holding the blanket around your shoulders.

“you’re working? jinnie, it’s christmas,” you whine, head resting on his shoulder, feeling your heartbeat skip at the small contact.

he chuckles, bumping his cheek against your head before you hear the sound the keyboard again.

you stay like that, blanket curled around your body, seokjin typing away at his laptop.

that is, until his velvet voice cuts through the silence.

“so... i reckon that red handprint on tae’s cheek isn’t because he fell face first in snow.”

“it was because i slapped him in the face,” you wave your injured hand that’s now wrapped with a panda printed band aid instead of the duck ones seokjin used in the beginning.

he takes your hand, making sure not to apply too much pressure on the injury and kisses the top of your hand, “why would you do that?”

your cheeks warm at the gesture but you clear your throat, trying to play it cool, “because he told me we looked good together after all that shit he put us through.”

silence lulls in once again.

it feels like the longest you’ve ever gone with your heart palpitating inside your chest and unspoken words hovering over you but not quite reaching the who they’re supposed to reach.

“do we?” seokjin muses.

“do we... what?” you ask despite having an inkling of what he means.

“look good.” he turns to you, one arm on the table, thumb brushing against your pinky finger.

“i don’t know- we never even took selfies together.” you shrug.

“i think our selfies would look cute,” he pauses, naturally pouty lips curling into a smile, “so cute that the guys in your dm’s would be devastated to know that you’re dating me.”

“i can’t... do this,” the words slip out of your mouth like a waterfall like it’s bound to pour out of your heart through your mouth at some point, “because taehyung was... right. i don’t have a love language - even if i did, it’d be being jealous of every girl that talks to you. lashing out at those girls even though it’s completely understandable why they’d have heart eyes when they talk to you because you’re just that amazing... and... and... you like me? why?”

seokjin’s eyes look like someone personally plucked stars from the sky and trap them in those dark brown irises.

no- actually, he’s looking at you like you’re the star and he’s the moon that shines silver white rays just to have you notice him.

“who’s to say i don’t get jealous?” he cups your face, brows furrowing like you’re a math question without a solution and he’s going mad trying to figure you out, “i get so jealous at the thought of guys sliding into your dm’s, let alone make a pass on you but then i thought ‘if she’s not looking at me then i just have to try harder to make her notice me’ and i might or might not’ve reciprocated mina’s passes to make you jealous...”

you feel the corners of your lips tugging into a smile as you smack his chest lightly, “ass.”

that earns a chuckle from the man before he goes on, “but i’m not even sure what my love language is either, last i used it, i ended up getting dumped because apparently i’m too boring.”

“you’re not boring...” red flashes in your vision as you spit out the word, offended, “your dad jokes are bad but that’s what makes them so lovable. you’re so tall but you’re a literal walking teddy bear. you have biggest, kindest heart... and you’re so hung.”

something devious and prideful flashes across his eyes for the briefest moment before he asks ever so softly, “yeah?”

“yes.” you take his hands and grip them tightly, wishing the touch would convey your feelings.

“isn’t that kind of your love language?” his thumb feels callous against your skin as he rubs circles on the back of your hand. but that’s what makes this feels real - an affirmation that you’re not dreaming, “so... show me more... show yours and i’ll show you mine.”

you’d want to say you share a deep, passionate kiss to seal your promise for each other. but when you open your eyes - not knowing when you closed it - you’re staring at the white ceiling with neon starry stickers tacked up on it. 

and seokjin?

he’s nowhere to be found.

the morning air sends shivers down your spine as you pull your blanket over your head, trying to tune out taehyung’s voice.

but the universe seems set on kicking your sleepy ass of your bed when the door swings open with a bang! 

“get up! get up! it’s christmas!” the tall boy literally screams in your ears before hoisting you over his shoulder like a sack of potato and setting you down on the toilet in the bathroom with a “you better wash your face by the time i come back!”

you do as told.

eventually.

since the presents are all set under the christmas tree at the kim’s and you’re not looking to upload a christmas morning story in mismatched pj’s, you change into a cute totoro onesie.

mr and mrs kim got mina - she thanked you for letting her stay over last night even though you woke up to an empty house, she even has different clothes on than last night - new kits for the florist.

taehyung almost hugged you to death when he unwrapped his new ps5 that he’s been dying for.

namjoon got a new pair of gucci loafers from taehyung and booked an interrogation slot with their mother because-

“kim taehyung, where did you get all this money?”

you suspect he’s going to reveal his gaming channel to her where he got sponsors from to buy namjoon those loafers.

and seokjin gifted you with a heartshaped necklace as well as a new pc set for taehyung and a signed book of namjoon’s favorite writer that he’d been talking about for ages as well as an all expense paid trip for his parents to thailand.

“thanks for the necklace,” you lightly bump seokjin’s elbow as you come to stand next to him at the sink. he’s washing the mug he used for hot coffee.

he steals a glance at his family and mina in the living room. they’re laughing over taehyung having his head down, sitting on his calves like he’s asking for the forgiveness of a lifetime after confessing that he didn’t want to work a nine-to-five and wanted to go pro.

then his eyes find yours again. the glint in them makes your heart stop before he leans down, lips brushing yours ever so gently yet very seokjin-like.

you think your heart just burst as you freeze in your spot, staring up at the man with slightly parted lips and warm cheeks like a high school girl whose crush very obviously hinted he likes her back.

he raises a quizzical brow at your reaction before realization settles on his face and his lips curve into a smirk, “what? did you think last night was all a dream?”

x

taglist.  @aretha170 @scalubera @ambersaesthetics @heyjiminnie @hyuck-me @fanfuckingfic @fangurl-ontgeside @bri-mal @waves-and-woods @rjsmochii​ @kimmieloveswho​

[bonkers-4-hatter]

⇸ Words: 4,027

⇸ TW (Again): This fanfic has mentions of kidnapping, violence, assault, choking, strangulation, forced kissing, forcing self onto the reader at certain points and of course, Yandere themes and actions.

⇸ If any of the above does trigger you, please do not read. All characters are 18+ as mentions of everyone attending college are in the story.

⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸

Nagisa was your first real friend.

Actually, he was the first person to actually talk to you at all when you came to Iwatobi. Being a foreigner it made a lot of the students steer away from you, but Nagisa never made you feel that way. His bright smile was the first thing that greeted you everyday at the school’s gate. It was something that you always looked forward to.

He of course introduced you to the rest of the swim team and you all became good friends, but Nagisa spent the most time with you by far. He was always at your house, pulling you to try new cafes and places to eat and just have fun. It was part of his energetic nature, wanting to go and do something, try something, but he wanted to do it with you the most out of everyone in the group. You never really gave it much thought through the years. You were close friends, you just thought it was him wanting to spend as much time with you before you went back to America...but now, you're rethinking everything he’s done and said to you over the past three and a half years.

Your hands shook, making the picture that illuminated on your phone screen shake back in response. You were simply letting the group know when you would be leaving. You were going back to America for University and while the rest of the group was excited for you and your new endeavor, some were making plans to hang out with you one last time for a while, Nagisa didn’t say anything in the group chat, the only indication that he was even seeing the messages was his profile picture showing up underneath the messages.

It wasn’t long until your phone notified you off the hook, one message after another. You thought the group chat was blowing up, but no...it was Nagisa messaging you privately with words you’ve never heard him speak to you, nor anyone before in your whole time of knowing him.

Nagi<3: You think you can leave me?

Nagi<3: You’re supposed to stay with me! How could you leave like that? After all we’ve been through? All those times I was there for you??

Nagi<3: I won’t let you leave (Y/N), you belong here with me...I’ll make sure you won’t leave the city let alone the country!

Nagi<3: I love you (Y/N)! Don’t you get it? We’re supposed to be together damnit! Why can’t you see that? You can’t be that dense.

Nagi<3: Is it because you like Haru? Makoto? Rei? Are you playing hard to get because you’re a slut? Flirting with them and ignoring me?? Is my attention not fucking enough for you? Have to go whore yourself to the rest of the group?!

Nagi<3: ...I’m just angry, you’re not a whore (Y/N), I really do love you! Please stay here, we’ll get a place for ourselves, I’ll take care of you (Y/N), have I ever let you down? Fucking say something! Please!

Nagi<3: I need you (Y/N), you’re my whole world and I won’t let you slip away...

It was too much for you to handle. With shaking hands and tears streaming down your face, you quickly blocked Nagisa from all social media along with his contact in your phone. He scared you with his words...he seemed obsessed, delusional even. You knew he cared for you, but you only thought it was as a friend. The way he dropped the word, ‘love’ made you shudder.

Saying he loves you and then going around and accusing you of being a whore and going around to the other guys in the group made you unsettled. Taking a few deep breaths, you sat your phone down making a mental note to not look at it for the rest of the night. Your eyes scanned the room, boxes still scattered around; some filled, taped and labeled and others empty or even waiting for you to build the boxes. Deciding that the best thing to do was get the packing done as soon as possible even if you were still a bit apprehensive. The lingering words that Nagisa sent you still swirled in your head as you went about packing everything with a new found mission to get out as soon as you could.

--

With a satisfied huff, you stacked one of the final boxes in the corner of the almost empty room. You felt a wave of relief wash over you as you wiped your brow and turned toward your phone that was on the nightstand. It was face down, but you did hear it go off, the vibrations echoed in the room, but you ignored it all together. It’s been hours since then and with the majority of everything packed and ready to go, it was time for bed. You had plans with Gou tomorrow to have brunch and just talk, a final hangout before you left.

After doing your nightly routine, you were settled in bed, the cool sheets feeling great on your heated skin from the manual labor you did. Your gaze settled on the phone still in place on your nightstand face down. You felt silly, you blocked Nagisa it should be alright, the notifications were probably Gou just double checking on your guys’ plans for tomorrow. With a final sigh, you quickly grabbed the device and turned it back around and pressed the side making it light up. Scrunching your eyes at the sudden intrusion of light on your poor retinas, you turned the brightness down so your eyes could adjust.

Going through notifications from various apps and social media, you quickly replied to Gou who did message you to confirm your plans for tomorrow. With a final kissy emoji at the end of your sentence and a tap of your finger, the message was sent to her. As you continued to go through what you missed the past few hours, your eyes stopped at a notification for a text message from an unknown number.

You could feel the anxiety bubble inside of you as you stared at the number, you didn’t want to even look at the message itself, but something told you to. With a shaky breath, you tapped on it and waited as your phone loaded the message.

You’ll regret that (Y/N), I’m coming for you…

That’s all it said. A fucking cryptic message calling you out by name. A threat that hung over your head and one that made the breath catch in your throat. A message not even ten words long made fear build up inside of you. Now, every creak and sound could be a potential threat at least that’s how your mind perceived it.

You knew this was Nagisa telling you this, but he was Nagisa, he...he wouldn’t do anything terrible...would he? Words are one thing, but the truth came out with someone's actions. Your eyes shifted toward your door, in the dark everything was more intimidating and menacing. Now fully sat up in your bed, you pulled your knees to your chest as much as you could and just stared at the door that was draped in the shadowy curtain of darkness. Your mind kept playing out a scenario of Nagisa coming through your bedroom door, a crazed look in his eyes and a weapon to hurt you with…the very thought made you shudder.

Between the packing and the interaction with Nagisa, you were exhausted. As you continued to stare at the door, you could feel your poor eyes start to droop, the exhaustion finally catching up with you as you tried your hardest to stay awake, wanting to be on alert if anything did happen, but all of that went out the window as you felt yourself slip into a restless slumber.

A softness touched your face making you shift in your sleep, but something else made you alert, a soft voice filtered through your room. You were home alone, your parents were away on a business trip, it was just you there should be nobody else talking in your house. Your eyes snapped open, trying to adjust to the darkness that surrounded you.

“You’re cute when you’re asleep.” A hand cupped your cheek making your whole body stiff at the contact. Flailing about, you pushed yourself up against your headboard as the figure only laughed and walked toward your door where the light switch was. You already knew who it was based on the voice and your mind instantly went to your death.

With a simple flip of the switch, light flooded your vision and there stood Nagisa, the same crazed look in his eyes that you pictured earlier, but no weapon, nothing to connect you to your demise. His footsteps seemed heavier as he stalked his way toward you like an animal about to attack its prey. “I was pissed off at you (Y/N), is that why you blocked me? Did I scare you?” he came to stop in front of the foot of your bed, his gaze lingering on you. You could feel your breathing become labored the longer he stared at you.

“What’re you doing here?” Ignoring his question, you sent him a glare, back still against the headboard not moving an inch.

“Coming to see you (Y/N)-chan.” Sending you a wink, he laughed at your visible shudder. “You’re scaring me Nagi.” His gaze was fixated on you so intensely, it sent another shiver down your spine.

He didn’t answer you. Instead, he left his spot by the foot of the bed and made his way toward you, his steps becoming heavier with each step. Your eyes glanced to the bedroom door and without a second thought, you bolted from your bed throwing the covers at Nagisa hoping to slow him down a bit. Your feet pounded against your wooden floor, your hands reaching out to grasp the doorknob, the thought of freedom just inches away.

Thud

The wind was knocked out of you, your body colliding with the hard floor, delicate skin skidding to a stop as a weight settled on top of you, not only pinning you in place, but making it hard to breathe due to the weight being directly on your chest. “Always playing hard to get, do you do this to the other guys (Y/N), like the slut you are?” His words were nonsense and not giving them a second thought, you started to thrash on the floor, your freedom was your only thought. You didn’t care about the bruises that would litter your body after this. He just laughed at your attempt to break free, even though he was the smallest of the group, he was just as strong as the others. With no luck, there was one thing left.

“Help! Somebody call the cops, I need help!” You yelled this at the top of your lungs, sucking in as much air as you could from your somewhat crushed chest. Before you could yell again, a hand was wrapped around your throat cutting off what little air you were getting.

“Shut up! Jesus, first ignoring me, blocking me, making me go to these fucking lengths to get your fucking attention!” Giving your throat a bit of a squeeze, nothing but a wheeze escaped you, your hands flying up to try and pry his constricting hands off so you could get air to your needy lungs.

“If you just stayed here, we would’ve been fine (Y/N), but you just had to go back to America! Is nothing good enough for you!? Why’s that (Y/N)? Answer me!” All you could do was continue to gasp and hit his hands. You could feel tears spring to your eyes, sliding down your face as Nagisa continued to choke the life out of you.

You could see black spots starting to fill your vision. “I fucking love you (Y/N)!”, by some miracle, he let up his hold on your throat. You greedily started to suck in as much air as your burning lungs could, but he still had a hold of your throat and the squeeze he sent was evident of this. “You’ll see how much I truly love you, don’t worry, we’ll be happy at my house. Just me and you and nobody to interrupt us.” Leaning down, he placed a tender kiss to your forehead before finally letting your poor, bruised throat go. Still settled on your chest, he peered down at you.

“They’ll look for me! You can’t keep me locked away forever! This isn’t how love works Nagisa! You need help!” His smile slipped, but he regained it quickly before leaning down and capturing your lips in a kiss, holding your face in his hands so you couldn’t move away. Not granting him access, he bit your lip enough to draw blood making you gasp at the pain giving him enough time to slip his tongue in and explore his new territory. His tongue glided over your teeth, the roof of your mouth, even sliding along your own tongue. It wasn’t romantic in the slightest, it was dominating, possessive and it made you feel vile inside. When he decided to break the kiss, he was flushed, breath labored with a love sick smile plastered on his face.

“They won’t be looking for you silly.” Those words made you freeze in terror. Images of horrific deaths flashed through your mind. Your mind raced wondering what he would do to dispose of you. What twisted fantasy was he going to fulfill? “You’ll be right there with them, alongside everyone we know as happy as can be.” Licking his lips, his gaze settled on your swollen lips, but flickered back up to your eyes to finish his thought.

He wasn’t making sense, his words were nonsense to you. He didn’t give an explanation to his words, he just traced your lips with his thumb, his focus solely on the place his mouth was moments before. It was as if he was in a trance, like he was playing out his own fantasy in his mind.

“You’re going to tell everyone that you changed your mind about going back to America.” His thumb stopped tracing your lip, dragging down your bottom lip, your chin and straight down your now bruised neck. Your breath hitched as he applied the smallest amount of pressure to his thumb, pressing into it. His eyes bore into yours as he continued to rattle off his plan.

“Then, you’ll move in with me, the house I told you about on the edge of town, big enough to raise a family in.” His hands came back up to cup your cheeks, your mind reeling at his sentence. Children? Just something else tied up with the delusion he was putting forth. Fingers started to caress your skin, the contact making you flinch.

“It’ll be perfect (Y/N), us together in our house, still surrounded by friends and family, all you have to do is be good and follow what I say...or we can do this the hard way,” One hand left your cheek and traveled back down to your throat, fingers drumming against the abused skin.

“What’s the hard way…” Your voice was hoarse and held a twinge of fear that much was obvious. Nagisa smirked at the tone of your voice. He knew he had the upper hand here and one way or another, he was going to have you. You had an inkling of what the hard way was, but you wanted to hear it from him.

No words were said as the hand that was drumming against the bruised skin of your throat moved upwards, brushing past your cheeks making a shudder run up your spine before his fingers slid into your locks only to have him grip your tresses and yank your head to the side. A squeal of pain flew from your mouth as his laughter rang through the silent room.

Leaning down, hands still having a death grip on your hair, he leaned down to your ear, his hot breath fanning it. Ignoring the burning sensation of your poor scalp from how hard he was gripping and pulling your hair, he started to speak.

“The hard way is when I’m not so nice,” He stopped for a moment and nibbled on your earlobe making that vile feeling crawl back up. “I’ll take you, but you get nothing of yours, just the clothes on your pretty body, I’ll take you back to our house and lock you up there, probably have to chain you up so you don’t escape. Nobody will come over, you won’t be able to contact your friends, your family, nobody ever again. It’ll just be me and you. Everyone will mourn you and never know what happened to little ole (Y/N).”

Either way, you would still have to go with him, but the bleakest silver lining was you could still see your family and friends, you’d just have to put up a front. That still sounded better than being chained in a house while everything mourned and looked for you with no resolve.

His chuckle broke your thoughts. “I’ll give you a minute to think about your options, but I already know which you’ll be picking.” With that, he started to place kisses on your cheek, your chin, and down the column of your neck, the pressure on the bruises making you wince as his lips grazed over the skin.

He was right though, there was only one logical option, the easy way… as much as you hated to admit it.

“Nagisa...I choose th- ahhhh!” He gave a quick bite to your collar bone before you could finish your sentence.

Feeling a wet sensation on the infected area, you guessed he was licking at the spot. “The easy way. Of course you do (Y/N)-chan, I knew you’d pick that.” Pushing himself back, he stared down at you, a smile gracing his face, nothing malicious and crazed about it, just a genuine smile, the one you’ve seen countless times with friends, swim competitions, just the smile Nagisa was known for.

Leaning down, he placed a quick kiss on your lips, a nice chaste kiss that in another situation you would’ve loved, but in this instance it didn’t feel right, but starting now you had to put up a front, an act to please him, to ensure you had the chance to see your friends and family even though you’d still be kidnapped by your once friend.

“Now, let’s get some of your things to take over to our new house, right sweetie?” With a shaky breath, you nodded, trying to have a smile on your face as Nagisa finally got up from on top of your chest, holding out a hand to help you up, grabbing it, he hauled you up and pulled you in close to him, holding you to his chest.

Holding you in his grasp, he had his arms wrapped around you squeezing you a bit, feeling your body and taking comfort in the fact that you were finally his. “I love you (Y/N)-chan, I know you won’t say it back yet, but you will...I know you will.” Pulling back from the hug, he smiled at you once more.

“Let’s get your stuff, whatever you want to bring my cute (Y/N)-chan.” You didn’t say anything as you started to get your stuff ready, packing as much as you could in what bags you had. Nagisa was doing the same, the smile still plastered on his face as he even hummed while doing so. With everything happening so quickly, you haven’t been able to wrap your mind around what was happening, the situation. You could feel yourself crumple, the clothing dropping from your hands and knees buckling as you slumped down onto the floor.

You knew there was no way out. The tears started to pour, something you hoped to never show in front of your captor, but your resolve was crumbling fast. A loud sob escaped you as you curled onto the cold, wooden floor. The hands that started to rub your back made you flinch on contact. The once soothing notion only made you curl more into yourself wishing to disappear into a floor, wishing it would just open up and swallow you whole.

Nagisa's hands continued to caress your tensed self, as small ‘shhh’s’ came from him in hopes of comforting you. “I hate when my (Y/N)-chan cries.” Your position didn’t last long before you were pulled up, limbs heavy and numb.

Nagisa pulled you into your bed, on top of clothing that you were in the middle of packing before. With tears still streaming down your face, you were pulled flushed against his chest, his arms wrapped around your middle as he nuzzled into the curve of your neck, kissing the still tender skin around the area. Placing a few more kisses onto you, he pulled back and leaned back against your headboard bringing you with him. Kissing the top of your head, he settled his chin on the top of your head. “You’ll feel better once we get you settled, don’t worry (Y/N)-chan, I’ll take care of you.”

True to his word, Nagisa did take care of you. Nobody really thought too much about you and Nagisa getting together, the guys noticed the looks he’d give you during school and hangouts and Gou was just absolutely happy that you had a boyfriend. Your parents were happy that you ‘changed your mind’ about going back to America and Nagisa…

Nagisa put up the perfect facade.

He was true to his word, letting you still see your friends and family, but he was always watching and you knew this after trying to escape a few times, throat clenching at the memories of your punishments for trying to run away. If you obeyed, you were showered with praise, gifts and affection from Nagisa. He still let you go to school, work, as if everything was picture perfect.

“(Y/N)-chan, my sweet little (Y/N)-chan.” Nagisa’s hands caressed your sides as you were trying to cook dinner in the kitchen. Some of your friends were over and you were trying to finish the main course, but he had other plans. You could feel his hand slip over the curve of your bottom, giving your backside a firm squeeze as he placed lazy kisses on the back of your neck, sweeping your hair to the side.

“I’m trying to finish dinner Nagi, please we can do this after.” You tried to shake him off as you turned the silvers of meats over that were frying in the pan to cook on the other side. Chuckling, he didn’t even bat an eye at you trying to push him away, his hands coming back, both circling around you to grope at your chest and grinding himself into your backside. The force made you lean into the stove more, the heat emitting from the device hitting some exposed skin but not enough to seriously burn you yet.

“That’s cute that you think you have a choice (Y/N)-chan,” Groping your chest again he laughed at your gasp and even thrusted up into your bottom, your hands gripping the sides of the counter on either side of the oven. “Keep cooking while I have my fun and remember to keep it down we have guests in the next room and if you don’t,” He leaned down to your ear before whispering, “I’ll have to punish you later.” Gulping, you nodded mutely at his words.

Doing as you were told, you continued to cook the dinner as Nagisa continued to do what he pleased with you just as he does every single day.

That’s how your new life has been and unfortunately how it always will be.

[welllpthisishappening]

Emma Swan, Olympian is not a phrase Emma Swan, totally normal person, ever expected to hear.

But she never expected one night at a party hosted by her college's baseball team to change her entire life, either. So, it should really come as no surprise that Emma Swan, Olympian, is now something of international sensation. Or that her husband has become a bit of a social media star.

——— Rating: Teen with sports feelings Word Count: 7.5K AN: As promised and because of who I am as a person, I wrote Olympic fic. I can neither confirm nor deny that there is an actual plot here, but there is a surplus of fluff and sports-based feelings. So, that’s something. Thanks to the Detroit Lions, specifically, for posting this Tweet and to my husband who is very much aware of what content I want the internet to provide me. Operation: Make Killian a New York Yankee as often as possible continues.

|| Read on Ao3 if that’s your jam ||

———

No one told her the questions would start to blur together.

That would require media training, Emma imagines. And no one is giving a first-time Olympian in a sport that only a handful of people marginally believe warrants notice from the IOC any sort of media training. She got, like, an orientation packet. With a lopsided staple in the top left corner. On her commercial flight. That she booked herself.

Twenty-plus hours crammed into a seat that she’s only a little concerned did permanent damage to her right knee, with a meal that was so chewy Emma was about four seconds and one exasperated, entirely exhausted exhale from asking if it was, in fact, made of plastic.

Mostly, the staple is what’s still managing to frustrate her. As frustrated as she can be at the Olympics. No one is supposed to be frustrated at the Olympics. Not really. Not while experiencing the pinnacle of athletic achievement, the calluses on Emma’s fingertips some sort of badge of honor that she’s wearing with at least a modicum of national pride, and everything is fine.

Her qualifying time was absurd. Where absurd is a compliment and very close to a record she’s suddenly determined to shatter.

So, she’s alone.

Big deal. So is everyone else. This Olympics, at least. Plus, Killian wouldn’t have been able to come no matter what the state of the world was. Even so, the quiet stands are admittedly weird. All these empty arenas with empty seats, the distinct lack of a roaring crowd no more obvious than when the world’s best athletes step to the line. Staring at the climbing wall in front of her four hours earlier, Emma swore she could hear every single beat of her heart echo between her ears.

And that’s—well, solitude is par for the course with an adolescence like hers, half-filled suitcases and brand-new faces in brand-new towns, but she’d gotten used to one town, and the town is actually a city, and the city has long since felt like home, and her fingers reach for the rings dangling above her Team USA t-shirt. They did give her an absolute shit ton of t-shirts, so that was nice.

Except—

Something keeps tugging. Nagging at the back of Emma’s consciousness, almost like she’s forgotten her keys on that flea market table they found in Park Slope two weeks after they moved into the apartment. Because for as well-versed Emma may be in that singular sort of existence, she’s also well-removed from wanting it, and at least three of her knuckles crack. Curling around her rings.

Muscles in her cheeks stretch, another nod and quick blink to avoid the threat of blinding via camera flashes. Someone really should have told her about this. She probably should have assumed. Human interest is the driving force of at least three-quarters of the stories in sports, and Emma’s not used to being the story, per se, but even she has to admit most of hers makes for a good one and they are still asking her questions.

Emma blinks again. Hopes she doesn’t look like a serial killer or the weird blonde, slightly sweaty cousin of the Joker, her smile starting to feel as if it’s painted on her face. She nods. Hums. Listens to questions that are startling in their tonal similarity to Charlie Brown’s teacher, and Emma wonders if Charlie Brown ever got a different teacher or what the school structure of the Peanuts’ universe is and, God, how old was Charlie Brown, even? To withstand that sort of consistent bullying. Was Linus the same age as him? No, right? How long did he carry the blanket around? Was Linus the same age as Sally? Why didn’t the red-headed girl with curly hair get a name?

She nearly falls out of her chair.

That might make the front page of several blogs. Possibly even the back page of a New York tab.

Careful to keep her feet on the ground, Emma lifts her head, directing her eyes toward the source of a question that must have been asked several times if the note of amusement mixing with deadline-based exasperation is anything to go by. Her smile definitely makes her look like a serial killer.

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma mumbles, and none of the oxygen she does her best to inhales makes it even close to her lungs. “I, uh—what was the question?”

The reporter grimaces.

“I wanted to know if you’d seen the video of your husband yet.”

Ice runs down her spine. Every single drop of wholly disgusting sweat falling in rivulets down either one of her cheeks freezes. Oxygen disappears from the room. Or so Emma assumes, what with the crushing feeling pushing down on her lungs and whatnot.

Her mind whirs. Races through possibilities and pitfalls with a speed that would be impressive if Emma weren’t already so close to that record, and she is going to break that record. Somehow she manages not to fall, though. From her chair or the metaphorical climbing wall in her brain, ignoring the sudden dryness of her mouth and the increasing size of her tongue.

Her nails are going to leave little half-moon creases in her palm.

“I don’t—” she starts, and eventually she will wish she was more articulate. For what turns out to be a very nice story.

Standing up, the reporter’s seat creaks as she moves toward the desk they deposited Emma behind after even. Several Olympic officials move to block her, but Emma shakes her head again, and she’s not exactly high-priority on the list of defensible athletes, anyway. So, none of them flinch when the reporter slides a phone closer to Emma, her crazed thoughts briefly lingering on how many phones a reporter could possibly need, but then her eyes drop, and she’s not sure if her ears can actually perk, but Emma certainly tries because she hears him yelling before she sees him.

Her smile shifts.

And the cameras flash again.

It starts, as with most things in Emma’s collegiate life, because Anna demands it.

She’s only half-listening, so Emma can never be entirely sure what it was, exactly, she was agreeing to, but in her experience, the agreement doesn’t matter so much as the action, and her roommate’s younger sister is unstoppable when it comes to action. So, Emma is dimly aware of a plan. Something about the baseball house and that one left fielder is in a handful of her classes.

David—something.

He’s got a girlfriend, too. A nice one. Who always smells like sugar when she slides into the seat next to David whatever his last name is, sitting in the row in front of Emma during their Tuesday-Thursday statistics class.

Emma hates statistics.

She doesn’t hate Anna, though. Or her roommate, one of the better college-based surprises, and either Anna has magic or Elsa is an enormous pushover because somehow all three of them are ready at the same time, and the walk to the baseball house isn’t far.

First-year players guard the door — passing out color-coded wristbands that absolutely do not do their job because it takes about six seconds of well-meaning flirting and batted eyelashes between Anna and a mountain of muscle masquerading as the team’s starting catcher to get them inside. With purple wristbands and two tickets for jungle juice instead of the keg.

“Victory,” Anna cries, twisting through the crowd. Half of it is already teetering on the edge of drunk, the rest free-falling into the pit of imminent hangovers, and Emma isn’t sure she’d classify their drinks as a victory, but it’s definitely better than watered-down beer.

And it doesn’t take long, really. By Emma’s shaky count, it’s not even a half-hour before the muscle — who introduces himself as Kristoff, and really is pretty cute, actually — returns, standing unnaturally close to Anna’s left shoulder, furtive glances shared out of the corners of their eyes. Emma rolls hers. Elsa’s appear perpetually stuck to the ceiling. It looks oddly sticky up there.

“Go,” Elsa says, and it’s not an instruction. Barely counts as more than a whisper, really. Anna lights up all the same. Like an alcohol-fueled Christmas tree.

Who does not need telling more than once.

Hands reach and smiles widen, Kristoff mumbling something that sounds like it was nice to meet you before he’s following Anna back to the beer pong table, leaving Elsa and Emma standing in the middle of a sea of raging hormones. All of which want to be there way more than either one of them does.

“Well,” Elsa mutters, “that was polite.”

Emma snickers into her glass. A mostly empty glass. That’s surprising. “Got that going for him.” “Plus, his on-base is nuts this year.”

“Say that again.” “On-base percentage,” Elsa repeats, making sure to do it slowly for maximum sarcastic emphasis. Emma’s eyes are going to fall out. That won’t end well. There are too many shuffling feet in this room.

“What does that mean?” “How often he gets on base.” Opening her mouth does nothing. Closing it does even less. Elsa looks overjoyed. “I know things,” she shrugs, “and I’m pretty positive Anna and Kristoff have been not-so-secretly dating since the start of the semester, so—” “You stalked your sister’s secret boyfriend?” “Stalk’s a very dirty word, don’t you think? No, no, there was no stalking. There was light research. One Google search and a single click to the team’s roster, and now I know he’s from Minnesota, too.” “Awfully convenient for the romance of the century.” Humming, Elsa takes a larger-than-usual sip before scrunching her nose in displeasure. At her empty cup. Emma has no idea how they ended up with empty cups so quickly. Suddenly the baseball house feels a bit like a time warp. Enter and drink and find the love of your life. Or something like that.

“I got next,” Emma says, ignoring Elsa’s laugh because she is not the sort of person who says things like that. It’s this house. This place. With its music and its happiness, and she’s not really a sports person. Can only marginally understand the joy of watching other people accomplish something. She has no idea what on-base percentage is.

Still.

Her feet move. Fingers curl over the rim of red solo cups, like the most cliché version of her college self. Her drinks get refilled. And it’s just as Emma’s about to let herself wonder if, maybe, sports aren’t all that bad and might even possess a bit of inherent romanticism, she slams into something.

Someone, more like.

Taller than her, he has to peer down his nose to glare at Emma. That’s fair. They’re both far more damp than they were ten seconds before. Some of that moisture ensures that the hem of his shirt sticks to his stomach. A very flat stomach. That draws Emma’s eyes because she’s human and slightly intoxicated, and it takes quite a lot more than she’s willing to admit to lift her chin, but then she’s glad she does. Even with the understandable glare.

“Shit,” she breathes, “your eyes are stupid blue.”

He narrows them. She hates that. Which is about all it takes for her to get royally pissed off, too.

“Can you pay attention to where you’re walking?”

The stupidly blue eyes blink. Darken a shade, like all his frustration is centered directly around his pupils, and the shirt he’s wearing is team-branded. Another baseball player, then.

“You ran into me!” Oh, Oh. Well, that sucks. He’s got a good voice, too. Eyes and voice and the few strands of hair that fall toward those eyes when he continues to glare at Emma likely aren’t supposed to make her stomach flip.

It’s the alcohol’s fault.

Or sports. Like, in general.

“Because you take up so much space,” Emma snarls He leans forward. Looms, really. Over her and around her, smelling like punch and body wash. It’s gross and absolutely wonderful. “Gotta pick a lane, love. Either I ran into you, or I was in the way.”

“It can definitely be both and there is nothing resembling love here.”

“So I can see. You have a name, wrecking ball?” “My shoes are never going to unstick from this floor.” To his credit, he does waver. His lips twist — which makes it all too obvious how much Emma is staring at his lips, but, seriously, the alcohol. Plus, it’s so hot in this house she can barely think straight. She wonders where he buys his body wash. He smells better than he should in this house. So, it's clear he considers. Ponders, even. Until his hands dart out and those hands are somehow warmer than every person in this house combined, heat scorching through Emma’s t-shirt as he lifts her off the ground.

Only to deposit her approximately fourteen inches to her left.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” “Look,” he grins, “you’re unstuck.” “Bastard!” “Eh, not technically.” “What?” “Not technically a bastard. Orphan, I suppose. But that’s kind of a mood ruiner, don’t you think?”

Emma’s fish impression is really going great. The grin becomes a smirk. Her stomach refuses to stay still. “Is there a mood to ruin?” “Might be if you tell me your name.”

Emma wavers, that time. Considers and ponders. Weighs the pros and cons while laughter drifts past her ears, consummate collegiate experiences that she’s only ever let herself be passably jealous of. A dark-haired girl’s talking to Elsa in the opposite corner.

And the hand hanging in front of her wiggles its fingers.

It’s still ridiculously warm when she grabs it. “Emma Swan.” “Killian Jones.”

Anna’s secret relationship becomes a real relationship no less than sixteen hours following what Elsa begins to call the Drink Incident.

And they become—

Baseball people.

Becoming baseball people is not bad. Not really. Emma likes the baseball team. She understands what WHIP is, now. Kristoff adores Anna, so that’s good. David, who does, in fact, have a last name, continues to be as nice as assumed, and his girlfriend sort of quasi adopts Emma. Mary Margaret Blanchard brims with positivity and an innate sort of joy that would usually annoy Emma, but most of that joy also serves as a direct counter to the snark that Killian Jones appears flush with. So, it’s something of a wash, really.

Plus, he’s a very sore Monopoly loser.

And Emma finds it endlessly entertaining.

“Stop that,” he grunts, glaring at the board with the sort of force Emma’s become accustomed to in the last few months, while she taps on the space in front of her, “I know how many spots it is.” Emma smiles. “So move, then.” “I’ll be bankrupt.” “Capitalism does that.” “Tell me more about capitalism, Swan.”

She doesn’t startle, so there’s that. Not much else, though. Not when a noticeable bit of equally familiar heat skitters down her spine. Her head tilts. His head remains frustratingly still, staring at the board like the spaces will change or Mary Margaret will tear down some of her hotels on Marvin Gardens.

Neither thing happens.

The heat pools. At the small of her back, inching dangerously close to that space between her hips, like it’s trying to tether her to this spot and this moment and its people. Baseball people. People who so clearly care about everything so much that even the cynic in Emma can appreciate it. Plus, they’re all ridiculously competitive.

David had to take a walk when Mary Margaret bankrupt him earlier.

“That’s about the extent of my capitalism knowledge,” Emma admits with a shrug, “I sucked at economics.” Pulling his gaze away from the board, Emma’s less prepared for the force behind Killian’s eyes than she was for the appearance of a nickname that might not warrant the title. It’s just her name, after all. But it sounds like more than that. Sinks under her skin with alarming ease, the precise tone of it wrapping its way around a variety of internal organs until they’re all beating at the same tempo and— “Move my piece for me.”

Kristoff groans. Mary Margaret chuckles. Elsa looks far too sure of herself. Knows everything, indeed.

And it’s not really a command, but there’s that same sense of something that found its way into the sound of Emma’s name and Killian’s voice, and he catches her by surprise. On a variety of levels. His fingers jump the moment hers reach out, all heat and an alarming size difference, his brows lifting when she turns her head.

“You’re taking this game way too seriously, you know,” Emma says. What she doesn’t say is more important, though. Because they’re not friends, really. They’re—acquaintances. Some kind of appropriate metaphor regarding a planet’s many moons and the tendency of those moons to orbit something far bigger than them. But they like each other, too. As much as they dance and twist, do their best to avoid getting hit in the batter’s box, Emma’s more comfortable bantering with him than just about anyone she’s ever met, a challenge in every conversation, and she’s rather loath to realize she’s memorized the different ways the blue in his eyes flash.

Now it feels a bit like a spotlight.

“Matter of pride, Swan.” “Is it just?” If there are other people laying on their stomachs in that living room, half-empty glasses by their hands and equipment stacked in various corners, Emma forgets about them. Quickly. Immediately. Killian doesn’t move his fingers.

He nods.

And Mary Marget only kind of gloats when she bankrupts him.

She dances when she wins, though.

It’s embarrassing. It’s absolutely, goddamn wonderful.

Realizing that baseball is a game of statistics ruins kind of Emma’s day. It makes Killian laugh. Her favorite sort of laugh. Where he throws his head back, an arm around his middle, and his shoulders shaking. Those same strands of hair she noticed that first night fall back toward lidded eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting in an angle Emma is sure she could determine if she just didn’t hate math so much, and it takes about four seconds, her head tilting back and forth twice and one swipe of her tongue to lean forward on the couch they're sharing, tilt her head up and press her lips to his.

Press is a vast understatement.

Crash, more like.

A bases-clearing double into the left-field gap.

She knows so many baseball terms now, it’s ridiculous.

It’s because she keeps going to games. With Anna. Without Anna. With Elsa. Without Elsa. With Mary Margaret every single time. And it creeps on so slowly, she’s practically a Jane Austen heroine, but then Emma finds she cares as much as everyone else. Screams herself hoarse at every crack of the bat. Jumps and fist bumps with startling regularity. Experiences the flutter of butterflies in her flip-prone stomach before ninth-inning rallies.

She memorizes statistics. Killian’s statistics, especially.

Because the Draft is a week away, and the nerves rolling off him are even more potent than his body wash. Bought in bulk from a locally-owned company, she learns.

Killian hates capitalism, too.

Which is only part of the reason she likes him, but right now all of the reason is centered around how it feels as if the world is shifting on its axis and what, precisely, he is capable of with his tongue. Quite a lot if this first time at bat is anything to believe.

Emma laughs.

Joy bubbles from the very center of her, pushing at the seam of her lips, and it’s not much of a seam when her mouth is open to accommodate tongue, but it’s enough of a sound that Killian pulls back. No glare. Definitely eyebrow movement, though.

“That’s not the best confidence boost, you know.” “I’m straddling you,” Emma counters, nodding toward the knees on either side of his, and she has no idea when her fingers found his hair. It’s very soft.

“How did that happen?” “What was that about confidence?”

Dropping his head, she gets a different sort of laugh, one that’s just as potent in its ability to settle into her bloodstream and the empty spaces around her heart, and sports have turned her into a sap. “I like you a lot,” Killian murmurs. Emma’s heart explodes. Metaphorically speaking.

“Good.” “Expand on that, for me.” She pinches his side, almost prepared for the way it leaves him bucking beneath her. Less prepared for the mutual groan it causes. Killian’s eyes widen. “I like you a lot,” Emma repeats, and his arms tighten, and her heart knits itself back together, and the second time through the kissing order is even better.

It starts, as with most things in Emma’s nearly-adult life, because Anna demands it.

“I just think it’ll be fun,” Anna says, not for the first time. And, not for the first time, she ignores the pointed look Emma and Elsa exchange. Elsa’s lips have all but disappeared behind her teeth “Think about it,” Anna continues, “we need something to do before the game, anyway. This way we’re—you know, staying active.” Emma’s eyebrows jump. Fly. Soar into her hairline where the level of her disbelief sits, all too aware of the ring hanging around her neck.

A Draft Day gift. As much as a family heirloom can be a gift. But Killian claimed it was good luck, his brother’s ring, because turns out that snark is at least a partial product of a wholly depressing childhood, and Emma supposes there’s something to be said for common ground. Understanding, too. Stories shared over weeks that turned to months that turned to years and seasons in the minors, and it absolutely figures Killian’s Major League debut is happening in Cincinnati. Where Kristoff plays.

It’s ridiculous how in love with him she is.

Killian. Not Kristoff.

Anna is still talking. “There’s nothing else to do in Cincinnati,” she reasons, which seems unfair to the city itself but not entirely untrue, and even the concept of chili on spaghetti grosses Emma out. “Also,” Anna adds, sounding as if she’s reached the final bullet point on her list of possible arguments, “I’ve got a Groupon deal for this place.”

Elsa blinks. “I didn’t realize Groupon was even still a thing.” “Surprise!”

Emma’s laugh isn’t entirely honest, but her sigh of acceptance is and—

Turns out she’s pretty good at it.

Goddamn fantastic, actually.

At rock climbing. Indoor rock climbing. Her feet push her up the wall with ease, the steady ache in her arms welcome and wonderful and a slew of other alliterative adjectives. That leave Killian grinning like a maniac, but it’s been a weird and equally wonderful day, without a hit, but two walks, so that ups the on-base, and Emma’s really, seriously in love with him.

“I don’t know what it was,” she says, preening just a bit under Killian’s stare. Hotel lighting casts shadows on his cheeks, slumped as he is against every pillow they could find. Even the ones in the closet. He’s not supposed to be in here for much longer, both of them aware of the team-ordained curfew hanging over them, but the pre-game nerves are long gone. Replaced instead with exhilaration and endorphins, the kind that could win Elle Woods a headline-making case. “But,” Emma continues, “I just kept moving, and the guy said it was, like, a course record. Is course the right word, you think?” Killian lifts a shoulder. Even as it’s covered in ice and tape. The play he made at third is going to show on loop. On TV. In Emma’s memory. She’s never yelled that loud before.

People took pictures.

And then she cried. Like a giant sap.

“This is your show, Swan,” Killian chuckles, pride infusing the words. As if she’s the one who deserves the pride today. It’s entirely possible she cried for multiple minutes after that play. They definitely showed that on the YES Network. Mary Margaret texted her no less than forty-seven times.

“I was really fast.” Killian hums, fingers fluttering enough to make it clear he wants her closer. Emma doesn’t argue. They’re a mess of limbs and mouths and that tongue thing they’ve collectively gotten better at giving and receiving over the years, hands that warm with the sort of confidence borne of repetition. Some joke about BP and finding your swing.

“Plus,” he says, a soft laugh at Emma’s noise of displeasure when talking means far less kissing, “becoming a rock climbing savant means more upper-body work, and you know how I love your arms.” Guffawing the way Emma does is not particularly romantic. Doesn’t matter. The sound comes, and the joy remains, a steady stream pumping through all her extremities and clouding her thoughts. In the best way possible. Before Killian, Emma didn’t know this could be that. Fun and easy, not quite simple, but something she’s willing to work for. Athletes are notoriously determined, after all.

Part of her wonders if a proclivity to rock climbing makes her an athlete, too.

“Please,” she says, laughter clinging to the letters even as she finds herself moved directly over Killian’s outstretched legs, “provide, in detail, everything you enjoy about my arms.” “I didn’t say enjoy.” “Were you misquoted, Jones?” His eyes flash. Glow, honestly. At her and because of her and athletes also know how to work their opponents. Goad them into making mistakes. Something about a pitcher’s duel and a battle in the box. Where the box is this bed. And Emma’s winning.

“I love your arms,” Killian says. Dragging his mouth against the column of her throat leaves goosebumps on Emma’s skin. Her back arches. His hand flattens. The compliments continue. Turn into promises. Guarantees. Of a future that’s spread out at their feet now, if only they reach for it.

Turns out Emma’s pretty good at reaching for things. When she wants them.

“This isn’t, like, free-scale, though, is it?”

Her heart cannot be expected to handle much more of this.

“Don’t worry,” Emma says, “all proper safety precautions were taken. Plus, I wouldn’t fall off the wall.”

Killian’s expression shutters. Not in any of that frustration Emma so clearly understood when his shirt was damp, and her shoes were unsalvagable despite his best efforts to get the school’s equipment manager to dry-clean them. No, it’s—it’s something big and important and unspoken, and Emma pulls his hand up. To rest directly over the rink that’s still tucked beneath her t-shirt.

His t-shirt.

It’s got his last number on it, at least.

“Would you catch me if I fell off the wall?” He doesn’t answer at first. Doesn’t mention the absurdity of a question that does not make sense, but those literal and metaphorical clock hands are ticking, and if they don’t replace his ice soon, they’re going to destroy these sheets. “Every single time, Swan.” “Right back at you.”

Killian doesn’t miss curfew, but it’s pretty close.

And Emma wakes up to twelve texts with links for indoor rock climbing gyms in the greater New York City area.

“Holy shit, this is hard.”

Grunting more than laughing, Emma’s fingers curl around the rock in front of her. Chalk cakes itself on the pads of those fingers, stuck beneath her nails and, somehow, the bend of her elbow. “Are you not an All-Star?” she asks, glancing at Killian.

“I do not see how that factors into this at all.”

“Huh, weird.” “Suspiciously sounds like an accusation.” “Weird,” Emma repeats. They’re halfway up a wall only one of them is really supposed to be on, but the other person several feet below them is faring far worse than the pair of them combined, so, that takes precedence in her mind. “He knows a lot more curse words than I realized.” “He’s showing off,” Killian grumbles, forehead resting against the wall.

Will Scarlet hasn’t moved in five minutes. Possibly six. Maybe a round ten. He's much better at second base.

“I cannot feel my arms,” he calls, and Emma’s laugh is better that time. Purer, somehow. As if happiness can actually have a sound. Even happiness that comes with sweat on her temple and a noticeable ache in her triceps and she sort of loves this.

Sort of is a vast understatement.

“Showing off, huh?” Emma asks. She finds her next footfall with ease, happiness blooming into confidence that’s become nearly consistent these days and weeks and years. It does not take her long to feel the stare that’s lingering on her. On her ass, specifically.

She glances over her shoulder. To find her fiancé smiling at her. And staring at her ass.

“Can I help you, love?” “Whatcha doing?” “Ogling you, obviously.” “Forearms feeling good?” He nods. Sort of. There’s a distinct slope to the back of his neck and more sweat on his brown than Emma’s. Not as much as Scarlet’s, probably. “Fantastic,” Killian drawls, “keep going, Swan, someone’s got to show us how to do it.” “Try not to fall off the wall, huh? Last thing we need is the might of the Yankees front office coming after us.” “I don’t think I can move my hands,” Will shouts. Killian doesn’t move. It’s impressive forearm strength. Blushing on the wall is not usually how Emma’s days go.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Killian promises, and Emma moves. He follows her. Up the wall and to the top, a quick brush of his lips against her shoulder that leaves Scarlet cursing even more, despite his presence on the floor, but then there’s lemon-flavored water and exceptionally soft towels and Emma’s caught a bit off guard by the question.

“Are there leagues for this?” Will asks. “Because you should probably be winning things for this.” Emma blinks. Considers. Wonders. Turns to Killian.

He’s still smiling. Broadly, in fact.

“We could look.” They do. They fill out paperwork. Buy fancy climbing shoes that Emma claims cost too much, but Killian’s a pushover and even more stubborn and she wins the first race she signs up for.

Plus, ten more after that.

Emma climbs indoor rock walls. Killian hits home runs. Occasionally they do these things simultaneously, and it usually leads to her nearly falling off the wall because everyone in her Tribeca gym knows what it means when WFAN is playing on the speakers.

Sometimes they shout out John Sterling’s home run call with him.

She gets better. He gets better.

They do end up destroying sheets in various hotels across the country. For various reasons. Not all of them post-game or ice related. There are games and events. Wins and losses. Back page spreads that Emma frames and hangs on their apartment walls, right next to other, smaller frames, with the same smiling faces who, once upon a time, called a sticky-floored baseball house home, and Killian’s fingers are warm in hers when the tears prick her eyes at Anna and Kristoff’s wedding.

There are stories. Think pieces and hot takes on a variety of drive-time radio shows. Those are all about Killian, though. He’s the athlete. The true one, some stories say. It’s impressive what Emma does, they admit, but it’s a hobby, and she’s got a grown-up career, anyway. So, she’s got more climbing records than she knew ever existed, but she’s not doing it for press, and both Mary Margaret and Anna weep at her and Killian’s wedding.

She wears her ring on a chain next to her other one when she climbs.

Every time Killian notices them hanging there, Emma swears, his eyes brighten. It’s her favorite thing in the whole, goddamn world.

“What is this?” He doesn’t answer. Just holds the sheet of paper he must have printed out in the clubhouse because they certainly don’t have a printer at home, and one of the edges is bent. Like he had to fit it in his back pocket.

“Going the stoic route, huh?” Emma quips, but there’s a noticeable hitch in her pulse. One that’s been there for weeks. Since the rumblings started, and the rumors began, whispers of possibility, and first-ever has a very nice ring to it. One side of Killian’s mouth tugs up. “Oh, that’s not fair.” “I’d like the record to show, that the only reason I didn’t know immediately was because I was in the trainer’s room, so—” “What were you in the trainer’s room for?” Killian ignores her. Well, sort of. His eyes shift, and his gaze holds, and Emma knows. Right down in the marrow of her. What the paper is and how Scarlet is the one who printed it out, but she’s even more confident Killian carried it home, and that does something funny to her entire worldview. Widens it and minimizes it at the same time, focusing on this and them and the possibility that creates.

In an athletic sort of way.

“My shoulder’s kind of sore.” Emma scoffs. “Oh, that’s pointed.” “I’m sure your shoulders are fine. Golden, even.’ “This is not your best work, you know that?” “Look at the paper.” “Did you fold it yourself?” “And then took a car back home. You really didn’t see yet?” Emma shakes her head. He knows the answer, too. He’s the one with the Google alert, after all. Because she’s still a bit of a pessimist at heart and an adult with a real job, and this is too much and abjectly terrifying, and the last thing she expects is for Killian to crouch in front of her.

One of his knees cracks.

“Don’t,” he warns, even as Emma does her best to swallow her laugh. Warm hands land on her thighs, a quiet steadiness that helps the state of her pulse and makes the possibility of the unknown a little less overwhelming. The lines crossing the center of the paper are absurdly straight. “You’re going to go.” “Oh, that sounded like a decree.” “A suggestion.” “A strong one.” “Mmhm, with the utmost confidence.” Emma makes an impressive sound. “Who’s doing your media training? What an impressive vocabulary you’ve got on you.” “Ready and willing to use it in a persuasive manner.” “Keep talking like that, and you won’t have to.” The smirk disappears. Evolves into a grin that is only Emma’s and only appears in moments like this, support clinging to air molecules and the ends of hair that constantly seems determined to fall into Killian’s eyes. “Passed, huh? All cool with the IOC.” “Decidedly cool. Officially an Olympic sport, now. Although the name could use some work. Sport climbing lacks a little oomph, don’t you think?”

“What would you call it?” “Emma Swan wins Olympic gold.” “Kinda wordy.” “Prophetic,” Killian corrects, hands shifting and pulling, and Emma has to widen her legs. His head’s at a very good kissing angle. “You’ve already got the qualifying numbers.” “You looked at the qualifying numbers?” “Don’t insult me like that. What do you think I did in the backseat?” “Planned the entire 2020 Olympics, apparently.” “Not the entire Olympics,” Killian counters, "just the part involving you. And maybe my individual expectations regarding the United States baseball team, but that’s another conversation altogether.”

“Naturally.”

“You’re using that voice.”

Widening her eyes does nothing. Emma didn’t expect it to. Not after years and games and events because rock climbing has events, and one time Mary Margaret made her a sign. Killian held it. He’s taller, that’s why.

“Don’t,” Killian repeats, “this is happening.” “Yuh-huh?” “You heard me. It’s your turn, now.” Melting is an impossibility. Like, for a human. Even so. Emma feels like she’s melting. Some of that pessimism evaporating under the warmth of Killian’s gaze and his hands and the determination in the precise angle of his chin. Same one he uses when he steps into the box with runners in scoring position.

Lumping herself into that group isn’t as insulting as Emma once believed it would be.

“God,” Emma groans, “that’s romantic.” “You’re really selling it, love.”

“This is supposed to be a hobby.” “One you’re exceedingly good it. World record good at it.” “I like you.” “That’s my end game, yeah.” She laughs. Smiles. Continues melting. Which is easier once they get rid of their clothing, and their bed is way more comfortable than any hotel they’ve encountered. And she falls asleep with Killian’s lips against her ear, Emma Swan, Olympic gold medalist whispered on loop like it’s a mantra he’s been practicing.

They postpone the Olympics.

It sucks. Everything sucks. Baseball sucks. Gyms are closed. Emma gets creative, and Killian gets research-prone. They build a makeshift wall. She tosses him BP.

People write stories about it.

It doesn’t help.

Until—

Time passes. Some things change. Others don’t. Their wall stands up to the elements of their building’s courtyard, and Killian’s hitting better than ever this season, a victory Emma’s going to claim as at least partially hers. And then the Olympics are back, and it’s qualifying and racing and a record that’s just out of reach, but she’s good enough even without it, and, this time, she’s the one packing a suitcase.

He kisses her.

Does the tongue thing.

Holds onto her like he’s only a little afraid she’s going to fall off the wall, but now the wall is international competition, and Emma’s freaking out a little.

“I love you,” she says into the crook of his neck.

His arms tighten. “I love you too.” “Gold medal?” “Gold medal.” “Hit some home runs while I’m gone, huh?” Lips graze her temple. Her forehead. The bridge of her nose. Emma might be crying, and Mary Margaret’s definitely recording, a small mob of red white, and blue surrounding them. “I’ll see what I can do,” Killian promises.

“Good.”

He hits three before her first qualifying round. So, Emma takes that as a challenge. She’s an athlete now.

It’s why, she figures, her fingers don’t slip on her first run.

Her feet are sure. Her breathing is steady. There’s no one cheering her name, but she’s long since memorized the exact way Killian’s voice lifts above a crowd. How he pushes up on his toes to watch, as if standing up taller makes sure he’s closer to her. Should she need him when she falls off the wall. Only, Emma doesn’t fall, and she’s got no intention of ever falling and—

Her laugh shudders out of her in a watery sort of way that makes the journalist still standing in front of her flinch ever so slightly. Twitter makes sure the video starts playing again as soon as it finishes, which is somehow the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her. Best because, well, Emma’s honestly not sure she’s ever seen her husband like this.

Worst because she’s very nearly goddamn crying. Again.

Bobbing on the balls of his feet in front of his locker, whoever’s recording the video — it’s Scarlet, obviously — is practically frenzied behind the camera, barely able to contain their laughter. Killian doesn’t notice. He’s holding his own phone, all five of his free fingers firmly entrenched in the back of his hair. It’s gotten softer with age, Emma thinks.

She can’t stop watching him.

Every inhale is a clear struggle, the bobbing turning into pacing and quiet mumbling she can hear perfectly. As if she’s standing right in front of him.

Or at least slightly to the side. So as not to stand on the logo in the middle of the clubhouse.

Athletes are notoriously superstitious, too.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Killian chants, another noticeable snicker from Scarlet, “right there, right there, and pull, pull—Swan, pull up!”

“I did pull up there,” Emma mumbles. To the reporter, maybe. Or the world. Possibly her husband. Who was definitely more nervous about the first run than her.

God, that’s romantic.

Killian’s still talking. Shouting, more like. It’s a miracle Scarlet hasn’t fallen over yet.

“Faster, faster, you can go faster than that, Swan—” Emma clicks her tongue. “That’s kind of insulting.”

There’s an appropriate titter of laughter from the peanut gallery, which is a joke she was not trying to make, but she’s also dangerously close to swooning in the middle of press and she should have asked the Yankees for media training. Someone would have made sure she didn’t make a total ass of herself.

“Show me the time,” Killian yells, another demand that isn’t that. It’s too wobbly a string of words to hold any real power, just the supportive sort of desperation Emma’s felt in a variety of ninth innings and series-clinching moments. “Faster! Faster!” “Talking to the time or the judges or your wife?” Scarlet asks.

Killian nearly snarls.

Emma blinks. Hyperactively. Crying is not usually her shtick. More camera flashes...flash, Emma barely noticing them with her eyes glued to a phone screen that isn’t hers because she at least knows not to bring her phone to a press conference, and she can only imagine how many text messages she’s gotten.

Even on the other side of the world.

They post the times.

She knows because Killian gets some rather impressive height on his celebratory vertical. Fingers abandoning his hair, his fist pumps the air, and Scarlet’s not laughing so much as he’s whooping, a steady stream of yeah, yeah, yeah in the background. And for about half a breath, Emma’s worried Killian may turn one of his ankles on his landing, but he’d think that was insulting, and she’s really just full-on swooning now.

“How many people have seen this?’ she asks the reporter, already knowing the answer.

The reporter smiles anyway. Emma should learn her name.

“Pretty much the whole world.” When Emma was a kid — the sort of kid who believed alone was better, and there was strength in singularity, that would have terrified her. Bowled her over, really. Left her running without looking back, desperate to shed any sort of notoriety because notoriety meant attention, and attention meant inevitable disappointment.

Maybe that’s why she was never much of a sports person.

Sports disappoint you. They build you up and let you down, a sharp and sudden fall without a safety net. But sometimes. Sometimes, every so often, something wonderful happens. Sports lift you. Right up an indoor wall. Because, she knows, sports’ power comes from belief, from surrendering yourself to something bigger and better, and she’s back on that alliterative kick, but the tears are barely clinging to her eyelashes now and Emma herself is bigger and better, now.

In an international, decidedly romantic sort of way.

The video’s playing away.

“Let’s go,” Killian cries, and there it is. Her sound and their sound, cheering across an ocean and time zones that are still kind of messing with her sleep schedule.

Emma’s smile stretches.

“Let’s go,” she repeats.

It ends, as with most things in Emma’s gold-medal-winning life, because Anna plans it.

Stepping out of the terminal, it takes less than a full breath for the cheers to start. For the banners to lift and the tears to flow, a small platoon of support covered in the sort of patriotic gear they definitely got from the Old Navy in Herald Square.

Flashes burst behind Emma’s eyelids because she’s got to blink or she’ll definitely fall over. Her legs wobble beneath her, contending against a wave of triumph and jubilation, which is sort of the same word, but they’ve got a game at the Stadium tonight, so she doesn’t expect, she just hopes and reaches, and he has to twist around both Anna and Mary Margaret.

It’s wonderfully cyclical.

As is the way Emma slams herself against him. On purpose, this time. Killian’s arms tighten, more cheers and shouts, and people a few feet away start chanting USA over and over. Emma barely hears them. Her feet aren’t touching the ground, so she’s kind of preoccupied.

They’re all arms and mouths, and her legs wrapped securely around a body that probably shouldn’t be supporting hers when she knows he slid into second two nights ago, but Killian clearly has no intention of letting her down, and the medal around her neck bumps against her rings.

“You’re a very good cheerleader; you know that?” He hisses. In what, Emma can’t imagine. Embarrassment, if the red tips of his ears are anything to go by, and she’s got ideas as to why that is and how long the conversation about social media with Scarlet went, so Emma does the only reasonable thing.

She slams her lips against her home-run hitting husband’s, doing her best to make sure the gold medal doesn’t mistakenly impale either one of them, and the world tilts again. With victory and sports-based support and the sort of love that comes from believing in something bigger.

And better than Emma could have ever imagined.

“I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”

“Please,” Emma scoffs, “don’t insult me like that. Plus, I’m claiming every one of those home runs as my own, so comparatively—” He kisses her before she can say anything else.

That’s for the best, probably.

“Your arms looked ridiculously good the whole time.”

Her laugh doesn’t even sound like her when Emma hears it played back — another video that someone tells her goes viral, only she doesn’t care about hits or site traffic, just about the particular shade of blue in Killian’s eyes, and she wears her medal to the game that night.

Because they’re a sports power couple, now.

Or so the New York Post back page claims the next day.

Emma frames it.

[give-seconds]

Back to You

Summary: You and Mark are all each other have, he’s easily the most important person to you. But something happens and you both are slowly separated, so you work your hardest to be accepted into a college in Korea so you can find your way back to a home with him again.

Masterlist | Main Masterlist

---Part 13

One month later

Donghyuck hoped that by the time the holidays came around, he would have gotten over this crush. He didn’t want these feelings to ruin the holidays for you. He is already dragging you to this strange place to be surrounded by his parents and younger siblings. The last thing you need is for him to start acting strange.

Jeno still wouldn’t punch him, even after he showed up the night before you were supposed to go to Jeju and begged him. Jaemin agreed, and for a second, he feared for his life. Jaemin’s punch, however, was just a pinch on the cheek. Needless to say, he was both relieved and disappointed.

So now, here he is, standing outside your dorm building and trying not to let his nervousness take over. He knows he’s being dramatic, but he really is worried about messing up your first holiday in Korea. That, and he doesn’t want to scare you away.

“Hey, you ready?”

Donghyuck jumps slightly, smiling as you laugh softly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready.”

“So I did some research on Jeju,” you start as he leads you down the road towards the bus station.

“Oh yeah? What did you find?”

“I heard that the accent is hard to understand. You can help me, right?”

“I think you’ll be okay,” he answers, laughing softly. “The people there speak standard Korean. The only people you might have trouble with are the older people. But I think you’ll be okay.”

“Good to know, good to know. And you said your sister’s names are Daeun and Jimin?”

He nods his head. “They’re very excited to meet you. My mom and dad too.”

You laugh, playfully glaring at him. “Don’t say that! I’m not that exciting.”

“Okay, one, you are exciting. And two, they’re excited because except for my dad—and that’s because he’s the most introverted of us all— they’re all very excited to meet new people. Especially if those people are a friend.”

You nod your head. “And you haven’t told them about me?”

“Other than you’re a nice person, no, I haven’t mentioned anything about you.”

You let out a breath of relief. “Good, that makes me less nervous.”

“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about,” he responds. “My mom and I are almost the same person. If you get along with me, then you will definitely get along with her.”

“I know I’m probably worried about nothing, but that’s just me. Once I meet them, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Plus, it’s not like I’ll be alone. I have you, and then in a few days, Mark will join us.”

Donghyuck silently nods his head as you both take a seat on the bench, bringing his suitcase to stop in front of him. He’s both excited and unexcited for Mark to join you. On one hand, he’s excited to get to know you better without Jaemin or Mark. Donghyuck wouldn’t say he's jealous of Mark, but there’s just something in the way you look at him that is more than a friend. He’s been meaning to talk to his Hyung about his relationship with you, but every time the thought crosses his mind, it’s followed by thoughts of how weird he must sound and what Mark might say about him having a slight crush on someone he hadn’t known that long.

On the other hand, that slight crush is the reason he wants Mark there. If Mark is there, then the majority of your attention will be on him, and any weird thing he does around you might not be as noticeable. Not to mention, he just likes being around the older—he’s his best friend.

The bus pulling to a stop in front of you draws his attention away from his thoughts, and he wordlessly stands up. “You ready for the adventure of your life?”

You nod your head in confirmation, standing up next to him with a wide smile. He smiles back, letting himself get lost in your eyes for a few seconds. He knows he’s falling too fast; begging Jeno to punch him is proof of that. He can’t say what it is about you exactly that has made him fall. He just knows that every day, he finds more and more to admire about you.

“Okay! Then off we go.”  

----

“Hyuckie!”

You smile, watching as his mom pulls him into a hug as soon as she opens the door.

He laughs, letting go of the suitcase handle to hug his mom back. “Hi, mom.”

“Okay,” she says, a smile spread across her face as she lets go and opens the door a little wider. “Okay, come on in. The girls are at the Ju’s house, so they’ll be back later. I think Haknyeon is dropping them off, so you’ll get to see him.”

You silently follow Donghyuck into the house, smiling softly at his mom as you pass her.

“That’s one of my best friends,” he says, turning to you as his mom closes the door behind you. You let out a quiet ah, not sure how else to respond.

“Mom, this is y/n,” He introduces, turning to face his mom. “Y/n, this is my mom.”

“Nice to meet you,” you greet, bowing.  

“It’s nice to meet you too, y/n. Come, let me show you to your room.”

You and Donghyuck follow his mom as she leads you around the house. “Jimin and Daeun agreed to share a room. But when your other friend gets here, I don’t know where he’ll stay. Maybe with you, Hyuckie?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And if you don’t want to, he can stay with me,” you offer quietly.

“No, we can’t have that,” his mom answers, pushing open the door to a room. “You’re our guest, and I want your stay at the Lee household to be as pleasant as possible.”

“I really don’t mind. He and I are like siblings.” You walk past his mom, looking around the room.

“Oh really? Donghyuck told me you came to Korea from Canada. Have you been here before?”

You shake your head. “Mark and I met in Canada; he was actually born there. His family moved here around my second year of high school. But before he moved, we pretty much grew up in the same household.”

Donghyuck nods his head silently, not hearing the rest of the conversation. He knew from you that Mark and you grew up together, but he can’t remember a time when Mark had mentioned you to him. Granted, he didn’t have a perfect memory, but he’s sure he would remember his friend saying something about a best friend he had to leave in Canada.

Sure, he’s only known him for about two years. Despite the short time, he feels like they’ve been able to create a special bond between them. He’s told Mark things Haknyeon doesn’t know, and he’s known Haknyeon twice as long—if not longer. The point is, he knows that the bond he feels between him and Mark isn’t one way. So why hadn’t he mentioned you?

“Hyuckie, why don’t you show y/n around the house? And then after that, maybe take her around the city if you’re up for it. If not, of course, you’re welcome to stay at the house,” his mother says, bringing her hand to rest on his shoulder.  

He blinks a few times before simply nodding his head. “Yeah, of course.”

She smiles at him, sending you a smile as well before she squeezes past him and walks back down the hall.

“Well, ready for the tour?”

You nod your head, pushing your suitcase to rest at the foot of the bed. “Yeah. And then do you think we could go out? I want to buy your sister something for letting me use her room.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that. I’m sure she doesn’t mind. I mean, she’s been telling me I need to ‘be around girls who aren’t my sisters’ since I was in my sophomore year of high school, so I think she’ll be fine with it,” he answers, closing the door behind you as you follow him out.

He still can’t get the thought out of his mind. He didn’t want to go so far as to say you were lying about your relationship—he had seen first hand how much Mark liked you. But he felt it was weird how openly you talked about your relationship versus how his Hyung talked about it. Which, until recently, was not at all.

“So, this is your room?”

He nods his head, watching as you walk past him and into the center of the room to look around.

“It suits you,” you say, turning around to smile at him.

He smiles back, a weird type of anxiety washing over him. He didn’t like doubting you. Worst of all, he didn’t like how nosy he is being. He wants to know why you and his Hyung talk differently about your relationship, but he also knows he shouldn’t care at all; it’s none of his business.

“Hey y/n? Can I ask you a kind of personal question that I have no reason to ask, and you can totally say no?”

“Sure,” you chuckle.

“You said Hyung’s family doesn’t like you. Why?”

“Not his whole family,” you mutter, breaking eye contact with him. He finds it difficult himself to look at you, instead, bringing his eyes to wander around his room “His brother and I are on good terms now, and I think his father is too scared to stand up to his mother and say he doesn’t have a problem with me.” You’re silent for a minute, and when he looks over at you, he can see you’re struggling to answer. “And as for his mother, it’s a long story. One I’m not sure how to explain right now, nor do I want to. But what I can say is that my father and Mark had a relationship she was ... jealous of. She had no reason to be jealous, but my father definitely went too far when it came to Mark. She hates my father—something I don’t blame her for—and I think I remind her too much of him.”

“That must be hard. Can I ask one more question?”

“Sure, I don’t care.”

“Were you and Hyung really that close? I don’t doubt that you two are close; it’s just that before you came, he never really talked about you.”

You smile softly, a faraway look in your eyes. “That is also because of his mom. We went through something big together, which means we’ll be together forever. But like I said, his mom hates me. I don’t know for sure, but I think that if he talked about me, his mom would be upset. I’m sure that’s why you’ve never heard of me. He was probably too scared to talk about me.”

Donghyuck nods his head. He wants to know more, but he knows that would be pushing things; he is lucky enough you told him this much. Maybe he’ll talk to Mark about it later, see if there’s anything he’s willing to talk more about.

“Okay, sorry for bringing that up out of nowhere. Ready to see a little of the town?”

---

At the end of the day, he’s glad Jeno hadn’t punched him. His time with you had been nice, and the dinner with his family hadn’t been as awkward as he expected it to be. Haknyeon had even joined them for dinner, adding a warm feeling to the atmosphere. He had almost forgotten how bright Haknyeon was.

Jimin had loved the gift you got her (which he had picked out) and told you that she would give you her room any time if it meant you could come over again. In short, his family enjoyed having you around.

Now, everybody had said their goodnights, and Donghyuck could hear his sisters talking in the room next to his. It’s good to be home; he missed his family. Laying in his bed, he stares up at the ceiling. He used to have stars on his ceiling, and he scrunches his nose at the memory. He can’t remember when he took those down or why.

Sighing, his thoughts from earlier come rushing back. He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much. It was before he met you. At the same time, he’s known Mark since he moved to Seoul; they’ve been each other’s best friends for a few years. So why were you never mentioned?

“Hey Hyung, how was the first day of the holidays?”

“It was good,” Mark answers into the phone. “Johnny Hyung was able to come back for dinner, which is always a treat. How about you? How’s y/n?”

“It’s been good! I got to see Haknyeon Hyung, so that was fun. I forgot how much I missed him. Y/n is also doing well. We got to see a little of the town today, but we’re going out again once you get here so we can really see the town.”

“Oh, that sounds fun! I’m excited to spend the holidays with friends. I’ve never done that before.”

Donghyuck nods his head, hesitating before asking. “Hey, can I ask you something about y/n?”

“Sure.”

“Um, so she told me a little about your relationship and why your mom doesn’t like her. But I was wondering, if it’s okay with you, could you tell me what happened between your family and hers?”

“What brought this up?” Donghyuck doesn’t miss the hesitation in his hyung’s voice.

“Y/n was talking to my mom about how you and her were like siblings when you were younger, and I thought about how I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned her before. I asked her why she thought that was, and she said it was because your mom doesn’t like her. I don’t know how to put this without sounding like I’m accusing her of being a liar, but are you two really as close as siblings?”

Mark sighs. “Yeah, it’s a long story that I don’t know how much she’s okay with sharing. But her and I, we have a bond. I can’t explain it, but I can tell you I don’t plan to lose her again. My family moved back here because my mom couldn’t stand y/n being around, so it’s not an understatement to say my mother has some strong, negative feelings towards y/n. So you can imagine how me talking about her went down in the house. As I got older, I realized it was easier to not talk about her at all. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, Hyuck. I was worried you’d mention it in passing to my mom or dad. I’m sorry if you thought I was hiding it from you.”

Donghyuck knows it isn’t his place, but he feels like you and Mark aren’t telling him the whole truth. Of course, you and Mark are entitled to your privacy, but there’s an ugly feeling of being left out that he just can’t ignore.

“Yeah, no, it’s okay. I’m sorry about that; it sounds like it was hard.”

“Yeah,” Mark sighs. “It was. But now she’s here, and my mom can’t do anything about it. We’re making do. I mean, if Hyung can forgive her—and he used to feel just as strongly as my mom—then maybe my mom can get to a place of being okay with her.”

Donghyuck nods his head. “Yeah, I hope so too. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, no problem. Hey, it’s getting kind of late, and I think my mom has something planned for tomorrow. But I’ll see you guys in two days, okay?”

“Yeah, see you then, Hyung. Good night.”

“Night, Donghyuck.”

---

I’m back! I’m sorry it took so long to get this out (but are we surprised?)—my life got busy all of a sudden (and I’ve been having some writer's block, but let's not mention it). But I hope you all have a fantastic day/night! I truly appreciate you all

Previous | Next 

[angelsfalling16]

Love You So Much It Hurts

My first ever FirstPrince fic! It was a little rushed, but I hope you all like it!

Summary: Henry is finding it difficult to keep his feelings hidden for any longer, and when Alex confronts him to find out why he's acting so weird, the truth comes out.

Word Count: 2333

Day 1 of Tropetember: friends to lovers au

Read it on ao3

***

Henry has just about had enough. Alex is extremely infuriating, and it’s going to push him over the drink. Drive him into complete insanity and an early grave. Somehow, Alex is oblivious to all of this.

They’re supposed to be studying for midterms next week, but instead, they’re sprawled out across Alex’s bed as he drones on about one of his classes and some kid in the class who is always trying to outdo him. Usually, Henry wouldn’t mind listening to him and would be actively trying to engage with him in the conversation, but today, he’s too busy trying to focus on making sure his heart doesn’t beat out of his chest.

“Hey, are you alright?” Alex asks abruptly, apparently sensing that Henry hasn’t been paying attention to him for the past few minutes.

“Yeah. I think I’m just tired.”

“Then, take a nap,” he suggests. “You look cozy enough in my bed, and I don’t mind.” The offer shouldn’t be weird, but it does weird things to Henry’s chest. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened.

Neither of them have ever had the best sleep schedules, so they took naps when and where they could, including in each other’s beds. And yes, that occasionally meant waking up with their arms around each other because there wasn’t quite enough space for them to spread out comfortably.

It wasn’t something they ever really talked about. It was just something they did. Even after Henry came out to Alex during his junior year of high school. Alex made sure that he knew they were still friends and that nothing was going to change between them just because Henry liked guys.

Henry was both relieved and a little wounded by that. On one hand, he was glad that Alex was neither angry nor disgusted with him. On the other hand, he was harboring a huge crush for his best friend, and it hurt to know that he would never feel the same way.

And right now, those feelings have only gotten worse, and it feels wrong to sleep in Alex’s bed. Like maybe he’s taking advantage of him or something.

“I thought you had a date tonight. With Sheila. Or was it Shane?” Definitely something that started with a ‘sh’ sound. “I don’t want to be in the way.”

“Don’t worry. That won’t be a problem.”

“Don’t try to pretend like Alex Claremont-Diaz doesn’t fuck on the first date. You and I both know that that is far from the truth. That’s practically all you do.” He accidentally lets a little bitterness slip into his tone, and Alex gives him a weird look.

“I, uh, just meant that I could go to their place instead.”

“Oh. Right.” Henry hadn’t thought about that. In fact, he very much tried not to think about who Alex went home with because that only tore new and deeper wounds into his heart.

He’s honestly not sure how much more of this he can take.

Alex is his best friend in the whole world, but maybe living together was a mistake.

It’s not like he hasn’t known since forever that he has feelings for Alex, but this is different. It’s like something has shifted between them ever since they moved into this apartment together. It just kind of made sense. Alex is in his second year of college and Henry his third, and they knew that they could get along because they practically lived at each other’s houses when they were younger. 

But something about spending most of their time together and seeing sleepy Alex in the morning pre-coffee every day has caused him to fall in so deep that he knows he has no hope of every getting out of this hole he has dug for himself. And when Alex came out to him as bi shortly after they moved in together, Henry allowed himself to fill with hope. Maybe Alex could like him after all.

But then he kept bringing home someone new every week, whoever had caught his eye in one of his lectures, and it started to hurt.

Henry is in love with him, and he can’t pretend like that doesn’t have some effect on their relationship. Like it doesn’t kill him to see Alex with someone else, especially these people who don’t deserve someone as incredible as him.

“You know, I could always cancel and stay home,” Alex says, placing a hand on his arm.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because something is obviously upsetting you, and I hate to leave you alone in this state.”

Henry shakes him off and slides off the bed. “I’m fine. I’m not actually tired anymore. I think I’ll go study in my own room. Have fun on your date tonight,” he adds politely.

He shuts himself in his room but doesn’t sleep or study. He just slumps to the floor against his door and tries to find a solution for all of this.

He could move out at the end of the semester. Transfer schools and never talk to Alex again.

That’s a terrible idea, he knows. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, but especially Alex, who hasn’t actually done anything wrong.

He just can’t seem to think rationally when it comes to Alex. He makes him so mad that he wants to hit him, but he also wants to kiss that infuriating grin off his face. He wants to fall asleep next to him and make him breakfast in the morning. He wants to take him on a romantic date and then make him forget about every other person he has ever had in his bed. He wants to make Alex his.

But he can’t because Alex doesn’t see him that way, and he has to find a way to deal with that before it wrecks their friendship.

***

A little over an hour later, there’s a knock at Henry’s bedroom door. That’s weird. Alex never knocks. He usually just comes blazing in, talking a mile a minute, barely giving Henry any time to catch up. But when Henry opens the door for him, he’s unusually quiet.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your date?”

“Yes, but I canceled because there is something more important that I need to do.”

“And what would that be? Find someone better looking?” Henry asks, hating himself for the way that his jealousy makes him act. He turns away from the door and goes to sit on the end of his bed, putting some distance between them.

“Noo,” Alex says slowly, giving him another weird look. “I need to be here for my best friend. Even if he is mad at me for some reason. Seriously. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. It’s like I told you earlier; I’m just tired.”

“You’re always tired, which is terrible, and I wish you would get more sleep. But this is more than that. You’ve been avoiding me for a while now and acting really weird about me dating people. I hate to have to ask this, but are you actually not okay with my being bi? Does it bother you?”

“What? Of course not. I accept you fully for who you are, and I’m glad you told me.”

“Then what’s going on? Because I spent the last hour running around the block and trying to figure out what I did to upset you, and that was all I could come up with.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Not everything is about you, remember? This is something that I have to deal with on my own.”

Alex steps farther into the room and settles on the edge of the bed, close enough to Henry to touch him but not close enough that it will be accidental.

“You don’t have to go through anything on your own. I’m here and I care about you, and I would do anything to make you happy.”

“I know, and that’s why I—.” Henry just barely cuts himself off before he just comes out and says the one thing he has been trying so hard not to say. “I just don’t want to burden you with this. It would ruin our friendship, and I don’t want to lose you.”

“God, Henry. What’d you do? Kill someone?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then what could possibly be so bad that you can’t tell me? We tell each other everything, even the truly embarrassing things we wish we could forget. What could possibly be so bad that you can’t tell me?”

Henry groans and pulls at his own hair. He can’t do this. He can’t tell him the truth. But he can’t keep hiding it from him either. He has to make a decision. So, with a deep breath, he makes it.

“I’m in love with you.”

He can’t bear to look at Alex, doesn’t want to see his expression and know how disgusted he is with him. He wonders if it’s too late to take it back but doesn’t want to. Even though he knows the destruction that those five words can cause, he’s glad that they’re out there. It was killing him to keep them in. He just wishes Alex would say something so that he knew whether or not he should start packing his things.

Finally, Henry glances over at him, and he’s just sitting there looking stunned. Henry thinks that, maybe for the first time in his life, Alex is absolutely speechless. He never thought he’d see the day. He only wishes it wasn’t due to what he just said.

“Look, it doesn’t have to change things. I mean, I know it will change some small things. But like, we can still be friends. If you want.” He’s rambling in a fashion very unlike him, but he can’t seem to stop. “Or I can leave. I never meant for you to find out, and I don’t want it to ruin things. But if you’re weirded out by it, I get it.”

“Just. Give me a minute to process. And don’t go anywhere. The last thing I would ever want is for you to leave,” he says earnestly, finally looking at Henry.

Henry nods. He doesn’t want him to leave so that’s something. That’s better than telling him to get out of his sight and never return. It’s already better than the way that Henry’s family acted when they found out he was gay; they just pretended not to hear him. Only his sister acknowledged him, accepting him fully and helping him move out as soon as he graduated high school. He still doesn’t talk to them that much, which is why he’s so fucking terrified of losing Alex.

He’s part of his family. He just hopes he hasn’t screwed that up by loving him too much and passing a line he shouldn’t have.

When Alex is presumably done processing, he reaches out to place his hand over Henry’s. Which doesn’t tell him anything.

They’ve held hands before. But it didn’t mean anything. They were always really close, almost like brothers, except not because Henry couldn’t keep his stupid gay heart from falling for him.

“So. You’re in love with me?” Alex finally says.

“Yes. I do believe we’ve established that already.”

“I know. I just.” He pauses and takes a breath. “Do you know how I realized I was bi?”

“By getting drunk and hooking up with some random guy?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head and smiling a little. “Because I moved in here with you, and during the first week of living together, I saw you step out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel slung over your hips, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all of that exposed skin and how badly I wanted to touch it. Then I went to some stupid party and got stupid drunk and made out with some random guy with blond hair that was nowhere near as soft as yours. But all that time, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And I was so terrified of what it all meant, not because it meant that I liked guys but because it meant that I liked you. And I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

It’s Henry’s turn to smile as he realizes what Alex is saying. “So, basically, we’re both idiots.”

“Um, speak for yourself. I’m doing great in my classes.”

Henry laughs and shoves him. But then he keeps one of his hands on him, wrapped around his arm, not wanting to let go.

“I had no idea you liked me. You were always with someone else, and I hated it,” Henry admits quietly.

“Hey, look at me.” Alex brings his hand up to gently cup Henry’s jaw and tilts his head so that their eyes meet. “None of them meant anything to me. They were just a way for me to try to forget about you. Of course, it didn’t work because every time they left, you were still there looking gorgeous as all hell.”

The corner of Henry’s mouth quirks up. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

“Yes. And I love you. I’m sorry it took so long for me to realize it.”

Henry shakes his head. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Alright. Well, can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” So he does, taking Henry’s face in both of his hands before pulling him down into the best kiss he’s ever had.

It’s soft at first as they tentatively learn each other’s mouths. Then, Henry sighs and Alex slides his tongue over his lips, and the kiss deepens.

It’s everything that Henry has ever dreamt of and more. It’s perfect.

He’s not entirely sure this means that they’re a couple now, but he hopes it does. For the moment, though, he’s content to wrap himself around Alex and kiss him until they both forget where they are.

Henry loves him and Alex loves him back, and that’s all that matters right now.

[bangtanshomura]

PINK | 2/? | pjm

summary: A neighbor as pink and hopelessly romantic as you and an equally pink neighbor like Jimin (but without a thing or two in common), sounds almost perfect together, right?. The only problem? That you are madly in love with him but his tonalities are very different from yours.

pairing: park jimin x female reader.

genre: fluff, angst, (maybe in the future a little of smut? not so sure).

word count: 1992

warning: unrequited love, pinning, so much embarrassment, a looooot of pink hehe, hurt, some mxm with ot7, you know…it happens sometimes.

------

Pink, 'cause you are so very

“Sup with the face, sugar?” Seokjin’s voice pulls you back to reality. Or maybe was Jimin’s text.

“Jimin asked me if he should go on a date with the pretty girl of the coffee shop across the street”

“You are a pretty girl” He points you with a finger, looking at you harshly. “And Jimin always says stupid things, so please, don’t overthink this”

“But I'm not the pretty girl he would consider asking out on a date” your voice is almost a whisper, so genuinely hurt that Seokjin can't help the tug at his heart.

“Well, his loss, I’m telling you” He scoffs “He will see you someday—” Tucks a lock of hair behind your ear with an affectionate smile. “ like, really see you. And I hope it's not too late when that happens”

Everyone knows what a wonderful person you are, including Park Jimin.

The only person who apparently lacks this information is you.

And it's not that Seokjin has any feelings of hatred and contempt towards the now black-haired boy; but he didn’t appreciate the way he lured you to him and then pushed you away.

Actually, even if Namjoon thinks otherwise, he is absolutely certain that there is some reason why Jimin's colors look somewhat... dull.

There must be a reason why despite the subtle -quite obvious in Seokjin's opinion- attraction Jimin feels for you, he doesn't let it develop but also doesn't let it stop.

Seokjin just knows it's like that, it's a feeling,

“I love you so much Jinnie, but I don't want to talk about this anymore” You leave a small kiss in his cheek before you continue talking. “Are you coming for some unhealthy dinner tonight?”

“You know that we will, baby” The wink it throws at you makes you giggle “Namjoon will pick us up ten minutes before we close the store, safety an all, you know my man” You both laugh a little. “Any suggestions?”

“I'm craving a cheeseburger from McDonald’s”

“A cheeseburger from McDonald's will be” It’s a reality, they don’t know how to say no to you. And they don’t want to. “Now, help me with this arrangement, I have never met a bride as demanding as this girl. I swear”

______

"Just when I think you can't get any more idiotic, you come along and surprise me Jimin."

Yoongi’s raspy voice makes him roll his eyes.

“What are you talking about now?”

“You know what. Don’t play dumb with me” He signals his phone with a movement of the head and scolds him with his eyes. Translation: He read the messages. “You can’t keep doing this to her.”

Jimin looked out the window again, exchanging glances with the barista who batted her eyelashes flirtatiously, gifting him a smile that he returned with a smaller one of his own.

She's pretty, he had to admit that. But neither her flirtatious smile nor her long, stylish hair, managed to provoke anything in him.

Not like his small, pink, innocent neighbor.

A sigh left his lips and he returned his gaze to his phone.

“I know”

______

“Are we hungry or what?”

Namjoon enters the shop with his extra-large arms extended, prepare to wrap you two in a bear hug.

“We are always hungry; you already know that hun”

Seokjin takes his face in between his hands with so much delicacy that you want to cry but instead you fake a gagging noise that makes them chuckle and you smile fondly to the presence of their love.

“Let’s go before you suffocate me with so much PDA” You give them a weak smile walking towards the entrance, in a crestfallen manner.

The taller one knows there is something in your voice that doesn't fit the facade you want to sell him, so, he looks to his boyfriend direction with a raised brow and an interrogation mark painted on its face.

His boyfriend answers him with a silent lip movement, a name, clarifying the situation.

Of course, it had to be.

“I cross paths with Jungkook this morning”

“Really? How is he?” Your question doesn’t come as curious as his want’s to, but he keeps anyways.

“You know, hotter than before” Seokjin watches him curious while locking the gate of the flower shop, eyebrow arching and he clarifies his voice. “I might have invited him to dinner today”

Okay, he may not have invited him, but they did crossed paths in a convenience store while the younger one was carrying a bag full of banana milk.

But he will.

“…You did?”

The hesitation in your voice gives him a push.

“Yeah, I mean, is it wrong?”

————

You should have known.

How is it possible that a specimen like Jeon Jungkook exists and on top of that, he is single.

Damn Kim Namjoon and damn his twisted plan or whatever that goes through his prodigy brain.

“You could have warned me that he looked like that!”

“Boring” Namjoon prolonged the ‘o’ “I don’t see what’s wrong. He is hot, you are hot, he is single, you are single. A win-win situation if you ask me”.

“But I didn’t”.

“Irrelevant. We are having an amazing night y/n. You know that I’m not going to force you on a date with Jungkook but I want you to enjoy this moment with me, with us”.

“I am enjoying the moment, excuse you” You murmur.

“No your not. You think that I didn’t see the sadness in your eyes?”

“Nam…”

“No baby, not today” He takes a deep breath and looks at you with so much love and concern. “Please”

Deep inside, you know he is right, that you need a night of rest from the problem in your heart that has Park Jimin as its name.

Jungkook is funny, sweet, attentive and Namjoon isn't lying when he says the four of you are having a spectacular night.

You can see it in your best friend's eyes, the desperation to see you well, happy.

So, you agree.

“But!—” Namjoon waits for whatever that you are going to say “What the fuck with those tattoos? And the piercing? He can’t be real, you created him”

He lets out a thunderous laugh as he wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“Girl, I know”

______

“Thank you so much for having me tonight y/n”

“Oh, no, no” You blush. He chuckles, watching you trying to burn holes in the door of the apartment in front of yours to avoid his gaze. “I-I…eh…Thank you! T-Thank you for coming, like, here, to my house, obviously…oh my god”

You want to slap your face for making a fool of yourself in front of another extremely hot man.

And then, he smiles.

And it's not a smirk or a chuckle that can be interpreted as "I know what I’m doing to you."

It's genuine.

He’s giving you his adorable bunny smile.

“Cute”

If he is about to say something else besides what your brain translated as a compliment, a voice coming from the elevator at the end of the hall momentarily distracts you from it.

“Hey pink”

Although Jimin's greeting is for you, his eyes are intently fixed on the male figure next to you, who watches him curiously.

“Jiminie, you are at home”

Jungkook's eyes travel quickly from Jimin to you, who -with incredible speed for someone so small- runs into the arms of the black-haired boy standing in front of the elevator door.

The gears in his brain working at full power, stopping abruptly when this guy drops the bags he was carrying on the floor so he can wrap his arms around your waist, still throwing daggers in his direction.

Then the realization hits him, and his lips let out an amused chuckle.

This guy must see him as a threat and being honest, he could be.

If you'd let him, that is.

“Yoongi didn't let me escape early, I'm sorry I couldn't make it to dinner with you”

The butterflies in your belly do a triple loop at his words.

"It's okay, I understand" You say turning around but not before grabbing one of the bags lying on the floor and incidentally, the hand he keep unoccupied by the other bags, you turn to Jungkook with a smile "Jungkookie, this is Jiminie, my neighbor!"

“Hi, Jiminie the neighbor”

Jungkook extends his hand offering it in a cordial greeting, while Jimin examines him completely to finally put down the bags and shake it without separating his hand that is holding yours.

“Just Jimin”

You don't quite understand why they seem to be having a battle to the death with just their eyes, in the middle of the hallway, while Mrs. Kim passes by and watches the scene with curiosity.

You give her a somewhat apologetic smile and make a small bow before -trying- to take a step to get closer to Jungkook.

Try, because the moment Jimin detected movement on your part, he pulled your hand with a little force -without hurting you of course-, to return you to his side.

Jungkook catches between his lips the mocking laughter that wants to escape from his chest and instead returns his gaze to you, smiling softly.

"I'd love to stay and get to know 'Just Jimin' a little more, but I'm afraid it's a little late" You can watch from the corner of your eye as Jimin rolls his eyes and turns to the side with a pout on his lips.

Weird.

Not the tantrum, you've seen it multiple times.

The moment. Yeah, that's weird.

"Actually, yes. It's late. Jungkookie from college" Jimin says dryly

For some reason your brain fails to organize its ideas and thoughts, they're all scattered all over the floor of what you assume is the control room in your head.

"Sure" Jungkook replies without looking at him, taking a step to get closer to you, snapping you out of your thoughts "Really, thanks for tonight, y/n"

Jimin knows, he can feel it.

His cheeks must be red and his forehead must have the biggest scowl in history.

Because, who does he think he is, Jungkookie from college, to hug you like that?

Even when his hand is intertwined with yours!.

"Oh" Jungkook's warm embrace brings you back to your senses completely. unconsciously letting go of Jimin's hand to return the gesture with affection "Thank you for coming, I hope Namjoon didn't force you to come all the way here."

"Not at all. Actually, I'd love to meet with you guys again."

When you part, Jimin makes his presence noticeable again, taking your hand quickly with a huff.

------

"I thought only Namjoon and Jin were coming for dinner?"

Jimin lets the question out casually, wishing it wasn't too obvious his need for information from the - apparently - new member of your group.

"Oh, yeah, Namjoon found Jungkook by chance and invited him over for old times' sake."

He can see how you arrange some cans in his cupboard, as if you know the place by heart.

Leaning on his kitchen counter, a smile moves over his lips at the domesticity of the moment.

How can you look so pretty and pink, doing something as mundane as stocking his pantry?

And it's this very thought that forces him to take control of the situation. Because he knows that what happened in the hallway a few minutes ago must have confused you even if you don't show it to him.

And it's not something he can afford.

"I see" Running his hand through his hair -a habit he doesn't intend to abandon-, he starts rummaging through another shopping bag as he continues "Did you read my messages?"

He can see you cease your movements and stand still with a bag of candy in one hand.

"I-I..."

"Nevermind" He Interrupts you "Yoongi advised me on one or two things that might be useful."

"He did?"

No.

But you can't know that.

"Yeah, he did."

------

A/N:

For the people who read the first part, I'm sorry for the delay but I've been going through an unexpected and difficult time, so I promise to make up for the lost time. In the meantime I'll leave this chapter here and I hope you enjoy it and again, I'm really sorry!

[hotchley]

neptune’s ocean (wash this blood)

Okay so, I ended up on the part of TikTok that has A Thing for Hotch’s hands, and I decided to make it angsty. And then it had a happy Mortch ending? I don’t know... 

The title is a reference to Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s wash this blood from my hands? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” It’ll make sense when you read.

This was cathartic to write, especially given the conversation I had today. I hope it is somewhat cathartic to read. You can heal. You can move on, you can be happy, and your biggest fears may never come true, no matter what your brain says. As usual, no proofreading, or dialogue.

Word Count: 2486

Trigger Warnings: child abuse, blood, vomit, guns, death, grief/mourning, intrusive thoughts, survivors guilt

read on ao3!

He can’t bring himself to look at his hands. They’d never been something he’d actually focused on. He’d never thought they were cute the way Jack’s were, or hated how slender his fingers were, so unlike the stereotypical hero. He didn’t pause his life to watch them carry out household tasks the way Haley always had.

Haley. Haley who is dead, and gone and cold, and whose blood coats his hands like a second skin. She loved his hands. She always told him how she loved everything about him, but his hands were her favourite thing. She loved how soft they were. How strong they were. Everything about them. 

In their first apartment, with the random photos and multi-coloured walls and traces of themselves and love everywhere, she had confessed this love to him. He had laughed when she couldn’t explain what she loved, or why. Haley had thrown a pillow at him in retaliation. But when they ended up laying on the sofa, both claiming they would go and clear the kitchen in a moment, she had linked their hands over her chest and kissed his knuckles.

And confessed that part of the reason she loved them was that they were so much bigger than hers.  When Aaron asked her why, Haley turned away and said it was embarrassing. He convinced her to tell him. How, he wasn’t sure. But she told him.

It was because they made her feel safe.

But as he sits in the living room that had once been full of love and life and joy and her, his hands being wiped of all of his sins as though they were as easy to bury as her body, he thought about how those same hands she loved had only hurt her.

He looks down, needing to see the traces of blood before they’re removed forever. As he does so, the limbs start to blur before his eyes. His eyes swim with tears and his throat starts to close. How many times before today has he washed them? Scrubbed at the pain until the skin turned red and raw?

How many times had he succeeded at rubbing it away? At hiding it, not just from everyone else, but from himself? And how many more times would he have to repeat the motion before his hands were clean? Would they ever be clean?

He wipes the tears from his eyes. He doesn’t deserve to cry. Not now. Not after everything he has ruined. 

Moments flash through his mind all at once.

Aaron Hotchner is eight.

His father is drunk- but that’s not an excuse, not now and not ever, although he will only learn that at thirteen in a boarding school meant to destroy him- and he does not understand what is going on. 

But his father has taken the belt from his trousers and brought it down on too small for his age hands until he sees blood. His hands tremble uncontrollably. Tears stream down his face, but there is no sympathy or kindness waiting for him. Not this time. 

The next day, he can hardly hold his pen. Nobody seems to notice or care. So he grits his teeth and bears the pain. It is the first time he finds himself doing such a thing, but it will by no means be the last.

Aaron Hotchner is fourteen. 

Someone insults his mother. And they aren’t wrong. He will realise this in a few years: that his mother was just another victim, but in that moment, he is just a teenager angry at the world for letting him live. But whilst he knows it to be true, Sean does not. Sean does not understand that their mother is not perfect, and is just as broken as his brother’s spirit.

Sean is scared. No, he’s terrified that their mother is going to be taken from them and that they’ll never see her again. Aaron feels guilty for wishing that would happen- that both their parents would be taken away, and they would be carried off by someone that can love them the way a parent is meant to be. 

Sean is scared, and Aaron is meant to ensure that never happens. He punches the boy.

It hurts his hand more than it hurts the other boy’s face, but he still ends up being suspended. His father hurts his hands again. It’s in that moment that he finally makes a wish: that he would never be like his father, even if he was his mirror.

Aaron is seventeen. 

Somehow, he finds himself at Haley’s home. Her parents are away for the weekend. His are still in that wretched house, playing roles in front of their guests and destroying the set behind closed doors. 

His hands are covered in blood because his father hit too hard.

Jessica, who is back from college, and the reason their parents are not at home, answers the door. She starts to close it when she sees that it is him. But then she sees how scared he looks, and finally understands why Haley is so protective over this boy. 

She lets him in, and does not let him apologise. She summons her sister. His girlfriend.

Haley hugs him. She has suspected this for a while now- everyone has- but she’s going to be different in the way that she is going to act. His fists remain clenched at his side as she makes this decision. Because this is a mistake. He cannot ruin her as well. He needs to walk away.

But Haley and Jessica don’t let him. Haley takes his hands and in the same way Derek will twenty years later, wipes the blood away without blinking or flinching. And then Jessica bandages them up, making sure to use antiseptic to prevent infection. It stings. He doesn’t react. It’s nothing compared to his father.

He tries to ask them how they know what to do, and they both shush him. When Jessica wipes her eyes, and Haley pats her back, he remembers the days they would spend at the church, and the women that would spend hours with them, only returning to their homes when the sun went down.

It is enough to make him vomit. They clean that up without judgment.

And then, and then-

Aaron is twenty-six. 

He is graduating from law school, just like he is supposed to. His hand is shaken. He does not flinch away, even though he wants to. He doesn’t recoil because Haley and Jessica are sitting in the audience, the only people he even wanted to watch him walk across the stage. 

Their cheers are the only thing he can hear.

When Haley hugs him, and Jessica tells him how proud she is, he knows it isn’t just because he made it.

Aaron is twenty-eight.

He is dancing with Haley at their wedding.

Her hands are so much smaller than his. So much gentler. So much softer. So much more human. And so beautifully void of scars. So perfect.

He makes one final vow that he will never say aloud. He will always keep her safe. No matter what happens.

Hotch is thirty-two.

He shoots someone dead for the first time. The medics come running in to check the injuries on the hostages. To confirm the time and cause of death.

He drops the gun. Dave’s words- don’t let them see you break- echo somewhere in his mind, but he cannot help the display of vulnerability. His knees buckle. He hits the ground with trembling hands. He pulled the trigger that released the bullet that ended someone’s life.

On the train journey home, he pretends to be fine. Jason and Dave pretend to not notice that he is silently falling apart.

The door to his home- the only one he has ever known- closes. As Haley holds him, he cries. And then he tries to push her away because is going to destroy her. It’s in his blood. His father destroyed him, and his father destroyed him, and it is a vicious cycle that he cannot break.

But Haley does not let go.

When the tears stop, she asks. He manages to force the truth out. Haley tells him everything is okay, and that he did the right thing, that he will move on from this. Aaron pretends to believe her, and pretends he doesn’t see her shift away from him ever so slightly.

Perhaps this is the moment their marriage starts to end.

Aaron is thirty-four.

A nurse is placing his son in his arms. Haley is watching them both with a smile. He mirrors that smile. so in awe at her for giving birth.

He’s in awe of his son as well. Jack- named for Jacqueline, the mother Hotch gained from and lost to the job- is tiny. Aaron cannot quite believe he is real. Jack Gideon Hotchner is so small, but so trusting that the arms holding him will keep him safe.

So just as quickly as the awe overwhelmed him, the fear sets in. What is he doing holding a baby so small and precious? He will ruin this child. He needs to let go.

He hands the baby to Haley, and runs to the bathroom. His meagre dinner- fear for Haley had stopped him from eating properly- makes a second appearance.

Haley knows what happened- she always does. She doesn’t force him to explain what went through his head, nor does she tease him about not being able to handle the sight of childbirth like the nurses do, so blissfully unaware of the monsters that haunt his nightmares.

Instead, Haley lays Jack down in the cot beside her bed. And then she takes Aaron’s hands, covering them with her own. She presses a soft kiss to his knuckle. Almost like she is silently promising him the same thing: that he will not hurt this child the way he was.

Suddenly, he is in the present.

Aaron is thirty-nine.

He is sitting in the living room of the home he had built with Haley. The home they were supposed to raise Jack in. Together. But now she is gone. She is gone and it is all his fault. 

He let George Foyet escape. And then he took too long to work out his final plan. He took too long to get to the house. So now Haley is gone. Jack will grow up without a mother and a father that cannot trust himself to touch him without causing harm.

How can he?

He has killed a man. A person. A person who had surrendered, with nothing more than his bare hands. He killed the man that had murdered Haley, in order to save Jack, but what kind of person does that make him? How is he supposed to comfort his son by hugging him and holding him when the blood would never be washed from his hands? 

How could it?

He is worse than his father.

Derek leaves him after he finishes with the bandages. 

He returns a few seconds, minutes, hours- Hotch doesn’t know, time has become nothing to him- later. He returns to Hotch sobbing over all the things he has loved and lost since he was born.

Derek doesn't say a word. He doesn’t need to. He knows nothing he says will make the situation better. Instead, he takes Aaron’s hands and lets the man cry.

Healing- physical and emotional- takes time. Rationally, Aaron knows it will, but it’s still a difficult thing to accept. It takes longer than he wants it to.

 It angers him- that it’s taking him so long to get back to normal and move on. The grief counsellor (the one Derek urged him to see, if not for his own sake, then for Jack’s) reminds him that it’s normal. If it were anyone else, Hotch would tell them to let themselves feel, and to give themself time to mourn.

But he is supposed to be the leader of the BAU. And although he can hardly look at Jack without tears forming, he is a father. He needs to be there for his son. So whilst everyone- colleagues, family, Jack’s counsellor, his own therapist- tells him he needs to take care of himself as well, he just can’t.

He can’t bring himself to eat. He can’t bring himself to let go of the guilt. He can’t bring himself to mourn. He can’t bring himself to accept that Haley is gone, nothing more than a casket, a headstone, photos and the memories and stories her loved ones cling to.

There is so much he cannot do. Too much that he feels.

Yet no matter what seems to happen, no matter how sad he feels, how angry he gets at the world, Derek seems to stick around. When Aaron is terrified of hurting someone he loves, Derek is there to remind him he won’t. When he is so tired he can’t even sleep, but Jack wakes from a nightmare, Derek stays awake and reads to him.

When he forgets to eat.

When counselling drains him of his energy.

When his hands shake too much to point the gun at the target during his re-certification training.

When he can’t even look at his hands because of all the harm they have caused.

Derek stays, even when Aaron cannot hug his son.

Aaron Hotchner is forty-three years old.

It has been three years since Haley’s death.

Two years ago, he let go of his guilt. One year and nine months ago, he let go of his fear of moving on, as he realised he could love someone and remember her all at once. Seven months ago, he built up the courage to tell Derek how he truly felt.

Derek had kissed him, soft and gentle and perfect. It had been exactly the same and completely different to the first kiss him and Haley had shared. Because it had been perfect, and it had been unexpected, but it had been less desperate and less messy.

Derek had kissed him, and Aaron had felt peace. He knows Haley is proud of him.

Derek is watching him. The man who had lost everything and then found a way to carry on. The man who put everyone above himself, but is learning to care for himself. The man who still wakes up screaming, but who has learnt to breathe without fear of timing running out. 

The man he loves.

Jack is holding an ice-cream in one hand as he and Hotch walk side by side, down to where Morgan is waiting to surprise the boy- not so little anymore- with a trip to the bowling alley for his birthday. 

Jack holds his hand out for his dad to take.

And what does Aaron do?

He takes Jack’s hand in his own, without a single ounce of hesitation.

[sushiburritonoms]

DinLuke 10. high school popular kid/nerd au

I've been sitting on this AU Fic request all week because High School was a long time ago for me and I have no idea what all you young people are doing these days. After talking to Dark, I finally came up with an idea based off what I remember from high school in the 1990s. Hence this is one of the more serious ficlets I've done, but then again I've never thought of the high school genre as a happy one? Unless we're talking about Sailor Moon or something (which trust me I WAS TEMPTED).

10. High school popular kid/nerd AU

Warnings: USA centric, Time period appropriate homophobia, homophobic language, school bullying.

This looked so easy in the movies.

Din squinted at his target, readjusted his stance and after a moment, let the small pebble fly from his hand. It made a graceful arch…and landed on the top of the roof instead of hitting Luke’s second floor bedroom window. Again. He groaned.

“I can’t believe you’re the Captain of the football team.”

Din yelped and spun around. Standing directly behind him was Luke’s twin sister, staring at him with an annoyed expression on her face. She was still dressed in the same white cardigan, pink spaghetti strap tank and skinny jeans he’d seen her in at school, and was carrying her silver JanSport bag on her back and her clarinet case in one hand. If looks could kill, Din would be….well. Not dead, but most likely wounded, since the look Leia Amidala Skywalker was giving him was one of distrust and utter annoyance.

A thousand different excuses flew through Din’s head, in one ear and out the other.  Of all the things he could have said, what actually came out was, “I thought you had Jazz Band today.”  Or was it Model UN? Was it Thursday yet?

“It was cancelled. Ms. Junda is out sick.”  Leia used her free hand to push her glasses further up her nose.  “Why didn’t you just use the front door like a normal person?” She shook her head at him and started to walk towards her front door.

Din hesitated.

Leia looked back and rolled her eyes. “My parents aren’t home. My mom has another fundraiser and my dad got dragged into helping. Doesn’t my parasitic twin tell you anything?”

Din frowned. He took AP Bio and that insult made no sense. “Did you two have another argument?”

Leia gave him an incredulous look. “We never fight.”

Not according to Luke, but Din wisely avoided mentioning that.  “My pager got confiscated,” Din admitted. “It went off during history and Mr. Mundi took it.”

“You could have just talked to him,” Leia said. Then she used the palm of her hand to hit her head. “Oh duh, I forgot. You’re too cool to talk to Wormie and Squirmie at school.”

“Hey!” Din walked over to Leia. “I don’t call you guys that.” He hated Luke and Leia’s stupid nicknames. He couldn’t stand the way the other kids treated the Skywalker twins, especially Fett and his gang of morons.

Leia’s hand jingled as she pulled out her house key. “You don’t stop them,” she said quietly as she turned her back to Din. “It’s pretty much the same thing.”

Din felt his heart drop into his chest.  That wasn’t true. Every time he heard his teammates talking smack about other kids he told them off. But apart from Football practice, he didn’t really spend time talking with Fett and his friends. He was too busy working his afterschool job at Blockbuster and helping his foster mom with the other kids.  “I would,” he protested. “If Fett or anyone else ever said anything to my face about you and Luke, I would smack ‘em.”

Leia side eyed him, with her hand still clutching at her front door. “What about Han? Would you stand up for him?”

“Han Solo?”  Din blinked. The infamous dropout of Coruscant High? “I thought he joined a biker gang?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Leia whirled around. “No he didn’t! What is wrong with you!” She swung her clarinet case at Din and he had to take several steps back. “I don’t know what Luke sees in you, you stupid jock!”

“HEY! Shhh! I’m sorry, I’m sorry ok! Calm down!” Din looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard Leia.  He had no idea what he’d done to piss Luke’s sister off. They’d never had more than a few short conversations with each other ever since Din moved into town two years ago.

“What? You don’t want people to know you’re a homo?” Leia shouted at him. She had tears in her eyes. “You afraid you’ll stop being Mr. Popular if they knew you were a gaylord like Luke? Huh? You thick headed, scruffy looking….Neanderthal!”

“Leia!”

Din and Leia both froze. They hadn’t noticed the front door opening nor noticed Luke until he was standing right in front of them.  His blond hair was all disheveled and he had an ice pack in one hand and the beginnings of an awful black eye on his swollen face. His lip was cut up and there was blood dotting his green t-shirt.

“What happened!” Din blurted out. He pushed past Leia to hover next to Luke. “Who did this?!”

Luke winced and pulled away before Din could touch his face. “I’m fine.  Will you two get in here before you get outed to the entire town?”

Din opened his mouth to reply but was shoved into the doorframe by a furious Leia.  “I didn’t know it was this bad.” She grabbed her brother’s hand and dragged him into their living room.

“I’m fine!” Luke repeated. “How’d you even find out?”

“Amy told me. She saw the fight.” She pulled Luke over to their couch and nudged her brother into sitting. Din quietly closed the door and watched the siblings from a safe distance. Amy must have been Amilyn Holdo, the school’s resident weirdo.  She was one of Leia’s best friends and another frequent target of the meaner kids in their class.

“Ugh Leia, quit it! Did you skip Jazz Band for me?!”  Luke tried to wiggle away from his sister as Leia fussed over his cut lip.

“I thought it was cancelled,” Din frowned.

“That’s what we’re telling my parents,” Leia muttered.  “But I don’t think we can explain this!”

Luke sighed. “You know they won’t even notice.” He sounded so defeated that Din felt a surge of rage at Mrs. Skywalker and her busy city council career.

“Mom’s gonna notice a black eye!” Leia paused. “Eventually.”

Din counted to three just like his foster mother was always telling him to do. “Will someone tell me what the hell happened?!”

Both twins turned to look at him simultaneously, doing that creepy staring thing that made them frequent targets of the school bullies.  “Greedo,” they both said at once.

Ugh. He really liked Luke, but that was just too creepy. It reminded him of the movie Village of the Damned. “Christopher Greedo?”

They both nodded. “He insulted Han,” Luke protested. “Spreading rumors about him and nobody was saying anything.”

OH.  Now Leia’s earlier comments made sense. “You tried to fight Greedo?” Chris Greedo was infamous for his bad temper, a real ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ type of jerk.

“He keeps spreading that stupid biker gang rumor. Nobody knows what really happened to him.” Luke kept clenching and unclenching his fists--which also looked bruised. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Din slowly started to approach the twins, keeping one eye on Leia.  She glared at him but still scooted over so that Din could sit next to Luke.

“What really happened?” He asked gently.  He only hesitated for a moment before he reached over and grabbed one of Luke’s bruised hands.

“Han’s old man threw him out.” Leia answered instead of Luke. “He’s been homeless for the last four months.”

“He’s currently living with Chuy Baca’s family on the East Side,” Luke added. “It’s not fair! Han was so close to finally graduating this year but Leia and I can’t convince him to come back.”

“That’s messed up,” Din said as he looked at Leia. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

It felt like he was being judged by Leia as her brown eyes peered into him. “It’s alright,” she said finally. “Now you do.”

There was a whole lot of school politics that Din didn’t understand, even though he’d been living in Coruscant for two years. He knew that Han, Leia and Luke’s nerdy group of friends were low on the social totem pole and by sheer luck Din’s athletic ability meant he was attractive to the popular group that ran the school.  Boba Fett in particular acted like he was some sort of king and because Din was useful to him he had become one of the ‘cool kids’ for the first time in his life.  Boba had some sort of grudge against the Church that Luke’s parents attended (Church of the Sith Eternal or something like that).  The other kids also picked on Leia because she was at the top of their class and Luke because he was gay. It didn't matter that Leia had garnered enough votes from the underclassmen to become the secretary of the Student Council. She wasn’t liked by Boba, so that meant the Juniors and Seniors had it out for her.

Din had tried to stay out of the politics. He had his Senior year and then he was done--he would be finished with school and aged out of the foster care system.  Maybe he’d go community college (if by some miracle he could find the money) but most likely he’d end up in the military like his foster brother Paz.  He had so many other problems to deal with, from helping out his loving but overworked foster mother to his uncertain future. But now as he looked at the horrible bruising on Luke’s face and the tears that still lingered in Leia’s eyes, he realized he was making a huge mistake. Distancing himself from the twins and taking refuge in his own popularity wasn’t right. Somebody had to stand up to the ridiculous bullies of Coruscant High. Starting with that slimy bitch Greedo.

“Easy, Romeo.” Din felt a pillow smack the side of his head and he looked up to see Leia shaking her head at him. “I can feel the bloodlust from here. Punching Greedo in the face isn’t gonna help Luke and you’ll only get yourself detention.”

“I’m fine!” Luke insisted as he gingerly put his ice pack back on his eye. They ignored him.

“He can’t keep getting away with this,” Din argued.

“I agree but we have to be smart about this. I’ve seen your GPA Djarin, I know you’re not a moron.”

Luke frowned. “How did you see his grades? Are you hacking into Principal Windu’s computer again?!””

Din tilted his head. “You have a plan.”

Leia adjusted her glasses again. “I have several plans, ranging in severity. Some of which hinge on you.”

Luke groaned. “Oh no.”

“Me?”

“Amilyn and I have a plan to take out the worst of Luke’s tormentors…” Leia hesitated for a moment before continuing, “but it depends on if you’re willing to come out of the closet or not.”

“What! NO!” Luke jerked up before Din could say a word. “You can’t Leia, he’s gonna go to the army next year! They won’t take him if he’s out!”

Leia nodded. “We don’t have to use that plan--”

“--I never said I was going to enlist for sure,” Din interrupted. “I’d like to hear all your plans first.”

Luke turned to him with wide eyes. “No! I’m not worth it!”

“Don’t say that!” Leia scoffed. “If anything, he’s not worth it.”

“Hey.” Din frowned.

“He’s about to graduate!” Luke said to his sister. “Why would we drag him down with us when he’s close to getting out of this hellhole!”

“Because you still have one more year and I can’t take this anymore.” Leia was crying now, slow tears dripping from the corners of her eyes. “Luke, please. Let me help.” She turned to Din. “I know you don’t really want to join the army, I heard you talking to Fennec last week. If you’re willing to work on this with me and Amy, I’ll see to it my mom hires you after you graduate.”

Din hesitated. A promise of a job after high school, something that paid more than Blockbuster,  would be a real life changer for him. But there was a problem. “Wait. Will this plan of yours out Luke to your parents? I thought they’d be against it because of their religion.”

This made Leia snort. “Please, my dad is the worst Sith in the world and my mom is only in it for him.  The bonus is that this plan would convince dad to finally leave that cult.”

Luke shook his head. “If Aunt Ahsoka and Ben weren’t enough to get dad to leave, why do you think he’d leave for me.”

Din tightened his grip on Luke’s hand. “Your dad loves you,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen how he interacts with you. I’ve always thought you weren’t giving Anakin enough credit.”

Leia nodded. “We’re almost in the new millenium, lots of people are out now,” she argued. “It's not like how it was when Aunt Ahsoka was outed.”

“I don’t know, this is a lot!” Luke moaned. But he allowed Din to tuck his head onto his chest and to wrap his arms around him.  Din was happy to see Leia smile at them instead of reacting with any sort of disgust.

“Why don’t we just take this one step at a time,” Din suggested.  “Can you call Amilyn over to talk about all these different plans?”

Leia nodded. She wiped her face with the back of her cardigan sleeve and took a deep breath. “I’ll page her. Will you stay for dinner? We’re ordering pizza. Our parents will be out all night.”

“I need to call home, but yeah, sure.” He wasn’t one to turn down free food.

“Coolio. I’ll brb!”  Leia shot up from the couch.  She walked over to her brother and gave him a soft kiss on the head. It meant that she had to lean close to Din and he could smell something sweet and floral in her carefully braided hair.  “We’re gonna be ok, little brother.”

“I’m two minutes older,” Luke griped.  But Din felt Luke relax in his arms.

As Leia left to use the phone in the kitchen, Din slowly loosened his grip around Luke, enough so he could look at his eye. “I thought I taught you to duck.”

“I did! The first time.”  Luke flinched as Din carefully applied the ice pack to his face again.  “I tried to go low like you said, but then Greedo got me with his knee.”

“That bastard fights dirty,” Din growled. He was going to have to create an ‘accident’ for Greedo in the hallway tomorrow. If he called in his favor to Boba, he might even get one of his lackeys to do it for him.

Din felt Luke’s fingers twist into his plaid shirt.  “Let it go. Please. It’s not right if we stoop to his level. And you shouldn’t come out for me, it’ll just ruin your senior year.”

“Who cares about senior year? Why does everyone make such a big deal about it?! Best years of our lives--that’s depressing as shit.” Din raised his hand to Luke’s chin and gently cupped his face. “I’ve been a big fat coward, ok? This is wrong, Luke. There’s nothing wrong with us.”

Luke swallowed. “There’s a big difference between everyone thinking you’re a fag and being in an actual relationship. I don’t know if you or I are ready for that.”

Din knew what Luke meant. He didn’t know any gay couples. Just rumors of various people, like Luke’s aunt, that existed in their town. There was a significant part of him that was terrified of the consequences of Leia’s plan. Would he still be able to play Football? Would his teammates be afraid of him? What if Leia was wrong and Anakin forbid him from ever seeing Luke again?

But then again, Leia was also right. Luke had one year left and what would happen once he was gone and unable to divert the worst of Luke’s tormentors from jumping him in the hallways?  It wasn’t fair to let the injustice in Coruscant stand. Not while he was still around to do something about it.

“I want to take you to Homecoming,” Din admitted. “I want to see you in a stupid rented tux and make out with you in front of Mr. Windu.”  Luke giggled, then winced as it made his lip hurt.  “And Han should be there with Leia so she can finally make him slow dance.” Din’s hands wandered into Luke’s hair as he dragged him closer.

“Han dances like a penguin,” Luke sighed.  He slowly rested his forehead onto Din’s.  “He’s got two left feet.”

“Even better.”  Din carefully kissed the side of Luke’s mouth, careful to avoid his cut.

“Promise me you won’t do something stupid,” Luke pleaded. “We can wait until I graduate and then we can both leave this trash town.”

Instead of answering, Din pulled Luke into his arms and held him close. He looked up and saw Leia return to the living room. He locked eyes with her and nodded.

“I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”