#but instead its just like. so painfully low on self esteem as a piece of writing despite also not even attemptng anything that crazy

[ankhisms]

disclaimer im fine i just need to try and word various feelings and such pay no mind to the io who is trying to hold faer mental health together

i think the older i get and the more i desperately try to get better or at least be as healthy as i can reasonably expect to be with my various physical and mental issues the more it becomes clear to me... just how much a life time of being abused has altered my brain and tainted how i view myself. and i was obviously aware of this to a certain extent i am often painfully reminded of how much being abused and traumatized over and over throughout my life from a very young age has shaped me and how there are some things i may never fully heal from but will instead carry with me and have to live with. but recently its been jarring for me to like. be faced with it in a different way? where the environment in this theater production im in currently is actually overall very positive! i still often feel awkward where everyone is already good friends and knows one another from past productions but at the same time everyone is nice and friendly and no one is being nasty or weird to me like in the production i was in last year.

and our director and assistant director and the rest of the crew are really really sweet and encouraging and skilled people, i feel really thankful to be working with our director especially shes such a good actor along with being a good director and i value her input on things. which is why it makes it jarring to be given compliments by her and the other crew members and to be told that im a good actor and that im doing a good job. im so used to abuse from authority figures and so used to being told that im a worthless piece of shit etc etc that it comes as a shock when an authority figure in my life is actually kind to me.

and its been like. ive been having to step back and like. re examine just how badly i view myself. i have zero self esteem and zero confidence in myself, i speak very cruelly to myself and generally see myself as being a failure and other things like that, all of this is because ive been told that im a failure and disgusting ugly worthless stupid etc etc from both authority figures, my peers in school, my abuser, and my father throughout my entire life so ive internalized that and its almost impossible for me to break from thinking of myself in anything but that kind of light. but now ive been having to go. ok. i really respect this person who is telling me that im genuinely good at something. i want to believe them. i want to be good at what im doing. so this challenges the view of myself that ive been told is true for my entire life. i keep just going wait so am i not disgusting good for nothing ugly stupid worthless cant do anything right failure etc etc? and it shouldnt be so shocking that the things my abuser and the other people who have hurt and traumatized me have told me are wrong, but ive lived for so long thinking that all these things theyve said to me or said about me must be true. so again its really jarring to just be like. maybe all the awful things ive been told about myself were just very cruel people being cruel to me and not necessarily true.

but also at the same time i certainly dont think that those things being not true somehow makes me ~special~ i really dont think its possible for me to view myself as special or anything like that bc my view of myself is so low and negative and also bc i always want to be remembering other people and valuing everyone else yknow but its like. weird and strange for me to be realizing that maybe i dont suck as much as ive always been told and always believe. and maybe im not some horrible disgusting monster destined to be alone and abused forever, maybe im just a person. maybe im just a person who has been hurt a lot

but i also have to grapple with the fact that it is both true that 1. maybe im not inherently bad and maybe not everyone hates my guts and thinks im awful. but also 2. i am mentally and physically disabled as well as lgbt and there are a lot of times where people do in fact go out of their way to be cruel to me because of this and there will continue to be people who are cruel to me because of being disabled and being lgbt. these things can both be true

and alright i promise that im almost done rambling but one last thing i wish that all these years of abuse and torment and harrassment had somehow hardened me and to an extent i am kind of unphased by certain things but its more like i just fucking dissociate but anyway instead of abuse and trauma making me tough i just am so sensitive and always feel like im such a crybaby. i think i do a good job of not like making that other peoples problem i always try to suck it up but i always feel like i just am never able to grow thicker skin when it comes to very specific things that remind me of being abused. like i said our director is such a good director shes so sweet and kind and she did NOT at all say this in a mean way or mean to upset me. but last night she used me as an example where she said "im really a stickler about us saying the lines the exact way the playwright wrote them. rey i dont mean to single you out or bully you or anything like that, youre doing great, but youve been adding a 'but' to that line, lets cut out the but ok?" and again she is such a good director. she said this very kindly and i always appreciate her feedback and instruction. but feeling like im being singled out in front of people is such a big trigger for me and reminds me so much of past trauma and school abuse especially and it took every ounce of self control i had to not start crying and i just felt so humiliated about that. like why am i so sensitive. i know its because ive been abused my whole life but whats wrong with me. nothing bad happened and yet i felt like i wanted to die

anyway thanks if you read all this i prommy im fine im just feeling a lot of different things lately

[kodzumie-archived]

Hello! I was wondering if I can request Nagito comforting his s/o who’s insecure of their acne scars? Thanks for taking your time to read this :)

❝I LOVE YOU THERE, TOO❞

Synopsis; If his words weren’t enough to clear the fog of misery, he’d find another way to prove to you that his admiration is sincere.

Featuring; Nagito Komaeda x GN! Reader

Warning(s); Established relationship, self-degrading thoughts, low self-esteem, breakdown, and hurt comfort.

Kodzumie’s Note; Absolutely, love! Thank you for your request. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day, and I also hope you know you’re absolutely precious. Take care, my dear! Muah! <3

➤ NAGITO KOMAEDA

⤷ Nagito Komaeda is a devoted lover. He hails you—his lover—for your every action and word, following you to the ends of the Earth as he babbles praise, restlessly.

⤷ He admires you entirely, and values every inch of you. He values your lips as they curl into the smile he oh-so adores; your hands that seem to fit within his like puzzle pieces; your eyes that glimmer as though they were brushed upon with a sheen of stardust, a glow that not even the constellations could rival.

⤷ His heart pulsated with a fondness that he harbored only for you. Intricate conveyance of his love for you muddled within his words; his ramblings that seemed to be phrases crammed together along with the conception of hope.

⤷ Though he tried his utmost best to display to you that he thought of you as perfection personified; what you deemed as flaws he had claimed to be his favorite parts (though he truly loved every part of you equally).

⤷ So he finds it hard to believe that someone as faultless as you would doubt themselves. Every sign seems almost overlooked as he begins to notice the subtle inklings of fragility within your gaze; a gaze that was not directed towards him, but to yourself.

⤷ The idea of you being unable to see the grace within yourself was estranged to him. How could you not see your own magnificence?

⤷ But it’s a truth and one that he struggles to accept. Every undeniable sign that you—his beloved constellation of hope—were truly rendered blind to your allure. Unable to perceive the eloquence of yourself; of the one Nagito swore to himself he devoted himself to, wholely.

⤷ His heart encapsulated a lifetime’s worth of admiration for you; a strung sonnet of affection through his riddling of words, amongst his typical rambles. Though it seemed that his words were interpreted as void; a travesty believed to be induced by your denial. If his words couldn’t convince you of what he finds faultless of your self-proclaimed faults, he’d find a conveyance that’ll help you understand.

⤷ Time and time again, he’s professed to you that his heart is sealed amongst your clutches; devoting himself entirely to you, and to—albeit scum like him is unworthy of such—your love.

⤷ Nagito, though a clutter of questionable motivations and stability, is an honest man. His words a sliver lining brushing upon the canvas of truth with the saturation of hope.

⤷ Yet his hopes of portraying his idealizations of your divinity were fragmented upon the nullification of ontological realization; words can only express so much.

⤷ He’s forced to bare this fact as he’s painfully aware of the falter of relief at each attempt of consolation. For every expression of dissatisfaction, he contorts your words into how he views you; an ethereal blessing of hope amongst a personified, societial of rubble. But, after spending so long in denial of your own repudation, he’s come to discover that the shake of your head is equivalent to the brush of his confession. You don’t believe it.

⤷ You don’t believe his relentless confessions of how astounding he views you; how he truly percieves you as a goddess amongst the pitiful bounts of humanity. You don’t believe it. But of course you wouldn’t. It’s difficult to believe something that he utters as though it was rehearsed.

⤷ Nagito is known for his rambles. It’s a common occurence for the male to mutter on and on about the beauty of hope and its paradoxical conquering of despair. He’s known for his excessive rants, and yet, it fuels your doubts about his insincerity all the same.

⤷ And after long last, he’s aware of this; finally knowledgeable of the way your eyes gloss upon his fervent compliments. He assumed it was spurred in accordance to the swelling of your heart, having satisfied you with his rebuttal to your claims: But he couldn’t have been farther from the verity of the sheen of tears.

⤷ You were suffering; caged within the abyss of the subsequential torment you were forced to bare. Every word, every whisper, it’s as though they mauled at your heart; tearing into the delicate chassis with agonizing malice.

⤷ Nagito was painfully aware of the effect of words, or rather lack of. The vocalized confessions a mere spec of dust amongst the gust of genuinity. But there was a beauty in silence; and a tidal of sincere conveyance through action.

⤷ The lingering notion fixated within the back of his mind as he’s seated beside you once more. He feels as though he’s encapsulated within a trace, his mind fogged with a searing remembrance; deja vu.

⤷ You’re glaring at your lap as your hands brush upon your face, doused in vulnerability as you attempt to conceal yourself from his view. He could hear it; the pluck of pitch as you shakily began to spill your innermost worries; your underlying insecurities.

⤷ “I hate them. I hate them so much, they just... they won’t go, no matter what I do.” His heart ached as with each word that pooled from between your lips, you struggled to maintain your composure. Sinking within the seas of wishfulness; yearning for relief from this grief of being unable to accept yourself as you are.

⤷ Yet you perk your head at the silence in response to your venting; a dreadful silence. Why has your boyfriend—a man who seems to never cease fervent rebuttal—not talking?

⤷ And instantaneously, the tendrils of your doubts engulf you. It hurts, it’s tauntingly painful. Has he finally accepted that there’s no use in persuading the veracity? Has he given up on attempting to convince you—and, per your instilled panic, himself—that you aren’t what you see yourself as?

⤷ The silence is thick; a tense atmosphere in which air has condensed into a fog that neutralizes air. Your lungs burn with the suppression of your sobs as you bite your bottom lip.

⤷ They’ve won, they’ve won, they’ve won; the thoughts and beliefs of your self-loathing have won. and you’re unable to breathe through the weight upon your heart. It hurts; it’s suffering you’ve endured for so long and after such desperation, he seemed to have been subdued as we—

⤷ “...ere.” You falter. The final syllables falling upon your ears as they escaped him, yet you hadn’t caught them. Turning to face him with a visage of poorly veiled pain interlaced with confusion, you ask him to repeat himself.

⤷ Yet you weren’t met with the reptition of mere words. Instead, the sensation of his cold hands cradles the sides of your face, ever-so-gently pulling you closer until you were separated by the proximity of a few centimeters; his breath fanning over your face.

⤷ You feel a gentle weight press against your forehead; his lips. He kisses against the skin with such delicate ministations, savoring the contortion of your expression as he pulls away. “I love you there.” He mutters, a gentle smile upon his lips before he moves onto his next destination.

⤷ A kiss to your left cheek. He lingers for a moment before pulling away, exhaling ever-so slowly. “I love you there.” Once again, he confesses. Repeating the same to your right cheek as he utters the words once more, “And I love you there.”

⤷ His lips glide along your skin as he proceeds to peck your chin, tilting your head slightly to provide ease in accessing such. “I also love you there.” He chuckles, swallowing your anticipation before moving on.

⤷ Upon puckering his lips, he pressed a rather firm kiss against the tip of your nose. You’re able to feel the smile on his lips as he cradles you closer, the urge to embrace you admist the heat of sensuality. “And, guess what? I love you there too.”

⤷ Finally, he hovered above your lips, your breaths melting into one as he gazed into your glossed orbs; the quivering of your lips prominent as he envelops your lips within his own, closing the space between the two of you.

⤷ This time, he loiters against you, parting only to return and engulf your gasps, suckling on your bottom lip ever-so gently. He savors every millisecond; every ounce of your taste. And he savors the salty taste that faintly douses his tongue as tears cascade from your fluttering eyes; crying into the kiss.

⤷ His words unable to convey the sincerity of his admirations due to the plague of repetition, and the ringing of his muddled sonnet of devotion; his expressions perplexing and unable to provide you with the consolation you needed; the security you yearned for.

⤷ Thus, as he pulled away with heavy pants, his eyes softening as you begin to sob; relieving yourself of the pent-up inklings of fogged eyes, unable to detect the flickers of light within the shadows of your self-proclaimed faults.

⤷ The lingering sensation of his lips atop where all you couldn’t stand about yourself induced your heart to swell with a sense of joy; a sense of being able to understand the way he sees you one day. His lasting kisses having filled the air with comfort more than verbal consolation ever could as he finally says, “And I love you there, too.”

[cowboy-anon]

Weston’s Wild West Whump - 2

I DID IT! I FINISHED IT. Holy cow. XD Anyway, it’s a bit of a longer piece. Today, we learn a bit more about Weston, we’re introduced to Graham’s men Dee and Sunders, and we discover Graham is not someone you want to mess with. Enjoy! :D

CW : Animal corpse used as a metaphor, bribery mention, broken bones (and the symptoms that accompany them), concussion, cowboy shenanigans, gun mention and threat (not real), hogtie threat (not yet realized), knife mention, mild cursing, somewhat degrading language, thieving mention, touch of low self esteem, vaguely implied unsafe home life.

(I’m new to content warnings, so if I’ve missed something, please don’t hesitate to let me know! :D )

Tagging: @milk-carton-whump, @unicornscotty, @abitefullofwhump, @alliecat5594, @ihaveacrushonjester (Let me know if you want to be added or removed from this list!

2 - Good Ol’ Righteous Cowboy

Weston has only met Graham twice before this. Once, last week when he came to investigate the ranch’s missing cattle. “Sheriff Graham Miller,” he’d introduced himself. The way he’d carried himself, charming and self-assured, Weston was sure the culprit would get theirs, and if Johnson was lucky, he’d get his cattle back before Weston moved on.

And then Weston found that handkerchief caught on the barbed wire fence, “G.M.” embroidered on it in a stunning shade of blue. As far as leads went, it was pretty thin, but that blue thread and those initials—there was no way it could be a coincidence.  

Which is what led him to his second encounter, dressed in Johnson’s clothes, pretending to be a wealthy man in search of some cattle for his father’s failing ranch. Of course, Weston was nowhere near wealthy, and his father’s ranch, he’d remembered with a shudder, was doing just fine, but wearing Johnson’s Sunday best, he sure as hell looked the part. 

But with Graham being the one to show him around, he could only see so much. Weston was walked past rolling pastures and prize-winning cattle, sure, but no proof. 

Which is what led him to his final attempt at getting it, not exactly a third encounter but one that led to it—this one—kneeling in front of two of Graham’s men, a lasso tight around his middle and with his right ankle throbbing painfully with every heartbeat. 

Despite their lack of history, when one of Graham’s men pistol whips him across the face, it feels strangely personal. Weston can feel the malice, sees the satisfaction on the left’s face when his own snaps sharply to the right. The shock of it almost overwhelms the burn. Almost.

Weston stays there for a second, hunched over with his eyes squeezed shut, reminding himself to breathe, letting out a pained groan instead. Another breath, this time bracing. He shakes off the stinging pain and rights himself with a tight lipped smile. 

His tongue darts out over his bottom lip, tastes blood. Yeah, he’s sporting a split lip now. He winces at the pain, more an ache than a burn now, and blinks back involuntary tears. 

When Weston raises his eyes again, the man has his revolver in hand, arm pulled back to strike him again. God, he hates to admit it, but he flinches, tucking his face into his shoulder, waiting for the blow.

He hears the grunt of effort, expects his view to whip right again in a burst of pain when he hears, “Stop playing with him, Dee. Get his legs.” When Weston doesn’t feel the strike, he allows himself a glance in the direction of the voice. 

It’s the man on the right, face stony with purpose. 

The man on the left, “Dee” Weston assumes, shoots the man a venomous glare, then turns to look at Graham, who’s digging into the saddle bag of one of the horses. 

Graham’s not paying attention when the butt of the gun slams into Weston’s temple. 

Weston hits the ground hard, landing heavily on his shoulder, cheek pressed into hot rocky dirt. His head, oh God. He gasps against the blinding pain, eyes skewed shut as he gapes like a fish out of water. 

“Dee.” Between the ringing in his ears and his ragged breaths, he hears it, a low reprimand but not a surprised one. 

Weston forces his eyes open to look at the two men now looming over him, but he ends up shutting them again. When did the sun get so damn bright? 

“You wanted me to get his feet, Sunders.” Sunders. That’s got to be the other man’s name. And—wait, they’re still talking. Focus, Weston, focus! “ —think he was gonna let us tie him up that easy? Graham likes Randy clueless. The sooner he’s tied up, the less questions we gotta answer. Get me?” 

Randy? Who the hell’s Randy? 

Weston lies there for what feels like ages before the more important thoughts make their way back to him. Graham’s here. Dee and Sunders, they’re going to tie him up. His ankle’s shot, he’s got that lasso around him that’s not going to let him go anywhere. 

And all three of them are armed. Great. 

Weston worms his arm out from under him and eases himself up until he’s propped on an elbow. For a moment, the world spins. Forget cotton. His head’s full of sloshing water, distorting and disorienting and all too heavy for what it is. 

He wants to lie back down, let whatever’s going to happen happen. He’ll feel those ropes dig into the tender skin of his wrists and bite into his swelling ankle. Will they make him walk? No, not with a hogtie. He’ll more likely be draped over the back of a horse and taken back to the ranch, where— 

Where what? Who knows what’ll happen back at that ranch? And what the hell is he thinking, lying back down and giving in? He shakes his head with a sneer. If he’s going to that no good sheriff’s ranch, he’s going angry, not complacent. 

So he pushes himself up until he’s sitting again, lightheadedness be damned, and squinting at Graham’s back, legs stretched out in front of him, he calls, “You needed three guys to get a hold of me, Graham?” It comes out a groan, nowhere near as snarky as he wants it to be, but it’s dripping with sarcasm nonetheless—and based on the smile that sneaks over the sheriff’s face, it catches his attention. “Why, I’m flattered. ‘Course, I probably should’ve expected as much.”

Dee’s at eye level in an instant. He grabs a fistful of Weston’s shirt and jerks him forward, lips curled up in a snarl. “Why, you—” 

But Graham just laughs from his spot by the horses. 

Dee’s eyes, still shining with murder, flicker with confusion, and Weston’s gaze snaps over to Graham, doubled over with warm, genuine laughter. What the hell?

The grip on Weston’s shirt wavers as the seconds tick by. Finally, Weston clears his throat and says, “Sure, I find your stupidity funny, too, but—” 

Graham’s gun is trained on him before he can finish. 

“Dee,” Graham says, motioning with his revolver. It’s a command. Dee barely spares Weston a smug grin before pulling his hands from Weston’s clothes and stepping into place between Graham and Sunders.

Graham squares his shoulders and, accent thicker than Weston’s ever heard it, he says, “What’s funny is you talking about stupidity.” 

Weston knows he should be scared, and he is. He feels it, unadulterated fear, making its way to his shaking fingers, twisting knots deep in his stomach, watching him stare down the blackened barrel of this gun, telling him, Give up, give in. Maybe he’ll let you walk away. 

It’s so damn tempting.

But Weston has already given in to too many people like Graham with the promise of walking away too many times, so despite everything, he balls his trembling hands into fists, meets Graham’s eyes with a pained smirk, and says, “Please, do tell.” 

Graham grins. 

“Good ol’ righteous Weston Casey.” He shrugs past Dee and Sunders and makes his way towards Weston, digits lazily fingering his gun’s trigger, blue eyes scanning him and the barely concealed shock on his face. “Yeah, I’ve heard about you. Hardworking, dependable, new in town. You rolled on in here just last month, didn’t you?”

Weston doesn’t answer. Instead, he changes the subject. “What do you mean, ‘righteous’?” 

Graham stops by Weston’s feet and sits back on his haunches, eyes trailing idly over his body. “I mean your absurd morals,” he says. “I’d heard about it before, but I saw it clear as day when I came to Johnson’s ranch yesterday. You were angry for him.” He laughs to himself, toying with the trigger thoughtlessly. 

But the hammer’s still standing tall by the frame, not pulled back. So the gun’s not cocked yet. It never was. That’s good news. 

“It’s a damn shame,” Graham continues. He’s looking at Weston’s face again, a tiny knowing smile on his lips. Did Weston’s realization show? “The bribe I would’ve paid you—beyond generous. Not that you would’ve taken it.”

“What’s this got to do with stupidity?” Weston cuts in. He’s stalling at this point, he knows it, but he needs something—anything—to distract him from the fear bubbling just beneath his surface. 

“Well, we’re talking about you, aren’t we?” Another flick over the trigger as Graham’s tone shifts, almost amused. “A good, quiet stranger rolls into town, surely minding his own business when something not quite right goes down. A few cows go missing. Nothing special, nothing new. Cattle go missing all the time around these parts. But being him, he decides he wants to investigate.” 

Graham’s voice darkens then. Weston forces himself to be still under Graham’s scrutiny as his eyes travel over his left leg, then to his right. Then to his right ankle, swelling like a cow’s carcass in the summer sun under his jeans. “And he finds out a little too much,” Graham continues. “And he gets in a little too deep. And he decides he wants to do the right thing. Which, in itself, is not a stupid thought.” Graham glances back up at Weston. “But his—your—morals, they get in the way of some really great opportunities. A guy like you would fit into this cattle rustling operation real well.” 

At that, Dee’s expression visibly sours behind Graham, but he stays quiet. Smart or scared?

“I know you won’t take the bribe,” Graham says lowly, “but how about a fair trade? Your work for my money, plain and simple.”  

Weston scoffs to himself. His heart is in his throat pounding so loud he can hear it, but it’s not even a question. He meets Graham’s eyes through his mop of hair and says, “Over my dead body.” 

He means it. 

Graham stares at him, and for a second Weston thinks he might burst out laughing again. But he just smiles, more to himself than Weston, seemingly thinking something over. 

He tucks his gun back into his holster, shoots Weston a big grin. And then his gloved hands shoot out and twist his right foot hard.

Weston’s broken bones in the past. He’s felt that wet snap of the initial break. He’s felt the numb shock before his brain catches up with his body. He’s felt that nauseating pain that accompanies every jostle and movement of the site.

But he’s never felt anything like this.

Weston shrieks, white hot blinding, agonizing pain that he feels all the way to his fingertips in sharp, involuntary spasms. Overwhelming, all encompassing. In this moment, Weston is pain. 

Too much, too much, too much! It’s blaring in his head like a siren, that fear. His face goes hot, then cold. Tears run down his cheeks, but he’s too focused on gritting his teeth against another wail to care.

“See, I gave you a chance just then,” Graham says over his cries. “I offered you a job, nice and respectable like, and you turned it down—and for what?” He leans in close to Weston, a hand still twisted in the fabric of his pant leg. “A few meaningless morals? If you ask me, that’s awful stupid of you.”

Graham wrenches his ankle again, and even though Weston knows what to expect, it’s just as awful as the first time—worse even. Bone grinding on bone, leather on swollen, hypersensitive, hot-to-the-touch flesh. 

He throws his head back with a broken sob. “G-Graham—!” Weston doesn’t know why he says that. He doesn’t even realize it’s him saying it, not in his current state, concussed and half delirious with pain. 

But he definitely hears “Yes, Weston?” through the haze, barely registers Graham’s hand leaving his leg. 

The twisting’s stopped, Weston knows it, but the pain hasn’t. He still feels it, twisting, twisting, the rough seams of Graham’s leather gloves on swollen skin. And he feels dread, prominent, telling him this isn’t the worst to come, not by a long shot, that only makes it hurt worse.

He hasn’t felt a dread like this since his last month at the family ranch.

As the worst of the pain melts from his limbs, just enough for it to be bearable,  his wits start to come back to him, and it occurs to him that he cried out Graham’s name in an agony-induced panic. Then Graham had asked him a question: “Yes, Weston?” His stomach drops at the thought. 

What had he been looking to say? Would he have begged? “G-Graham, please stop! Please!” Or would he have bargained? “G-Graham, I won’t tell a soul, I swear!” Maybe, Weston realizes with a thick swallow, he would’ve accepted Graham’s terrible offer, helping steal cattle for the man he’s grown to hate in the last twenty-four hours to save himself. “G-Graham, I… I’ll do it.”

Graham had called him righteous.

Weston is a coward. 

“Weston, you wanted to say something to me?” Graham is grinning, blue eyes glimmering with mirth. He wants to know what he was going to say just as much as Weston does.

Weston stares at his feet. His ankle is back to that constant throb, but the muscles in his foot and calf are still twitching and seizing from Graham’s rough hands. “Yeah, I did,” he says quietly. “I wanted to tell you, ‘Graham…’”  

He shakes his head, sets his jaw, meets Graham’s eyes with a steely gaze. And then he spits at him, fueled by what little fight he has left, “‘Graham, get your damn hands off of me.’”

Righteous. Coward. 

Liar.

Graham stares at him for a long moment before rising to his feet, that stupid smug grin still on his face when he looks back down at him. 

“I like you, Weston. I really do,” he says, vaguely apologetic, “and you’ve made a lot of stupid decisions today that I could forgive you for. But that decision you made just now, making an enemy out of me? Real stupid.” 

Graham turns on his heel and shoulders his way past Dee and Sunders again, only this time he stops between them and, in a voice just loud enough for Weston to hear, he says to them, “Now, I know I told you two to get him trussed up.” The look Graham gives Weston is chilling. “So tell me, what’s he still doing with his hands free?” Graham casts a final glance at Weston before Dee and Sunders make their way towards him for the second time.

This time, they don’t hesitate. Sunders pockets his knife, walks behind Weston, and tugs his arms behind his back, holding them together by the wrists. “Grab the rope from my horse, Dee,” he calls.

But Dee is standing by Weston’s feet, smiling a malicious smile. “His legs first,” Dee says. 

Weston can’t see Sunders’s face, but he can hear the exasperation in his voice from behind him when he replies, “There’s no way he’s going anywhere on that ankle now.”

“I know that.” Dee crouches down by Weston’s feet, eyes running down the length of his right leg. “But I want to start with his legs.”

Sunders sighs and drops Weston’s arms back to his sides, already aching at the joints from the position. 

“I’ll hold him down.” 

Sunders takes his spot next to Dee and puts pressure on Weston’s thighs, holding him still while Dee goes for Sunders’s rope. If Weston didn’t know better, he’d think they were trying to help him. 

But he does know better, and he knows their intentions are anything but pure. 

He could shove them off, Weston realizes from his spot on the ground. He could, and if he tried, he could get a good solid kick on Dee when he gets back if he uses his left leg. He’d sure as hell deserve it.

But watching Dee take his place by his feet again, Weston doesn’t. Smart or scared, righteous or cowardly—Weston doesn’t know anymore.  He just glares at Dee. 

Dee smiles back at him. “You got him, Sunders?”

“I’ve got him.”

“Good.”

Dee feels the rope in his hands, tests its strength with a few sharp pulls. Then he turns to look at Graham. 

Graham nods at him from by the horses. 

When Dee turns back to Weston, he’s grinning from ear to ear, eyes twinkling with mischief. 

“I’m gonna enjoy this.”

[lassieposting]

ghasdug for couple questions if you like feeding me

1. Who said I love you first?

Ghastly. Mid-orgasm. The first time they slept together. He. Is. Mortified.

2. Who laughs and kisses their partner on the cheek while their partner isn’t happy about something trivial to try and make them feel better?

Skug. Ghastly has some inadequacy issues during their first century or so, mostly about being ugly and poor - he knows skug could do better. He's attractive, he's funny, he can be very sweet when he wants to be - he could make an excellent match with someone as landed and titled and wealthy as he is.

Skug does try to reassure him, but between his tactlessness and his tendency to not take anything seriously, he kind of sucks at it. Ghastly feels like his being "less than" is a big hurdle, while skug sees it as a trivial difference - he's much happier living with ghastly's family in their cramped farmhouse than he ever was at his parents' vast estate. So he tries to turn it into a joke - "good thing I'm handsome enough for both of us, then," - while completely missing the point that ghastly wants forever with him, and he's worried he's going to spend the rest of forever getting looked down on and whispered about because skulduggery could've done better.

3. Who cuddles up to the other after a long day at work, and this soon escalates to a playful pillow fight?

Ghastly is the cuddler. It escalates because skug is adhd as hell and cannot just lie still and snuggle for long without getting bored. He needs constant stimulation. He'll sit on the counter while ghastly works and chat for hours though, swinging his legs and passing over tools when ghastly needs them

4. What is something that they gave one another that has a lot of meaning?

Ghastly makes all skug's clothes, including his armour, because he doesn't trust anyone else to keep skug safe in battle.

Ghastly has skug's signet ring, which he found in the burned down-ruins of the pleasant family home after skug was killed. For decades, it's the only thing he had left of skug - the clothes ghastly made, the scarf wifey made, and the locket with wifey and skugbab's portraits inside were all cut away and burned, and the house was razed to the ground. Skug knows he has it, but he's never asked for it back.

5. How would one another describe their partner?

Skug would either deliberately misread the question ("What, haven't you seen him? How could you miss ghastly? He's...he's this high and built like a wall.") or come out with something explicit to deter follow-up questions.

Ghastly mostly talks about how annoying skug is, but it's? Endearing to him. At this stage of their lives, he is the only person who's actually happy to listen to like, an eight hour infodump with no breaks. Skug is. A Lot to handle and society does not have the terminology for him yet.

6. Who wraps their arms around their partner as they look them in the eyes and compliments them with a goofy smile?

Ghastly. Skug, under all the vanity and egocentrism, has critically low self-esteem and very little self-worth. He's the Family Scapegoat, and got the lion's share of the abuse before he ran away, so he absolutely melts for compliments. The boy has praise kink up the wazoo. Ghastly will happily feed his ego to watch him get the smile and the sparkly eyes and puff up like a proud peacock.

7. Who loves saying ‘my wife’ or ‘my husband’ or ‘my spouse’?

They don't really have this tbh? Not only is the vocabulary of the period insufficient, they see the relationship differently.

Skug is like. Anxious-avoidant attachment personified. He doesn't like to get too close. He falls in love with ghastly a long time before he's able to admit it to himself, let alone anyone else. He essentially treats their relationship like a fuckbuddies kind of deal, and he feels safe like that, because he can't be hurt by someone he doesn't care about. He can't be let down or abandoned by someone who has no commitment to him in the first place. Admitting he loves ghastly leaves him vulnerable, and if he's learned anything in his childhood, its that vulnerable people are the ones who get hurt.

Ghastly on the other hand considers skug his boyfriend, and there's no equivalent term from the 1500s. "Gentleman caller" hardly applies when you live under the same roof and share a room (and, more often than not, a bed), so nobody is calling on anyone. Privately, he thinks of skug as his lover, but he knows skug is allergic to intimacy, so he keeps that to himself for the most part.

So ghastly usually introduces skug as "this is my - this is skulduggery pleasant" and skug usually introduces ghastly as "this is my dear friend, ghastly".

8. Who always talks about how amazing their partner is when their partner isn’t there and they just light up with genuine love and happiness?

Ghastly. Skug is his first love, and he's completely lost in it. He's had crushes before, on pretty girls who only ever spoke to him to enquire after his "handsome brother", and strapping young men at market who avoided looking at him to speak to his father, but he's never felt anything like this before. He lives with skug. He sees him first thing in the morning and last thing at night, he sees him happy and depressed and drunk and furious, he kisses him and fights with him and fucks him and defends him and laughs with him and cries with him and for years and years, they're inseparable. He's? Completely unprepared for how hard he falls for skug.

9. Who loves it when their partner kisses them good morning?

Ghastly. Drowsy morning skug is snuggliest skug. He doesn't get as many snuggles as he'd like, tbh, because skug is active and easily distracted and doesn't like staying still for too long, but in the early morning is when he's most likely to be warm and cuddly and relaxed, and when he's least concerned about keeping ghastly at arms length. He'll pull skug back against his chest and he'll wiggle round to press a sleepy kiss to the corner of ghastly's mouth and tuck his head under ghastly's chin, and he'll doze off again with his hand stroking idly up and down skug's spine.

10. Who shows the other how to balance a spoon on their nose?

Ghastly.

11. Who loves to pull pranks on the other? What type of pranks do they pull and do they pull their pranks off?

Skug likes to pick up the absolute ugliest thing he can find while shopping and pretend he loves it while ghastly cringes and swears blind that he will not be seen with you while you're wearing that thing, skulduggery, so help him god. What usually happens is that skug pulls his new purchase to pieces as soon as they get home, and then gets ghastly to make it up better.

12. What is something small that they would randomly pick up for one another?

Skug taught ghastly to read, so he'd bring home books for him while he was learning and get ghastly to read to him, lying with his head in ghastly's lap and lazily correcting his pronunciation or reminding him how to sound out the words.

Ghastly doesn't have the sort of disposable income skug does, so he makes him things instead, like stylish hats with feathers in them, even though he personally hates that fashion and is delighted when it dies.

13. Who is the one who can’t stop laughing when trying to tell a joke?

Skug. Ghastly loves watching him laugh till he chokes though. He adores seeing skug happy.

14. Who would plan the other a surprise birthday party?

Ghastly. Skug is an attention whore, he loves that kind of thing. An entire event all for him? Hell yes, baby

Ghastly himself, on the other hand, is painfully insecure and selfconscious at this stage of his life, and he'd be mortified at being the centre of attention like that. Skug is a vain, arrogant dick, but he's not cruel. He wouldn't make ghastly feel bad for funsies.

15. Who picks the other person up when hugging their partner?

Ghastly picks skug up. There's not much of a height difference between them, just two inches, but teenage skug is a lanky little twink and ghastly could benchpress him, which skug is rabidly horny over. Because, you know, muscles.

Once they join the army and skug fills out and gets all lean and fit and strong, ghastly can still pick him up, but he absolutely complains that he weighs a ton now.

Adult skug can lift/mostly carry ghastly in an emergency, like if he's injured and needs to be helped back to camp or carried off a battlefield. But it's difficult, and ghastly is really too heavy for him, so picking him up isn't something he'd do for fun. Teenage skug can't pick ghastly up at all.

[ittakesrain]

and now, an essay thing I have nowhere else to publish

One of my most vivid memories is of what happened one sunny April morning when I was sixteen.  My parents had brought me to a random doctor’s office for a random appointment, and it pissed me off because I should have been in school.  I should have been sitting in my AP chemistry class learning about radiation.  It would require so much time to catch up on all of what I missed, and even though I was acing the class, the ever-present whispers of derisive thoughts emanating from my brain were particularly loud that day.  Their volume increased until they were almost deafening, until I could barely hear the sound of blood rushing through my head, until I could barely concentrate on standing up, barely fight to stay on my feet as black spots clouded my vision.  They told me everything would go to shit because I was going to fail chemistry and not get into college and never amount to anything.  They told me I should have fucking been in class.

But instead, I was pacing in the waiting room of this strange, unfamiliar office, painfully cold as always despite my layers upon layers of clothing.  I had my belt pulled tight, as it was the only thing holding my baggy 00 jeans onto my ghostly and withered body.  I genuinely didn’t know why I was there, yet I had an overpowering feeling that something life-shattering was about to happen.

A nurse called me back.  I followed her into an exam room.  She instructed me to undress entirely and put on a gown.  I did, and it finally hit me what was coming.  Panicked apprehension coursed through my veins with every pained, frantic beat.  She told me she had to get my height.  I slid off the exam table to be measured, stood tall, steadying my shaky hands as they fell to my sides.  Five feet.

Then, with nerves reaching an insurmountable level, she told me to stand on the scale. The heavy-duty, never-inaccurate, medical-grade scale. I stepped carefully onto it, as if I didn’t already know what it was going to say. A lifetime passed by in a second, my heart stopped as time froze. The machine beeped as it landed on what it had declared as my weight. I didn’t look, I didn’t look, I didn’t look. Nothing was happening. Don’t look, don’t look. But after I’d stood there forever and ever, holding the air in my lungs until it hurt, I looked at the nurse. She was staring at me. I breathed out. I looked at the scale. I sucked a lung-full of oxygen into my body involuntarily.

My heart leaped at the number, three pounds below what I’d last seen, and then plummeted into a free-fall. There was no derisive voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough. There was just a pitter-patter of words bouncing off the edges of my mind, echoing loudly between reverberating silence: Sick. Shame. Sick. Broken. Sick. Sick. Sick.

In the sheer terror of the moment, I had no idea how it had happened, how I’d gotten that way. But the truth was that I was nearly seventeen years old and I weighed sixty-five pounds.  And at that point, I knew what I was doing and how I’d gotten that way.

It was simple in the most complex and intricate of ways: I had an eating disorder.  And I’d had one for three years.  It had been all I’d known for three long years.  The gnawing, excruciating hunger that had long since dissipated into expansive internal emptiness.  The bitter cold that lay so deep within me that it had settled permanently in my bones.  The sheer, unrelenting anxiety, the weighted feeling of impending doom.  I’d been trapped.

And in an eternity that lasted only three months, I was released into a freedom I hadn’t realized existed.  I could write novels about what happened during those months, those wonderful, terrible, frightening, uncertain, beautiful months.  And I will write those novels.  But the point is that the identity I’d been chained to for so goddamn long would no longer be attached to me.  Being reborn like that?  It’s indescribable.

But it’s twelve years later.  Twelve fucking years later.  And I once again officially fall into the category of “someone with an eating disorder.”  Instead of three years, it’s been three months.  Instead of being grossly underweight, I’m just 25 or so pounds lighter.  But the thoughts, the fears, the discomfort...it’s all there.  Again.  As if no time has passed.  I’m afraid of jelly.  I’m afraid.  Of fucking.  Jelly.  I’ve arbitrarily attached emotion to jelly as if the main ingredient of the stuff is “paralyzing anxiety.”

I hate it.  I hate that I’m doing this again.

It’s different now, though.  I just keep telling myself to “cut the shit.”  I’ve done it before.  I’m no longer in the dark. I have knowledge.   I’m well aware that I can be released into freedom, that the chains holding me to this identity are nothing compared to the supernova of resilience powering all that I am.  But I feel too far gone. It scares me.

Not to mention, as I’m ashamed to admit, that I like my body better now.  Superficial as it maybe be, it’s a relief to have gotten rid of all the weight I’d gained after getting on the new meds (which, by the way, are a literal gift from whatever god might be up there).  I know I shouldn’t like the weight loss, but I do.   I have a sick pride in it,  just like how I’m stupidly proud of the fact that I was 65 fucking pounds two months before turning 17.  With that at least it was because, after three years of suffering, that number was all I had to show for it. But now? I don’t know what the deal is.  I guess it’s just nice to be able to be good at something again.

It probably also has to do with control again, with how I desperately want it.  It just isn’t making me feel any closer to that elusive concept anymore.  Like, why is it that when I’m waging war with myself over the simple act of sitting down to eat, I never have control over the outcome?

It probably has to do with how I was bored.  How I wanted to be distracted, wanted something to focus on. How I was morbidly curious.

It probably has to do with the low self-esteem I’ve begun to wear even though it doesn’t feel right on me.

I keep telling myself that I just “went at this a little too hard.”  That it was really just an attempt to lose weight gone wrong because my brain naturally just jumps to this shit when life gets stressful.  A result of the fact that I’ve never known any sort of middle ground in regards to anything.  I’ve never understood healthy dieting.  If you want to lose weight, why not just stop eating altogether?  It’s a miswired translation code in my head.  I’ve never been able to fix it.  I’ve only ever worked around it.

Maybe that’s the problem: I never got around to rewiring everything.

When I write, it’s to give people something they can read to understand something.  Something they can read to be dragged down to the depths of my mind and come out with my feelings and desires, as fucked up and crazy as they might be, as souvenirs.  I don’t think many people need to visit hell, though.  I think it’s enough for me to do so. 

Maybe writing this will help me rewire.  Maybe afterward I’ll remember even more vividly how fucking insanely disgusting my eating disorder was at its peak.  Maybe I’ll drag myself down to the depths of my former mind, the mind I used to try like mad to learn an entirely new way of looking at things, processing things, and understanding things.  The mind I used to smash the title of “anorexic” into so many pieces that it no longer lingered above my head and next to my name. 

I can’t fathom where in the fuck to start.  But if my brain is made of wires, the wires are reduced to words.  So let’s just call this a beginning.

[tear-her-aus]

Karma’s a Bitch - pt 8

Part 1    Part 2     Part 3     Part 4    Part 5    Part 6    Part 7    Part 8

Summary: Closure. That’s what you needed to finally forget that memory of your past. A memory that shaped you into becoming the person you are today. Perhaps you wouldn’t find closure, but instead closure in the form of a boy would find you.

Pairing: Jimin x female reader x Jungkook (?)

WC: 3.3k

Warnings: Low self esteem, past trauma, mentions of an eating disorder, mentions of bullying.

A/N: This part is mainly angst, so prepare yourselves. Yet, there’s a part I consider cute, so it’s not that bad. Overall, I hope you enjoy! The main plot is finally here!! 

* - * - * - * - *

Part 8 

You told Jin that you were feeling better, but it was a lie. You wanted nothing more than for earth to swallow you completely. Everything seemed like a joke now. It had to be in the precise moment when you started to feel something so real that everything had to end up crashing down in a spiral of pain. It was you who always hurted, who always ended up broken. A part of you wanted to scream in despair, but the best part of you (or was it the worst) made you stay there, feet static and eyes wandering through your whole body until they fixed on your eyes. How can those eyes have changed in the lapse of minutes? In the morning they were full of joy and ecstasy, but now they were empty except for a little spark ignited that later on would become a whole fire. However, you didn’t know that yet since you were too focused on your thoughts, all too consuming by themselves. Everything around you felt like an eternity, like time stopped for a second and you were the only one aware of her surroundings. But in fact, it was the complete opposite; you were the only one lost at that moment. The sound of a toilet being flushed made you snap from your reverie, yet it wasn’t enough to make you brave enough to affront the situation. Your mind was screaming you had to go back to the weight room, but your hurting heart was telling you to run. Being so used to listening to your mind, you decided for once to listen to your heart, so you ran.

Without thinking in the consequences, you took your belongings and ran as fast as you could. There were probably a lot of curious glances directed your way as you ran through the front door of the gym, but you didn’t care. It was only when you were stopped in a halt by a hand grabbing your wrist that you were drown back to reality. Slowly, you turned your head in the direction of the hand wishing it wasn’t Jimin. To your luck, it was Jungkook, who had a curious but worried look on his face. You knew that if you let him talk, you would burst into tears in front of him, so you decided on saying a simple sentence that would let him go off you. “It’s urgent,” you managed to say weakly. You didn’t know if it was the look in your face or the connotation the sentence evoked, but it worked. Immediately, Jungkook freed your hand and without waiting for his reply, you kept running. You just ran, wondering if it would stop you from thinking, from feeling. However, as you kept your pace, the memories started flowing like needles being punctured painfully into your mind.

Gasping for air, you saw it clearly as if it was a movie you’ve watched at least a hundred times: you were sitting on the floor with your color pencils sprayed in the floor while you had one in your hand as you drew a beautiful sky. Some minutes passed, and you had already drawn yourself in the paper, but something was missing making your frown. Just in time, your best friend sat down beside you with his own paper in hand and the most adorable smile on his face. “Are you finished?” He had asked while trying to pry on your drawing which you tried to cover from his view. “Don’t look! I haven’t finished,” you pouted as you wanted your drawing to be a surprise. “Okay, I won’t look, but you have to finish it fast! I want to see what you draw!” his impatience always getting in the way. You nodded your head fast and kept drawing once you saw him already focused on the sunset instead of you. Now that your friend came into view, you were inspired, so with your tongue between your lips, you started drawing someone beside you. It didn’t take you long to finish the last part of the drawing since you had the model right beside you. With a smile on your face, you announced you were done to which your friend’s eyes sparkled either from the reflection of the sun or from his excitement. “Okay! I’m going to count to three and we show each other our masterpieces,” your friend announced. “Masterpieces?” you questioned aloud, not knowing the meaning of the word.  “Yeah! As in works of art!” exclaimed your friend. “Oh okay,” you continued, not wanting to delay more the exposition of your drawing. Your friend continued “One, two, three!” Both of you flipped the paper over to show each other what you had created. From the look on your friend’s face he was very pleased by your drawing, and you could say the same for yourself as you looked at a beautiful sunset which was the background to what looked like a shadow silhouette on the floor. As the art expert he was at his young age, you friend started commenting first: “WOW! It’s so pretty! Who are they?” he asked intrigued. “You and me,” you answered, indicating who was who as if you were an artist explaining her work of art. At that, his boxy smile appeared which made you smile as well, being your favorite smile of his. “Why us?” he continued his interrogation. “Because we are best friends,” you said as a matter of fact. “We are?” he asked. “Young and wild and free,” you sang and both of you laughed, yet you continued, “Off course, Tae! You are my best friend in the whole world!” His smile only grew bigger if that was possible, and you smiled too, meaning every word. But, soon enough that smile was banished from your face as well as the memory once you almost got hit by a car. Being pushed back to reality, you realized you were almost home, so with the little energy you still had, you managed to run some more towards your front door. Opening the door with force, you threw your bag to the floor and sank yourself next to it in disbelief. You still couldn’t believe they were the same people who hurt you back then. Slowly, a tear made its way down your cheek, and soon enough you were whimpering on the floor, all alone.

* - * - * - * - *

Jimin was starting to worry. He had already finished his fourth set of dead lift and Y/N hadn’t come back. He wondered if perhaps she wasn’t feeling well or if she ran into someone she knew at the restroom. Yet, as he was glancing once again at the bathroom door, he saw her running at the speed of light. At first, he was confused, but as soon as he saw her running towards the main door, he started following her from behind. He was just in time to see her saying something to Jungkook, whose hand was on her wrist before letting her go. Jimin was perplexed as to what was going on. He stood there looking at Jungkook, who looked just as confused as he was. Even though Jimin didn’t like Jungkook very much (being a threat to him), he approached the other boy and turned his attention back to him. “What happened?” he asked Jungkook as if that question’s context would be understood by the other boy. Blinking several times, Jungkook only stared with his mouth agape as in trance. Jimin was growing impatient, so he asked differently: “Why did Y/N run like that?” Jungkook seemed to finally grasp reality, and he opened his mouth to answer, “She just said it was urgent.” Jimin felt his eyebrows knitting as he tried to decipher what that meant. Was Y/N in danger? Why would she flee like that? Did something happen to her or to someone close to her? A million questions popped in Jimin’s head as he tried to figure out what that sentence meant and why she hadn’t said anything to him before leaving. Reason made Jimin conclude that if it was an emergency she wouldn’t have time to explain to anyone. Jungkook just was in the perfect place to question her before she left. At last, he nodded to Jungkook in understanding and started walking back until he stood in front of the loaded bar once again. He took his phone and texted Y/N a simple You ok? He thought that if she were in a difficult situation, she wouldn’t want lots of questions directed her way, so he decided on just that. When she is prepared and available, she would answer him, and everything would be fine again. At least that was what he hoped for. He hoped that the question he texted her would be answered with a “we are ok” at the end.

* - * - * - * - *

Alone. That’s how Jin found you. What he didn’t know was that it was the way you were feeling as well. Besides the crashing memories that tormented you before his arrival, you were all alone. You didn’t know how much it took for Jin to come to you, but it surely felt like an eternity. It was enough time for your memories to complete another way around to your head. As you whimpered, you remembered: sitting now across from you, Taehyung was now the one explaining his drawing to you. It was a very artistic drawing for a kid of his age, you had to admit. As you inspected his drawing, he started pointing each element drawn and what it represented. You couldn’t deny your astonishment at hearing him go over the metaphors and symbols in his drawing, but what you anticipated the most was the explanation of the meaning of the silhouette shade. “What’s the shade?” you had asked, curious on the main point of his art piece. At that he had lowered his eyes in what seemed like a shy gesture and just when he was about to answer, he was interrupted by no other than Park Jimin. “It’s obviously me, am I right Tae?” Jimin stood over the two of you with an air of dominance. You looked at Tae waiting for his confirmation. Taehyung looked questioningly at his friend but agreed to his statement by nodding his head slowly. You couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed as you thought you were the silhouette. Your disappointment turned into a sour sadness as you started to wonder if the value of your friendship wasn’t reciprocated, and in fact you were the only one who considered him a best friend. As honest as children can be, you decided on expressing your feelings to Taehyung, so silently you whispered “Tae, am I your best friend?” You wanted the conversation to be kept between the two of you, but Jimin seemed to have heard it. Without giving Taehyung a chance to answer, he again interfered. “Off course not, Taehyung is MY best friend, so you know.” Jimin pulled his friend to his feet and hugged him sideways placing one of his arms on Tae’s shoulder. You couldn’t help the stung you felt at those words, but you still waited for Tae’s answer. It seemed your friend agreed with everything Jimin said, for he remained quiet and looked down at his shoes. Nodding your head slowly, you too stood up and managed a simple “Okay.” You’ve lost to Park Jimin, the least you could do was accept your defeat. Off course Jimin would be Taehyung’s best friend since who wouldn’t want to be considered the best friend of the most popular kid at school. Even though you were young, everyone liked Park Jimin either by his appearance or by what his parents could buy him, being toys a main motivation for kids to befriend someone. You’d thought Taehyung was like you, that neither of you cared for expensive toys but would rather find other ways to have fun, yet now you realized you were alone with that way of thinking.

You were about to leave when Jimin derisively added, “What? Did you think Taehyung was your friend?” Turning around to face Jimin and Taehyung again, you replied truthfully, “He is my friend.” A mocking laugh left Jimin’s lips as he eyed you with arrogance: “Why would he want to be your friend? You are ugly and fat, and you don’t have anything to offer.” Shocked by his remark, you looked at Jimin wondering if he was joking, but there was no humor in his eyes. There was something else going through his eyes which made you scared at some point. You would never know why he would be so cruel to you, but at that moment you assumed it had to do with you crossing the limits since you were “stealing” his friend. Being so focused on Jimin’s words, you hadn’t noticed other kids listening to your conversation, and while you tried to formulate a comeback, they started shouting: “Yeah! You’re ugly” “You’re fat” “Nobody likes you!” You looked at them surprised by their hurtful words, and then you looked at Taehyung, who still had his head down avoiding your stare. Lastly, with watery eyes, you looked up to see Park Jimin once again, and even though his expression had changed, you didn’t want to know the meaning of it. You ran away from the shouts and away from the silhouettes that would become your tormenting shade.

 When you felt two hands on your shoulders, you gasped either from the need of air or from the surprise. Looking over your shoulder, you saw Jin with a concered expression on his face as he looked at you. You tried to manage a smile, but your lips could probably only form a straight line. With caution, Jin helped you to your feet, but having been sat on both your legs, it took you some time to regain force to stand on your own. Jin helped you to your couch and sat beside you, waiting for you to speak. However, only gasps would come from your mouth as you tried to breathe through your crying. Tenderly, Jin guided your head to his shoulder, and you buried yourself in it as you cried harder this time. He stroked your head softly as a way to calm you down, and as it was so soothing, you managed to stop crying a few minutes later. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“No…” you sniffled, “all the memories are coming back.” You looked at Jin with pleading eyes, wanting nothing more than for the memories to go away along with the pain in your heart.

“I know it’s hard for you…and it became harder as you met him again, but you need to hold it in Y/N. Don’t lose yourself in the past,” he looked at you with the same pleading eyes as yours, knowing he was asking too much from you. And you had to admit he was.

“What if I’m already lost?” you looked at your folded hands in your lap, “What if I lost myself when that happened?”

Jin placed two fingers under your chin to make you look at him “Hey. You are not lost; do you hear me? I’ve known you for years Y/N, and if I had hang out with a lost person I would have noticed,” he smiled knowingly.

“Yeah, but you didn’t know me back then,” you said as you thought of everything you had to go through and wondered if the outcome of your life would have been different if that incident hadn’t happened.

“But I know you now,” Jin said sternly, “and I know you are an incredible person if not an exceptional friend. I know you don’t see the good in you but believe me when I say that everyone around you does.”

“Then…why does everyone leave me?” you asked brokenly.

You saw Jin’s expression stiffen, yet as he placed strand of your hair behind you ear, his eyes warmed as he said, “I’m here, aren’t I?” He placed his hands on your shoulders again as he looked you deeply in the eyes and said, “I won’t leave you.” Besides the fact that he was your best friend, the confidence in his eyes was so strong that you couldn’t help believing him, so you nodded your head to indicate him you knew. “You know how stubborn I can be, and I won’t accept losing my friend, do you hear me?”

“Yes, I do…Thanks, Jin,” you finally smiled, feeling a strike of hope rising inside of you. Jin hugged you strongly, and you did the same since you knew you weren’t alone. That you haven’t been or wouldn’t be as long as Jin was beside you.

* - * - * - * - *

You had classes at 4 but not feeling in the mood, you decided on staying home. Jin had classes as well, and even though he was reluctant on leaving you, you ushered him to go. You couldn’t be selfish with Jin, he had given you so much and you didn’t want to affect his normal lifestyle. So, you made him go. Now, you couldn’t care less about your academic life; you just wanted to stay, sleep, and forget everything that happened. But as much as you tried, your whirling mind wouldn’t let you sleep. That’s how you ended up staring at the ceiling on your bed, thinking. The pain was still prominent as another round of memories made its appearance on your head. You felt once again the rejection, the unjustified hatred, the loneliness. You wondered if Park Jimin knew what he did, what he had caused. It wasn’t just his comment that affected you, but the power he had over his classmates’ gullible minds. You grew up being laughed at, despised, and humiliated by everyone you met. Being called ugly and fat was part of your daily life. As everyone wanted to be on Jimin’s good side, they believed in his words and made sure you would never forget them. You remember your walk-through hell from kindergarten to 10th grade where Park Jimin’s presence represented your misery. After he left school at the end of 10th grade to study abroad, you were forgotten as no one had to be on his good side anymore. However, that didn’t mean they would accept you since you would forever be the cursed girl.

Being alone through your whole life and having no one to assure you it was all lies, you constructed yourself around what other people said: growing your bangs to cover your face, using bigger clothes to cover your figure, using hoodies to avoid stares, and wearing earphones to avoid the whispering. You stopped eating when you started 9th grade thinking it would make them stop calling you fat, and then by 10th grade you developed anorexia nervosa. It damaged you to a certain level to which your parents had to intervene, and for that you were thankful. What your parents didn’t know was the root to all your self-esteem problems: Park Jimin. Not wanting to worry them, you never told them what happened to you that day (or basically every day at school.) By the end of your 11th grade, you managed to overcome the eating disorder, yet you lied to everyone when you faked loving yourself. Understanding how unhealthy not eating can be, you took another approach which in everyone’s eyes was healthy: exercising. It was permitted, it didn’t break the rules, and it helped you heal. At last, that’s what you made yourself believe, but being confronted by your worst nightmare, you realized all your efforts were in vain. You felt small tears leaving your eyes and making a horizontal trail on your face. Each tear that left your eyes represented an emotion. First, you let sadness make its way out of your body. Then, frustration appeared at knowing you would never escape Jimin’s shadow. Finally, the last emotion in its liquid form came crashing with force on your mattress: anger. This one stayed until no more tears were formed.

A/N: Please give me feedback! I want to know what you think of this series.