#but my eighth grade teacher was just so bad. he straight up should not have been teaching children. uhg

[britneyshakespeare]

i’m a smart girl i got a 98% on my physical science exam

[fukurodaze]

five stars: part 3 | three words

IT’S EMBARRASSING: a third year cheerleader!reader x second year athlete!suna au

wc: 4.1k warnings: swearing

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you hate mornings. 

they feel restless and empty and full of longing to have something worth waking up to. sometimes it’s hard to even get up when your mind is full and your heart is worried.

but you do not hate suna rintarou. in fact, you’ve learnt a few new things about him.

one, he has a little sister.

two, he has a nice laugh.

three, he is only “occasionally lactose intolerant”, but not if he “tries his best”.

the things you already knew - his volleyball position, birthday, grade, home town - were never brushed up on, but somehow made their way to the forefront of your memory the more time you spent with him. you began to see him as simply ‘suna’, instead of ‘the boy you helped with physics last year’.

you wonder how you ended up spending every morning of the last two weeks with him. he seems nonchalant, almost lazy, when you see him around with his teammates: back slouched and face relaxed almost all the time. yet, when you let him walk you to class, he’s talkative. he’s eager. he’s walking slowly so you can keep up.

it’s a bit of a question for you, why he’s suddenly popped up into your life once more after waking you up on an unlucky monday morning. 

(he had told you that you had slept with your eyes wide open, and it took you some time to process everything as your chest fluttered with embarrassment.)

then again, you’re not complaining.

“if you notice over here,” suna leans into your side, pointing at the phone in your hand as the two of you walk through the school, “there’s a little cockroach at the corner of the room going out.”

“oh my god,” you laugh. the video on suna’s phone displays today’s fight between the miya twins at the gym. 

it’s your third week with him.

now, as he lets you hold his phone, the literal embodiment of all the volleyball team’s blackmail material, there comes the familiar urge of yours to steal a few glances, adjust your hair, or maybe do something absurd and see how he’d react.

it’s a strange feeling. stranger than when he walked you to your classroom once and you, in your half-awake genius, slipped him a tube of your lip balm in the open pocket of his bag in case you didn’t have an excuse to see him again.

“what were they fighting about again?”

suna shrugs, “osamu was having a bad day, and atsumu got pissed, so, naturally, osamu got pissed.”

“shit. everyone was crowding around i couldn’t even see them throwing punches,” you mutter.

“anything that the twins do usually gets a crowd, really.”

you pass the phone back to him. “yeah, the twins are crazy popular. especially with the girls. they’re like idols.”

“right,” suna pockets his phone, “you’re popular too.”

your brows are furrowed. “stop it.”

suna playfully tenses his shoulders up, hands shoved in his trouser pockets, “you’re, like, the kind of person that organises the culture festival and is like the secretary for the student council.”

“i actually am.” 

“you probably are.”

you two pause when the sentences come out at the same time, and it takes no time for the two of you to laugh it out, lightly, with snickers and giggles that you’ve never really heard from his mouth. 

“you know, i finally got to watch a movie last night,” you begin, changing the conversation.

he looks at you slowly, sweetly. “oh yeah? what did you watch?”

“uh, totoro...”

he stays silent, and you find his head tilted and his eyebrows raised. he looks amused. you ask him, “what?”

“solid movie.”

there is a questioning look that you give him, and you know he sees it, pupils focused to your side. he speaks again, “you like ghibli movies?”

“yeah. i think everyone does. don’t you?”

suna looks like he’s staring down the sky, thinking. he hums, and then tells you, “i don’t.” 

now he exaggerates his normally poor posture, chin tilting up to get a view of your reaction. the two of you keep walking, in an unusual silence, and you’re left watching his eyes as they stay indifferent.

“didn’t you just say totoro was a ‘solid movie’?”

the boy looks ahead, “yeah, so?”

you click your tongue, eyes narrowing, “whatever. i don’t believe you.”

suna has a satisfied smile on his face. he makes sure you don’t know it.

the two of you enter the building, even taking extra time to go to each others’ lockers. it’s only been two weeks since he had seen you laying on the bleachers, eyes embarrassingly open; two weeks since he had walked you to class the first time; two weeks since he had really started to know you.

when you reach your classroom, suspicious eye contact from classmates and the increasingly busy hallway tell you that it’s time for him to go to class, too. he sneaks in a cynical remark, and you playfully hit him on the shoulder, for the first time.

“i’m betting you and him get together by august.” your friend, honoka, chimes in as you enter the classroom. your neighbouring seat mates agree.

you’re starting to look forward to mornings.

unbeknownst to you, suna has a deadline.

the interhigh is only a week away, and so he’s told himself that he’ll do one thing before completely shutting himself out for volleyball training: asking you out on a date.

in other words, he is fed up with the volleyball team’s rendition of his “showoff mode”. he doesn’t lift his shirt up that much!

his first strategy is the straightforward, nonchalant way. he eagerly waits for you at practice.

“hey,” suna almost chirps, feeling a skip in his step.

“hey.” your squint your eyes at the unexpected energy, “are you- are you up to something?”

suna’s ears turned beet red at your statement. he couldn’t have possibly guessed that you knew what he was about to do.

a smirk crawls onto your lips. “oh, so you are up to something…”

“yeah, right. it’s nothing.”

you slap a hand on his shoulder, “hey, i get it.”

“what?”

“i mean, whatever pranks you and your friends are up to, just try not to get expelled, ‘kay?”

suna’s shoulders relax, but his eyebrows furrow, “wait, wha-”

“the volleyball team’s up to something, no?”

suna nods cautiously, not sure if he should be relieved or sad at the miscommunication.

“anyways, thanks for waiting for me after practice. i have a some paperwork to do for the student council, so you can go on ahead,” you give him a genuine smile. he always likes to see it, but it’s a little less lovely when the thought of a failed asking-out attempt is circling his mind.

“right. bye.” suna dashes off, hand fisted in his pockets. 

he tells himself it’s a work in progress.

“what the fuck am i doing making breakfast so well,” suna mutters under his breath one morning, preparing a cut of fish in the kitchen. he doesn’t even have practice this morning, and yet he’s skimmed through the entire oven manual and has found the joys of cooking fish meat. 

he even takes some of the fish and puts it in a metallic lunch box with rice to bring to school. normally, he would settle for the canteen’s average meat buns. 

“two bentos…?” he breathes. he has an idea.

it’s not long before he’s meeting you at the bus stop. he finds you sending him a small wave and an immediate groan about how your english teacher “is the definition of a nerd-bully equilibrium, what goes on.”

he laughs along with the complaints you have, even joining along with the flow of conversation. sometimes he thinks he changes a little bit when he’s around you, but he doesn’t mind. he likes talking and laughing and enjoying his time with you without worrying about what other people say.

he’ll give you a bento, maybe, he thinks, because he’s seen lots of girls give their boyfriends bentos in the past. maybe it would even give you a nod in the right direction.

right before the school’s building entrance, he stops you and takes you by the arm. it makes your heart skip a beat, but for him, all his heartbeats are centered around the lunchboxes in his bag.

“suna, why-”

your words are cut off when you see the boy eagerly rummaging through his bag, at first with a smile and then with a worried look. his hand is in his bag for a little too long.

there was only one bento.

so he gives you a beat-up ballpoint pen. 

it’s transparent, and from the outside you can see the ink tube only one-eighth full. it looks old.

“um, it’s a good luck charm... for your english test today.” suna keeps his mouth pursed and his look unfazed.

“oh.” you smile at the absurd charm. it seems questionable at first, but you try to convince yourself to trust in it. to trust in suna.

“i know, it’s kind of… beat up, and every-” it’s clear that suna is worried, for what you don’t know, but the way he hangs his head and his other hand fumbles with the strap of his backpack is enough to tell you to accept the surpising gift.

“no, i like it. even if it doesn’t work.” your hand keeps the pen in your fists. 

“it does work, by the way.”

you chuckle, “i’ll return it after class?”

suna shakes his head, “you don’t have to. if you do well you can keep it.”

you nod an okay, and he has a tiny look of satisfaction on his face. he had thought of giving you his lunch and not eating, but he decided against it when he remembered he didn’t bring any money to school that day. temporary success, fuck yeah.

(you get a ninety-two on the test. you keep the pen.)

as a last resort, suna tries through text. at least he’s proud that the two of you have been texting for two weeks straight. he still has you under “y/l/n-senpai (physics)”, and it makes him crack a small smile under his covers from time to time.

from y/l/n-senpai (physics): 2 notifications

suna slides the notification open. it’s always a pleasant surprise.

from y/l/n-senpai (physics): just watched arrietty its a ghibli movie

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): ik hv u watched howl’s moving castle

from y/l/n-senpai (physics): yes ofc

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): well. i havent

suna runs out of words to type. he’s not sure how to phrase it...

still, by the way that you’re typing, it seemed like he hasn’t messed it up. he rolls around to the other side of his bed.

from y/l/n-senpai (physics): then go watch it… (READ)

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): let’s watch together|

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): let’s watch tog|

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): let’s|

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): let’s go on a da|

suna sighs, thumb pressing the delete button like there’s no tomorrow.

except his thumbs are big. and phone keys are small. and his train of thought has jumbled up past usual cognition.

to y/l/n-senpai (physics): lets go, toge (SENT)

suna starts to stare down the volleyball in the corner of his room, wishing it would explode on command, when another ping lights up his phone.

from y/l/n-senpai (physics): 1 notification

he makes the slowest visit to his contacts to change your display name on his phone. he wants to stall.

but he always gives in.

from y/n: whos toge? (READ)

“fuck,” he grunts, burying his head into his pillow.

out of sheer shame and fatigue of asking-out attempts, suna doesn’t see you in the morning that monday nor text you for the rest of the weekend, having left you on read every time you sent a message. he thinks that if he reverted back to the time when the only interactions with you were stray thoughts in his mind, life would go on and this too would pass. 

it’s not like you would care, right? he would tell himself.

but suna seemed to forget that you were on the cheerleading team, and that the cheerleading team shares the gym with the volleyball club on mondays and fridays, not tuesdays and thursdays like he had very cleverly remembered.

“suna!”

you call out to him that afternoon. you have your cheerleader uniform on, having received them just today, and make sure to catch him while he’s on break.

big mistake.

you knew the volleyball team was tall, but you never really expected them to be slightly off-putting, too. it seemed like one call of his name made the entire team, consisting of over twenty boys, turn their heads at you simultaneously. then they looked at suna. then they smiled.

you find in your peripheral vision a wide-eyed kita, glancing back and forth once before going back to the volleyballs and game plans even during his break. 

you put on your sweetest smile, as expected of a cheerleader who’d just recently gotten her summer cheer uniform: v-neck, sleeveless top, pleated skirt, inarizaki lettering plastered across your chest in maroon and white.

he steps in front of you, eyebrow raised, “yeah?”

“can i talk to you about something?” your hands are behind your back, body weight shifting from left to right.

he nods, and as you take him out of the gym, you hear the volleyball team cheer and a certain miya twin shout, “fuckin’ suna!”

“fuck off, atsumu!” suna voices.

outside, your smile falters. you lean against the wall of the gym.

“did i do something wrong?” you say it softly, but firmly. you see his shoulders tense up, just slightly.

“um, no?”

you squint your eyes suspiciously, “but you’ve been ignoring my texts...?”

suna rolls his eyes instinctively. he regrets it when he sees a genuine frown on your face. “dunno,” he says.

your frown persists, and you start to bite on the inside of your mouth. “well, the last thing you texted me was, uh, ‘let’s go toge’. i’m so sorry if i missed something, or if it made you feel bad, so-”

“no, don’t be sorry,” he has his hands on his hips, “i never meant to send that.”

“what do you mean?”

“it was supposed to mean something else,” he looks down, scuffing his shoes against the brick floor.

“oh, was that message not meant for me? and who’s toge? sorry if i’m-”

suna gathers himself. he opens his mouth. he says eight words.

“i meant to ask you, ‘let’s go together’.”

the conversation comes to a halt. his words ring ambiguously in your ear, and it flusters you when the first thing that comes to mind is a date with the boy. you try to shake it off.

“like- like what do you mean?” you feel sorry for having him repeat the phrase twice.

suna shrugs, “i chickened out.”

“dude, you’re not making any sense.”

there’s a sharp pang in suna’s chest, and he visibly grimaces. “did you just call me dude?”

“maybe.”

“ouch.”

“wait, so what do you mean!” your arms flail around a little too dramatically for someone as tired as you.

suna contemplates whether or not to tell you that he wanted to ask you out. by the way you’d just called him dude, he wonders if you’d rather him give you a fist bump and tell you ‘nice toss!’ instead of hold your hand and take you out on a date.

so he counts his stars and he goes for the leap.

“actually, i wanted to ask if you wanted to watch a movie together.”

you back up into the wall at his words. there’s a heat that crawls through your body and beats through your heart.

“is that what let’s go toge meant?”

he nods, shoulders relaxing, arms to his side, “let’s go, together. like- like a date.”

his words take you by surprise. still, you’re nothing but glad.

“yeah,” you lick your lips, “i’ll go. and i take back the ‘dude’”

“oh, really now?” his shoulders relax. 

you roll your eyes.

“so he asked you out, right?” honoka asks during a water break in pe class. you couldn’t say no.

“yeah, i’m going to his flat next wednesday.”

“why not today? friday?”

you pouted, head turning slowly, “stuco meeting. we have our cultural festival late october, remember?”

“ah.” honoka sips on her water bottle, “i won’t be here by then.”

“what date are you leaving again?” you try not to darken your tone, pouting at the idea of losing one of your dear middle school friends to distance. 

“august eighteenth. a month away.”

you begin to slouch on your bench. there are more classmates that come to your bench after hearing honoka telling you her leave date. ‘oh my god!’s and ‘i’m gonna miss you!’s fill the corner of the gym, and soon the whistle blows, signalling the end of your water break.

the rest of the day proceeds as normal, and yet there’s that familiar emptiness that seems to continue to fill up even more of your days.

it’s tiring.

suna’s flat is extremely well put, for some reason. you’d always passed him for a boy who simply didn’t care, but now you see him at his own place, grabbing his laptop from his desk one-handedly.

you’ll admit going to a boy’s place alone is an awkward concept in itself, but it seems like suna doesn’t pay no mind. he’s plugged in his laptop to a charger, set it on the table, and has sat himself down on a floor cushion.

it’s a relief that you don’t know how suna’s heart is almost threatening to beat out of his chest.

“what do you want to watch?” you’re quick to sit down on the floor next to him.

he shrugs, “maybe you can convince me to like ghibli.”

you tsk at his line, yet it eventually brings you an ear to ear smile. you reach over to the laptop, scrolling through netflix. “i guess we could start with howl’s moving castle?”

your head turns to him, and he nods, before standing up all of a sudden. you look at him questioningly, but you find him walking over to his kitchen and returning with two paper bags and two glasses of water. 

your eyes follow him as he rests the items down on the table and scoots back on the floor. he gestures the paper bag towards you, “popcorn. it’s salty, so i don’t know if you’re into that.”

“ah. thanks,” you smile, and he reaches over to the laptop, pressing play. 

you don’t expect the movie to be the first thing on your minds - the both of you knew this. though you and him had spent some time marvelling at the movie, you find that for every other time you dip your hand into your popcorn, a pair of eyes turns to glance at you. 

you two spend your time silently during the movie, however. your eyes have developed a habit of simply tracing suna’s figure with your eyes, and it comes in embarrassingly when he had looked back and found your attention on him instead of the laptop at one point.

you’re surprised, though, because he does seem to be paying attention to the movie, more or less, and you can hear his small hums of amusement and surprise as the movie progresses. you colour yourself proud.

suna doesn’t even touch his food nor his drink, having felt too nervous to do so. he wants to know how you’re doing, silently, but whenever he meets your eyes, he decides that he’d rather fix himself on the movie. he wonders if a date like this means holding your hand or even saying goodbye with a kiss hug.

when the movie ends you ask him why he hasn’t eaten his popcorn, and how you feel kind of bad about it, but he ends up telling you how good the movie actually was.

“i don’t believe that you don’t like ghibli movies.” you squint playfully.

there’s a grin that grows on suna’s resting face, “i never said that i was saying the truth, i just said that i didn’t like them.” 

he stands up, bringing the food and drinks on the table to his kitchen counter, and you follow him over. the realisation hits you then, “oh. oh.”

“in truth i haven’t really watched many of them so i don’t know, but, yeah.”

“it’s funny because i feel slightly played.”

“well, you’re here now, aren’t you?” 

you watch as suna reaches into his refrigerator for some eggs. he glances at you, and you’re sitting on his tiny dining table. 

“do you want an omelette?”

your eyebrows raise. your heart skips a beat at the thought of eating his cooking. you tell him, “sure.”

suna takes the time he’s faced away from you to think about what’s next. he knows that you have some kind of inclination towards him, having agreed to his explicit naming of this hangout a “date”. still, his mind wanders towards the timing: is it too early to properly confess? hasn’t he technically already confessed? the omelette flips and suna thanks the world for having it look like the prettiest one he’s ever made. 

this one’s for you, he thinks.

when you do take the omelette in your mouth, you sigh a little bit. it looks pretty - almost beautiful, in fact - but also seems to be half-half-cooked. 

you don’t care, though, because it still makes your stomach flutter thinking about the fact that he had made this with his own hands. and if it takes some half-half-cooked omelette to eat, then, hell, you’ll eat it.

it’s not all bad, though, since he offers you some rice along with the egg as well, and it eventually turns into a filling meal. you hadn’t had one of those in a while.

when you look over to the other side of the table, you find he’s already finished with your food, and normal chatter makes itself more comfortable in the confines of his small flat. this is how it’s supposed to be, you tell yourself, just meaningless banter and humorous talks.

you find yourself growing to know him even better.

“isn’t it funny, how, some weeks ago, i had only seen you as that ‘one guy i tutored last year’?” you say after the date as he walks you out of his apartment. he tells you he’ll be walking you home, and though you tell him no, you ride the bus, he says he has some extra money in his wallet for the month.

suna agrees, “yeah. i would’ve just carried on with my life.” suna lies through his teeth. he’s been through the volleyball team’s teasing for his obvious crush on you. hell, they’d even dubbed it suna’s “showoff mode” (ginjima calls it ‘beast mode’) whenever you were within a five meter radius of him. 

you tell him time flies fast, and he tells you it walks slowly. for you, getting to know suna rintarou has been something you finally look forward to after all your work. but for suna, getting to know you is something he savours every second of, remembering how he wants to make up for the times he used to pine over your unknowing self.

when the two of you get on the bus, you sit next to him, yawning. he wants to have an arm over your shoulder, or your head on his shoulder, but he doesn’t exactly know how.

“my house is actually a few stops from here.” you say. it’s already nine at night, and though you’ve spent over five hours at his flat, you don’t want to lose your time with him to sleepiness.

suna notices how you try to fight it, even having told him, “don’t worry, i usually sleep at two am everyday anyways. i’m not going to fall asleep.”

he tells you, “you shouldn’t be sleeping at two every night.”

“it is how it is.”

he chuckles, “i once got shouted at for sleeping at five in the morning during a training camp. they forced me not to train at all that day. it was-”

the bus comes to a stop and your head falls on his shoulder. he calls your name softly.

you’re asleep.

suna keeps still as the bus ride continues, remembering the stop you said was yours. he counts them - one, two, three, four, five stops - and with each, his breathing steadies. he feels like the luckiest boy in the world.

“what am i to you now?” suna’s head tilts back, whispered question dissolving into the atmosphere. he doesn’t expect an answer.

instead, your arm circles itself around his.

taglist: @maitenight​ @natszoo​ @ssuna​ @erens-piss-cleaner​ @osamus-onigiri​ @volleybloop​ @etherealiwa​ @agaashesmilktea​ @bicchaan​ @anngelllla​ @tycrackculture​ @sins-over-tragedy​ @tsumuluv​ @daichibrainrot​ @underratedmage​ @sunasexual @kenmei @daydreamingtetsu​ @sunareii​ @bebegi​ (if your url is bolded, it means i couldn’t tag you)

send an ask to be added to the taglist!

as always, thank you to roo @yooroomi for beta reading this series!

[threeletterslife]

Propinquity (Law of Seesaw)

→ [6/7] of the Glossary Series

→ summary: You first meet him on a seesaw. What a surprise, your relationship with him is exactly like that of a seesaw too—there are ceaseless ups and downs. So much so that you wonder when it’ll end. 

→ pairing/rating: yoongi x reader | PG-13

→ genre: 50% fluff, 33% angst, 17% crack | e2l!au

→ warnings: profanity, mean insults

→ wordcount: 9.2k

♫: Seesaw by BTS

You can't remember the last time you've gone a week without fighting.

There is always a new problem that arises. A new argument that is sparked from the depths of trivial problems. Then Yoongi stops talking to you for a day (or days if the fight is serious) and sleeps downstairs on the couch until he wants to crawl back to you and apologize. Other times, you're the one who has to drag yourself to your boyfriend's study with a plate of his favorite fruit and an apology in your head.

But it seems like the fighting never ends.

Now the bed feels cold. It is empty. Just like you.

You know that Yoongi's downstairs, either working with his new client (through the dead of the night) or already sleeping on the small couch. Though you're supposed to be mad at him, you worry. The couch isn't good for his already deteriorating posture. But you can't nag at him now. It'll result in more arguments.

When was the last time you and Yoongi didn't fight, though?

The correct answer is never.

From day one, you and Yoongi were destined enemies.

"Hi." You're a proud little child, standing up straight with your hands on your hips. A bit chubby and round in the middle but you flaunt the extra weight. "My mommy says I need to make friends before kindergarten starts."

"My mommy says not to talk to strangers." The young boy peeks at you through his shaggy black hair. He rocks the paint-nicked seesaw by himself, kicking his feet off the ground only to come back down with a light oof.

"I'm not a stranger," you scoff, crossing your hands over your chest. "Let me play on the seesaw!"

Yoongi doesn't even have time to answer because you're crawling up on the opposite side already. "H-Hey!" he yells but he's too late. The moment you innocently perch upon the seesaw, you’re slammed to the ground and Yoongi's lifted up high in the air.

Ah, the weight difference.

"GET ME OFF!" Yoongi screams. "GET ME OFF!!"

Your eyes turn wide. You hadn't meant to scare the boy. You thought everyone wanted to fly up in the air, and you were just granting the little boy's wish. In your head, you didn't even think of the possibility that Yoongi is afraid of heights. (Which was stupid of him to even try playing on the seesaw in the first place.)

"GET OFF!" Yoongi yells viciously at you. His face has turned a bright shade of pink and purple.

You think he looks like he's about to suffocate.

"I'M SORRY!" you shriek as you dive off the seesaw.

Yoongi lets out a high-pitched, ear-piercing scream as he subsequently flings off the seesaw. He lands on his butt several centimeters away from the rusty playground equipment and bursts out crying.

You gasp. Oh no. This was bad. Very, very bad. So you do the first thing that comes to your head: run away.

The boy's cries become louder and louder as you sprint in the opposite direction, but you grit your teeth and dash on. Eventually, your guilt for throwing off a boy from the playground seesaw dissipates when your mother buys you ice cream for lunch. Food is always the solution.

You have no idea that day you accidentally made a little boy cry was the day you met your future boyfriend. You just thought you met a crybaby coward.

And he thought he met the devil. If the devil was a chubby little girl with chipmunk cheeks and rolls on her arms.

You two had no idea you would meet again.

So far, the first day of kindergarten isn't going so great. All the other girls brought their barbies to class. You brought your stuffed animal snake—Mr. Slithers.

And now the other girls don't really like you. Because "snakes are icky!" Their words, not yours.

If they only knew this week was a rainforest theme in your head. Every day of the week, you would prepare to bring a new stuffed animal that lived in the rainforest. Today would be the green snake, then tomorrow, the tree frog and so on. But no one applauds your genius planning skills.

So you mope around for half of the day. The girls are playing princesses with their stupid barbies and they won't let you join because a snake cannot wear a ball gown.

You end up poking at the seesaw in the kindergarten playground. It's boring when there's no one else to sit on the other side. Mr. Slithers isn't heavy enough to seesaw with you either. You want your mommy.

"You!" a high-pitched voice shrieks.

Jumping, you whip your head around to see the little boy. No. The same little boy who you accidentally flung backward on the seesaw.

"Are you gonna throw me off the seesaw again?" he yells. For such a skinny little boy he has quite a loud voice.

"I didn't mean it!" you yell back.

"You need to apologize to me!"

"No!"

You run away again.

And just like a real big stupidhead, Yoongi tattletales on you to the kindergarten teacher, Mr. Kim. In your defense, you didn't even do anything to Yoongi at kindergarten, so Mr. Kim can't make you apologize to stupid Min Yoongi.

Mr. Kim agrees with your defense. But he doesn't approve of you using the word, stupid, so you have to apologize to Yoongi anyways. While you're positively livid, Yoongi is triumphant.

That is only the start of the rivalry.

In first grade, Yoongi calls you fat.

You aren't normally one to waste your time tattling to the adults, but Yoongi did it to you in kindergarten so it only feels right to get revenge. But apparently calling someone fat is much worse than calling someone stupid. Yoongi has to apologize to you and he has to sit in the time out corner. He also gets a call home so his parents are notified of his bad behavior.

In second grade, you start losing weight. Not because Yoongi called you fat. But because you figured you should start exercising to be as healthy as your gym rat parents. When you tell the second-grade class you want to become a football star and you've planned out your whole athletic pathway, Yoongi is the first one to rudely laugh at you. So you make sure to boo his presentation when he brags about writing a whole book by himself (it's called Dot Goes to School—pretty mediocre stuff). Both of you have your recess privileges taken away.

Staying in for recess with someone you absolutely despise is not worth the satisfaction you got from teasing them. So you and Yoongi become more discreet in your never-ending ways to spite each other.

In third grade, Yoongi calls you a stick during recess. He makes sure to say it loud enough so you can hear his insult but not as loud so the playground monitor doesn't hear. Sneaky brat. You turn to him with flashing eyes and tell him very upfrontly, "Says you."

The rivalry still exists in fourth grade, when both of you feel like you're too old to play on the playground. The seesaw incident is still ingrained in the backs of both of your heads, though. So even when you and Yoongi have your separate groups of friends, you still manage to be mean to each other.

For instance, the day before the annual fourth-grade square dance, you and your new group of friends spread a rumor that Yoongi has cooties. As a result, no one wants to be his partner the next day.

But then your partner, that brat, Park Jimin calls in sick on D-Day and so your plan backfires in your face. You dance with Yoongi. And now you have cooties too.

In fifth grade, girls are starting to talk about boys during recess. When the shy, cute Gayoung confesses her crush on Min Yoongi, you have to excuse yourself from the friend group. Instead, you go out on the fields to play soccer with the guys. Thankfully, cooties are 'for babies' in fifth grade, so you have free reign with the boys.

Park Jimin confesses he likes you in sixth grade. He tells you that you are pretty. But his confession was definitely not in your schedule. You're supposed to go to swim practice in five minutes. So you wave him off. Not because you hate him. But let's face it. The boy ditched you in fourth grade and you had to dance with Yoongi. Plus, now Jimin's Yoongi's friend. There is no way in hell you are going to butt noses with Yoongi's friend.

The whole grade goes in an uproar when they find out you rejected Jimin. You couldn't care less.

Seventh grade is weird. You finally get your period. And the new sex-ed class collectively makes everyone embarrassed. It also starts the influx of period jokes from yours truly, the boys. Whenever a girl is in a bad mood, the boys yell, "YOU MUST BE ON YOUR PERIOD!" You make note of every guy who says this. Then the second time they yell that to a poor girl, you hold up a tampon with ketchup on it. It shuts them up so well that all the girls in your grade start to carry around tampons and ketchup packets.

Surprisingly enough, Yoongi isn't part of the rowdy group of boys who make insulting period jokes. He's gotten much quieter over the years (middle school must've brought some sort of maturity on him), but he still finds ways to make your life miserable.

When there are rumors that Jimin will ask you out to the Halloween dance, you actually prepare to accept—maybe just to spite Yoongi. But turns out the whole rumor was a lie made up by the boy you despise. So you're rendered embarrassed.

In eighth grade, to your surprise, Gayoung asks Yoongi out. Of course, Yoongi would say yes. He knows you hate Gayoung. She had grown ample boobs and fit in with the popular girls who talked about boy bands and got dress-coded every day. You have no idea why such a popular girl would ask out a nerdy, rat-faced boy. But apparently, Yoongi is conventionally handsome. What a load of bullcrap.

It irks you even more when they become a revolutionary couple—the first time a girl has asked out a boy.

You make a bet with your friends that the couple won't last a week. Your wallet cries that year. You lose nearly ₩30,000.

By tenth grade, they are still dating.

You're starting to wonder if Yoongi somehow got his grubby hands on a love potion. There's just no way that whiny asshole can keep a girlfriend for that long. But according to your friend who is friends with the friends of the friends of Gayoung's friends, Yoongi is a good boyfriend. You want to gut yourself after hearing that.

Gayoung is always bragging about how Yoongi buys her flowers before class, and she makes sure everyone knows of this by posting pictures of the aromatic bouquets on Instagram. Yoongi often writes her little love poems and short stories, and though you're 100% sure Gayoung doesn't read them, she posts those online too. God, she is so annoying that you unfollow her. (You've blocked Yoongi's account a long time ago.)

For the most part, though, when hating Yoongi is not on your mind, your life is pretty normal. And you're definitely content. You and a sporty transfer student from America, Jungkook, have hit it off. It's fun taking him around everywhere to taste test all the convenience stores in Korea.

Until the day you catch Jimin and Gayoung lip-locking behind your favorite kimbap store. You and Jungkook look at each other with wide eyes. Before Jungkook can stop you, you snap a quick picture of the action and run away, tugging your friend along with you.

"Dude, you should delete that picture," Jungkook says for the billionth time.

"No can do," you tell him. "I'm sending it to Yoongi."

"To spite him?"

"Duh."

"Aren't you helping him by telling him his girlfriend is a cheater?" Jungkook challenges.

You squint. "You're actually right, Kook. Then I won't tell him."

"Isn't that a little bit too mean?"

"What??"

"I mean, they've been dating since eighth grade. It's been nearly two years, right?" Jungkook points out. "I think Yoongi deserves to know."

"Don't you dare!" you gasp.

"Sorry, Y/N," Jungkook shrugs. "It's just the right thing to do."

Two days later, Gayoung comes to school wearing not the school uniform but a short skirt and tight shirt. Her arm slings around Jimin, her apparent new boyfriend. Yoongi is nowhere to be seen.

Rumor travels around fast. And they're all accurate for the most part.

But it's not very satisfying to see Yoongi missing from all the action. The whole school day, you wonder where the fuck the boy is. Maybe he's crying his guts out. You've never experienced heartbreak before, so you're not sure if you have the right to say Yoongi necessarily deserves it. You can say though, that he had it coming. After all, all those years he teased you, he hadn't felt a single bit of remorse.

Sucks for him.

It's dark by the time you begin to walk home from school. You'd stayed late to brush up on your horrible chemistry skills so you wouldn't completely fail the final test. On the walk back, you notice the familiar playground. You'd grown up with that thing. But it's been a while since you've cared enough to stare at it.

Usually, the rusty old playground is empty. But today, a figure sits in the shadows. More specifically on the seesaw.

It brings back memories. That had been the same seesaw that had started your rivalry with Min Yoongi. And someone's sitting on it.

You squint, your curiosity getting the better of you as you creep towards the figure. Oh god. Once you see the outline of the person, you know this isn't going to be a very fun experience. Ew, you think. Gross.

But that's until it occurs to you that the person is crying.

Holding your breath, you walk closer to the crying boy. He's shaking, hands covering his face. The other side of the seesaw is up in the air.

He's crying about Gayoung, you realize.

You breathe out. "Need someone to sit down to fling you out again?"

Yoongi jumps. He hiccups. Then he quickly wipes away the tears streaming down his face. "Shut up."

You grin, sitting down on the other side of the seesaw. And this time, neither of you fling off. It is completely balanced.

"What are you doing here?" Yoongi croaks when he realizes you're not going to be leaving any time soon. He sniffles, but for the most part, he hides the fact that he'd been crying very expertly.

"I dunno." You shrug. "What are you doing here?" When there's a pause, you add, "I didn't see you in school."

"Oh, didn't know you cared."

"I don't."

"Figured."

"Did you break up with Gayoung?"

Yoongi laughs scornfully. "No. She broke up with me."

"Yikes, really?"

"What is your deal, Y/N?" Yoongi sighs. "Are you going to laugh in my face? Tell me I deserve this?"

"Not anymore..." you grumble. "Because now there's no element of surprise."

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "I reckon you spread the rumor?"

"...The rumor?"

"Yeah, the fucking rumor!" Yoongi shouts, throwing up his hands. "You're the one who told everyone Gayoung was cheating on me!"

"Woah, there! I didn't say anything about it!" you yell. "It's not my fault your ex decided to hook up with Jimin!"

"What??"

"Here! I have the fucking receipts!" You whip out your phone, aggressively swiping through your photos before landing on the exact one you were looking for. When you show Yoongi, his eyes turn wide but his posture deflates. He looks defeated.

"She actually cheated...?"

The way he says it with wide eyes and a slumped attitude makes you feel a tiny bit of pity. But the habit of being mean to Yoongi sticks.

"I'm not even surprised."

Yoongi glares at you.

"I mean," you say with an innocent shrug, "she's been eyeing other guys since you started dating her."

"I know..."

You are not about to show sympathy to Min Yoongi. You are not going to let down your guard. You are going to stay cold and emotionless—

"I'm... uh... I... er, I guess I'm sorry."

Yoongi lifts an eyebrow. "Why are you sorry?"

"Well, it just seemed like you really liked her—"

"Nah."

"Oh?"

"This is going to sound very stupid."

"Try me." You grin. "In my eyes, you always sound stupid. Remember? I got in trouble for calling you stupid in kindergarten."

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "How could I forget?" He grips the seesaw handles. "I don't think I've ever really liked Gayoung."

"Damn, this is tea," you gasp. "Why bother dating her for so long, then?"

"Ha!" Yoongi laughs. "Good question, Y/N. I don't know," he says sarcastically. "I was probably trying to piss you off. Didn't think it'd last that long."

"Oh??" You raise your eyebrows. "But didn't I just see you cry over Gayoung?"

"Er—"

You definitely caught him in a lie. Though it's dark, you can imagine Yoongi flushing a bright shade of pink—he does that when he's guilty. Not that you cared enough to notice over the years.

"It's okay she's with Jimin now. Not your problem."

"Is this your half-assed attempt of trying to solace me?"

"No?" You make a face. "Why on earth would you think I'm trying to solace you, Yoongi? You called me fat in first grade."

"I see you still hold grudges."

"Oh, that's really my only talent," you snort.

"Aren't you a really good planner?"

"Me?" Is this a compliment you hear?—and from the Min Yoongi?

"Yeah, you're going to plan the graduation ceremony, right? They hand-picked you from the student council, didn't they?"

"Well, uh, yeah." You raise your eyebrows in both surprise and suspicion. "Didn't think you'd care."

"I don't."

Of course.

"Okay, fine by me."

"Why are you even here again?"

You pause. Actually, why are you here? You could've just simply walked away and never had this conversation with Yoongi. But you'd stopped. And now you're talking with him. You answer him truthfully. "I really have no idea."

Another pause.

"Are you gonna ask me to leave?"

"... No."

"Oh." You cock your head. "Okay."

The two of you stare at each other. A staring game commences.

But Yoongi blinks first, claiming you the victor of the little contest. "You can stay if you want."

You scoff. "Excuse me, I didn't know I needed your permission."

Yoongi throws his hands up in the air. "Do you always have to fucking pick a fight?"

"You're the one who starts them!"

"I didn't even say anything mildly rude."

Okay, he might kind of have a point. Maybe all those years of hating him have ingrained permanent hatred in your head, so whatever comes out of Yoongi's mouth seems like an insult that you have to respond to with equal rudeness by reflex.

"Where did we even go wrong?" you sigh, rubbing your forehead.

Yoongi snorts. "Literally right here. On this seesaw."

"You're right," you laugh. This is probably the first time you and Yoongi have agreed on something; it's a foreign feeling that doesn't quite settle right in your stomach.

"Remember when Jimin had a crush on you?"

"Oh stop—" Just one single sentence brings back so many memories.

"Now he's downgraded to girls like Gayoung," Yoongi snorts.

"Oh?" A wide smile stretches across your lips. "Are you saying I'm an upgrade compared to that vile girl?"

"When you put it that way, I'm not so sure."

In any other circumstance, you'd think Yoongi's attacking you again, putting up another unnecessary fight. But right now, it's obvious he's just teasing you.

"Let's face it, Yoongi. I'm better than your ex, aren't I?" you tease right back.

"Barely," he grumbles, but he mumbles under his breath, "but yes."

Thankfully, your owl ears pick up the last part and you grin haughtily. "That's all I needed to hear." Just by habit, you glance down at your watch, frowning when it reads a little past 10 p.m. You're definitely behind schedule right now. Strangely, though, it's kind of worth it, talking to your self-proclaimed nemesis without ripping each other apart with moderately hurtful words.

Yoongi takes notice of you checking the time. Always the same, he thinks. He can't remember the last time he saw you without a watch.

"Anyways... it's getting kind of late..." you say. But you're careful not to stand up from the seesaw—just in case you'll accidentally fling Yoongi off again.

Yoongi nods in agreement. "Yeah." But what he hears next is beyond what he would've ever thought would come out of your mouth next.

"Wanna get some cup ramen? I know a good convenience store nearby."

"With me??" The words slip out of Yoongi's mouth before he can maintain his stoic, chilled composure.

"Why not?" You shrug. "Maybe tonight's the night we can finally stop fighting and act civil for once."

"I am getting tired of the back and forth bickering," Yoongi admits. "Not a bad idea, Y/N."

"I come up with genius ideas once in a while." You flip your hair back and grin. "We just can't stay out before 12 because I need to plan my friend's birthday party before 1."

"I'll get you home by then."

"You're going to walk me home? How boyfriendly."

"It's a habit," Yoongi grumbles.

"A good habit. Keep it up, Min," you laugh. "Then you'll get a new girl in no time."

The two of you count to three before carefully getting off the seesaw together. There are no accidents this time. Everything seems... balanced.

The most what the fuck moment in your life comes when you wake up one morning and realize the person you text and hang out the most is, indeed, Yoongi. Months ago, the thought of him made your blood boil. Now, he's just a friend—a very close friend, too.

Entering eleventh grade with Yoongi by your side is weird. Every other school year, the two of you tried to stay away from each other as much as possible. Yet this year, it's the complete opposite. The two of you solace each other. Even if that involves heavy teasing and harsh verbal exchanges.

"You idiot!" Yoongi shrieks. "And you just let her get away with it?"

"Why yes, why yes I did!" you scream in your shrill voice that makes Yoongi almost flinch back. "What was I supposed to do? Yell at her and tell her I deserved to be class president and not her? Tell her to her face that she cheated the votes?"

"Yes?!"

"Well, I didn't have the guts!"

"Why do you always run away from your fucking problems?"

Yoongi's words pierce through your heart and suck up your anger, replacing it with regret. He’s right though. When something doesn't go the way you planned, you have a habit of ditching. You're afraid of the consequences that will follow when you freestyle everything. And Yoongi knows this.

"I-I... I just... It's easier," you sigh, slumping over your desk seat. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Fight back maybe?" Yoongi's tone is softer after he sees you become dispirited. "I mean, hey, you win some, you lose some."

"I know... I just feel like I'm always losing these days."

"It's okay," Yoongi says. His big hands awkwardly pat at your back. And as funny as it is that he's attempting to comfort you, you're actually well comforted. "Doesn't matter whether you win or lose. What matters is the experience."

"Wise words."

"Well, I'm a wise person." Yoongi gives you a shit-eating grin.

"Oh god."

Sometimes, Yoongi's the one who breaks down, though it's not as often as you do. But once the storm comes, it's hard to make it leave.

"Please don't talk to me right now."

"But Yoongi," you plead, knocking on the door to his room. "I had to practically beg your parents to let me in!" you whisper angrily. "Come on, open the damn door!"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Do you want me to break the door down??"

Silence follows and a small click indicates that the locked door is now open. You carefully turn the knob and push. Yoongi faces you immediately and the way his eyes are red and his cheeks are wet is indicative of a beforehand hysterical crying session.

"Oh, Yoongi..."

"I said I don't want to talk about it," he mutters. But you know he's just saying that because talking about it will make him cry again. You know him too well.

You pull him into a hug. "Maybe music isn't for you," you say. "It's okay if you failed that path. There are many more to take."

He's silent, squeezing you tightly. But you don't mind the silence at all. It's more peaceful that way, and you know he's actually listening to you when he's not talking.

"You're good at writing aren't you?" you whisper, patting his back. "Maybe that's your path. And if it isn't, so what? Poke at every pathway until you find one that's just right for you."

It's advice for yourself as well. Yoongi's upset that he was rejected from a music audition he was preparing to pass for years; he knew he wanted to pursue music and he did it, though it might not have been very successful. You, on the other hand, have no idea what you want to do in the future.

"I guess we both have to start on new paths now, right?"

By twelfth grade, you and Yoongi are beginning to bicker like a married couple. At least, that's what Jungkook says.

"For the last time, we do not sound married!"

Jungkook rests his head on the palm of his hand. "Sure. Sure."

"The thought of even being romantically interested in Y/N gives me goosebumps," Yoongi snorts.

"But the good kind of goosebumps if you know what I'm talking about," Jungkook says. He wiggles his eyebrows in such a suggestive way that you mock vomit.

"Okay, gross," you groan. "The day I catch feelings for Yoongi is the day the whole world will end."

"Um, right back at you," Yoongi frowns. "Don't worry," he says, giving you a cocky grin. "I'm very repulsive. You'll never catch feelings for me."

"We'll see about that," Jungkook snickers.

Every year, Yoongi writes you a birthday letter. Even now, in college, he manages to find time to make the same effort he's made for the past two years. Every year, he somehow makes you cry with his elaborate words. And every year, Yoongi films it because he's a little shit.

This year though, the tone of the letter is much, much sweeter than you expected. Almost as if it's a love serenade and not a platonic letter to your best friend. The writing is elaborately flourished and fluffed up to the point it sounds like a love poem. And you swear Yoongi spritzed perfume on the envelope because the letter smells (shockingly) amazing. The message itself doesn't make you cry. Instead, after you finish reading it, you stare up at Yoongi's camera in shock, jaw dropped open but no words coming out of your mouth. Yoongi seems to like that reaction a lot, and he even zooms up on your dumbstruck face to make fun of it later.

He'd written ten things he loves about you. And it drove you crazy that you didn't know whether it was platonic or romantic.

Love, Yoongi. He'd signed the letter. Not the usual, From your bestest motherfucking greatest friend, Yoongi.

What the fuck did 'Love, Yoongi' even mean??

And it happens so that the two of you fight about it later on.

"This year's birthday video is the best one yet," Yoongi laughs as he tries to turn the camera around to show you the screen.

You jerk away, frowning. "That is not funny."

"Why? Didn't like my letter this year?" He's teasing you but you're annoyed.

"It was different."

"A good different?" Yoongi nudges your shoulder, a smug smirk plastered on his lips.

"Literally, please, stop. Before I wipe that smirk off your face."

"Okay, okay," Yoongi sighs, raising up his hands in defense. "I bet you're just salty you can't name ten things you love about me."

"You're right, right now, I can name zero things," you scoff.

"Liar. You wouldn't have stuck by my side for this long if you didn't love me."

The fact that he's right makes it more irritating.

"Fine. One. You're an asshole—"

"Come on, is that really a reason?" Yoongi laughs. "This isn't ten things you hate about me, you know."

"Hear me out. You're a certain species of asshole that I find slightly more bearable than any other asshole," you say. "I think you're a tolerable asshole. It's a compliment."

"Thanks?"

"Two. You're an idiot—"

"Is this how the rest of the reasons gonna go?" Yoongi scoffs incredulously. "My letter was heartfelt at least!"

"No, but you're a bearable idiot. The kind that irks your strings just enough to make you pissed but not enough to make you explode. No idiot is tolerable but at least once in a million years you give good advice." You shrug as Yoongi shakes his head in denial.

"I always give good advice."

You roll your eyes. "Three. You're not very good looking—"

"I shouldn't even have asked," Yoongi grumbles. "Why did I fucking bother?"

"No, but you're not ugly. Isn't that good news?" you giggle as Yoongi just shakes his head at you. "It's perfect! That way, you attract people with your personality and not your looks! It's a compliment," you add when Yoongi glares at you.

"Whatever," he says.

"Four!" you say triumphantly. "You are drama-free. Except with me. But I'm an exception because I'm special."

"You got that right," Yoongi mutters underneath his breath. "What about five?" Compared to a minute ago, he looks more interested in your list now.

"Five? Well, you're genuine," you say nodding your head. "You wouldn't let me walk around with an eyelash on my face or spinach stuck between my teeth."

"Yeah 'cause you'd embarrass me too because you'd be by my side," Yoongi protests.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."

"Fine. Six?"

"Six... hm..." you hum. "You have pretty eyes."

Yoongi laughs out loud. "Thanks, I guess."

"Seven... let's see... hm..." You rub your chin thoughtfully. "Well, you put the toilet seat down for me."

"My mother didn't raise a hooligan."

"I actually agree with you on that one," you say, laughing. "For eight, I want to just say you're a good friend."

"You stole my number 8 on my letter to you!"

"Yoongi, you should just be glad I even repeated it back to you," you giggle. "Wanna hear nine before I forget?"

Your friend sighs but he nods.

"You're a very good writer. And I'm not just saying that to boost your already enormous ego or anything, but I genuinely think you can write," you say. "And I love that because then I get these good ass letters on special occasions. It's weird how you can choose each word so carefully that all of the meanings fit in this gigantic well-flowing story. And you'd think you'd use all these hard vocabulary words to throw me off, but your writing's easy to read and comprehend. It makes it more impactful." You quirk your brow at your friend who finally looks satisfied. "Is that enough?"

"Yes, now that's more like it!" Yoongi grins. "Butter up my ego a bit more, won't you?"

"Can't. I don't have a number ten for you." You shrug. "Sorry."

"C'mon, you can only think of nine reasons why you love me?" Yoongi leans into you, poking your cheek. "I thought of eleven but I had to take one off. This isn't very fair."

"Oh? What was the eleventh?"

"It was more of a joke so you don't need to know."

"Excuse me? I love jokes—even though I don't take them very well."

"Yeah, well, I especially don't want you to take this a bad way," Yoongi says.

"Was it something mean about me??"

"Kind of."

You frown, scrunching your nose. "Try me."

Yoongi shrugs. "Fine, then. I called you oblivious. Happy?"

You lean back from your friend, giving him a disgraceful look. "Me? Oblivious? First of all, no. And second of all, why would you love that about me?"

"Oh, I don't know, because you're so oblivious you can't even tell that I like you??"

One look at Yoongi and you can tell he's dead serious. "Woah," you breathe. You want to ask him to repeat what he just said to see if you heard him correctly the first time. But he's already looking a little impatient at your delayed answer. So you gape at him, muttering a soft, "Like? As in...?" You can't finish the sentence.

"As in love?" Yoongi finishes for you. "Sure."

"Bro..."

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "I thought the letter made it obvious, Y/N."

"Well, I thought you were joking." You fidget with your hands. "Damn, Yoongi, now what the fuck am I supposed to say?"

"Do whatever you want with that information," he says, shrugging so nonchalantly that you wonder if this man even has feelings.

"Broo..."

"And if that means you're gonna keep saying 'bro,' then I guess that's fine too." He gives you a shit-eating grin.

"No, it's just that... wow. Since when??"

"Like, a year ago? Bit after Jungkook called us a married couple," Yoongi says. "But I'm so dead inside I hid it pretty fucking well. I kept thinking it'd go away too, but man, I still like you now, so I guess the feelings aren't going away anytime soon."

"But what are you proposing??" You run your hands through your hair. "That we go out??"

"Okay, you said it, not me."

You huff. It's weird. This dynamic you have with Yoongi. One moment you're bickering and the next, Yoongi's confessing his feelings for you. Strangely, though, you're not as turned off as you expected.

"One date."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "One date?"

"You can buy me dinner, and if it goes horribly, we're going right back to friends," you bargain. "In the case that it goes well, then, uh, you tell me."

Yoongi laughs. "Oh, I'll be the one to tell you, all right."

And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it), he's right. Four days later, your relationship with Yoongi becomes official. It irks your strings that none of your friends are even the slightest bit surprised about your newfound romantic relationship with the man you'd known for way more than half of your life.

"We all saw it coming, Y/N," they tell you. "We're actually surprised you two didn't date sooner."

But Yoongi is actually a good boyfriend, so there are no regrets. Aside from the small bickering here and there (the married couple kind of arguing), your relationship with him is sound. And the fact that not much has changed in the way you treat each other since you began dating makes you wonder if you were technically in love with Yoongi this whole time but you were way too blinded by your stupid senses and habitual, platonic teasing that you didn't think you actually liked him romantically. It doesn't really matter now, though. Because you're with him anyway.

Yoongi's love language is quality time and coincidentally, so is yours. College becomes a blast. When you're not studying, you're with Yoongi and when you're not with Yoongi, you're 'studying,' but really thinking of your boyfriend.

Yoongi has a way of plaguing your mind. It's been like that since you were little, too.

Once out of college, things become more difficult. Marriage matures into a serious question that neither you nor Yoongi is ready for. So both of you put it off.

As soon as you secure a job as an event planner and Yoongi becomes a professional grant writer, the honeymoon phase of the relationship plummets to the ground.

For nearly eighteen years you were a victim of Yoongi's 'teasing.' His judgmental remarks. But there is a time and place to be a critique.

"Oh, come on, the food isn't even that bad, Yoongi. Just a little bland. That's it."

"There was a hair in my soup," your boyfriend complains. "I'm asking for another bowl."

"Okay, fine, but don't ask for the manager like last time."

"Last time, the waitress called me a tightwad!! What was I supposed to do?"

"Just let it slide? You yelled at her for bringing you bad food when she didn't even cook it! Can you please stop acting so above everybody?"

"Whatever." Yoongi sets down his silverware. "I'm gonna Uber home." He tosses you his credit card and it slides across the wooden table and stops right in front of your dish. "And I'm going to write a Yelp review of this shitty place."

"You're not a fucking entitled writer! Stop acting like one!" you call out to him as he turns his back to you and storms away.

You end up eating dinner at a restaurant by yourself. Yoongi's right, the place is shitty, and the food is bland, but it's not downright intolerable.

Often, these days, it feels like your relationship with Yoongi is spiraling downward. The two of you cannot seem to agree on anything. It reminds you when you'd hated him in your younger years. But you can't hate him now; you live with him.

He's unavoidable.

Usually, Yoongi drives. The car feels foreign to you only because you normally don't sit in the driver's seat. The short mixtape of songs Yoongi wrote and produced for you plays the moment you turn on the engine. He'd gifted that to you a few months ago, after one of your bigger fights. You let the soft serenades play as you drive home.

No matter how many times you and Yoongi fight, the two of you make it up to each other somehow. There is no fight without a resolution. Yoongi will be waiting for you when you get home.

And he is. He's waiting with a blueberry yogurt cake from Paris Baguette sitting on the kitchen island and a letter in his hand. A written apology. Because Yoongi thinks he conveys his feelings better in writing than with spoken words.

"I'm sorry for storming off..." he says almost shyly. The man is nearly twenty-five years old but he sounds and looks like a guilty child with his lips pulled out in a pout and his eyes glancing nervously at your face to see if you weren't going to yell at him. "I, uh... didn't write the Yelp review."

How can you stay mad at that?

"And I wrote you an apology..."

You walk closer to your boyfriend and hug him. "Thank you..."

"Yeah," he says. "And good news, the cake will be really flavorful compared to what you had for dinner."

You smile. "Good thinking."

After a storm, there is always a rainbow. When there is a down, there is an up. And vice versa.

"Can we please stop planning every single fucking second of our lives?" Yoongi says exasperatedly. He flings away the brochure you had handed him that detailed the week's trip to Hawaii down to the last minute. "We're going on vacation. This makes me feel like I'm going to a stupid summer camp."

"If we're going to Hawaii, we shouldn't just relax around in the hotel all day, Yoongi," you scoff, gathering the abandoned brochure and tugging it to your chest. "There's stuff to see on the islands. We need to try everything my friends did! Why would we even go to Hawaii if we're not going to do these fun activities?"

"Come on. 7 o'clock breakfast? 8 o'clock hiking up to the falls? 10 o'clock scuba diving in the ocean? 12 o'clock lunch at the top of a big ass hill that we have to climb up ourselves? 1 o'clock zip-lining meters in the air? 2 o'clock festival? I could go on, but isn't that too much? When can we breathe?" Yoongi shakes his head. "No way. And all of that's just in one day. And the second day is even worse. Y/N, I want to go there to rest."

"If you wanted to rest, then you can do it at home," you argue. "Why go to Hawaii to rest?"

"There are different types of resting," Yoongi sighs. "What's a better way to fall asleep than in front of the ocean? We get to relax in a hotel, which means we won't have to make our beds or cook our meals or even do the dishes. That's relaxing for me."

"Well, it's not relaxing enough for me."

"Come on, Y/N. We went to Banff and you planned every single second of the trip there. I thought it was miserable. Can we please relax just once? For literally one trip?"

"But I already booked everything..."

Yoongi curses. "Why are you always four steps ahead of everything? It's unnecessary!"

"Maybe I'm not four steps ahead and you're just four steps behind!"

"Oh, so you're telling me that everyone else in the world plans their days down to the last second." Yoongi rolls his eyes. "Bullshit, Y/N."

"It's not my fault you're so—so, fucking lazy!"

"I'm not lazy!" Yoongi's eyes flash as he slams the dinner table. "You're just too high maintenance! Fucking nobody can keep up with you!" Before you can react or even yell back, he pushes his chair away and stands up, stomping away in a fury. You can hear him enter his study. There's that familiar door slam again. And the click of the lock means you won't be getting in that room anytime soon.

You're left by yourself, clutching the Hawaii brochure to your chest. A little angry at yourself but a lot madder at your boyfriend. With a bitter scream, you toss the brochure in the trash and curl up in a ball at the side of the couch.

But the thing about you and Yoongi is that with time and space, you recognize each other's perspectives. The rest is history.

Three hours just crying out your pent-up anger gets the irritation out of your system. By the time you're done though, you're a little hungry and guilty. You make a few phone calls and switch things around.

"Hey." You knock on the door of Yoongi's study. You're too afraid to turn the knob yourself. "I know you're in there."

No answer.

"I canceled the excessive activities..." you whisper against the door. "We can plan the trip together... I mean, better yet, we don't even have to plan anything at all... We can be..."—it pains you to say but—"spontaneous."

"Go away. I'm trying to work."

Sometimes Yoongi takes a bit longer than you to come around.

But by dinnertime, he's crept out of his study and has already ordered takeout from your favorite restaurant. The steaming pile of white rice and perfect side dishes lie on the dinner table, waiting for you. He waits for you too.

"I got a new client," he says, looking down at his hands. "And I got your favorite food." You notice that he's holding the Hawaii brochure you'd thrown away. It's a little wet on the sides. Maybe because Yoongi had to wipe off the remnants of the leftovers in the trash that had stuck onto the paper. Your boyfriend finally looks up at you. Shyly. Almost cautiously. "Wanna compromise?"

"Compromise?"

"We plan half of the trip and wing the rest of it," he offers. Yoongi slides you the brochure. "See, so I was thinking..."

You've always hated roller coasters. They are almost always unpredictable with head-jerking twists and turns that bring you closer to vomiting the contents of your stomach rather than pure bliss. There are one too many ups and downs.

Yoongi likes to joke that your relationship with him is a roller coaster. Only because there are too many dips that rocket up to the sky only to plummet down again. You disagree. Because, eventually, no matter how shitty the ride is, roller coasters do end. Your relationship with Yoongi is not over.

You like to compare your relationship with Yoongi like the ocean waves. But during a tsunami. The ups are great; the towering waves give you a beautiful vantage point. And it's all fun and games until the waves crash down on everything you once loved, destroying them. And the process repeats so much that in the end, there is nothing left.

That's what you feel now. Empty.

Alone in the bed with Yoongi downstairs and nowhere to be seen near you.

After a while, even the highs of the relationship makes you feel numb. The lows wreck you past your breaking point. It takes more time to find resolutions—the fights go on for longer than days, even weeks.

When you were younger, fighting with Yoongi was irritating at most. Now, they leave you sobbing and drinking alone in the corner of the bathroom. But it's so late in the game.

You've known Yoongi for over eighteen years of your life, since kindergarten. You keep telling yourself that he's the only one in the world who could understand you; and you're the only one in the world who can understand him. But other than that, you can't find another reason why you're with him.

Sometimes, you listen back to the mixtape he made you years ago. The lyrics don't apply to you now. And this year, for your birthday, he half-assed a letter for you last-minutely because he was 'busy.' Busy drinking with his friends the night before. You've stopped planning your dates for months.

Actually, when was the last time you went on a date with him?

You can't recall.

Maybe the back and forth arguing you and Yoongi had gone through in the majority of your relationship was a sign—a bad sign. If only you hadn't met him on the seesaw that day. Then maybe none of this would've happened.

You might be dating someone you have things in common with. Maybe someone you don't argue with as much.

Falling asleep with tears in your eyes that keep the pillow wet until morning is an occurrence that you're too familiar with. It is an occurrence you want to stop. When Yoongi isn't downstairs by morning, you're thrown into further misery. He usually works from home... He must be really angry to leave without saying anything.

You eat breakfast by yourself. Lunch consists of ramen. And dinner... Yoongi's still not home so you skip the meal altogether.

By 9 p.m., you look at your phone. You don't want to be the first person to break—the first person to apologize—but you worry. Will he hang up on you? Tell you to go away? The possibilities seem endless.

So much thinking hurts your head. Some fresh air might do the trick. Before you know it, you're wandering around a familiar rusty playground again. It brings back childhood memories. When your hand trails across the paint-chipped monkey bars, you're brought back to when you were only six years old. The towering obstacle had looked so big when you were little. Now, you could easily cross the bars by simply walking.

It's strange to see the once-bustling playground be completely empty and in the dark. You hear that they're going to tear down this place to construct a little convenience store so no one must've visited this playground in a very long time. You'll miss it when it's gone. You had a lot of fun around here.

Just as that thought passes through your head, your eye catches sight of the seesaw.

Ah, the start of everything.

Slowly, you walk towards it. Each step makes your feet sink further in the smoothed over gravel but you manage to sit at the very edge of the seesaw. Immediately, the other side flings up in the air. It reminds you of when you flung Yoongi in the air. A pretty funny memory. But not right now. Thinking about Yoongi now hurts.

You hate it when you start to contemplate the worst-case scenario. A breakup. Moving out. Stress. Tears.

You run your fingers across the rusty handle of the seesaw. Hopefully, things don't come to that. But how much longer can you handle the arguments? They seem to be elongating as time passes. What if one day, the argument lasts a month? Several months? A year?

If there is one thing in your life that you strive to achieve, it's predictability. With Yoongi, there is none of that. He makes last-minute plans out of nowhere and doesn't tell you until the last second. Then you have to go on a frenzy to reschedule everything. It is a cycle that you've become sick of. And he's sick of you planning everything.

That has been the issue of the last ten fights.

The same issue.

And it's unfixable.

You and Yoongi are rock bottom on the very floor of the Mariana Trench. The back and forth game of banter has turned into something more serious, and it just isn't as light-hearted and funny anymore.

"Hey."

You nearly fall off the seesaw at the sound of Yoongi's voice. He's got his hands shoved in his pockets and he looks like he was awake for more than 24 hours.

"H-Hey," you say.

"The seesaw, huh?"

"Yeah." You nod. "The seesaw."

Yoongi smiles but it's not a very happy one. Even now, you don't think either one of you wants to apologize for the fight.

"I've been thinking," Yoongi sighs. He doesn't spare you another glance before he sits on the other side of the seesaw. You're suddenly jerked up in the air. There used to be a balance but it seems like Yoongi's gained some weight—or you've lost a lot. "Remember when I said our relationship is like a rollercoaster?"

"And I said I disagreed."

"Right." Yoongi sighs. "I take that back. We're not like a rollercoaster. We're in a game."

"A game?"

Yoongi gestures at the seesaw. "This is our game."

"...The seesaw?" You raise an eyebrow at the man but Yoongi doesn't budge.

"Yes. Look." Yoongi pushes off the gravel with his feet, putting himself in the air while sinking you to the ground. "And when you push..." Following his words, you launch yourself back in the air. Yoongi looks up at you as he sighs. "We're always on opposite sides, opposite places."

"Even when we try to balance," he continues, trying to lift his body to bring you down to the same level as him, "we fail." He ends up higher than you now and you look up at him.

"Some game this is..." you mutter.

"It's a game of ups and downs," Yoongi tells you. "It's tiring, isn't it?"

"Of course it is."

"And like all games... there is an end."

You raise both eyebrows. "Oh."

"From day one, you know... we weren't really supposed to get along," Yoongi says. "But somehow seeing each other every day, bickering with each other... all of that let us be in closer proximity with each other. And then we thought we were meant to be."

"You're analyzing our relationship?" you scoff.

"Don't act like you haven't done the same, Y/N."

You're silent.

"It doesn't matter whether we love each other at this point, Y/N... Does it? Love or not, I don't think I can live like this."

It's ridiculous. You're having a grown-up discussion possibly leading to a breakup on a fucking seesaw of all places.

"You want to separate?" Your voice comes out smaller than you expected. When it becomes a reality, it's much harder to digest.

"You've been thinking about it too, right?" Yoongi sighs. "I mean, I heard you call your mom the other day. And it didn't sound too good."

Guilty. "Well, yeah, I've been thinking about it... Just... I just didn't think it'd become a reality so soon." And you always thought you would have initiated the breakup, not the other way around.

"Yeah... I felt bad you always took initiative with things so I decided to save you the stress and do it myself."

"Wow. Thanks." You shake your head. "Real thoughtful."

"Right?" Yoongi grins. "I don't think a lot will change if we break up. We've always hated each other a little."

You let out a wry laugh. "I'll never forgive you for calling me fat."

"And I'll never forgive you for calling me stupid."

"Looks like we're even."

"Yeah, for once." Yoongi shrugs. "I guess we can be platonic roommates until I find another apartment."

"Sounds good to me." You ignore the tears welling up in your eyes as you try to smile. "Let's get off this seesaw to seal the deal then."

"The end of the game." Yoongi's voice shakes just enough for you to know he's crying.

And as the two of you walk back to your shared apartment with tears streaming down your faces, you realize you wouldn't have it any other way. A breakup any later would be regretful—even wasteful of time. A breakup any earlier would've left you to separate forever. A breakup now is perfect.

You're acquainted enough to still possibly be friends. But not bound by marriage to make the procedure worse and more complicated.

Of course, you love Yoongi. But sometimes, you love the wrong people—the people you don't belong with, the people who won't make you happy. You're just glad you didn't run away in the beginning. Yoongi taught you a difficult rivalry, a difficult friendship, a difficult relationship. But you don't always have to go the hard way.

When a relationship becomes like a game—repetitive with the addition of wins and losses—that's when you know you can stop.

You'll be on the easy route now and find someone who is as crazy about planning as you.

You look up at Yoongi. His cheeks are wet with tears but he doesn't necessarily look sad. Instead, he looks hopeful. Like he'll find somebody who can appreciate his love for leaving sarcastic Yelp reviews or somebody who loves spontaneity as much as he does.

And when he finds that special somebody, you'll be happy for Yoongi. But, of course, not before you tease the living shit out of him first.

—masterpost

—masterlist

[ms-demeanor]

After reading your "ultra-long postivity post", now I have kind of a weird feeling because i relate a lot to pretty much everything you said, but i ended up approaching the "not everyone can x" from the opposite side, being the "gifted kid" teachers used to hold everyone to unrealistic standards (that i knew most couldnt achieve in the given timeframes), and now i get frustrated when i dont develop skills immediately, because i have done it before and feel like i should be able to and aaaaaaaaaa

Funny story: when I was a kid my parents had both my sister and I tested for learning and developmental disabilities. This testing included IQ testing.

It identified that we were both “gifted” kids* and that I’m dyslexic.

It totally missed my ADHD, though!

The problem with that is that my parents. Hm.

Okay my parents both grew up in very poor families. VERY poor. And they both wanted to go to college and knew the only way that they could was through scholarships. So they became debaters. They met at a tournament in high school.

Debaters are weird. You need an efficient working memory and strong recall and the ability to think quickly on your feet. Being witty and kind of an asshole are also good traits for debaters. Basically you’ve either gotta be really fuck-off smart to be a competitive debater or you’ve gotta at least *seem* really fuck-off smart.

And my parents were champion debaters at a national level. The Whittier College debate trophy has my mom’s name written directly under Richard goddamn Nixon. My dad was on the USC debate team and competed against Harvard and won. Not only that but he ended up coaching debate for USC and Cal Tech.

So as kids who grew up in extremely poor families and were able to go to college and get middle-class jobs and buy a house because of intellectual ability my parents placed A LOT of importance on intellectual ability.

So that IQ score became a large part of my life.

First we attacked the dyslexia. The approach was basically teaching me a bunch of sight words because sounding out phonics doesn’t work when the letters get screwed up. And because I was *gifted* we did a lot of really BIG sight words.

It took about six months to get me up to speed from “memorizing the pages of a story to match the pictures because I couldn’t read along in class” to “the first book I read on my own was The Hobbit.” I guess that counted as “cured” because that was the last time I got any kind of educational assistance.

At that time I was at a gifted school, a really tiny private school that was also an after-school daycare where we did full-day classes and then did gymnastics and swim from 3-6pm. I also was there over the summer because my parents worked.

So going from “tiny private school where the teacher has you stand up in class to read your failing grade in front of everyone so that she could shame you into performing better” to “fine public school in a suburb wealthy enough to have arts programs” was a major, major change. They did an aptitude test because I was transferring in from a different district and there was much discussion about whether or not to move me directly from the second to the sixth grade.

The district refused, thank fuck.

The public elementary school didn’t *have* a gifted program so it took very little time for me to become the Certified Weird Kid. My third grade teacher had me read aloud to our class for twenty minutes a day. I taught the class the multiplication table.

When it got to be time to go to the junior high school my mom went to a meeting for the school’s gifted kids program. APPARENTLY one of the kid’s dad’s basically said “I don’t understand why you’re wasting school funds on field trips for the stupid kids, the school should spend more of its resources on kids who have a chance of actually meaning something to the world” and my mom decided that while being gifted was important it was less important than making sure I wasn’t exposed to assholes of that caliber on a regular basis.

(thanks mom, I actually do really appreciate that reprieve)

Several teachers pushed me into advanced classes - my math teacher insisted that I take the advanced algebra classes in the seventh and eighth grade.

The GATE kids *WERE* assholes and were extra bonus special assholes to me because math was the only advanced class that I was in. (At my junior high school you had to pick your elective based on what level of classes you were in - to take the GATE classes you HAD to take a music elective; if you took art, drama, shop, or home ec you couldn’t take the smart kid classes. The algebra class was a new, separate addition to the program so *some* of the kids in the “electives for dropouts” program could take algebra. Schools are really fucked up, guys, in case you didn’t know schools are really fucked up and that was BEFORE No Child Left Behind).

I got a C in that algebra class and sat in my room for literally an hour screaming at myself for being such a selfish, distracted idiot that I let myself read my books instead of studying harder for the class. (clearly very healthy, normal twelve-year-old behavior)

When it was time to go to high school my teachers made a united plea to the district to transfer me into honors/IB/AP classes.

The kids in the honors/IB/AP classes continued to be kind of awful to me. I got extremely depressed and basically started doing the lazy-but-brilliant thing of completely ignoring homework or in-class work but performing spectacularly well on tests or essays in the classes that I wasn’t catastrophically failing

I was the only person at the school who got a perfect score on the vocab part of my SAT. I was the only honors kid who hadn’t been in SAT prep classes. There was only one other kid who graduated with the same number of units as I had, we’d outstripped the valedictorian and salutatorian but three classes each. I only applied to one college - I got accepted for painting but my interviewer urged me to move to the writing program and I got accepted for that too.

My financial aid didn’t come through and my dad wasn’t willing to cosign for loans on “an art program at a trade school.”

I got accepted to Pratt Institute on their Writing for Publication track which included an internship with the New York Times for third-year students in the program.

At that point I had a Columbia Scholastic Press award for my work on my high school yearbook.

Let me tell you, the community college that I went to and spent five years variously failing and succeeding at had a fucking *killer* newspaper and magazine when I was there. The local community newspaper that hired me when I was 21 was also much better designed and edited than it had any right to be for the three years I worked there (getting paid a whole eight dollars an hour and sometimes working 20 hours straight to get it in to the printer on time).

When I transferred to the state school I got perfect grades and worked full time and won every contest offered by the school’s English Honors society (which I couldn’t join because I was a transfer student and hadn’t done honors classes my freshman and sophomore years). I started a literary magazine with some friends when I graduated; we published four full issues online before it fell apart.

You know what’s also funny?

Even the food-service job I had to pay my way though the community college I felt terrible about attending was a skills test. I was a barista, so of course for a while I was a competitive barista.

I disappointed my parents a lot. I heard a lot of “we know you’re better than this.” I got told I was too smart to be screwing up this bad. I mentioned it a couple weeks ago but my results from that IQ test got compared to my sister’s and that was the justification for holding me to a higher standard. “You’re measurably brilliant, why aren’t you acting like it?”

Here lies the corpse of a gifted kid. Look on my works ye might and despair.

I am the perfect picture of a twice exceptional gifted kid and the reason I wrote all of this out is to tell you one thing:

“Gifted Kid” is a label that someone applied to you, it has nothing to do with who and what you ARE.

It’s very, very unfair that the adults in your life used you that way. I have an exceptionally terrible memory of being singled out as the only one who passed the first test in my IB World History class; “Why is Alli the only one of all of you who is writing at grade level? You’re supposed to be the smartest kids in the school, why did you all fail?”

That’s awful for the kids around you, that’s awful for you. It doesn’t do anybody any favors if people around you are being informed that you’re setting the curve they’ll be judged against. And it really, really doesn’t do YOU any favors because it doesn’t take long *at all* for your brain to learn that that’s all you’re good for. If you aren’t the best at a thing then what’s the point, you HAVE to be best because they already SAID you were best and if you aren’t then all these other people hate you for setting a standard that even you can’t keep up with.

You end up competing with past versions of yourself and focusing on those things that make the grownups in your life praise you because the grownups in your life has praised you in such a way that it’s turned all the other kids against you.

You know who bullied the fuck out of me? The kids I taught the times tables to, the kids I read to for half an hour a day.

Those kids were MEAN to me but the teacher who told me to read Boxcar Kids to the class after lunch everyday was NICE and she told me not to worry, they were just jealous and I should be proud of my gifts.

“Anon did this in three minutes. What’s taking the rest of you so long?” - what a terrible weight to put on a child. You’re right. Not everyone can do everything.

Fucking hell.

Adults what the everloving shit is wrong with us? Please don’t treat kids like that.

Okay.

Okay.

But here’s the other thing:

If there’s any time in your life that it’s easy to acquire skills with no apparent effort it’s when you’re a child surrounded by a support system that is engaged in making sure that you can acquire those skills.

It took three adults, two dictionaries, and several hours a day to teach me enough sight-words to throw me into “look at baby genius*” territory but from my perspective as a little kid I was just reading cool stories.

I spent four hours a day in the yearbook room and ditched and failed other classes so that I could work on the yearbook. I collected hundreds of magazines to get an eye for layout. But from my perspective as a teenager it was a fun activity that I did with the closest thing I had to friends.

I’m sure that there are some skills that you had a natural aptitude for, some things that came naturally. But I’m also sure that you didn’t learn those skills with no effort, it’s just that now as an adult with a life and other shit going on it takes more effort to learn to do things.

In all likelihood you weren’t a savant who did everything perfectly the first time you tried. It just seems that way because even really smart kids don’t know when they’re bad at things and are mostly being compared against other kids (with the few rare exceptions of music prodigies or math prodigies or those kids who end up in science grad programs at 12 and boy howdy do I think there’s a whole other can of worms when it comes to the way child prodigies* interact with the world).

You wanna know what probably saved my life in the last few years?

That “anti-capitalist love notes” tumblr post.

You are worth more than your productivity.

You are worth more than your productivity.

You are worth more than your productivity.

I was actually kind of offended the first time I saw that post on my dash. “No I’m not,” I thought. “You’re only worth what you can do, everyone knows that. People care about what you do for them.”

And why the hell would I think anything else? That’s what I’d learned for pretty much my whole life.

It took me a really long time to understand that I was wrong. I matter outside of what I can do for people or how well I perform. I matter more than being able to perfectly recite poetry from memory or do calculations on command or sit down at a piano and play a piece I’ve never played by sight-reading it.

And you matter outside of that too. You’re more than your performance, you’re better than being gifted. There are people who love you for the way you make them laugh and how you listen to their stories and for the simple joy of your presence.

It’s nice to be clever, it’s handy in a lot of situations even if it does come with a lot of baggage for some people.

But god damn, it’s important to be kind.

* Personally I have issues with the way that society constructs the concepts of giftedness, genius, and prodigies. There are a lot of “gifted” kids who were the kids who scored in the top 5% of their class in school but there are also gifted kids who were doing high-level math or reading novels as toddlers; there are prodigies who showed an aptitude for music young and who were then schooled in that instrument to the exclusion of all other activities (and I bet there are a fair number of kids who might be considered prodigies if they were trained to play flute for nine hours a day and didn’t have friends but thankfully we don’t *do* that to very many people - side note, ask me my opinion about olympic athletes some time). Words like “genius” and “gifted” are very nearly meaningless and almost *never* accurately reflect skills proficiency or long-term success or are reflected in income or respect. People think that geniuses are hypercompetent robots with their shit together but literally every adult I know with a genius-level IQ is some variety or other of total fucking tire fire.

[cadence-talle]

Teach The Torches To Burn Bright

Pairing: Fitz Vacker/Dex Dizznee

Wordcount: 2,212

Summary: “You’re a coward.”

“Correct,” Fitz responded. His sister fixed him with a determined look.

“You’re a coward, but you’re also my brother and I want you to be happy.” She leaned forward, sucking the dregs of her milkshake with a loud slurp. “So we’re gonna get you a date with that boy. Come hell or high water.”

(Or, a theater AU, feat fake understudies, many milkshakes, and fundamentally misunderstanding Romeo & Juliet.) 

Other notes: for @molly-sencen! I’m sorry this took so long and I love you so much, Molly. 

Taglist: @everyonehasthoughts, @clearlykeefitz, @loverofallthingssmart, @a-lonely-tatertot, @enbies-and-felonies, @molly-sencen, @lemontarto, @appalyneinstitute1, @ruewen-and-rising, @silver-snow, @linhamon-roll, @hyperlollypop, @never-ever-too-many-fandoms, @keeper-of-the-lost-queers, @impostertamsong, @vibing-in-the-void, @yeetersofthelostcities, @mistythegirlfluxmess, @diamond-dreamerr, @we-have-no-bananas-today

“Look, I’m just saying, Romeo and Juliet is overrated.”

“Romeo and Juliet is one of the greatest plays of all time. Just because you hated your eighth-grade English teacher doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

“They’re absolute idiots. Who falls in love in a single night? How do you do that? Who pretends they’re dead without making sure the other person knows it’s all fake? Death is a stupid solution.”

“Okay, I don’t understand them either, but-”

“Not to mention it’s literally a love story between a fourteen-year-old and a sixteen-year-old in which they meet, fall in ‘love’, and then get married in the span of three days. Tell me that sounds like a healthy relationship.”

Fitz sighs, pushing open the auditorium doors as he glares at his sister. “It’s not supposed to be a healthy relationship. It’s supposed to show the folly of falling in love too fast and how there needs to be a delicate balance between love and hate.”

Biana arches an eyebrow at him. “Did you really just use the word folly unironically? In the twenty-first century?”

Fitz picks up his pace, walking faster down towards the stage. “Shut up.”

“No, no! Tell me more about the follies in Shakespeare’s writings!” Biana calls behind him, smirk evident in her voice. Giving a small groan- she’s never letting him live this one down- Fitz turns to move up the stairs on either side of the stage and runs straight into someone. 

“Oh, sorry,” he says, stumbling back. “I didn’t see you-”

It’s Dex Dizznee. Of course it’s Dex Dizznee. Fitz should have known he’d be in the theater today; he’s been halfway stalking the guy for a month. 

(“Just ask him out already,” Biana had said, chewing on her milkshake straw. “You’re, like, the most popular person in school.”

“I can’t do that!” Fitz protested. Biana frowned. 

“What’s stopping you?”

Fitz laid his head on the cold metal of the ice cream shop table. “He’s too pretty,” he said mournfully. Biana rolled her eyes and kicked him. 

“You’re a coward.”

“Correct,” Fitz responded. His sister fixed him with a determined look. 

“You’re a coward, but you’re also my brother and I want you to be happy.” She leaned forward, sucking the dregs of her milkshake with a loud slurp. “So we’re gonna get you a date with that boy. Come hell or high water.”) 

Now that he thinks about it, Biana probably orchestrated this. He wouldn’t put it past her. 

“Sorry,” Fitz says again. Dex grins, waving a hand in the air. 

“Not a problem,” he responds. “I was probably in the way, actually. We’re trying to get these new speakers set up,” he gestures to the huge speaker at his feet, tangled in a pile of electrical wires, “and it’s… harder than it looks.”

“I’ll bet.” Fitz nods, pretending he knows anything about technology or what it takes to install a speaker. “Well, we’ll get out of your way. I’m just here to grab an extra script-”

“Actually,” Biana says, appearing next to him. “I think now would be a great time for you to try on that tunic I restitched last week. We need to make sure it fits.” She smiles at him. Fitz glares back. 

“Sure,” he says through gritted teeth, moving up the stage stairs. Dex smiles, touching Fitz’s shoulder lightly as he passes. 

“See you later.”

“Uh.” Fitz says. “Yeah, you too, Deck.”

He staggers backstage and falls face-first onto a prop couch. Biana makes a noise of agreement. 

“Deck?” Fitz says, his voice muffled by the couch cushions. “Deck?”

“I’m sure he didn’t notice,” Biana pats his head. “You do need to try on the tunic, though. We have like ten more costumes to get through and the show’s in a week and a half.”

“That sounds like bad planning on your part,” Fitz observes, taking the offered shirt and pulling it on. “How does it look?”

Biana considers him, head tilted to one side. She smiles. “You’re going to be the best-dressed Romeo on this side of Eternalia. Sophie’ll love it.”

“Sophie is gay,” Fitz points out, “and has a girlfriend. You should know that- you got them together in the first place.”

“Mmm,” Biana agrees, “The great Sopherella Caper. Those were the days.”

“’Those days’ were last month.”

Biana waves a hand in the air. “Irrelevant. Okay, take the tunic off and I’ll make the final adjustments.”

“Great. See you at home?” Fitz scoops his bag up off of the floor as Biana nods, heading out towards the theater doors again. Dex holds up a hand in a little half-wave. 

“Have a good day, Ditz.” he calls. 

Suddenly, Fitz thinks he understands Romeo and Juliet’s ‘poison’ idea a little bit better. 

-/-

“You know, I think this is good, actually.” Biana says the next day. The five of them- Fitz, Biana, Linh, Tam and Keefe- are crammed into a booth at the ice cream shop, sipping milkshakes. (It’s far too early in the day for ice cream, but Fitz isn’t going to argue. The mint chocolate chip ones here are to die for.) 

“Explain,” Fitz responds. He doesn’t see how any of this- the fiasco with Dex, being brought to the ice cream shop in what he’s pretty sure is some sort of intervention, the fact that his milkshake has notably less mint in it than usual- is good. Biana shrugs. 

“Well, from what you said, it sounds more like he was teasing you than actually being mean. And teasing is good. It’s very close to flirting.”

“And if he was flirting with you,” Linh adds, “then that’s great!”

“And if he wasn’t?” Fitz asks, because he’s pessimistic like that. Tam raises an eyebrow, setting his milkshake on the table with a thunk. 

“Then you’ve completely embarrassed yourself and you can never talk to him again,” he deadpans. Fitz nods slowly. 

“I’m sure that won’t happen, though,” Linh says hurriedly, shooting her twin an annoyed look. Tam gives her an angelic smile. 

“Seriously, dude,” Keefe says, turning to Fitz. “You’re the only one here who’s still single. I wanna go couple’s bowling!”

Fitz holds up two fingers, ticking them off as he speaks. “One, ‘couple’s bowling’? Not a thing. Two, aren’t you single?”

Keefe stares at him. “What?”

“You do realize we’ve been dating for four months now,” Tam says. Fitz blinks. 

“I… did not realize that, no.”

“Wait, really?” Biana interjects, giving Fitz a puzzled look. “You were there when Keefe did his promposal.” 

“I thought it was a joke! Who orders goats for an actual promposal?”

Keefe frowns, looking vaguely insulted. “I do. Anyone who wants to do a promposal right orders goats.”

“Forget about the goats,” Linh interrupts, “forget about Keefe and Tam. We’re here to help you.”

All four heads turn towards him in eerie unison. Fitz swallows and Biana smiles sharply, pulling out her planner and flipping to May 13th. 

“Okay. We don’t know when Dex will be in the theater- he keeps really weird hours. What we do know, though, is that he’ll be here next Friday. Opening night.”

“So after the show, we shove Fitz in the soundbooth until he asks Dex out,” Keefe says, nodding. Linh shakes her head. 

“Let’s call that a Plan B. Fitz would actually murder us.”

“True.”

“You guys do realize I’m sitting here, right?” Fitz asks. They ignore him, instead gathering around Biana and her schedule. Silently, Fitz slips from the booth and moves towards the shop door.

This show is going to be a disaster. 

-/-

The theater is packed, people whispering and chatting in the dim light. Fitz should be backstage, getting the last parts of his costume on, but instead he’s in the near-empty hall alongside the auditorium. 

He always does this before a show- takes a moment to catch his breath, lean against the cold blue tile of the wall. A moment of peace before the craziness that is a Foxfire High theater production. 

Or, relative peace. There’s a banging coming from somewhere behind him- one of the doors that line the hallway. Fitz is pretty sure the one the noise is emitting from is a janitor’s closet.

He approaches the door, wary of whatever’s inside. Once, a junior found a raccoon in her locker. Fitz really doesn’t want a repeat of that. 

Instead of a raccoon, though, Sophie falls out when he opens the door. Fitz stares as she stumbles, almost falling, before getting her balance. 

“Why were you locked in the janitor’s closet?” Fitz asks. Sophie rolls her eyes as they head towards the backstage entrance. She’s in costume already, thank goodness. 

“Ask Keefe and Linh,” she grunts. “They’re the ones who stuck me in there.”

Fitz steps through the door, almost running into Dex for the second time in as many weeks. The taller boy has a confused expression on his face.

“Do you know why Biana was just trying to convince me I was the Juliet understudy?” He inquires. “I told her I can’t act, but she didn’t appear to want to listen.” 

Fitz sighs, aware of the flush creeping up his cheeks. “I might have some idea,” he admits. “I’ll talk to you after the show?”

“Sure. I need to get to the sound booth anyway.” Dex gives him a thumbs up and moves away. “See you, Fitz.”

He knows my name. 

Sophie has a dangerous smirk on her face when Fitz turns back in her direction, and he immediately glares at her. 

“Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything,” She hums. “Just… I’m glad you’re happy, ‘kay?”

Fitz smiles at her. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Sophie punches his arm lightly. “Now come on, Romeo. We’ve got a show to steal.” 

-/-

The curtain has just closed, and everyone is screaming. 

To be fair, the show did go well- no one messed up their lines, and the kiss scene (which was, in rehearsal, simply nicknamed Awkward™) actually didn’t crash and burn. 

So Fitz supposes he can’t blame them for screaming, despite the damage it’s doing to his eardrums. (Someone is also playing Let It Go at an obscene volume. Fitz will never understand the theater kid obsession with Let It Go.) 

Biana and Linh come up behind him, hugging him from both sides as they shout. Fitz can’t quite hear them, but he hugs back. 

“I’m going to go talk to Dex,” he shouts, pointing towards the soundbooth. Biana and Linh give him matching grins and Linh yells something that might be go get it! and might be turn away and slam the door. Fitz can’t tell. 

He makes his way through the crowds and up the steps to the back of the theater, keeping his head down so no one will recognize him. The attention can be nice, but he doesn’t exactly fancy getting stuck signing autographs right now.

“Hey!” Dex says as Fitz moves into the sound booth, leaning against the door. They’re the only two still here; whoever was operating the lighting board must have gone home. Now is probably the perfect time to talk to him.

Fitz opens his mouth to say something- even he’s not sure what- when he hears an ominous clicking noise in the door behind him. He spins, trying the handle. Locked.

Sophie’s words echo in his head. Ask Keefe and Linh. They’re the ones who stuck me in there.

“Did someone… lock the door from the outside?” Dex asks, coming over and crouching down next to the lock. “That’s weird.”

Fitz sighs, shaking his head. “Not for my friends.”

“Your friends did this? Why?”

Studiously, Fitz stares at the floor. Then the ceiling. Then the soundboard. Anything but Dex, really.

“Do you remember,” he says slowly, “when I called you Deck?”

Dex raises an eyebrow. “Yep,” he answers, popping the ‘p’. “Not the worst thing I’ve been called, honestly.”

“I- I wasn’t trying to insult you,” Fitz manages. “I just- well. I got nervous.”

Dex wrinkles his nose. It’s kind of adorable. “Nervous? Why?”

Fitz shrugs one shoulder.

“I don’t know. You’re just… you’re pretty.”

“Pretty,” Dex echoes. Fitz nods, taking a deep breath. He’s in too deep to back out now.

“Yeah. And smart, and cool, and…” he trails off. “You’re amazing. And I was- I am- kind of in awe of you.”

“Oh.” Dex steps forward, reaching out. Blinking, Fitz takes his hand. “Well, what if I told you that the first time I saw you on stage, I almost fainted?”

Fitz’s throat goes dry. “You did?”

“Uh-huh. And whenever you were rehearsing and I was doing lighting, I couldn’t stop looking at you.” Dex smiles sheepishly, his cheeks tinged pink. “Because you were awesome, and beautiful, and I really, really liked you.”

“I- I like you too,” Fitz squeaks out. Dex grins, stepping a tiny bit closer. 

“Can I…”

“Yes.”

They stay there for a while, trading kisses back and forth, and something Biana had said a few weeks before floats into Fitz’s head. 

“Who falls in love in a single night? How do you do that?”

Like this, Fitz thinks. Like this.

He’s not in love, not yet, but Fitz still feels closer to Romeo and Juliet than he ever has before. 

(Hopefully without the death part, though. In that case, they really are idiots.)

[shibereshu]

Hello, can I request a scenario where you like Harin from onewe and you don't dare to confess to him so you just tell him there's someone you like and he's jealous because he likes you? thank you in advance 💕

thank you for requesting! I think I went a bit overboard with this, but I just couldn’t help it! it really inspired me a lot! It also came out much cornier than I expected it to, but I guess that’s just my inner kdrama lover, who can’t contain herself when it comes to these types of clichés.

to everyone reading this, our requests are open and the groups we write for are in the desc. of our blog! we have a prompt list you can use for requests! enjoy !!

The highschool bell rang, indicating that the classes had finished and you all could go home. When you were saying goodbye to your friends Keonhee and Hwanwoong, one of them noticed something.

—Hey (y/n)! —Hwanwoong was pointing at your shoulders with a confused face— don’t you think you’re missing something?

—What? —you looked around, thinking that he was talking about someone walking by— what do you mean, Hwanwoong?

Keonhee suddenly realized what Hwanwoong was talking about and started laughing.

—No (y/n), not around you! —he took a second to breath and continued talking— your backpack! It’s missing.

—My… MY BACKPACK !! —you got a strong feeling of déjà vu as it wasn’t the first time that something like that had happened. You quickly waved at your friends and walked at a face pace in the direction of the main building, crossing your fingers and wishing that the teacher hadn’t locked the door of the class. When you were walking up the stairs, you heard someone calling your name and turned around only to find Harin standing by the end of the stairs smiling at you and holding your bag up in the air.

A huge smile formed on your face and you let out a sigh of relief.

—Did you lose this, hermanita? —you looked at him with annoyance and bumped his arm.

—I didn’t lose it, Bubba, I just f o r g o t it.

—Okay okay, whatever. I found it so now you owe me. You should buy me an iced coffee in the store next to the school, just saying. I will be a gentleman and walk you home today.

—Okay, jeez, but don’t pretend you are being a gentleman, you literally live two blocks away from me.

—True, but also rude. Let’s go.

You had known Harin since you were one-year-old. Your mothers took you both to the same park in the neighborhood, and you had always played together. Then, you went together to primary school and even shared your swimming classes and joined the basketball after school club together when you were 10. When you were four years old, Harin would tell the kids at school that you were his girlfriend, and you still had a letter that he had written you on Valentine’s day when you were 6. Nevertheless, that had only been a children’s game, and things had changed a lot since then. Harin came up with the nickname “hermanita” at your Spanish class of eighth grade. It literally meant “sister”, and you never minded him calling you that, until your 14th birthday, when your fluttering heart made you realise that you were, indeed, very into him.

Since then, every time he called you his sister it felt like a cold breeze, and you had asked him to stop but couldn’t come up with a reason when he asked why. You were very stubborn, and even though you were open-minded for most things, you still thought that he should be the one to confess his love, not you, so you would never tell him that you didn’t want him to call you “sister” because you wanted him to call you “lover”.

As naïve as it may sound, you had a bit of hope; he had gone out with a couple of girls over the course of highschool, and it never lasted long. Harin would always complain of how clingy ad boring those girls were, not like you, who he always enjoyed to hang around with. When you asked him why he said yes to those girls if they were not his type, he would answer that he was waiting for the right girl to ask him out, but knew that It would take long so he tried to distract himself, and he also found it hard to reject them. You threw him a fit after he said that, because you thought it was very disrespectful for the girls, and he hadn’t dated anyone since then.

You told yourself you would just wait and try to give him small clues so he knew what was going on. Or at least that was before the day of the backpack incident, when everything changed.

—I think I’ve found her —Harin and you were walking down the street that led to your houses, and he told you this without looking into your eyes.

—Her? Her who? —you felt the mood change, but didn’t really understand why. Harin kept avoiding your eyes.

—Do you remember when I told you… I was waiting for the right girl?

—… yes?

You felt your mouth dry up and your heart beat faster and faster, was this happening for real?

—I went to a party last Saturday… and I met this girl called Lauren.

With nothing to say, you nodded and looked at the ground. Suddenly you noticed how childish you had been, thinking that all this time, you still had a chance of being that girl he had been waiting for.

—We just… we really clicked. It was like… I don’t know… she was really nice you know?

—Was she? That’s great —you were almost in front of your house— you know what? I have a lot of things to do for tomorrow, so I’ll leave first. —you gave him a quick smile, acting like nothing had happened, and walked away, but first you turned around and finally looked into his eyes— don’t you dare come after me in a couple of days complaining about her and asking for my support.

Harin looked a bit confused, since he really thought you would feel happy for him.

—I… won’t…

You shook your head and went inside. Without even greeting your father, who was cooking something in the kitchen, you went straight into your room and lay down on your bed. You tried to get rid of the frustration by shouting with your face pressed against your pillow, but it only made your disappointment grow. Did he really not see it? You were the one who had always been there for him, you were the one he had the most fun with, you two had cried, laughed, shouted and screamed together. You understood him as nobody else did, and he knew everything about you too; and the most important thing was, he knew it all and still he would always be by your side! In the best and worst moments, when you were totally wrong and made stupid decisions, when life had seemed to be just a big black hole: it had always been fine after all, because he was there to go through it all with you. And it was the same the other way around, you had always been there for him. So what was the problem? Did he just not find you attractive? But he had told you many times how pretty you were, and how only good guys deserved to be with you. Did he not consider himself good enough?

Your mind felt heavier and heavier, as a thousand thoughts crossed it at the same time. If he really saw the perfect girl in Lauren, then you would lose him forever. The tragedy of that thought made you cringe and feel like a teenager in a TV show. No. There had to be something you could do about it.

You took your phone and texted another one of your best friends, Giwook.

“my dear friend Giwook, I am feeling so lost in the middle of this sea, I don’t see any island in the skyline, I don’t see the sunlight, I only see sadness and despair”

“(y/n) dude are you okay”

“GIWOOK I JUST TOLD YOU I AM LOST HOW AM I OKAY”

“are you sure you didn’t eat anything rotten today”

“Giwook.”

“(y/n).”

“I am heartbroken”

Less than two seconds passed since the message was sent, but Giwook was already calling you.

—YOU ARE WHAT

—Oh my god Giwook, calm down, you are too nosy, seriously

—Tell me everything. Now.

—Okay so I’ve had the hugest crush on a boy for the last two years. And today… he told me that he has found his soulmate. What should I do Giwook

—Did Harin tell you about Lauren?

—…

—I swear, he doesn’t shut up about her, he’s so annoying

—Giwook you are making it worst

—SORRY. Okay. Listen here, not everything is lost

—Wait how did you know it was Harin

—I didn’t, I just guessed. DO YOU LIKE HARIN??

—Am I seriously so bad at sending him hints??

—Yes

—Does this mean he will never like me and we will never be together?

—No. I actually think it can perfectly work. The thing is, he doesn’t see you that way, because you have always been like a sister to him, and you have never actually dated another boy before, so he doesn’t want to go further with you. I mean, he probably thinks that, since you never date boys, he doesn’t have any opponents who are trying to take you from his side, so he is content with the current situation.

—Right

—SO the perfect way of making him change his mind is… faking a relationship

—sur- what?

—You heard me right. I think if you fake having a boyfriend, you will automatically look desirable and in danger of being taken away from him, so he will fight for you and try to gain you back.

—Do you really think so?

—Yes. And I have the perfect candidate. Dongmyeong still owes me a couple of things, so he will be very happy to help. Also, he wanted to prove his brother that he could get a girlfriend before Christmas, so this will be the perfect opportunity

—How am I going to act like Dongmyeong is my boyfriend?? He is like my son!

—You just have to hold hands and say things like “hey smooshypooshypie, do you want to eat cake with me later?”

—SHUT UP I’M SNEEZING BECAUSE OF THE CRINGE

—Hahahahaha, but it’s a good idea!

—Okay sure. Let’s try it out

—Yes! I can’t wait to see Harin’s face when he sees you with Dongmyeong.

As soon as you hung up, you regretted telling Giwook that it was a good idea. You had watched many movies where the girl tried to make the boy jealous so that he would fall for her, but you didn’t actually believe that it would work in real life. Moreover, what would you tell Harin afterwards? Were you supposed to “break up” with Dongmyeong?

As much as you wanted to go back time and make up your mind, it was already too late, and the next day just before classes started Dongmyeong texted you.

“Hi (y/n), Giwook told me about your secret plan”

“ahhhh Dongmyeong, listen, I won’t be mad at you if you don’t want to do this. I understand it, it’s okay. I will accept that Harin has another girl in his life, it’s not such a big deal”

“What do you mean not such a big deal, when I met you last year I thought you were dating! And I was so disappointed when Giwook told me you were just childhood friends… I’ve always expected one of you to speak up their feelings to the other”

“What feelings… Harin doesn’t have feelings for me Dongmyeong…”

“Yeah, whatever you say, stop being a drama queen. You have nothing to lose, anyway, so let’s just try it and see how it goes. You can always break up with me if it doesn’t go well… or, who knows, maybe we two will fall in love *wink*”

“eEWw. All right, I’ll stop complaining”

“Good”

“So let’s make it official”

“I’ll see you after class, babygirl”

“Don’t ever call me babygirl again Dongdongie”.

As promised, you met Dongmyeong in your 30-minute break and after a bit of chitchat and a few awkward breaks, you both decided it was time to tell the rest of your friends the news. You usually chilled by the bleachers with Giwook, Harin and two other friends, Yonghoon and Kanghyun, so there you went. As you approached the group next to your brand new not-fake-at-all boyfriend, you saw Harin turning around and lifting his arm to wave at you, but he immediately froze as he saw Dongmyeong taking your hand into his and giving you a quick peck on your cheek. You tried not to show any reaction, even though you were not expecting that, and just gave Dongmyeong a quick confused look, only to receive a wink back.

Giwook was the next one to notice you, and he greeted you joyfully.

—(y/n)! Dongmyeong! Hi!

The rest of them also said hi and told you about the last gossip that was going around. Harin kept looking at you and your interwined hands, but he wouldn’t say anything. Finally, Yonghoon noticed that too and interrupted Kanghyun in the middle of a sentence to ask you what was going on.

—Ehm… Guys… Dongmyeong and I are going out together.

Kanghyun looked at Giwook, surprised, and Yonghoon asked you to repeat that again. At first they didn’t get it, since you two were two very different people, but they quickly just congratulated both of you and changed the topic to a different one. However, Harin didn’t said anything at all.

The break ended, and you parted ways to go to your class. You met Hwanwoong there, who you shared the most of your classes with, and he asked you if the gossip that was going around about you and Dongmyeong was true, to which you replied that yes, it was.

That day, Dongmyeong walked you home, and even though you didn’t really need to fake it outside of school, you took the opportunity to get to know Dongmyeong a little bit better, and that way you got much more comfortable with each other (you were good friends before, but he was the last one who had joined your group of friends, so there were many things that you still didn’t know about him). You ended up lying again on your bed, but this time you were happy (you had been laughing for almost the whole way home) and, you couldn’t deny it, more hopeful than before, because you had noticed that Harin didn’t seem really happy since you had told them that you two were going out.

Nothing changed for the next week. You would go to school, walk around holding hands with Donmyeong and then go back home. But one day, while you were in your room after school writing down the chapters that you had to prepare for the following week, your phone lit up with a new message from Harin.

“(y/n), are you home?”

“yes! What is it?”

“Come down”

You looked at your screen, trying not to freak out. Was he already there? What did he mean come down?

You stood up and run towards the window, from where you could clearly see the silhouette of a boy next to your front door. He was there. With no time to waste, you looked into the mirror and tried to fix your hair as fast as you could, took a jacket and put on your shoes, and you were out of your room.

While walking down the stairs, you kept thinking about what you would tell him, wondering if he really was there for what you were thinking he was there for. He had never done something like that before, he would always text you first or just simply walk into your house, so it felt weird having him waiting for you outside like that. Taking a big breath, you opened the front door and walked outside.

—Hi, Harin.

You felt your shoulders drop and your heart ache when you looked into his face. He looked torn apart, more tired than you had ever seen him before.

—Harin, are you okay?? Was it Lauren? Did she do something to you? Just tell me and I’ll go and kick her ass.

—No, (y/n), it’s not about Lauren. We didn’t even go out, she had another boyfriend.

—Oh… is that it, then? Are you heartbroken?

—(y/n), I… I need to tell you this clearly. I don’t like seeing you with Dongmyeong.

—Wh… what…

—Ever since you told us you were his girlfriend… I just can’t stand it! Are you doing this to torture me? Because I know you too well, and I can’t believe you really are the couple you say you are

—Harin… why would I go out with Dongmyeong just to torture you?

—Are you blind? —Without noticing it, your voices have become louder and louder, so by this moment Harin was next to shouting. He took a second you collect himself and continued speaking— I just can’t understand how you could just… why would you go out with him having me by your side? Can’t you see that I’ve been waiting for you this whole time?

You couldn’t feel your face, or anything else. You had to remind yourself to keep breathing, to blink, to gulp.

—(y/n), the only reason I never told you about my feeling was because I thought you didn’t want a boyfriend, and I didn’t want to destroy the friendship that we’ve always had. But I thought it was clear that you are the person a care about the most in the world, and I never thought you would go out with another boy and leave me looking from the outside like this.

—How… how dare you say that, Harin? How do you think I felt every time you had a new girlfriend? How do you think the word “hermanita made me feel everytime it scaped you’re your lips”? How do you think I felt the moment you told me about Lauren? Why do you think I asked Dongmyeong to help me?

—So it was not true? You really did it to hurt me?

—Harin I didn’t do it to hurt you, I did it so you would finally notice me

You stared to each other’s eyes and Harin let a sigh out while he scratched his head.

—(y/n), there was no need to do that because I only have eyes for you

—Well, that’s not what it seemed, besides, it really worked. Would you have told me all of this if I hadn’t done it?

Again, none of you seemed to find the right words, and it took you by surprise when he suddenly took your hip between his arms and pulled you into his chest.

—(y/n), why didn’t you tell me that you liked me?

—Aren’t you a gentleman? Do you really know me as well as you say you do? How could I ever ask someone else out?

—But still… You should have said something.

You felt your cheeks burn, and your heart beat incredibly fast, as you said the words you never thought you would be able to say out loud.

—Harin, I like you. I’ve liked you for two years now. I like you, please stop thinking of me as your sister, I don’t want to be your sister.

With a smile flourishing in his face, Harin gave you a naughty look and spoke up half-jockingly.

—What do you want to be, then?

—Harin I already told you how I feel. I’m not saying that.

—What? You don’t want to be my girlfriend?

For a moment, you felt like a kid again and felt your eyes light up as you heard those words come out of his mouth.

—Harin! That’s not a proper way of asking a lady!

—Okay, jeez, okay.

He freed you from his hug and took your hands in his.

—(y/n)… do you want to be my girlfriend?

With the biggest smile on your face, you looked at him and finally let out the sigh of relief that you’d been keeping inside for too long.

—Yes, Harin, Yes.

[marril96]

The Distance Between Us

Chapter 11: Primadonna Girl

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Crowley gives you some surprisingly mature input on Rowena.

Editor: @cherrypierowena

The punch they served at the cafeteria tasted like shit, but you still gulped down the entirety of your plastic cup in one go before squeezing it into a ball and throwing it in the trash can — and missing by a good few inches.

Fuck it, you thought. There was trash all around anyway, cups and empty snack bags littering the hall.

Nobody cared. Not the teachers, and certainly not the students, plenty of whom were getting drunker by the minute. Cleaning ladies would lose their shit tomorrow morning.

Their problem.

Not yours.

You weren't even thirsty, especially not for the piss this school dared call punch. It just happened to be the first drink you'd laid your eyes on.

Maybe you should have taken Crowley up on his offer.

All you wanted was to get out of Lucifer's sight. To get away from him. To not be near him for even ten feet was way too close for your liking.

Hell, ten miles would have been way too close.

Lucifer Shurley was one of the few people you could proudly say you hated. He was a smug piece of shit who did nothing but cause trouble and get away with it because of daddy dearest's influence. Watching him from afar was one thing. To stand so close…

It made you remember things. Like his hand on your ass. Your fist in his face. His subsequent suspension, and your warning to report any future indiscretions rather than dealing with them on your own.

You hated him.

God, you hated him!

And Rowena dated him.

How she could get past everything he'd done (everything he was, no doubt, still doing), you couldn't comprehend. She seemed like someone who took shit from no one. She'd certainly showcased it. And yet she dated Lucifer without a qualm, without a single issue. Not only that, but she's fought to date him. Hard. Dirty. Walked over still bleeding corpses on her way over to him.

Your attitude towards her may have mellowed out, but you couldn't get past that. You never would, no matter how nice she was to you, how well she taught you.

Some things were unforgivable.

The girl made no sense to you. She was so strange, so… contradictory. There were so many things you didn't know about her. So many layers she'd wrapped herself in, so many secrets she'd buried deep inside.

Who was Rowena MacLeod?

Was she a heartless mean girl who willingly sought the company of bullies? Or was there more to her than met the eye, hidden depths you'd only begun to uncover?

"Crowley?" you asked, the music still blaring, so loud you could barely hear your own thoughts.

He turned to you, sneaking a sip of his whiskey. "What is it?"

"Could I ask you something?" You leaned against the wall beside him, glad you could hear him a bit better, and cleared your throat. "About Rowena."

He groaned. Took another quick sip of the liquor. "That whore and her pimp already ruined my night."

Well.

He wasn't wrong.

Chuckling, you said, "Has she always been a bitch?" He stared as if you'd just slapped him. You shrugged. "Just curious."

Another sip. "Believe it or not, she used to be tolerable."

You could tell it pained him to admit it. To admit there was a time when his sister wasn't cold and heartless. Did they use to be closer? Was there a time when they were as tight as Sam and Dean, when their bickering was loving rather than hateful and they smiled — happily — in each other's presence?

You raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes," Crowley said with a nod. "She used to do ballet. She ever tell you that? She'd often dance around the house. Be a nuisance, but not… mean."

"I saw the shoes once," you said. "That when she was a kid?"

"Up until we moved."

The end of eighth grade.

Before high school.

Before America.

"Mother wanted to sign her up for lessons here, but all of a sudden ballet was 'boring' and 'for children.'" He rolled his eyes. "She's been a bitch ever since."

So it was a lie.

Not a big surprise — if anything, you expected it — but you were still baffled. Why lie about something like that? It was just ballet. A hobby. An art.

Why would someone try so hard to hide something good all the while proudly putting the bad out in the open?

"Was she close with your dad?" you asked as delicately as you could. Other than to complain about Rowena, Crowley rarely talked about his family. He never mentioned his father.

"No," he said. "The bastard's always been absent. Him scramming was more of a question of when than why."

"Could've still affected her."

He snorted. Gave a small laugh as he drank some more of his whiskey. "That would've required some sort of relationship with him. Trust me, love, our father leaving left no scars on her delicate heart. If she still has one."

You weren't so sure. Parents, even absent ones, leaving could affect people in all sorts of ways. Seeing someone once in a while was one thing. Them leaving, never to appear in your life again, was something completely different.

Rowena's meanness could be a coping mechanism.

Which wasn't an excuse, but it did help you understand her — or try to, at least. There were still so many mysteries about the puzzle that was Rowena MacLeod. Some you were certain you'd never uncover.

Didn't mean you couldn't try.

You wanted to understand her. Wanted to see what made her tick. Wanted to know why she was so nice to you when she didn't give a damn about anyone at school.

She was an enigma, and you would solve it. No matter the cost.

You had always loved a project.

"Did she always hang out with assholes?" you asked, testing a different angle. Maybe Crowley was right — maybe their dad leaving left no trace, and instead the reason for her shift in personality, for the monster she'd become, lied elsewhere.

"She barely hung out with anyone."

Interesting.

"Was she bullied?"

"Possibly. She'd get ridiculed from time to time, but I don't know if it ever got to her 'friends'' level."

His words dripped with sarcasm, but his tone was firm, almost protective. Made it clear that, even though he hated his sister, if he'd found out she'd been bullied, that she'd been harassed and laughed at like Lucifer and Olivette's victims, there would have been blood. And possibly heads being thrown around, ripped straight from the offenders' shoulders.

The MacLeod siblings were weird like that.

"Moving to America fulfilled her dreams of being an absolute bitch," Crowley said. "Probably got inspired by those bloody awful movies. Surprised she hadn't tried out to be a cheerleader."

You chuckled. Rowena totally fit the stereotype. Mean, smug, surrounded by bullies — the only thing missing was a short skirt and pompoms.

Maybe she didn't want to be a one hundred percent stereotype. Changed things up a bit. Instead of cheering, she aced tests and tutored loser girls.

"Anyway," Crowley said as he finished his flask and put it back into his pocket, hand instantly clasping over a new one, "she made her choices. I'm not losing sleep over it. And neither should you."

You stared at him. Blinked.

"Don't overthink it," he told you. "She gave her last remnants of humanity up for popularity. Whatever it is you think you see, it's not there."

"I don't—"

His raised eyebrow cut you off.

Guilty as charged.

For all his dramatics, Crowley wasn't as oblivious as you thought.

You sighed. "She fascinates me."

That made him laugh. "She's a fascinating creature. But a nasty one. Like I told you, she pretends to be nice, cozies up, then digs the claws in. If she's being nice, it's because she's using you."

Made sense.

Except…

"Why would she use me? I have nothing she'd want. I'm not popular. I suck at school. I have like three friends in total."

Neither were you rich. Nor had influence or connections of any kind.

What could she possibly be using you for?

"There's always something."

Maybe so.

But what?

And why?

"I have to go to the bathroom," you said suddenly.

You needed to be alone for a bit. Needed to process everything he'd said, everything you'd learned about the mean girl who lately didn't seem so mean anymore. Were you wrong? Had she tricked you?

Was she really using you?

"Need a chaperone?" Crowley asked with a wry smirk.

"I think I'll be fine," you said in your most deadpan tone. "Wait here."

His hands shot up in a defensive manner. "You know I'm all yours, kitten."

"I'm flattered."

In all honesty, you were grateful. With all your other friends scattered around, you were glad you had Crowley with you. You weren't a people person, especially the loud-music-and-crowds kind. You would've left ages ago if left completely alone.

It took some pushing and shoving, but you finally found your way to the bathroom hall. Thankfully, not many people roamed around here; the main hall was the heart of the party, a magnet pulling everyone in and away from the rest of the school.

The air was stale, but you were able to breathe easier. No bodies pressing against you. No elbows shoving into you and knees whacking into your own. Just you and empty space. Lots and lots of empty space.

Heaven, you'd call it.

A rush of heels clicked towards you, and you looked up. A smile instinctively spread over your mouth at the sight of Rowena.

Then you took in the state she was in and it vanished in a heartbeat.

Her hair was a mess. Her face, pale, beautiful, was red, eyes swollen with tears that spilled from them like a never-ending downpour.

Your heart clenched with worry.

"Rowena?" you said gently. "What happened?"

She forced on a smile. "Nothing."

You raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Yes, nothing!" she exclaimed.

You flinched.

She sighed, apologetic. "Leave me alone, okay? I'm not in the mood."

She was distressed. Hurt. How could you ignore that?

So you asked the old stupid question, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said with a touch of sarcasm. "I am."

"You don't look okay."

She glared daggers at you. Threatened painful and bloody murder. "Mind your bloody business, Y/N!"

Her words were like a whip; sharp, painful, furious. She rushed past you before you could utter a response. Before you could compose yourself and offer up a reaction to her outburst.

No apology.

No regret.

Not even a wounded puppy stare.

She was just gone.

Tears rushed into your eyes, prickled at them with demands of falling free. Your heart ached. Your teeth clenched, fists following suit.

Maybe Crowley was right.

Maybe she was using you.

And whatever she was doing it for, it wasn't enough for her to even pretend to be your friend.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @gaysnakess @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a @tasyahilker @a-queen-and-her-throne

[fan-dumb-trash]

For your consideration: Remile Friends-to-Lovers featuring highschool theater shenanigans and self growth

Part Two Sis Part Three Part Four

Remy and Emile are friends, best friends in fact, but fate has a couple tricks up her sleeve to tear them apart, only to bring them back again. 

This got longer than expected but theres more to the story after this oh yes indeed so buckle up cause part two is gonna be typed tomorrow when it isnt one in the morning so HERE YA GO @happiness-is-regret

Warnings: Divorce, parents fighting, mild panic attack, self depreciation, if there's more let me know!

So its seventh grade aka awkward central because puberty and acne and awkwardness and it's just awful all around and theres lil Remy who is NOT confident at all by anyone's standards

His parents argue a lot and he learned staying quiet is the best way not to get involved or yelled at in the crossfire so yeah

And then you got Emilie who kinda knows what's goin on but not really. He wears tie dye shirts and aviator glasses sometimes until he had to get actual frames over the summer but it was no big cause he was used to glasses anyways

But Emilie is wiser than the other kids and thinks cliques are stupid and he just loves cartoons and english okay stop teasing him for being a lil bit awkward okay STOp

But yeah he doesn't get friends easy and he tries to squirm in other friend groups but it doesn't feel right. Until Remy. Who is incredibly shy believe it or not! They have no classes together but somehow Remy mustered the courage to compliment Emilies pink hair and BOOM FRIENDSHIP

They eat lunch together. Some days it's in comfortable silence and other times its complaining about teachers or PE miles or this brat kid who vandalized a bathroom stall

And Remy starts warming up and realizing maybe the whole world isn't against him. Just because his home is a literal war zone doesn't mean being friends with Emile is doomed.

At the end of seventh grade the duos lunchtime friendship is going great! Emile is starting to get into cartoons and their convos are “OMG OKAY SO VOLTRON SEASON 2 IS OUT AND IM SCARED REMY I WANT TO CRY FOR MY SPACE CHILDREN ZARKON CAN YEET HIMSELF OFF A CLIFF AND-” “Woah their Em, slow it down sis”

As Remy gets more comfortable there is more teasing and nicknames and laughing but they dont hug and Emile isn't super affectionate but hugs are a thing for friends right???

One day on a weekend it's pretty bad for Remy at home. His parents are yelling and its loud and his breathings picking up and his eyes are shut and he's crying because is it his fault??? Why can't they stop stop stop STOP!

And he has to get out because he cant take it hearing they two people who he loves most fight with each other when they are supposed to love each other and his little brother Janus is sleeping thank god but he needs OUT right fucking now

So he hops out his window and runs. Two houses down and around the corner there's an open field that should probably have a house or a park but low income neighborhoods be like that sometimes ya know?

He runs in the field but then there's trees and a little path but wheres the end and the sun is setting now so he sits and looks at the sky and cries

Emile likes his peace and quiet. Hes and only child but his house gets cluttered with his parents (DOT AND LARRY FITE ME) and their thespian friends on the weekends especially around showtime and tec week so he walks in the field.

So when he comes across Remy he screeches and cusses and they're both apologizing and it's a mess but wait was Remy crying?!?!

So Emile is concerned and sits him back down and they talk. Remy says his parents are probably going to get a divorce and how they've been fighting and all that and Emile starts to understand why he's so sheltered

Remy's crying again so Emile asks “Hey, You can say no but can i hug you?” And Remy nods so they hug and they melt right into itm and they stay there for a while and watch the sunset.

From then on they are attached to the hip. Nothing can separate them. Emile invites Remy over for dinner and out to see his parents shows at the community theater and its fun! Remy kinda gets to be a kid and he has sas now! He sees its okay to be a bit absurd with Larry and how jokes are fine with Dot.

The boys are in the field again after dinner and Emile is talking about Dot and Larry, and Remy cant help but be envious. They're all so happy and perfect and he’ll never get that. He goes home and the glitter fades and he sleeps with music to drown out the shouting but its still there.

Remy says “I wish my parents were like yours. I wish I had that. It's not fucking fair Em”

Emile says “I wish I knew how to help… but I can't. All I can do is offer you a slice of normal and hope you aren't allergic” To which they both laugh. But the insecurity sticks. Remy wonders if he's just going to mess things up later or if him and Emile stop being friends what will happen

And it haunts him. Its summer and his parents get a divorce, but the yelling in person is replaced with battles in court and over text. He has to go to mediation a couple times and Emile is there the next day with icecream and steven universe

Emile starts to notice things. The way Remy's eyes are filled with fire as he banters with Larry or when he rants about things he's passionate about. The way he runs so fast in field like nothing can catch him not even the wind itself. The way his whole face glows when he laughs or how when it's silent with them and the sky, he closes his eyes and hums a song he doesn't know.

And he realizes he's in love and he's so scared because Remy doesn't need romance he needs stability. His world is crumbling and he needs his best friend. And Emilie hides it and surprises himself. Remy doesn't notice the way Emiles hugs last longer or the way he sighs as he walks away. He doesn't notice the stars. His mind is on other things. Remy doesn't have time to feel the same or explore feelings so he doesn't.

Eighth grade things go as normal. Emile is still hopelessly in love. Some nights he cries and some nights he thinks his feelings are finally gone. Some nights Remy sleeps over and they sneak into his moms room and but on stage makeup.

Emile almost kissed him when Remy made him a Jake and Finn card for his birthday. And it was hella cute and cheesy and had “love u babe” on the inside and “happy birthday, bitch” on it and it was classic.

But yeah he totally wasn't disappointed it wasn't Bubbline on the card what???

But then things just… stopped.

Remy stopped going to the field on weekends. He was busy when Emilie wanted to hang out. Em was worried at first that something was wrong at home and that he was lying until he saw Remy around at school with other kids. He was growing his hair out and had a leather jacket and when Emile said hi Remy smiled tight, nodded, and continued to talk to his new friends.

Then he noticed how they were the kids who liked sports or girls or always laughed loud in the cafeteria. He noticed how Remy's sass grew into straight up ego and how his confidence wasn't just with Emile it was with EVERYONE

People waved to him as he walked by. Everyone was “babe” “hun” “sweetie” and “sister” and Emilie felt less special.

And not Eighth Grade was nearly over and Emilie had lost his best friend to the rest of the world. Yes he was happy that Remy was confident and Yes he was happy he made new friends.

But back when Remy needed him, back when they dazzling smile was meant for him, back when the problems were so big you needed two people not just yourself- Emilie could hang on to Remy

But now that Remy didn't need him, he was left for trash. Emilie was heartbroken. He swore to himself he wouldn't let another boy break his heart to the point where cartoons couldn't even cheer him up. He cried when Ruby and Sapphire got married and when Bubbline kicked ass and he prayed for the day when he would have that.

Summer was torture and he never saw Remy in the field. Little did he know Remy was there, just in the trees or wandering at nights when his mom came home yelling and cussing. Emile thought the pain of the divorce was over when Remy was going to court once every 6 months and to family counseling weekly but did it help? No.

Highschool came and Remy climbed to social ladder. He hid the bags under his eyes with sunglasses and kept his pep and sass with starbucks coffee. Combat boots to make him taller.

And Emilie was still alone until Patton came along with Roman. They sat together and then Logan and Virgil joined. Sloane and Corbin who are juniors swung on by. Kai and Elliot would join them the next year and together they became the theatre troupe.

Emilie felt whole with this diverse group of many passions and interests and he couldn't help but smile more. He didn't feel so alone. But part of him still longed for that old friendship he has lost- but there was enough going on to forget it.

Emilie didn't notice Remy staring at him with his fiery eyes when his own friend group were so loud they didn't pay him mind. Remy started to see how the tie die pink haired boy grew up and moved his children with dignity and didn't take their tomfoolery. He saw how he would catch conflicts and mediate them. He saw his goofiness shine through all his actions. And he started to care for this new Emile, but also remember when it was just the two of them. New thoughts lead Remy to think it was him holding Emile back from this all along.

He began to think Emilie was better off without him dragging him down with his million problems. So he too began to embrace to noise and forget.

Next it was Sophomore year when the universe threw them back at each other...

[love-loser]

cocky student tony x professor peter moved here for mobile users

Even though college was a volatile time for many, this whole higher education thing was going pretty well for Peter. Granted, he’s the one teaching the class, but still, pretty good seeing as see he was so young (25) and oh so (very) endearing, both of which helped him get along with his students.

Well, most of his students.

He never knew just how much one person could annoy him but walking into class, seeing that stupid smirk on the younger boy’s smirk, just made his coffee taste that much bitter, the junior never failing to make his day just a bit shitty, somehow.

Even more- he’d always managed to somehow know the material even though Peter was sure he was either sleeping or on his phone half the time. The Engineering professor could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d seen the brunette actually take notes. And it was already halfway into the semester. It hadn’t even caught Tony off guard when he tried to call on the boy.

What he hated the most, though, was the way Tony’s stupid, stupid, intense, dusky eyes always seemed to undress him everytime he walked into the room. The way his hands made his excessively big iPhone look tiny when he wrapped his capable fingers around it and- not to mention those same fingers that rubbed against his lips as he blatantly checked his own professor out, in class, no less. Did kids these days have no manners?

Yes, maybe Peter was exaggerating just a tiny bit–– it’s not like Tony tormented him everyday or openly harassed him, but it’s the principle of it, see. In Peter’s mind, he only has one goal when it comes to Tony Stark, aka (surprisingly) straight A student, aka genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist most annoying boy on campus.

And that goal: To put him in his place.

Peter can’t imagine what it’ll be like for the student when he gets to senior year in just half a semester–– in fact, even the very thought of Tony treating any of his teachers this way (or anyone) sends the assistant professor’s matchbox heart into insistent, restless flames.

(He chalks it up to just pure concern for his student.) Not jealousy.

Peter even writes up a list between inputting scantron grades, of why exactly he hates Tony’s guts.

Eloquently, he titles it, ❌ Tony Stark ❌.

1. Taller than me by an inch 1.5 cm.

2. Somehow knows my favourite breakfast from panera bread.

3. Always borrows notes from other people when he’s absent EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS I HAVE COPIES BY MY DESK!

4. Wears those stupid glasses all the time.

5. Spends an average of 6 minutes after class just cleaning up, making me WAIT

6. Never pays attention in class but always sets the curves on tests.

7. Always flirts with other people outside the hall before class. (distracting!)

8.

On the eighth, Peter’s mind draws a blank. He’d thought that he could go on and on when given the chance, but maybe now isn’t the time- after all, he does only have 2 braincells left after mindlessly typing in scores.

It’s about 5:43 pm now, which probably means he should go after entering this last girl’s score and-

Done. Rarely do other professors ever stay this late, but Peter isn’t really in the mood to stick around and see. He grabs his trusty bullet journal- the one he proudly spent 2 and a half hours on in the beginning on the year, and also the one he just slandered Tony in, which, speaking of the devil- Shitshitshit, avoid him before he annoys you, Pete. It turns out his stiff, minecraft esque speedwalking in the other direction still isn’t enough to deter Tony, who looks up from his phone and calls out a nonchalant, “Hey, Mr. Parker!” Peteralmost scoffs at the sheer level of disrespect in that one line- how dare he? Who does he think he is?! At least, that’s what he sputters mentally.

Physically, the brunet is ready to embrace a thousand year nap.

Peter mentally debates whether or not to stop and give Tony the time of day, his aforementioned 2 brain cells bantering back and forth before, eventually, Tony just decides he will have a conversation with Peter, whether he likes it or not. “Hey, earth to Mister,” Tony says, suddenly in front of his face, dangerously close.

“Hi, Tony. You do know my first name isn’t mister, right? And you should be calling me Professor.” Peter says, voice scolding. “Okay, then, professor,” Tony says, though Peter knows he won’t really listen to him, “What’re you doing so late? Isn’t it past your bedtime? You need sleep to grow taller.” Well- okay, this is getting ridiculous.

“That’s no way you should be talking to your elders, much less your lecturer, Tony,” Peter reprimands, starting to walk again. Hopefully, he’ll be left alone now. Unsurprisingly, and to Peter’s horror, Tony only starts striding backwards easily, as if he’d grown up learning how to walk that way. “But you’re so young. You barely look like my elder, much less a teacher,” Tony’s eyes flicker down, then drag back up, and Peter tries not to flush at this. “That’s not to say you don’t look good, though, the opposite, really.”

Peter only scoffs at this, round eyes rolling in disbelief, a warm tinge to his cheeks to top it all off. He stops abruptly, ego puffing just a bit when Tony stumbles.

“Actually, why don’t we talk about that, Tony?” He stops just to mentally imprint Tony’s somewhat panicked expression, before continuing with an adamant, “I’ve seen the way you act in class- the way you look at me,” which sounds much more scandalous than it should be.

Peter’s voice lowers to a hush, registering that they’re still in a school building, where anyone could be listening. Trust no one, not even yourself.

“It’s not appropriate. I’m not some romantic interest for you to try to indulge in, and I’d much rather you put some of that attention to the lecture’s material instead.”

A moment passes by, then two, and Peter is still staring Tony straight in the eyes, his own hard with determination, brows furrowed.

After a pregnant pause, the student clears his throat.

“Do you wanna be?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, yeah, you’re cute professor,” Tony admits shamelessly, “Why don’t you just give me a bit of a chance? I’m not that bad, I’m actually very great.” “That’s exactly what a bad person would say,” Peter points out.

“Let me prove that I’m not, then,” Tony says. Then, his phone dings, “Well, I have to go. But I mean it, mister! Bye,” And with that, Tony bids him goodbye with a wave and a blown kiss.

Peter shudders.

Yuck.

-

What is not so yuck, though, is the next morning, is when Peter gets in at approximately 8:30 am. There’s a still toasty croissant on his desk, with a orange post it note.  

Hope you enjoy this. I was late bc i was picking it up so i just decided to skip for the whole day- TS<3 xoxo

Peter, infuriatingly, knows exactly who wrote the note, and couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. He’d been doing that alot lately. ‘Late picking it up so he just decided to skip the whole day over a croissant, are you kidding me,’ Peter doesn’t bother actually protesting against the innocent pastry, though, instead setting his bag down and taking it out of the pastry bag. He recognises the label- it’s from the campus coffee shop. Tony was late to class picking up food from an establishment on campus.

The kid’s gotta have a demerit, or something, because that might be going just a little too far, even for him. It’s like being late to a party you’re already at, but leave it to Tony Stark to somehow find a way.

Well, that’s too bad. There was suddenly going to be a pop quiz today.

-

Peter, later, finds that he has to reach deep inside himself to not literally slap the living shit out of Tony’s face when the boy opens the door to his lecture hall as the professor is packing up later that day.

“So you are here,” is what he says instead, eyes narrowed accusingly. He still doesn’t get why Peter doesn’t just come to class if he’s already there- are his lessons really that bad?  

“Indeed I am,” is the answer that comes, infuriatingly nonchalant. “Miss me?”

“Never,” He huffs, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Did you at least like the breakfast I got you?”

Hell yes. “No. What would be better, Stark, is if you actually attended class while you were on campus.” Then, he adds in without thought, “Especially mine.” There’s a beat of silence, the words not quite sinking in for the professor yet- it’s a different story for Tony, though. “Especially yours?” Tony asks with a grin, and the tone in his voice makes Peter immediately regret whatever he said to induce said piece of shit’s intonation. “Yes. Is there a problem?” One strong brow raises in inquiry.

“Not at all,” Tony’s stupid smile only widens, “The opposite, really.”

[phantumpoftheopera]

Having a “gifted” sibling really sucks

Apologies for the length of this, but it's something that I've struggled with voicing for a while now.

I see posts all the time about how hard it is for "gifted" kids and of course there are plenty of studies about how hard school is for students who struggle academically as well, but you know what I never see?

Posts about how hard it is for the siblings of "gifted" kids.

I wonder why that is, honestly. And it bothers me, as a sibling of a former gifted kid. And here's why.

When I was a kid, I was "smart." I knew I was. I was a little full of myself, probably. My brother and I were both praised for our intelligence by family members all the time.

But something changed when I was entering fourth grade (he was entering second).

See, his first grade class had done some testing to see if any of them qualified as "gifted and talented" enough to qualify to go to the new magnet program at a different school the next year. He was one of the three in his class who got in.

And I was jealous. And once I found out I could also take the test to see if I could get in, I wanted to. I begged my mom to let me take the test. And she did. And I did not get in.

I was not "gifted" enough.

And so then, at the age of 8 (because I had not yet turned 9), I realized the difference between me and my brother. And I was jealous. And that jealousy would haunt me for a long time, and yes, continues to this day.

When he had to leave the magnet program at the end of second grade, partly because he missed his old friends, but mostly because the teacher required all assignments to be printed from a computer, which was hard for us as a family that did not own a computer until I was in middle school, I was happy. I felt guilty about it but I was happy, because it meant he was no longer "special." He was the same as me.

But he wasn't. Not really. And as years went on, not being gifted like he was hurt more and more.

Like most gifted students who aren't challenged enough academically, he slacked off. His grades were bad because he wouldn't do homework. It was a waste of time to him. He would finish assignments in class and then read a book the rest of the class instead of finding something else to do. You know, the typical gifted child burnout stuff.

Our grades were pretty similar. I did my homework more, paid more attention in class. I got mostly A's in my classes throughout elementary school. And I got praised for it. Even when I didn't get an A, it was okay because I was doing things to the best of my ability. But when he got a B, he wasn't living up to his potential.

It wasn't an intentional slight against me. My parents didn't really know what they were subconsciously teaching me. Until recently, I didn't consciously think about it either. But I learned that no matter what I did, he would always be better. My former teachers praised his abilities in ways they never praised mine, always with the caveat that he would be so successful if he just applied himself more.

Middle school came. For the first time, I almost failed a grade. A lot of things contributed to that, mostly unrelated to any of this and a lot to do with switching schools midway through the year and being bullied. My parents actually paid attention. For once, I got the "not living up to my potential" speech. This continued into seventh grade, back at my old middle school, because I had fallen into a habit of not doing homework because if my brother didn't have to, why should I? We were still in different schools. He was still in fifth grade at this point.

Then in eighth grade, suddenly, we were in the same school and I had to try again. I had to be better. Only now, I was behind. I had been "smart" before. I was still in honors classes. But now I didn't know how to study. I didn't know how to take notes. I hadn't bothered learning any of that before. And while my grades improved, I had unknowingly sent myself into a spiral I couldn't escape.

After two years of horrible grades (I actually failed math in sixth and seventh grade), the fact I was now getting Bs and Cs was enough to please my parents. An A made them ecstatic. But we were back to the old days of my grades being "the best you could do" and "at least you tried" while my brother's similar grades were "not applying himself" and "laziness."

Deep down I wanted to shout at them, to tell them that this was NOT the best I could do! I didn't try at all! But there was a lot of other stuff going on at home and it was my job to be as accommodating as possible and not act out in any way.

Instead, I wanted to prove myself, to them and to myself, and start fresh in high school. For the first time since my first term in sixth grade, I had straight As again in my freshman year. I could do it. I was finally the "smarter" kid.

But my brother still got the academic attention. My mom started asking me to type up my brother's papers for him if he dictated them. I liked writing, so of course I would agree. She acknowledged it wasn't fair to ask that of me, but I did it anyway. But God, I resented myself for agreeing.

Tenth grade was okay, I think. I had an English teacher I hated and my stubbornness won out, earning me a C in both English and Journalism that year (he taught both classes) but overall I did well.

And the rest of high school, well...I didn't really attend classes much. A lot of factors went into that. And I didn't do my homework as often as I should have. But it wasn't because of my brother by this point. I just didn't expect to live past 18 anyway or go to college, so what was the point? I have a lot of regrets about those two years, especially regarding college, but...well...it's in the past.

And college was a struggle too, since I never learned to study or take notes or manage my time. It's still a struggle, even now, after I somehow finished undergrad and am a grad student. I still can't take notes well. A lot of it is mental illness, because I mean...depression makes doing assignments very very difficult most days. But a lot is also this sense of inferiority, that there's no point since I'll never be smart enough.

I know it's not true. Intelligence does not determine your value. Being good at something or not does not determine your worth. But living your life always comparing yourself to a sibling (in my case, a younger sibling especially) who gets praised for things you thought you were good at when he doesn't even put any effort in (a college professor we shared praised an essay he wrote that he barely tried on, he got a better score on the writing section of the SAT, etc.) is discouraging. I know now that comparing yourself to someone else, even a sibling, is unfair to yourself and that person, but it's a habit that's hard to break.

Basically, I wish people would pay attention more to how hard it is for the "ungifted" child, the one who is smart but not "smart enough" to get special attention. It's so easy for those kids to get swallowed up without anyone ever noticing or caring because all the attention is given to those who shine the brightest.

[jmschrpp-blog]

Alphabet Project

A- Alphabet

I was in Kindergarten when I learned how to use the Alphabet. I was in K-A  and our classroom had the letters on the walls. In class, we were given workbooks each about different letters. We would read, write, and color in these books. After working on each section, our teacher would review the letter with us and we would take a quiz. At the time, these quizzes seemed very difficult and impossible. We were required to write the lower case, upper case, and a word with the letter.  This went on for months and months and at the end of the year it got extremely difficult. When we finished the whole alphabet, we had to take a test. Our test was we had to write our whole first and last name, to prove that we learned the whole alphabet. This is not hard now, but being a six year old and barely being able to hold up a pencil, this was not easy. Everyone in the class were shaking in their seats and we were scared. Little did we know that we had the best teacher in Kindergarten hall and she taught us everything we needed to know. After completing our test and getting good grades, our teacher awarded us with candy.

B- The Boy in  the Stripped Pajamas

I first heard about this novel when I was in fourth grade. I watched the movie and felt as if I connected with each of the characters. After creating that bond, I could not stop there. I decided to go out and rent the book from my school library. I was so excited to reconnect with the characters in the book and immediately went and found a bean bag. I cracked the book open and started reading. During middle school, we had a break between classes and I would always go read in the library. I would also go scarf down food in the cafeteria then run to the library and start reading again. This was the first book that I had ever wanted to read, because I loved the movie so much. This was also the first book that I read that I felt like the characters were telling their story, and not just the author. This book spoke to me and will forever be one of my favorite books.

C- Crucible

In tenth grade, I had to read the Crucible. Nobody in the class was excited, because we had heard from our older friends, that the book is terrible and the tests were hard. Our teacher required us to finish so many pages and then take a quiz over what we read the next day. I had no problem doing that, but I like to enjoy a book and not just read because I have a test the next day. When I am reading a book, I like to try to cope with the characters as much as possible. I am trying to learn what is going on and why is that happening. Anyway, we had to read huge chunks of this book at a time and I would always fail our quizzes. Due to many of my fellow classmates just smooping or reading spark notes. Our teacher had to make our quizzes very detailed and very difficult. This book a lone dropped my English grade down to a C and I was never able to bring it back up. I hate this book for this very reason.

D-Doctor Seuss

When I was a young boy I enjoyed my Doctor Seuss books, especially The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. I would constantly run to my mom yelling "Mom, Mom, Mom, can you read me Doctor Seuss". She always knew which books I wanted to read and which ones were my favorite. She would always say "Of course honey, I will be up stairs in a minute". I would then sprint up the stairs and already have my favorite book sitting my my side. For some reason these books just never got old to me. I loved these books with a passion and even tried to read them on my own. This was not the best of ideas, I did not really understand what was going on. The only thing I understood were the pictures, I knew what was going on because my mom had read to me over and over. These were my two books that sparked my reading career and I loved these books so much as a young boy.

E- Eighth Grade

In Eighth grade, I had a terrible teacher. We read two books by the same writer. I'm sure everyone has heard of him. His name is Mark Twain. My teacher was so in love with him and his books. She would constantly show us pictures and tell us about how she went and visited his town. Everyone in the school dreaded going to her class, because we knew it would be about the same thing and about her love for him. The first book we read in the class was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I enjoyed reading this book, until I looked at her syllabus and saw we were started Huckleberry Finn right after. I knew what this meant, more lectures about him. When we were finally done with all the Mark Twain lectures and books, it was finally time for her exam and of course I Christmas Treed it and ran straight out of that classroom.

F-Frankenstein

During my senior year of high school, I was required to read the book Frankenstein and write a research paper on it. The book was not long and it was not boring, but of course my classmates were so lazy that they just read Sparknotes right before the quiz. My teacher soon caught onto them and decided she needed to make the quizzes extremely detailed and then that class got real. We walk into our first "real" quiz and of course my classmates go onto spark notes and start reading. As soon as the bell rang my teacher got up and started passing the quizzes out. I figured I would be fine because I liked the book and read it the night before, then I read number one. Number one asked, "When Frankenstein was peering through the window what color were his eyes". I read that question and froze, because I could not even remember. I read through the rest of the quiz and the same thought went through my head. I decided to just use my best judgement and guess on the questions. My teacher soon came around and picked up our quizzes. To my astonishment nobody around me knew the answers either. My teacher soon came around and gave us back our quizzes and the average grade was a two out of five. She then said that we should start taking notes on the reading and take her quizzes seriously. In the end, I still failed every quiz on Frankenstein for the next three weeks.

G- Grades

During my school career, I have been pretty good at English. I could do all the fundamentals, but when it came to writing I was not all that great. I always spend so much time writing and try my hardest and my papers come back looking like my teacher gave her child it to color on. I never could figure out why it was so bad or why it makes no sense when I wrote it and rewrote it one-hundred times. My teachers in high school typically made us rewrite a paper if it made under a sixty-five and I think I had to do that just about every time. I would work so hard and use my teachers tips and then get my paper back. My paper usually looked just about the same, but I made about a seventy.

H- Huckleberry Finn

I have already stated in this project that I now hate Mark Twain. I think I know every place he has been, every comet he has seen, and even the meaning behind his name. Anyway, after reading his book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I felt as if I could relate to his book. I grew up in the small town Marion Arkansas. I am about five minutes away from the Mississippi River and cross it about everyday. I have always hung out with my buddies Max and Layton that live just down the street from me. When I was younger, me and my friends used to take the boat out and launch it in a small river behind his house. We used to just float up and down the river all day fishing and swimming. We also used to camp out in fields around our houses on long weekends and wake up in the morning and duck hunt somewhere nearby. This is how I related to Huckleberry Finn.

I-Intelligent

I like to think of myself as an intelligent and bright guy. Through middle school and high school I typically had good grades. My teachers also always said that I was intelligent, normally when they hand me something back and said I made a bad grade and should have done better, because I was smarter than that. Anyway, the only times teachers ever complemented my brain power was when I failed, and my parents normally did the same. Whenever I do something wrong or something just flat out stupid, they hit me with the same old thing. They always like to say "You are way smarter than that" or "Why did you do that, you know better. I know you are smarter than this". I normally am shocked but just take the smart part as a complement. Anyway, thats how I know I'm intelligent.

J-Jungle Book

This was my favorite book I had to read in high school. I'm an outdoorsy guy and love animals. At the beginning of the year when I saw we were reading it, I was so excited. I knew this was going to be the book I wrote my research paper on. This was my first big essay of senior year and I was surprised at how excited I was to write it. I think it was mostly because I knew after that paper, I was halfway done with research papers in high school. The other half of me was ready to crack this book open and start reading it. I loved the movie so much and honestly loved the book even more. It was my favorite book I read in all of high school.

K- Kindergarten

Kindergarten was the year, that my academic career started. I remember sitting at my table with my new friends, and trying to read the letters on the walls. We had the whole alphabet a long the walls and shelves full of books for us to read. My favorite part of kindergarten was not the reading though, it was defiantly the parachute. Me and my buddies, were the trouble makers and probably are still considered that today. We always would wait for everyone to lift it up and then we would run to the other side and take our other friend's spot. My teachers would yell at us every time we did that and we normally went home with a yellow card every day. My other favorite thing to do, was when we used to get cans of shaving cream and cover our tables in it. Our teachers let us do this, when we were working on writing out new letters in the alphabet. We would do this about once a week, when we were moving onto a new letter in the alphabet and everyone loved doing it.

L- Let Down

During school, I defiantly had my share of ups and downs. I made good grades and I made bad grades, I made good decisions and I made bad decisions. High school for me was defiantly full of trial and error. I always felt like I was a let down, when I came home with a test and my parents see that I failed it. They always would yell at me and then tell me that I should have studied more. They would always make me study extremely hard on the next chapter test for that class, even if its a Saturday night and I don't have the test for two weeks. I also felt like a let down when I expected that I did good on a paper, then I get it back and the guy next to me made an A and I have "see me after class" across the top. Seeing that is always worse than an F, this to me usually means that you got such a low grade that the teacher wants to give you points to get a higher F.

M- Mother

Throughout school my mom has always been there to check up on my English papers. She is extremely good at writing and has actually started writing her own children book. She seems to always know what my papers are missing or what needs to be corrected, even if she has never read the book. My mom actually used to be one of my teachers and had the opportunity to teach my brother and I. This was at a very early stage in my school career, but I find that very interesting. She has always been very good with every subject, but math. She was my English tutor when I needed her most and I appreciate everything she has ever done for me.

N-New School

After my sophomore year I decided to transfer to Briarcrest. This was not for any other reason than I wanted to further my baseball career. My goal was to play college baseball and to keep playing for as long as possible. Of course this never happened. What I found when I transferred though is that I actually began to enjoy school. I made better grades and has closer friends. I found that having good teachers made my school life very enjoyable. My English teacher was by far my favorite teacher. I had the opportunity to have her for two years and I became very good friends with her. Her class was very difficult, but she understood that and took extra time out of class to help us out. She even would stay after school for two hours, so we could get help or just talk to her about any troubles we may be having. She was a great teacher, and even will shoot us a text from time to time telling us that she misses us and hopes we are enjoying college. I like to drop in from time to time and say hello to her and socialize with some of my younger friends. My English teacher was a great teacher and changed the way I viewed high school.

O-Outdoors

I have always loved being outside. I have spent many of days with my dad hunting or fishing. When I was younger, I used to always love reading books that had some form of hunting or fishing. I also used to go sit out on my back patio and read books. When I moved to Arkansas, me and my friends spent weekend after weekend working on a shed. We built this shed on the back side of my farm. It was a two story tin shed, with a deck on top. We used to hangout in the shed, grill out, and even fish off of it. This wasn't all I used this shed for though. On nice days, I loved going and sitting in a lounge chair on the deck and do my homework. Around this time, I was reading Huckleberry Finn and doing this helped me connect to the literature. I always could picture what was going on and imagine that me and my friends were doing the same things, based on stuff we did around our houses.

P-Procrastination

I have always waited till the last minute to get work done. In my head I always say that I have time, then I typically look up and boom my assignment is due in an hour. This is how my mind has always worked. I find small things to do instead of doing what is required of me. My biggest issue, is I am extremely busy now that I am in college and I also love to procrastinate. Those two things do not mix vey well. Throughout high school, procrastinating was not a big deal. This was only because the assignments were not too difficult and our teachers let us start assignments during class. Now that I am in college, getting assignments done is very difficult. I am on my own, very busy, and have lots of homework due in lots of classes. Procrastinating is something that you can not do in college and I need to teach myself not to do that.

Q-Quit

Throughout high school, I was never quitter. I would work my hardest and try to accomplish the tasks given to me. My teachers and coaches always said I am a hard worker and will go somewhere in life. This changed last year. In English we read a book just like we always do and then we finished it, took a test, then something different happened. After the test, our teacher handed each of us a paper. It said Essay on Frankenstein. It was Spring of our senior year, we were ready to get out of that class and just be free. This made every one of us mad, because we did not have that much time to finish. We graduated in a month and a half, have senior stuff almost every day, and I had baseball games every day of the week. This essay not only was the longest essay I had to write and it was the most stressful, this was because if we fail we have to keep on rewriting it till we pass. This was because without a passing grade on the essay, you do not pass the class and you do not take the exam. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and I was nervous. All I wanted to do was quit and just be done with the essay. I was working countless hours and staying up late every night. I wrote and rewrote and looked over everything, I worked ours on this essay. A few weeks later I walked in to class, slapped that ten page essay on her desk and walked to my desk striding with confidence. About a two weeks later, I got my paper back. I got a sixty-five. I was not mad and I was not sad. I was just glad I did not have to rewrite this paper like everyone else.

R- Reading Test

Throughout middle school, me and my friends loved to read. We would got to the library every day and pick out books to read. We typically stuck to our "Magic Treehouse" and would read them almost every day. After finishing a book, we had to take an "ARP" reading test on the book. Taking these test would raise our reading grade and would allow us to read harder books, that we were typically not allowed to read. Every so often we would hit a reading check mark and would win free coupons to restaurants or we would win toys or candy. This was the biggest thing at school, because everyone knew when the library would refill the treasure chest, because we would see our librarian walking down the hall with bags of toys and candy. This always meant, when we got the chance we have to go get a book and start reading. This became a competition among the grades and we all were trying to get the highest reading score. The highest reading scorer always would get the best prizes, sometimes even including a book of his or her choice. Doing this sparked my reading flame and it is still lit today.

S-Suck at reading

Throughout high school I was not the best of reading. I tried my hardest to read books but I just could not sit down and focus. I would read each page, take notes, and try to understand what is happening. After all of that I would still sit with the book in my hand and still not know what happened. I was a decent reader in middle school and was able to read above my reading level, but that all changed in high school. The books got longer and the words got weirder. I love to read books, but the books do not like me. I try so hard to understand and read books for test, but when the teacher hands me the test its almost like I never even read the book.

T- Magic Treehouse

In middle school, I loved the Magic Treehouse series. I probably read every single book throughout sixth and seventh grade. Me and my friends loved to sit in the library and crack open the book. I loved to read these books all the time. This was my favorite series of books and I honestly might start reading them again. When we were in library class, me and my friends would always sit at the table closest to the Magic Treehouse section so we could see which books were there. We would also read the books as fast as possible, so we could trade with each other or we could go return the book and get another book. This series was the reason why I started reading and I would so read it again.

U-Misunderstood 

Throughout school, teachers never could understand what I was trying to say. I would work my hardest and try on papers. After writing the paper and getting my grade back, it would say “could not understand what you were saying”. I would read my paper over and over after seeing that. I never quite understood what they would mean by that comment. I would read my paper in my head, then take it home and read it out loud. It never made any since to me. In high school, our teachers would allow us to turn in the rough draft for a homework grade and they would put their thoughts and comments on it and return it. It never seemed to fail that they misunderstood my paper and I was back to rewording it the next day. This would always throw me for a loop, because I do not know how to reword what I am thinking to make it better known. I flat out thought that everyone would know what I am saying and it was not confusing at all. This is what made papers extremely difficult for me throughout high school. 

V-Villanelle 

Senior year of high school, graduation right around the corner. The only thing left to do is to write a Villanelle. Our teacher said she made it the last project, because it would be a fun send off for the seniors. She was so wrong. She handed us the project and immediately started showing us examples. Everyone in the class was so lost, but did not care, because they were planning beach trips and places to eat after graduation. Me on the other hand I was contemplating what to write about. About a week into the project, I decided on baseball. I started writing and just got stuck. My Villanelle just was not flowing like I imagined it. I wanted this last project to be a banger, so I decided to throw that away and start from scratch. I kept on brainstorming and settled on my favorite thing in the world, duck hunting. My project flowed, it had that rhythm and spunk I was looking for. I flew through that project and I was finally happy with the way it turned out. It was a masterpiece, something I would want to frame and put on my wall. I was jumping with joy when I saw I finished a week early and the project maybe took me an hour. This project was the worst project, because of the timing of it, but it was my favorite because I got an A

W- Writing 

I’m going to be flat out with you. Me and writing are not friends. It just does not come to me that easily and I hate doing it. I always seem to add unnecessary commas, run ons, and I can not really spell either. I always think I am doing amazing and my paper should be published, but yeah I get it back and its always a VERY low grade. If I am going to be honest my issues might be this bad, because I wait till the absolute last minute and type papers turning class. I always seem to work best under pressure, at least that is what I always thought.  My teachers always told me that my paper would have been a lot better if I did this, this, and this but then they hand it back and I always have to think “how many pens did she use to grade this”. My writing abilities are very minimal but I still give it my best and try to make my papers as best as I possibly can. 

X- X marks on papers 

My teachers were always very good at drawing X’s on my papers. They loved to strike words out and hell even sentences. I always would sit there and stare at my paper and think to myself “I’m honestly pretty sure there are more X’s on this paper than there are words”. I have had papers that teachers have graded that I felt like their five year old son got a hold of and grades because there were lines going every which direction and symbols I have never even seen before. After transferring from CBHS, my English teacher got extremely strict. She had us carry around an Easy Writer and after each rough draft we would have to write out the definition of what we did wrong, the sentence, and how to correct it. Most of the class would get it done in ten to fifteen minutes and I normally was having to take it home for homework. My teacher always picked at my essays and always would make corrections to things I never even thought existed. I always got essays back covered up in red ink, and I was never mad or sad. I just started to accept it and knew it was going to happen. 

Y-Yelled At 

I was never really “yelled” at my parents for bad grades. But they sure did like to storm in my room throwing a fit after they saw my weekly grades. I was never a bad student. I always did my home work, made decent grades on test and really did work hard. You might be asking yourself “What could they possibly be mad at” or “What do you mean, it sounds like you are a great student”. I was asking myself these same questions, but the answer is essays and writing assignments. Like I have been preaching throughout this assignment, I am absolutely terrible at writing. My parents were always mad when I got papers back because “your mother is an excellent writer” and “your father’s grandmother was an English teacher”. I had big shoes to fill and I never can fill them. Writing never came easily to me and I always struggled. I write papers and rewrite papers. I also would get my mom to read them and Hannah, the smart girl, to read my papers. I tried to make the best possible grade I would and would always come out with a C or usually and F. 

Z-Zeros 

I never once did make a zero on an assignment, that I actually did. There are plenty of assignments that I just could not bring myself to do and just accepted the zero because I didn't know what was going on. I did however make such low grades on assignments that I might as well had made a zero. These assignments were usually in math and on rough drafts. We can talk about the math another time though, because I am still not over that. On a rough draft, my grade typically ranged in the twenty-five to sixty-five range. Unless I really worked hard and worked on it all the time. I normally never did this unless I had no plans and was not playing a baseball game. In high school I had my eyes set on one goal, and that was to play college baseball. As you can tell that never did happen and that really affected my grades. It never really affected my homework, because I was able to get most of it done during school, but projects on the other hand. It really hurt my grades that were not due the next day, because I knew I had time to do them and would always just put it off till it was due. I mostly did this in English because I knew the outcome before hand and just accepted that. I made grades so low that I honestly should have just turned in a paper with my name on it. This is how my writing goes and hopefully it gets better this year, now that I have more free time on my hands. 

[edeneben]

My Coming Out Story

⚠️//TRIGGER WARNINGS: Homophobia, Sexual Assault, rape, depression, self hatred, and suicide//⚠️

If you know me, you know I’m pretty flamboyant and pretty open about how the fact I’m pretty flipping queer. But I haven’t always been very happy being like this, as most other queer people also aren’t and this is basically the story of how I accepted that.

Second grade; the point and time in most people’s lives that is mainly a blur of silly bands, crayons, and story books. For me personally, it was the start of absolute hell.

So I was raised in a pretty religious family. I would end up praying before every meal, before I go to sleep, and at least three times a week at church functions. So really early on I heard a lot of really gross and disgusting things. (Not to say all religious people are bad, it’s just I was raised in a conservative republican town were Friday nights are spent at youth group by most high schoolers) so by the age of seven or eight I heard the words “faggot” and “queers” thrown around a lot and the whole “All homos deserve to burn in Hell and be stoned.” Though, I did’t really understand the concept of being gay, or love in general.

So you could sarcastically say I was off to a great start.

In elementary school we would read these short stories in these obnoxiously massive books, and one of these stories was about a hedgehog or something baking a yellow cake. As a fun activity my teacher Mrs.Blair has us bake a cake in groups of four. We didn’t pick our groups, she just kind of shoved our desks together and said “have fun.”

In my group it was two boys, a girl, and me. The two boys were kind of annoying and I basically ignored them the whole time, but the girl was a different story. I noticed that she had short, messy light brown hair, very pretty greenish eyes, and a very cute smile. I took a liking to her pretty quickly and I started sitting with her at lunch instead of with my friends. I knew I really enjoyed being around her and that I thought she was the actual prettiest person I had ever seen. Though, I didn’t get why.

Then my friends started talking about boys and crushes. I couldn’t relate to anything they were saying before but after I met the girl, I did start to relate. But I related in a different way. Everything they said about the boys they liked were how I thought about her. Wanting to hold her hand and play house with her and crap. (We all know playing house together was the way to flirt back then)

So inevitably I was like, “Oh. Why am I the only one thinking about girls? Am I weird?” And then I kind of understood I was the bad thing they talked about in church all the time. I was the evil horrid thing that didn’t have a place in being there. Which, was a horrible thing to think about.

This was when self hatred really set in. Not only did I deal with that crushing reality, but my teenage brother also started arguing with my parents a lot and hearing the fights really hurt me mentally and I started crying myself to sleep.

I was eight. None of that stuff should have been a problem, though of course it was. *** Then in third grade I started praying a lot more and I joined an after school church club thing ran by my church.

Every time we would meet, Father Michael would ask those of us who haven’t been saved to go to the back of the room and pray with him to get saved. He kind of knew something was up when I went back there every single meeting, but he never asked. Probably for the best in all honesty.

Then I was like, “Yeah okay all of the praying has to be working by now and I’m totally not a homosexual now lmao.” Which, obviously not but I pretended to like guys anyways. (Ey Tyler waddup bud, yeah that was you. Jokes on both of us were both gay now love youuuu)

The day I told everybody I totally definitely liked him was the day before he moved away so I wouldn't have to deal with it. So. Yeah. *** Fourth grade was more of the same, just sadder tbh. Oh and I got another crush on a girl named Kayla I dated twice. Almost three but let’s not get into that. ( @kayla-le-queen ) *** Fifth grade was the first time I ever said I liked girls out loud. Though I kind of lied to myself and said “ha ha I like both.” Which I didn’t, but I had convinced myself that I was slightly ‘normal.’

It’s kind of a weird story as I had just been swimming with my other religious friend in their pool and I was like “oh by the way-“ Which, describes how awkward I am perfectly.

This is also the year I started making internet friends who had the same interests and experiences as me and I was sort of getting my footing with myself. *** Nothing prepared me for the absolute shit storm that was sixth grade.

Not only did I deal with hitting puberty, drama, a new school, and the surfacing of panic attacks, I had to deal with getting outed. Yep. Let’s get into it shall we?

Sixth grade. I came out as bi to a couple of my friends and stopped going to church. Only low key though. I wasn’t looking for my entire life to be flipped upside down. My parents were casually homophobic and my peers were actively expressing that.

Still, I decided to start dating someone.

Remember my friend who I came out to in the pool? Yeah, them. I dated them.

BIG MISTAKE.

As soon as we started dating, they told everyone. I told them “no one needs to know, we should keep it private you know? For safety.” They refused to listen.

By the end of the day everyone in my grade and even some upperclassmen knew that I was bi. Though the message got messed up and everyone thought I was a lesbian. (Which made me uncomfortable because I was still mfnsjsjjd about gender and stuff) (that’s a whole other coming out that I don’t want to get into in this as the whole thing is not anywhere near over)

Then the bullying for it started happening.

I was the first “out” kid in my grade so of course I was met with a bunch of crap.

Girls in locker rooms would yell at me for looking up at all, and there was one incident were a girl decided to come up to me, grope my chest and laugh about it with her friends because, “I was just a dirty lesbo pervert who probably enjoyed it.”

Guys would say repeatedly they could make me straight and also would do similar things to what that girl is.

Did I tell my parents? No of course I didn’t. I wasn’t out and I needed it to stay that way. My dad had anger issues and he had once hit my brother out of anger. So, I didn’t really feel completely safe to be quite honest. (It’s kind of better now. He still gets angry easy but he only had one more incident and that was years ago.)

I ended up breaking up with that person because I clearly couldn’t trust them and I was very upset with them. I still blame them. *** Then seventh grade happened. As per usual things got worse.

My parents found out about my internet friends and read all of our messages and I got outed to them.

Then my parents never trusted me again and took away the one good thing I had in my life that was consistently there for me and genuinely made me happy and feel safe.

Their homophobia also worsened. They also outed me to all of their friends and family. (Thanks mom)

I also attempted suicide for the first time. My parents and friends still don’t know about that. *** Eight grade was the worst year of my life. In eighth grade I kind of realized I was ace and came out to my friends and the girl I liked at the time.

I kind of blocked out homophobia at that point. Yes it was still happening to me and it had gotten worse, but eighth grade was a blur for me.

I can’t really remember much of it.

My English teacher who was a mother figure, Mrs.Freeze, who was the first adult to accept me, died during the last two weeks of school.

As well as an extremely traumatic event happened.

I might delete this part when I upload it but if I don’t I want you all to know that this is where I’m warning that sexual assault victims might want to click away at.

I decided to go on the Washington DC trip with my school and the girl I liked went with me.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours so I was asleep rather quickly.

It was four girls to a room, two to a bed. The two other girls left to hang out with their friends and it was just me left alone with the girl I liked and was out as ace to.

She took it upon herself to try to “fix” me.

I woke up while she was doing it and I eventually got her off me and escaped to the bathroom and cried.

I didn’t tell any adult on the trip and I just told a girl that I wasn’t comfortable around that girl anymore and thankfully she didn’t ask why and just switched seats on the bus with me and beds.

I still deal with trauma relating to this everyday, and I still have extreme panic attacks because of it. I lost physical trust with people for a while and I couldn’t be touched by anyone until recently.

This event also drove me to another suicide attempt.

That’s all I can say about that. Acephobia does exist and it can be extremely violent and damaging to people, so please just kindly shut up about ace discourse. *** During freshman year I was finally starting to be accepted by my parents, I came out as queer and ace officially, joined the GSA, met some more gays and life has been a bit better since then. *** My life isn’t perfect and homophobia is still a huge part of it and a lot of trauma surrounding my experience is still yet to be dealt with but I’m getting there. *** So my labels?

Queer and Ace-spec. That’s as specific as I can get I don’t know what you want from me lmao. *** Conclusion? Life does get better and eventually you will find acceptance and peace within yourself. I know you might be an extremely dark place with what looks like no chance of happiness or safety, but I promise you will get it eventually.

I love all of you and I wish you all the best in your own journeys.

Happy pride month.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💙💚💛🧡❤️

[jaywrites101]

Ye Olde Tag Game

I was tagged by @bexminx, thanks a bunch for the tag. There’s something about these games that just gets me pumped for writing.

1: What book have you read a million times and would read a million times more? And why?

Keys to the Kingdom, by Garth Nix. I grew up with the series, reading them nearly as much as Harry Potter. It’s an older series, but you should check them out.

2: Which OC of your current wip did you come up with first?

That would be The Wingman. Our foolishly optimistic hero who’s on death’s door.

3: What piece of world-building gave or is giving you the most trouble?

I suppose (for now) that would be the gang initiations. I’ve never been in a gang (thank God!) so the only bit’s I kinda-sorta know are the stuff they show you on T.V. and that has a hit-and-miss track record. And I have ZERO interest in finding someone IRL who is/was in a gang for research purposes so-o-o-o... I’m just taking my best guess at the experience and hoping it doesn’t break everyone’s suspension of disbelief.

In the past, other struggles with worldbuilding also came from things I hadn’t experienced first hand or met someone who’s dealt with that issue before.

4: What type of scene is your favorite to write? Why?

Rising action scenes. Every time. I get wrapped up in my own intensity as the stakes get higher and higher. Anywhere you think to yourself whoa, that got tense fast. I’m sitting on the other end of the process going I know, right?!? Like it’s legit so much fun for me to just keep winding things up.

5: (Stealing this one) What chapter of your main wip is your favorite? Why?

I’ve not been writing on The City in FreeFall long enough to have a favorite yet =( But, for A Treasure Made of Death, I had a lot of love for my section titled Exploration and Frustration. It was the last time I had to really be fun before all the characters had to gear up for the intense action. And a lot of fun was had. =D Drake tried so hard to find something useful in this scene only for him to not even recognize a book when he (or more accurately, when Dela) found one.

6: If your OCs were transplanted into another genre (say, fantasy to sci-fi or sci-fi to horror), what would their new occupations be?

I could very easily see The Wingman transplanted into a horror film just to be that guy that gets killed because he was the one person to try to do the sensible thing. (Sensible things never work in horror films.)

7: How well would you survive if you were dropped into the world of your main wip?

Actually, Pretty well... Even if I was literally dropped into the world of The City in FreeFall, I’m pretty confident that The Wingman will catch me before anything bad happens.

8: Which of your OCs is the scariest, or if none are scary, which is the sweetest? Why?

That depends on how we want to define scary. I have characters who don’t rate very high on the unusual or spooky meters but their absolutely terrifying in implication. Like the Casual Killer from A Simple Casual Murder.  But if we’re going for the “I met this thing in a haunted house and my soul left my body from fear alone.” We’re going to have to go with Blane Cook. Cook is a monster of a man who loves torturing people before killing them. Low key, he could star in his own horror film.

9: What would you say was the one thing that sparked the idea for your main wip?

I was watching the first season of Legends of Tomorow and I really didn’t like what they did to Kendra and Carter’s characters. Like, Hawkgirl and Hawkman have so much potential if you’re rebooting their origin story but they were the blandest characters of the season!  So I was thinking of Superheroes and how I’d create my own when I felt the urge to write the idea page for CFF. And thus The Wingman was born!

10: Describe the space you write in like you’re telling a story.

I’ll start at the table, my laptop plugged in. My cat’s try to help me write by sitting on my keyboard. My brother’s watching T.V. in the living room. The cats won’t stop biting the charger, I have to make a choice. Spray-bottle or move... I choose to move. Nowhere I sit is good today. My room? Too dark, too cluttered. The living room is too loud. In a fit of despiration, I grab a card table and a folding chair and sit outside. The heat hit’s me like a wave. Bugs cry out from the woods. Our outdoor cats rub against my ankles looking for attention. But they don’t jump on the table. My fingers fly across the keyboard. What will I write next? Even I don’t know.

A pause.

The next line occurs to me. I write it down as fast as I can before the train of thought leaves me forever. The sun is straight above me. I’m drowning in my own sweat. My concrete porch is protected by a wooden roof that wasps now claim as their home. I itch at my feet, in my socs, on my leg, and down my back. Flies, I hope. I write the next line and pray it’s not spiders. And why should it be spiders? They don’t like humans... I swat at my itches aggressively. The cat’s look at me like I’m a madman. The porch is too safe. Too close to the wall. Bugs won’t leave me alone. I move to the grass underneath the massive oak. It’s the biggest tree I’ve ever seen, probably the biggest in the state. I can’t help but admire it as I sit beneath limbs that are bigger around than I am. The chair sinks three inches into the wet grass again. I don’t have to sit here for long, just long enough to finish the scene.

I can’t do it!

The bugs are maddening. I can’t stop itching! 

What line was I on? What line is next?? I have to re-read what I wrote. No time to edit, just focus. The. Next. Line. Is... There! Back on track again. The scene is so close to finishing. Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a room that locked, or a table inside that filled with loving cats! It’s not their fault. They don’t understand why it’s so important to-

It’s finished! I’m a week behind my schedule, but my bit for today is done! I can go inside, so I do. A shower awaits! When I’m done I can get on Twitter, on Tumblr and watch more YouTube videos on the couch. I didn’t get a call today either... Summer’s already began but no one wants to hire a starving author from nowheresville when there are teens eagerly applying for jobs. I must be a madman...

I must be a madman...

I must be...

11: What is the first thing you remember reading and thinking ‘This inspires me to write’?

You know what? I’m not sure. When I started, I got that “I want to write,” moment when I turned in my assignment for our eighth-grade English assignment. We were supposed to make up a story based around a butterfly we spend a period drawing and while everyone else turned in their 1 and a half page minimum I had seven pages... and it still wasn’t finished... ^///^

One of my other teachers heard about the incident and said that I should be a writer and I just... liked the idea of it. It was like the perfect glove, a shoe that was just my size. It felt right. And I’ve wanted to write ever since.

SO, I know at least some of you might be concerned about the above story. Don’t be. It is just a story.

I did go outside to write the other day, but it wasn’t nearly that bad... mostly. There’s not really a good place to write in my house and I do move around a lot... but I wrote this as if it was happening to someone else. My thoughts are so meta-focused that it’s hard to imagine what I’d do, say, or think in any given scenario... Makes it easy to get into other character’s heads... not so much for my own.

Sorry if I scared you.

@ If you see this post. You’re tagged! No excuses! Like and reblog now. (because I can see you. =P) and make your own tag responses. (Also don’t forget to go to bexminx at the top of the page and give her a few likes as well.)

[rcsied]

katie stevens. cisfemale. she/her. — did you see { elise ensworth }, i haven’t seen the { twenty-four } year old in a while! you know, they’re a { drycleaner & tailor }, and have been living in jersey city for { three years }. some say they’re { compulsive & calculating }, but i think they’re { reliable & outspoken }. regardless, i’m glad { elise } is here. ( courtney, 24, she/her, mst )

and for my third trick i bring you an ill-equipped former guardian with no financial sense whatsoever and a penchant for unsolicited criticism ok here’s her pinterest let’s get this show on the road

the first thing you should know about elise ensworth is that she was referred to her first therapist just before her eighth birthday

coincidentally this was right around the time she started to criticize her mother’s revolving door of black cards suitors, so that should tell you just about everything you need to know about her nyc upbringing

started from the bottom now we......’re right back at the bottom because the alimony from mum’s latest divorce is nice but it won’t pay for those ballet lessons that elise and her younger sister daphne got signed up for when they were still living uptown

any child psychologist worth their weight will tell you that instability isn’t chill for Young Minds so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to you that elise grew a little more difficult with each of her mother’s failed relationships

ig when nobody at home will tell shit to you straight about why there’s a strange man at the breakfast table or why the tv suddenly doesn’t get mtv anymore there’s always the chance that you’re going to grow into the sort of person that’s honest to a fault

like elise really didn’t need to tell her 9th grade science teacher that her teeth were yellow and her lessons boring but she did anyway

as far as good examples go elise spent a solid eight years setting a pretty shitty one for her sister

so if i were daphne i might be wondering what it is about that sk8r boi remi that brought about a change when he and his dad rolled onto the scene

despite 15+ years of therapy we’re still working on discussing our feelings so catch elise avoiding that question ! NEXT ! 

all you need to know is that when things got bad with the parental unit elise got the kids in the divorce and she’s been working on those maternal instincts since then

about three years ago she moved remi and daphne to jersey  ( 😒 )  because that new york city rent is no joke and if that’s not proof that she would die for those bitches i don’t know what more you want from her

elise has been making some strides since she got them set up in jersey city so let me tell you a little bit about that

she still operates on a need to know basis and her parameters of what you need to know are still a little broader than most people’s but she’s a lot more likely to clock when she’s offended someone with her unsolicited opinion now and a lot less likely to blame them for their reaction

if she’s really overstepped you might even find her dancing around an apology

baby steps ig ???

ya girl did not sign up to be your mom friend but if there’s no one else around she’ll hold your hair and your fake lashes while you throw up your vodka diet sodas

and you can bet your ass if she committed to plans with you she’s going to see them through without complaint

if you need someone in your corner to go hard for you elise should be your first phone call

if you need an amateur detective elise should be your first phone call

she’s not necessarily a snoopy bitch but if you’re looking to find the insta account of That Bitch in the background of your boyfriend’s latest upload she could probably help you out :/

scorpio.

scorpio.

for the moment she’s working at a drycleaners’ downtown which is fine because it means she can browse asos for 85% of her shift

financial planning ???? we don’t know her

probably got a disconnection notice for the electric after she ignored the bill and bought a bag instead :/

tragically heterosexual. never experimented. don’t cry for her argentina.

give her friends to talk shit with and people that don’t jive with her honesty hour bullshit and maybe an ex

customers ???? the bitch can do great things with a questionable stain and a dress in need of hemming

text her if you want to watch project runway ttyl xo

[roggling]

Are you open to high school AUs? If so, I'd love to see a fluffy Kallura fic where Allura hurts her ankle playing soccer in gym. Keith carries her to the nurse and waits with her for her uncle Coran to pick her up. The next day when she returns to school on crutches, she asks Keith to be the first to sign her cast. :)

Gym class in Altea High is always abuzz. Kids run around and tackle each other down on the football field, others, including Keith, dribble balls across a court, others running across a tennis court to hit a bouncing yellow ball, others just walked around the area to watch the others played, others, including Allura, run across a field kicking a ball into a goal.

Allura was a teenaged professional soccer player. Kicking a ball since she started to walk was a major factor in her “career”. She was a force to be reckoned with in the field. Her speed dizzied whoever confronted her and she whizzed past defenders with ease. She was fluent in the art of kicking balls (in both ways). 

Her athleticism granted her an impressive form and had caught the attention of numerous specimens of the male species. Some of them being the biggest douches of Altea High who deserved a kick to their … areas.

So, naturally, Keith would have hated her. He typically hated rich kids who are spoiled and who got everything they wanted and who were naturally great at everything. I mean, he hates Lotor, and everyone loves Lotor (except for Lance, but he’s just jealous of Lotor’s hair). And he would have hated her if Allura wasn’t so nice. 

Mayor Alfor Prince is known for his diplomatic skills, who skillfully stopped a Daibazaal uprising without any drama starting by forming Voltron, a city in between Daibazaal and Altea where both had equal power. So, it would be understandable if Allura inherited those same leadership skills. 

It was still surprising, though, to see her defend Puig, the small, scaredy cat janitor, from Sendak‘s insults. She didn’t full out insult him, she played to his weakness and brought up Lotor, making Sendak see red and leave the fight alone. She skillfully evaded a disaster, leaving nothing in her wake. 

Then, he formally met her and he was hooked. He didn’t like it at first, and he was intent on making her think he did. It didn’t work.

And, jeez, it didn’t help that she was so beautiful. Her silver hair, although strange, was mesmerizing and complimented her skin perfectly. Her eyes are just -agh. Really, Keith couldn’t explain the attraction he had for the Mayor’s daughter, but all that is important is that he’s whipped. Which is unfortunate since he’s been friend zoned since the eighth grade when he officially became her friend after he came to watch her soccer game with the rest of their friend group.

So watching your crush fall and cry in the sport she excels is concerning. What is also concerning was the speed at which Keith ran in order to get to her first. She sat on the grass, her left leg folded in, her right laid straight out, and she grabbed at her ankle.

Keith kneeled next to her and held her back to help her in her position, “Allura! Are you okay?”

Allura winced, “My-My ankle! It hurts!”

The gym teacher, Coach Krolia (aka Keith’s mom), ran to Allura’s aid and felt the area around Allura’s ankle, immediately stopping after she screamed. Krolia grimaced and turned to Keith, “Keith, take her to the nurse’s office and make the office call Coran. I think she sprained her ankle.”

Keith nodded and helped Allura up from the floor. Once she stood, she attempted to take a step before she fell over again, only surviving due to the fact that Keith caught her before she fell. She groaned again as she let most of her weight on Keith and Krolia chastised her, “Allura! You can’t put any sort of pressure on it!”

Allura pouted and tried to hop on her foot, but she only passed half a foot of distance and Keith got a brilliant idea. He wrapped Allura’s hand around his neck and lifted her bridal style. She froze and blinked in the surprise of Keith’s sudden movements, and she could hear the rest of the girls squealing.

She looked up at Keith’s violet eyes with shock and confusion lacing their gaze and he smiled down at her (earning another wave of squeals from the rest of the girls) before he explained, “You can’t put any weight on your foot and it’ll take you forever to walk with one foot. We can get there faster this way.”

Lance scoffed and yelled, “Liar!” from the back of the crowd before being smacked by Pidge. Keith looked around sheepishly before walking out of the gym with Allura holding on tightly to his neck.

Halfway to the walk to the nurse’s office, Allura cleared her throat, “Um, thank you for taking me to the nurse’s office, Keith.”

He looked down and his brooding gaze turned into one of cute shyness and he mumbled, “No problem.”

Allura smiled and she teased, “You know, you’re not so bad when you’re not pretending to be emo.”

Keith looked down at her like a deer caught in headlights and Allura laughed, “You’re actually really cute.”

Keith flushed and hoped that this would be over soon, he didn’t need Allura ruining his reputation. Allura laughed and continued, “Of course, I already knew that.”

Keith sent an angry pout down to Allura, “’Lura, what’re you trying to say?”

Allura leaned up and kissed his cheek, “I’m saying you should let the real you slip through once in a while. I like the real you more.”

Keith froze and looked down at Allura in his arms, a smile gracing her face when his eyes traced her soft features. He cocked his head to the side, “Maybe, we’re going to have to see if I’m up to it.”

Allura pouted playfully and rolled her eyes, “Pwetty pwease, Keith?”

Keith looked down at her and demanded, “Only if you’ll come with me to the movies this weekend.”

Allura smiled, “It’s a date.”

After the nurse checked on Allura and handed her an ice pack, Allura was sent outside and she was forced to hop (the security guards glared at Keith when they saw him carry her). Keith stayed with her, of course, until Uncle Coran could go pick her up.

As the two waited on the benches outside the school, they saw Pidge approaching them from afar to bring Allura her things and the two braced themselves for the obvious teasing they are about to get.

“You know, Allura, I don’t think you had to sprain your ankle in order to get Keith to wrap you in his strong arms, he would do that willingly.”

The two sighed.

Once Pidge left, Allura comfortably laid her head on Keith’s shoulder and reached for his hand. Keith obliged and intertwined their fingers. Keith leaned into Allura, his mind still trying to process the fact that she likes him back.

“When did you start liking me?” His question was so quiet, Allura would have missed it. 

She thought for a second before answering, “The first time I met you. On the outside, you seemed so callous and cold. I thought for sure you hated me,” Allura teased and Keith pouted, “But then, that very same night when Lance invited me to join you guys at the fair, you gave me your jacket and I saw you for who you truly were.”

Keith smiled and responded her unspoken question, “I guess I started liking you before formally met you. When you defended Janitor Puig from Sendak’s bullying... I wasn’t expecting such ballsy behavior from the Mayor’s daughter. I guess, you proved me wrong and threw my assumptions down the drain. Ever since then,” Keith gazed into her eyes, “you’ve never failed to amaze me.”

Allura smiled and leaned in to plant a soft kiss on Keith’s lips before pulling away and whispering, “Finally.”

Unfortunately for them, the little kiss initiated a flurry of kisses between the new couple and Coran caught them. His exuberant and loud personality didn’t help their embarrassment and the security had to force Coran to leave and forced Keith to return to class.

After that, and a few texts later, the two decided to reveal their new relationship to their friends tomorrow. Keith and Allura both went to sleep with smiles in their faces.

The next day, the two walked in the school together, though, they refrained from any physical contact so they can have the element of surprise. Keith carried her bags down the halls and they met the rest of the group in the cafeteria, where Pidge was eating breakfast with Lance’s jacket covering her small frame, Lance was animatedly waving his hands around and having Hunk listen to whatever his rant was about, and Shiro was nodding off.

Keith and Allura both sat in front of Lance and Pidge and they immediately stopped to address themselves to Allura.

“Can I sign your cast?!” Lance asked excitedly.

Allura chuckled and shook her head, “I promised Keith to be the first one to sign it.”

Keith smirked at Lance and Lance stuck out his tongue. Keith took out a sharpie and Allura lifted her casted foot for him. Keith covered the cast so the group couldn’t see what he was writing and they all tried to look over his shoulder, but none of them got a peek.

Then Keith finished and he pulled away and capped the sharpy. He looked up at his girlfriend mischievously and smirked as the group gasped in surprise. Allura sat down and looked at what Keith wrote in her cast, “GET WELL SOON, BABE.”

Allura smiled at Keith and Keith leaned in to capture her lips in his. Allura smiled into the kiss and lifted her hands to pull at Keith’s hair. The group was left mumbling incoherent sentences and the couple ignored them.

...

Well, except when Lance screamed, “YO, KEITH’S FINALLY GETTING SOME ACTION!”

Keith had to flip him the bird for that one.

[ughthatimagineblog]

hot chocolate

requested by anonymous! 

peter parker x reader

word count: 2048

warnings: fluff, kidnap, fighting ig

a/n: sorry this took longer than expected! it’s unedited since i wrote it on my phone! hope you like it!

Snow crunched beneath your feet on your walk home, your warm phone pressed to your ear. “Peter, I promise I’ll be there. Why are you so worried? I’m the one who needs a tutor!” You giggled. It had been two months you were planning this study date.

Two months you needed to study for Chemistry.

Two months ago you got a tutor and had been seeing a professional one to bring your grades up. But you had a small thing for a nerdy Sophomore genius named Peter Parker. So, you continued with the plan to see him.

“Sorry, Y/N, I’m just excited for good grades.” Peter made up a flimsy excuse on the spot and on his end, he was cozy in his room with Ned, cringing.

In reality, he knew it was a beautiful chance to take a break from chasing the Vulture, who had seemingly been laying low and what better way to spend that break with the girl that made him his most happy.  You smiled, knowing just how bad of a save that really was and said, “Alright, Parker, I’ll be there. Five o’clock sharp. Promise.” You hung up and waited in anticipation for tomorrow.

Peter sighed and clutched his phone to his heart. “You should tell her.” Ned spoke first, interrupting Peter’s daydream. “What?” She shot up off his bed. “No way, Ned. She can’t know.”

“What do you mean ‘She can’t know’? She knows everything else about you!” Ned raised his eyebrows. He was right. You two had known each other since the beginning of middle school, and at first, he was just a friend. A buddy you joked around with in class. Sometimes he was annoying, but only when the entire world annoyed you and even a leaf crunching on the ground would set you off.  But since Peter got older and smarter, and you got wiser, you began to notice the way he talked a little different than everyone else. Like there was an underlying accent beneath his voice.

Or maybe his freckles and how they folded in on each other around his eyes when he laughed. His eyes. Maybe that was it. His brown eyes that made yours melt when he looked at you.

Your heart would do flips when you would think about it. It wasn’t fair. You weren’t planning on falling for him. Especially when he would hide things from you.  Like when you would call to hang out but he would say he was busy with Aunt May, but then you’d call her and she would tell you he was with Ned.   You liked Aunt May, and most of the time, she was the reason you were able to see through Peter’s bullshit. He never kept secrets from you. And you often wondered what in the hell could be so important that he couldn’t trust you of all people. It was the eighth wonder of the world to you.

But you were about to figure out just what that eighth wonder was.

“Peter Parker, Flash Thompson, Cindy. . .” The teacher droned on in Peter’s Chemistry class. “Dude, where’s-“

“Y/L L/N?” The teacher called out and no response. “Y/N? Has anyone seen Y/N?” She tried again before shaking her head and marking her down as absent. Peter looked up at the prospect of her being absent. Maybe she was sick?

“Where is she?” Peter heard Kayla ask a couple seats ahead of him. She was a friend of Y/N’s snd if Peter didn’t know, she would.

But that was the problem. She didn’t.

“I’ve tried calling her at least twenty times and after the first ten, it went straight to voicemail.” Peter sat down and immediately started speaking to Ned at top speed at lunch.

“Maybe she skipped?” Ned asked but Peter shook his head.

“Maybe. Are you sure she wasn’t in your English class?” He asked again and Ned shook his head. “Then she didn’t skip. She loves English.” Peter said confidently. “Look maybe she just wasn’t feeling well. Maybe she was skipping and wasn’t feeling it today. Maybe she just needs rest. She did walk home yesterday. In the snow. She could be tired and need a day off. She’ll be at your place tonight anyways. Dont worry about it.” Ned reassured and Peter nodded his head, still looking worried and only slightly calmed down.

“Okay.”

That night, Peter went home and tried to get things ready. Aunt May was out for the next two nights spending some time with the girls on a mini vacation and it was perfect timing to set up a small date without his Aunt bugging him about it.

He had Christmas lights, music, movies and hot cocoa all set up, ready.

But five o’clock turned into six, six turned into seven and seven turned into seven thirty with no sign of her. At this point, Peter felt stood up. Angry almost.

“What if she was grounded? It’s eight, her mom is home. Ill go and check on her.” Peter reasoned. So he left for your place four blocks away, backpack in hand.

“Mrs. Y/N!” Peter smiled when the door opened to your mother. “Peter! What a lovely surprise!” She smiled. She was happy. Nothing was wrong.

“Is Y/N home?” He asked.

“Should be! I had to leave early for work so she must have gotten herself up this morning for school and yesterday I heard her come home through the fire escape. Silly girl must have forgotten her keys. Should be in her room if youd like to go see her!” She offered with a smile and Peter gulped.

She didnt know she wasnt at school. Peter smiled, nodded and rushed into the home and straight to Y/N’s room.

Peter’s throat tightened. It was empty, the window slid open and frigid air coming through. The window sill and the carpet beneath was wet. Snow had blown in and melted all night. He walked over to her bed, an edge of her white sheets also damp. And he noticed it. The note.

Looking for her? You know where to find her. -V

“The Vulture.” Peter gulped and fear dropped in his stomach. Rushing out, Peter waved a quick goodbye to her mom, telling her she wasn’t in her room but left a note saying she went to Kayla’s for the night.

It didn’t take Peter long to prepare to get you. What took longer was the journey.

He dialed Ned.  “Guy in the chair, Ned!” Peter shouted over the phone. “What?” Sounded a tired, and very confused friend.   “He’s got her. The-The Vulture. He has Y/N. L-Left a note at her place wi-with the window hanging open, a-and I need you to-”

“I’m on it.”

When you finally came to, your mouth burned from the rope scratching at the edges, your nose itched from your messed up hair in your face, and your eyes burned from the chemicals that were shoved into your lungs and had been drifted up further than your nose.

But still you saw. You saw the warehouse. The men around you, they were all there you were sure. It wasn’t the chemicals allowing you to hallucinate.

“Big name cell companies are no good, you know that?” A voice boomed and you quickly put together whoever had the permission to speak was both the leader and your captor.

“How so?” You spoke, refusing to be afraid. Well, you were. Terrified you had ever been. But your grandmother taught you more than your mom ever did about fear and bravery. It was that, the only time one can truly be brave, is when you are at your most fearful.

“Talker? Nice. Well, hon, the reason why, is because they may be big brand, but their firewalls for protection suck. I could hear every word you and your little buddy were saying and it only took me five minutes.” A blond man of about forty stood in front of you.

“Why do you care what we talk about?”

“Because he likes you. And anyone who Peter Parker is a fan of, is an asset to me.” He smirked and you looked beyond him. They were so dark they almost blended in with the darkness of the warehouse behind him. The other dark men in dark jumpsuits. The dark machinery you could only hear.

The only reason you saw the dark wings was because sparks from a welding machine reflected off of one and caught your attention. “Why’s that?” You asked. “Because Spider Man is my enemy. And I need you, to bring him hear” That earned a laugh.

“You think-“ You had to pause from laughter. “That scrawny boy genius Peter Parker is the Spider Man?” You laughed even harder. You liked him but wouldnt even give him the credit.

“I’m a lot less scrawny than you think.” A familiar voice called out.

In the time you were laughing, you didn’t notice the machinery stopped and so did the movement behind the two of you. A red figure emerged from behind the man.

“Vulture. Y/N.”

“Spider Man. You’re Spider Man. Peter?” You asked and he lifted up his mask so you could see his chin and lips. Lips you could recognize anywhere. “Holy shit.”

“Peter! I can’t believe you didn’t tell the lovely lady. Too bad I have to do this, now that you’re hear.”

You didn’t get to see what he was talking about, because in the next moment, you felt something hit your head, and then black.

You woke up, panicked, pain throbbing in your brain as though someone was splitting it open. You tried opening your eyes but it felt like sleep paralysis. Couldn’t move, couldn’t walk or anything. All you remember was a guy in a warehouse wanting you for revenge on. . .

“Peter?” You called out and you looked up. Red, orange, green and yellow lights were blurry above you.

“Shh, shh, shh, I’m here.” You heard Peter come behind you on. . . The couch and lean your body back into a laying position.

Your vision cleared and you saw him. His lip was busted, there were scrapes on his left temple and a cut through his right eyebrow. You leaned up to touch it gingerly. “Hey. I’m alright. Rest. I called your mom and told her you were at Kayla’s tonight.” He reassured and you lied down.

“I’ll explain everything tomorrow when you feel better. No school. Okay? Just rest.” He said firmly. You were sore. You didn’t notice it at the time but the Vulture guy left you bruised all over from manhandling you into his van. Two stories down. You fought all the way.

“You’re taking care of me?” You asked with a smile and both of your hearts thundered. “I am. It’s the best Christmas present I could ask for.” Peter said with a smile and you looked up at him, leaning on your elbows.

“Peter, I, have to tell you.” You started and coughed and Peter’s heart quickened. “Yes?” He asked.

“I didn’t mean to call you scrawny. You really aren’t. A few weeks ago, when I came to pick you up to walk you to school, I almost walked in on you changing but you had your door open and I saw you without a shirt on and I um, I have been thinking about you in more ways than two. The first to ways meaning platonically and romantically and now I-“

Peter cut off your rambling with a kiss, his lips against yours felt chapped and you had full filled your item on your Bucket List. Kissing Peter Parker Before It’s Too Late.

“I love you too.” He said breathlessly. After a moment more, you agreed to make what you had official and in all honesty, you couldn’t wait to tell Aunt May. You loved that woman and she was like a second mom to you.

Laying back in Peter’s lap while he stroked your hair, you tried to get more rest.

“So you think I’m hot, huh?” He smirked and you playfully hit his chest.

You rolled your eyes. “Yes.”

“How hot?” He smirked. “Peter!” You exclaimed. Smiling, you tried to close your eyes and sleep again.

“Seriously how hot?” You huffed, frustrated. Looking around the room at all the decorations he set up, trying to find an excuse, you saw two mugs on the counter and smirked.

“As hot as hot chocolate now can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yes, dear.” And you fell asleep to the feeling of Peter’s lips on your forehead.